Constructor: Sam Trabucco
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: SWARDS (36D: Grasslands) —
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I feel like we just saw ESCAPE ROOM, and I also feel like we had this *exact* clue for SHOPS, like, in the past week (24A: Bazaar makeup). . . well, almost: six days ago: [Bazaar parts]. The word "Bazaar" shows up an *awful* lot in SHOPS clues, despite the fact that I go to SHOPS all the time and have no idea when, if ever, I've been to a bazaar. Stop relying on bygone / musty cluing, folks. Whoa, weird: SHOPS has been clued as a verb only *twice* in the Shortz era (out of 16 appearances). And yet five clues have mentioned "bazaars" (???). OK, moving on—I liked this puzzle OK, but I think it gets pretty dull right through the middle, i.e. right through the part that would've been hardest to fill cleanly. I think he succeeded in achieving relative cleanness, but I don't want *just* clean. I'd like exciting, or at least unusual. TECH SCHOOLS feels mildly off (daughter's currently applying to a lot of [Engineer training schools], and we've never used that phrase). Unless TECH SCHOOLS are different from universities that train engineers. Is Caltech a "tech school"? It sure sounds like one. The category's a bit blurry. TALLAHASSEE is just a lot of favorable letters. See also STRESS EATER, which is at least a mildly interesting, if slightly depressing, answer. Middle just felt easy and bland, whereas the top and bottom felt suitably FREAKY (that may be overstating it, but, when compared to the center ... I stand by FREAKY).
Did you know AMPLIFIER and GUITAR AMP have the same number of letters? (1A: Piece of equipment at a rock concert) It is possible that now, you do, if you are like me and confidently plunked down AMPLIFIER. Crosswordese goddess Indie.ARIE got me out of that mistake pretty quickly, though. Who calls table tennis "PONG" (9D: Game with a 40-millimeter ball, informally)? PONG is an early Atari video game. That clue was rough. I did a very weird thing at 5D: "Great" one in Africa (APE). I was thinking "horn" (is the Horn of Africa "great" ... I think not, but ...). But HORN didn't fit, so I thought of some other "great" geographical feature and went with ... RIM (?). Now, there appears to be a Rim of Africa—in the Cape Mountains of South Africa. But I think somehow Pacific Rim / Ring of Fire (which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with Africa) was also dancing around my head. Anyway, FAME / IPASS / TALES / USHAPE got me going up there, and I didn't have many other problems after that except at the very end, where I through ROOM TO NEGOTIATE across, but then couldn't get the first few Downs I looked at to work, then wrote in UH, SURE" at 44A: "Sure, I guess" (yes, I really did this) and then took out the NEGOTIATE part ... only to have to put it back in a few seconds later. Dumb dumb dumb. But still in under 6, and in the early morning no less, so this must've been a tad on the easy side.
Bullets:
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*1. SWAMPS 2. SWALES—both of which are far, far marshier than SWARDS
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: SWARDS (36D: Grasslands) —
nounplural noun: swards
• • •
And so I'm back. From outer space. Actually, I just took a couple days off so I could finally and completely put the fall semester to bed. Also, Andrea (Wednesday) and Morgan (Thursday) were really excited to do their first stand-in write-ups, and far be it from me to say 'no.' Which reminds me—I'll be off Christmas Day, as my lovely non-Christmas-celebrating friend Laura Braunstein has graciously agreed to allow me to spend Christmas Eve / morning focused on food and family and possibly "Star Wars" instead of another crossword grid. But then I'll be back bright and early on Boxing Day, which isn't a thing here, but I still like to say it. It's nice when days have names.[The second-greatest Christmas song, after "O Holy Night"]
Did you know AMPLIFIER and GUITAR AMP have the same number of letters? (1A: Piece of equipment at a rock concert) It is possible that now, you do, if you are like me and confidently plunked down AMPLIFIER. Crosswordese goddess Indie.ARIE got me out of that mistake pretty quickly, though. Who calls table tennis "PONG" (9D: Game with a 40-millimeter ball, informally)? PONG is an early Atari video game. That clue was rough. I did a very weird thing at 5D: "Great" one in Africa (APE). I was thinking "horn" (is the Horn of Africa "great" ... I think not, but ...). But HORN didn't fit, so I thought of some other "great" geographical feature and went with ... RIM (?). Now, there appears to be a Rim of Africa—in the Cape Mountains of South Africa. But I think somehow Pacific Rim / Ring of Fire (which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with Africa) was also dancing around my head. Anyway, FAME / IPASS / TALES / USHAPE got me going up there, and I didn't have many other problems after that except at the very end, where I through ROOM TO NEGOTIATE across, but then couldn't get the first few Downs I looked at to work, then wrote in UH, SURE" at 44A: "Sure, I guess" (yes, I really did this) and then took out the NEGOTIATE part ... only to have to put it back in a few seconds later. Dumb dumb dumb. But still in under 6, and in the early morning no less, so this must've been a tad on the easy side.
Bullets:
- GIRL CODE— I've heard of "bro code" but not GIRL CODE. It appears to be an MTV show (?). I tend to be suspicious of the exclusionary conformity imposed by "codes," but I'll leave GIRL CODE for not-men to comment on.
- SWARDS (36D: Grasslands)— Had SW- and managed to put down not one but two wrong answers before I got SWARDS. Can you guess what they were?*
- YPRES (41A: W.W. I battle site)— whoa, totally forgot about YPRES. Had the "Y" and was trying to decide between YALTA and YEMEN ... sometimes your Pattern Recognition Brain totally overrides your Reality-Based Brain
*1. SWAMPS 2. SWALES—both of which are far, far marshier than SWARDS
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