Fictional African kingdom in Coming to America / WED 10-24-18 / Noted piranha habitat / Ring around watch face

Constructor: Michael Paleos

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (4:42)

THEME: POP-UP AD (8A: Internet nuisance ... or a hint to four answers in this puzzle) — letters "AD""pop up" (i.e. go up to the next line, leaping over two black squares) as part of longer theme answers:

Theme answers:

• ROPE-AD-OPE (19A: Classic strategy in the boxing ring)
• DEC-AD-ENT (28A: Hedonistic)
• CAN-AD-IAN (42A: Like seven teams in the N.H.L.)
• TRE-AD-MILL (54A: Where you may be going nowhere fast)

Word of the Day: BEZEL (48D: Ring around a watch face) —

noun

1. a grooved ring holding the glass or plastic cover of a watch face or other instrument in position.

   • a groove holding the crystal of a watch or the stone of a gem in its setting. (google)

This theme feels very familiar—maybe I've seen it in some other venue?—but no matter; it's a decent one. Enjoyable to solve. Not like "OOH ah!" enjoyable, but, I don't know, at least interesting. The main effect of it was that it kept making me trip because I kept forgetting about it, and so something like 54A: Where you may be going nowhere fast comes along and the answer appears to be TR- and I'm like "huh?" and then later "D'oh! Right. The theme!" The revealer is in a super dumb place. Was there really no way to get it into the 64-Across position, where it belongs. I mean, it's gonna be difficult with 48-Down starting with "B" and ending in "P," in five letters, but presumably you'd've tried to put POP-UP AD in the correct / final position **before** building the rest of your grid. I don't really understand. I double-don't understand putting ZAMUNDA in here. That is ... not a famous thing. At all. My eyes just picked up "Fictional African kingdom" and I already had -NDA so I just wrote in WAKANDA (actually famous). But instead I got this other kingdom, from a movie that I have seen more than once, and yet ... the name of the kingdom: nowhere to be found. I feel really, truly, terribly bad for people who aren't familiar with the word BEZEL, 'cause no way in hell you're getting that "Z" otherwise. Betting a bunch of people try BEVEL. It's essentially an uncrossed letter, as (I repeat) ZAMUNDA is not famous, and none of its letters are inferrable. Not great.


EDA and TES, also bad. ORA EKE ALO ATEN, not helping. "I HAVE IT" is at least odd, as I know it as "I've got it!" or something like that. I HAVE IT sounds archaic / stilted. I do like POWERED ON and LED ASTRAY, and the clue on BATCAVE is kinda cute, with it "DC" misdirection (38A: Secret DC headquarters). I found this puzzle a bit tough up top, as neither ADDRESS (1A: Discuss, as an issue) nor PERIDOT (15A: Birthstone for most Leos) came to me very easily (for different reasons), and then the same was true for ORINOCO (16A: Noted piranha habitat) and WANDERS (18A: Rambles) on the other side of the grid (I wanted NATTERS and probably had NADDERS (!) in there at some point). The clue on POEM is absurd, as you could argue that any song is a POEM (12D: "The Star-Spangled Banner," basically). So: theme good, but overall solving experience, less so. Oh well, at least Erik (Agard) won again on "Jeopardy" tonight and the World Series game looks like it's gonna be a thriller, so I'm gonna go round off my night by watching that. Bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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