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Channel: Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
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Balloon-carried probe / FRI 2-5-16 / Clean freak of sitcomdom / Chicago exchange in brief / Sister brand of Alpha-Bits / Of wrath in hymn title / Avian symbol of Ontario / Threepio's first master

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Constructor:Mary Lou Guizzo

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium


THEME:none 

Word of the Day:SONDE(35A: Balloon-carried probe) —
noun
noun: sonde; plural noun: sondes
  1. an instrument probe that automatically transmits information about its surroundings underground, under water, in the atmosphere, etc. (google)
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This was an interesting mixture of Great and Iffy. Luckily, all of the Iffy is in the short stuff (3- to 5-letter range). The grid-spanners are all fresh and solid and lovely, which is as it should be. When you stack 15s, you tend to have to stand for some junk, or at least some wobbliness; when you lattice (now a verb), you should be able to get your 15s all into the realm of Nice. The only issue I have with the 15s is the going back to the same "contemporary actress" well in successive long answers, i.e. following up SHAILENE WOODLEY with JESSICA CHASTAIN—both fine answers, but I like puzzlees better when they're drawing their answers from diverse realms of the knowledge spectrum. Here, if you are pop culture illiterate (and I'm looking at a whole lot of you), you don't get double-whammied in such short order. But again, on their own, both answers, fantastic, fair, good. And honestly this puzzle had me at "A MODEST PROPOSAL," so however much the thing stumbled after that, it was highly unlikely that I was going to look upon it in any way other than favorably.


I don't believe in GAWP. I just don't. So right out of the gate I had trouble. To [Stare in astonishment] is to GAPE. Later I was forced to change it—to GASP. But that left me with an opening of SH-T... for 3D: Question upon completing an argument, and that seemed ... unlikely (it's actually the wonderful "WHAT MORE CAN I SAY?"). When you have This Much short fill, with all but a small handful of non-15s in the 3-to-5 range, there will be blood. I consider AMPAS blood. American Pictures Association Of Somewhere? If it's an acronym related to movies and it's not MPAA, then I don't know it. Ah, "Arts & Sciences," ha ha. That's a pretty high-falutin' name for an org. that gives awards to [movie title redacted so as not to offend anyone]! Plural CSIS is awful. PREV, not much better, and you can see other scattered semi-wincey stuff throughout the grid. But I think the 15s do their job, i.e. capture our attention and admiration and keep us from caring too much about the rust and cracked paint and other minor structural imperfections.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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