Lyra's brightest star / THU 2-2-17 / Its sound in old westerns was often simulated by coconut / Language in which hello is annyeonghaseyo / British crown colony from 1937 to 1963

Constructor:Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: direction switching— themers are phrases describing a forward or backward direction, and subsequent Acrosses switch accordingly, until next themer reverses them again...

Theme answers:

• 20A: How a book in Hebrew is read [watch out now!] (BACK TO FRONT) [Acrosses switch direction]
  
• 33A: Wagon train cry [you can relax ...] (FORWARD, HO!) [Acrosses switch back to normal]
  
• 39A: Ready to leave the garage [here we go again!] (IN REVERSE) [Acrosses switch direction again]
• 50A: How people are usually listed in photo captions [phew, all done!] [Acrosses back to normal]

Word of the Day:VEGA(16A: Lyra's brightest star) —

Vega, also designated Alpha Lyrae (α Lyrae, abbreviated Alpha Lyr, α Lyr), is the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra, the fifth-brightest star in the night sky and the second-brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus. It is relatively close at only 25 light-years from the Sun, and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the most luminous stars in the Sun's neighborhood. (wikipedia)

I have done puzzles where the Across answers go in reverse. I have done puzzles where you toggle from forward to reverse and then back again. Those puzzles had ... concepts. Reasons. This one ... doesn't. There is no concept. Further, the cluing, with its weird, post-clue bracketed comments, makes the ridiculous assumption that I solve in order, top to bottom, left to right. This is to say, those bracketed comments meant nothing to me while I was solving. Once I figured out some of the answers went backwards, that became my operation assumption: some of these answers go backwards. Rhyme, reason? Who knows, who cares, just solve. And solve I did, and it was pretty easy. What is being illustrated or demonstrated here? I guess if you've never seen a puzzle do this before, maybe it seemed neat. But it seemed pointless to me. I didn't hate the puzzle—it seems solid enough. But there's no core concept holding this thing together, which, on a Thursday, is disappointing.


Not much to say here. Fill is straightforward and familiar, none of the clues gave me much trouble or seemed particularly tricky. I would like to thank RENEE Zellweger and GERI Halliwell for teaming up to help me figure out the theme. They were both gimmes. Their names wouldn't work. Since I'd already seen the "Hebrew" themer, my first instinct was to turn RENEE around, and there we were. Done. I had DOLT for TWIT (52D: Blockhead). Don't recall any other problems that weren't part of the initial, short-lived "what's going on?" theme confusion. RECORD DEAL is a cool answer (10D: Aspiring band's goal). Nice dig at the president at 19A: Grp. that promised Trump "We'll see you in court" (ACLU), but with fatally botched raids in Yemen, and threats to invade Mexico, and angry toddler-like phone calls to our closest allies like Australia, and a combination of incompetence and narcissism the likes of which the planet has never seen, and a staggering ignorance of / contempt for history on full display just in time for (shocker) Black History Month ... I don't know if "seeing him in court" is going to be enough, or if there will even be courts (to speak of) in our near future. Things are very, very bad. Gonna go read some Frederick Douglass now. I hear he's doing a great job. . .

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy Groundhog Day, and happy birthday to my dad.

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