Constructor: Sam Ezersky
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: GO WEST, YOUNG MAN (37A: Horace Greeley's advice, as followed by 17-, 25-, 50- and 60-Across?)— theme answers all end in LAD, which has been transposed to the beginning of the clue (the lad moved west...get it?)
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: DECOCT (13D) —
Megan: While running through the acrosses, I put in TACOSALAD right away, but quickly realized something funny was going on with the theme and deleted it. Tristan got GO WEST YOUNG MAN but we still didn't figure out the LAD gimmick until we were well over halfway through. Once that happened, it was relatively smooth sailing.
Tristan: Well, I knew the quote, but I confused Horace Mann (the public education guy) with Horace Greeley (noted newspaperman and presidential candidate) the whole time. Not IDEAL. I had some trouble with the southwest corner and the FLINGS/I AM ALI/EDITOR crosses. For one, I inexplicably couldn't think of the first two words of the boxing documentary despite getting NATO and SIR without much trouble. Not a huge Def Leppard fan, but POWER BALLAD was easy to get once we determined the quote.
Megan: Yeah, this seemed like a lot of theme answers that led to some awkward fill - SSS (47A: sound of a leak) is just bad. Not a fan. ENE (57A: ending with polypropyl-) is a little technical, but, whatever. #MeTOO is at least topical. Also, what is up with IN PHASE? According to Google, it's a thing, but it really threw me – I think we got that answer almost entirely via crosses. Overall, I did enjoy the puzzle, even with a hokey theme.
Tristan: There were some easy gets for NFL fans with VIKES and BREES, but those might've been hard if you don't watch sports. I appreciated Sam's theme for what it was doing and the historical context. I went to summer camp on the old compound of Horace Greeley's 1842 utopian colony in Pennsylvania, and I later went west for college, so I clearly am living his legacy.
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Bullets:
Megan Beach and Tristan Jung, Crossworld's Newest Court Chroniclers
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow Tristan Jung on Twitter and his blog]
[Follow Megan Beach on Twitter]
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: GO WEST, YOUNG MAN (37A: Horace Greeley's advice, as followed by 17-, 25-, 50- and 60-Across?)— theme answers all end in LAD, which has been transposed to the beginning of the clue (the lad moved west...get it?)
Theme answers:
- [LAD]POWERBAL (17A: Many a hit by Def Leppard)
- [LAD]ARMORC (25A: Like medieval knights)
- [LAD]TACOSA (50A: Meal served in an edible bowl)
- [LAD]SUPERBOW (60A: Famously expensive commercial)
Word of the Day: DECOCT (13D) —
Decoction is a method of extraction by boiling herbal or plant material to dissolve the chemicals of the material, which may include stems, roots, bark and rhizomes. Decoction involves first mashing the plant material to allow for maximum dissolution, and then boiling in water to extract oils, volatile organic compounds and other various chemical substances. Decoction can be used to make herbal teas, leaf teas, coffees, tinctures and similar solutions. (Wikipedia)
• • •
Hello everyone, Rex is unavailable, which means it's time for two bright-eyed rookie guest bloggers to fill in for today. We're two Northwestern students (Megan Beach and Tristan Jung) who need to tag team puzzles to get them done efficiently, but that means you get double the variety in your blog post! We prioritized this blog post over homework. What a FIESTA we had doing this puzzle instead.Megan: While running through the acrosses, I put in TACOSALAD right away, but quickly realized something funny was going on with the theme and deleted it. Tristan got GO WEST YOUNG MAN but we still didn't figure out the LAD gimmick until we were well over halfway through. Once that happened, it was relatively smooth sailing.
Tristan: Well, I knew the quote, but I confused Horace Mann (the public education guy) with Horace Greeley (noted newspaperman and presidential candidate) the whole time. Not IDEAL. I had some trouble with the southwest corner and the FLINGS/I AM ALI/EDITOR crosses. For one, I inexplicably couldn't think of the first two words of the boxing documentary despite getting NATO and SIR without much trouble. Not a huge Def Leppard fan, but POWER BALLAD was easy to get once we determined the quote.
Megan: Yeah, this seemed like a lot of theme answers that led to some awkward fill - SSS (47A: sound of a leak) is just bad. Not a fan. ENE (57A: ending with polypropyl-) is a little technical, but, whatever. #MeTOO is at least topical. Also, what is up with IN PHASE? According to Google, it's a thing, but it really threw me – I think we got that answer almost entirely via crosses. Overall, I did enjoy the puzzle, even with a hokey theme.
Tristan: There were some easy gets for NFL fans with VIKES and BREES, but those might've been hard if you don't watch sports. I appreciated Sam's theme for what it was doing and the historical context. I went to summer camp on the old compound of Horace Greeley's 1842 utopian colony in Pennsylvania, and I later went west for college, so I clearly am living his legacy.
Bullets:
- DVDVIDEO— Has anyone ever called it this...ever?
- AIGHT— I (Megan) loved this clue. I think it's funny and just weird enough, and I actually use it in my texts more frequently than I'd like to admit.
- OMG/WAY — omg no way i had no idea people under the age of 25 use funky abbreviations and condense words. we should put them in every crossword to keep things fresh and hip (Tristan, who didn't like it as much)
- LEVIN— Ira Levin is a top three literary Levin, just behind the one from Anna Karenina.
Megan Beach and Tristan Jung, Crossworld's Newest Court Chroniclers
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow Tristan Jung on Twitter and his blog]
[Follow Megan Beach on Twitter]