Constructor: Sid SivakumarRelative difficulty: Easy (4:36)
THEME: BOUNCE BACK (64A: Recover ... or what 17-, 25-, 38- and 51-Across do) — themers start somewhere in the middle (in a circled square), proceed in the normal L-to-R direction, but once they hit the end,
BOUNCE BACK (past the original circle, back to the "first" square"). So they're just partially palindromical answers:
Theme answers:- EKACNAPOTA (i.e. "potato pancake") (17A: Fried Hanukkah treat)
- ELUSPACE (i.e. "space capsule") (25A: Apollo command module, for one)
- NOTGNIHSAWALLAW (i.e. "Walla Walla, Washington") (38A: Home of Whitman College)
- DAERBANA (i.e. "banana bread") (51A: Fruity loaf with a moist texture)
Word of the Day: BAM BAM Bigelow (
47D: Former pro wrestling star ___ Bigelow) —
Scott Charles Bigelow (September 1, 1961 – January 19, 2007) was an American professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Bam Bam Bigelow. Recognizable by his close to 400-pound frame and the distinctive flame tattoo that spanned most of his bald head, Bigelow was hailed by former employer WWE in 2013 as "the most natural, agile and physically remarkable big man of the past quarter century", while former co-worker Bret Hart described him as "possibly the best working big man in the business."
Bigelow is best known for his appearances with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) between 1987 and 2001. Over the course of his career, he held championships including the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, the ECW World Television Championship, the IWGP Tag Team Championship, and the WCW World Tag Team Championship. Bigelow headlined seven pay-per-views: the first Survivor Series in 1987, Beach Brawl in 1991, King of the Ring in 1993 and 1995, WrestleMania XI in 1995, and the 1997 and 1998 editions of ECW's premier annual event, November to Remember. (wikipedia)
• • •
Very busy with first-week-of-school stuff, so this'll be sort of brief, as I need Sleeeeeep. This seemed fine. The answers start in the middle, they bounce back ... there it is. I guess this is some kind of architectural feat, I don't know. I do know that the only one that really interested me was
WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON, both because it's really long (though ultimately a perfect grid-spanning 15 boxes) and thus has the most dramatic visual effect, and because I applied to Whitman College when I was a high school senior (I have lots of family in the Pacific NW), and so knew the answer instantly (and weirdly enjoyed remembering this little bit of my bio that even I had forgotten). Didn't so much like having to write answers in (partially) backward. But it was more awkward than annoying. Fill on this one seems about average, with the showy and original
GAY RODEO (39D: Sporting even profiled in the 2014 documentary "Queens & Cowboys") out ahead of the rest of the pack.
I don't really get how [
AA] =
ACES. Maybe it's some kind of poker notation I'm unfamiliar with. Certainly never heard of
BAM BAM Bigelow, but the crosses were easy, so he didn't hold me up that much.
BAM BAM died at 46. Rough. I know and accept that
ALITO will show up in my puzzle for the rest of my lifetime, but I'm never gonna like it. I'm also never gonna like TIE--- as an answer, as TIEPIN TIETAC and
TIEBAR are all things, and all things that have appeared in the NYTXW, specifically (today, I tried TAC). I wrote in SORT (?) instead of
SAVE (37D: Action under a File menu). But otherwise I just didn't make any mistakes on this one. Got the theme very easily once I realized the front end of the first themer *had* to be the gibberish that I was looking at ("EKACN-etc."). First thing I did was read backward. Saw "cake." Got it quickly after that. None of the other themers proved problematic in the slightest. I had more fun yesterday, but still, this was better than
SO-SO (69A: Meh).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on
Twitter and
Facebook]
