Screenplay abbr. indicating outside / TUE 1--4-22 / Kind of diagram that the Mastercard logo resembles / School where students learn to spell / Risqué costume for a holiday party / NBA team with a gorilla mascot strangely enough / Start of an optimistic quote by Margaret Farrar

Word of the Day: MARGARET FARRAR (57A) —

Margaret Petherbridge Farrar (March 23, 1897 – June 11, 1984) was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times (1942–1968). Creator of many of the rules of modern crossword design, she wrote* a long-running series of crossword puzzle books including the first-ever book of any kind published by Simon & Schuster. (wikipedia) *(I think "wrote" might be misleading here, in that, as I understand it, she was the compiler / editor of the S&S crossword book, not the actual "writer" of all the puzzles in it; she's editing, not "writing"; in crosswords, the terminology is important. I don't have any experience editing wikipedia entries, but someone should edit this one)

Well, maybe *you* can't think of your troubles while solving a crossword, but I write about the damn thing every day, so if the crossword is bad, then the crossword is my trouble? The very concept of this puzzle was nails on a chalkboard to me. 2x nails on chalkboard, actually, since first, it's a quote puzzle, and those are almost never fun—their very nature makes them hard to solve (clues don't give you any pertinent content info and it's very hard to imagine what a random sentence is going to be) and the quotation is almost never strong enough (i.e. funny or surprising or clever enough) to justify the whole enterprise. Usually you end up with some groaner pun or some Hallmark-level sentiment. Today's quotation leans more toward the latter—a completely banal and (worse) self-congratulatory statement that at best is going to elicit a smug "ah, yes, so true" or a wry half-chuckle. The only upside I can see to this puzzle at all is that it will teach those who didn't know already who the first editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle was. She was also the last woman to edit the puzzle. True story.

The grid is 14x16 instead of the usual 15x15 in order to accommodate MARGARET FARRAR's 14-letter span. They you've got mirror symmetry instead of the usual rotational symmetry, so the quotation parts are all an even number of letters long so they can all sit dead center in their respective rows. So the puzzle shape is interesting, that's another check in the Plus column. But the pluses largely end there. SEXY ELF is creepy and leering, the way most "sexy" costumes are (sure, theoretically the SEXY ELF could be a man, but come on). The bizarrely bigoted billionaire child's author gets a cutesy shoutout at 36D: School where students learn to spell? (HOGWARTS), so that's gross. The "OH" plague continues today with "OH, NEAT." It's like somebody, when making their Giant Word List, thought "how about we put 'OH' in front of literally everything a human being might say, thus instantly making our Giant Word List even gianter, which obviously means better!? Oh, and, hey, while we're at it, um, let's do the same thing with 'UM'..." I don't think constructors or editors yet understand how hard some of these "OH" expressions are to pick up, and what a letdown they can be when they are picked up. Anyway, SUNS (?) over "OH, NEAT" added time to an already slow solve. So did CROC, since I don't think of CROCs as either "foam" or "clog," though I can see the case for both. A STENCIL is a tool with a very specific use, not a "shortcut," what the hell? (10D: Artist's shortcut). STENCILs are no more "shortcuts" than any tools are "shortcuts.""Are you tired of pounding nails with your forehead!? So time-consuming, so painful! Well, now—there's a shortcut!" [audience gasps as host holds a hammer skyward]

The fill is mostly OK, though there's a lot of very short stuff, which occasionally gets gruesome (SBA, oof, that's down there on the governmental initialism list, which is saying something, as there aren't exactly that many good governmental initialisms). TALI STET ORA TOA EDY VSO ECARD ... these small repeaters start to pile up and clog the grid a little, but only a little. The problem today isn't the fill; it's the theme. I like remembering MARGARET FARRAR. Let's all imagine a puzzle future where a woman is at the helm again. Shall we? Yes, I think we shall. I shall, at any rate. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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