Classic letter puzzle parsed differently / THU 3-1-18 / Chewed stimulant in mideast / Karakum Asian desert / Tee shot goof / Blue area on Risk board

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: WORD SQUARE (61A: Classic letter puzzle -- or, when parsed differently, a hint to three Down answers in this puzzle) — so in the Across you get a SQUARE inside of which you squish the word WORD, and in the Down cross for that same SQUARE you can put "W" OR "D"...

Theme answers:

• FIGHTING [WORD]S / PAWS or PADS
• [WORD] PROCESSOR / WRYLY or DRYLY
• PUT IN A [WORD] FOR / WINING or DINING

Word of the Day: WORD SQUARE (61A) —

noun

plural noun: word squares

1. a puzzle requiring the discovery of a set of words of equal length written one under another to read the same down as across, e.g., too old ode. (google)

[for example...]

My first reaction was: It's startling how unimaginative this is. It is the most straightforward, hyperliteral, utterly dull rebus I've ever done. Ever. WORD SQUARE ... well, indeed, that is so. I'm not even sure that qualifies as wordplay. Nothing is really being played with there. No playing. I feel like maybe a bot made this puzzle. Like, some beta version of Crossword Constructor A.I. is just getting its feet WET. . . *Then* I read the revealer clue more carefully and noticed the whole "W or D" angle in the rebus square crosses. Which changed my enjoyment of the puzzle ... not at all. So, OK, there was more going on than I thought ... but not so's you'd notice (which is to say, I didn't, and didn't have to). And even now, noticing, I don't see the appeal. The reparsing of "Word" to "W or D" does add a tiny bit of post-solve "Ohhh..." but during the solve ... when "W" alone works just fine and appears to be the only thing going on there ... It just seemed basic beyond belief. And the fill was atrocious. Truly, genuinely bad. And from generations ago. Why, in a grid with no real theme density, am I suffering through stuff like PASEO and ENHALO and UNTUNE and MASSE, to say nothing of the RAE YSL etc. stuff that suffocates the grid? No mas! (Actually, that 41A clue was one of the highlights of this puzzle)


15A: Castle with famous steps (IRENE) deserves commendation. IRENE Castle was a dancer, kids. Look her up. (I say that like she was from *my* time, which she decidedly was not) Only a few trouble spots in this one. The first was the worst, because it was a wrong answer that dropped down into a themer that was already an insane jumble of letters—I'm speaking of course of ANYHOO, which I had as ANYHOW (after I had it as ANYWAY) (4D: "Moving right along ..."). Hard to know it's wrong when you can see from the first few letters of the themer (WPR-) that something non-standard is going on with theme answer spelling anyway, so, sure, why not WPRW- as the opening set of letters. WPR- was already weird. Eventually got FIGHTING WS, and then backed into WPROCESSOR, but didn't stop to think much about what was going on. Thought maybe the puzzle was just dropping the "ORD" for some reason (coincidence: ORD is the airport code for OHARE (53A: Where many people make connections)). But no, nothing was being dropped. Instead the W stands for "word" and it's in a square so it's a WORD ... SQUARE. Dum dum DUM!


Good night, and here's wishing us all a classic, lovable Friday crossword. Happy March!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I was entertained by this puzzle precisely once—when I started spelling three-letter body parts backwards to see if I could get a girl's name: "MRA? PIL? GEL! Who names their kid GEL!?" Etc. That was fun.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]