Constructor: Joe Deeney
Relative difficulty: no idea ... so, let's say Medium
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THEME: WITH OR WITHOUT YOU (34A: First Billboard #1 hit for U2 ... and a hint to the answers to the four starred clues)— names from Romeo & Juliet spelled with *and* (?) without "U":
Theme answers:
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Everything about this is half-baked. It's not a proper themed puzzle because there's not enough theme material and it's not a proper themeless because ... well, that's self-evident, I guess, but the real problem is that this cake wants to have a theme but also a low word-count like a themeless (73 in a 15x16 grid). Trying to shove all that long non-theme material in there strains the grid, and the fill ended up much less clean than you'd like. Do A Theme Or Don't Do A Theme. I really resent being sold a skimpy, not-thought-through theme on a Friday. This is sadly typical when themed stuff shows up on Fri or Sat. Some theme idea that just isn't fully fleshed out, that needs more work, that might be crafted into something interesting, is instead cut off mid-development and shoved into a lateweek themeless, where I guess the idea is that the showier long non-theme fill in the themeless will detract from or otherwise make people forgive the thin theme. It's one cute observation (if you take the "U" out of either name, you get an actual word) stretched painfully thin, and a potentially bouncy and entertaining Friday themeless is ruined in the process.
Last letter into the grid was the "G" in YUTANG, a name I didn't know, which crossed GINGERED, which ... what? (51A: Livened (up)) (by my count, the third "(up)" clue in the puzzle ... know when to say when, kids). GINGERED up ... feels dated. Not BONER-dated, but dated. No one says BONER anymore (in this context) and even if they did, no one would ever say "Duh" in response to a BONER. You say "Duh!" in response to someone's saying something obvious. Or you might say in response to one of your own, uh, boners, I guess. Like when you make a mistake and someone points it out and you say "Oh, duh." And ["True that"] is out of tune with its answer, IT IS. Slang v. not slang. In short this puzzle has no idea about slang or what era it's from or how it's used. I'm told that the term LEET (which I don't know at all) is twenty years out of date (46D: System of modified spellings used on the internet) So that's helpful. Let's see — "Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet" (wikipedia). Of course this is clued straight out of wikipedia, ugh. Here, read about LEET for yourselves.
I still don't really get the clue on REANIMATE (3D: Help to get back on one's feet?). It's just ... literal. Or ... like Frankenstein's monster? Sigh. That clue is A BIT MUCH (my favorite answer of the day by far). Stuff like TRACESTO and TASTESOF just felt grinding—phrases that you have to give a pass because they're technically acceptable, but as stand-alone answers, they're just awkward and deeply unsatisfying. Don't know why the horrid, obsequious "boss!" was added to the clue for 57A: "Right away, boss!" ("ON IT!"). Or, I do, sort of, but I really hate it. Who says "boss" like this except in some highly caricatured context. ROPEWORK ... blah. The kind of answer that just sits there and dares you to disqualify it. So dull, so workmanlike, so stubbornly real without being At All interesting (35D: Mariner's skill). I'd sooner buy ROPEWORK as a rodeo skill. I wanted something to do with knots. My feelings about this one are GELID, yet another thing no one says. Goodbye.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: no idea ... so, let's say Medium
Theme answers:
- MONTAGUE / CAPLET (4th row)
- CAPULET / MONTAGE (11th row)
Lin Yutang (Chinese: 林語堂 ; October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976) was a Chinese inventor, linguist, novelist, philosopher, and translator. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West. (wikipedia)
• • •
Last letter into the grid was the "G" in YUTANG, a name I didn't know, which crossed GINGERED, which ... what? (51A: Livened (up)) (by my count, the third "(up)" clue in the puzzle ... know when to say when, kids). GINGERED up ... feels dated. Not BONER-dated, but dated. No one says BONER anymore (in this context) and even if they did, no one would ever say "Duh" in response to a BONER. You say "Duh!" in response to someone's saying something obvious. Or you might say in response to one of your own, uh, boners, I guess. Like when you make a mistake and someone points it out and you say "Oh, duh." And ["True that"] is out of tune with its answer, IT IS. Slang v. not slang. In short this puzzle has no idea about slang or what era it's from or how it's used. I'm told that the term LEET (which I don't know at all) is twenty years out of date (46D: System of modified spellings used on the internet) So that's helpful. Let's see — "Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet" (wikipedia). Of course this is clued straight out of wikipedia, ugh. Here, read about LEET for yourselves.
I still don't really get the clue on REANIMATE (3D: Help to get back on one's feet?). It's just ... literal. Or ... like Frankenstein's monster? Sigh. That clue is A BIT MUCH (my favorite answer of the day by far). Stuff like TRACESTO and TASTESOF just felt grinding—phrases that you have to give a pass because they're technically acceptable, but as stand-alone answers, they're just awkward and deeply unsatisfying. Don't know why the horrid, obsequious "boss!" was added to the clue for 57A: "Right away, boss!" ("ON IT!"). Or, I do, sort of, but I really hate it. Who says "boss" like this except in some highly caricatured context. ROPEWORK ... blah. The kind of answer that just sits there and dares you to disqualify it. So dull, so workmanlike, so stubbornly real without being At All interesting (35D: Mariner's skill). I'd sooner buy ROPEWORK as a rodeo skill. I wanted something to do with knots. My feelings about this one are GELID, yet another thing no one says. Goodbye.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]