Constructor: Will Nediger
Relative difficulty: Challenging (5:25) (a just-woke-up solve)
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THEME: Pre- — pffffffff OK so theme answers are really pairs of words that sit on the same Across line, with the first word clued as [Pre- [the next clue]], and so the clue for the first word is the prefix "Pre-" added to the second word. So the first word is literally pre-the second word (i.e it comes first, reading left to right, as one does...) and it means the same thing as PRE- + [second word]:
Theme answers:
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Found this fussy and dull. I'm not that big a fan of "you have to go somewhere else to figure out what the clue to this answer is"-type puzzles, so this one didn't have much of a chance with me, but it really did feel workmanlike and joyless. Executed fine, but ... shrug. And then the fill is just ... there's just so much of it. An avalanche of 4- and 5-letter words. Just short stuff everywhere you look, as far as the eye can see. This never augurs (!) well for fill quality, and sure enough, much of the shorter fill is tired or outright cringey (see SERTS in the plural, SOU, and OCULI, above all). Go into any corner and it's just ABEL or AGAR EGAD HAHA or OUZO or ASAP or RAGU ALOT or ORCA ARCO or etc. The yuckiest part is probably the double (!) plural names in the middle of the grid (BACHS, SERTS), but it's pretty tedious all over.
Not much else to say, so here are ...
Five things:
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Relative difficulty: Challenging (5:25) (a just-woke-up solve)
Theme answers:
- FOREWORD = pre- AMBLE (22A: Go for a stroll)
- AUGURY = pre- DICTION (29A: Subject in acting school)
- DICTATE = pre- SCRIBE (44A: Job in a monastery)
- EARLY = pre- MATURELY (50A: How emotionall developed people handle things)
Josep Maria Sert i Badia (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛb məˈɾi.ə ˈsɛɾt]; Barcelona, 21 December 1874 – 27 November 1945, buried in the Vic Cathedral) was a Catalan muralist, the son of an affluent textile industry family, and friend of Salvador Dalí. He was particularly known for his grisaille style, often in gold and black. (wikipedia)
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Found this fussy and dull. I'm not that big a fan of "you have to go somewhere else to figure out what the clue to this answer is"-type puzzles, so this one didn't have much of a chance with me, but it really did feel workmanlike and joyless. Executed fine, but ... shrug. And then the fill is just ... there's just so much of it. An avalanche of 4- and 5-letter words. Just short stuff everywhere you look, as far as the eye can see. This never augurs (!) well for fill quality, and sure enough, much of the shorter fill is tired or outright cringey (see SERTS in the plural, SOU, and OCULI, above all). Go into any corner and it's just ABEL or AGAR EGAD HAHA or OUZO or ASAP or RAGU ALOT or ORCA ARCO or etc. The yuckiest part is probably the double (!) plural names in the middle of the grid (BACHS, SERTS), but it's pretty tedious all over.
Not much else to say, so here are ...
Five things:
- 31D: Desert in southern Africa (NAMIB) — me: "desert ... that crosswordesey desert ... NEGEV ... no ... NEGEB ... still no ..."
- 3D: Anise-flavored liqueur (OUZO) — swear to god, I wrote in ANIS.
- 21D: Extremely, informally (WAY) — had the "A" ... wrote in MAD (which I still like better, much better)
- 30D: Eyelike openings (OCULI)— I resent this answer. There's no need for this junky crosswordese. There's no need to go with SCRIBE, thus forcing yourself into an O---I situation *and* a N---B situation. Bizarre.
- 12D: Ferrara who directed "King of New York" (ABEL) — I got this instantly. I have no idea who this is. Huh ... [looks him up] ... Oh, OK, I think I've seen a couple of these ... huh, looks like he directed a pornographic film in the '70s called "9 Lives of a Wet [REDACTED]" ... That, I have not seen.
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