Constructor:Jason Flinn
Relative difficulty:Medium
THEME: AND ANOTHER THING... (
59A: Rant continuation ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — theme answers are common (ish) phrases that start with ordinals numbering one more thing than the customary / standard / normal number usually associated with that thing. Thus:
Theme answers:- FIFTY-FIRST STATE (17A: Country that's an extremely close American ally, so to speak)
- SIXTH SENSE (24A: Special perception)
- THIRD RAIL (36A: Power source for a subway train)
- FIFTH WHEEL (50A: Unwanted tagalong)
Word of the Day:FEH(29D: "Bah!") —
exclamation
exclamation: feh
conveying disapproval, displeasure, or disgust.
"The greatest writer in the English language? Feh!" (google)
• • •
Neither wife nor I understood this theme once we'd finished. At first, I tried saying all the ordinals in a row, or adding them up, hoping some latent number or concept would pop forth. Then I got it. Wife had always thought the expression was "THIRD WHEEL," which is apparently a very common corruption of
FIFTH WHEEL. Neither of us had every heard the expression
FIFTY-FIRST STATE (and she's a U.S. Historian). I guess the theme has a certain consistency and is kind of interesting. I'm mostly hung up on the fill, which was highly displeasing in several sections. It is really irksome when the places in the grid that give you the most grief are also the places in the grid with the worst fill, and that was certainly true for me today.
SOLD AS, ugh. Clue was [
Billed to be] and I had SO- and could think of nothing but SO-CALLED, but that wouldn't fit.
SOLDAS. Just look at it. Gah.
But worse, empirically (and for me, personally) was
DIE OF / FEH. Ugh to
FEH in general, but
DIE OF ... well, it's terrible, but worse is the first-letter cross,
1D: In the wrong place at the wrong time? (
OFFSIDE). There is no reason for the "?" there. If you are
OFFSIDE in soccer, or US football, you are literally "in the wrong place at the wrong time." No "?" needed. Also, other answers fit: OFFBASE, for one (my first answer). Also, OFFSITE (my second). I finished the puzzle and was staring at "TIE OF embarrassment," and all my crosses seemed to check out and I had no idea what was going on. Now that I know it's
DIE OF, it seems obvious, but it Did Not seem obvious at first. So my biggest problem was in the area with junkiest fill—this always corrodes the puzzle-solving experience for me. It's one thing not to get something, quite another to have that thing be not at all worth getting.
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Spent the earlier part of this evening at a candlelight vigil for those who were murdered at Pulse in Orlando this past weekend. Very proud of how many people came out, how inclusive and pro-LGBT our (Republican) mayor was, and how diverse the speakers and the crowd were, in every way. It was sweet and sad. At one point I looked across the river and realized we were directly across from the American Civic Association, which you probably remember only if you are an aficionado of mass shootings in the US. On April 3, 2009, a man walked into that little building and shot 13 people (most of them immigrants learning English) and then himself. But no one remembers. Because it just keeps happening. And happening. Anyway, there were many speeches from many civic and religious leaders and then some earnest singing and then they played Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" and I cried. The end.
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Oh, I left out the part where, before the vigil started, the woman standing right next to me said to her mother "Let's work on the crossword!" and whipped out a book and they just went at it. Right there. Right next to me. It was slightly surreal. And yes of course I took a picture.
Bullets:- 37D: Hyman ___, main antagonist in "The Godfather Part II" (ROTH)— just saw this movie last month. Didn't help.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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