Text-displaying technology on Kindles / WED 6-7-17 / Jazzman Stan / Baseball boobird's target often / Road-scraping custom car / Worthless mounds

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: And the hits just keep on comin'...— familiar phrases ending in words that can (in other contexts) be synonyms of "hit"

Theme answers:

• GARDEN SLUG (16A: Slimy outdoor pest)
• GARTER BELT (24A: Item in the lingerie department)
• "BLITZKRIEG BOP" (33A: Classic 1976 Ramones song that begins "Hey! Ho! Let's go!")
• ARGYLE SOCK (45A: Diamond-patterned footwear)
• OFF THE CUFF (54A: Improvised)

Word of the Day: EINK (36D: Text-displaying technology on Kindles) —

E Ink (electronic ink) is a paper-like display technology, characterized by high brightness and contrast, a wide viewing angle, and ultra-low power requirements. The technology has been commercialized by the E Ink Corporation, which was co-founded in 1997 by MIT undergraduates J.D. Albert& Barrett Comiskey, MIT Media Lab professor Joseph Jacobson, Jerome Rubin and Russ Wilcox. // It is currently available commercially in grayscale and color and is commonly used in mobile devices such as e-readers, and, to a lesser extent, digital signage, mobile phones, smartwatches, electronic shelf labels and architecture panels. (wikipedia)

What a strange little puzzle. Looks remarkably like a Friday (i.e. themeless) grid, with huge open corners and a very low word count (most themed puzzles run 74-78 words—this one's 70). And it played just like a themeless, in that I solved it without getting the theme or even noticing that there were theme answers. With a grid like this, longer Across answers just don't stand out, don't advertise themselves as "Themers!" There are four non-theme answers in the Acrosses that are just as long as theme answers one might see in other puzzles (i.e. 8+ letters long). So it's a themed puzzle disguised as a themeless. Also weird: how easy it was. I thought for sure that with that grid shape, I was gonna end up on the slow side of normal, but the opposite was true. Didn't break any records, but my time was far more Tuesday than Wednesday. So it's eerie, this thing—looks like something it's not, plays much easier than it oughta. The theme type is solid, sturdy, old as the hills. This iteration is solid enough (and the grid weird enough) to keep my interest. Entertaining longer answers, and (with some notable exceptions) a very clean grid overall.

This theme could've been much longer. Sunday-sized, possibly. RUM (or FRUIT, or HOLE) PUNCH? BONG (or SMASH or BOX OFFICE) HIT, TALKING SMACK, etc. But he chose the answers he chose, and these are fine. I'd be surprised if this puzzle didn't start with "BLITZKRIEG BOP," which is the marquee themer here, both in its centrality and in its originality. The fill was decent, but I had some issues. I didn't even know there *was* a UCSF (and I grew up in California) (9A: Bay Area campus, in brief). I'm pretty sure boots are STEEL TOE, not STEEL TIP (?) (11D: Hardy work shoe feature). Had no idea what people were asking Lassie to do (28D: Entreaty to Lassie); had GET ___ and cycled through lots of things that weren't the right answer: BENT, LOST, DOWN. Had STUMBLE before SHAMBLE (37D: Walk with an awkward gait). And then there's E-INK, which I got entirely from crosses and which is really about the ugliest thing I've seen in the Four-Letter Answer category in a long time. In my head, it's pronounced like the pig noise, only ... German-er. Oh, and at least one scuba diver has taken issue *again* with the NYT's scuba-cluing:

Two more things today. First, here is an article by Adrianne Jeffries at The Outline called "The NYT Crossword is Old and Kinda Racist," which you will love or hate or be indifferent toward (I'm quoted). And then here is a link to this fantastic new graphic novel about crossword puzzles called "Fun." It's a comic by Italian artist / writer Paolo Bacilieri about the history of the crossword puzzle, but it is also a detective story, so it essentially scratches every itch I have. Mainly, it is beautiful, and genuinely informative re: the crossword. I'm only about halfway done, but I already know I'll be giving copies as gifts and rereading it many times in the future.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 50A: Campus V.I.P. (PROF.)—LOL, no. Trust me.

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