Constructor: Alison Ohringer and Erik Agard
Relative difficulty: Medium (for me, but apparently skewing easy for many others) (4:36)
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THEME: FIX BREAKFAST — themers are "breakfast" foods that have gone bad or been prepared poorly, so ... you have to reimagine the meaning of "fix" here, I guess
Theme answers:
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I don't fully understand the point of the theme here. I mean, maybe I do, but if so, I don't appreciate the wordplay enough. I get that "fix" is being repurposed here, reimagined, but ... you can't actually "fix" any of these food problems. Also, MILK and especially APPLE are not what I would call paradigmatic "breakfast" foods. I eat apples all the time, but I would never just eat an apple at breakfast. So the puzzle is oversized for a theme that feels somewhat off to me. Either pointless, or with a point that's not pointy enough. On the plus side, the fill is quite clean. I didn't struggle much, except with the theme (which, honestly, as I was solving, I didn't really understand—also, I got the revealer second, but it didn't help—only made things more confusing, as I assumed "fix" meant there was possibly some kind of anagram involved). I also struggled around three proper nouns, which is really irksome. My daughter read the entire "Divergent" series, as she did every teen-oriented dystopian trilogy blah blah blah of the '00s and early '10s, but I've never heard or seen the name Veronica ROTH before. Title, famous, name, nuh uh. Hard nuh uh. I wrote in MARS so fast and so confidently because that is the only Veronica I recognize besides Veronica Lodge (about whom my daughter also read, a lot).
And then THAD??? Come on. I looked him up. He's never made a single All-Star team, so how do you think he's Wednesday-worthy? Maybe the puzzle tested superfast and the proper nouns were thrown up as speed bumps, I dunno. I complain when older folk play fast and loose with their pet generation-specific proper nouns, so I'm gonna bark at these two proper nouns a little today. I also didn't really know this GUNN character. There are better GUNNs. Truly, there are.
Best (and only) error of the day was my variant two-P spelling of UPPSY-Daisy! (28D: "___-daisy!") ("OOPSY"). Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (for me, but apparently skewing easy for many others) (4:36)
Theme answers:
- STALE CEREAL (18A: Menu item #1: A bowlful of Cap'n Crunch that's been on top of the fridge for four years)
- BURNT TOAST (26A: Menu item #2: The charred remains of a slice of whole wheat)
- MEALY APPLE (53A: Menu item #3: A Red Delicious, assuming you find sawdust delicious)
- SPOILED MILK (64A: Menu item #4: Something to pour in coffee for a sour surprise)
Veronica Anne Roth (born August 19, 1988) is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her debut New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy, consisting of Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant; and Four: A Divergent Collection. (wikipedia)
• • •
["You're makin' yourself look like ghost, BURNT TOAST!"]
And then THAD??? Come on. I looked him up. He's never made a single All-Star team, so how do you think he's Wednesday-worthy? Maybe the puzzle tested superfast and the proper nouns were thrown up as speed bumps, I dunno. I complain when older folk play fast and loose with their pet generation-specific proper nouns, so I'm gonna bark at these two proper nouns a little today. I also didn't really know this GUNN character. There are better GUNNs. Truly, there are.
Best (and only) error of the day was my variant two-P spelling of UPPSY-Daisy! (28D: "___-daisy!") ("OOPSY"). Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]