Constructor: Jake Halperin
Relative difficulty: Medium, I think (time was somewhere in the 7s, but I was going slowly, taking notes, so the clock doesn't tell me much)
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THEME: a chore and more — themers are all ... kind of rhyming puns? ... which all end with some phrase meaning "and the rest" and start with a word that is a (near) homophone of some word in that final phrase. Thus:
Theme answers:
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This is obviously not good. I want to say it's a cute idea, but I'm not sure it's even that. I think the theme holds up for maybe two of the five themers (SETTERS ET CETERA, ALI ET ALII), but it really starts unraveling with the others, with other words and syllables getting in the way and making what little charm the theme might have had disappear. UDDERS is particularly bad, since it's a pun and not an attempt at an exact homonym like the others. With LIKES AND THE LIKE and especially KNOTS AND WHAT NOT you don't even feel the theme, really. That is, where ALI ET ALII announces its wordplay pretty forcefully, with those other two it's like "what ... is even happening here? What are the THE and the WHAT doing there? and ... oh, was I supposed to notice that KNOTS and NOT rhyme? Nope. Those words are too ordinary and far apart." These are five phrases that are all 15 letters long; that seems to have been a more important consideration than theme consistency or solving pleasure or anything else. Clunk clunk clunk. The grid is choppy as hell and full of staleage (TANGELO, ADEN, OATER, etc.). What is "staleage"? It's a word I made up. It means "stale stuff." Which brings me to OWNAGE (46A: Domination, in slang), which ... really should've been PWNAGE, imhop (in my humble opinion pancakes).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium, I think (time was somewhere in the 7s, but I was going slowly, taking notes, so the clock doesn't tell me much)
Theme answers:
- LIKES AND THE LIKE (15A: Reactions to social media posts?)
- SETTERS ET CETERA (21A: Breeds of hunting dogs?)
- ALI ET ALII (33A: Boxing champs of the 1960s-'70s?)
- KNOTS AND WHAT NOT (47A: Things that scouts earn badges for?)
- UDDERS AND OTHERS (54A: Cows' various glands?)
Hobbs & Shaw (also known as Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw or Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw) is a 2019 American action film directed by David Leitch and written by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce, from a story by Morgan. It is a spin-off of the The Fast Saga franchise set in between the events of 2017’s The Fate of the Furious and 2020’s F9. It is the ninth full-length film released overall. The film sees Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprise their roles from the main series as Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw respectively, and also stars Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Eiza González, Cliff Curtis, and Helen Mirren. The plot follows the unlikely pairing of the titular characters as they team up with Shaw's sister (Kirby) to battle a cybernetically-enhanced terrorist (Elba) threatening the world with a deadly virus. (wikipedia)
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| PROUDER (38D) / UGH (8D) |
VERANDAED is so bad it's SUABLE, which is also not a word. You dig? 'Cause I DIG (13A: "Point taken,"'60s-style). Did you know you build verandas with TBEAMs? Well, you probably don't, I just wanted to bring up TBEAM, yet another answer from outer space. Honestly, this puzzle lost me from the second it expected me to know anything about "a series of James Patterson novels" (1A: Employer of Detective Lindsay Boxer in a series of James Patterson novels). There was nothing very remarkable about how I solved this. I just puttered around the grid until it was done. If I got stuck, I just moved and came back and then I was unstuck. Not even an epic battle to recount. Just putt putt putt yep all the squares are filled in. I had a single moment of 'wow' and that was when my eyes WIDENed and I thought "wow ... really? VERANDAED?" Great, not my brain is singing this answer to the tune of Boston's "Amanda." And now, if I'm doing my job right, your brain is doing the same. Good day.
["You put a porch upon your house / Then sit and watch the cows / VERANDAED! It's what I did to my estate / And I just think it's great / VERANDAED!"]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]