Constructor: Sam Trabucco
Relative difficulty: Medium (8:07)
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THEME: Down, literally— themers (ugh, why are there themers on a Saturday!?) play on the crossword cross-referencing clue phrase, "with X-Down," where "X" looks like it refers to the clue number, but actually refers to the written out number, which *literally* goes Down, at the end of the themer. Thus:
Theme answers:
Primarily, I hate the leering straight-dude quality of a couple of the marquee answers here. First of all, and most importantly, FRIEND ZONE is bullshit. It's not a real place. It's a mythical place made up by sad dudes to explain why someone they like won't sleep with them. It's simple lack of desire. She's just not that into you. But you had to go and create some magical zone, one that, had things gone another way, you might not have entered, or one that, magically, you might escape somehow. It's tired straight-guy bullshit. No means no, stop inventing sophisticated theories about why women don't want to sleep with some guys. It's all so insulting. Like being friends with a woman you can't f*** is akin to being in the Phantom Zone, some place of entrapment and banishment. FOH with that. Further, HANDBRA adds to the leering quality of this puzzle. The very concept is rooted in the male gaze and the weird nipple-phobia this country (in particular) has. So somehow "modesty" is being preserved, but if you look up HANDBRA mostly what you will see are some pretty sexualized images, seemingly created for the titillation of dudes. There's just an off-putting POV here. Also OXES is perhaps the stupidest f***ing word I've seen in a long time. Fitting, maybe, for the dumbass FRIEND ZONE vibe of this puzzle, but still ... there's a reason it's been 12 years since that ridiculous "plural" has been in the grid.
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There are some good answers in here, like COW POSE and MODEL U.N., and maybe POD RACE. And, again, I do think the theme concept is clever. I was just put off by a themed Saturday, and then Put Off by a particularly objectifying male POV. These things happen (to me, anyway).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. hey here's a fun* chart (h/t Erik Agard)
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*contains no actual fun
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (8:07)
Theme answers:
- 18A: With 10-Down, literally, now and then (EVERY SO OF(TEN)) (where TEN literally goes Down...)
- 23A: With 7-Down, literally, neither wins nor loses (BREAK (SEVEN))
- 50A: With 8-Down, literally, one just taking up space (DEAD W(EIGHT))
- 56A: With 1-Down, literally, downright dastardly (BAD TO THE B(ONE))
noun
ANATOMYPHYSIOLOGY
- a mixture of proteins and phospholipids forming a whitish insulating sheath around many nerve fibers, increasing the speed at which impulses are conducted. (google)
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| VERMEER's "The Astronomer" |
I will pre-apologize, slightly, to this puzzle because it's not the puzzle's fault that it was run on a Saturday, when puzzles *should* be themeless and themes are unwelcome and bad. That's an editorial choice. A bad and disappointing editorial choice, and one that predisposed me to dislike this puzzle, on principle. But again, I will try to correct for my personal distaste for themed puzzles that appear on Fri and Sat, which are holy themeless days, as far as I'm concerned. But eventually and reluctantly I figured out what was going on with the theme. What's doubly tough about this one is that it's not just the cross-reference gimmick that's deceptive here (with the actual number being involved instead of the clue number); the word "literally" is also deceptive, in that it appears to refer to the clue that follows it, *not* to the number that precedes it. So I'm out here essentially looking for foreign phrases, egged on by the fact that I seem to be looking at an answer, or answer part, that ends in -OOFT (18A). What is that, Dutch? I wondered. The theme is not unclever at all. I might've like this on a Thursday. But even if this had appeared on an appropriate day of the week (why not Sunday, use all the numbers ONE thru TEN ...?), I would've had some issues.
Primarily, I hate the leering straight-dude quality of a couple of the marquee answers here. First of all, and most importantly, FRIEND ZONE is bullshit. It's not a real place. It's a mythical place made up by sad dudes to explain why someone they like won't sleep with them. It's simple lack of desire. She's just not that into you. But you had to go and create some magical zone, one that, had things gone another way, you might not have entered, or one that, magically, you might escape somehow. It's tired straight-guy bullshit. No means no, stop inventing sophisticated theories about why women don't want to sleep with some guys. It's all so insulting. Like being friends with a woman you can't f*** is akin to being in the Phantom Zone, some place of entrapment and banishment. FOH with that. Further, HANDBRA adds to the leering quality of this puzzle. The very concept is rooted in the male gaze and the weird nipple-phobia this country (in particular) has. So somehow "modesty" is being preserved, but if you look up HANDBRA mostly what you will see are some pretty sexualized images, seemingly created for the titillation of dudes. There's just an off-putting POV here. Also OXES is perhaps the stupidest f***ing word I've seen in a long time. Fitting, maybe, for the dumbass FRIEND ZONE vibe of this puzzle, but still ... there's a reason it's been 12 years since that ridiculous "plural" has been in the grid.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. hey here's a fun* chart (h/t Erik Agard)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]