Constructor:Damon Gulczynski
Relative difficulty:Medium (leaning somewhat toward easy)
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THEME:none
Word of the Day:TAXON(18A: Phylum, order or genus) —
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I'm trying to think of things to say about this puzzle, but I'm fantastically distracted by my Twitter feed, which is half live-tweets of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and half animated discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of "High Society" (1956). It's all too enthralling. Allegedly, there's an important NBA playoff game on right now as well, but I haven't heard a peep about it. This puzzle was enjoyable, mostly. West fell fast, east ... didn't. After a couple early miscues (AGE for SWM, ENYA for ERTE) I went sweeping down the west side of the grid pretty easily, then moved into the middle and kinda got stuck for a bit (finished in 6:09, so not *that* stuck, but stuckish). First there was the ON ICE / IN ICE problem (IN makes me wince), then the NE, where ... let's see. I threw AVAIL in and then crossed it at the "V" with ... OVATE. But when the "T" cross was some kind of green (er, that is, 13D: Kind of blue that's close to green), I somehow ... I ... well, I changed OVATE to OVOID and went with NILE. NILE blue. Is that a thing? It felt thingish. It was wrong. MIENS and DENS helped out and things settled down. Really really really thrown off by the word "attraction" in 34A: Attraction temporarily shut down and partly moved to Siberia during W.W. II, so much so that even with LENIN in place I still thought I was dealing with some kind of carnival ride. The LENIN SWING or something.... but it was just his TOMB.
Yucked out at the awkward EMBANK, where -MBAN- did zero for me (PET rock ... cute) (29A: Kind of classic rock?). Thus stuck, I switched to the SE to see what I could do—and bam, off the "O" got "O, PIONEERS," and RIC OCASEK would've been a gimme even without the initial "R" in place. Filled the grid back up to horrible EMBANK, ending with that "E."
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty:Medium (leaning somewhat toward easy)
THEME:none
Word of the Day:TAXON(18A: Phylum, order or genus) —
In biology, a taxon (plural taxa; back-formation from taxonomy) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is not uncommon, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion. If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. (wikipedia)
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Taxon. Tax off. Taxon, tax off ... the taxer. TAX TAX.[You're welcome]
[This video is unrelated to anything in the puzzle. It was on 89.3 The Current (Minneapolis!) as I was writing this, so I just stuck it in here, why not?]
Yucked out at the awkward EMBANK, where -MBAN- did zero for me (PET rock ... cute) (29A: Kind of classic rock?). Thus stuck, I switched to the SE to see what I could do—and bam, off the "O" got "O, PIONEERS," and RIC OCASEK would've been a gimme even without the initial "R" in place. Filled the grid back up to horrible EMBANK, ending with that "E."
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]