THEME: CATCH PHRASE (60A: Popular expression ... or what the opposite to the answer of each starred clue is?) — theme phrases end with a word that means not "catch" but its opposite: "throw":
Theme answers:
SUMMER FLING (16A: *Something reminisced about in the movie "Grease")
GROUND CHUCK (10D: *Some hamburger meat)
BRENNER PASS (24D: *Alpine crossing over the Austrian/Italian border)
ELEVATOR PITCH (14D: *Sales spiel in 60 seconds or less, say)
Dairy cattle graze in alpine pastures throughout the summer in valleys beneath the pass and on the mountains above it. At lower altitudes, farmers log pine trees, plant crops and harvest hay for winter fodder. Many of the high pastures are at an altitude of over 1,500 metres (4,900 feet); a small number stand high in the mountains at around 2,000 metres (6,600 feet).
The central section of the Brenner Pass covers a four-lane motorway and railway tracks connecting Bozen/Bolzano in the south and Innsbruck to the north. The village of Brenner consists of an outlet shopping centre (supermarkets and stores), fruit stores, restaurants, cafés, hotels and a gas station. It has a population of 400 to 600 (as of 2011).
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Really enjoyed solving this one (mostly), then got to the revealer and just sort of cocked my head like a dog when he is both interested and baffled. In trying to figure out what the revealer meant, I kept looking at the the entire *phrase* of each theme answer—you know, because the revealer says to. Then I just simplified matters and looked at the last words in the phrases, and bingo. Well, not quite "bingo!" which implies "aha, got it!" More like "bingo?" Because I wasn't entirely sure I understood. Because the concept is ludicrous. It's as if you wanted to use CATCHPHRASE as a revealer, got nowhere because there aren't enough synonyms for "catch," thought to yourself, "lots of synonyms for 'throw,' too bad there's no such word as THROWPHRASE," and then thought to yourself, "wait, a, minute! I got it!" So this puzzle basically exists because the word THROWPHRASE doesn't exist but the word CATCHPHRASE does. The theme is CATCHPHRASE but you've only got throwphrases, but that's OK, you just (to borrow a film production term) fix it in post! That is, write an "opposite" clue to justify the whole enterprise. I think this revealer is so dumb it's actually good. Like ... yeah, just go for it. I'll take loopy over corny Any day. And the themers themselves are so good, just on a stand-alone basis. I have one big objection to the themers, though, and that is — the song is "SUMMER NIGHTS!" I would've accepted SUMMER LOVIN' (had me a blast, happened so fast). I had SUMMER -ING and when I couldn't get "LOV" to fit in the remaining squares, I sincerely thought I had a rebus puzzle on my hands. What I'm saying is, please be precise with your "Grease" clues; the world is fragile enough as it is and these things matter. Thank you.
I predict one serious potential trouble spot for solvers, and that's at the BRENNER PASS / AMEN RA crossing. I think "E" is the best guess there, but AMEN RA—famous for being spelled a bunch of ways, most notably AMUN RA (the only spelling actually mentioned in the "Amun" wikipedia entry) (32A: Egyptian sun god). And I dunno, but BRUNNER PASS sounds *awfully* plausible to me. So yeah, I think that's close to being a Natick* for some folks, especially you can be absolutely text-book *correct* in the Across and get a Down that looks right enough. My trouble spot was 'ZAS (68A: Some pepperoni orders, informally), which, ugh, for several reasons, most notably a. it's just a dumb abbr. and I don't know anyone who actually unironically uses it, and b. it's Scrabble-f***king** of the rankest sort. "Shove a Z in the corner!" "But...?" "Shove it!!!" Also, this puzzle has weird crosswordesey patches, like ORBS over ZEROG over AMENRA, or that AGA SIR EES run in the SE (SIR is actually fine, the others less so). But wow the longer phrases really land today, both in the theme and non-theme answers. ALICE PAUL! (33D: Suffragist and longtime leader in the National Woman's Party) PENNILESS! (8D: Flat broke) Why do I like PENNILESS? It's both sad and full of common letters, and yet ... something about it is so vibrant and vivid. Give me melodrama! I'll take it. You can always shove ELON. I really wish the PRIDE clue had indicated "for short," because it's PRIDE MONTH that's celebrated (19A: Annual June celebration). Yes, people say PRIDE, but it's a shortening, so the clue should make that clear. OK, that's all. Nice work overall. Is this a debut? Anyway, I hope this constructor makes more puzzles.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*Natick = two not-universally-known answers (typically proper names) crossing at an unguessable letter (typically a vowel)
**Scrabble-f***ing = when you misguidedly try to make your grid more "interesting" by shoving high-value Scrabble-tile letters into the corner(s) of your grid
Hi, everyone! It's Clare — here a week later than normal because of chaos last Monday. Law school classes started that day (all being done virtually), and Zoom had an outage, and my school's main web page crashed multiple times... It was super fun! All in all, I haven't really minded online learning so far; I'm just trying (and, yes, sometimes failing) to not get distracted.
On to the puzzle for today!
Constructor:David Steinberg
Relative difficulty:Easy
THEME:PERSONAL PRONOUNS(52A: Gender identifiers often separated by slashes) — The theme answers are all personal pronouns...
Theme answers:
SHE / HER(as part of 22A: ARTHUR ASHE and 26A: HERD)
THEY / THEM (as part of 33A:BUT HEY and 35A: THE MET)
HE / HIM(as part of 46A:ACHE and 47A:HIMALAYANS)
Word of the Day:BROUHAHA(15A: Hubbub) —
Brouhaha is a French word sometimes used in English to describe an uproar or hubbub, a state of social agitation when a minor incident gets out of control… Typically, a brouhaha is marked by controversy and fuss that can seem, afterwards, to have been pointless or irrational. (Wiki)
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Overall, I thought this puzzle was a pretty good one! I really liked the idea of the theme, and it felt fresh to me, too. The theme was executed very well — the way each set of PERSONAL PRONOUNS was offset by a square in the puzzle instead of a slash was a nice touch.
There was a fair amount of junky little stuff in the puzzle, though — possibly as a result of the formatting of the theme. See: ELSA, GPS, KIM, ETA, etc... I know three-letter words are to be expected out of puzzles, but some of these clue/answer combinations felt especially weak to me in an otherwise good puzzle. I especially hate those three-letter words like AHH (22D: Utterance from a hot bath) and OHO (10D: "Looky here!") because it's such a crapshoot: You never really know what combination of letters it's going to be. Having both SIRS (31A: Round Table figures) and SIRI (44A: One always getting asked questions) felt repetitive. Likewise, THE WHO (4D: Roger Daltrey's band) and THE MET (35A: N.Y.C. opera house). And, finally, I really disliked FB POSTS (7D: Social media things that can be liked, informally); that is just not a thing.
With all that being said, I really did like a lot of the words in the puzzle! A puzzle that fits in words like BROUHAHA, MIMOSAS, HIMALAYANS, CHAI LATTE, INTERVIEW, and MYOPIC is a win in my book. I also appreciated the love for Mia HAMM (26D), ROBB Stark (23D), and ARETHA Franklin (8D). And, I thought ARTHUR ASHE (22A) was especially timely, as the U.S. Open is just starting. (My dad has requested that I interject that he interviewed ARTHUR ASHE twice). SALAD (13D) as an introductory course was also fun — I didn't even fall for the intended misdirection by trying to put in something like "torts," my favorite introductory law school course.
Bullets:
This was the first time I immediately typed out ORCS (10A: Enemies of hobbits) rather than wondering if it was actually spelled "orks." Maybe I've finally turned a corner on this.
Does anyone even know what HBO Max (30A) really is or what it does? No? Me, neither.
My knowledge from 5th grade on the capitals comes in handy again for TOPEKA (54A). I really only memorized the capitals then to beat a classmate on the test...
This puzzle finally taught me who TARA Reid (35D) is. I'd pictured her in my head as a different actress for so long, but I finally Googled her, and I've got it all cleared up now.
THE MET (35A) threw me at first because I had the first five letters and kept trying to pronounce the answer as "theme"-something: "themer," "themed," etc.
In case you need a serotonin boost, here is a clip of BTS performing at a recent awards show (where this amazing k-pop group swept the four categories they were nominated for). Also, in case you missed the news, BTS just got their first number 1 ever on the Billboard Hot 100 for their song "Dynamite"! No, this has nothing to do with the puzzle. But, I'm making it my mission to get everyone to love BTS as much as I do. You'll enjoy the happiness boost — trust me.
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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