Constructor: Alex Rosen
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: phrases of omission — four pairs of answers (each pair appearing on the same line); for each pair, the first answer appears to have letters missing, and the second is a phrase describing (literally) why the letters in the first answer are missing, or "what to do as you enter the answer to the previous clue":
Theme answers:
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A very familiar gimmick. Many a puzzle has been built around a single phrase like this, which acts as a revealer with each of the theme answers conforming to the instructions. In today's case, we get a kind of speed version, with four different "revealers" instead of the more typical lone, final revealer. The same act is involved every time—dropping letters—so there's a consistency there. In typical drop-a-letter / add-a-letter (or letters)-type puzzles, though, there's some wackiness, some attempt to at least try to make the "incorrect" answers funny by having the answers be obviously, zanily wrong, and having the clues be of the loopy "?" variety. Here, we just get single words. They don't fit the clue, but that failure to fit yields zero pleasure, which I guess also means zero cringing, but I'd rather a puzzle go for the joke and fail than not go for it at all. I guess the "joke" is in the second answer to each pair, the verb phrase that explains the first answer in the pair. But there wasn't much "aha" there, since I could clearly see that "IN" was missing from what should've been DISCIPLINES. I was just waiting to find out why. Then I hit CUT IN. Pretty straightforward, not at all amusing. I'd say that HOME ICE is the one first answer of the four that has something like sufficient zaniness—the new phrase is really, really new and different and completely reoriented. But DISCIPLES is just a thud (it's etymologically closely related to DISCIPLINES, so it hardly reorients the word at all). And FLING and SPORTED are just ... there. This is like four different ideas for a puzzle all crammed into one puzzle without much thought for how fun it would be to solve. The theme isn't bad, by any means; just flat.
The result of this mistake was mostly me being very angry at this alleged "abstract expressionist" who was somehow not ROTHKO but some guy named RUT- ... RUTLIN? RUTHIE? "Who the hell has ever heard of this RUT- guy!?" Well, no one, I made him up (32D: Abstract Expressionist Mark).
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- DISCIPL[in]ES (17A: Punishes / CUT IN (19A: Interrupt ... or what to do as you enter the answer to the previous clue)
- S[up]PORTED (29A: Backed financially) / SCRUB UP (31A: Prep for surgery ... or what to do etc.)
- HOME [off]ICE (48A: Workplace with no commute / TAKE OFF (50A: Leave ... or what to do etc.)
- FL[out]ING (64A: Brazenly disregard) / STRIKE OUT (66A: Flail at home plate ... or what to do etc.)
Pound cake is a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Pound cakes are generally baked in either a loaf pan or a Bundt mold. They are sometimes served either dusted with powdered sugar, lightly glazed, or with a coat of icing. (wikipedia)
• • •
With the exception, possibly, of the theme answers with omitted letters, there was nothing at all challenging about this puzzle. No Thursday heat. I had one little area of trouble because I didn't realize that SPORTED was a themer. Combine that with a brutal (but brilliant) clue on MIRROR (23A: Compact disc?), and then my only 75% certainty about David CARR, and then, oof, an extremely random Holy Roman emperor with extremely random Holy Roman numerals in his name (easily the worst thing in the grid), and you've got Stucksville, population me. But even then, not so stuck. I just went down from the top through SCRUB UP and then went back and made sense of that whole lower NW area. The other bit of "difficulty" I had was just pure idiocy, a mistake I made that amused me more than anything in the puzzle did. I had -EKA at 36A: City whose name is Siouan for "good place to dig potatoes" (TOPEKA) and my brain decided to completely disregard the "Siouan" part of the clue and focus instead on "potatoes" ("hmm ... near Idaho?") and the idea that you'd be thrilled to discover said potatoes; that is, I wrote in EUREKA! (which is a city in Washington). Sadly, the etymological origins of EUREKA have nothing to do with the Sioux, or North America at all:
Eureka (Ancient Greek: εὕρηκα) is an interjection used to celebrate a discovery or invention. It is a transliteration of an exclamation attributed to Ancient Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes. (wikipedia)
The result of this mistake was mostly me being very angry at this alleged "abstract expressionist" who was somehow not ROTHKO but some guy named RUT- ... RUTLIN? RUTHIE? "Who the hell has ever heard of this RUT- guy!?" Well, no one, I made him up (32D: Abstract Expressionist Mark).
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| Yellow Over Purple (1956) |
Notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 23A: Compact disc? (MIRROR) — in case the wordplay eludes you, a "compact" is a small circular (or "disc"-shaped) case that flips open to reveal a MIRROR (as well as face powder, commonly).
- 42D: "And ___ ..." (YET) — Had the YE- and wasn't sure I wasn't dealing with the beginning of some kind of admission. "And YES, technically, I did eat the last six brownies, but in my defense, they were delicious."
- 63A: One of the pounds in a pound cake (EGGS) — absolutely 100% news to me that the "pound" in "pound cake" had to do with the (equal!) weight of all the ingredients. Seemed like an impossible rationale for a recipe, so I very much hesitated there.
- 61D: Marty Feldman's role in "Young Frankenstein" (IGOR) — enjoy:
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