Constructor: Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: MARINARA (61A: Sauce made from ingredients mixed up in 16-, 24-, 37- and 49-Across) — themers have ONION, TOMATO, GARLIC, and HERBS mixed up inside them, respectively:
Theme answers:
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Who. Is Eating. Cold Oatmeal!?!?! Try to order HOT OATMEAL next time you're at the diner. See what kind of look you get. Words-buried-inside-themers puzzles are pretty common, but they can work if done right. This one has a twist in that the words are "mixed up" inside the themers, but I think there's some confusion masquerading as wordplay. The revealer says the "ingredients" are "mixed up," which of course means "mixed together" in the case of MARINARA, but in the individual answers, of course, they aren't mixed up (with each other) at all. They're ... minced, I guess ... which, you also have to do to prepare the sauce, but still, there's a confusion of the senses of "mixed" there. "Herbs" is a little too non-specific for me, recipe-wise. Make the recipe come off as vague and generic. Biggest issue for me, theme-wise, though, was the ridiculous HOT before OATMEAL, and then ARTIFICIAL GRASS, when the much much much (etc.) more common term is ARTIFICIAL TURF.
The non-theme stuff is actually much stronger than the theme stuff today. Unlike yesterday's all-short-answer, boring-as-heck grid, this grid has scads of long Downs streaming through it, giving it the life and color it desperately needs. PROSODIC is a weird word (6D: Pertaining to the rhythm of speech), and one that took me longer than most of the others to get. But I like it. (Here's a def. of "prosody," in case you're interested) MAKES BANK is the real winner of the day. I had M-K and my first thought was MAKES BANK, but then I thought "Nah, too slangy for this crowd" (34D: Rakes in the dough). But then bang, there it is! Ironic to have it touching MCHAMMER, who made a ton of bank and then famously went bankRupt. I'm really disappointed that this puzzle thought ZORK (?) (13A: Pioneering text adventure game) was important enough to add a *%#&ing submachine gun to the puzzle. It would be so, so easy Not to have a human-killing weapon in this puzzle. So easy. A matter of a couple squares. Here's a picture of 7000* pairs of empty shoes in front of the US Capitol yesterday: one pair for every child killed by guns since Sandy Hook. Have a nice day.
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*I love that snopes fact-checked this number and called it only "Mostly True" because, well, actually, the number is probably a little higher
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- ZERO IN ON (16A: Take dead aim at)
- HOT OATMEAL (24A: Breakfast order often containing cinnamon)
- ARTIFICIAL GRASS (37A: Indoor stadium surface)
- BARBER SHOP (49A: A cappella genre)
Walter Stacy Keach Jr. (born June 2, 1941) is an American actor of stage, film, and television. Highly prolific, he has played mainly dramatic roles throughout his career, often in law enforcement or as a private detective. His most prominent role was as Mickey Spillane's fictional detective Mike Hammer, which he played in numerous stand-alone television films and at least three different television series throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The role earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination in 1984.He has also performed as a narrator for programs including CNBC'S American Greed(2008–) and various educational television programs. Comedic roles include his role in the Fox sitcom Titus (2000–2002) as Ken, the father of comedian Christopher Titus, and as Sergeant Stedenko in Cheech & Chong's films Up in Smoke (1978) and Nice Dreams(1981). His most recent recurring roles include two seasons as the Warden, Henry Pope, in the series Prison Break (2005–2007), "Pops", the father of the main character from the boxing drama Lights Out (2011), the elderly father Bob on the sitcom Crowded (2016) and the father of Matt LeBlanc's protagonist Adam on Man With A Plan (2015–). Keach won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for the television miniseries Hemingway (1988). (wikipedia)
• • •
[BARBERSHOP ... also, Dame EDNA and MOE and APU]
The non-theme stuff is actually much stronger than the theme stuff today. Unlike yesterday's all-short-answer, boring-as-heck grid, this grid has scads of long Downs streaming through it, giving it the life and color it desperately needs. PROSODIC is a weird word (6D: Pertaining to the rhythm of speech), and one that took me longer than most of the others to get. But I like it. (Here's a def. of "prosody," in case you're interested) MAKES BANK is the real winner of the day. I had M-K and my first thought was MAKES BANK, but then I thought "Nah, too slangy for this crowd" (34D: Rakes in the dough). But then bang, there it is! Ironic to have it touching MCHAMMER, who made a ton of bank and then famously went bankRupt. I'm really disappointed that this puzzle thought ZORK (?) (13A: Pioneering text adventure game) was important enough to add a *%#&ing submachine gun to the puzzle. It would be so, so easy Not to have a human-killing weapon in this puzzle. So easy. A matter of a couple squares. Here's a picture of 7000* pairs of empty shoes in front of the US Capitol yesterday: one pair for every child killed by guns since Sandy Hook. Have a nice day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*I love that snopes fact-checked this number and called it only "Mostly True" because, well, actually, the number is probably a little higher
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]