Constructor: Daniel Bodily
Relative difficulty: Very easy
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THEME: ENDS UP ON TOP (24D: Prevails eventually ... or a hint to entering the answers to the six starred clues in this puzzle) — the "ends" of the answers go "up on top"—that is, the themers (which all run Down) have their ends moved to the front, creating new words (which are unclued):
Theme answers:
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Pretty thin gruel for a Thursday. Started out easy with gimmes at HIT ITO HAJ and then I thought "OK, here we go, here comes the Thursday thrashing..." But no. I drifted on short stuff down to the middle of the grid and then over to the top and pretty soon I had the top of BARSTOOL worked out and thought "ah, TOOLBARS ... BARSTOOL ... huh." And that was really that. You just move the back to the front six times. Once you know the gimmick, the puzzle becomes especially easy, and the non-theme fill never does Anything to change that. Ended up being very dull. There's decent wordplay in the revealer, I guess, but actually the revealer was the one thing that really clanked for me today, as I had the -ON TOP part and wanted only "COMES OUT ON TOP," which feels ... just better. Like the better phrase. Apter. Fitter. Tighter. Somethinger. It has more of Triumph or (in the puzzle's words) "Prevailing" about it. But ENDS UP ON TOP isn't bad. And you really need that phrasing ... the entire theme is based on it. So there you are. A very basic puzzle theme built entirely on the wordplay in a not terribly interesting verb phrase. I don't get it, but it'll be a nice day for people who normally struggle with Thursdays, who will undoubtedly end up on top today.
Relative difficulty: Very easy
Theme answers:
- TABLE SCRAPS (3D: *Surfaces for some high rollers) (craps tables)
- LINEAGE (42D: *Mark of wisdom, some say) (age line)
- BARSTOOL (4D: *Quick-access rows of icons) (toolbars)
- TAPERED (23D: *Bureaucratic hassle) (red tape)
- HEADSPIN (39D: *Dummies) (pinheads)
- POTSHOT (8D: *Cook-your-own dishes in some Asian restaurants) (hot pots)
Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment. Under U.S. law, a radio station must disclose songs they were paid to play on the air as sponsored airtime. The number of times the songs are played can influence the perceived popularity of a song, and payola may be used to influence these meters. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) treats payola as a violation of the Sponsorship Identification Rules, which requires any broadcast of paid material to include a disclosure.The term payola is a combination of "pay" and "ola", which is a suffix of product names common in the early 20th century, such as Pianola, Victrola, Amberola, Crayola, Rock-Ola, Shinola, or brands such as the radio equipment manufacturer Motorola. (wikipedia)
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Looking around the grid, I am sincerely baffled by the Monday/Tuesday level of it all. The hardest clues for me were hard only because the clues were vague. Stuff like ["Hamilton" collection] for TONYS and ["You have a point there"] for TRUE. Every term, every person was super-familiar, and none of the clues seemed to be trying very hard to fool you or slow you down or even entertain you. There were some notable exceptions. I laughed out loud at the Debussy clue: 16A: Where there is "too much singing," per Debussy (OPERA). I've started to come around on OPERA, but I've spent most of my life knowing Exactly where Debussy is coming from (I could and sometimes do listen to Debussy's own music all day—decidedly singing-free). I rarely enjoy the silly "hidden words"-type clues, but [Cheese found in Notre Dame?] amused me. If you're gonna show me EDAM for the 10,431st time, yeah, go ahead and go nuts with your silly clues, I won't mind. And I'm only just now realizing that [Knot without a struggle] is a pun (on the phrase "not without a struggle") as well as a pretty straightforward description of a CLIP-ON TIE. That's a good clue (and answer) too.
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The SEALEGS clue is also not bad, as "?" clues go (25D: How a sailor achieves a good work-life balance?). When the floor of your workplace is constantly pitching underneath your feet: SEALEGS! The weird thing about this clue is the hyphen. "Work-life balance" would normally signify a balance between work and (non-work) life, but here the hyphen seems to turn "work-life" into a compound adjective, i.e. SEALEGS are for balance in your work life (as opposed to your home life). The fact that I am spending so much time thinking about the meaning of a hyphen probably tells you something about how interesting this puzzle is overall. I wish there were more to say, but alas. I remain anti-SCUD (an ugly and unnecessary and almost never-used word) (35D: Move like or with the wind), but no need to rehash that now (any more than I just did). See you LATER.