Constructor: Tony Orbach and Andrea Carla Michaels
Relative difficulty: Easy (9:07)
![]()
THEME:"D.J.'S SPINNIN'"— change-a-letter theme: J for D:
Theme answers:
![]()
As change-a-letter themes go, this one at least has a few somewhat funny answers (ROLLING IN THE JEEP, MAKE THE JEANS LIST), but the clues are somehow dull as ecru, and anyway, this is just too thin a concept (any more) for a NYT Sunday crossword. Super duper duper old-fashioned, and the fill didn't help any. Felt like a solid puzzle from 1999. You could get away with junk like REPAGE (!!!!!!!!!!?) in 1999. I'm not sure you could ever really "get away with"TATAS—a plural of goodbye. I mean, you can "say your goodbyes," plural, but do you say your TATAS? When in the dang world would you pluralize "tata"? Horrid. But back to the theme—it's just there. Workmanlike. Filling a Sunday-sized puzzle space in the Sunday magazine. The "Best Puzzle in the World" has to have more ambition than this, and be cleaner and crisper than this. REPAGE OATIER SNOODS. That is a stack in this puzzle, and also how I feel about this puzzle; interpret that as you will.
It's always weird to see FRESNO in a puzzle, as it is my hometown, though I haven't set foot in it in [counts ...] 23 years? It was over a Christmas holiday, and I was violently ill. So that's how FRESNO and I left things. I still have a couple high school friends there, but it's basically TERRA incognita to me now. Mom moved out in the late '90s, dad moved out shortly thereafter. Neither my sister nor my stepsiblings live there anymore. There's no reason for me to go back. I am weirdly curious, though. I missed my 30th high school reunion. Maybe the 40th will lure me back. Or maybe the effects of climate change will be so dire by then that average springtime highs are in the 110s and the place is totally uninhabitable, who knows?
What are CARR'S? (55D: Cracker brand since 1831). OK, I'm looking at the box now, and I've definitely had these, though (obviously) no way I could've told you their name was CARR'S. Since 1831, you say? Wow, how are you around for that long and still don't have a name as iconic as RITZ or even HI-HO? No one, literally no one, says "Gen Y'ERS." You can say "Gen X-ers"'cause no one's gonna wonder what you're saying, unlike "Gen Y'ERS," which sounds like wires that you stick in your gin For Some Reason. Wife just came down (I'm typing at the kitchen table) to inform me of her ire re: SCRUNCHY (14D: Ponytail holder). "That is not how you spell that." I didn't think so. And she's absolutely right, though wikipedia has the -Y spelling as an alternative. SCRUNCHIE is definitely how most people know it, and how most would spell it. I had PELT for COAT (82A: Fur). Wife had PELT for COAT *and* APEX for ACME (75D: Top). I also had ATRA for AFTA, which is really the saddest solver predicament. "Which crosswordese brand is it!? Nope, sorry, you're wrong! Wasn't that fun!?"
![]()
![]()
Recent puzzles helped me get LIII (football is dead to me, so I'm gonna struggle like crazy in the future re: football clues) and ARLENE (Me a few days ago, and my wife just now: "Garfield has a girlfriend?!"). AMISS is not bad, but ALOAD is pretty bad, and ACAR is worse. I don't understand why the Sunday NYT puzzle isn't great Every Single Week. I wish more people would do the Washington Post Sunday puzzle every week, so they could at least have some idea how routinely the NYT gets outpaced. Inertia and complacency keep people believing that the NYT really is the "Best Puzzle in the World." It absolutely is not. No one who solves lots of puzzles thinks that. It can be great, but it is too often far more mediocre than it should be.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy (9:07)
Theme answers:
- HOOVER JAM (26A: Vacuum cleaner blockage?)
- JUST BUNNIES (28A: Sign at a restricted area of the Playboy Mansion?)
- ROLLING IN THE JEEP (42A: Driving through some off-road terrain, say?)
- JOCK OF THE BAY (58A: San Francisco Giant, for example?)
- GRAVE JIGGERS (72A: Overly serious Irish dancers?)
- MAKE THE JEANS LIST (88A: Write an order to replenish inventory of Levi's?)
- GARBAGE JUMP (105A: Throwaway vault at a gymnastics meet?)
- JUNE BUGGY (109A: Shower gift for a Gemini baby?)
An alameda is a street or path lined with trees (from Spanish álamo, meaning 'poplar'). (wikipedia)
• • •
It's always weird to see FRESNO in a puzzle, as it is my hometown, though I haven't set foot in it in [counts ...] 23 years? It was over a Christmas holiday, and I was violently ill. So that's how FRESNO and I left things. I still have a couple high school friends there, but it's basically TERRA incognita to me now. Mom moved out in the late '90s, dad moved out shortly thereafter. Neither my sister nor my stepsiblings live there anymore. There's no reason for me to go back. I am weirdly curious, though. I missed my 30th high school reunion. Maybe the 40th will lure me back. Or maybe the effects of climate change will be so dire by then that average springtime highs are in the 110s and the place is totally uninhabitable, who knows?
What are CARR'S? (55D: Cracker brand since 1831). OK, I'm looking at the box now, and I've definitely had these, though (obviously) no way I could've told you their name was CARR'S. Since 1831, you say? Wow, how are you around for that long and still don't have a name as iconic as RITZ or even HI-HO? No one, literally no one, says "Gen Y'ERS." You can say "Gen X-ers"'cause no one's gonna wonder what you're saying, unlike "Gen Y'ERS," which sounds like wires that you stick in your gin For Some Reason. Wife just came down (I'm typing at the kitchen table) to inform me of her ire re: SCRUNCHY (14D: Ponytail holder). "That is not how you spell that." I didn't think so. And she's absolutely right, though wikipedia has the -Y spelling as an alternative. SCRUNCHIE is definitely how most people know it, and how most would spell it. I had PELT for COAT (82A: Fur). Wife had PELT for COAT *and* APEX for ACME (75D: Top). I also had ATRA for AFTA, which is really the saddest solver predicament. "Which crosswordese brand is it!? Nope, sorry, you're wrong! Wasn't that fun!?"
Recent puzzles helped me get LIII (football is dead to me, so I'm gonna struggle like crazy in the future re: football clues) and ARLENE (Me a few days ago, and my wife just now: "Garfield has a girlfriend?!"). AMISS is not bad, but ALOAD is pretty bad, and ACAR is worse. I don't understand why the Sunday NYT puzzle isn't great Every Single Week. I wish more people would do the Washington Post Sunday puzzle every week, so they could at least have some idea how routinely the NYT gets outpaced. Inertia and complacency keep people believing that the NYT really is the "Best Puzzle in the World." It absolutely is not. No one who solves lots of puzzles thinks that. It can be great, but it is too often far more mediocre than it should be.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]