Last ruler of United Kingdoms of Sweden Norway / WED 1-2-19 / Monk known as father of English history / 1980s-90s NFL great Lonnie / Vice president who became ambassador to Japan / Well in old Rome

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:15) (I have this feeling it might play slightly harder for folks, on average—lots of, let's say, unusual fill)

THEME: forks! — clues are [___ fork], where blank is something culinary; answer then proceeds Across until it literally forks, with one possible answer definition of the blank continuing on Across, and another going off at a 45-degree angle (on a path indicated by circled squares):

Theme answers:

• SHARK / SHAD (16A: *Fish fork)
• MARGARITA / MARTINI (17A: *Cocktail fork)
• GREEK / GREEN (38A: *Salad fork)
• CHERRY PIE / CHEESECAKE (59A: *Dessert fork)
• PEACH / PEAR (62A: *Fruit fork)

Word of the Day: OSCAR II (23A: Last ruler of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway) —

Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death, and the last Bernadotte King of Norway from 1872 until his dethronement in 1905.

Oscar was king during a time when Sweden was undergoing a period of industrialization and rapid technological progress. His reign also saw the gradual decline of the Union of Sweden and Norway, which culminated in its dissolution in 1905. He was subsequently succeeded as King of Norway by his grandnephew Prince Carl of Denmark under the regnal name Haakon VII, and as King of Sweden by his eldest son, Gustaf V.

Harald V, the present king of Norway, is a great-grandson of Oscar II, through his third son Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've seen this forking theme before! Actually, I haven't—not executed this way, at any rate. I just wanted to sound like I was trying to swear in "The Good Place." At first it was hard to understand what the fork was going on, but the circled letters taking off at weird angles eventually made it easy to piece together, and once you get the theme, it actually helps a ton. I used it a lot to get those diagonal circled squares. I really like the way the theme keeps all the forking in the realm of forks, i.e. in the culinary realm. I've never heard of a "fruit fork," but it appears to be a thing, as are all the other forks. That is, they exist as tined implements in the real world, which gives the overall theme a very nice coherence. Silverware in the clues, divided paths in the answers. And the answers go off all kind of ways, from the brief diversions of SHA/D and PEA/R to the skyrocketing CHE/ESECAKE. Themewise, I thought this was great.


Fill-wise, it wasn't bad as much as it was odd. Lots of longer answers that had me going "whaaa?" I know LEAN-TOs, but LEAN-TO TENT? (3D: Makeshift shelter) They come in tent form??? BEEEATERS (27D: Relatives of kingfishers) looked so wrong because of those sequential Es. I've heard of the bird, but barely, and the E-string made me think I had an error. OSCARII was a huge "?" to me. Started with the initial "O" and thought it must be OLAF (or OLAV) somebody. TSARDOM is a real word but an uncommon one (I had TSARIST but knew it had to be wrong because it was an adj. not a noun, as the clue clearly required). And then there's DOGBERT. Ugh. That comic. Not sure how I remembered DOGBERT existed, but I did. Difficulty of fill offset whatever help I was getting from knowing the theme, and my time ended up being pretty solidly average for a Wednesday.


Do y'all know what PISMO Beach is? I know it well—it's on the central Californian coast, and I went there many times with my parents when I was a kid. But it doesn't strike me as a nationally known place. I think PISMO is like the west coast's version of TRURO (a place name that baffled me the first time I encountered it). I would not be surprised if many solvers hadn't heard of it, especially east-coasters. Hardest answers for me today, beyond the weird longer answers I mentioned above, were CREASED (24D: Like envelope flaps) and CCTV (53D: Security guard's viewing, for short). For the former ... how are the flaps CREASED??? That implies, to me, that the flap *has* a crease, not that a crease was formed to make it. Pants are CREASED. If your envelope flap were itself CREASED, it would be hard to seal properly. As for what a security guard is viewing, in four letters, after PORN didn't work, I was out of ideas. I know CCTV (closed-circuit television) now that I see it, but apparently not before I see it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Shortz eventually apologized for yesterday's BEANER debacle. It's hard to believe an apology could actually make things worse, but Here We Are. Note: if you have to apologize, Just Apologize—don't do ... this:

[Sorry If You Were Offended™]

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

First victim of sibling rivalry / TUE 1-1-19 / League that used red white blue ball for short / Hammond writer of Wreck of Mary Deare / Famous collie of radio tv film

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium (3:14)

THEME: PASSABLE (61A: Barely adequate ... or what the starts of 17-, 26-, 37- and 50-Across are) — first words of aforementioned themers can all fit into familiar phrases following the pattern "pass the ___":

Theme answers:

• HAT TRICK (17A: Three goals in a single game)
• TORCH SONG (26A: Its lyrics tell of unrequited love)
• TIME SIGNATURE (37A: Music staff notation)
• BUCK TEETH (50A: Reason to get braces)

Word of the Day: Hammond INNES (39D: Hammond ___, writer of "The Wreck of the Mary Deare) —

Ralph Hammond Innes, CBE (15 July 1913 – 10 June 1998) was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books.

Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex, and educated at Cranbrook School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist, initially with the Financial Times (at the time called the Financial News). The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. In WWII he served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During the war, a number of his books were published, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack Alarm (1941), the last of which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain at RAF Kenley. After being demobilized in 1946, he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. His novels are notable for a fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of places, such as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after its closure and RAF Wunstorf during the Berlin Airlift.

Innes went on to produce books in a regular sequence, with six months of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His output decreased in the 1960s, but was still substantial. He became interested in ecological themes. He continued writing until just before his death. His last novel was Delta Connection (1996). (wikipedia)

• • •

OK look there is no reason for BEANER to be here. No one who follows baseball even calls it that, anyway (it's a "bean ball"), and, especially for anyone who grew up on the west coast, BEANER is an out-and-out pejorative (against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans). I get it if you, personally, didn't know that, or don't care, or aren't offended, or whatever, but here's the thing: this is not a tricky corner. BEANER is not *needed* to hold things together. And since you couldn't say it's exactly *good* fill, I don't understand how you don't just fix the corner. You know you're going to offend some people with the fill you've got, the puzzle is not worsened by the fix, ergo, Fix It. It's ... it's very, very simple. Here's the very brief Twitter exchange I *just* had on this issue:

[nice dig at the NYT's stupid two-tiered pay scale, Chris] 

[Also, get it? AMEN? 'Cause if that were 1-Across, we wouldn't be having this conversation?]

Now I'm going to ask you to do something I've never asked you to do (hell, it's something *I* never do unless someone really insists): read another crossword blog. Specifically, xwordinfo. Y'all who think I just don't like WS or have it in for him or whatever other nonsense, you need to see what happens when Jeff Chen, a very friendly, very loyal NYT crossword critic, the writer of a blog that is pretty much a second house blog (along with "Wordplay"), a writer who oh by the way is also a person of color, tries to suggest to the editor that maybe, possibly, he might consider changing 2-Down from BEANER to annnnnything else. Please read Jeff's comments on this puzzle now. In full. I'll wait. . . [wavy lines, time passes] . . . Done? OK. If you're not going to read his comments, here's the most relevant part:

"Will and I had a dialogue over BEANER; an offensive term slung at people from Mexico. I wondered if it might be a West Coast / East Coast thing, so I alerted Will about this. He thought about it but decided that since there is a valid dictionary definition, people would have to just ignore the secondary meaning."

That "since there is a valid dictionary meaning" defense allows him to avoid dealing with so much. Soooo much. I hope you can see how frustrating it is for so many people of good will to try to get the editor to make decent decisions. That is as close as you are ever going to see Jeff Chen come to giving Shortz the middle finger. Over 2/3 of his write-up is dedicated to this asinine and racist editorial decision. Look: there is no excuse for BEANER. It's not even a good baseball term. And AMEN gets you MEANER and NET ... which is objectively better even before considering the racial slur angle. It's so hard to understand the mindset of someone who gets good advice and just shrugs it off, especially when that advice is aimed at avoiding giving offense to people of color. I would love to be using this space to talk about the more puzzley aspects of this puzzle: its workmanlike but totally serviceable "first-words"-type theme, its occasionally interesting but highly uneven fill quality (SAREE? I'm SAREE, no). But here we are with a completely gratuitous BEANER in the 2-D slot, and the only reason it's here is because the editor is (A) negligent, (B) incompetent, (C) deliberately cruel, or (D) so completely egotistical that he doubles down on even his dumbest decisions. My wish for the new year is that solvers start demanding better editing. More thoughtful editing. More inclusive editing. I'm not going to get the regime change I think the NYT Crossword needs and deserves, but if voices besides mine were getting in his and the NYT's ear more, maybe things would be slightly better. Maybe. This BEANER thing ... right in the teeth of good, considered, friendly advice ... I don't know, you guys. It's mind-blowing. Also, exhausting.


Here's hoping 2019 is full of much better puzzles. By all kinds of people. For all kinds of people.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS

PPS

PPPS If you don't think BEANER is a problem, please just google it. Then, you can see for see yourself that currently, today, in what is apparently 2019, BEANER's *primary* definition (not its "secondary" one, as the editor claims) is pejorative. Pointing at a dictionary and shrugging does not exonerate you.

PPPPS I had a great wrong answer: faced with TOR-HS-NG at 26A: Its lyrics tell of unrequited love, my sincere first reaction was TORAH SONG. I really should know my Bible better.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...