Constructor: Dory Mintz
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 4s)
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THEME: city puns— familiar phrases where first word is swapped out for a homophone that is also the name of a city; clues are wacky, of course:
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 4s)
Theme answers:
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When I finished this, I assumed it had been written by an older person. By "older" I mean significantly older than me, and I'm 50. I also assumed "Dory" was a woman. Wrong on both counts! This theme is so slight and so stale that I'm genuinely stunned the puzzle was accepted. This feels like something straight out of the pre-Shortzian era. City puns? Some version of this theme has to have been done roughly 2000 times in the past half century. What's worse, the puns don't even result in funny or even genuinely wacky clues. They're leaden. Obvious. Plain. Boring. The only evidence I have that a bot programmed to think like a Baby Boomer who stopped solving puzzles in 1985 didn't make this puzzle was the clue on HAIM (6D: American pop-rock band composed of three sisters) and the freakishly (for this puzzle) current phrase, "I CAN'T EVEN ..." The whole frame of reference in this puzzle is largely bygone. I guess SOCHI wouldn't have been crossword-famous before 2014, but still, in fill and especially in concept, this puzzle seems like something straight out of the IMUS era (not sure exactly when that was, but most of it was not in this century, that I know).
- BERN BRIDGES (17A: Ways to cross a river in Switzerland?)
- CANNES OPENER (28A: First showing at a film festival in France?)
- DELHI COUNTER (44A: Census taker in India?)
- SEOUL SEARCH (58A: Police dragnet in South Korea)
The title babu, also spelled baboo, is used in the Indian subcontinent as a sign of respect towards men. In some cultures, the term 'Babu' is a term of endearment for a loved one as well. The honorific "ji" is sometimes added as a suffix to create the double honorific "babuji" which, in northern and eastern parts of India, is a term of respect for one's father. (wikipedia)
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It was also maddeningly hard ... or ... futzy, I guess ... to get through. Does PBR still have "hipster cred" (5D: Brew with hipster cred)? That clue feels like it's from the '00s. I wrote in IPA there, which felt ... not dead on, but close. So that messed things up. I don't remember GTE at all (31A: Co. that merged into Verizon); don't think I ever dealt with them in any way. So that initialism was a mystery (I had ATT I think, even though they're obviously still around and haven't merged with Verizon). I wrote in LARSON, thinking of 2015 Best Actress Oscar winner Bree LARSON, instead of actress ALISONBrie, which is weird because I watched and loved "Mad Men" and know very well who ALISON Brie is (she played Pete's wife; she was also in the sitcom "Community"). So that error is very much on me. Ugh, really wanted RAMP before RAIL (30D: Skate park feature), and that one nearly killed me (because RA- was correct, I almost didn't notice the errors in the crosses). But the area that really slowed me down the most was the SE—total train wreck, starting with SCADS for SLEWS (49A: Loads). Later, BENCH for STOOP (55A: Urban sitting spot). Later still, MEALY for WORMY (50D: Like a bad apple). Jeez, WORMY? That's really, really bad. I've never had a WORMY apple. Yikes. Also could not make any sense of PHON-, which is easily the yuckiest bit of fill in the whole grid (56D: Sound: Prefix).
Still mad that CANNES and CAEN are in the same puzzle. Two French cities? With names that are ... well, not identical in pronunciation, but PRETTY damn close? And those two answers *cross* each other? And one of them (CAEN) is hardcore crosswordese? That's a lot of "no."BABU is interesting in that it's a real term that also definitely belongs to times of yore where crossword frequency is concerned. It appeared just last year, actually, but before that, only twice since 1997 (!). Whereas from 1948-88 it appeared some twenty-one times. It baffled me, for sure. But it didn't irk me the way, say, AU LAIT on its own did. Hey, somebody do an AU LAIT / OLÉ! / OLAY theme, quick! There's gotta be a way. Yes, it's a terrible idea, but better to be a spectacular failure than the lukewarm (re)hash that is this puzzle.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld