Constructor: Joe Deeney
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: Odes — Words and phrases that begin "TO..." are clued as if they were the titles of odes (poem titles in which the "TO" is dedicative, e.g. "TO a Mouse"). The clues are imagined ... lines from the imagined ode, I guess:
Theme answers:
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I thought these were supposed to be TOASTS at first; since the clue is in quotation marks, I assumed the answer would be equivalent spoken words. I thought this for most of the solve. I wondered, "Do you say poems when you toast? ... that's weird." When I actually hit the word TOASTERS, I thought, "well, that's kind of clever, turning the speakers of all the theme answers into a theme answer itself." Only later ... honestly, only after reading the clue for ANON. (63A: Source of many an ode, in brief) ... did I realize, "wait, these aren't toasts ... they're odes. Or ... parts of odes? Anyway, the rhyming thing is because they're poems, not toasts after all." Since I already didn't care for the puzzle at all, and the potentially clever "TOASTERS" element was no longer clever, the "ode" revelation functioned as kind of a reverse "aha" ... more an "oh ... no." If the clues are odes and not toasts, then the clues and answers are now not really equivalent, unless we're to believe that the (extremely corny) poetry clues are actually *complete* odes (the ellipsis at the end of each clue strongly suggests otherwise). The idea seems to be that the clue is the opening lines (?) of an ode. Odd. Worse, though, is the corny poetry. It's just too much to take at 4:30am on a Thursday, or any day. It hurt so much I just stopped reading it and decided to just try to make a "TO-" word as quickly as I could from the crosses (the puzzle was so easy, this was not difficult at all). The puzzle does one thing right: double the gag for extreme wackiness at 60A: "I don't have the words / That rightly commend / Cerulean birds / And Harry's best friend ..." ("TO RON, TO BLUEJAYS"). Of course that clue is undermined by Yet Another Gratuitous Harry Potter Reference, but the answer at least is ambitious and funny, unlike the other themers, which are just regular "To"-starting terms with grim poetry attached.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- TOP RANKS (3D: "It is such fun to fool the folks / And make them butts of harmless jokes ...") ("To Pranks")
- TOASTERS (11D: "An avid flower lover sees / A fall bouquet that's full of these ...") ("To Asters")
- TOADS (32A: "For me, the Super Bowl's a bore / But watching these is fun galore ...") ("To Ads")
- TOMCATS (44A: "Exams a must for future docs / Make sure your answers fill the box ...") ("To MCATS")
- TOWARDS (47A: "A hospital has many specialized places / Where patients recover in bright, cheerful spaces...") ("To Wards")
- TORONTO BLUEJAYS (60A: "I don't have the words / That rightly commend / Cerulean birds / And Harry's best friend ...") ("To Ron, To Bluejays")
The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack by the terrorist group al-Qaeda against USS Cole, a guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy, on 12 October 2000, while she was being refueled in Yemen's Aden harbor.
Seventeen U.S. Navy sailors were killed and thirty-seven injured in the deadliest attack against a United States naval vessel since the USS Stark incident in 1987. (wikipedia)
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A little terrorism with your morning puzzle, did you enjoy that? It's weird to make your toughest answer, the proper noun that people are likely to spend the most time on (U.S.S. COLE) ... it's weird to make that answer a ship famous only for the murder of 17 sailors on board. That is ... a choice. Sometimes, you have to ask yourself whether your "original" fill ... is worth it. The clue could've at least acknowledged *why* the "Navy vessel" was "in 2000 headlines." Here, the terrorism is hidden, so discovering it becomes ... part of the game? If you want to point to a terrorist attack, point to it—tell people *why* the ship is famous. Don't be all coy about it. It's like you're trying to leave unpleasantness out of the surface level of the puzzle, but ... the answer is inherently unpleasant, so the clue seems not just vague but intentionally coy. Weird way to handle terrorism. Overall, the fill was rickety and often off-putting. That NW corner, with OTOH OPPO SHORTE into ASTI AINGE etc. Rough. Even rougher: the utter misspelling of GRANDAD (8D: Family man) ... crossing a random Italian aria word (GIA!?)!??? If you're going to misspell a word, it should at least result in a cleaner, more interesting grid overall, but you can turn GRANDAD into a real word and make the grid cleaner just by turning GRANDAD to GRANTED. Try it! Change to TIA to SEA! Or ARA! Or whatever. Anything but what we've got. Again, the choices today, they are beyond my understanding.
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| dictionary.com |
How many I.T.- variations are we supposed to accept. I.T. PEOPLE may be the worst of the bunch, since it dodges the gender issue in the longest and most ungainly way possible (2D: Providers of assistance after a crash, informally). Again, not all "originality" is good. Despite its apparent redundancy, I like "I.T. TECH(S)" best. Short, to the point, and very very much in-the-language. Nothing was particularly hard today. I didn't know drumsticks had CONEs, so that slowed me down slightly (56D: Drumstick part), but otherwise, aside from that awful GRANDAD / GIA patch, not many speed impediments today. As far as good fill ... I liked DASHIKI (52A: Colorful garment). Adds, well, color to the grid. As for the rest of it ... well, if you like a certain kind of elaborate dad-humor, you're in luck. There's a cleverness to the the concept (parsing the "to-" words as ode titles), but the execution, particularly the cluing, just didn't work for me.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. 40D: Wanders around an airport, in brief? = TSA because TSA agents use "wands" to scan your body ... sometimes.
P.P.S. only just realized that the "Drumstick" in question today (at 56D: Drumstick part) is the ice cream ... CONE:
