Constructor: David Phillips
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: NOE Valley (9D: San Francisco's ___ Valley) —
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Look, except for -URE (er...) and PANTO (lol no), there is nothing wrong with this puzzle. Fill is clean, many answers are lively, or livelyish. So why did it leave me so cold. I had neither positive or negative feelings. It was just 7+ minutes of time spent filling in boxes. No laughs, no groans, no joy, no wincing. Something about it feels ... like a facsimile. Like a simulacrum of a puzzle. Like a sample puzzle, maybe in the background of a sitcom or something, and totally feels plausible and real, but ... you don't really care what's in it. It doesn't move you. Like books in the background of remote TV interviews. Whose books are those? Where are these people? Staged libraries? Their own offices? What was I talking about? Oh yes, the totally believable puzzleness of this puzzle. ESTE ENOKI NIGER SNORE. I feel like that stack of words is about representative of the Excitement Level I felt while solving. Lots of "?" clues, all of them fine, none of them great. Several colloquialisms, all of them fine, none of them great. Nothing very marquee about any of the longer answers. Stuff like NTH POWER and EAR DOCTOR feels like it should be NTH DEGREE and OTOLOGIST (or ENT). This puzzle was smooth, polished, somewhat antiseptic. Like a well-maintained Ramada Inn.
Nice clue on PEACE SIGN (1A: Double-digit figure?). Happy to learn (and undoubtedly immediately forget) "pogonologists" (51D: Things studied by pogonologists => BEARDS). My former student Libby Cudmore wrote a mystery novel that revolves around a MIXTAPE (available here). I miss MIXTAPEs. Took me forever to understand clue on BITES (52A: On-line jerks?). The "line" is a fishing line. Also took me a while to understand 53A: Draft picks? (OXEN). Had the "O" and wanted ... OLYS, to be honest. Do they have Oly on draft? In the NW, maybe? Does Oly even exist any more. Not sure. Dumbest thing I did with this puzzle was get JAPAN and then immediately jump over and write in ... [drum roll] ... SUMO. I had already seen the clue and misremembered it as saying [National *sport* of 10-Across]. And SUMO is correct for that imaginary clue. Just not for the actual clue. Only other major muff was HORA for HULA (?) (30D: Dance with strong percussion).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: NOE Valley (9D: San Francisco's ___ Valley) —
Noe Valley (/ˈnoʊ.i/NOH-ee) is an affluent neighborhood in the central part of San Francisco, California. // Roughly speaking, Noe Valley is bounded by 21st Street to the north, 30th Street to the south, Dolores Street to the east, and Grand View Avenue to the west. The Castro (Eureka Valley) is north of Noe Valley; the Mission District is east. (wikipedia)
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Nice clue on PEACE SIGN (1A: Double-digit figure?). Happy to learn (and undoubtedly immediately forget) "pogonologists" (51D: Things studied by pogonologists => BEARDS). My former student Libby Cudmore wrote a mystery novel that revolves around a MIXTAPE (available here). I miss MIXTAPEs. Took me forever to understand clue on BITES (52A: On-line jerks?). The "line" is a fishing line. Also took me a while to understand 53A: Draft picks? (OXEN). Had the "O" and wanted ... OLYS, to be honest. Do they have Oly on draft? In the NW, maybe? Does Oly even exist any more. Not sure. Dumbest thing I did with this puzzle was get JAPAN and then immediately jump over and write in ... [drum roll] ... SUMO. I had already seen the clue and misremembered it as saying [National *sport* of 10-Across]. And SUMO is correct for that imaginary clue. Just not for the actual clue. Only other major muff was HORA for HULA (?) (30D: Dance with strong percussion).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]