Constructor: Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley
Relative difficulty: Medium for the most part, but Challenging in one particular area
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: NAZCA LINES (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert) —
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Which is to say that the real culprit was "BOOM! ROASTED!" (31A: Someone better call the fire department, because you just got burned!"). I can (now) imagine someone's saying this, but I had no idea this was something that could be a standalone phrase. The "BOOM!" part feels particularly ... ad-libbed or tacked-on or something. Like, "ROASTED!" would be enough, and you might say any number of things before it, like variants of "oh" or "ooh." In case the context for all this is not at all clear to you, both the clue and the answer are things one might say to someone who just got verbally humiliated by someone else. A third-party comment on a withering insult. My problem was that I was thinking of the clue as a type of thing one might say; that is, I kept treating the clue like it had an "e.g." after it, as if the answer were going to be the category of thing that the quotation belonged to. Or maybe I was looking for a word describing what happens when someone insults you like that. If someone roasts you on Zoom, have you been ZOOMROASTED? Roasted while doomscrolling ... DOOMROASTED? It was only when I firmly told myself that "the answer is going to be a spoken equivalent of the clue" that I thought of "BOOM! ROASTED!" That would mean that 31D: Dips, so to speak would have to be BAILS. I reasoned that if you were bailing out a boat that was filled with water, you would have to "dip" your pail or bucket repeatedly into water in order to do so. So in went the "B" and "Congratulations!" went my solving software. It was only later, when contemplating how flimsy that BAILS clue seemed, that I realized that "Dips" (like BAILS) is slang for "leaves, departs."
Notes:
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Relative difficulty: Medium for the most part, but Challenging in one particular area
Word of the Day: NAZCA LINES (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert) —
The Nazca lines (/ˈnɑːzkə/, /-kɑː/) are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BC and 500 AD by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and leaving different-colored dirt exposed. There are two major phases of the Nazca lines, Paracas phase, from 400 to 200 BC, and Nazca phase, from 200 BC to 500 AD. In the years leading up to 2020, between 80 and 100 new figures had been found with the use of drones, and archaeologists believe that there are more to be found.Most lines run straight across the landscape, but there are also figurative designs of animals and plants. The combined length of all the lines is more than 1,300 km (800 mi), and the group covers an area of about 50 km2 (19 sq mi). The lines are typically 10 to 15 cm (4–6 in) deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown ferric oxide–coated pebbles to reveal a yellow-grey subsoil. The width of the lines varies considerably, but more than half are slightly more than 33 cm (13 in) wide. In some places they may be only 30 cm (12 in) wide, and in others reach 1.8 m (6 ft) wide. [...]
The figures vary in complexity. Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs, including a hummingbird, arachnid, fish, condor, heron, monkey, lizard, dog, cat, and a human. Other shapes include trees and flowers. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them. They were designated in 1994 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (wikipedia)
• • •
A properly hard Saturday that would've been reasonably enjoyable were it not for the way it ended. I kept expecting one particular answer to become clear as I got crosses, but that kept not happening. By the end, I had everything filled in except:
- everything NE of EROSION;
- the "NA" in NAZCALINES (which I was reading as one word, and which I really tried to make MEZCALINES) (little agave-flavored cookies?) (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert);
- the first letter in -AILS (31D: Dips, so to speak)
The modern slang of "Dips" crossing the modern slang of "BOOM! ROASTED!" ... that's a puzzle that's intentionally trying to exclude a whole (older, I guess) demographic. It's a weird choice to clue BAILS that way given how weird / hard you know "BOOM! ROASTED!" is going to play. It'll be hard to parse even for people familiar with the expression. To be extra clear, the primary problem isn't the answers or clues themselves, it's the crossing. Anyway, the puzzle fizzled out for me at the end there as I wrestled with a slang phrase that didn't even end up seeming like a solidly standalone expression (although compared to HAD NO OOMPH, it looks rock solid, YEESH—HAD NO OOMPH has big ATE A SANDWICH energy, although props for the tic-tac-toe win!). It's weird—the answer I didn't know at all (NAZCA LINES) didn't bother me one bit. That is, it didn't make me annoyed or upset or even terribly frustrated. I just figured it out from crosses, as one does sometimes. But "BOOM! ROASTED!" ... I dunno. The fact that I've kinda sorta heard it but that it feels forced and awkward as a standalone answer—plus the fact that it's Trying So Damn Hard to be cool—that, I found off-putting (if I google it and all I get are memes from "The Office," is it really cool, tho?). Thank god for WOOKIEES, or I don't know how I'd've gotten any real traction in the NE (getting absolutely no momentum coming out of the center of the grid)—although I will admit I tried to make George Lucas's dog into some kind of EWOK (EWOK BABY?) before remembering Chewy existed (10D: Creatures inspired by George Lucas's dog).
The rest of the puzzle ... happened. I think it was just a regular proper decent Saturday. Loved the idea of a FRIEND DATE at the LESBIAN BAR. Loved the SPOONERISM clue (52A: Chew the doors, e.g.). Wasn't sure "do the chores" was a particularly good standalone phrase—you do chores, or you tell your kid to "do your chores," but "do the chores" didn't quite hit my ear right. But the more I sit with it, the more I think it's fine; anyway, the cluing concept there is very clever. WARM FUZZIES is a lovely centerpiece, and BELCH under CRISPY BACON—thumbs up. Worst thing in the grid by far was ALIS (!?), which should've been clued via Muhammad and Laila and not as some godawful bit of Latin from a state motto, why, why would you do that? At least translate the Latin for people, come on.
The official English version of the motto is "She flies with her own wings" in keeping with the tradition of considering countries and territories to be feminine. However, because the feminine pronoun in the Latin sentences is often omitted and the verb form is not inflected for gender, the phrase could be translated with equal validity as "[one] flies with [one's] own wings", "[he] flies with [his] own wings", or "[it] flies with [its] own wings". (wikipedia)
Notes:
- 1A: Napoleon had a large one (EGO)— please tell me you (too) tried HAT here (I also, weirdly, tried ERA)
- 20A: Course addendum (SIDE)— "Course" as in "meal"
- 29A: Littlest complaint, in an idiom (BOO) — "didn't say BOO (to anyone)" I guess? Yes. "BOO" in this context can mean really anything, but it refers to complaining, yes. Here's more than you'd ever want to know about the history of the expression, including its origins in the phrase "saying BOO to a goose"(!?).
- 2D: '70s Ford (GERALD) — OK, that's clever. I had the "G" and wanted GTO ... something ... only to have GTO appear way on the other side of the grid (58A: Old competitor of the Plymouth Barracuda)
- 21D: Bank worry (EROSION) — River bank, obviously
- 27D: End of an overplayed pickup line (OFTEN) — as in "Come here OFTEN?" I could only think of four-letter answers to this one, namely SIGN and MINE. Has no one invented an overplayed pickup line since 1975?
- 35D: Box in a cab (CB RADIO)— "Cab" here is not a taxi, or a wine, but the part of the tractor-trailer occupied by the driver.
- 43D: Get a running mate? (ELOPE)— death, taxes, and punny clues on ARSON and ELOPE. These are life's certainties.
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