THEME: 2(BU) — theme answers contain two words, each of which contains the letter pairing "BU," which gives you 2 "BU"s ... all tied together by the revealer, "IT HAD TO BE YOU" (50A: Classic song about a soulmate ... or a phonetic hint for repeated pairs of letters in 19-, 27- and 42-Across):
Theme answers:
TRIBUTE ALBUM (19A: The 2005 compilation "Killer Queen" is one honoring Queen)
BUNSEN BURNER (27A: Chemistry lab device)
HAMBURGER BUN (42A: Topper for a Whopper)
Word of the Day: BABKA (20D: Loaf-shaped cake) —
A babka is a sweet braided bread (not a cake) which originated in the Jewish communities of Poland and Ukraine. It is popular in Israel [...] and in the Jewish diaspora. It is prepared with a yeast-leavened dough that is rolled out and spread with a filling such as chocolate, cinnamon, fruit, or cheese, then rolled up and braided before baking. (wikipedia) (emph. mine)
• • •
Was a little ho-hum on this one upon completion, but once I noticed that the revealer indicated not just "BU" ("... BE YOU") but actually the pair of "BU"S ("... TO BE YOU," i.e. 2(BU)), I was won over. Conceptually, this was on a somewhat higher plane than most Mondays. Plus the fill is whistle-clean, and occasionally even interesting. Further, there are no other stray "BU" pairs lying around the grid—every "BU" is involved in a themer. This indicates a certain measure of polish and attention to detail, and gives the puzzle a certain elegance, even if most people won't really notice it. The solve itself wasn't terribly exciting, but the revealer provided a good "aha," and with no grievous fill to distract your attention along the way, the strong revealer is enough. No real complaints. I do have a question, though: BABKA—what is it? I mean, is it cake or is it bread. Wikipedia insists it is "not a cake" (see "Word of the Day," above), and Merriam-Webster calls it "aglazed sweet bread made with dried fruit (such as raisins)." But then Google (Oxford Languages) calls it a "loaf-shaped coffee cake," and something called spoonuniversity.com says, "Babka is a dense cake, although it looks a little like a bread." I will say that BABKA was the answer that held me up the most. I had the "B" and could think only of BUNDT. There were more hold-ups than normal for me on a Monday, but then the non-hold-up parts were sub-Monday easy, so ... Medium, i.e. typical-Monday easy, for me.
Other hold-ups included ABOUT US (8D: Information header on a business's website)—just had trouble parsing it. And then I had CLASP for CLAMP (33D: Gripping tool) and could not see ORCHID from the -RC- (46A: Flower that vanilla comes from) (sadly, I don't think I knew that about vanilla!). TRIBUTE ALBUM also took more than just the TRI- to give itself away, which it shouldn't have, but it did. I hesitated over BIG IF, too—once again, issues with parsing. I really like BIG IF (3D: It's very unlikely to happen). Colloquial, in-the-language / current, makes a conjunction into a noun, squeezes two words into a small space—all fun. That should be enough for today. Hope you are continuing (or beginning) to enjoy the new year. See you tomorrow.
Constructor: Adam Wagner, Michael Liberman and Rafael Musa
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: "In Play" — playing around with (the meaning of) "IN". Circled squares in the first four themers contain words that become the basis for understanding the last four themers; that is, in the top half of the grid, the circled-square words are "In" the longer answers, providing "literal depictions" of the corresponding theme answers in the bottom half of the grid (where all answers follow the pattern ___ IN ___). Thus:
Theme answers:
RECTANGULAR PRISM (23A: Stick of butter geometrically)
"LOVE WILL TEAR US APART" (31A: Seminal 1980 hit by Joy Division)
MOUNTAIN STATES (50A: Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming, among others)
"DOCTOR DOLITTLE" (61A: Hit 1998 Eddie Murphy comedy based on books by Hugh Lofting)
GET BACK IN SHAPE (71A: Recommit to one's fitness ... or what 23-Across depicts literally) ("reclaim" (i.e. a word meaning "get back") is literally inside RECTANGULAR PRISM (a "shape")
BREAK OUT IN SONG (82A: What characters in musicals often do ... or what 31-Across depicts literally) ("erupt" (i.e. synonym of "break out") is literally inside "LOVE WILL TEAR US APART" (i.e. a "song" title)
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES (98A: Useful people to know ... or what 50-Across depicts literally) ("mates" (slang for "friends") is literally inside MOUNTAIN STATES (i.e. "high places")
PICTURE IN PICTURE (110A: Screen feature that facilitates multitasking ... or what 61-Across depicts literally) ("doodle" (i.e. a "picture") is literally inside "DOCTOR DOLITTLE" (i.e. a motion "picture")
Word of the Day: SNES (120A: Old video game console inits.) —
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bithome video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea,1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania, and 1993 in South America. In Japan, it is called the Super Famicom (SFC). In South Korea, it is called the Super Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of regional lockout prevent cartridges for one version from being used in other versions.
The Super NES is Nintendo's second programmable home console, following the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The console introduced advanced graphics and sound capabilities compared with other systems at the time. It was designed to accommodate the ongoing development of a variety of enhancement chips integrated into game cartridges to be competitive into the next generation. (wikipedia)
• • •
Apologies for what will undoubtedly be a somewhat brief write-up—we actually have New Year's Eve plans! This never happens! But we are committed to an 8pm dinner reservation at Parlor City Vegan, a delightful local restaurant run by even more delightful people, and since I don't want to blog *after* dinner, and since I *definitely* don't want to try getting up early (yet ... still adjusting to this northern hemisphere / eastern time zone nonsense), I need to do this now, when the puzzle comes out (at 6pm on Saturday) and I need to do it fast (in time for me to shave and shower before dinner). There's going to be a tarot reader! I didn't even notice this part of the dinner until my wife pointed it out to me just now. I saw that there were various courses named "Water Sign," "Air Sign," etc. but I had no idea they were committing to the bit so hard. I've never had any formal occult experience, but I am Ready for anything New (no matter its Truth Value). OK, I still haven't started the write-up. You see how this is a problem. Remember: blame jet lag. Onward!
This was a three-parter—the first part, where I solve the puzzle normally, putting the theme answers together, top to bottom; the second part (the funnest part), where I hit the first "depicts literally" clue and then the entire theme concepts drops at once, and I solve all the remaining themers bam bam bam; and the third part, clean-up. I think it was worth it for part two alone. I decided to just gulp all the themers down at once. I challenged myself to see if I could solve them all with no help from crosses. And I'm happy to say: challenge ... risen to! That was awkward. Let's try again: mission accomplished!
Sometimes I take issue with themes that give themselves away so easily, but not so today, because there was the secondary puzzle element to those later themers, where you had not only the straight definitions but the visual cues from the earlier (upper half of the grid-) themers to help you out. This meant that getting those themers in the bottom half with no crosses went from highly unlikely to definitely possible. I enjoyed the adventure (and the success!). As for the rest of it (parts 1 and 3), yeah, sure, it all holds up fine—better than most Sundays, for sure. I had no idea butter was shaped like a "prism"—the only prisms I know are not rectangular, and they refract light, but I just trust this is a mathematical / geometrical concept of which I am ignorant, fine. I really really Really loved the Joy Division clue. About as "in my wheelhouse" as you can get without actually taking the exact shape of my wheelhouse. I threw "LOVE WILL TEAR US APART" across the grid with only the "V" in place and was so happy that I got suspicious, and then my brain started in with "well, you probably f'd it up somehow ... isn't 'LOVE WILL TEAR US APART' an INXS song!? Do you even know anything about music?!" (this is how my brain treats me roughly 16 of the 24 hours of the day). But no, ha, happily, my Joy Division memory was spot on. I like the way the puzzle kinda sorta half-fudges "DOCTOR DOLITTLE" into being a "picture" (by simply cluing it as such). It's a book series, but ... yes, also a (motion) picture, several times over, first in 1967 with Rex Harrison in the title role (9 Academy Award nominations!?), most recently with Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role (in 2020, just before the COVID shutdowns), but most iconically (and successfully) with Eddie Murphy in the title role (1998).
I was completely baffled by ENCELADUS (3D:Moon of Saturn found to have a potentially inhabitable ocean), which looks like Latin for "enchilada," so I needed every single cross there, but luckily those were all readily gettable. No other serious challenges. Had some hesitation over completing "IT'S NO ___" (coulda been "IT'S NOT ___" or ... well, it coulda been a lot of things). Wrote in OSAGES (!?!?!) before OZARKS because I have no idea why actually (62D: Region encompassing most of the Arkansas/Missouri border). Wrote in PERLS before PURLS because I really thought that's how it was spelled (48D: Makes certain knitting stitches). Got ING and AIG confused, as I often do (6D: Big inits. in insurance). Misremembered NIALL as NEALL at first. Thrilled that I remembered that SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) was a thing, because that is one ugly and hard-to-infer abbr. Otherwise, no struggle. Big thumbs-up to POSES NUDE, "IT'S NO BIGGIE," and POUR IT ON. OK, that's it, gotta get ready to go out and eat / get my tarot on! Happy New Year, everyone!
P.S. very cute that the three of them worked COLLABORATE into the grid. Yay team!
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!")
.png)
