Constructor: Olivia Mitra FramkeRelative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 3s) (it's oversized, 16x15)
THEME: CAKE (60D: Word that can follow either half of the answers to the starred clues) — just what it says:
Theme answers:- LEMON YELLOW (18A: *Bygone Crayola color)
- HOT COFFEE (12D: *Sign in a deli window, perhaps)
- FRUIT CUP (41A: *Sweet, healthful treat)
- WHITE RICE (35D: *Staple of Japanese cuisine)
- COCONUT CRAB (62A: *World's largest terrestrial arthropod)
Word of the Day: COCONUT CRAB (
62A) —
The coconut crab (Birgus latro) is a species of terrestrial hermit crab, also known as the robber crab or palm thief. It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, with a weight up to 4.1 kg (9.0 lb). It can grow to up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length from each tip to tip of the leg. It is found on islands across the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Pacific Ocean as far east as the Gambier Islands and Pitcairn Islands, similar to the distribution of the coconut palm; it has been extirpated from most areas with a significant human population, including mainland Australia and Madagascar. Coconut Crabs also live off the coast of Africa near Zanzibar, and the Gambier islands in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The coconut crab is the only species of the genus Birgus, and is related to the terrestrial hermit crabs of the genus Coenobita. It shows a number of adaptations to life on land. Like other hermit crabs, juvenile coconut crabs use empty gastropod shells for protection, but the adults develop a tough exoskeleton on their abdomens and stop carrying a shell. Coconut crabs have organs known as branchiostegal lungs, which are used instead of the vestigial gills for breathing, and after the juvenile stage they will drown if immersed in water for too long. They have an acute sense of smell, which has developed convergently with that of insects, and which they use to find potential food sources. (wikipedia)
• • •
This is a well-established theme type that's almost never enjoyable. I don't know why people continue to make them. "This short word can follow or precede both parts of all those answers you just put in the grid ...
VOILÀ!" The revealer always comes like a thud, the theme answer review like an autopsy. "Oh,
CAKE ... the answer is
CAKE ... [looks over grid] ... ok I guess that mostly checks out ...
SIGH." The problem with this theme type is that it often convinces you to try to pass off some wonky answers. Today's puzzle manages to avoid this problem, mostly, though
COCONUT CRAB, yikes, on a Tuesday? With that (very non-coconut-specific) clue?? Glaring outlier, that one, in terms of general familiarity. This type of theme is not exciting or important enough to bloat your grid like this (it's 16 wide to accommodate the even-numbered length of the central Across, which has to be centered for reasons of symmetry—can't center an answer of even-numbered length in a regular 15x grid). So there's just ... more. And you get that thing I never love, where there are non-theme answers right alongside of, and the same length as, themers (see NE, SW corners). Yes, they are bonus long answers, and both of them today are OK, but aesthetically I just like it better when the themers stand out, lengthwise.
Two other problems with the theme. The clues are ... odd. This is part of what made the puzzle harder than your typical Tuesday. They're very vague. Clue on LEMON YELLOW may as well just have been [Color]. Clue on COCONUT CRAB, well, we've been over that one. I would never in a million years associate a "deli" with HOT COFFEE, though I guess I've watched enough old movies that maybe I can imagine it now. The clue did almost nothing to help get me there, though. The other theme problem is minor, but really really affected the end of the solve (you know, the climactic, most important part): the first letter of the revealer (CAKE) was the very last square I wrote in, and instead of writing it in with an emphatic Pow, I wrote it in tentatively, with a half grimace. Not at all confident. There is no clue for CAKE (beyond the fact that it can follow the answer parts) and the cross on "C" is ooooof an org. initialism (EEOC), the ugliest thing in your grid, and again, it had a vague clue (59A: Workers' rights org. since 1965), which left me just *hoping* at the end that "C" was correct (once I had EEO- in there, I figured "C" was "Commission," from Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and I was right, but it still felt more like a guess than I'd've liked). I can easily see someone's never having heard of EEOC, and therefore having a weirdly hard time with that cross, and thus a weirdly hard time getting to CAKE—the whole central premise of the puzzle. You gotta be more careful with the cluing and crosses on your revealer. It has to pop. To leave it just sitting there, a sad, unclued four letters, in an awkward, not-very-themelike position (the third-to-last Down answer!?), with the ugliest bit of fill you've got crossing its head ... that's just mean.
GLOW STICK,
GUEST ROOM, good. Short fill in SW (
ATIT RICO ICER), woof, not good. Mostly, the fill here felt very standard-20th-century. Fine. Let's just never do this theme type again. Please. Thanks.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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