Constructor: Claire Rimkus
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: Quintana ROO (8D: Quintana ___, Mexican state that's home to Cancún) —
Had a hard time getting into this one, but once I did, once I fought through a raft of "???" clues and finally got some of the longer stuff to fall, I began to appreciate how smooth and solid the whole thing is. I was not on the same wavelength as the clues much of the time, which was frustrating, but it was hard to stay frustrated when the grid kept coming up roses. There was nothing really eye-popping today, but the long stuff was uniformly winning, and I had hardly any "yecch" moments (when I see Claire's name on the byline, I know I'm in good grid-building hands). HAS NO IDEA was a great answer to find in the NW, which is where I started, and where, for what seemed like a long time, I truly had no idea. And I liked the fact that at the end of the solve, just when it seemed I might end up similarly stuck in the SE corner, a TUXEDO CAT came to my rescue (31D: Pet that's mostly black with a white chest).
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Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: Quintana ROO (8D: Quintana ___, Mexican state that's home to Cancún) —
Quintana Roo (/kɪnˌtɑːnə ˈroʊ(oʊ)/ kin-TAH-nə ROH(-oh), Spanish: [kinˈtana ˈro]), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Quintana Roo (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo), is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 11 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal.Quintana Roo is located on the eastern part of the Yucatán Peninsula and is bordered by the states of Campeche to the west and Yucatán to the northwest, and by the Orange Walk and Corozal districts of Belize, along with an offshore borderline with Belize District to the south. As Mexico's easternmost state, Quintana Roo has a coastline to the east with the Caribbean Sea and to the north with the Gulf of Mexico. The state previously covered 44,705 square kilometers (17,261 sq mi) and shared a small border with Guatemala in the southwest of the state. (wikipedia)
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GAY ICONS ushered me into that corner, but then I just sat there, practically alone at the SE corner party; I just stood there looking around for anyone I recognized and just when I was beginning to despair, after consulting all the short answers and coming up blank each time, I bent down to pick up a stray DIXIE cup and when I stood up, tada! A TUXEDO CAT came bounding into the room bringing all the other SE corner party guests with him. In short, I will never forget TUXEDO CAT, the real hero of this puzzle. TUXEDO CAT: he's a good boy.
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But back to HAS NO IDEA corner. I had no idea about BOTH or BRAT or OHIO, all of which were kinda important for getting traction. BOTH seems really poorly clued to me, since "this and that" means a random assortment of things, and even if you highly literalize it, if the set is not clearly limited to two, then "this and that" simply doesn't evoke BOTH-ness. If you italicize *and*, maybe. But as is, meh, bah, etc. I also had STAY for 1D: Challenge while sitting (think dogs). Then when I got BRAT I sincerely thought "Are you sitting ... down ... for a BRAT-eating contest?" But it's an annoying child BRAT, not the sausage BRAT. As for the OHIO"joke," oof, no comment. No comment but oof (2D: Answer to the old riddle "What's round on the ends and high in the middle?"). Not sure how I finally hammered my way out of there—I think I had to go down the west coast and work back up. Yes, the record shows that that is what I did. ONE'S and TONES and IRKS READS IFFIER and off we go:
Still had to grind a bit because the main clue leading into the NE absolutely wouldn't budge. I'm talking specifically about 5D: Out-of-office procedure? (OUSTER). It's a fine "?" clue, but brutal, Saturday-esque stuff for me. Luckily the short stuff in the north wasn't too hard so those long answers flew across the grid fast and OUSTER eventually fell, and once I escaped the grip of that damn NW corner, things got considerably easier, though the cluing stayed pretty thorny throughout. I sort of forgot the meaning of "Coruscates" and so faced with -INTS I wrote in PAINTS. To my slight credit, I was kinda in the ballpark, in that the answer *does* have to do with the play of light, which is also a consideration in painting (oil painting, I mean). To my somewhat larger credit, I realized PAINTS was wrong pretty quickly and then got GLINTS on my own without help from the crosses. I wrote in FAIL before FLOP (44D: Completely bomb). I didn't know the "Pose" actress. I forgot LAPIS was a color and I didn't recognize it untethered from the phrase "lapis lazuli" (27D: Shade akin to royal blue). And as I say, the short answers in the SE all came up blank for me at first. But otherwise, I made steady progress and quite enjoyed myself. And again, let's give it up for TUXEDO CAT!
He sat there for ages making this face once he realised I was going to let him have a strawberry.
— Holly Brockwell (@holly) December 2, 2021
He didn't even eat it pic.twitter.com/10v54iatl0
Not much needs explaining today, I don't think. I do have a couple more clue disputes. First of all, STEADY GIG (37A: Nice position to be in?) ... why is there a "?" clue. I don't really see the wordplay, or the joke. Is it the idea that "position" seems metaphorical in the clue but it's literal in the answer? There's just not enough ... misdirection to qualify for the "?", I don't think. Ill-conceived. The answer (a good one) ended up feeling like a let down. "That's it?" Also, if it was "Made last night," how is it DAY OLD? (41D). The "night" part is really throwing me. You make stuff at night to serve in the morning ... that stuff would not be considered DAY OLD. The stuff still hanging around from the day before, *that's* DAY OLD. I mean, a "day" hasn't even elapsed if the stuff (whatever it is) was made "last night." Why not just take the cross-reference cluing opportunity that is staring you right in the face: DAY-OLD / BAGEL? Sigh. I just wish the clues had hit their marks a little more often in this one. But that's my only real complaint. The grid looks good, and in the main, the clues are just fine.