Ex-Expo Rusty / FRI 4-6-18 / 14-line poem with only two rhymes / Eugene in labor history / Quick way through toll plaza / Sophomoric rejoinder

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: LEVANT (35A: Part of ISIL) —

The Levant (/ləˈvænt/) is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean. In its narrowest sense it is equivalent to the historical region of Syria. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the eastern Mediterranean with its islands, that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica. (wikipedia)

O brave new world, that has such 16 stacks in't. Apparently we're just doing this now. The lid is off. The seal is broken. Bring out your 16s. Fine by me. Why not? I don't mind a super-sized puzzle. I think formal restrictions are good things, to a point. They can encourage amazing creativity. Having to execute your vision within severe limitations can push you to brilliance—or drive you to madness, I guess. If you could make the grid any shape, and symmetry weren't a consideration, and you could have unchecked squares and two-letter words whenever you wanted, etc. then no one puzzle would feel very special. Just a bunch of crossing words, like those stupid criss-cross puzzles that people continue to insist on calling "crosswords." Whoopee. But bending the rules here and there, especially when the payoffs are great, is just fine by me. And going to 16 wide on a themeless doesn't make the puzzle any easier to construct—it just opens up a whole new set of answers. So hurray. And today's are all really good, even the one with ONE'S in it (which is so commonplace and cliche in 15 stacks that just seeing it usually makes me want to throw the puzzle aside). A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE is the paradigmatic hack 15. It's a joke unto itself among constructors. Usually ONE'S is standing in for YOUR, which also usually sounds better coming out of your mouth. ONE'S always sounds oddly formal, like the YOUR version with the color drained out. But like I say, the other 16s in this puzzle. and most of the rest of the puzzle, so no biggie. A RUN FOR ONE'S MONEY? Sure, I can dig it.


ENDO sperm? OK, I'll trust you on that one. RONDEL was very rough—I teach 14-line poems regularly, and can't say as I've ever heard of a RONDEL (13D: 14-line poem with only two rhymes). I didn't really know WAR BABIES was a thing, but apparently my dad *is* one, so ... good to know (43A: Deliveries in the early 1940s). The title of the Freeman / Beach Boys / Ramones song really sounds like it should be "DO YOU WANNA DANCE?" so it took me a bit to succumb to the more formal (and apparently correct spelling). Hardest part of the puzzle for me was the whole middle section, north of SEVERE. [X] for DELETE was brutal, especially since I had the DE- and figured it was DEC- something (as in DECADE). Wanted LEVANT but did not at all trust that (mostly because I don't know what the *other* parts of ISIL stand for—I assume ... oh, is it the Islamic State In the LEVANT? Argh, no: The Islamic State of *Iraq* and the LEVANT. Oh well. Clue on MELEE was tough (wanted PUREE) (29D: Word from the French for "mixed"). ACNE / ZIT, very tough (thought "oil" the OPEC kind, and thus wanted the "unit" to be a "barrel," i.e. BBL). Trouble parsing STANDINGOODSTEAD, which I saw first as STANDING [space] OO-something, which just Had to be wrong. . . until it wasn't. PSI for PSF was an understandable error ("foot," not "inch"), and the last thing I fixed before finishing the puzzle. Would've been nice to have a kind of in memoriam clue for Rusty STAUB, who just died. Peter Gordon did just that in his recent Newsflash puzzle, with a clue that noted that STAUB's nickname when he played baseball in Montreal was "Le Grand Orange" (STAUB was a redhead).


Speaking of baseball, I sat < 20 yards from Tim Tebow earlier tonight when he did this with the very first pitch he saw in Double A ball:


Tebowmania has hit Binghamton, and it's actually kind of cool. We got to the ballpark super early because they were giving away fleece blankets to the first 1000 fans and I was *not* missing out.

I was not missing out because I like ballpark swag but *also* because it was blisteringly cold: 32 degrees at game time. We left in the 7th because I could no longer feel my toes. But we had a great time and my wife took some great pictures and none of this has anything to do with crosswords, but whatever. Mel OTT would've loved it.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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