John of pro wrestling / FRI 3-31-17 / Alphabetically rhyming river name / Mammasl using echolocation / 1980s big city mayor / Ff Sumter battler / Good practice for show it's academic

Constructor: David C. Duncan Dekker

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: John CENA (23A: John of pro wrestling) —

John Felix Anthony Cena Jr. (/ˈsiːnə/; born April 23, 1977) is an American professional wrestler, rapper, actor, and reality television show host. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand. Cena started his professional wrestling career in 1999 with Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW) and won the UPW Heavyweight Championship the following year.^[8] Cena signed a developmental contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment, or simply WWE) in 2001, debuting on the WWE main roster in 2002. [...] Outside of wrestling, Cena has released the rap album You Can't See Me, which debuted at No. 15 on the US Billboard 200 chart, and starred in the feature films The Marine (2006), 12 Rounds (2009), Legendary (2010), The Reunion (2011), Trainwreck (2015), and Sisters (2015).  Cena has also made appearances on television shows including Manhunt, Deal or No Deal, MADtv, Saturday Night Live, Punk'd, Psych, and Parks and Recreation. He was also a contestant on Fast Cars and Superstars: The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race, where he made it to the final round before being eliminated, placing third in the overall competition. Cena is also the host of American Grit on Fox. Cena is involved in numerous philanthropic causes; most notably with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He has granted the most wishes in Make-A-Wish history (wikipedia).

• • •

The virtues of a 72-word themeless are *supposed* to be clean, fresh, interesting fill (72 is the highest word count allowed for themelesses, and a high word count means the grid is easier to fill well). But this grid is constructed in the way least likely to make the clean, fresh, interesting stuff happen. You still have these giant corners, which will only ever top out at OK, even if you are a pretty good constructor. The result is a grid that is mostly dull, with some ugly (short fill) patches, which is then bedecked with Qs and Zs in a rather cynical attempt to distract the solver with shininess. ODETS CENA and EDKOCH start us with a glut of names and then PEEDEE gets a hyper-dumb (and to me, indecipherable) clue (2D: Alphabetically rhyming river name). Not even a geographic location. And "alphabetically" means "in alphabetical order" to me, so I just had to rely on crosses and knowing the PEEDEE river exists. A trivial sum is TWO *PENCE*? Cor Blimey! Here in America, I give my two cents, not my two pence. How did that not have a "to Brits" tag like ENQUIRY? GUIDE crossing GUIDO? Ouch. There was not a lot of joy here. Is a BSC a Bachelor of ... SCience? How "common" is a BSC? Is it different from a B.S.? I teach in a degree-granting place and I have no idea. I google BSC and the first hit that comes up is "Boston Sports Clubs." That was the last answer I got.


Two major errors held me up today. First BUTT OUT for BUZZ OFF (24D: "Go away!"). And then, much worse, OKRAS for ORCAS (11D: Things in a pod). I thought the clue on SWIMMEET was pretty decent (13D: What has different strokes for different folks?). But there wasn't much else that was entertaining. I mean, PIZZA (amazing, delicious!) and the best clue you can come up with is [___ topping]?? That's criminal. Overall, this is not terrible, but it's highly blah, and makes me miss the days when killer themeless constructors roamed the Friday and Saturday puzzles. [Redacted nostalgic passage] [Redacted remark about talent depletion] [Decision to go drink BOOZE].

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Acronym for outdoor fantasy game / WED 8-10-16 / Warm alpine wind / Turkish brandy / Part of neutron's makeup / South African tongue / Thompson aka Honey Boo Boo

Constructor: David C. Duncan Dekker

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: QUINTUPLE (33A: Like each letter of the alphabet in this puzzle, at minimum) — all letters of alphabet appear in grid at least five clues, which you probably gathered from such activities as "reading the clue"

Word of the Day: RAKI (3D: Turkish brandy) —

Rakı (Turkish: Rakı, Ottoman Turkish: راقى, pronounced [ɾaˈkɯ]) is an unsweetened, anise-flavored alcoholic drink that is popular in Turkey, Greece, Iran, Turkic countries, and in the Balkan countries as an apéritif. It is often served with seafood or meze. It is similar to several other alcoholic beverages available around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, e.g. pastis, ouzo, sambuca, arak, Aragh Sagi and aguardiente. In Turkey, it is considered a national drink. (wikipedia)

• • •

Pangrams are stupid, so this is 5 x stupid. QUINTUPLE stupid. That must be some kind of record. Not wasting my time. I am sorry that I am not sorry.


Gonna go hang out with my dog, who has been sick. Later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Muslim magistrate / FRI 9-4-15 / Important Peruvian crop / Green Hornet trumpeter / Major in 1973 David Bowie hit / Once-popular alcopop

Constructor: David C. Duncan Dekker

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none — I don't thing those 3 Qs on a diagonal count...

Word of the Day: QUIFF (28A: Man's do with upswept hair in the front) —

noun

Chiefly British

A tuft of hair, especially a forelock.

Origin of quiff

Origin unknown.

noun

A woman regarded as promiscuous.

Origin of quiff

Origin unknown.(Amer. Heritage Dict.)

• • •

I'd say AVERAGE is about right. There are lots of X J Q-type letters, but they aren't doing much of anything interesting. That Q-run is mildly cool, and I kind of like how KAMIKAZE komes krashing down there in the NE. "WHY YES!" gives the grid a little life down below. But three out of the four corners (all except the NE) are pretty dull. They are adequate. They are reasonably clean. They exist. Don't tend to love when grids have sections, like the NW and SE, that are sooooo cut off from the rest of the grid. Those sections end up playing like mini-puzzles, which would be OK if there were some inherent interest. But those sections aren't that lively. The real danger with such isolated sections is that they can kill you in a truly difficult puzzle—nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. But today's cut-off corners weren't that tough. Did take some effort to get at the NW, but that was offset by how easy the SE was—that corner couldn't have taken me more than 30 seconds.


I had a couple of miscues. First when I put in QUAKES at 24A: Trembles. Took one look at 8D: Muslim magistrate, realized it couldn't end in -RKF (what could?), and took out QUAKES. Guessed SHARIF and then put in QUAILS. Then moved down the grid a bit and put in QUAKES where it belonged (28D: Country rockers?) (that's a decent "?" clue for QUAKES). I also had a mistake at 35D: Slight sights. Turns out there are (at least) two answers that can fit in there *and* that start GLIM-

I went with GLIMMERS. It was actually the first thing I dropped into that section. The above-pictured grid captures the moment just after I realized my mistake. The ATP (48A: Court sport org.) is the Association of Tennis Professionals, btw. Lastly, just one quibble with the clue on ZIMA (38D: Once-popular alcopop). I think they meant "Once-available" or "once-marketed," 'cause ZIMA was never "popular." (Except, it seems, for a hot second in 1994 when Coors threw a ton of marketing money at it). Popular drinks, uh, survive. To be fair, though, ZIMA did hang in there for an awfully long time. According to Modern Drunkard Magazine: "Despite almost universal derision by the public in general and the drinking press in particular (see Real Drunks Don’t Drink Zima MDM Nov. ‘96), Zima managed to gimp along for an astonishing 15 years." Did you know Miller's answer to ZIMA was QUBE!? How did I miss that? Why is QUBE never in puzzles? I'm so disappointed in all crossword constructors right now. (Actually, I'm not–I can't even find a picture of QUBE on the whole of the Internet, which maybe says something about QUBE's crossword viability. But it turns out there are a bunch of other products out there trying to make QUBE happen, so there's always hope).

MASON JARs, on the other hand—MASON JARs are popular. Chances are you have had an (actual, non-ZIMA-related) alcoholic beverage in one in recent years. A touch of folksiness for hip urban faux-back-to-the-landers. Artisanal free-range MASON JARs for all!

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Cup-shaped forest fungus / SAT 3-7-15 / Toadstool that exudes latex when cut / Follower of Salyut 7 / Concubine's chamber / Southern river to Winyah Bay / CJ's boss on West Wing / Boston area known for brownstones / European Union anthem / deck gym machine

Constructor: David C. Duncan Dekker

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: maybe PANGRAMS … not sure

Word of the Day: PEZIZA (43D: Cup-shaped forest fungus) —

Peziza is a large genus of saprophytic cup fungi that grow on the ground, rotting wood, or dung. Most members of this genus are of unknown edibility and are difficult to identify as separate species without use of microscopy. The polyphyletic genus has been estimated to contain over 100 species.

Peziza may come from the term for foot in Romance languages, perhaps in reference to their general lack of a stalk. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is pretty bad. I mean, as a themeless, it's adequate, but it's kind of inexcusable that anyone thinks making a themeless puzzle into a PANGRAM is an accomplishment. It's a non-issue. It's like bragging that your Sunday-sized puzzle is a PANGRAM? Not hard, no one cares. The problem with PANGRAMS (61A: They use every letter FROM A TO Z) comes when you force them on a puzzle that already has a theme. Themes exert pressure on grids. PANGRAMS add extra, unnecessary, stupid pressure. But in a themeless—do whatever the hell you want, who cares? Why would you highlight a non-accomplishment like this. If anything, once again, we see how perverse fascination with high-value Scrabble tiles (for their own SAKES) leads to junk fill that, in another iteration of the grid, would be non-existent. ODA ACED IT DERATE LOM ITASCA PEEDEE (ugh) LLD MIL INASEC MIR ANON. An excellent themeless has a suboptimal list about half that long. As I said, the puzzle's adequate—I've seen worse. But honestly, it's on the low end for themelesses. There are constructors out there who combine artistry and database management to produce some pretty great work. This doesn't compare.


Once again, I had very good luck with a wrong answer, right off the bat:

Actually, I'm not sure if that was good or bad luck, since MIL did nothing for me except convince me that ANEMIC was right for a while. The only way I broke that NW corner open was by getting MOB and ANON correct and then somehow, after several passes, figuring out that the "quaint" in 17A: Quaint raid targets must refer to ICEBOXES. NW was not hard after that breakthrough. Managed to get up into and around the NE pretty easily, but couldn't bring the puzzle down the west coast. Here's why:

See that. I fell into the trap I probably was supposed to fall into, imagining that 8D: Spiced up, say required a past-tense, -ED ending. So though I was deeply unhappy with ZESTIED (!?), it seemed like a "word" that this particular puzzle would have, so I stuck with it. Luckily, I was able to get into that SW corner from the back end of most southern Acrosses—not always doable, but, thankfully, doable today. DANTE and ACED IT were gimmes, and I went from there up the west and finished with the "P" in VAPOR / PEC.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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