Constructor:Samuel A. Donaldson
Relative difficulty:Medium
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THEME:"Shunned"— ordinary phrases have "shun" sound added to the end, creating wacky phrases, which are wackily clued, "?"-style:
Theme answers:
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Found this sluggish and clunky. Super-basic and super-olde-fashionede in its theme type—a simple add-a-sound—and the results did not hit as much as they missed or just sat there. Also, the fill was too often overly common / familiar stuff (EENIE and ELANDs and UNAS and what not), and its cultural center of gravity was somewhere in the '90s, painfully so at times. MEL C, TRE COOL, and NORA DUNN ... that's about as up-to-date as this thing gets. It's a reasonably well-constructed puzzle, but both the theme type and the fill don't feel appropriate to a 21st-century puzzle, let alone The 21st-century puzzle (if you believe the NYT's own hype). There were some minor problems with the theme too: something about the POOR-to-POR transition at 32A feels mildly off to my ears ("poor" and "pore" are not homophones to me), and SWEET 'N' LOTION is massively awkward. I might take lotion to the beach, but I would not take sweet. *Sweets*, sure, yes, that is what one would take if one like candy. But just "sweet" is blargh. If you are indeed a "candy lover," no Way you're taking just one "sweet." So in the singular, and without the indefinite article before it, it just doesn't work.
Too much reliance on hackneyed fill from another language and/or another era. I knew things weren't going to be great when I opened with ADESTE. I don't know ... the whole thing smelled like it had been in mothballs. IN SCALE???? (98D: Proportionate) Not TO SCALE??? That was so odd. Not as odd as AISLED (ugh), but odd. ALBEN? Ha, if you say so. That whole eastern patch was the roughest for me by far, and the last part I filled in. Collar stays are not ... things I know about, so figuring out COLLAR STATION took a long, long time. I assume collar stays are like ... cufflinks for your shirt's neck region? Maybe if I went to see "Peer GYNT" more often I would wear fancy shirts and know that term. As it is, I just flailed around over there until all the answers settled into place. Wouldn't have minded flailing if I thought there was some kind of payoff, but there just wasn't much of one today.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty:Medium
THEME:"Shunned"— ordinary phrases have "shun" sound added to the end, creating wacky phrases, which are wackily clued, "?"-style:
Theme answers:
- TRICKY DICTION (25A: What's involved in a tongue twister?)
- DIRT PORTION (32A: Very, very top of the earth's crust?)
- SPACE JUNCTION (4D: The cantina in "Star Wars," e.g.?)
- STRAW MANSION (49A: First home of the three rich little pigs?)
- SWEET 'N' LOTION (87A: Two things the candy lover took to the beach?)
- BASE TENSION (105A: What an overbearing sergeant causes?)
- BONUS TRACTION (116A: What improved tire tread produces?)
- COLLAR STATION (59D: Where they sell accessories at a pet shop?)
Rossano Brazzi (18 September 1916 – 24 December 1994) was an Italian actor. // He was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), followed by the leading male role in David Lean's Summertime (1955), opposite Katharine Hepburn. In 1958, he played the lead as Frenchman Emile De Becque in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. His other notable English-language films include The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Story of Esther Costello (1957), Count Your Blessings (1959),The Light in the Piazza (1962), and The Italian Job (1969). (wikipedia)
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Too much reliance on hackneyed fill from another language and/or another era. I knew things weren't going to be great when I opened with ADESTE. I don't know ... the whole thing smelled like it had been in mothballs. IN SCALE???? (98D: Proportionate) Not TO SCALE??? That was so odd. Not as odd as AISLED (ugh), but odd. ALBEN? Ha, if you say so. That whole eastern patch was the roughest for me by far, and the last part I filled in. Collar stays are not ... things I know about, so figuring out COLLAR STATION took a long, long time. I assume collar stays are like ... cufflinks for your shirt's neck region? Maybe if I went to see "Peer GYNT" more often I would wear fancy shirts and know that term. As it is, I just flailed around over there until all the answers settled into place. Wouldn't have minded flailing if I thought there was some kind of payoff, but there just wasn't much of one today.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]