Charles of "The Great Escape" / THU 12-12-19 / Storied El Capitan climbing route / Southwest acquisition of 2011 / Animals symbolizing the universe in Chinese culture

Constructor:Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty:Medium?


THEME:ATOMIC NUMBERS (34-Across – What this puzzle's two-letter answers correspond with, given their locations in the grid):  Two-letter entries that are the abbreviations of various elements are located at the clue number that matches their atomic numbers

Theme answers:

• LI (3D) - Lithium is ATOMIC NUMBER 3 (pattern repeats below)
• NE (10D) - Neon
• CA (20A) - Calcium
• TI (22A) - Titanium
• SN (50A) - Tin
• XE (54A) - Xenon
• ND (60D) - Neodymium
• SM (62D) - Samarium

Word of the Day: HENIE (49-Across: Sonja on the ice) —

Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 – 12 October 1969) was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion (1928, 1932, 1936) in Ladies' Singles, a ten-time World Champion (1927–1936) and a six-time European Champion (1931–1936). Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies' figure skater. At the height of her acting career, she was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood and starred in a series of box-office hits, including Thin Ice (1937), My Lucky Star (1938), Second Fiddle (1939) and Sun Valley Serenade (1941).^[1]

Oh my god, why. Why is this a thing. I was so excited when I saw near-perfect 90º symmetry and two-letter entries because I thought it was going to be something interesting and then.... this.

(Did I sound like Rex there? This is Rachel Fabi, doing my best Rex impression because it is the only way I can channel how I feel about this puzzle).

Ok actually samarium does look kind of cool

But seriously, I just can't fathom the NYT Powers-That-Be deciding that *this* was the theme worth breaking the rules for. Neodymium and samarium? Pretty much no one knows or cares about neodymium or samarium, let alone has any use for knowing what their ATOMIC NUMBERS are. And with just a few shifts in the locations of black squares, the entire puzzle could be made again with different two-letter abbreviations from other ATNOS (the very worst crosswordese). I get that it's a nifty trick for the constructor, but for a solver? A solver who doesn't care about the abbreviations of elements and their ordering in the periodic table? Even worse is that the abbrevs are all clued in reference to the revealer; surely CA and LIand ND etc. could all have been clued in their own right (e.g. California, Jet Li or Lykke Li, North Dakota, etc), which would have made them at least a little more interesting.

The junk that was necessary to make this grid work is *painful* and the payoff is just not worth it. RLESS??? -AIRE?? ETAIL and LTE? YIPES! And even the fill that wasn't bad qua fill just felt super STALE(or past the sell-by date, say), as if the word list this was built from hadn't been updated since the early 2000s when ETAIL was cool. I have no issue with the entry SOOTY but wanted to use this place in the review to post the video for "Step in Time" as a musical interlude in this rant, so here we are:

I appreciate the long downs (RAN SMACK DAB INTO and GOING ON OUT A LIMB), but they do not make up for the absolute nothing of this theme. I also find BEGGED FOR MORE deeply off-putting, although the clue is fine.

I dunno, man. I really disliked this, which is a rare thing. I usually have to stretch to find things to critique in puzzles because I'm an occasional constructor and absolutely dread having someone say things like this about my own puzzles, but tonight I just can't muster a rosy review. So to the people who hate-read Rex, or who only come here for curmudgeonliness, you're welcome!

Bullets:

• 28D: Storied El Capitan climbing route (THE NOSE) — I saw Free Solo without knowing how it ended, and I was on the edge of my seat for basically the entire movie. It was beautifully shot and an interesting reflection on documentary filmmaking ethics, but also pretty hard to watch because of the relationship parts, so YMMV. Anyways, that's why I knew this one.

• 1D: Acis's lover in "Metamorphoses" (GALATEA) — Um, ok. I believe you.
• 61A: Stick-up artist? (MAESTRO) — Ok I actually liked this clue a lot! It's clever, I smiled when I got it, and it made me less angry about this puzzle overall
• 9D: Like Harvard Yard, in a Boston accent (RLESS) —But then we come back to RLESS. This should not be on anyone's word list in the year of our lord 2019!!! It's been used 12 other times in the Shortz era, and 11 of those times to refer to "when you shouldn't eat oysters," and it's just lazy fill. Delete it!

Thanks for the opportunity to rant at you all. Catch you next time Rex needs a break (or on other parts of the crossword internet, if you're into that kind of thing and/or certain other crossword publications with the words New York in their publication titles!)

Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of Crossworld

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