Constructor: Juliana Tringali Golden
Relative difficulty: Medium+
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Word of the Day: Kate UPTON (10D: Kate on the cover of Vanity Fair's 100th- anniversary issue) —
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This one played a little harder than usual for me, largely because of the intentional vagueness of many of the clues, especially the early ones. For example—1A: Poles have them (ICE CAPS) ... no idea which kinda "Poles" we're talking about; 1D: Film site (IMDB) ... no idea which kinda "film" we're talking about. 2D: Heart (CORE) ... yeah, "Heart" could be lots of things (thought maybe "GIST" at first); etc. In other parts of the puzzle, the puzzles just didn't quite land right. Like 65A: Essay writing, e.g. (PROSE). Never would've guessed something as generic as PROSE (which is nearly *all* writing) from something as specific-sounding as "Essay writing," which sounds more like a task, homework, an assignment, an avocation, I dunno. And is SUPERGLUE an [Exemplar of stick-to-itiveness]? I get that it is supremely sticky, but if that's what meant, then for sure the clue should have a "?" on it, since that has nothing to do with "stick-to-itiveness" as it's commonly (metaphorically) used. But maybe someone who keeps at something is said to be like SUPERGLUE? I've never heard that, but maybe it's a thing. Someone might stick *to* someone (i.e. beside someone, near someone) like SUPERGLUE, I suppose, but that seems less like stick-to-itiveness and more like hounding, pestering, or stalking. Not sure what the clue on MLSCUP thought it was doing, cleverness-wise (25A: Goal-oriented final match, in brief?). What is the wordplay the clue is going for? I see how "goal-oriented" means one (metaphorical) thing in common parlance and here is being used to talk about (literal) soccer goals, but what is a "goal-oriented final match"? That is not a coherent phrase, and it's not a phrase that suggests anything *but* soccer (or maybe hockey). It's like they couldn't lay off the "goal-oriented" wordplay but then couldn't make it specific enough to fit the answer, so they just turned it into a bizarre mish-mash of pun and literal, and *then* added "in brief" for good measure. People are "goal-oriented"—once you say a "match" is "goal-oriented," you've lost the misdirection and added confusion. [Showdown for the goal-oriented, in brief?], maybe? Not sure, just know that the "?" we get today is rough.
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Relative difficulty: Medium+
Theme: none
Word of the Day: Kate UPTON (10D: Kate on the cover of Vanity Fair's 100th- anniversary issue) —
Katherine Elizabeth Upton (born June 10, 1992) is an American model. She first appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2011, and was the cover model for the 2012, 2013 and 2017 issues. In addition, she was the subject of the 100th-anniversary Vanity Fair cover.
Upton has also appeared in the films Tower Heist (2011), The Other Woman (2014) and The Layover (2017). [...]
Upton started dating then Detroit Tigers baseball player Justin Verlander in early 2014, and they were engaged in 2016. On November 4, 2017 the couple married in Tuscany, Italy. (wikipedia)
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There were several delightful moments today, mostly in the longer answers. After that early struggle with the short stuff in the NW, I finally looked at 13A: Sugar refinery byproduct, and ELIA and ASK (my only two sure things in the NW) provided me with enough letters to see MOLASSES, which then got me CORE BEAD IMDB etc. Just after that came a flurry of sweet answers shooting out of that corner in all directions, starting with CANDYCANE, then DRINK IT IN (very nice) and "YOU NEVER KNOW..." (), which really blew things open:
AU NATUREL is a euphemism I don't hear much any more but I still like it a lot. I also (weirdly) liked the baby demanding to be picked up ("UP, UP"!). I was also very happy to see NEVILLE, not so much because I want to see any more clues about H*rry P*tter (I don't), but because puzzle constructor NEVILLE Fogarty is one of two dear crossword friends I solve cryptics with on (most) Tuesday nights. Fantastic constructor (you can see his cryptic crosswords at the New Yorker sometimes), and a lovely human being to boot. Absolutely loved "EASY, TIGER," even though I had it as "EASY THERE..." and that mistake caused a lot of SE confusion (33D: "Hey, hold your horses!"). I should've loved seeing NOIRISH, which is right up my personal and pedagogical alley, but that clue ... grrrr. "Hardboiled" and "noir" are not (not!) synonyms. There's a lot of terminological collapse because film noir so frequently feature hardboiled men (esp. detectives), but "hardboiled" describes a person, or maybe the prose, whereas "noir" describes either the (fatalistic, downbeat) mood, tone, atmosphere, worldview ... or the actual film qualities or techniques (expressive, often high-contrast B&W photography, flashbacks, voice-overs, etc.). Plenty of noir films and stories don't have anything "hard-boiled" about them. I don't know if they clue wants me to think of a movie or of a character in the movie, but NOIRISH is completely inapt for a [Somewhat hardboiled] person. This is a "close enough" / "horseshoes hand grenades"-type clue and I hate it. Feels sloppy. I really don't like -IZE but I do like realizing that the much better "ICE" can't go in that space for not one but two reasons: first, ICE is already in the grid at ICE CAPS (1A), and second, ICE at 28A would get you SEC at 21D, which would give you SEC crossing ... ONE SECOND. So the much better ICE would (sadly) give you a double dupe! And so you get a suffix, with a funky "Z" as your consolation.
Notes, entirely on the SW:
- 59A: Immediate threat to capture, in a game of Go (ATARI) — no idea why you do this with your crosswordese. It's crosswordese. Just own it and move on. I solved this by getting crosses and then inferring the answer from "game."
- 48D: G.O.A.T. material (CHAMP) — absolutely not. There are champs and there are champs but there can be only one G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). If you are hopping on the hyperbole bus and deciding that "all time" means "this month," then sure, any CHAMP will do. But I'm taking that "O.A.T." seriously. Iga Świątek is a champ, but Serena is the G.O.A.T. You see how that works? I thought the answer was going to be one of the words represented by the letters in "G.O.A.T." but none of them would fit.
- 51D: Anne of "Mom" (FARIS)— I wrote in SARIS ... is that anyone's name? Besides film critic Andrew SA(R)RIS, I mean? Harrumph. Not having the "F" made CRAFT PROJECT harder than it should've been.
- 50D: Roasted: Sp. (ASADO) — I thought it was ASADA (as in "carne ASADA"—thanks, Taco Bell), but looks like ASADA is just a Spanish adjective and as such comes in different genders. Just when I had ASADA and ADOBO sorted in my head, now I gotta deal with this ASADO business, sigh.