Constructor: Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: Challenging
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THEME:"Watch Your Step!" — there are TRAP DOORS throughout the puzzle (122A: Secret exits represented five times in this puzzle's grid); these are rebus squares that contain the letters "TRAP." With the Across answers, "TRAP" just functions as a letter string, but in the Downs, it functions as a letter string *and* a "trap door," i.e. the answer falls through the black square (where an answer would normally terminate), concluding in the Down answer directly underneath. So, for example, with 4D: Scores for placekickers = EX(TRAP)... you have to look at the answer directly beneath it, which has no proper clue (i.e. 32D: -), to find the remainder of the 4D answer (OINTS). So EX(TRAP) + OINTS = EXTRA POINTS. And so:
Theme answers:
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A really interesting concept and complicated architectural feat that results in a really fussy awkward solving experience with some contrived answers and a revealer that absolutely falls flat. I mean, by the time I get to TRAP DOORS, it's very obvious that I've been dealing with TRAP DOORS. TRAP TRAP TRAP TRAP TRAP ... and you "fall through" them ... so yeah, the revealer was anticlimactic. But maybe that was inevitable, so let's leave that and go back to the theme answers themselves. I feel like I squeezed all the joy out of the solving experience the moment I got the first set of themers, i.e. the moment I got what was going on with the TRAP and the answer falling through and all that. Ooh, a trap door, Ok interesting ... don't like that little -OINTS bit standing alone, gibberish always looks stupid in the grid, but still, the concept is decent. Great ... but then it was just more of the same, and somehow those trap doors were less entertaining, more annoying to unearth as the solve went on. It's a one-note concept, and subsequent iterations of the note just don't have any joy in them. I also have to sit through technical gunk like TETRAPODS and semi-made-up stuff like ULTRAPURE (it's pure or it's not, come on). The TRAPPISTS one was by far the hardest to uncover, because that "TRAP" rebus is not inside a long Across answer, the way all the others are, and the TRAPPISTS clue is hard (51A: Brewing brothers) if you can't see the TRAP yet, and ditto the TETRAPODS clue. The other trap doors were easy enough to find, but unfortunately on top of this already complicated theme, the puzzle decided to make all the non-theme cluing weirdly harder than usual, and then you've got this ultra-choppy grid, so the experience ended up being something of a slog and a drag. Poker slang, a partial name of a Soviet-era spacecraft (?!), a misspelled DORAG (we've been over this), a PACK TENT, whatever that is ... a RAISE HAVOC when the term is obviously WREAK HAVOC (just remember the old adage, which I just made up: RAISE CAIN, WREAK HAVOC, starve a cold). And to top it all off, I finished with a stupid error at 1D / 18A. I had UNEXPERT / SUBS instead of INEXPERT / SIBS (18A: Amateur / 1D: Twins, e.g., for short) ... since INAPT and UNAPT are both words, I honestly didn't even blink at UNEXPERT, and then thought "huh, Twins ... SUBS ... maybe it's a baseball thing I'm not quite getting..." (SUBS, like SIBS, fits the "for short" description in the clue). And then I abandoned that section and never looked back. Ah well.
Lots of stuff I just didn't know today. Beyond the aforementioned ON TILT (ugh) and VOSTOK, I had no idea who Kitty O'NEIL was—I assumed she was a fast runner, not a fast driver. You'd never call the fastest male driver the "fastest man in the world." Bizarre. No idea who Trina is or what "Still da BADDEST" sounds like (70A: "Still da ___" (Trina title track of 2008)). She seems to be a really reputable rapper, but she hasn't had any mainstream chart success to speak of. "Still da BADDEST" wasn't even a single, why is it clued as a "title track" and not just as [Trina album of 2008]? Again, bizarre. I knew Bob FOSSE but did not recognize him from that clue (37D: Only person to win an Oscar, Emmy and Tony in the same year (1973)). I have watched every season of "The Great British Bake Off" and still managed to forget NOEL Fielding's name (118A: ___ Fielding, co-host of "The Great British Bake Off" beginning in 2017). I thought DOX was spelled with two "X"s, but apparently one is acceptable (though you'd definitely use two in words like "doxxed" and "doxxing"). I had SEEDY before SEAMY (82D: Disreputable) and GOURD (?) before ACORN (74A: Kind of squash). I have no idea what SPICER is supposed to mean here (77A: One using cloves or garlic). Is a SPICER ... someone ... who adds "spice" ... to whatever they're cooking!?!? So, pretty much any cook of anything more elaborate than PB&J? Is garlic even a "spice"??? For the third time, I say: bizarre. Do people really cry multiple OWS in a tattoo parlor?? (103D: Crises in a tattoo parlor). I don't have any tattoos, and I've never been in a tattoo parlor, but somehow a chorus of OWS is not really the soundscape I imagined.
Relative difficulty: Challenging
Theme answers:
- BES(TRAP)ALBUM / EX(TRAP) + OINTS (22A: Grammy for Kendrick Lamar's "DAMN." or Cardi B's "Invasion of Privacy" / 4D: Scores for placekickers)
- (TRAP)PISTS / TE(TRAP) + ODS (51A: Brewing brothers / 39D: Four-limbed animals)
- ORCHES(TRAP)ITS / FLYING (TRAP) + EZE (46A: Sources of music in musicals / 14D: Circus apparatus)
- S(TRAP)LESS GOWN / CON(TRAP) + TIONS (96A: Marilyn Monroe wore a fuchsia one while singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" / 75D: Rube Goldberg machines, e.g.)
- VON (TRAP)P FAMILY / UL(TRAP) + URE (102A: "The Sound of Music" household / 93D: Lacking any adulteration)
Kitty Linn O'Neil (March 24, 1946 – November 2, 2018) was an American stuntwoman and racer, known as "the fastest woman in the world". An illness in early childhood left her deaf, and more illnesses in early adulthood cut short a career in diving. O'Neil's career as a stuntwoman and race driver led to her depiction in a television movie and as an action figure. Her women's absolute land speed record stood until 2019. (wikipedia)
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Lots of stuff I just didn't know today. Beyond the aforementioned ON TILT (ugh) and VOSTOK, I had no idea who Kitty O'NEIL was—I assumed she was a fast runner, not a fast driver. You'd never call the fastest male driver the "fastest man in the world." Bizarre. No idea who Trina is or what "Still da BADDEST" sounds like (70A: "Still da ___" (Trina title track of 2008)). She seems to be a really reputable rapper, but she hasn't had any mainstream chart success to speak of. "Still da BADDEST" wasn't even a single, why is it clued as a "title track" and not just as [Trina album of 2008]? Again, bizarre. I knew Bob FOSSE but did not recognize him from that clue (37D: Only person to win an Oscar, Emmy and Tony in the same year (1973)). I have watched every season of "The Great British Bake Off" and still managed to forget NOEL Fielding's name (118A: ___ Fielding, co-host of "The Great British Bake Off" beginning in 2017). I thought DOX was spelled with two "X"s, but apparently one is acceptable (though you'd definitely use two in words like "doxxed" and "doxxing"). I had SEEDY before SEAMY (82D: Disreputable) and GOURD (?) before ACORN (74A: Kind of squash). I have no idea what SPICER is supposed to mean here (77A: One using cloves or garlic). Is a SPICER ... someone ... who adds "spice" ... to whatever they're cooking!?!? So, pretty much any cook of anything more elaborate than PB&J? Is garlic even a "spice"??? For the third time, I say: bizarre. Do people really cry multiple OWS in a tattoo parlor?? (103D: Crises in a tattoo parlor). I don't have any tattoos, and I've never been in a tattoo parlor, but somehow a chorus of OWS is not really the soundscape I imagined.
There's an article out this week about culturally contentious issues in crossword puzzles. Featuring quotes from Will Shortz, Ben Tausig, Patrick Berry and others (I'm one of the "others"). Just ignore the part where they mysteriously claim that HITLER is "five letters" long ... see you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. 46D: Heavy metal's "Prince of Darkness" (OSBOURNE) may be much more familiar to you by his first name, which is what most people call him: Ozzy.
