Constructor: Brooke Husic and Nam Jin Yoon
Relative difficulty: Challenging
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: SADIE Sink (54A: Actress Sink of "Stranger Things") —
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These are two of my favorite constructors, so yes, I liked this puzzle. But I knew, or had a feeling, just from seeing their bylines that it was going to be hard. Brooke in particular has a penchant for making very hard puzzles (try one of her "experimental/challenging" puzzles here, at her puzzle site, if you dare). Anyway, I wasn't wrong—this was a Saturday, for sure. It made me think about what I like in a Friday vs. what I like in a Saturday. I guess it does basically come down to difficulty, but it's also sensation, which is to say, I like the whoosh whoosh feeling, the flow, the feeling of pure delight in zipping from section to section on a Friday. I like the puzzle to be clever, but in a generous way. In short, I'm just not so amenable to the all-over struggle on a Friday. On a Saturday, I expect it, and I enjoy it, especially when the struggle has big payoff (as today's puzzle does, here there and everywhere). But I had no sense of flow today. There were very few places where I was able to pick up any momentum. It felt like almost Every clue had some element of misdirection. You lay off some of the clues in a Friday. You can hit 'em all on Saturday. This is my deeply personal and highly impressionistic take on the ideal Friday/Saturday distinction, off the top of my head, at 5:17 in the morning. You don't have to say "AMEN TO THAT." Or you can. Your choice.
More things:
Relative difficulty: Challenging
Word of the Day: SADIE Sink (54A: Actress Sink of "Stranger Things") —
Sadie Elizabeth Sink (born April 16, 2002) is an American actress and model. She portrayed Max Mayfield in the Netflix television series Stranger Things and Ziggy Berman in the Netflix horror film trilogy Fear Street. Sink has also worked on Broadway, with credits including Annie and The Audience. She also starred in Taylor Swift's All Too Well: The Short Film. (wikipedia)
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What's good? Well, it's all good. I don't have all day. Usually, the highlights jump right out, so it's clear to me what's worth writing about. Today? Yeesh, close your eyes and drop your finger anywhere on the grid and you've got something. Here, let me try that exact strategy ... dang, I hit a black square, but it's near the bottom of HORSE RACES and "AMEN TO THAT!"—a fine pairing. I struggled with HORSE RACES even with HORSE in place because I thought the "stakes" were actual, material stakes (the kind of you put in the ground, like ... posts! Dammit, that's what I was thinking of. Posts! But no, "stakes" is just a name for a race, like the Belmont Stakes. I assume. Horse-racing, not my bailiwick. If you scoot one answer over from "AMEN TO THAT!" you get BOOTY CALL, which ... feels weirdly dated to me, now, as a concept, but man, what a clue (27D: Summons before congress?). Best "?" clue in the bunch. And crossing ADULT SITE, LOL, nice (52A: Blue book alternative) ("blue" has the sense of "erotic" here). I loved CRUSH HARD, though mostly I'm just proud I got CRUSH HARD. The HARD was a guess, but it sounded right to my ear, and it was, hurray! I liked PLAY HOOKY, which was one of the few places today where I saw *right* through the clue—being a college professor surely helped (7D: One way to avoid a lecture). The long hits keep coming with WEIRDS OUT, "ANY TAKERS?,"etc. The hardest long answer for me was definitely ROMAN À CLEF (13A: Facts-as-fiction work). I was braced for anything there. Thought maybe it would be a specific work, or else some modern coinage dealing with, say, a subset of fanfic or other bit of onlinery that I was unfamiliar with. But no, not modern, old, and French. A very familiar (to me) literary genre. Just very hard to parse.
More things:
- 9A: Creatures with asymmetrical ears for accuracy in hunting (OWLS)— me: ORCS
- 18A: World's best-selling contemporary female artist of all time, per Billboard magazine (DION) — as in "Celine." Bizarrely hard for me. I guess Celine now seems "bygone" to me, not "contemporary."
- 34A: Trinket (TCHOTCHKE) — huge spelling victory for me
- 17A: "Join the club!" ("AREN'T WE ALL?") — weirdly, very weirdly, the first thing I wanted here, given the crosses that I had in place, was "AMEN TO THAT!" (see 3D)
- 43A: Data head? (CIO) — Chief Information Officer (I have to keep reminding myself about the meaning of every C-O that is not a CEO)
- 55A: Say goodbye to many a 34-Across à la Marie Kondo (DECLUTTER) — the CLUTTER part was easy, but I went with UN-. That SW corner got a little tricky. Not sure it was such a good idea to put "Say" in this clue when the answer sits right on top of SAY (57A: Destiny Child's "___ My Name"). But most people probably didn't notice.
- 1D: Newmark with an eponymous list (CRAIG) — totally forgot about this guy until someone reminded me of him literally yesterday. And bam, here he is. The universe is manifesting! (I have no idea what I mean, please don't ask)
- 4D: Word from the Dutch for "talk nonsense" (RANT)— You: "Hmm, is it RANT or RAVE?" Me: "... EDAM?"
- 5D: "Claws" channel (TNT) — ban all TV channels, especially basic cable channels starting with "T." I just can't any more.
- 36D: What a bee may be (CONTEST)— this is oddly phrased. "Bee" can mean"contest." But if you say "a bee" there is some idea that you have already determined what the bee is that you're discussing and that you are therefore looking for some feature *of* that bee. But if you had a (say) spelling bee in mind all along, then that ... is by definition a CONTEST ... so the "may be" feels wrong. Essentially, the clue is saying "Hey ... psst ... bee! ... do you know what kind of bee I'm talking about?" or "What can the word 'bee' mean?" Would've liked this clue better as [Bee, for one]. Less disingenuous.
- 53D: Card display? (STL) — sorry to all the non-sportsers out there. This one probably hurt a little (the St. Louis Cardinals (or "Cards," if you like) are repped by the letters STL on scoreboards and on their caps sometimes)