Constructor: Michael Hawkins
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
![]()
THEME: none
Word of the Day: HOBART (41A: Tasmania's capital) —
![]()
Maybe this would've flowed more nicely if I'd been able to mentally process 15A: Country without an official army, navy or air force (COSTA RICA). I thought the clue wanted a general term for such a country ... not an actual country. If the clue had had "Central American" in it or really anything in it to specify that a specific country was in play, I would've gotten it easily. I've been to COSTA RICA, I know it has no army. But I figured there must be a general term. And since the only other things I could conjure up in that NW corner were CCED and DAMUP and ERE (and I was not at all sure of those first two), this thing opened feeling sluggish, Saturdayish, meh. Jumped over to the NE where I read a bunch more clues I didn't know before seeing NOIRE and then getting ERASE TESS ISEE, and I was in business. Still, I never felt like I got a rhythm going in this one, never really felt like I hit a good patch. There was no thrill to this one. Bunch of solid stuff, but no real marquee answers. No wows. And it just didn't have bounce. This is a cluing voice problem that is, I'm sure, largely a matter of taste. Felt like it was trying to be hard in many places, but its idea of clever was rarely mine. That SNL clue, for instance, yeesh (10D: Letters that can fill in the blanks of "_A_D_ER" to make an appropriate surname). Poker slang? There's nothing I'd enjoy less, thanks (43A: TNT, in poker slang) (tbh, I didn't see this clue at all, so that's good). This puzzle wanted to Cliff Clavin me with trivia and tell me riddles and jokes out of a book and honestly I just want light and witty conversation, puzzle.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: HOBART (41A: Tasmania's capital) —
Hobart (/ˈhoʊbɑːrt/ [...] is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least populated Australian state capital city, and second smallest if territories are taken into account, after Darwin, Northern Territory. Hobart is located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent, making it the most southern of Australia's capital cities. Its skyline is dominated by the 1,271-metre (4,170 ft) kunanyi/Mount Wellington, and its harbour forms the second-deepest natural port in the world, with much of the city's waterfront consisting of reclaimed land. The metropolitan area is often referred to as Greater Hobart, to differentiate it from the City of Hobart, one of the five local government areas that cover the city. It has a mild maritime climate. [...] Founded in 1804 as a British penal colony, Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney, New South Wales. Whaling quickly emerged as a major industry in the area, and for a time Hobart served as the Southern Ocean's main whaling port. Penal transportation ended in the 1850s, after which the city experienced periods of growth and decline. The early 20th century saw an economic boom on the back of mining, agriculture and other primary industries, and the loss of men who served in the world wars was counteracted by an influx of immigration. Despite the rise in migration from Asia and other non-English speaking regions, Hobart's population remains predominantly ethnically Anglo-Celtic, and has the highest percentage of Australian-born residents among Australia's capital cities. (wikipedia)
• • •
[Maze runner] is a pretty good MINOTAUR clue. [Sixers in pro sports?] for TDS, also good. But a clue like the one for STAGE MOM feels like a swing and a miss (21D: One who knows the drama of raising children?)—I think of STAGE MOMs as ones who (***stereotypically***) create the (usually unnecessary) drama. Overbearing, overpresent, hovering, demanding. The term has a negative connotation that the clue doesn't catch. There is a difference between *knowing* the drama and *being* the drama. LAZY RIVER seems like a nice thing, but the water park (???) clue kills it. I got it easily enough, I guess, but LAZY RIVER just doesn't seem iconically water parky (admittedly, water parks are not places I would voluntarily go these days). Too often today (my beloved Friday!), I was either struggling to understand the clue or not really feeling the clue's whole vibe.
I liked RIDESHARE, though the "?" clue on it was deadening (12D: Pool service?). Big fan of DROPCAPs in general, and "NICE CATCH!" is probably the snazziest, most delightful thing in the grid. If it involved books, editing, poetry (METERED!) today, I was generally on board. I don't understand why the NE and SW corners are so weak in their short fill. Actually, what I don't understand is LTDAN and YENTE, the one a secondary character from a movie I've tried really hard to forget for the past quarter century, the other ... honestly, I just don't understand the spelling, I think. It's enough for me to keep YENTL and YENTA straight, but I've got YENTE too? (she's a character in "Fiddler on the Roof"). Looks like YENTA and YENTE are girl's names, YENTL is a girl *or* boy's name (as well as a Barbra Streisand movie), and YENTA is the only one of those that has become a regular English loan word (meaning, roughly, "busybody" or "gossip"). Anyway, if you needed YENTE in your grid, sure, you could use YENTE, but under SIDEA and SLIER, with that ambiguous last vowel, it just doesn't liven things up much. It just felt so anticlimactic to end down there, to have the last thing you fill in be ARE (60D: =) because you were not sure of the last vowel in YENTE, which is itself buried under a pile of overfamiliar stuff. When the highlights of a puzzle are very high, when it crackles and sizzles, swoops and spins, I tend not to notice little problems with the 4s and the 5s. But today, my brain didn't have those highs to enjoy, so it found something else to gnaw on. The Friday bar is So High now that there are close to half a dozen constructors I can name off the top of my head who routinely crush Fridays. Software plus the wordlist arms race means that putting together passable themeless grids isn't so hard any more. You need style, personality, verve. Computer power will get you to "serviceable." You need more. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. REMINDER: the Boswords Crossword Tournament is *this weekend* (July 25). Here's the announcement from tournament organizer John Lieb:
Registration is now open for the Boswords 2021 Summer Tournament, which will be held on Sunday, July 25. This event will be ONLINE only. Solvers can compete individually or in pairs. To register, to see the constructor roster, and for more details, go to www.boswords.org, where past tournament puzzles are also available for purchase.A percentage of the proceeds goes to local Boston charities. There are cool constructors involved, like Malaika Handa and Wyna Liu. You should definitely check it out.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]