Acronym for class taught over Internet / SUN 5-7-17 / Bulked up in modern lingo / Rose's love on old Broadway / Animal avatar of Thoth / Blue symbol of Delaware / Chinese city known for its terra-cotta warriors

Constructor: Natan Last, Finn Vigeland and the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME:"Duality Quality"— theme answers are two-word phrases where only difference between the two words is the first letter, but the words are pronounced differently, vowel-sound-wise (verse clues do the same thing, which is pretty nifty):

Theme answers:

• DAUGHTER LAUGHTER (22A: "I know my girl enjoys her youth / When this fine sound escapes her mouth")
• BUDDING PUDDING (37A: "Right now, it's fine, no five-star food, / But this dessert will soon be good!")
• KOSHER NOSHER (57A: "This mensch looks up and shouts 'Delish!' / While downing snacks with real relish")
• GARDEN WARDEN (76A: "Your will to serve must be mature / To be this keeper of nature")
• MASSAGE PASSAGE (92A: "Go down this hallway: There's a couch / If what you seek's relaxing touch")
• BASELINE VASELINE (109A: "This may have been the umpire's doing; / Now sliding home is easy going")
• MODEL YODEL (15D: "Kate Upton strikes an alpine pose / And belts this out, with naught to lose")
• HATCH WATCH (69D: "I have this duty on my farm / To look as chickens keep eggs warm")

Word of the Day: MOOC (63A: Acronym for a class taught over the Internet) —

A massive open online course (MOOC/muːk/) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent and widely researched development in distance education which were first introduced in 2006 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012. (wikipedia)

Er, well, hmm. I mean ... look, I love (like nephews) the two constructors involved in teaching this class, and there are moments (SWOLE! MOOC!) where I can feel their influence, and I like it. But this theme is not terribly exciting (despite the admittedly clever cluing). You can run this theme forever. TOUGH DOUGH. ROUGH COUGH. NEVER FEVER. CATCH MATCH. FORK WORK. HEADER READER. I dunno. The answers used here just weren't that exciting. I think the ones where the change is drastic and strange work best, like BASELINE VASELINE (that one's got a *double* vowel change). Strangely, I think the title might be the best example of the type. Maybe it's appropriate that it all feels somewhat remedial, since this is the product of (mostly) novices, after all. And it's certainly no worse than a lot of Sunday's I've been subjected to of late. But this is all a little too basic for my taste, despite the admittedly cute theme cluing conceit. I do have to give a lot of love to the clues, which, in their poetic non-rhyming, perfectly replicate the sound-change concept of involved in the theme answers themselves (and in consistent iambic tetrameter, no less!). But the actual answers, the actual grid, was a tad dull for me. Also, I really wish HATCH WATCH had had an Orrin clue.


This puzzle was shockingly easy. Seriously, I'M SHOCKED. I finished in 8 and half minutes (?), and that's despite getting flummoxed multiple times by proper nouns (and that "GoT" clue where the answer was IMPS). ANSEL and ALIX were total no-hopers for me, and XIAN (36D: Chinese city known for its terra-cotta warriors) ... rings faint bells, but not unfaint ones, so I used all the crosses there. I know next to nothing about BELGIUM, so that answer had to fill itself in via crosses as well (8D: Home to King Philippe). Do people know "The Adventures of ALIX"??? (103D: "The Adventures of ___" (European comics series)). I teach Comics *and* I just read a global history of Comics, and still, no clue. [Geflite fish fish] is PIKE, which I also didn't know. Considered HAKE. Didn't know if EMERSON (60D: Boston college) was maybe an EMERSEN or something dumb like that, so I waited for TACOS to solve it (TACOS can solve it!). Had IPOS before LBOS (49A: Some Wall St. deals). Struggled mightily with URBAN (38D: ___ studies (college major))—you hear that, Finn! Mightily! College, shmollege.


Hey, the newest episode (003) of "On the Grid," my crossword podcast with co-host Lena Webb, is now up on iTunes, and here. We went to the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition and drank Riesling and generally had a lot of mostly crossword-related fun. Please check it out if you've got ~38 min. to spare. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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