Constructor: Aimee LucidoRelative difficulty: Medium
THEME: BLOW YOUR TOP (10D: Absolutely lose it ... or a hint to 6-, 18-, 21- and 24-Down)— "tops" (i.e first words) of all the theme answers are things you can "blow":
Blown things:- RASPBERRY PI (24D: Tiny computer with a dessert-inspired name)
- BUBBLE WRAP (18D: Poppable packing material)
- WHISTLE STOP TOUR (6D: Political campaign made up of a series of short appearances)
- "KISS ME, KATE" (21D: 1948 musical based on "The Taming of the Shrew")
Word of the Day: RASPBERRY PI (
24D) —
Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic computer science in schools. The original model became more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for uses such as robotics. It is widely used in many areas, such as for weather monitoring, because of its low cost, modularity, and open design. It is typically used by computer and electronic hobbyists, due to its adoption of the HDMIand USB standards.After the release of the second board type, the Raspberry Pi Foundation set up a new entity, named Raspberry Pi Trading, and installed Eben Upton as CEO, with the responsibility of developing technology. The Foundation was rededicated as an educational charity for promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools and developing countries. Most Pis are made in a Sony factory in Pencoed, Wales, while others are made in China and Japan.
• • •
Is it National RASPBERRY Week this week? What a bizarre back-to-back raspberry experience—first yesterday's RASPBERRY JAM and now ... this. And both answers end up being total outliers within their respective themer sets—RASPBERRY JAM because it was anomalously specific
and uniconic, and
RASPBERRY PI because ... I simply have no idea what that is. First I'm hearing of it, today, right now, this second. I looked it up, made it my Word of the Day, and I still don't really know what it is. I've looked at a picture ... still not sure. "It is typically used by computer and electronic hobbyists"—this seems very much true, in that I am neither type of "hobbyist," and the answer means nothing to me. The seemingly specialized nature of
RASPBERRY PI makes the answer a rather odd choice for a *Tuesday* theme answer. I wonder how many non-"computer and electronic hobbyists" are familiar with this. Possibly zillions, I suppose. Maybe I've got another ÉPONINE situation on my hands, where the whole world is familiar with something I just don't know. But with ÉPONINE, I
knew that everyone but me had seen "Les Miz"—here, I have no idea what the currency of this term is. Because it seems deeply exclusionary, and I'm in the excluded party, the answer was kind of a blot, a raspberry jam stain on an otherwise nice puzzle. Well, the
theme was nice. The fill was less nice. But the theme absolutely works—the revealer checks all the boxes: yep, you blow a raspberry, a bubble, a whistle, and a kiss, and yep, all those words appear at the "top" of their respective answers (because they all run Down). Not scintillating, but impeccably neat.
As for the fill, there were just too many overfamiliar repeaters, too much short stuff that felt a little stodgy, a little gunky. An ... accumulation, I guess. ODE DOH EMU ACAI ARIAL ORA OLE AARP OMNI TSAR ETRE ALPO ASTI PSST OSO ESTO ECO REI TERI SLOE ACHOO ACELA PSHAW ATESTS ETTU ... you expect to see a few of the old gang in any grid, but this is one case where Getting The Whole Gang Back Together isn't such a good idea. I will say that I ended up enjoying ET TU? for perhaps the first time in my life, solely because its clue refers to Brutus, and it crosses BLUTO, and Brutus crossing BLUTO is a hilarious (if possibly unintentional) wink at "Popeye" fans—the character of BLUTO gets replaced by a virtually identical character called Brutus in the TV series because of perceived copyright issues involving the earlier animated shorts. So if you thought [Popeye's burly foe] was Brutus, you're forgiven. I mean, look at this mess:
After the theatrical Popeye cartoon series ceased production in 1957, Bluto's name was changed to Brutus because it was incorrectly believed by King Features that Paramount Pictures, distributors of the Fleischer Studios (later Famous Studios) cartoons, owned the rights to the name "Bluto". King Features actually owned the name, as Bluto had been originally created for the comic strip. Due to a lack of thorough research, King Features failed to realize this and reinvented him as Brutus to avoid supposed copyright problems. "Brutus" (often pronounced "Brutusk" by Popeye) appears in the 1960–62 Popeye the Sailor television cartoons with his physical appearance changed, making him obese rather than muscular. He normally sported a blue shirt and brown pants. Brutus later appeared in the Popeye arcade game released by Nintendo.The character reverted to Bluto for Hanna-Barbera's The All-New Popeye Hour (1978–83) and the 1980 live-action Popeye movie, as well as the 1987 Popeye and Son series also by Hanna-Barbera. The character was also named Bluto in the 2004 movie Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy.
It was long accepted that Bluto and Brutus were one and the same. However, a 1988 Popeye comic book, published by Ocean Comics, presented the two characters as twin brothers. The Popeye comic strip, at the time written and drawn by Hy Eisman, generally featured only Brutus, but added Bluto as Brutus' twin brother in several 2008 and 2009 strips. The two continue to appear as brothers in the more recent strips by Randy Milholland. (wikipedia) (my emph.)
So
ET TU? ends up being partially redeemed for me by the Brutus/
BLUTO collision. But overall, it's a good thing that the long answers, particularly the themers, were strong, because they were fighting against an ocean of dreary 3s 4s and 5s.
WHISTLE STOP TOUR is the best answer in the grid, and it's always when the best answers knows it's the best and sits proudly in the center spot.
Aside from trying to make sense of RASPBERRY PI, I had no other real problems during the solve today except for an absolutely epic wrong answer, brought about by a highly improbable amount of shared letters. I looked at 44A: Starchy, deep-fried bite, and then I looked at the grid, where I had TA--R-OT in place, and what's weird is not just that I wrote in a wrong answer, but that I didn't even hesitate: TARO ROOT! Of course the root isn't "deep-fried" by nature, but Lay's absolutely makes taro chips (as well as potato chips), and so I had no problem getting from the clue to TARO ROOT, especially since that's really the only answer my brain could see in the particular letter combination that I had.
With all those "correct" letters, TARO ROOT got weirdly embedded, and it took "KISS ME, KATE" to dislodge it. Big "D'OH!" when I finally got TATER TOT. Otherwise, as I say, no other problems. A very standard Tuesday level of difficulty overall. Looking forward to RASPBERRY BERET tomorrow. Don't let me down, Wednesday! See you then.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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