Constructor:Doug Peterson and Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty:Easy (I think, but I did it in the Marriott bar, semi-out-loud, and my friend Erin kept giving away answers so maybe it's harder, I don't know)


THEME:NONE 

Word of the Day:GEWGAW(1D: Showy trinket) —

googaw

geegaw

andgewgawandgoogaw (ˈgigɔandˈgugɔ)

n. a gadget; a bauble.What do you do withthesegewgaws?Hangthem on a tree? (some online dictionary I have now lost)

Hello from the Starbucks in Stamford, CT. I have one hour to get this thing posted, so ... here we go. I'm here with my wife and my friends Lena and Brayden. We all sort of did this last night to various levels of completion. I enjoyed it, but I don't remember it the way I remember a puzzle I solve under normal conditions (i.e. alone), because people were arguing and joking about only certain clues / answers, so those are the ones I'm going to talk about. I tried to put in BAUBLE at 1D: Showy trinket, but my friend Erin bluntly just said "It's not BAUBLE," so I said GOOGAW, and she said "Yes," but we clearly had different ideas of how you spell that word, because mine went into the grid with two Os. I was happy to confirm that this spelling exists, even if it is a kind of tertiary variant (now know as "tertvar"). People were also dwelling a lot on GAP-TOOTHED, which was more obvious to others than it was to me, despite my knowing precisely who Michael Strahan is, in both his football and morning TV contexts.


I am torn between loving and side-eyeing BUSHSR. I think I love it. It is roughly colloquially equivalent to "41." I once referred to Obama as "44" and got blank stares from my D.C.-area-living companion. "I'm mad about OMEGAS," says Lena. Awkwardly phrased. "Foreign writing!?""I think the whole thing is awkward." I actually had No Idea what a non-capital Omega looked like. I know the upside-down horseshoe. I think DEARTH VADER would be a good theme answer. Not sure for what theme. I guess nothing really excited me about this, but it was easy and kind of fun to solve. Téa LEONI is almost a random pope, LEO the NI ... nth? Many of the ladies at the bar last night know her as the person who married their imaginary boyfriend, David Duchovny. We are now having a spirited HOORAHS v. HOORAYS discussion (I definitely went with the latter first). Somehow the discussion of EMIRITI has led to me wondering if nuns go to school and if so are they ALUMNUNS. My wife is pretty sure nuns do, in fact, go to school. I think TROOPSHIP is the feeling of amity among people in a troop. Also, I just typoed TROOPSHIT, so there's probably a theme in there somewhere. Now we are all trying to say TROOPSHIP three times fast and failing. Mostly laughing. I looked over my friend Elizabeth's shoulder as she was solving last night, and at 35D: Where Arithmancy is an elective she had the last four letters in place but opted not for FINE ARTS. That is a first-rate wrong answer.


I think we're done here. Oh, we're SOREAT SOREAT, which, I mean, look at it. It doesn't want to be an answer. It's sad at how it looks. Like a dog w/ a cone around its neck. So-Ree-At. Frown face. Here's what Lena likes: the clue on TANLINES (21D: Wristwatches may make them) and she just likes PYLONS as a word.  "It's not fair to just like the word PYLONS. It's just a personal issue that I have." I actually understand this.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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