Constructor: Nam Jin YoonRelative difficulty: Medium
THEME: none Word of the Day: MAKO (
44D: One-named Japanese-born actor with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame) —
Makoto Iwamatsu (岩松 信, Iwamatsu Makoto, December 10, 1933 – July 21, 2006) was a Japanese-American actor, credited in almost all of his acting roles as simply Mako.
His film roles include Po-Han in The Sand Pebbles (1966) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), Oomiak "The Fearless One" in The Island at the Top of the World (1974), Akiro the Wizard in Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984), and Kungo Tsarong in Seven Years in Tibet (1997). He was part of the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's 1976 Broadway musical Pacific Overtures, which earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. He was also one of the founding members of East West Players.
Later in his career, he became well known for his voice acting roles, including Aku in the first four seasons of Samurai Jack (2001–2004), and Iroh in the first two seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–2006). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7095 Hollywood Blvd.
• • •
So good. Still have never done a bad or even a blah puzzle by this constructor. It's as if he just dropped from the sky last year, a fully seasoned constructor, dropping these little finely-crafted contemporary jewels every six weeks or so. I liked the puzzle so much that I did not notice until just now that BASES appears twice as a stand-alone word in the puzzle (
AIR BASES, FAN BASES), and then again in the singular (
BASE TWO). If there's a joke there, I don't get it. Three bases is a ... triple? Is there a hidden baseball theme? Please let there be a hidden baseball theme [looking ... looking] bah, I don't see it. Ah well, as the crowd screamed to the DJ, "Drop the BASE!" Or, maybe the issue is actually the letter string "BAS" (there are
four of those—see
BASRA at
39D), in which case I'd say this puzzle could use a little [wait + for + it] BAS-RELIEF! ... Come on! That's top-shelf wordplay right there. I thank you in advance for your applause.
But back to the greatness. I do feel like a Saturday puzzle that offers me 1-Across for free, as an introductory enticement / amuse-bouche, is one to which I'm apt to be warmly disposed. CLEATS gave me traction (hmmm ... yes ... yes, I like that) (1A: Quarterback spikes?), and then, well, who doesn't like a cold Cuba Libre (with LIME!) ([slow sip] ... aaah). Anyway, I was off and running, and all of a sudden beautiful answers started exploding around me. "THAT HURT!" and GAUNTLET gave the puzzle a daunting tone, but the actual experience was not harsh at all. And then "THIS IS AMERICA" floated across the top of the grid and I knew something special was going on. Again, the tone of that song / video is dark, but as a puzzle answer, "THIS IS AMERICA" is unexpected and beautiful. Served over NBC's old PSA phrase ("THE MORE YOU KNOW..."), "THIS IS AMERICA" gives this puzzle an amazing flavor. Part polemics, part party. It's not going to let you forget about the darkness (MISOGYNY!) but it's also not going to let you have a bad time. A real MIRACLE WORKER, this one.
![]() |
[This is happening right next to me, right now ... what is she even doing?
... that is not a designated, or even plausible, cat space] |
I know the phrase "money doesn't grow on trees" but I did not know that MONEY TREES were "fabled" as actual sources of money. I also didn't know who MAKO was, but I'm surprised now that I didn't. I've definitely encountered his work (the voice of Aku on "Samurai Jack"! Such a great show). See what cool things you can learn when you buck the stale clue trend (not to mention the shark union!) and seek out new cluing options. I love that CHESS had a Checkers-looking clue (1D: Game of checkers?) and SAYING had a sight-looking clue (6D: Saw). Nice misdirection on both counts. The clue on MILLENNIAL is the real high point today (19D: Member of the "Y"?)—I struggled with it and then had that struggle rewarded with a genuine feeling of revelation. A + ha. Oh, *that* "Y"! Generation Y. I got you. The "?" on that clue is doing work, but it's good work. As for mistakes, I didn't make many. Had SCRUB before SCOUR (10D: Really clean)—that would've caused merely a minor slow-down, but SCOUR was right next door to TAWNY (11D: Caramel relative), which I (very confidently) had as TAFFY (it's a very good wrong answer), so the slow-down became more than minor. But still not disastrous. This was an appropriately Saturday-level struggle, one that I enjoyed tremendously. I will always remember this as the puzzle that name-dropped Andrew Dworkin. Not an event I expected to see in my lifetime. Props for boldness. Good day.
[warning: sudden gun violence]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. R.I.P. to one of the true, great, longstanding musical loves of my life:
