Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (my time was over average, but it's 16 wide, and I totally misread the second themer clue, both of which inflated my time in ways that had zero to do with pure difficulty) (4:03)
THEME: ARK (13D: Holder of the contents of the circled squares?) — themers all contain an animal name twice, so ... you know, two by two, Noah's ARK, etc. . . .
Theme answers:
MAN-TO-MAN TALK (18A: Frank discussion, perhaps)
PASS/FAIL CLASSES (24A: Courses without letter grades)
BEEP BEEP! (40A: Road Runner's call)
CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN (53A: By whatever means)
"TORA! TORA! TORA!" (63A: 1970 W.W. II drama with a repetitive name)
Word of the Day: ST. MALO (49D: Walled city on the coast of France) —
The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Allies heavily bombarded Saint-Malo, which was garrisoned by German troops. The city changed into a popular tourist centre, with a ferry terminal serving Portsmouth, Jersey, Guernsey and Poole. (wikipedia)
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The theme idea is not bad but the execution is very rough. I'm going to say that if 80% of your themers use repeat words to get the desired two-animal effect, you haven't tried very hard with your themers. Or, you haven't tried hard enough. Simply repeating words seems a very cheap way to double the animal count. It's fine to do it once, maybe, but four times out of five? You might also have taken care to keep the animal count in the grid down. This things is ostentatiously plastered with animals, but only some of them are plural. Maybe there are two BISON and two SHEEP, but if the NEWT and the COW are trying to pretend to be a true pair over there in the east, they're not fooling anybody. (NEWT: "... moo?"). Also, there are pretty much four cats on this ARK: the two in CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN, and then the other two clinging desperately to the edge of CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN (see CATAN, SCATHE). There's also an extra ANT clinging to the underside of MAN-TO-MAN TALK. Ooh, and another, appropriately, in your PANTS (9D). Further, doesn't the Road Runner go MEEP MEEP??
I zoomed Road Runner-like through most of this, but several significant hang-ups (at least one self-inflicted) led me to a higher-than-average time. The oversized grid probably had a little to do with that as well. The non-gendered clue really really kept me from seeing the very-much-gendered MAN-TO-MAN TALK, which means that I couldn't see the last letter in the damne revealer—I thought maybe the grid was filled with ART? I could see that ANT and ASS were already in circled squares at that point, but I thought, "yeah, sure, you could see an ANT in ART ... and you can *definitely* see ASS"
I then misread the clue on PASS/FAIL CLASSES as "Courses *with* letter grades..." So, since that was the Opposite of what the clue actually said, that didn't help. Also, for no good reason, I couldn't figure out GUARANTEE (5D: Something you should get in writing). So despite filling in most answers very quickly, I had to do some grouting patchwork on these longer mysteries, and that slowed me down. The "must-have" in the FURBY clue did zero for me—hadn't thought about those since the '90s (25D: Late 1990s "must-have" toy). ST. MALO is a ridiculously non-Tuesday answer. It was big in Margaret Farrar's day, probably because of its place in W.W. II history, but it's only been in the NYTXW one other time in the past two decades. For a reason. I spell YECCH thusly, so YECH I was not sure about (45A: "Ugh!"). Other than that, pretty easy going. So, to sum up, the theme was a nice idea but cheaply executed; a more elegant version of this theme wouldn't have had any other animals anywhere; the Road Runner says MEEP MEEP. As for the fill, it is a little heavy on the crosswordese. I am going to renominate AGENA (4A: Old rocket stage) for elimination from your wordlist (or at least your early-week grid wordlist) (you can take AKELA too if you want—or at least use it very sparingly) (58D: Wolf in "The Jungle Book"). Good morning.
THEME: ON/OFF — The words "on" and "off" are next to each other and rebuses in various answers. In the center, the words "on and off" are written out.
Theme answers:
CARBON OFFSETS = (18A: Greenhouse gas mitigators)
SON OF FRANKENSTEIN = (28A: Third in a horror series)
ON AND OFF = (39A: Intermittently)
IMMIGRATION OFFICE = (47A: Adminsterer of citizenship tests)
PERSON OF FAITH = (63A: Churchgoer e.g.)
Word of the Day:KARLOFF(14D: Co-star of 28-Across [Son of Frankenstein])
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (/ˈkɑːrlɒf/), was an English actor who was primarily known for his roles in horror films. He portrayed Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932). In non-horror roles, he is best known to modern audiences for narrating and as the voice of Grinch in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). - Wikipedia
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Hello everyone, Rex is unavailable today, which means it’s time for a guest post! Megan and Tristan, competent co-solvers and soon-to-be college graduates, are back to annotate a great puzzle from Julie Bérubé.
Megan: Right off the bat, I had some fun clues. LOIS Lowry (26A: Children’s author Lowry) was one of my favorite authors when I was in junior high. The Giver is, of course, her seminal contribution to YA dystopic fiction, but all of her stuff is great. And I got Alan ALDA (fun cluing btw - 17A: Famous Alan whose last name shares three of the four letters of ALAN) right away from watching the West Wing last year, so then OLAF was a gimme (1D: Frozen character).
Tristan: Can’t forget about Number the Stars, another A-list young adult work from Lois Lowry and my personal favorite. The on/off idea is tried and tested, but this puzzle did a good job of keeping the concept lively, especially since some of the letters were spaced between words. Realizing PERSON OF FAITH (63A) and IMMIGRATION OFFICE (47A) had ON/OFF in them was a nice “aha” moment for me.
Megan: Yeah, we both figured something rebus-y was going on, but couldn’t really hack it for a while (having Dr. Frankenstein as the initial answer for 28A: Third in a horror series did not help). We got the ON/OFF deal once we got ONION (19D: Tearjerker?) and SCOFF (8A: Say “Yeah, right!,” say) and then figured it was SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and then the rest kind of rolled along.
Tristan:Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is great! I think it gets a little underrated in terms of quality because of the pop culture profileration of the monster, but the book is a must-read. However, I’m sure classic horror film buffs were happy to see BELA Lugosi (2D) and Boris KARLOFF (14D) make appearances.
Bullets:
34A:Where you might go for a spell? (BEE) — Fun clue! Tristan won his school spelling bee in middle school, whereas I only made it to my elementary school-wide spelling bee’s third round before getting out on “odyssey.” Still stings.
71A: Uptown, so to speak (TONY) — I can’t really parse this, but I’m sure a commenter can…. Does it have to do with the Tony Awards? If so, that would be topical, as the nominees were announced just yesterday (Wednesday).
23A: Contraction to start a sentence (TWAS) — Lots of contractions can start sentences, but this is a more fun way to clue TWAS than using the Christmas rhyme. I’ll take it!
4A: Pandora and others (APPS) — Who still uses Pandora?
43A: _____ Railway, backdrop of “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (BURMA) — So many movie references!
Signed, Megan and Tristan, Court Chroniclers of CrossWorld
Spring has sprung and finals season is in full swing, but it's still Annabel Monday!
Constructor: Julie Bérubé
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: TOOL BOX — Circled letters spell out things you'd find in a toolbox.
Theme answers:
GROUNDS CREW (17A: Group preparing a ball field for a game)
EAT A PEACH (27A: 1972 platinum album by the Allman Brothers Band)
STAYS AWAY (48A: Doesn't get near)
TUNA SASHIMI (61A: Japanese delicacy served in thin slices)
ALVIN AILEY (12D: American Dance Theater founder)
ESPADRILLE (27D: Shoe that ties around the ankle)
TOOL BOX (38D: Locale of all the circled items in this puzzle)
Word of the Day: ORLON (26A: DuPont fiber) —
Acrylic fibers are synthetic fibers made from a polymer (polyacrylonitrile) with an average molecular weight of ~100,000, about 1900 monomer units. For a fiber to be called "acrylic" in the US, the polymer must contain at least 85% acrylonitrilemonomer. Typical comonomers are vinyl acetate or methyl acrylate. DuPont created the first acrylic fibers in 1941 and trademarked them under the name Orlon.[1]
It was first developed in the mid-1940s but was not produced in large
quantities until the 1950s. Strong and warm, acrylic fiber is often used
for sweaters and tracksuits and as linings for boots and gloves, as
well as in furnishing fabrics and carpets. It is manufactured as a
filament, then cut into short staple lengths similar to wool hairs, and
spun into yarn.
(Wikipedia)
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Honestly I just felt like this was a really solid puzzle. I do have a couple gripes; there's got to be a clue for JEN that doesn't involve Jennifer Aniston for no real reason, if I never see a lazily-clued IRE in a Monday again it'll be too soon, and for goodness' sake we all know not every guy pairs up on dates with a GAL, or vice versa. (GAL is a particularly humorous choice of word there, as "gal pals" has come to mean "women who are girlfriends" in parts of the gay community, due to the phrase being used by online tabloids to refer to, well, women who are girlfriends.)
Spoiler alert: at the time, they weren't actually just gal pals.
Still, though, this one was neither too EASY nor too hard, and was reasonably creative to boot. Had PEPPER for POLLEN, but the latter's certainly more appropriate for the season, and I was seriously half-convinced 69A would be BOPS instead of RAPS,"bop" meaning "good song." Some really good turns of phrases with AWASH IN and IN DEEP, and for once TEE wasn't clued with golf, which I'm convinced is some kind of miracle. But yeah, good fill, good difficulty level, mostly good clues with a couple duds.
I know the concept and execution were pretty simple, but this is actually one of the more fun themes I've reviewed for this blog. Maybe because I actually didn't know several of the answers surrounding the tools? I'd never listened to the Allman Brothers band before, and although I know I own ESPADRILLES I never knew that was what they were called. Also, had no idea what a shim was; apparently it's basically like a spacer that's used for support or adjustment in everything from carpentry to fixing cards. So I basically got an extra word of the day right there! My one complaint is that I'm now craving TUNA SASHIMI. GORGONZOLA and EEL didn't help. I think I'm going to go get a snack.
Bullets:
EXPAT (35D: One living abroad, informally) — I have a friend who moved to DC from Texas who calls herself a "Texpat," and I feel like that says a lot about Texas. And/or the rest of the country in comparison to Texas.
OWEN (15A: Actor Wilson of "Midnight in Paris") — I'm sure this is a fine movie. I really am. But I still can't think of Owen Wilson in any context without hearing, in my head, a resounding "WOW."
OHNO (26D: "Say it ain't so!") — This is how I'm feeling at this point in the semester. Did you know Wellesley College has an event called "primal scream" right before finals period where everyone just goes outside and screams at the top of their lungs? I feel like that's sort of the embodiment of an OH NO.
ETTA (53A: James of jazz) — Couldn't think of a nicer song to start the morning with.
I'm watching a lot of soccer right now (with both Copa America and the UEFA European Championship happening as we speak) and I still couldn't come up with RAMOS. I didn't see "Brooklyn," but I watched the whole interview Colbert did with Saoirse RONAN and still couldn't come up with her name. Those two names alone accounted for 50% of the difficulty in this puzzle, which was otherwise pretty easy. RONAN was particularly vexing, as I had no idea about the "R" cross (6A: Mate) because I just had --O and all I could think of was "TWO" (?!) and the "B" in BRO wasn't coming because even by the time I got -OOTIE into place at 6D: Baby's footwear, I hesitated. Thought maybe FOOTIE was a thing (though I see now that "foot" is in the clue so that was always impossible). RAMOS I was able to take down through crosses a little more expeditiously. I also had FERMI winning gold medals at the Olympics in the '20s (60% correct), but that worked itself out fairly quickly as well.
[MAINSAIL!]
As for the theme, it's cute, of course. I mean, who doesn't like that song, Julie Andrews, etc. It's not a theme you want to scrutinize too hard though, because you'll notice that normal thematic symmetry has been completely chucked out the window, and that CALI is a total outlier for not being pronounced in its answer the way it is in the song, and that the real divide, syllabically, should be ALI / DOCIOUS, not ALID / OCIOUS (just listen, or sing it, you'll see), and that ATROCIOUS is a cop-out since that word (unlike all the other theme answers containing song syllables) is actually *in* the song. Prominently. FEROCIOUS might've been nice there. Anyway, as I say, if you just finish the puzzle, hum the tune, put the puzzle away, you're good.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. also, just last year, there was this epic version of this same theme. So, constructors ... maybe save that "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" crossword you're working on 'til, I don't know, 2026, at least. :)
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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listen); Gallo: Saent-Malô; Breton: Sant-Maloù) is a historic French port in Brittany on the Channel coast.
The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Allies heavily bombarded Saint-Malo, which was garrisoned by German troops. The city changed into a popular tourist centre, with a ferry terminal serving Portsmouth, Jersey, Guernsey and Poole. (wikipedia)
