Hello, everyone! It's Clare here for the last Tuesday of July. Hope everyone is safe and staying inside as much as possible! I've been sitting around watching some sports again, but with Liverpool winning the Premier League title (!!) I'm pretty sated for now. In other news, I just found out that my law school classes will be entirely online for the fall, which is kind of a bummer — maybe I'll just move to Montana and take my classes from there. With that, on to the puzzle for today!
Constructor:Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty:Medium
![]()
THEME: WEB OF LIES(36D: It's spun by mendacious people ... or a hint to the shaded answers) — The theme answers are all synonyms for a lie
Theme answers:
This whole puzzle was centered on the theme, and the way WEB OF LIES tied everything together was quite impressive. The problem with having the whole puzzle revolve around the theme, though, was that the rest of the puzzle suffered. I didn't have any moments going through the puzzle where I thought, "Oh, that was cool"— I just worked my way around until I finished and realized what the theme was. For me, the theme was an afterthought.
A nit about the theme answers is that all of them are singular except for TALL TALES, which is plural. The bigger problem is that the constructor clearly made some sacrifices to make WEB OF LIES work. There were quite a few ugly three-letter fill words (See: INS; OWS; DPS; UMP; ODS; EMU...), and I didn't think anything really popped in the puzzle. (Seriously, I had to search over and over to find something that could work as a "word of the day"— and I ended up choosing a 28-year-old movie that has a whopping 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.) Also, there were so many words that start with IN or INS in this puzzle. The worst of it was INS (12D), INSPOT (25A), and INDEBT (46A); on top of that, we have INVENTION (44A) and INST (20D), which also felt pretty cheap.
There were also a lot of vague clues that could have led to many different answers, which is definitely fair game in puzzles late in the week but which I find annoying on Mondays and Tuesdays. For example: 36A: Let me see could have been so many things other than WELL; 45D: "Thanks, I __ that" could also have been a variety of things other than NEEDED; and the puzzle started with 1D: [Fizzle], which was quite vague. I hate the fill of IBARS (44D: Some building beams), which could be so many things — depending on what one letter the constructor needs at the start.
Some other nits: SEACOAST (is this a thing?); EWELAMB (again, is this really a thing?); DPS (not a common abbreviation at all, according to my sportswriter sister); ARYAN (having this in a puzzle feels ALL sorts of weird to me).
Misc.:
Signed, Clare Carroll, a proud Liverpool fan — and that's no TALL TALE
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Constructor:Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty:Medium
Theme answers:
- TALL TALES (4D: Accounts of Paul Bunyan, say)
- FABLE (17A: "The Tortoise and the Hare," e.g.)
- FALSEHOOD (29A: "__ of the tongue leads to that of the heart": Jefferson)
- FICTION (8D: Section of a bookstore)
- WHOPPER (24D: Burger King offering)
- UNTRUTH (41D: Fabrication)
- INVENTION (44A: Bubble gum in the 1906, e.g.)
- LIBEL (60A: Writing that can get you in trouble)
Encino Man (known as California Man in France, Great Britain, Asia and New Zealand) is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Les Mayfield in his directorial debut, and starring Brendan Fraser, Sean Astin and Pauly Shore. The plot revolves around two geeky teenagers from Encino, Los Angeles, California, played by Astin and Shore, who discover a caveman in Morgan's backyard frozen in a block of ice. The caveman, played by Fraser, has to learn to live in the 20th century. Along the way, he teaches them about life. (Wiki)
• • •
Wow. So. Many. Theme. Answers! I can't decide whether I'm more impressed that the constructor managed to fit all those theme answers in the puzzle and have it be coherent, or if I'm more annoyed that I had to type all of those clues and theme answers out in today's write-up.This whole puzzle was centered on the theme, and the way WEB OF LIES tied everything together was quite impressive. The problem with having the whole puzzle revolve around the theme, though, was that the rest of the puzzle suffered. I didn't have any moments going through the puzzle where I thought, "Oh, that was cool"— I just worked my way around until I finished and realized what the theme was. For me, the theme was an afterthought.
A nit about the theme answers is that all of them are singular except for TALL TALES, which is plural. The bigger problem is that the constructor clearly made some sacrifices to make WEB OF LIES work. There were quite a few ugly three-letter fill words (See: INS; OWS; DPS; UMP; ODS; EMU...), and I didn't think anything really popped in the puzzle. (Seriously, I had to search over and over to find something that could work as a "word of the day"— and I ended up choosing a 28-year-old movie that has a whopping 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.) Also, there were so many words that start with IN or INS in this puzzle. The worst of it was INS (12D), INSPOT (25A), and INDEBT (46A); on top of that, we have INVENTION (44A) and INST (20D), which also felt pretty cheap.
There were also a lot of vague clues that could have led to many different answers, which is definitely fair game in puzzles late in the week but which I find annoying on Mondays and Tuesdays. For example: 36A: Let me see could have been so many things other than WELL; 45D: "Thanks, I __ that" could also have been a variety of things other than NEEDED; and the puzzle started with 1D: [Fizzle], which was quite vague. I hate the fill of IBARS (44D: Some building beams), which could be so many things — depending on what one letter the constructor needs at the start.
Some other nits: SEACOAST (is this a thing?); EWELAMB (again, is this really a thing?); DPS (not a common abbreviation at all, according to my sportswriter sister); ARYAN (having this in a puzzle feels ALL sorts of weird to me).
Misc.:
- Uhh 28D: Things most interstates don't have— Interstates may not have many TOLLS, but lemme tell you about turnpikes... endless TOLLS! My sister and I just got to D.C. after a 10-day (socially distant, mask-wearing, sanitizer-toting) road trip across the country stopping at a bunch of national parks along the way, and the amount of money we had to pay in TOLLS was just ridiculous.
- I love me some LOKI (9A: Norse trickster) — Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of LOKI in the "Avengers" movies is iconic.
- One word I did like seeing in the puzzle was PREVENTABLE (26D) — it just felt interesting and different from everything else.
- I put in OVERRULED (56A) and then LIBEL (60A) very quickly, so, thanks, law school?
- Raise your hand if you've ever responded to something with LOL (30D) while you were, in fact, not laughing — or even smiling! (Guilty!)
- We got the baseball double whammy with DPS (38A) and then UMP (41A) reminding us that baseball is, indeed, back — for now (but who knows how long that'll last?)
Have a great rest of your week!
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]