THEME: REVERSE ENGINEER (55A: Take apart in order to reproduce ... or a hint to what's hidden in 17-, 23-, 34- and 46-Across) — you can find the names of famous "engineers" backwards (or "reversed") inside of the themers (bracketed numbers after each clue indicate how many letters long each engineer's name is):
Theme answers:
TRUE OR FALSE TEST (17A: Easy quiz to grade [5]) (Nikola Tesla)
MALE BONDING (23A: Bromantic activity [5]) (Alfred Nobel)
NO SIDE EFFECTS (34A: Drugmaker's claim [6]) (Thomas Alva Edison)
LUCILLE BALL (46A: TV star with a museum in Jamestown, N.Y. [4]) (Alexander Graham Bell)
Really like this theme, and the fill is largely solid, so congrats to the constructor. The editor, however ... let's just get the embarrassing stuff out of the way right off the bat. There is no reason to clue ESTATES like that (13D: Jamaica ___, N.Y. (childhood home of Donald Trump)). Why would you do that? Why drag the most influential white supremacist in the world, the one currently torturing and terrorizing child refugees and working to end *legal* immigration for "takers" (i.e. brown people), why are you waving at him? Do you think, Will, that it's cute. That it's funny to troll "sensitive" solvers (the, uh, ones who hate racists and sexual assailants)? The word was ESTATES. It's a common word you can clue a million ways. It wasn't IVANKA, an answer you can clue just one way. It's ESTATES. ESTATES. And you decided you'd do a little nostalgic trip to the childhood home of the guy who inspired recent mass shootings with his nativist "invasion" rhetoric? Like, for funsies? If it was the constructor's clue, you should've changed it. If it was yours ... I don't even know. I don't understand your love affair with this terrible human being. Inclusion of him here is gratuitous and therefore disgusting.
[34A: NO SIDE EFFECTS]
This felt very easy for the most part, but hoo-boy did I get stymied by the whole RICES / OCEANAUT / GLUES / GELÉE mash-up in the NE. I had RIVES for 16A: Splits into bits (RICES), which kept the already-hard OCEANAUT very very hidden from me (11D: Sub tenant?). And though apparently GELÉE has been in the puzzle multiple times in the nearly 13 years I've been blogging, it's hardly ever had a food-related clue. Before today, just two. Here's the list of GELÉE clues:
[from xwordinfo]
So it's "Aspic-like" but also an aspic modifier in the dish "Aspic GELÉE?" Apparently lots of things are gelée and it's just a culinary term I didn't know. But the "aspic" stuff threw me off badly. So I probably lost a minute or two trying to unknot all that ricing and gluing and what not.
Five things:
4D: Filled and steamed bun, in Chinese cuisine (BAO) — I cannot believe I actually made a pitch for these to appear more often in crosswords earlier this summer, and yet when one appeared, I actually totally blanked at BA-. Wanted BAP for a second. I think (Korean!!!) Bee-Bim-BOP got in my head (I eat BAO at this Asian fusion place). Ugh, so embarrassing.
35D: Eclipse (OUTRIVAL) — I just want to say how dumb I think this word is. I wanted OUTSHINE. You both try to shine, but one outshines the other. You both try to play, but one outplays the other. You both try to ... rival??? It's weird.
60A: ___ Mongolia (INNER) — I had OUTER, of course
34D: Attention-getting phrase (NOTA BENE) — oof, also very hard. I was looking for something like PSSSSSST. I guess that's not a phrase. How about PSST AHEM?
3D: So, humorously (THUSLY) — aw, I kinda like good old THUSLY. Don't laugh at poor THUSLY. He means well.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I laughed hard at 4A: Apt hairstyle for a gunslinger? (BANGS). I neeeeeed pictures.
P.P.S. mail of all kinds is always welcome but come on, don't be this person
Relative difficulty: Challenging (I got annoyed and kind of bored and walked away at one point, so my time's pretty inflated) (10:34)
THEME: none
Word of the Day: XERISCAPING (28A: Design of park land requiring minimal water) —
Xeriscaping is the process of landscaping or gardening that reduces or eliminates the need for supplemental water from irrigation. It is promoted in regions that do not have accessible, plentiful, or reliable supplies of fresh water, and is gaining acceptance in other regions as access to irrigation water is becoming limited. Xeriscaping may be an alternative to various types of traditional gardening. (wikipedia)
• • •
Didn't find any of this very enjoyable. Nowhere near my wheelhouse, and full of weirdness like TROOP as a verb and M-RATING ("rated M for Mature" is the phrase from ads—M-RATING just looks wrong). SYSTEM ERROR, I.T. TEAM, ADSITE ... it's all pretty boring to me, and despite SIMONE BILES plastered right across the middle, and the not-at-all-helpfully-clued "I AM WOMAN" in the NE (16A: 1972 hit with the lyric "You can bend but never break me"), it felt very boy-y. XERISCAPING is a cool enough word but apparently I am just now learning how to spell it—I swear I thought it was ZEROSCAPING, as in "we use zero water on our landscaping." Most of the puzzle was either techy or technical, with pleasure or joy or cleverness coming only rarely. Loved SHACKED UP, for instance. But SYNFUELS? (32D: Petroleum substitutes) Again, didn't know that was a thing. Had BIOFUELS. Also not interesting. Oh, I like "I CAN SEE THAT!" even though it took me a while to get, though not as long as TRAIN MASTER (19D: To whom a conductor reports). I had the MASTER and was still like "????" I thought something like "stationmaster" or "depotmaster," thinking it would be an equivalent of "harbormaster." But no. It's just TRAINMASTER ... which sounds like some model train enthusiast's twitter handle / secret identity.
Got started, after much flailing, in the SW, of all places, where I was just throwing anything at the wall to see if it would stick, and finally some of it did. ARF and ESTE (crosswordese to the rescue!) then, tentatively, HOSERS, confirmed by a couple of crosses including HER (49D: "Death Becomes ___" (Meryl Streep film)). From there I got the whole bottom portion, but then, nothing. Just couldn't get back up over the middle. Even with MASTER and THAT and eventually BREAD in place at the ends of all those longer central Downs. Why is GARLIC BREAD a [Pasta dinner staple] my god how many floury carbs can you eat in one meal? Bread as a lead-in to pasta sounds insane. I'm not denying it's common, it just seems wrong. What also seems wrong: the word ROUE. ROUÉ? roo-AY? I despise this word, largely because no one actually uses it because if you did, people would go "what?" at you. And it's French and I get it confused with ROUX, which is a thickening agent, I think. It's also antiquated and stylized and ick. Totally valid word, but I just have viscerally negative responses to some words and this is one of them. No idea who ANIL is. Had ICE SHORE and ICE SHELF before ICE SHEET. Found the clues on ALARMS and LAW entirely beyond me. I mean, I get them now. But I had A-AR-S for a bit and honestly didn't know where I was gonna go. I also got very confused earlier on the EMT clue (29D: Pre-hosp. childbirth aide, often). "Pre-hosp." was the confusing part. I thought it meant "before there were such things as hospitals," so I was looking for something olde-tymey, like, say, ETHER. So, yeah, EMT was a surprise.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)
Relative difficulty: Challenging (laughably so—just hit "check squares" at the 15 minute mark because I didn't care anymore ... had four errors ... just the stupidest puzzle ... for reference, I haven't had a single error on a Sunday ... well, ever? ... I mean ...)
THEME: "The Art of Puzzle-Making" — a puzzle about René MAGRITTE's "TREACHERY OF IMAGES," a famous SURREALIST painting of a pipe with TEXT underneath reading "CECI N'EST PAS UN PIPE" ("this is not a pipe"). In this puzzle, you are supposed connect a bunch of circled letters that spell out the French phrase from the painting and also form the shape of a pipe, so the TEXT makes a kind of PIPE LINE ... and ... oh yeah, also there's a quote from MAGRITTE about the painting, a highly non-famous quote: "IT'S JUST / A REPRESENTATION / IS IT NOT?" Oh, and there's a stray theme answer, LOS ANGELES ... where the painting (apparently!?) is "permanently housed"; ugh there's a note:
Word of the Day: OLIVET (16D: Michigan college or its town) —
Not gonna write a ton about this one because I have almost nothing nice to say. It was just unpleasant all over the place. My god this puzzle tries too hard. Here's what you need: beautiful concept, elegant execution. What we have here is a nightmare of competing concepts trying to shout over each other and colliding with each other. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings. You can't have Every Single Theme Thing You Can Imagine. But this one ... no judiciousness. No elegance. Just stupid, stupid chaos. A germ of an idea that dies. An "bonus" thing that has none of the joy that "bonus" implies. Connect-the-dots. And then, leaving the theme aside, just clunky weird clues / answers everywhere. Art-based Sunday puzzle can now be imagined on a scale from THIS to Liz Gorski's Guggenheim puzzle. That is the scale. First, puzzle came with a "Note"—sorry, not reading that. Never do. Be good without a note or go home. Second, random circles. Oh, how I do not care. I didn't stop to see what shape they (sorta) made. Probably should've, but am not convinced it would've helped. Third, the actual revealer—what the? Here's the thing: I've seen this painting. It's used as an illustration in Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics," which I teach regularly. But the title, I totally forgot. Also, calling it a "work" means that I had no idea even what genre of thing we were dealing with. Even after I got TREACHERY OF IMAGES, I didn't know what painting it was. I thought it was the Dali one with the clocks. Which one was that? [googles] Ah, "The Persistence of Memory." Well no those don't Sound Alike At All @#$&#$#R@#RH@#DFQWE!!!
Oh, back to the list—Fourth! That quotation. That dumb, random, no one has heard it before piece of junk that you only used because, what, it fits symmetrically. It's a terrible quotation, IS IT NOT? Finally, you shove a gratuitous final themer in the bottom (TEXT) and cross it with some "petroleum giant" (!?!?!) that, again, I have never heard of in a quarter century+ of solving (OXY). OXY is a west coast college. OXY is a zit medication. OXY is a moron. What the hell is this stupid "petroleum" (again, ?!) OXY? Fifth, PIPE LINE might've made a nice revealer but because it's shoehorned into this atrocity of a puzzle that already has like a million other theme elements, it's just slop poured on top.
I had four errors. Now, I should've known that the clue was not plural so ART SALES couldn't be right (53D: Cultural gathering). But I went ART SALES and then AT BEST and so finished with QBR-SCH and B-NNHEIM. Two crossing proper nouns, one of which is fictional and completely and utterly never-before-heard-of by me. I knew the Q-answer had to be the wrong one, but it's not like the right version (Q BRANCH) is so all-fire obviously correct (95A: MI6 R&D division in 007 novels). OK, this is already way more than I wanted to write on this thing. How the *&$^ is the title "The Art of Puzzle-Making" appropriate for this thing? Honestly, this puzzle got Nothing right.
Five things:
93D: Dangerous job (SPY) — what a useless clue for SPY. Had the "S" and wasn't sure if DRIER was that or DRYER ... and SPY was not helping resolve anything
37D: How to get the permit, say (PAY A FEE) — lol no. So bad. "The" permit? ___ A ___? My god, it's like no one cares.
22A: N.F.L.'s Kaepernick (COLIN) — who's what now? I mean ... is this seriously a clue? I mean, he literally, famously is not in the N.F.L. at the moment. How bad at cluing do you have to be ...? Here's the full text of an email I just got from someone who used to be an editor at a major publication—subject line: "Will Shortz should be fired":
"Saturday's Charlie Rose outrage is followed by Sunday's clue for "Colin": "NFL's Kaepernick." That is clueless to the point of negligence. How can you reference CK without mentioning the newsy Nike ad, or the whole kneeling thing? Plus there's the pertinent fact that CP is NOT currently in the NFL because of NFL/USA racism. Of all the sloppy nyt cword editing, which you chronicle so well, this pisses me off the most. The editors are either not even looking at the puzzles they print, or just don't give a shit. It's lazy and insulting to those who do."
52A: Dogie catcher (REATA) — I had RIATA, which gave me DIMOED for 47D: Showed, informally (DEMOED), which I *thought* was my error. But no.
48A: Time for pampering oneself (ME DAY) — a. not a thing, b. I have to go pamper myself now. This puzzle was self-harm.
THEME: SEASON OPENERS (53A: Much-anticipated sporting events ... or, when spoken, what 20-, 28-, 35- and 43-Across have) — spring, summer, autumn, winter ... at the beginning of each themer, respectively
Theme answers:
SPRINKLER HEAD (20A: Part of a fire safety system)
SOMERSAULTED (28A: Flipped)
OTTOMAN EMPIRE (35A: Constantinople was its capital)
WIND TURBINES (43A: Instruments of renewable energy)
Word of the Day: ROSS Douthat (42A: Op-ed writer Douthat) —
Ross Gregory Douthat (/ˈdaʊθæt/; born November 28, 1979) is an American author, blogger and New York Times columnist. (wikipedia)
• • •
Took me a non-zero amount of time after finishing the puzzle to understand what the hell the theme was. Me: "SEASON OPENERS ... so the first one is SPRINKLER HEAD ... so ... if you "sprinkle" salt on something you are "seasoning" it????" The "openers" to me are the opening words, and when you say SPRINKLE, SOMERSAULTED, OTTOMAN, and WIND in order, well, not much happens. But it's the sounds of parts of words. A small part, or a combination of parts. I dunno. When I say the themers, I kinda hear the seasons. But figuring this one out was less "Oooh!" and more "Uh ... er ... I guess?" The real noteworthy accomplishment in this puzzle is THREE-RING BINDER (7D: Loose-leaf sheet holder), a central Down that is the longest answer in the puzzle and ... has nothing to do with the theme. It just comes crashing down through all the themers, like "Oh yeah!" (that's the Kool-Aid man, for you youngsters).
It's honestly the weirdest non-theme long Down I've ever seen in a puzzle. Straight through five themers ... for no theme reason! Just a "look at me!" photobomb of an answer. Totally upstages the theme. I approve.
Tiny struggles everywhere in this one, starting at 1A: Put a cork in ... which I took as cork-specific. But no. It's just CLOSE (can't believe I'm saying this, but really could've used a "..., say" in that clue). "WE'LL pass" instead of IT'LL (6A: "___ pass"). Had SPRINKLER and no idea what could follow it. Got the "H" and went with HOSE (?). Which led to ORG at 22D: Alternative to .com (EDU). Had both DOWN and GLUM before BLUE at 19A: Feeling sad. Couldn't be convinced NIP had anything to do with eating (it's a drinking term) (47D: Light bite). I see now that the clue was talking about an actual bite, with teeth. Two "?" clues in the SE slowed things a bit too (60A: Pitch-perfect? / 66A: Old flame?). And I am not at all convinced that a STUNT SHOW is a thing, so ... that was weird (32D: "Don't try this at home" spectacle). Still, time was pretty normal.
Relative difficulty: Challenging (based solely on the NE corner)
THEME: "United Kingdom" — actually a puzzle about ANIMAL MAGNETISM (110A: Sex appeal ... or a hint to the answers to the six starred clues), where the circled squares inside each theme answer spell out two animals (I guess they are "magnetically" attracted to each other ?):
Theme answers:
BOAR DINGO / FFICER (23A: *Law enforcer with the Coast Guard)
INT / ERNE TROUT / ER (33A: *It passes on some bits of information)
IMMANU / ELK ANT (48A: *Philosopher who wrote "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made")
GOODWIL / LAMB ASS / ADORS (66A: *Celebrities working for the U.N., perhaps)
IN / STAG RAM / MER (ugh) (85A: *Certain photo poster)
CORPO / RAT EEL / ITE (not a thing) (99A: *Business bigwigs)
Word of the Day: NINJA LOANS (76A: Low-quality bank offerings whose acronym suggests stealthiness) —
A NINJA loan is a nickname for very low-quality subprime loans. It was a play on NINA, which in turn is based on the notation scheme for the level of documentation the mortgage originator required. It was described as a no income, no job, [and] no assets loan because the only thing an applicant had to show was his/her credit rating, which was presumed to reflect willingness and ability to pay. The term was popularized by Charles R. Morris in his 2008 book The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown, though the acronym had been publicly used by some subprime mortgage lenders for some years. They were especially prominent during the United States housing bubble circa 2003-2007 but have gained wider notoriety due to the subprime mortgage crisis in July/August 2007 as a prime example of poor lending practices. The term grew in usage during the 2008 financial crisis as the sub prime mortgage crisis was blamed on such loans. It works on two levels – as an acronym; and allusion to the fact that NINJA loans are often defaulted on, with the borrower disappearing like a ninja. // The term was also popularized in the 2010 US film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps by the character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas.
• • •
No, no thank you. Two animals stuck together ... ish? I'm just not feeling this concept. First because it just feels simplistic, second because the execution of the theme results in some terribly unsatisfying stuff like BOARDING OFFICER (?) and CORPORATE ELITE (which is just not a thing—I nearly threw the puzzle across the room at that point; I *know* I exclaimed "Not a thing!" as I continued solving...). This just wasn't to my taste, at all ever. It also contained many things I'd just never heard of. Like BOARDING OFFICER. Also, NINJA LOANS (me: which ... part of that ... is a bleeping "acronym"!?), though I think that answer is fine, unlike SWAROVSKI, which I think is stem-to-stern garbage. That NE corner was basically a puzzle unto itself, 10x harder than the entire rest of the grid. If you don't know that stupid proper noun (wtf is "crystal jewelry" anyway?) then every single letter is a guess, and thus Every Single Cross is necessary. And then those crosses, ouch. So many of them were just really, really hard. So you up the difficulty *right* at the point that you've plunked stupid SWAROVSKI down!? Yeah, screw this entire corner and the horse it rode in on. Here is where I was when the wheels totally came off:
Clue on INTERNET ROUTER, hard. On ARCHIVE, hard. We've already established that SWAROVSKI is gibberish. I had 22A: Prince of TIDES (not WALES). Clue on STRAW (44A: Little sucker?), hard ("?" clue + how exactly is a STRAW "little"??? Compared to what?). "OK, SURE" coulda been many things (I had "OH, SURE" at one point). Whole thing was just Brutal. And for no payoff. No aha. Just ... ugh. What the hell is the clue on WEED!? (47D: Wacky tobacky, in part) If you'd just said [Wacky tobacky] then OK, SURE, but "in part"!?!?! Then what the actual F is "Wacky tobacky"? Given its name, I seriously doubt the recipe is very, uh, standardized. God I hate that clue. It had me IN A PET (note to constructors: ritually burn this bleeping answer out of your word list). The Penn State logo is the profile of a Nittany Lion (whatever that is). I see them all over the place. So PAW PRINT can **** off. Man, is there anything I enjoyed here? I guess the central themer is pretty sweet (if you're in to LAMB ASS ... he said ROGUISHLY). Else, nay. Sundays are really really hard to pull off. If theme is merely average (or worse), then it's just tediously long. Gotta be special. "Best Puzzle in the World," after all. Should live up to that name. More often, anyway.
[h/t Erik Agard]
A few reminders. First, if you want to get the Lollapuzzoola play-at-home puzzle pack (all the puzzles from last month's tournament, which was fantastic), then you need to do that now. Like, today. Here. Go get 'em. Second, once you have finished those puzzles, please listen to this episode of "The Allusionist" podcast, in which Helen Zaltzman gives you an inside look at the tournament and its attendees, including me (and my wife! and at least half a dozen other people I know and like! Saturday's constructor Erik Agard is in there!). I've read / listened to a lot of crossword journalism, and this is probably the coolest outsider's-view take on crossword culture that I've come across. Worth your 25 min. Also worth your 25 (+ another 15) minutes: my "On the Grid" podcast with Lena Webb, the latest episode of which is now up (004: "MOÉT / ASTI"). We talk about good clues for bad fill (including an extended discussion of ELOPE clues like 106A: Tie up quickly?), and then we drink bubbly and talk about MOËT and ASTI. So there you go, lots of homework for you. Enjoy!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I've got lots of people, including at least one Chemistry Ph.D., telling me they've never heard of AMATOL (98D: Big bang creator). I also have never heard of this (outside of crosswords), but I never trust my own judgment on sciencey stuff.
P.P.S. my wife is *furious* at 27A: More decisive (SURER), which may seem weird, until you realize she was stuck in that corner and *refused to consider* SURER because, well ... the word had already turned up in the grid! (53A: "Works for me" => "OK, SURE"). I have to agree, that is a pretty crappy dupe. Little words are no big deal, but otherwise, you shouldn't be duplicating words (or different versions of the same word). It is reasonable for solvers to assume that most words (esp. 4+-letter words) won't be duplicated within a grid. Duping SURE(R) here is bad form.
THEME: BY GEORGE! (61A: Exlamation that describes 13-, 20-, 30, 39- and 51-Across) — all themers are works created by someone whose first name is "George":
Theme answers:
"STAR WARS" (13A: 1977 Lucas film)
"MIDDLEMARCH" (20A: 1871 Eliot novel)
"RHAPSODY IN BLUE" (30A: 1924 Gershwin composition)
"DECISION POINTS" (39A: 2010 Bush autobiography)
"MY SWEET LORD" (51A: 1970 Harrison song)
Word of the Day: CHABAD (15A: Jewish organization known for its outreach work) —
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch, (Hebrew: חב"ד) is an Orthodox Jewish, Hasidic movement. Chabad is today one of the world's best known Hasidic movements and is well known for its outreach. It is the largest Hasidic group and Jewish religious organization in the world. (wikipedia) ("known for its outreach" = some weakass wikiplagiarism in the cluing)
• • •
The theme is stupid in a way I kinda like. Silly, maybe, rather than stupid. Anyway, the revealer provided a nice aha—though actually I never saw that the revealer was the revealer, so I was left staring at the grid for many seconds afterwards wondering what the hell—the damned 8-letter *non*-themers didn't help. Again, all non-themer Acrosses should be *shorter* than the shortest Across themers ... for a reason. FRITO PIE, my eye. Actually, GOOGLE IT, my eye. That is stupid in a way that I don't kinda like. There's being innovative and there's just being too cute by half. [Easy way to get information...] = GOOGLING. That is the only acceptable answer there. If you wrote that in, realized it was "wrong," but refused to change it, you are not only forgiven, you are blessed.
This one played harder than normal, in large part because the constructor decided to drop it to 72 words (?!?!) for a Wednesday themed puzzle, which is weird. Lots of white space *and* a theme-dense grid. This didn't make for the smoothest of solves. I very nearly left an error behind at the ACHESON (who? seriously, how old do you think I am?) / CHABAD crossing. I had an "S" there because ... I think I confused CHABAD and SHABBAT (not Jewish, though that's probably a 'duh' to you right now). Anyway, I can see someone faltering at that cross, easily. Roughest part for me was, well, where all the red ink is here:
ARIDE = ABADANSWER, so having [Bum ___] for the clue and having the answer not be STEER and then having the answer be ARIDE ... that was a bummer. USED is an Amazon "category"?! So many Amazon categories. So so many. I have never gone to "Used." I know you can buy "Used" merchandise, but calling it a "category" just did nothing a clue is supposed to do. So many ways to clue USED without that dumbness. TAPINTO is good; the clue was just tough in that way that very vague clues are tough (5D: Access). So a pass for this one, but kind of a low one because of design / fill / cluing issues.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. LOL at everyone who wrote in ANEWHOPE at 13A: 1977 Lucas film, you know who you are.
THEME: "In Bad Taste" — Themers are written a la recipe instructions. Answers are all bad (?) things, and together they make A RECIPE FOR DISASTER (106A: What 27-, 39-, 56-, 66-, 79- and 96-Across together make up):
Theme answers:
STIR UP A HORNET'S NEST (27A: Step 1: Raise hell)
MIX ONE'S METAPHORS (39A: Step 2: Make some literary gaffes)
BEAT A DEAD HORSE (56A: Step 3: Devote energy to something hopeless)
POUR MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN (66A: Step 4: Be a financial wastrel)
CUT A POOR FIGURE (79A: Step 5: Look pretty schlubby)
SERVES TWO MASTERS (96A: And finally: Has divided loyalties)
Word of the Day: URBAN II (35D: Pope who initiated the First Crusade) —
Pope Urban II (Latin: Urbanus II; c. 1042 – 29 July 1099), born Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was Pope from 12 March 1088 to his death in 1099. He is best known for initiating the First Crusade (1096–99) and setting up the modern-day Roman Curia in the manner of a royal ecclesiastical court to help run the Church. (wikipedia)
• • •
This is the second personal record I've set this week. I'm trying to let that sink in. I've been doing crosswords how long? (A: off and on for > a quarter century) And I've been doing them daily, without fail, in earnest, for over a decade, and I've been to dozens of tournaments ... and in one week, a single week, I break not one but two personal time records? First Friday (under 4), and now today? I was under 7!? Do you know how many times I've been under 8 on a NYT Sunday? None. None times. And when I finished this one the clock was just ticking over to 6:59. I didn't even really understand the theme. In fact, I'm still not sure I do. Seems really ... loose? Incoherent? Cutting a poor figure and beating a dead horse seem like bad things to do, but they hardly seem like "disasters." The whole thing just doesn't hang together very well. Answers feel contrived and far too unrelated to make the theme really click, hum, and whir. But as I say, honestly, what theme? I flew through this thing, destroying every answer I touched. Could do no wrong. It was an amazing feeling.
ONE'S—that is the constructor's little helper. You usually see it in quadstacks, e.g. A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE (15) (a classic example of the type). Here, it helps get MIX ONE'S METAPHORS to the right length to fit into the grid. You can see the constructor played with tenses (and articles) all over the place. [Look pretty schlubby] (2nd person) but [Has divided loyalties] (3rd person) (note: 3rd person is really awkward in an alleged "recipe"). And then you get the indefinite article "A" in A RECIPE FOR DISASTER, which you rarely see. These aren't bad or wrong things; they're just ways that a constructor can play around to get the themers to come out symmetrical. MIX METAPHORS, MIX ONE'S METAPHORS, MIXED METAPHORS, MIXED ONE'S METAPHORS ... all available depending on the length requirements.
["WOO WOO!"]
There's not really anything to talk about here. If I had any trouble, it was dead center, where I wanted GOT AT IT (which didn't fit) before GO TO WAR (54D: Begin fighting), and where WOO was half of a drink I'd never heard of (76A: When doubled, a drink with vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice). I wanted to THROW MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN (again, non-fitting). I thought 21A: Venusian or Jovian was asking for some kind of religious adherent (ALIEN), I never think of Buddha as a YOGI, and 68D: Napping, so to speak really felt like it was gonna be UNAWAKE (UNAWARE). Other than that, just like Friday, it was see clue write answer see clue write answer, start to finish. It's kind of a high, being in the zone like that. It felt semi-impossible, like when this happened in "Caddyshack":
Very short write-up this morning, as I have to drive family members hither and yon, and *then* drive myself to the gym at 7:30am. Third day in a row of 60+-degree temperatures in the middle of winter, though, so I can't complain. I just gotta type kinda fast.
[BRITISH INVASION]
I loved this from (literally) square one. Part of that love was from a good first guess at 1A: Take a while to wear off (LAST), which I was able to confirm with the great and (today) heartening and defiant-seeming answer, LGBTQ (1D: Orientation letters?). And then, well, give me the "Q" in the pole position on a 15 and odds are I'm going to take off at good clip. Which is what happened. I had just woken up and was sitting here at my desk, creaky and still bleary-eyed, and still: zing bam pow. Done in under 5. Hummed along so easily I didn't even have to look at clue for DESI ARNAZ (10D: Co-star of a #1 TV show for four seasons in the 1950s); and (as with the "Q," above), plunking that "Z" down did wonders for helping me whip into and through the middle of the grid. I'm just gonna do some bullet points containing the only parts of the puzzle that even tried to block me.
Bullets:
WENDY (8D: Darling of literature) — this is "Peter Pan," right. Because baseball season is *right* around the corner, my only thought upon seeing "Darling" was "Ron" (he solves crosswords, look him up).
"DIG IN" (20A: What often follows grace) — had the "DI-" and couldn't come up with anything but "DI ... NER?" The gluttonous colloquialism "DIG IN" doesn't seem quite in the same register as the proper-sounding "grace," but the clue's accurate enough.
READE (16A: "It Is Never Too Late to Mend" novelist, 1856) — one of the crosswordesiest novelists there is. Get to know him. Or his name, at any rate; I've never read his stuff.
DODOS (25D: Pinheads) — as usual, I dropped the wrong DO- answer here at first (DOLTS). I also can never remember if the supplement store in the mall is GMC or GNC (40D: Co. with the longtime slogan "Live well").
OBESE (29D: Like cartoondom's Peter Griffin or Chief Wiggum) — Got the "O" and wrote in OVATE and was quite happy with that answer for a few seconds.
STIFF (45D: Joe Blow) — this was harder than any other answer by far. I think we get here by way of "working STIFF," but .... I don't know. "Joe Blow" makes me think of Snoopy, even though Snoopy's alter ego was, in fact, Joe Cool.
EXERCISE SCIENCE (44A: Workout area?) — Needed the LORAX (30D: Once-ler's opponent, in children's literature) to convince me that this was a thing. This means that almost all the high-value Scrabble letters contributed significantly to my speed-solving today. For that, I thank them.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Episode 002 of "On the Grid," my crossword podcast w/ Lena Webb, out now.
Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (*for a Tuesday*)
THEME: NON KOSHER (57A: Like the four things named in the circled squares) — just what it says:
Theme answers:
AHA MOMENT (18A: When you get it)
POPULAR DEMAND (23A: Something might be brought back by this)
SPORK (37A: Versatile eating implement)
NBA CONFERENCE (47A: Eastern or Western, for hoopsters)
Word of the Day:MAJESTIC Theater(21D: ___ Theater, venue of "The Phantom of the Opera," the longest-running production in Broadway history) —
The Majestic Theatre is a Broadwaytheatre located at 245 West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan. It is one of the largest Broadway theatres with 1,645 seats, and traditionally has been used as a venue for major musical theatre productions. Among the notable shows that have premiered at the Majestic are Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The Music Man (1957), Camelot (1960), A Little Night Music (1973), and The Wiz (1975). It was also the second home of 42nd Street and the third home of 1776. The theatre has housed The Phantom of the Opera since it opened on January 26, 1988. With a record-breaking 11,335 performances to date, it is currently the longest-running production in Broadway history. (wikipedia)
• • •
This was a mess for me. I mean, a mess to solve. The theme is OK, if a bit wobbly and uneven, but the clues, in parts, felt Not Tuesday. Fine, but tougher than I expected. Let's start with the theme, which was awkwardly expressed, from my vantage point, for several reasons. First, I didn't really notice it until HALAL (65A: Opposite of 57-Across, to Muslims), which is in the *position* of a potential revealer (final Across answer) but is ultimately not directly related to the theme *at all*. Symmetrical with HALAL is ... CHOPS ... which ... was that clued as somehow PORK-related, in an earlier draft? Seems like an odd coincidence to have CHOPS at 1-A in a clue about NON-KOSHER foods and have it *not* relate to pork. Weird. Further, LARD is not a meat, when the other NON-KOSHER things ... are. BACON and PORK are ... the same meat. PORK is not embedded across two words the way the other themers are, so style points off there. NBA CONFERENCE is a pretty weak stand-alone answer, though I appreciate how hard it must've been to embed "bacon" in any two-word phrase, let alone one of a particular length. The whole thing works, in that it is a functional, defensible puzzle, but as I said, wobble wobble.
The roughness of my solve came largely from the NW (where I always start), which had a passel of late-week, unexpected clues. Accurate, fine, but not Tuesday—not in a bunch like that. 1A: Musical talent, informally I wanted something like ... EAR, not CHOPS. ONE UP is not obvious as a verb (3D: Outdo). CRISP is not not not obvious as a noun (1D: Cousin of a cobbler). And RAN IT? Forget it. No idea what was going on there. I mean, I can see, now, how you might say it in a theater-related sentence, but that is just bad fill. Acceptable to hold something together in a late-week puzzle, maybe, but there's nothing even particularly *theater* about it. The past tense adds another level of ugh-ery. Stumbled over yet another theater clue at MAJESTIC—I had the -AJ- and quickly wrote in TAJ MAHAL. It fit. Lucky me. 56A: Meeting point for tailors? (SEAM) crossing 52D: Kind of client (E-MAIL), also super-Tuesday tricky for me. Throw in my inability to spell PINOCHLE, and my going for GAPED over the icky OOHED at 7D: Expressed amazement, and you get the full effect of my inelegant progress through this grid. I mean, look at this:
I solved this at runtpuz.org, where you can upload any puzzle in .puz format and solve in their applet and then get a bunch of stats afterward. The interface needs a lot of work, and I don't fully understand all the stats, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. The above grid represent first 1/3 (green) second 1/3 (white) and last 1/3 (red) of my solve. If I'm killing a puzzle, those colors are self-contained blocks, usually with green in the N/NW, white in the center/E/S, and red in the S/SW. Not a lot of jumping around when I find a puzzle easy. But the above grid, yikes. That is some flailing. I mean, the green and red hold together OK, but the white shows you how badly I was jumping around. SO many answers have three different colored squares in them. Such inefficiency. Sigh. Anyway, try runtpuz.org for yourself sometimes. Here's all the data for my solve today.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. "There's so many ways to clue BOYS, and you have to go with this stupid [turns on hair dryer so I can no longer hear her totally justifiable complaints]"—my wife. (63A: Word before and after "will be")
Yup that's supposed to be a D but I'm not re-filling in this grid and taking another screen shot
THEME:None
Word of the Day:BOETHIUS(11D: "The Consulation of Philosophy" author) —
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius,[1][2] commonly called Boethius[3] (English: /boʊˈiːθiəs/; also Boetius/boʊˈiːʃəs/; c. 480–524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born four years after Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor and declared himself King of Italy, and entered public service under Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great, who later imprisoned and executed him in 524 on charges of conspiracy to overthrow him.[4] While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of Philosophy,
a philosophical treatise on fortune, death, and other issues, which
became one of the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages. (Wikipedia)
• • •
It seems Rex found himself staring into the inky void of a technological blackout last night (no, he didn't pass out and spill whiskey on his computer, into his USBPORT-- it's a cable outage), so it's Lena here to wish you a happy Friday.
And so it is. This was a fun solve for me, and a quick one too. I scooted through the North and thought "hey hey slow down, puzzle, quit being so easy and intuitive." Remember my last sub-in post? So fun. But yeah that was also an Andrew Zhou puzzle! Maybe there are cosmic Crossworld forces afoot.
SHOCK JOCK (1A: One making waves over the waves) went in first, although I entertained SURF-something for a few seconds. SURFCELEB? "Shock jocks" were mentioned in a clue in Chris King's latest puzzle, so it was fresh in my brain on some level. WOMANIZING towering over INANIMATE OBJECTis pretty great, and the clue on the latter is both straightforward and clever: (17A: It has no life).
Lots and lots of good fill, which always makes a soupçon of classic crosswordese more obvious-- ERNEZEESUTEIBAR. Now that that's out of the way, let's pack up the car and take a trip to Natick.
BOETHIUS (11D: "The Consolation of Philosophy" author) crossing ROCHE (23A: Company that makes Tamiflu) must have tripped some folks up. Speed-sovling darling Austin Burns wasn't sure of that H in their crossing but ultimately guessed correctly:
I knew ROCHE but that's because I ordered thousands of dollars worth of antibodies from them in grad school. My problem was entirely BOETHIUS. I ordered antibodies from ROCHE and in my spare time didn't read philosophy. I know the heavy-hitters well enough, but BOETHIUS seems awfully underground, awfully "indie," as Philosophers go. And if you're clueless like me, there's no real indication that "The Consulation of Philosophy might be the work of ANCIENTS like (12A: Aeschylus, Sophoclese and Aristophanes) so that you don't start getting nervous when a funky ancient name starts to appear.
But the rest of the long fill really is very good: YOUVE BEEN SERVED, SCREENTIME, USB PORTS, AUTOTUNE.
Oh, and FOAMCORE may be (34D: Material for mounting photos), but it is also now my new favorite rock genre.
And speaking of music, enjoy some Joe Jackson-- this one goes out to Rex!
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
.png)
