Chess ending / TUES 2-26-18 / Say hello to / Cluster around an acorn / Formally end

Hi, everyone! It's Clare, and I'm back for another Tuesday. Feeling a bit tired from staying up late to watch the Oscars on Sunday night. Anyone watch?? Who loves Olivia Colman as much as I do? (P.S. She's an incredible actress, and everyone should know her name — go watch "Broadchurch" right now. Seriously.)

Constructor: Alex Vratsanos

Relative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: JOINT (40A: What each set of shaded letters in this puzzle represents) — The shaded sections of the puzzle are all joints, which bend in the puzzle like they do in the body.

Theme answers:

• ELBOW (as part of 1A and 3D)
• ANKLE (as part of 5A and 8D)
• HIP (as part of 9A and 13D)
• KNUCKLE (as part of 35A and 31D)
• SHOULDER (as part of 37A and 28D)
• KNEE(as part of 60A and 62D)
• WRIST (as part of 63A and 41D)
• NECK (as part of 65A and 59D)

Word of the Day: KNUT (35A: Bronze coin in the Harry Potter books)

The Knut (pronounced ca-nut) is the least valued coin in wizarding currency in Harry Potter. There are 29 Knuts in one silver Sickle, and there are 493 Knuts in one golden Galleon. Around the edge of each coin is a series of numerals which represent a serial number belonging to the Goblin that cast the coin.Witches and wizards are not averse to laborious calculations, as they can do them magically, so they do not find it inconvenient to pay for goods in Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons. One Sickle is equal to about 2 U.S. cents. (Harry Potter Wiki) 

As I was doing this puzzle on my phone, the app tried to make me quit four times. I should have taken it as a hint. I found the puzzle to be difficult — maybe the hardest since I've started this write-up on Tuesdays — and I just didn't like it. I never really got going, and I got stumped in a whole lot of places. The theme was clever and ambitious, both in the number of theme answers and in the way that they all bent, like joints do, and I appreciate the effort that went into crafting the theme of the puzzle. The theme also helped me with the solve, because, once I saw what one set of shaded boxes represented, it was pretty easy to extrapolate and get the others — helping me fill in a lot of squares. However, the theme might have been the only saving grace of the puzzle as the fill was just bleh and often nonsensical.

A lot of little things bugged me about the puzzle. Why is the clue for SHOULD at 37A, "Is obliged to"? If you're obliged to do something, it's not that you should do it; you have to do it. 36A Flight board posting felt more like it should be "etd" instead of ETA. It feels like it's more common to look at a flight board to see when your plane is leaving than when it's going to land. Also, saying MAKE ME as a response to a bully seems like a pretty good way to get your head bashed in or — at the very least — start a fight. That seems like something I'd say in a snide way to my sister, not to a bully. I asked my dad about KCAR (46A: Classic Chrysler), and he was upset about calling KCAR a classic anything. Yes, the platform made a lot of money for Chrysler, and the cars are decades old, but they went from zero to 60 in 13 to 14 seconds (I could run faster than that).

Then, there were just a whole bunch of words that felt out-of-place on a Tuesday, even weird. Like MEWS (huh?), RAITA (never heard of this before in my life, and I eat a lot of Indian food), SISAL (maybe not right for a Tuesday?), PTL Club (that was a thing?), ENSHEATHE (why isn't this just sheath?); and, UTNE, BOWE, and MINOLTA (words I've never seen on a Tuesday before, which isn't necessarily bad but did contribute to the puzzle feeling harder and the fill being more tedious).

Bullets:

• I'm thinking about learning French just to be able to do crosswords better (for example, to help me on 32A: Deux + un to get TROIS and 42A: Entr' to get ACTE)
• Harry Potter reference!! I'm pumped. It also blew my mind when I Googled "KNUT" and found out that it's pronounced ca-nut. I've been saying it wrong my whole life.
• Thank you, law school, for helping me get WRIT and LIEN. I appreciate it.
• I'm getting really sick of seeing the NRA in so many puzzles.

Signed, Clare Carroll, who has been watching Olivia Colman's acceptance speech at the Oscars on repeat since Sunday night.

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