Hi everyone, I'm Malaika, filling in (ha!) for Rex today. You might know me from 7xwords or from Boswords or from Crossword Fiend. Reading this blog is what got me started constructing puzzles, so it makes me feel very warm and fuzzy to help out. Anyway! On to the puzzle.
Relative difficulty: AVERAGE
THEME: FILM SPLICER — Each theme entry is an in-the-language phrase made up of two movie titles
Theme answers:
- MONSTER | MASH (17A: Classic song that starts "I was working in the lab late one night" [2003, 1970])
- WALL STREET | CRASH (23A: Start of the Depression [1987, 2004])
- CONTACT | US (33A: Line at the top or bottom of a website [1997, 2019])
- RUSH HOUR | TRAFFIC (46A: Commuter's headache [1998, 2000])
- FILM SPLICER (52A: Editing device suggested by 17-, 23-, 33- and 46-Across?)
James Riddle Hoffa (born February 14, 1913 – disappeared July 30, 1975, declared dead July 30, 1982) was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971.
Hoffa became involved with organized crime from the early years of his Teamsters work, a connection that continued until his disappearance in 1975. He was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud in 1964 in two separate trials. He was imprisoned in 1967 and sentenced to 13 years. In mid-1971, he resigned as president of the union as part of a commutation agreement with US PresidentRichard Nixon and was released later that year, but Hoffa was barred from union activities until 1980. Hoping to regain support and to return to IBT leadership, he unsuccessfully tried to overturn the order. (Wiki)
• • •
I pretty consistently plodded through this puzzle, with no major break-throughs (due to not realizing the theme) or major hang-ups, except maybe in the central left, where I've never heard of FIFE (had PIPE) and I really struggled parsing CONTACT US. Once I had ????ACTUS, all I could see was "cactus" and was trying to figure out why on Earth a website would have a cactus on it. Beyond being, like, a plant nursery or desert retreat.
A ton of those seven-letter downs were gimmes for me-- I put in TONE LOC (3D: "Funky Cold Medina" rapper), AP TESTS (12D: Hurdles for many honors students, in brief), and BASMATI (37d: Type of rice) with no crosses. But ultimately this played as a sort of lack-luster themeless for me.
Lots of First Lady content, with FLOTUS (58A: Michelle Obama or Jill Biden, informally) being cross-referenced by ELEANOR (26D: 58-Across between Lou and Bess). That abbreviation always reminds me of my favorite (jk, I have one thousand favorites) Veep scene, where Jonah refers to the president's dog as FDOTUS. I can't find a clip of that, so here's this instead. (Very NSWF, language-wise.)
Bullets:
- BEE (39A: Busy body?) — This felt super weird to me. I guess because you say "busy as a bee" and a bee.... has a body? Just felt off.
- BARNARD (11D: Alma mater for Martha Stewart and Joan Rivers) — I didn't know that either of them went here, but this was a pretty easy get for me. I just finished watching Hacks on HBO, which was inspired by Joan Rivers, and it was lovely.
- ADWARS (61A: Mac-versus-PC and others) — Do people say this? Or is this just a thing we pretend people say so that we can fill our crosswords more easily?
P.S. The New York Times announced that they are going to stop providing .puz files. I'm really excited for this because I think it means they'll be running more creative puzzles that the constraints of a .puz file do not allow. But other people are disappointed. Before you share your disappointment, here are some things to think about:
- Are there any other mainstream publications that provide .puz files for their puzzles?
- What percent of Times solvers do you think use .puz files to solve?
- Will I still have access to multiple different ways to solve the puzzle?
- Am I sharing my disappointment in a way that is constructive, or a way that is neutral, or a way that is entitled / condescending / hateful?