Constructor: Jacob Stulberg
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (slowest Wednesday for me in years, but I think some of my slowness was weird and idiosyncratic)
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THEME: Fishing— there's a warning to some fish (DON'T TAKE THE BAIT) (3D: Warning for easily provoked types ... or for the answeres to the six starred clues?) and also some fish names and then a Down answer that's supposed to look like a fishing line: 9D: What might tempt the answers to the six starred clues?:
Theme answers:
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Laborious. Cluing was so weird and ambiguous and hard and oblique and "?"-laden that all the joy got sucked right out of this one for me. Also, why would you warn a fish? Also, who can talk to fish? Is this puzzle for Aquaman? The whole hook-on-the-line thing is cute, in retrospect, but overall this thing was painful to solve. Tries to do too much, too cutesily. I'm sure I've seen the whole "I"s-making-a-line thing before. Very sure. Can't remember where, but dead certain. It's interesting that all the fish types can be clued as non-fish things, but again, these things are all interesting in retrospect, outside the solving experience. *Inside* the solving experience, bah. I don't know who's monitoring difficulty levels these days, but they've been wildly off. Two impossibly easy days last week, and now this thing.
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I just couldn't get anything. The NW destroyed me, both at the beginning, since I wasted time trying to start there, and at the end, where I had run the alphabet to get the last letter of the puzzle—the "V" in FIVE (1D: Solid orange ball) and VENT (16A: Jacket feature). Didn't get the context of either Across or Down there. Theme clues ranged from straightforward to kinda hard (24A: *Extract with heat, in a way) to *&%^ing brutal (44A: *The Mikado in "The Mikado") (that last clue—a Saturday clue if I've ever seen one—can shove it). EXTORT doesn't involve physical "force," so that clue didn't compute (19A: Take by force). Speaking of force(d), ugh, those "?" clues on AIM (5D: Fire starter?) and GLIMPSE (22D: Short notice?). Painful. The theme itself is already too clever for its own good—why are you jerking around with these clues? DISCI? (29A: Things hurled at the Olympics). Oh sure, they use that word all the time at the Olympics.
STOOL is a [Bar sight]? Sure, OK, but ... Again with the vague cluing. Not big on BYPATHs (?). I never really think about the existence of LABRADOR—didn't occur to me until I had Many crosses. "Ash" is not a TREE? (36D: Ash, e.g.). I had -R-- when I saw that clue, and I had literally just read about an ash TREE (improbable as that may sound)**, so that hurt. TRALALA is cruddy enough w/o the winky little "?" clue (26A: Refrain from singing?). Don't dress trash up in taffeta and try to get me to dance with it. Nothing doing.
I actually think the theme itself is fine and the little hook thing is cute. But god, the meat on this thing was inedible. To me.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
**in George Gissing's New Grub Street (1891)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (slowest Wednesday for me in years, but I think some of my slowness was weird and idiosyncratic)
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
J
(this "J" is the "hook" on the end of the line)
(there's not actually "bait" on that hook)
(fish aren't normally "tempted" by a bare hook)
(but whatever)
Theme answers:
- CARP (4A: *Complain)
- SMELT (24A: *Extract with heat, in a way)
- PIKE (32A: *Weapon with a point)
- BASS (44A: *The Mikado in "The Mikado")
- PERCH (53A: *Birdcage feature)
- SOLE (69A: *Shoe part)
Melquíades Rafael Martínez Ruiz, usually known as Mel Martínez (born October 23, 1946), is an American lobbyist and former politician who served as a United States Senator from Florida from 2005 to 2009 and as chairman of the Republican Party from November 2006 until October 19, 2007, the first Latino to serve as chairman of a major party. Previously, Martínez served as the 12th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under PresidentGeorge W. Bush. Martínez is a Cuban-American and Roman Catholic. He announced he was resigning as chairman of the Republican National Committee on October 19, 2007. (wikipedia)
• • •
STOOL is a [Bar sight]? Sure, OK, but ... Again with the vague cluing. Not big on BYPATHs (?). I never really think about the existence of LABRADOR—didn't occur to me until I had Many crosses. "Ash" is not a TREE? (36D: Ash, e.g.). I had -R-- when I saw that clue, and I had literally just read about an ash TREE (improbable as that may sound)**, so that hurt. TRALALA is cruddy enough w/o the winky little "?" clue (26A: Refrain from singing?). Don't dress trash up in taffeta and try to get me to dance with it. Nothing doing.
I actually think the theme itself is fine and the little hook thing is cute. But god, the meat on this thing was inedible. To me.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
**in George Gissing's New Grub Street (1891)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]