Constructor: Victor Barocas
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed)
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THEME: MOVE DOVER (62A: Change a map of southern England? ... or, when parsed differently, what you need to do to the answers to the starred clues) — familiar phrases are clued in wacky ways that make sense only if you ... MOVE "D" OVER (i.e. make it the first letter of the second word instead of the last letter of the first):
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed)
Theme answers:
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Kind of a placeholder puzzle. It's got a real basic core concept that renders the kind of low-key, mostly sub-chuckle wackiness that I associate with last-century puzzles. But the revealer really saves it from outright ordinariness and blandness. MOVE DOVER has the kind of big, weird wackiness that wacky puzzles need if they're gonna work (nothing worse than tepid wackiness). There's something so strange and improbable and cartography-specific about moving Dover. Like, where did you have it in the first place? In a Bristol suburb? I also just like imagining that "MOVE DOVER!" is some kind of all-hands-on-deck cartographical emergency, like an alarm is going off and siren lights are flashing in some secret subterranean mapmaking lair. 'The Queen's atlas is wrong! All wrong! MOVE DOVER! I repeat, MOVE DOVER!" So the puzzle put that image in my mind, if nothing else. Also, I like that the revealer is itself a theme answer. Usually revealers just point at the themers, but this one exemplifies *and* explains the theme concept. Neat trick. I also like that the best of the rest of the themers is sitting midpuzzle, in a marquee position. FORGED ALLIANCES is the biggest of the lot, and also the one that has the most transformative power, i.e. the biggest sound change (ALLIANCES to DALLIANCES, with the stress moving from the "I" to the first "A"). So the theme idea is a bit dull, but at least one of the first four themers came to play, and the revealer had enough juice to make the whole endeavor seem worth it. Arguably. I don't know if I'm arguing that, but it's arguable.
- SPICE DRUM (17A: *Large container for cinnamon or coriander?)
- LOVE DONE (21A: *Gist of a Dear John letter?)
- FORGE DALLIANCES (39A: *Play matchmaker?)
- CHIME DIN (54A: *Tinkling racket on a windy day?)
Nel Ust Wyclef Jean (/ˈwaɪklɛf ˈʒɒ̃/ WHY-clef; born October 17, 1969) is a Haitian rapper and musician. At the age of nine, Jean immigrated to the United States with his family. He first achieved fame as a founding member, co-producer and guitarist of the New Jersey hip hop trio The Fugees, alongside Lauryn Hill and Pras Michel. The group released the albums Blunted on Reality (1994) and The Score (1996), the latter becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. Jean would follow this with the release of his first solo studio album, Wyclef Jean Presents The Carnival (1997), which contains the top ten hit "Gone till November". [...] He is the recipient of three Grammy Awards, the BET Humanitarian Award, and a Vanguard Award from the NAACP Image Awards, in addition to being nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his musical work. In 2011, President Michel Martelly of Haiti awarded Jean with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Officer. Jean has also been inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. // Named after the biblical scholar John Wycliffe, Wyclef Jean was born in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti on October 17, 1969. (wikipedia) (my surprised emph.)
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The rest of the puzzle had fewer high points. Like the theme concept, it felt old. Creaky. Lots and lots of names, and lots and lots of things that felt last-century, including (especially?) EGG TIMERS. Do those still exist? Don't we just call them ... timers, now? I guess traditional EGG TIMERS came in the form of miniature hourglasses. So ... not so much last century as the century (and many centuries) before that. It's supposed to measure the time it takes to boil an egg. You're probably using your phone or your microwave timer at this point. I wonder if people under 40 have even heard of EGG TIMERS. Or TALIA Shire. Or "Remington STEELE" (9D: 1980s TV role for Brosnan). These answers were all right over the plate for me, but then again I'm old. Wyclef-JEAN old (seriously, we were born one month apart! It goes Wyclef JEAN, me, Jay-Z—your important late-'69 birthdays!).
AISLED is bleh (41D: Designed with passageways), but mostly the fill just feels stale. ENOLA ADESTE IDES OREO OPEC ANTE INBED DOSED (a verb I only see in xwords). And names. A ton of names. TALIA DRNO IDRIS EMMA EZRA ELSA JEAN STEELE. Even the longer answers feel last century. Is RAISIN BRAN still a big seller (3D: Kellogg's cereal with a purple box)? Do people still play CANDYLAND? (10D: Game with Lollipop Woods and Gumdrop Mountains) This puzzle feels like it's from my teenage years. Except for E*TRADE. But when your one (non-IDRIS) modern answer is E*TRADE, which is itself old by now, I don't think you've improved things much. It's good for puzzles to have some balance, but this one feels heavily tilted toward yesteryear. Clues on TESLA (33D: Automaker with a Cybertruck) and EMMA (5A: Stone on a set) and ENOLA (27D: "___ Holmes" (streaming film about Sherlock's sister) try their best to add some currency, but to little avail.
This was a typically easy Tuesday puzzle in most respects. Hardest part for me, by far, was the 1-Across / 1-Down crossing. I have no idea where EZRA is in the Bible, it turns out (1A: Book after II Chronicles). If it's a book of the Bible in four letters, I tend to want ACTS, but not today! And that clue on ELSA, yeesh (1D: Woman's name that's also the first four letters of a Central American country name). You really have to run through your Central American rolodex before you alight on EL SAlvador. I didn't even bother to try—just got the letter entirely from crosses. After that, my only stumbles were FORMED ALLIANCES (instead of FORGED) and a bizarre inability to get INCENTIVES, even after I had IN-ENTI-ES in place (31D: Deal sweeteners). Kept seeing INTESTINES. Sigh. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld