Ivy descriptor / FRI 10-11-24 / Online provocateur, in slang / Called out on Instagram, informally / Alternative to blinds / Penalty box, in hockey slang / Array on a trolley / What hilarity often does, it's said / German beer historically consumed by monks / Southern hip-hop duo with the #1 hit "Ms. Jackson"
Friday, October 11, 2024
Constructor: Billy Bratton
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: kri-kri(19A: Island home of a goat known as the kri-kri (CRETE)) —
Thekri-kri(Capra hircus cretica), sometimes called theCretan goat,Agrimi, orCretan Ibex, is aferal goatinhabiting the EasternMediterranean, previously considered asubspeciesofwild goat. The kri-kri today is found only inGreece: specifically onCreteand on three small islands off its coast (Dia,Thodorou, and Agii Pantes); as well as on the island ofSapientza(Messenian Oinousses) off the southwestern coast ofPeloponnese, where it was brought in great numbers in order to protect the species from extinction. [...]The kri-kri is not thought to be indigenous to Crete, most likely having been imported to the island during the time of theMinoan civilization. It was once common throughout theAegeanbut the peaks of the 2,400 m (8,000ft)White Mountainsof Western Crete are their last strongholds—particularly a series of almost vertical 900 m (3,000ft) cliffs called 'the Untrodden'—at the head of theSamaria Gorge. This mountain range, which hosts another 14 endemic animal species, is protected as aUNESCOBiosphere Reserve. In total, their range extends to the White Mountains, the Samaria National Forest and the islets of Dia, Thodorou, and Agii Pandes. Recently some were introduced onto two more islands. //By 1960, the kri-kri was under threat, with a population below 200. It had been the only meat available to mountain guerillas during theGermanoccupation inWorld War II. Its status was one reason why the Samaria Gorge became anational parkin 1962. There are still only about 2,000 animals on the island and they are considered vulnerable: hunters still seek them for their tender meat, grazing grounds have become scarcer and disease has affected them. Hybridization is also a threat, as the population has interbred with ordinary goats. Hunting them is strictly prohibited. [...]The kri-kri is a symbol of the island, much used in tourism marketing and official literature. //As molecular analyses demonstrate, the kri-kri is not, as previously thought, a distinct subspecies of wild goat. Rather, it is aferal domestic goat, derived from the first stocks of goats domesticated in theLevantand other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean around 8000-7500 BCE. Therefore, it represents a nearly ten-thousand-year-old "snapshot" of the first domestication of goats.
• • •
This was a decidedly unpleasant puzzle, not because it's poorly made (the grid seems fine, for the most part), but because it's just loaded with the worst people and things. BOOBIRDS and EDGELORDs and CON ARTISTS and the angry mobs with TORCHES shouting "I'M MAD" and "THAT'S A LIE!" and then the REEK and the STANK and the JELLO SHOTS, like ... this is not the vibe I want on Friday. Not at all. If the parade of awfulness doesn't bug you, there are other potential turnoffs. Maybe you dislike the puzzle because it's loaded with sports (or, in the case of poker, "sports"): ANTE(46D: Alternative to blinds) and SINBIN(40D: Penalty box, in hockey slang) and at least three (3) American football clues (RTS, Andy REID, GOES DEEP). Or you might be put off by the preponderance of pop culture: BATWOMAN and OUTKAST and Taylor Swift (again) and LASSIE—actually, that doesn't seem like that much pop culture—none of it botheredme, but I know how some of you are. Anyway, there are lots of avenues to dislike. Choose your own adventure! Or, maybe all the negativity (or sports, or pop culture) really floated your boat. If so, that's cool. I'm happy for you. But I found this a downer. I mean, the marquee answer is WASTED POTENTIAL! Lord knows I am no fan of relentless positivity, or positivity for positivity's sake, but yeesh. This was depressing.
And then there's VINY (3D: Ivy descriptor). I have never described ivy asVINY. I've never heard anyone describe anything asVINY, I don't think. Something overgrown with vines might beVINY, perhaps, but ivy simply is a vine. It's notVINY. It's ... vine. A vine. A type of vine. Fun fact (sorta): the wikipedia page for "ivy" contains not a single mention of the word "vine" (to say nothing of "VINY"). Luckily,VINYis the only answer that made my eye twitch today. The grid is actually pretty smooth overall. It's just smoothly filled with offputting stuff. I was happy to have to work a little today—puzzles have been running easy, and even if this one occasionally seemed to be Trying Too Hard (TTH) where "clever"/misleading cluing was concerned, I didn't mind that much. Weirdest mistake I made all day was reading 4D: Concourse info, in brief (ETA) as [Course intro, in brief], and then writing in APP ... you know, you order APPs before the main ... course (!?!?!). Luckily "AM I TOO LATE?!" would not be denied, and then I relooked at 4-Down and read it correctly. Oof.
Definitely had to think a bit to get CON ARTISTS (16A: Builders of pyramids, perhaps) (those pyramids are made of "schemes," I guess). First real mistake came at 21A: Dish topped with lime, basil and hoisin sauce (PHO), where I had the "H" and wrote in ... AHI! What can I say: crossword reflexes sometimes fail you. I also (briefly, and strangely) had SECOND MENU (?) before SECRET MENU (24D: What might have sandwiches under wraps?) and LOAD (??) before LOAN (29D: Floated sum). On that last one, I think I was thinking of a different realm of finance, namely mutual funds. I dunno, I'm going so fast that who knows what logic my brain is using? Anyway, LOAD made the ENSUES clue (already hard) much harder (39A: What hilarity often does, it's said). I forgot the title of DFW's first novel (The BROOM of the System); he taught for a time at my (and Joel Fagliano's) alma mater, and he was a major author, but I never could get into him. I really liked his essays, but the fiction never hooked me. Still, I am familiar with his titles, and was mad at myself that BROOM didn't come to me more quickly. Everything else in the grid was pretty easy for me today.
Bullets:
- 15A: Musician's pitch? (DEMO)— when you are pitching (as in "selling" or "shopping" yourself) around as a musician, you might give people aDEMOtape of your music.
- 35A: Shells out for dinner, say (PASTA)— this is part of that Trying Too Hard (TTH) thing I was talking about. The "shells"-for-pasta misdirection is old as the hills, but the addition of "out" here makes the whole thing awkward. Great on the (fake-out) surface level, i.e. it definitely makes you think "pays for," but the “out” is completely gratuitous on thePASTA-meaning level. I guess the shells are "out" in that they are ... out ... on the table, ready to be eaten? It's bad. Clue needs a "?" to justify itself.
- 9D: Called out on Instagram, informally (ATTED) — is there a "formal" calling out on Instagram? Like, a black-tie version of letting someone know about the cat video you just posted?ATTEDis great from a "modern! In-the-language!" perspective but truly awful from a word aesthetic perspective. Some terms weren't meant to be written out. (ATTEDcomes from the at-sign (@), which you put in front of someone's handle in a post if you want them to be notified about it. Replying to others' posts is also a form of atting. "Don't AT me" is a common statement of defiance (often facetious) from someone expressing an opinion they believe will be highly unpopular).
- 11D: They're set for a night of drinking (JELLO SHOTS)— Jell-O has to "set," i.e. firm up.
- 46D: Alternative to blinds (ANTE)— this is all the research I'm willing to do for you, so little do I care about poker: "Blindsareforced betsposted by players to the left of the dealer button inflop-stylepokergames. The number of blinds is usually two, but it can range from none to three. When there are two blinds they are called thesmall blindand thebig blind." (wikipedia)
- 20D: Array on a trolley (TEA)— I wanted something to do with luggage. Then something to do with sushi (!?). You know, where you sit at the sushi bar and the items come around on a little conveyor belt ... I thought maybe that was called a "trolley." I have never seen tea on a trolley. Desserts, yes. TEA, no. But then the amount of time I have spent in tea houses is somewhere near nil.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Labels:Billy Bratton
Melancholy Musketeer / THU 10-10-24 / Like many Keats works / Swahili honorific / Indian honorific / Lou Grant's wife on "The Mary Tyler Moore" show / "Educated insolence," per Aristotle / Sufficient, informally
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Constructor: Grant Boroughs
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: "W" OR "D" CHOICE (58A: Author's concern that, when parsed as four parts, provides a hint to this puzzle's theme)— six circled squares can contain either a "W" or a "D" and still work (i.e. still make plausible answers, in both directions)
Theme answers:
- COW / COD (1D: Major food source animal)
- WASHBOARDS / DASHBOARDS (15A: Instrument panels)
- PAW / PAD (9A: Dog leg terminus)
- WITHER / DITHER (11D: Fail to act decisively in the face of a challenge)
- WRY HUMOR / DRY HUMOR (28A: Trademark of deadpan stand-ups)
- WINED / DINED (28D: Lavishly regaled, in a way)
- WELLS / DELLS (33A: Areas that are lower than their surrounding terrain)
- FLEW / FLED (21D: Raced, as away from danger)
- SOW / SOD (52A: Do some garden work)
- PLOW / PLOD (39D: Move forward resolutely)
- WAY AHEAD / DAY AHEAD (44A: What lies before you, with "the")
- WISHES / DISHES (44D: Things listed on a wedding registry)
Word of the Day: WASHBOARDS(15A)
n.
1.
a.Aboardhavingacorrugatedsurfaceonwhichclothescanberubbedintheprocessoflaundering.
b.MusicAsimilarboardusedasapercussioninstrument.
2.Aboardfastenedtoawallatthefloor;abaseboard.
3.NauticalAthinplankfastenedtothesideofaboatortothesillofaporttokeepouttheseaandthespray.
adj.
Havingrowsofridgesorindentationssimilartothoseofawashboard:washboardabs;awashboarddirtroad.
• • •
This one really tries to impress you with volume. Volume volume volume! That is certainly ... a lot of D/W squares. Six squares, twelve clues that have to work both ways (that is, for "D" and "W" versions of the answers). That's ambitious, and it creates a *very* thematically dense grid—twelve themers plus the revealer, with hardly any answers not crossing some bit of fixed thematic material (as a constructor, you "fix" your themers in place before you fill the rest of the grid). So, architecturally, this one is ... really going for it. But the problems of "really going for it" are all on display here, and very predictable. Two big issues: forced cluing and strained fill. As for the cluing, you have to really (really) play on the margins of word meanings at times to make those clues work for both words. DAY AHEAD works great for its clue (44A: What lies before you, with "the").WAY AHEADreally, really doesn't. WAY FORWARD, maybe? If you were cluingWAY AHEADnormally, you would never, ever use the clue that's used today. In fact, you'd probably go with a different sense of WAY AHEAD entirely ([Leading by a lot], [Up big], something like that). Time and again, one of the two D/W answers works great, the other ... uh, not so much. See especially WELLS for its clue (33A: Areas that are lower than their surrounding terrain), and especiallyWASHBOARDSfor its clue (15A: Instrument panels). I was done with the puzzle and looking upWASHBOARDSbefore I realized that "instrument" must indicate the musical instrument type of "washboard," the kind played in jug bands, say, which is really just ... an actual washboard, right? The kind used for scrubbing clothes before washing machines came along? I guessWASHBOARDSare "panels" ... of a sort. Still, [Instrument panels] is some ... let's be generous and say "inventive" cluing. Certainly works for DASHBOARDS. But for WASHBOARDS ... I dunno, man. Pushing it.
And then there's the fill. No surprise that it creaks—it's under a lot of thematic pressure. But it really creaks, and that's after the constructor has added not one but two pairs of cheater squares (black squares that don't increase word count, added to make filling a grid easier)—just before ACES and just before PA(W/D), and then their symmetrical equivalents. I had a "oh it's gonna be one of these days, is it?" moment very (very) early on:
You will never (ever) see the wordODICanywhere but crosswords. I studied Keats and other ODISTs (another crossword favorite), and I never saw the wordODICin the wild, to my knowledge.ODICmakes ODIST look like everyday language.ODIC. That's what I'd call someone who looked and acted like ODIE from "Garfield." Someone dim-witted and annoyingly happy, with their tongue hanging out all the time. To encounter ODIC at literally step two, that was deflating, and ominous. See also ENUF, and not one but two crossword honorifics (SAHIB, BWANA). Plus, dear lord, HAH andHAH!?HAH HAH!?!? No one says "HAH HAH!" Laugh syllables are already the lowest form of crossword fill, but here you've gone and combined them in some new and unholy way, why!?!? For 19A: Syllables of laughter, I wrote in "HA HA HA," as did all nice normal decent and good people. The fact that those mutant HAHs also crossed DAH (!?) ... it's all a little much. I mean, I know I said laugh syllables are the lowest form of crossword fill, but I forgot about Morse Code.ENUFsaid (oof, ENUF... you're killing me, puzzle).
The revealer itself ends up feeling forced, too, when you read it as four parts. "You have a 'W' or 'D' choice!" It doesn't really trip off the tongue. But on a clunky, hyperliteral level, it works. The whole thing works, but it clunks, and it wasn't particularly fun to solve. Once you get the gimmick, the puzzle actually gets easier, as you can fill all those circled squares, and with "W" and "D" options, you can get all those crosses really quickly. Only trouble for me today came with the whole HAH HAH-not-HA HA HA fiasco. That corner also hadPELHAM, which I did not know and would never have heard of were it not for one of the greatest movies of all time, The Taking of PELHAM 1-2-3 (the original, 1974 version, with Matthau). It's about the hijacking of a subway car. Do yourself a favor and watch it. Right now, today. It's perfect. I wish I were watching it right now. But PELHAM wasn't clued via the movie, it was clued how it was clued (9D: ___ Bay, neighborhood of the Bronx), so I was at a loss. I also had LONGEST instead of LARGEST for a bit at 40A: Like the femur, among all bones in the body. The femur is, in fact, that LONGEST bone in the body, so if you faltered there too, you have nothing to be ashamed of.
Bullets:
- 36A: Toss out (SCRAP)— I wrote in SCRAP but then figured no, it has to be SCRUB, because no way they'd useSCRAPwhen "SCRAPpy-Doo" is in the clue for UNCLE, which crosses this answer (at the "C") (29D: Scooby-Doo, to Scrappy-Doo). But SCRUB was a bad fit for the clue and the crosses didn't work, so it was back toSCRAP. Bah.
- 30A: Lou Grant's wife on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (EDIE) — we did a complete "MTM" rewatch last year, so this answer made me smile.EDIEis very likable, but ... she's not on many episodes, really. I feel like over seven seasons I saw her maybe half a dozen times? (Looks like it was just five!). But Lou does talk about her a lot. They get divorced! She gets remarried! (spoiler alert). Anyway, this seems like it would be very hard for most people, especially the youngs. You just work crosses and wait for something namelike to appear, I guess. We all have to do that sometimes.
- 60D: Private sleeping accommodations? (COT) — sleeping accommodations for a "Private" in the Army
- 51D: What makes a sticker stickier? (AN "I") — you add the letter "I" to "sticker" and bam, "stickier"
- 20D: Melancholy Musketeer (ATHOS)— I've knownATHOSforever, for crossword reasons, but it occurs to me now that I have never read The Three Musketeers or, as far as I can remember, seen any film version of their story. So this "Melancholy" bit is news to me. I had no idea. But again, I didn't need to—"Musketeer," five letters,ATHOS, moving on ... (the other Musketeers are ARAMIS and ... POTHOS? ... [looks it up] ... dammit, PORTHOS! So close. Ah well, doesn't matter, you're never gonna see PORTHOS in crosswords anyway (well, you might, but it's been 16 years, so don't hold your breath).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Labels:Grant Boroughs
What might be out for a spell? / WED 10-9-24 / Soldier for hire, in brief / Dwarf planet with the largest mass / "I'm on vacation" email inits. / Counterpart of flow / Common clown name / Coat, as with flour / Big name in tourism guides / Jackson 5 song that begins "You went to school to learn, girl"
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Constructor: Jeffrey Lease
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME:LIGHTNING BOLT (37A: What's formed by connecting this puzzle's circled letters from A to F and then back to A)— four things that feature a LIGHTNING BOLT ... and then you draw a picture of a LIGHTNING BOLT, if you want (in the app, there's a little animation of the bolt being formed and flashing)
Theme answers:
"'Tis the Voice of the Lobster" is apoembyLewis Carrollthat appears inChapter 10of his 1865 novelAlice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is recited byAliceto theMock Turtleand theGryphon. //"'Tis the Voice of the Lobster" is aparodyof "The Sluggard", a moralistic poem byIsaac Wattswhich was well known in Carroll's day."The Sluggard" depicts the unsavory lifestyle of aslothfulindividual as a negative example. Carroll's lobster's corresponding vice is that he is weak and cannot back up his boasts, and is consequently easy prey. This fits the pattern of the predatory parody poems in the two Alice books. [...]As published inAlice's Adventures in Wonderland(1867):
[After the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle have sung and danced to the Lobster Quadrille, Alice mentions the poems she has attempted to recite, and the Gryphon tells Alice to stand and recite"'Tis the voice of the sluggard", which she reluctantly does] "but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying ..."
See AlsoSunday, June 11, 2023 |'Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare,
"You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.[The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle interrupt with a brief exchange about what this unfamiliar version of the poem means, and then insist that Alice continue:]
I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the owl and the oyster were sharing a pie—[Alice's recitation is cut short by theMock Turtle, who finds the poem "the most confusing thing I ever heard".]
• • •
Usually the themes get more interesting and complex as the week goes on, but today, after two puzzles withvery clever concepts and revealers on Monday and Tuesday, we get this, which is blandly straightforward. The illustration / animation / connect-the-dots is, I guess, supposed to be some kind of bonus or value-added, but there's nothing particularly eye-popping or elegant about it, and from a solving standpoint, it does nothing. It's a cheap piece of glitz slapped on at the end to make you think something special has happened, when really all that has happened is that you've written in four things that feature LIGHTNING BOLTs, which the puzzle spells out for you, with a revealer that's merely descriptive. No wordplay, no trickery, nothing to figure out. And yes, those four theme answers do indeed feature LIGHTNING BOLTs, can't argue with that ... although I can argue with the phrase CAMERA FLASH, which felt painfully redundant. I had the FLASH part and thought "... but that's it ... the bolt represents the flash ... what is this extra stuff in front of flash?" After a couple of crosses got me the so-obvious-it's-difficult CAMERA, I thought "your clue says 'photography,' of course it's a CAMERA, yeesh." And since that was the last themer I got, that was how I ended the puzzle—at its weakest point, thematically. When I first worked out "flash," I thought the answer was going to have something to do with the DC superhero THE FLASH, whose symbol is also a LIGHTNING BOLT, I'm pretty sure (yes—see picture). Speaking of "flash," that's about how long it took me to figure out the theme:
Got CHARGERS easily and since I know very well what the CHARGERS helmet looks like, the puzzle essentially handed me the revealer right there. This left me with a "that's it?" feeling right there. The suspense, gone. All that's left is just the deflating prospect of finding other LIGHTNING BOLT things, and, of course, drawing on my puzzle like some kind of child. BRAH! Come on, BRAH! I did not hate this puzzle, but (despite the slapped-on decorative element) it felt awfully plain compared to the puzzles that preceded it this week.
For someone who has (fairly recently) watched every Friends episode, I had an oddly awkward start today at 1D: Friend on "Friends" (MONICA) when I (mentally) wrote in PHOEBE and then tried (briefly) to convince myself that maybe RuPaul's Drag Race aired on ... PBS? (1A: "RuPaul's Drag Race" airer (MTV)). Seemed ... unlikely. I mean, maybe someday that is where it will air, but not in these times. Probably. I also tried to make the "I'm on vacation" message be BRB, which is now making me laugh—"Be right back! In just two weeks! Please hold!" But no, it's OOO ("Out of Office"), which you'd use in business settings, in texts or in business communication apps like Slack. But these opening hiccups were just that—slight delays, not real obstacles, and there's not one other part of this grid where I struggled even a little. The puzzles have been almost absurdly easy this week.
Notes:
- 8D: Soldier for hire, in brief (MERC) — never saw this clue (the puzzle was so easy that some of the answers just filled themselves in from crosses), but I have a question. A pronunciation question. IfMERCis short for "mercenary," which has a soft "c," then do you pronounceMERCwith a soft "c" as well, so that it ends up sounding like "murse," or do you go with the hard, manly hard-"c" sound, so that it sounds like ... Merck? As in "The Merck Manual"? Or is this word only for writing, and you're not supposed to actually pronounce it? It just seems awkward any way you slice it. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center is known as "TheMERC," and there, the pronunciation is unambiguous (because of that hard "c" in "Mercantile"). Same withMERCas an abbreviation of the bygone car brand, "Mercury." I just can't imagine calling some (theoretically) tough dude a "murse." And yet "merk" also seems wrong ... [fiddles with internet] ... OK, well, Merriam-webster dot com is telling me it's "merk." Rhymes with "Herc." Or "jerk." Not a fan of this "c" sound switch, but I (obviously) don't make the rules.
- 63A: Drink aptly found within "social event" (ALE) — condescendingly easy, especially for a Wednesday. Adds to the "child's placemat" quality of this connect-the-dots puzzle. Also, I don't know thatALEis more "apt" to be consumed at a "social event" than any other beverage. Tea coffee wine cocktails. Maybe your breakfast beverages, your milks and your juices, are not particularly social, but most of the rest of the beverage category goes that direction. I don't think ofALEas iconically "social."
- 30D: What might be out for a spell? (WAND)— hands down, far and away the best clue in the puzzle. A real bright light in an otherwise (ironically) unflashy puzzle.
- 51D: Was part of a series (ACTED)— I said I had no trouble after the small trouble in the NW, but I did have some more small trouble here. "Series" was sufficiently ambiguous that I needed several crosses to realize it was atelevisionseries.
- 39D: Common clown name (BOBO) — I just don't believe that there are "common" clown names. If you are a named clown, then your name should be unique. I mean, how many clowns can you even name? Bozo, Krusty ... Ronald McDonald? Pagliacci? How many BOBOs are there, exactly? And how many would you need in order for the name to be clown-common? Two?
See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Labels:Jeffrey Lease
Charlotte's first draft for "Some Pig"? / TUE 10-8-24 / Name of Athena's shield / Genderqueer identity, informally / "Little Shop of Horrors" lyricist Howard / "Beware of this sausage!"? / Belgian town known for its mineral baths / Balaam couldn't move his / Two up quarks and a down quark
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Constructor: Justin Werfel
Relative difficulty: Very easy
THEME: MAKE ENDS MEAT (62A: summary of the phonetic puns at 17-, 31-, 38- and 45-Across?) — familiar phrases have their final words ("ends") turned (homophonically) into meat:
Theme answers:
- "FEAR THE WURST!" (17A: "Beware of this sausage!"?)
- ON THE LAMB (31A: Like unshorn wool?)
- RAISE THE STEAKS (38A: Breed beef cattle?)
- "WHAT A BOAR" (45A: Charlotte's first draft for "Some Pig"?)
Word of the Day: Howard ASHMAN(46D: "Little Shop of Horrors" lyricist Howard) —
Howard Elliott Ashman(May 17, 1950 – March 14, 1991) was an American playwright, lyricist and stage director.He is most widely known for his work on feature films forWalt Disney Animation Studios, for which Ashman wrote the lyrics andAlan Menkencomposed the music.Ashman has been credited as being a main driving force behind theDisney Renaissance.His work included songs forLittle Shop of Horrors,The Little Mermaid,Beauty and the Beast, andAladdin.Tim Ricetook over to write the rest of the songs for the latter film after Ashman's death in 1991. [...]Over the course of his career, Ashman won two Academy Awards* (one posthumous) out of seven nominations. *[for "Under the Sea" (The Little Mermaid) and the title song from Beauty and the Beast] (wikipedia)
• • •
Second day in a row with a 16-wide grid, second day in a row with a clever revealer. Yesterday's required you to figure out what was going on (TIME AND TIME AGAIN = both parts of the theme answers could follow "time" in familiar phrases). Today's pretty much spells it all out. You literally make the ends (of the familiar original phrases) into meat. I like that the revealer itself follows its own pun logic: MEET into MEAT. This is a tight and reasonably funny theme. I didn't LOL at "FEAR THE WURST!" but I came close. It's just absurd enough to be genuinely amusing. The LAMB and STEAKS puns are kind of ho-hum, but "WHAT A BOAR!" brings the absurdity roaring back. The clue on that one is somehow simultaneously my most and least favorite of the bunch. It's such a creative and unexpected way to come at "WHAT A BOAR!," via a Charlotte's Web-based parallel. Truly inventive. And yet ... would anyone, even a fictional spider, ever look at a piglet and call it a "boar"? I guess technically (if Merriam-Webster dot com is to be believed, and why not...) a "boar" is simply an "uncastrated male swine," and, I mean, while I don't have any specific memory of Wilbur's testicles, I'm going to assume he did fall in the "uncastrated" category. And yet BOAR to me is a much different animal, esp. the BOAR that you eat as meat (which is wild; otherwise it would just be called "pork," right?). Annnnnnyway, enough about Wilbur's testicles. I would never think to call Wilbur a "BOAR," but we're talking crossword puns here, and in pun world, absurdity pays. "WHAT A BOAR!" —ironically!—keeps the themer set from sliding into bo(a)ring territory. On the whole, I thought this was a solid Tuesday theme.
This puzzle really was gauged too easy today, even for a (typically easy) Tuesday. The puns were a piece of (beef?)cake and as for the fill, it was point-and-shoot the whole way. Hmm, that metaphor sounded good coming out of my brain, but I'm not sure it works on a technical level. But you know what I mean. It was easy. Point (my eyes at the clue), and then shoot (the answer into the grid). OK, now I do like the metaphor. Welcome to My Brain Writing In Real Time. This will not become a regular feature of the blog, as it is far too ridiculous. But back to the easiness. Too much of it. Too easy. Zero hesitation. Well, almost. There was one hesitation, which felt like a brick wall compared to the rest of the puzzle. I had no idea who Howard ASHMAN was. I'm sailing along with absolutely no resistance and all of a sudden this pop culture proper noun comes crashing into my puzzle. From outer space, or so it seemed, compared to the very ordinary and familiar contents of the rest of the grid. I had -MAN and absolutely no idea what to do with those first three letters. And that, ladies and gentlemen, constituted 100% of today's puzzle difficulty, just asAT A GUESSconstituted 100% of my flinching at unpleasant answers. I have never heard anyone use that phrase, to my knowledge. "AS A GUESS," maybe, but AT A GUESS feels weird. AT A GALLOP, yes, AT A GUESS ... unless you are AT A GUESS clothing outlet ... no.
["Hey, man, I'm finished shopping, can you come pick me up?" "Sure, man, where are you?] |
Notes:
- 21A: Balaam couldn't move his (ASS) — truly the Bible's worst dancer (though not its wurst dancer ... I don't think the Bible has one of those)
- 28A: Small drum (TABOR) — it was a good day for knowing your short crossword words. Would I know what aTABORis without crosswords? Maybe ... maybe not. Would I knowSPAwas an actual Belgian town. Mmm, possibly. But I'm fairly confident I learned this fact from crosswords (where I get most of my SPA facts, having never, to my knowledge, been to a SPA ... although ... hmmm ... that may not be true. I've gotten a massage on vacation a couple of times, and those might have taken place in or around SPAs). AEGIS was another word that came easily because of crosswords (52A: Name of Athena's shield). I knewENBY(from "N.B." i.e. "nonbinary") before I ever saw it in crosswords, but I know that every time that word appears, someone somewhere is learning it for the first time (20A: Genderqueer identity, informally). This is the third appearance for ENBY (there have also been two ENBIES). The term has only been appearing in the NYTXW since 2022, so if you're just getting the memo, don't feel too bad.
- 41D: Actor McGregor (EWAN) — coincidentally, just watched anEWANMcGregor movie yesterday—a 2011 Stephen Soderbergh flick called Haywire that I stumbled into while browsing The Criterion Channel (hallowed be its name). It's an action thriller starring real-life MMA star Gina Carano as an extremely badass black ops agent who gets in lots of beautifully choreographed and impressively violent fights with a lot of dudes, some of them big stars (Channing Tatum! Michael Fassbender!). EWAN McGregor plays Carano's employer/handler. To say any more would spoil it. It's a tight, taut, fun film. Very much worth it if you've got 90 minutes to burn.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Posted byRex Parkerat5:51 AM71comments
Labels:Justin Werfel
Gillette razors / MON 10-7-24 / Fictional archaeologist with a fear of snakes, informally / Fixture at many a cash bar / Supersoft sweater material / The Gaels of the NCAA / What adequate ventilation provides / Sweeping camera movement / Something a loyal customer may redeem for a free drink / Like the slang "totally tubular" and "da bomb"
Monday, October 7, 2024
Constructor: Desirée Penner and Jeff Sinnock
Relative difficulty:Very easy (solved Downs-only)
THEME:TIME AND TIME AGAIN (39A: Repeatedly ... or what can precede both halves of the answers to 19-, 25-, 53- and 63-Across)— both halves of the theme answers can follow "time" in a familiar phrase:
Theme answers:
- SLOT MACHINE ("time slot," "time machine") (19A: For which 7-7-7 might be a jackpot)
- STAMP CARD ("time stamp," "time card") (25A: Something a loyal customer may redeem for a free drink)
- OFF LIMITS ("time off," "time limits") (53A:Taboo)
- PERIOD PIECE ("time period," "time piece") (63A: Historical drama, e.g.)
Word of the Day: LAMAR Jackson(16A: ___ Jackson, N.F.L. M.V.P. in 2019 and 2023) —
Lamar Demeatrice Jackson Jr.(born January 7, 1997) is an American professionalfootballquarterbackfor theBaltimore Ravensof theNational Football League(NFL). He playedcollege footballfor theLouisville Cardinals, winning theHeisman Trophyin 2016, and was selected by the Ravens with the final pick (No. 32) in the first round of the2018 NFL draft. Intended to serve as a backup in his rookie season, Jackson became the Ravens' starting quarterback after an injury to the incumbentJoe Flacco. He went on to clinch a division title with the team and became the youngest NFL quarterback to start a playoff game at age 21.Known for hisdual-threat play style, Jackson led the NFL in touchdown passes in 2019 while setting the single-season record in rushing yards for a quarterback.For his success, Jackson became the second unanimous NFLMost Valuable Player(MVP)and the fourthblack quarterbackto win the award.Jackson followed up his MVP campaign by becoming the first quarterback to have multiple seasons with 1,000 rushing yards and led the Ravens to a third consecutive playoff appearance.Following the 2022 season, he signed a five-year contract worth $260 million.In 2023, Jackson led the Ravens to the top seed in theAmerican Football Conference(AFC) and was named NFL MVP for the second time, en route to the team's first AFC Championship game since 2012. (wikipedia)
• • •
Really enjoyed this one. It was one of those days where all the Downs-only magic was flowing my way. SLAMS ERICA CASHMERE right out of the gate, then double back to get PIVOT (after inferring the "P" in SPEC). Slight hesitation at STAMP CARD ("is that a thing? ... oh, right, yes, yes it is") and then up and through SLOTM-, which couldn't be anything but SLOT MACHINE ... so I was flying, whooshing, without even looking at a single Across clue. But with two themers down, I still couldn't tell what the theme was supposed to be, so I tumbled down into the center of the grid (ASTI AIM LIP ATM DUE), and then, from "-EANDTIM-" ... bam, right across the grid.
What a rush to pick up a grid-spanner from just the middle chunk, and a bigger rush to have that grid-spanner clearly, concisely, and perfectly reveal the theme to me. Didn't need to read the clue on TIME AND TIME AGAIN to know exactly what it meant. I thought "OK, if that's the revealer, then there's going to be two ... times ... probably." And sure enough, I look up, and yup, that checks out (time slot, time machine; time stamp, time card). Something about the exhilaration of flying through the grid on just the Downs coupled with the clear and clever wordplay on the revealer phrase made this one a lot of fun to move through. And the remaining themers were still fun to get because, even knowing the gimmick, I still had to pick them up without their clues. Got to experience another no-look whoosh moment later in the solve when I threw down PERIOD PIECE off of just a tiny chunk of central material ("-IOD-"):
Confirmed that answer with PAN (64D: Sweeping camera movement), and from there, it was a fairly easy trip over to the SE corner and ... done. Ended on SRSLY, and yes,SRSLY, despite some less-than-great fill here and there, I liked this one a bunch. The "both halves"-type themes can often yield two-part themers that feel at least a little bit forced, but all four of today's offerings were rock solid—rock solid as standalone answers, and rock solid as two-part "time" followers. Since "time flow" is a thing (isn't it?), I had a moment where I thoughtAIRFLOWwas a themer (29A: What adequate ventilation provides). But then I looked at the symmetrical answer (NY STATE), and couldn't make sense of "time NY" or "time state" (although that kind of sounds like a thing). Also (going back to AIRFLOW), though "air time" is a thing, "time air" is not. So no, those 7-letter Acrosses have nothing to do with the theme. Just the four themers today—clean and clear and thematically perfect.
Moments I could have done without: OBI crossing OBIE (not a dupe, but feels like a dupe); NY STATE (I live in it but it doesn't feel like a solid phrase to me—NYS is an abbr. I've seen, butNY STATEseems to be trying to have it both ways (abbr. and non), and it just feels off); and then, because I had to stop and work forFIERY, my attention was called to the crosses on that one, which are ... not good. Weird to write inFIERYand know it has to be right but really want it to be wrong because MII and ATRAS look so bad. They really want to be MOI and ATLAS ... but FIERY > FOELY, I'm afraid, so I just had to wince and move on. Those minor infelicities, however, did very little to dampen my overall enjoyment of this one. We also get a couple of decent long downs. CASHMERE ... so soft. And who doesn't love PaulGIAMATTI? I will confess I did not care for The Holdovers, but American Splendor is one of the best biopics I've ever seen (and I don't even like biopics!). GIAMATTI is a perfect Harvey Pekar. Perfect Pekar, I say! If you haven't seen it, treat yourself!
See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Posted byRex Parkerat12:00 AM47comments
Labels:Desirée Penner,Jeff Sinnock
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