Constructor: Alison Ohringer and Erik Agard
Relative difficulty: Easy (though I finished w/ a fatal error, or, as I'm calling it, "miZtake") (9:17)
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THEME:"Ghosted"— Two-word phrases where the second word is an anagram of the first word *minus* one letter. Letters not included in the second word are circled. Take those letters all together, you get the word PHANTOMS (hence the title). All of it is brought together by the central revealer: 69A: Like this puzzle's circled letters vis-à-vis their Across answers (LOST IN THE SHUFFLE)
Theme answers:
What an interesting puzzle. The theme snuck up on me, much in the way a ghost might, I guess, in that I didn't see it at all ... until I was done and it was like "boo!" and I was like "ahhh!" The gimmick here is a strange little word phrase phenomenon that probably would not have been strong enough on its own had it not been for a very good revealer, and then (the cherry on top ... of the ghost) the way that the "disappearing" letters actually spell PHANTOMS. Three layers of interest here. The theme is consistent, and, best of all, the grid holds up all on its own, regardless of the theme (which is pretty much how I experienced it in real time). It works as a giant themeless because there are plenty of interesting words and phrases and the fill is not obviously compromised by the theme answers. It's solid, polished work all around. This collaboration came out of the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory (CPCD), a Facebook group for aspiring constructors that you can find here. The CPCD is doing the leadership and mentoring work that the NYT would be doing itself if it were doing its job. So good for them.
So my "miZtake" ... I hit LAMAZE and couldn't remember if it was spelled with an "S" or a "Z," so I left it, or thought I did, but apparently I wrote in the "S" thinking the cross would either take care of it or it wouldn't. And it didn't. The cross was FRAZIER, and I knew "Down Goes FRAZIER" was the phrase, but what I wrote was "Down Goes Frasier," the supercilious psychiatrist of '90s TV fame. Weirdly, I just watched Kelsey Grammer's new Netflix movie last night between midnight and 2am, when I really should've been sleeping, but That's Neither Here Nor There. Anyway, under tournament conditions I would totally have bombed this because of that dumb error. But because I'm solving under at-home conditions, my computer refused to give me Happy Pencil, so I knew to look for my error, and found it pretty quickly. I was really hoping it was a mere typo (which I don't count as errors, since I wouldn't make a pencil-typo under tourney conditions) ... but alas no. The error was genuine.
The theme answer set was mostly decent, though GAMER RAGE felt a little forced (I've heard of RAGEQUITting before, but GAMER RAGE is something I assume exists but don't really believe is a stand-alone concept ... kind of like GREEN PAINT ... speaking of which: BRASS BARS (!?)). But I can forgive a little wobbliness in the themer set since this is a pretty narrow path the theme has to walk. It's a very demanding, limited theme—getting the right phrases and answer lengths and the sequence to work out probably didn't leave a lot of wiggle room. As for the fill, I especially like SERENA SLAM and BOX OUT and BBC ARABIC, although that last one nearly killed me. It's BBC AMERICA, not AMERICAN, so I assumed the BBC channel in question would be a place name, not an adjective. Thus I had BBC ARABIA ... which wouldn't work with NATS ... which was wrong anyway (130A: Washington team, familiarly (CAPS)). The relationship between DRIP and insomnia eluded me forever, and I kept vacillating between AMEN and I'M IN for 126A: "Let's do it!" ... so that whole SE corner was probably the toughest section for me in an otherwise quite easy grid.
Bullets:
P.S. another reminder that Lollapuzzoola crossword puzzle tournament (one of my faves) is happening in NYC in just under two weeks. Register! Go! It's great fun. I'll be there, if that's a selling point. If not, I'll be very easy to ignore: 200-300 people usually show up. INFO HERE.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy (though I finished w/ a fatal error, or, as I'm calling it, "miZtake") (9:17)
Theme answers:
- PARTY TRAY (24A: Caterer's platter)
- HEART RATE (31A: Beat generation figure?)
- TASTE TEST (48A: Oral examination?)
- CARMEN MCRAE (56A: Jazz singer who acted in the "Roots" miniseries)
- CHATTY CATHY (86A: Talkative sort)
- LOCAL CALL (95A: It might take only seven digits)
- GAMER RAGE (108A: Cause of a tossed joystick, maybe)
- BRASS BARS (121A: Some rustproof rails)
Aparna Nancherla (born August 22, 1982) is an American comedian and actress. She has appeared on Inside Amy Schumer and has written for Late Night with Seth Meyers and Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. Nancherla released her debut comedy album Just Putting It Out There through Tig Notaro's Bentzen Ball Records on July 8, 2016. [...]
In season four of BoJack Horseman, Nancherla had a recurring voice role as BoJack's alleged daughter, Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzerelli-McQuack.[She also plays a ramen blogger on season two of Master of None, (wikipedia)
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| This is a gratuitous picture of my dog and her brother It has no relationship to the puzzle that I know of |
So my "miZtake" ... I hit LAMAZE and couldn't remember if it was spelled with an "S" or a "Z," so I left it, or thought I did, but apparently I wrote in the "S" thinking the cross would either take care of it or it wouldn't. And it didn't. The cross was FRAZIER, and I knew "Down Goes FRAZIER" was the phrase, but what I wrote was "Down Goes Frasier," the supercilious psychiatrist of '90s TV fame. Weirdly, I just watched Kelsey Grammer's new Netflix movie last night between midnight and 2am, when I really should've been sleeping, but That's Neither Here Nor There. Anyway, under tournament conditions I would totally have bombed this because of that dumb error. But because I'm solving under at-home conditions, my computer refused to give me Happy Pencil, so I knew to look for my error, and found it pretty quickly. I was really hoping it was a mere typo (which I don't count as errors, since I wouldn't make a pencil-typo under tourney conditions) ... but alas no. The error was genuine.
The theme answer set was mostly decent, though GAMER RAGE felt a little forced (I've heard of RAGEQUITting before, but GAMER RAGE is something I assume exists but don't really believe is a stand-alone concept ... kind of like GREEN PAINT ... speaking of which: BRASS BARS (!?)). But I can forgive a little wobbliness in the themer set since this is a pretty narrow path the theme has to walk. It's a very demanding, limited theme—getting the right phrases and answer lengths and the sequence to work out probably didn't leave a lot of wiggle room. As for the fill, I especially like SERENA SLAM and BOX OUT and BBC ARABIC, although that last one nearly killed me. It's BBC AMERICA, not AMERICAN, so I assumed the BBC channel in question would be a place name, not an adjective. Thus I had BBC ARABIA ... which wouldn't work with NATS ... which was wrong anyway (130A: Washington team, familiarly (CAPS)). The relationship between DRIP and insomnia eluded me forever, and I kept vacillating between AMEN and I'M IN for 126A: "Let's do it!" ... so that whole SE corner was probably the toughest section for me in an otherwise quite easy grid.
Bullets:
- 11D: Nail polish brand (OPI)— got it confused with ESSIE (also a nail polish brand?) and ended up with EPI at one point, I think
- 25D: Chuck in the air (YEAGER) — Ahhhhh. Aha. I see. Pretty sneaky, sis. See also 44A: Passes out (DEALS)
- 118A: Comic ___ Nancherla (APARNA) — For regular, non-Sunday puzzles, APARNANANCHERLA is a perfect, grid-spanning 15. It also has NANA embedded in the middle, in case you were looking to do some kind of Peter Pan or ... uh ... Zola theme.
- 93A: Hell, informally (SAM HILL) — very hard for me, since OTHER PEOPLE wouldn't fit
P.S. another reminder that Lollapuzzoola crossword puzzle tournament (one of my faves) is happening in NYC in just under two weeks. Register! Go! It's great fun. I'll be there, if that's a selling point. If not, I'll be very easy to ignore: 200-300 people usually show up. INFO HERE.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]