Constructor: Robert Ryan
Relative difficulty: Challenging
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THEME: "Give Me a Break" — Words clued as if they were two words ... I think that's it.
Theme answers:
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I got Naticked. Been a while, but at the very last square I came to ... nothing. Ran the alphabet ... nothing. No clue. Total guess. I absolutely cannot get over cluing TAB that way (completely incomprehensible to me) when that word is also crossing the ???? piece of jewelry called a BARPIN. I mean ... TA-/-ARPIN = no hope in hell. I can see—now—that the clue on BARPIN was supposed to be helping me by telling me that that it's "long" and "narrow" but that just did not scream "bar" to me at all. I didn't even know that BAR and PIN were separate words. I was looking at -ARPIN like "TARPIN? MARPIN? HTFSIK?" And TAB ... I mean, it wouldn't have helped me, but how in the hell can you clue TAB that way and not indicate in the clue that It's An Abbreviation!?!? (of "tablature"). It's the TAB clue that is absolutely baffling to me. You have to know that BARPIN is not a common thing. Not a brooch or an earring or a necklace or a bangle or a bracelet or a tiara or etc etc. Apparently I have seen BARPIN in crosswords twice before—I looked, and both those times, the crosses were all undeniable. Old Will Shortz seemed to know that BARPIN was gonna be a weird one for people, and so the crosses were all sensible and fair. But TAB, woof. Yikes. I mean, I was sure the [Aid for a novice guitarist] was a thing, like a capo or a strap or a ... I dunno, something that involved the actual playing of the instrument. That is the obscurest clue on TAB I have ever seen, and you decided to use it when TAB was crossing BARPIN!?!? The funniest thing about this cross was my guess, which will tell you a lot about how I make inferences. Now the clue for BARPIN wanted me to look at "long" and "narrow" and think BAR, but me, I've done roughly a million crosswords over more than three decades, so when I see -AR and my only clues are "long" and "narrow," well ...
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That's right, I used your little hinty clue words there ("long,""narrow") and look where it got me: GARPIN, i.e. nowhere. TAG seemed like as good of a guess for the novice guitar thingie as any. Still seems like a better guess than TAB, even now. I'm absolutely fine being the only person who crashed and burned here, if that's how it turns out, but will die on the hill of "That TAB Clue Is Terrible Editing."
EL PASO before LAREDO (1A: Texas terminus of I-35). HI-RES before HI-DEF (that one hurt) (62D: Extra-crisp, informally). What needs explaining? [Character at the center of "Dunkirk"] is KAY because that is the character (i.e. letter) at the center of the word "Dunkirk."META is just New Facebook (24D: Fortune 500 company whose logo is a blue infinity symbol). The Phoenix Suns are an NBA team (113D: Suns setting, for short). I think that's it. I hope so. See you when I see you.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Challenging
Theme answers:
- DEPART/MENTALLY (23A: Zone out?) (DEPART is now a verb)
- INTRO/VERSION (34A: Beginner's edition?) (INTRO means "introductory")
- SUP/POSITION (47A: Seat at the dining table?) (the position in which you SUP)
- KIN/ESTHETIC (63A: Beauty that runs in the family?) (KIN = "family")
- MALE/FACTION (84A: Boys' club?) (a faction of men)
- CON/TEXTUALLY (98A: Swindle by instant messaging?) (CON = "swindle")
- INTER/RELATIONS (109A: Use a family crypt?) (INTER = "bury")
Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches.
Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica. Tablature was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and is commonly used today in notating many forms of music.
Three types of organ tablature were used in Europe: German, Spanish and Italian.
To distinguish standard musical notation from tablature, the former is usually called "staff notation" or just "notation". (wikipedia)
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The puzzle was kind of a nothing at the thematic level (toughish, but basic, and not particularly entertaining—hard to get excited by terms like INTERRELATIONS and SUPPOSITION etc.). Side note: MALE FACTION really doesn't work, or it's an outlier anyway, as it's the only one that involves significant pronunciation change. The puzzle overall played very hard for me, from start to finish. Just "no idea""shrug""nope" over and over. I mean, I made steady progress, never got truly stuck, but ugh, it was a slog. AGLARE and not AGLEAM? (22A: Shining intensely). Truly a no-win kealoa*, that one.. No idea who this Wisconsin EVERS person is (28D: Wisconsin politico Tony) (LOL, looks like he's governor, my bad). Barely heard of IZMIR (48D: Third-largest city of Turkey). Could not care less about Pink Floyd and had to endure not one but two clues about them, like it's some kind of theme? ERRANTS!? (119A: Adventure-seeking travelers, in old usage). I'm really supposed to accept that as a word? Even after you've already got ERRS in the grid!?!! (64D: Goofs up) (both words are using "err" in the sense of "to wander," don't let them fool you into thinking otherwise). Look, there are parts that are OK (HOT SAKE, IN OR OUT?, BROKEN NOSE alongside SEPIA TONES), and I thought the "breaks" in the themers were occasionally clever (DEPART MENTALLY and CON TEXTUALLY are my favorites, and had me wondering whether a whole themer set couldn't have been made out of adverbs), but there were just a lot of proper nouns I didn't know or care about and a lot of Trying Too Hard clues making everything slightly unpleasant. Also, RESEEN? PCCARD?! Is that like a sim card? The clue on NEON (35D: He can be found above it) gives us an abbr. (He) but the answer is a whole-ass spelled-out word (NEON). That's a foul and a violation. "He" corresponds with "Ne," not NEON. The editing is so slipshod today, it's stunning. The clue on ELIAS, I liked (54A: Real name that becomes a fake one by changing its first letter) (to "ALIAS," that is). Much of the rest of the cluing left me cold and/or befuddled.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
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