Constructor: Pao Roy
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: 4-Down ... — in four long Down answers, the word "DOWN" is replaced with a DOWN-ward facing arrow, represented by an "I" over a "V" ... like so:
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Relative difficulty: Medium
I
V
Theme answers:
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Ironic that I ended on ICK because I really liked this puzzle a lot. I like the weird way it unfolded. I was able to make significant progress even without seeing the theme, and then I hit a patch that made me go "whaaaaat?" It was like digging a tunnel and expecting eventually to come to the end but then on the way running into an alien skeleton. What ... is ... this? In this case, "this" was the "IV" above "LOW" in an answer I knew had to be about keeping something on the DOWN LOW. But DOWN wouldn't fit. And what the hell is with the "V" ... can that answer be anything but VIE? (50A: Struggle). The reason this was all so puzzling is that I had made it halfway through the damn puzzle with no obvious sign of a theme and no major trouble, so I thought I'd just fill in some normal-ish-looking answers and then find the connection at the end, or maybe ... my puzzle would do some kind of Thursday trick at the end, like, I don't know, levitate or start spinning in circles or change colors or something. How was I able to get halfway through this damn thing without any idea about the theme? Well, it all comes back to yoga.
- [DOWN]WARD-FACING DOG (1D: Part of a sun salutation, in yoga)
- GOT [DOWN] TO BUSINESS (4D: Cut the small talk)
- TRICKLE-[DOWN] THEORY (7D: Concept in Reaganomics)
- KEEPS ON THE [DOWN] LOW (10D: Handles discreetly)
Ana Lily Amirpour (Persian: آنا لیلی امیرپور) is an English-born American film director, screenwriter, producer and actress. She is best known for her feature film debut A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, self-described as "the first Iranian vampire spaghetti western" that made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, and which was based on a previous short film that she wrote and directed, which won Best Short Film at the 2012 Noor Iranian Film Festival. (wikipedia)
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Even if you have never practiced yoga in your life, you are likely familiar with the pose called "downward-facing dog" (or "down dog" or "dog pose") (in Sanskrit, "adho mukha svanasana"). Palms on floor, feet on floor, ass in the air, roughly.
And yes, downward-facing dog is part of a sun salutation. But you know what else is part of a sun salutation? Well, yeah, you probably do by now, if you looked at the partially-filled grid I just posted: it's UPWARD-FACING DOG. And UPWARD-FACING DOG fit! So I didn't blink. I just kept right on going down into the SW and counterclockwise around the grid until I ended up running into IVLOW (!?). Then I thought, "wait, what's the theme?" Then I looked at UPWARD-FACING DOG and thought, "OK, that's UP, this is ... DOWN ... somehow ... ooh, it's a DOWN arrow, so UP must actually be an UP arrow!" So I tried that, and that didn't work, and only *then* did I remember "oh yeah, DOWNWARD-FACING DOG is also available." The other two DOWN-arrow answers came pretty swiftly. The theme is simple and elegant and clever and because of the path I took to discovering it, it was genuinely surprising as well. No complaints.
I struggled very badly up front, and in retrospect it's at least a little clear why (the very first Across and Downs are "IV"-impacted). The worst mistake I made was non-theme-related: SEA / NERVE instead of ERS / VALOR. I did think "well that's a weird way to clue SEA ... why would you use the abbr. for "Seattle" when the ordinary word SEA is available?" Yes, why would you? I also had a catastrophic double-error along the west coast, as my dog with ARF (not GRR) and my "attachments" were IDOS, not PDFS (28A: Many attachments). Somehow I knew DECATUR, or could piece it together easily, and that helped me work my way out of that west coast mess. Outside of my initial encounter with the "IV" gimmick, nothing else in the grid gave me real trouble.
- 33A: Enlightenment, in Buddhism (BODHI) — I know this from knowing something about Buddhism but I *know* it know it because I just watched "Point Break" (1991) for the first time, and the surfer / bank robber / life coach / gang leader played by Patrick Swayze in that movie is named BODHI.
- 41D: Muppet whose self-identified species is "Whatever" (GONZO) — I would've said ANIMAL, but there weren't enough letters. I like this clue. I like remembering the Muppets.
- 49D: 46-Down, in French (SEPT) — I had the final "T," looked over at 46-Down, saw it had five letters, and figured, "ah, the old ETAT / STATE pairing. Classic! But ... how is Nitrogen a STATE? Oh well, your chemistry knowledge sucks, just trust the puzzle. Nitrogen STATE!"
- 19A: Hosp. hookups (IVS)— OK, I do have one complaint about the theme, or related to the theme, and it's that this answer really has no place in the grid. You can't (shouldn't) use "IV" to represent DOWN and then also have standalone "IVS" in the grid. It's ... distracting. It evokes the theme, but it's not part of the theme, and it's not in a theme position. Better to scrap it. But this is an exceedingly minor point. An aesthetic blemish of small proportions. If "DOWN" had been in one of the Across answers, I'd've barked (ARF! I mean GRR!) about that too.
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