— the letters "IM" appear (in circles) on top of (i.e. directly above) some kind of "roll":
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| [The capital is DILI (4)—seems like potentially important crossword information] |
East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor - of which the western half is administered by Indonesia - the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-western half, and the minor islands of Atauro and Jaco. Australia is the country's southern neighbour, separated by the Timor Sea. The country's size is 14,950 square kilometres (5,770 sq mi). Dili - on the north coast of Timor - is its capital and largest city.
East Timor was settled by waves of Austronesian and Papuan peoples, which are reflected in the country's diverse mix of cultures and languages reflecting its links to Southeast Asia and Melanesia despite its small area. East Timor came under Portuguese influence in the sixteenth century, remaining a Portuguese colony until 1975. Internal conflict preceded a unilateral declaration of independence and an Indonesian invasion and annexation. Resistance continued throughout Indonesian rule, and, in 1999, a United Nations–sponsored act of self-determination led to Indonesia relinquishing control of the territory. On 20 May 2002, as Timor-Leste, it became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century. That same year, relations with Indonesia were established and normalized, with Indonesia also supporting East Timor's accession into ASEAN. (wikipedia)
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[Rosamond Smith = pen name of
Joyce Carol Oates!] |
A very easy Monday puzzle, with a revealer that absolutely did its job. I really should've figured out the revealer before I got there. Once the second set of circled squares turned out also to be "IM," I knew I was dealing with some kind of "I'M ON..." situation, but at every turn, my brain came up only with gibberish. I'M ON ... ONES? I'M ON ... A LIST? I'M ON ... SWEETS? That
SNAKE EYES answer should've been a dead giveaway—of course it's a roll (of the dice), but it wasn't until the actual revealer showed its face that I realized what was going on. D'oh! Of course, roll! Maybe if the puzzle hadn't been so phenomenally easy to solve Downs-only, I might've had a little more time to mull it over, and
I'M ON A ROLL would've come to me sooner. As it was, the puzzle put up almost no resistance—Downs-only is supposed to add challenge, but today, not so much. There was one big problem, right up front:
SPAM. I don't think of actual old-fashioned telephone calls as
SPAM—email, yes, texts, maybe, but not phone calls. I don't know why. My land line (why do we still have one of these???) often comes up with "
SPAM RISK" as the caller, so of course phone calls can be
SPAM. But it just didn't compute. So I had SCAM. And my backup answer was SHAM, lol. But SCAM left me with IMCS in the cross, and try as I might, I couldn't justify it. Couldn't think of any way that IMCS could be a thing. IMHS didn't work either. And that's when IMPS showed up.
SPAM, sure. Gotta be
SPAM. And it was. After that, only a handful of Downs gave me even the slightest pause, and none of those caused what you'd call actual trouble. A textbook Monday, though not as boring as "textbook Monday" sounds. It's a cute idea, neatly executed. The grid is smooth, if not scintillating. Good revealer, no cringe. I'm happy with this.
I liked the rhyming keyboard cluing on ONE and TWO, though I am now very conscious that ONE is not only in the clue for SNAKE EYES, but the very definition of SNAKE EYES, so while normally that kind of dupe wouldn't really register with me, today it does. I might've gone ODE / NODE instead of ONE / NONE just to get rid of it, but then I would've missed out on the ONE/TWO cluing thing, which was nice, and nobody is really gonna notice that ONE dupe anyway, so ... it's hard to complain. So consider this me noticing something, not complaining about it. OK? OK. I have never liked HEHE as a plausible laugh sound. It's HEE, that's the syllable. Maybe HEE-HEE or TEE-HEE. I'd also accept HEH if it's a kind of sneering laugh or chortle. But HEHE just doesn't wash. Never seen it anywhere but crosswords. But I got no other complaints. I am kinda curious about the cheater squares* in this one. The ones after HEHE / before SEAT make sense. I can see how a cheater in those places would've made it easier to fill those corners cleanly—you've got two long Downs right alongside one another, so why not take a little pressure off with a cheater if it makes the overall fill smoother. But the other cheaters, after LOS and before TWO, those are weirder. Small corners should be easy to fill. I see that the NW has the added thematic burden, with the "I'M" creating more theme density than you'd normally see in a small corner, so maybe that was what made the cheaters necessary. It's funny that an innocuous word like SKØR is actually anchoring three (3!) themers—two "IM"-containing words and SNAKE EYES. And adjacent ERIC does the same, running through SNAKE EYES, RIMS, and CLASS ROSTER. I guess the cheaters were a way of ensuring that the surrounding fill remained clean and uneventful, so that the theme could shine through. Again, unless you construct, you're not going to notice these tiny little technical details. I'm all for strategic cheaters if they really do make the difference between whistle-clean and even slightly rough fill.
As for the Downs-only adventure, after all the SCAM/SHAM/SPAM business, I had the following issues: I had PLOTZ for SWOON (30D: Faint from emotion); I balked at EVERY, since why would you say "each and EVERY" if they were in fact identical (33D: Each); I couldn't remember TINA's name for a few seconds (kept wanting LISA, but then remembering that was "The Simpsons," not "Bob's Burgers" (57D: "Bob's Burgers" daughter); and CASH ... not sure why, but that didn't come to me immediately—I think I wanted a denomination, like TENS (54D: A.T.M. withdrawal). That's it. A relatively bumpless ride. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*cheater squares = black squares that do not change the puzzle word count, called "cheaters" because they make filling the grid much easier for the constructor.
