Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)
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THEME: TREETOPS (38D: Common spots for eagles' nests ... or a hint to 2-, 9-, 21- and 24-Down) — you can find "tree" ... parts ... at the "top" of the answers to the indicated clues:
Theme answers:
This one lost me at BARK COLLARS, which many animal advocacy groups, including the RSPCA, consider inhumane. I turn off TV shows and movies where anything bad happens to the dog. I once stopped watching a Walter Matthau comedy (!?) within the first minutes because some gangster or other shot a dog to demonstrate what a tough guy he was. We don't even see it happen, but knowing it happened was enough to make me say "nope" and shut it off. I got legitimately upset at last year's Anatomy of a Fall for making me watch a dog be tortured for Several Minutes (it's a great, great movie, but if you'd told me about that dog scene ahead of time, I might've said 'pass'; my wife can tell you what it was like to sit next to me for those five minutes—lots of mumbled swearing). I'm not saying my feelings are *completely* (or at all) rational. But dog harm of any kind is a complete no-go area for me, in all media. Your sensitivity level will undoubtedly vary. Still, BARK COLLARS, no. No. Bad vibes, for sure. [Neckwear for noisy dogs]?? Weird to acknowledge whale stress (31A: Military technology that's a source of stress for whales), but then just go all alliterative whimsy where dog stress is concerned. "Neckwear" makes even makes it sound like it's some kind of adorable dog fashion. Man I hate this clue.
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)
Theme answers:
- ROOTS FOR (2D: Supports from the stands)
- BARK COLLAR (24D: Neckwear for noisy dogs)
- TRUNK SHOW (21D: Traveling fashion sale featuring the work of a specific designer)
- LEAVES ALONE (9D: Lets be)
A trunk show is an event in which vendors present merchandise directly to store personnel or customers at a retail location or another venue such as a hotel room. In many cases it allows store personnel to preview and/or purchase merchandise before it is made available to the public. Typically, clients view the merchandise, place orders, and then wait for the vendor to manufacture and deliver the goods. If the merchandise has a designer, the vendor may choose to have the designer present at the event to add to the customers' experience. Prototypes, samples, remnants and leftover items from runway shows are also sometimes offered at trunk shows. Trunk shows may be open to the general public and advertised in the mass media or may be confined to special customers or those on a mailing list.The term is derived from the common practice of merchandise being transported to these events in trunks.
Trunk shows are particularly popular from January to May in the bridal industry because the bride can view more designer's collections than in store. (wikipedia)
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| [Messi, star of Anatomy of a Fall (2023)] |
But that wasn't my only issue with this thing. It felt like a boring themeless puzzle most of the time. It's got a lowish word count (74), so there's more white space than usual (esp noticeable in those NE and SW corners), and the puzzle didn't even seem to have theme answers at all at first because ROOTS FOR and the revealer, TREETOPS, don't stand out as longer answers because they are right next to answers of equal length. So aesthetically, it seemed off (those open corners were kind of a slog to get through, without much reward in the way of interesting fill). Then there's the arboreal absurdity of having ROOTS at the top of the grid (and TREETOPS at the bottom). I guess TRUNK SHOW was supposed to be the marquee answer, but I didn't know what a TRUNK SHOW was (I think I had TRADE SHOW and TRACK SHOW in there at various points), so that answer didn't shine for me the way maybe it did for some of you. Overall this played like a sloggy Tuesday themeless, with none of the interesting answers, none of the zing and pop, of regular (late-week) themelesses.
Outside of TRUNK SHOW, there wasn't any real trouble, just an overall slower-than-usualness. I kept misreading clues, most notably 40A: Ideological split (SCHISM), which I read as "ideological spirit." I kept trying to make some version of ORANGEADE (ORANGADE?) work at 3D: Fizzy citrus drink (ORANGINA). I drank a lot of ORANGINA in Greece in 1987 (why??? because it was there), and I don't think I've seen it since. I mean, I'm sure I have, but it hasn't registered. TROU is possibly my most hated crossword answer of all time. I only ever see it in crosswords. The very phrase "dropping TROU" and the concept of "mooning someone" seems so corny, and extremely dated (like something boys in the '50s thought was funny???). I never never, never ever, see TROU anywhere but crosswords these days. Every single time I see it, it gets at least a mini "ugh" from me. Weirdly (very weirdly), though I can't imagine going to B SCHOOL (short for "business school"), I kinda like it as an answer, and I especially like it directly over BE HAPPY. If you want to BE HAPPY, I'm not sure B SCHOOL is the place to be, but B over BE made me happy. And hey, look, a BEE! (25D: Hum bug?). I'm enjoying the B/BE/BEEs. The rest of the puzzle, you can have back.
Bullets:
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- 26A: Lead-in to some unsolicited advice ("IF I MAY...")— OK, I like this too, especially as clued. The "unsolicited advice" part is key. The phrase itself is colloquially perfect and it feels fresh (though it's been in the puzzle a few times before)
- 1A: Wafting smells (AROMAS) — yes, this is fine, but when the second [Wafting smells] came along (42A: ODORS), the spell was broken, as I realized, "so ... just 'smells,' then?""Wafting" all of a sudden seemed awkwardly superfluous—it was the word that distinguishedAROMAS from mere ODORS. But then mere ODORS showed up, also "wafting," and the magic of "wafting" vanished.
- 47A: Irreversibly committed (IN DEEP) — I don't think of this phrase indicating either commitment or irreversibility. I think that people get IN DEEP (whatever kind of deep they're in) mostly unintentionally. By accident. And I think that getting out of ... deep ... is just hard, not impossible. This clue is missing the "oh *&$% how did this happen?!" quality of being truly IN DEEP
- 19A: Okay boomer? (TNT)— total garbage clue. First of all, TNT is a very good boomer. Pretty sure it booms just fine. Second, ugh, I thought this stupid insult / meme that every extremely online dipshit was using to insult anyone they thought was "old" had died a well-deserved death by now, but now that it's no longer in regular use, now that the fad is well and truly past its prime, I guess the NYTXW (in typically NYTXW fashion) thought "now's the time!"
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