Constructor: Morton J. Mendelson
Relative difficulty: Challenging (a hilarious and arduous 8:03)
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THEME: GO OVER THE EDGE (58A: Flip out ... or a hint to eight answers in this puzzle)— the letters "GO" can be found (or imagined, I guess) "over the edge" (i.e. outside the bounds) of this puzzle
Theme answers:
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I know I keep harping on "pleasure" and maybe it's the overexposure to Marie Kondo but I don't think it's too much to ask of a crossword puzzle that it spark joy! Spark it! Spark, you stupid puzzle! Seriously, though, what is going on here, and also what year is it? I felt like I was in the dungeon of some crossword sadist circa 1944. I guess CARMEN SAN DIE(GO) didn't exist back then, but "(GO)OD NIGHT, IRENE" sure did, and maybe that's when "kids" (??) drew LOTS (??) (5A: Things kids sometimes draw). I could not have been less on a puzzle's wavelength than I was on this one's. Every clue felt like pulling teeth. Well, not all. Good ol'ECO. But WIND is [Air condition?]?. By what alchemy? ATBAT is just *a* stat? And not even a stat, but a "datum" (come on, what are you doing with this lingo, man?) (61A: Diamond datum). And NTS? NTS? NTS? What ... what? What are those? I see they've appeared in the grid before. But not for four years. Let's commit to at least four more. And then there's the clue for AC/DC (14A: Band with a slash in its name), which ... OK, I guess when you type it out, you use a "slash," but ... it's not a slash:
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But the real problem here, the thing that caused me the most pain and exhaustion, is the theme. Where to start? It seems like a not bad idea, in theory. I've definitely (many times) seen themes based on answers running over the edge of the grid—parts of answers, or letter strings that form words, or whatever, that you have to imagine. Fine, whatever. It's been done, but why not do it again, if you can do it well? And I guess that's kind of the ground-zero problem here. Is the revealer good enough to justify this? Gotta say No. I have never heard someone say "I'm going to GO OVER THE EDGE!" It's just ... in the Uncanny Valley of phrases. Like, it's phrase-like, but it's not current or on-the-money or good. Defensible, but it does not snap. So odd is it, to my ear, that I had GO OVER THE ... and still had no idea. OVER THE TOP? MOON? HEDGE? Oh my GOD was that movie title a pun!?!?!? I am laughing so hard right now. You are watching me discover a 13-year-old pun in real time. Wow. I took my daughter to see that in the theater in 2006. Wow. Wow. OK. Nice. Annnnnyway, the placement of the GOs was interesting, by which I mean ridiculous. You've got the nice symmetrical long Acrosses, good, good, and then ... bleeping chaos!? It's like someone's just throwing wet socks at you. No, I don't know why I chose that metaphor, it just came to me, and it feels right. Where are the other "GO"s? Who can say? They aren't symmetrical. They are all over the map. How do you even know? Discovering them was painful and dreary, and honestly at the end, I didn't even know if I'd found them all. I was going to make SLINGS the Word of the Day (seriously), because I figured it was some olde-timey term for baby frogs or something (?). (GO)SLINGS are not *in* ponds, they are *on* them. Unless they drowned and sank, which is terribly sad, like this puzzle.
Honestly, I thought "CHICA" was a musical and I thought SLINGS were young frogs and I thought maybe LD TEETH glowed in your mouth? Instead of "AHA!" I kept emitting more of a low groan of unsureness. Also, I kept having to endure stuff like ORDO (!?) and ECU. Ideas have to be executed well. The best ideas are useless—ruined—when the execution is poor. The end.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging (a hilarious and arduous 8:03)
Theme answers:
- TAKES TWO TO TAN(GO) (20A: "No one can get in a fight by himself," informally) ("informally"? Is that clue phrase "formal"???)
- "(GO)OD NIGHT, IRENE"(32A: Classic song with the lyric "I'll see you in my dreams")
- CARMEN SAN DIE(GO) (42A: World traveler since 1985)
- (GO)LD TEETH (5D: Some expensive dental work)
- (GO)SLINGS (13D: Babies in a pond) (*in*!!!!!!!????)
- "CHICA(GO)" (55D: Second-longest-running Broadway musical ever (after "Phantom of the Opera")
- AGES A(GO) (57D: A very long time back)
- (GO)LF GAME (47A: What's honed on the range?)
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, FRS FRCP (/ˈɒzlər/; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training.[He has frequently been described as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope".Osler was a person of many interests, who in addition to being a physician, was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. One of his achievements was the founding of the History of Medicine Society (previously section) of the Royal Society of Medicine, London. (wikipedia)
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[Otto kinda looks like the guitarist Slash, which really brings this whole AC/DC clue full circle]
Honestly, I thought "CHICA" was a musical and I thought SLINGS were young frogs and I thought maybe LD TEETH glowed in your mouth? Instead of "AHA!" I kept emitting more of a low groan of unsureness. Also, I kept having to endure stuff like ORDO (!?) and ECU. Ideas have to be executed well. The best ideas are useless—ruined—when the execution is poor. The end.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]