Hello, everyone! It’s Clare, coming at you a little delayed — this time for the first Tuesday in June. I’m on a little vacation in Berlin and enjoying the trip a lot; I was in Prague before this and am heading to Dublin soon. The weather has been almost perfect, the food has been delicious, and the company has been just alright (hi, Dad!). I’ve been trying to get up to watch the Warriors in the NBA finals, but this time difference has the games in the middle of the night, so it’s pretty challenging! Fingers crossed they pull it off. Anywho, on to the puzzle…
Relative difficulty:Fairly easy
THEME: TECH BOOMS (58A: Big times in Silicon Valley … or a hint to 17-, 25-, 35- and 49-Across?) — Each theme answer relates to technology and ends with something that might make a “boom” sound
Theme answers:
That was a pretty nice puzzle; and, it turns out it’s a debut from Carly Schuna. The theme was current, and the theme answers worked well together. I sort of saw where the puzzle was going but didn’t know how it would pull together for the revealer, and I think the revealer mostly works. I’m not sure about whether “boom” works for all of them, but I didn’t really mind because the theme felt clever.
- PHOTO BOMB (17A: Make a goofy appearance in someone else's picture)
- TWEET STORM (25A: Multipost rant online)
- COMPUTER CRASH (35A: What the "spinning beach ball of death" might indicate)
- EMAIL BLAST (49A: Message sent to many recipients)
Bo Derek (born Mary Cathleen Collins, November 20, 1956) is an American actress and model. Her breakthrough film role was in the romantic comedy 10 (1979). Her first husband John Derek directed her in Fantasies; Tarzan, the Ape Man (both 1981); Bolero (1984) and Ghosts Can't Do It (1989), all of which received negative reviews. Widowed in 1998, she married actor John Corbett in 2020. Now semi-retired, she makes occasional film, television, and documentary appearances.
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That was a pretty nice puzzle; and, it turns out it’s a debut from Carly Schuna. The theme was current, and the theme answers worked well together. I sort of saw where the puzzle was going but didn’t know how it would pull together for the revealer, and I think the revealer mostly works. I’m not sure about whether “boom” works for all of them, but I didn’t really mind because the theme felt clever.
Some of the fill of the puzzle struck me as a little uncommon, which is probably part of the reason I enjoyed the solve. Like, having RAVEN (20A: "Nevermore" speaker, in poetry) in the puzzle instead of the usual “Poe” was a nice change of pace. Or, even some of the fill just at the top — BORAX, SNOTS, SABLE. You don’t see those much.
The long downs, as usual, were my favorite part of the puzzle. Seeing DAMMED, CRUMPLES, and MIMICKED was fun. My favorite clue/answer in the whole puzzle was 12D: Subway line as EAT FRESH. And, just next to it, I really like how PROLONGS (11D: Drags out) is a down and feels apt. The sports terms were nice (REB, PACER, MLB), even if they were relatively basic.
33D: "What's the big idea?!" as HEY made no sense to me, though, and I spent quite a while there figuring that something must be wrong for that to be the answer. Also, do people really call Arnold Schwarzenegger ARNIE (40A)? Seems odd to me. Some of the puzzle seemed geared a little older (BUSMAP, PBS, DEREK, BORAX, MRT, ALF, SAL, etc…), but you also had these very current tech terms as the theme; so, it was a slightly odd juxtaposition.
Not too much else to say about the puzzle! Nice debut, good theme, some surprising fill. Good start to the day.
Misc.:
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- 31A: Annoying complainer = both my dad and me on this trip; the number of times we’ve each complained about our feet hurting from all this walking (I hit 50k steps in one day!) is astronomical.
- 51D: Impressive venue to sell out… ARENA. That’s cool and all, but try being BTS and selling out a stadium four nights in a row, as they did in the new Las Vegas stadium. That huge theater where the Grammys were held days before? That was the overflow room BTS used to live stream the concert for those who couldn’t get tickets to the stadium.
- I only know it as the “rainbow wheel of death” and not the “spinning beach ball of death” (35A), but a quick Google search tells me I seem to be in the minority on that one. I like my version better.
- SHARKS don’t have bones (27D)? I feel like, somewhere in my brain, I’d registered that before but then forgot. How odd! I’d say that fact makes them seem less scary somehow, but I’m still terrified of them. I remember some years ago getting the chance to get a scuba diving certification but having a meltdown because I’d be in the ocean with SHARKS. (I persisted and didn’t even see any.)
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