Constructor: Jay Kaskel
Relative difficulty: Medium* (actually, no idea ... see below)
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THEME: witches' brew— ordinary phrases are clued as if they related to witches, because it's October 30, which is of course Hallo ... wait a minute ..
Theme answers:
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This is actually fine. It's a cute-ish little pun puzzle about witches, and though it's not actually Halloween, it is Halloween-adjacent, so ... fine. The fill is very very very very average (i.e. not great), but it wasn't dreadful. This one is a "C"—average, OK, fine, you pass. You shouldn't have to go to either SCHELL (!) or INCUS on a Monday, but you pass. I thought SCHNELL, as so tried all Kinds of spellings. My main gripe today is not with the puzzle itself, but with the NYT crossword website, which would not not not cough up a .puz version of the puzzle for me to solve on my desktop with AcrossLite software; that is, it wouldn't give me the damned puzzle in my preferred format. Instead it gave me this stupid error message:
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And so I had to solve on the NYT website itself. The "applet," I think it's called. And that was dreadful, because I'm used to how the keyboard behaves with AcrossLite, which is slightly, eerily, but significantly different from how it behaves on the applet. At high speeds, that difference is amplified, i.e. I move through the grid like a drunk person moves through an obstacle course, i.e. humorously badly. My time was slow, but I can't lay that all on the puzzle. Hence my default (i.e. "I don't know") "Medium" difficulty rating.
Had CLOT for CLOD (26D: Dirt clump). Both seem right, and OTS looks OK in the cross ... this is why you check your damned crosses. Now that I look at CLOT and CLOD, CLOD is obviously the better choice. CLOT = blood, CLOD = dirt, or some dumbass, I suppose. Can we all agree that [U.K. award]s are among the lowest forms of crossword answers. A notch below [Schoolyard taunt]s. I had the most trouble with WURSTS, because I wanted only BRATS and then no other words would form in my head. It was very frustrating. I like the little bonus themers of HAGS and EERIE, and also CRIES and PAINS crossing in the center. Very Halloweeny. All in all, a tolerable amuse-bouche of a Halloweenesque puzzle.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium* (actually, no idea ... see below)
Theme answers:
- SPELLCHECK (18A: Computer help for a witch?)
- CHARM SCHOOL (26A: Educational institution for witches?)
- WARTS AND ALL (41A: How one might be forced to accept a witch?)
- CURSE WORDS (53A: Utterances from witches?)
nounAnatomynoun: incus; plural noun: incudes
• • •
The plural of INCUS is "incudes"!? WHERE DID THE "D" COME FROM!!?!?!?! Now *that* is EERIE.
[SCHELL game]
Had CLOT for CLOD (26D: Dirt clump). Both seem right, and OTS looks OK in the cross ... this is why you check your damned crosses. Now that I look at CLOT and CLOD, CLOD is obviously the better choice. CLOT = blood, CLOD = dirt, or some dumbass, I suppose. Can we all agree that [U.K. award]s are among the lowest forms of crossword answers. A notch below [Schoolyard taunt]s. I had the most trouble with WURSTS, because I wanted only BRATS and then no other words would form in my head. It was very frustrating. I like the little bonus themers of HAGS and EERIE, and also CRIES and PAINS crossing in the center. Very Halloweeny. All in all, a tolerable amuse-bouche of a Halloweenesque puzzle.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]