Constructor: Chase Dittrich and Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: "Come Again?" — clues are just all-caps words, three times in succession, with ellipses on either end ... and answers are familiar phrases that pun in some way on the idea of a theoretically infinite repetition of the same word:
Theme answers:
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"Famed" war horse? When it's not the top google search, or even really discernible on the first page of google search results, then maybe it's time to rethink the appropriateness of the word "famed." If you'd told me MARENGO was a kind of cheese I'd've said, "Yes, I know, it's great ... wait, did you say 'manchego'?" and hopefully the conversation would have ended there. But enough about cheese horses, I guess it's time to talk about this puzzle theme. I guess it is. Yes, it's about that time. OK, well, it's a theme, and it technically "works," I will give it that. Lists ... ellipses ... "repeating,""neverending" ... I see it. I see it, I see it all. I wish it provided even a twinge of delight. It's just that every one of these answers feels like it should be followed by an overeager person attempting to explain the clue: "See!? Because a floor is a *story* of a building ... and the floors, i.e. "stories," just keep going ... without end? Get it!?" Yes, I do. It's just that the only one that seems genuinely clever—which is to say genuine-smile-clever, as opposed to mere nod-in-acknowledgment clever—is AD INFINITUM, probably because it's the loopiest, involving as it does a grammatically iffy language crossover. Plus, that answer's all creepily sequestered inside the bug-eyes at the center of the grid, so it's already kind of freaky. I kinda like it for it's content weirdness as well as its positional weirdness. The rest of it just felt adequate. I wish the Sunday bar were higher than adequate.
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- NEVERENDING STORY (24A: ... FLOOR FLOOR FLOOR ...)
- BEARS REPEATING (32A: ... GRIZZLY GRIZZLY GRIZZLY ...)
- PERPETUAL MOTION (45A: ... PROPOSAL PROPOSAL PROPOSAL ...)
- AD INFINITUM (72A: ... COMMERCIAL COMMERCIAL COMMERCIAL ...)
- RECURRING DREAMS (97A: ... AMBITION AMBITION AMBITION ...)
- NONSTOP FLIGHTS (106A: ... STAIRS STAIRS STAIRS ...)
- CONTINUITY OF CARE (115A: ... CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION ...)
Marengo is a city in McHenry County, Illinois, United States approximately 60 miles west northwest of Chicago. The population was 7,648 as of the 2010 census. [...] Spinetta Marengo (Piedmontese: Marengh) is a town in Piedmont, Italy located within the municipal boundaries of the comune of Alessandria. The population is 6,417. [...] Chicken Marengo is a French dish consisting of a chicken sautéed in oil with garlic and tomato, garnished with fried eggs and crayfish. The dish is similar to chicken à la Provençale, but with the addition of egg and crayfish, which are traditional to Chicken Marengo but are now often omitted. The original dish was named to celebrate the Battle of Marengo, a Napoleonic victory of June 1800. [...] // [keeps looking, keeps looking] [OK, here we go] Marengo (c. 1793–1831) was the famous war horse of Napoleon I of France. Named after the Battle of Marengo, through which he carried his rider safely, Marengo was imported to France from Egypt following the Battle of Abukir in 1799 as a six-year-old. The grey Arabian was probably bred at the famous El Naseri Stud. Although small (only 14.1 hands (57 inches, 145 cm)) he was a reliable, steady, and courageous mount. (wikipedia)
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PLEURAL crossing NEURAL is about as pleasant an experience as hearing those words repeated one another AD INFINITUM. That's way too much sound repetition for *any* two answers in a grid, let alone two that cross each other. Also, PLEURAL is just not great fill, period. See also INES (esp. as clued, 75A: Chemical suffixes). Otherwise, like the theme, the fill is adequate. Highly adequate. The RAFE / RUFF crossing was indeed rough, esp. with the ugly ACAP wedging itself into the fray as well. No idea who RAFE is, no idea even what "Prometheus" is, but these things happen (101A: Actor Spall of "Prometheus"). But crosses should be solid, and RUFF? (87D: Dennis the Menace's appropriately named dog) ... well, I inferred him (him?) but it took a while. Also, "appropriately named" was ambiguous. I thought maybe I was supposed to know something specific about Dennis the Menace's dog, and come on, how would I know that? Does the dog actually say "RUFF?" Is that his (his?) thing? Anyway, what's "appropriate" has nothing to do with Dennis's dog per se—it's just a dog thing generally; namely, the barking. Short obscure proper noun crossings! Who doesn't love those? At least this one was ultimately gettable.
I have a question about 50A: Rapper with more than 20 Grammys (KANYE WEST). This is the second time in recent days that the puzzle has misnamed him. His name is now Ye. I don't really care what you feel about Ye personally, or what you feel about his name change, you can make all the Puff Daddy P. Diddy Diddy Puffy Sean Combs jokes you want, it seems like the crossword should, as a general rule, respect the names that people want to be called. Not to do so sets a bad precedent. You shouldn't get to pick and choose whose name changes are valid and whose aren't. I don't feel terribly strongly about this, because I'm not aware of how much Ye himself cares about the issue. But KANYE WEST is, at the moment, as far as I can tell, a *former* name. Wikipedia still refers to him as "West" throughout the write-up, so maybe in professional contexts, or when discussing the past, it's OK. But I would err on the side of "call people by their chosen names."
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday