Constructor: Eric Bornstein
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (***for a Monday***) (3:10)
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THEME: PARTING / WORDS (56A: With 58-Across, what this puzzle's circled letters are .... or what they're doing) — words meaning "goodbye" (i.e. words said upon "parting") are in circled squares, and are found inside two-word phrases, which are themselves split into two successive Across answers, so those circled-square "parting" words are ... I guess they are supposed to be "parting" in the sense of "opening up" ... so "parting" is an intransitive verb ... like clouds "parting" ... huh ... OK:
Theme answers:
This one is conceptually dubious to start with, and the inept cluing language really louses things up irretrievably. You part the PARTING / WORDS ... so there's something there. But the idea that those words are themselves "parting," I dunno, it's not quite working for me. A black square *parts* those words ... they aren't just opening up; something (namely the black square) is intervening. Doing the parting. Also, since the two-word theme answers break naturally at the black square, there's no real sense that the circled squares are actively doing anything. They have no agency. Basically this is just a typical hidden-words theme, where the hidden word is broken across two parts of a longer answer, but here you're actually showing the break, pulling the two words apart, creating a split in the hidden words. You can lawyer your way to a defense of "parting" as a word describing what the circled-square words are doing, but you shouldn't need a lawyer on Monday. The revealer should just *snap*. Those words have been parted. They aren't convincingly "parting." But more importantly, the main theme phrases are all terribly dull, and the repeated "With 21-Across...,""With 30-Across,""With with with" cross-referencing makes the solving experience tedious and somewhat slower than usual, and with no great payoff. Slowish and dullish, with a revealer (and revealer clue) that just doesn't quite land. And then there's just not enough colorful non-theme stuff in the grid to make up for the thematic wobbliness.
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (***for a Monday***) (3:10)
Theme answers:
- ADIOS straddles RADIO / STATION (20A: With 21-Across, broadcast unit that may operate with 50,000, watts)
- TATA straddles DATA / TABLE (27A: With 30-Across, numbers displayed in rows and columns)
- LATER straddles SLATE / ROOF (49A: With 51-Across, long-lasting cover for a house)
1a: a mixture (as for plastering) composed chiefly of moistened clayb: a coarse molding sand used in founding (see FOUNDentry 5)
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| a better ERNST |
[a better ERNST]
Always unpleasant to see PALIN but especially unpleasant to see her crossed with fellow Tr*mpist Joni ERNST. There's absolutely no reason to clue ERNST that way. Even if we leave her disgusting politics out of it, you don't cross two answers from such narrow subject realms if you have other options, and with ERNST you definitely have other options. At a minimum, you've got famed surrealist Max ERNST and famed movie director ERNST Lubitsch. Mix it up. I don't know what this puzzle was trying to get at with the PALIN / ERNST cross, or with the GUANTANAMO / OBAMA cross either, but it's making me a little queasy. Speaking of making me queasy, that shouty CNBC hedge-fund guy ... his name ... I spelled it like the "Seinfeld" guy's name, i.e. with a "K," so that set me back (46A: "Mad Money" host Jim). I also had trouble coming up with DUST for 60D: Makeup of some "bunnies"because I was looking for a plural. Further, my eyes read "basketball" instead of "baseball" at 29D: Impressive feat in baseball, which made TRIPLE PLAY hard to come up with. I kept wondering why TRIPLE-DOUBLE wouldn't fit! Oh, and I wrote in MEDICARE before MEDICAID. The clue would seem to fit both (4D: Federal program for health care coverage). After all, MEDICARE is a "national health insurance program," so ... hard to know which one I was supposed to go for there. But that's why god invented crosses. Anyway, with all the cross-referencing in the themers and a handful of ambiguous non-theme clues to boot, this one definitely came in on the slow side for a Monday, for me. Not tremendously slow. But slowish. Hoping for a tighter, snappier, funner theme tomorrow. See you then.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]