Constructor: Sid Sivakumar
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: RITA ORA (37A: British pop star who sang 2012's "R.I.P.") —
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Not as juicy as yesterday's, but a solid effort nonetheless. And the difficulty felt like it was back up to normal Saturday levels this week, which is just fine. Friday is a dance, Saturday is a hike, both have their pleasures. I thought I was going to sail through this thing with all the giveaways up front. DAHL was a gimme, and from that I could infer DATA, and then DATA was cross-referenced with 12D: Actor Spiner, whom I also knew (well, I hesitated on BRETT v. BRENT, tbh, but let the record show I was leaning BRENT). But the puzzle began to fight back a little after that. I had no idea what "sci-fi clash" was at issue in 14A: Side opposite 41-Across in a sci-fi clash—I got ALIEN OK, but I was thinking the clash would be a specific one. "ALIEN vs. Predator" came to mind (it's got the "clash" right in the title!). But RACE was not a word I was expecting. Through RACE went BRAID (5D: Traditional feature of a Hindu bride), which I had as PLAIT (kind of correct!) but also TRAIN (like a bridal TRAIN ... that's a thing, right?). Also, having the "EA" and nothing else at 7D: Expansive (OCEANIC), I decided that a good answer to put there would be ONE-ACRE. As in "Behold my ONE-ACRE lawn!" to which you would reply, "My ... how expansive!"
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: RITA ORA (37A: British pop star who sang 2012's "R.I.P.") —
Rita Sahatçiu Ora (born Rita Sahatçiu; 26 November 1990) is a British singer, songwriter and actress. She rose to prominence in February 2012 when she featured on DJ Fresh's single "Hot Right Now", which reached number one in the UK. Her debut studio album, Ora, released in August 2012, debuted at number one in the United Kingdom. The album contained the UK number-one singles, "R.I.P." and "How We Do (Party)". Ora was the artist with the most number-one singles on the UK Singles Chart in 2012, with three singles reaching the top position.
Ora's second studio album, Phoenix, was released in November 2018. The lead single, "Your Song", reached the UK top ten, and the subsequent singles "Anywhere" and "Let You Love Me" reached the top five in the UK. "Let You Love Me" made Ora the first British female solo artist to have thirteen top ten songs in the United Kingdom. (wikipedia)
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So things were kind of gummed up there in the north, but the problem was that they were worse when I tried to go down the west coast. HIGH HORSE, no problem, and same with OARS, but then nothing really seemed to work so I went back up top and just pushed on through to the NE and then down the E coast and around the grid. Here's a late snapshot of the grid where you can see I took a look at the western section, decided I wanted no part of it, and then reversed course to pursue my solving adventures in clockwise fashion:
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You can see that I have HAIR as my [Curling target] (26D)—a tiny mistake that cost me dearly. Mistakes can be quite catastrophic when all the letters look plausible.. That's one instance where getting a cross (the "A"), actually did me more harm than good. But as I say, I was able to come all the way around the grid and then come at that same western section from underneath. You can see I threw POTATO BATTERY across the grid pretty easily there, which allowed me to make very quick work of the SW (as I had with the NE, those symmetrical 5x5 sections being by far the simplest things in the grid), which is where I finally finished. My only real beef with this puzzle is THE COLTS, which (unfortunately) happens to be right in the middle of the toughest section of the puzzle (for me), and a major contributor to that toughness. The definite article in team names is so ugly. So rough. And I know all the major sports teams; for the non-sports people (I see you), this type of thing must be maddening. You not only have to know all these teams, but also you just throw a random THE in front of their name, like they're THE Mob or "THE Bachelor?" Also, only in the bizarro world of sportsland could anyone conceive of Indianapolis as a place that is in the "South." But the issue here is the THE. And so the ugliest fill ended up in the toughest section, which is never a good combination. Ugliness should be easy to blow through, and solver struggle should be rewarded by cleanness and clarity. So that was blecch. But the rest, as I say, was more than sufficiently satisfying Saturday stuff.
Bullets:
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- 9D: First supermodel to produce her own posters and calendars (CAROL ALT) — I love the Return of ALT! And in full-name form. She used to be a very regular grid denizen—crosswordese, even—but then the keyboard and music-prefix meanings of ALT came into vogue and Carol went into semi-retirement from puzzles, making only the occasional appearance. But here, bam, back on the runway!
- 37A: British pop star who sang 2012's "R.I.P." (RITA ORA)— I got this pretty easily, and I'll tell you why—I don't know her music well at all, but when a name like RITA ORA appears on your radar, and your job is solving/talking about crosswords, you notice. Both name parts are made for the grid, and ORA, man, you have no idea how desperate crossworld was for a new ORA clue. You can only take so much [___ pro nobis], I tell ya. So when I learned her music was repeatedly chart-topping, I locked her name in my crossword vault. Today I learned that she and I share a birthday. She was born the day I turned 21. Trivia!
- 15D: Certain school clique (NERDS) — Thank you for finally bringing NERDS into the 21st century. This whole concept of the NERDS as a coherent social group still feels very much like John Hughes fictional territory, but at least we are acknowledging that there's a self-selecting and even exclusionary social element to the category, and that NERDS are something other than just targets of bullies (esp. in this modern world, where the word "nerd" has lost so much of its derogatory meaning).
- 10D: Page-previewing program (ADOBE READER) — Got ADOBE, couldn't make ACROBAT fit, and was briefly sad.
- 21D: Literally, "my master" (RABBI) — this caused me way more trouble than it should have. Even after I had it down to RA--I, I was still looking something ... eastern? Something in the way of ROSHI (literally "old teacher,""old master" (Japanese)) or SWAMI or SENSEI or GURU or I dunno ... I was stuck in the wrong parts of the globe. Probably more embarrassing that it took me a while to come up with CABLE CAR, considering I was born in S.F. and those cars are an iconic part of my childhood (29A: Symbol of San Francisco). The real culprit in this section, though, is DISBAR, which had a tough "?" clue (27A: Keep off the court?). I thought of legal court, obviously, but given the "?" I had to think of all the courts. At one point I had the "D" and no-foolin' wrote in DRYMOP. As in, "How do you keep dust off the court?""Well, you DRYMOP it, of course." Brilliant!
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