Constructor: Byron Walden and Joel Fagliano
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (11:31)
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THEME:"Portmanfaux"— wacky phrases that reimagine the basis for common portmanteau words:
Theme answers:
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Only some of these are anywhere near believable as portmanteaux. You'd never portmanteau something as long as SPACE PROGRAM to a mere four-letter word (also, I don't think the "spiced ham" portmanteau is official—wikipedia claims that that's just "popular belief"). There is nothing particularly "Yule" about a BURNING LOG, so I have no idea what that clue thinks it's doing. Any log on any fire is burning, so Yule shmule (also "burning log" is a terrible stand-alone phrase... this portmanfaux could've / should've been soooo much better). And SALTED PORK is what you went with. SPORK is just PORK with an "S" at the beginning, so ,... you could've gone with literally any "S" word ... why not SZECHUAN PORK or SEXY PORK or SPECKLED DORK for that matter. Since it's all totally arbitrary, these fauxmanteaux should all *kill*; too many of these are weak or boring.
There was a bunch of longer stuff I just didn't know, or didn't believe was a real thing (e.g. BLUE PAPER (?)), so things were tough all over for me. If I knew RURITANIA, I forgot it (3D: Kingdom in "The Prisoner of Zenda"). MUDCAT? No way (20A: Mississippi River bottom feeder). No idea about OSCAR ARIAS (though he seems to have been president the one time I visited Costa Rica—weird) and definitely no idea about RISE OVER RUN (I mean, that checks out, that is what slope is, but that is not a phrase I ever heard while learning to calculate slope). So the NE was very hard for me. The worst part, however, was the CORNETTI / IMRE crossing, which is really bad (78D: Crescent-shaped Italian pastries / 99A: Nagy of Hungarian history). Startlingly bad. I just guessed. I've talked to others tonight who had to do the same. I've never heard of CORNETTI, and while that sounds better than CORNITTI, IMRI seems like a very plausible Hungarian name to me. I guessed correctly here, but when you're crossing obscure nouns (esp. if one of them is proper) at a vowel, you have to be really really careful. Nothing cluing could've done for this one. The cross is just inherently yucky.
Five things:
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Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (11:31)
Theme answers:
- MURDER CASE MURSE (22A: Satchel for a homicide detective?)
- SKI RESORT SKORT (31A: Unseasonal wear on a winter vacation?)
- BRADY BUNCH BRUNCH (52A: Late-morning meal for a TV family?)
- GREY POUPON GROUPON (64A: One way to buy mustard cheaply?)
- SPACE PROGRAM SPAM (71A: Emails such as "Click this link to become an Apollo astronaut?)
- BURNING LOG BLOG (93A: Collection of Yule-centric posts?)
- SALTED PORK SPORK (107A: Utensil for eating some cured meat?)
Óscar Arias Sánchez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈoskaɾ ˈaɾjas]; born 13 September 1940 in Heredia, Costa Rica) was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end the Central American crisis.He is also a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims. (wikipedia)
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There was a bunch of longer stuff I just didn't know, or didn't believe was a real thing (e.g. BLUE PAPER (?)), so things were tough all over for me. If I knew RURITANIA, I forgot it (3D: Kingdom in "The Prisoner of Zenda"). MUDCAT? No way (20A: Mississippi River bottom feeder). No idea about OSCAR ARIAS (though he seems to have been president the one time I visited Costa Rica—weird) and definitely no idea about RISE OVER RUN (I mean, that checks out, that is what slope is, but that is not a phrase I ever heard while learning to calculate slope). So the NE was very hard for me. The worst part, however, was the CORNETTI / IMRE crossing, which is really bad (78D: Crescent-shaped Italian pastries / 99A: Nagy of Hungarian history). Startlingly bad. I just guessed. I've talked to others tonight who had to do the same. I've never heard of CORNETTI, and while that sounds better than CORNITTI, IMRI seems like a very plausible Hungarian name to me. I guessed correctly here, but when you're crossing obscure nouns (esp. if one of them is proper) at a vowel, you have to be really really careful. Nothing cluing could've done for this one. The cross is just inherently yucky.
Five things:
- 1A: Era of ignorance (DARK AGES)— don't like this. Should be DARK AGE. Saying DARK AGES implies that it is an actual period of time. There is no such time. It's some bullshit that people say about the early part of the Middle Ages. Also, we are super-"ignorant" right now. I mean ... jeez, just look around. Further, the "dark" part has more to do with the historical record—the small number of extant MSS from the period—than it does with the "ignorance" of the "era." I mean, hi, here's the most cursory research re: "DARK AGES": "The term employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the era's "darkness" (lack of records) with earlier and later periods of "light" (abundance of records)." (wikipedia). DARK AGE, singular, as a figurative term, fine. But please don't tell people the DARK AGES were a real time, or a time of "ignorance." Just reinforces presentist dumbness.
- 1D: Deaden acoustically (DAMP) — oddly maddening. Even when I got to -AMP I just wanted TAMP.
- 12D: Word from the Latin for "noose" (LASSO) — honest-to-god thought this was gonna be RIATA (or REATA)
- 57D: Hightail it, saltily (HAUL ASS)— approved; my favorite thing about this grid
- 67D: Western powwow held every year or so (NATO SUMMIT) — maybe not "powwow"; just maybe; just a thought; maybe; maybe examine your metaphors; possibly; is all I'm saying ... especially in the context of "Western." It's so easy to just change this to "meeting" or even "get-together" if you want some misdirection.
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