Constructor:John Westwig
Relative difficulty:Normal Tuesday (medium)
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THEME:Jeremy's iron— famous names, where last name is a make of car, have apostrophe-S added to end of first names to make it sound like the famous person drives said car ...
Theme answers:
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It's official. Crossword brain drain is real. I was thinking about it earlier today—how the best constructors I know are less and less often selling their stuff to the NYT, choosing instead to work with other organizations or to go the independent route. And then tonight I open this puzzle, which is ... I don't know where to start. I haven't seen such a weak, antiquated theme in a while. This is almost a non-concept, or ... a parody concept. You just add apostrophe-S ... for some reason. This puzzle is like a "joke" that goes "Isn't it funny how some people's last names are also the names of cars...?" and then that is the joke, right there, all of it. It just stops, and maybe you smile and nod but you almost certainly walk away. I feel like the NYT is running on fumes, propelled forward largely by the inertia provided by its former fame. It's become hyper-reliant, for its good puzzles, on former and current Shortz employees, or people who are otherwise part of the "NYT Family" (a phrase I did not make up). It does not in any way feel like it's moving forward, becoming more inclusive, more modern, interesting, daring. It tells you (in ads) it's the "best crossword in the world" ... because it is because of course it is because it is. Meanwhile, it's not. It's just not. Today's theme alone should've made this one DOA. *Would've* made this one DOA if submission quality had been what it was even five years ago.
The fill is stale but that hardly matters at this point. The fact that you couldn't fill that simple little corner in the SE without resorting to RAGA *and* ET AL *and* (the real kicker) YLEM ... it's astonishing. I don't even have RAGE at this point. Just disbelief. The "P" in PICOT (36A: Embroidery loop) and the "N" in NIMES (60A: City near Avignon) were my last letters because I don't know those things (or, I do, but not terribly well). Thank god I know who the hell Xerxes was (36D: Xerxes' people = PERSIANS). I could've summed all of my feelings about this puzzle up like so: "Hackneyed theme concept and oh yeah YLEM wtf?" The end. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty:Normal Tuesday (medium)
THEME:Jeremy's iron— famous names, where last name is a make of car, have apostrophe-S added to end of first names to make it sound like the famous person drives said car ...
Theme answers:
- ABRAHAM'S LINCOLN (20A: How the Great Emancipator got around?)
- HARRISON'S FORD (25A: How the star of the Indiana Jones films got around?)
- ICHIRO'S SUZUKI (42A: How a Seattle Mariner great got around?) (why are Ford and Suzuki in past tense; they're still alive)(also Suzuki is a former Mariner current Marlin, just FYI)
- FREDDIE'S MERCURY (48A: How Queen's former frontman got around?) (Mercurys are bygone, but OK)
nounnoun: picot; plural noun: picots
• • •
The fill is stale but that hardly matters at this point. The fact that you couldn't fill that simple little corner in the SE without resorting to RAGA *and* ET AL *and* (the real kicker) YLEM ... it's astonishing. I don't even have RAGE at this point. Just disbelief. The "P" in PICOT (36A: Embroidery loop) and the "N" in NIMES (60A: City near Avignon) were my last letters because I don't know those things (or, I do, but not terribly well). Thank god I know who the hell Xerxes was (36D: Xerxes' people = PERSIANS). I could've summed all of my feelings about this puzzle up like so: "Hackneyed theme concept and oh yeah YLEM wtf?" The end. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]