Constructor: Ashish Vengsarkar and Narayan Venkatasubramanyan
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: FROM STEM TO STERN (56A: Thoroughly ... or a hint for parsing some lowercase letters in four of this puzzle's clues) — you have to read "m" as "r n" if you want to make sense of the theme clues; the theme plays on the idea that if the kerning of a font is bad, "rn" can easily be mistaken for "m" (if you don't know what "kerning" is, see the Word of the Day, below):
Theme answers:
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Holy cow, that revealer! I don't think I've been as pleasantly, joyfully surprised by a revealer in a long, long time. By the second theme answer, I knew what the theme concept was, so I was just working my way down the grid waiting to see how the puzzle would end, i.e. how the revealer would express the theme. In my head, I thought, "well, this involves poor kerning ... so maybe KERNING is in the grid somehow ... that's an interesting word, but ... it's not going to fit in that long final themer ... and it's not part of any longer expression that I know ... so maybe the revealer is going to be one of the shorter answers ... or maybe ... oh, god, it's not going to be some kind of "kern" pun is it, that would be tragic ... maybe there's no revealer! ... ah well, I guess we'll find out eventually ... best to just keep solving and see what happens." Or something like that. This is to say that the concept was simple and I grokked it so I didn't think the puzzle had anything left to show me. And wow, was I wrong. FROM STEM TO STERN is so on-the-money that I was very nearly AGASP (which I thought was a mythical, crossword-only state until today). They must've started with this phrase and built the puzzle around it, because it is right on the money: it's a familiar idiom that could stand on its own in any puzzle *and* it uses clever wordplay to indicate the theme (instead of just pointing at it) *AND* it's a perfect grid-spanning 15 letters long. This is what's known as "sticking the landing." So much of the pleasure of solving rides on this moment: the revealer revealing. And it is such a pleasure to have a revealer surprise you, especially when you already think you know (or actually do know) what's going on with the theme. Simple concept, absolutely killer reveal. FROM STEM TO STERN took me from Like to Love with one great flourish. The bow on the present, the icing on the cake. Yes, I'll take this.
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: FROM STEM TO STERN (56A: Thoroughly ... or a hint for parsing some lowercase letters in four of this puzzle's clues) — you have to read "m" as "r n" if you want to make sense of the theme clues; the theme plays on the idea that if the kerning of a font is bad, "rn" can easily be mistaken for "m" (if you don't know what "kerning" is, see the Word of the Day, below):
Theme answers:
- WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I (17A: Homer's self-satisfied assertion?) (i.e. not "Homer's" but "Horner's..." (as in "Little Jack Horner / Sat in a corner etc.")
- SCOTTISH POET (29A: Bums, for example?) (i.e. "Burns...")
- SPINNING WHEEL (35A: Yam source, initially?) (i.e. "Yarn source...")
- BRASS SECTION (43A: Place to find a comet?) (i.e. a "cornet")
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letterforms, while tracking (letter-spacing) adjusts spacing uniformly over a range of characters.[1] In a well-kerned font, the two-dimensional blank spaces between each pair of characters all have a visually similar area.The term "keming" is sometimes used informally to refer to poor kerning (the letters r and n placed too close together being easily mistaken for the letter m)
The related term kern denotes a part of a type letter that overhangs the edge of the type block. (wikipedia) (emph. mine)
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The theme was deceptively simple. I say "deceptively" because Thursday is not gonna sneak up on me with its tricks. I know it's Shenanigans day, and I can see that the clues are question-mark wacky, so I'm proceeding cautiously, waiting for the booby traps to start springing. But with the first themer, I can see / feel that the answer is going to be WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I ... but then I thought "nope, you can't fool me, stupid puzzle. It can't just be WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I ... because that has nothing to do with Homer! That's not wacky at all. Where's the "D'OH!"? Oh no, it's not WHAT A GOOD D'OH! AM I, is it!?!?! Please say that's not it." The upshot of this wariness is that I left the BOY part blank because I figured that's where the wackiness was going to be ... but then the crosses eventually revealed no (apparent) wackiness at all. Just the familiar WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I. If I'd stopped to think about Where That Phrase Comes From, I might've figured out the theme early. But as it was, I didn't get it til the next themer, which I actually had to squint at to see if it said "Bums" or Burns" ... and then SCOTTISH POET has to be "Burns" ... but the clue (resquints) says "Bums," so ... aha! There it is. That's the theme. Not Homer but Horner, not Bums but Burns, etc. So that was my mini aha. And that was all the aha I thought I was going to get. Which is why the revealer was such a stunning delight. The only fault I can find with the theme is that SCOTTISH POET is not a good standalone answer (any more than BELGIAN POET or PERUVIAN POET is). It's a clue more than an answer. But for the purposes of this particular theme, it's fine. That's the thing about puzzles with clever themes that are elegantly executed—you forgive and even forget the faults of such puzzles very easily.
Five things:
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- 1A: Tour de France leg (STAGE) — me, a genius: "ah, I know this one—it's ÉTAPE! ugh, not a great word, but at least I knew it!" And of course ÉTAPE shares three letters with STAGE, so it took me a minute to figure out I had the answer wrong. Very happy to have been wrong, even if knowing the word "ÉTAPE" did make me feel perversely proud for a half second.
- 61D: "J to ___ L-O! The Remixes" (2002 album) ("THA") — this feels like a long and weird way to go for THA (a remix album!?) ... but I like it. The early aughts seem like yesterday and ancient history simultaneously. I have no idea what happened. It's all just a blur of marriage kid house dog job ... and post 9-11 awfulness. Wars and what not. But apparently also J-Lo, which is nice.
- 30D: Caesar dressing? (TUNIC) — me, a genius: "TOGAE!!! ... but why is he wearing more than one ... just Caesar being Caesar, I guess ..."
- 12D: Band with the 4x platinum albums "Out of Time" and "Monster" (R.E.M.) — me, a genius who doesn't read clues all the way to the end: "ELO!" Also me, later: "'Monster' was 4x platinum!? Wow, I love that album but I had no idea so many people bought it."
- 44D: King of Saudi Arabia beginning in 2015 (SALMAN) — I didn't know this, and that made the cross at 53A a little harrowing—[Steps on a scale] could've been FAS or LAS, but in the end SAFMAN seemed ... unlikely. Behold the power of educated guessing!
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