Constructor: Chloe Revery
Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Monday!)
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THEME: HOPPING MAD (62A: Really miffed ... or a hint to the circled letters) — words meaning "mad" (appearing inside circled squares) "hop" over a black square, from the end of one Across answer to the beginning of the successive Across answer:
Theme answers:
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Loved this nifty, tight, Monday-type theme, but wow this did not play "Monday" for me at all. The theme, yes, the content, yipes. Trouble all over the top of the grid. I'll start with AMFAR, which I remember, vaguely, from a long time ago, when A.I.D.S. was more regularly in the news, but I have not seen that acronym in what feels like forever. Totally valid answer, but not Monday-easy for me. GHOST CHILI, also tough for me. CHILI, OK, but I never think about the GHOST CHILI ... feels almost mythical. "1 million on the Scoville scale"!? Not an everyday thing, by a long shot. Again, fine answer, but I had to struggle for it. FBI FILE, toughish to parse (7D: Certain collection of criminal evidence and documents). Even AT CAMP (one of the weaker answers) felt tough to come up with without a bunch of crosses (5D: Spending time away from parents for the summer, say). I am way more familiar with the MARS ROVER than the MOON ROVER, so that was also tough (3D: Wheeled vehicle designed to function in low gravity). But the toughest, and ugliest, and absolute worst of all non-Mondayness was SIG EP (1D: Skull-and-crossbones fraternity, for short). Ugh. A frat? An abbreviated frat? At 1-Down!? On a Monday!? So yucky. I wrote in SIGMA and figured that had to be it. Good enough. But *nope*. SIG EP? I'm sure I've seen it before, but fraternities and sororities ... maybe it's my particular aversion, but I just can't keep any of them straight or make myself care at all about my inability to keep them straight. The idea that I should know the slang term for some frat ... something about the very idea sets my teeth on edge (is that the expression? "teeth on edge"?). Truly a terrible answer on any day, but especially off-putting at the beginning of a Monday puzzle.
Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Monday!)
Theme answers:
- GHOST CHILI / VIDI
- PARFUM / INGENUES
- SHEBANG / RYE SEED
- AU REVOIR / AT EASE
amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, known until 2005 as the American Foundation for AIDS Research, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of AIDS-related public policy. (wikipedia)
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The thing is ... you can see how the constructor got trapped into SIG EP. You can't start filling your puzzle with --G-P in place and not feel at least a little trapped. If it had been me, I'd've made it DIG UP and started filling From There (I see that DIG appears elsewhere in the current grid, but that's an easy fix). The entire NW would likely have been different, but it would've been worth it just to make the egregious SIG EP disappear. I did a quick teardown and rebuilt with DIG UP in that same place, but with those two themers locked in, and MOON ROVER pretty well stuck in place, your options up there (short of a complete teardown) are very limited. My version has APHRA Behn in it—she's the most important English woman writer / playwright of the 17th century and in a just world, both her first and last names would appear much, much more often in crosswords ... but I freely admit that APHRA is not Monday-worthy either. Still, I much prefer this.
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Anyway, it wasn't the tougher-than-usualness that was annoying, it was specifically SIG EP that I wanted to smash into pieces and throw in the garbage. But the theme, mwah, it's very good. So well conceived (as opposed to WELL AIMED, which I don't really believe is a very strong standalone thing (34D: On the mark, as an insult or a dart)). Beyond SIG EP, the fill is at least average in quality. Nothing much to complain about there. This puzzle appears to be a debut, and at least at the level of theme concept and execution, it's impressive. Those. circled words do mean "mad" and those letters do "hop," so what more do you want?
Seemed like the grid was pushing the French a little hard: PARFUM *and* AU REVOIR in themer positions, plus the French-ish INGENUES. I'll allow it, but that's about as much French as you wanna throw at a solver on a Monday with a not-specifically-French theme. I could do without seeing SNAPE or any Potter stuff ever again, but we've been over this. I thought FIONA was MOANA, my bad. Again, I should really read clues all the way to the end (58A: DreamWorks princess who remains an ogress after true love's kiss). You can't tell me the owl says WHOO one week and then turn around a couple weeks later and tell me it's WHO again, come on (34A: Owl's question?). Not much else to say about this one; the theme was great, and though the NW corner showed some grid strain (from the theme) and felt overly tough for a Monday, the rest of the grid played just fine. Promising work, for sure. See you tomorrow.