Constructor: David Steinberg
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: TERZETTO (34A: Vocal trio) —
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Well I thought this was just fantastic. Personality and color and spark as far as the eye can see. Very little junk. Really first-rate stuff. IVAR's kinda icky, but it was entirely gettable from crosses. I didn't know several of these answers, actually—Katharine Lee BATES, TERZETTO, TIJUANA TAXI—but I battled through them with the aid of fair crosses. Happy to learn colorful stuff like TERZETTO and TIJUANA TAXI. Not sure what a cop car has to do with Tijuana. Definitions I'm seeing involve any vehicle with "flashing lights and bright markings." Are the taxis in Tijuana garish? I don't remember. Anyway, that's a cool bit of slang. My favorite thing about this puzzle is how Now it is. Feels like it was actually made in this century: UGG BOOTS, SASHA FIERCE, FACE PALM, ADOBE READER—even the horrific "IF I DID IT" (36D: 2007 book subtitled "Confessions of the Killer")—all give the puzzle a feeling of contemporary relevance. Puzzles are always going to have room for older stuff—both very old stuff like POUF (31A: High style of the 1700s) and modern older stuff like, I don't know, "NO JIVE" or CLARA Bow (33D: Bow no longer shot—great clue). The point is that answers from *all* different times are valuable and contribute to the interestingness of the crossword. But too often it's the current stuff that gets neglected, making the puzzle feel like an exercise in nostalgia and arcana retrieval. This one doesn't have that problem. You can tell how good the good stuff is by the fact that I haven't complained once about ARNEL, a "fabric" that I've never encountered and sounds made up and appears to exist now only as a crossword answer with lots of convenient letters (6D: Vintage fabric). Not once have I complained. OK once.
Would've blown through this thing pretty dang fast were it not for … well, most of the NW. Had CRUNCH for CLUTCH at 24A: Do-or-die situation. That is one hell of a trap. I completely bought CRUNCH and would still buy CRUNCH. Anyway, that wrong answer kept me from seeing both ARNEL and RAT-A-TAT, so my ways into that section were limited. I wanted BANANAGRAMS (1A: Fast-paced alternative to Scrabble) from the beginning even though I couldn't remember the game well at all. Just *felt* right. But even with that in place I had a bit of trouble bringing that section down. Eventually decided to go for ADIDAS (which had originally been SKORTS) (2D: Court wear, maybe), and then EDIT went in, and the whole thing quickly fell.
This was tons of fun. Wish every weekend had a puzzle like this. Nice work, David. This may be my favorite thing you've done to date, but you've already done so many, who can remember?
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: TERZETTO (34A: Vocal trio) —
n, pl -tos or -ti (-tɪ)1. (Classical Music) music a trio, esp a vocal one[C18: Italian: trio; see tercet] (thefreedictionary.com)
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Would've blown through this thing pretty dang fast were it not for … well, most of the NW. Had CRUNCH for CLUTCH at 24A: Do-or-die situation. That is one hell of a trap. I completely bought CRUNCH and would still buy CRUNCH. Anyway, that wrong answer kept me from seeing both ARNEL and RAT-A-TAT, so my ways into that section were limited. I wanted BANANAGRAMS (1A: Fast-paced alternative to Scrabble) from the beginning even though I couldn't remember the game well at all. Just *felt* right. But even with that in place I had a bit of trouble bringing that section down. Eventually decided to go for ADIDAS (which had originally been SKORTS) (2D: Court wear, maybe), and then EDIT went in, and the whole thing quickly fell.
This was tons of fun. Wish every weekend had a puzzle like this. Nice work, David. This may be my favorite thing you've done to date, but you've already done so many, who can remember?
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld