Constructor: Sid Sivakumar and Matthew Stock
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (one very hard corner, the rest just normal Saturday-hard)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: PTEROSAUR (29D: Late-Triassic flier) —
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A grid shape that's designed to be tough, but not particularly interesting. The heavy segmentation ensures that you're never gonna get much of a flow going, and that if you get stuck in a corner, boy you really get stuck. But for all the 8+-letter answers here, there's not much in the way of pizzazz or delightfulness. The two most original-seeming answers are GENERATION ALPHA (first I'm hearing of it) and BOOBOISIE (don't believe anyone actually says this—Mencken (probably) coined it 100 years ago and we're still pretending it's a thing!?). Not in love with either of those answers, but credit for trying. On the other hand, answers like AFILISTS and POKERPROS suggest a massive constructing software wordlist that has not been carefully curated. I recognize those things as things, but they're just not thingy enough. POKER PROS was like yesterday's ITALIAN MEAL, where I got the first part, but the latter part didn't snap into place, and when I eventually got it, it elicited more of a shrug / "I guess" than an aha. It's weird to think that AFI LISTS, plural, should fly, when, I mean, you hardly ever even see AFI in the puzzle to begin with. I have watched more movies than almost anyone since the pandemic started (400-ish and counting), and though I am aware of the existence of AFI LISTS, I have never looked at one. I don't think any one of them is particularly famous or evocative. This answer wasn't hard for me to get; just felt blah. Didn't care for the corporate shilling of OK, GOOGLE. Don't believe in DONK at all (did GENERATION ALPHA invent it? I've never seen it before, except maybe as a sound effect in comic books). The clue for ON BASE is absurd without a "maybe" or some kind of qualifier (40D: Looking to steal, say). LIMA, PERU is also somewhat absurd, as are most city, country answers (where does it end? is MUNICHGERMANY OK? GDANSKPOLAND?). I liked HEIST FILMS because I like HEIST FILMS and I liked ROOT BEER because I like ROOT BEER. I am simple this way. I also liked MAKE A MOVE—it's simple but it's got freshness and energy. And the grid as a whole is solid enough. It's all just a little SEVERE without enough allaying joy.
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Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (one very hard corner, the rest just normal Saturday-hard)
Word of the Day: PTEROSAUR (29D: Late-Triassic flier) —
Pterosaurs (/ˈtɛrəsɔːr, ˈtɛroʊ-/; from Greek pteron and sauros, meaning "wing lizard") were flying reptiles of the extinct clade or order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger (wikipedia)
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The SW was by far the hardest corner for me. Eventually dropped the -SAUR part of PTEROSAUR in there, but I didn't know that was a thing. My flying dino-knowledge began and ended with pterodactyl. I knew "ptero" meant "wing," but after that ... nothing. Wanted PTERODON, but it didn't fit. Also, not a thing (pteranodon is a genus of PTEROSAUR, in case you ever need that little bit of trivia). I knew MAHARISHI, but otherwise I had almost nothing down here at first pass. I decided to try IBEAM out, and that helped some. But the French chess thing, yikes (51A: Special pawn move in chess), the APOLAR clue, another yikes (38A: Electrically balanced, in chemistry). I think my breakthrough came with getting IRON off the "I", which allowed me to see the -SAUR on PTEROSAUR. Had to change GET AT to LET ON (45D: Intimate). Had to remember that the movie "HUGO" ever existed (54A: Best Picture-nominated 2011 film based on a children's book). Had to suss out the alleged portmanteau that is BOOBOISIE. Had to wrestle with the alt-spelled AMON-RA (actually, the puzzle uses so many spellings that I forget which of them is "alt") (38D: Deity that becomes a given name when is fifth letter is moved to the front). Whole corner took about as long as the rest of the grid combined. NE and SE were actually reasonably easy, but the NW put up a fight, so all in all, definitely on the dark side of Medium, this one. Always feel guilty when I have to rely so much on crosswordese to get traction (IBEAM, SRIS, ALIA, ODETS, etc.), but maybe that's why god invented it. And by god I mean OOXTEPLERNON, the God of Bad Short Fill. He first appeared to me in a vision back in 2009. And by "vision" I mean a row of consecutive answers in a crossword grid.
When OOXTEPLERNON is angry, he buries your grid in plural suffixes and random Roman numerals and names like ANSE and LAR and such. When he's pleased, he gives you just enough familiar short junk to get going, and then leaves you to enjoy the rest of your puzzle. He is a capricious god. He can be a vengeful god. Today, he definitely helped out. All PRAISE OOXTEPLERNON. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]