Constructor: Timothy Polin
Relative difficulty: Easy, except for the top middle section (15:29)
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THEME:"Creature Feature" — A "Jaws"-themed puzzle featuring sharkish references as well as five rebus FINS that can be connected by a line to depict, um, a fin.
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: YUZU (90D: Aromatic yellow citrus) —
Then the anti-serendipity kicked in, and I ended up with sort of a middling puzzle. It's doing a lot... there are loads of themers in the grid, plus a rebus, PLUS a connect-the-dots game at the end... and maybe that's the problem. There wasn't much stylistic cohesion to the gimmicks, and given that "Jaws" isn't exactly an underexamined cultural phenomenon, this one kinda just bobbed in the SALT BATH for me.
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Let's start with the good: the grid is very light on junky fill, with only ARR, HES, HGTS, STDS, NTH and ANA making me say UHOH (don't you dare suggest ESAI is bad fill, as he has become a lovely comfort to an OLD HAND like me). Along the way, I nodded at BOBA TEA (my daughter is obsessed with that boba stuff, which I find way too SLIMY) and the almost-a-themer REEL BIG FISH.
But the grid design! What's happening here? There's no rotational symmetry, so I'm guessing the placement of the black squares indicates... is it the shark's wide open mouth coming to eat me?
No, that cross in the middle is a mast! Hmmm, maybe it's the boat (which was named "Orca," and honestly, how can you not include ORCA in a grid about Jaws when ORCA shows up in 94% of all crosswords in general?).
The truth is, I'm not sure what I'm looking at, and so I'm a little irked by the tricky design. It failed to make me smile, but it definitely got me grouchy at the very top middle, where OLDHAND, REVENUE and DORSALFIN were really pinched off, and the downs didn't make solving that walled-off section much easier-- DVR as a verb, HES, LEOS (it's fine to expect us to know the names and symbols of astrological signs, but please don't ask me to learn what nonsense personality qualities they're supposed to indicate), and our first FIN rebus in DEFINES.
Once that initial FIN fell, I presumed I'd be finding bits of SHARK all around... maybe a TOOTH, a GILL, or even a DOLLSEYE...
...but nope. Just more FINS. Fins that I was told to connect together to create a picture of .... OOH, WHAT WILL IT BE? WILL IT BE A-- oh... it's another fin.
Which immediately made me think:
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The FIN FINALE occurred before reaching the midline of the grid, at which point the puzzle sort of turned into a "look at all the shark and movie words" game, which....
...is not a great game.
As I reached the southwest corner, I became concerned that there was yet another theme fragment emerging, as a bunch of Z's started cropping up... but that was a red herring, and this is a white shark puzzle. I did enjoy the way WARE squeezed in between ANAL and STDS... wow, we almost had an ANAL/WART/STDS stack in the New York Times, folks.
And then there's everyone's favorite SEA MONSTER duo, Scylla and Charybdis. No doubt most of you know them as the two monsters featured in The Odyssey (well, sort of monsters, inasmuch as they took the form of a sea cliff and a whirlpool), but I first learned about them from Professor Gordon Sumner, aka Sting. Scylla and Charybdis make a lyrically ambitious cameo early on in "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police.
Finally, while everyone knows SPIELBERG directed JAWS, there wouldn't have been anything to direct had there been no screenplay by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley.
Carl Gottlieb, by the way, managed to write Jaws and The Jerk... two of the best J movies ever made, and two wildly different films. Carl is definitely an ALLTIMER.
Signed, Craig Mazin, Resident of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Easy, except for the top middle section (15:29)
THEME:"Creature Feature" — A "Jaws"-themed puzzle featuring sharkish references as well as five rebus FINS that can be connected by a line to depict, um, a fin.
Theme answers:
- DORSAL FIN (24A: Worrisome sight for a swimmer)
- FINNS (32A: Some northern Europeans)
- FINISHERS (43A: Ones eligible for marathon prizes)
- HUFFINESS (59A: Peevish quality)
- REFINANCE (61A: Get a new mortgage)
- SEA MONSTER (68A: Scylla or Charybdis)
- DEEP THREAT (74A: Speedy wide receiver, perhaps)
- GREAT WHITE (86A/87A: What might cost you an arm and a leg?)
- SHARK (99A: Menace in 106-Down)
- JAWS (106D: 1975 summer blockbuster)
- SPIELBERG (3D: 106-Down director)
- AMITY ISLAND (112A: Fictional setting for 106-Down)
Word of the Day: YUZU (90D: Aromatic yellow citrus) —
Citrus junos or yuzu is a citrus fruit and plant in the family Rutaceae. The yuzu's flavour is tart, closely resembling that of the grapefruit, with overtones of mandarin orange. It is rarely eaten as a fruit, though in the Japanese cuisine its aromatic zest (outer rind) is used to garnish some dishes, and its juice is commonly used as a seasoning, somewhat as lemon is used in other cuisines.
• • •
Craig Mazin here, guesting for Rex. I was honestly hoping for a puzzle I could feel passionate about one way or another, and in a nice bit of serendipity, I'm a screenwriter who happened to get a movie-themed Sunday to review.Then the anti-serendipity kicked in, and I ended up with sort of a middling puzzle. It's doing a lot... there are loads of themers in the grid, plus a rebus, PLUS a connect-the-dots game at the end... and maybe that's the problem. There wasn't much stylistic cohesion to the gimmicks, and given that "Jaws" isn't exactly an underexamined cultural phenomenon, this one kinda just bobbed in the SALT BATH for me.
Let's start with the good: the grid is very light on junky fill, with only ARR, HES, HGTS, STDS, NTH and ANA making me say UHOH (don't you dare suggest ESAI is bad fill, as he has become a lovely comfort to an OLD HAND like me). Along the way, I nodded at BOBA TEA (my daughter is obsessed with that boba stuff, which I find way too SLIMY) and the almost-a-themer REEL BIG FISH.
But the grid design! What's happening here? There's no rotational symmetry, so I'm guessing the placement of the black squares indicates... is it the shark's wide open mouth coming to eat me?
No, that cross in the middle is a mast! Hmmm, maybe it's the boat (which was named "Orca," and honestly, how can you not include ORCA in a grid about Jaws when ORCA shows up in 94% of all crosswords in general?).
The truth is, I'm not sure what I'm looking at, and so I'm a little irked by the tricky design. It failed to make me smile, but it definitely got me grouchy at the very top middle, where OLDHAND, REVENUE and DORSALFIN were really pinched off, and the downs didn't make solving that walled-off section much easier-- DVR as a verb, HES, LEOS (it's fine to expect us to know the names and symbols of astrological signs, but please don't ask me to learn what nonsense personality qualities they're supposed to indicate), and our first FIN rebus in DEFINES.
Once that initial FIN fell, I presumed I'd be finding bits of SHARK all around... maybe a TOOTH, a GILL, or even a DOLLSEYE...
...but nope. Just more FINS. Fins that I was told to connect together to create a picture of .... OOH, WHAT WILL IT BE? WILL IT BE A-- oh... it's another fin.
Which immediately made me think:
The FIN FINALE occurred before reaching the midline of the grid, at which point the puzzle sort of turned into a "look at all the shark and movie words" game, which....
...is not a great game.
As I reached the southwest corner, I became concerned that there was yet another theme fragment emerging, as a bunch of Z's started cropping up... but that was a red herring, and this is a white shark puzzle. I did enjoy the way WARE squeezed in between ANAL and STDS... wow, we almost had an ANAL/WART/STDS stack in the New York Times, folks.
And then there's everyone's favorite SEA MONSTER duo, Scylla and Charybdis. No doubt most of you know them as the two monsters featured in The Odyssey (well, sort of monsters, inasmuch as they took the form of a sea cliff and a whirlpool), but I first learned about them from Professor Gordon Sumner, aka Sting. Scylla and Charybdis make a lyrically ambitious cameo early on in "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police.
Finally, while everyone knows SPIELBERG directed JAWS, there wouldn't have been anything to direct had there been no screenplay by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley.
Carl Gottlieb, by the way, managed to write Jaws and The Jerk... two of the best J movies ever made, and two wildly different films. Carl is definitely an ALLTIMER.
Signed, Craig Mazin, Resident of CrossWorld