Happy Tuesday, everyone! It's Clare again for the last Tuesday of the month as August comes to a close (summer, too, unfortunately). I'm currently in DC suffering in hot and humid weather while trying to get the hang of law school. It's just my second week, and there's already tons of reading for each class. I've yet to be cold called in class, but I know that moment is coming.
Constructor:Brian Thomas
Relative difficulty:Moderately difficult for a Tuesday
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THEME: BACKCHANNEL(60A: Covert means of communication ... or what's hiding in the circled letters?) — Circled letters in the puzzle that when read backward are television channels
Theme answers:
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None of the fill was too taxing but also didn't feel that exciting. A few answers stood out to me as particularly uninteresting. 38A: Customize, as a video game as MOD seems off and a bit obscure. From a preliminary Wikipedia search, MOD seems to be short for modification, which would make MOD a noun and not a verb, like the clue leads you to believe. 11A: Misbehaving as BAD feels off, too. A parent might say, "My child is misbehaving" but probably wouldn't say, "My child is bad." The parent would say, "My child is being bad." As for 9D: Hilarious, briefly, I can once again assure you all that no one says/writes ROFL anymore. 39A: She reads the signs: SEERESS seems like a forced way to get a lot of e's and s's in there. (The only thing I can think of when I see "seer" is Professor Trelawney in Harry Potter).
Bullets:
Signed, Clare Carroll, a GW 1L
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Constructor:Brian Thomas
Relative difficulty:Moderately difficult for a Tuesday
Theme answers:
- WAXONWAXOFF (17A: Teaching catchphrase popularized by "The Karate Kid")
- ZIPLOCBAG (21A: Resealable container for chips or cheese)
- GLENNCLOSE (32A: Portrayer of Cruella de Vil in 1996's "101 Dalmatians")
- USBCHARGER (44A: Connection point for a smartphone cable)
- JOBHUNTER (52A: One using Monster.com)
Word of the day: ANUBIS(47D: Wolf-headed Egyptian god) —
Anubis is the Greek name of a god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. Archeologists have identified Anubis's sacred animal as an Egyptian canid, the African golden wolf. (Wikipedia)
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As a theme, the idea of a BACKCHANNEL is clever. But the theme didn't help me to solve any of the puzzle besides giving me the "b" in JOBHUNTER, so I didn't notice the theme until I got to the snappy revealer. A few of those answers felt meh: JOBHUNTER, ZIPLOCBAG, and USBCHARGER aren't very exciting. (I had no idea people used that term, anyway. USB port, USB cable, sure, but a charger?)None of the fill was too taxing but also didn't feel that exciting. A few answers stood out to me as particularly uninteresting. 38A: Customize, as a video game as MOD seems off and a bit obscure. From a preliminary Wikipedia search, MOD seems to be short for modification, which would make MOD a noun and not a verb, like the clue leads you to believe. 11A: Misbehaving as BAD feels off, too. A parent might say, "My child is misbehaving" but probably wouldn't say, "My child is bad." The parent would say, "My child is being bad." As for 9D: Hilarious, briefly, I can once again assure you all that no one says/writes ROFL anymore. 39A: She reads the signs: SEERESS seems like a forced way to get a lot of e's and s's in there. (The only thing I can think of when I see "seer" is Professor Trelawney in Harry Potter).
Bullets:
- As a Despicable Me fan, I was happy to see GRU make an appearance at 41A: Animated movie villain with Minions. But the clue isn't quite right. GRU is sometimes villainous but he always ends up saving the day.
- Mental block: I can never seem to remember whether ORC is spelled with a "c" or a "k."
- Two of the clues/answers got me to crack a smile: 40D: Makes the cut as SAWS and 3D: Prepares to go on the runway as TAXI (for the sole reason that I couldn't think at first of anything other than a model preparing to go down a runway).
- 47A: Wolf-headed Egyptian god: ANUBIS and 26A: Jean who wrote "Wide Sargasso Sea": RHYS on a Tuesday felt obscure.
- When I saw 20A: Spot for a yacht, I immediately thought MARINA, but that obviously isn't four letters long. I was then pleasantly surprised to find that clue again for 27A, this time with enough spaces to fit MARINA.
With that, I leave you! I'm off to reread cases for class for the fourth time like the professors tell us to. That first cold call may be coming tomorrow.
Signed, Clare Carroll, a GW 1L
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]