Pianist comic Victor of old TV / WED 7-11-18 / Memorable 1995 hurricane / Suddenly stopped communicating with in modern lingo

Constructor: Michael Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:52)

THEME: SNOOZE BUTTON (49A: What a late sleeper may use ... resulting in 19-, 31- and 40-Across?) — familiar phrases that, when taken with a different meaning, suggest what happens when you hit the SNOOZE BUTTON:

Theme answers:

• RADIO SILENCE (19A: Incommunicado period)
• BUZZKILL (31A: Debbie Downer)
• SOUND OFF (40A: Express one's opinion in no uncertain terms)

Word of the Day: HOBART (44D: Capital of Tasmania) —

Hobart (/ˈhoʊbɑːrt/ ( listen)) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. With a population of approximately 225,000 (over 40% of Tasmania's population), it is the least populated Australian state capital city. Founded in 1804 as a British penal colony,Hobart, formerly known as Hobart Town or Hobarton, is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney, New South Wales. Prior to British settlement, the Hobart area had been occupied for possibly as long as 35,000 years, by the semi-nomadic Mouheneener tribe, a sub-group of the Nuennone, or South-East tribe. The descendants of these Aboriginal Tasmanians often refer to themselves as 'Palawa'. (wikipedia)

This was a pretty decent themeless puzzle. Or that's how it played, anyway. I worked my way down to SNOOZE BUTTON, saw that it was a revealer, but didn't really bother to try to figure out the gag. The rest of the puzzle was straightforward enough that I didn't need to think about how the revealer worked. It's just a themeless puzzle, and then later on you realize, oh yeah, I guess those three answers do kind of do what the latter part of the revealer clue says. Interesting. The puzzle is very, very light on theme material, which may be another reason it feels like a themeless—the grid has room for more interesting fill than you normally find in MTW theme puzzles. GHOSTED, HOT YOGA, and WORD LENGTH (as clued) were my favorites, but it's all pretty solid. That TATAS EKED DESI block is about the only real weak spot. Everything else holds up. I don't mind a thinnish theme if a. the theme works, and b. the rest of the grid is particularly strong. And so the thinness of the theme didn't matter to me. Better to have a thin theme that works than to choke a grid with theme material and cause the rest of the grid to suffer. Clean fill, interesting fill, very acceptable theme. I'll take it.


Had trouble with NEW TAKE at first, because I know HOT TAKE so much better. Also, because the clue, [Fresh spin on a familiar idea], really should've stopped after [Fresh spin]. That's the equivalency. The rest is just added on. Maybe NEW TAKE can stand alone, whereas "Fresh spin" probably needs the prepositional phrase that follows. It's just that I don't think NEW TAKE does stand alone very well. In fact, when I google ["new take"], the first thing that comes up is the phrase "new take on something" from WordReference Forums. That's the idiom. I know I am overthinking this; what else have I got to do?! It's just ... well, look:

Those are the videos right under the first google hit. New take on new take on new take on. Ergo, NEW TAKE doesn't really stand alone, ergo "on a familiar idea" is unnecessary because NEW TAKE is really parallel only to "Fresh spin." QED, LMNOP, UFO, TTYL. I continue to not like BUSHSR as an answer. he's BUSHI. I know that BUSH SR. is in fairly common usage, but I don't have to like it, and I don't. BUSHI—that is the answer I want to see. And what the heck kind of merry-go-round has a UNICORN on it? And isn't the merry-go-round itself the "ride." Weird to call an individual animal a "ride." I know, you ride it, blah blah blah. I have no idea why anyone would go to merry-go-rounds for their UNICORN clue. It's preposterous. I forgot OPAL was a hurricane. I remember IVAN ... maybe IRENE? But OPAL was, contrary to the clue's assertion, not "Memorable" to me. Nothing else in the grid presented much of a problem. Pretty easy and uncomplicated overall. Enjoyable, despite the handful of answers / clues that I've spent the last paragraph griping about.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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