Resort island in Firthy of Clyde / SUN 2-7-16 / Orthoodox jewish honorific / Charlie Chan portrayer Warner / Legendary Washington hostess / Luna's Greek counterpart / Southern constellation that holds second-brightest star in night sky

Constructor:Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty:Medium


THEME:"Adding Insult"— "DIS" is added to familiar phrases, creating wacky blah blah you know the drill:

Theme answers:

• DISCREDIT CARDS (22A: Damage a St. Louis team's reputation?)
• TABLE OF DISCONTENTS (29A: Ones giving the waiter a hard time?)
• DISPLAYS FOR A FOOL (48A: Harlequin exhibitions?)
• DISBAND ON THE RUN (63A: Flee in separate directions?)
• ELLA DISENCHANTED (86A: Result of the Queen of Scat's backup group messing up?)
• CAMEO DISAPPEARANCE (101A: Jewel heist outcome?)
• DISBAR AND GRILL (113A: Question harshly after not allowing to practice?)

Word of the Day:CARINA(24A: Southern constellation that holds the second-brightest star in the night sky) —

Carina/kəˈraɪnə/ is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship, and it was formerly part of the larger constellation of Argo Navis (the ship Argo) until that constellation was divided into three pieces, the other two being Puppis (the poop deck), and Vela (the sails of the ship). (wikipedia)

This puzzle is unimaginably bad. Despite the fact that I criticize puzzles, even good ones, every day, all the time, it is actually very rare that I outright Hate a puzzle—that I resent the time it took me to solve it (let alone the time it takes me to write about it). So I'm not gonna waste too much time writing about this one. Let's just say that "Adding Insult" is about right. There are so many HURTERS (what the actual...!?) in this puzzle, it's hard to know where to begin. So I'll begin with the theme, which is tired, lazy, dated hackery of the first order. After I got the first themer (DISCREDIT CARDS, ugh), I said out loud (though no one was around to hear me), "Oh, no, this isn't just gonna be a bunch of DIS answers, is it?" I cannot—I mean canNot—believe this passed muster. First, I've seen variations on this exact theme before. Second, who cares? Why? There is nothing funny or interesting or clever about the resulting "wacky" phrases? Zero. Just add DIS ... over and over and over and over Why? So "Ella Enchanted" becomes "ELLA DISENCHANTED"!? That's it? Dear lord above, that registers like a 0.1 on the Wordplay Scale. Half the time DIS- is just used as a negative prefix. So "cameo appearance" becomes [drum roll] CAMEO DISAPPEARANCE! Get it!? Me either.


And the fill ... I can't believe I'm saying this, I can't believe it's physically possible, but ... it's worse. It's in even worse shape than the sad, hobbling, hackneyed theme. I circled all the semi-to-very objectionable answers on my grid, and it's just an inky mess now. It was like one of those All-Star games where they bring back the old-timers, only instead of people you want to see like Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax, it's ABOU Ben Adhem and Perle MESTA and Mme. de STAEL and Warner OLAND (riding an ELAND). There's LOEWE on IWO. A SOR ON RYE. There's SELENE crossing DE SICA in what will surely be a Natick for someone (SELENA / DA SICA looks totally acceptable). OTOH, there's ULNAR A DUE (because it takes two to ULNAR). There's something I've never seen before called CARINA. The puzzle is sincerely asking me to believe that you can pluralize FM (!?) (37A: Most NPR stations). And then the coup de grace: NOT crossing NOT in the NE. Seriously. That actually happened. In short, this is the most inexcusably bad Sunday puzzle I've seen in ages. From top to bottom, stem to stern, APEAK to PAIUTE. Gooood night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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