Constructor: Nathan Hale
Relative difficulty: Medium (4:10) (maybe skewing Medium-Challenging, depending on how easily (or not) you grasped the theme concept)
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THEME: CROSSED A BEAR (51A: Betrayed Paddington? ... or what 20-, 34- and 41-Across did in this puzzle) — puns that change familiar phrases containing "to" into verb phrases containing "-ED A" (as exemplified by the revealer itself). First three themers all literally CROSS(ED) A BEAR (a pun on "cross to bear"):
Theme answers:
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Well it's ambitious, I'll give it that. It's also a corny mess. It's like you found one kinda funny pun ("cross to bear" / CROSSED A BEAR) and then built a really shaky shack of a house on top of it. None of the other puns come close to the near-funniness of CROSSED A BEAR. I never understood what the themers were doing, or at least not enough for it to be of any help. The non-theme stuff was pretty easy, but there was not a single themer that made any sense to me as I was solving, both because they were super-contrived and because the clues were way too vague to get me there. READIED A ROCK? got the READIED part and then tried to think of some short word for "slingshot." So much torture being inflicted on that pun. And BACKED A WORK? Just ... A WORK? How am I supposed to get to something so stupidly general from something as incredibly specific as "Broadway." A WORK? A WORK could be annnnyyyything. So solving this puzzle was a slog—a never-clicking slog. At the end, there was definitely an aha moment. But that's because, as I say, the revealer works best, of all these dumb puns. Which reminds me: what added to my confusion about the theme was those damn bears, which I didn't know were bears, but which I could see were in gray squares. So confusing to hit themer material in the Acrosses but also have these obviously thematic answers going Down ... which were not clued in any seemingly thematic way (just marked by grayness). I eventually totally forgot about the gray answers, until the revealer made me look again. I do think the revealer pun is good, and that the ambition is admirable. But there was no part of solving this that was pleasurable. The non-theme stuff was forgettable, mostly; the fill skewed SO-SO (e.g. APR, DEE) to sub-SO-SO (e.g. BREA, APIS) (likely because the theme was so dense); and putting together every themer was like pulling teeth.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Relative difficulty: Medium (4:10) (maybe skewing Medium-Challenging, depending on how easily (or not) you grasped the theme concept)
Theme answers:
- READIED A ROCK ("ready to rock!") crossing TEDDY (20A: Prepared to fight Goliath? / 6D: Presidential nickname of the early 20th century)
- TIMED A GET-UP ("time to get up!") crossing SMOKEY (34A: Practiced changing one's costume by the clock? / 29D: Motown legend Robinson)
- BACKED A WORK ("back to work!") crossing BOO-BOO (41A: Invested on Broadway, say? / 24D: Owie)
Gregg Charles Popovich (born January 28, 1949) is an American professional basketball coach and executive who is the president and head coach for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Popovich has been a member of the Spurs organization since 1994, as president of basketball operations and general manager before taking over as coach of the Spurs in 1996. Popovich is the longest tenured active coach in the NBA as well as all other major sports leagues in the United States. Nicknamed "Coach Pop", Popovich has the most wins of any coach in NBA history, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in NBA history. [...] In 1979, Popovich was named the head coach of the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, the joint men's basketball team of Pomona College and Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Popovich coached the Pomona-Pitzer men's basketball team from 1979 to 1988, leading the team to its first outright title in 68 years. (wikipedia)
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Outside of the theme, not much going on. I wish they wouldn't "?" clues for answers that are long and Across when theme answers are long and Across and also feature "?" clues. Very confusing to get to the end and see what looks like yet another themer ... only to have it just be a non-thematic POLYGRAPH. Great answer, but terrible, terrible clue (61A: Something you shouldn't take lying down?). How does the "down" part work here? I get that you shouldn't take it "lying" (because it's a lie detector—hurray, more puns). But what is "down" doing? What's the pun part there? Is the "?" on the clue supposed to mean "hey, just ignore 'down,' it doesn't work, I just can't stop punning"? No real trouble with anything else. GRASP for USURP at first (1A: Seize), and WIG for RUG (58D: Toupee, slangily). Oh, and OTOS for OTOE, which made my thematic adventures even more gunked up (BACKS DA WORK!?!?). OTOS hasn't been seen since 2021, but it has a long history. OTOE is better, but that's not the word my fingers typed in, alas. Managed to guess correctly on the BILLS/BEAKS kealoa* at 31D: Prominent parts of toucans. Managed to actually *use* my recently acquired Word of the Day knowledge to retrieve Chris REDD (who was Word of the Day back on Jan. 11). But that didn't keep me from writing his name as MichaelREDD just now (Michael REDD was an NBA All-Star in the Aughts). REDD Foxx has really been put out to pasture, which is too bad. He was a funny (and *dirty*) comedian, and his sitcom still has the greatest TV theme song of all time.
Big month for ELON! (37A: Private university of North Carolina). Three appearances just this month, two as the University. That's two more appearances than women made as solo constructors on the byline this month. You are reading that right. There was not a single puzzle made by a solo woman constructor in the entire month of January (there were twenty-three (23!) such puzzles by men). Further, counting all co-constructors as a half, there were only three women total. That's an overall "balance" in the month of January of 28 men to 3 women. This (enormous) discrepancy simply isn't happening at other major (and minor) outlets. New Yorker is roughly half and half, by design. Last I checked, USA Today was majority women in January. I'll stop talking about this issue til the end of next month, but this is the worst month for gender imbalance that I can remember. Ever. And I blogged through the very worst years of it (late '00s through mid-'10s).
I managed to maintain a NYTXW spreadsheet for the whole first month of the year, which means I can easily look back at every theme, every Word of the Day, every ranking (1-100) I assigned to every puzzle (for my eyes only). I can see quickly which day of the week I'm liking most (Friday) and least (Sunday), and what the gender balance is (see above). This makes it easy to compile my Puzzles of the Month (a regular feature from now on, I hope!!). Three exceptional puzzles each month: two themed, one themeless. These are my January 2024 Puzzles of the Month:
Themed:
- Damon Gulczynksi, "Y =X" (Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024)
- Jake Halperin, "BIRDS AND BEES" (Monday, Jan. 22, 2024)
Themeless:
- Hoang-Kim Vu (Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024) (THIS IS POINTLESS, ABOVE MY PAY GRADE, etc.)
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. EARL is [Rank associated with tea and sandwiches?] because of EARL Grey tea and the eponymous EARL of Sandwich
*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
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