Constructor: Ashton Anderson
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: jianbing (23D: Main component in the Chi8nese street food jianbing => CREPE) —
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This was decent, but surprisingly, even aggressively quaint. I'm talking most specifically about "SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE!" and "EXSQUEEZE ME?," both things your dad would say, or that you would say only cutesily or ironically. Last person I heard say "EXSQUEEZE ME?" was probably Mike Myers in ... one of the Mike Myers films. Feels like "Wayne's World," but who knows? Anyway, it's thirty years now. There's also the old-timey phrase "KODAK moment" (no one under 40 is going to have any idea what a "KODAK moment" is; I'm not even sure they'll know KODAK at all) (55A: Kind of moment worth recording). And then FLAM, which no non-'50s gangster has said since the '50s themselves. FLAM is only ever acceptable as the surname of FLIM—or of my 5th grade teacher (best elementary school teacher I had by far). Even SLY DOG feels like an ironic and/or bygone expression of non-serious usage. It sounds like one EXGI razzing another EXGI about his sexual escapades (or "sexcapades"). "You SLY DOG, you!" Speaking of EXGI, Nov. 11 is for honoring veterans. Or VETS, if you like. That's why it's called "Veterans Day." It's not called EXGI Day. So your clue is invalid. No, tell your lawyer to sit down, objection overruled, invalid. Case dismissed. An "S" is a double-curve on its own. S-SHAPE feels redundant *for that clue* (31D: Double curve). AGGRO is a UK expression, isn't it? (I got it easily, but never really hear that term here) (6D: Belligerent, slangily). Seems like you could've put a bunch of oath/exclamation-like words before "I HOPE NOT" and passed it off as valid, but "GOD" is probably at the top of the list, so that's fine. You play MIND GAMEs. Plural. Rarely just the one (11D: Psychological trick). When you are out of marijuana, you GOT 0 POT. I like that answer, even if it requires misreading on my part for me to like it.
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: jianbing (23D: Main component in the Chi8nese street food jianbing => CREPE) —
Jianbing (simplified Chinese: 煎饼; traditional Chinese: 煎餅; pinyin: jiānbǐng; lit. 'fried pancake') is a traditional Chinese street food similar to crepes. It is a type of bing generally eaten for breakfast and hailed as "one of China's most popular street breakfasts." The main ingredients of jianbing are a batter of wheat and grain flour, eggs and sauces. It can be topped with different fillings and sauces such as baocui (薄脆, thin and crispy fried cracker), ham, chopped or diced mustard pickles, scallions and coriander, chili sauce or hoisin sauce depending on personal preference. It is often folded several times before serving.
Jianbing has seen internationalization in recent years and can be found in cities such as London, Dubai, New York City, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, and Sydney, sometimes with modifications to cater to local tastes. (wikipedia)
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How is there a name for "ALIEN RACE" when we have never discovered an ALIEN RACE. I assume "xenomorph" was some kind of biological terminology, so that one was hard, even after I got ALIEN. Hardest area for me was probably CREPE WEBERN. I don't live in a big city and none of the Chinese food places here offer jianbing (that I know of), so I was slightly startled to find a French (?) word as the answer there. And WEBERN I've heard of, but could not come up with at all. Between *Anton* Chekhov and Max *Weber* I just don't have room for an Anton WEBERN in my brain (20D: Composer Anton who used the 12-tone technique). And today that dude was blocking the entrance (one of them) to the NW corner, so not knowing him was costlier than not knowing other things. Those other things? I had PART ONE before PAGE ONE (12D: It's just the beginning of the story) (often stories actually start on something like page 3 but whatever). I had ETCHED before EROTIC (3D: Like shunga woodblock prints). I had SCAM and SHAM before the aforementioned FLAM(48D: Bit of deception). TEPEE (?) before AERIE (44D: Home with a view). And maybe MORANI before MORONI (2D: Angel said to have visited Joseph Smith). MORONI visited Smith. MORANI was the angel who appeared to Rick Moranis and told him to take the role in "Little Shop of Horrors." I always get them confused.
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| [I stole this WEBERN-related text exchange from Twitter] |
All in all, this was not an unpleasant solve, even if it really wasn't exciting to me personally. I actually liked SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE! (in inverse proportion to how much I was put off by the cutesy "EXSQUEEZE ME?"), and "BIG SURPRISE" and HOT START were winners too.