Constructor: Gary Larson
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: Add a ZEE (63D: Appropriate letter to end this puzzle on)— "Z"s are added to the ends of ordinary phrases, creating wacky phrases, which are clued wackily (i.e. "?"-style):
Theme answers:![]()
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Extreme throwback puzzle! From the theme to the fill, this one is straight outta the 20th century, a solid representative of the very tried and very true add-a-letter theme. Add letter, stir, voila! Wackiness! In fact, don't even stir, just stick it there on the end, that's it, instant theme! This basic recipe was once the foundation of countless puzzles. And then, like the buffalo, such puzzles were hunted to near extinction. But just as you can still occasionally see buffalo, if you're driving across the country and look hard enough, so you (apparently) can still see the add-a-letter theme, lumbering across the occasional grid. Only one of these near-extinctions is truly tragic. Still, done right, you can, in fact, wring some pretty high-grade wackiness out of the simple add-a-letter thematic concept. Oldies *can* be goodies. This one, however, felt more oldie than goodie to me, not just because of the theme, but because of dated (or, if you're feeling more generous, "retro") fill—short stuff like ARP and Disco STU and OTOE and SOG, but also longer stuff like EDASNER, STEELIE, and RAINHAT. Remember playing with your STEELIE in your RAINHAT? Because your GRANNY let you play marbles during thunderstorms? Good times. Few things say "yesteryear" more than "types of marbles," and I don't know when's the last time I saw a human wearing a RAINHAT, but STEELIE and RAINHAT *are* words and they *do* fit in the grid, so you just gotta roll with it, I guess.
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Hardest parts for me were the brand names, ZICAM and T/GEL. I forgot the former existed, and then the latter I always get confused with the kitchenware T-FAL or the *other* Neutrogena shampoo T/SAL. Also, I had the -EL and briefly thought "... PREL?" (Nope, two "L"s, for sure). I also forgot the ATLAS Mountains existed, which made getting into the SW corner slightly tougher than it might've been. Struggled to get RED because the clue made no sense to me at first (1A: Half of an orange?), which was the point, I suppose. RED is half of orange (the other half being yellow), but it's not half of "an" orange ... hence the question mark, question mark? My favorite mistake came at 6D: Handle that goes up and down? (OTIS). The clue meant "up and down" as in elevators (OTIS is the elevator guy), but I thought "up and down" meant "reading the same, up and down," i.e. palindromic, so I confidently wrote in OTTO. My least favorite mistake was writing in SKID for 27D: Lost traction (SLID) and wondering why it seemed both right and wrong simultaneously (right idea, wrong verb tense).
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- STAYING PUTZ (16A: Obnoxious houseguest?)
- ANTI-GEN Z (21A: Not a fan of postmillennials?)
- BOW SPRITZ (35A: Bit of water splashed on a ship's front?)
- SANTA FEZ (53A: Cap worn at a Shriners Christmas party?)
- MOCKING JAY-Z (60A: Making fun of Beyoncé's beau?)
The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around 2,500 km (1,600 mi) through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The range's highest peak is Toubkal, which is in central Morocco, with an elevation of 4,167 metres (13,671 ft). The Atlas mountains are primarily inhabited by Berber populations.
The terms for 'mountain' are Adrar and adras in some Berber languages, and these terms are believed to be cognates of the toponym Atlas. The mountains are home to a number of animals and plants which are mostly found within Africa but some of which can be found in Europe. Many of these species are endangered and a few are already extinct. The weather is generally cool but has sunny summers, and the average temperature there is 25 °C. (wikipedia)
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The only question today is "Was It Wacky Enough For You?" For me, not really, though STAYING PUTZ and SANTA FEZ do rise to the occasion, I think. But having to say the "Z" out loud (as you do with two of these themers) kinda defeatz the purpose of wacky Z-addition, I think. And in general, the wackiness just doesn't have adequate zing. You would expect water to be "splashed on a ship's front," so despite the wacky sprit-to-spritz change, the wackiness of BOWSPRITZ doesn't really register. It's all just a bit too tepid. And that "revealer," yeesh. SHISH. Oof. The definition of "anticlimax." That's it? Just ... ZEE? I mean, I see you have it at the "end" there, so it's "appropriate," as you say, in its way, and yet it still hits with a loud thud.
Theme clue wording felt weird at times. "Postmillennials" feels dated / off. If you google "postmillennial" you'll learn all about the ... well, first, you'll see something about a rightwing Canadian website that spreads disinformation about all kinds of things, but *then* you'll see reference to the actual Christian end-times belief, "postmillennialism."
In Christian eschatology (end-times theology), postmillennialism, or postmillenarianism, is an interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation which sees Christ's second coming as occurring after(Latin post-) the "Millennium", a Golden Age in which Christian ethics prosper. The term subsumes several similar views of the end times, and it stands in contrast to premillennialism and, to a lesser extent, amillennialism (see Summary of Christian eschatological differences). (wikipedia)
I guess before pollsters sorted out what the hell to call the generation after "millennials," they called them "post-millennials," but that didn't last. And is Jay-Z Beyoncé's "beau"? He's her husband. "Beau" implies something non-marital to me—premarital, in fact. A suitor. But I know how hard it is to lay off the alliteration—"Beyoncé's beau" must've been tempting, however technically inapt.
Hope the wackiness met your standards today, or at least entertained you sufficiently, such that you did not DOZE OFF. See you tomorrow, I hope.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. DAN is an [Apt name for a sensei] because DAN is the word for a level or rank in various martial arts.
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