Time of lackluster performance / MON 6-10-19 / Elusive Tupperware components often

Constructor: Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Monday) (3:28)

THEME: PURSE (56D: Where the endings of 17-, 33-, 43- and 63-Across are often found) — things found in a PURSE, just like it says:

Theme answers:

• DRAMATIC LICENSE (17A: Not strict adherence to what really happened, say)
• SHIFT CHANGE (33A: When a fresh factory crew arrives)
• FLORIDA KEYS (43A: Archipelago forming the southernmost part of the continental U.S.)
• SAN DIEGO CHARGER (63A: Member of an N.F.L. team transplanted to Los Angeles in 2017)

Word of the Day: SLUE (33D: Swivel around) —

m-w.com

I'm a bit tired and I've had a drink, but even so, I don't think that accounts for how slow I was today. Just couldn't move through the grid easily at all. Not hard, but choppy and odd, w/ alt spellings like SLUE and weird partials like AGOAT and insane parsings like THE space O, plus a very segmented grid and no answers longer than seven letters outside the themers. Not a lot of fun to move through; just sloggy. The theme was OK. One of those "last words"-type themes you see all the time, with nothing special to recommend it, i.e. no clever revealer, no real wordplay ... nothing. Also, it's a pretty arbitrary assortment of PURSE things. They're fine, they're certainly PURSE items, but "change" strikes me as odd (ROSANNE CASH might've been a better answer there, in that it's a broader, more inclusive term—seems like carrying around "change" (like, the metal kind, which I assume is what was meant) is probably increasingly rare. If this were "Family Feud" and we were doing "Things Found In a PURSE" I have to imagine the most popular answers list would look a little different, and might include, among other things: wallet, credit cards, lipstick, lip gloss, tampons, snacks, phone... I dunno. All I know is this theme has me imagining all the things it left out. The premise of a PURSE containing four items is a bit strange. Also, how long ago as this puzzle written? SAN DIEGO CHARGER has been dated for a while now.


I was slow on the uptake with some of the longer answers. Getting the second half on the first two did not come easily. Brain: "DRAMATIC ... IRONY!? No? Sorry, I'm out of ideas." I got the second halves of the last two themers first, and that somehow made solving them easier, which strikes me as unusual, or unexpected. Often backing into answers makes them harder to pick up, but FLORIDA KEYS and SAN DIEGO CHARGER came easily off the back ends. Sticking points: A GOAT (never picked it up, all crosses), ANYHOW (had ANYWAY) (29A: "Be that as it may ..."), SHAPE (16A: Many a New Year's resolution prescribes getting into it) (ugh, the wordiness), ECLAT (9A: Flashy effect) (I think of this more as a "splash"or "hurrah" or something), THE O (28D: Letter you don't pronounce in "jeopardy" and "leopard") (my kingdom for [Cubs GM Epstein] or [Huxtable son]), and, most dire of all, ROLE (49A: Auditioner's goal), which I has as SALE because I read the clue as [Auctioneer's goal]. SALE then led me to my best wrong answer of the day: CAT SHOW (45D: Annual Westminster event). Me: "Really, they do cats too??" No. No they don't, although it looks like cats are now included as part of the DOG SHOW now, what the hell? The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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