Constructor: Owen Travis and Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: LIMBO (64A: Contest described by 19-, 30/41- and 51-Across)— common phrases which also describe what you do when you LIMBO:
Theme answers:
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Mike LEE (36A: Utah senator Mike) is a dishonest, dishonorable defender of fascism, a full-throated supporter of the *out*going president. Currently, today, Mike LEE is working to undermine the US electoral system. He won't acknowledge that Biden won the November presidential election and is actively supporting court cases that push the idea of (non-existent) voter fraud. He is actively, currently, today, trying to pass a bill to punish social media for (non-existent) "anti-conservative bias." There are, what, tens of millions of LEEs in the world? Surely one of them would make a better clue than this guy, who, I repeat, is garbage. Dishonest. He acts in bad faith, against the interests of the country, against the integrity of the government, every day of his life. The only defense for having Mike LEE in this puzzle is that, like the LIMBO, I associate Mike LEE with the question "How low can you go?" I don't resent the so-called "conservatism." I resent the fraud, the dishonesty, the extreme bad-faith arguments ... which have now become synonymous with contemporary American conservatism.
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- SET THE BAR LOW (19A: Establish a standard that's easy to reach)
- BEND OVER / BACKWARD (30A: With 41-Across, make every effort to be accommodating)
- UNDERACHIEVE (51A: Not meet expectations)
Veronica Anne Roth (born August 19, 1988) is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her debut New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy, consisting of Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant; and Four: A Divergent Collection. (wikipedia)
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This puzzle doesn't really evoke the LIMBO that well, mostly because there is nothing evoking a bar, except SET THE BAR LOW, which ... is set very *high* in the grid, and at any rate does not visually represent a bar. You get a dad-joke pun with the final theme answer (UNDERACHIEVE, hardy har, knee slap), so if you're into that, there you go. And the themers do comprise a kind of orderly process, setting the bar, bending over backwards, going under, 1, 2, 3, and so the execution makes a kind of sense. But it just wasn't very LIMBOy for me. Also, I think of it as having a definite article in front of it when it's the "contest": *the* LIMBO. You can LIMBO, I think, so it can be a verb, but as a noun, I think you do *the* LIMBO. I've never heard anyone say "let's play LIMBO." The first thing I wrote in that slot, not really thinking about all the themers I'd written in already, was LOTTO. For me, LIMBO is a place in hell. Virgil and all the "virtuous pagans" live there, if you believe Dante, which I have been known to do, though my belief relates more to ideas of good and evil, truth and lies, than the doctrines of medieval Christianity or the literalness of hell. Here's the thing about Dante's "Inferno" that has stuck with me most: You know who Dante puts at the bottom of hell, in levels 8 and 9, beneath even the murderers? It's the fraudulent. The fraudulent and the treasonous. Which, hey, brings us back to Mike LEE again. Maybe he does belong in this puzzle after all ...