THEME: Presidents Day — Note: "The last names of eight U.S. presidents are hidden in this puzzle's completed grid, reading across, back, up, down and diagonally, word-search style"
Theme answers (sort of):
TIRE TRACK (17A: Imprint on a dirt road)
OUT OF ORDER (29D: Not working)
DREAM ABOUT (11D: Have fantasies about)
TEMPT FATE (54A: Flirt with disaster)
Word of the Day: BOURG (31A: French market town) —
noun
historical
a town or village under the shadow of a castle.
a French market town. [what is a non-market town?] (wikipedia)
• • •
Poor Bob Dole—it's like this puzzle is taunting him... I still have a hard time accepting that "Presidents Day" is a thing. In my day … we had Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday and sometimes we combined them for holiday purposes but no one was ever forced to think of TAFT. And we liked it that way. But sure, why not, as a "holiday"- (so-called) themed puzzle goes, this is fine. Certainly Monday easy (took me roughly four times as long to find all the presidents as it did to solve the thing), and the yuck stuff (BOURG? ODORED!?) wasn't exactly obstructive, so fine. This works. I don't enjoy word searches, but some do, and if I didn't want to do it, I sure didn't have to, so … "Happy" "Presidents Day"!
Bullets:
38A: N.F.L.'s Manti ___ (TEO) — I'd already started to forget him. In college, he was the subject of a very weird fake-girlfriend story. And then I stopped paying attention. To be honest, I wasn't paying much attention to begin with.
39D: New ___, site of the 1988 Republican convention (ORLEANS) — I only just this second got why there was a convention site twofer in today's puzzle (see 6A: CHI). Me: "That's weird … wait, no it isn't."
52A: Six-time Tony winner McDonald (AUDRA) — she's from Fresno, CA. As am I. As was Philip Levine (R.I.P.). He didn't grow up there, but he lived there for the last 30 years. My mom said earlier today: "I loved seeing him at the farmers market in Fresno. He always had such a wonderful smile." I have many of his books. I was sad to hear of his death yesterday.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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THEME: VAMPIRE (38A: Creature who might disagree with the saying at the ends of 17-, 22-, 48- and 56-Across) — ends of the theme answers, taken in order, make up the phrase "ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY"
Word of the Day: YAZ (59D: Big name in Bosox history) —
Carl Michael Yastrzemski (born August 22, 1939) is a former AmericanMajor League Baseballleft fielder and first baseman. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989. Yastrzemski played his entire 23-year baseball career with the Boston Red Sox (1961–1983). He was primarily a left fielder, with part of his later career played at first base and as a designated hitter. Yastrzemski is an 18-time All-Star, the possessor of seven Gold Gloves, a member of the 3000 hit club, and the first American League player in that club to also accumulate over 400 home runs. He is second on the all-time list for games played, and third for total at-bats. He is the Red Sox' all-time leader in career RBIs, runs, hits, singles, doubles, total bases, and games played, and is second on the team's list for home runs behind another Red Sox great, Ted Williams, his predecessor in left field. In 1967, Yastrzemski achieved a peak in his career, leading the Red Sox to the American League pennant for the first time in over two decades, in that season being voted the American League MVP, and being the last winner of the triple crown for batters in the major leagues. (wikipedia)
• • •
I like the grid, but I'm not sure about the theme. Why would a VAMPIRE have an opinion about this saying? What is he disagreeing with, exactly? He's the biter, not the bitten, so ... there's nothing for him to disagree with here. Or is it that he has already been bitten (which caused the vampirism in the first place)? OK, so ... disagreeing with this phrase means ... that he'd like to be bitten again? That's not how vampires work? They don't bite other vampires (do they?). Further, given that "ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY" is an idiom that has nothing to do with actual biting, let alone vampires, shouldn't the VAMPIRE clue have a "?" on it. This is kind of a clunky attempt to be cutesy. But, as I said, the grid is pretty sweet, and I enjoyed solving it, so no big complaints here.
Theme answers:
17A: Simultaneously (ALL AT ONCE) — I think of this as meaning "suddenly," not "simultaneously."
22A: Like many itchy mutts (FLEA-BITTEN)
48A: Be deliberative (THINK TWICE)
56A: Not wanting to be shot? (CAMERA SHY) — that little twist on "shot" caused one of the only slow-downs I had during this solve. The other was at EVADE (I went ELUDE, of course—I hate having those words in my grid for this very reason). Oh, and at CARNEY / CARAT, where I seriously had to think (twice) about whether to go with the "K" Or the "C" spellings on those words.
Ended up breaking the 3-minute mark on this one by exactly one second—pretty normal for me when I solve using software (I prefer Puzzle Solver over AcrossLite), but fast for me when I solve on the NYT applet (as I did today). Something about the way the cursor moves in the applet feels counterintuitive. No big deal. Got my speed today when I slingshotted from COWHAND to DITZ to YAZ without a hitch (59D: Big name in Bosox history). Bam bam bam. LOUPE is a good Halloween word (16A: Jeweler's magnifying tool), as it's (nearly) French for wolf. Loup-garou = werewolf. Also Halloweenish: "E.T. PHONE HOME" (24D: Classic 1982 movie line spoken with an outstretched finger). Was surprised to see the puzzle also includes the lesser known line from that movie, from when E.T. gets drunk: "E.T. HICS."
Bullets:
5D: Indigenous New Zealanders (MAORI) — other good crossword words from N.Z. include MOA, the criminally underused KEA, and, of course, HAAST'S EAGLE (never been in the xword — it's just my favorite bird of all time and I like to mention it every chance I get; if I were dressing up for Halloween, I'd go as a HAAST'S EAGLE. Like the MOA, these eagles are extinct. Unlike the MOA, they were giant flying predators who ate MOA for breakfast)
11D: "It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am" speaker (MUHAMMAD ALI) —I love that guy.
26A: Oscar : film :: ___ : TV (EMMY) — because I'd already seen ERNIE by this point (25D: Bert's pal on "Sesame Street"), I assumed "Oscar" was the Grouch.
THEME: YOU (62D: Object of affection in 17-, 25-, 47- and 61-Across) — theme answers are song titles that span the grid, but each title is missing its final word: "YOU"
Word of the Day: "GIRL I'M GONNA MISS YOU" (47A: "___ 62-Down" (1989 Milli Vanilli hit)) —
"Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" is a song recorded by Milli Vanilli and released as a single in 1989 off the album Girl You Know It's True. The single was a big success, hitting the #1 spot on American and European charts. (wikipedia)
• • •
I'm not feeling the Valentininess of this one. YOU is ... missing. But then it's there. Down there. I get that they are all love songs — at least I assume they are; "I'M WALKING BEHIND YOU" song sounds pretty stalker. But why cut YOU out? Conceptually, that move doesn't say "love" to me. It says break-up or death or something other than happy union. This puzzle was also weirdly uneven, in that All the difficulty lay in the song titles. Puzzle compensated for that relative toughness by making the rest of the grid mind-numbingly easy. So my time was normal, but the experience was not smooth. Plus I got the idea right away, with the first theme answer, so there was no reveal or aha moment or anything. Just "Missing YOU," which was a big John Waite song, which would have made a Nice revealer on a puzzle like this. The Stones' "Miss You" might have worked too. Then you could've ditched the painful-to-remember Milli Vanilli song to avoid repeating the "MISS." But no. Songs themselves aren't a very impressive lot. In order, I would rate them good, ???, "ow, my ears!," and yawn.
Theme answers:
17A: "___ 62-Down" (1962 Ray Charles hit) ("I CAN'T STOP LOVING")
25A: "___ 62-Down" (1953 Eddie Fisher hit) ("I'M WALKING BEHIND")
61A: "___ 62-Down" (1995 Hootie & the Blowfish hit) ("ONLY WANNA BE WITH YOU")
Not much else to say. Had to slog through the first couple titles by crosses, and then wrestled a bit with the spelling on the Hootie song, but otherwise, it all went down quickly. I liked LUNCH BOX (40D: Carrier of a sandwich, soda and cookies, say). Wife questioned the clue on BMX (68A: Big name in stunt bikes), since the sport itself is called BMX (bicycle motocross). Is BMX a brand of bike as well? I know it's a type ... "name" just seems odd.
THEME: MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY — the first words of the theme answers are, respectively, MARTIN, LUTHER, KING and DAY
Word of the Day: LATH (1A: Plaster backing) —
Lath and plaster is a building process used mainly for interior walls in Canada and the United States until the late 1950s. After the 1950s, drywall began to replace the lath and plaster process in the United States. In the United Kingdom, lath and plaster was used for some interior partition walls, but was mostly used in the construction of ceilings. In the UK, plasterboard became a more common ceiling construction from 1945 onwards. (wikipedia)
• • •
This one definitely played tough. I had perhaps my most disastrous Monday opening ever, starting with not knowing LATH (the word still looks strange to me), and then throwing down FLASKS instead of FIFTHS (14D: Bottles of liquor). North was worse, in that I couldn't come up with ON TOE (15A: Fully extended, as a ballerina) or INHD (an ugly answer, 6D: How many TV shows are now shown)—I think I had TIVO, which I knew was Wrong on many levels. Just stared at 5A: Bigger than big. Could come up with only LARGE and ENORM (yes, really). GIANT is an appropriate answer, of course, but with ON TOE and INHD not coming, I wasn't getting much help. Wanted GO BAD, not GO SOUR (5D: Spoil, as milk), never heard of the "VALSE Triste" (28D: Sibelius's "___ Triste"), wrote in ROMP for ROUT (which I do routinely, btw) (35D: Easy win), and still have very little clue how [Embodied] is a good clue for SUBSUMED. That's quite a literal understanding of [Embodied], I think. I managed to get my bearings after the horrible start, and ended with something like a normal Tuesday time. Seems like a fine, simple tribute puzzle. Fill seems about average, though probably somewhat below Ms. Gorski's normally exacting standards. ATTU, Liz? :) (23A: Westernmost of the Aleutians). Favorite answer of the day: UNIONCARDS (27D: Things in the wallets of many laborers).
Theme answers:
17A: "S.N.L." alum who co-starred in "Three Amigos!" (MARTIN SHORT) — ugh, the MARTIN just reminded me of Steve Martin (also in "Three Amigos!"), which only blocked MARTIN SHORT's name further...
26A: His "Dance With My Father" won the 2003 Grammy for Song of the Year (LUTHER VANDROSS)
41A: Traveling show of the 1970s and 2000s that originated in Cairo (KING TUT EXHIBIT) — the Steve Martin subtheme continues...
54A: They're in la-la land (DAY DREAMERS)
This will sound nitpicky, and I freely admit that it is, but I miss the "JR." in this puzzle's theme. Wendy's has as JR. CHEESEBURGER. That's 14, to go with LUTHER. Now just get an odd-numbered KING entry for your center and bam, theme complete (warning: side effects may include Terrible puzzle).
Bullets:
34A: Social reformer Jacob (RIIS) — I feel as if his crossword star is rising. This is likely complete coincidence, i.e. I've probably just seen him a few times this week (I do a lot of puzzles).
61A: Names hidden in Hirschfeld sketches (NINAS) — I remember learning about this hidden NINA thing in a puzzle a few years back, and it baffled me because I had no idea who "Hirschfeld" was, let alone what hidden NINAs were.
2D: Berry touted as a superfood (AÇAI) — I don't know. I'm always skeptical about stuff like this, though I confess that I do enjoy this AÇAI Berry Granola cereal I have every morning with my oatmeal (to give it crunch). You can't really taste the berries.
Enjoy your holiday if you've got one. See you tomorrow.
THEME: "Toasting the New Year" — all about CHAMPAGNE, the letters to which sit inside a glass (made out of black squares). The CHAMPAGNE gives off BUBBLES (letters in circled squares floating above the glass) — and then several long theme answers relate to CHAMPAGNE ...
Word of the Day: BAST (11D: Rope fiber) — bast (bast)
noun
1. Bot. any type of phloem 2. fiber obtained from phloem, used in making ropes, mats, etc.
Etymology: ME < OE bæst, inner bark of trees; akin to Ger & ON bast [PHLOEM = In vascular plants, phloem is the living tissue that carries organic nutrients (known as photosynthate), particularly sucrose, a sugar, to all parts of the plant where needed. (wikipedia)]
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Whoa, it went from Christmas (Friday) to New Year's (today) pretty damned fast. Was not expecting a new holiday puzzle so soon, but it was a welcome surprise. I really like this puzzle — the only real downside (aside from some strained fill) is that it looks JUST like a puzzle Ms. Gorski did last year — the James Bond puzzle that featured a MARTINI glass in the center of the grid (that glass was filled, not surprisingly, with the word MARTINI). In that grid, the glass was delineated by circled squares you had to connect (in your mind or with pen). Today's makes a more bold, clear visual statement with the glass unmistakably in black. Circles are always a tricky proposition — I can love them or hate them, depending on how they're used. I LOVE today's circles, particularly the floating BUBBLES. The quotation in the puzzle is very cool, and the assorted theme-related answers lively and interesting. So I had to deal with the worst abbr. ever (AGN — 61A: Once more: Abbr.), and the crossing of IT with IT (OF IT w/w ACE IT), and three different partials with indefinite articles (A POET, A CRAB, LEAD A). These are acceptable prices to pay for an ambitious, imaginative puzzle like this.
Theme answers:
25A: Purported cry from 100-Across upon discovering this puzzle's subject ("I am drinking the stars")
100A: See 25-Across (Dom Pierre Perignon)
1A: Common toast ("Cheers!")
12A: Sounds accompanying toasts (clinks)
75A: Alternative to 1-Across ("Bottoms up!")
77A: Connoisseur of this puzzle's subject (wine lover)
34D: 100-Across, for one (Benedictine monk)
39D: Cry before "Happy New Year!" ("It's twelve o'clock!") — I have never heard this cry. People count down from 10 to 1. But it's a plausible cry, if, say, party-goers somehow haven't been paying attention closely enough to do the countdown.
Good handful of stuff I've never seen before, including BAST and MERCE (70A: Late choreographer Cunningham). ILIA was also unknown (14D: 1998 Olympic figure skating gold medalist ___ Kulik), and between that and BAST, I had my first and only serious hang-up early on when the quotation read "I AM DRINKING -HEST-RS" — and I thought, "Is CHESTER'S a kind of champagne?" Only other answer I can never remember seeing before is IMARI (115A: Japanese porcelain). Thankfully, the crosses were kind. I was able to pull ANSA (54D: Looped handle, in archaeology) and RACEME from my crossword bag o' tricks (words I know Only from xwords). I've never heard of / don't quite believe in "HULK OUT" (116A: Become enraged, as a comic book figure), but it's really hard for me not to like something that embraces comicbookitude so much.
Bullets:
29A: Vietnamese leader ___ Dinh Diem (Ngo) — another day, another Vietnamese leader. I got this w/o ever seeing the clue. Figured it would be short for Non-Governmental Organization. But no.
62A: Follows the path of 19th-century pioneers (goes west) — love most of the longish non-theme answers in this (remarkably wide open) grid. See also GUNNED FOR, TOOK A CAB, and HORSELIKE.
68A: Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles (aerie) — well ... that makes sense.
114A: Genetic material with no known function (Junk DNA) — Nice. You don't know what something does, so you label it "JUNK." Science!
40D: Discovery of the explorer Louis Juliet (Lake Erie) — lived near ERIE for years. Did not know this.
87D: Biodegradable pipe material (corn cob) — was thinking "pipe" as in PVC pipe, water pipe, etc. Instead: POPEYE!
105D: Arequipa is its second-largest city (Peru) — wow, that's a huge familiarity drop off from largest to second-largest city.
Tweets of the Week will return next week. Been too busy with holidays to collect them this week.
THEME: Happy Bastille Day — theme answers are all related in some way to the French Revolution
Word of the Day: The TROP (49D: Classic Vegas hotel, with "the") — The Tropicana Resort & Casino Las Vegas is located on the Las Vegas Strip, in the township of Paradise, Nevada. It is owned by Tropicana Las Vegas Hotel and Resort Inc. and operated by Armenco Holdings. It offers 1,871 rooms and is attached to a 61,000 sq ft (5,700 m2) casino. The Tropicana also has 110,000 sq ft (10,000 m2) of convention and exhibit space. (wikipedia)
I guess there was just too much Frenchness in this puzzle already to give TROP its more predictable French clue (TROP in Fr. = excessively, too). --------- Hey, I got my Bastille Day puzzle after all. Huzzah. A nice, oversized Bastille Day puzzle (16x15) to accommodate two 16-letter theme answers. I like that the theme answers are so disparate, yet all tie in to the final theme answer (which acts as a kind of exclamation point): FRENCH REVOLUTION. Here's something I didn't know about Bastille Day:
Besides holding a large cache of ammunition and gunpowder, the Bastille had been known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government, and was thus a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy. As it happened, at the time of the siege in July 1789 there were only seven inmates, none of great political significance. (wik)
On a technical level, the puzzle is cleanly filled, with a number of interesting or unusual answers. My favorite is CHIRAC (10D: Sarkozy's presidential predecessor), both because it's a great string of letters that I rarely see in the puzzle, and also because of its tangential relationship to the theme. I'm also enjoying LAGOON (45D: Middle of an atoll) for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe because it's an ALGAL LAGOON. The Creature From the ALGAL LAGOON would be very scary. Or very silly. At any rate, the proximity of LAGOON makes ALGAL (42D: Like some pond life) almost tolerable, and that's a good thing.
Lively grid for a Tuesday, with a Q and a Z and a couple K's. I blew through this puzzle almost without stopping, handily beating my time from yesterday (despite the oversized grid). I don't really think it's "Easy-Medium," but since times were probably somewhat longer than usual on this one, I gave the difficulty rating a slight nudge up. I think the SW was probably the place most likely to give people a tiny bit of trouble. Three abbreviations are crammed down there — PT BOAT (48A: 109, famously), PFCS (48D: Gomer Pyle and platoonmates, by rank: Abbr.), and the TROP (which I'd never seen clued as a casino before). The SSE might have proved vexing. ALGAL isn't exactly common, and "STAR DUST" was totally unknown to me (39D: Hoagy Carmichael classic), so there's a decent possibility of floundering around down there. [sidenote: STARDUST is a famous Vegas resort and casino — could've made a nice tie-in with the TROP] Or maybe some people hiccuped in the west, where lots of proper nouns are giving a group hug to the WALRUS (33A: Oyster eater in a Lewis Carroll verse). WALRUS runs right through STREAM (24D: Dam site), and now I have "WALRUS in the STREAM" (sung to the tune of "Islands in the Stream") stuck in my head. Great. Nothing's going to get *that* out.
Theme answers:
18A: Dickens novel with the 56-Across as its backdrop ("A Tale of Two Cities")
27A: Declaration attributed to Marie Antoinette just before the 56-Across ("Let them eat cake")
43A: Song of the 56-Across ("La Marseillaise")
56A: Even that began in 1789 (French Revolution)
Bullets:
15A: Dwelling section whose name comes from the Arabic for "forbidden place" (harem) — trivia! I did not know this, but "place" and "forbidden" and "dwelling section" and "Arabic" ... basically, the clue ... gave it to me. Funny how that works.
23A: Features of the Sierras (aretes) — ah, Sierras has its "S" back. I'm happy.
35A: Stale Italian bread? (lire) — cuteness.
38A: Catch sight of (espy) — I was ruminating on this word just yesterday, for reasons I can't remember. I was thinking about how one might clue it as a sports award and wondering if you couldn't work Samuel L. Jackson into the clue (he's hosting the ESPY Awards this year and has hosted twice before).
39A: Miserly Marner (Silas) — it's a good day for 19c. novels. Speaking of, I just checked Trollope's "The Way We Live Now" out of the library yesterday. We'll see how that goes.
61A: "Milk's favorite cookie," in commercials (Oreo) — wow, I missed whatever era this slogan is from. Recent? Ancient?
58D: "Able was I _____ I saw Elba" ("ere") — unwelcome Frenchness. One of my least favorite clues for "ERE" (or "IERE," or "EREI"). Tiredness.
59D: La Brea goo (tar) — sounds like a SoCal punk band.
THEME: INDEPENDENCE DAY (7D: Highest-grossing film of 1996) — four theme answers relate to today's national holiday
Word of the Day: Athena ALEA (14A: Greek goddess Athena _____) —
Alea (Greek: ἈλÎα) was an epithet of the Greek goddessAthena, prominent in Arcadian mythology, under which she was worshiped at Alea, Mantineia and Tegea. Alea was initially an independent goddess, but was eventually assimilated with Athena. (wikipedia)
Expected something super-gimmicky, but got an oddly straightforward and uneventful holiday-themed puzzle instead. It's like a Saturday puzzle mated with a Tuesday puzzle, and this odd hybrid was the result. Big and relatively obvious theme answers made the puzzle super-tractable, but then there were these patches where clearly the difficulty had been artificially spiked. ARIS!? (39A: Greed war god, to Greeks). Even googling ARIS doesn't explain that one to you. I'm guessing there are untold numbers of people who have ARES here, grudgingly or happily accepting that the otter-hunting dog is an AEREDALE (actually AIREDALE, 36D: Dog originally bred to hunt otters). Aside from the strong double shot of Greek Goddery, there's not a lot to kill you here. In fact, the puzzle is oddly strong on (overly) familiar fill. EMEER (25A: Big man in Oman) and ENIAC (5A: 1946's "Giant Brain") and EDEL (62A: Henry James biographer Leon) and DDE (29A: Old White House monogram) and even ALAI (57A: Trans _____ (Kyrgyz/Tajik border range) are all old friends, though I'll admit to trying URAL at first for that last one. ALEA/BAKU crossing was a flat-out guess for me, though I'm sure BAKU has been in the puzzle before (4D: Azerbaijan's capital). One of those cities of well over a million people that I've never (or barely) heard of. There are a surprising lot of these, most of them in Asia.
Theme answers:
20A: Fastest ocean liner ever in a transatlantic crossing (3 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes) (THE UNITED STATES)
34A: Private reading? (STARS AND STRIPES) — U.S. military's independent news source
54A: Patriotic display (RED WHITE AND BLUE) — is this a specific flag reference, or just a reference to anything RED WHITE AND BLUE, like party cups arranged on a table or M&Ms on a holiday cake or something?
Started up north, where somehow I was right about SARTRE (1D: He wrote "Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal") and SERB (1A: Landlocked European) right off the bat. Soon I had everything up there but the ALEA/BAKU square, including ROCK, which got me ROCK GARDEN (17A: Landscaper's project), and off we went. INDEPENDENCE DAY followed shortly thereafter. Honestly, the rest went so quickly that I can't break remember it well enough to break it down for you. I know I had NEW TO and had to change it to NEW AT, which I like less (27A: Inexperienced with). This got me TAT, which is beautifully and enigmatically clued, 21D: Parlor pic. TALENT was tough because of the plural clue, 24A: Showbiz bookings. Thankfully, TRAVELED was utterly transparent (35D: Broke a court rule), because that "V" made KVETCH (49A: Bellyache) much more seeable than it might have been otherwise. Didn't know ROD STEIGER (58A: Oscar-winning portrayer of Police Chief Bill Gillespie, 1967), but once I finally got TOLL (55D: Single stroke), I knew who I was dealing with. Wife was upset at herself for not getting 58A because she assumed the answer was "that guy who won an Oscar who just died who played a policeman ..." I said "You mean KARL MALDEN?" "Yeah ... [looking at letters she had in place] ... oh."
Bullets:
10A: "Seance on _____ Afternoon" (1964 suspense thriller) ("a Wet") — one of your uglier partials.
15A: Planet ruled by Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon" (Mongo) — annoyed I didn't get it right off, but needed just a cross or two. Alex Raymond is a god among comics artists.
19A: 1920s leading lady _____ Naldi (Nita) — more crosswordesey stuff. I gotta remember her in my list of Silent Actresses You Must Know (MABEL Normand, Clara BOW, POLA Negri, THEDA BARA, etc.)
30A: Baseball's Dark and Downing (Als) — I know neither. Clue made me think only of Ron Darling.
51A: Non-coffee order at Starbucks (chai) — does CHAI go with NAN? (32A: Asian flatbread). It's a combo I've never tried.
6D: 1973 Ali jaw breaker (Norton) — Boxer Ken. That's back-to-back days with toughish Ali-related clues. Had no idea NORTON broke his jaw. Should have listened to the shorts (see right).
33D: It may be down (pile) — as in carpet? Hmmm. There's a tertiary meaning of PILE: "Soft fine hair, fur, or wool." Maybe that's it.
34D: It may make people jump to a conclusion (sack race) — That's very clever.
37D: PAC for those who pack? (NRA) — another Tuesday clue.
46D: Bath beads maker (Calgon) — "take me away!"
48D: Disc holder (stereo) — The CD/DVD player holds the disc. This clue ... is like calling a HOUSE a [Couch holder].
THEME: FEEL LIKE A FOOL (33A: Regret some stupidity ... with a hint to this puzzle's theme) - common expressions with FEEL or FOOL have their vowels reversed, resulting in ridiculous phrases, which are then clued
This felt much more like a Wednesday than a Tuesday puzzle, but I'm not complaining, as the puzzle is really first-rate. Haven't seen Manny Nosowsky's name on a puzzle for a while - it's good to see Will bring out (one of) the best to handle a special "holiday" puzzle (is April Fool's Day considered a "holiday" if no one gets off work?). I rated the puzzle "Medium-Challenging," but that's more from a speed perspective (at least for me). It's entirely doable - there were just a number of snags that kept me from flying through the puzzle in my normal Tuesday time. The theme phrases themselves tended to be what held me back, as only a couple of them came easily. I had the most trouble with 23D, FOOLING OKAY, as FEELING OKAY does not seem like a strong self-standing phrase. FEELING GOOD or FEELING FINE = much more in-the-language. But no matter. Look at the great effect you get with that OKAY - it's an anagram of its neighbor on the other side of the black squares: KAYO (51D: Bout-ending slug). Nice.
Theme answers:
16A: Nitwit's swoon? (fool faint)
8D: Vibes not being picked up by anyone? (nobody's feel)
23D: Doing credible work as a magician? (fooling okay)
54A: Spring in the air? (April feel)
It's especially clever that the E's go to O's as often as the O's go to E's in this puzzle. You also get some exciting long-answer action in the NW and SE, as well as fairly open NE and SW corners (which ups the level of difficulty somewhat). Add to that high-end words like MIASMA (40D: Bad atmosphere) and BILGE (18A: Nonsense, slangily) and QUIRE (5D: Paper quantity), and you have a more-exciting-than-average Tuesday puzzle. Tuesdays are the puzzles I malign most often, so this Manny Nosowsky puzzle is a real treat.
Take note:
39D: Belly part (navel)
6D: Type of 39-Down (innie) - nice, though INNIE more aptly describes a BELLY BUTTON - NAVEL is a bit formal here.
1A: Dress shirt closer (stud) - I stared at this for five seconds or so trying to picture a dress shirt. Then I heard Olivia Newton-John say "Tell me about it, STUD" ("Grease"). She talks to me sometimes.
4D: "Excellent!," in slang (def) - I will never stop loving seeing DEF in the puzzle. I especially like how it's clued via "excellent," when I'm pretty sure that the group of people who would say "Excellent!" and the group that would say "Def!" are almost entirely non-overlapping. Perhaps someone can draw a Venn diagram for illustration purposes.
5A: Four times a day, on an Rx (QID) - Latin helped. I've seen BID and TID, but not QID.
25A: Kind of eyes (goo goo) - had GOOGLE and/or GOOGLY in there for a bit.
14A: Acapulco article (una) - very basic, yet I blanked on it at first ... and second.
38A: Watergate hearings chairman Sam (Ervin) - I was too young. Plus, even when I could see it was some kind of ERVIN, I initially opted for the other kind: IRVIN.
40A: Univ. where "Good Will Hunting" is set (M.I.T.) - now that I think of it, of course that movie was set in / around Boston, but as I was solving, MIT was the only 3-letter Univ. in my head, so I just threw it down.
50A: Vinegar: Prefix (aceto-) - my first clue that the FINE part of FOOLING FINE was wrong. How could a prefix end in "F"?
51A: Pre-remote channel changer (knob) - With the exception of a couple years of early-90s cable, the KNOB was my "channel changer" until 1999. Sad.
59A: Analyze the composition of (assay) - "Why won't ASSESS fit? ... oh, because it's wrong? I see."
16D: Red River city (Fargo) - never saw this clue, thankfully. RED RIVER sounds way more Western (as in Texas / oater western) than it does North Dakotan. Not sure why. Isn't there an OATER called "Red River?" Aha, no wonder. It's a Howard Hawks western, starring John Wayne, set, at least in part, in Texas. I feel better now.
17D: Houston hockey player (Aero) - gets more crossword play than any minor league team in any sport, ever. I think.
24D: Mozart's "Madamina," e.g. (aria) - one of many basic crossword words dressed up in fancy clothing today. See also ERIE, LEIS, and ATRIA.
35D: Push too hard, as an argument (oversell) - really like this. It's risky, but it works. Plus, it rhymes with its parallel neighbor, LIVE WELL (36D: Have it good).
52D: Mennen shaving brand (Afta) - AFTA is like fool's gold, in that it looks like what I want (ATRA), but isn't.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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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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