Constructor: Brendan Emmett Quigley
Relative difficulty: Easy (5 flat, at 5am)
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THEME: added schwa-like syllable — schwa sound added to first word in themer, turning one-syllable into two-syllable word, creating much wackiness:
Theme answers:
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Usually if I solve right upon waking at 5am, I don't bother to time myself because my brain is just molasses. Instead, I print the puzzle out, put it on my clipboard, get myself some tea (still Lent, still not drinking coffee), and solve with a pencil in the comfy chair downstairs. But I was so tired I actually didn't want to do all that prep work so I just plunked down in front of the computer in my home office, downloaded the puzzle, opened it up and had at it. Realized very quickly that this was going to be on the easy side, and that (finally!) I was going to be very much on the constructor's wavelength today. I just knew stuff, or guessed correctly on the first try. I didn't even understand the theme while I was solving, but my brain was able somehow to piece plausible answers together—except for that one time when my brain was like "BURROW! like "wheelburrow! Write it in!" Ugh. Very bad mistake because that gave me HUND- for 40D: Quarterback's option (HANDOFF), which would've been very easy *if* I'd spelled "BARROW" correctly. Still, though, as wake-up solves go, I had very few of those dumb missteps. This theme is very consistent and very inventive, and the wacky phrases are suitably wacky, and the fill is mostly clean (if a bit more crosswordesey than I'd expect from BEQ), so yeah, I enjoyed it.
Lots of 3- to 5-letter stuff meant that the fill ran toward the dull / familiar side. Crosswordesey generals (MEADE) and designers (DIOR) and places (OAHU) and characters (SHERE) and shoes (AVIA) and music (IRAE) and authors (DAHL) and brands (AMANA) and sounds (SHH) and generals again (LEIA) etc. None of it was that irksome, though, because some crosswordese is at least a real thing, and some is garbage, and today's was by and large real. HORSECAR, though, what the heck? Not real. I had HORSE- and was like "well, CART doesn't fit, and neither does CARRIAGE, so I'm out." I also really hate that definition of DIDO, which no one uses. Come on, man—never miss a chance to clue the greatest figure in classical literature. She did so much in so little space! She was so intriguing that for over a millennium people mostly knew "The Aeneid" as "that DIDO story with some epilogue about a war in Italy." BOOK IV IV LIFE! "Mischievous trick," my eye.
Five things:
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Relative difficulty: Easy (5 flat, at 5am)
Theme answers:
- BAROQUE BREAD (from "broke bread") (19A: Ornately decorated money?)
- PARADE FOR RAIN (from "prayed for rain") (26A: March meant to end a drought?)
- COLLIDE BARROW (from "Clyde Barrow"!) (41A: Bumper version of a cart?)
- THOREAU SHADE (from "throw shade") (47A: What the trees by Walden Pond provided?)
The expressions "throw shade, "throwing shade", or simply "shade", are slang terms used to describe insults. Merriam-Webster defines "shade" as "subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone—sometimes verbal, and sometimes not." OxfordDictionaries.com defines "throw shade" as a phrase used to "publicly criticize or express contempt for someone". // The slang version of "shade" originated from the black and Latino gay communities, and was initially strictly used by those communities. The first major use of "shade" that introduced the slang to the greater public was in the documentary film Paris Is Burning (1990), which is about the mid-1980s drag scene in Manhattan.[2] In the documentary, one of the drag queens, Dorian Corey, explains what "shade" means. She says, "Shade is, I don't have to tell you you're ugly, because you know you're ugly."The expression was popularized by the American reality television series RuPaul's Drag Race. (wikipedia)
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Lots of 3- to 5-letter stuff meant that the fill ran toward the dull / familiar side. Crosswordesey generals (MEADE) and designers (DIOR) and places (OAHU) and characters (SHERE) and shoes (AVIA) and music (IRAE) and authors (DAHL) and brands (AMANA) and sounds (SHH) and generals again (LEIA) etc. None of it was that irksome, though, because some crosswordese is at least a real thing, and some is garbage, and today's was by and large real. HORSECAR, though, what the heck? Not real. I had HORSE- and was like "well, CART doesn't fit, and neither does CARRIAGE, so I'm out." I also really hate that definition of DIDO, which no one uses. Come on, man—never miss a chance to clue the greatest figure in classical literature. She did so much in so little space! She was so intriguing that for over a millennium people mostly knew "The Aeneid" as "that DIDO story with some epilogue about a war in Italy." BOOK IV IV LIFE! "Mischievous trick," my eye.
Five things:
- 21D: Sheep's cry (BLAT)— sheep say BAA. Or they BLEAT. What the hell is this?
- 2D: ___ milk (OAT) — wanted SOY. Then weirdly got SOY two answers over (4D: Vegan source of protein = SOY MILK)
- 40A: Commotion (HOOHA) — stop with this
- 59A: Member of an early 20th-century French art movement (FAUVE) — because of my "burrow" error and the stupid CAR part of HORSECAR, I couldn't get into the SE corner. Until this answer, which I just knew because I have a beautiful Taschen book about 20th-century art that I once read cover to cover. Yay art. Yay reading.
- 27D: Guy in a restaurant (FIERI)— "in a"? That phrasing is suspect. You probably should've put a "?" at the end of this clue. I believe I have the best wrong answer here. I had "blank IE blank blank" and wrote in SIEUR (as in ... monsieur??? which was, somehow, in my mind, in the ballpark of garçon????). Guy FIERI is a restaurateur. I haven't the time or will to explain him to you.
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