Villainous conglomerate on Mr Robot / THU 3-5-20 / Grocery chain with more than 1900 US stores / Onetime London-based record label / Hay-bundling machine

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: ??? Challenging? Easy? Depends on when you get the gimmick 

THEME: NO MAS (56D: "Enough!," in Mexico ... or a hint to 11 answers in this puzzle) — words that should have "MA" in them just ... don't. That's it, that's the puzzle.

Theme answers:

• (MA)DEFACES (1A: Mugged for the camera, maybe)
• WEB(MA)STER (8A: Site administrator)
• (MA)STIFFS (40A: Large guard dogs)
• (MA)LADIES (41A: Aches and pains)
• (MA)LINGERS (70A: Feigns sickness to avoid work)
• (MA)IN ROADS (71A: Much-traveled thoroughfares)
• (MA)DONNA (1D: Much-painted religious figure)
• TA(MA)LE (12D: Food cooked in a cornhusk)
• (MA)LICE (36D: Evil intent)
• RE(MA)IN (32D: Stay behind)
• LAW(MA)N (58D: Wyatt Earp, for one)

Word of the Day: WEBSTER (8A: Site administrator) —

noun Archaic.

a weaver.

[It's actually supposed to be WEB(MA)STER (!?) without the "MA"— if you're going to take the "MA" out of words, maybe take them out of words people actually use, so you know they're missing!?]

Ms. Burnikel is one of my favorite constructors. She's prolific and her puzzles have gotten better and better over the years, to the point where I now consider her one of the top, let's say, five constructors working today. I'm trying to give you some idea of why this puzzle ended up being so incredibly disappointing. These days I almost *never* dislike one of her puzzles. But this one. Wow. OK. So ... The problem with this puzzle is that it sets you up for something potentially interesting, and then lets you down. And by "lets you down," I mean really, really lets you down, in that the clever thing you think might be going on ends up *not* going on, and the thing that *is* going on is not only far, far less interesting, but also dreadfully hard to piece together (in part because you believe you *know* what is going on, and believe it is possibly clever: wrong and wrong).

The puzzle sets you up for something to do with "MA"s right away. I actually thought it was a "MAD" rebus at first, when that NW corner turned out to be the front end (this is important) of *two* answers that started with the letter string "MAD." That one square affects answers going in both directions at exactly the same point, ok, good, moving on ... annnnnd ... there is no other "MAD" square. OK, maybe there are other rebus squares? No. No. But that's fine, it's fine, we'll figure it out. Hey, look (MA)STIFFS. Aha! So "MA" is missing from the front ends of the themers and is, like, hanging off the grid for some reason. I've seen stuff like this before. "MA" is located just outside the grid, over and over. There will surely be some kind of pattern, and some kind of humorous revealer. [at this point I have literally written "MA" outside the grid several times—above DONNA, to the left of FACES, to the left of STIFFS...] Then the NE corner happens and, well, you know it's (TA)MALE but why is "TA" hanging off the grid now? And what's a WEBSMER? Ugh. OK. Abandon that. Evennnnnntually realize that (MA)LADIES is missing its"MA" ... so not a rebus, not a hanging-off-the-grid thing, OK, what's the organizing principle, because *surely* there must be one. Oooh, (MA)LADIES is on the same row as (MA)STIFFS! Organizational principle rediscovered! Certain rows ... and columns, maybe ... are missing "MA"at their front ends (!!!). But no. No. There is no order. And, worst of all, the "MA"s, despite being missing from the *fronts* of the first four themers you encounter, are also sometimes missing from the middles of answers. Just four times. Four elevenths of the time. Why? No reason. They just are. "My, that is ... much worse." Yes, it is. What made this puzzle truly miserable to solve was that it kept seeming like it was going to have some really brilliant central conceit, some kind of hidden order that would reveal itself and make it all worthwhile. And man was that not true. Just missing "MA"s and that. Is. It. Woof. The affected answers do end up being symmetrical, so that's ... something? Some kind of order? ... but by the time I noticed that, all good will toward this puzzle was out the window.


Even when I was done, I didn't understand WEBSTER. What the hell kind of fake-ass slang is that? Only after looking up WEBSTER did I realize "oh ... it's WEB(MA)STER." Which ... is a word I have not heard since the '90s, I think. Because the actual "MA"-including answer (WEBMASTER) is not common, because the "web" part is familiar and the suffix -STER can mean, like, "one who does stuff" (mobster is in the mob, a jokester tells jokes, a prankster pranks, etc.), because all of this, WEBSTER just looked like stupid internet slang of yore. To have it turn out to be WEB(MA)STER, which is ... also stupid internet slang of yore ... well, you couldn't have fashioned a more annoying "aha" moment if you'd tried. That whole corner was just grimness that never resolved, even after I was done with the puzzle. Even now, it feels unresolved. A stain that won't quite come out.


I also deeply resent when the revealer is so transparent that if I'd just looked for it at the beginning of the solve, the whole thing would've become transparent. "NO MAS!" is obvious. A gimme. So, no "MA"s. So ... OK. The end. You just roam around looking for dropped "MA"s. Whether you go the hard route the way I did (not seeing the revealer til the end) or you start off with the revealer and go the easy route, either way, I can't see how any of this is any fun. It's much worse to do it my way of course, both because it takes longer, and because, for a while there, you really do think there might be a clever puzzle in front of you.

Bullets:

• 2D: Villainous conglomerate on "Mr. Robot" (E CORP) — I *watched* this show for several seasons and didn't remember this one. I have no idea what non-watchers are going to make of it, *especially* in a puzzle with this theme. "Is there an "MA" missing? Who Knows!?!? MAE CORP?! That sounds pretty villainous..."
• 31A: One-up, say (DRAW) — this was such an awful clue, and crossing RE(MA)IN made it doubly miserable to solve. I had DRAW and still had no idea how it fit the clue. If a score is "one up" (that is, one apiece, one all), then there's no hyphen, is there? The hyphen suggests it's a verb. But if you "one-up" someone, you don't DRAW them? I have to believe that the clue somehow refers to DRAW in the sense of a tie, an even score, but ... why do you do this with your clues? Why? The editorial voice is so awkward.
• 57A: Grocery chain with more than 1,900 U.S. stores (ALDI) — we have these, but ... do you have these? I never saw one til I moved to Binghamton. Maybe they're spread out evenly nationwide, now, but I feel like the clue *knows* that they're kinda regional, and so is shouting "there's actually 1,900 of them!" at you, defensively.
• 51A: 2009 biopic starring Hilary Swank ("AMELIA") — I assume it was about AMELIA Earhart. I have no memory of this movie's existing.
• 49A: "I agree with both of you!" ("ME THREE!") — ah... that's the stuff. An oasis! A shady bower! A beautiful island in an ocean of gunk! I like this answer very much, is what I'm saying.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. ah, another cutesy clue for the white supremacist terrorist organization that is the NRA (19A: Org. that sticks to its guns). Truly the cherry on top of this ... thursdae.

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