Constructor: Brooke Husic and Brian Thomas
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: OMAR Benson Miller (44D: Actor ___ Benson Miller) —![]()
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I am so happy this puzzle came out today. Well, I'm happy it came out at all, because it's so good (one of my favorite Saturdays of recent memory), but I'm happy it came out today because it does what yesterday's puzzle was Trying to do so much better than yesterday's puzzle actually did it. That is, it is very deliberately inclusive of a younger demographic. It's very inclusive in general. But it's also incredibly well balanced with its pop references, swooping and darting All Over The Cultural Landscape (BOSTON POPS! "BRAVEHEART"!! ASTERIX!!!). It's also just loaded with great fill, and the clues are frequently clever, and these are the most elemental considerations in puzzle-making, after all. I felt like bouncy, delightful, sometimes zany stuff was coming at me around every corner, so solving felt like opening a bunch of presents, as opposed to trekking through mud (bad) or, I don't know, just riding the conveyor belt to the end (boring) (This has been How Not To Metaphor, with your host Rex Parker). Even when I got caught out by a name I absolutely did not know, I felt like the puzzle was rooting for me, recognizing my struggle and trying to make it worthwhile. I am speaking specifically now about Rihanna's real name, my lord! I'm sure this is commonplace knowledge to many, but honestly I still haven't gotten the spelling of RIHANNA down yet (still keep wanting to spell it with the "h" before the "i" like Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"). And it's not like she's just a name to me. I was just thinking yesterday how "ANTI" is one of the greatest albums of the last ten years. Anyway, ROBYN FENTY just about took my head off (28D: First and last name of Rihanna). And yet! As I walked on eggshells (FRAGILE!) through the SE corner, struggling to get every letter of ROBYN FENTY, just waiting for the one bad cross that would do me in, what I found was just ... entertainment. Fun and gettable answer after fun and gettable answer. By the time I had ROBYN FENTY completely filled in, I was AMPED and ready to dive back into the remaining empty space. I liked this one so much I kept stopping and taking screenshots. I'm not sure I ever exclaimed "I'M AMAZED," but that was the overall vibe. The puzzle did IMPRESS ME (much).
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: OMAR Benson Miller (44D: Actor ___ Benson Miller) —
Omar Benson Miller (born October 7, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for his work as Walter Simmons on CSI: Miami (2009–2012), as Charles Greane on Ballers (2015–2019), as the voice of Raphael on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and on the CBS comedy series The Unicorn (2019–2021). [...] Miller is almost 6 ft 6 in (1,97 m) tall. (wikipedia)
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Yes, the puzzle opened with some corniness :) ...![]()
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And we were off like a shot. I may even have actually said "Oh, here we Go!" That is a statement answer. That is a "buckle up, friends" answer. And the puzzle did not disappoint. The roller coaster analogy is apt because, as you've seen, I experienced stomach-dropping terror in the ROBYN FENTY portion, but before that I think I actually squealed with delight at ASTERIX! ![]()
That is one of the best "X" crossings of all time. The clue on PRESSBOX was so good (53A: It covers the field). And the thing is, the puzzle kept on like this. Relentlessly entertaining, front to back. That clue on ACE! I was just thinking this past week (because of Pride-related stuff) "When's the asexual clue for ACE coming?" and bam, here it is! ![]()
And I finished it all off with SPARKLERs (and another great clue). ![]()
Such a good time. Along the way, I learned a new actor name (OMAR), waved at the now-McDonalds-famous K-Pop group BTS, and smugly wrote in the "correct" spelling of JURY-RIG (I grew up hearing, and thus thinking it was spelled, "jerry-rig," which is actually an accepted variant but which technically (I just read) arises from a conflation of JURY-RIG with "jerry-built"). No significant mistakes. Wrote in EPI-graph before TRI-graph (22A: Prefix with -graph). Wrote in ALY at 29D: ___ Raisman, second-most-decorated Olympic gymnast in U.S. history but in struggling to get POOL (31A: Compile) started to second-guess that "L" ... considered ARY (?) for a bit, but then it was ALY after all. ALMOND flour, MACARONI, PERSIMMON, BASMATI! Now I'm hungry. Good day!
But then, very shortly thereafter, the puzzle really put the pedal down. I could feel the roller coaster car start to pick up speed, and then, whooosh, this happened:
