Dance craze of early 2010s / SUN 2-23-20 / Color akin to cyan / Pullers of Artemis's chariot / Locke who was called father of Harlem renaissance / Home planet of ming merciless / Southeast Asian ethnic group /

Constructor: Sophia and David Maymudes

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium (9:15)

THEME:"RESOLVED"— you "solve" the puzzle by adding "RE-" to the beginnings of words in familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases, which are clued wackily (i.e. "?"-style)

Theme answers:

• REPRESS YOUR LUCK (27A: "Stop rolling sevens!"?) (are sevens "lucky"? Is this a craps thing?)
• RELATE TO THE PARTY (45A: Build rapport like a presidential candidate?)
• RESENT PACKING (70A: Hate getting ready to move?)
• RESTOCKS AND BONDS (97A: Makes friends while working retail?)
• RETURN THE TABLES (115A: Event planner's post-banquet task?)
• RECOVER GIRL (16D: Young woman to call when your data gets deleted?)
• RECESS POOLS (69D: Places to swim during school?)

Word of the Day: MONGO (106D: Home planet of Ming the Merciless) —

a monetary subunit of the tugrik (merriam-webster.com) .... or ....  

Mongo is a fictional planet where the comic strip (and later movie serials) of Flash Gordon takes place. Mongo was created by the comics artist Alex Raymond in 1934, with the assistance of Raymond's ghostwriter Don Moore. Mongo is depicted as being ruled by a usurper named Ming the Merciless, who is shown as ruling Mongo in a harsh and oppressive manner.

The planet is depicted as being inhabited by different cultures, and having a varying ecosystem.The technology of these cultures varies from groups at a Stone Age level, to highly technologically advanced peoples. At the beginning of the comic strip, almost all of these cultures are shown as being under the domination of the tyrant Ming. In all the versions of the Flash Gordon story, Flash Gordon is shown as unifying the peoples of Mongo against Ming, and eventually removes him from power. Later stories often depict Mongo under the rule of its rightful leader, Prince Barin. (wikipedia)

The one positive thing I can say about this puzzle is that 1-Across (DESPAIR) is apt. Nice touch. Tells you exactly what you will feel about 1/3 of the way through the puzzle when you realize that this is it, it's not getting any better, you're just gonna be putting RE- onto the front of words ad nauseam. And the fill, that also isn't going to improve. It's just gonna tread water, struggling to keep its head above Adequate, for the remainder of the solve (which, thank merciful god, was not that long). ORME, ONYOU, TIRO, UIE, NNE TIRO INLA ANI ORIEL ISE IHAVEENCARTAATPAR! My investment in this puzzle, my care, my serious attention, they all checked out completely at -ONYM (15D: Ending with pseud- or syn-). ALOAF!? ORNITH.!!!!! hahahaha wow, wow. And the single ARREAR returns to haunt the grid once again ... stunning. What is happening today? HOY VEY!


I was forewarned that this would be a very easy puzzle, so of course I didn't come anywhere close to my record time (I have never ever done well on a puzzle I've been told by others is easy, which is why I stay the hell off of social media before I've solved and why you should never ever (please!) send me comments or questions about the puzzle until after I have posted my write-up. I know sometimes you are eager to get your feelings out, but ... courtesy! Still, though, this was pretty much as advertised, i.e. easy. UGLI, but easy. Here are the places I stumbled:

Stumbles:

• 1D: Pullers of Artiemis's chariot (DEER)— really should've gotten this one straight off, but did the sometimes reasonable but today dumb thing of putting "S" at the end of the answer and waiting to see what would happen. My brain had that chariot being pulled by HENS at one point.
• 53A: Dance craze of the early 2010s (DOUGIE)— sigh, bygone fads. Great! I vaguely remember the phrase "teach me how to DOUGIE!" and that is all I remember.
• 47D: Brexit exiter (THE U.K.) — ugh, THEUK. Especially ugly when the clue doesn't even bother to signal the abbr. part. Also, the cluing is awkward as heck, as it sounds like the answer should be "one who exits Brexit," not "the party whose exit is signified by the portmanteau 'Brexit'." Awk, I say!
• 84D: Study of birds: Abbr. (ORNITH.) — I just could not have foreseen a six-letter (!) abbr. I mean, of course ornithology is the study of birds, but ORNITH.!? It's just ... who expects ORNITH.!? (an entry not seen in sixteen years, and hopefully not seen for at least another sixteen)
• 99D: Rehearsals (DRY RUNS) — I kept wanting it to be TRYOUTS. Over and over. The fact that this answer ran through the very wince-y NNE SOL UIE NINO section didn't help matters

RECAP AND GOWN! REBOUND FOR GLORY! REFORM-FITTING! These aren't hard to come up with, and the funniness ceiling on the whole concept is pretty low. Sorry the news isn't better.


On the Clipboard this week ...

• It's been a very Berry week, for sure. First of all, Patrick Berry's New Yorker puzzle this week was humblingly smooth and gorgeous. The kind of thing where even as you're solving, you're just shaking your head, marveling at the fact that any one human can be this good at anything. I wish more constructors would study his work and aspire to his level of craft. I mean, you're gonna fall short, but falling short of Patrick Berry can still leave you in a pretty wonderful place. See his puzzle here. 
• The other Berry thing that happened this week was his release of "Sweet 16," a puzzle suite (!) consisting of 16 smallish variety puzzles, each one leading to its own meta-answer, and then the whole set leading to some final meta-answer. I just started in on these and they're delightful. Well worth your $10. Buy "Sweet 16"here, for yourself, for a loved one, for America. 
• My favorite puzzle of the week was probably Amy Goldstein and Joanne Sullivan's WSJ crossword from Tuesday 2/18—and it's a theme type that I normally really don't care for. The puzzle was called "Behind the Scenes," and the theme answers were all two-word (or compound) phrases, where both words (or word parts) could also follow the word "PLAY" in familiar words/phrases. MONEYMAKER, DATEBOOK, etc. No great shakes, really. But the grid! It was so smooth and had such vibrant fill, stuff like HOTCOMB and PHOTOBOMB and FRONT TEETH and POOH CORNER (!!). I just *enjoyed* solving it. This puzzle was proof that you don't have to have a startlingly original theme concept to make a truly *enjoyable* puzzle. It's also proof that the WSJ should publish way way way more women. They're sitting at 6% for 2020 so far. That is embarrassing. The very existence of this puzzle proves that there are women constructors who can make puzzles not just as good, but better than the WSJ average. So why the incessant mediocre old white guy parade!? It's gotta stop, or at least ... abate. Please.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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