Word of the Day:Foucault's "This Is Not A PIPE"(31A) —
This essay not only proposes a new understanding of Magritte; it also constitutes a perfect illustration and introduction to the thought of the philosopher himself, France's great wizard of paradox. Magritte's respectful fan letters to Mr. Foucault, which are included in this volume, the useful introduction and splendid translation by James Harkness and the handy (though hardly sumptuous) black-and-white reproductions of many of Magritte's works combine to make this a document of extraordinary interest. (from the NYT review, Jan. 23, 1983)
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Really ragged. I guess THIRTY-TWO ACROSS is supposed to be cute ... or a joke. Maybe he started there, thought it was clever, and (clunkily) filled the (painfully segmented) grid around it. Did he build the grid *just* to get 32-Across in the right place? That would explain how ugly the grid is, I guess. I don't know. I do know that most of the time this was painful to solve. Completely sequestered NW and SE corners may as well be separate puzzles, and only the NW was up to snuff, and that one in particular was hilariously off-difficulty, i.e. played like a tough Saturday. So many one-word clues (boo!). And yet, weirdly, that ended up being the only part of the puzzle I really respected, in that the fill (and even some of the cluing) was actually pretty good, unlike most other places in the puzzle. BE SORE? IS NEAR? That is knee-bucklingly bad stuff. Come on. I'll give you one junk verb phrase, maybe, if the rest of your grid is tight, but no way I'm giving you two. And this puzzle should've be DQ'd for that little eastern part alone. ADAY over APIPE (!?) *crossing* APRS (blargh). Throw in the brutally Scrabble-****ed "Q" in the NE (what the hell is that? That "Q" makes *nothing* better) and then ANTIS TIGRE OISE ELWES RTS ILED, and you have not a lot of fun for me. For every oh-so-clever clue this one gets in, it trips over its laces twice. Like a BUS (21A), this is something I will take a pass on.
THEME:GENDER-FLUID (37A: Having a variable identity, as suggested by four squares in this puzzle) — four squares can be either an "F" or an "M"
Theme answers:
ROOM / MAKE — ROOF / FAKE (1A: Part of a house / 4D: Fabricate)
MUSTY / MESS UP — FUSTY / FESS UP (5A: Old-seeming / 5D: Reveal a secret, maybe)
MATE / PREMIX — FATE / PREFIX (61A: Topic to ask a fortuneteller about / 45D: It's combined at the beginning)
MIRE / SAME — FIRE / SAFE (67A: Tough stuff to walk through / 60D: Word that can precede sex)
Word of the Day:Willie SUTTON(47D: Bank robber Willie who co-wrote "Where the Money Was") —
William Francis "Willie" Sutton, Jr. (June 30, 1901 – November 2, 1980) was an Americanbank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and he eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison and escaped three times. For his talent at executing robberies in disguises, he gained two nicknames, "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie". Sutton is also known as the namesake of Sutton's law, although he denied originating it. (wikipedia)
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In ascending square number order, I had MFFF. I wonder what others had. The question is probably at least partially tainted for many people, who will have realized before finishing what the gimmick was. Still, I'm curious what people's, uh, tendencies were. This puzzle got a *lot* of hype. The house blog tweeted:
And I got interviewed by Slate about it (article here). I don't understand the hype, and I think the fact that there *is* hype shows you how behind-the-times and stale the NYT has been of late. This is a "Schrödinger"-type puzzle (where two different letters work for the same square—the 1996 election-day CLINTON / BOBDOLE crossword is probably the most famous iteration of this theme)—this is cool but not new. It's really only the revealer, the central answer, that makes the puzzle particularly contemporary and noteworthy. There's the added bonus of having QUEER be clued in reference to sexuality (as opposed to "oddness") (55D: Part of L.G.B.T.Q.), but none of this feels terribly boundary-pushing. Don't get me wrong, I really like the concept, but it plays like an easy themeless with good, not great, fill. I solved the puzzle early, with Ben's original (i.e. the pre-edited) clues, and I liked those better than the NYT's version, but that's hardly surprising, since I like the puzzle Ben edits (American Values Club Crossword) much better than the NYT, on average.
If this is true:
... it's astonishing. How is that even possible? What year is it? Again, the puzzle is clever, but the NYT doesn't get points for coming around to the acknowledgment of queerness / gender fluidity so belatedly. Indie puzzles have acknowledged and played around with and built entire puzzles around LGBTQ topics for years. I'm glad the NYT is warming up to the concept of inclusivity, but tick tock. Further, to get technical for a sec, having squares that toggle to one of two options (i.e. between binary elements) is not very "fluid." Also, that damned "F" in the revealer is bugging the hell out of me. Why won't it toggle!? C'mon, SURF. Change! Make SURM Great Again (for the first time)! GENDER-MLUID people, unite!
The only trouble I had with this puzzle was SUTTON (both Ben's and the NYT's clues referred to people I'd never heard of) (47D: Bank robber Willie who co-wrote "Where the Money Was") (Ben had [Percy of civil rights activism]). And then the clue on TORO was baffling to me (16A: Fatty tuna part, at a sushi restaurant), and LOW ART was slow to come (11D: Kitsch, e.g.) (in Ben's version, the clue referred to porn). This was a clever, enjoyable puzzle, but not as controversial as some seem to think it is, and certainly not worthy of any aren't-we-progressive self-congratulation on the Times' part.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. apparently the gimmick eluded many people, with some expecting the "X" squares to ... do something.
P.P.S. in an awesomely unintentionally sexist turn of events, AcrossLite (my solving software) only recognized the grid as "correct" if you filled in an "M" (or an "MF").
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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