Second day in a row where I finished the puzzle and had no idea if I properly understood the theme. Yesterday, I hadn't. There was a whole secondary element that I'd missed, one that I eventually saw, but only well after finishing. Today ... my main feeling was "Is that it? That can't be it? Wacky phrases made out of three 5-letter anagrams? That's something I'm sure I've seen, maybe a number of times, over the course of decades ... so that can't be it." I noticed that the first and last Across answers were both clued ["Furthermore ..."] and reasoned that those answers must hold the clue to some as-yet undiscovered level of themery. But that got me nowhere. Or, rather, it got me to the (admittedly shaky) idea that the PLUS and ALSO were supposed to refer to the two anagrams that follow the initial word in each theme phrase. If I've missed something, mea culpa, as they say in crosswords. But this concept feels very old-fashioned—which doesn't mean it can't yield results, but I think the results here are too forced for my taste. AIDES IDEAS ASIDE is at least clean, if not terribly exciting. But I don't know why the TRAYS would be ARTSY at a "hipster cafe" (whatever that is). And even after looking at EARLY RELAY LAYER a bunch of times, I'm still not exactly sure what is going on there. I guess the idea is that in a triathlon you swim first (yes?) so, as for your wetsuit, it's ... EARLY in the RELAY ... that you would wear ... it? So the LAYER is EARLY, not the RELAY, which probably started right on time, so I guess RELAY is also adjectival (modifying LAYER) ... wait, is EARLY-RELAY a compound adjective? That's probably your best bet for understanding this one. Sigh. It's grammatically confusing (esp. compared to that first themer). And SET ON STONE feels like a typo—a violation of the phrase everyone uses when talking setting + stone, that is, "set in stone." So these 3x5-letter anagram phrases were of varying degrees of solidity and clarity, though the basic concept was never likely to yield anything terribly exciting. But also, as I say, I may be missing something important. The one unexpected thing about this theme is that after grasping the concept, I thought getting all the themers would be way too easy, but they were somehow bizarre enough to make me work. There is something to be said for working. And bizarreness. Not a total loss.
The fill is also a little limp today—lots of overfamiliar 3-4-5 stuff (LOO ANO ITT ITOO TIARA HERR NYT IAMB SOS UNDOandREDO etc.). As usual, the long Downs add some color. I really like the clue on BOLSTERS—an unexpected yogic twist. If you've ever been to a yoga class, then you know, BOLSTERS are real (and useful). I always like remembering "Peanuts," even though the RED BARON stuff was never my favorite (6D: Snoopy's imaginary antagonist). I prefer the ordinary existentialist drama of Snoopy's everyday life, like his conversations with Woodstock. "Conversations" (Woodstock speaks only in little vertical slashes, though Snoopy seems to understand him). Weird that I wanted "IT'S A TRAP" on Monday when the answer was "IT'S A TEST," only to have "IT'S A TRAP" appear here, two days later. Is a LOIN a "body part"??? Like ... I have a reasonable understanding of where one's "loins" (plural???) are, but I don't think I know *exactly* what "part" is in question here. Is it a pig body part, like a pork LOIN? Google is telling me that the LOIN is "the part of the body on both sides of the spine between the lowest (false) ribs and the hipbones," but no one says "ow, my LOIN!" when they hurt their lower back, do they? I know this word only as a cut of meat, so "body part" really threw me. There wasn't much else here to throw me, though. The two pop culture names of less-than-universal fame were very familiar to me, though I actually never saw the clue for Michaela COEL. As for PRUE, I had this moment of "ugh not a celebrity chef, I do not know any celebr-" followed by "Oh, PRUE! From 'Great British BAKE Off'! Oh sure, I know her. She's fun."
The cluing felt thoughtful today. Liked the clues on little things like GALA (24D: Fancy-sounding apple cultivar) ("fancy-sounding" made me smile and "cultivar" is just a cool word), and STEER (33D: Use a wheelchair's push rims, for instance) (makes me think PUSH RIMS would make good fill), and SOFT (70A: Like forgiving lighting in photography). Regular words, but the clues give me vivid, specific contexts to think about. Just because the words are ordinary doesn't mean the clues have to be dull. See you all tomorrow, I hope.
Constructor: Olivia Mitra Framke and Andrea Carla Michaels
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: TRI-STATE AREA (54A: U.S. geographical grouping ... or a hint to 20-, 27- and 47-Across) —theme answers are three states all run together (with overlapping letters), clued by the states official self-designations (e.g. Show-Me, Golden, whatever):
Tuesdays and Thursdays might get a bit abbreviated for a while, since I solve and write first thing in the morning and then turn around and teach shortly thereafter. And since I have a 7-something AM bus to catch, and I don't like to be rushed getting out the door, I can't linger over these write-ups the way I sometimes do on T and Th. Then again every time I say the write-up is going to be short, I end up going into normal writing mode and doing the same thing I always do, so who knows? I'm already wasting valuable time writing about the fact that I don't have that much time! The point is, if T and/or Th seem clipped in the near future, now you know why (or what my official excuse is). My cat (OLIVE!) woke me up at 3:30am today, so I Have More Time Than I Want Actually. But still, 5:30am finish time is going to be the goal! We'll see how that works out.
[I let her sleep. Anywhere. She is less obliging.]
I was happy the puzzle obliged my schedule today by being easy, but that's one of the few things about it I genuinely liked. I don't quite understand how this rises to NYTXW levels of Thursday trickiness. I've seen some version of this conceit before, I'm fairly sure, but that's not the problem—the dullness of the overall idea is the problem. Yes, you can run state names together, many of them famously share letter strings, so what? TRI-STATE AREA is a fine phrase but I don't think of a crossword answer as an "area" and there's nothing particular lovely or clever or funny about three state names mushed together, so I guess I'm just failing to see the appeal, particularly the *Thursday NYTXW!* appeal. And as for the tri-state Frankenstein's monster answers ... there really should be a higher bar for amount of overlap. Something to make the concept seem unusual and worthwhile. What I'm saying is that the overlaps are much more interesting when they comprise two or more letters—VERMONTANA! That's almost fun. But when the overlap is just one letter (as it is, twice, in this puzzle) ... that hardly seems worth doing. A cheap way to get overlap. There's not even entertaining wackiness to provide some auxiliary enjoyment. VERMONTALASKA is kind of fun to say, but the others, not so much. Hard to know how to say NEBRASKANSAS since whichever way you choose, you butcher one of the state's actual pronunciations, and with OHIOWALABAMA you can't even hear the IOWA part. It's like it's not there. I'm just finding it hard to see the Thursday-worthiness today.
Love the phrase I'M DOWN (as well as the fact that it is, in fact, Down) (4D: "Sounds like a plan!") and I like the clue on SALAD BAR (5D: Place to pick some vegetables?), and I'm never gonna be mad at finding a cocktail in my crossword (60A: Cocktail made with gin, soda, lemon juice and sugar => TOM COLLINS), but that's really it for high points. The fill is just OK, and actually a bit old-fashioned and creaky. EINandNIE? And then TSO and ABU and ORD and USAUSA and ASTERS and SLOE and ACER and ICAL (!?) and the old sandwich partial ON RYE ... there's just a crustiness that is not adequately balanced out by freshness. DOGROSE is "fresh" in the sense of "never heard of it" and "hasn't been in the NYTXW since 1962," and I don't mind seeing it here, but ... well, there are over 300 species of rose, so finding one I haven't seen or heard of is not going to be hard. If I were more botanically inclined, DOGROSE might've delighted me more. Those are the breaks. But even if I throw DOGROSE on the "Fresh" pile today, it's still not much of a pile.
[I don't love APER, but I really don't love ICAL / ACER, so I prefer this way ... oh wait, you could turn APER into AVER if you want! Yes, I think that's even better.]
Not too many problem areas today. Wanted REND for WEEP (21D: Tear a lot). Wanted MURDER before MOTIVE (27D: Whodunit plot element). Tried to mentally stretch out BAE to make it fit at 41A: Sweetheart before remembering that BEAU was also a word. That's all. See you tomorrow.
Relative difficulty: Easy or Easy-Medium, depending on your moon knowledge (9:03 with a drink in me!)
THEME: "Over the Moon" — themers contain words meaning "elated" (i.e. "over the moon"); those words appear *directly overthe name of a moon (of some other planet in our solar system)*:
Theme answers:
JOLLY RANCHER (21A: Brand of fruity hard candy) / ARIEL (24A: URANUS)
BLISSFUL IGNORANCE (40A: Comfort in not knowing, say) / GANYMEDE (50A: JUPITER)
"HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN" (66A: Song standard on "Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits") / TITAN (71A: SATURN)
CHEERY DISPOSITION (86A: One feature of a perfect nanny, in a "Marry Poppins" song) / DEIMOS (91A: MARS)
Well, what do you know? A good Sunday puzzle. Second of the year, by my count. Nice. This one actually got better as it rolled along. Not sure why that should be, but that's how it felt. Maybe it just took some time to sink in that I was actually kind of enjoying a Sunday, that I was finding very little to be irritated about, and that the themers were fun answers in their own right, as well as being part of a very interestingly executed concept. I don't think the full significance of the theme really dawned on me until I was done, because the puzzle was remarkably easy. I was just having fun slaloming through the grid, and then having a Lot of fun realizing exactly how many moon names I know. It was like all that crossword moon knowledge I'd picked up over years and years of solving finally paid off in one big moon rush. I found my fingers just typing out stuff like DEIMOS and TITAN without my brain really feeling like it was involved. My fingers were just like, "trust us." And they were right. I don't think I knew ARIEL and NAIAD were moons, but they filled themselves in easily enough through crosses. And the rest of the grid was overwhelmingly clean and even a little bouncy. There are "only" five themers, but actually there are ten, with the moons, and the immediate proximity of the moon names to the theme answers means that theme is actually quite dense in places; and yet the grid does not feel terribly compromised. The worst thing in the grid, FESTAL, comes at the most thematically dense part of the grid (it runs through three theme-related answers), so I can forgive it. That is how it should be—ugly fill should only appear where you are really boxed in. By that rationale, though, there should be no NFLER in this grid. There is no excuse for NFLER. There is never an excuse for NFLER. I was so mad at NFLER, I redid that portion of the grid (on the spot, no software help!):
Oh, I also really didn't like TYS, because I don't believe that abbr. has every been written out that way ever, ever. [Grateful sentiments] are THX, maybe, but not TYS ("thank-yous"??). Still, if that's all there is to complain about, then that's a Win for the puzzle. It's a bit on-the-nose, but yes, I was over the moon about this puzzle.
Only a couple of mistakes today. Wrote in MANDMS (!?) instead of MENTOS (64D: Candy featured in a classic "MythBusters" episode). The word "classic" has meaning, and I am here to tell you that there is no such thing as a "classic" "MythBusters" episode. I barely know what that show is. Somehow MENTOS cause a Diet Coke geyser ??? Anyway, I thought maybe the show was going to bust the myth that green MANDMS make you horny (I would watch that). I also wrote in OUTSIDER instead of OUTCASTS, failing to pick up on the obvious (!) Latin plural in the clue (23A: Personae non gratae). I also just couldn't / wouldn't stop to figure out what the hell the clue on "ERAGON" thought it was doing (70D: 2003 best seller whose title is one letter different from a fantasy creature). That creature? The fabled 'EXAGON of 'ellenic 'istory (jk it's a "dragon"). I know "ERAGON" well, as my daughter went through a "read all the fantasy series esp. ones with dragons" phase circa 2010—she's got a signed photo of the "ERAGON" author in her room, no foolin'. But the whole "change this letter to a different letter and then scramble the letters and add salt to get a mythical creature"-type of cluing just makes my eyes blur, and so I inevitably move on and try to get the answer from crosses.
Have a lovely Sunday. Good look booking your vaccine appointment (I'm in the long between-shot Moderna waiting period). Take care.
THEME: CAKE (60D: Word that can follow either half of the answers to the starred clues) — just what it says:
Theme answers:
LEMON YELLOW (18A: *Bygone Crayola color)
HOT COFFEE (12D: *Sign in a deli window, perhaps)
FRUIT CUP (41A: *Sweet, healthful treat)
WHITE RICE (35D: *Staple of Japanese cuisine)
COCONUT CRAB (62A: *World's largest terrestrial arthropod)
Word of the Day: COCONUT CRAB (62A) —
The coconut crab (Birgus latro) is a species of terrestrial hermit crab, also known as the robber crab or palm thief. It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, with a weight up to 4.1 kg (9.0 lb). It can grow to up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length from each tip to tip of the leg. It is found on islands across the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Pacific Ocean as far east as the Gambier Islands and Pitcairn Islands, similar to the distribution of the coconut palm; it has been extirpated from most areas with a significant human population, including mainland Australia and Madagascar. Coconut Crabs also live off the coast of Africa near Zanzibar, and the Gambier islands in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The coconut crab is the only species of the genusBirgus, and is related to the terrestrial hermit crabs of the genus Coenobita. It shows a number of adaptations to life on land. Like other hermit crabs, juvenile coconut crabs use empty gastropod shells for protection, but the adults develop a tough exoskeleton on their abdomens and stop carrying a shell. Coconut crabs have organs known as branchiostegal lungs, which are used instead of the vestigial gills for breathing, and after the juvenile stage they will drown if immersed in water for too long. They have an acute sense of smell, which has developed convergently with that of insects, and which they use to find potential food sources. (wikipedia)
• • •
This is a well-established theme type that's almost never enjoyable. I don't know why people continue to make them. "This short word can follow or precede both parts of all those answers you just put in the grid ... VOILÀ!" The revealer always comes like a thud, the theme answer review like an autopsy. "Oh, CAKE ... the answer is CAKE ... [looks over grid] ... ok I guess that mostly checks out ... SIGH." The problem with this theme type is that it often convinces you to try to pass off some wonky answers. Today's puzzle manages to avoid this problem, mostly, though COCONUT CRAB, yikes, on a Tuesday? With that (very non-coconut-specific) clue?? Glaring outlier, that one, in terms of general familiarity. This type of theme is not exciting or important enough to bloat your grid like this (it's 16 wide to accommodate the even-numbered length of the central Across, which has to be centered for reasons of symmetry—can't center an answer of even-numbered length in a regular 15x grid). So there's just ... more. And you get that thing I never love, where there are non-theme answers right alongside of, and the same length as, themers (see NE, SW corners). Yes, they are bonus long answers, and both of them today are OK, but aesthetically I just like it better when the themers stand out, lengthwise.
Two other problems with the theme. The clues are ... odd. This is part of what made the puzzle harder than your typical Tuesday. They're very vague. Clue on LEMON YELLOW may as well just have been [Color]. Clue on COCONUT CRAB, well, we've been over that one. I would never in a million years associate a "deli" with HOT COFFEE, though I guess I've watched enough old movies that maybe I can imagine it now. The clue did almost nothing to help get me there, though. The other theme problem is minor, but really really affected the end of the solve (you know, the climactic, most important part): the first letter of the revealer (CAKE) was the very last square I wrote in, and instead of writing it in with an emphatic Pow, I wrote it in tentatively, with a half grimace. Not at all confident. There is no clue for CAKE (beyond the fact that it can follow the answer parts) and the cross on "C" is ooooof an org. initialism (EEOC), the ugliest thing in your grid, and again, it had a vague clue (59A: Workers' rights org. since 1965), which left me just *hoping* at the end that "C" was correct (once I had EEO- in there, I figured "C" was "Commission," from Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and I was right, but it still felt more like a guess than I'd've liked). I can easily see someone's never having heard of EEOC, and therefore having a weirdly hard time with that cross, and thus a weirdly hard time getting to CAKE—the whole central premise of the puzzle. You gotta be more careful with the cluing and crosses on your revealer. It has to pop. To leave it just sitting there, a sad, unclued four letters, in an awkward, not-very-themelike position (the third-to-last Down answer!?), with the ugliest bit of fill you've got crossing its head ... that's just mean.
GLOW STICK, GUEST ROOM, good. Short fill in SW (ATIT RICO ICER), woof, not good. Mostly, the fill here felt very standard-20th-century. Fine. Let's just never do this theme type again. Please. Thanks.
THEME: "All Aflutter" — a puzzle about the BUTTERFLY EFFECT (81A: Subject of this puzzle, as suggested visually by its central black squares), which is apparently a concept in CHAOS THEORY (24A: Mathematical field that includes the 81-Across); the grid includes a "definition" of the concept (ONE SMALL THING / CAN MAKE ALL THE / DIFFERENCE / IN THE WORLD) (3D: Start of a definition of the 81-Across) and then for some reason you have to add the letter "N" (?) to a "shaded square" (not depicted, but visible in the paper and on the app), which turns TOR and ADO into TORNADO (62A: A.L. East team ... or, using the shaded square, what a little movement by this puzzle's subject might cause), which I guess illustrates the idea of a "small change" making... "all the difference in the world???" I don't know. Black squares near the middle of the grid also kinda depict a butterfly
Word of the Day: MANA (????) (35A: Magical resource in Magic: The Gathering) —
Magic or mana is an attribute assigned to characters within a role-playing or video game that indicates their power to use special magical abilities or "spells". Magic is usually measured in magic points or mana points, shortened as MP. Different abilities will use up different amounts of MP.[1] When the MP of a character reaches zero, the character will not be able to use special abilities until some of their MP is recovered.
Much like health, magic might be displayed as a numeric value, such as "50/100". Here, the first number indicates the current amount of MP a character has whereas the second number indicates the character's maximum MP. In video games, magic can also be displayed visually, such as with a gauge that empties itself as a character uses their abilities. [...]
"Mana" is a word that comes from Polynesian languages meaning something along the lines of "supernatural power". The concept of mana was introduced in Europe by missionaryRobert Henry Codrington in 1891 and was popularized by Mircea Eliade in the 1950s. It was first introduced as a magical fuel used to cast spells in the 1969 short story, "Not Long Before the End", by Larry Niven, which is part of and later popularized by his The Magic Goes Away setting. It has since become a common staple in both role-playing and video games.
• • •
That "definition" is such an awful cliché. And it's not even a "definition," it's a dumb saying. If you were truly dealing CHAOS THEORY, my guess is you'd provide a proper definition, but instead we get this mushy pop mumbo jumbo, "ONE SMALL THING / CAN MAKE ALL THE / DIFFERENCE / IN THE WORLD"; like, if someone said that to me, I'd slowly or possibly quickly just find somewhere else to be. Also the whole butterfly flapping its wings and causing a TOR(N)ADO ... somewhere, anywhere, is another bit of nonsense. Again, I believe that there is a thing in CHAOS THEORY called the BUTTERFLY EFFECT, but the pop understanding of it flaunted here is just garbage. Weirdly, I think I first understood the BUTTERFLY effect as an effect through *time*, not *weather*, i.e. I thought it was the idea that if you went back in time and killed a single butterfly (why you would do that, I don't know, you cruel bastard) then the "effects" across large amounts of time could be world-alteringly significant. But sure, no, butterfly flaps cause tor(n)ados, that works too. Seriously, the wording on the "definition" is the Main Thing making me not like this puzzle at all. I kept thinking it was going to be something specific or at least snappy, but ... no. Also, why ... what is the rationale for entering the letter "N," specifically, in that "shaded square" (between TOR and ADO)? "Using the shaded square"?? Does "using" mean "putting an 'N' in there for some reason." I hate stuff like this because I feel like "ugh do I have to read every clue again to see if *somewhere* the 'N' rationale is explained!?" But I don't think it is. Just ... arbitrary. Put an 'N' in there. TOR(N)ADO. Whoopee.
Theme is so elaborate (by which I mean space-consuming) that there's not much room for interesting longer fill, though I did enjoy COCOAPUFFS. Baffled by BELLAS and MANA. I feel like I used to see ONAGER(S) a lot but since I haven't in a while, I totally blanked on the name (28D: Wild Asian equines). Had the "O" and wanted only OKAPIS, obviously wrong. Had a lot of trouble with the short Acrosses in the west, where SCHISM had a vague clue (60A: Split), "I'M IN" felt like it really wanted to be "C'MON!" (66A: "Let's do this!"), "CAN DO!" was really really not how I was hearing "You got it!" (72A), and ANNOY seemed just as good as ANGER for 77A: Tick off. I don't seem to have any significant trouble otherwise. I like this puzzle's thematic ambition, but like lots of puzzles that try to do grid artwork *and* have thematic content *and* have some weird (here, extra-square) trick, it felt shaky. Showy, but not precise or elegant. But again, the thing that really turned me off the whole enterprise was the whole "definition"—a forced, trite, made-up, for-symmetry's-sake expression that isn't even a specific quotation. I so badly wanted it to be an actual thing that in the beginning I was mad that ONE SMALL wasn't followed by STEP FOR MAN etc.
THEME: AMENDMENT XIX (53A: Measure fully ratified on 8/18/1920) — a puzzle celebrating the 100th anniversary of WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE in the U.S. (34A: Subject of 53-Across):
Additional theme answers:
ALICE PAUL (17A: Rights advocate who campaigned for 53-Across)
CONSTITUTION (19A: What 53-Across changed)
TENNESSEE (56A: 36th state to ratify 53-Across, resulting in its passage)
Word of the Day: ORANGINA (10D: Citrus drink often sold in a pear-shaped bottle) —
Orangina (French pronunciation: [ɔʁɑ̃ʒina]) is a lightly carbonated beverage made from carbonated water, 12% citrus juice (10% from concentrated orange, 2% from a combination of concentrated lemon, concentrated mandarin, and concentrated grapefruit juices), as well as 2% orange pulp. Orangina is sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup (glucose fructose) and natural flavors are added.
Orangina was developed by Augustin Trigo Mirallès from Spain in 1933 and was sold to French businessman Léon Beton at a trade fair in Marseille in 1935. Today it is a popular beverage in Europe (especially France and Switzerland), Japan, North Africa, and to a lesser extent in North America.
Hey, cool, an anniversary puzzle that actually appears exactly on the anniversary. And it's a milestone that's truly worthy of the tribute. No trickiness or gimmicks here, just straightforward trivia arranged in a symmetrical pattern, but it all works fine. Of course you'd normally refer to the "measure" in question today as the "nineteenth amendment," not AMENDMENT XIX, but the phrase as it appears in the grid is accurate, so I can't really ding it for its non-colloquial quality. Puzzle is undersized (narrow by one column) in order to accommodate the 14-letter central answer. I guess the constructor could've opted for the oversized 16x15 puzzle and stuck with the same answers just fine, but if you can do it in a 14 wide just as well, why not? You get a couple nice longer Downs in the bargain (ORANGINA, MUSTANGS). Actually, FOR KEEPS isn't bad either, and TOXINS and BOX SET both work nicely in the SE. I suppose those X's might've caused trouble, but with KOSOVO that actually ends up being the most interesting corner.
There's some less-than-lovely crosswordesey stuff (AMOI, OLES, OLAN) and a couple of weakish partials (ADEE, AKISS), and MNOP is ... yeah, not great; but this is a puzzle where all the fill really has to do is hang in there. Stay cleanish, let the attention go to the theme. Mission largely accomplished. Not much else to say.
Relative difficulty: ??? Easy but also I got stalled forever ("forever") because of a wrong Apple product guess and also LASERED, LOL no that is not a thing...
THEME: AU PAIRS (40A: Some household helpers ... or an oral hint to 17-, 24-, 51- and 63-Across) — each theme answer features two "O" pairs:
Theme answers:
SCOOBY-DOO (17A: Mystery-solving Great Dane of cartoons)
GOOGLE DOODLE (24A: Logo art that changes almost daily)
BAMBOO SHOOTS (51A: Stir-fry ingredients, often)
FOOL PROOF (63A: Can't-miss)
Word of the Day: HOOHA (54D: Commotion, in slang) —
informal
: a state or condition of excitement, agitation, or disturbance: COMMOTION,UPROAR(wikipedia)
• • •
I only had one glass of wine but somehow I could not type smoothly at all tonight, so my time was more bloated than it should've been. I think the puzzle was easy, although LASERED feels laughable to me and because of the whole 'hit'-is-both-present-and-past-tense thing, I had no idea what was going on there (46D: Hit with a beam of light). I guess the verb "to laser" is a thing in hair removal (?) but that's not in the clue and I only know the verb LASED and so when I finally got it all I could picture was someone in a scif show going "I LASERED him good!" and it just made no sense. Laser hair removal, I know about. LASERED as a verb, not so much. I also guessed IPAD instead of IMAC, which cost me, and which, honestly ... is just the worst (37D: Popular Apple product). I mean, Apple products are such ugh. You know them, but it's like "which one?" and the clue's all "I'm not telling?" and you're like "stupid four letters, guess I gotta check crosses, this is *tedious*!" etc. Anyway, IPAD and LASERED caused a LOAD of problems and did not ENHANCE my enjoyment of the puzzle. Luckily, the theme was nifty—a near perfect Monday-type concept, with simple, snappy fill. Nice revealer. Nice. Fill overall was a *little* on the weak side, but mostly just dull and stale (AGORA ORR AAS etc). But, again, didn't matter. Theme zinged. Puzzle was appropriately easy. Thumbs up.
HOOHA always makes me laugh, first because it is slang for "vagina" and second because it's the title of the first story in the first MAD magazine ever published (1952), a story I teach every year (it's fantastic and genuinely funny—although there, it's spelled with a terminal "H," as it often is in the "disturbance" meaning of the word as well):
W: Harvey Kurtzman, A: Jack Davis
I had the Jeep Grand Cherokee as an ATV at first (??)—got the "V" first and ... I dunno, some kind of instinct kicked in (ATV = ~2x as common as SUV in the NYTXW). Had SNEER for SCOWL (7D: Angry expression). Everything else went pretty smoothly. [Place to buy a drink] seems too vague for CASH BAR. Gotta be a be a more colorful and specific way to do that one. GRANOLAS in the plural is a little weird, but I guess if you're looking at various brand all lined up on a supermarket shelf, OK. It's all OK. It will do just fine. Again, with a theme this tight, on a Monday ,all you gotta do is not completely blow the fill, and I would say Mission: Accomplished on that front.
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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