Constructor: Sam EzerskyRelative difficulty: Challenging
THEME: literal clues ... I think that's it — You have to take the theme clues literally in order to understand the answers. Thus:
Theme answers:- 19A: 6-Across, with "out" (6-Across = DEV ... then you add "out" ... which gets you "Devout" ... which means ... VERY RELIGIOUS)
- 33A: Inits. before 9-Across ("Inits" + 9-Across (ELF) = "In itself" = ESSENTIALLY)
- 40A: 37-Across, in slang (37-Across (MMI) is (literally) inside "slang," giving you "Slamming," which gets you BAD-MOUTHING)
- 50A: 64-/65-Across and others (STE and PBR and "others" = "Stepbrothers" = BLENDED FAMILY)
Word of the Day: Trey SONGZ (
45D: Trey ___, R&B artist with the 2012 chart-topping album Chapter V) —
Tremaine Aldon Neverson (born November 28, 1984), better known as Trey Songz, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. His debut album, I Gotta Make It, was released in 2005 through Atlantic Records. His follow-up album, Trey Day, spawned his first top 20 single, "Can't Help but Wait". Songz released his third album Ready in 2009 and a single from the album, "Say Aah" (featuring Fabolous), peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 making it Songz's first top 10 hit. Ready was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance at the 2008 Grammy Awards. The following year saw Songz's highest charting song to date, "Bottoms Up" (featuring Nicki Minaj) from his fourth studio album, Passion, Pain & Pleasure.
In 2012, Songz released his first number one album, Chapter V, which debuted atop the Billboard 200. The album's lead single titled "Heart Attack" was nominated for Best R&B Song at the 2013 Grammy Awards. Following that Songz released his sixth studio album Trigga in 2014, his seventh studio album Tremaine in 2017, and his eighth studio album Back Home in 2020. He has sold over 25 million records worldwide in singles and albums. (wikipedia)
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Kind of a twist on the child's menu-type rebus (as opposed to the crossword-type rebus, where multiple letters must be written in single squares). Something plus something minus something blah blah blah = some message, only here the clue equations lead you to the "normal" or typical clue for the answers. I suppose this one is going to try to pass itself off as an April Fools Day puzzle, but it's Thursday, and trickiness is just what you come to expect from Thursday, so if this is an April Fools attempt, it's not a great one. It's mainly just a harder form of trickiness—what we've come to expect, only more so. And the trickiness on display here ... it's more "ah, I see what you did there" than "Wow." Lots of people are going to have to have the theme, or parts of it, explained to them, I think, as the first theme answer is pretty obvious once you've got
DEV filled in, but the next two, yikes, I didn't understand what was going on there until the puzzle was totally finished. This is an important lesson in how valuable the *front* ends of words are: I could see "Devout" from
DEV, and I could see "Stepbrothers" from
STE/PBR, but could do nothing with
ELF or
MMI (because they form the end and middle of their clue words, respectively). Also "Inits." is really Really hard to read as "In" + "its..." when you have no idea that that's something you're supposed to do. You have to mentally supply a space, which you don't have to do with the others (I think the "." at the end of "Inits." is slightly cheating, there's no "." in "In itself," but we'll just assume cryptic rules, where punctuation is ignored). There's no internal coherence to the answers—presumably you could make puzzle after puzzle just like this, where the only way to find the normal clue (e.g. "Devout") is to read the published clue as a cryptic clue (
DEV + "out"). Because there's no thematic concept, this felt more of a hassle than a joy, a series of thought exercises rather than a pleasurably coherent theme. Also, I don't see how
BLENDED FAMILY works if the clue is just [Stepbrothers]. Stepbrothers can be *part* of a
BLENDED FAMILY, but they aren't the whole shebang. Weird.
Slow at first because I went with the wrong language at 12A: Good, in Genoa (BUONO), using the letter pattern to guide me to the more common answer instead of Actually Reading the Clue. This is to say, I wrote in BUENO. This made the already hard-to-parse GO OVERSEAS much harder indeed (3D: Travel abroad). Clue on DOORMAN is maybe my favorite thing in the grid, and it was also hard, making the NW quite a mess for me at first (5D: Quite a job, you have to admit?) (get it? ... because a DOORMAN ... has to admit ... you ... to the building?). EASTLA is crosswordese that was very well masked today (I know I-5 well, having grown up on the west coast (it runs practically the length of the country, N/S), but the I-710 I could not place) (23D: Where I-5 meets I-710). I couldn't see DECRY until DEC-Y and even then I had to think about it (6D: Publicly criticize). Sometimes my brain just won't go into gear, no idea why. Had SHEEN for 48D: Strong luster? (SATYR), failing to pick up on that "?"—it's a good clue, which for me is one where you trick me and the trick seems worth it (SATYRs are known for their lust, so ... "luster"). Had SPOT for 62A: Fix (SPAY), which was quite rough, since SPOT shares two letters with the "correct" answer and is also literally correct for the clue ("in a SPOT" = "in a fix").
I don't think anything else needs explaining, does it? PBR = Pabst Blue Ribbon. Björn BORG is the tennis player in question at 56A: Ice-___ (old tennis nickname). That's it. Happy Opening Day! (I'm talking baseball...)
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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