Constructor: Rachel Fabi & Ken Stern
Relative difficulty: Medium? Easy + One Hard Corner (19:51)
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THEME: Themeless
Word of the Day: IMPRIMATUR (Seal of approval) —
Hi squad, Malaika here for a.... Malaika MFriday, I suppose. I hope you are all day-dreaming about lovely weekend plans! My plans over here in NYC will be to sweat a lot and attempt to stay hydrated. Pray for me!
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Relative difficulty: Medium? Easy + One Hard Corner (19:51)
THEME: Themeless
Word of the Day: IMPRIMATUR (Seal of approval) —
An imprimatur (sometimes abbreviated as impr., from Latin, "let it be printed") is a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is also applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement. The imprimatur rule in the Roman Catholic Church effectively dates from the dawn of printing, and is first seen in the printing and publishing centres of Germany and Venice; many secular states or cities began to require registration or approval of published works around the same time, and in some countries such restrictions still continue, though the collapse of the Soviet bloc has reduced their number.
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For three-quarters of this puzzle I was totally vibing-- I wasn't filling in every answer, but I'd get a few, look at the crosses, and get a few more. You know, how a crossword is supposed to work!! Except for the lower-left, where I got literally nothing, tried to Google some answers, failed completely, stared for ten minutes, guessed some things that I knew were wrong, hit "Check Puzzle" a lot, etc etc until I made it. My last box was the crossing of IMPRIMATUR and MED, where I ran the alphabet-- I have never heard of the former and it does not look like a word in English. (I guess it's not?) The latter is one of those Crossword Abbreviations where you're like "okay I guess...."
But let's talk about the more fun things, like the spanner!!! Amazing!! I say this sooooo often and I've never clocked that it's fifteen letters. Getting delayed on the tarmac on your way to a wedding in Albuquerque? THE LITERAL WORST. Waiting an hour for drinks bc the bar is understaffed? THELITERAL WORST. Getting fired from your job because you were involved with unionizing efforts? THE LITERAL WORST. I can go on and on. I'm so glad that the NYT is publishing slang like this-- it feels like they're doing it more and more these days, and I'm a huge fan.
High-word-count themeless puzzles with four stacks are my favorite type, and I feel like you end up having a favorite stack. For me, it was absolutely top-right, with CLEAR AS MUD, TORTELLINI, and EARLY BIRDS. I got to have my smug little "I studied abroad in Italy so I know that the word for "cake" is torta" moment, and plop in TORTELLINI with zero crosses. (I did have "blear..." for a little bit, when I mistakenly put in "B-team" over C-TEAM, but was able to correct.)
Bullets:
Bullets:
- [Beyhive, for Beyonce, or ARMY, for BTS] for FANDOM — When me and my sister, I mean, my sister and I take long car trips, we like to quiz each other on random trivia, and one of our go-to categories is "what is the name of the fandom for X artist?"
- [German swimmer Kristin, who won six gold medals at the Seoul Olympics] for OTTO — I've never heard of this athlete, but she seems to be incredibly talented
- [Longtime weekly companion of Ebony magazine] for JET — I'd also never heard of this, part of the reason it took me so long to break into that lower section.