Constructor: John Lieb
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:18)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day:"TRUE WEST" (27A: Sam Shepard play about warring brothers) —
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I've never heard of "TRUE WEST" and I don't watch "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," so that meant two giant answers that were just mysteries to me. Actually, I take that back. I have heard of TERRY CREWS, and that ultimately helped, but I honestly wasn't really sure about the first name, and with -RRY in place I was very ready to entertain HARRY, or, in an emergency, LARRY (28D: "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" actor who played in the N.F.L.). Need ELCID to come along and rescue me by providing the "E" which made TERRY the only option (33A: Subject of a 23-foot bronze statue in San Diego's Balboa Park). Speaking of that "T"—"TRUE WEST"! Yes, my long unknown proper name problem areas *cross*. Fun. But other proper names helped me out, so I can't complain too much. It's just that having the primary difficulty in a puzzle be the piecing together of names that don't really mean anything to you... it's not the Greatest feeling. Of course there are things I don't know in virtually every puzzle I solve, so that's not the problem. I think the problem is how disproportionate the difficulty was—it felt like All the actual work I had to do was concentrated in these answers. The rest was fine, but I blew through it. So I'm left with only really remembering the "TRUE WEST" / TERRY CREWS experience, and not the other parts of the grid. The grid overall looks ... fine. "THE CHRONIC" and MILHOUSE were right up my alley, and MOVEMBER over SLOW CLAP is pretty nifty. I remember LITE BRITE, so I enjoyed that answer as well. There's very little gunk in here today, though I do kinda consider Paula DEEN gunk (notorious racist).
ALBS was a throwback, for sure—in the sense that it's classic crosswordese and you don't see it so much these days (for example: ALBS made five appearances in 1995, but then made none for over six years during a stretch from 2012 to 2018) (25A: Garb for the masses?). I'm never gonna remember SEGNO, which shows up like once a year just to mess with me (45D: Musical "repeat" mark). We have the always-horrid ASDOI / ASAMI dilemma at 37A: "Same here" (ASAMI). A few more stray short crosswordese answers, but really very minimal. Aside from the aforementioned long proper names, there were a few other answers that stalled me a bit. SHINY, for instance, weirdly threw me (1D: Well-polished). Built it entirely from crosses. Also AUNTIE—the reunion I had in mind was scholastic, not familial (21A: Reunion attendee, informally). I never saw "The Martian," so ARES was all crosses (21D: Mission name in "The Martian"). And I thought the [Startling sound] at 47A was POW, and very nearly left that corner with POW in place. Luckily, my eye caught sight of WERPS and knew something had to be wrong (49D: Suspects, informally = PERPS). Overall, far more good than bad (or even mediocre) here. See you tomorrow.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:18)
Word of the Day:"TRUE WEST" (27A: Sam Shepard play about warring brothers) —
True West, drama in two acts by Sam Shepard, produced in 1980 and published in 1981. The play concerns the struggle for power between two brothers—Lee, a drifter and petty thief, and Austin, a successful screenwriter—while they collaborate on a screenplay in their mother’s southern California home. Lee, who claims that he can write a “truer” western than Austin because he has actually lived the western life, convinces Austin’s producer that he is the right man for the project, and the role reversals begin: soon Austin is behaving like a thief, and Lee is the coddled Hollywood writer. This savage and blackly humorous version of the Cain and Abel story also satirizes the modern West’s exploitation of the romanticized cowboys-and-Indians West of American mythology. (Britannica.com)
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ALBS was a throwback, for sure—in the sense that it's classic crosswordese and you don't see it so much these days (for example: ALBS made five appearances in 1995, but then made none for over six years during a stretch from 2012 to 2018) (25A: Garb for the masses?). I'm never gonna remember SEGNO, which shows up like once a year just to mess with me (45D: Musical "repeat" mark). We have the always-horrid ASDOI / ASAMI dilemma at 37A: "Same here" (ASAMI). A few more stray short crosswordese answers, but really very minimal. Aside from the aforementioned long proper names, there were a few other answers that stalled me a bit. SHINY, for instance, weirdly threw me (1D: Well-polished). Built it entirely from crosses. Also AUNTIE—the reunion I had in mind was scholastic, not familial (21A: Reunion attendee, informally). I never saw "The Martian," so ARES was all crosses (21D: Mission name in "The Martian"). And I thought the [Startling sound] at 47A was POW, and very nearly left that corner with POW in place. Luckily, my eye caught sight of WERPS and knew something had to be wrong (49D: Suspects, informally = PERPS). Overall, far more good than bad (or even mediocre) here. See you tomorrow.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]