Constructor: Daniel Larsen
Relative difficulty: Medium (7:34)
![]()
THEME: none
Word of the Day: OBELI (51D: Division signs) —
![]()
Some good stuff here, but some off-brand phrasings and junky fill (BITSY?) made this a mixed bag. Very mixed. Not a HOT MESS. More a SHRUG. Actually probably more high and low than SHRUG suggests, but it all averages out to somewhere around "SHRUG." Definitely not HOORAY. I had two main problems, the first being that there were too many answers that made me go "OK ... I *guess* that's valid, but ..." This started with BREAKS OUT IN SONG, which is definitely valid, but which feels (to me) like second-place to BREAKS INTO SONG. The idiom is "break into song." Of course you can break out in song, but there's just a mild off-ness to me. Had same experience wanting RUSSIAN HACKERS and getting RUSSIAN TROLLS, which, yes, real, but just didn't feel great. Didn't sound great coming off the bat. Like, I hit the baseball and put it in play but I did Not hit it square and Ouch, my hands hurt. This bad feeling repeated itself at TEN-FOURS (we can pluralize this?) and was at its worst with NO BET, which sounds like one of those dumb bridge phrases (NO BID? Is that a thing?). I know precisely what "check" means in poker, but I would not have thought to have expressed that meaning with the iffy phrase NO BET. So on the one hand I just wasn't on this puzzle's wavelength and on the other some of these answers weren't good.
Far and away the roughest part for me was the middle bottom. Couldn't get TROLLS, as I said. Had IRAN as the date exporter instead of OMAN (52A: Its chief agricultural export is dates). Ugh, NO BET is down there too. I think of "LUST for Life" as a title (of a movie! of a song!) and not just a phrase that you can serve up all unquoted and uncapitalized. STAGER, yeesh. Thought [Part of a Cinderella story] was a SHOE. Mostly forgot the word OBELI. So yeah, right across the bottom of the grid was a train wreck. Elsewhere, though, there wasn't much to give me grief. Had -ATH and still no idea what 8D: Jets might be found in this was after (it's BATH, a fine answer). And somehow I couldn't see MAILS either (29A: Puts in a box, say). And I started with a TOTE bag instead of a SWAG bag (4D: ___ bag). Annnnnd I thought the [Cornstarch brand since 1892] was SAGO—that was a weird one. SAGO is definitely a starch, but it's got nothing to do with corn. I think I was conflating it with CARO ... is that a thing??? Whoops, no, it's KARO, the corn *syrup*, that I was thinking of. Anyway, aren't olde tyme brand names fun. I mean, it's not like there are other, more interesting ways to clue ARGO, are there? ... ... ... nope. Just cornstarch. Cool. SHRUG.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (7:34)
THEME: none
Word of the Day: OBELI (51D: Division signs) —
• • •
Far and away the roughest part for me was the middle bottom. Couldn't get TROLLS, as I said. Had IRAN as the date exporter instead of OMAN (52A: Its chief agricultural export is dates). Ugh, NO BET is down there too. I think of "LUST for Life" as a title (of a movie! of a song!) and not just a phrase that you can serve up all unquoted and uncapitalized. STAGER, yeesh. Thought [Part of a Cinderella story] was a SHOE. Mostly forgot the word OBELI. So yeah, right across the bottom of the grid was a train wreck. Elsewhere, though, there wasn't much to give me grief. Had -ATH and still no idea what 8D: Jets might be found in this was after (it's BATH, a fine answer). And somehow I couldn't see MAILS either (29A: Puts in a box, say). And I started with a TOTE bag instead of a SWAG bag (4D: ___ bag). Annnnnd I thought the [Cornstarch brand since 1892] was SAGO—that was a weird one. SAGO is definitely a starch, but it's got nothing to do with corn. I think I was conflating it with CARO ... is that a thing??? Whoops, no, it's KARO, the corn *syrup*, that I was thinking of. Anyway, aren't olde tyme brand names fun. I mean, it's not like there are other, more interesting ways to clue ARGO, are there? ... ... ... nope. Just cornstarch. Cool. SHRUG.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]