Constructor: Carl Larson
Relative difficulty: Easyish
![]()
THEME:"QUEEN" (1A: Honorific given to 17-, 27-, 43- and 58-Across) — theme answers are four singers all of whom have been referred to (with highly varying degrees of iconicness) as "The QUEEN of ___"; the theme clues supply the genre:
Theme answers:
![]()
This is disappointing in a handful of ways. I enjoy the music of all these singers, and I'm happy to see them, fine, fine. But the "revealer" placement is weird, and the lack of a symmetrical themer for the revealer is weird, and LORETTA LYNN simply isn't known as "The Queen of Country." Certainly not nearly as well-known by that title as the other QUEENs are by theirs. ARETHA FRANKLIN is obviously the big winner here in terms of aptness. The QUEEN of Soul. Undisputed. Iconic. That's her title. ELLA FITZGERALD has a bunch of monikers, and I don't know that "QUEEN of Jazz" is the best-known one, but it's definitely in there, and DONNA SUMMER is most certainly "QUEEN of Disco" (the phrase is in the title of her NYT obit). But if you google [queen of country], LORETTA LYNN doesn't even register. You'll see DOLLY PARTON there (same number of letters as LORETTA LYNN, btw ... seems like a coincidence that might come in handy for some constructor some day). DOLLY PARTON, however, doesn't like the term, mostly because she claims (and she's not alone) that the real QUEEN of Country is Kitty Wells, though she also mentions "others like Loretta and Tammy (Wynette)." The documentary "Queens of Country" covers no fewer than *six* singers: Dolly, Loretta, and Tammy, along with Patsy Cline, Bobbie Gentry, and Tanya Tucker. No one's disputing that LORETTA LYNN is a legend, but she's one among many. But Loretta is just *a* queen, one of many with a claim to that title. The others in this grid are all undeniably *the* queens of their respective genres. True, the revealer just says "Honorific given," it says nothing about the honorific being singular and undisputed. But still, LORETTA LYNN really clanks as the outlier here.
Relative difficulty: Easyish
Theme answers:
- DONNA SUMMER (17A: "Disco")
- ARETHA FRANKLIN (27A: "Soul")
- ELLA FITZGERALD (43A: "Jazz")
- LORETTA LYNN (58A: "Country")
Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatreon December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast live on television from that venue as the debut production of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. It was the first opera specifically composed for television in the United States. (wikipedia)
• • •
The rest of the grid was just a little dull. Lots of repeaters, and then AMAHL which still I have never seen outside of crosswords; definitely crosswordese, but not (usually) Monday crosswordese. I don't know why I have a think against "AMAHL and the Night Visitors," but I do. It somehow hits me as more crosswordesey than even ICE-T or Enya or Eno because those artists all have long, influential careers that would seem to merit their standing as part of the crossword vocabulary Permanent Collection, whereas AMAHL ... it's just this one TV opera. I dunno. I hear it's good. I'm just mad that there's so much blah in this puzzle and not enough zing. Also, mad that one of the two long Downs, and therefore one of the two more interesting answers in the puzzle, gets ruined by a truly horrible joke clue: CEREAL BOWL(11D: Good name for a postseason football game sponsored by General Mills, question mark). It's long and ungainly and desperately unfunny. Why? This leaves ROPE LADDER as the only non-themer of any interest. I like it. I cling to it.
["Hey Nineteen, that's 'retha Franklin! / She don't remember the QUEEN of Soul"]
NRA is always garbage but especially when you give it this bullshit press-release clue (42D: Org. supporting the Second Amendment). The phrase "well regulated" appears in the Second Amendment, so yeah, no, that's not what they "support." The idea that it's just a bunch of Amendment enthusiasts over there ... that's rich. They're being sued by the state of NY for fraud and other financial misconduct, much of it comically outlandish. They're the worst and clues should reflect that. Or, better yet, never put NRA in a grid ever again for any reason. It's doable. Why is NRA still in your wordlist? Delete it. Also, why are we still (clearly) aspiring to the pangram as a crossword constructing goal. You can feel the low-key Scrabble f-ing in this one, so I looked and sure enough, clean sweep of the alphabet ... for what? For what? How was enjoyment helped? All I can think about is how it was impeded by the meaningless pangram goal, how the grid might've been much better if the constructor had thought about clean, fresh fill instead of running the alphabet (a "feat" most people aren't even going to notice). Sigh. I made two errors today: IRATE for IRKED (32D: Cheesed off) ("cheesed"?? What year is it, and is "AMAHL and the Night Visitors" debuting in that year?) and ADAPT (!) for ADMIT (29D: "You gotta ___ ..."). Hey, go see "The French Dispatch," it's a treat for the eyes and a really inspiring movie about the importance of writers' and artists' commitments to their own highly distinctive personal visions. OK bye.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]