Grassy surface / FRI 1-1-16 / 2009 million-selling Justin Bieber release / First bishop of Paris / Prominent feature of dubstep music / Goddess who caused Trojan women to riot in "Aeneid"

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME:none 

Notable Crosswordese:  

• ELOI (7D: "The Time Machine People")
• ENIAC (28D: Historic computer)
• OTOE (48D: Winnebago relative)

Notable Recent Pop Culture :

• Justin Bieber's "MY WORLD"
• LCD Soundsystem

Word of the Day:"MY WORLD"(11D: 2009 million-selling Justin Bieber release) —

My World is the debut extended play (EP) by Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber. It was released on 17 November 2009, by Island Records. The album is considered the first half of a two-piece project, later being supplemented by his debut studio albumMy World 2.0 (2010). After signing a recording contract in light of his growing popularity on YouTube, Bieber worked with collaborators including his mentor Usher, in addition to producers Tricky Stewart, The-Dream, and Midi Mafia. Its music incorporates pop and R&B styles, and lyrically discusses teen romance and coming of age situations. (wikipedia)

I'm trying to solve and blog and watch "After the Thin Man" (1936) on TCM, all at the same time. Multi-tasking generally means doing many things suboptimally, but a. I somehow still managed to crush this puzzle, and b. I had the delightfully bizarre experience of hitting the clue 45D: Gumshoe Charles (NORA) just as said gumshoe was lighting up my TV screen. And here I thought ASTA got all the crossword action. Unexpected! This movie takes place on New Year's Eve. Seems like people partied way harder in 1936. Nick just finished accidentally making out with a lovely woman *not* named NORA. I guess it was dark. See, trying to blog and watch at the same time means I keep missing things. Ugh. OK, just blogging now—this grid looks great, but somehow was not that exciting to solve. Maybe the cluing was just too straightforward. After yesterday's lively, current, playful cluing, today's seems quite plain. But this is a matter of taste. The grid really is nicely done, if far far too easy to move through. I thought that big, open center was going to cause trouble, but that turned out being the easiest part of all.

I had some trouble getting started. BEAT for BASS (1A: Prominent feature of dubstep music), SEEMED for SEEN AS (4D: Perceived to be), ERIS for IRIS (24A: Goddess who caused the Trojan women to riot in the "Aeneid"), ST. PARIS for ST. DENIS (that last one was just stupid—"Paris" is in the dang clue) (3D: First bishop of Paris). After that corner was done—whoosh, off I went. Where I pulled SWARD from I don't know, but I pulled it (13D: Grassy surface). Thought there might be ALGAE on the slide instead of an AMEBA (26D: Slide presentation?), and needed 8/9 of POLE DANCE to bring it down (that first ninth was the issue) (38A: Provocative performance). The one really surprising thing in the grid was the clue on LCD (54A: Rock's ___ Soundsystem). I like them quite a bit, but don't think of them as crossword-famous, whatever that means. Once I HASHED out ORISON, the rest of the puzzle (i.e. the SE corner) was a snap.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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