Constructor: Robyn Weintraub
Relative difficulty: medium
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THEME: nope
Word of the Day: EEK A MOUSE (19A: Pioneering Reggae artist whose name is an exclamation) —
I really wanted to show you an EEK A MOUSE video for “Virgin Girl” because it’s a great song, but all of the YouTube videos I could find for that song are absolute crap. Here's a Spinal Tap video about STONEHENGE (16A) that is one of the funniest scenes ever:
Notable:
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Relative difficulty: medium
THEME: nope
Word of the Day: EEK A MOUSE (19A: Pioneering Reggae artist whose name is an exclamation) —
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Eek-A-Mouse began his music career when he was in college, releasing two roots reggae singles under his own name, which were produced by his mathematics tutor, Mr. Dehaney. These early works were influenced by the music of Pablo Moses. He then went on to work for various sound systems over the next few years and also released a few more singles. He adopted the stage name"Eek-A-Mouse" in 1979, taking the name of a racehorse he always bet on; it was a nickname his friends had used for some time. (wikipedia)
• • •
There’s been plenty to criticize in recent NYT crosswords, so I was fired up to start some shit on Rex’s blog while he snoozed away his Thanksgiving feast. But as soon as I saw that it was a Robyn Weintraub puzzle I was pretty certain that I’d be gushing instead. I was not wrong. Robyn is one of my favorite constructors and today’s puzzle is a perfectly enjoyable themeless Friday. If you like this puzzle, be sure to check out The New Yorker’s crosswords. They are a blast to solve and Robyn contributes about once a month. I really, really love those puzzles and wish that they had an app similar to the NYT one. Are you listening, The New Yorker folks? I would pay good money for that subscription!
So, yeah. This puzzle is great. Very little predictable fill with a lot of clever cluing that felt fresh and interesting.
Notable:
- 11D: Common character in The Far Side (ALIEN) was a nice, smart comic strip pairing with 53A: “Bloom County” character whose vocabulary consists mostly of “Thbbft!” and “Ack!” (BILL THE CAT)
- 28D Echo responder (ALEXA). I’m personally sick of all of the Apple references in crosswords this year (IMAC, IPOD, NANO, SIRI, etc), so was happy to see a different FANG product get a little facetime (hehe).
- 5D: 1984 comedy horror film that contributed to the creation of the PG-13 rating (GREMLINS). I did not know this and will gladly drop this fact sometime in the near future.
- 30A: Thanksgiving Preference (LEG) was a bit forced, but I will give it a pass because, well, it IS Thanksgiving.
I had a little bit of trouble with the northeast, with the vague-ish SURE WHY NOT and not-certain-why-it was-so-hard THROWN. Maybe the massive amounts of Thanksgiving carbs and wine had something to do with it. I was not on my game. It reminded me a little of the time a few years ago when I was super jetlagged and fell asleep on my iPad. I woke up to this:
MmmmK. Anyway, on this Thanksgiving the world continues to be upside down, and I am thankful that there will be a more decent human in the White House in less than two months. With any luck, we’ll get this virus under control by spring. Please wear a mask and keep social distancing, and understand that these small sacrifices are at least as much about protecting others as about protecting yourself.
I’m also thankful for the small daily ritual of the NYT crossword and this community.
Thank you Rex for being a voice so many of us love to read (nearly) every day.
Signed, Amy Seidenwurm, Undersecretary of CrossWorld
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