Primary outflow of Lake Geneva / TUE 5-21-19 / Automaker with supercharger stations

Constructor: Evan Kalish

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:52)

THEME: CHANGES THE WORLD (35A: Has a huge impact ... or a hint to this puzzle's circled letters) — two-word phrases contain letter strings (circled squares) that are anagrams of planets, which I guess we're calling "worlds" now. Anyway, "CHANGES" = anagram, "THE WORLD" = one of the planets:

Theme answers:

• "IGNORE THAT!" (Earth) (17A: "Oh, it's nothing to concern yourself with")
• LEAVES UNSAID (Venus) (23A: Omits mention of)
• ARMY RECRUITS (Mercury) (47A: Ones with private ambitions?)
• BONUS TRACK ((Saturn) 57A: Extra song on an album) 

Word of the Day: GRIEG (14A: "Peer Gynt" composer) —

Edvard Hagerup Grieg (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɛdvɑɖ ˈhɑːɡərʉp ˈɡrɪɡː]; 15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to international consciousness, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius and Bedřich Smetana did in Finland and Bohemia, respectively.

Grieg is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home, Troldhaugen, is dedicated to his legacy. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was an unpleasant solve. There was simply no joy anywhere. The theme answers were blah, the theme was a let-down ("WORLD" as a synonym for "planet" = disappointing / off). And the fill, yeesh. A 78-worder where 65 (!?) of the answers are five letters long Or Shorter!?!?! That's 65 of 73 non-themers! So choppy, so relentlessly crosswordy. And with no real interest in the actual themers, or even in the few "longer" non-theme answers, this one was just a slog. People seem to be finding it easy (perhaps *because* of all the short stuff), but it was a grind for me. Choppy grids really slow me down, and I wasn't only this puzzle's wavelength At All with regard to Anything. From 3D: Let secrets out (SING), and over and over again, I just couldn't lock on to the cluer's sense of cluing. Had ANTS for MICE (26D: Little scurriers), couldn't get DYE at all (41A: Red 40 or Yellow 6), and so I couldn't get SYNC at all either until I got that terminal "C" (37D: Match up). Struggled to make sense of most of the themers. Really wanted CHANGES THE GAME for the revealer but it wouldn't fit. Had to make up the phrase "IGNORE THAT!", which seems about as strong as "IGNORE THIS!" (i.e. not strong). LEAVES UNSAID is not exactly sparkling. The whole SW was a nightmare for me because I had no idea what kind of RECRUITS these were, and my first pass at the answers in that section yielded almost nothing. It's trying to be repeatedly colloquial, in a very tiny area, which made things dicey. "WHO ME?" crossing "AW, MAN" crossing a "?"-clued GYM RAT? I mean, we're not talking Saturday-level difficulty here, but for a Tuesday, I was very very slow through here. In the end, it's a weakish theme with an incredibly tepid grid. I felt run down by the EEK ATIT URSA UAE IDA ERIE onslaught—no one answer particularly terrible, but en masse, ouch.


Not sure why GYM RAT even had a "?" clue, given that its clue was pretty literal (43D: One doing heavy lifting, informally?). I get that "doing heavy lifting" is a metaphorical phrase that is being used literally here, but ... literal is literal is literal. "?" clues should really yank you off of the expected path. This one did not. TDPASS was hard for me to parse, but it's clear I didn't really read the clue while solving (10D: Six-point accomplishment for a QB). I just kept expecting those letters to arrange themselves into something familiar, but because they looked insane (starts "T" ends "-ASS"??), I had to keep filling in crosses. The answer that most irked me though, both because it cost me time and because the clue was just wrong (actually, it cost me time because the clue was wrong), was MALL (53D: Development that might compete with a downtown). Have you been to a town with a MALL lately?? Hoo boy, no. All over the country, MALLs are falling apart, losing anchor stores as people increasingly shop online, etc. Our MALL is quickly turning into an abandoned building. Next stop: actual ruin. Actually, they're trying to figure out what its future is, because it will not continue on as a MALL, that's for sure. This clue was very true for 1989, but in 2019, nonononono. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Massage intensely / MON 5-20-19 / Girl Scout cookie with geographical name / Much visited site in Jerusalem

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "HIT IT!" (39A: "Start the music!" ... or what one could do to the finish of the answer to each starred clue) — last words in themers can complete the phrase "hit the ___"

Theme answers:

• DEBT CEILING (17A: *Government's credit limit)
• HACKY SACK (28A: *Beanbag juggled with the feet)
• CHECK MARK (46A: *Symbol for "O.K.")
• WESTERN WALL (61A: *Much-visited site in Jerusalem)
• CLAM SAUCE (11D: *Seafood topping that may be red or white)
• LOWER DECK (34D: *Part of a ship just above the hold)

Word of the Day: ROLF (32A: Massage intensely) —

verb

1. treat (a person) using Rolfing, a proprietary term for a massage technique aimed at the release and realignment of the body.

   
   

   "I had the negative emotions Rolfed out of me" (LOL) (google)

• • •

Too old-fashioned and too rough, fill-wise, for my tastes. It's a pretty mundane "last words"-type puzzle, with many many many other possible last words that weren't used (I always find it really distracting when very colorful possibilities are left out of a theme like this: ROAD BRICKS HAY LIGHTS BOOKS CLUB DANCEFLOOR GROUND ICE JACKPOT etc. LOWER DECK is also pretty weak, as DECK-ending answers go. UPPER DECK is actually Much Much Better (it has baseball cred). This is one of those themes that confuses being dense with being good. The choice to include so many themers undoubtedly has something to do with the mediocre-to-poor overall quality of the fill. That NENE / INURN (!?!?!) / TRI area down below is quite hard to look at, as is TEC over EEK crossing OGEE, as is the whole western section. OTOE / OTOH looks like the stuff of parody, and ROTC / ROLF isn't helping matters. TAR crossing TARTARE is absurd (I'd've preferred CAR there, and CHEM in the cross,\—one of the few times you're going to find me advocating for the abbr.). I like the image of DEBS smoking E-CIGS, but on their own, as fill, I'm not as big a fan. I tore through this, but it was a largely TEPID and EMPTY experience.

Five things:

• 10D: Motorized two-wheelers (SEGWAYS) — lost time trying to spell this SEGUES (like the actual word). I can't believe self-respecting people actually ... drive? ride? ... these.
• 65A: Bury, as ashes (INURN) — this answer bothers me on so many levels. It's an ugly, rare word, so I just don't like it, but also shouldn't it refer to the act of putting the ashes *in* the urn, and not the act of putting the urn *in* the ground? Bah!
• 20A: Like many infield grounders (ONE-HOP) — "ONE-HOP grounder" is actually not that common a phrase on the internets (~3,000 hits). "ONE-HOP groundball" is even rarer. It's totally intelligible, but you're gonna call that a "one-hopper" most of the time (~17x more often, if my ["one-hopper" baseball] search is at all meaningful). Or you'll say the infielder fielded it *on* ONE HOP. I don't really think ONE HOP stand well on its own, is the upshot of this comment. It's a minor nit, I know, but I'm tired of the puzzle mucking up or otherwise only half-nailing clues and answers from baseball, a game I love.
• 55A: Like a gift from above (GOD-SENT) — another clunker for me. "Heaven-sent" makes sense to me. A "god senD" is certainly something I've heard of. But I've never heard anything described as GOD-SENT. Remember: "Dictionarily defensible" and "good" are not the same thing.
• 18D: Org. concerned with ecosystems (EPA) — can we stop pretending the EPA cares about anything any more besides abetting polluters and destroying as many species as possible?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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