Constructor: Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe a *little* tougher than usual ... I felt like I was *flying* but I came in at an average time) (3:10)
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THEME: BOTTOM ROW (38A: Last line of a spreadsheet (as suggested by the circled squares?) — tons of circles ... indicating the rows that contain words for "bottom":
Theme answers:
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I found this slightly creepy. I understand that they are "just" words for "ass" and no sexually objectifying context is specifically implied, and maybe if the NYTXW wasn't *such* a man's world, a puzzle that stares at butts for row upon row would seem like a neutral, these-could-be-anyone's-butts type of dealie, and then, if you actually enjoyed cutesy terms for buttocks, then great, here's your puzzle. The revealer is definitely clever, in its way. But from a male constructor, and from an allll-dude editing team that has so thoroughly made the NYTXW in this century a kind of boys' club, this puzzle brings an implied male gaze with it, and I found it off-putting. I wasn't alone—two of my best female friends wrote me independently to wince at the puzzle. One of them sent me a screenshot of her grid to show me where she'd decided just to stop cold, right in the middle of the solve. And on a Monday. That's a visceral negative reaction. Now if you found the theme adorable or otherwise positive, that's great. The point isn't that the concept is *inherently* leering or sexist. Butts are universal! And I'm quite sure there was no misogynist intent here. This probably just seemed like a fun idea. But if you're trying to lawyer your way into "well perhaps they are man's butts and the gaze is female or gay" then uh I guess In Theory I can't gainsay that, but in the context of the puzzle we do every day, you know the one ... where constructors are mostly men, where women have been notoriously poorly represented both in the ranks of constructors and in the general world view of grid content ... it's absolute gaslighting to tell someone who recoils from this, "oh, you're just seeing things." I like (big?) butts just fine, but context matters, and until you do a much better job with gender parity, a puzzle like this is likely to land wrong with some subsection of solvers, however small. OK THEN ...
The grid felt more wide-open and thus slightly harder than your average Monday, but also I seemed to just rip through it. Anyway, the time came out average. This theme does nothing for me (didn't *really* notice it until I was done), but this is an interesting grid, content-wise. UNIDEAL is a non-word and the Latin is a little thick, but TANDOORI (39D: ___ chicken (Indian dish)) and TURN TWO (9D: Complete a double play, in baseball slang) are pretty sparkly (if you like Indian food and are a baseball fan, or maybe even if you aren't). SORE ARM has a whiff of green paint* about it, but as a baseball fan, I'm gonna allow it. I lost time trying to understand the clue on ASIA (53A: The East, to the West) (I had an NBA All-Star Game in my head....). And then I had TASTY before ZESTY (25D: Flavorful) and HAND INK before HAND DYE (48D: Color manually), the latter being entirely attributable to the fact that I'm in the middle of wrapping up my Comics course for the semester. I would say that little "X" / "Z" section is textbook Scrabble-f***ing, in that high-value Scrabble tiles are inserted for their own sake, and not because the fill is improved thereby (i.e. SEZ and XES are ... UNIDEAL). But today, this is a very minor consideration. Liked the grid OK, but themewise, I PASs.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*"green paint" = an answer that is a phrase someone might theoretically say but that doesn't seem solid enough to stand on its own—the adjective/noun pairing is paradigmatic
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe a *little* tougher than usual ... I felt like I was *flying* but I came in at an average time) (3:10)
Theme answers:
- BOOTY / TAIL / BUNS
- CHEEKS / REAR END
- CABOOSE / BEHIND
- BUTT / RUMP / FANNY
Rita Moreno (born December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican actress, dancer and singer. Her career has spanned over 70 years; among her notable acting work are supporting roles in the musical films Singin' in the Rain (1952), The King and I (1956) and West Side Story(1961), as well as a 1971 to 1977 stint on the children's television series The Electric Company, and a supporting role as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on the 1997 to 2003 HBOseries Oz. Her other notable films include Popi (1969), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Four Seasons (1981), I Like It Like That (1994) and the cult film Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). And she voiced the title role of Carmen Sandiego in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? from 1994 to 1999.Moreno is one of the few artists to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards: an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. She is also one of 23 people who have achieved what is called the Triple Crown of Acting, with individual competitive Academy, Emmy and Tony awards for acting; she and Helen Hayes are the only two who have achieved both distinctions. She has won numerous other awards, including various lifetime achievement awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor. (wikipedia)
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The grid felt more wide-open and thus slightly harder than your average Monday, but also I seemed to just rip through it. Anyway, the time came out average. This theme does nothing for me (didn't *really* notice it until I was done), but this is an interesting grid, content-wise. UNIDEAL is a non-word and the Latin is a little thick, but TANDOORI (39D: ___ chicken (Indian dish)) and TURN TWO (9D: Complete a double play, in baseball slang) are pretty sparkly (if you like Indian food and are a baseball fan, or maybe even if you aren't). SORE ARM has a whiff of green paint* about it, but as a baseball fan, I'm gonna allow it. I lost time trying to understand the clue on ASIA (53A: The East, to the West) (I had an NBA All-Star Game in my head....). And then I had TASTY before ZESTY (25D: Flavorful) and HAND INK before HAND DYE (48D: Color manually), the latter being entirely attributable to the fact that I'm in the middle of wrapping up my Comics course for the semester. I would say that little "X" / "Z" section is textbook Scrabble-f***ing, in that high-value Scrabble tiles are inserted for their own sake, and not because the fill is improved thereby (i.e. SEZ and XES are ... UNIDEAL). But today, this is a very minor consideration. Liked the grid OK, but themewise, I PASs.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*"green paint" = an answer that is a phrase someone might theoretically say but that doesn't seem solid enough to stand on its own—the adjective/noun pairing is paradigmatic
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]