Constructor: Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: Very Easy (7:45, my all-time Sunday NYT record)
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THEME:"If I Were You..."— In each themer, the answer is a familiar phrase where one of the "I"s has been turned into a "U," resulting in the usual wackiness...
Theme answers:
I was going to write something short and sweet about how this is a very, very generic puzzle from 1997, about which there is virtually nothing to say, etc etc, but I am so overwhelmed with this new LOVE DART knowledge from my Word of the Day research that my brain has kinda fogged up. I looked the phrase up figuring it would be somehow metaphorical. Lots of traditions in medieval love poetry of shooting arrows from your eyes when you fall in love, or arrows being shot into you when you see your true love, so LOVE DART didn't strike me as outlandish, but it was odd enough for me to google. And here we are. I now know the phrase "penial stylet." I don't know if I can unknow it. I'm going to try. We'll see. But back to the puzzle. . .
Seriously? We're just doing a change-a-letter? And the most basic kind? With a title that holds your hand and tells you everything is going to be OK and basically treats you like a complete moronic incompetent. I did this thing in record time and still resented every second of it. Here's what I liked: the DJANGO / JP MORGAN cross, and the ROUNDHOUSE BAITSHOP columns. Here's what I didn't like: too much to list. I'm basically just insulted at how low the bar is for Sundays. A change-a-letter? Just one letter? And the title is basically a lie. It should be "If One Of the 'I's Were You," or "If Only One 'I' Were You," because there are Plenty Of "I"s Still In Those Themers. And the punny answers aren't even funny. Just because someone's made puzzles for you before does not mean you have to accept mediocre stuff like this. You honestly think this is a meritocracy, people? This is absurdity. This is some old boys network / unlevel playing field stuff. The NYT is supposed to be the "best puzzle in the world," but I guarantee you that virtually every Sunday-sized puzzle published today will be as good if not much, much better than this. WaPo will crush this. Good chance Frank Longo's syndicated puzzle, which appears in my local paper, will crush this. LAT? Likely. Newsday? Dunno, but sure, I'll put money on that. I wish solvers demanded more. Because those folks over there, who are just Printing Money with this crossword thing, clearly have contempt for you and are happy to write me off as a crank. Which is fine, I'm used to it. But you deserve so much better. I think the idea today was make it so easy that everyone sets a record time and, in the elation, forgets how mediocre the puzzle is.
Despite lightning-fast time, I did have some struggle points. I feel like I might've come close to breaking 7 minutes if I could've figured out HAS (90A: Orders). Even with _EAD TO in place, I thought the answer was LEAD TO (90D: Move in the direction of), so eventually I just worked my way down to that one square and then plugged in letters that might make sense. Put in HAS, thought, "???" Then it sunk in: oh, at a restaurant. [Orders]. HAS. Got it. Yikes. I also struggled with the first letter of SHIN. Why in the world would you take a perfectly good English word, with different meanings and lots of wordplay potential, and then clue it as a Hebrew letter? I have nothing against Hebrew as a language, but if you have a choice to make a word a versatile actual English word, or a foreign word with just one meaning ... come on. This is puzzle-making 101. So disappointing, this whole puzzle. OMG Why is Aunt JEMIMA even ... no, you know what? That's all. I'm done.
Hello and welcome to my first ever installment of REXMAIL, where I answer your letters for everyone to see. Today's letter is from Brian and Bonnie, who live ... man, I should've asked. On the west coast, I know that. Here it is:
I thought you were going to end up asking me for advice on how to stop Marcel from interfering with your solving. I was going to say, "Have you tried talking to him?" But I see that instead your questions are of a more personal nature. First, do I have a cat or small housepet? No. My smallest housepet is a medium-sized husky/shepherd mix who doesn't care for crosswords at all. I had two cats a while back, but they've both been dead for a while now, and even then weren't really desk-dwellers. My dogs sometimes pace or whine or pant or do some other repetitive, noise-causing action that can be distracting, especially if I'm in the middle of a very hard puzzle. But mostly they stay downstairs The Lady (that's what they call my wife) when I'm upstairs solving. So Brian, you win the bet, I don't really have to deal with "this kind of nonsense":
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Very Easy (7:45, my all-time Sunday NYT record)
Theme answers:
- BUTTER RIVALS (23A: Land O'Lakes and Breakstone's?)
- WORKING THE SOUL (before I looked at the title, really thought this was a play on "working the pole") (31A: Ministering?)
- CURSES, FOULED AGAIN (47A: "Damn, I can't seem to get a ball into fair territory?)
- JUNGLE ALL THE WAY (62A: Like a trip overland from Venezuela to Bolivia?)
- HUNDRED DOLLAR BULL (82A: Expensive line of nonsense someone throws you?)
- TRUCK QUESTIONS (95A: "What are you hauling in there?" and "How many axles you running?")
- PASSWORD HUNT (108A: Entering your middle name, then date of birth, then adding a "1," etc.?)
A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum) is a sharp, calcareous or chitinous dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are made in sexually mature animals only, and are used as part of the sequence of events during courtship, before actual mating takes place. Darts are quite large compared to the size of the animal: in the case of the semi-sluggenus Parmarion, the length of a dart can be up to one fifth that of the semi-slug's foot.[1]The process of using love darts in snails is a form of sexual selection.[2] Prior to copulation, each of the two snails (or slugs) attempts to "shoot" one (or more) darts into the other snail (or slug). There is no organ to receive the dart; this action is more analogous to a stabbing, or to being shot with an arrow or flechette. The dart does not fly through the air to reach its target however; instead it is fired as a contact shot.The love dart is not a penial stylet (in other words this is not an accessory organ for sperm transfer). The exchange of sperm between both of the two land snails is a completely separate part of the mating progression. Nevertheless, recent research shows that use of the dart can strongly favor the reproductive outcome for the snail that is able to lodge a dart in its partner. This is because mucus on the dart introduces a hormone-like substance that allows far more of its sperm to survive.Love darts, also known as shooting darts, or just as darts, are shaped in many distinctive ways which vary considerably between species. What all the shapes of love darts have in common is their harpoon-like or needle-like ability to pierce. (wikipedia)
• • •
I was going to write something short and sweet about how this is a very, very generic puzzle from 1997, about which there is virtually nothing to say, etc etc, but I am so overwhelmed with this new LOVE DART knowledge from my Word of the Day research that my brain has kinda fogged up. I looked the phrase up figuring it would be somehow metaphorical. Lots of traditions in medieval love poetry of shooting arrows from your eyes when you fall in love, or arrows being shot into you when you see your true love, so LOVE DART didn't strike me as outlandish, but it was odd enough for me to google. And here we are. I now know the phrase "penial stylet." I don't know if I can unknow it. I'm going to try. We'll see. But back to the puzzle. . .
Seriously? We're just doing a change-a-letter? And the most basic kind? With a title that holds your hand and tells you everything is going to be OK and basically treats you like a complete moronic incompetent. I did this thing in record time and still resented every second of it. Here's what I liked: the DJANGO / JP MORGAN cross, and the ROUNDHOUSE BAITSHOP columns. Here's what I didn't like: too much to list. I'm basically just insulted at how low the bar is for Sundays. A change-a-letter? Just one letter? And the title is basically a lie. It should be "If One Of the 'I's Were You," or "If Only One 'I' Were You," because there are Plenty Of "I"s Still In Those Themers. And the punny answers aren't even funny. Just because someone's made puzzles for you before does not mean you have to accept mediocre stuff like this. You honestly think this is a meritocracy, people? This is absurdity. This is some old boys network / unlevel playing field stuff. The NYT is supposed to be the "best puzzle in the world," but I guarantee you that virtually every Sunday-sized puzzle published today will be as good if not much, much better than this. WaPo will crush this. Good chance Frank Longo's syndicated puzzle, which appears in my local paper, will crush this. LAT? Likely. Newsday? Dunno, but sure, I'll put money on that. I wish solvers demanded more. Because those folks over there, who are just Printing Money with this crossword thing, clearly have contempt for you and are happy to write me off as a crank. Which is fine, I'm used to it. But you deserve so much better. I think the idea today was make it so easy that everyone sets a record time and, in the elation, forgets how mediocre the puzzle is.
Despite lightning-fast time, I did have some struggle points. I feel like I might've come close to breaking 7 minutes if I could've figured out HAS (90A: Orders). Even with _EAD TO in place, I thought the answer was LEAD TO (90D: Move in the direction of), so eventually I just worked my way down to that one square and then plugged in letters that might make sense. Put in HAS, thought, "???" Then it sunk in: oh, at a restaurant. [Orders]. HAS. Got it. Yikes. I also struggled with the first letter of SHIN. Why in the world would you take a perfectly good English word, with different meanings and lots of wordplay potential, and then clue it as a Hebrew letter? I have nothing against Hebrew as a language, but if you have a choice to make a word a versatile actual English word, or a foreign word with just one meaning ... come on. This is puzzle-making 101. So disappointing, this whole puzzle. OMG Why is Aunt JEMIMA even ... no, you know what? That's all. I'm done.
REXMAIL
Hello and welcome to my first ever installment of REXMAIL, where I answer your letters for everyone to see. Today's letter is from Brian and Bonnie, who live ... man, I should've asked. On the west coast, I know that. Here it is:
Hi Rex!Dear Brian (and Bonnie),
My significant other and I have become big fans of your blog ever since we started doing the NYT crossword on a daily basis. Since your wisdom always guides us when we've lost our way with a puzzle, we were hoping you could help us resolve a different kind of crossword-related issue:
We live on the west coast and we usually complete the puzzle sometime around 7 PM, when the newest one is posted online. Unfortunately, our cat (Marcel) seems to enjoy the crossword as well (or really wants some extra attention at 7 PM), and often sits directly in front of us or stands on the keyboard, inputting some answers of his own (they're usually incorrect).
Marcel's interruptions often interfere with our ability to complete the puzzle as quickly as we otherwise could. Today, after his intrusions certainly prevented us from beating our best time, I said, angrily, "I bet Rex Parker doesn't have to deal with this kind of nonsense!" My significant other strongly disagreed, and now we have a gentleman's bet over:
1) Whether you have a cat (or other small house pet), and,
2) If so, whether that pet ever interferes with your crossword-time.
If both are true, then do you have any advice for completing the crossword around obnoxious pets? I'd gladly take losing the bet in exchange for some helpful pointers on our pet-problem!
Sincerely and appreciatively,
Brian and Bonnie
I thought you were going to end up asking me for advice on how to stop Marcel from interfering with your solving. I was going to say, "Have you tried talking to him?" But I see that instead your questions are of a more personal nature. First, do I have a cat or small housepet? No. My smallest housepet is a medium-sized husky/shepherd mix who doesn't care for crosswords at all. I had two cats a while back, but they've both been dead for a while now, and even then weren't really desk-dwellers. My dogs sometimes pace or whine or pant or do some other repetitive, noise-causing action that can be distracting, especially if I'm in the middle of a very hard puzzle. But mostly they stay downstairs The Lady (that's what they call my wife) when I'm upstairs solving. So Brian, you win the bet, I don't really have to deal with "this kind of nonsense":
 |
| [actual Marcel, who probably found 93-Across corny] |
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]