Constructor: Joe Deeney
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME:"Fan Club"— familiar phrases are reimagined as verb phrases done by "___-philes" (i.e. by lovers or "fans" of ... whatever some made-up word with semi-familiar Greek roots indicates):
Theme answers:
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I guess the theme is consistent enough, but it just doesn't come off as very entertaining. I guess the star attraction is supposed to be those preposterous Greek-rooted words in the clues, the ones indicating which kind of "lovers" or "fans" we were dealing with. In that sense, the puzzle ended up feeling like a vocabulary test: "Do you know your Greek word roots?!" Imagined -philes somehow didn't really light my fire. The wordplay is interesting, in that all the first words in the familiar phrases are reimagined as very verbs or verb phrases meaning, roughly, "enjoy" or "are a fan of" (LOVE, PRIZE, FANCY, etc.). I liked the top half much better in this regard, since there seemed to be a consistency there, a specific shift of the meaning of the first words from adjectives to verbs. But once you get to the middle that consistency goes away and you get a series of phrases that are verb phrases by nature—the clues just change the meaning of the verbs. I liked it better when the reimagining involved a change both in meaning and in part of speech. But like I say, at a general level, the gimmick is consistent enough. The made-up clue word angle did nothing for me, but some of the reimagined phrases are at least a little funny, esp. GET OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT. Foot fetishry in the marquee position of the Sunday NYTXW! Bold. The rest of the puzzle: not nearly so bold. Wait, those clue words are made up, right? I thought "Gastrophile" was a real thing ... [looks it up] ... it is! "One who loves good food." But "autotumulophile"!? That can't be real! ... [looks it up] ... nope, it absolutely is not. Search that word and you get crossword sites (sites referring specifically to this crossword). Hmm, that's another ding against this thing. Ding for "gastrophile"—make up all the "-phile" words or don't bother with the gimmick.
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- LOVE TRIANGLES (21A: "Geometrophiles...")
- PRIZE DRAWING (31A: "Imagophiles...")
- FANCY RESTAURANTS (46A: "Gastrophiles...")
- GET OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT (63A: "Dextropodophiles...")
- DIG THEIR OWN GRAVE (79A: "Autotumulophiles...")
- GO FOR THE GOLD (94A: "Aurophiles...")
- LIKE CLOCKWORK (109A: "Chronomechanophiles...")
A what-not is a piece of furniture derived from the French étagère, which was exceedingly popular in England in the first three-quarters of the 19th century. It usually consists of slender uprights or pillars, supporting a series of shelves for holding china, ornaments, trifles, or "what nots", hence the allusive name. In its English form, it is a convenient piece of drawing room furniture, and was rarely valued for its aesthetic. (wikipedia)
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The longer answers in this puzzle often felt wasted, in the sense that ITALIAN HERO just felt ... redundant. It's a HERO. That's enough. ITALIAN HERO is ... meh. And as for TSETSE FLIES and JAI ALAI, that's just extended crosswordese. Crosswordese: The Unexpurgated Version. Too much real estate to give to overfamiliar stuff. ARMY LIFE feels original, and I like "DEAR JOHN" pretty well too (esp. the clue: 79D: Announcement of a split decision?). But THE NILE!? THE NILE!? Oof. More extended crosswordese, and a painful definite article insertion to boot. THETHAMES, THERHONE, THESEINE, THEMISSISSIPPI ... you see how dumb this is, right? Don't give NILE a pass just because it's short and (from a crossword perspective) hyperfamiliar.
Puzzle was very easy except for WATSON (74A: To whom it is said "You have a grand gift for silence .... It makes you quite invaluable as a companion"). Needed every cross to figure out who the hell that quotation was supposed to be about, particularly because of the awkward "To whom it is said" construction. I get it now, you didn't want to tell me that Sherlock was doing the saying, but oof, that passive voice is Painful. "UGLIES" is apparently some YA "trilogy" stuff my daughter somehow missed (the "YA fantasy trilogy"-type book was all my daughter seemed to read for like 7 years or so). The "UGLIES" was supposed to be the first book in a trilogy, but then it got up to four installments and I think there are more coming, I dunno, I don't really wanna go back and read the wikipedia page that thoroughly. Anyway, that was one of the only things in the puzzle I didn't know. That and WHATNOTS, what the *&$%?! (82D: Shelves for knickknacks) Me: "Do they mean ETAGÈRES, and if so, why won't that fit!?" I know WHATNOTS only as ... well, "knickknacks." And apparently that is how WHATNOTS (the furniture) got their name—because they were designed to display your assorted ... WHATNOTS? Bizarre. So ... WATSON / WHATNOTS gave me some grief in the SE, but otherwise, the puzzle was exceedingly straightforward. A bit flat. It looks and feels like a perfectly ordinary Sunday puzzle. Cute but innocuous wordplay at its thematic core, solid if unremarkable fill throughout. I could use something more ambitious or daring on Sundays. They're just too big to sustain a just-OK premise.