Constructor: Doug Peterson
Relative difficulty: Challenging (slowest in months)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: N'DJAMENA (1A: Capital of Chad) —
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Well I was wrong. Thought I would finish today's faster than yesterday's, but this too was just brutal for me. Slowest Saturday (which means slowest puzzle, period) in recent memory. It was also just not a very exciting grid, as Doug Peterson puzzles go (bar is high). It's quite solid, but there's not much shine, and there's ... well, I just can't get very excited about AMBUSH PREDATORS as a marquee answer (8D: Leopards and anacondas, e.g.). I did not know that was a thing. For me it was just [random adjective] PREDATORS, and it took me forever to see AMBUSH, and then when I got it, no "aha," just a "... really? that's a thing?" I had a similar adj. + noun issue with SKIN DIVERS (13D: Key explorers). Got DIVERS then thought, "well, that could be anything," and it could. I wanted REEF, I think. I don't know why MARIA CALLAS is "Tony" (43A: Tony soprano?) (except that she sings notes, like any soprano, and notes are ... tones? I get that you want a TV character pun there in your clue, but ...).
The biggest issue / downer for me, though, was 1A: Capital of Chad (N'DJAMENA). At 1-Across, that is such a f***-you kind of answer. People who have been on "Jeopardy" and trivia nerds who memorize world capitals will know it, and everyone else won't (I was a "won't"), which is it breaks hard into two very very very different camps: Absolute Gimme or Absolutely No Idea. And what's more, if you have no idea, it's not a city you have any chance of spelling in any kind of inferential way. All random letters if you don't know the answer. So the whole NW becomes torture. Throw in my having no idea re: another name (DEUS) (20A: ___ Ex (video game franchise)) and another name (SARA) (35D: Shepard who wrote "Pretty Little Liars") and having even names I did know buried in clues that were either vague (FRED SANFORD) (23A: '70s sitcom title role) or inscrutable to me (TOM THUMB) (17A: Folklore character whose stockings are tied with eyelashes), and wow was this thing a struggle. And not a fun one. Too reliant on proper names to be truly enjoyable. The top half was twice as hard as the bottom half. The last letter I put in was the "1" square, a thing that virtually never happens. Had -OTE and still had to think for a bit about what letter could complete it (1D: Mark down). Looking it over now, there's just So Many Names. Great when you know 'em ("LOVIN'You"!) not so great when you don't, esp. when you're cluing everything as hard as possible.
Clue on EXUDED just didn't make sense to me (6D: Couldn't contain). You can contain things you exude. Why not? The ability of one to contain or not contain something seems to me to have nothing to do with exuding. Awful. I had EMO before ALT (4D: Music genre prefix). REDS and GEMS before (ugh, that's all) HUES (28A: Ruby and sapphire). APES before AXES (38A: Forest swingers). Knew Elizabeth CADY Stanton but thought she was a CATY, I really really did. Man, who is the CATY that I know? Do I even know a CATY??? I must not. SALAD was also ridiculously hard (26A: Bar assembly). But in general, this was two puzzles: the bottom (pretty normal Saturday) and the top (torture). Really really don't like VIC right now (29A: Perp's mark, in cop slang); you can really bury all "cop slang" for a long, long time, and I would not mind. Thanks.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging (slowest in months)
Word of the Day: N'DJAMENA (1A: Capital of Chad) —
N’Djamena (/əndʒɑːˈmeɪnɑː/; French: N'Djaména, pronounced [n(ə)dʒa.me.na]; Arabic: انجمينا Injamīnā) is the capital and largest city of Chad. A port on the Chari River, near the confluence with the Logone River, it directly faces the Camerooniantown of Kousséri, to which the city is connected by a bridge. It is also a special statute region, divided into 10 districts or arrondissements. It is a regional market for livestock, salt, dates, and grains. Meat, fish and cotton processing are the chief industries, and the city continues to serve as the center of economic activity in Chad.
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The biggest issue / downer for me, though, was 1A: Capital of Chad (N'DJAMENA). At 1-Across, that is such a f***-you kind of answer. People who have been on "Jeopardy" and trivia nerds who memorize world capitals will know it, and everyone else won't (I was a "won't"), which is it breaks hard into two very very very different camps: Absolute Gimme or Absolutely No Idea. And what's more, if you have no idea, it's not a city you have any chance of spelling in any kind of inferential way. All random letters if you don't know the answer. So the whole NW becomes torture. Throw in my having no idea re: another name (DEUS) (20A: ___ Ex (video game franchise)) and another name (SARA) (35D: Shepard who wrote "Pretty Little Liars") and having even names I did know buried in clues that were either vague (FRED SANFORD) (23A: '70s sitcom title role) or inscrutable to me (TOM THUMB) (17A: Folklore character whose stockings are tied with eyelashes), and wow was this thing a struggle. And not a fun one. Too reliant on proper names to be truly enjoyable. The top half was twice as hard as the bottom half. The last letter I put in was the "1" square, a thing that virtually never happens. Had -OTE and still had to think for a bit about what letter could complete it (1D: Mark down). Looking it over now, there's just So Many Names. Great when you know 'em ("LOVIN'You"!) not so great when you don't, esp. when you're cluing everything as hard as possible.
Clue on EXUDED just didn't make sense to me (6D: Couldn't contain). You can contain things you exude. Why not? The ability of one to contain or not contain something seems to me to have nothing to do with exuding. Awful. I had EMO before ALT (4D: Music genre prefix). REDS and GEMS before (ugh, that's all) HUES (28A: Ruby and sapphire). APES before AXES (38A: Forest swingers). Knew Elizabeth CADY Stanton but thought she was a CATY, I really really did. Man, who is the CATY that I know? Do I even know a CATY??? I must not. SALAD was also ridiculously hard (26A: Bar assembly). But in general, this was two puzzles: the bottom (pretty normal Saturday) and the top (torture). Really really don't like VIC right now (29A: Perp's mark, in cop slang); you can really bury all "cop slang" for a long, long time, and I would not mind. Thanks.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]