Constructor: Francis Heaney
Relative difficulty: Medium (untimed, on paper)
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THEME: BILLIE EILISH — tribute puzzle honoring this singer/songwriter, who won a bunch of GRAMMYs at the most recent Grammy Awards (1A: Award notably won in each of the "big four" categories by this puzzle's honoree). The idea here is she won a GRAMMY in each of the "big four" categories, and her name divides into four equal parts (as seen at the ends of this puzzle's theme answers). I think that's it. There's also her biggest hit ("BAD GUY"), which gets the revealer clue (67A: Hit song by the 1-Across winner whose name is spelled out by the final three letters of 21-, 25-, 47- and 52-Across)
Theme answers:
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Francis Heaney has made some of my favorite puzzles. He did this candy cane-themed meta-puzzle a handful of years back (around Christmastime, 2013) that remains one of my favorite crosswords of all time—one of the few crosswords that I still think about years later ("Seasonal Staff"—see it here). I encounter his work primarily in the American Values Crossword Club puzzle, and I've been groomed to expect a very clever hook—something that makes the whole puzzle snap into place, some ingenious bit of wordplay, some didn't-see-it-coming gimmick. I make these prefatory remarks to try to explain why today's puzzle was such a disappointment. I never got that feeling of "wow." Worse, I was sure the problem was mine, so I kept scanning and rescanning the finished grid, wondering what the hook was, only to discover, in the end, that it's just ... that her name divides into "four" equal parts (to match (?) the "big four"GRAMMYs that she won earlier this year). Like ... that's it. Since the revealer clue basically holds your hand through the BIL / LIE / EIL / ISH revealer, so there's not really anything to discover (on your own), I figured that, since it's Francis here, there had to be more. Something special. Some extra level. And there just wasn't. It all seemed very flimsy as tribute puzzles go ... though as soon as I write that sentence, I realize that "tribute puzzles" are actually routinely disappointing. At least this one isn't just a bunch of trivia about a dead celebrity crammed hastily into a grid so that the "tribute" can come out in semi-timely fashion. This one at least tries to do something with the whole "big four" thing. It's just ... I didn't even know "big four" was a thing. At all. I couldn't name the "big four" categories. Album song record artist? Is that it? Oh, close. It's Album song record and then Best New Artist. Seems weird to make this "feat" contingent on the artist's being "New.""New" is just a matter of timing, not quality. So you can only win "big four" once in your life? Shrug. ANYway ... I know who Billie Eilish is, I know the hit song, this all should've been very much up my alley. But ... well, it was an alley, but mainly it was dark and I was kind of lost and then it turns out there wasn't anywhere to go because I was really just standing in my backyard the whole time. Or something like that.
Hardest part of the puzzle for me By Far was PLAYMOBIL, which ... what is that? I really (Really) wanted PLAYSKOOL ... that's a thing, right? I feel like I had a lot of PLAYSKOOL toys as a kid, like a barn that made a "moo" sound when the doors opened, does that sound right? Familiar? I don't think they had PLAYMOBIL toys when I was a kid. Wikipedia says the company was founded in '74, which is very much me-as-a-kid time. But I was PLAYSKOOL. So that whole -MOBIL part had me tilting my head. But the crosses checked out.
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The only other real head-scratcher for me was KELLI O'Hara, whose career is so accomplished (see Word of the Day, above) that I'm embarrassed I've never even heard of her. Oh, and I definitely did not know that GINA was Dennis the Menace's "gal pal" (though I do love the use of that phrase in this instance—guys have "gal pal"s too!) (63A: Gal pal of Dennis the Menace). The only girl I can picture in the Dennis-the-Menaceverse is (it turns out) Margaret, a bespectacled redhead who is more nemesis than gal pal. As for the rest of this puzzle, well, it just played like a somewhat disappointing themeless. The west was the wobbliest, fill-wise (ESAI ISEEM SMS), but overall it was solid enough. I just didn't get the aha moment I really truly expected. This puzzle is likely the victim of my having set the bar so incredibly high. Let me phrase that—of *Francis's* having set the bar so incredibly high, with his previous work.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. partials are never gonna be *great* fill, but I did enjoy ADOG about as much as I'm ever gonna enjoy a partial (3D: On the internet, nobody knows you're ___" (classic New Yorker cartoon caption)). And "classic" is actually not much of an overstatement. This cartoon's got its own wikipedia page, from which I learned that, "As of 2013, the panel was the most reproduced cartoon from The New Yorker, and Steiner had earned between $200,000 and $250,000 US from its reprinting" (wikipedia)
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Relative difficulty: Medium (untimed, on paper)
Theme answers:
- PLAYMOBIL (21A: Toy brand with plastic figures)
- "HIPS DON'T LIE" (25A: 2006 #1 Shakira hit)
- TROMPE L'OEIL (47A: Art technique that's French for "fools the eye")
- "AS YOU WISH" (52A: Butler's "Gladly")
Kelli Christine O'Hara (born April 16, 1976) is an American actress and singer. She has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway in many musicals since making her Broadway debut as a replacement in Jekyll & Hyde in 2000. She has also acted on television, film and opera, appearing with The Metropolitan Opera. In 2018 she made her West End debut.O'Hara has received seven Tony Award nominations, first for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 2005 production of The Light in the Piazza. Her subsequent nominations include The Pajama Game (2006), South Pacific (2008), Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), The Bridges of Madison County (2014), and Kiss Me, Kate (2019), winning Best Actress in a Musical in 2015 for her performance as Anna Leonowens in The King and I.[2]She has also played roles in television series, such as Masters of Sex and 13 Reasons Why, receiving a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her starring role in the 2017 web drama series The Accidental Wolf. She has appeared in films, such as Sex and the City 2, and operas, such as The Merry Widow and Così fan tutte. (wikipedia)
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Hardest part of the puzzle for me By Far was PLAYMOBIL, which ... what is that? I really (Really) wanted PLAYSKOOL ... that's a thing, right? I feel like I had a lot of PLAYSKOOL toys as a kid, like a barn that made a "moo" sound when the doors opened, does that sound right? Familiar? I don't think they had PLAYMOBIL toys when I was a kid. Wikipedia says the company was founded in '74, which is very much me-as-a-kid time. But I was PLAYSKOOL. So that whole -MOBIL part had me tilting my head. But the crosses checked out.
[the audience!!!! i love this]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. partials are never gonna be *great* fill, but I did enjoy ADOG about as much as I'm ever gonna enjoy a partial (3D: On the internet, nobody knows you're ___" (classic New Yorker cartoon caption)). And "classic" is actually not much of an overstatement. This cartoon's got its own wikipedia page, from which I learned that, "As of 2013, the panel was the most reproduced cartoon from The New Yorker, and Steiner had earned between $200,000 and $250,000 US from its reprinting" (wikipedia)
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| July 5, 1993 (!!!) |