Constructor: Christopher Adams
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (I think ... felt "name"-y and I had more hiccups than usual)
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THEME:"KINKY BOOTS" (57A: 2013 Best Musical Tony winner ... with a hint to this puzzle's theme) — the letter string "boots" appears "kinkily" (i.e. mixed up) inside seven answers:
Theme answers:
The only thing I don't get is why three pairs of boots intersect. They're not supposed to be boot-shaped, are they? No, those pairs all actually form slightly different shapes, and the final pair (including "BOOTS" in the revealer) don't intersect at all, so maybe (probably) intersection has absolutely nothing to do with the theme. A red herring. Are the kinky boots in "KINKY BOOTS" red? I confess I know nothing about it except Cyndi Lauper is involved, and I adore her. Answers that feature the rearranged letters of "boots" may not sound like much—it's a simple concept—but this is a good example of where the *concept* does not have to be mind-blowing for the result to be pretty delightful. The one big plus: all the kinky-boots answers, i.e. all the themers, are entertaining and original answers. Something about that letter combination produces zingy fill. GUEST BOOKS and BOSTON POPS and BOOSTERS are solid and straightforward, not earth-shaking, but it just gets better from there, with SOB STORY, NANOBOTS, and GOBSTOPPER being real winners. I also liked LOST BOYS, but confess I would've liked it better if the clue had taken the 1987 Kiefer Sutherland vampire movie route. Still, overall, those themers really pay off, and the rest of the grid, though heavy on short fill, is smooth enough, and often interesting in its own right. I declare this puzzle not WACK (5A: Bad, slangily).
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (I think ... felt "name"-y and I had more hiccups than usual)
Theme answers:
- GOBSTOPPER (15A: "Everlasting" candy from Willy Wonka)
- BOOSTERS (13D: Some vaccine shots)
- BOSTON POPS (9D: Orchestra once conducted by John Williams)
- NANOBOTS (22A: Teeny-tiny futuristic machines)
- SOB STORY (46A: Tale of woe)
- GUEST BOOKS (26D: Places to sign in in inns)
- LOST BOYS (32D: "Peter Pan" group)
Igor (stylized in all caps) is the fifth studio album by American rapper and producer Tyler, the Creator. It was released on May 17, 2019, through Columbia Records. [...] Music journalists have noted that Igor continues to build on the hip hop and neo soul sound established in Flower Boy, while also incorporating R&B and funk influences. Critics have noted the album's use of synthesizers and low-mixed vocals. Thematically, Igor follows a narrative of a love triangle between the titular character and his male love interest. The album employs the "Igor" literary archetype to explore themes associated with love, such as heartbreak, loss, and jealousy. // To help market the album, Tyler, the Creator released the single "Earfquake", which reached number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming his highest charting single. In its first week of release, Igor debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, moving 165,000 album-equivalent units and becoming Tyler, the Creator's first US number-one album. It was a widespread critical success, being named among the best albums of 2019 in many publications' year-end lists, and won Best Rap Album at the 2020 Grammy Awards. (wikipedia)
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| PRESSON |
Perhaps because "KINKY BOOTS" is a musical, today's grid is chock full o' musical answers of a surprising breadth and, I'm guessing, for a good segment of the solving population, "obscurity." Note the quotation marks. The closest thing to a truly obscure musical clue here today is IRA Kaplan. That clue for IRA is a favorite of Ben Tausig over at American Values Club crosswords, but that's a slightly different crowd, that solver base. Ben's puzzles are often hyper-musical (Ben himself is a musician and ethnomusicologist), so I expect lots of music over there. I don't expect the majority of NYTXW solvers even to have heard of Yo La Tengo, frankly. So, easy for me, but maybe harder or unknown to many of you (I actually never saw the clue because the crosses took care of it, but I *would've* known it had I seen it). I feel like we've seen ROBYN before, and she's very popular, but, you know, not ENYA-familiar, gridwise (20D: One-named singer with the 2010 hit "Dancing on My Own"). Despite seeing that the three-letter B-word for the Michael Jackson song was about a rat, my fingers still instinctively wrote in "BAD." Bad! Bad fingers! The worst musical moment for me was forgetting "IGOR," an album I listened to a lot when it came out, and one whose potential crossword value I definitely touted. He has a new album, one whose name I've also forgotten (it's "Call Me If You Get Lost"), and so though I could picture the album cover for "IGOR," I found the name had escaped me. There's also a RAGA in here, and of course the BOSTON POPS, so I think the volume on music clues was definitely turned up today.
I am never going to remember supermodel names, or most of them anyway, so BELLA was a big shrug to me today (13A: Supermodel Hadid). I also don't know much at all about "The Mikado" and would probably steer clear of it entirely were I cluing puzzles. Its white imperialist fantasies of the "exotic East" have been known to rub people the wrong way, not surprisingly. So, yeah, KOKO? No idea. That whole SW corner was a bit tough for me, as I thought a SPIKE was a SMASH and couldn't come up with "OH, GOD," which to me is far more common and decidedly less old-fashioned and prim than its clue, ["Good heavens!"]. Moments like this, and the preponderance of names in the puzzle, probably meant that I was slower than usual for a Tuesday. I don't time myself any more T through Sat because I now solve regularly at 4:30am and I just can't work up concern (or capability) for speed at that hour. The clock is just not something I want to think about. So I don't. But I am guessing this one played somewhat on the hard side, for a Tuesday. If not, good for you! See you tomorrow.