Constructor: Olivia Mitra Framke and Andrea Carla Michaels
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: TRI-STATE AREA (54A: U.S. geographical grouping ... or a hint to 20-, 27- and 47-Across)—theme answers are three states all run together (with overlapping letters), clued by the states official self-designations (e.g. Show-Me, Golden, whatever):
Theme answers:
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Tuesdays and Thursdays might get a bit abbreviated for a while, since I solve and write first thing in the morning and then turn around and teach shortly thereafter. And since I have a 7-something AM bus to catch, and I don't like to be rushed getting out the door, I can't linger over these write-ups the way I sometimes do on T and Th. Then again every time I say the write-up is going to be short, I end up going into normal writing mode and doing the same thing I always do, so who knows? I'm already wasting valuable time writing about the fact that I don't have that much time! The point is, if T and/or Th seem clipped in the near future, now you know why (or what my official excuse is). My cat (OLIVE!) woke me up at 3:30am today, so I Have More Time Than I Want Actually. But still, 5:30am finish time is going to be the goal! We'll see how that works out.
I was happy the puzzle obliged my schedule today by being easy, but that's one of the few things about it I genuinely liked. I don't quite understand how this rises to NYTXW levels of Thursday trickiness. I've seen some version of this conceit before, I'm fairly sure, but that's not the problem—the dullness of the overall idea is the problem. Yes, you can run state names together, many of them famously share letter strings, so what? TRI-STATE AREA is a fine phrase but I don't think of a crossword answer as an "area" and there's nothing particular lovely or clever or funny about three state names mushed together, so I guess I'm just failing to see the appeal, particularly the *Thursday NYTXW!* appeal. And as for the tri-state Frankenstein's monster answers ... there really should be a higher bar for amount of overlap. Something to make the concept seem unusual and worthwhile. What I'm saying is that the overlaps are much more interesting when they comprise two or more letters—VERMONTANA! That's almost fun. But when the overlap is just one letter (as it is, twice, in this puzzle) ... that hardly seems worth doing. A cheap way to get overlap. There's not even entertaining wackiness to provide some auxiliary enjoyment. VERMONTALASKA is kind of fun to say, but the others, not so much. Hard to know how to say NEBRASKANSAS since whichever way you choose, you butcher one of the state's actual pronunciations, and with OHIOWALABAMA you can't even hear the IOWA part. It's like it's not there. I'm just finding it hard to see the Thursday-worthiness today.
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- OHIOWALABAMA (20A: "Buckeye-Hawkeye-Yellowhammer")
- MAINEBRASKANSAS (27A: "Pine Tree-Cornhusker-Sunflower")
- VERMONTANALASKA (47A :"Green Mountain-Treasure-Last Frontier")
In Greek mythology, Erebus (/ˈɛrɪbəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἔρεβος, romanized: Érebos, "deep darkness, shadow"), or Erebos, is the personification of darkness and one of the primordial deities. Hesiod's Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos.(wikipedia) (my emph.)
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| [I let her sleep. Anywhere. She is less obliging.] |
Love the phrase I'M DOWN (as well as the fact that it is, in fact, Down) (4D: "Sounds like a plan!") and I like the clue on SALAD BAR (5D: Place to pick some vegetables?), and I'm never gonna be mad at finding a cocktail in my crossword (60A: Cocktail made with gin, soda, lemon juice and sugar => TOM COLLINS), but that's really it for high points. The fill is just OK, and actually a bit old-fashioned and creaky. EINandNIE? And then TSO and ABU and ORD and USAUSA and ASTERS and SLOE and ACER and ICAL (!?) and the old sandwich partial ON RYE ... there's just a crustiness that is not adequately balanced out by freshness. DOGROSE is "fresh" in the sense of "never heard of it" and "hasn't been in the NYTXW since 1962," and I don't mind seeing it here, but ... well, there are over 300 species of rose, so finding one I haven't seen or heard of is not going to be hard. If I were more botanically inclined, DOGROSE might've delighted me more. Those are the breaks. But even if I throw DOGROSE on the "Fresh" pile today, it's still not much of a pile.
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| [I don't love APER, but I really don't love ICAL / ACER, so I prefer this way ... oh wait, you could turn APER into AVER if you want! Yes, I think that's even better.] |
Not too many problem areas today. Wanted REND for WEEP (21D: Tear a lot). Wanted MURDER before MOTIVE (27D: Whodunit plot element). Tried to mentally stretch out BAE to make it fit at 41A: Sweetheart before remembering that BEAU was also a word. That's all. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]