Units of power saved in modern lingo / TUE 12-11-18 / Clooney lawyer often seen in tabloids / Comedian who said in america anyone can become president that's the problem

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (3:45)

THEME: COMPOST BIN (50A: Place for kitchen scraps, such as those starting 16-, 24-, 32- and 44-Across)— pretty self-explanatory

Theme answers:

• SHELL SHOCK (16A: Combat trauma)
• PEEL OUT (24A: Leave quickly, as from a parking spot)
• GROUNDS CREW (32A: Baseball field maintainers)
• PIT BOSS (44A: Casino V.I.P.)

Word of the Day: NEGAWATTS (31D: Units of power saved, in modern lingo) —

Negawatt power is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of electrical power (measured in watts) saved. The energy saved is a direct result of energy conservation or increased energy efficiency. The term was coined by the chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute and environmentalist Amory Lovins in 1985, within the article, "Saving Gigabucks with Negawatts," where he argued that utility customers don’t want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services such as hot showers, cold beer, lit rooms, and spinning shafts, which can come more cheaply if electricity is used more efficiently. Lovins felt an international behavioral change was necessary in order to decrease countries' dependence on excessive amounts of energy. The concept of a negawatt could influence a behavioral change in consumers by encouraging them to think about the energy that they spend. (wikipedia)

What kind of SHELL? Like ... a crab shell? Clam? Taco? I don't put those in the compost. Pits either. I don't know why. I just don't. Coffee grounds, sure. Peel, yeah. I don't know. First-words themes have kind of a high bar because they're so basic, and I don't know if this one cleared said bar. Nothing very bin-y about it. Word play is pretty rudimentary. The grid is also segmented in this really annoying way, where you can't get out of the north except by going waaaaay over to the west. Otherwise, I think the grid is really pretty clean and shiny. I don't know that I think it's a Tuesday grid (felt slightly more Wednesdayish, somehow), but except for a couple of very short answers, nothing was jarringly icky. We need to talk about 31-Down, though, because ... that is some nonsense. It's some nonsense for a number of reasons. First of all, I've never heard of it. Fine, I've never heard of lots of things, but really ... never. And I'm not alone. By a long shot.




So someone—maybe the constructors, maybe an aspirationally hip subeditor—thought they'd get cute with their "original" fill and ... wipeout. New for new's sake is dumb and self-indulgent. It's all made so much worse by the fact that a simple one-letter change turns it into a familiar word.

I was slowed down by FILE CLERK, because having FI- in place I wrote in FIRST-YEAR (4D: Low-level law firm employee). Also really struggled with POP BY, even after I got the -BY. And the -PBY. And the -OPBY. Me: "HOP BY????" (5A: Visit on a whim) Oof. PASS ON, also weirdly hard to parse (5D: Forgo). So, yeah, all the difficulty in this one, besides NEGAWATTS, and AMAL (whose name I just plum forgot) (49A: ___ Clooney, lawyer often seen in tabloids) was in the NW. I wrote in ACRE for AREA (18A: Real estate measurement), and that messed things up for a few seconds in the NE. My favorite moment in this puzzle didn't actually happen to me. It happened to a friend who sent me this screenshot with the subject heading: "Uh oh..."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. who PEELs OUT from a *parking spot*. I'm just imagining the parking lot at Wegmans and thinking ... this is not possible, or at least not advised. Try "intersection" next time.

P.P.S. oh hey watch this, it features my friend David Kwong, talking crosswords and magic and stuff (also, he's on The "Today" Show this morning at 9am EST, doing magic, I assume)


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