Constructor: David Steinberg
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (7:25)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: THE ZAX (45D: Stubborn Dr. Seuss pair) —
This one is trying So Hard to cultivate that "hello, fellow youths!" vibe that it's almost a distraction. It's definitely a creative and original grid, but stuff like COME AT ME, BRO (17A: "You wanna fight?!") and COOLIO (24D: "Sweet")—perhaps because of the time lag from conception to publication?—already feel like dad slang (also, really irked that the "BRO" part of COME AT ME, BRO, is essentially unclued, what with COME AT ME! being a completely legit, stand-alone phrase). Otherwise, the currency and variety of the answers in this puzzle are mostly welcome, although 1-Across ??? The science is not good there, man.
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... and what is with the snickery bro-clue on SEX TOY (64A: Classic gag gift). Among a fairly broad segment of the adult population, SEX TOYs are just normal things. No gag involved ... unless that's what you're into, of course.
I think I wrote recently about my new-found belief that napping before solving was a powerful way I had (accidentally) found to boost my solving speed. Turns out this is total baloney. I was asleep on the couch from 8 to 10:30 and then cleared the cobwebs, gave myself a little time to wake up, came upstairs to solve, and ... just bombed. Well, no, not bombed, but couldn't ever get a handle on this thing. From COCOA at 1D: Hot chocolaty drink (MOCHA) to NONE AT ALL (!?) at 15D: Emphatic rejection (NO MEANS NO), I just kept swinging and missing. Forever it took me to get even small stuff like SHIM (48A: Level)—that one was particularly rough because it was a doorway answer, and not getting it kept me out of the south, which is where my real problems began (the entire SW, into the S, actually).
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Actually, if you just draw a line from "?" to "?" clue to "?" clue in the W, you pretty much delineate The Bad Place. So from LOW BLOW (31A: Belt under the waist?) to WINE STORE (34D: Establishment to which customers have come for years?) to the BOOZE part of BOOZE CRUISE (58A: Wasted vacation days?)—that's the arena of death. None of those answers came to me without serious work, and then inside the rough perimeter formed by those answers, I really struggled with TONE POET (44A: Composer of symphonic "verse")—I wanted R. STRAUSS, which means I was really really mad at myself when I got the actual answer (ID EST I knew very well, too well, what tone poems were, but pffffft doesn't matter because I went looking for an actual "Composer" and not a general term). CHOSE was hard (54A: Stopped debating). AID was hard. And the DEBT part of SLEEP DEBT, also hard (27D: What insomnia causes to build up over time). I thought SLEEP DEBT was a myth, in that you can't just "make up" whatever number of hours you lost on any given day. And it's not like debt in that it's not some actual number that keeps going up and up and up. It's a vague concept. I wanted LOSS in those four spaces.
I assume everyone understood that the "years" part of the very reach-y but mildly clever WINE STORE clue had to do with vintages (34D: Establishment to which customers have come for years?). Just trying to head off questions in the comments / random emails. OK, have a nice day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (7:25)
Word of the Day: THE ZAX (45D: Stubborn Dr. Seuss pair) —
A story from the book The Sneetches and Other Stories features The Zax from the Dr. Seuss book. They are stubborn and arguable and have messy hair and hairy bodies. They live in the Prairie of Prax. Varieties of Zax include a North-Going Zax and a South-Going-Zax. Due to their stubbornness, they refuse to go in any direction other than their assigned directions. If a south-going Zax encounters a north-going Zax, they cannot solve their issue and the world progresses without them as yrs pass by, such as a highway being built over them and a city nearby while still standing angrily at each other. (Dr. Seuss wiki)
• • •
This one is trying So Hard to cultivate that "hello, fellow youths!" vibe that it's almost a distraction. It's definitely a creative and original grid, but stuff like COME AT ME, BRO (17A: "You wanna fight?!") and COOLIO (24D: "Sweet")—perhaps because of the time lag from conception to publication?—already feel like dad slang (also, really irked that the "BRO" part of COME AT ME, BRO, is essentially unclued, what with COME AT ME! being a completely legit, stand-alone phrase). Otherwise, the currency and variety of the answers in this puzzle are mostly welcome, although 1-Across ??? The science is not good there, man.
I think I wrote recently about my new-found belief that napping before solving was a powerful way I had (accidentally) found to boost my solving speed. Turns out this is total baloney. I was asleep on the couch from 8 to 10:30 and then cleared the cobwebs, gave myself a little time to wake up, came upstairs to solve, and ... just bombed. Well, no, not bombed, but couldn't ever get a handle on this thing. From COCOA at 1D: Hot chocolaty drink (MOCHA) to NONE AT ALL (!?) at 15D: Emphatic rejection (NO MEANS NO), I just kept swinging and missing. Forever it took me to get even small stuff like SHIM (48A: Level)—that one was particularly rough because it was a doorway answer, and not getting it kept me out of the south, which is where my real problems began (the entire SW, into the S, actually).
I assume everyone understood that the "years" part of the very reach-y but mildly clever WINE STORE clue had to do with vintages (34D: Establishment to which customers have come for years?). Just trying to head off questions in the comments / random emails. OK, have a nice day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]