Constructor: Dominic GrilloRelative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (harder than usual, maybe, if only because of that one anomalous square)
THEME: 3D PRINTER (61A: Modern manufacturing device ... or you, when answering 17-, 31-, 39- and 46-Across?) — theme answers are three-part phrases where all three parts start with "D"; so we, the solvers, “print” 3 D’s (!) when entering the theme answers:
Theme answers:- DOT DOT DOT (17A: S, in Morse code)
- DOUBLE-DOG DARE (31A: Emphatic challenge)
- DING-DONG DITCH (39A: Bell ringer's prank)
- DRESS-DOWN DAYS (46A: Casual office occasions)
Word of the Day: SHAYS's Rebellion (
38D: Daniel who led a 1786-87 rebellion) —
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Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their trades. The fighting took place in the areas around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. Historically, scholars have argued that the four thousand rebels, called Shaysites, who protested against economic and civil rights injustices by the Massachusetts Government were led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays. However, recent scholarship has suggested that Shays's role in the protests was significantly and strategically exaggerated by Massachusetts elites, who had a political interest in shifting blame for bad economic conditions away from themselves.
In 1787, the protestors marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government, severely limited in its prerogatives under the Articles of Confederation, found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion; it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State Militia under William Shepard, alongside a privately funded local militia led by former Continental Army officer Benjamin Lincoln. The widely held view had already developed that the Articles of Confederation were untenable and needed amending, with the events of the rebellion serving as further evidence for the later Constitutional Convention. There is continuing debate among scholars as to what extent the rebellion influenced the later drafting and ratification of the Constitution. (wikipedia)
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Well let's start with the most glaring problem, which is that a large chunk of the NYTXW solver base isn't "printing" anything when they solve the crossword, so the revealer is dead in the water right there. In the pre-internet days, this theme would've worked just fine, but it seems unfit for the digital age. Inapt, or unapt (I forget the difference), for all non-paper solvers. But let's just roll with it and allow that, for today, typing is a form of "printing," so we're all printers now. With that mindset, this theme is just fine. Take a "modern" device and redirect its meaning for punny crossword purposes—that's pretty much the brief. That's what you do. That's puzzle-making 101. The "3D" phrases here are ... fine. Well, half good, half less good. I literally stopped and slumped when I got to the first themer (
DOT DOT DOT), internally howling, "oh no, we are not, in the year of our lord that is this year, going to do a whole-ass Morse Code theme! No. Absolutely not." And the gods heard me and made it so.
DOUBLE-DOG DARE got the puzzle back onto my good side, and essentially gave me the theme (3 x D), although the revealer ... that, I did not see coming. As for the other themers,
DING-DONG DITCH, good,
DRESS-DOWN DAYS, oof, not good at all. I think they're called "Casual Fridays"? That's certainly the informal office-wear concept I'm familiar with. The only one I'm familiar with. Maybe when you wear jorts and flip-flops to the office on
non-Fridays, this is what those days are called. The point is, it doesn't have the cultural resonance or on-the-money-ness of the previous two themers. Not a great way to round out the bunch. But half good / half acceptable is not half bad, and if I imagine it's 1988, then the puzzle's concept works great, and we've probably got ourselves an above-average Tuesday on our hands. Bringin''88 back!
The puzzle's one architectural flourish was that "3" in the themer, the one that crosses "C3PO," which I was never gonna get without the "3" (55D: 11-time sci-fi role for Anthony Daniels). Of course I know the character—"Star Wars" blew my 7yo mind—but wow, 11 times, I had no idea they'd piled on that many garbage sequels to the original trilogy (not all of them! but most of them!), and also, when I've seen that droid's name written in my crossword, it's been the "informal" THREEPIO (see also ARTOO or the more "formal" ARTOO-DETOO). Speaking of formal v. informal, what the hell is going on with the "ON GOD"!? (13D: "My word is my bond," informally). How is "ON GOD" informal? Can you be "informal" and absurdly archaic as well? Who says "ON GOD?" If you said that to me, I'd assume you were challenging me to a sword fight. Me: [brandishing sword at you]. You: [looking surprised]. Me: "Wait, didn't you say 'en garde'? ... no? ... [sheathing sword] phew, good, you had me worried there for a second." I don't know when this phrase is used "formally" or "informally." I know that Canadians stand "ON GOD" for thee, Canada*, but otherwise I don't know what's going on with the phrase, and I cannot believe that whatever is going on, it qualifies as "informal." The fill skewed slightly bad today, sorry to say. ALB IDEM DECI MESO all made me wince a little. THUNDERCLAP is fun, but BURIED ALIVE is grim, no matter how whimsically you try to clue it (26D: Absolutely inundated with work, so to speak). It's not bad fill at all, but neither was it THUNDERCLAP-fun. I've just seen too much rubble this week. Not the puzzle's fault, obviously.
I have to say that of all the modern coinages, YEET is the one I'm always happiest to see (71A: Throw forcefully, in modern parlance). It's such a fun little word. Half sound effect, half dynamic discarding action, there's something playful, succinct, vibrant, and enjoyable about this word. I don't use it, but I like hearing other people use it. It gives me the opposite of that "Get off my lawn! / In my day...!" feeling that is always threatening to bury me alive. Less tweeting, more YEETing. OMG the etymology on this word is crazy. From wiktionary:
Popularized in March 2014 by the "yeet" dance which went viral on the now-defunct video sharing site Vine. The earliest known yeet dance is recorded in a YouTube video uploaded on February 3, 2014. However, examples of the interjection can be [...] found much earlier, including a 1998 use by British presenter Jeremy Clarkson as well as a 2008 definition of "yeet yeet" on Urban Dictionary.
As an expression used when throwing something, apparently coined by Vine user David Banna in a Vine uploaded on or before March 28, 2014 in which he throws a CD and yells out "YEET!", as well as a Vine uploaded April 4, 2014 of a high school student hurling an empty soda can and shouting "This bitch empty! YEET!"
After the 2014 trend, the term faded into relative obscurity before resurging in 2018.
Well, if Vine gave us nothing, it gave us this. Let's all give thanks. And RIP, Vine. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*I’m being told Canadians stand ON GUARD for thee, O Canada, so apologies to my northerly friends
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