Constructor: Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: Medium?? (4-ish)
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THEME: TOP HAT (45D: Something worn by the answer to each starred clue, as represented graphically in this puzzle's grid) — just what it says:
Theme answers:
Well yesterday's was a near-exact rehash of a Liz Gorski NYT crossword from 20 years ago, and today's is a weaker and smaller rehash of an Evan Birnholz crossword from 3 years ago, so the NYT's got itself quite a little streak going here. Themes get duplicated. It happens. But a couple of things. 1. You can keep it from happening so often by running your themers through a database to see if anyone has done your theme before (at least with your particular themers). And 2. if you do duplicate a theme, in whole or in part, you can't be surprised by comparisons. This one, sadly, compares very unfavorably to Evan's Sunday. Here's his WaPo grid from a few years back:
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... with the top hat actually up ... top (you know,where you normally find hats, both top and other), and then a whole bunch more actual top hat-wearers, including MICHIGAN J. FROG, wow. Anyway, that's two days in a row where the NYT has run a sad echo. What will tomorrow bring!?
Fill today is genuinely bad, as you can see. If it had been great, the theme duplication theme becomes more of an afterthought. A well-filled grid can overcome a lot of theme infelicities. But instead we're smothered in old stuff like LLANO and NATANT (?!) and DTS (SAD FACE, indeed) and ERES and ONEA whatever OMN is and oof WAS ON and not one but two author monograms (the oldest of crossword crutches): RLS and EAP (which doubles as an exclamation!). I am told by a scuba instructor that AIRTUBE is all kinds of wrong, and it felt all kinds of wrong going in, so I'm glad to hear someone else balked at this (15A: Scuba diver's need). The scuba instructor would've accepted AIR HOSE, which is in fact what I wrote in. That section bedeviled me primarily for this reason. I ended up liking BLEEDER, but I could not see it at all to start with (18A: Grounder that squeezes between two infielders, in baseball slang). Kept thinking "do the mean BLOOPER?" Always read the clue completely, kids! Sigh. Couldn't figure "RUDE!" as an exclamation. Wanted SPECS for TERMS (10D: Contract details). Combo of bad answer and bad luck really set me back there. But the rest was easy enough. Just not fun.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. yesterday's puzzle involved duplication of another constructor's 20-year-old theme. This isn't the first time the constructor has been involved in something like this. I guess if you make enough puzzles, you're bound to run into other people's themes sooner or later. Still, when the themers are identical ...
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Relative difficulty: Medium?? (4-ish)
Theme answers:
- SCROOGE MCDUCK (34A: *Cartoon billionaire)
- WILLY WONKA (5D: *1971 role for Gene Wilder)
- ABE LINCOLN (9D: *U.S. leader who said "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?")
- FROSTY (43D: *"A jolly happy soul," in a holiday song)
: swimming or floating in water natant decapods [Natant and the smattering of other words birthed in the waters of Latin natare, meaning "to swim," can sound overly formal in many contexts. Rather than use the word natatorium, for example, we're more likely to refer simply to an indoor swimming pool. Similarly, instead of complimenting a friend's skills in natation, you're probably more apt to tell her she's a good swimmer. The common German-derived word swimming suits most of us just fine. Science, though, often prefers Latin, which is why you're most likely to encounter natare words in scientific contexts.] (merriam-webster.com)
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Well yesterday's was a near-exact rehash of a Liz Gorski NYT crossword from 20 years ago, and today's is a weaker and smaller rehash of an Evan Birnholz crossword from 3 years ago, so the NYT's got itself quite a little streak going here. Themes get duplicated. It happens. But a couple of things. 1. You can keep it from happening so often by running your themers through a database to see if anyone has done your theme before (at least with your particular themers). And 2. if you do duplicate a theme, in whole or in part, you can't be surprised by comparisons. This one, sadly, compares very unfavorably to Evan's Sunday. Here's his WaPo grid from a few years back:
Fill today is genuinely bad, as you can see. If it had been great, the theme duplication theme becomes more of an afterthought. A well-filled grid can overcome a lot of theme infelicities. But instead we're smothered in old stuff like LLANO and NATANT (?!) and DTS (SAD FACE, indeed) and ERES and ONEA whatever OMN is and oof WAS ON and not one but two author monograms (the oldest of crossword crutches): RLS and EAP (which doubles as an exclamation!). I am told by a scuba instructor that AIRTUBE is all kinds of wrong, and it felt all kinds of wrong going in, so I'm glad to hear someone else balked at this (15A: Scuba diver's need). The scuba instructor would've accepted AIR HOSE, which is in fact what I wrote in. That section bedeviled me primarily for this reason. I ended up liking BLEEDER, but I could not see it at all to start with (18A: Grounder that squeezes between two infielders, in baseball slang). Kept thinking "do the mean BLOOPER?" Always read the clue completely, kids! Sigh. Couldn't figure "RUDE!" as an exclamation. Wanted SPECS for TERMS (10D: Contract details). Combo of bad answer and bad luck really set me back there. But the rest was easy enough. Just not fun.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. yesterday's puzzle involved duplication of another constructor's 20-year-old theme. This isn't the first time the constructor has been involved in something like this. I guess if you make enough puzzles, you're bound to run into other people's themes sooner or later. Still, when the themers are identical ...
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/17/2014
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/17/2000&g=33&d=A
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]