Constructor: Adam Wagner
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy for a rebus...)
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THEME: INBOX ZERO (35D: Ambitious email goal, and a hint to four squares in this puzzle)— a rebus puzzle where some word meaning "zero" can be found "in" its own "box" four times:
Theme answers:![]()
For a puzzle that started with ALBS (the crosswordesiest of priestly garments) and passed through vomit (EMETIC), this one ended up being surprisingly fresh and delightful to solve. Rebuses are minefields by design—you gotta figure out where the hidden dangers are and defuse them or detonate them safely or whatever they do to mines to keep them from harming people. But sometimes the adventure can feel ... not worth it. Boring, maybe, like you have to dutifully hunt down these boxes that all say the same thing. And sometimes the rebus squares end up making the fill feel tortured, with slightly off phrases or junky fill popping up everywhere you go. But today the rebus squares were surprises, even after I got the revealer, and much of the time they came rising to the surface inside of truly original answers, so that there was pleasure not just in finding the rebus square, but in PARSE-ing the answers that crossed it. LAUGH TEST, JACUZZI PARTY, BIKINI LINES, HEAVEN ON EARTH, one after the other, the rebus squares and the answers that contained them were surprising and enjoyable. This puzzle feels very thoughtful, very polished, and the revealer is both a lively, contemporary phrase and a genuine "aha" surprise. After ALBS, I don't think I winced once while solving this thing. And there was no time at which I was not enjoying myself. Honestly, this is kind of a model rebus puzzle. MARZIPAN JACUZZI PARTY may be my favorite crossing of the year. It's just fun to say. MARZIPAN JACUZZI PARTY! I want to go to one.
If you know ALBS (and boy do I) then this puzzle was likely very easy to open up. ALBS STEELS BAIT ABCTV CUKE all in a row, which made the BIKINI part of BIKINI LINES easy to see. And since the word I wanted to be VANILLA ended up looking like VANLA, I knew pretty quickly a. that there was a problem, and b. what the problem was—rebus alert! (pause to lament this puzzle's VANILLA slander—a good VANILLA ice cream is anything but "bland"; VANILLA malts are my favorite drinks after coffee and Manhattans).
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Six things:
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy for a rebus...)
Theme answers:
- HEAVEN ON EARTH / RENO, NEVADA (18A: Paradise / 10D: Home of more than 16,000 slot machines)
- BIKINI LINES / VANILLA (3D: Targets of some waxing / 22A: Bland)
- LAUGH TEST / NAUGHTIER (40A: Proverbial assessment of whether or not an idea can be taken seriously / 32D: More likely to get coal, perhaps)
- JACUZZI PARTY / MARZIPAN (64A: Hot tub shindig / 49D: Almond confection)
The Poisoned Pawn Variation is any of several series of opening moves in chess in which a pawn is said to be "poisoned" because its capture can result in a positional loss of time or a loss of material. [...] The variation was used in the Monk episode "Mr. Monk and the Genius". (wikipedia)
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If you know ALBS (and boy do I) then this puzzle was likely very easy to open up. ALBS STEELS BAIT ABCTV CUKE all in a row, which made the BIKINI part of BIKINI LINES easy to see. And since the word I wanted to be VANILLA ended up looking like VANLA, I knew pretty quickly a. that there was a problem, and b. what the problem was—rebus alert! (pause to lament this puzzle's VANILLA slander—a good VANILLA ice cream is anything but "bland"; VANILLA malts are my favorite drinks after coffee and Manhattans).
So I put NIL in its box and off I went, not yet knowing why NIL was in a box, but confident that I'd find out. Every subsequent rebus square involved me tiptoeing up to the square, testing the ground, and then eventually finding the target. HEAVEN... [tap tap tap ... check surrounding areas ...] ah, there it is, the NONE square! And so on. The AUGHT square was probably the hardest, just because I couldn't think of what kind of TEST was in play (I knew there was a TEST, just not which kind, at first). But NAUGHTIER fixed that (proverbially, naughty kids get coal instead of toys at Christmas, in case that clue wasn't clear). I got the revealer about halfway through:
Knowing the premise made getting that AUGHT square much easier than it would've been otherwise. That the puzzle remained interesting even after the revealer did its revealing is a real testament to its overall strength. This one has a strong premise, but more importantly, executes the premise in a way that makes the whole solve interesting and entertaining. The second half of the solve was at least as entertaining as the first half. That ... is something. And then to play me out with the world's most wonderfully depressing song!? Mwah, perfect. Thank you.
- 33D: Prefix meaning "10" that's associated with 12 (DEC) — I didn't fully understand the "12" part as I was solving ... my brain was yelling something about "doDECahedron" at me, but I wasn't really listening. After I was finished, I realized that DEC. could be short for "December," i.e. the 12th month.
- 56D: Small, oily fish (SPRAT)— weird that the guy who could eat no fat would be named after an "oily fish" but OK.
- 59D: Stately estate (MANSE) — I had MANOR. I still want MANOR. I associate MANSEs with priests ... why is that? Perhaps because "A manse (/ˈmæns/) is a clergy house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Christian traditions." (wikipedia). There's a MANSE, Nevada, I just found out. It's in the far southern part of the state, relatively close to Las Vegas and about 400 miles from RENO, NEVADA.
- 15A: Google's streaming device (CHROMECAST) — weirdly never heard of this. Tried CHROMEBOOK in this space at first.
- 2D: Half of the only mother/daughter duo to be nominated for acting Oscars for the same film (LAURA DERN)— she and her mom, Diane Ladd, were both nominated for 1991's (fabulous) "Rambling Rose"
- 65D: Back (AGO)— not AFT!? But it's always AFT! Curses!
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