Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Sunny Maharjan

Constructor: Sunny Maharjan

Relative difficulty: easiest Tuesday I've ever done? possibly

THEME: WALGREENS (37A: CVS rival ... or a phonetic hint to the answers on the this puzzle's perimeter) — answers along the perimeter (or "walls") are all shades of "green":

The "Wall" of "Greens":

JADE (1A: Prized gem in Chinese culture)
PINE (5A: Long (for))
SAGE (9A: Wise one)
EMERALD (12D: May birthstone)
FOREST (52D: Not see the ___ for the trees)
MINT (70A: Money maker)
LIME (69A: Acidic ingredient in Guacamole)
MOSS (68A: Stuff growing on a tree trunk)
SEA FOAM (40D: Froth seen at the beach)
JUNGLE (1D: Jaguar's home)

Word of the Day: ATP (53A: Energy-carrying chemical found in all living things, in brief) —

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is a nucleoside triphosphate that provides free energy of approximately 58 kJ/mol (0.6 eV) to drive and support many processes in living cells, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse propagation, and chemical synthesis. Found in all known forms of life, it is often referred to as the "molecular unit of currency" for intracellular energy transfer.
When consumed in a metabolic process, ATP converts either to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) or to adenosine monophosphate (AMP). Other processes, such as oxidative phosphorylation or substrate-level phosphorylation, regenerate ATP. ATP is also a precursor to DNA and RNA, and is used as a coenzyme. Daily, an average adult human recycles through synthesis and hydrolysis around 50 kilograms of ATP (about 100 moles).
From the perspective of biochemistry, ATP is classified as a nucleoside triphosphate, which indicates that it consists of three components: a nitrogenous base (adenine), the sugar ribose, and the triphosphate. (wikipedia)

• • •

Conceptually, this is fine. The whole perimeter-answer conceit is an old one (here's a much more elaborate one from Liz Gorski in 2013, for example), but apparently there's still more juice in it. A little, anyway. The problem with a puzzle like this, and this puzzle in particular, is that none of those themers are noteworthy or unusual. They have no theme pop or sizzle. They are just regular answers, clued exceedingly regularly, and most of them just four letters long. Outside the theme, there's nothing to make up for this lack of longer answers—well, two rather ordinary 8s (PEDESTAL, ENSHRINE), but nothing to give the grid some life or make the solve at all entertaining. No attempt has been made to do anything interesting with the theme clues. All of them—plain as a paper plate. And why are only three of the themers clued as non-green things (MINT as building; SAGE as wise one; PINE as long (for))??? Might've been (much) better if all those clues had tried to move away from green, so at least ... I don't know, maybe there's been some kind of aha with the revealer? The editors really let this puzzle down, I think. It's hard to care about a theme that looks like corporate sponsorship (in this case, an ad for WALGREENS), but I do think this puzzle might've been executed in a way that was at least a little more thoughtful and clever. The relatively straightforwardness of it all—and the fact that the themers are all disguised as plain answers (I solved the whole thing without even noticing that WALGREENS was a revealer)—meant that this was the easiest Tuesday I've ever solved. Twice as easy as yesterday's puzzle. I hesitated not once. Ever. Oh, I kinda hesitated over how to spell "ARGH!," and I misread 56A: Pompadour or pigtails as [Pompadour of pigtails], and that definitely made me pause in wonder for a second, but otherwise, I looked at clue and wrote in answer, over and over and over, non-stop. ATP is the only thing that would've tripped me, but that "P" was the very last thing I filled, and I knew SAPIENS (42D: 2014 nonfiction best seller subtitled "A Brief History of Humankind"). IN SUM: Very easy, disappointingly dull.

The clues don't even seem to be trying today. In any way. It's like *they're* bored. Nine (9!?!?) fill-in-the-blank answers??? What are we doing here? Is there even a single "?" clue? I'm usually not begging for those, but when the puzzle is giving you *nothing*, you miss even the bad attempts at trickiness. Show me one clever or even playfully written clue in this puzzle! It's kind of scary, actually. This is the first puzzle I've solved where I think a bot could've written these clues. They all look like stock clues from prior puzzles. Every. Last. One of them. The fill quality is OK, but only OK, and occasionally runs toward the unfortunate and olden (IDES, NENE, NIN ... ETCH-A!? Oof, put that thing in the Terrible Partial Hall of Fame) (fifth appearance all time for ETCH-A—the first few times, the puzzles at least seemed to be tricky or late-week puzzles, where you could maybe excuse a clanker like that, but the last two appearances, have been on Monday and Tuesday—there's really no excuse for an early-week grid to have something that bad in it). It's hard to talk about the fill I really liked in this puzzle because it's all rather plain. PEDESTAL and ENSHRINE are the clear highlights, both for being the longest answers, and for not just being symmetrical, but seeming like a real pair—they're both about elevating and honoring. A nice accidental pairing that has at least as much coherence and thematic oomph as the putative theme of this puzzle does.

Bullets:

18A: Actress Judi with an Oscar and a Tony (DENCH) — Have you watched Tea with Judi DENCH!? I haven't, but I have seen clips from the show on Instagram and every single one with Ian McKellen is charming, moving, hilarious. Those two are close friends and you can tell. Here's a clip of Dench showing McKellen her actual Oscar:

42D: 2014 nonfiction best seller subtitled "A Brief History of Humankind" (SAPIENS) — I got tripped up on this exact clue some years ago, as I'd never heard of the book. I have now heard of the book, so ... no more tripping. I wish I had more interesting things to say about the fill in this puzzle but it is Truly Giving Me Nothing.
25D: "This one's on me!" ("MY TREAT!") — this puzzle was not a treat, but I have to give credit to this answer, which stands proudly between PEDESTAL and ENSHRINE, desperately trying to liven up the party. Nice try, buddy. Maybe next time.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld