THEME: in old Rome? — the letter strings "ONE," "TWO," "FOUR," and "EIGHT" are represented in the grid by their Roman numeral equivalents:
Theme answers:
WALKED (I) GGSHELLS (walked [on e]ggshells) (16A: Used extreme caution, in old Rome?)
"DON (II) RRY ABOUT IT" ("don'[t wo]rry about it") (30A: "Everything will be fine," in old Rome?)
THE SKIN O (IV) TEETH (the skin o[f our] teeth) (38A: What we might escape by, in old Rome?)
W(VIII) HE EVIDENCE (w[eigh t]he evidence) (57A: Do a judge's job, in old Rome?)
Word of the Day: ERG (44A: What a piece of work!) —
The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10−7joules (100nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol erg. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from ergon (ἔργον), a Greek word meaning 'work' or 'task'.
An erg is the amount of work done by a force of one dyne exerted for a distance of one centimetre. In the CGS base units, it is equal to one gram centimetre-squared per second-squared (g⋅cm2/s2). It is thus equal to 10−7joules or 100 nanojoules (nJ) in SI units. (wikipedia)
• • •
[it means "One Claudius"]
I kinda liked unpacking these theme answers. The numerals were all well and truly buried in their respective answers (all of them breaking across two words, rather than merely embedded in a single word, or appearing as the numbers themselves, which would've been boring). This is the kind of gibberish that I can accept in my grid—gibberish that isn't really gibberish if you're reading it right. And they're all a perfect grid-spanning 15, and the numbers form an orderly list, doubling as you progress down the grid. I'd've preferred "ancient Rome" to "old Rome" in the clues. Otherwise, I think the theme is aces. But man, things have gotten way, way too easy of late. For a while there, the interim editor seemed to have jacked the difficulty of the puzzles up in a pretty noticeable way (whether intentionally or not), but things have yawed waaaayyy in the other direction in recent days. Every day this week has felt like a Monday until today, which (gimmick aside) felt like a Tuesday. I really would like my Thursdays to have more punch and more flash. The fill today is smooth and uncringey (hurray), and MILD WINTER and STEEP FINES are solid longer answers, but the theme is carrying all of the excitement burden. The burden of interest? The only thing interesting about the puzzle is the theme, is what I'm saying. In a case like this, on a Thursday, the cluing could at least try to put up a bit of fight—get weird or clever or something. But I've looked this puzzle over and have marked hardly any clues as particularly tough or tricky. Fight me, puzzle!
Whatever interest ON IN YEARS and GO ON A TEAR had was negated by the fact that they both contain "ON." Normally an "ON" dupe would not be something I'd notice (or care about), unless the "ON" words intersected or there were three+ "ON"s or something like that. But when symmetrical marquee-level answers dupe a word, I notice. But as I say, moving through the non-thematic areas of this puzzle was largely a pleasant experience. A nice walk. No cool birds or beautiful foliage, but no rain or gnat swarms either. Only a few hesitations and missteps today. Got MILD W- and when I couldn't make MILD WEATHER fit, I was briefly confused. I guess the word "news" in the clue threw me a bit—I think of the weather as "news," but not the season itself. "Forecast" might've got me there. But no matter. My level of confusion, like the imagined weather (I mean winter), was merely mild. I thought a SQUAB was a kind of bird, not a [Pigeon dish]. Ah, I see it is an "immature domestic pigeon or its meat" (wikipedia) (my emph.). I was not sure if it was a dish that contained pigeon, or something the pigeon itself might eat. Also, I routinely confuse SQUAB and SQUIB, so thank god CAR (eventually) was clear (26A: Where F comes before E?) (i.e. on the gas gauge).
Some more notes:
9A: Body part where a sock might go? (CHIN) — this one seems designed to get you to write in SHIN. Well, anyway, that's what I did. But SHIN would mean reading the clue in a more literal, "?"-less way. Here, the sock is not an article of clothing, but a punch. And if you're going to sock someone, I guess the chin is as good a place as any (though your hand would probably prefer the belly)
27A: Product identifier similar to a U.P.C. (SKU) — Me: "Uh ... CPU?" (no: that's computerese for "central processing unit”). I haven't seen or thought about SKU numbers in forever, and don't actually know what SKU stands for, so let's find out ... drum roll ... googling ... OK, looks like it's "stock keeping unit." It's pronounced "skew," right? "Skoo" seems like it would be too silly for any self-respecting person to want to say.
46A: Result of a failed field sobriety test, for short (DWI) — still not sure what the difference between DWI and DUI is (from a legal standpoint, that is). I went, as I always do, with DUI, largely because it's just easier to say, unless you've decided to treat them as true acronyms, in which case I believe they are both pronounced "Dwee!"
[I've seen this dumb billboard around town so many times, you'd think I'd've switched my default from DUI to DWI by now. True story: I first thought these were political billboards meant to smear some guy named Tom who was running for office]
12D: Mitchell & ___ (sports apparel company) (NESS) — No idea. It's Eliot or Loch or go to hell, NESS-wise.
51D: Like the smell of a pub (BEERY) — do not love this as an adjective. As a supporting actor on The Rockford Files, however, I'd love it:
[Noah BEERY, Jr. as Jim's dad, Rocky]
See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. SWAK = “Sealed With A Kiss”; I though this was well known, but based on some initial comments, apparently not
P.P.S. reader Daniel G. sent me a picture of his cat a while back and I don't remember why and it's just been sitting on my desktop for weeks and weeks now, so now seems as good a time as any to post it—this is Gorky. He's helping:
THEME: "My Two Cents" — familiar two-word phrases where second word word represents an offering of one's thoughts (hence the puzzle title); in the familiar phrase, the first word is adjectival, but the clue imagines it as a noun, so that, for instance, DOUBLE TAKE is clued as as a "take" about a (stunt) "double"; GAME THEORY is clued a "theory" about (wild) "game"; etc.
Theme answers:
DOUBLE TAKE (23A: "It's obvious the actors aren't doing these stunts")
GAME THEORY (25A: "Hares and rabbits are really the same animal, some say") (the "some say" feels redundant / unnecessary)
SERVING SUGGESTION (46A: "Waiter, you can hold off bringing the coffee till the end of the meal") (this isn't really "two cents" at all, or even a "suggestion"; it's essentially an order)
BLANKET RECOMMENDATION (69A: "Wool will keep you the warmest")
DISSENTING OPINION (94A: "Being contrarian is fun!")
CORE BELIEF (116A: "Whaddya mean it's the pits? It's the best part of an apple!")
SAGE ADVICE (118A: "Use it for Thanksgiving stuffing and saltimbocca")
Word of the Day: ST. MARTIN (64D: One of the Leewards) —
Saint Martin (French: Saint-Martin; Dutch: Sint Maarten) is an island in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 300 km (190 mi) east of Puerto Rico. The 87 square kilometres (34 sq mi) island is divided roughly 60:40 between the French Republic (53 square kilometres (20 sq mi)) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (34 square kilometres (13 sq mi)), but the Dutch part is more populated than the French part. The division dates to 1648. The northern French part comprises the Collectivity of Saint Martin and is an overseas collectivity of the French Republic. As part of France, the French part of the island is also part of the European Union. The southern Dutch part comprises Sint Maarten and is one of four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. (wikipedia)
• • •
This just isn't my thing. It got a bit better toward the middle and end, when I realized that the theme was a lot tighter than I'd imagined at first. It wasn't til I was in the bottom half of the grid that it wasn't just that the sense (cents?) of the phrases were being reimagined, but that all the clues were themselves examples of someone's offering their "two cents," and all the second words in the themers were rough synonyms for one's "two cents." Sincerely, I thought the only thing going on was some vague "cents" / "sense" pun. But the clues, while wacky, weren't really haha wacky. Kind of groaner-wacky, at best. And without real humor, the pattern became a bit repetitive (as patterns will, I suppose). Not a SERVING SUGGESTION but a suggestion *about* a serving, not a BLANKET RECOMMENDATION but a recommendation *regarding* blankets. And on and on. Advice about sage. A belief about (apple) cores. It's a tight concept, but the highs for me just weren't that high, and the humor involved was corny to me, mostly because it could never get to a truly and genuinely Wacky place. It just sort of stayed in dad joke territory. Chuckleworthy, maybe, but it's hard to keep the chuckles coming after the fifth or so iteration of this same idea.
The most memorable part of the puzzle was the utter bafflement and frustration I felt trying to parseA BIT ODD (61D: Somewhat off). Absolute rookie mistake, clinging to the idea that the answer would be a single word, ugh. I had this same "you ****ing idiot!" self-recrimination the other day on Wordle, when, four guesses in, I just had -A--E and couldn't do Anything with the remaining consonants; I was thinking 'what obscure word could this possibly be?' ... until I (finally) realized "Oh, look, it's that very obscure word 'MAYBE'! Aaaargh..." So ABITOFF was, yes, an adventure, made more adventurous by my completely non-knowing of TAI (77A: Red snapper, on a sushi menu). I've probably seen that answer a dozen times over the years, but it just never sticks. If you'd told me that first letter was virtually any consonant in the alphabet, I'd've believed you. I also have no memory of ever having heard of the island of ST. MARTIN. Weird that the opening section of ST. MARTIN's wikipedia page (where it is never once spelled with the "Saint" abbreviated) contains no mention of its being part of the Leeward Islands (which are never referred to on *their* wikipedia page as the "Leewards"). Does get mentioned, eventually, and it's in the sidebar, but somehow I expected that fact to be more ... forward. Lots and lots of Leewards, it looks like: Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, etc. After I got the ST. I thought of KITTS and BARTS and then I was out of ideas. I know lots of ST. MARTINs (the publisher ... the, uh, saint, I guess), but this island slipped my mind. I've never vacationed in the Caribbean, not once, so I've never really had occasion to make sense of where all the damn islands are. Very much my bad.
I also had trouble parsing RAN ITS COURSE, but I really liked that one, ultimately (63D: Developed and finished naturally). Probably my favorite answer in the grid. Much less fond of IN STONE standing awkwardly on its own (as the latter part of SET / IN STONE), and even less fond of TOTO TOO doing the same (43D: Glinda's reassurance to Dorothy on whether her dog can also return to Kansas). That answer is counting on your "Wizard of Oz" fandom to override the sensible part of your brain, which is sensibly telling you "that's not a standalone thing, not even close." I almost (Almost) like it because it has the absolute gall to not only stand there like it's something, but to do so while crossing its near-sound-alike cousin, TOE-TO-TOE. "Yes, hello, I am TOTO TOO, have you met my cousin, TOE-TO-TOE? What do you mean our names are silly and implausible!? How dare you."
I wondered why bookstores would have SAFES until I realized they probably had CAFES (107D: Features of some bookstores). I left the first two letters of UNARM blank because I convinced myself that DEARM might be a thing (yes, it's dumb, but no dumber than UNARM—the word is DISARM!). Completely forgot that Rick was a BLAINE (27A: Rick's last name in "Casablanca"). I'll take the puzzle's word for it that an ICE BOAT is a thing (15D: Skimmer over a frozen lake). And that TD BANK is a thing (4D: Financial institution that lends its name to a Boston arena)—I mean, now that I see it, I've heard of it, but woof, parsing that, also rough (ruff!). I can accept NRA today because the clue consigns that org. to where it belongs, i.e. Loserdom (37D: Controversial org. that filed for bankruptcy in 2021). I cannot, however, accept GREEN CAR (92D: Vehicle with lower emissions)(lower ... than what?); you mean ECOCAR, or something similarly adspeaky. A GREEN CAR is just a car with green paint. In fact, GREEN CAR is the green paint of cars ("green paint" being the general term for a crossword answer that's a real enough term, but that doesn't really have standalone power; for example, I've seen sad women before, but SAD WOMEN would not make a good crossword answer). EVS, PLUGINS, ECOCARS, even E-CARS, I'd buy all these before GREEN CAR. I do not buy GREEN CAR, nor would I but *a* GREEN CAR. Probably. Our car is a kind of maroon. Do you own a green car? Is it an AMC Gremlin? If not, why not? Look at this baby!
Since I'm down to amusing myself with Google Image Searches, I should probably wrap things up. See you next time.
Word of the Day: TANKA (25A: 31-syllable Japanese poem) —
Tanka (短歌, "short poem") is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. // Originally, in the time of the Man'yōshū (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term tanka was used to distinguish "short poems" from the longer chōka (長歌, "long poems"). In the ninth and tenth centuries, however, notably with the compilation of the Kokinshū, the short poem became the dominant form of poetry in Japan, and the originally general word waka became the standard name for this form. Japanese poet and critic Masaoka Shiki revived the term tanka in the early twentieth century for his statement that waka should be renewed and modernized.Haiku is also a term of his invention, used for his revision of standalone hokku, with the same idea. // Tanka consist of five units (often treated as separate lines when romanized or translated) usually with the following pattern ofon(often treated as, roughly, the number of syllables per unit or line):
5-7-5-7-7.
The 5-7-5 is called the kami-no-ku (上の句, "upper phrase"), and the 7-7 is called the shimo-no-ku (下の句, "lower phrase").
• • •
This was a weird and often unpleasant puzzle. It's got a few surprising bright spots, but mostly it was just hard, and hard for the wrong reasons. The longer answers, the grid-spanning 15s that cross the grid three times, were all a cinch. Just needed a few crosses to get the top and the bottom ones, and wouldn't have needed any to get the middle one: GAME SHOW NETWORK (36A: Its slogan "Get Smarter Now" matches its initials). Those 15s are all good answers, and they make a nice trellis to hang the rest of the grid on ... but the trellis was too often ratty, and what made the solving experience dreary was that the difficulty didn't come with any payoff because it all came around short, gunky stuff. I spent most of my time in two very small areas, unable to come up with 3-, 4-, and 5-letter answers because a. names, of course, or b. deliberately tenuous cluing, but again the real problem wasn't just the difficulty (it's Saturday, after all), it's that when I overcame the difficulty, I was rewarded with ... AVI? The bird prefix? And ACTII? Oof. There was no "ooh" or "aha," just "ugh, well at least that's over." So while there are some definite high points to the grid, it mostly seemed crosswordesey (ABET ERNST STENO the unwelcome return of ALERO etc.), and hard in all the wrong places, for all the wrong reasons. So I'm left not thinking "wow, GRAWLIX, that was cool!" but instead "how ... is OVER ... [During]? ... oh ... like, 'OVER the weekend,' 'OVER Christmas break,' that kind of [During]? ... [sigh], OK."
It also seemed kinda oldish. The STENO ALERO SKAT-type short stuff was a big part of that, but very few of the longer answers seemed of-this-century either. The GAME SHOW NETWORK is built on nostalgia for the mid-late 20th century. POT BROWNIEs still exist, I assume, but I associate them with a similarly bygone era, for sure (8D: Delectable made with grass). Very 70s / 80s. The cultural center of gravity here is somewhere around when the Sex Pistols were popular. Or when "ALFIE" was popular. ALFIE is my cat's name, so I love ALFIE, but you get my point—the puzzle seemed like it was for someone sitting around eating POT BROWNIEs and watching OATERS on late-night TV. But the retro vibe isn't a problem, exactly, and I might not even have noticed it if the short fill had been stronger, and I might not even have noticed that the short fill wasn't that strong if I hadn't been forced to spend so much time with it. As I said, the bulk of my time was spent trying to figure out tiny sections that ended up containing precisely zero in the way of satisfying payoff. The first such section was the very first section, right at 1A: Certain archaeological site (BOG). Of course I wrote in DIG. This is what I don't get: designing traps so that the solver will have to linger over gunky stuff like AVI- (14A: Flying start?). Anyway, BOG over AVI, just brutal, and much more brutal before I finally got GIVEN NAME, which ... I don't really see what that clue has to do with "Americans" (scores of other countries have first names as GIVEN NAMEs). That "Americans" just felt cheap. Could just as well have been "among the French" or something, what the hell? And of course GIVEN gave me the "G" which "confirmed" DIG, so I wrong in DING (DING!) for 1D: When doubled, attention-grabbing (BANG). I also had WENT DIM before GREW DIM at first, but that was one of the first things about the section I actually managed to fix (20A: Faded). When I finally put in BOG, I didn't feel a whoosh of success; I felt like I'd been conned.
The other small section to absolutely bring me to a halt was at the bottom of the grid. Speaking of last century ... BROWSER WAR? The first one? How many were there??? I lived through that period of tech history and yet had no idea, even with BROWSER in place, what might come after. BROWSER ... W- ... BROWSER WEB? Just no clue on those last three letters (eventually two letters), and unfortunately those letters went right into the very hardest part of the puzzle for me: some soccer name I've never heard of (in fact, a name I've never seen at all, in any context) underneath a [Musical segment] that looks technical and maybe Italian but ends up just being the dumb common answer ACT II. As with "Americans" and GIVEN NAME, here we have a seemingly narrow clue being used to define an exceedingly general thing. There are ACT IIs in lots of works. [Musical segment] is so vague it's stupid. You can't tell it's a stage musical (which is probably the point), but even then ... ugh. It's like having [Part of a 1995 Lamborghini Diablo] and having the answer be TIRE or AXLE. In that same section, I had ARCH before ARTY (53D: Affected), and it took me forever to understand what (or who) the "toaster" was in the STEIN clue (50D: A toaster might hold one) (toaster = one who gives a toast, so the STEIN is ... full of beer ... I guess). So what sticks with me about this puzzle is almost exclusively BOG/AVI and ACTII/REYNA—not the greatest aftertaste. It's not that I didn't know stuff that bothers me. I didn't know TANKA, and felt only too happy to learn about it. Why? Why did TANKA play sweet and REYNA sour? Because the puzzle didn't use TANKA to bog me down in a tiny corner of the puzzle. I got it as part of the puzzle flow. You solve, you hit difficulty, you work around it. Flow! BOG/AVI and ACTII/REYNA, by contrast, made me feel trapped and suffocated. Backed into an airless corner. It was like the puzzle wanted me to learnTANKA, but wanted to make it torture for me to even get close to REYNA.
JETÉ before LUTZ (10D: Leap with a twist) and GOING FAST before GOING ONCE (33D: About to be sold). The rest of the puzzle was (I'm recalling, as I look over it now) pretty decent. I really liked HARD PASS (4D: "That's a big 'no thanks'"). That and GRAWLIX are my favorite answers of the day (GRAWLIX is a debut) (23D: String of typographical symbols like @%$&!, to represent an obscenity). I think I might be an outlier, not only in my love for the word, but in my even knowing what the word means. I teach a course on Comics, so it's right in my wheelhouse, but it's a pretty technical term (or so I thought). I have no idea how well-known it is, generally. I remember being so happy to learn that there was even a term for the swearing symbols in comics! I later learned that expressive lines that emanate from a cartoon character (like wavy stink lines) are called EMANATA, and the "drops of sweat that spray outwards from a cartoon character under emotional distress" are called PLEWDS. I doubt you'll ever see either of those in the grid, but now you know.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Speaking of comics, I wish today's SOREL had been Edward SOREL (13D: Philosopher Georges). You've seen his work a lot, probably. Here's his cover for the 1966 Esquire that contained Gay Talese's famous essay, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold":
He's been astonishingly prolific, over a long career. Lots of political cartoons, lots of New Yorker covers. As for [Philosopher Georges] ... I got nothing. Apparently there is also a French historian named SOREL—Albert SOREL. He was the preferred SOREL of the Maleskan era. I also see that there is apparently a Canadian city named SOREL—Maleska liked that clue too. But Maleska wasn't done there. He would like you to know that SOREL is also a type of cement (!?!?) and that Agnès SOREL was a "favorite of Charles VII" (whoever that is). The protagonist of Stendahl's Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) is named Julien SOREL. So those are some SOREL facts for you today. Since 1998, Shortz has made the cartoonist his go-to SOREL clue, but he also brought in today's "philosopher," Georges, and has kept him around as his secondary, tougher SOREL option. Wikipedia tells me that "Sorelianism [!!!] is considered to be a precursor to fascism," so that's fun. Basically I'm saying please give me cartoonists, every chance you get. Thank you.
Word of the Day: CHIRASHI (48A: Japanese dish of raw fish and vegetables over rice) —
Chirashizushi (ちらし寿司, "scattered sushi", also referred to as barazushi) serves the rice in a bowl and tops it with a variety of raw fish and vegetable garnishes. [...] It is eaten annually on Hinamatsuri in March and Kodomonohi in May.
Edomae chirashizushi (Edo-style scattered sushi) is served with uncooked ingredients in an artful arrangement.
Gomokuzushi (Kansai-style sushi) consists of cooked or uncooked ingredients mixed in the body of rice.
Sake-zushi (Kyushu-style sushi) uses rice wine over vinegar in preparing the rice, and is topped with shrimp, sea bream, octopus, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots and shredded omelette. (wikipedia)
• • •
This just wasn't for me. Full of things I either didn't know, didn't care about, or actively don't like. Tone was set by 1-Across, as it often is. I just have no idea what a BED-IN-A-BAG is (1A: Ensemble purchase that includes sheets and pillowcases). I got the "BED" part easy enough, but after that, I just shrugged as I watched letter after letter go in, and even after I saw that it had to be BED-IN-A-BAG, I hesitated to write it in, so dumb a concept did it seem. SOAP-ON-A-ROPE, I know. BED-IN-A-BAG, no. Is it a brand? I don't care enough to look it up. I did care enough to look up CHIRASHI, which sounds delicious (as most food does to me, frankly), but it didn't even have its own wikipedia page. It was buried in the "Sushi" page and even there wasn't referred to as CHIRASHI, but as "Chirashizushi." Not sure how I got to be 52 years old, having eaten in all kinds of restaurants all over the world, following food writers on social media for years, etc., and not heard of CHIRASHI, but here we are! Not the puzzle's fault, happy to learn the term, but like BED-IN-A-BAG, this just wasn't from anywhere in my universe. I also actively dislike gambling (SHOOT CRAPS), have (mostly) negative feelings about (most) fraternities and sororities (CHI OMEGA) and college football (BYU) (29D: One side of a coll. football "Holy War" rivalry) and TMZ (see 45A: Company that helped launch TMZ =>AOL), and wouldn't LEAN RIGHT if you paid me. You'd think ANTIFA would make up for LEAN RIGHT, politically, but the only time I ever hear the term "ANTIFA" is in the mouth of some paranoid right-wing dickhead, so ... no, that didn't help. I had one moment of "ah, nice," and that was when I got RUNNER'S HIGH (24D: Rush while racing?). I would never use the term, since the parallel to a drug high is inapt (or just unappealing to me). but I have felt great while running, and I do like the phrase as a puzzle answer. But overwhelmingly, I felt outside of whatever the intended demographic was for this puzzle.
I kind of resented GO TO THERAPY, both the answer itself and (esp.) the non-clue it gets in today's puzzle (9D: What over 40 million U.S. adults do annually). As a verb phrase, I don't think it has great stand-alone status. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the problem is the clue. There's nothing at all therapy-specific about it. Who the hell cares what arbitrary number of millions of people do a thing. That number (40 million) does absolutely nothing to connect you to the answer. It's not colorful or fun or clever. It's blah. Further, the answer seems intended to get you to think GO TO THE... where "THE" appears to be the definite article. I had GO TO THE MALL written in there before I finally got GO TO THERAPY. So the puzzle gives you nothing on the clue end and the answer itself seems designed to be misdirective. I can tolerate the misdirection if I feel like the clue is good. But the clue is bad. Or dull. Therapy is good, my experience with this answer was not. Had another misparsing adventure in the SE, with INDIA- .... which ended up being IN space DIAPERS (53A: Untrained, perhaps). But I didn't mind that one so much, because at least that answer has a real clue. Give RITA Wilson a real clue too, please (24A: Wilson on the Hollywood Walk of Fame). The Hollywood Walk of Fame is suuuuuuuuch a bummer as clue fodder. Lazy and ultimately meaningless. Give me something *specific*. Make the puzzle vivid and interesting! Respect RITA! Sigh.
MALAR and SACRAL made me wince, mostly because they have that "niche adjective" quality I find hard to love. Had MOLAR and SACRED in there at first, respectively. Because MOLAR and SACRED are words you might actually use. It's not the greatest feeling to write in a word but then have to scrap it for something that is far less of a word. Is HO HO HO a "cheer"? (42D: Christmas cheer?). He's not leading you in a chant ("Gimme an 'H'!"), he's expressing ... his own cheer, I guess? Is that the meaning? Santa's expression of Christmas cheer? You're torturing your clue there. There are limits to what the "?" can do for you, and you should respect them. I had BOUNCES before POUNCES (27D: Springs), but mostly my struggles in this one involved simple non-familiarity with terms / non-interest in subject matter. But I do want to try CHIRASHI now. So the experience wasn't a total loss. See you tomorrow.
Relative difficulty: Challenging (roughly 2x last week's time)
THEME: "A Shot in the Dark" — in addition to two answers that have the clue [Shot in the dark] (23A: UNEDUCATED GUESS / 127A: LAST DITCH EFFORT), there are six black (so, "dark") squares that actually represent words that are also types of "shots"; each of said squares is the intersecting point for two themers, and you need to supply the word in the black square to make sense of those themers. Thus:
Theme answers:
4D: Tools for landscapers (HEDGE TRIMMERS) / 43A: Fix for a bald spot (HAIR IMPLANT) (rim shot)
33A: Improved version of an existing product (BETTER MOUSETRAP) / 15D: "Hallelujah!" ("PRAISE TO GOD!") (set shot)
78A: Highly resistant elastomer (SILICONE RUBBER) / 57D: Phenomenon by which electrons radiate from a heated filament, so named for a famous observer (EDISON EFFECT) (one-shot)
100A: Detectives (PRIVATE EYES) / 74D: When the first "Peanuts" comic appeared (NINETEEN-FIFTY) (tee shot)
110A: Like some roller chains and ball bearings (SELF-LUBRICATING) / 89D: Very easy living (LAP OF LUXURY) (flu shot)
Word of the Day: BOP-IT (???) (59A: Hasbro game requiring increasingly quick reflexes) —
• • •
This is a puzzle with a dense, multi-layered, architecturally impressive theme, and I viscerally disliked almost every second of solving it. Torture. What made it godawful was not knowing when I was dealing with a theme answer. No clue. Couldn't see it. Over and over. The worst was obviously HEDGET, which was the first black-square-gimmick answer I came to; since I *already got one of the theme answers* (UNEDUCATED GUESS), and it didn't have any missing parts, I was not looking for missing parts. So the black square thing blindsided me. I was probably way over on the other side of the grid, at the BETTER MOUSETRAP / "PRAISE TO GOD!" cross, when I finally figured out the gimmick, but even after figuring it out, those black squares kept being a mystery, and I could never tell when I was dealing with one unless I looked at a subsequent Across or Down, which is just not the way I solve puzzles. It took *forever* for me to run into my first "-" clue (at 37A), which was the first point at which I realized I was dealing with one of these "jump or cross a black square, or maybe turn a corner"-type answers. So much of this solve was spent not being able to see I was even dealing with a themer, or else staring at part of an answer that had "-" for a clue, which kept requiring me to move the cursor back to see what the actual clue was. The amount of fussiness was staggering.
This is one where solving on paper was probably easier, because solving in software, where you can't see all the clues at once, it was just disorienting. And the theme was so dense it never ended. And the themers often felt very forced (see "PRAISE TO GOD!" which is missing the word "BE"; or EDISON EFFECT, which, LOL, what is that? Or SILICONE RUBBER, shrug, or SELF-LUBRICATING, if you say so, etc.). I see now that all the "shot" squares are symmetrical, but during the solve, that didn't help any. It was the sloggiest slog I've slogged in a good long time. The fill was also under tremendous pressure because of the dense theme, so it was frequently not good (CIAOS? more than one CIAO?). And on top of *that*, it was clued really difficult much of the time. This never evened out. Never got better. Just pain and annoyance from start to finish. Put it in the "Great Architecture" Hall of Fame if you want, but solving it was an extremely off-putting experience.
"Dude" is already slang, so the clue on BRAH is so weird (1A: Dude, slangily). Also, ugh, that can be spelled so many ways (BRAH, BRUH, BRO ... pretty sure I've seen BRUV, but maybe that's British ... yes, it is). What the actual [beeeeeeep] is CRUMP!?!?! (21A: Loud thudding sound). I thought there was some theme action going on somewhere there because that is not a word I've ever seen without an "-ET" on the end. Wow. The BOP-IT / BEER crossing nearly killed me, as I don't know BOP-IT at all, and the BEER clue was a Zappa quote, where the missing word could have been An-Y-Thing! (59D: "You can't be a real country unless you have a ___ and an airline": Frank Zappa). Again, ugh. The ENZI / 'ZONA cross, also double-ugh. I forgot ENZI existed (and was perfectly happy that way), and then, wow not terribly familiar with that abbr. of "Arizona." Seems reasonable, I guess, but really this crossing is a long, horrible way to go just to get a "Z" in the grid. Bizarre. You don't get a Razzy for being PANNED, you get it for being terrible, and while terrible movies do often get PANNED, the connection there between clue and answer is awfully weak. PANNED!? (98A: Like Golden Raspberry-"winning" films). Took forever, and then getting it was so disappointing. So many little short annoying answers that it felt like someone was throwing small rocks at me the whole time (the MITE / ATOMS / IOTA section was particularly noisome, but it was bad all over, frankly). Had IMS instead of DMS (direct messages) because it felt like it worked better (129D: Chats over Twitter, briefly). I "chat over Twitter" all the time but hardly ever DM anyone. DMS are specifically *private* chats. Again, appalling, sloppy cluing. So the final indignity today was not being able to see LAST DITCH EFFORT for a time because of this IMS / DMS muck-up. I must stop writing about this puzzle now. BOOP. Goodbye.
Relative difficulty: Challenging (I was too tired to start a Saturday, should've just done it in the morning)
THEME: none
Word of the Day: NAT Sherman cigars (51A) —
Nat Sherman is the brand name for a line of handmade cigars and "luxurycigarettes." The company, which began as a retail tobacconist, continues to operate a flagship retail shop now located on 42nd Street, off Fifth Avenue, in New York City. Corporate offices are now located at the foot of the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey. [...] Sherman advertised duringNew York Giantsradio broadcasts. Every major play during the game, Giants commentatorBob Papaexclaimed "Get that man a Nat Sherman cigar!". / Slang terminology for aPCP-laced tobacco cigarette is a "sherm" or "sherman", named for the brand.
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Sometimes trying to write this blog in the 10pm to 7am window just ... doesn't quite work out. I get too tired too early, fall asleep on the couch, wake up in a kind of no man's land, and have to decide, "OK, solve and blog now, or set the alarm for 4am and solve and blog then?" I was fully prepared to go with the latter, but after I'd brushed my teeth I thought, "well, I'm up, let's just do this." Tonight, that was Not the right call. I haven't been this off a puzzle's wavelength in a long time, and I just found almost every part of this solve grueling and unpleasant. It was especially unpleasant because except for the center, the grid looks like a Monday or Tuesday grid—lots of black squares, lots of short stuff. And let me tell you, there is something particularly awful about having to wade through so much short stuff that is clued at nth-degree difficulty. I'll take my difficulty almost any other way, but, like, brutal clues on crap like MSG and GLO and (ugh) SIDE A, you can shove all of that. The SW was pretty tractable, but the rest, oof. I kept stopping, which is not something I normally do during a solve. The center stack actually looks OK, but who in the world is going to be excited by techno-corporate garbage like ADCLICKRATE and SALES and AOL ("pioneer"?) and ETRADE even OPEN A NEW TAB. Did a sales algorithm with a LA QUINTA loyalty card write this puzzle? And speaking of OPEN A NEW TAB ... and GET A SHOCK, and MADE A NEST ... again, oof. Big "ATE A SANDWICH" energy. Indefinite article abuse. This was just SOUR NOTE after SOUR NOTE, but the main issues were: too much short stuff (so, lots of fussy difficulty for zero payoff) and too much stultifying fill. Again, those three longer Across answers in the middle are nice. But man I did not enjoy myself one bit with this one.
Also unpleasant—how reliant I was on crosswordese just to get a toehold in this thing. First things I wrote in were stuff like NCR and OREM and ODE and DOER. Had THAT (at 8D) and no idea about the rest (THAT IS SICK). Had GET (at 9D) and no idea about the rest (GET A SHOCK). So moving between parts of the grid ... I just got repeatedly stymied by what ultimately seemed like pretty arbitrary phrases (you'd probably say "THAT'S SICK," honestly, and again, the whole "A" in the middle of so many phrases (like GET A SHOCK) just kept making me shake my head.
Here are some Selected Problems:
Problems (selected):
SIDEA (2D: Finer cut, usually) — "Finer cut" is ugh. No. It's the radio-friendly cut, perhaps, but that doesn't make it finer. Just horrible misdirection.
RITA (14A: Romance novelist's award) — probably seen this before, but ... blank. At one point wanted EDNA
ARABS (1D: About 5% of the world's population) — if you say so. Totally random. No life in the clue at all. Horrid.
BEHESTS (20A: Commands) — archaic / formal / almost never seen outside of a prepositional "at" phrase ... no idea. Had INSISTS.
ARKS (6D: Asylums) — first, it's asyla, and second, I barely know what this means. Ah, I see the third def. is "place or thing furnishing protection; refuge"; this feels about as in-the-language as plural BEHESTS
ARCHER (15A: One taking a bow) — I had ANCHOR. . . because ... "bow" is nautical, maybe? I don't know. Again, I'm very tired.
CAN'T GO (5A: Terse invitation to an invitation) — weirdly equivocated over that "G," thinking it might be a "D" (I mean, if CAN DO is a thing...)
MSG / GLO / AOL — just a rough ugly corner, that NE. Because of the quot. marks, I had "No MAS"; no idea what these alleged "1980s toys" are .... GLO Worms, you say? I had SNO Worms at one point
DUO (19A: Smallest possible band) — well this is a lie. I direct your attention to the phrase "one-man band."
NAT (51D: ___ Sherman cigars) — no idea none zero. Cigars ... LOL yep if you wanted a topic farthest from me, that's the one. Just no hope here.
LINEN (40D: Scrim material)— by this point, I disliked the puzzle so much that my brain kind of shut off. It was all I could do to put together Any kind of "material" from the letters I got from crosses. Sure, LINEN totally makes me think of "scrims" and vice versa, awesome. Whatever.
ROLLS UP TO (32D: Arrives at in a vehicle) — I had PULLS UP TO, though as errors go that one was not bad; easily fixable
LANA (25A: One of the film-directing Wachowskis) — I wanted MIRA, why? Is the other one MIRA??? Dammit, it's Lilly. Where the hell did MIRA come from?
CEE (33D: Artichoke heart?) — this was the worst. Saw right through it ... but in the wrong way. I wrote in ICH. You see. You see how that works, right? That's *at least* as "good" as (ugh) CEE.
THEME: HALF OFF (24D: Discounted 50% ... or a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — themers are two identical four-letter words, but you only have to put in one of them (thus, HALF of the answer is OFF (the grid)):
It is similar to the Scandinavian snack klenat, a crunchy, donut-like baked or fried dough of wheat flour, and other customary baking items. Chin chin may contain cowpeas. Many people bake it with ground nutmeg for flavor.
The dough is usually kneaded and cut into small one-inch (or so) squares, about a quarter of an inch thick, before frying. (wikipedia)
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This one never really got off the ground. The theme just doesn't have enough juice. Feels like something I've seen a million times before—perhaps not with this revealer, but with this same whole "when doubled" concept. Super easy to pick up the theme because of the asterisks on the themers. Got BANG no problem ... but the next themer I encountered was CHIN, which ... wow. I have no idea what that is. Have literally never heard anyone say "CHIN CHIN!" in my life, to mean anything, let alone "Cheers!" This is the only thing that happens in my head when I look at this alleged expression:
Because CHIN (seriously, what?) crosses DAH (ugh, the lowest of all fill is the Morse Code fille), which crosses a down-the-marquee "Hobbit" name (BALIN), I felt like I was in real trouble here. I honestly was not (and am never) sure if DAH was the right term. I want it to be DOT and DASH, but ... no, DAH. I probably would've swapped out COLIN for BALIN, but then I never would've had CHIN in my puzzle, either? Well, one thing I know is that this section was yucky for me. Slightly surprised to find out that my answers were correct, in the end.
I guess CRAY (CRAY) has a slightly modern feel to it, and maybe LIVEBLOG too, but for every one of those there were three ye olden things like AD EXEC and PLATEN and yeesh, BOFF??? Not even BOFFO, just BOFF? Oh, and what the hell is GLOOPS? (33A: Thick, liquidy servings). That would be very rough in the singular; in the plural, it's nonsense. I thought the Swiss used Euros, which shows you how poorly traveled I am (I'm currently using the Lockdown as an excuse, which should be good for a while ... but the truth is I haven't been to Europe since I was 18) (note: the Brits will be happy to know that I'm not counting them as "Europe"). A DAY AGO feels very roll-your-own; not a strong stand-aloner. TRUTV is a real thing, but "Sister channel of HBO..." is big news to me. Does anyone call a driver a ONE WOOD? Don't answer, as I don't care about golf and never will. But I think I've only ever heard that club called a "driver." I got thrown by SLO-PITCH (36D: Softball designation), which doesn't have the (to me, expected) "W" and so ends up in the grid looking like SLOP ITCH, which ... sounds contagious. "Stay back! I've got the SLOP ITCH!" Was Kipling very quotable, because that is one weak-ass quote re: WORDS (5D: "The most powerful drug used by mankind": Rudyard Kipling). I literally can't see anyone nodding their head knowing and rubbing their chin (chin) in response to that banal a quip. IT'S SAD! See you tomorrow.
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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