Constructor: Daniel Mauer
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy theme, with somewhat challenging fill at times)
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THEME: ANTICI / PATION (1A: First half of this puzzle's theme ... / 65A: ... and the end of the theme (finally!))— phrases associated with anticipation:
Theme answers:![]()
Well, ironically ...
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All the themers filled themselves in pretty easily via crosses, so despite being essentially unclued (...), they added very little difficulty. Only real difficulty for me came in the SW, where I completely blanked on ANTARES (40D: Giant star in Scorpius), and had no clue initially which NEO- genre they thought Yoko Ono was involved in (39D: One of many genres for Yoko Ono). Seemed like you could throw any number of four-letter words in there and have a shot. Worst of all for me, though, was that I'd somehow never heard of a BASKing shark, and so that BASK clue was bonkers to me (63A: Behave like a certain surface-feeding shark). All the definitions suggest that they "appear to be basking" in the sun / warmer water, but that "appear" is doing a lot of work. The clue says that BASKing is their actual"behavior." I think they're just being sharks, doing normal shark things, and only look like they're BASKing from our perspective. A fine distinction, but, I dunno, respect shark agency, I guess. Not sure why you went to a shark to clue a totally non-shark word—it's a wild stretch. I thought maybe the shark was MASKing at one point. Had to really hack at this whole SW area to get it to fall. Most of the rest of the fill felt normal-to-easy, difficulty-wise.
Bullet points:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy theme, with somewhat challenging fill at times)
Theme answers:
- "ALMOST THERE ..." (24A: ...)
- "WAIT FOR IT ..." (33A: ...)
- "NOT QUITE YET ..." (51A: ...)
The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark, and one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Adults typically reach 7.9 m (26 ft) in length. It is usually greyish-brown, with mottled skin, with the inside of the mouth being white in color. The caudal fin has a strong lateral keel and a crescent shape. Other common names include bone shark, elephant shark, sail-fish, and sun-fish. In Orkney, it is commonly known as hoe-mother (sometimes contracted to homer), meaning "the mother of the pickled dog-fish". (wikipedia)
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The whole premise gets blow apart pretty early if you are able to see what the "first half" of the puzzle's theme is the first half *of*. Turns out not many things begin ANTICI-, so once you've checked all your crosses to make sure that ANTICI- is in fact right ... you're in business. Anyway, all of the anticipatory phrases don't really make sense when the sequential, orderly, top-to-bottom solving that the second revealer clue relies upon does not come to pass. Not only doesn't come to pass, but happens in reverse. The 1-Across "first half" revealer fairly *begs* you to figure out the ending first. Surely someone must have, uh, anticipated this. And yet we PRESS ON with the charade that this is happening in predictable order. I like the creativity here—breaking the revealer is an original idea, and refusing to clue the themers with anything but ellipses adds a nice dimension to the theme. "WAIT FOR IT" is the best of the themers, as it feels the most anticipatory as well as the strongest in its stand-aloneness (the others are fine but might just as easily have been shorter things, i.e. "ALMOST ..." and "NOT YET ..."). "IT'S A NOGO" runs weird interference in this puzzle, appearing to abort whatever process the theme has gotten underway (it seems to be in a theme-like position early on ... and then you get "HOUSTON..." which makes me think "we have a problem" and maybe have to scrub the mission ... But of course I'm just seeing things there. The theme is conceptually very interesting, but it's just not gonna play right for anyone but the most methodical, sequential solver.
- 10A: Sky: Fr. (CIEL)— kind of a deep cut where foreign words are concerned. I can read French, so no problem here, but I don't think I'd cross this one with Yet Another French Word (LES) if there were any other way to do things (13D: Article in Paris Match). And with NOUS at 31A: Toi et moi. Dial it back, peut-être?
- 43D: Chinese American fashion designer with a Dolly Girl line (ANNA SUI) — proud to have (finally!) semi-remembered her. Less proud that I wanted to spell her last name like "feng shui" (i.e. ANA SHUI, [sad trombone sound])
- 48D: Joe-___ weed (PYE) — LOL what? No idea. Less than no idea. Figured it must be JOE-POE since that at least rhymes.
- 9D: Hit the road with roadies, perhaps (GO ON TOUR)— cool answer if you parse it right. If not, well, you're on the GOON TOUR, and that could get ugly.
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