Constructor: Guilherme Gilioli
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (that one part in the SW really slows things down ... the rest is very easy)
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THEME: SPOON-BENDING (48A: Display of mentalism ... or a hit to this puzzle's shaded squares) — the word "spoon" appears "bent" five times (see grid, above)
Word of the Day: SPLINE (46D: Long, thin strip used in building construction) —
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The problem with this theme is that it doesn't yield any interesting answers. In fact, it ends up compromising the fill so badly that it's directly responsible for what is clearly the roughest, weirdest, most un-Tuesdayish part of the grid: ORRIS ROOT (!?) alongside SPLINE (!?!?!?!?!). The "spoons" are clearly to blame for that travesty. I mean, look at the rest of the grid ... and then look at ORRIS ROOT / SPLINE. Back to the rest of the grid ... back to ORRIS ROOT / SPLINE. You see how those two adjacent words are on a completely different planet, familiarity-wise, from everything else in the grid. Those are words you only go to out of desperation. And here they're *adjacent*—on a Tuesday, when everything should be reasonably smooth, and somewhat obscure terms are OK within reason, but not right up next to each other like this. It was like the rest of the puzzle was a 1/5 difficulty and the ORRIS ROOT / SPLINE part was 4/5. It was made somewhat more difficult by the KRISHNA crossing, which had a (clever) bear of a clue (45A: Hare ___). I wrote in BRAINED! But back to the "spoons"—there they are. And they do "bend." But not in any kind of way that is going to add enjoyment to the solving experience. Also, SPOON-BENDING is not a "display of mentalism," it's a con.
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (that one part in the SW really slows things down ... the rest is very easy)
Word of the Day: SPLINE (46D: Long, thin strip used in building construction) —
noun
• • •
The plural of "elk" is ELK. The ELKS are members of a fraternal order (you used to see them in the crossword, in days of yore, as the BPOE). There's NE'ER any reason to clue ELKS as a plural of the animal. He who does so ERRS (I mention NE'ER and ERRS because they compound the unloveliness of ELKS corner). YETTO is among the ugliest partials I've ever seen. Looks like I have my friend Mike Nothnagel to blame for introducing that one into the NYTXW and from there into the crossword wordlist ecosystem. But that was ten years ago, and it's only appeared one time between then and today. Here are some alternatives. They're not all great, but they're all YETTO-free, and that ain't nothin':
I see now that some of these have duplications elsewhere in the grid (SON, YEN), but, I dunno, make it work.
What else? Oh, I wrote NOTABLY before NOTEDLY, mostly because I can't imagine saying NOTEDLY, ever (29A: With special importance). That's all I have to say about this puzzle. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]