Constructor: Andy Kravis
Relative difficulty: Apparently easy for others, but on the harder side for me (untimed clipboard solve at 4:30am)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: WHISKEY RING (34A: 1870s tax evasion scandal) —
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This one veered wildly between total gimmes (like "TAINTED LOVE" and EMMYLOU Harris) and ????! (WHISKEY RING and MULETA and KYLE and HOLT). The grid is quite beautiful, with hardly any yuck in it. The cluing missed for me a bunch of times, but NYT cluing often does ... I don't know. NYT house cluing style is stiff and dull much of the time, largely because the resale market determines cluing (i.e. clues have to be "evergreen," i.e. viable not just now but years from now—if you ever wondered why the clues in the NYT feel noticeably less fresh than those in indie markets, now you know). By "missed" I mean mostly that it was over-literal. Felt like a trivia quiz. And the one "look at me!" clue, 41A: Not be oneself, but rather be one's elf? (ROLE PLAY) was corny, and also annoying because it looked more like WORD PLAY was what was happening (i.e. I went looking for something having to do with reparsing / repunctuating). But the good here was very good. The middle stack is lovely, with "WHO ASKED YOU!?" being a real standout. I'd never heard of WHISKEY RING, but it's obviously a real thing and a nice-looking answer to boot. Nice symmetrical pairing of EMILY POST and EROTIC ART. Have you ever seen the EROTIC ART of EMILY POST? ROLE PLAY, PUMPS, IT GIRLS, ECSTASY—it's all in there!
Speaking of IT GIRLS (20A: Parvenues with a certain je ne sais quoi), I'm not sure I like it in the plural, just as I *know* I don't like COOTIE in the singular. No one ever got a single COOTIE, never, not once. Not being a real estate aficionado, PRE-WAR eluded me (54A: Like apartment buildings with fireplaces and hardwood floors, typically). I basically inferred it after getting WAR, as it sounded like something I'd heard someone say before about an apartment. My house has hardwood floors and a fireplace, and it is exactly WAR (built in '40s), so those specs didn't speak to me. Also, I've never lived in a densely populated urban area, so there's that.
Bullets:
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Relative difficulty: Apparently easy for others, but on the harder side for me (untimed clipboard solve at 4:30am)
Word of the Day: WHISKEY RING (34A: 1870s tax evasion scandal) —
In the United States, the Whiskey Ring was a scandal, exposed in 1875. The Whiskey Ring began in St. Louis, Missouri but was also organized in Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cincinnati, Ohio; New Orleans, Louisiana and Peoria, Illinois. The Whiskey Ring involved diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. // The scheme involved an extensive network of bribes involving distillers, government officials, rectifiers, gaugers, storekeepers, and internal revenue agents. Essentially, distillers bribed government officials, and those officials helped the distillers evade federal taxes on the whiskey they produced and sold. Due to the increase of liquor taxes after the Civil War, whiskey was supposed to be taxed at 70 cents per gallon, however distillers would instead pay the officials 35 cents per gallon and the illicit whiskey was stamped as having the tax paid. Before they were caught, a group of politicians were able to siphon off millions of dollars in federal taxes. (wikipedia)
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Speaking of IT GIRLS (20A: Parvenues with a certain je ne sais quoi), I'm not sure I like it in the plural, just as I *know* I don't like COOTIE in the singular. No one ever got a single COOTIE, never, not once. Not being a real estate aficionado, PRE-WAR eluded me (54A: Like apartment buildings with fireplaces and hardwood floors, typically). I basically inferred it after getting WAR, as it sounded like something I'd heard someone say before about an apartment. My house has hardwood floors and a fireplace, and it is exactly WAR (built in '40s), so those specs didn't speak to me. Also, I've never lived in a densely populated urban area, so there's that.
Bullets:
- 15A: Kidspeak animal mentioned in the first line of "A Portrait of the artist as a Young Man" (MOO COW) — the other English class, the AP Lit class, read this. We didn't. What did we read? Shakespeare, for sure, maybe Donne? I definitely read a sh*t-ton of Hardy for my final paper. Anyway, missed "Portrait of the Artist..." Still, this was a fun answer to uncover. (And still never read Joyce)
- 26A: Queen ___ (nickname in pop music) (BEY)— I actually went with BEE and then BEA or BAE ... I knew the pop star in question, obviously, but I was like "what is that abbr. again?" Fun fact: BEY used to be horrible crosswordese—a regional governor of the Ottoman Empire. Anyway, I like Queen BEY's sister's music a lot.
- 1D: Coca-Cola offering from 1974 to 2001 (MR. PIBB) — wow I really forgot this existed. Had M----B and thought "... some kind of TAB?"
- 55A: Otter's lair (HOLT) — got HOL-, wrote in HOLE, and thought "well that's a terrible clue for HOLE."
- 50A: Matador's cape (MULETA)— crosswords are entirely too obsessed with and reliant on the truly horrific cruelty-fest that is bullfighting. TORERO, TOREADOR, EL TORO, and now (apparently) MULETA? I'd be happy never to see a bullfighting clue again. cc: SPCA (27A: Persian defense org.?)
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