Cost-controlling W.W. II org / WED 12-11-19 / Grease song with aonomatopoeic lyrics / Australian wind instrument / Penner of line language is wine upon lips / Fiesta finger food

Constructor: Jake Halperin

Relative difficulty: Medium (?) (solved on paper)

THEME: THEN AND NOW (62A: Phrase in an article on grown-up child stars, perhaps ... or a hint to this puzzle's circled squares)— themers contain (in circled squares) verbs in both their past and present tense:

Theme answers:

• DIDGERIDOO (DID and DO)
• WATER FEATURES (ATE and EAT)
• WASPISH (WAS and IS)
• "WE GO TOGETHER" (GOT and GET)

Word of the Day: LEDA (14A: Mother of Castor and Pollux) —

In Greek mythology, Leda (/ˈliːdə, ˈleɪ-/; Ancient Greek: Λήδα [lɛ͜ɛ́da͜a]) was an Aetolian princess who became a Spartan queen. Her myth gave rise to the popular motif in Renaissance and later art of Leda and the Swan. // Leda was the daughter of the Aetolian King Thestius hence she was also called Thestias. Her mother was either Leucippe, Deidameia, daughter of Perieres, Eurythemis, daughter of Cleoboea, or Laophonte, daughter of Pleuron. According to Alcman, Leda's parents were Glaucus and Laophonte while Eumelus attested that they are Sisyphus and Panteiduia or Paneidyia.

She married king Tyndareus of Sparta and by him became the mother of Helen of Troy, Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux (also spelled "Castor and Polydeuces"). Leda also had three other daughters by Tyndareus: Timandra, Phoebe, and Philonoe. (wikipedia)

I feel slightly bad for this puzzle. It doesn't have much to offer. I mean, it has something, but nothing substantial. It's trying, but there's just not ... enough here for a real puzzle. On its own, the fact that a verb appears in its past and present tense inside of a phrase really isn't that interesting. And when you spell it out so blatantly like this, well, it's like having a joke explained to you. Not much fun. The theme answers, taken on their own as stand-alone entries, are just fine. DIDGERIDOO and "WE GO TOGETHER" are colorful, actually. But this theme is a huge "who cares?" It needed some other level. And what it especially needed was to have THEN AND NOW as the *title* and not the (awfully awkward-to-clue) revealer. Consider this my quarterly plea for all puzzles to have titles—so many times, what we get as a revealer would function so much better as a title, either because it would create room for another themer in the puzzle, or because, as a revealer, the phrase just doesn't go pow. If I got a puzzle entitled THEN AND NOW, I wouldn't blink, but when you try to serve me THEN AND NOW as a revealer, well, it's awkward. "Phrase in an article on grown-up child stars"???  The fact that you have to imagine such a weirdly specific context means that the phrase is struggling to hold up on its own. NOW AND THEN ... damn, that's a phrase. That stands straight up. THEN AND NOW ... sigh, it's definitely listing, possibly teetering, and generally looks like it needs some help. As a revealer, it goes thud. As a title, no one's going to question it.


Which brings me to why I *really* feel bad for this puzzle—The Wall Street Journal Daily Crossword ran a Puzzle Contest *just last week* that had a sleek and souped-up version of this same theme concept. Its title: "THEN AND NOW." In many ways, it's very unfair to compare them. Matt Gaffney's puzzle in the WSJ was a contest puzzle, which means it was a metapuzzle, where solvers had to figure out the "answer" to the puzzle by finishing the puzzle and then making inferences based on the title / clues / answers in the grid (this week: "The answer to this week's contest crossword is a cartoon duo"). I'm not gonna give any major details away. You can solve the puzzle here (the contest deadline already passed, but who cares? The puzzle is still a delight, with an "answer" that delivers a genuine AHA). What Matt's puzzle shows is a. there are apparently a Lot of potential THEN AND NOW themers out there (Matt's set of themers is entirely different from this NYT set), and b. THEN AND NOW works better as a title then as a revealer, precisely because you aren't in the awkward position of cluing it. Even if the NYT stuck with this straightforward version of the theme, where you circle the verbs inside the themers, having THEN AND NOW as a title instead of a revealer would've given you room for another example of the theme form. And maybe that example would shine. I don't know. I just know that this felt like being spoonfed pablum, and I didn't like it. The fill was pretty weak too (SOR SSR SLO ENCLS OPA etc), but only slightly weaker than the NYT's normal weakness, honestly.


Five things:

• 39A: Sound of a penny dropping? (AHA)— not a bad clue for AHA. Clever. Do you know this idiom? Well, if you don't: here.
• 34D: Winter milestone (FIRST SNOW)— easily my favorite answer in the grid. Feels fresh, original, and timely (don't know if this last snow we got was our first real snow, but man it was memorable. And beautiful. Caused terrible travel delays and got university classes canceled for two days straight. But beautiful. 
• 63D: Window boxes, for short (ACS) — did anyone else put in ADS? I had the "A" and all I could think of were pop-up ads appearing in little boxes on my computer screen. Probably not a common mistake, but I feel confident that there are at least six of you out there who did this, so hello to you.
• 33D: Cost-controlling W.W. II org. (OPA) — this stands for "Office of Price Administration." It surely meant something to you if you were alive during WWII, or if you solved xwords in the pre-Shortzian era. In the 21st century, this answer should be OPI, the exceedingly common brand of nail polish. But I guess that's something women would know more about than men, and, well, we can't have that ... (seriously, we can't, it's just not a thing we can have with this regime)

• 37D: Put pen to paper (WROTE) — I had WRITE. This was an interesting trap, given the theme.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Here's that "Grease" song, in case you're not familiar:


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