Constructor: Sam Ezersky
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (very challenging for me, but I am an idiot who forgot that AMMAN, Jordan exists...)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: NYNEX (9D: Half of a 1997 telecom merger) —
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I messed this up every possible way, starting with AXEL / LAHR at 1D: Spin out on the ice? / 19A: Farmhand in "The Wizard of Oz"and then over and over again after that. I confuse HERON and EGRET so I botched 2D: Symbol of the National Audubon Society too (apparently a lot of people confuse them—when I google "egret,""egret vs heron" is one of the predictive search options ... dear god, I hope that's because people confuse them and not because people make them fight). Unsatisfyingly, the only way I got started was by kinda sorta being sure of TYPEA (4D: Ambitious and high-energy) and then also SATS and ATEST. So a bevy of less-than-fun words got me my first traction. I did OK after that, bumbling along in a vaguely counterclockwise fashion. Always fun to deal with the DODO vs. BOZO dilemma ... and then I somehow put in PLACE instead of ELECT (48D: Give a seat). But eventually I got the whole bottom and came back up through the center and handled the NW and then ... things really got ugly.
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As you can see, I thought there was something called NYNET. The "NET" part really, really felt plausible, both because it feels very telecommy and because that "T" ended up preceding a "W" in the Across, which felt like kismet—those letters go great together! Ugh. I abbreviate "crossword" as XWORD not infrequently on social media, but NYNET kept me from having any idea that that was the answer. But the worst problem up there was my incredible blanking on the [World capital once known as Philadelphia]. I mean, I even knew that that was going to put me in a Middle Eastern part of the world and I *still* couldn't retrieve AMMAN. I stared at A--AN and the only thing my brain would allow was ASWAN. Not a world capital. ASWAN. ASWAN. ASWAN. It just wouldn't let other possibilities in, except occasionally even stupider possibilities like ASLAN. Eventually, after being dead stopped with the above grid for what felt like ever, I ran the alphabet at the second blank in A--AN and eventually hit "M." And that was it. AMMAN to LOGARITHM (argh) and "US AND THEM" and it was all over quickly. From huge empty spaces to done because I was able to get the two "M"s in AMMAN. The gap between failure and success is very often that narrow.
Grid is nice, though the proper noun pop culture stuff is awfully heavy—and stacked in the NW. "Dark Side of the Moon" bores me (listened to it front to back for the first time this summer) and I couldn't name a song on that album but "Money"—"US AND THEM" just seems awfully obscure for a longer answer. It wasn't exactly a hit. And putting it next to the Green Hornet's "real" (LOL) name, ouch. I'm guessing tons of solver had never heard of "TRAP QUEEN," but as the clue says, it was a legit hit (unlike, for example, "US AND THEM"). I didn't groove on this too hard, but it's pretty alright. The fill is only wobbly in a few places (please somebody drive a stake through the heart of REUNES!), and the longer answers are mostly very interesting and contemporary. Good thing I knew ANITA / O'DAY—would've been a bloodbath without her (27A: With 33-Across, husky-voiced singer known as the Jezebel of Jazz). I might still be solving.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (very challenging for me, but I am an idiot who forgot that AMMAN, Jordan exists...)
Word of the Day: NYNEX (9D: Half of a 1997 telecom merger) —
NYNEX Corporation/ˈnaɪnɛks/ was a telephone company that served five New England states (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as most of New York state from 1984 through 1997. [...] NYNEX merged with Bell Atlantic on August 14, 1997, in what was, at the time, the second largest merger in American corporate history. Although Bell Atlantic was the surviving company, the merged company moved from Bell Atlantic's headquarters in Philadelphia to NYNEX headquarters in New York City. On June 30, 2000, Bell Atlantic acquired GTE to form Verizon Communications. (wikipedia)
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As you can see, I thought there was something called NYNET. The "NET" part really, really felt plausible, both because it feels very telecommy and because that "T" ended up preceding a "W" in the Across, which felt like kismet—those letters go great together! Ugh. I abbreviate "crossword" as XWORD not infrequently on social media, but NYNET kept me from having any idea that that was the answer. But the worst problem up there was my incredible blanking on the [World capital once known as Philadelphia]. I mean, I even knew that that was going to put me in a Middle Eastern part of the world and I *still* couldn't retrieve AMMAN. I stared at A--AN and the only thing my brain would allow was ASWAN. Not a world capital. ASWAN. ASWAN. ASWAN. It just wouldn't let other possibilities in, except occasionally even stupider possibilities like ASLAN. Eventually, after being dead stopped with the above grid for what felt like ever, I ran the alphabet at the second blank in A--AN and eventually hit "M." And that was it. AMMAN to LOGARITHM (argh) and "US AND THEM" and it was all over quickly. From huge empty spaces to done because I was able to get the two "M"s in AMMAN. The gap between failure and success is very often that narrow.
Grid is nice, though the proper noun pop culture stuff is awfully heavy—and stacked in the NW. "Dark Side of the Moon" bores me (listened to it front to back for the first time this summer) and I couldn't name a song on that album but "Money"—"US AND THEM" just seems awfully obscure for a longer answer. It wasn't exactly a hit. And putting it next to the Green Hornet's "real" (LOL) name, ouch. I'm guessing tons of solver had never heard of "TRAP QUEEN," but as the clue says, it was a legit hit (unlike, for example, "US AND THEM"). I didn't groove on this too hard, but it's pretty alright. The fill is only wobbly in a few places (please somebody drive a stake through the heart of REUNES!), and the longer answers are mostly very interesting and contemporary. Good thing I knew ANITA / O'DAY—would've been a bloodbath without her (27A: With 33-Across, husky-voiced singer known as the Jezebel of Jazz). I might still be solving.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]