Constructor: Ori Brian
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: CLARA Schumann (14A: Pianist/composer Schumann) —
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It's possible this puzzle has confused SEX-POSITIVE (34A: Openly discussing one's kinks, say) with OVERSHARING, depending on the imagined context, but most other things it seems to get right. It's got a lovely central stack with absolutely solid longer answers slicing through it, and most of the rest of the fill holds up pretty well. The only wincing I did was at the very, very end, when I stepped in that puddle of names at the bottom of the grid. Bad enough to meet Paul RYAN down there (so many RYANs in the world, whyyyyy?), but then to have my final square be the intersection of two names I don't know crossing at a vowel ... bah. Major anticlimax. I don't know why you don't clue at least one of those names, either EVA or ANNE, as someone legitimately famous, or at least from somewhere outside pop culture. Go back in time, go sideways into science or literature, something. There are too many ALLEGEd"celebrity chefs" for me to keep track of. So, you know, keep EVA Noblezada and move ANNE back in time or to some other field. It would be great if ANNE were a much more universally famous person, too. You can clue very famous people in tricky ways, so you don't have to give up difficulty. Nobody likes name soup, particularly short-name soup, so at least draw from very different fields or time periods. Especially when crossing names at a vowel. Luckily, in this case, "A" was the only reasonable guess. I had no idea if "EVE" or "EVA" was correct, but _NNE leaves you with only one plausible option. If I hadn't *finished* here, I probably wouldn't be talking about this moment nearly so much. But how you finish matters, even if where you finish is an unpredictable matter of chance. I can't believe I'm going to advocate for ERA, but I do think ERA / ANNE is better than EVA / ANNE. Ordinary words > short names of not-terribly-famous people crossing at a vowel. "Why are you focusing on these tiny details!?!?!" I know. I just can't dismiss the small stuff as insignificant. Every inch of the puzzle should be thoughtfully and carefully designed, even if many solvers will blow through it in 10 seconds. Plus I'm just generally interested in the kinds of values that drive construction and editorial choices. Putting new people in the puzzle! Good! But I tend to land in the "keep the name count reasonably low" and "don't cross unfamous names at vowels" and "draw from lots of different knowledge bases" camps.
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: CLARA Schumann (14A: Pianist/composer Schumann) —
Clara Josephine Schumann ([ˈklaːʁa ˈʃuːman]; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital from displays of virtuosity to programs of serious works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto (her Op. 7), chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.She grew up in Leipzig, where her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a pianist and teacher, and her mother, Mariane, was a pianist, singer, and piano teacher. She was a child prodigy, trained by her father. She began touring at age eleven, and was successful in Paris and Vienna, among other cities. She married the composer Robert Schumann, and the couple had eight children. Together, they encouraged Johannes Brahms and maintained a close relationship with him. She premiered many works by her husband and by Brahms in public.
After Robert Schumann's early death, she continued her concert tours in Europe for decades, frequently with the violinist Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. Beginning in 1878, she was an influential piano educator at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt, where she attracted international students. She edited the publication of her husband's work. Schumann died in Frankfurt, but was buried in Bonn beside her husband. (wikipedia)
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There is only one BATMAN. There are different actors, but just the one man. This is to say, BATMEN, bah (26A: Christian Bale and Val Kilmer, for two). I think BATMEN is a cricket term. Or is that BATSMEN? Anyway, I don't think BATMEN is a thing / are things. If they are real, they probably work not in Bat Caves but ECOLABS, which are also not things. BARMEN are things. Gendered, yes, but their drinks are so tasty. No other clues / answers really bothered me. I quite enjoyed the "what the hell part of speech is this?" cluing on both SEX POSITIVE (34A: Openly discussing one's kinks, say) and SLIM TO NONE (29D: Long). The former clue really looks like it wants to be an -ING-ending present participle, while the latter looks like a jillion things; I thought it had to do with length, or yearning, and then I got the SLIM- part and thought "what does SLIME have to do with it?" and *then* I saw what it was: a phrase related to odds or likelihood. If the odds are long, you might also say they're SLIM TO NONE. Nice. The only difficulty I had today was with the names (SHAYNE, EVA, ANNE), but I also had some good luck with names. For instance, I knew ALAN Watts, who has arguably the least well-known name in the grid, depending on how old you are and what you care about (Watts was one of the great popularizers of Buddhism in America in the last century). I had several moments of hesitation before getting BONOBOS, even with the BON- in place, simply because I couldn't understand how "ours" was being used (27A: Close relatives of ours). Seemed weird for the clue to suddenly take on a first-person persona. . . which made me think "waaaaaaaait a minute, is this gonna be a French animal name!?" ("ours" in French = "bear" / "bears").
But no, not relatives of French bears, relatives of human beings—if you've ever heard of BONOBOS, one thing you know is how closely related they are to human beings and the other thing you know is that they are extremely SEX POSITIVE.
[WARNING: just kidding, it's fine]
Just one explainer today:
- 37A: Use a shuttle, say (TAT)— this is a lace-making term, so different "shuttle" and different "TAT" than you're probably used to encountering in everyday speech
That's all. See you tomorrow, or whenever.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. the "BATMEN of All Nations" existed for a time, in the 1950s, so BATMEN are, or were, a thing, though not in the way the clue imagined.
