Constructor: Doug Peterson and Christina Iverson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
![]()
THEME: none
Word of the Day: PEWIT (47A: Northern lapwing) — ![]()
![]()
About today's constructors: Doug is an old friend. I've never met Christina. OK, now that disclosures are out of the way: This is the best Saturday puzzle I've done in some time. Literal "omg"s and "wows," in all sections of the grid. Even with the awful "AH, ME" waiting there to greet / jeer me at the end (seriously, shoot that answer into the sun), I still finished this one full of good will and hope for the future of crossword humanity. And the grid is totally unassuming. Boring-looking, even. It looks like every other Friday/Saturday grid I've ever seen. No "look at my picture" or "look at my low word count" or nothing, nothing visually remarkable at all. But then you turn this thing on and it just purrs and hums and zooms, crackling with contemporary energy while still maintaining a breadth of cultural and generational perspective. Solid craftsmanship to boot. In short, it is the Friday puzzle I'm always looking for. If you want to give me my ideal Friday puzzle on a Saturday, I am OK with that. I frequently eat Thanksgiving dinner again the very next day because why wouldn't you eat the best meal of the year twice if you had the chance?
![]()
Honestly stunned to find out that all these interlocking answers were right. This was the initial Whoosh that then enabled all the Whooshes still to come. The "O" from POETRY gave me ANTONIO (a guess, but a good one) (23D: U.N. secretary general Guterres), and then I devoured the SW, ending with the perfectly clued BATPOLE (36D: Pillar of the superhero community). SNORKELED also gets a gem of a clue in that section (30D: Did some shallow breathing?). Please note that at this point I'm about halfway through a gorgeous grid and virtually nothing has made me wince or cringe. All your short stuff is inoffensive and staying out of the way of the marquee answers' spotlight. VAR? ONO? TKO? OLIN? Gonna take a Lot more of that, and worse, to take my good time away from me. NOT TODAY, SATAN(ic fill)! (My god what a great center answer...) (34A: Defiant declaration popularized by the drag queen Bianca Del Rio)
![]()
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: PEWIT (47A: Northern lapwing) —
The northern lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), also known as the peewit or pewit, tuit or tewit, green plover, or (in Ireland and Great Britain) pyewipe or just lapwing, is a bird in the lapwing subfamily. It is common through temperate Eurosiberia. // It is highly migratory over most of its extensive range, wintering further south as far as North Africa, northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of China. It migrates mainly by day, often in large flocks. Lowland breeders in westernmost areas of Europe are resident. It occasionally is a vagrant to North America, especially after storms, as in the Canadian sightings after storms in December 1927 and in January 1966. // It is a wader that breeds on cultivated land and other short vegetation habitats. 3–4 eggs are laid in a ground scrape. The nest and young are defended noisily and aggressively against all intruders, up to and including horses and cattle. // In winter, it forms huge flocks on open land, particularly arable land and mud-flats. (wikipedia)
• • •
The first place where I went "Oh, OK, we're doing something today, are we?" was when I wrote in "CAN CONFIRM..." a perfect little colloquial compression, one that I mainly see online rather than hear in conversation ... but so much more of my communication happens online rather than irl now that I'm not a good gauge of how much certain phrases exist off-screen as opposed to on. At any rate, it is a phrase I've seen/heard a lot, that I've used, and I love it. I also loved "ACT NATURAL," which is such a goofy comedy-scene-about-to-happen thing to say—a great intro answer to the puzzle. I got that NW corner sorted and prepared to whack my way into the thick middle of the grid, when I accidentally entered warp mode and bleep bloop zip I was clear on the other side of the grid:
"WHY NOT BOTH?" is an ultracommon internet meme, while also being just an ordinary expression one might say. It works on ... both ... levels. You don't gotta be extremely online to love it, But It Helps. When I entered the home stretch and saw EMBIGGENS—a "Simpsons" coinage from the peak years of that show (my years of peak obsession), first heard in the voice of the late great Phil Hartman in the role of Troy McClure, who plays Springfield town founder Jebediah Springfield in a cheaply made and outlandishly historically implausible educational film shown to the children of Springfield elementary—I say, once I saw this answer, well, I knew the puzzle was made just for me, with my best interests at heart, and I thanked it. Then "AH, ME" showed up and I wanted to kick it, but instead I just affectionately mussed its hair, called it a lovable scamp, and sent it back to whatever hellhole it lives in on off days.
There was one sort of tough choke point for me in today's solve, and that was on the drop into the SE corner. I had TOBEY, and I kinda wanted SERAPH at 39D: Heavenly being, but I also wanted "YOU'RE OUT!" at 35D: Words to end a play ("YOUR TURN"), and I really Really wanted SOB at 49A: Break down, in a way (ROT). So I floundered a bit. But once I committed (tentatively) to SERAPH, I could see that the first word of 58-Across wanted to be "WHY..." so I tested that "W" and got TOW and that was that. Off I went again. The only other problem I had today was coming up with DUCK EGG, a "shade" I've never heard of (28A: Shell-inspired shade of greenish blue). Eventually I had the DUCK and thought, "well, three letters, must be the duck's EGG," and then the "G" was confirmed by EMBIGGENS (cue Hallelujah chorus) and all my problems were over. Really really loved the way this puzzle UNFOLDED (7D: Played out). Just a ton of fun.
Additional notes:
- 20A: Fish also known as wahoo (ONO)— this is a really good bit of trivia to know for crosswords. Yoko has to work so hard; sometimes she just needs a break. Also, you sometimes see WAHOO in the puzzle clued as a fish, so tuck that info away for later.
- 40A: Safari destinations (URLS) — Apple's web browser is named Safari. I'm using it right now.
- 10D: The Eagle, e.g., for short (LEM)— realizing now that I don't know what the "E" stands for. I think the "L" and "M" are "lunar module" ... let's see ... aha, "Excursion"! Lunar Excursion Module. "The Eagle" was made famous with the 1969 moon-landing announcement, "The Eagle has landed."
- 26D: What might be heard before a bust ("HIT ME!") — oh, this was also hard. I was thinking maybe a drug bust ("OPEN UP!"???) or a breakage of some sort ("OOPS!"??), but it's Blackjack.
- 33A: Founder of the Shondaland production company (RHIMES) — this was a gimme except I spelled it RHINES. Logic: "No, LeAnn RIMES is the singer, Shonda must be a RHINES, with an 'N'"). Sigh, AH ME, etc.