THEME: plural colors — 15-letter phrases that end with a plural color (if there's more to it, I clearly don't know what it is):
Theme answers:
VALENCIA ORANGES (17A: Sweet citrus fruits from Southern California)
CLEVELAND BROWNS (26A: Only N.F.L. team that doesn't have a logo on its helmets)
RHODE ISLAND REDS (47A: Some chickens)
"HILL STREET BLUES" (61A: Hit 1980s cop show)
Word of the Day: Abba EBAN (25A: Abba of Israel) —
Abba Eban ([...] born Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban; later adopted Abba Solomon Meir Eban; 2 February 1915 – 17 November 2002) was an Israeli diplomat and politician, and a scholar of the Arabic and Hebrew languages.
HELLO, READERS AND SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's the week of Jan. 12-19, 2020, that's you!). It's January and that means it's time for my annual pitch for financial contributions to the blog, during which I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. It's kind of a melancholy January this year, what with the world in, let's say, turmoil. Also, on a personal note, 2019 was the year I lost Dutchess, who was officially The Best Dog, and who was with me well before I was "Rex Parker." Somehow the turning of the calendar to 2020 felt like ... I was leaving her behind. It's not a rational sentiment, but love's not rational, especially pet love. Speaking of love—I try hard to bring a passion and enthusiasm to our shared pastime every time I sit down to this here keyboard. I love what I do here, but it is a lot of work, put in at terrible hours—I'm either writing late at night, or very early in the morning, so that I can have the blog up and ready to go by the time your day starts (9am at the very latest, usually much earlier). I have no major expenses, just my time. Well, I do pay Annabel and Claire, respectively, to write for me once a month, but beyond that, it's just my time. This blog is a source of joy and genuine community to me (and I hope to you) but it is also work, and this is the time of year when I acknowledge that! All I want to do is write and make that writing available to everyone, for free, no restrictions. I have heard any number of suggestions over the years about how I might "monetize" (oof, that word) the blog, but honestly, the only one I want anything to do with is the one I already use—once a year, for one week, I just ask readers to contribute directly. And then I let 51 weeks go by before I bring up the subject again. No ads, no gimmicks. It's just me creating this thing and then people who enjoy the thing supporting the work that goes into creating the thing. It's simple. I like simple. Your support means a lot to me. Knowing that I have a loyal readership really is the gas in the tank, the thing that keeps me solving and writing and never missing a day for 13+ years. I will continue to post the solved grid every day, tell you my feelings about the puzzle every day, make you laugh or wince or furrow your brow or shout at your screen every day, bring you news from the Wider World of Crosswords (beyond the NYT) every day. The Word of the Day is: Quotidian. Occurring every day. Daily. Whether you choose to contribute or not, I'm all yours. Daily.
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. This year's cards are illustrations from the covers of classic Puffin Books—Penguin's children's book imprint. Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, How to Play Cricket ... you know, the classics. There are a hundred different covers and they are truly gorgeous. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD. As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.
Now on to the puzzle!
• • •
Another day, another "Is that it?" It's hard to imagine why "phrases that end in plural colors" would be an NYT-worthy theme. There is the structural / architectural fact of the answers all being 15 letters long, but so what? I don't see how that is terribly remarkable or how it adds any kind of enjoyment to the solve. I expect a theme like this out of a ... let's say "lesser daily" puzzle. Much lesser, actually. And I'd have to say the same thing about the fill. There's not much in the grid to make you wince, but its over-reliant on the hoary and familiar, for sure. Mainly it's just dull. And two ugly partials? (IASK, ACAR). In a grid this easy to fill? I just don't see how this is up to snuff. And if your theme is going to revolve around colors, you probably shouldn't have any colors anywhere else in the grid. Makes things cleaner and more elegant that way (lookin' at you, WHITE) (30D: "___ Christmas" (holiday song)). Attention to details matters!
There's really nothing to say here. This is the second time I'm seeing NILS Lofgren in a puzzle in the past few days, though the last time I saw him (and I already forget where ... one of those puzzles I solve Downs-Only, like the LAT or Newsday) he appeared in full-name form. I feel like I haven't seen him in forever, and that his fame is maybe not what it was 20-40 years ago. But he's been a crossword MAINSTAY forever, so current fame be damned! Most constant solvers will know him and the youths can just catch up, I guess. See also Abba EBAN, whose name elements I continue to transpose / not know the proper order of. EBAN Abba sounds perfectly fine to me. I tore through this puzzle, for the most part. I hesitated some at 3D: Like Lindbergh's 1927 flight to Paris (speaking of erstwhile fame) (SOLO), and then dumbly tried to write in EDHARRIS when I saw the EDH- at the front of 43D: Actor who played Andy Bernard on "The Office" (ED HELMS). This is why you should read *all* of the clue and not just the first word before starting to fill in the answer. Still, none of these hesitations set me back much—I'm back in the 2:40s for the second week in a row (after having what felt like months of sluggish-for-me Mondays). But breeziness is not enough. The theme should have a solid hook, something to make it cohere more than just the last words belonging to the same very general category of thing. More than identical lengths. More.
THEME: Queen B — Every clue starts with B. Theme answers start with a word that's pronounced the same way you pronounce the letter B.
Theme answers:
B-MINOR MASS (20A: Bach masterpiece, informally)
BEA ARTHUR (32A: Betty White co-star on "The Golden Girls"
BEE STINGS (40A: Benadryl might treat them)
BE YOURSELF (52A: Bit of advice to the insecure)
Word of the Day: UGLI (36A: "Blemished" fruit) —
The Jamaican tangelo, also known by proprietary names ugli /ˈʌɡli/ fruit, uglifruit, or uniq fruit, is a Jamaican form of tangelo, a citrus fruit that arose through the natural hybridization of a tangerine or orange with a grapefruit (or pomelo).[1]
This tangelo was a natural hybrid, having arisen spontaneously like the grapefruit,[1] in Jamaica, where it is mainly grown today.[3] 'UGLI' is a registered trademark of Cabel Hall Citrus Limited, under which it markets the fruit,[4]
the name being a variation of the word "ugly", which refers to the
fruit's unsightly appearance, with rough, wrinkled, greenish-yellow
rind, wrapped loosely around the orange pulpy citrus inside.[2]
(Wikipedia)
• • •
Annabel Monday!!!!! Okay, this is so not a good omen. I'm fast approaching midterms and I get to a whole puzzle themed around the letter "B"? Can next week's Monday theme be "A+" or "Annabel passes all her midterms without having to stay up all night or even having to put that much work into them because she's just that good"? Anyway, I definitely scored worse than a B on puzzle time, to b honest. I got stuck on the left for ages, ditto with the bottom right quadrant because I couldn't figure out what PONE was, and there were just various unnecessarily hard words scattered throughout the puzzle. Didn't help that I'd misspelled RBG's last name as GINSBERG for a solid twenty minutes. And UGLI is my biggest Natick since actual Natick. But that's probably just because I've never personally eaten it. Difficulty aside, though, I had fun. Few obvious clues, no overused answers. I'd love to see more constructors try things like this! The clues were more interesting because they must have been more of a challenge to write.
That said, I had to go on the Wordplay blog to get the theme. I felt like a big buffoon when I realized absolutely all the clues had been B's. In my defense I did the puzzle on mobile so there wasn't an obvious wall of B-clues staring me right in the face, just one at a time, and I was more focused on cracking the code of whether UGLI was a typo or not. But like I said, it was cool. I like bees. I forget if I've talked about them before on this blog, but I find eusocial insects really neat.
Bullets:
MIFF (10A: Bother) — Makes me think of Miffy. She was a little bunny who had adventures that were actually pretty boring but that probably helped me sleep when I was a baby, so fair enough.
MATHLETE (10D: Braniac in a certain high school competition) — I'd love to hear from current or former Mathletes about your experiences! Also, did you call yourselves that? Like for real? Also, kudos to you, that's hard stuff. I used to be great at math until I reached calculus, at which point I suddenly discovered that I'd rather analyze literary themes and the social implications of literature for the rest of my academic life, which conveniently doesn't require you to take the integral of a function.
BEA ARTHUR (32A: Betty White co-star on "The Golden Girls") — Obligatory:
ALUM (2D: Bill Clinton vis-Ã -vis Georgetown and 54-Down) — oh god that's going to be me soon oh god. Nah, in all seriousness I'm pretty excited. I'm thinking of becoming a librarian.
Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student, and I swear to God I almost just typed "high school" instead of college, eep. I'm going to bed.
OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT: It's my mom's birthday tomorrow! She's going to be--um, 39! Again! In all seriousness, happy birthday to her.
Look, they're Rex's BFFs. Also I forget which one is the older twin
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)
