Japanese flower-arranging art / THU 1-12-17 / Old video game maker / Voice-activated assistant

Constructor:Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: Across the Grid Divide— in three rows of the puzzle, two sequential 3-letter Across answers are to be taken (per the clue of the following Across answer) as 6-letter words that have been divided.

Theme answers:

• BUS TED APART (1st row)
• BAN ANA SPLIT (8th row)
• BRO KEN INTWO (15th row)

Word of the Day:MASERS(42D: Atomic clock components) —

A maser (/ˈmeɪzər/, an acronym for "microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation") is a device that produces coherentelectromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger at Columbia University in 1953. Townes, Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work leading to the maser. Masers are used as the timekeeping device in atomic clocks, and as extremely low-noise microwave amplifiers in radio telescopes and deep space spacecraft communication ground stations. (wikipedia)

SPECIAL MESSAGEfor the week of January 8-January 15, 2017

Hello, solvers. A new year has begun, and that means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. Despite my regular grumbling about puzzle quality, constructor pay, and other things that should be better in the world of crosswords, I still love solving, I still love writing about puzzles, and I love love love the people I meet and interact with because of this blog. Well, most of them. Some I mute on Twitter, but mostly: there is love. The blog turned 10 in September, and despite the day-in, day-out nature of the job, I can't foresee stopping any time soon. The community of friends and fellow enthusiasts are all just too dear to me. You can expect me to be here every day, praising / yelling at the puzzle—independent and ad-free. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address:

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Cookery Postcards from Penguin"—beautifully designed covers of vintage cookbooks, with provocative titles like "Cookery For Men Only " (!) or "Good Meals from Tinned Foods" (!?). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

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Fantastically underwhelming for a Thursday. A very straightforward and somewhat tired theme. The only vaguely interesting thing about the puzzle is the grid, with its unusual top/bottom symmetry and *non*-all-over interlock, i.e. the two sides of the grid are themselves "divided." I tried to make some sense of the shape of the black squares that divide the two sides from one another, hoping there was some deeper meaning here, but all I could come up with was some kind of awkward, asymmetrical ≠ sign. And so what are we left with? There are only three theme answers here. A non-whopping 33 squares of theme activity. Fill seems fine, but also completely unremarkable / uncurrent / uninteresting. And the the first and third themers are particularly weak. You could swap their final elements and the answers would seem equally adequate. BUSTED IN TWO. BROKEN APART. Yep. Same. BANANA SPLIT is the only one that's spot-on. Also, BUS/TED and BRO/KEN are self-descriptive. BUS/TED is busted, BRO/KEN is broken.  Don't even need the following word. Then there's BANANA, which does. So you can see (I hope) how BANANA SPLIT is, in every way, the superior answer, putting the other ones to shame. That's a problem. I expect a ton more on a Thursday. Ambitious failures are better than this. There's barely a concept here, and not nearly enough thought and craftsmanship has been brought to bear to make this thing as intriguing as an NYT Thursday ought to be.


Sometimes I solicit opinion from 10 o'clock solvers (like me) on Twitter. The verdict tonight seems to be overwhelmingly "played like a Wednesday" and [shrug]. The only answer I had trouble with was MASERS (seen the word but had no idea what it meant til I looked it up just now), but the crosses were so easy that my progress wasn't slowed down much. I wrote in ECHO for 51D: Voice-activated assistant (SIRI), so that added a bit to my solving time as well. Would've been cool if the long Down (TRANSISTOR RADIO) could've had *something* to do with the theme (it does cross alllll the last words in the theme answers). But I don't think it's related to the theme. I think it's just an answer. I had TRANSISTOR RADIO in the '70s. Not sure what's so '50s about it. But sure, '50s, whatever. I did enjoy the clue on ARMHOLE (59A: What you might accidentally try to put your head through when getting into a sweater), but not much else. Here's hoping something livelier comes around the bend tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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