Constructor: Hal Moore
Relative difficulty: Easy (4:16)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: "De AMOR y de Sombra" (Isabel Allende novel) (50D) —
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Isn't Hal Moore the Green Lantern? Did we have this conversation? Oh, dang, it's Hal Jordan. Nevermind. I'm surprised it took this long to get ANTHONY BOURDAIN into a NYTXW grid, what with his themeless-friendly 15-letter name and all. He's definitely the highlight today, though there are a handful of other colorful longer answers that keep this one interesting. Stuff like PHOTOCURRENT and FIREIRONS and PIANOTEACHER just kinda lie there, for me, but I like NONSEQUITUR and SCOUTSHONOR and HUMANOID and "I'M IN HEAVEN" just fine. Short fill gonna short fill, for sure, and the SE corner is particularly wobbly (INURES BDAY ECARD EIRE plural SKYES), but it's clean enough. Passably clean. Though there really is a lot of short (5 and under) stuff. It's a good thing the longer stuff is mostly able to carry the load today, because even when it's reasonably clean, sub-5 stuff is hard to take in large doses, esp. on a Friday or Saturday, when your puzzle really should pop and sizzle and not bore. Every LEA and ACRE and AMOCO and ETON and NOTI makes a little deflating sound. But in the end, more good than bad. All credit for the enjoyable solve goes to ANTHONY BOURDAIN (37A: Author/TV personality who wrote "Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park"). Without him, this thing sputters.
My slowness / errors were all in the dumb short stuff areas. ABASE for ABASH, for instance—ugh, one of those only-yet-somehow-often-in-crosswords dilemmas where even choosing correctly doesn't feel very good. I had BUSSERS before BUSBOYS (24D: Some restaurant staffers) because I thought "oh, the clue is gender neutral, so the answers will be too," wrong. I know too many Los ___ places from having grown up in California, and so I was both unlucky and lucky today. Unlucky in that my first answer was Los BANOS, lucky in that I know Los GATOS and that slid in easily once my initial error became apparent. Had the most trouble deciphering the clue on PRIOR (60A: Record component), for obvious reasons (but I'll tell you anyway: the ambiguity of the meaning of "record"). Dumbest thing I did was not fully read the clue on the Beatles song (52A: Beatles hit about "a man who thought he was a loner"). Got cocky and figured I'd be able to just fill in a Beatles hit from the letters I had in place (the first few, I think). But my mind went blank. Even with "GET..." all I could think of was "GET A JOB" (not a Beatles song). Then I had EVITE instead of ECARD so that screwed with my Beatles mojo even more (48D: Modern party planning aid). Finally worked out "GET BACK" (a song I know well). Then I went back and read the whole "GET BACK" clue (52A: Beatles hit about "a man who thought he was a loner"). Would've gotten the answer immediately if I had just read the whole clue. Of course I would've had to speed-sing the song in my head from the lyric in the clue up to the "GET BACK" part, but that still would've taken less time than whatever the hell I did today. Partial clue reading is one of the dumb things you (I) do when you're (I'm) speed-solving. Whatever. Coulda been faster, but still fast. The moral of the story is take the *probably no more than two seconds* to read every clue to the end, sigh.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy (4:16)
THEME: none
Word of the Day: "De AMOR y de Sombra" (Isabel Allende novel) (50D) —
Of Love and Shadows (Spanish: De amor y de sombra) is a novel written by Chileannovelist Isabel Allende in 1984. // Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state. Irene and Francisco begin a passionate affair, ready to risk everything for the sake of justice and truth. // In 1994, this novel was adapted into a film starring Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Connelly. (wikipedia)
• • •
My slowness / errors were all in the dumb short stuff areas. ABASE for ABASH, for instance—ugh, one of those only-yet-somehow-often-in-crosswords dilemmas where even choosing correctly doesn't feel very good. I had BUSSERS before BUSBOYS (24D: Some restaurant staffers) because I thought "oh, the clue is gender neutral, so the answers will be too," wrong. I know too many Los ___ places from having grown up in California, and so I was both unlucky and lucky today. Unlucky in that my first answer was Los BANOS, lucky in that I know Los GATOS and that slid in easily once my initial error became apparent. Had the most trouble deciphering the clue on PRIOR (60A: Record component), for obvious reasons (but I'll tell you anyway: the ambiguity of the meaning of "record"). Dumbest thing I did was not fully read the clue on the Beatles song (52A: Beatles hit about "a man who thought he was a loner"). Got cocky and figured I'd be able to just fill in a Beatles hit from the letters I had in place (the first few, I think). But my mind went blank. Even with "GET..." all I could think of was "GET A JOB" (not a Beatles song). Then I had EVITE instead of ECARD so that screwed with my Beatles mojo even more (48D: Modern party planning aid). Finally worked out "GET BACK" (a song I know well). Then I went back and read the whole "GET BACK" clue (52A: Beatles hit about "a man who thought he was a loner"). Would've gotten the answer immediately if I had just read the whole clue. Of course I would've had to speed-sing the song in my head from the lyric in the clue up to the "GET BACK" part, but that still would've taken less time than whatever the hell I did today. Partial clue reading is one of the dumb things you (I) do when you're (I'm) speed-solving. Whatever. Coulda been faster, but still fast. The moral of the story is take the *probably no more than two seconds* to read every clue to the end, sigh.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]