Constructor: Rachel SimonRelative difficulty: normal Monday
THEME: PICK UP (66A: Learn, as a new skill ... or what can precede the ends of 20-, 36-, 42- and 59-Across)— just what the clue says; so,
PICK UP lines, games, trucks, and sticks):
Theme answers:- FAULT LINES (20A: Earthquakes occur around them)
- VIDEO GAMES (36A: Fortnite and The Legend of Zelda, for two)
- DUMP TRUCKS (42A: Construction site vehicles)
- CHOPSTICKS (59A: Eating utensils that might come wrapped in red paper)
Word of the Day: LOOFA (
1D: Shower scrubber) —
Luffa is a genus of tropical and subtropical vines in the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae).
In everyday non-technical usage, the luffa, also spelled loofah, usually refers to the fruits of the species Luffa aegyptiaca and Luffa acutangula. It is cultivated and eaten as a vegetable, but must be harvested at a young stage of development to be edible. The vegetable is popular in India, China and Vietnam. When the fruit is fully ripened, it is very fibrous. The fully developed fruit is the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge which is used in bathrooms and kitchens. [...] The fruit section of L. aegyptiaca may be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything except the network of xylem fibers. If the loofah is allowed to fully ripen and then dried on the vine, the flesh disappears leaving only the fibrous skeleton and seeds, which can be easily shaken out. Marketed as luffa or loofah, the sponge is used as a body scrub in the shower.
In Paraguay, panels are made out of luffa combined with other vegetable matter and recycled plastic. These can be used to create furniture and construct houses. (wikipedia)
• • •
Incredibly basic and entirely adequate Monday puzzle. Could've run thirty years ago, no problem, but that's not bad, just ... not good either. "Word that can precede (or follow)" is one of the most rudimentary theme types there is, but sometimes rudimentary concepts can yield fabulous results. Today's results, however, were just ho-hum. Also, aesthetically, the grid is a little ... odd. The revealer is in a weird place. One up from the bottom ... on the left? So ... the anteanteanteantepenultimate Across answer? Not clear to me why this grid wasn't a mirror image of itself with
PICKUP in the standard revealer place (i.e. bottom right). It's not like the theme is particularly tricky or demanding. I'm a stickler for form if there's no clear reason to break form. If there's clear (good) reason to mess with standard format, then mess away! Otherwise, put things where they belong. The other, somewhat harder-to-see aesthetic imperfection (imho) is that the grid is really Really cut off, top half from the bottom. It doesn't look it, but you can feel it when you're solving, as your flow gets choked off quite bad as you descend. There are only two tiny pathways from the top to the bottom of this grid:
![]()
Technically, yes, there's still all-over interlock here, but barely—felt like I was completely restarting the puzzle on the bottom, as there were hardly any crosses to latch on to, and even those were on the longer side. On a Monday, that flow interruption was jarring. Is it a big deal? It is not. It is Monday. Everything is very solvable. But in general I like ... multiple paths in and out of sections. A feeling of openness. Flow. I like things to flow. So I didn't particularly like the cut-offedness of this puzzle's two hemispheres. Beyond that, the fill ... is largely acceptable, but also largely unremarkable. Lots and lots of repeaters and not a lot of oomph or sparkle. BLOSSOMED is probably the highlight, but the other 7+-letter answers just kind of lie there. Again, the puzzle absolutely makes sense and is puzzle-shaped and does not miss the mark in any kind of egregious way. But it feels like a passable imitation of a late twentieth-century puzzle. It doesn't feel like it's trying very hard to bring anything new to the table. I think I prefer ambitious failure to cautious, moderate success.
ADMAN is one of those answers that gives me Warning, Warning feelings if I see it early on. It feels old, and it feels Very crossword-old, and while it's legit, it still seems like a bad harbinger. This ADMAN was followed by two French answers and INIT and EASE crossing tEASErs, etc. and while no one of those things is bad, exactly, they combine with the ASPS and the ESPYs to keep things in superfamiliar territory. "OH, I SEE" has a little life to it. KEEP OUT also has some pep, but the "moody teen" bit in the clue just makes the puzzle feel even crustier—the theme type and the fill already feel sort of old. No need for the clues to make it worse. I spelled LOUFA like that, and I thought YODA (not LEIA) "founded the Resistance" (got the final "A" first and just guessed wrong). No other real problems. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. the preferred spelling of LOOFAH appears to be the terminal-H version. Maybe it lost the "H" in ... marketing? I dunno. But
merriam-webster dot com doesn't even have
LOOFA as an alt spelling in its LOOFAH entry.
[Follow Rex Parker on
Twitter and
Facebook]
