Inuit knife / SAT 1-25-14 / Modern Gallantry pen name / Spread the Happy sloganeer / 2012 Pro Bowl player Chris / Valley of Amazement novelist 2013 / Megadyne fractions

Constructor: James Mulhern

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Park TAE-hwan (63D: Swimming gold medalist Park ___-hwan) —

Park Tae-hwan (born September 27, 1989) is a South Korean swimmer. He is a member of the South Korean national swimming team, based in Taereung, Seoul. He won a gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle and a silver in the 200 meter freestyle events at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He is the first Asian swimmer to claim a gold medal in men's 400 m freestyle, and the first Korean to win an Olympic medal in swimming. (wikipedia)

This is solid. Workmanlike, but solid. It's a *little* too heavy on the icky / tired short stuff (see esp. the NERTS / ELIA / ANS collusion in the SE). But it's certainly not bad, and it gave me a good workout, especially in the SW corner, where I stalled quite badly. At first all I had was NUMBSKULL. Then I guessed ECOLI and UNLOCK and thought "I got this." But no. Put in URNS. Still no. Tried LANK and LEAN where I needed LITE. Tried NATL where I needed NAUT. As for TAE—forget about it. That was never gonna happen (though I will say that my flat-out guess of RAE probably helped me see NUTELLA, finally) (66A: "Spread the Happy" sloganeer). Clue on RAIN OUT is quite poor, as a RAIN OUT is not a "game." By definition. Clue says that it can't be played, but a RAIN OUT is only ever in the past, so it should say "couldn't" be played. Clue is trying to be cutesy, but it needs a "?" if it wants to play this fast and lose with reality/grammar.


So the [Bible] is the WORD OF GOD now? Just … is? Not "to some," or "allegedly"? OK then. I will take a stance of MUTISM on this issue, I guess. (me, mid-solve: "Mutes have an -ism now?"). I think the bigger corners are better than the smaller corners. NW is probably the best, with a nice "Z" intersection to start things off. Clue on ZOMBIE is very good and had me puzzled for a long time (1A: Body that doesn't remain at rest?). I like the [Johns of Britain] [John of Britain] sequence, mostly because I wrote in LOOS and MAJOR. Not so helpful. I have ordered many an Americano in my time, and … SODA? We're not talking about the coffee drink, then? Oh, no, I see it's a Campari-based cocktail. Weird coincidence—I bought my first ever bottle of Campari yesterday so that I could make a Negroni (easy, colorful, enjoyable). I felt compelled to branch out into non-G&T gin drinks because the good people at St. George Spirits (who apparently read my blog) sent me a bunch of gins as part of a thank-you gift, and, well, they're not going to drink themselves. They also sent me bourbon. Anyway, where was I? Eh, who cares. Now I'm thirsty.



Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you're wondering how I could refrain from talking about the crosswordese ZOMBIE that is ULU (38A: Inuit knife) … my strategy was "just ignore it and it will go away." We'll see …

P.P.S. I review Ben Tausig's book "The Curious History of the Crossword" in today's Wall Street Journal. Here's a PDF.