Constructor: Natan Last, Andy Kravis and The J.A.S.A. Crossword Class
Relative difficulty: Easy (3:47) (it's undersized, so not terribly surprising my time was fast)
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THEME: BREXIT (34A: Subject of a 2016 U.K. referendum ... or a hint to 16-, 25-, 41- and 55-Across) — wacky two-word phrases where second word is just the first word again, without the "BR" (which has "exited"):
Theme answers:
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Well, this was a nice way to wake up. You're usually in good hands when the byline includes either Andy Kravis's or Natan Last's name, and the J.A.S.A. puzzles are usually very carefully constructed, so disaster is unlikely. I found this one both simple and lively—probably more appropriate to a Tuesday than a Wednesday, but that's neither here nor there, really. Theme is very (very) straightforward, and the "singsongy phrases" route is whimsical in an old-fashioned (good old-fashioned) way. Though the theme type and execution are crossword NORMCORE, the fill is frequently flashy. You do have a lot of short fill, much of it created by the way the middle of the grid has been designed, but that very design seems to have been aimed at keeping the fill clean, and it worked, as the short stuff tends to be familiar but not gross. And the longer stuff often shines. It goes to NORMCORE, gives you a few SLY LOOKS, and then bang! It RAISES HELL with a GUITAR SOLO! It's got my favorite album from middle school ("RIO") and one of my favorite film noir actresses / directors (IDA), and, well, to be frank, this puzzle is by far the best thing to come out of the whole BREXIT debacle. Turning *that* into gold is some pretty amazing alchemy.
There's some clues I don't like (or get). [Much graffiti] is ART? What? All graffiti is ART. Or none of it is? Or ... who's to say whether it is or isn't. That's a weird judgment call, a weird, very very non-specific judgment call. And wet hair is LANK??? Who says that? Tall gaunt people are LANK. I see Merriam-Webster's got "hanging limp without spring or curl" as definition 3 (!) so OK, but I am curious if people actually use the word that way any more. I have no idea what it means to tip a DART, but I'm assuming it's some technical thing ... fine, I'll look it up ... not seeing it. Is it just that DARTs have .... tips!? What? Are there untipped DARTs? What would that even mean? Clue says it "might" be tipped. This clue is baffling. So many potentially great clues, not sure why this one went technical / confusing. My Playstation Vue kinda flattens all TV into one TVscape so I am really bad at determining what network different shows are on. Thus I wrote in SHO instead of HBO at 52A: "Big Little Lies" network (hazard of getting the "O" first). I never have any idea about the various -OHOs and where they are and what they are and what they mean, so I had to wait for the "S" to show up today (11D: Upscale London district). Favorite screw-up of the day, though, came after getting BREXIT, when I went straight to the "B" cross and, as a result of not reading the clue carefully at all, ended up adding "BILL O'Riley" to The Who's catalogue (you probably know it better as "Late Middle-Age Wasteland").
Speaking of "BABA O'Riley" aka "Teenage Wasteland" ... today is this blog's 13th birthday!
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. did you know Gypsy Rose Lee (of 29D: BOA) was in a 1966 movie called "The Trouble With Angels," directed by IDA Lupino? Well now you do (I learned this just last night)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy (3:47) (it's undersized, so not terribly surprising my time was fast)
Theme answers:
- BRITCHES ITCHES (16A: Results of having ants in one's pants?)
- BREYERS EYERS (25A: Ones considering which brand of ice cream to buy?)
- HOMBRES' HOMES (41A: Casas?)
- CEREBRAL CEREAL (55A: Food for thought?)
Normcore is a unisex fashion trend characterized by unpretentious, normal-looking clothing. Normcore fashion includes jeans, t-shirts, sweats, button-downs, underpants, socks, and sneakers. Clothing is considered to be normcore when it is both cute and comfortable, and is viewed as 'normal' by all people. // Normcore is a portmanteau of the words normal and hardcore. The word first appeared in the webcomic Templar, Arizona before 2009 and was later employed by K-HOLE, a trend forecasting group, in an October 2013 report called "Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom".As used by K-HOLE, the word normcore referred to an attitude, not a particular code of dress. It was intended to mean "finding liberation in being nothing special." However, a piece in New York magazine that began popularizing the term in February 2014 conflated it with "Acting Basic", another K-HOLE concept which involved dressing neutrally to avoid standing out. It was this sense of normcore which gained popular usage.The characters featured on the television series Seinfeld are frequently cited as exemplifying the aesthetics and ethos of normcore fashion.The word normcore was named runner-up for neologism of the year by the Oxford University Press in 2014. It was added to the AP Stylebook in 2016. (wikipedia)
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There's some clues I don't like (or get). [Much graffiti] is ART? What? All graffiti is ART. Or none of it is? Or ... who's to say whether it is or isn't. That's a weird judgment call, a weird, very very non-specific judgment call. And wet hair is LANK??? Who says that? Tall gaunt people are LANK. I see Merriam-Webster's got "hanging limp without spring or curl" as definition 3 (!) so OK, but I am curious if people actually use the word that way any more. I have no idea what it means to tip a DART, but I'm assuming it's some technical thing ... fine, I'll look it up ... not seeing it. Is it just that DARTs have .... tips!? What? Are there untipped DARTs? What would that even mean? Clue says it "might" be tipped. This clue is baffling. So many potentially great clues, not sure why this one went technical / confusing. My Playstation Vue kinda flattens all TV into one TVscape so I am really bad at determining what network different shows are on. Thus I wrote in SHO instead of HBO at 52A: "Big Little Lies" network (hazard of getting the "O" first). I never have any idea about the various -OHOs and where they are and what they are and what they mean, so I had to wait for the "S" to show up today (11D: Upscale London district). Favorite screw-up of the day, though, came after getting BREXIT, when I went straight to the "B" cross and, as a result of not reading the clue carefully at all, ended up adding "BILL O'Riley" to The Who's catalogue (you probably know it better as "Late Middle-Age Wasteland").
Speaking of "BABA O'Riley" aka "Teenage Wasteland" ... today is this blog's 13th birthday!
P.S. did you know Gypsy Rose Lee (of 29D: BOA) was in a 1966 movie called "The Trouble With Angels," directed by IDA Lupino? Well now you do (I learned this just last night)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]