Constructor: Celeste Watts and Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Very Easy
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THEME:"Take Two"— Every theme clue has had "two" letters "taken" from it: the answers are punny explanations of the clues and their missing letters. Thus:
Theme answers:
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It's a slightly old gag, the "treat letters as words" thing (NV as "envy," or EZ as "easy," etc.). But this iteration is restricted and sharply defined in a way that makes it seem interesting and worthwhile. That is to say, the letter removal conceit really works. Some of the themers are more solid than others—loved EASE OFF THE GAS PEDAL, best of the lot ... whereas YOU ARE OUT OF ORDER feels slightly jury-rigged; it's a phrase one might say, but the YOU ARE part feels arbitrary and tacked on ... OUT OF ORDER stands alone nicely, the YOU ARE ... just appended. You have to play fast and loose with grammar to make the phrases work, e.g. technically you strip the "T"s from the word meaning "artist" ... and "un-NV-able" is a bonkers non-word ... so phonetically you've kinda gotta just go with the flow and accept that it's all Close Enough. And it is close enough. There are two UN- words in the themers, and maybe it would've been slightly more elegant not to repeat letter-removal strategies (in this case, the UN- prefix), but meh. This is a quibble. Overall: It's cute. It's whimsical. It's not terribly corny. It takes an old trick and gives it interesting new life. I can live with this theme for sure.
But wow was this easy. Like ... with the help of only one Across answer in each case, I got the first sixteen (!) Downs in a row without stopping. Wasn't sure about 1A: After the fact, as a justification, so I went to 1D: Entourage, wrote in POSSE, then immediately thought "oh, 1A is POST HOC," then proceeded to get every Down cross. Threw STRIPTEASE ARTISTS across the grid, so I had the NW done and the theme in hand, all inside of something like 20 seconds:
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Relative difficulty: Very Easy
Theme answers:
- STRIPTEASE ARTISTS (23A: ILLUS_RA_ORS) (word meaning "artists" has had its "T"s "stripped")
- EASE OFF THE GAS PEDAL (39A: ACC_L_RATOR) (word meaning "gas pedal" has had its "E"s taken "off")
- UNWISE INVESTMENT (49A: LUXU_ _ACHT) (possible "investment" is without "Y"s)
- NO EMPTY THREAT (66A: ENDANGER_EN_) (word meaning "threat" has no "M" or "T")
- YOU ARE OUT OF ORDER (85A: CONFIG__ATION) ("U" and "R" are taken "out of" word meaning "order")
- UNENVIABLE POSITION (93A: POI_T OF _IEW) (phrase meaning "position" has been un-"NV"'d)
- WITHOUT ANY WARNING (113A: _OTIC_) (word meaning "warning" is "without" its "N" and "E")
Ian Joseph Somerhalder (born December 8, 1978) is an American actor, model, activist and director. He is known for playing Boone Carlyle in the TV drama Lost, Damon Salvatore in The CW's supernatural drama The Vampire Diaries and Dr. Luther Swann in Netflix's sci-fi horror series V Wars. (wikipedia)
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But wow was this easy. Like ... with the help of only one Across answer in each case, I got the first sixteen (!) Downs in a row without stopping. Wasn't sure about 1A: After the fact, as a justification, so I went to 1D: Entourage, wrote in POSSE, then immediately thought "oh, 1A is POST HOC," then proceeded to get every Down cross. Threw STRIPTEASE ARTISTS across the grid, so I had the NW done and the theme in hand, all inside of something like 20 seconds:
From there it was HEFTS, BEST OF, and then a repeat of the NW corner, with Every Single Down in that northern section falling in order, all hits no misses. First real hesitation was when I got to the PETER guy—figured his Roman numeral was probably "I," but didn't commit. Had SAMBA before SALSA (32D: Lively dance genre)and YES YES before YES I DO (31D: Emphatic assent), but despite those neighboring errors, I flew through the west as well. There are little moments of wrongness or hesitation here and there, but overall I kinda wish I'd had the timer on, because this felt close to a record-setting time (i.e. low 7-minute mark). No idea who IAN Somerhalder is. Spelled WRYEST thusly. These are the kinds of "problems" I was having, i.e. I was having hardly any problems. BLURRY before BLEARY (92A: Unfocused). Some STN / TENUOUS issues. But otherwise, as the clue for MAZDA says, "Zoom Zoom." Only wrinkled-nose moment of the solve came with the clue for OVERDO (47A: Exercise too much, say). The answer for *that* clue should be OVERDOIT. I exercised too much, I overdid it. Same thing. I overdid ... no. Also, OVERDO has no specific relationship to exercise. Bah to that clue. But yeah, otherwise, acceptable all around. Very OK. Sadly, "very OK" means this is one of the best Sundays of the year so far. This should be average! Good should be normal! OK, that's all, happy Sunday.