Relative difficulty:Challenging (3:34, about 35-40 seconds slower than normal)
THEME: LANGUAGE BARRIER (41A: Communication problem ... illustrated literally by the black squares before 5-, 19-, 26-, 54-, 65- and 73-Across) — languages are in circled squares, broken in two by black squares that form a "barrier" between the two parts of the "language":
Theme answers:
SHIN / DIEU
MASUR / DUTY
SEEGER / MANIC
TOPOL / I SHALL
KITH / AILED
SELA / TINS
Word of the Day:TOPOL(51A: Chaim who played Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof") —
Chaim Topol (Hebrew: חיים טופול; born September 9, 1935), mononomously known as Topol, is an Israeli theatrical and film performer, singer, actor, comedian, voice artist, writer and producer. He is best known for his role as Tevye the dairyman in the production of Fiddler on the Roof on both stage and film. He has been nominated for an Academy Award and a Tony Award, and has won two Golden Globe Awards. (wikipedia)
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SPECIAL MESSAGE for Solvers in Syndication(for the week of January 15-January 22, 2017)
Hello, solvers. A new year has begun, and that means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. Despite my regular grumbling about puzzle quality, constructor pay, and other things that should be better in the world of crosswords, I still love solving, I still love writing about puzzles, and I love love love the people I meet and interact with because of this blog. Well, most of them. Some I mute on Twitter, but mostly: there is love. The blog turned 10 in September, and despite the day-in, day-out nature of the job, I can't foresee stopping any time soon. The community of friends and fellow enthusiasts are all just too dear to me. You can expect me to be here every day, praising / yelling at the puzzle—independent and ad-free. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Second, a mailing address:
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Cookery Postcards from Penguin"—beautifully designed covers of vintage cookbooks, with provocative titles like "Cookery For Men Only " (!) or "Good Meals from Tinned Foods" (!?). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD. As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support.
Now on to the puzzle!
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Should've been a Tuesday puzzle, both because Tuesdays normally suuuuck and this didn't, and because it played like a Tuesday, i.e. a tough Monday. Although LATIN? Really? You couldn't have stuck to "languages people actually speak"? Oh well, it didn't say "non-dead languages," so I guess it's fair, if not completely consistent. This puzzle played hard for me largely because of the proper nouns, vague cluing, and theme density (fill is always iffiest / toughest / least Mondayish around the theme answers). Forgot MASUR and then thought MAZUR (18A: Maestro Kurt ___)—didn't help that that answer crossed EPSOM, which I continue not to be able to spell right at first pass (EPSON? EPCOT?) (7D: English racing venue). ARENA got a bull-riding clue?? Total disconnect for me. I know TOPOL mononymously, so "Chaim" was a disaster for me, as my knee-jerk instinct, plus the placement of the "O"s, led me to enter POTOK right away. Ugh. Also LILLE as [City NNE of Paris]!? Not much to go on for a not-terribly-famous French city. I had I SWEAR for I SHALL (54A: Formal-sounding commitment), could not find the handle on SHRIFT (50D: Short ___ (quick work)), had no idea what Roman numeral of OLAF was called for (47A: Norway's patron saint), and once again had no idea about the ... Recording Industry Association ... something? (25D: Lobbying org. that fights music piracy).
Had SEE IN for LET IN (56D: Admit at the door). Could not get BAD ACTOR from the back end (i.e. -CTOR) (9D: Troublemaker). And I *knew* "ANTI" (43D: 2016 #1 album by Rihanna), which is definitely not a Monday clue, at least not with this crowd (i.e. you all ... I know you). Puzzle would've been even rougher, obviously, if I didn't listen to that album a lot (TRY IT!). Anyway, the theme is solid, I think, and if the fill's not Great, it's largely because the theme is very dense—plus, given ongoing declines in NYT fill quality, the fill here doesn't actually *feel* subpar at all. Far less demanding grids have had fill much worse than this. So I'm counting this a winner of a puzzle, despite my miserable solving experience. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. actually one of my readers has an objection to add:
Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium (actually Medium .... and then very easy)
THEME:DARK ARTS (38D: What sorcerers practice ... or a hint to interpreting five clues in this puzzle) — "ARTS" has been blacked out (made "dark") in the five theme clues:
Theme answers:
EXCHANGES (20A: M####)
PASTRIES (10D: T####)
MOVIE ROLES (11D: P####)
PUB PASTIME (28D: D####)
BLEMISHES (51A: W####)
Word of the Day:EZRA Taft Benson(62A: ___ Taft Benson (1980s-'90s Mormon leader)) —
Saw the "note" in my puzzle and had the typical feeling of despair, but it was merely indicating that the "#" marks in five clues were supposed to appear as a black bar. I usually don't read "notes"; not sure why I broke that rule today. Only cost me a few seconds on the timer, I imagine. The theme concept is at least interesting, though I'm usually not a big fan of puzzles where all the interest lies in the clues, nor of puzzles where the clues are really the answers and the answers the clues. But I enjoyed remembering the Harry Potter books (which surely must've been featured in the original clue for DARK ARTS) and there is a theme cluing consistency (single letter + blackout in every case) that I appreciate. Plus, the grid is pretty clean and reasonably interesting. This puzzle appears to be a debut for the constructor. All debuts should be this competent. All puzzles, for that matter.
Puzzle was tough to cut through because of the mysterious theme clues ... until they were no longer mysterious, and then ZOOM, back to Monday-level easiness. I was lucky enough to stumble into the PUB PASTIME (inferred from just PUBP-) and then, immediately thereafter, DARK ARTS confirmed what PUB PASTIME made me suspect—that you just replace the blacked-out part with "arts" and bam, there's your clue. Do that, and the puzzle is an open book. Minor trouble with getting to TAILS from the non-coin-specifying 22A: It has a 50% chance, and slightly less minor trouble in and around EZRA Taft Benson (who?), where I also briefly had a MISTAKE-for-MISSTEP mistake (or misstep), as well as a DAZE-for-HAZE daze (or haze). I'm either very proud or very embarrassed to have gotten GLAD RAGS so easily. How do I even know that term? My clothes tend to be "sad rags," at least during the summer when my level of sartorial caring plummets. LEVAR Burton is in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar." That is your LEVAR Burton trivia for the day. Good day.
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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