Constructor: James Mulhern
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME:none—
Word of the Day: Bernhard RIEMANN (7D: Mathematician with a hypothesis unproven since 1859) —
Made a key lime pie today, which was a first. It somehow came out perfect. Near perfect, anyway. I'd give it like a 97/100. I tell you what, America's Test Kitchen is not *%$#ing around. Even a talentless baking hack like me can conjure up deliciousness with their recipes. So with two slices down the hatch—and the lingering effects of an earlier Sazerac cocktail still playing in my brain—I sat down to this themeless puzzle. It opened easily, not to mention improbably. Jarring opening 1-2, as I crossed the father of three major world religions with ... a cheesy lad mag.
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Crossing a (literal) Patriarch with a magazine that represents the worst of The Patriarchy as my opening gambit was eerily predictive of a very, very male-dominated puzzle. Only woman in this thing (besides the MAXIM pin-ups) is animated (ELSA). But you've got tons of men, as well as BATTLE / ZONE and "Call of Duty" and TROJAN WAR and TAE BO and REBEL heroes and on and on with the violence and militarism. You'd think that we could at least get some gender balance in the *cluing*, but no. Oh well. This grid is still exceptionally well made. No groan-worthy junk. Not much to ooh and aah at at first, but things heated up once I got down to CASUAL SEX. As it were.
Didn't know RUDOLF (3D: Diesel who invented the diesel engine) or "ETHAN Brand," and didn't recognize RIEMANN or Ira LEVIN until I'd gotten almost all of their respective names from crosses. Could not for the life of me understand how THAI was an [Indian alternative]. I think it's a food thing? Seems pretty arbitrary, but that's all I got. Trouble areas were FAT ALBERT (which I haven't seen in almost 40 years) (50A: Cartoon friend of Dumb Donald and Weird Harold) and ZAPOTEC (the "P" gave me fits, as I had REDO instead of REPO at first at 28D: Take back, in a way). Hardest part by far was the SE corner, because "RIVER...."???? I couldn't wrap my head around what "Traveling show" even meant. Haven't thought about ... wait, is "RIVERDANCE" related to Lord of the Dance, Michael Flatley? It is! Haven't heard either name since the '90s. Anyway, I had to go into that SE corner blind, getting traction with TAE BO (speaking of the '90s...) (55A: Program with a "Get Ripped" version) x/w SCRIBE (42D: Journalist, informally). After that, it was over pretty quickly.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME:none—
Word of the Day: Bernhard RIEMANN (7D: Mathematician with a hypothesis unproven since 1859) —
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann[ˈʁiːman](September 17, 1826 – July 20, 1866) was an influential Germanmathematician who made lasting and revolutionary contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the first rigorous formulation of the integral, the Riemann integral, and his work on Fourier series. His contributions to complex analysis include most notably the introduction of Riemann surfaces, breaking new ground in a natural, geometric treatment of complex analysis. His famous 1859 paper on the prime-counting function, containing the original statement of the Riemann hypothesis, is regarded, although it is his only paper in the field, as one of the most influential papers in analytic number theory. Through his pioneering contributions to differential geometry, Riemann laid the foundations of the mathematics of general relativity. (wikipedia)
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Made a key lime pie today, which was a first. It somehow came out perfect. Near perfect, anyway. I'd give it like a 97/100. I tell you what, America's Test Kitchen is not *%$#ing around. Even a talentless baking hack like me can conjure up deliciousness with their recipes. So with two slices down the hatch—and the lingering effects of an earlier Sazerac cocktail still playing in my brain—I sat down to this themeless puzzle. It opened easily, not to mention improbably. Jarring opening 1-2, as I crossed the father of three major world religions with ... a cheesy lad mag.
Didn't know RUDOLF (3D: Diesel who invented the diesel engine) or "ETHAN Brand," and didn't recognize RIEMANN or Ira LEVIN until I'd gotten almost all of their respective names from crosses. Could not for the life of me understand how THAI was an [Indian alternative]. I think it's a food thing? Seems pretty arbitrary, but that's all I got. Trouble areas were FAT ALBERT (which I haven't seen in almost 40 years) (50A: Cartoon friend of Dumb Donald and Weird Harold) and ZAPOTEC (the "P" gave me fits, as I had REDO instead of REPO at first at 28D: Take back, in a way). Hardest part by far was the SE corner, because "RIVER...."???? I couldn't wrap my head around what "Traveling show" even meant. Haven't thought about ... wait, is "RIVERDANCE" related to Lord of the Dance, Michael Flatley? It is! Haven't heard either name since the '90s. Anyway, I had to go into that SE corner blind, getting traction with TAE BO (speaking of the '90s...) (55A: Program with a "Get Ripped" version) x/w SCRIBE (42D: Journalist, informally). After that, it was over pretty quickly.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]