THEME: "Nothing" — the word is absent from the front end of ten answers ... so I guess it's represented literally in the grid:
Theme answers:
BUT THE BEST (18A: When prefixed with 72-Across, what a friend wishes for you)
TO SNEEZE AT (20A: ... A matter worth considering)
TO WEAR (24A: ... Plaint upon going through one's closet)
MUCH (38A: ... A small amount)
TO IT (42A: ... "Piece of cake!")
BURGER (52A: ... Dud)
UP MY SLEEVE (57A: ... Magician's claim)
LEFT BEHIND (63A: ... Surgeon's goal) ("left behind" as in "instruments or other foreign matter left behind inside the patient")
BUT NET (4D: ... "Swish")
IS EASY (51D: ... "Keep at it!")
Word of the Day: ALTA (8D: Ski area in the Wasatch Mountains) —
Alta is a ski area in the western United States, located in the town of Alta in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, in Salt Lake County. With a skiable area of 2,614 acres (10.58 km2), Alta's base elevation is 8,530 ft (2,600 m) and rises to 11,068 ft (3,374 m) for a vertical gain of 2,538 ft (774 m). One of the oldest ski resorts in the country, it opened its first lift in early 1939. Alta is known for receiving more snow than most Utah resorts, with an average annual snowfall of 545 inches (13.8 m). Alta is one of three remaining ski resorts in the U.S. that prohibits snowboarders, along with nearby competitor Deer Valleyand Vermont's Mad River Glen. (wikipedia)
• • •
This was very easy, and I can see how a solver might be thrilled to get the gimmick easily and then have that EDGE of knowing the first word heading into every theme clue. So there's the pleasure of "Ha, got it!" I don't see what other pleasure there is, though, and I'm once again stunned that anyone thought that the best thing to do with a bland, one-note theme was to make it Super Dense, thereby ruining the possibility that the non-theme stuff might be interesting. Constructors often get up in their own heads, setting challenges for themselves that have absolutely [...] to do with solver enjoyment. In fact, theme density often works directly against grid sparkle. Here, nothing goes terribly wrong, but we endure a ton of dry old short stuff so that all those "nothing" phrases can get in there. If the theme was inherently delightful, it might be worth it to have nothing terribly interesting going on outside the theme, and to have to slog through your typical slate of crosswordese: ELAL AGRA MINH VIOL STENO etc. Even the slang is musty (PHAT, ROFL). But whatever whimsical delight one might've felt at uncovering a few on-the-money "nothing" phrases is undone by the cramming in of less delightful, merely plausible ones. Good possibilities like ___ DOING and ___ IN COMMON and, I don't know, "___ COMPARES 2 U" are absent while "___ IS EASY" (!?!?) and "___ TO WEAR" somehow make the cut. The cluing concept is messed up, too. If I read the clues like a damn menu, then yeah, I guess I'd see the first Across clue first. But like most humans I start in the NW, where A. I saw the first Down themer first (___ BUT NET), and B. even if I had seen the Across themer in that section first, it wouldn't have been the first one, since the first Across themer—the initial clue that introduces all the other ellipsis-fronted theme clues—actually occupies the upper right part of the grid. Anyway, I got ___ BUT NET within a few seconds, then ___ TO SNEEZE AT, then just filled in most of the rest of them. Got every one of them with no additional help except ___ LEFT BEHIND and "___ IS EASY."
Five things:
70A: Bridge scorecard heading (THEY) — honestly thought I had an error. Never played bridge. Not once. Never. Never seen a bridge scorecard. Thought maybe people played bridge at THE "Y" ??? So apparently the headings on the scorecard are "WE" and "THEY," which ... seems precious and strange. But it's your game, not my game, so enjoy it. THEY!
2D: "Little ___ in Slumberland" (early comic) (NEMO) — easily my favorite part of the puzzle, just because I enjoy remembering how stunning this comic is. Winsor McCay's epic dreamscapes were just about the best thing that's ever appeared in the brightly-colored Sunday comics section. Kid falls asleep and has fantastical, often frightening dreams, and then (usually) ends up waking up in a heap on the floor in the final panel. For example...
52D: Comforts (BALMS) — had the "B" and wanted "BABY...S?" Maybe BOONS. Definitely not BALMS, which are for lips (though this clue is perfectly accurate, of course).
60D: Heiress of Hartfield, in an 1816 novel (EMMA) — me, with "E" In place: "EYRE!" (Those who have read both novels will realize how incredibly bad a guess this is)
61D: Popular Renaissance instrument (VIOL) — "Popular?" I mean ... you'd think [Renaissance instrument] would be enough. I mean, really, what do you mean by "popular"? How many people actually played VIOL? I demand statistics! Anyway, I wrote in LYRE at first, I think.
THEME: NOW YOU SEE ME / NOW YOU DON'T — Across answers have an extra "C" added to normal phrases to create wacky phrases. Down answers have a "C" subtracted from normal phrases to create wacky phrases. So wacky!
Theme answers:
NOW YOU SEE ME (113A: Illusionist's phrase illustrated by seven Across answers in this puzzle?)
NOW YOU DON'T (73D: Illusionist's phrase illustrated by three Down answers in this puzzle?)
Across themers (+C):
ANY COLD TIME (23A: When you can ice skate outside?)
DEAD CHEAT (25A: Poker player in the Old West after being caught with a card up his sleeve?)
WINCE MAKER (50A: Bad pun?)
PAGE CRANK (58A: Manual part of a printing press?)
SPARE CRIB (77A: Need for parents who weren't expecting twins?)
CROW HOUSES (85A: Rookeries?)
CREST AREA (111A: Toothpaste aisle?)
Down themers (-C):
MODERN DANE (5D: Queen Margrethe II, e.g.?)
FREE RADIAL (15D: Arrangement in which you buy three times but get a whole set?)
MAGI MOMENT (70D: Visit to baby Jesus?)
Word of the Day:KLEIN (55A: ____ bottle (topological curiosity)) —
In topology, a branch of mathematics, the Klein bottle/ˈklaɪn/ is an example of a non-orientablesurface; it is a two-dimensionalmanifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined. Informally, it is a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down. Other related non-orientable objects include the Möbius strip and the real projective plane. Whereas a Möbius strip is a surface with boundary, a Klein bottle has no boundary (for comparison, a sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary).
• • •
Hi all, Rachel Fabi in for Rex today, which under most circumstances would be a good thing for a constructor; I tend to say nice things about puzzles, while Rex is (in)famously cranky about many of them. Today's puzzle, however, is unfortunately going to be a challenge for me to glow about, as I have objections to the fill, the theme, and (some of) the cluing.
As a general rule, if the answer at 1A is a variant of a very common piece of crosswordese, you have already lost me. By the time I realized the puzzle was looking for AMIR instead of EMIR, I had already wasted an annoying amount of time trying to decipher that corner and moved on *twice*, and only managed to crack it by virtue of having written about OONA Chaplin on a previous review for Rex. The fill throughout the rest of the puzzle is not significantly better (see IDYL [also a variant!], RANEE [variant!!!!], ANAS [what?]).
I did not see this movie, now or otherwise
Despite the fill, my primary gripe is actually with the theme. NOW YOU SEE ME, when a magician (sorry, "illusionist") says it, does not mean "Now there is a C!". This theme would have made far more sense if the thing that was added to or subtracted from the "normal" phrases was the word ME, rather than the letter C. "Now you see ME. Now you don't." Almost as strange was the imbalance between the +C phrases (7) and the -C phrases (3). Why not have 5 of each, if you're determined to pack that many themers into this puzzle? The grid was pretty tortured by the theme density, and the fact that more Cs were appearing than disappearing feels inelegant. The iffy fill just wasn't worth the payoff.
a Klein bottle, apparently
I didn't really connect with a lot of the clues, but I generally don't blame constructors for that--sometimes you're just on a different wavelength. I will say that it seemed like the clues skewed harder when they didn't need to-- there are plenty of ways to clue KLEIN, for instance, and I suspect that the "topological curiosity" (pictured here) is beyond not just my wheelhouse, but that of 95% of solvers. In general, I am thrilled to learn new ways to clue common words, but when it's crossing UTILE and the aforementioned variant RANEE, I think it's better to stick with tried-and-true clues, especially on a Sunday. I won't bore you with the laundry list of clues I had similar objections to, but let's just say there were several. Ok, one more: 28A: Lamb offering? for ESSAY. Just, what? I have googled, and apparently there is a 19th century essayist by the name of Charles Lamb, but this is not an answer that needed that kind of clue. Contrast this with OAKIE, which was clued as an actor who is unfamiliar to me, but which is also not cluable in many other ways. In cases like that, a tricky/trivia-name type of clue is reasonable. But for LAMB and KLEIN and several other clues, it seems like they went hard when the Sundayness of this puzzle called for easy-medium.
I do have a few positive things to say! I lol'd at the clue on TIDAL (46A: Like the motion of the ocean) because it reminded me of a lyric from the Bloodhound Gang song "Bad Touch." I also enjoyed the inclusion of CHARO, whose "cuchi-cuchi" tagline I learned through RuPaul's Drag Race. And even though I don't think the theme was executed well, I did enjoy some of the puns that came out of it (specifically MAGI MOMENT, MODERN DANE, and SPARE CRIB).
Overall, I did not click with this puzzle, but there were enough bright spots that I can say that I also didn't hate it!
Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of CrossWorld
[Follow Rachel on Twitter]
[note, there should be "OI" in the square at the end of GALILEO—not sure why the software didn't know that]
THEME: flim-flam — theme answers are two-word phrases where the two words are only one letter apart; instead of appearing as two words, the answer appears as one word, and where the one letter is different, both the letter from the first word and the letter from the second word technically work as answers in the down. Thus:
Theme answers:
17A: *Sound of little feet = P(I/A)TTER ("pitter patter") w/ SLIT or SLAT(2D: Louver feature)
22A: *Tycho Brahe contemporary = GALILE(O/I) ("Galileo Galilei") w/ LET ON or LET IN (13D: Admitted)
37A: *Branded candy with multicolored beans = (J/B)ELLY ("Jelly Belly") w/ JET or BET (37D: Take a flier)
40A: *Woman's young lover, in slang (B/T)OY ("boy toy") w/ BLOB or BLOT (26D: Ink stain, e.g.)
CH(I/A)TTER ("chitter chatter") w/ MICRO or MACRO (48D: Prefix with economics)
AS GO(O/L)D ("as good as gold") w/ GOOP or GLOP (55D: Sticky stuff)
Word of the Day: MARE (60A: Sea of Tranquility, e.g.) —
The lunar maria/ˈmɑːriə/ (singular: mare/ˈmɑːreɪ/) are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were dubbed maria, Latin for "seas", by early astronomers who mistook them for actual seas. They are less reflective than the "highlands" as a result of their iron-rich composition, and hence appear dark to the naked eye. The maria cover about 16% of the lunar surface, mostly on the side visible from Earth. The few maria on the far side are much smaller, residing mostly in very large craters. The traditional nomenclature for the Moon also includes one oceanus (ocean), as well as features with the names lacus (lake), palus (marsh), and sinus (bay). The last three are smaller than maria, but have the same nature and characteristics. (wikipedia)
• • •
At first this looked like a kind of puzzle I've seen before. I mean, it *is* the kind of puzzle I've seen before—the "either letter works" or "Schrödinger"-type puzzle—but I'm not sure I've seen the Acrosses work in quite this way before. Weird that it's both letters in the Across (one in first word of the answer, the other in the second) but either/or in the Down. This was what kept me from seeing the theme *at all* at first. I could see there were asterisked clues, but I didn't know why they were asterisked, and in the (several) cases where one word alone worked perfectly well in the Across (PATTER, GALILEO, CHATTER), that was the letter I went with in the Down, so the whole idea of there being *two* letters that worked ... escaped me. Now I could see that it needed to be JELLY BELLY and BOY TOY, but for those, I just thought the first word was being left off for some reason, and a later revealer (where is the revealer?) would tell me what was going on. I finished with SLAT, LET ON, CLAW, BET, BLOT, MACRO and GLOP and no clear idea of what had happened. I just knew that the software didn't give me a Happy Pencil. Which seems unfair, as none of my answers were wrong. Anyway, I went poking. It was only MICRO / MACRO that was bugging me. Then I thought, "oh, CHITTER CHATTER..." Then I saw the whole gimmick. It's a fine gimmick, it's just that PATTER GALILEO and CHATTER worked fine on their own as answers to their clues, so seeing continuity among the asterisked clues (esp. without a title / revealer) wasn't easy. The aha moment came very very late (post-puzzle) and was muted for that reason.
Not much of genuine difficulty today, though there were some slow spots. Speaking of spots: ADS. That clue is so corny, I kind of like it (7A: Them's the breaks!). I had a hard time getting the D-cross, DOGGEREL, because I wasn't sure if the "writing" on the "greeting card" came in the card, or if the sender wrote it herself. I guess DOGGEREL works either way (it's just ragged-ass, often comic, verse). I wrote in OREL for URAL because I don't know ... four-letter Russian things? ... (10A: River past Orsk and Orenburg). What even is OREL besides a Hershiser. Ah, a Russian city on the Oka River. Good to know, even though I've already forgotten it. I don't know Britishisms that well, but ROTTER somehow came to me ... only it came as RUTTER, which, you know ... it felt apt. I don't know Bond Girls because no one should know Bond Girls (except maybe Ursula Andress) and I would be Thrilled if there were no more damned Bond Girls in crosswords ever again. The very phrase is gross. Also, EVA GREEN has been in a lot of stuff, including "Penny Dreadful," for which she got a Golden Globe nomination, so ... come on. Only other place I struggled was with POLO, and that's just because I read the clue as [Explorer whose name is a *port*]. Me: "POL-...???! Is POLE a port? Did he explore the ... North ... POLE?"
THEME: PARONOMASIA — this is a word that means "play on words; pun" ... I don't know if PARONOMASIA is supposed to sound like something else, or ... what. The theme answers appear to be oronyms, which is a word I just learned from the crossword a few days ago ("a string of words or a phrase that sounds the same as another string of words or phrase, but is spelt differently")
Theme answers:
ORCHESTRATES (orca straits)
LOCOMOTION (Lowe commotion)
LOCKSMITH (lox myth)
GROUPIES (grew peas)
GERIATRICIAN (Jerry attrition)
WHEATIES (wee tees)
BORDEAUX (bore dough)
MOUSETRAPS (Mao straps)
IDEALOGUES (idea logs) (isn't the word "ideologues"?)
STRATOSPHERE (stratus fear)
MISTLETOE (missile tow)
DULCIMER (dull simmer)
PROFITEERING (prophet earring)
PHARMACIST (farm assist)
Word of the Day: EDH (4D: Old English letter) —
noun
noun: edh
an Old English letter, ð or Ð, representing the dental fricatives T͟H and TH. It was superseded by the digraph th, but is now used as a phonetic symbol for the voiced dental fricative T͟H in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) system. (google)
I have no idea why it is so hard to make a decent Sunday puzzle, but it sure seems to be. This was a death march. Just a horrible, painful idea that Would Not End. Imagine thinking you were going to make it better by *adding* theme answers—as many as you can, crossing each other, in every nook and cranny. "Idea logs? Hilarious!" quips someone I cannot imagine. "Jerry attrition" is as close to clever as these paranomawhatevers ever come, and nothing else about the grid is even remotely endearing. I got some mail in January that essentially said "you should lighten up on the Sunday puzzles." No. No. Sundays should lighten up on me. This is abuse. The marquee puzzle has become a joke. Again, I refer you to Evan Birnholz's WaPo Sunday Crossword, which even on a so-so day is better than this. Why don't more people recognize this objective reality? (marketing, inertia, blah blah blah, I actually know the answers here, but it's still annoying).
[SAIL, HO!] [??]
Can't you do this crap with tons of words. From this grid alone: DINETTES (dye nets?); SENILE (scene aisle?); O'CASEY (okay, see...?); ARLENE (are lean?); RAMBO (ram beau?). Etc. The theme stuff is sooooo dense that none of the rest of the puzzle can breathe. The grid is strangulated by theme overgrowth. An invasive species of theme. Theme kudzu. It's an ecotastrophe. I could assail the overly common and crosswordesey stuff in this grid, but why bother? It's a bust. A total bust. Gonna go watch some minor Olympic sports to wash the taste of this puzzle out of my brain. Before you go saying "oh, you're getting so negative blah blah blah," I liked Thursday and Friday and Saturday a whole lot, and my puzzle approval trendline is actually up this year, and markedly so.
THEME: UEY (57D: Often-illegal maneuver that is key to answering the asterisked clues) —answers double back on the subsequent Across line (once they hit the black square):
Theme answers:
TWO-TIM / EL OSER (1A: *Adlai Stevenson as a presidential candidate, e.g.)
SALAR / Y CAPS (21A: *Limits on team payrolls)
STRIK / ES A BA / LANCE (31A: **Doesn't go to either extreme)
TATTL / ETALE (47A: *Snitch)
PRIVAT / E LINES (60A: *Individual telephone connections)
Word of the Day: GIVE EAR (25A: Listen (to)) —
Verb
1.
giveear - giveheed(to);"Thechildren in theaudienceattendedtherecitalquietly";"Shehung on hiseveryword";"Theyattended to everything he said" (thefreedictionary.com)
• • •
So the basic concept is solid—answers do a U-turn, and the comeback portion of the answer is itself a viable word in the Across. The double-UEY in the middle of the grid is a nice twist. The fill is just OK, but the theme is pretty demanding, so no strong complains there. What I dislike, to the point of resenting, is the deliberate trap set in the west. Now traps are fine, but when you set them where your Stupidest answers are, then falling into them is deeply unpleasant. A good trap should make you go "Ah, right, good one." But GIVE EAR (?!) is a phenomenally stupid thing, and crossing VEEPSTAKES ... ? Is VEEPSTAKES the thing where candidates decide on VP candidates? We gave that a name? The clue makes it sound like an official thing. It's not. There is not necessarily a "stakes" involved. Just pick a running mate. Anyway, back to the trap. 25D: A whole bunch (_O_S) ... crossing 36A: Social gathering (_E_). The latter was what really got me. I wrote in TEA and then that gave me LOTS for [A whole bunch]. And that was pretty much that. Had LI_EEAR and _EAPSTAKES and couldn't see how any answers I had were wrong. Because they weren't wrong. They were just wrong for This Grid because stupid GIVE EAR and stupid VEEPSTAKES thought they'd have a stupid party for ugly answers. Luckily at some point my "tear it all out" instinct kicked in, and somehow I was able to get to GIVE / GOBS / BEE / VEEP. Again, theme was solid, but not solid enough to absorb the blow from the GIVE EAR train wreck.
MISCALL is superdumb (28D: Poker blunder). What the hell is that? Where you call but shouldn't have? How is there a name for that kind of stupidity? What is an ALAIN Prost? (48D: Formula One racer Prost) People know that? People know Formula One racers? Talk about niche sports. Worst mistake I made all day wasn't the LOTS / TEA thing (that was a very reasonable mistake). No, it was reading "Scoville scale" (40D: Topping the Scoville scale) but thinking "Beaufort scale." So I could see the answer wanted to be HOTTEST, but ... winds aren't measure by hotness.
My favorite clue in this thing is probably 43A: George I or V? (SOFT G). Clever. Take it from an erstwhile medievalist, a knight does not "need" a LANCE, no way, no how, no. NOSED IN is almost as dumb as GIVE EAR. But again, most of the fill (though oldish and awkward at times) holds up, and the theme is fine.
THEME:two pronunciations of UNIONIZED (36A: See 19- and 57-Across) —
Theme answers:
19A: One for whom 36-Across has four syllables (CHEMIST)
57A: One for whom 36-Across has three syllables (PLUMBER)
Word of the Day:Harold STASSEN(14D: Nine-time presidential contender of the 1940s-'90s) —
Harold Edward Stassen (April 13, 1907 – March 4, 2001) was the 25th Governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. After service in World War II, he was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1948 to 1953. He was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, considered for a time to be the front-runner. He thereafter regularly continued to run for that and other offices, such that his name became most identified with his status as a perennial candidate. [...] Stassen was later best known for being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, seeking it nine times between 1944 and 1992 (1944, 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992). He never won the Republican nomination, much less the presidency; in fact, after 1952, he never even came close, but continued to campaign actively and seriously for President until just a year before his death. (wikipedia)
• • •
When I saw the constructor's name, I knew it wasn't going to be a straight themeless. A feeling of dread set in, as I enjoy my Friday themelesses. In fact, Friday is probably the puzzle day most likely to make me happy. So I braced for a theme, and I guess there is one—but at three words, it's one of those half-assed themes you see occasionally, where you have a themeless built around an idea too slight for a regular, themed puzzle. I mean, sure, it's a cute little bit of wordplay. PLUMBER feels pretty arbitrary as an example of a unionized worker (TEACHER fits, for instance), but it's fine. It's just fine. And then there's the rest of the puzzle. And that is also fine. Two days in a row now where I feel like the ambition level has been pretty low. This grid is fairly smooth, overall, but not very remarkable except in its weirder answers (like ALL-INDIA) and its mystery names (EUGENIE and STASSEN, for me). The SW corner is nice, if name-heavy. And I do enjoy DEVO (54A: Musical group known for wearing red hats called "energy domes").
I don't know from "Lyricists." Whenever a clue starts [Lyricist...] I panic and start hitting the R, L and S keys. I'm probably thinking of LOESSER. Is that a lyricist? Yes! "Guys & Dolls"! Good for me. Anyway, LERNER (38A: Lyricist who adapted "Pygmalion") ... I think he goes with LOEWE the composer, not to be confused with LOEWS the theater chain, or LOWE'S the home improvement store, or Derek LOWE the pitcher, or the otherDerek LOWE who is a medicinal [...wait for it...] CHEMIST! [takes bow, draws curtain, goes home]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. wasn't til just now that I noticed that 40-Down did not read [Word repeatedly spelled out by Frankenstein] (RESPECT). Actual clue makes so much more sense.
Relative difficulty: 0:33 faster than average, says the iPad app, so...about average
THEME: Literally speaking —the circled squares follow the internal directions.
Word of the Day:SKOSH(6A: Tiny bit) —
From Japanese少し (sukoshi, “a little bit”). // Noun, plural skoshes. // A tiny amount; a little bit; tad; smidgen; jot. He added just a skosh of vinegar, to give the recipe some zip. (Wiktionary)
• • •
[NOTE FROM REX: Comments section is now moderated. It will take between minutes and hours for your comment to appear, depending on my (and a few others') access to a computer. This policy is not up for debate and not likely to change any time soon. Complaints about bad actors just piled up and so I had to do something. This is it. The last two days' worth of comments have been moderated and the Comments section is much, much nicer—thanks for all the kind notes, btw. OK, now on to today's featured Rex stand-in: the wonderful Melissa!]
Hello! I'm Melissa, and I'm pinch-hitting for Rex today. I, too, live in New York State, but that might be about all I have in common with our illustrious absent host. Rex, I hope you're enjoying your vacation!
I found this puzzle on the meh side: I feel like I've seen this sort of theme somewhere in the not-too-distant past, but I can't dredge up exactly where it was. I also felt like the puzzle was overloaded with proper names. But the puzzle does contain a whopping 11 theme answers, ranging in length from 8 to 13 characters and nicely positioned symmetrically in the grid.
Theme answers:
CALLBACK (20A: Result of a successful audition)
SPLIT SECOND (25A: Instant)
TORN TO SHREDS (37A: In bits)
MINCEMEAT (46A: Kind of pie)
DRIFT APART (54A: Lose that loving feeling)
SCRAMBLED EGGS (62A: Diner offering)
MIXED MEDIA (72A: Art type)
HASH MARKS (83A: # # #)
INTERMINGLED (90A: Like 0's and 1's in binary)
FAST SHUFFLE (105A: Card sharp's deception)
UNBROKEN (112A: Whole)
If you're keeping score, that's one reversal, five slices, and five anagrams. I'm a little bothered that of the sliced answers, one has the cut between two words (TO/SHREDS) whereas the others are all cut in the middle of a word (S/ECOND, M/E/AT, DRIF/T, U/N). I also would have liked to see more than one reversal, or no reversals at all, since it's the odd one out here.
I typically solve on my iPad, which means that I generally am working sequentially through the clues. On my first pass through, I also tend to enter only the things I'm absolutely certain of, because I always forget about the pencil tool. (Then again, even when I solve on paper, I prefer to use a pen, preferably a Pilot G-2 Extra Fine or Ultra Fine blue: I'm a southpaw, and for me, this pen's ink is relatively quick-drying and therefore relatively smear-proof.) One advantage of solving electronically is that when I'm done, there's no evidence of any mistakes I may have made along the way!
Here's what I had after my first pass through today's puzzle:
Not so much, eh? This was a bit sparser than usual, for my first pass through. And so much for certainty, especially with respect to 73D, 76D, 28A, and 60A. (Uncertainty? Paging Schrödinger's buddy Heisenberg, who was stopped for speeding. When the officer asked him if he knew how fast he was going, he said, "No, but I know exactly where I am!" Ba-dum-bump.)
Speaking of 60A (Puffed ___), puffed rice is fairly common, especially among those health food nuts who prefer their breakfast to resemble styrofoam packing peanuts. (There's also puffed wheat, of course, which becomes almost edible if it's coated with sugar, or these days more likely 7D, but that doesn't fit here.) I don't think I've ever seen puffed OATS. When I googled "puffed rice" (with the quotation marks) I got about 491,000 results, compared to about 6,400 results for "puffed oats." But those numbers don't tell the whole story. When I looked through the first couple of pages of puffed oats results, all but one of the hits were for UK links. The only United States-based link went to Amazon—but the box of cereal was fulfilled by a UK company, it's definitely not an American brand because the picture of the box shows that it's "high fibre," and one box would set you back $8.35. Thus, I question this particular cluing decision.
Once I started to make a few successive passes through the puzzle, my errors became obvious. By about the third pass through, I had both SPLIT SECOND and MINCEMEAT and the theme clicked, so I could make some educated guesses at the other theme answers. The NE was the last part of the grid I filled in, largely because (as you can see) I had a taxi instead of a large body of water. Once I erased that, I goofed again by putting Apex instead of ACME (16D: Zenith), which didn't help matters any.
Bullets:
RATSO (1D: ___ Rizzo of film) — I hesitated here because Betty also has five letters, and that's the first name of Rizzo in Grease. After my first pass, I was able to fill this one in and the rest of the corner fell fairly easily. But it took me a little while to properly parse 1A (Move, as a plant) and fill in REPOT, even with that initial R in place.
SOD (52A: Green topper) and ELF (59D: Figure often dressed in green) — I might know Matt Ginsberg's favorite color now.
LOTION (93D: Bottle in a beach bag) and FRY (109D: Linger in the hot sun) — I had to bring this up because it gives me a chance to put in this, from the great Ella Fitzgerald singing the great Cole Porter.
I could have done without the crosswordese of STG ESAI OTOE AMAT OTTOII ASTA DIGHT (11A 14A 45A 97A 110A 47D 64D).
START A FIRE (71D: Rub some sticks together, as at camp) — I initially had light A FIRE. Do people still rub sticks together for this purpose? Even back in the dark ages of my Girl Scout days, we had matches.
ANODES (80A: Battery ends) — Those poor neglected cathodes never get any attention in CrossWorld! (What did the anode say to the cathode? "You're always so negative!")
SHE-CAT (6D: Tom's partner) — I've never heard anyone refer to a queen by this name! (My own neutered tom answers to Leo.)
SAYS (15D: "___ You!") — Says You is one of my favorite public radio shows. I was sad to hear that the creator and original host, Richard Sher, passed away earlier this year, but I look forward to hearing the new shows with new host (and long-time panelist) Barry Nolan, once they're taped.
ORCA (31D: Boat in "Jaws") — Has anyone else who solves on a platform that includes the Mini Puzzle noticed that there's often duplication, or near-duplication, of answers between the little and big puzzles? Today's Mini includes ORCAS (1D: Animals in the acclaimed documentary "Blackfish"). This particular example doesn't bother me so much because it isn't an exact duplication, but there have been multiple instances where the same answer will be clued identically in both puzzles for a single day. Since I use the Mini as a warm-up exercise for the big puzzle, it's always really obvious to me when it happens. I wish I could access previous Minis so I could give you a specific example, but it seems that if you miss the window for a particular Mini, it's closed forever.
ME LIKE (92D: Informal approval) — The few times I've heard something along these lines, it's always been "Me likey." That said, I haven't heard even that for a few years.
SKID ROWS (9D: Lush locales) — I like this clue. My favorite Skid Row is the one that's home to Seymore and Audrey II.
MALI (72D: Country once known as French Sudan) —This is my chance to publicly thank Mrs. Smith, my sixth-grade social studies teacher. In her class, we studied the geography of Africa and Asia, and which enabled me to confidently fill in this answer when I first saw it. So, Mrs. Smith, for this and much more, domo arigato!
Thanks for reading. I'm not Rex, but I hope this has been up to his standard.
Signed, Melissa, off the bench in CrossWorld
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THEME: "Zap!" — the ADs have been "zapped" from familiar phrases. So the "AD"s are visible, but they've been rebused into individual boxes (a visual representation of fast-forwarding?); wacky "?" clues reference the "AD"-less phrases (though you need the "AD"s in the crosses). Actually, now that I think of it, maybe the ADs are not there in the Acrosses, but are there in the Downs … this is, of course, impossible to represent visually … but it explains the "AD"-containing crosses. Anyhoo, here are your long themers:
Theme answers:
BRO[AD]-MINDED (19A: Focused on one's fellow fraternity members?)
IRISH BALL[AD] (24A: Dublin dance?)
CHANGE OF [AD]DRESS (36A: What Clark Kent needs to become Superman?)
ON THE SH[AD]Y SIDE (45A: Somewhat bashful?)
FIVE O'CLOCK SH[AD]OW (63A: Local afternoon newscast?)
[AD]OPTION AGENCY (83A: Business offering the right to buy and sell securities?)
FOLLOW THE LE[AD]ER (93A: How to find what a creep is looking at?)
L[AD]IES FIRST (109A: Says "I didn't do it!" before fessing up?)
LEGAL [AD]VICE (115A: Cigarettes or booze?)
Word of the Day: TONY MARTIN (72D: Singer whose "I Get Ideas" was on the charts for 30 weeks) —
Tony Martin (December 25, 1913 – July 27, 2012), born Alvin Morris, was an Americanactor and singer who was married to performer Cyd Charisse for 60 years. (wikipedia)
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I thought this one worked reasonably well, and the cluing felt well and truly toughened up, making the Sunday something other than the dull walk in the park that it has occasionally become in recent years. I have already gotten mail from people wondering what the hell "Zap!" has to do with ADs, making me wonder if this concept isn't dated already, a hold-over from a time when people recorded shows on VHS tapes. Certainly, the idea of fast-forwarding through ads is still with us (if you use a DVR, you've almost certainly done this), but I don't think I've heard the expression "zap" in this context in ages. I generally associate it with the '90s. I have no explanation or evidence to support my feeling that the phrase is no longer with us in the way it once was. Just a gut feeling. I also thought the current pope was es-shoe-ing the whole RED SHOE thing these days. Clue is still correct, historically, but the first thing RED SHOE made me think of was "uh uh."
While I generally like this theme, there are a couple clunky things. First SHADY and SHADOW are too closely related, etymologically, to both be crucial theme-answer words. They're not exactly dupes, but they're close kin, and a truly well-crafted and elegant construction isn't going to the "shade" well twice in the same puzzle. [Addendum: a second dupe—a friend just pointed out that SH[]OW doesn't just dupe SHOWY, it intersects it] Second problem is also a result of inadequate attention to craft. If you're going to zap ADs, you *zap* ADs or you omit them entirely, i.e. there should be no "AD"s in this thing, *anywhere*. Again, this is a matter of elegance. One could argue "that rule applies only in the theme answers." OK, but in a puzzle called "Zap!", I expect them to be zapped. Everywhere. And I especially don't want the first answer I encounter, 1-A-bleeping-cross, to be ADDS (!?). I see only one other instance of "AD" in the grid (at ADANO), meaning that it wouldn't have been hard At All to zap them. Just do it! Get rid of 'em. Come on. Raise the bar, NYT. A theme idea this good deserves commensurate execution.
Biggest trouble spots for me were the SE and NE. I got into the far SE corner pretty easily, but the rest of that quadrant, yikes. Might've helped if I'd ever heard of CANNA, or knew what West ELM was. Had to infer the S and the S and the Y in MESSY to pick it up and then travel up from there. Harrowing! But I had a much worse time in the NE, where the phrase IRISH BALLAD just … didn't seem like a coherent thing to me, I guess, so much so that I had IRISH --LLAD and thought I must have an error. I had never heard of either of the missing crosses there: IMAGER (OK, maybe I've heard that, but yuck, is that really the term for the viewfinder?) and BARDED (I've read soooooo many works with armored horses in them, and have never ever seen this word). If I didn't know that SLADE was an [English glam-rock band with six #1 hits], I might've had fatal trouble up there. I had GIRDED for BARDED and my first glam-rock answer was T-REX. But I survived. And overall, I enjoyed the challenge.
Puzzle Worth Noting this week goes to Tyler Hinman's seasonal creation for American Values Club crossword, which does some truly stunning things with the black squares. It's titled "Open Up," and you can get it for $1 here, or just subscribe already, what the hell?
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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THEME: PARTING of the RED / SEA — the word PARTING literally parts the (unclued) words RED and SEA. Assorted related words can be found around the grid:
Theme answers:
MOSES (19A: Leader of a noted 37-Across)
EGYPT (54A: Location of the 37-Across)
ISRAELI (11D: Beneficiary of the 37-Across, in modern times)
PHARAOH (41D: Loser on account of the 37-Across)
Word of the Day: PTOMAINE (37D: Product of organic decay) —
n. A basic nitrogenous organic compound produced by bacterial putrefaction of protein.
[Italian ptomaina, from Greek ptōma, corpse, from piptein, ptō-, to fall.]
I was surprised at how straightforward this ended up being. The trick didn't trick me at all. Puzzle was easy enough that the PARTING RED SEA bit just filled itself in rather easily. I mean, I already had MOSES at that point, so putting together the answers/concept from inference wasn't tough. And that's it—the middle, literal part and then four pretty predictable related answers, with the slightly awkward cluing ("beneficiary" (?); "modern times") needed in order to make ISRAELI relevant. Not sure what subtextual message is being conveyed by aligning (via symmetry) ISRAELI statesman Abba EBAN with a YETI. Or former Egyptian president Anwar SADAT with the family UNSER. Perhaps nothing. But perhaps conspiracy theory. Fill on this one is middling to below middling, except for BEER PONG, which is fabulous, both because it's a colorful phrase, and because it ties in perfectly with the theme (Don't believe me? Check your bible … it's toward the back somewhere …)
I did not know PTOMAINE, so I needed every cross there. I also had no idea what the clue at 43A: Belated observation of 4/14/12 was going for, so when I wrote in BARGAIN (43D: Deal) and thus picked up the "B" in BERG, I had no idea why BERG was right. I get it now, but I wonder if this clue isn't trying a little too hard to be clever. The clue refers to the sinking of the Titanic. So the date in question is 1912, not 2012. "Belated observation" refers, presumably, to the fact that no one saw the BERG 'til it was too late to do anything about it. OK. Fine. But what you have to ask yourself is: what did the Titanic hit? If you answered iceBERG, and you did, then you can see at least part of what makes the payoff here somewhat underwhelming (leaving aside the fact that many solvers will have to look up the date, or won't even bother). All of which raises the question (or at least a question): are there other, non-ice BERGs? "'Look out for that dirtberg!' she cried." I don't think I've seen any other prefixes on BERG besides ice. So you'd think we'd let BERG stand alone in common parlance. And yet …
I had PADWAN (!?) for OBI-WAN for a tiny bit. Forgot about IDAS (3D: Mythical Greek who slew Castor), as I (and millions of others, no doubt) am wont to do. I always, and I mean always, spell SAO PAULO "Sao Paolo," so that happened. Went for PEEP AT before PEEPER (47D: Eye). Misspelled PESACH "Pasach" (25A: Feast of unleavened bread). So basically my mistakes were not exciting. And the puzzle itself was not that exciting. And so here we are.
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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