Group of obsessive followers, as of a TV show / MON 8-14-23 / Exceed the limit à la Spinal Tap / Longtime Dancing With the Stars judge Goodman

Constructor: Simon Marotte and Trenton Lee Stewart

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Downs-Only)

THEME: ONE AND DONE (62A: Never to be repeated ... or an apt pronouncement after following the instructions sequentially in 17-, 25-, 39- and 49-Across) — theme answers are familiar phrases, which, taken together, form a kind of arithmetic problem, the answer to which is ONE (so, when you are DONE solving the problem, the answer you get will be ONE)
Theme answers:

• GO TO ELEVEN (11) (17A: Step 1: Exceed the limit à la Spinal Tap) 
• PLUS ONE (11 + 1= 12) (25A: Step 2: Partygoer's guest)
• TAKE TEN (12 - 10 = 2) (39A: Step 3: Go on a brief break)
• HALF OFF (2 / 2 = 1) (49A: Step 4: Hefty sales discount)

Word of the Day: Pusha T (27D: Emulates Cardi B or Pusha T = RAPS) —

Terrence LeVarr Thornton (born May 13, 1977), better known by his stage name Pusha T, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record executive. He rose to prominence as one-half of the Virginia-based hip hop duo Clipse, which was mainly active from 1994 to 2010, alongside his older brother No Malice. As Clipse, the two released three studio albums upon signing to Pharrell's Star Trak Entertainment; the albums spawned hit singles including "Grindin'" and "When the Last Time" (both 2002).

In September 2010, Pusha T signed a deal with Kanye West's GOOD Music imprint, under the aegis of Def Jam Recordings. Later that year, he was featured on West's single "Runaway," which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2011, he released his first solo project, the mixtape Fear of God, which was followed up with his debut solo album, My Name Is My Name, released in 2013. In November 2015, West appointed Pusha T to take over his role as president of GOOD Music, where he remained one of its flagship artists until parting ways with the label in 2022. 

Pusha T has released a further four solo albums: King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude (2015), Daytona (2018), and It's Almost Dry (2022), all receiving widespread critical acclaim; the latter was Pusha T's first number one debut on the Billboard 200. (wikipedia)

• • •

Just back from a local fundraiser for VINES, a community garden / urban farming organization here in Binghamton. Ate lots of good food made by local restaurants using VINES produce, hung out with some people I hadn't seen in a while, picked up a couple of bottles of wine ("for charity!" I reasoned), and generally had a nice end-of-summer time. Plus, they gave me a special "You Are Old Enough To Drink"-type bracelet, which made me feel about 30 years younger, like I was clubbing or something (a thing I have literally never done, do they still call it that?):

[Nobody actually checked my ID so I’m guessing
they "Verified" my "Age" by just looking at my neck
skin and going "oh, yeah, very much over 21"]

So, I chose today's "Word of the Day" so that when you (inevitably) run into PUSHAT someday, in some future puzzle, you cannot say that you've "never heard of him." You have now officially heard of him. Today's "Word of the Day" is for everyone who boohoos every time a rapper appears in the grid. CARDI B, you have seen, and stored away in your memory banks (probably), but now you've got PUSHA T to add to said banks. If you read the wikipedia entry, you can see that his longevity and success make him more than crossworthy. This is part of what I do. Just out here providing a rap education public service for you all, thank me later (!). As for this puzzle, it's math, there it is, I did the math, it works, the end. Pretty straightforward, not terribly exciting. The repeated ONE is a little ugly (PLUS ONE, ONE AND DONE), but few are likely to notice, let alone care. The thing about the Spinal Tap answer (part of an iconic line that comes at the end of an unforgettable exchange) is that ... "GO TO ELEVEN" doesn't really mean "exceed the limit." The point of the "eleven" line, what makes it absurd, is that the dials on his amp actually GO TO ELEVEN. That is, ELEVEN *is* the "limit." The inability of Nigel to understand the interviewer's question (namely: "Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"), his failure to understand the very premise of the question: that's the joke. That's what makes it funny. Anyway, in the movie, eleven is the limit. It does not "exceed the limit." I guess that, metaphorically, one might use "GO TO ELEVEN" to mean "exceed the limit," but more accurately it just means to max out. And the main reason you'd say it would be to remind everyone of this funny scene, which is funny, here, see for yourself:

The Downs-only solve was hard for me today in only one place—THRILL RIDE (29D: Roller coaster, e.g.). The corresponding (i.e. symmetrical) long Down was an out-and-out gimme, but once I made my way around the grid and ended up in the SW corner, I found myself staring, somewhat despairingly, at this:

Now, if you look closely, you can see the mistake that kept me stuck for a bit. I misread the clue at 49D: "___ it occurred to you ...?") and wrote in "HAS IT" instead of "HASN'T" (so much more natural does "has it occurred to you...?" sound to my ears than "hasn't it occurred to you...?"). So I was looking at I-NE at 64-Across and that could only be IONE ... but when I put an "N" in there, well, that did not help me get to THRILL RIDE. And if you look at all the other blanks I had where THRILL RIDE was supposed to go, you can see that multiple letters made sense for every square. Was it SPARES SPIRES or SPORES? ACRE or ACHE? RATS RAGS RAMS etc.? Wasn't looking good there. And then I double-checked "HAS IT," saw my error, and then was able to rolodex through letters at the end of the answer to see RIDE and from there pick up THRILL RIDE. Phew. Close call. But in the end, I finally got that ONE troublesome answer AND I was DONE. I do admire how hard the puzzle is trying to convince you that it is exciting (HIGH-OCTANE! THRILL RIDE). Thumbs up for those answers in their roles as hype men.

Not much else to comment on here. The only hesitations I had while solving Downs-only were at SIVA (never that sure about god names) and "IF ONLY..." (kept wanting the phrase to start with the pronoun "I" but "I" was in the cross as well as in the clue (47D: "I wish!"), so I just waited for crosses to make some kind of sense of that answer. Eventually, they obliged. I liked FANDOM and OVERLOOK, and thought the grid was clean, if not exactly the promised THRILL RIDE. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Brazilian actress Sonia / MON 3-27-23 / Stark daughter on Game of Thrones / Cold War contest featuring Sputnik and Apollo / Crude outbuilding

Constructor: Simon Marotte and Trenton Lee Stewart

Relative difficulty: Easy? Sure, easy

THEME: A completely implausible game of 20 Questions where all the answers are bands whose names follow the pattern [verb]ING [noun] —

Theme answers:

• COUNTING CROWS (19A: "Does the name contain an animal?" YES. "Is it a band fronted by Adam Duritz?" YES!)
• SMASHING PUMPKINS (31A: With 45-Across, "Does the name contain a vegetable?" YES. "Is it a band fronted by Billy Corgan?" YES!)
• ROLLING STONES (59A: "Does the name contain a mineral?" YES. "Is it a band fronted by Mick Jagger?" YES!)

Word of the Day: COUNTING CROWS (19A) —

Counting Crows is an American rock band from San Francisco, California. Formed in 1991, the band consists of guitarist David Bryson, drummer Jim Bogios, vocalist Adam Duritz, keyboardist Charlie Gillingham, multi-instrumentalist David Immerglück, bass guitarist Millard Powers, and guitarist Dan Vickrey. Past members include the drummers Steve Bowman (1991–1994) and Ben Mize (1994–2002), and bass guitarist Matt Malley (1991–2005).

Counting Crows gained popularity following the release of its first album, August and Everything After(1993). With the breakthrough hit single "Mr. Jones" (1993), the album sold more than 7 million copies in the United States. The band received two Grammy Awards nominations in 1994, one for "Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" (for "Round Here") and one for "Best New Artist". The follow-up album, Recovering the Satellites, reached number one on the US Billboard 200 album chart and reached number one in several other countries. All but one of their subsequent albums reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200 list.

Their hit singles include the aforementioned "Mr. Jones" as well as "Rain King", "A Long December", "Hanginaround", and a cover version of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi". Counting Crows received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for the single "Accidentally in Love", which was included in the film Shrek 2. The band has sold more than 20 million albums and is known for its dynamic live performances. Billboard has also ranked the band as the 8th greatest Adult Alternative Artist of all time. (wikipedia)

• • •

"Wow, we're really committing to this '90s bands thing, aren't we? Yesterday, THIRD EYE BLIND, and now ... this." That was my main thought after first COUNTING CROWS and then SMASHING PUMPKINS came into view. Then came ROLLING STONES and the apparent thematic consistency went out the window. But OK, "blanking blanks" bands, that's almost a thing. Then, I looked at the actual theme clues (oh, right, so I was solving Downs-only, as per my normal Monday habit, sorry to bury the lede). I don't ... I don't know ... I can hardly begin to describe the number of ways that this theme does not work. First, that is not how you play "20 Questions." That's not even how you play "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral." In the latter, the answerer *tells* the questioner at the start of the game what category (A, V, or M) the object falls under. There is no scenario in which a questioner would ask "Does the name contain an animal?" Also, "Does the name..."??? This implies that somehow the range of answers has already been pre-limited to names, which is also not how "20 Q" or "AVM" works. If you're just playing "20 Q," you might use your first Q to ask "Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?" but you'd never ask anything remotely resembling these questions. The entire imagined context for the game is bizarre, and the game itself resembles nothing humans actually play. 

The very (impressively) narrow category of the actual themers (i.e. bands with names that follow the [verb]ING [nouns] pattern) loses all its tightness once it's been shoe-horned into this contrived game scenario. Why would such a game play out in a series of "[verb]ING [nouns]" bands??? Two more problems that make this theme D.O.A. First, it's *THE* ROLLING STONES. The other bands are perfect as is, but the name of the band is *THE* ROLLING STONES, so it's technically clued inaccurately. Lastly, pumpkins are not vegetables, they are fruits. Yes, if you were *actually* playing "Animal Vegetable Mineral" (which, as we've established, you definitely aren't), then "PUMPKINS" would fall under "Vegetable" because it fits that category much better than the others. But the question as you have dreamed it up here is "Does the name contain a vegetable?" and since we are dealing with PUMPKINS the answer is "absolutely not." I feel like if you'd just stuck to the "[verb]ING [nouns]" rock band thing and clued ROLLING STONES "with 'The'" and found a different overall cluing gimmick, you might have something here. But the attempt to force this to be a game of "Animal Vegetable Mineral" just doesn't come off on the page. It's like the clues were written by AI and not by humans who had actually played human games before.

The grid is just fine–clean and smooth, and my only objection is to SANSA. My ongoing grudge against all "GOT"-related fill just won't die. Do you know how many damn names we're gonna be dealing with from that show (for god knows how many years)? LANNISTER and STARK and NED, sure, but then not just SANSA but DAENERYS TYRION CERSEI JON SNOW ARYA ROBB BRAN and god help you when they get into the tertiary characters. I'm not a fan of how deep into the "Star Wars" universe I have to crawl to learn all the crossword names, but at least "Star Wars" has some right: it's an institution, a universe that spans almost a half-century of movies, TV shows, products etc. etc. "GOT," big as it was, never had an audience larger than the average audience of "Home Improvement" circa 1993 (36.3 million viewers / week!), and how many of those characters' names do you remember? Uh ... Wilson? Was that someone? Sigh. I cleared out that NE corner and plugged the puzzle into my own construction software and whaddya know, SANSA rose straight to the top of suggestions for me too. It's just ... sometimes you gotta override your machine helper monkeys. 

Maybe SANSA is no worse than BRAGA, I don't know (52D: Brazilian actress Sonia). But Sonia BRAGA is a real person, and I know her, so I'm more favorably inclined toward her. From a Downs-only perspective, SANSA is miserable if you don't know it ("TANSA? TARSA?"), but I managed to pull it from somewhere. No other part of the grid gave me any trouble—about the easiest Downs-only solve I've had to date. I needed to infer a bunch of Acrosses in order to see SLIDESHOW (35D: TED talk accompaniment, often), but that's fairly normal where longer Downs are concerned. I was slowed, but not stymied or flummoxed or otherwise stopped. SPACE RACE was easier to come by (3D: Cold War contest featuring Sputnik and Apollo). That's all, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Victoria singer known for her gothic blues style / FRI 11-25-22 / Coffee-brewing portmanteau / Biryani base / Site of 2022's Woman Life Freedom protests / Costumer's measurement / Annual bodybuilding competition won 10 times by Iris Kyle / Title girl of a 1957 Dale Hawkins hit

Constructor: Simon Marotte

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ADIA Victoria (51D: ___ Victoria, singer known or her "gothic blues" style) —

 

Adia Victoria (born July 22, 1986) is an American singer and songwriter. In addition to playing and writing music, she also writes poetry. She is currently based in Nashville. [...] Victoria is sometimes associated with Americana music, she has distanced herself from the genre, saying, "I’m not an Americana artist. I have no interest in being appropriated by that genre." However, her position seems to have softened as, in 2022, she performed at a nominations event hosted by the Americana Music Association and was nominated for their Emerging Artist of the Year award at their 21st awards ceremony. [...] Rolling Stone describes her as "PJ Harvey covering Loretta Lynn at a haunted debutante ball." (wikipedia) [it's pronounced 'uh-DEE-uh' I believe]

• • •

I am way too full of Thanksgiving to be of much use to anyone, for anything, but I'll give this a (short) shot. It thought it was decent. Just fine. Very easy. All of the difficulty came from a couple of single-letter errors that I made along the way. The first, and worst, of these was writing in PANCHO, as in "PANCHO & Lefty,"  rather than PONCHO, as in raincoat, at 39A: Garment that's pulled over the head. That "A" absolutely killed me, as I took one look at MSA- at 33D: Annual bodybuilding competition won 10 times by Iris Kyle and wrote in MS. AMERICA. Sounded right, felt right, and ALIT (60A: Came down) "confirmed" the last "A," so I was really locked in. Total amount of time spent extricating myself from this whole probably didn't amount to much, but considering how easy the puzzle was otherwise, it felt like a major hold-up. I also wrote in IPAD instead of IPOD (of course) (32A: Touch, for one), so I had 27D: Performer whose face is rarely seen as a BAD-something or other (instead of the correct BODY DOUBLE). Beyond that, the only issues I had were parsing / spelling problems on the slangier answers. I DON'T felt straightforward, so I was a little hesitant with WANNA, but it worked out (6D: Whiner's "You can't make me!"). Later, I couldn't stop reading the answer at 11D: "Beats me" as "I GOT NO ___," and since the blank was four letters, I wanted only CLUE or IDEA, both of which were clearly wrong (the answer was "I GOT NOTHIN'"). I also had some hesitancy / uncertainty in that same corner with  [___ party] (POOL) and the front end of 10D: Enlist (ROPE IN). I think I wrote SIGN IN at first. But these were all really minor frustrations. Mostly I tore through this, even with the Thanksgiving Torpor upon me.

Really hate seeing SCUM at all, ever (45A: Film about fish tanks?). It's just a repulsive word, no matter the clue. A jarring tone shift in an otherwise light and breezy puzzle. Loved seeing PRAIRIE DOG, as I have loved seeing PRAIRIE DOGs all week here in Colorado. We've been walking in various nature preserves and around various lakes and any time there's a large expanse of flat open ground: prairie dogs. Highly social, highly alert, highly adorable, occasionally hilarious. One of them started screaming loudly as I came walking up the path in its direction, but the other PRAIRIE DOG who was with him just looked up from his digging, took one look at me, and went "nah, that's nothing," and went back to digging. So the first guy stopped screaming, but he did not stop staring. Extreme "I'm watching you, mister" stare. There are very large raptors in the area, so those prairie dogs have a lot to watch out for. Speaking of raptors, we saw any number of hawks, not one but two bald eagles, and, best of all, a great horned owl that looked just like part of a tree until its head moved. Eventually we got too close and it took off in silent, gorgeous, probably murderous flight. Spectacular. Anyway, it's back to Binghamton tomorrow, where there are no PRAIRIE DOGs, though there are bald eagles, and probably owls, if I'm just attentive enough to notice. Last word on the puzzle: nothing really Grabbed me, but it was a solid overall effort, and I really admired the clue on NIGHT SHIFT (30D: Late assignment). Perfect clue, perfect misdirection. I don't think anything requires any special explanation, so I'll sign off now. See you tomorrow, assuming all my plane stuff goes OK. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. OK, a few explanations, just in case: "bones" are slang for "dice," hence 14A: Funny bones? = LOADED DICE. And IAN FLEMING created James Bond, hence the [Bond issuer?] clue. Swim and track MEETs have different segments or "heats," which makes a MEET (today) a [Heated competition?]

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Counterpart of she-shed / MON 8-15-22 / Footwear giant headquartered in Boston Mass / Fast-food pork sandwich / Kind of technology in some modern military aircraft / Global center of Shia Islam / Toy that attaches to a garden hose / Ump's call after a first pitch / Minor hurt in kidspeak

Constructor: Simon Marotte

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Monday ... those big corners were weird / slowish)

THEME: STRIKE ONE (37A: Ump's call after a first pitch ... or a hint to the ends of 17-, 25-, 53- and 63-Across) — each of the endings is a thing you can strike, i.e. you can STRIKE ONE of the following:

Theme answers:

a balance (NEW BALANCE) (17A: Footwear giant headquartered in Boston, Mass.)

a deal (DONE DEAL) (25A: Fait accompli)

a pose (YOGA POSE) (53A: Downward dog, for one)

a chord (MINOR CHORD) (63A: Group of notes that often sounds sad)

Word of the Day: SELA Ward (40A: Actress Ward) —

Sela Ann Ward (born July 11, 1956) is an American actress, author, and producer. Her breakthrough TV role was as Teddy Reed in the NBC drama series Sisters (1991–96), for which she received her first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1994. She received her second Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for the leading role of Lily Manning in the ABC drama series Once and Again (1999–2002). Ward later had the recurring role of Stacy Warner in the Fox medical drama House, also starred as Jo Danville in the CBSpolice procedural CSI: NY (2010–2013)^[3] and starred as Dana Mosier in the CBS police procedural series FBI (2018–2019).

She also played supporting roles in films, including The Man Who Loved Women (1983), Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985), Nothing in Common (1986), Hello Again (1987), The Fugitive (1993), My Fellow Americans (1996), The Badge(2002), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Guardian (2006), The Stepfather(2009), Gone Girl (2014), and Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello, I'm back, no thanks to the good people at Delta, or to my car, which gave out at 70mph on the I-86 today, about ninety miles west of my final destination, i.e. home. We got in to Detroit after midnight, drove a couple hours to a tollbooth rest area plaza dealie, slept in the car for three hours, then drove back through Ohio and Pennsylvania to New York, where the car died, after which we spent hours waiting for a tow truck that was supposed to take half an hour the *first* time we called (we called at least four times), and even then since it's Sunday and we were ninety miles from home there was nothing much to be done so the car is back in Bath, NY waiting to be seen by Some Garage, which will tell us that it's a small thing or a big thing, and it will cost a little money or a lot of money. Anyway, thank god for friends, who came and rescued us and took us home. Now I'm all jet-lagged and obsessed with the fact that my house doesn't smell right. It doesn't smell bad, it just doesn't smell like I've been living in it. Not sure what the missing ingredient is yet. Coffee, probably. And scented candles. So yeah I've had about three hours sleep in the last 36 hours but at least I'm well fed (thawed some soup—magic). And now there's this puzzle, and it's fine, I guess, but it's built weird, I think. Giant corners and a super-choppy, hole-ridden center. Big corners might hold delights, the delights that longer answers often bring, but today they don't, not really. They're pretty shruggy. As for the theme, I didn't like the revealer at first because the ONE part felt awkward, but now I think maybe I like it fine. What might you do with each of the ending words? You might STRIKE ONE. None of the themers is that interesting on its own, but the theme holds up fine. Fine enough for Monday. I am only now learning that there is such a thing as MICROSLEEP (heard of "micronap," but not "-sleep"). I don't think it's clued well, though, since the clue implies that it's something that's intentional and possibly refreshing, whereas it's a no and no on both counts."People who experience microsleeps often remain unaware of them, instead believing themselves to have been awake the whole time, or to have temporarily lost focus" (wikipedia). I liked remembering SLIP 'N' SLIDE—do they still make them? I thought maybe they had been outlawed, like Jarts (lawn darts), since they were the cause of many a backyard injury, for sure. 

had a great two-week vacation, first in Northern Michigan and then in Los Angeles. I'll discuss it over the coming week. Or I won't. We'll see. I gotta prepare for the start of the Fall semester (a week from tomorrow), and as I say, I gotta deal with my car, and on top of it all I have jury duty starting Tuesday. The highlights of L.A. were the New Beverly Cinema (I saw "Cinderella" (1950) and "Moonraker" (1979)), the Getty (esp. the Cy Twombly exhibit), and the Huntington Library/Museum in Pasadena (finally got to see the most important Chaucer MS on the planet, as well as other beautiful things. 

at The Huntington

Not much to say about the fill in today's puzzle except that MANCAVE and "she-shed" are some vomity gender-binary nonsense. "She-shed" is actually physically painful to see and say, I can't believe women let themselves be talked into that bit of tin-eared marketing terminology. You don't even get a place in the actual house? Just ... a shed? Shed? That's the word for the dank cobwebby place you put dirty tools or whatever. And "she-shed" sounds like a hair and/or skin problem. Nah, you got the short end of the stick there, for sure. What else? I had LEGO ___ and no idea what followed, possibly because nothing made out of Legos qualifies as ART. Also, AH is not a sound of "contented pleasure." That's AAH, or possibly AHH. "AH" is a kind of unimpressed "I see," or else what you say at the dentist's office (28A: Sounds of contented pleasure = AHS). I had PUG for POM and SAYS YES instead of SAYS I DO, and I really truly believe it's spelled 'eeny' not EENIE. OK, glad to be back, etc. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

French word for a leg of the Tour de France / MON 5-23-22 / Opposition party group in British politics / Drunk in dated slang / Jacques Mon Oncle filmmaker / Basic trick at a skatepark / Helpful feature for tyops

Constructor: Simon Marotte

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: CAST (71A: Action that can be done to the starts of 20-, 35-, 44- and 56-Across) — you can CAST a net, a play, a spell, or a shadow:

Theme answers:

• NET NEUTRALITY (20A: Topic of debate regarding online service providers)
• PLAY POSSUM (35A: Feign sleep)
• SPELLCHECK (44A: Helpful feature for tyops ... um, typos)
• SHADOW CABINET (56A: Opposition party group in British politics)

Word of the Day: Eric ANDRÉ (7D: Comedian Eric) —

Eric Samuel André (born April 4, 1983) is an American actor, producer, stand-up comedian, television host and writer. He is best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the Adult Swim comedy series The Eric Andre Show (2012–present). He also played Mike on the FXX series Man Seeking Woman (2015–2017) and voiced Banzai in the remake of The Lion King (2019). He performs music under the name Blarf. [...] In a 2016 interview, André said: "I think everyone is bi, right? There's no such thing as sexual orientation, or race, or gender. Those are all obsolete man-made concepts. I'll say it again, a hole is a hole." When asked if he was coming out as bisexual, he continued: "I'll f*** anything that moves." (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a perfectly adequate puzzle—it's a variation on an ultra-common theme type (word-that-can-precede / word-that-can-follow). The revealer has no sass and no verve. It just sits there: CAST. And even when I put it in front of the words it's supposed to go in front of, it still doesn't really work, i.e. I have to put an "A" in between CAST and the words (you don't "CAST net" you "CAST *a* net," obviously). I don't quite understand how this was considered exceptional enough to be accepted. In all sincerity, the average USA Today puzzle and the average LA Times puzzle at this point are better than this. If you solve those puzzles regularly these days, you might disagree with me, and that's fine, but my contention is definitely a reasonable one—the new editors at those outlets have really been very thoughtful about what they accept and how they edit. Whereas this puzzle ... this feels like an outlet that's running on fumes. Or inertia. Or complacency. The puzzle doesn't seem to be really trying. This apparently lack of effort goes beyond the theme. The best example of the "not-trying" vibe today is ETAPE—what is this desperation crosswordese doing in a Monday puzzle? There is absolutely positively no reason for it. It's not a first-tier-familiar French word, which are the only French words that have any business being in early-week grids, especially ones that are Not At All Demanding—that is, ones that are relatively easy to fill a million different ways. The theme is light, so the fill should be ripe-Fall-apple crisp. Honeycrisp crisp. ETAPE is a mealy apple. Took me a couple seconds to get rid of it.

Do I think my version is a whole lot better? No, I think the best idea would be to do more of a tear-down in the middle and NW and rebuild from there, but my version doesn't have ETAPE, so it's inherently better, especially since I didn't make most of the surrounding fill much worse. Well, MSRP is arguably worse, I don't like it, but again, my version is just a quick what-if; if I can do this in a few seconds, that suggests that the grid could be much Much cleaner. But no one seemed to care. Good enough is good enough, I guess.

A couple of the theme answers are nice answers all on their own: NET NEUTRALITY and SHADOW CABINET would look really great in any themeless puzzle, say, or in a puzzle where the theme was really on point. Here, they're just ... answers. The only things that make the grid any fun (though "SEE YA LATER" isn't bad, either). I felt like I was moving a little slower than normal, for a few reasons. No idea who Eric ANDRÉ is, though as soon as I looked him up and saw his face, I was like "oh right, that guy." So he's good, just in my blind spot. Not in my blind spot is Jacques TATI, man I love that guy's movies (39A: Jacques ___, "Mon Oncle" filmmaker). I think I'm gonna pop "PlayTime" in the old Blu-ray player right after I'm finished here. Talk about someone who seems to be having fun, who seems to Love cinema and all its visually comedic possibilities. Just a master. 

My Monday Night Movie Club is watching a Bette Davis film tonight, one in which she is CAST TWICE—the movie is called "A Stolen Life" and Davis plays identical twins. It involves a lighthouse and also stars Glenn Ford, who was in every other movie from 1940 to 1970 and has the greatest movie face and is my hero, basically. Where was I? Oh, TWICE, that was a mean clue, mostly because THREE is also five letters long and starts with "T" (53D: How many times Bette Davis won Best Actress). Davis won her Academy Awards very early in her career (for "Dangerous" in '35 and "Jezebel" in '38, neither of which I've seen). She was nominated for her most iconic role (Margo Channing in "All About Eve"), but so was Ann Baxter, so the "All About Eve" vote got split, and the lovely and inimitable Judy Holliday ended up winning instead for her role in "Born Yesterday," which is probably just as it should be, since "Born Yesterday" is a perfect movie. (My favorite movie. True story. This print ad is framed and sitting in my upstairs bathroom):

That's all for today. In case you missed it, I printed my first "Letter to the Editor" yesterday, from former Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten. I'm thinking about publishing Letters to the Editor on a regular basis, probably on Sunday, for now. So if you have something crossword-related you want to get off your chest, drop me a line and write OK TO PRINT on it. I'll contact you if I'm going to run it. OK, that's all for now. Take care.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Self-confidence / TUES 4-26-22 / "The People's Princess" / Pro golfer Calvin / Freshwater fish with a colorful name / Heavy hardcovers

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday of April. Hope everyone had a good month; I’ve been enjoying the nice weather and have been biking some more. But, now that I work a 9-5 job, I go for a ride when everyone else is out and about, and I don’t like having to dodge people or other bikers!! I recently tried rock climbing for the first time, which was quite fun (though my forearms got so sore). As always, I’ve been rooting on my teams — Liverpool is on quite a run (if only Man City would go away), and the Warriors are up in the playoffs. So, I’ve got hope! 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Simon Marotte

Relative difficulty: Pretty easy

THEME: ROCK BOTTOM (11D: All-time low ... or a musical hint to the answers to this puzzle's starred clues) — The second/bottom word of each theme answer is the name of a famous rock band

Theme answers:

• DRAG QUEEN (5D: *Trixie Mattel, e.g.) 
• AIR KISS (25D: *Contact-free smooch) 
• CANDY HEART (28D: *Seasonal confection that may say "I Luv U") 
• SUGAR RUSH (36D: *Sensation after consuming too many Pixy Stix, perhaps)

Word of the Day: MOTET (23D: Sacred choral work) —

In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond. (Wiki)

• • •

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Tuesday puzzle where the themers are the downs instead of the acrosses — I liked the change-up. The way I did the puzzle, I figured out the revealer (ROCK BOTTOM) before getting any of the theme answers; then, I found each of the theme answers to be fairly obvious just from the clues. This is a puzzle where I didn’t look back at the theme until after I’d finished solving. 

The theme was fine, maybe even a bit on the good side. In a puzzle like this, you might’ve expected the revealer to be at 38A, which is smack dab in the center of the puzzle. But the revealer obviously wouldn’t work there, and it fit the theme to have it running down. I’d never heard of RUSH, but I see they’re a successful rock band and will have to look up some of their music. 

In general, my solve felt a bit passive. Like, there wasn’t much that really jumped out to me about the puzzle — either good or bad. I will say I think I enjoyed this puzzle more than I have a Tuesday in a while just because I personally found it easier. So, even if the puzzle was meh, I’m looking back at it with a bit of a rosy tint. 

I liked LIBRA (26D: Fair and balanced type, astrologically) and ARIES (27D: Strong and resilient type, astrologically) grouped together in the puzzle. There was also some symmetry with MOTET (23D: Sacred choral work) and HYMNS (33D: Songs that might be accompanied by an organ), which I thought worked. And, possibly some intentional symmetry with ACH (7D: German interjection) being in the same column as CRY (60D: "___ me a river!"), as ACH is a form of German cry (i.e. an exclamation). APLOMB (25A) is a great word. I like seeing Calvin PEETE (51D) in the puzzle — he was quite the golfer and a real pioneer. I liked the kitschy clue for ROBE (16A: Judicial cover-up?). NEST EGG, REMAKES, SEESAWS, and AREA RUG all seem like inoffensive longer acrosses. 

I always thought “bro hug” was a more common term than MAN HUG (18A: Bro’s embrace)? I might be mistaken. I really didn’t like the clue for TOOTH (31A: Filling station?) — since when is a tooth a station?? My hardest section of the puzzle was the eastern middle, mostly because it took a while to get TOOTH, and then I didn’t know MOTET. SLURPS (8D: Impolite sounds from the dinner table) may be impolite in the U.S., but they can actually be a sign of respect/enjoying the meal in other cultures.

Misc.:

• I know it’s a different context, but I find it amusing that the NETS (65A) just got swept in the playoffs. This might be coming from a slightly bitter Warriors fan who doesn’t mind if Kevin Durant doesn’t look good — or Kyrie Irving, for that matter. 
• PENS (31D) being White House souvenirs reminded me of something I just read today about how the White House is in need of new glassware because people keep taking their glasses home. 
• Whenever I see “DREAM ON” (10D), I immediately get the iconic Aerosmith song in my head and start trying to sing the bridge. Problem is, I’m not Steven Tyler and couldn’t even hit those notes in my own dreams. 
• One of the unintended consequences of studying for the bar exam is that I engrained a lot of miscellaneous elements in my head and, particularly, elements of criminal law. So as soon as I see ARSONS (46D: Fire felonies), the common law definition of arson immediately jumps into my brain, and I start reciting it. (For those who want to know, it’s: The malicious burning of the dwelling of another. So, under common law, if someone burned down a warehouse that wasn’t someone’s dwelling, it wasn’t considered arson.)
  

Signed, Clare Carroll, ESQ.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Thick liquidy clump / WED 12-29-21 / Van Gogh's art dealer brother / 1980s fad items advertised as the gift that grows / Stereotypical lumberjack feature / Lettered awards show host / Lettered home on the range when no one's home

Constructor: Simon Marotte and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Lettered" answers — themers, when you say them out loud, sound like a bunch of letters ... I am pretty sure that is all there is to it—if there's some meta puzzle where the 17 letters can be arranged to spell something, well, that's more effort than I'm willing to expend right now:

Theme answers:

• EMMY EMCEE (17A: Lettered awards show host?) (M, E, M, C)
• CAGEY ENEMY (30A: Lettered adversary in a battle of wits?) (K, G, N, M, E)
• EMPTY TEPEE (49A: Lettered home on the range when no one's home?) (M, T, T, P)
• EASY ESSAY (65A: Lettered school paper that's a snap to write?) (E, Z, S, A)

Word of the Day: "Lohengrin" (11D: Lohengrin's love = ELSA) —

Lohengrin, WWV 75, is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and its sequel Lohengrin, itself inspired by the epic of Garin le Loherain. It is part of the Knight of the Swan legend.

The opera has inspired other works of art. King Ludwig II of Bavaria named his castle Neuschwanstein Castle after the Swan Knight. It was King Ludwig's patronage that later gave Wagner the means and opportunity to complete, build a theatre for, and stage his epic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. He had discontinued composing it at the end of Act II of Siegfried, the third of the Ring tetralogy, to create his radical chromatic masterpiece of the late 1850s, Tristan und Isolde, and his lyrical comic opera of the mid-1860s, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

The most popular and recognizable part of the opera is the Bridal Chorus, colloquially known as "Here Comes the Bride," usually played as a processional at weddings. The orchestral preludes to Acts I and III are also frequently performed separately as concert pieces. (wikipedia)

• • •

Jarringly dated and not up to contemporary standards at all. Both theme and fill feel like they're from another era, another century, and not in some cute nostalgic way, but in a way that makes you appreciate how far even average puzzles have come in the past couple of decades. First, I don't even know what the joke is supposed to be with this theme. That is, how is "lettered" being ... used? Punned on? Am I supposed to imagine that all the "lettered" things earned a "letter" in sports? In high school? Or is the idea that they have all been formally educated? Even the TEPEE? What? The use of "lettered" here is a painfully awkward and confusing way to signal the theme. The clues aren't even wacky—they're just straight clues with "lettered" attached to the beginning. There's nothing wordplay-ish about any of it, so why, why is this happening at all? If you can't get a good revealer to make all these answers make sense, to tie them all up in a neat package, then you need to not be doing this theme at all. Even if the cluing (or hypothetical revealer) had been letter (!) perfect, the premise is still of dubious merit, and the theme answer set does not exactly sparkle. How is anyone gonna get excited about an answer like EASYESSAY? What part of it, clue or answer, produces joy, or even a hint of a smile? These are imagined phrases that just lie there—this puzzle doesn't even have the decency to throw some genuine wackiness my way. It's a load of earnest Blah from start to finish. Also, that is an awkward spelling of TEPEE. Also, EMPTY has that "p" sound, which kind of undermines the theme's central premise. Also, ELLIE conspicuously fulfills the theme concept without being part of the actual theme—ideally you'd get rid of all such non-theme answers. There's really nothing to like about this theme. IT'S not OK. 

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw [Lohengrin's love] as a clue. Turns out it's only been about four years or so, but you used to see it all the time before "Frozen" came out and absolutely took over ELSA cluing duties. [Lohengrin's love] simply adds to the conspicuous bygone feel of this puzzle. This puzzle coulda run when LOU Bega was dominating the charts or even when Miss ELLIE was all over the TV airwaves. AMY ADAMS and SWOLE are about the only things connecting this thing to the 21st century. The fill is plain and bland and overfamiliar. I'm looking for highlights and not finding any. The only thing that stood out to me about this puzzle, besides its thematic inadequacy, is that western section, which for some reason was 10x more difficult than the rest of the puzzle (very easy). Most of the clues in there just didn't add up. I had LAY AN EGG, but even those "G"s didn't help. The SHOE clue was baffling (27A: It's a little longer than a foot), and I was imagining the "bit" in 36A: Bit of bar food as something much smaller than a WING. ONE UP is confusing when you make golf the context, since being ahead actually means having a stroke count *under* the other person's. Any other sports context would've worked fine for that clue, but ugh, golf, sure. I took "Shout-out" as something ORAL so "HI MOM" didn't occur to me for 28D: Shout-out from the stands (since it usually comes in sign and hot "shouted" form). And of course the one answer I knew in that section (LOU) led me straight into a sinkhole—having the "L" in place at 27D: Muscled, slangily (SWOLE), I wrote in BUILT. But my limited speed failings aren't the real problem here. The weak theme and tepid fill, that's the problem. GLOOP—that just about sums it up. Hoping for better results tomorrow. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. there are much better CESARs than this puzzle's misguided and harmful "celebrity dog trainer." Actor Romero, Labor leader Chavez, French film award, etc. So many. It's bad enough we hunt wolves nearly to extinction; to willfully misunderstand them in order to promote systems of human dominance is really too much, man (thanks to reader Thomas B. for this reference):

It concerns me that many mainstream trainers are still promoting ideas that have long been rejected by the very experts who study this topic most. Any training ideology that relies on your being a "pack leader" or an "alpha" instead of a loving parent to your dog is misguided. The fact that this myth has persisted for so long in the face of science that shows otherwise means that there is much work to do to enlighten the public. (Zak George, HuffPo, 2017)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...