Constructor: Natan Last
Relative difficulty: Easy-Challenging (80% cake ... and then the southeast corner)
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: ALLIE B. Latimer (2D: ___ B. Latimer, civil rights activist in the National Women's Hall of Fame) —
WEDDING RINGS—that's it. That's the story of this puzzle in two words. The tragic story of this puzzle. And things were going so well for me! I was having a delightful spin around the grid, pointing in recognition at so many things I love. "Hey there, poetry! How ya doin'?! Baseball! My man, what is up? Ooh, look, STUNT DOGS, hello buddies! And .. wait ... holy cow, is that ... are those cats!? Sitting in boxes! Oh my god I gotta go say hi to them!" Just enjoying the hell out of myself, frankly. So pleased, so ... well, confident. Once I got a little bit into that fat middle section, I dropped WEDDING RINGS like it was nothing, casually. I didn't even bother following it down to the bottom of the grid to check crosses because, I mean, WEDDING RINGS, what else was it gonna be? (18D: Altar exchange). It was like I put a stake in the SE corner and thought "I'll be back to finish you off later." And so the middle went down and the SW went down and finally I headed over to the SE corner to close things out ... and promptly got flattened. Now, if I'd, say, paid attention to the informal names of bygone sedans (?) or played Zelda, ever (ha) (39D: Currency in The Legend of Zelda = RUPEE), or could've pulled the name of the artist on a two-decade-old rap song out of my hat (I had a different SEAN in my head the whole time, ugh), I might have realized the RINGS problem more quickly, and made a reasonably expeditious if not terribly graceful exit from this puzzle. But no. Instead I invented an informal name for the bygone sedan (the EXO!) (46D: Discontinued Mitsubishi sports sedan, informally), convinced myself that an English word means something it does not mean (EXIGENT!) (48A: Clear), and ... and ... and ... sputtered.
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But so intractable did the resulting rat's nest of letters prove that I knew I had something wrong. The problem was, I had no idea what, and so, masterfully, I pulled out ... STIHL! [Exceedingly deep sigh]. If only I could've seen TAX CUT!!! (31D: Stereotypical campaign promise). But that was not to be. At some point ... no idea how long it took me ... I started to pull things back to the studs (keep in mind—I thought RINGS *was* a stud). Out went the "X" in EXO/EXIGENT and then by some miracle EVIDENT sprang to mind for [Clear] and I thought, but it can't be, that would mean RINGS is ... wr- ... RING is wr- ... wrong!? EVIDENT to ***BANDS*** to all the dominoes falling in quick succession, the end.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Challenging (80% cake ... and then the southeast corner)
Word of the Day: ALLIE B. Latimer (2D: ___ B. Latimer, civil rights activist in the National Women's Hall of Fame) —
Allie B. Latimer (born February 16, 1928, in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania) was the first woman and the first African American to serve as General Counsel of a major United States federal agency. In her work to bring the government into compliance with the Civil Rights Act, she founded and developed Federally Employed Women (FEW) and worked to end gender discrimination in public sector jobs throughout her 40+ year career. According to the National Women's Hall of Fame, “FEW’s many accomplishments and activities have impacted the federal workplace and contributed to improved working conditions for all.” [...]
• • •
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| [Don't look at me, Alfie, you're on your own] |
It seems hard to believe that I could get so far into the puzzle and not just ... close it out! It's not like I had nothing down there. I was able to guess DORSET (50A: ___ Horn (British sheep breed)) and drive TENANT through that section (35D: Lease signatory) and from there pick up TSK and TATA and KATYandSTIHL!!! (32D: Big name in power tools)
My main issue with the "spare tire" thing was I didn't really think they were going to make a fat joke. So even though fat-around-the-gut was the first thing I thought of for "spare tire," I kept retreating back to literal, boot-of-the-car spare tire in my mind. But the real problem all along was RINGS. I could blame the rapper or the video game, but all that stuff fell into place when I made the simple (yet nearly impossible) move from RINGS to BANDS. The rest of the puzzle? My joyful romp? It's a misty memory now. Not a false memory, though. It was definitely a good time while it lasted.
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| [aka Civilization and Its Discontents] |
It did take a little pushing to get into that fat center of the grid. I wasn't entirely sure about INSTANT WIN, given how the clue was phrased (didn't seem like a "yield" to me, exactly) (6D: Yield of some scratch-off tickets), and so I kinda held back there. I also had BLOOD VESSELS in there before the obvious "MAD" forced me to reconsider (37A: "We're all ___ here. I'm ___. You're ___": Cheshire Cat). I had some trouble getting all those long central Acrosses from their back ends, but once the STREAMS part of BLOODSTREAMS and the WEDDING part of WEDDING RINGS (argh) went in, I got SOUND BITE and the center toppled over easily. NUNHOOD! Can't decide if that's terrible or my favorite thing in the grid! If you can have PRIESTHOOD, why not NUNHOOD!?
Bullet points:
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- 7A: Dock ___, pitcher who claimed to have thrown a no-hitter on LSD in 1970 (ELLIS) — there's an entertaining documentary about this on Netflix. Or there was. Looks like it's not there anymore. You can watch it free (with ads) on Tubi. It's called "No No: A Dockumentary." Recommended.
- 23A: Talk trashed? (SLUR)— really thought this clue was insulting people with speech impediments ("you talk like trash, loser!") but then realized that "trashed" here meant "drunk"; when you're drunk you might SLUR your words. Fair enough.
- 38A: Event of 1/31/2020 (BREXIT) — I remember the vote. That happened in the summer some time (2016, I think). The actual Day Of ... total unknown to me. Jan. 31, 2020, you say? I believe you.
- 14D: Comedian who played Louie the Lilac on "Batman" (BERLE) — wow, reaching back for this one. I had no idea Milton BERLE was ever on the Adam West "Batman" TV show! That is the "Batman" we're talking about. They didn't bring BERLE back in hologram form for the 2022 "Batman" movie, did they!?
- 12A: Place for some nonstarters (BULLPEN) — in baseball, relief pitchers (i.e. non-starters) come out of the BULLPEN (a kind of holding room typically found beyond the outfield, behind the wall)
- 13A: Currency that replaced the British West African pound (LEONE) — Crosswordese to the rescue! I have no idea where, exactly, this is a currency, but I know that it *is* a currency because ... crosswords! (It will perhaps shock you, as it did me, to learn that the LEONE is the currency of ... Sierra LEONE)
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