Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin
Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium
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THEME: raise and lower — theme answers are words that fit the phrase "raise (a/the) ___" (top half of the grid) or "lower the ___" (bottom half of the grid); in each case, the answer extends one letter beyond the boundaries of the grid, signifying that it has been "literally""raised" or "lowered":
Theme answers:
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This doesn't work the way it ought to. Which is to say the execution is inconsistent and there are structural problems and there's no final payoff. I'll cut to the chase—there are four problems: ![]()
Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- (O)BJECTIONS (3D: Make one's opposition known, literally)
- (S)TINK (5D: Protest, literally)
- (M)INIMUM WAGE (99D: Alleviate income insufficiency, literally)
- (F)AMILY (11D: See children through to adulthood, literally)
- VOLUM(E) (52D: Show respect to one's neighbors late at night, literally)
- TEMPERATUR(E) (29D: De-escalate tension, literally)
- PRICE(E) (60D: Put on sale, literally)
- TOILETSEA(T) (36D: Demonstrate a bit of bathroom etiquette, literally)
India: unsorted wheat flour or meal (merriam-webster)
• • •
- With the exception of (O)BJECTIONS, the solver has to mentally supply a definite or indefinite article to make the phrase work, i.e you "raise (O)BJECTIONS," but you "raise *a* (S)TINK" and you "raise *the* (M)INIMUM WAGE." I don't so much mind supplying the article, but whether it's no article, "a," or "the," it should be consistent across the answers, or at least ... I don't know ... have some sense of structure or pattern or something. What we have here is just haphazard.
- We don't actually "raise" or "lower" the answers; they extend beyond the grid edges, but nothing moves. That is, (O)BJECTIONS is sitting flush with EGGO and POOH. The answer itself has not been "raised"; I thought that first themer was "BJECTIONO" at first, because then the whole "raising" thing would at least make a little sense (answer "raised," letter "O" falls to the bottom). But that was not to be.
- The missing letters are, as far as I can see, completely unchecked. This is uncrosswords and semi-unsporting, though none of the letters is particularly hard to suss out (I had the most trouble with -TINK because I couldn't remember the ultra-crosswordesey TERRI's first letter ("KERRI?"). All letters are supposed to have two ways that you can come at them. Not true here, which leads me to my final bjection and greatest disappointment...
- The "raised" / "lowered" letters, in the aggregate, don't do anything. I thought, "well, surely they're going to spell out some message, some phrase, something purposeful and meaningful ... something!" But no. OSMFEEET would make a good name for a space alien, but I don't think it amounts to much here. Huge, huge letdown.
Add to all that the weakish-creakish fill, which you can see for yourself, everywhere. I was tolerating it OK until I hit -EAL, which was a real last straw (64D: Ending with arbor). ATTA has a funny history in the NYTXW (28A: Flour in Indian cuisine). Hard for me not to see it as crosswordese, but I'm happy the puzzle seems to have discovered its Indian-cuisine meaning in the past couple years (much better than ["___ boy!"] or [Kofi Annan's middle name] or (in the olden olden days) [Leaf-cutting ant]). What's curious is that it would be more accurate to say that the NYTXW has re-discovered the Indian cuisine meaning. That clue got used a bunch by Farrar and Weng and even a few times by Maleska, but when Shortz arrived it disappeared completely. It was last seen in 1989 (!!!) before reappearing in March of 2021 and then again in July 2022. And now here it is again. All hail the dawn of a new age of ATTA!
Didn't appreciate how the Topo Gigio clue got an Italian answer (TRE) but the "La Bohème" answer got an English one (ARIA). I really wanted 46D: One of five in "La Bohème" to be ... whatever the Italian is for "ACTS" (ACTE?), solely because I was forced to go Italian for the answer to the Topo Gigio clue (47A: Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio). Boo. (And if you don't know what the heck "Topo Gigio" is, you won't be alone—if you're American, you have to have had cultural awareness of the "Ed Sullivan Show" for that name to ring a bell). I thought upholstery was maybe WELDED, so that was weird (35A: Like some upholstery). And I was leafing through a British dictionary the other day (long story...) and saw AGGRO, and so when 13D: More than miffed came along today, and I had the -GR- ... well, in it went. No other real struggles with the fill today. "SO LAST YEAR" and "NO SWIMMING" were fine, fun answers, and I like the symmetrical yin/yang thing that GOOD NEWS& NEGATIVE have going on. But the theme just didn't hum the way I wanted it to hum. ALAS. See you tomorrow.