Constructor: Adrian Johnson
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: MARIO BROS. (34A: Video game franchise with characters found at the ends of 17-, 20-, 53- and 58-Across) — pretty self-explanatory:
Theme answers:
This is a puzzle that wants you to think it's cool / hip / young, but it's also a puzzle that thinks sipping an IPA is "hip" (wtf?), and its bones are creaky, to put it kindly. Let's start with the fact that a huge segment of the solving population will never have played MARIO BROS., and so the theme ... these solvers are just gonna have to take your word for it that these are "characters" in this "franchise." I think I played one incarnation of MARIO BROS. ... maybe some version of MARIO KART (my first answer, btw) ... in the early '90s when I visited my sister and her boyfriend in California. I remember a beanbag chair and, yeah, some kind of car-racing game. I've known about the franchise forever, of course, but somehow just putting PEACH and TOAD at the ends of some answers does absolutely nothing for me. This puzzle seems to exist because MURIEL BOWSER exists. I can't imagine anyone even being inspired to make this kind of old-fashioned, last-words-type theme about MARIO BROS. unless they first see MURIEL BOWSER's name and think "hmmm... should I?" (Answer: probably not). Well, MURIEL BOWSER is easily the most interesting thing in the grid, so there's one plus, but the theme concept is a. too boringly basic, and b. really is going to be meaningless to untold legions of solvers. And normally I'd say "so what, you learn something, blah blah blah," but what do you learn? TOAD? DAISY? Shrug.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- HORNED TOAD (17A: Small, spiny lizard)
- GEORGIA PEACH (20A: Fruit appearing on a Southern license plate)
- MURIEL BOWSER (53A: D.C. mayor first elected in 2014)
- OOPSY-DAISY (58A: "Clumsy me!")
Coccoloba uvifera is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae, that is native to coastal beaches throughout tropical America and the Caribbean, including southern Florida, the Bahamas, the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and Bermuda. Common names include seagrape and baygrape.
In late summer, it bears green fruit, about 2 cm (0.79 in) diameter, in large, grape-like clusters. The fruit gradually ripens to a purplish color. Each contains a large pit that constitutes most of the volume of the fruit. (wikipedia)
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[Warning: Profanity and sexual content]
Worse than the blah theme concept, by far, is the fill, which, as I said above—creaky. Big thumbs-up for LOU REED, but most of the rest, yikes. The way you know that things were not great from the jump is that I stopped before I even got out of the NW and took a picture. Five answers in and I was already thinking, "oof, this is gonna be grim":
Maybe you (mistakenly) think "Well, J's are cool, right?" but the only way HAJJI* is cool is if you squint real hard and ignore literally everything else in that corner. Just clogged with the kind of crossword dreck you learn to tolerate fine in small doses, but ... that's a dreck speedball right there, although a "speedball" is technically a mixture of cocaine and heroin, which at least makes you feel good, maybe? Temporarily? Anyway, I did not feel good coming out of this corner, and though JINGOISM is decent, once I moved over to the adjacent section and found only TVAD, ELLA, DADA, ALAI (ugh), I gave myself a little pep talk and settled in for a slog. This one even manages to make the longer answers kind of tedious. AIR ACES, ugh, it's not 1918, why is this kind of stuff still in the puzzle? SEA GRAPE is just some plant that your wordlist told you was valid. ECOTONE is a word I've (still!) only ever seen in crosswords, and I was quite proud of myself that I remembered that it was "TONE" and not "ZONE," which honestly makes much more sense. I mean, it's a "region" so ... "ZONE." Come on. Anyway, on and on the fill went, displeasing at every turn (YER REAIR EDAMIPASLRYEA, etc.). So you get your video game franchise, which is going to make some people think "oh, cool, how youthful! I played that!" but the concept is super duper basic and bland (just a last-words dealie), and the fill is oldish and unpleasant to work through.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*In my neck of the woods, and so presumably other necks of other woods, HAJJI is used as a ethnic slur—a catchall, at least mildly derogatory term for literally anyone perceived to be Arab or otherwise from the Near East. It's the only racial slur I've ever heard someone say in public here (in reference to a gas station / mini-mart, "one of these HA(J)JI stores"). It's a complicated word because it's honorific in its specific, originally-intended usage, but in general use in the U.S. ... it's not great: Here's dictionary.com.
Since the Iraq War began in 2003, haji has been used as an ethnic slur, much like gook was during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Some sources suggest haji is not always meant derogatorily and may be intended more as a colloquialism among U.S. soldiers. However, considering the sacredness of the pilgrimage among Muslims, such use of the term by non-Muslims is widely considered offensive.
You can find stories of cops and politicians and others getting in trouble for using the term an ethnic catch-all. I recognize that HAJJI is clued respectfully and correctly here, but the word really, really hits my ears wrong. I wouldn't let it anywhere near my puzzles if I were constructing.