Hello! It's Clare, back for another Tuesday. I hope everyone has had a great October; it's always one of my favorite months of the year! The leaves' colors are a-changing here in D.C., which is quite nice. You don't really get too much of fall back in Northern California, where I'm from. Anywho, I've had quite the day with school, work, and a somewhat hard-to-watch Steelers game all piling on, so I'll just get right to the recap!
Constructor: Evan Mahnken
Relative difficulty: Average
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THEME: JAY-Z(57D: Rapper whose name hints at the extremities of the answers to the five starred clues)
Theme answers:
Coming off the day I'd had, I was really hoping for a nice, fresh, clever crossword puzzle to solve to counterbalance everything and give me a pleasant break before diving in to prepare for another long day tomorrow, but this... wasn't it!
I appreciate the attempt by the constructor at relative ingenuity with the theme (J—Z), but I thought it fell flat. My main issue with the theme is that is just doesn't make sense to have four of the theme answers — plus the theme revealer — be singers and then have the fifth theme answer... not be one? It seems like it would have been relatively easy to get uniformity in the puzzle just by switching JON LOVITZ out for someone who, like the others in the puzzle, was known for being a singer. Or, switch things up more and do a wide variety celebrities from all areas.
The "J" and "Z" gimmick is just so limiting as far as fill goes that I thought the rest of the puzzle suffered as a result, and the fill was pretty blasé. I thought the "Zs" had the potential to lead to some clever fill, but there wasn't much I hadn't seen before with OZONE, KATZ, and SUZIE Q. And, it also feels like the constructor cheated a little bit by having two theme answers cross each other to get a "Z" in there with JENNIFER LOPEZ and JC CHASEZ. It was all just lacking in zest and zeal and pizzazz (see what I did there?).
In general, there wasn't much about the fill that jumped out at me and had me saying, "Aha!" Or, "Ooh." There was a *lot* of fill that was just very boring, like: LEA, HAL, LAMA, AKA, ORC, NSA, NCO, CDS, EEK, ASA, AUDI, REMO. (I might have missed some because, like I said, there was a lot of it!) And, there were two crosswordese-y French terms — AMOI and MAIS— that were clued right next to each other at 58D and 59D. Then, there was more thematic repetition with 15A: Tibetan spiritual guide (LAMA) and 64A: Eastern mystic (YOGI). The only thing I somewhat enjoyed were the question mark clues that led to SPCA (36D: Watchdog org.?) and IMACS (16A: Ones not part of PC culture?), which I got a small chuckle out of it.
My first "Huh" moment came at 3D, because I've never heard of AMANAS before. I gather the singular form, at least, is known crosswordese, but a Google search shows Amana is a not-that-popular kitchen brand. I had another moment of confusion at 55A: Christian school in Tulsa, Okla. with ORU. Again, huh? Maybe this, too, is just crosswordese, but Google tells me this private evangelical liberal arts school has 4,000 students, has some pretty futuristic architecture on campus, and has a basketball team that reached three-straight NCAA tournaments from 2006-08.
Misc.:
Signed,
Just about to catch some ZZZ(s), Clare Carroll
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Constructor: Evan Mahnken
Relative difficulty: Average
Theme answers:
- JON LOVITZ (20A: "Saturday Night Live" cast member of the late 1980s)
- JC CHASEZ (12D: Onetime member of 'N Sync)
- JENNIFER LOPEZ (37A: Singer starring in 2019's "Hustlers")
- JOAN BAEZ (37D: Singer on the first day of Woodstock)
- JASON MRAZ (57A: Grammy winner for "Make It Mine," 2010)
El Dorado (Spanish for "the golden one"), originally El Hombre Dorado ("The Golden Man") or El Rey Dorado ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) of the Muisca people, an indigenous people of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia, who, as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an empire. (Wikipedia)
• • •
Coming off the day I'd had, I was really hoping for a nice, fresh, clever crossword puzzle to solve to counterbalance everything and give me a pleasant break before diving in to prepare for another long day tomorrow, but this... wasn't it!
I appreciate the attempt by the constructor at relative ingenuity with the theme (J—Z), but I thought it fell flat. My main issue with the theme is that is just doesn't make sense to have four of the theme answers — plus the theme revealer — be singers and then have the fifth theme answer... not be one? It seems like it would have been relatively easy to get uniformity in the puzzle just by switching JON LOVITZ out for someone who, like the others in the puzzle, was known for being a singer. Or, switch things up more and do a wide variety celebrities from all areas.
The "J" and "Z" gimmick is just so limiting as far as fill goes that I thought the rest of the puzzle suffered as a result, and the fill was pretty blasé. I thought the "Zs" had the potential to lead to some clever fill, but there wasn't much I hadn't seen before with OZONE, KATZ, and SUZIE Q. And, it also feels like the constructor cheated a little bit by having two theme answers cross each other to get a "Z" in there with JENNIFER LOPEZ and JC CHASEZ. It was all just lacking in zest and zeal and pizzazz (see what I did there?).
In general, there wasn't much about the fill that jumped out at me and had me saying, "Aha!" Or, "Ooh." There was a *lot* of fill that was just very boring, like: LEA, HAL, LAMA, AKA, ORC, NSA, NCO, CDS, EEK, ASA, AUDI, REMO. (I might have missed some because, like I said, there was a lot of it!) And, there were two crosswordese-y French terms — AMOI and MAIS— that were clued right next to each other at 58D and 59D. Then, there was more thematic repetition with 15A: Tibetan spiritual guide (LAMA) and 64A: Eastern mystic (YOGI). The only thing I somewhat enjoyed were the question mark clues that led to SPCA (36D: Watchdog org.?) and IMACS (16A: Ones not part of PC culture?), which I got a small chuckle out of it.
My first "Huh" moment came at 3D, because I've never heard of AMANAS before. I gather the singular form, at least, is known crosswordese, but a Google search shows Amana is a not-that-popular kitchen brand. I had another moment of confusion at 55A: Christian school in Tulsa, Okla. with ORU. Again, huh? Maybe this, too, is just crosswordese, but Google tells me this private evangelical liberal arts school has 4,000 students, has some pretty futuristic architecture on campus, and has a basketball team that reached three-straight NCAA tournaments from 2006-08.
Misc.:
- So,HAL (35A: Movie villain who says "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that") is always popping up in crossword fill, and, for the longest time, I had no idea who he (well, it) was. But, I recently watched "2001: A Space Odyssey," and HAL is legitimately one of the creepiest villains I've ever seen in a movie. I had nightmares of his voice (and potential!) for a week. So it's fun to see something Halloween-related, as it is indeed *spooky season*!
- I am guilty of saying "NO RUSH" way too much. It's my go-to move when waitressing; I'll drop off someone's check and tell them that there's absolutely "NO RUSH."
- One last note (I promise!) on the fill: Why was JASON MRAZ clued with his song "Make It Mine?" Sure, it won for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammys, but I feel like a much more obvious (and better) clue would have been for his very successful song, "I'm Yours." Or his duet, "Lucky."
As I was writing this, my Steelers came back from down 14-0 to win. So, that has improved my mood considerably! Maybe Pittsburgh winning is a sign of good things ahead for me this week. I hope you all have a great week yourselves!
Just about to catch some ZZZ(s), Clare Carroll
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]