Constructor: Olivia Mitra Framke and Brooke Husic
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: PLUS and ALSO?— wacky 15-letter phrases composed of a first word PLUS an anagram of that word and ALSO another anagram of that word:
Theme answers:
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Second day in a row where I finished the puzzle and had no idea if I properly understood the theme. Yesterday, I hadn't. There was a whole secondary element that I'd missed, one that I eventually saw, but only well after finishing. Today ... my main feeling was "Is that it? That can't be it? Wacky phrases made out of three 5-letter anagrams? That's something I'm sure I've seen, maybe a number of times, over the course of decades ... so that can't be it." I noticed that the first and last Across answers were both clued ["Furthermore ..."] and reasoned that those answers must hold the clue to some as-yet undiscovered level of themery. But that got me nowhere. Or, rather, it got me to the (admittedly shaky) idea that the PLUS and ALSO were supposed to refer to the two anagrams that follow the initial word in each theme phrase. If I've missed something, mea culpa, as they say in crosswords. But this concept feels very old-fashioned—which doesn't mean it can't yield results, but I think the results here are too forced for my taste. AIDES IDEAS ASIDE is at least clean, if not terribly exciting. But I don't know why the TRAYS would be ARTSY at a "hipster cafe" (whatever that is). And even after looking at EARLY RELAY LAYER a bunch of times, I'm still not exactly sure what is going on there. I guess the idea is that in a triathlon you swim first (yes?) so, as for your wetsuit, it's ... EARLY in the RELAY ... that you would wear ... it? So the LAYER is EARLY, not the RELAY, which probably started right on time, so I guess RELAY is also adjectival (modifying LAYER) ... wait, is EARLY-RELAY a compound adjective? That's probably your best bet for understanding this one. Sigh. It's grammatically confusing (esp. compared to that first themer). And SET ON STONE feels like a typo—a violation of the phrase everyone uses when talking setting + stone, that is, "set in stone." So these 3x5-letter anagram phrases were of varying degrees of solidity and clarity, though the basic concept was never likely to yield anything terribly exciting. But also, as I say, I may be missing something important. The one unexpected thing about this theme is that after grasping the concept, I thought getting all the themers would be way too easy, but they were somehow bizarre enough to make me work. There is something to be said for working. And bizarreness. Not a total loss.
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The fill is also a little limp today—lots of overfamiliar 3-4-5 stuff (LOO ANO ITT ITOO TIARA HERR NYT IAMB SOS UNDOandREDO etc.). As usual, the long Downs add some color. I really like the clue on BOLSTERS—an unexpected yogic twist. If you've ever been to a yoga class, then you know, BOLSTERS are real (and useful). I always like remembering "Peanuts," even though the RED BARON stuff was never my favorite (6D: Snoopy's imaginary antagonist). I prefer the ordinary existentialist drama of Snoopy's everyday life, like his conversations with Woodstock. "Conversations" (Woodstock speaks only in little vertical slashes, though Snoopy seems to understand him). Weird that I wanted "IT'S A TRAP" on Monday when the answer was "IT'S A TEST," only to have "IT'S A TRAP" appear here, two days later. Is a LOIN a "body part"??? Like ... I have a reasonable understanding of where one's "loins" (plural???) are, but I don't think I know *exactly* what "part" is in question here. Is it a pig body part, like a pork LOIN? Google is telling me that the LOIN is "the part of the body on both sides of the spine between the lowest (false) ribs and the hipbones," but no one says "ow, my LOIN!" when they hurt their lower back, do they? I know this word only as a cut of meat, so "body part" really threw me. There wasn't much else here to throw me, though. The two pop culture names of less-than-universal fame were very familiar to me, though I actually never saw the clue for Michaela COEL. As for PRUE, I had this moment of "ugh not a celebrity chef, I do not know any celebr-" followed by "Oh, PRUE! From 'Great British BAKE Off'! Oh sure, I know her. She's fun."
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- AIDES IDEAS ASIDE (17A: "Ignoring what my assistant said ..."?)
- STRAY ARTSY TRAYS (27A: What might be found outside a hipster cafeteria?)
- EARLY RELAY LAYER (47A: Wetsuit vis-à-vis a team triathlon?)
- NOTES SET ON STONE (63A: Engravings, e.g.?)
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman /ˈɡeɪmən/ (born Neil Richard Gaiman 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, audio theatre, and films. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, Anansi Boys, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards. It was later adapted into a critically acclaimed stage play at the Royal National Theatre in London, England that The Independent called "...theatre at its best". (wikipedia)
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The cluing felt thoughtful today. Liked the clues on little things like GALA (24D: Fancy-sounding apple cultivar) ("fancy-sounding" made me smile and "cultivar" is just a cool word), and STEER (33D: Use a wheelchair's push rims, for instance) (makes me think PUSH RIMS would make good fill), and SOFT (70A: Like forgiving lighting in photography). Regular words, but the clues give me vivid, specific contexts to think about. Just because the words are ordinary doesn't mean the clues have to be dull. See you all tomorrow, I hope.