Constructor: Sam Ezersky
Relative difficulty: Not sure ... mostly easy ... I don't really know what a just-rolled-out-of-bed 6:43 time means on a Friday any more. Easy but with a chunk in and around CANNERY that was hard ...
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: TYREKE Evans (57A: Evans who was the 2009-10 N.B.A. Rookie of the Year) —
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This was perfectly fine, though the only part that really sparkled was NIGHTY-NIGHT (4D: "Sweet dreams!"). Most of this was solid, but a little flat. Green-paintish* stuff like RUNS A LAP and ATE LUNCH didn't help. AT THE HEART felt kinda longish for an incomplete phrase. AT HEEL does not feel like a current phrase. Can't imagine using it. TO HEEL I can hear. You can bring a dog TO HEEL. Something might be at *one's* heels. Dunno. The word THEODICY looks and sounds like something I've seen, but I'd be lying if I said I actually knew it (18A: Explanation for the existence of evil in God's presence). ON A kick? Never heard this phrase without some descriptive word following ON A. RCCOLA ... exists still? (Also: 7Up exists still?) (13D: Sister brand of 7Up). Multiple ... THYMES? This just felt a teensy bit stale—the feeling was actually made worse by the *attempts* at contemporary colloquial flash that actually felt like ... well, they would've been much flashier in the '00s (EPIC FAIL, "WHAT THE ...," CYBERanything). Ooh, I enjoyed seeing BATGIRL in a non-gendered clue, that was cool (7D: Enemy of the Joker).
Never a fan of cluing a perfectly good English word (PANE) as if it were foreign (30D: Bread, in Bologna). TYREKE Evans is superobscure if you are not an NBA fan. I follow the major sports loosely, and his name definitely rings a bell, but after that ROTY award (note: I would, in fact, accept ROTY in a puzzle), he didn't do anything exceptional. I mean, he was a pro, so he was obviously very good, but he never made an All-Star team or won a championship or did anything that would make him particularly crossworthy. In fact, I'm looking at a list of NBA Rookies of the Year and TYREKE Evans is one of the only names I *don't* really know from the past 40 years. I'm a little hazy on Michael Carter-Williams (2013-14) and Mike Miller (2000-01), but beyond that you gotta go back to '81-82 to find a name I can't place (that name: Buck Williams ... I just forgot him: he was active during the time I was most pro sports-crazy). My point here is TYREKE looks cool but is more a personal indulgence than a great answer.
Made some costly mistakes today, most notably BOLT for VOLT (23D: Lightning unit). Nice trick, I guess. Feels cheap, since obviously lightning comes in BOLTs, and no one says "ooh, did you see those howevermany VOLTs of lightning," but sure, technically, that clue works for that answer. Lost most time on one of my most hated clue types—the "Name that becomes this thing if you do these things to it"-type clue. Like, find a MYRA to use in your clue or **** ***! Had the "M" and then the "R" and still wasn't sure what was going on. And that answer was adjacent to CANNERY, which took me several seconds to get Even After I Had -ANNERY in place (37D: Corn or bean plant, perhaps). See, it's the factory meaning of "plant," not the plant meaning of "plant." Cute. I also wrote in READ instead of SCAN (got the stupid "A" first and ... d'oh!) (48A: Pore over). I think of "scanning" as reading quickly and "poring over" as reading thoroughly, but whatever, this puzzle has its own ideas. Oh, and off the READ error I wrote in ROOF at 48D: Flat part of a flat. That is the wrong answer I'm most proud of (real answer: SOLE).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I associate the term PAIN PILL not with "relief" but with addiction (29A: What a relief!). :(
*green paint => an arbitrary phrase that, sure, one might say, but that doesn't really work as a stand-alone crossword answer
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Not sure ... mostly easy ... I don't really know what a just-rolled-out-of-bed 6:43 time means on a Friday any more. Easy but with a chunk in and around CANNERY that was hard ...
Word of the Day: TYREKE Evans (57A: Evans who was the 2009-10 N.B.A. Rookie of the Year) —
Tyreke Jamir Evans (born September 19, 1989) is an American professional basketball player. After playing college basketball for the Memphis Tigers, he was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings.[1] Evans went on to win the 2010 NBA Rookie of the Year Award. He was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans in 2013 before being traded back to the Kings in 2017. After successive stints with the Memphis Grizzlies and Indiana Pacers, Evans, who would have become a free agent at the end of the 2019 season, was dismissed and disqualified from the NBA in May for violating the terms of the league's anti-drug program. (wikipedia)
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Never a fan of cluing a perfectly good English word (PANE) as if it were foreign (30D: Bread, in Bologna). TYREKE Evans is superobscure if you are not an NBA fan. I follow the major sports loosely, and his name definitely rings a bell, but after that ROTY award (note: I would, in fact, accept ROTY in a puzzle), he didn't do anything exceptional. I mean, he was a pro, so he was obviously very good, but he never made an All-Star team or won a championship or did anything that would make him particularly crossworthy. In fact, I'm looking at a list of NBA Rookies of the Year and TYREKE Evans is one of the only names I *don't* really know from the past 40 years. I'm a little hazy on Michael Carter-Williams (2013-14) and Mike Miller (2000-01), but beyond that you gotta go back to '81-82 to find a name I can't place (that name: Buck Williams ... I just forgot him: he was active during the time I was most pro sports-crazy). My point here is TYREKE looks cool but is more a personal indulgence than a great answer.
Made some costly mistakes today, most notably BOLT for VOLT (23D: Lightning unit). Nice trick, I guess. Feels cheap, since obviously lightning comes in BOLTs, and no one says "ooh, did you see those howevermany VOLTs of lightning," but sure, technically, that clue works for that answer. Lost most time on one of my most hated clue types—the "Name that becomes this thing if you do these things to it"-type clue. Like, find a MYRA to use in your clue or **** ***! Had the "M" and then the "R" and still wasn't sure what was going on. And that answer was adjacent to CANNERY, which took me several seconds to get Even After I Had -ANNERY in place (37D: Corn or bean plant, perhaps). See, it's the factory meaning of "plant," not the plant meaning of "plant." Cute. I also wrote in READ instead of SCAN (got the stupid "A" first and ... d'oh!) (48A: Pore over). I think of "scanning" as reading quickly and "poring over" as reading thoroughly, but whatever, this puzzle has its own ideas. Oh, and off the READ error I wrote in ROOF at 48D: Flat part of a flat. That is the wrong answer I'm most proud of (real answer: SOLE).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I associate the term PAIN PILL not with "relief" but with addiction (29A: What a relief!). :(
*green paint => an arbitrary phrase that, sure, one might say, but that doesn't really work as a stand-alone crossword answer
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]