Constructor: Michael Hawkins
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (or just Easy, not sure)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: LA LIGA (32A: What Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona play in) —
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I wish I hadn't finished up in the worst section (the greater SW), because the majority of this puzzle was a treat (not a trick; happy Halloween Eve, aka Devil's Night, everyone). Wrote in VOCAB straight away, and once again, nailing the 1-Across answer at first look was a harbinger of the puzzle's overall easiness. Then the longer fill started to come in up there and I could tell the puzzle was going to be not only easy, but entertaining. The longer fill really works up there: sometimes I feel like a sizable number of my students are just IVORY TOWER SEAT FILLERs (jk, kids, love ya), so I really liked that stack, and then the longer answers just flow out of there into the heart of the puzzle, which I HEARTED as well (nice bit of contemporary fill there, for sure). "DON'T WAIT UP" alongside DATE NIGHTS is genuinely exquisite. As good a pair of adjacent 10s as you're ever likely to see. Also, I've never been so happy to see a SOLECISM in all my life (6D: Grammatical mistake). I don't use that word in my teaching life, but I certainly encounter that phenomenon, and it was very nice to get a "hey, I know that word!" free pass in the middle of a Saturday puzzle. Speaking of my teaching life, not sure about the clue on "'TIS A PITY" (15D: "Alas!"). "Alas" is only semi-archaic, whereas "'TIS A PITY" is ultra-archaic, in the sense that no one would say that unironically now, whereas I can at least imagine an unironic "Alas!"). I think "Alas!" could just as easily clue "PITY..." as just a kind of stand-alone sighing expression. The 'TIS part of the answer needs something more strongly and specifically archaic to clue it. "Forsooth, how lamentable" or [Quaint expression of regret] or something like that. I think I'm just mad that the clue wasn't ["She's a Whore" preceder], but that ... probably wouldn't have played well, as most people have very likely never heard of that Caroline-era play (also, the title of that play is actually "'Tis Pity (not ''TIS *A* PITY') She's a Whore" so my dream clue wouldn't have worked at all, alas):
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Six more things:
Also, more successfully, two years ago: Bregman / Soto:
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (or just Easy, not sure)
Word of the Day: LA LIGA (32A: What Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona play in) —
The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División (Spanish Premier League) in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men's top professional football division of the Spanish football league system. Administered by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, is contested by 20 teams, with the three lowest-placed teams at the end of each season relegated to the Segunda División and replaced by the top two teams and a play-off winner in that division. [...] According to UEFA's league coefficient rankings, La Liga has been the top league in Europe in each of the seven years from 2013 to 2019 (calculated using accumulated figures from five preceding seasons) and has led Europe for 22 of the 60 ranked years up to 2019, more than any other country. It has also produced the continent's top-rated club more times (22) than any other league in that period, more than double that of second-placed Serie A (Italy), including the top club in 10 of the 11 seasons between 2009 and 2019; each of these pinnacles was achieved by either Barcelona or Real Madrid. La Liga clubs have won the most UEFA Champions League (18), UEFA Europa League (13), UEFA Super Cup (15), and FIFA Club World Cup (7) titles, and its players have accumulated the highest number of Ballon d'Or awards (23), The Best FIFA Men's Player awards including FIFA World Player of the Year (19), and UEFA Men's Player of the Year awards including UEFA Club Footballer of the Year (11). (wikipedia)
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Where I ended up was not so pleasant. Sadly, I did not know LUMPFISH. Also, it's not exactly the most ... mellifluous name for a foodstuff, so LUMP really landed in my lap like a LUMP of oatmeal (or ... fish, I guess), so bah (30A: Source of cheap caviar). ALB was a ghost of crosswordese past, for sure (33A: Clerical garment), joining -ASE and, eventually, ELIA in a mercifully small group of bygone blecch. Speaking of ELIA, what did I say (literally, just yesterday) about lazily trawling the waters of "G.O.T." fandom for absurd names to stick in your grid? (52A: Princess ___ Martell on "Game of Thrones"). It's "prestige TV," and now bygone prestige TV at that. More people watched a random 6th-season episode of "The Big Bang Theory" than watched any full season of "G.O.T." There's something ickily exclusionary about imagining that that show's character slate can be mined as deeply as it's currently being mined. You can (probably) do better than this, constructors. Also, SANSA (from yesterday) at least has the virtue of being original. ELIA is just the oldest of old-school crosswordese dressed up in a bad and probably highly flammable pseudo-medieval get-up from Spirit Halloween. ELIA is the pen name of Charles Lamb, or it's a Kazan, and that's all that it is. Just embrace the crosswordese you need to make the grid work, give it an unimposing familiar clue, so as Not To Call Attention To It, and move on. Sometimes, you need crosswordese; we all know and accept that. Like, AMAHL. I know AMAHL exclusively, solely, in no other way but from crosswords. I'd never have heard of "AMAHL and the Night Visitors" if not for crosswords. So the puzzle and I have an unspoken agreement that it will just hand me AMAHL with a gimme clue and I, in return, won't complain about it. It's nice that way. If AMAHL ever tries to come at me dressed up as [Dothraki hairstylist beheaded by Daenerys for getting her bangs wrong in Season 3 of "Game of Thrones"] or whatever, we're gonna have words.
- 26D: Walking (AMBULATION)— pfffffft. Another reason I wasn't too fond of the SW. I had AMBULATORY, a word that means you are up and [Walking], and (bonus!) a word that a person might actually use.
- 44A: You can't leave home with it (BASEBALL BAT) — oh, can't you? Bartolo Colón has some thoughts:
- 3D: Outer layer (COAT)— simple enough, but initially I wanted IVORY TOWER to be IVY-something, so I had a "Y" where an "O" should be, so I wrote in CYST here (?!).
- 8D: Snickers piece? (TEE-HEE) — OH LOOK, THEY *DO* KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT!. All TEHEEs are hereby banned from Crossworld in perpetuity, the once and future laugh syllables having taken their rightful place in the grid.
- 32D: Loser to "The Shape of Water" for Best Picture ("LADY BIRD") — had the "LA-," wrote in "LA LA LAND" (which a. won, not lost, and b. won in an earlier year from "The Shape of Water"; the clue phrasing here is awkward, and, as a "LADY BIRD" fan, I would argue, disrespectful—better to mention Laurie Metcalf's Oscar nomination than to clue the film as a "Loser," come on)
- 7D: ___ Together (punny name for a hardware store) (AWL) — OK, you got me. I legit laughed out loud at this one. Now, I was laughing while thinking "I cannot believe how ****ing stupid that is," but a laugh is a laugh, This clue is super dumb, which is precisely what all crossword clue puns should be: *super* dumb. Mere groaners can get lost. I require pure idiocy.
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