Constructor: Tom McCoy
Relative difficulty: Challenging by the clock, but it felt more Medium-Challenging, and also I've had a drink (12:52)
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THEME: "MIND THE GAP" — self-referential answers that involve first word being interrupted in some way by a random circled letter, e.g. R(S)AIL SPLITTER, where "S" is a literal "splitter" of the word "rail"—the circled letters spell SQUARE PEG
Theme answers:
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Not gonna spend much time on this one because I just didn't enjoy it. I think the theme is clever, but solving it was a drag, both because of the unchecked squares (which ultimately weren't unchecked, I guess, but whatever) and because of the annoying fill and vague clues. Just no fun. I also found this one ridiculously hard to get started on. I blame EPIZOA (!?!?) (18A: External parasites) and also UZI, which, guns, ugh, stop. In the same category of Ugh, Stop, only moreso: NOBAMA (98A: Coinage during the 2008 presidential election). Screw you. Shove your Tea Party rhetoric up [r e d a c t e d]. There. Phew, that felt good. OK, back to this mirthless, too-cute-for-its-own-good puzzle. I finished with an error, sort of. I just couldn't be bothered to look at all the circled squares; if I had, I would've seen my error, which was ARF for 116D: Scottie's warning (GRR). You'll note that the first letter of that answer is one of the aforementioned "unchecked squares," and the last letter is in the stupid answer SHEERS (122A: Some see-through curtains). I figured SHEEFS was some stupid technical ... curtain .... term? It's not like SHEERS, plural (!?), is much better. It's such an AARGH suckfest down there. Again, the whole self-referential theme gag was cute, and since the letters in SQUARE PEG all appear in circles, i.e. round holes, I guess that is also clever, but not the kind of clever that is genuinely impressive. More the kind that makes me go "oh ... [forced grin] ... I see what you did. Great."
My greatest delight re: this puzzle came when I had just finished writing "40 YEARS!" in the margin of my printed puzzle (as in "I've been following baseball for 40 YEARS and have never once heard a SOLO HOMER referred to as a "singleton") (5D: What a "singleton" is, in baseball lingo) and all of a sudden I get a Twitter DM from an actual sports broadcaster informing me, and I quote,"I played baseball in college, worked for multiple minor league teams as a p/b/p man, and have covered MLB since 1995, and not one time have I heard anyone call a solo HR a 'Singleton.'" The clue, as he goes on to say, is baffling. Get things right or don't get them. How hard is it, really?
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Five things:
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Relative difficulty: Challenging by the clock, but it felt more Medium-Challenging, and also I've had a drink (12:52)
Theme answers:
- R(S)AIL SPLITTER (22A: Another nickname for Old Abe ...)
- OUT(Q)ER SPACE (27A: Astronaut's place ...)
- RO(U)OM DIVIDER (42A: Screen or partition ...)
- NA(A)SAL CAVITY (51A: Where decongestant spray goes ...)
- SECUR(R)ITY BREACH (64A: Cyberexpert's worry ...)
- PA(E)PER CUTTER (84A: Office device ...)
- S(P)AFE CRACKER (90A: Heist figure ...)
- LUCK(E)Y BREAK (106: Bit of good fortune ...)
- GRAN(G)D OPENING (114A: Store banner ...)
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach (/ˈmɑːx/; German: [ˈɛɐ̯nst max]; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as study of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honor. As a philosopher of science, he was a major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism. Through his criticism of Newton's theories of space and time, he foreshadowed Einstein's theory of relativity. (wikipedia)
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My greatest delight re: this puzzle came when I had just finished writing "40 YEARS!" in the margin of my printed puzzle (as in "I've been following baseball for 40 YEARS and have never once heard a SOLO HOMER referred to as a "singleton") (5D: What a "singleton" is, in baseball lingo) and all of a sudden I get a Twitter DM from an actual sports broadcaster informing me, and I quote,"I played baseball in college, worked for multiple minor league teams as a p/b/p man, and have covered MLB since 1995, and not one time have I heard anyone call a solo HR a 'Singleton.'" The clue, as he goes on to say, is baffling. Get things right or don't get them. How hard is it, really?
- 83A: Clutch (BROOD)— is this, like, about hens or something? I thought BROOD was the actual chicks but a "clutch" was a group of eggs. And there are so many clues for BROOD. But we get ... this. Delightful.
- 101A: "Spider-Man" baddie (DOC OCK) — careful with the parsing on that one
- 91D: "Aw, nuts!" ("FOO!") — no dumb bad stop please
- 45D: Publisher's announcement ("IT'S OUT") — again, no, no way, uh uh, in no universe, etc. You'd sooner say this of a SOLO HOMER. Well, *you* might say "IT'S OUT," casually, if a friend asked whether your book had been published yet. But a *publisher* would not "announce" the publication this way.
- 87A: "That's my intention" ("I PLAN TO") — I had "I MEAN TO," so that hurt. I also had LEAK for CLOG (108D: Problem for a plumber), but that didn't last long
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