Constructor: Tracy Bennett
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: sadly, no ("Freestyling")
Word of the Day: OSWALD (37A: ___ the Lucky Rabbit, character in early Disney shorts) —
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I opened the puzzle and immediately went "Themelessssssss nooooooooo." Sigh. They must just have a bunch of these produced in-house and ready to go when they're Sunday stack gets too low or too sad. I dunno. Nothing says "We give up!" like a "Freestyling" Sunday. Yes, there are some lovely long answers in here, but when you have this enormous canvas, they somehow don't mean as much. Put long answers here, there, who cares. Without a theme to hold it together, the Sunday grid is just ... big. I've said all this before. It's true that *themed* puzzles are so often disappointing precisely because themes are hard to carry out well over so much ground (i.e. a 21x21 grid). And yet I have much more respect for the *attempt* at a Sunday theme than I do for the cynical shrug of a "Freestyling" Sunday. And here's the thing ... Freestyle puzzles typically have a lower word count, as this one does (relative to typical, themed Sundays). That's how I knew instantly, before even seeing the title, that this thing was gonna be a themeless. Grid was just way too wide-open to be themed. But when you drop the word count, you strain the grid. The trick of a good themeless is to get a bunch of real winners in there without also ending up with too many losers weighing the puzzle down. And today, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can compensate for EONIAN and MULCTS (8D: Lasting for an immeasurable time span and 44D: Compulsory payments of old). I mean, WACKADOODLE, FORCEFIELD, ESTROGEN PATCH, nice nice nice, but those pretty much fell into place, and as I say, with this much real estate, I expect there to be a healthy number of good answers. But EONIAN. And MULCTS. Those did *not* fall into place. I spent *time* with those. Time I will not get back. Time heals all wounds, but it also creates wounds, leaves scars, produces lasting trauma. This puzzle made me spend time with EONIAN and MULCTS. So that is what I remember. "Long have I toiled in the EONIAN MULCTS ...," sang the epic poet about this puzzle ...
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: OSWALD (37A: ___ the Lucky Rabbit, character in early Disney shorts) —
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit, Oswald Rabbit, or simply Oswald) is an animated cartoon character created in 1927 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in several animated short films released to theaters from 1927 to 1938. Twenty-seven animated Oswald shorts were produced at the Walt Disney Studio.[8] After the control of Oswald's character was taken in 1928, Disney created a new character similar in appearance to Oswald as a replacement: Mickey Mouse, who went on to become one of the most famous cartoon characters in the world.
In 2003, Buena Vista Games pitched a concept for an Oswald-themed video game to then-Disney President and future-CEO Bob Iger, who became committed to acquiring the rights to Oswald. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company acquired the trademark of Oswald (with NBCUniversal effectively trading Oswald for the services of Al Michaels as play-by-play announcer on NBC Sunday Night Football). [ed: what the!?] (wikipedia)
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You know what's a great phrase: TAKE A POWDER! That and "Take the air!" which now mostly means just "go outdoors," but which used to (ca. 1920s) mean "beat it!" or "leave!" just like TAKE A POWDER. I live for hardboiled slang, old-movie slang, TRUMAN-ERA slang. It's great. My favorite thing in the puzzle by far. Less (far less) enamored with PR TALK (41A: "Media impressions,""influencer marketing," etc., informally). The "TALK" part just felt so arbitrary. And oof the "T" crossed the horrid DETS (which I had as TECS at first) (33D: Investigators, Abbr.). That NE corner was probably the hardest part for me, in that I couldn't make any of the Acrosses work despite having the first first three letters of all of them. One issue was that I had OREN instead of ORAN (16D: Port city in Algeria). And I just watched Casablanca, too! Pretty sure they mention it. Really thought it was OREN. What Is OREN Then!? Gah, looks like it's just a name. ORAN is the place. You'd think I'd know that by now, ORAN being rather old-school crosswordese. Anyway, CLONING / AIRASIA / DRAGONS, none of them would go Across, so I had to come at the corner from below, which is where all the PR TALK and DETS were. The one other part of the puzzle where I really struggled was when I confidently went TITLED / GIGS at 72A: Given the name / 69D: Units of RAM, for short. Doesn't RAM come in GIGS? Yes, yes it does. Anyway, TITLED / GIGS absolutely paralyzed me. Getting from TITLED to the (much worse) TERMED was the big struggle of the day. Thankfully, my knowledge of Truman's presidential term helped me finally dislodge TERMED and get back on my feet again.
I had trouble with the GOBI part of ALOO GOBI (63D: Indian dish of potatoes and cauliflower). RIFFLES is a silly word (92A: Leafs), but it had to be RIFFLES, not RUFFLES, so all the crosses on GOBI felt, ultimately, fair. Had some trouble also with the back ends of the Acrosses in the SE, particularly REMIND ME ___ (87A: Prompt from the chronically forgetful), and FANTASY ___ (93A: Set of books with maps, perhaps). REMIND ME ... LATER? FANTASY ... SPORTS? Wanted some kind of word for "atlas" but couldn't come up with one. SERIES ended up being a real let-down. 91A: Walk in place? feels kind of icky, or at least iffy, as a clue for FRONT ENTRANCE. You're using "Walk in" adjectivally, so it should technically be hyphenated, but ... once again, horseshoes / hand grenades / "?" clues. Close enough. If you just *hear* the clue, instead of read it, it's pretty clever.
Nothing else to say about this one, except I'm pretty pleased that I bothered to explain DLINE *and* OLINE yesterday. I hope that benefitted at least one person out there today (45A: QB-protecting group). See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. It's the last day of Peter Gordon's "B-t-Z Vwllss Crsswrds" Kickstarter, and since I love vowelless crosswords so much, I'm gonna repost my plug from a few weeks ago:
One of the great joys in my puzzle-solving life is when Fireball Crosswords decides (once a year?) to a do a vowelless crossword. These are regular crossword puzzles in every respect but one—no vowels appear in the grid. You just omit them when entering the answers. I find this extra challenge delightful. It also means I get more bang for my puzzling buck, because these puzzles generally take me a little longer to solve. So I am happy to see that Peter Gordon and Frank Longo have a Kickstarter going for "B-t-Z Vwllss Crsswrds"—"Twice a week for 13 weeks you’ll get a 9×11 crossword puzzle in which you enter only the consonants. The letter Y is not part of any answer. Each puzzle will use all 20 consonants." That's 26 puzzles by two of the best puzzlemakers in the country for just $14 (!?). Trust me, I am not steering you wrong here. Go do the sample Vowelless puzzle on their site right now if you're not sure what the no-vowels solving experience is like. If you are even a little bit of a puzzle junkie, I'll be surprised if you aren't hooked. Also makes a very affordable gift for the puzzle-lover in your life.
It's the gift-giving season, so treat yourself. Treat your puzzle-loving partner / kid / grandparent. And you can back Peter's long-running and popular "Fireball Newsflash Crosswords" while you're at it :)
P.P.S. Me to my wife just now: "I don't know how I knew the rabbit." Wife: "You teach comics, you know about animation..." Me: "Yeah, but I looked up the rabbit and I didn't really recognize it. I was picturing something more like Ha- ... oh my god, Harvey! OSWALD! Harvey OSWALD!"
