Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins
Relative difficulty: Very challenging (slowest Friday of the year for me!)
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THEME: None
Word of the Day: RED MASS (17A: Annual Roman Catholic service for members of the legal profession) —
Hi all, it's Rafa again -- hope you all didn't miss me too much in the last two days. This puzzle felt very much like a Saturday puzzle to me: an open grid design with chonky corners, some challenging (to me) names, devilishly tricky cluing. I wonder what sort of puzzle we're getting tomorrow ... are we in store for an ultra-hard Saturday? Or did Shortz et al. switch the Friday and Saturday puzzles? We'll see...
Bullets:
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Relative difficulty: Very challenging (slowest Friday of the year for me!)
THEME: None
Word of the Day: RED MASS (17A: Annual Roman Catholic service for members of the legal profession) —
A Red Mass is a Mass celebrated annually in the Roman Catholic Church for all members of the legal profession, regardless of religious affiliation: judges, lawyers, law school professors, law students, and government officials, marking the opening of the judicial year. Through prayerful petition and thanksgiving the Red Mass requests guidance from the Holy Spirit for all who seek justice, and offers the legal community an opportunity to reflect on the God-given power and responsibility of all in the legal profession.
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BAD JUJU was a fun way to start things off, though I had BAD lUck there for a long time, making the rest of that corner very hard to break into. AQUINAS was cool to stack with BAD JUJU for added scrabbliness, but I was not a fan of GUN BORE! I don't like guns IRL ... I don't like guns in my crossword ... I don't like wordplay about guns. I'd also never heard of DUNK TANK (in my defense, I have never been to a county fair...) but my friend (hi Adam!) tells me it was a fun answer and I believe him.
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| BOLT CUTTERS made me think of this critically acclaimed Fiona Apple album (which I confess I've never listened to!) |
The NE was the only corner that fell easily, probably because I knew Sharon OLDS (the only proper in this puzzle I knew immediately, I think). Cute clue on GAMERTAGS[Handles made to be played with], which, on a Friday, I would have expected to come with a question mark. But ... we already established this was secretly a Saturday puzzle.
Anyhoo ... what else? Just a lot of tough clues! Many of them really nice and satisfying, but hard! [Spells] for TRANCES, [Used car business] for RESALES, [Unnamed alternative] for OR ELSE, [Cause of a game's end] for TILT, etc etc. I had to ask a friend (hi Rebecca!) to explain that last one to me -- turns out it's about pinball. There are so many games! And they can end in so many ways!
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| Oh look, it's a jam! If only we had figured out a way to avoid this! Maybe we could make people live close to shopping, leisure, and work spaces. Maybe we could even have one big vehicle that could take a bunch of people around! Wow, that would probably help with pollution too, huh? Someone should look into this idea... |
My favorite fill was BAD JUJU, SO RANDOM, VODKA CRAN. Loved the angle on NET ZERO. The ELENORE / OLY cross was a guess for me, but L seemed like the most plausible letter there. Oh, it also felt mean to clue FRA as just [Brother] without a "in Italian" or "for a monk" or whatever qualifier. Sometimes a challenge is nice though, so I'm not too mad about having to work harder on a Friday. But I wish there'd been a bit more zingier stuff in the fill.
Bullets:
- GINZA [52A: Posh shopping district of Tokyo] — I have been to GINZA in Tokyo!
- USEFUL [7D: Advantageous] — I feel like USEFUL and advantageous aren't quite synonyms but ... it's a Saturday puzzle (yes, I'm committing to this bit) so I guess I can't complain
- KID A [37D: 2000 #1 Radiohead album] — I learned this album existed just a few months ago (please don't come for me in the comments; I was 5 in 2000) so it was cool to see it in a puzzle
- RED MASS [17A: Annual Roman Catholic service for members of the legal profession] — It's really funny to me that there's a special mass for legal professionals...
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