Happy November (my birthday month, my favorite month). I think this one might skew slightly harder than the average Monday, if only for phreaky PHLOX and a host of proper nouns, at least one of which was likely to cause any given solver to seek help in the crosses. Was going to say I've never heard of PHLOX, but it was in a (Wednesday) puzzle two years ago, so I must have heard of it. Just didn't stick. This puzzle makes me miss Michael CAINE. COCAINE just seems like a cheap trick (and not the good kind, the kind that sang "Dream Police" — the other kind). So does KEY BISCAYNE, which I needed many crosses to get, not knowing as much Nixon trivia as perhaps I'm supposed to. One major omission, KAINE-wise: Virginia governor Tim KAINE. I realized that eight letters, there's really nowhere to put him, but if you're going to go with ALL the KAINEs, then get 'em all.
Theme answers:
17A: Aid for a person with a limp (WALKING CANE)
11D: Nixon's Florida home (KEY BISCAYNE)
36A: Drug from Colombia (COCAINE)
25D: Creating a ruckus (RAISING CAIN)
53A: 1941 Orson Welles classic ("CITIZEN KANE")
I have a lot of respect for a puzzle that gets this close but DOESN'T go for the pangram. Why force a "J" into this grid? Who benefits? (no one). Overall, I think the grid is pretty good. I mean, A CAT, A PIG, A LIE, a bit much, but otherwise, mostly good. Tripped at PHLOX, then COMANCHE (Black Horse?) (36D: War chief Black Horse's tribe), then NIMITZ (Chester?) (42A: W.W. II admiral Chester), then KEY BISCAYNE, but crosses took care of any problems I had pretty quickly, as is typical for a Monday.
Bullets:
31A: Cosmetician Adrien (ARPEL) — I know ... him? ... nope, her ... only from crosswords. Well, maybe I've heard the name, somewhere... strangely, she does not have a wikipedia page, at all.
40A: Long-armed ape, for short (ORANG) — another word I know just from xwords. Oh, and maybe from Poe.
51D: Latin jazz great Puente (TITO) — Here's a little something. Enjoy.
This was on the Challenging side only because it was a rebus puzzle, and those are always at least a bit of a challenge to ferret out. Once you realize that the rebus is just TIN, and not a bunch of different elements, the rebus squares aren't too difficult to uncover and the puzzle settles into a medium difficulty. Where did you realize you were dealing with a rebus? For me, oddly, it was at GRA[TIN] (6A: Au ___). I had no idea about how good a guess GUINEA was at 6D: Neighbor of Liberia, but that "G" gave me GRA-, which caused me to test the "TIN" in that final square, which allowed me to make sense of 9D: Parts opposite some handles ([TIN]ES). Helped a lot by knowing the surprisingly long-last-named Tom SKERRITT (21D: Emmy-winning Tom of "Picket Fences"). Hurt a bit by being baffled by FT. DODGE (46A: County seat on the Des Moines River). The irrefutable contiguity of "TD" got me to guess FT. DODGE, and it panned out. The cluing felt slightly amped up on this one — deliberately thorny or misdirective, e.g. 64A: Scratch (KALE) (both slang for "money"), 55A: Is too cool (ROCKS), etc. Rebus puzzles are almost always enjoyable to me, and I liked this one, even if it did feel a bit pointless. Just ... TINs everywhere ... and [TIN]SMITH is my payoff answer? ... seems a bit weak, conceptually. I like the pile-up of TINs in the middle, though. That's pretty cool. Otherwise, puzzle's just OK.
Creations of the TINsmith (44A):
S[TIN]GER (1A: Antiaircraft missile)
[TIN]GLE (2D: "Sleeping" sensation)
GRA[TIN] (6A: Au ___)
[TIN]ES (9D: Parts opposite some handles)
OU[TIN]GS (22A: Picnics, e.g.)
MAR[TIN]I (11D: Happy hour order)
CRE[TIN] (38A: Clod)
"I, [TIN]A" (32D: 1986 showbiz autobiography)
"RIN [TIN] [TIN]" (39A: Title role in a 1950s western)
AS[TIN] (30D: Actor John)
UNS[TIN][TIN]G (24D: In a very generous manner)
DIS[TIN]CT (49A: Well-defined)
[TIN]KLES (52D: Bell sounds)
[TIN]Y TIM (66A: Literary invalid)
SELEC[TIN]G (45D: "Eeny-meeny-miney-mo" activity)
[TIN] EAR (68A: It's not good for conducting)
SI[T-IN] (62D: 1960s event)
As with most demanding themes, compromises have had to be made in the general fill. These include a mind-boggling FIVE partials (A GAME, A SIGN, A LAW, I'M AS, and ALL YE), four of them in the upper third of the grid. I'm not even counting IT'D, which is probably generous of me. TENACITY and OLD YELLER (56A: 1957 Disney tearjerker) and LET IT SNOW (20A: When said three times, a yuletide song) are all fine, but the only noteworthy or memorable thing about the puzzle is the theme — a rather ordinary rebus. Luckily, even rather ordinary rebuses are enjoyable to me.
Bullets:
17A: Inspiration for "Troilus and Cressida" ("ILIAD") — thought sure it would be something like CHAUCER, since he wrote "Troilus and Criseyde" a good two centuries before Shakespeare wrote his play.
53A: Bean pot (OLLA) — knew it was a pot, didn't know it had anything to do with "beans."
61A: One in civvies who maybe shouldn't be (AWOL) — I always confuse "civvies" and "skivvies," so I had to pause a bit. "Someone who *shouldn't* be wearing underwear, eh? ... hmmm."
4D: P.D.A. communiqué (E-MAIL) — pretty swanky, cosmopolitan clue for an ordinary E-MAIL
26A: Figure in Magic: The Gathering (OGRE) — total guess. Figured it would draw from the same pool of monsters as D&D.
27D: Valley ___, redundantly named California community (GLEN) — What? Where? "Community?" Seems to be specifically a community within the city of Los Angeles.
37D: Gary who invented the Pet Rock (DAHL) — this (and the last clue as well) is what I mean about the clues being "amped up" — here, it's a bit absurd. "Who's the most marginal DAHL we can find!? Pet Rock inventor! Brilliant!" Meanwhile, Arlene and Roald wondering "WTF!?"
59D: Senta's suitor in "The Flying Dutchman" (Erik) — Same category as GLEN and DAHL clues. More familiar stuff is foregone for much more marginal stuff. At least I learned something. Too mad it's the type of "learning" I'm bound to forget before I wake up in the morning (it's 11:26 pm EST right now).
THEME: Some convoluted golf stuff, with circled letters providing visual representations of golf scores, two of which are represented by their familiar terms (BOGEY / EAGLE) in the grid, in unclued but (apparently) arrowed (?) answers. This is what I'm told the grid looks like in print.
Word of the Day:ABATTOIR(5D: Slaughterhouse) —
n.
A slaughterhouse.
Something likened to a slaughterhouse: "The hand of God and mankind's self-inflicted blows seem equally heavy ... giving a strong cumulative impression of the world as an abattoir" (Manchester Guardian Weekly).
[French, from abattre, to strike down, from Old French. See abate.]
• • •
Yet another "F#@% You" to online solvers, as for the third time in five days, we get a grid designed for print and but not replicated accurately in any form the NYT cares to distribute online. I wish I could share the hate mail I'm already getting about this novelty grid trend — good solvers and constructors writing me and asking me "WTF!?!?!" Why not provide a .pdf of the puzzle? This would allow those of us who don't get the paper to print out a version that looks *identical* to the puzzle in the paper. I've nothing against the odd wacky grid, but give me the opportunity to solve it as it was designed. I'm a paying subscriber. [addendum: the NYT site (finally) some time today added a .pdf file of the entire puzzle — it's here]
The bigger issue today is that the puzzle is a design failure. I mean ... a huge failure. Why are there circles depicting "ONE under PAR" and "TWO over PAR," but *NO* "BIRDIE" or "DOUBLE BOGEY" in my grid? Why are there arrows pointing to terms represented by one set of circled words (BOGEY and EAGLE) but no arrows (because no terms) involved with the other set of circled words? It's baffling. I did this puzzle in a ridiculous 2:52 (using the arrow-less, online grid), so it was super easy. Absurdly easy — the least the puzzle could do is be interesting, or at least consistent. I'd settle for explicable. No idea how something like this gets the green light. I really like the tetrad of ABATTOIR, BALLPARK, CODIFIED and PARABOLA, and it's hard not to love TRASHIEST (37A: In the poorest of taste, as a novel), but the rest is terrible. SSTS and SSE and ESSES and AGOB (!?) crossing ATALE and then EFOR and oh my god I have to stop because I'm making myself sad.
Theme answers:
41A: Exactly what's expected (par for the course)
15A: [See grid] [except you online solvers, screw you guys] (bogey)
69A: [See grid] (eagle)
I mean, come on, the circled ONEs and TWOs aren't even embedded in answers that disguise or modify their numericality at all. TWOS and TWO-D? ONER and ONES!? Dreadful. The core idea here is sound (though apparently done before ... more than once), but it needs a complete redesign to work. This is slapdash. Subpar (no pun intended). Yikes.
Bullets:
49A: Classical opera redone by Elton John ("Aida") — but you knew that. I'm just trying to find something to write about.
72A: Creation that's almost human ('droid) — here's part two of that 70-minute critique of "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" that I mentioned yesterday:
4D: Like an unfortunate torero (gored) — yeah, that's pretty unfortunate. I like the understated quality of this clue.
6D: Onesie wearer (tot) — is there an official age range for "TOT?" I think of infants as wearing onesies. Not sure how old one can be and still be a "TOT."
29D: Gadget for someone on K.P. duty (parer) — peeling, or paring, I guess, potatoes, stereotypically. Though the kid on the right appears to be working on apples.
35D: Mountain road features (esses) — wanted RUTS or, in Costa Rica, HOWLER MONKEYS.
Solving time: untimed, but pretty fast - probably 5 or so (on paper) THEME: IRISH COUNTIES (49A: What the answers to the seven starred clues all are or contain)
I tore this puzzle up - every instinct I had was right, and I was guessing answers at times without even looking at the clue. The best example of this latter phenomenon was with TYRONE POWER (*31A: Ava Gardner's co-star in "The Sun Also Rises") - although I think I had the TYR- in place at that point, and possibly the -PO-, so really there wasn't much else it could be. His name was in my brain because it was an answer in a very recent puzzle, I think ... yes, the one where the theme was "Electricity" and all the theme answers ended in synonyms like JUICE or POWER. Anyhoo, this is all to say that I flew through the puzzle with almost no resistance (see 37A: Resistance unit (Ohm)). I also did this thing that I've heard some top solvers (maybe Trip Payne - why do I think that? Was that in Wordplay?) do, where I would read three consecutive Down clues in a row and then keep them in my head when my eyes went back to the grid - you know, to cut down on the time you spend darting your eyes back and forth from grid to clues. This worked like a charm for
34D: Buddy (pal) 35D: Bygone (old) 36D: Puns and such (wit)
Admittedly, the level of difficulty is not high there, but it was nice to experiment with a new solving technique and have it pay off right away.
The thorniest part of the puzzle for me was, strangely, if not ironically, the clue that revealed the theme. I had IRISH CO-, then COU-, then COUN-, and I swear to you that I had to do the Downs in that far SE corner before COUNTIES came to me. "What the hell is an IRISH COUNTESS?," I thought at one point. I am not a huge fan of Things Irish, despite having a good amount of Irish blood in me (I freckle and my skin is white, bordering on translucent). Generally, I think of most things Irish today as White People's Desperate Bid For Ethnicity. You can't be proud of being white (well, you can, in parts of Idaho and Alabama), but you can crow all day long about your Irishness, no matter how thinly it flows in your veins. I've spent a lot of time in Scotland and love it there, so if I'm going to align myself with any pasty group of England-bashers, it's going to be the Scottish. While it's true that Ireland gave us Guinness and early U2 (great), they also gave us the leprechaun and late U2 (horrible). In the end, any culture responsible for both "Riverdance" and "Celtic Women" has some explaining to do.
24A: *1960's Richard Chamberlain TV role (Doctor Kildare)
Richard Chamberlain graduated from my little college. Chirp chirp! PS, he is gay.
46A: Nursery rhyme opening ("Baa, baa...")
Wow, you often see BAA, but so rarely do you see BAA BAA. I had the two A's at the end of this answer and thought "ugh, wrong!" - then I read the clue, saw that I was right, and continued to slice my way through the grid.
14A: *Angler's float (cork)
This one took me Forever (relatively speaking). I think the last person to use a CORK as part of his fishing tackle was Opie.
44D: Erich Weiss, on stage (Houdini)
First, Erich who? Oh, wait, was Erich Weiss HOUDINI's real name? Because until this very second, I thought this clue was telling me that some actor named Erich Weiss played HOUDINI on Broadway. Yes, Weiss is HOUDINI's given name. O my god, HOUDINI grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, just like "Co'sin Larry" on "Perfect Strangers." What, no Mark Linn-Baker fans in the house? OK, your loss. Oh, wait, Larry didn't grow up there - his name was actually Larry Appleton. Nevermind. We hope you've enjoyed this brief foray into 80's sitcom arcana.
56A: Persian sprite (peri) 68A: Actress Garr of "Mr. Mom" (Teri)
I'll take the latter, thanks. And I'll add that too many -ERIs spoil the grid.
I'm always happy to see future Pantheon member OATER in the grid (52D: Western flick). Great word no one uses any more. Also like OAST (43D: Malt-drying kiln), another word you rarely see outside the grid. Will we ever see the end of [Schoolyard retort] as a clue? It was fresh to me, once, and I still like the idea of using stuff kids might shout at each other in the puzzle - but I feel like this clue, or a slight variation on it, shows up in the puzzle at least once a week. It can get you lots of letter combinations, e.g. AM NOT, ARE SO, ARE TOO, etc. Today it gets you AM SO (30D). I would like a moratorium on this playground-chatter-oriented cluing, but I'm not going to get one. BRIERS (47D: Prickly plants) is an icky-looking word - why doesn't it have an "A" instead of an unholy-looking "E"??? Lastly, if anyone asks you "What is the ugliest-looking abbreviation in the history of humankind?," you can confidently answer EXPWY (54D: Multilane rte.).
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!")
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Happy November (my birthday month, my favorite month). I think this one might skew slightly harder than the average Monday, if only for phreaky PHLOX and a host of proper nouns, at least one of which was likely to cause any given solver to seek help in the crosses. Was going to say I've never heard of PHLOX, but it was in a (Wednesday) puzzle two years ago, so I must have heard of it. Just didn't stick. This puzzle makes me miss Michael CAINE. COCAINE just seems like a cheap trick (and not the good kind, the kind that sang "Dream Police" — the other kind). So does KEY BISCAYNE, which I needed many crosses to get, not knowing as much Nixon trivia as perhaps I'm supposed to. One major omission, KAINE-wise: Virginia governor Tim KAINE. I realized that eight letters, there's really nowhere to put him, but if you're going to go with ALL the KAINEs, then get 'em all.
17A: Aid for a person with a limp (WALKING CANE)
