Constructor:Tom McCoy
Relative difficulty:Medium
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THEME:from words to initals— familiar phrases are clued as if the last word (three letters in every case) were an initialism, i.e. clued wackily!
Theme answers:
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The wackiness is borderline out of control here (contrasting heavily with the acceptable but vanilla fill), but I thought it all worked pretty well. The joy (and the difficulty) is definitely all in the themers. The clues are the key to whether a themer flies or not, and while the first one out of the gate ([Stat shared by many pitchers?]) is a clunker, they pick up from there, with the last two being genuinely funny. I wish the last one ([Cry from an eager applicant for a delivery job?]) had been imagined as an actual quotation, the way ["Leave that lady's tomb alone!"?] was, but it's tough to find a good one that doesn't use "ME". ["Ooh, ooh, I want to drive one of your giant brown trucks!"?]—doesn't really get at the idea of selection, though. ["Hey, Brown! I'm the one you should hire!"]. Something like that. Themers were difficult to pick up because how the hell do you know what three-letter abbr. is coming your way. Clues don't always give you much info. "Delivery job" is supposed to lead me to U.P.S. "Bad" is the only direct clue to M.I.A. "Exam" is all you get for A.C.T. (an exam I never took and don't really understand). So you had to work for the themers. You didn't have to work for much else. But it all evened out, difficulty-wise.
Very tough getting started, as the clues in the NW were often ambiguous. I had the rider using a ROPE with her "Giddy-up!" Maybe a CROP. Probably not a WHIP. Singular SPUR (!) would not have occurred to me. Plural, sure, perhaps. I don't ride. Maybe you just need the one. UNMAN is not a word I ever think of, so that was hard. [Some puppets] are, indeed, SOCKS, but that is a tough clue for SOCKS. [Bent] for KNACK, also tough in its ambiguity. OH NO are [Words of dawning realization], sure, but nothing in that clue suggests you are realizing something bad. I had I SEE, as I'm sure many others did at first. Oddly, the first answer of which I was certain up in that quadrant was ROMCOM (4D: "Sleepless in Seattle," for one). Even 2D: Give a buzz (PHONE) wasn't clear to me.
Had a question about one of the themers—namely, why would a "tomb" say R.I.P.? Shouldn't that be "grave"? But then I immediately answered my "why not 'grave'" question by looking at the answer that runs through that particular themer, namely GRAVE PERIL (8D: Serious danger). So "grave" was never an option. Still, I'd probably have said "Leave that lady's headstone alone?" I'm not that familiar with tombs. Maybe they do say R.I.P. But headstones are so much more common, seems like you'd want to go that direction. Only other clue complaint was the horrendous x 2 clue [Order for a "D, E, A, N, S" list?]. First of all, it makes no sense and is in no way clever. May as well just say [Anagram of "deans"]. "Order for..."??? You make the Dean's List or you don't. The wordplay doesn't even land. Further, neither clue has content, which is a terrible, wasted opportunity for interesting cluing (again, x 2). Nothing about cars in SEDAN clue, nothing about mountains in ANDES clue. Just a cornball pun, and a failed one at that. Sorry: two, at that.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty:Medium
THEME:from words to initals— familiar phrases are clued as if the last word (three letters in every case) were an initialism, i.e. clued wackily!
Theme answers:
- COMMON E.R.A. (17A: Stat shared by many pitchers?)
- "LET 'ER R.I.P.!" (26A: "Leave that lady's tomb alone!")
- DISAPPEARING A.C.T. (40A: Exam that's losing popularity in high schools?)
- MAMMA M.I.A. (52A: Example of bad parenting?)
- PICK ME, U.P.S. (66A: Cry from an eager applicant for a delivery job?)
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Very tough getting started, as the clues in the NW were often ambiguous. I had the rider using a ROPE with her "Giddy-up!" Maybe a CROP. Probably not a WHIP. Singular SPUR (!) would not have occurred to me. Plural, sure, perhaps. I don't ride. Maybe you just need the one. UNMAN is not a word I ever think of, so that was hard. [Some puppets] are, indeed, SOCKS, but that is a tough clue for SOCKS. [Bent] for KNACK, also tough in its ambiguity. OH NO are [Words of dawning realization], sure, but nothing in that clue suggests you are realizing something bad. I had I SEE, as I'm sure many others did at first. Oddly, the first answer of which I was certain up in that quadrant was ROMCOM (4D: "Sleepless in Seattle," for one). Even 2D: Give a buzz (PHONE) wasn't clear to me.
Had a question about one of the themers—namely, why would a "tomb" say R.I.P.? Shouldn't that be "grave"? But then I immediately answered my "why not 'grave'" question by looking at the answer that runs through that particular themer, namely GRAVE PERIL (8D: Serious danger). So "grave" was never an option. Still, I'd probably have said "Leave that lady's headstone alone?" I'm not that familiar with tombs. Maybe they do say R.I.P. But headstones are so much more common, seems like you'd want to go that direction. Only other clue complaint was the horrendous x 2 clue [Order for a "D, E, A, N, S" list?]. First of all, it makes no sense and is in no way clever. May as well just say [Anagram of "deans"]. "Order for..."??? You make the Dean's List or you don't. The wordplay doesn't even land. Further, neither clue has content, which is a terrible, wasted opportunity for interesting cluing (again, x 2). Nothing about cars in SEDAN clue, nothing about mountains in ANDES clue. Just a cornball pun, and a failed one at that. Sorry: two, at that.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]