Constructor: Byron Walden
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed clipboard solve)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: PAT HAND (41A: Royal flush in draw poker, say) —
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Super fun, if super uneven, puzzle. By "uneven" I mean that it veered wildly between Very Easy (most of it) and "Whaaaa ... aaat is this?" Looking over it now, there were four problem areas of varying levels of severity, and the rest felt like Monday. To start, it was fast. TACO TRUCK was pretty much a gimme (1A: Common street food purveyor), TATAR and ADORE followed quickly, and the whole NW section (including the potentially tricky geographical crossing of ADEN, YEMEN and TYRE) fell without much effort. But then, even with AISLE SEAT (22A: C, as in coach?) and everything above it in place, I could Not move down the grid because NONE TOO (24A: Very far from) was inscrutable. Invisible. Impossible for me to fathom, parse, pick up, whatever—first because I had KNEEL AT (instead of ON) (9D: Use, as a prie-dieu), second because I was only half sure of EOE, third because I don't know what a CELESTA is (guessed the last letters correctly, but not Certainly) (8D: Keyboard instrument heard in "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"), fourth because I had the hyper-obscure moon of Uranus (!?!?) as UMBRI*A*L (7D: Darkest moon of Uranus, whose name is related to the Latin for "shadow"), fifth because I was only 74% certain of ORA, and finally sixth because NONE TOO is such a ****ing weird phrase on its own that even with substantial numbers of letters in place, it looked insane. Seriously, getting that one answer was pretty much all the actual effort I had to spend on this puzzle. Once I got it and followed NEMEAN LION (a gimme) into the SW, the SW was done in something like 15 seconds, no joke. I just filled in squares as fast as my hand could move.
The next rough (though far less rough) patch was actually a single letter—what ended up being the "P" in WPA (35D: New Deal agcy. that helped build La Guardia Airport). Now, again, as with the NW corner, the SE corner just went up in smoke fairly quickly. GUN BARREL to EAR WORM to MR. T CEREAL to BALDRIC, zero hesitation. But the "New Deal" clue just had me thinking "ugh, the Alphabet Soup!" (which is the actual name of all those New Deal agcys.) instead of the specific agcy. (one of the few where I actually know what the letters stand for: Work Progress Administration). Instead I had the "A" and seriously thought "Ooh, they finally decided to clue NRA in a non-terrorist org. way!" But the New Deal NRA was the "National Recovery Administration" (which had to do with workers' rights: minimum wage and maximum hours and what not), where the WPA was specifically about putting people to work on construction projects. Anyway, PAT HAND (41A: Royal flush in draw poker, say) is a phrase I guess I know, in that I know what it means to "stand pat," but a royal flush also seemed like a FAT HAND to me—the fattest, in fact (in games without wild cards). So, I dunno, it seems plausible that between poker ignorance and Alphabet Soup nonsense, someone could royally (!) mess up the WPA / PAT HAND crossing. I didn't, but that cross still seems dangerous.
Next issue was DYNEL, which ... what the hell is that? (46D: Synthetic fiber once used in wigmaking) Getting it wasn't a problem, since that corner basically filled itself in. *Accepting* it as correct, that was the problem. The word hasn't been in the NYTXW for 19 years (almost to the day—Oct. 18, 2000). So that was scary. But only in a "fingers crossed!" kind of way. All the crosses really did seem solid. Last in the thorniness parade was the front end of GONE ALONG. Not expecting the past participle. At all. Had WENT ALONG. But, again, everything else around it was so easy to get that getting from WENT to GONE wasn't tough. ATADEADEND zoomed up, IDEST went over, then ZAXIS ZAGAT etc. the end. And in the end, I really liked this puzzle, even if it was a bit of a trivia / vocabulary test. Lots of fun and original fill, and some cute and clever clues to boot. Liked 16A: Make a slight correction? for ATONE mainly because my first reaction was "How is atoning slight!?" followed immediately by "Oh ... 'slight.' I see you, question mark!"* Great clue on LOVERS LANE as well (28A: Sex drive?). Could've been tougher, and could've eased up a tad on the obscurities (I do think UMBRIEL and DYNEL count as 'obscurities,' yes), but it's such a lovely clean open grid, overall, with only O-RAMA kind of mucking up the landscape. Really nice fill overall.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*"slight correction" because if you have "slighted" someone you "correct" your behavior by "atoning"
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed clipboard solve)
Word of the Day: PAT HAND (41A: Royal flush in draw poker, say) —
1: a hand in draw poker on which one stands pat2: a dealt hand in draw poker (as a straight, flush, or full house) that usually cannot be materially improved by drawing one or two cards
• • •
The next rough (though far less rough) patch was actually a single letter—what ended up being the "P" in WPA (35D: New Deal agcy. that helped build La Guardia Airport). Now, again, as with the NW corner, the SE corner just went up in smoke fairly quickly. GUN BARREL to EAR WORM to MR. T CEREAL to BALDRIC, zero hesitation. But the "New Deal" clue just had me thinking "ugh, the Alphabet Soup!" (which is the actual name of all those New Deal agcys.) instead of the specific agcy. (one of the few where I actually know what the letters stand for: Work Progress Administration). Instead I had the "A" and seriously thought "Ooh, they finally decided to clue NRA in a non-terrorist org. way!" But the New Deal NRA was the "National Recovery Administration" (which had to do with workers' rights: minimum wage and maximum hours and what not), where the WPA was specifically about putting people to work on construction projects. Anyway, PAT HAND (41A: Royal flush in draw poker, say) is a phrase I guess I know, in that I know what it means to "stand pat," but a royal flush also seemed like a FAT HAND to me—the fattest, in fact (in games without wild cards). So, I dunno, it seems plausible that between poker ignorance and Alphabet Soup nonsense, someone could royally (!) mess up the WPA / PAT HAND crossing. I didn't, but that cross still seems dangerous.
Next issue was DYNEL, which ... what the hell is that? (46D: Synthetic fiber once used in wigmaking) Getting it wasn't a problem, since that corner basically filled itself in. *Accepting* it as correct, that was the problem. The word hasn't been in the NYTXW for 19 years (almost to the day—Oct. 18, 2000). So that was scary. But only in a "fingers crossed!" kind of way. All the crosses really did seem solid. Last in the thorniness parade was the front end of GONE ALONG. Not expecting the past participle. At all. Had WENT ALONG. But, again, everything else around it was so easy to get that getting from WENT to GONE wasn't tough. ATADEADEND zoomed up, IDEST went over, then ZAXIS ZAGAT etc. the end. And in the end, I really liked this puzzle, even if it was a bit of a trivia / vocabulary test. Lots of fun and original fill, and some cute and clever clues to boot. Liked 16A: Make a slight correction? for ATONE mainly because my first reaction was "How is atoning slight!?" followed immediately by "Oh ... 'slight.' I see you, question mark!"* Great clue on LOVERS LANE as well (28A: Sex drive?). Could've been tougher, and could've eased up a tad on the obscurities (I do think UMBRIEL and DYNEL count as 'obscurities,' yes), but it's such a lovely clean open grid, overall, with only O-RAMA kind of mucking up the landscape. Really nice fill overall.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*"slight correction" because if you have "slighted" someone you "correct" your behavior by "atoning"
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]