Constructor: Billy Bratton
Relative difficulty: Very Easy
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THEME: none? (none)
Word of the Day: TIA Carrere (25A: Grammy-winning actress Carrere) —
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Ah, here's my Friday puzzle. Themeless, breezy. Very much the kind of thing one expects to find on a Friday. A Saturday puzzle, this is not. I cannot do Saturday puzzles with virtually no hesitation on any answer anywhere at all in the whole grid, and that is what the solve was like today. If I were still timing my solves and speed-solving, I am confident I could've brought this one in under 4, and that would record territory for me, for a Saturday, for sure. Didn't know two of the names, but LAURIE was obviously LAURIE (after a few crosses) (36A: Hernandez of TeamUSA gymnastics) and KOFI also went right in via crosses, bang bang bang. Helped that one of my best students this term is named KOFI (my students, I'm pretty sure, don't read this, so hopefully he doesn't hear this compliment and let it go to his head just yet) (9A: Actor Siriboe of "Queen Sugar"). Beyond those two names, there's just ... nothing in the way of resistance here. It's a little startling. Gave me this creepy feeling like "what is happening? what am I doing wrong? what terrors await me around the next corner?" But the terrors never came. Hard to get too excited about a themeless puzzle that doesn't even seem to want you to spend any time with it. I went coast to coast on this thing without blinking an eye (in the blink of an eye? yeah, that's the better expression here, I think. Or I could just stop trafficking in clichés). Look at this start:
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Notes:
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Relative difficulty: Very Easy
Word of the Day: TIA Carrere (25A: Grammy-winning actress Carrere) —
Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo (born January 2, 1967), known professionally as Tia Carrere (/kəˈrɛərə/), is an American actress, singer and former model who got her first big break as a regular on the daytime soap opera General Hospital.
Carrere played Cassandra Wong in the feature films Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2; Juno Skinner in True Lies; Nani Pelekai in the Lilo & Stitchfilms and TV series; Queen Tyr'ahnee in Duck Dodgers; Richard Lewis's girlfriend, Cha Cha, in Curb Your Enthusiasm; and starred as Sydney Fox in the television series Relic Hunter, as well as Lady Danger opposite RuPaul in Netflix's AJ and the Queen. Carrere also appeared as a contestant in the second season of Dancing with the Stars and the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice. In addition to acting, Carrere has won two Grammy Awards for her music [ed.: Best Hawaiian Album! Twice!]. (wikipedia)
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That's HAT AT HAND RDS HOT WAR OTRA ATOM TRACTS all in quick succession. And then I looked up and saw WACO sitting there and just wrote in TEXAS without even needing to look at the clue (Snickers? And Dr Pepper!? What a city!). The whole NNW section went in no sweat and then I just rode the STALAGMITE Highway down to the bottom. Or, rather, I dipped my STALAGMITE toe into the waters down below, seeing if it was safe to go in. Took me a few seconds of thinking to get TSAR (42A: Peter or Paul, but not Mary), and then I was off and running again in the SE—a bizarre transgrid symmetrical start to my solve (I don't normally spread out like that, but you gotta go where the energy takes you). Cleaned up the SE corner and then took the PASSING LANE back up again. Lots and lots of whoosh whoosh today:
I assumed that the SW and NE corners were gonna give me at least a little roughing up, but my fears were unfounded. The center was a piece of cake (cliché again, sorry!), and then the "Y" and the "Z" from YOGA and ZOOM made the SW corner easy to get into and conquer, and that just left the NE corner, which was maybe the hardest, in that it was chock full of trivia, but it wasn't hard at all (KIWI to the rescue!) (9D: Fuzzy fruit that's technically a berry). While I enjoyed the feeling of ZOOMing around the grid, as answers go, only DIPPIN' DOTS (21D: "Ice Cream of the Future") and "KINDA SORTA" (52A: "Uh ... in a way ...") felt truly inspired. Nothing wrong with any of the rest of it, but if you're not gonna have a ton of surface sizzle, you gotta give me something fun or tricky in the clues. I liked the clue on GUILT TRIP a lot (49A: "Travel" for someone who's feeling bad?). Could've used more of that playfulness today. Yes, I'm actually *asking* for more "?" clues, which never happens. Maybe not more "?" clues per se, but more liveliness in the cluing for sure.
- 4D: Refuse to squeal (NAME NO NAMES) — speaking of "Refuse to," I "refused to" write in this answer at first (as you can see in the last grid posted above), because it is ridiculous and my brain said "Nope, I will not be complicit in this." You name NAME NAMES, for sure. I've seen that in crosswords before and liked it fine because it is an actual tight phrase. NAME NO NAMES ... oof, I don't know what that is. You either did or didn't NAME NAMES. It's hard to imagine anyone actually saying NAME NO NAMES. "Don't name names, Rocko, or it's a Chicago overcoat for you!""Don't worry, boss, I will NAME NO NAMES.""Why are you talkin' all weird and formal like that, Rocko!? You worry me! You're my nephew, and I love you, but you worry me!" [end scene]
- 21A: LED component? (DIODE) — OK maybe this is the answer that gave me the most pause. I had to work around it. The "?" was throwing me. I thought it was going to be something really tricky, but it's just the "D" in LED.
- 54A: Supergirl, e.g. (ALIEN)— had the "AL-" and wrote in ALIAS, which works perfectly. That's the kind of mistake that can really get you stuck, but not in this puzzle. The obvious IDES (50D: November 13, e.g.) lifted me right out of the hole and back on track.
- 34A: Time when it helps to be flexible (YOGA SESSION)— got this easily, but do not like it. Is this a one-on-one tutorial? There's YOGA CLASS and YOGA PRACTICE, but SESSION, while plausible, gives the answer an eerie, off quality, a la NAME NO NAMES.
- 6D: Pop open, perhaps (UNCAP) — had the "UNCA-" and was all prepared to be mad at UNCAN, but then it was UNCAP, which is the mot juste here. UNCAN is what you do with your herbal organic antioxidant vitamin healing water after your YOGA SESSION. You UNCAN it from the can and then drink it from a lotus flower while you sit in silence, NAME-ing NO NAMES. Namaste.
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