Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (more Tuesday than Monday in both concept and difficulty level) (3:17)
THEME: GEM (11A: One of 17-, 18-, 37-, 60- or 62-Across) — yeah those are indeed GEMs. Clues are (all-caps) months for which the GEMs are "birthstones" (a word spelled out by the circled squares when read in order)
Theme answers:
RUBIES (17A: JULY)
EMERALDS (18A: MAY)
AMETHYSTS (37A: FEBRUARY)
DIAMONDS (60A APRIL)
PEARLS (62A: JUNE)
Word of the Day: SAG-AFTRA (31D: SAG-___ (Hollywood union)) —
Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is an American labor union representing approximately 160,000 film and television actors, journalists, radio personalities, recording artists, singers, voice actors, and other media professionals worldwide. The organization was formed on March 30, 2012, following the merger of the Screen Actors Guild (created in 1933) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (created in 1937 as American Federation of Radio Artists, becoming AFTRA in 1952 after merger with Television Authority). SAG-AFTRA is a member of the AFL–CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States. (wikipedia)
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Dutchess, 2002-2019
HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS. It's early January and that means it's time for my annual pitch for financial contributions to the blog, during which I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. It's kind of a melancholy January this year, what with the world in, let's say, turmoil. Also, on a personal note, 2019 was the year I lost Dutchess, who was officially The Best Dog, and who was with me well before I was "Rex Parker." Somehow the turning of the calendar to 2020 felt like ... I was leaving her behind. It's not a rational sentiment, but love's not rational, especially pet love. Speaking of love—I try hard to bring a passion and enthusiasm to our shared pastime every time I sit down to this here keyboard. I love what I do here, but it is a lot of work, put in at terrible hours—I'm either writing late at night, or very early in the morning, so that I can have the blog up and ready to go by the time your day starts (9am at the very latest, usually much earlier). I have no major expenses, just my time. Well, I do pay Annabel and Claire, respectively, to write for me once a month, but beyond that, it's just my time. This blog is a source of joy and genuine community to me (and I hope to you) but it is also work, and this is the time of year when I acknowledge that! All I want to do is write and make that writing available to everyone, for free, no restrictions. I have heard any number of suggestions over the years about how I might "monetize" (oof, that word) the blog, but honestly, the only one I want anything to do with is the one I already use—once a year, for one week, I just ask readers to contribute directly. And then I let 51 weeks go by before I bring up the subject again. No ads, no gimmicks. It's just me creating this thing and then people who enjoy the thing supporting the work that goes into creating the thing. It's simple. I like simple. Your support means a lot to me. Knowing that I have a loyal readership really is the gas in the tank, the thing that keeps me solving and writing and never missing a day for 13+ years. I will continue to post the solved grid every day, tell you my feelings about the puzzle every day, make you laugh or wince or furrow your brow or shout at your screen every day, bring you news from the Wider World of Crosswords (beyond the NYT) every day. The Word of the Day is: Quotidian. Occurring every day. Daily. Whether you choose to contribute or not, I'm all yours. Daily.
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. This year's cards are illustrations from the covers of classic Puffin Books—Penguin's children's book imprint. Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, How to Play Cricket ... you know, the classics. There are a hundred different covers and they are truly gorgeous. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD. As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.
Now on to the puzzle!
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Wow, a debut by not one but two women. Cool. Diversify the constructor pool! I did not like this one much, for a bunch of reasons (which I'll get to), but it's promising. It's conceptually ambitious (which is good, but also part of the problem). And the fill, while shaky in parts, is at worst NYT-average. This is better than my own first NYTXW (oh so many years ago ...), so I'm optimistic. But to get to the problems—let's start with the revealer, which is both a dud (just GEM?) and bizarrely placed in the NE, and even more bizarrely cross-referenced with UNCUT, which is doubly unfortunate, as a. it adds weird difficulty to the puzzle (you gotta look around the grid to have any idea what the answer might be, and if you were to look there before you actually had 11-A, well you're really out of luck), and b. evokes a current movie ("UNCUT GEMs," starring Adam Sandler) that is just begging to be the revealer of a GEM-related puzzle. It's like having UNCUT in this grid reminds you of what a cool, timely GEM-related theme *might* have been. Instead, you have this clunker of one-word revealer, all tucked away in the NW, and then these circles, which ... were so confusing. It's hard enough to infer the theme (the clues are just months, so you gotta piece it together—fine on W or Th, weird for M); but now you've got these circles that appear meaningful (and are, ultimately, meaningful), but they are in no way meaningful *to their own answers*; that is, "BI" has nothing to do with RUBIES. Zero. It's not a sign or symbol or, well, anything that relates directly to RUBIES. Usually, when circles appear in answers, they are related in some way to what is going on in that specific answer, with that specific clue. But here, no. Confusing. Lastly, where awkwardness and inelegance are concerned, there's the fact that GEM is in the singular, when everything else, theme answers and circled theme word ("birthstones"), is ostentatiously in the plural. In short, this feels like a first draft of what might've been a much tighter, cleaner puzzle.
Had trouble with a bunch of the non-theme answers. Biggest hold-up by far was AFTRA (31D: SAG-___ (Hollywood union)). I'm sure I've seen that acronym before, but recalling it was ... not in the cards. SAG is superfamous. I would say that part of the union name is almost Monday-famous, but of course on a Monday you'd clue SAG like the ordinary word that it is. AFTRA, on the other hand ... well that can only be clued *this* way, and *this* way is tough. I also found SEA SLUG (45D: Shell-less marine invertebrate) and PAN OUT (67A: Be successful in the end) difficult to see, and SCHNAPPS took me several beats, even after I had SCHN- in place; "Alcoholic drink" just did nothing for me. I know ELMIRA very well because it's practically down the street from me (if you think of US86 as a "street"), but it still seems kind of hard for a Monday (8D: Upstate New York city south of the Finger Lakes). My time ended up in a reasonable Monday range, so perhaps difficulty level wasn't Too far off, but it felt off. If you were (or felt) slowish today, I'm just letting you know you aren't alone. Enjoy the rest of this JANUARY (GARNET!) day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. if you missed Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel's latest installment of "Crossword Mysteries" ("Abracadaver!"), well, you missed a GEM. The plot is way too convoluted to explain, but the important part is... the cameo! Delightful.
"Everyone has to dance! Those are the rules!" (actual line) [to be very clear, I genuinely enjoy Hallmark movies and am not mocking anyone here, except maybe myself]
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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