Constructor: Neville Fogarty
Relative difficulty: Medium (4:38)
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THEME: "SEE" — the "See" of a cross-referenced clue is combined with the relevant fill to provide a clue for the corresponding longer theme material
Theme answers:
I had a feeling we'd have a feistier Thursday when I saw the byline; Neville is one of the organizers and constructors of the excellent Indie 500 tournament, held in June in Washington, DC. What we've got here is a fun subversion of cross-referencing conventions, as the "See" part of theme clues isn't setting up a two-part answer, but a combination of "see" with the answer to generate a new clue. Without rehashing each, I'll highlight GO UP AND DOWN, which we get from see-SAW (45A: Oft-repeated words).
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All that explained, I didn't get the theme at all while solving, and just decided to brute-force through it. LIAM (though I couldn't remember all three Hemsworths and worried I was picking the wrong non-Chris brother) TETES FRAT FAQIR were quick entries across the top, and I had to chuckle at ROULETTE (11D: Rigged game in "Casablanca"), which would have stumped me for a while had it not come up with the same reference at either the Indie 500 or Lollapuzzoola this summer. At that time, I tried to piece together a card game from about half the letters for a while. Casablanca is one of those movies I know I should see, but in my life it only comes up in crosswords and by now I've ironed out the difference between Casablanca's ILSA and Young Frankenstein's INGA so I keep kicking the can down the road.
Everything is pretty straightforward (upon review, dare I say 'bland'?) through the top half or so -- I enjoyed TELECOM and ECOLAW (6D: Anti-fracking legislation, e.g.) because I dropped them in off their initial letters, but they're not terribly snappy, and MEER feels like a stretch, relevance-wise -- but I needed NUDGED, MORITA, and NOCARBS (42D: One dieting strategy) to get me into the short stuff and make sense of the bottom two themers, where I ended.
The more I look at this, the more I see rough fill, but figuring out the theme after the fact was a great AHA moment that I figure would have been even better mid-solve, literally every down entry intersects with theme material, and I'd rather have more creativity on Thursdays than less. The clear highlight for me is 40A: What may blossom from buds? for BROMANCE. A little twisted without being tortured, a little corny, but gettable without too much pause and it brought me a smirk in a puzzle that had a good amount of straightforward cluing for the back half of the week.
Bullets:
Relative difficulty: Medium (4:38)
THEME: "SEE" — the "See" of a cross-referenced clue is combined with the relevant fill to provide a clue for the corresponding longer theme material
Theme answers:
- LOST LIQUID (18A: See 17-Across / "See PAGE" [17A: Footnote info])
- DO A SLOW BURN (16A: See 29-Across / "See THE" [29A: Common article])
- GO UP AND DOWN (46A: See 45-Across / "See SAW" [45A: Oft-repeated words])
- IN SEARCH OF (59A: See 61-Across / "See KING" [61A: Bed selection])
Jan Vermeer van Haarlem, or Jan van der Meer II (1656 – May 28, 1705[1]) was a Dutch Golden Age painter from Haarlem. A landscape painter primarily, he ... signed his works "J v der meer de jonge" (Jan van der Meer the Younger). (Wikipedia)
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Guest blogger Matt (of the triple-stack Saturday back in July) back today, as Rex is grading papers.I had a feeling we'd have a feistier Thursday when I saw the byline; Neville is one of the organizers and constructors of the excellent Indie 500 tournament, held in June in Washington, DC. What we've got here is a fun subversion of cross-referencing conventions, as the "See" part of theme clues isn't setting up a two-part answer, but a combination of "see" with the answer to generate a new clue. Without rehashing each, I'll highlight GO UP AND DOWN, which we get from see-SAW (45A: Oft-repeated words).
All that explained, I didn't get the theme at all while solving, and just decided to brute-force through it. LIAM (though I couldn't remember all three Hemsworths and worried I was picking the wrong non-Chris brother) TETES FRAT FAQIR were quick entries across the top, and I had to chuckle at ROULETTE (11D: Rigged game in "Casablanca"), which would have stumped me for a while had it not come up with the same reference at either the Indie 500 or Lollapuzzoola this summer. At that time, I tried to piece together a card game from about half the letters for a while. Casablanca is one of those movies I know I should see, but in my life it only comes up in crosswords and by now I've ironed out the difference between Casablanca's ILSA and Young Frankenstein's INGA so I keep kicking the can down the road.
Everything is pretty straightforward (upon review, dare I say 'bland'?) through the top half or so -- I enjoyed TELECOM and ECOLAW (6D: Anti-fracking legislation, e.g.) because I dropped them in off their initial letters, but they're not terribly snappy, and MEER feels like a stretch, relevance-wise -- but I needed NUDGED, MORITA, and NOCARBS (42D: One dieting strategy) to get me into the short stuff and make sense of the bottom two themers, where I ended.
The more I look at this, the more I see rough fill, but figuring out the theme after the fact was a great AHA moment that I figure would have been even better mid-solve, literally every down entry intersects with theme material, and I'd rather have more creativity on Thursdays than less. The clear highlight for me is 40A: What may blossom from buds? for BROMANCE. A little twisted without being tortured, a little corny, but gettable without too much pause and it brought me a smirk in a puzzle that had a good amount of straightforward cluing for the back half of the week.
Bullets:
- SCUT (38D: Rabbit's tail) — You can see above that this is where I finished, having never seen the word before. Of course, I had no sense of the theme to lean on the crossing until near the end.
- SNARFED (43D: Gobbled up)— SNARFED seems to be much more common than SCARFED in puzzles, but that doesn't stop me from putting the -C- in every dang time.
- ANGOLA (3D: African country that's a member of OPEC) — Just once or twice I'd like to see this clued as the notorious Louisiana prison built on a former plantation, its attached museum and yearly rodeo inches away from creating exhibits out of people in cages, but I'll save my energy and look for that in some other outlet's puzzle.