Constructor: Trenton Charlson
Relative difficulty: Medium (Hard, then Easy)
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THEME: FILL-IN-THE-BLANK (48A: Test format ... or a hint to understanding three of this puzzle's clues) — you have to put "FILL" in the blank parts of the theme clues in order to make sense of them:
Theme answers:
There are only three theme answers, they are not, on their own, very interesting at all, and in the end you're left with a one-note concept, which is very very anticlimactic, especially if you spent a lot of time struggling up top instead of just abandoning the top and going straight for the revealer phrase on the bottom (as I did after the whole top part got too annoying). DISPOSAL AREA, come on, how is anyone supposed to be excited or energized by that drab and dour a phrase. PRESIDENTS, yawn. NEWSCASTER, more yawn. The entire puzzle = the moment you realize what's going on with the blanks. Then it's over, on every level. The whole thing just turns into a mediocre themeless after that. No interesting answers to uncover (all the "fun" is in the clues), no variation in how the theme plays out, nothing. Just plug in "fill," done. Again, very sorry payoff if you spent any time struggling with those "___" clues. The rest of it ... well, it's curious-looking, with its slim profile (just 14 wide today). I guess this is what happens when your revealer is 14, and when you don't really have a lot of themers to choose from so you just make a grid that will accommodate (symmetrically) the sad little grouping you've put together; there are only three, and none of them are the same length, so traditional rotational symmetry won't do. You gotta make them all even-numbered in length and then go with mirror symmetry by placing them all in the middle of their respective rows. So it's architecturally ... different. I don't think this is either good or bad. It just is. I'm trying to talk about anything but this disappointingly-executed theme.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Medium (Hard, then Easy)
Theme answers:
- DISPOSAL AREA (19A: Land___) (i.e. Landfill)
- PRESIDENTS (22A: ___more and more) (i.e. Fillmore and more)
- NEWSCASTER (40A: I___, for one) (i.e. [Gwen] Ifill, for one)
Debra Anne Haaland (/ˈhɑːlənd/; born December 2, 1960) is an American politician serving as the 54th United States secretary of the interior. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017 and as the U.S. representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 2019 to 2021. She is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo.
Haaland's congressional district included most of Albuquerque and most of its suburbs. Along with Sharice Davids, she is one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress. She is a political progressive who supports the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. (wikipedia)
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| "Hello, I am in your puzzle" |
As for the fill, it's fine, but there's not much there to delight a solver. I see an answer like IRONCLADS (26D: Civil War ships) and I think "now there's an answer only crossword constructing software powered by a very very large wordlist could love." Puzzles sometimes have very distinctive personalities, and then other times they have the personality of an ATM—like, it's talking to me like it's human, but ... I'm doubtful. "Take me to your DISPOSAL AREA, human. There we can find discarded POGO STICKS and ride them like humans, which I definitely am also, a human, for sure." (Seriously, though, POGO STICKS was the bounciest (nailed it!) fill in the puzzle)
I wrote in WHEATON instead of WHARTON because I wrote in ZEE instead of ZED and then (without looking at the clue) EPEE instead of APED, which got me WHE---N for the Buffet school, and in went WHEATON, which is a liberal arts college in MA—it seemed possible (9D: School attended by Warren Buffet). I forgot who the Secretary of the Interior was, which made the east interesting for a bit, since I mysteriously wrote in OLÁ at 35A: Accented approval (OLÉ) and therefore ended up with a secretary named DAB. Worth noting (to my embarrassment) that before that I had DA- and went with DAG ... I guess the erstwhile existence of DAG Hammarskjöld made DAG Haaland seem possible. I do not claim to get how my brain works. There were absolutely no other sticking points in this puzzle for me. See you tomorrow.