Constructor: Tom Pepper
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: SQUIB KICK (38A: Football tactic to prevent a long return) —
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I don't know who needs to hear this, but the secret to good themeless puzzles is not Scrabbly letters. I feel like somehow in the year 2021, in the fifteenth year of this blog's existence, this idea that Qs and Zs and Js are the special sauce where Friday and Saturday puzzles are concerned still lingers. This puzzle was not bad, by any means, but it seemed more interested in putting up crooked letters than in putting up truly interesting longer fill and creating an overall enjoyable solving experience. It also felt weirdly dated. Slightly WIZENed. SNIPE HUNTs seem quaint and Johnny OLSON is bygone and calling them TUSHES and TOGS seems Nana-ish and wow it is hard to imagine someone under 60 unironically saying "party down" as an exclamation, let alone as a past tense verb phrase (?). Isn't a HYPERLINK just ... a link. Am I on the World Wide Web right now? I don't know. The inclination to showcase Scrabbly tiles plus the overall sensibility of the fill and cluing made this feel a little musty to me. The IPOD is outmoded and ASTANA is outmoded etc. It's a solid grid, it is, but I didn't crack a smile or think "oh, cool" once.
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: SQUIB KICK (38A: Football tactic to prevent a long return) —
A squib kick is a term used in American football meaning a short, low, line drive kickoff that usually bounces around on the ground before it can be picked up by a member of the receiving team. The ball is kicked so short that it forces the receiving team's slower players to recover the ball first instead of their faster kick returner. Secondly, the unpredictably bouncing ball may be harder for the receiving team to pick up, allowing more time for kicking team members to get downfield to surround the ball carrier. (wikipedia)
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One big comprehension problem today, which was HUSH (1D: Reaction to someone tapping a microphone, maybe). I just assumed that the "reaction" would be the exclamation, "HUSH!," because who wants to hear someone tap a microphone ... but it seemed like such a bizarre clue for such a reaction. It's not like mic tap + "HUSH!" is some classic combo. So it was bugging me, that clue ... until I realized that it's *a* HUSH ... that is supposed to come over the room ... when someone taps a mic. Yes, that makes sense. The "reaction" part of the clue really had me off on the wrong track there. In addition to the one big comprehension problem, I had one big parsing problem: SKI (space) TRACKS (31D: Evidence of having gone on a run). First of all, the "having gone" without any subject was slightly bewildering. The ambiguity of "run," same. But the thing that threw me the worst was having SKIT- in place the first time I looked at the clue. I made two mental errors: assumed it was the front end of a single word (SKITCHES? SKITTLING?), and then assumed that it was something to do with SKITs. No and no. Even after figuring out it was SKI something, I couldn't see what it was til I got most of the crosses. Nothing else gave me too much trouble today. Wrote in SQUAD at 12D: Fleet (RAPID), then wrote in AQABA right next to it, which left me consecutive Qs at the cross, at which point I thought "wow, a double-Q word, this guy really Really likes the Scrabble letters. But there was just one Q. Near a J. Near a Z :(
My favorite mistake was one I knew instantly was wrong, but I still couldn't stop my fingers from making it:
It's the first "landscaping" thing that came to mind. I thought "well, that's unfortunate" and then immediately "well, that's wrong." My proudest moment was remembering ASTANA. Seriously, that was it, that one moment of "it's this, right?!" and then having it confirmed by crosses. It's so rare that trivia like that actually takes root in my brain, this late in the game (i.e. three+ decades into my solving career). Of course I don't know what the *current* name of Kazakhstan's capital* is, but ... I'll take care of that some time in the *next* thirty years. Take care, see you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*It's NUR-SULTAN, which I now very much want to be in a puzzle, preferably as soon as possible so I have a good chance of remembering it.
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