Constructor: John Ciolfi
Relative difficulty: Challenging (4:53) (slowest Tuesday time this year by half a minute)
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THEME: ANDES (69A: Mountain chain about 5,000 miles long ... or a hint to 17-, 25-, 31-, 44-, 50- and 61-Across) — -ES is added to the end of familiar phrases? (with wacky clues?) ... so it's the familiar phrase *AND* "ES" ...
Theme answers:
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Wow, what was this? Every themer, and much of the fill, was disastrous for me. Literally had no idea what the theme was supposed to be, or how to take any of the theme clues. Even after I got the themers from crosses, I had no idea what the "joke" was. Only after I finally got BEAR CUBES did I see that something w/ E was happening. But it still took me forever to see HOOVER DAMES (esp. the "D," as the only Macbeth lines I could remember is "Is this a dagger I see before me?" and "Out, damned spot!"—"TO BED" completely skipped my mind) (34D: Words repeated by Lady Macbeth in Act V, Scene 1). The main problem with this theme is that ... it's not clear if the theme means "and there are Es" or "plus ES." HOUSE PETS is perfectly normal plural phrase. Add as "E" to get HOUSE PETES. There's absolutely no reason I should expect that the theme is "add ES," since it looks like simply "add E." This is also true for BABY SITES and BEAR CUBS, which are simply ordinary plurals with "E" added. But then there's the totally unpluralizable "for the win" and "Hoover Dam" and "Guess not!", so yeah, in retrospect, I can see that the theme was actually "add ES," but mid-solve, oof.
It's funny the puzzle thinks I know the first names of US Reps nowhere near where I live. There are many hundreds of them. I know a *Jeff* Sessions, and I know a Pete *Domenici*, but they were both Senators. Anyway, HOUSE PETES, my god. No way. So for a Tuesday this theme was very hard. But also the theme is off. And the puzzle makes the grave mistake of thinking that more is better, that cramming the grid with theme material will make the puzzle somehow more entertaining or more impressive, when all it does is strain the grid. I'm still laughing at YAREN. I mean ... what? It's bad enough I have to remember NAURU, a very very very tiny country. But its so-called capital? More people live In My Neighborhood than live in YAREN. I got YAREN and gaped at it. Checked the crosses. Shrugged. Thank god for crosses. Beyond that, the fill was rough all over. Not yesterday rough. But rough. Long Downs in the NE were the one highlight for me.
ANGIOGRAM (32D: Cargiologist's X-ray) and BERNOULLI (33D: Mathematician Daniel after whom a principle in named), ha ha on a Tuesday? My dad was a radiologist, but even then I had trouble coming up with ANGIOGRAM. And I just flat-out don't know BERNOULLI. At all. Fun. Also, I totally forgot the TROGGS (48D: Band with the 1966 #1 hit "Wild Thing," with"the"), which hurt a lot (me: "the FRUGGS? ... the ... what was Iggy Pop's band???"—it was the Stooges, so I was way off there). The TROGGS and James ARNESS (40D: "Gunsmoke" star James) placed this emphatically in The Land Before (My) Time. I wish I had liked this better. It's possible the theme would've played better, or more clearly, with "ES" added somewhere in the middle of the phrase (so the apparent plural thing wouldn't be an issue) ... and maybe if it ran on a Wednesday :)
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging (4:53) (slowest Tuesday time this year by half a minute)
Theme answers:
- HOUSE PETES (17A: Representatives Sessions (R-TX) and Aguilar (D-CA), for instance?) (house pet +ES)
- FOR THE WINES (25A: Why many people visit Napa?) ("For the win!" +ES)
- BABY SITES (31A: Nurseries?) (babysit +ES)
- BEAR CUBES (44A: What ice trays typically do?) (bear cubs +ES)
- HOOVER DAMES (50A: President Herbert's wife and mother?) (Hoover Dam +ES)
- GUESS NOTES (61A: Play "Name That Tune"?) ("Guess not ..." +ES)
Yaren (in earlier times Makwa/Moqua), is a district of the Pacific nation of Nauru. It is the de facto capital of Nauru and is coextensive with Yaren Constituency. [Population: 747 ... !?] (wikipedia)
• • •
It's funny the puzzle thinks I know the first names of US Reps nowhere near where I live. There are many hundreds of them. I know a *Jeff* Sessions, and I know a Pete *Domenici*, but they were both Senators. Anyway, HOUSE PETES, my god. No way. So for a Tuesday this theme was very hard. But also the theme is off. And the puzzle makes the grave mistake of thinking that more is better, that cramming the grid with theme material will make the puzzle somehow more entertaining or more impressive, when all it does is strain the grid. I'm still laughing at YAREN. I mean ... what? It's bad enough I have to remember NAURU, a very very very tiny country. But its so-called capital? More people live In My Neighborhood than live in YAREN. I got YAREN and gaped at it. Checked the crosses. Shrugged. Thank god for crosses. Beyond that, the fill was rough all over. Not yesterday rough. But rough. Long Downs in the NE were the one highlight for me.
ANGIOGRAM (32D: Cargiologist's X-ray) and BERNOULLI (33D: Mathematician Daniel after whom a principle in named), ha ha on a Tuesday? My dad was a radiologist, but even then I had trouble coming up with ANGIOGRAM. And I just flat-out don't know BERNOULLI. At all. Fun. Also, I totally forgot the TROGGS (48D: Band with the 1966 #1 hit "Wild Thing," with"the"), which hurt a lot (me: "the FRUGGS? ... the ... what was Iggy Pop's band???"—it was the Stooges, so I was way off there). The TROGGS and James ARNESS (40D: "Gunsmoke" star James) placed this emphatically in The Land Before (My) Time. I wish I had liked this better. It's possible the theme would've played better, or more clearly, with "ES" added somewhere in the middle of the phrase (so the apparent plural thing wouldn't be an issue) ... and maybe if it ran on a Wednesday :)
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]