Constructor: Dan Ziring and Quiara Vasquez
Relative difficulty: Challenging
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THEME: SNOWBALL EFFECTS (33A: Developing phenomena literally depicted three times in this puzzle)— three Across answers unfold gradually, box by box, with letters accruing in each box, one letter at a time, so instead of GROW, written in the grid at 1A: Gradually develop, literally, you get "G" and then "GR" and then "GRO" and *then* "GROW"—so it's a kind of rebus, with multiple letters in all non-initial boxes for all related theme answers:
Theme answers:![]()
Oh, wow, it is too e ea ear earl early for this, man. Hell of a puzzle to throw at me on the morning when I have the least amount of time to solve & write! I guess my wish for "harder puzzles" finally came true in a not-gradually-developing way. Just bam, here's the hardest puzzle you've seen in months, enjoy! Well ... I did enjoy it, so there. I would've enjoyed it more if I hadn't felt the tick tock of my morning solving/blogging window fading away as I was solving, but that's not the puzzle's fault. The one thing this puzzle did provide was a genuine "aha" moment that was so long-coming and pent up that I think it came in the form of a semi-audible "oh my god" moment. This moment, right here:
I actually filled in this corner and then erased back to this initial moment so I could screenshot it. I wanted to capture the precise moment of revelation. so that you will understand why ... I didn't actually understand the theme completely, even after the "oh my god!" I just assumed that the "snowball effect" had to do with the Downs—that is, I thought that with where the theme answers were concerned, each subsequent Down cross picked up one more letter on its front end. So ... essentially, the Across was just rounding the corner a bunch of times. I was not cramming multiple letters into squares, I was assuming that the letters just flowed from the start of the Across and dropped down. It never occurred to me to put multiple letters in a square. Here, I'll try to demonstrate what *I* thought the theme was doing using arrows:
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging
Theme answers:
- GROW (G/GR/GRO/GROW)
- Downs = GRAMPS (1D: Pop-pop) / GRANARY (2D: Farm storehouse) / GROUNDED (3D: Punished for the weekend, perhaps) / GROWLERS (4D: Beer containers)
- FORM (F/FO/FOR/FORM)
- Downs = FAKER (10D: Total phony) / FORCEPS (11D: Some surgical tools) / FORTUNES (12D: Enormous amounts to spend) / "FOR MY PART..." (13D: "As far as I'm concerned ...")
- SWELL (S/SW/SWE/SWEL/SWELL)
- Downs = ETS (47D: Fabled visitors to 49-Down, in brief) / SWEET (55D: Opposite of dry, to a vintner) / SWEATY (56D: Evidencing physical exertion) / SWELTER (57D: Suffer in the summer heat) / ROSWELL (49D: Southwest city in 1947 news)
Capri Sun (UK: /ˈkæpri/, US: /kəˈpriː/, stylized as CAPRISUN in the United States and Capri-Sun internationally) is a German brand of juice concentrate drinks owned by Capri Sun Group Holding in Germany, which is a privately held company of Hans-Peter Wild. It was introduced in 1969 and named after the Italian island of Capri. Capri Sun has been distributed in the United States since 1981. [...] The standard box is filled with ten 200-millilitre (7 US fl oz) pouches of liquid. In the U.S., Capri-Sun pouches are now 180 ml (6 US fl oz); previously they were 240 ml (8 US fl oz). The pouch is trapezoidal in profile when filled and rectangular when flat, with a flared bottom that makes the pouch able to stand upright when placed on a horizontal surface. A straw is supplied with each individual pouch. [...] In 2014, after continued pressure to fix what consumers described as worm-shaped food mold in Capri Sun pouches, Kraft released a clear bottomed pouch to allow consumers to better inspect the product before consumption. Additionally, the non-recyclable packaging has spurred environmental groups to pressure Kraft into redesigning their iconic pouch.
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| [LOL 51-Across, "LEO" doesn't even fit, my god I was out of it] |
From where I was standing / solving, those Downs (above) all started at the "F" and then proceeded across and *rounded the corner*, dropping and finishing where they finish. There was no question of multiple squares in a box, just a matter of walking that Across answer over and Down. Turns out my understanding of the theme works perfectly ... and then suddenly, one time, doesn't. That time: ROSWELL (49D: Southwest city in 1947 news). I ended up, at the very end, staring at ROL and wondering how on god's green earth that was supposed to work. Never occurred to me that it was a themer. And when, finally, it *did* strike me as a themer, I couldn't make it square with the rest of the Down themers, *all* of which followed the drop-down pattern I was seeing in my head (and on my screen). Only after hitting "reveal all" did I see that my grid was correct enough: I had all the "right" answers, but was entering those three Across themers "wrong." I was supposed to be rebusing the Acrosses, adding one letter at a time to each subsequent box. I never do that with regular rebuses (when I'm actually solving, I just type the first letter and let it stand for the whole, and the app usually accepts that). So ... yeah, it didn't play great on screen, and it's super duper Duper weird that my understanding of how the theme unfolded worked for every involved answer but one (12 out of 13!). Would've been nice (helpful!) to mix it up a bit, have a few more of those Downs that enter from the top. Would've made what was going on clearer (maybe). But I still think that this is a brilliant conceit and that the execution is mostly masterful.
OK, very quickly, as this has taken way too long to solve and explain. The fill was good but they did not ease up on the difficulty in order to offset the theme difficulty. You got hard, vague clues for simple stuff like AIR (7D: Put on) (who wrote in "DON"?). I had ROO instead of SYD (for Sydney, Australia) and SALAD before BASIL (31A: Leaves in the kitchen?) and was really really not sure of the SCALAR / AYS / CHATTER nexus (25D: Quantity contrasted with a vector, in physics / 44A: Shakespearean cries (are they?) / 46A: Chinwagging). There was no part of this grid that I flew through. I was so so grateful to know CAPRI SUN today. It was the end of the solve and it had been such an ordeal and I got to that SE corner and thought "what fresh hell awaits?" and then CAPRI SUN was like "nah, I got you, come on in." And the puzzle was over. Well, I had to hit "reveal grid" to fully understand, but ... yeah, over. Hope you survived!
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