Constructor: Billy Bratton
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: ALDO Leopold (26A: Environmental writer ___ Leopold) —![]()
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Really enjoyed this one, despite a few clunkers in the clues, and despite the grid's having possibly my least favorite shape—the pinwheel with the four *highly* segmented corners. It's like doing five separate puzzles! I want to do one puzzle! With nice flow between the sections! Bah! When you're solving a puzzle with this shape, there's always the looming threat that one of those many, many isolated segments of the puzzle is going to take you out, and you'll be stuck, with no way to come at it from another angle. Real minefield energy. Slightly stressful. But today, the mines were all defused very quickly, or nonexistent, or whatever makes the metaphor work, because at every turn, every time I wanted to enter a new section, the puzzle Let Me Right In. It was weird. Had the usual NW trouble, flailing around for a bit, as one does, but then the puzzle just handed me the keys to the middle of the grid when it asked for the [2000s sitcom about a woman with amnesia], and after a half-second of "How should I...?" I nearly gasped "Oh my god" because I knew it. I knew it cold.
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One of the weirder moments of my early blogging career was having someone calling themselves "Christina Applegate" turn up in my comments section who turned out to Actually Be Christina Applegate (an accomplished crossword solver who once told a crossword-related story on Letterman, LOL). Anyway, celebrities never send me anything, but she did, and it was thrilling. Oh, I guess Anne Meara did send me a polite correction email once. That was also thrilling. Also also thrilling: having the puzzle open right up. The center is really the highlight of the puzzle, which is rarely the case with a grid like this, where there's so much white space there that you usually see at least one desperate, made-up, awkward, or ugly entry. But not today. OK, maybe LITTLE THING is usually in the plural, whatever, I think it's fine. Plus there's BATTLE SCARS and GOT THE SHAFT and DAR ES SALAAM, a real trove of delightfulness. And then, as I say, all those scary isolated corners actually had a greeter waiting to show me in and make me feel welcome. GOAT YOGA! MIX TAPE! "I WOULDN'T" ... I mean, "I WOULDN'T"sounds foreboding, but nope, that answer ushered me right in, and straight to the finish line. It's not that the puzzle didn't have any Saturday bite. It had some. For sure. But I never got well and truly stuuuuck. Which I appreciate.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: ALDO Leopold (26A: Environmental writer ___ Leopold) —
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac (1949), which has been translated into fourteen languages and has sold more than two million copies.
Leopold was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. His ethics of nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental movement, with his ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. He emphasized biodiversity and ecology and was a founder of the science of wildlife management.
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"SAMANTHA WHO?"! How did I know it? Well, first, I watched it. All of it, I think (it wasn't on the air very long, sadly—just two seasons, '07-'09). The other reason I remembered it so quickly is that I've had a signed promotional photo from that show staring at me here in my office for ~15 years!
A couple things clunked for me today, but they were LITTLE THINGs (see! plural!). I don't believe "I'M CALM" is a thing (1D: "No, you're the one getting worked up!"). I mean, you might say it, but it really doesn't want to stand alone. If you're saying "No, you're the one getting worked up!" with the stress and the exclamation point and everything, you're not calm. Also, if anything, you would say "I AM CALM," no contraction, as you're obviously disputing someone else's claim that you're not. Got a big "NO" written next to that answer. Another big "NO" written next to FISTS (43D: "Rocks"). I assume this refers to the game "Rock Paper Scissors"—you'll note how the game is not called "Rocks Papers Scissors." Putting "Rocks" in quotation marks like that is especially egregious since no one says "Rocks" in the context of the game. Maybe a game recap? ("I played four rocks, three papers, and a scissors!"). But no. "Rocks" is ice. "Rock" is FIST, singular. Boo to this answer.
Hardish getting started today since no idea re: ATLAS or MRS. Meyer's whatever it is or random 5-letter boy's name. Also had some TEND/LEAN confusion (23A: Show bias). The other confusion up there was actually the answer that got me started: 5D: Many are Persian (RUGS). Of course CATS works too. Luckily both answers occurred to me before I committed to either, so I tried the neighboring answer to see which of RUGS v CATS worked best alongside it. This led to the hilarious moment at 6D: Gross home? where I went "Oh, Ari Gross! He's on NPR!" (brain, to me, five seconds later: "Uh, no ... Arye Gross co-starred on the sitcom Ellen. You're thinking of ARI Shapiro. He's on NPR. As is, famously, Terry Gross ... how you make it through a Monday let alone a Saturday is beyond me"). Who cares how I got there; I got there. NPR! That meant RUGS not CATS, and then INTERN, and then I was off and running.
Wrong answers: yes! I had some. "THAT'S IT!" for "THAT ONE" (34D: Comment with a point, say); "SAME HERE" for "SAMESIES" (good answer, but cringe thing-to-actually-say) (50A: "OMG, me too!"); SLED DOG for LEAD DOG (11D: Pacesetter on a long, frigid journey). I think that's it! That's plenty! My favorite clues were probably 15A: Asked for the fish, say (MEOWED) and 47A: Mythical rock singer (SIREN). And while I didn't exactly like 24A: Cheerios alternative, I have to respect it, because it sure as hell got me ("I thought I knew all the five-letter cereals! What the hell!?"). Not the cereal but the farewell(s). That is one way to turn TATAS (!) into an acceptable answer—distract me with the clue! I like how the puzzle later taunted me, like "hey, remember how you thought "Cheerios" was a cereal? That was fun. You were thinking of something with ... OATS, weren't you?" (40A: Meal makeup, maybe). Shut up, puzzle.
Last notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 18A: "Path" of progress (INROAD) — As with ["Rocks"], I have no idea what the quotation marks think they're doing here. Take them away, in this case, and the clue works fine.
- 55A: Line around the Equator? ("IT'S HOT") — just imagining the millions of people who inhabit the equatorial portion of the globe walking around all day going "IT'S HOT" literally all the time. But I guess I'm supposed to imagine a North American traveling to the Equator, someone who would find the absolutely normal heat remarkable.
- 36A: Ones that are tired before they even move? (NEW CARS) — saw right through this one because I know the puzzle's tendency for the dumbest of puns. No one would say that their car was "tired" (in the sense of "possessing four tires") ... except some puzzlemaking nerds, they would definitely say that.
TATAS, everyones!
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