Constructor: SETH A. ABEL
Relative difficulty: MEDIUM (Played easy for me - 4:30, but I feel like it might cause problems for some)
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THEME: NONE - Because it's...
Word of the Day: TETHYS (Moon of Saturn) —
So, 6 grid-spanning 15-letter entries and none of them are true clunkers? That's an impressive feat (I assume; I've never tried my hand at constructing). Of the sestet, ANIMAL HUSBANDRYwas probably the least interesting to me, but I feel like I haven't seen it very often, so that's nice. ONE WAY OR ANOTHER could have been boring, but cluing it with Blondie lyrics will always get a thumbs up from me. When I saw the clue for 32A ("Response from Siri"), I felt like the answer would be a bad joke or something generic. But HERE'S WHAT I FOUND is something my phone has said to me dozens of times, and it felt very natural in the grid. I may have wanted LAH-DI-FRICKIN-DAH to be something more explicit, but that's just because I solve a lot of indie crosswords where swearing is acceptable. Seeing this was the answer to 48A ("Well, aren't you so darn special!") made me smile.
Bullets:
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Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
[Follow Eli on Twitter]
Relative difficulty: MEDIUM (Played easy for me - 4:30, but I feel like it might cause problems for some)
THEME: NONE - Because it's...
Word of the Day: TETHYS (Moon of Saturn) —
Tethys, or Saturn III, is a mid-sized moon of Saturn about 1,060 km across. It was discovered by G. D. Cassini in 1684 and is named after the titan Tethys of Greek mythology.
• • •
Hello and welcome to your Friday puzzle! I'm Eli; I've been here a couple of times previously, and I deeply apologize for posting the Rebecca Black video. Before I get into things, I want to thank your host for the last two days, Malaika Handa. Malaika's 7x7 project has been a blast, and she's a fantastic constructor, even if her puzzles repeatedly destroy me. Between my solve times on her grids and her write-ups of the last two days, I think we're just on different wavelengths. And that's great! I love learning things and solving puzzles where I have to struggle a bit. It's always nice to expand my horizons. All right, enough ranting and gushing, on to the puzzle! So, 6 grid-spanning 15-letter entries and none of them are true clunkers? That's an impressive feat (I assume; I've never tried my hand at constructing). Of the sestet, ANIMAL HUSBANDRYwas probably the least interesting to me, but I feel like I haven't seen it very often, so that's nice. ONE WAY OR ANOTHER could have been boring, but cluing it with Blondie lyrics will always get a thumbs up from me. When I saw the clue for 32A ("Response from Siri"), I felt like the answer would be a bad joke or something generic. But HERE'S WHAT I FOUND is something my phone has said to me dozens of times, and it felt very natural in the grid. I may have wanted LAH-DI-FRICKIN-DAH to be something more explicit, but that's just because I solve a lot of indie crosswords where swearing is acceptable. Seeing this was the answer to 48A ("Well, aren't you so darn special!") made me smile.
The sheer number of squares taken up by the 15s did put a bit of strain on the fill (I assume. Again: not a constructor). But the amount of true crosswordese was admirably small, in my opinion (AGAR, SLOE, COS), and most of the cluing seemed pretty fresh to my eyes. It mostly just felt a little nondescript at times. If that's the worst you can say about a puzzle, I think that's pretty good. After feeling like I was flailing in the Northwest for a while, I worried that I would struggle with this one. But having a massive gimme at 3D opened things up quickly and I didn't really slow down after that.
There were a few proper nouns I wasn't familiar with. As noted in my clue of the day, even though I consider myself an astronomy enthusiast, TETHYS wasn't a moon I knew. I mean, Saturn has 82 moons; I'm supposed to know them all? Sylvia SYMS, ERICH Fromm, and Nate MCMILLAN (I've never been able to really get into basketball for whatever reason)were unknown to me, as well. But all of them were crossed fairly, so it's just a case of being trivia I didn't know.
- ONE ARM — There's a few ways I can think of to clue this (Bandit/slot machine, The Fugitive), but I'm never going to complain about using semi-obscure Simpsons characters (even ones I don't really care for).
- DANTE — The clue (37A: "So-called "Father of the Italian Language"") almost feels like it's mocking him. For the record, I have no beef with Dante.
- AMALIE— I'm not a geography guy. I had a vague idea of what the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands was, but needed a few crosses just to remember the general direction I should be going, and then had to remember if it was "Emily" or spelled like the movie/Phillipa Soo musical.
- OCLOCK— As I was solving, I kind of cringed at the clue (29A: "The end of time?"), but looking back, I think I actually like it?
- LAWDY — I gave this one a side-eye as I solved it, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I spent 12 years living in the South, so it's not like I'm not aware of its existence, it just has the vibe of a phrase that comes out of minstrel shows. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to these things, and it didn't ruin the puzzle for me; it just didn't feel great. Regardless of the history, it feels like appropriation of a cultural dialect, and it's something I personally try to avoid.
Ok, I'm solving/writing this on Thursday night, which is a break in tradition for me. I normally solve in the morning along with my coffee, but solving the night before is a sacrifice I'll make for you lovely people. During the pandemic, my wife and I have turned Thursdays into a weekly Happy Hour at Home, so I'm going to finish my cocktail (a strawberry basil caipirinha that matches my shirt) and watch this week's RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars. We've hit the point in the season when I generally like all of the queens, but Ginger Minj has been the most fun to watch for me this season. And I'm rambling. See you all back here tomorrow!
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