Constructor: Christopher Youngs
Relative difficulty: Normal Easy
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THEME: NATIONALS (65A: D.C. baseball players ... or what the ends of 17-, 21-, 39- and 55-Across sound like) — last words of themers sound like the name of people of various nationalities:
Theme answers:
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Some days, I just ... don't have much of anything to say about a puzzle. I nearly fell asleep in the middle of this one. Do you know how unlikely that is? It's Monday—there's only a 3-or-4-minute window for falling asleep. But this thing just couldn't get up off the ground, somehow, and so I felt very tuned out. The puzzle had a couple of remarkable moments, at the very middle, and the very end (when I went back to see what the hell NATIONALS meant), but in between, it was like watching paint dry. Beige paint. Eggshell. You might say it was ... Ecru-ciating (how is ECRU not in this puzzle?—it really feels like the kind of puzzle where ECRU is lurking, somewhere...). I think the theme works just fine, actually. Of course I didn't notice the theme at all as I was solving, but realizing what the theme was, and that it was pretty consistent and tight, did elicit a little curious / mildly impressed "huh" from me, I'll admit that. I just wish there'd been anything between start and finish to kind of liven things up a bit. There's nothing horrible here. There's just a lot of stale, if perfectly legitimate, short stuff. Well, I said "nothing horrible," but that's not entirely true. There's ISMS. I'm never going to understand any constructor being content to have a non-word like ISMS in their grid when there's absolutely no need for it (as, today, there is not). Do you have any crosswordese like this that drives you nuts, where you're like "no, come on, anything, Anything, but that."ISMS is so made-up that I would happily accept ESAI and ECRU and EPEE in the same small section if it meant not having to see ISMS. I redid the ISMS corner just so I wouldn't have to look at ISMS any more. It came out blah, but blah is 1000x better than what's currently in the grid because what's currently in the grid is ISMS.
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So, aside from the realization that the theme works just fine, even if it's not terribly exciting, the puzzle's other slight high point came midway, with OVERSIZED CHECKS, easily the most original and interesting answer in the grid. But to my ears the phrase is missing something, specifically the word "NOVELTY" between OVERSIZED and CHECKS. The phrase OVERSIZED CHECKS just doesn't get across the uncashability of said checks. I like the visual image that the clue conveys, but the phrase itself feels, well, passable but not on-the-nose.
I had trouble (not capital-T trouble, but trouble nonetheless) coming up with POOL (18D: Game with 15 numbered balls) and METTLE. I kept wanting POOL to be KENO, despite the fact that there are (I think) way more than 15 balls involved in KENO. Something about the way the clue was asking me to imagine POOL just didn't click. As for METTLE, the clue phrase wasn't terribly familiar to me, and the parenthetical part only made things worse (4D: Test one's ___ (be a challenge)). I think if I'd been constructing this I'd've done Anything I could've to turn METTLE into KETTLE. Oh, hey, look: change ATOM (1A: Tiny unit of matter) to AMOK, and bingo, there you go. Done and done. And you get a bonus "K" in the bargain. Sigh. Anyway, METTLE is not bad. I'm not knocking METTLE as a word. But I am saying KETTLE is better. Esp. for a Monday. That's quite enough about this puzzle. See you tomorrow.
Relative difficulty: Normal Easy
Theme answers:
- EXIT POLLS (Poles) (17A: Data sources for Election Day coverage)
- NECK TIES (Thais) (21A: Accessories that may feature Windsor knots)
- OVERSIZED CHECKS (Czechs) (39A: Large props held by contest winners in publicity photos)
- TAILFINS (Finns) (55A: Late-1950s car stylings designed to look aerodynamic)
1a: vigor and strength of spirit or temperament (see TEMPERAMENT sense 1a)a girl of … mettle who lost a baby brother to leukemia— Bill Zehmeb: staying quality : STAMINAequipment that proved its mettleproved his mettle in battle2: quality of temperament or dispositiongentlemen of brave mettle— William Shakespeareon one's mettle: aroused to do one's best (merriam-webster.com)
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And before you knock IRMA, first of all, IRMA Thomas was a great soul singer, and secondly, there's a new TV series on HBO called "Irma Vep," based on a mid-'90s French movie of the same name (starring Maggie Cheung, really worth seeing). "Irma Vep" anagrams to "Vampire." But it's not a vampire movie. Not in the traditional sense. Anyway, the movie version is on The Criterion Channel. Where was I? Ah yes, my No-ISMS policy, which is firm. Definitely a "break only in case of emergency" word.
I had trouble (not capital-T trouble, but trouble nonetheless) coming up with POOL (18D: Game with 15 numbered balls) and METTLE. I kept wanting POOL to be KENO, despite the fact that there are (I think) way more than 15 balls involved in KENO. Something about the way the clue was asking me to imagine POOL just didn't click. As for METTLE, the clue phrase wasn't terribly familiar to me, and the parenthetical part only made things worse (4D: Test one's ___ (be a challenge)). I think if I'd been constructing this I'd've done Anything I could've to turn METTLE into KETTLE. Oh, hey, look: change ATOM (1A: Tiny unit of matter) to AMOK, and bingo, there you go. Done and done. And you get a bonus "K" in the bargain. Sigh. Anyway, METTLE is not bad. I'm not knocking METTLE as a word. But I am saying KETTLE is better. Esp. for a Monday. That's quite enough about this puzzle. See you tomorrow.