Constructor: Erica Hsiung Wojcik
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: CARLO Ancelotti (40D: Soccer coaching great ___ Ancelotti) —
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Solid puzzle that rounds out the nicest Friday-Saturday one-two punch we've seen in a good long while. This grid doesn't have the same kind of flow as yesterday's—those NW and SE corners are really sequestered, so you gotta go in there and fight it out with them, almost like they were separate puzzles—and yet my solving experience basically followed the same path as yesterday's, and with mostly the same energy, if in slightly slower motion. Fumble around the NW, finally put it all together, and then whoosh, there I go, dropping fast down into the grid and never really losing momentum after that. Today, I had the great thrill of whooshing down via WILLA CATHER—a Willa whoosh! Somehow the way she's packaged and marketed (i.e. the look of her books) makes her seem staid, which was why I was shocked by how much I enjoyed O, Pioneers and One of Ours. Complex, original characters, a generous but ruthless eye for human failings, crisp dialogue, a fantastic ear for dialogue—her books have it all. Well, her stuff from the '10s and '20s does, anyway. Haven't read the rest. The point is, I wouldn't have needed any crosses to get her today, but simply knowing she exists would've made getting her off just the WI- easy today, and once you've got her, the entire puzzle opens up.
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Even if you can only put together a few of the crosses, you've got something. For instance, this is what I did off of her name:
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Not much, right? HANES and GLOAT were about the only things I was initially sure of. But GLOAT to GENES to FEAST to FAMED and now I'm in business. Work the crosses, work the crosses, work the crosses. I don't even look at longer clues at first. I just pound short crosses until I feel like I've got those longer answers significantly hooked, and then ... down they go. On this one, I think I somehow ended up getting GENTS ("Ladies & Gents!") and then used GONAD (least pleasant word in the grid—just an awful, awful-sounding word) to swing around the SW, and by that point, the front ends of the longer Acrosses in the middle were all in place, and so they offered no resistance at all at that point. So, the way I dealt with all that white space in the middle was to largely ignore it, paying attention only to short crosses and then letting the middle fill in from the corners. That SE corner threatened to be a bear, but despite crossing proper nouns I didn't know (BARRE, CARLO), it was actually incredibly tame (actually, probably the weakest and most boring part of the grid, just a lot of common letters taking up space). That just left the NE, and that was easy to get into from underneath (esp. if you know SUE BIRD), and ... that was it. Easy Saturday.
Other things:
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Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: CARLO Ancelotti (40D: Soccer coaching great ___ Ancelotti) —
Carlo Ancelotti Cavaliere OMRI, Ufficiale OSI (born 10 June 1959) is an Italian professional football manager and former player who is the manager of La Liga club Real Madrid. Regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time, Ancelotti is the most decorated manager in UEFA Champions League history, having won the trophy a record four times as coach (twice with AC Milan and twice with Real Madrid). He is also the first and only one to have managed teams in five Champions League finals. As a player, he won the European Cup twice with AC Milan in 1989 and 1990, making him one of eight people to have won the European Cup or Champions League as both a player and a manager. Ancelotti is also the first and only manager ever to have won league titles in all of Europe's top five leagues. He has won the FIFA Club World Cup a joint-record three times, and is also the manager with the most UEFA Super Cup triumphs, having won the trophy on four occasions, managing Milan and Real Madrid.Nicknamed Don Carlo, Ancelotti played as a midfielder and began his career with Italian club Parma, helping the club to Serie B promotion in 1979. He moved to Roma the following season, where he won a Serie A title and four Coppa Italia titles, and also played for the late 1980s Milan team, with which he won two league titles and two European Cups, among other titles. At international level he played for the Italy national team on 26 occasions, scoring once, and appeared in two FIFA World Cups, finishing in third place in the 1990 edition of the tournament, as well as UEFA Euro 1988, where he helped his nation to reach the semi-finals. (wikipedia)
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I really liked the cluing and overall energy of this puzzle. WILLA CATHER gave me a big early rush, sure, but at some point in the SW I found myself (maybe literally) saying "hey, this is shaping up to be pretty good." I enjoyed the clues on NOTHIN' (44A: Reply to "Whatcha doin'?") and THANKS (33D: What might precede a million). I struggled with STYLED (50A: Gave a look?) but felt rewarded when I finally got the right answer (it's dead on). And "MY PRETTY" made me smile, for sure. And then the longer fill in the middle all ended up being worthy marquee answers, and they all went down in a rush at that point, so I got to enjoy them as answers without ever having had to struggle with the clues. All my effort went into getting crosses, so by the time I looked at the clues for the longer stuff ... it was like tipping dominoes over. Easy. And not much I didn't enjoy. Again, I think the CARLO / BARRE cross is not great. I mean, BARRE? (43A: Vermont municipality SE of Montpelier). With that clue? Yikes. And I'm glad I went with SKORTS because CARLI / SKIRTS seems entirely plausible if you know nothing about (European) football i.e. soccer. Can't say CARLO is obscure (40D: Soccer coaching great ___ Ancelotti)—see his achievements in the Word of the Day entry, above—but I guarantee you he'll be a huge "???" for a huge chunk of the stateside solving audience today. Again, this would not matter *except* that I think the crosses of his name here aren't great. Too much potential for confusion. I also didn't like FOIE as clued (25A: ___ gras torchon (French dish)), since FOIE gras is achieved via gavage, which is too close to torture, hard pass. I am grateful, though, to have been led down a wikipedia foie gras rabbit hole to this quote from Charlie Trotter:
Chicago chef Charlie Trotter maintained that the production of foie gras is "too cruel to be served." However, Trotter refused to be associated with animal rights groups stating "These people are idiots. Understand my position: I have nothing to do with a group like that. I think they're pathetic." (wikipedia)
This made me laugh. I don't necessarily like what he's saying about animal rights groups, but I can relate to being in the position of "Ugh, yes, I agree with those people, but only on this one issue, please don't lump me in with them, please." It's like me thinking big pharmaceutical companies are generally awful but *insisting* you not liken me to those anti-vaxxer nutters who think the same thing.
Other things:
- 15A: It's a drag (AVENUE)— second use of "drag" to mean "street" that we've seen this month, I think.
- 20A: Silver streaks, e.g. (LODES) — oh, actual silver. Thought this had something to do with hair.
- 23A: Son of Seth (ENOS) — Me: "one of them four-letter Bible guys ... AMOS?" Close! AMOS actually helped!
- 46A: Staffers savvy with syringes (ER NURSES) — got this off the ER-, but my first thought was BARTENDERS since I saw The Master Gardener yesterday and there's this scene where we hear (twice) that Sigourney Weaver's servant uses a syringe to inject the maraschinos in his Manhattans with Cointreau. The movie has nothing to do with cocktails, really, but it's a mesmerizing scene, and it takes place in a room with the most exquisite jellyfish wallpaper ... I get really distracted / absorbed by little details in Paul Schrader movies. How are there no pictures of this wallpaper on the internet? Why does the internet even exist if not to provide me with such things!?!?
- 43D: Chin (up) (BUCK) — I've heard the phrase "BUCK up" and I think it's being offered here as an equivalent of "(Keep your) chin up!" They seem tonally different, but I got BUCK easily enough so ... no complaints!
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