Constructor: Simeon Seigel
Relative difficulty: Medium (possibly slower than usual, but only from having to tilt my head to enter the damn themers, sideways and backwards)
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THEME: CLOCKWISE (63A: How this puzzle's grid must be rotated in order to read the answers to the starred clues, when written in 17-Across) — answers to starred clues must be written in UPPERCASE (17A: Shifty type?) but also backwards but also sideways, such that they are legible only when the grid is tipped on its side. For instance, WEOUZHWZO, is running Down, but if you rotate the grid CLOCKWISE, now it runs *Across* and reads ONE INCOME (i.e. the last letter becomes the first letter and all the letters are tipped over):
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Theme answers:
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Well, I can see how a constructor might think this is cool, but the whole UPPERCASE thing doesn't really work as well as you might think in an era where the majority of solvers are entering the letters on screens. And the grid rotation thing ... I had to sort of tilt my head, squint, and imagine. I did have a small "aha" when I saw what was happening. But I only saw what was happening because I went down and read the revealer clue. I didn't bother to solve it—I just saw that grid rotation was involved and then went back and tried to see how to make "ZOOM ZOOM!" work given the letters I already had in the grid. What kind of rotation would I need. At first I was just mentally rotating each letter, and not the whole damn grid, as is required. Once I saw that the letters aren't tipped, the whole damn word is tipped, then I could see the answers. "Huh, OK." That was what this one got out of me. There's nothing left to do after you get the theme except awkwardly enter a bunch of straightforward answers. All the themers are easy to get once you know the gimmick, so all that's left is to endure the fill, which is quite awful in parts. DEEMIT (?), SADIRONS (!?!?), REOIL, SCUDS, NUNCIO ... these were all winces, for varying reasons. DEEM IT is a truly horrendously poor standalone phrase (8D: Consider something to be). SADIRONS is something only a massive and uncurated wordlist could cough up. NUNCIO is one of those icky words that I know solely from having solved crosswords as far back as the early '90s, when constructors didn't have software to help them make things smooooooth (47D: Papal emissary). See also SCUDS (1D: Moves quickly, as a cloud). LOL at the idea of anyone actually saying SCUDS. "Look at that cloud, it's scudding!" exclaimed the NUNCIO! Only in crosswords. It's not that the fill was bad overall, but that the handful of bad answers were really jarring. Overall, this ended up being one of those "feats of construction" that is undeniably clever in conception, but from the solving end, it was a bit of a chore. The revealer (CLOCKWISE) lands with a bit of an anticlimactic thud. But at least it was weird, I'll give it that. Better weird than totally boring. I like a bit of weird on Thursdays, for sure.
Relative difficulty: Medium (possibly slower than usual, but only from having to tilt my head to enter the damn themers, sideways and backwards)
Theme answers:
- WEOUZH WZO => ONE INCOME (11D: *Like a household with a stay-at-home parent, maybe)
- "EOON EOON!" => "ZOOM ZOOM!" (21D: *Longtime Mazda catchphrase)
- ZOU UHEOU => COMIC CON (24D: *Annual gathering of superhero fans)
- WUZWUOZZH => INNOCENCE (32D: *Babe-in-the-woods quality)
: a flat iron pointed at both ends and having a removable handle (merriam-webster.com)
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Huge hold-up at the final letter of THE BIG- (4D: Video game franchise starring major-league baseballers) ... it would've been so nice if the clue had simply said [Major League Baseball, slangily] or something like that. Throwing some ****ing video game franchise in there confused everything for me. All I could think of was "what damn letter would you use to represent all of baseball? The Big ... B? The Big ... L? Is this a rebus?" And the "S" cross was not at all easy. Had to get all the first three letters before I saw NEWS (30A: ___ crawl), at which point I realized "oh ... it's just THE BIGS ... sigh, ****ing video games." Had DEEM AS for a bit instead of the equally horrible DEEM IT, so that also slowed things down. I did not know FIGs grew on ... ficuses? We had FIG trees in our backyard growing up (in Fresno). Truly did not know they were technically ficuses until just now. Weird. Why are you taking pictures of NUDISTs, you creep? (53A: Subject of a fully exposed image?). I'm just a bit ... thrown by the use of "image" here. I get that the NUDIST is exposed, but what is this "subject" / "image" stuff? It's oddly leering. I mean, if you wanted to evoke art or photography, you'd have "nudes" as your frame of reference, not NUDISTs. What you've done is evoke the image of a peeper. Why would you do that? Just for your little photography wordplay? Strange.