Constructor: Byron Walden
Relative difficulty: Challenging (felt way more like a Saturday)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: HEPPLEWHITES (8D: Classic chairs with shield-shaped backs) —
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I feel like it's been years, decades, since I got the kind of Friday Puzzle I really love. This ... is a Saturday puzzle. It's a nice grid, but it's got that "watch me trick you!?" attitude, where it's intentionally misleading or inscrutable, over and over and over. Eight "?" clues. I typically get tired around four. And we get eight. And then clue after clue of "ooh did you think I meant the word this way, I actually meant it this way." I just wasn't in the mood this morning. Too much willful brutality, too little bounce. Also, frankly, just too much stuff I've never heard of, which is of course not really the puzzle's fault. It just makes solving more of a grind than a joy. Pozole pichelsteiner doblones ataxophobes and HEPPLEWHITES were unknown to me (though the chairs ... ring a bell ... maybe from watching "Antiques Roadshow" in the '00s?). The "freshest" answer was probably STEMPIPELINE, which is not a concept that gives me much joy (the STEM-ification of education has a sad, conformist, careerist, depressing side to it. Everybody Code Now! Code Or Die!!). I got TINYTOON easy enough, but I don't really know what one is. The whole puzzle just felt alien to me. I can see it was trying real hard to be entertaining in the clues, and I am quite sure it will have succeeded for many. This just felt like it was mis-slotted on a Friday, and was Trying Too Hard to be clever. Ostentatiously tricksy.
Never read "Tender is the Night," so CANNES was a surprise (59A: CIty in Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night"). Between that and the hard-to-parse BETON (52A: Back at the track) ("Back? ... oh *back*!") and the oddly clued BLOOMS (57A: Flourishes) ("Flourishes noun? ... oh flourishes *verb*! ... fun") and finally wanting BOLO (the tie) instead of BOLA (the weapon of the pampas), what should've been an Easy corner all of a sudden got hard. The NW, even harder. PAROLE, FLOW, COFFEE, FIRES OFF (?), ORO ... no idea, all around. I had to trust in COP SHOWS (?) before I could make anything work up there, and even there the singular-v-plural ambiguity of "series" was throwing me (1D: Series of crimes?). Plus I had EAGLE / EYE instead of SHARP / EYE, which didn't mess with my NW, though it did briefly make me question EYE when it became clear EAGLE wouldn't work (since 50D: Barre bend pretty much had to be PLIÉ, which doesn't start with an "E," as you can see). NE and SW corners were much easier. I just never got a happy flow going with this one. It was like tip-toeing around broken glass the whole time. The TSA are "Wanders?" Oof. That's a groaner (29A: Wanders around LAX or JFK?). I don't get why a WIFI PASSWORD would deter squatters (30A: Deterrent to squatting). People have been squatting since way before the internet. And smartphones exist. Does "squatting" here mean "staying at a COFFEE shop for hours on end?" To me, "squatting" means "occupying a domicile illegally." Or it means actually squatting on the ground, I guess, though I'm pretty sure that's not the sense intended here. So many of the phrasings felt ... well, accurate, I guess, just .. slippery. ONE FOR ME. PRY AWAY. FIRES OFF. TO FOLLOW. Phrasing in the cluing could be awkward too: [Played from the tipoff, say], [Sends in a huff] ... grammatical enough, but just off-feeling, somehow. Overall, I wanted the grid to be flashier and the whole experience to be more clever-joyful, not clever-hahaImadeyoutrip. You can't always get what you want. As they say.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging (felt way more like a Saturday)
Word of the Day: HEPPLEWHITES (8D: Classic chairs with shield-shaped backs) —
George Hepplewhite (1727? – 21 June 1786) was a cabinetmaker. He is regarded as having been one of the "big three" English furniture makers of the 18th century, along with Thomas Sheraton and Thomas Chippendale. There are no pieces of furniture made by Hepplewhite or his firm known to exist but he gave his name to a distinctive style of light, elegant furniture that was fashionable between about 1775 and 1800 and reproductions of his designs continued through the following centuries. One characteristic that is seen in many of his designs is a shield-shaped chair back, where an expansive shield appeared in place of a narrower splat design. (wikipedia)
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Never read "Tender is the Night," so CANNES was a surprise (59A: CIty in Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night"). Between that and the hard-to-parse BETON (52A: Back at the track) ("Back? ... oh *back*!") and the oddly clued BLOOMS (57A: Flourishes) ("Flourishes noun? ... oh flourishes *verb*! ... fun") and finally wanting BOLO (the tie) instead of BOLA (the weapon of the pampas), what should've been an Easy corner all of a sudden got hard. The NW, even harder. PAROLE, FLOW, COFFEE, FIRES OFF (?), ORO ... no idea, all around. I had to trust in COP SHOWS (?) before I could make anything work up there, and even there the singular-v-plural ambiguity of "series" was throwing me (1D: Series of crimes?). Plus I had EAGLE / EYE instead of SHARP / EYE, which didn't mess with my NW, though it did briefly make me question EYE when it became clear EAGLE wouldn't work (since 50D: Barre bend pretty much had to be PLIÉ, which doesn't start with an "E," as you can see). NE and SW corners were much easier. I just never got a happy flow going with this one. It was like tip-toeing around broken glass the whole time. The TSA are "Wanders?" Oof. That's a groaner (29A: Wanders around LAX or JFK?). I don't get why a WIFI PASSWORD would deter squatters (30A: Deterrent to squatting). People have been squatting since way before the internet. And smartphones exist. Does "squatting" here mean "staying at a COFFEE shop for hours on end?" To me, "squatting" means "occupying a domicile illegally." Or it means actually squatting on the ground, I guess, though I'm pretty sure that's not the sense intended here. So many of the phrasings felt ... well, accurate, I guess, just .. slippery. ONE FOR ME. PRY AWAY. FIRES OFF. TO FOLLOW. Phrasing in the cluing could be awkward too: [Played from the tipoff, say], [Sends in a huff] ... grammatical enough, but just off-feeling, somehow. Overall, I wanted the grid to be flashier and the whole experience to be more clever-joyful, not clever-hahaImadeyoutrip. You can't always get what you want. As they say.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]