Constructor: Stephen McCarthy
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: A.O. Swap — familiar phrases where the second word is changed into a different word by having the "O" and "A" swap places. Destination: Wacky Town!
Theme answers:![]()
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This seemed way too untricky for a Thursday, so naturally I was suspicious. I finished it up assuming that the theme was just anagrams ... of the second word in a phrase. I didn't get it. Didn't seem like enough of a gimmick to meet Thursday Gimmick standards. So I stared at the "anagrams" a little harder, like some dope staring at one of those Magic Eye posters in the '90s, trying to see something they can't see but that they're sure must be there, and that's when I noticed that the "anagrams" are not merely letter jumbles: the only letters that move are the "A" and the "O"—they simply switch places. So it's an elegant little anagram, but ... honestly, it just reads as an anagram. If there is some element to this theme that I'm missing, at this point, I'm gonna say that's the puzzle's fault. I don't think most solvers are even going to notice the narrow terms of the anagram. They're just gonna think, "oh cool, I was able to finish the Thursday without much hassle, nice!" or "is that it?" The wackiness definitely gets better as the puzzle goes on (that is, as you descend the grid), but a half-wacky letter-swap puzzle somehow still doesn't feel like it's reaching Thursday heights of lunacy. This was clued like a Thursday (i.e. toughish), but the puzzle definitely felt more like a Wednesday (just as Wednesday's felt more like Tuesday). So I'm left feeling kind of BLAH about this one.
I'm very much in favor of HERDS CATS as an answer and D.C. STATEHOOD as a matter of national politics, so the long Downs today are doing their jobs nicely, from my perspective. I'm less fond of RIAA, the letters of which I can never remember ... Recording Industry of America ... something? Hang on ... Recording Industry Association of America, there we go. It's primarily an excuse to get three consecutive vowels into the grid. I trip over it every time I see it in crosswords, though today I actually didn't trip at all (except in trying to remember what its letters mean). And then alongside RIAA we had this unwelcome guest Yet Again:
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- "A CHRISTMAS CORAL" (17A: Reef deposit hung on the holiday tree?)
- VITAL ARGON (31A: Noble gas you can't live without?)
- CAFFE MACHO (41A: Starbucks order for a man's man)
- TAKES TWO TO TONGA (59A: Buys tickets for a couple of friends for a Polynesian getaway?)
Asheville (/ˈæʃvɪl/ ASH-vil) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 12th-most populous city. According to the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 94,589, up from 83,393 in the 2010 census. It is the principal city in the four-county Asheville metropolitan area, which had a population of 424,858 in 2010, and of 469,015 in 2020. (wikipedia)
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| [source: NPR] |
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I'm very much in favor of HERDS CATS as an answer and D.C. STATEHOOD as a matter of national politics, so the long Downs today are doing their jobs nicely, from my perspective. I'm less fond of RIAA, the letters of which I can never remember ... Recording Industry of America ... something? Hang on ... Recording Industry Association of America, there we go. It's primarily an excuse to get three consecutive vowels into the grid. I trip over it every time I see it in crosswords, though today I actually didn't trip at all (except in trying to remember what its letters mean). And then alongside RIAA we had this unwelcome guest Yet Again:
Truly the lowest form of kealoa*. I thought "Well, the puzzle had ITTY the other day for the stand-alone word, so ITSY probably only gets clued with "bitsy," so ... since this one is stand-alone, let's go with ITTY!" So of course the answer was ITSY. You see how stupid this is. You know it's one of two things but even with *three-fourths* of the letters in place you can't call it. This may seem like an ITSY thing but I just want you to see why these baby-talk word variants are much much worse than most other throwaway short fill. Throw me a bone with "___-bitty" or "___-bitsy" so I can just get it and move on, or else don't use it. No pleasure is being gained here. All you can do is diminish the pain.
Lots of old (old) friends in this one, including John RAE, James ENSOR, ENOS and the ARCO station. Really paid to have lots of olde-time solving experience under your belt. Still haven't mastered the ASTON / ASTIN distinction, so I had a minor error there (John ASTIN = actor, ASTON Martin = car, ASHTON = actor in "Dude, Where's My Car?"—you're welcome). Best error of the day was when I wrote in GLARE for 47A: Cause of the moon hitting your eye like a big pizza pie, in song (AMORE). Brain "hmmm, something about light hitting your eyes ... ends in -RE ... must be GLARE. Next!"AYS is bad, mainly because it could've just been ACS (as in "air conditioners"). Instead, we get this plural (?) non-word ... how is it "ay" and not "aye" if it's an agreement??? Put your dictionaries away, please, you know this is awful. Also, is this "old-timey" or just Scottish. Looks like in Scots, spelling convention is usually "aye" for "always, ever" and "ay" for "yes," but not always, and anyway you can see how it would be confusing, what with "aye" obviously meaning "yes" in most crossword contexts. And if the assent is AY then why isn't it AY-AY, captain! So dumb. Anyway, all of this madness is obviated by the simple switch to ACS, which is both straightforward and non-old-timey. Especially in the plural. More than one AC unit, makes sense. More than one old-timey assent ... less plausible.
Happy run-up to Christmas, whatever that means to you. See you tomorrow. And hey, if you don't already have a New Yorker subscription, you might want to seek out the Dec. 27 issue (out this week). It's a puzzle-themed issue, with lots of wonderfully inventive content. Also, it contains a reference to yours truly, so there's that. Bye!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*kealoa = short, common fill that you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
P.S. the [Miami five] are THE HEAT because they're a basketball team
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