Constructor: Meghan Morris
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME:"Life Milestones"— various ages (from 5 to 100) are described by punny phrases:
Theme answers:
OK, first of all—and I probably should've made this the "Word of the Day"—what in the hell is CENTENNIAL STATE???!?! (110A: Age 100). 55 years old come November and I have no idea on god's decreasingly green earth what this means. [Looks it up] OK, OK ... OK, I feel both more and less bad for not knowing this. More bad because it's the nickname of the state where my mom and sister live (Colorado), and less bad because Who The Hell Knows State Nicknames? I mean, this deep. Colorado? People know the nickname of bleeping Colorado??? Sigh. Just the weirdest thing to make it to theme answer status. Of all the "___ State" nicknames, The CENTENNIAL STATE has to be the least well known / most obscure. Looking up a lot of state nicknames right now and I've at least heard of many of these: First State (Delaware), Palmetto State (South Carolina). Turns out lots of states are named after their state university mascots (or, more likely, vice versa): Tarheel State, Cornhusker State, etc. But CENTENNIAL STATE? That's a state nickname only dogs and hardcore Coloradophiles can hear. This isn't the only forced themer, but it's certainly the most forced themer. I don't get leaving the "D" off of "OLD" in GIVE IT THE OLD COLLEGE TRY (this is the first thing my wife commented on when she solved the puzzle, god bless her). I threw that across and then came up one letter short ... only to have it be correct, just "D"-less. Something about BAR ADMISSION and DRIVING CRAZY feels clunky. I mean, those specific phrases feel clunky, like they don't quite want to stand alone (certainly the latter). And FIRST IN CLASS ... I guess I know that phrase from, what, car advertisements? I want it to be "BEST IN CLASS," but you get what you get, I guess. I think AMATEUR STANDING is the real winner of the group today. Extremely clever wordplay. Anyway, this is cute, conceptually, but in general, it plays out kind of awkward.
Additional material:![]()
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- AMATEUR STANDING (24A: Age 1) (because one-year-olds are new to standing (up))
- FIRST IN CLASS (37A: Age 5) (because five-year-olds go to school for the first time)
- DRIVING CRAZY (48A: Age 16) (because sixteen-year-olds are eager to drive)
- GIVE IT THE OL (!?!?!) COLLEGE TRY (66A: Age 18) (because eighteen-year-olds go to college (sometimes)) (I was 17, but whatever)
- BAR ADMISSION (63A: Age 21) (because twenty-one-year-olds can get into bars)
- FINISH THE JOB (98A: Age 65) (because sixty-five-year-olds retire (sometimes))
- CENTENNIAL STATE (110A: Age 100) (because one-hundred-year-olds are in a state of being one hundred years old)
Janelle Monáe Robinson (/dʒəˈnɛl moʊˈneɪ/ jə-NEL moh-NAY; born December 1, 1985) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper and actress. She has received ten Grammy Award nominations, and is the recipient of a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Children's and Family Emmy Award. Monáe has also been honored with the ASCAP Vanguard Award; as well as the Rising Star Award (2015) and the Trailblazer of the Year Award (2018) from Billboard Women in Music. [...] Monáe's third studio album, Dirty Computer (2018)—also a concept album—was released to widespread critical acclaim; it was chosen as the best album of the year by several publications. The album peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200, and was further promoted by Monae's Dirty Computer Tour. It was accompanied by the science fiction film of the same name. In 2022, she wrote the cyberpunk story collection, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, based on the album. Her fourth studio album, The Age of Pleasure (2023) was nominated for Album of the Year at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, becoming her second nomination in the category as a lead artist. // Monáe has also ventured into acting, first gaining attention for starring in the 2016 films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. For portraying engineer Mary Jackson in the latter, she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has since starred in the films Harriet (2019) and Glass Onion (2022), and the television series Homecoming (2020).
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| [the view from my mother's house in ... Colorado] |
OK, first of all—and I probably should've made this the "Word of the Day"—what in the hell is CENTENNIAL STATE???!?! (110A: Age 100). 55 years old come November and I have no idea on god's decreasingly green earth what this means. [Looks it up] OK, OK ... OK, I feel both more and less bad for not knowing this. More bad because it's the nickname of the state where my mom and sister live (Colorado), and less bad because Who The Hell Knows State Nicknames? I mean, this deep. Colorado? People know the nickname of bleeping Colorado??? Sigh. Just the weirdest thing to make it to theme answer status. Of all the "___ State" nicknames, The CENTENNIAL STATE has to be the least well known / most obscure. Looking up a lot of state nicknames right now and I've at least heard of many of these: First State (Delaware), Palmetto State (South Carolina). Turns out lots of states are named after their state university mascots (or, more likely, vice versa): Tarheel State, Cornhusker State, etc. But CENTENNIAL STATE? That's a state nickname only dogs and hardcore Coloradophiles can hear. This isn't the only forced themer, but it's certainly the most forced themer. I don't get leaving the "D" off of "OLD" in GIVE IT THE OLD COLLEGE TRY (this is the first thing my wife commented on when she solved the puzzle, god bless her). I threw that across and then came up one letter short ... only to have it be correct, just "D"-less. Something about BAR ADMISSION and DRIVING CRAZY feels clunky. I mean, those specific phrases feel clunky, like they don't quite want to stand alone (certainly the latter). And FIRST IN CLASS ... I guess I know that phrase from, what, car advertisements? I want it to be "BEST IN CLASS," but you get what you get, I guess. I think AMATEUR STANDING is the real winner of the group today. Extremely clever wordplay. Anyway, this is cute, conceptually, but in general, it plays out kind of awkward.
ADD-ON and "ADD ME"—the duping is getting really shameless under this newish administration. Looks like constructors are learning that it doesn't matter and not policing themselves. Ah well. One more thing to say "In my day...." about. ADD-ON was one of the very few missteps I made with this exceedingly easy puzzle (I had ADDED) (23A: Extra). I also had WAVY LINES for WAVY ARROW (52D: Symbol for a winding road), but nothing else in the whole big grid was genuinely tricky or misleading or challenging. I confidently and quickly wrote in AMA (!?!?) at 6D: Letters aptly found in "Obamacare" (ACA) (the "Affordable Care Act"—actually had to look up what the letters meant just now ... I thought for sure the first "A" would be "Americans," like with the "ADA"). I think my brain went "Ooh, Obamacare, that's the one about healthcare ... medicine ... doctors ... AMA! American ... Medical Act! Wow, I'm a real pro at legislative initialisms, ask me anything!").
Don't see much in the puzzle that I wasn't familiar with. I knew all the names except AMY (72A: Political analyst Walker). Looks like she's been political analyst for the PBS NewsHour during the exact length of time that I have been deliberately disengaged from all TV coverage of politics (i.e. since 2015 ... I think I bowed out completely the day after the 2016 election). Now that I look at her picture, I've definitely seen her before, but her name didn't ring. But all the other names, from HENRI to CORFU to MONÁE to DANO to ELIA, I knew pretty much cold. Hey, did you know Paul DANO's partner is the (crossword-solving) grand-daughter of ELIA Kazan? It's true. ZOE Kazan. She's been a puzzle answer twice—three times if you count the time she was used in a clue for her grandfather ([Actress Zoe Kazan's grandfather], Sep. 16, 2022). Paul DANO, OTOH, has appeared nine times, first in 2011, before finally supplanting his Hawaii Five-0 ("Book 'em, DAN-O!") and soap opera (Linda DANO) predecessors once and for all in 2016. Weird ... the NYTXW appears to have accepted both DANNO and DANO as a "Hawaii Five-0 nickname"; I guess if you never see it written down on the show, you can spell it however you want. Anyway, just some light pop culture crossword trivia for you on this lazy late-summer Sunday. I know you like that sort of thing...
Additional material:
- 28A: Modern-day alternative to a cash till (IPAD)— this one baffled and is still baffling me. I've definitely seen IPADs used as cash registers, but the till itself? The place where cash is stored? To me, a till is a specific part of a register. The part that holds the cash. I don't see exactly how an IPAD does ... that. Maybe the new IPAD 74 Air does that—magically produces physical cash, or converts to a till, or something. They're probably running out of new stuff for IPADs to do.
- 74A: Award-winning Janelle (MONÁE) — man, that is a bad clue. A lazy, terrible clue. "Award-winning"!?!?! That could describe literally millions of people, and almost all famous people. Give us *some* sense of her career. Music, movies ... there's a lot to choose from! I just rewatched Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on Wednesday (because Blink Twice (2024)—directed by another Zoe (Kravitz)—has sent me back to all earlier "evil rich guy / stuck-on-an-island / we're all in danger!"-type movies), and there was Janelle MONÁE playing two roles (twin sisters). I know her primarily as a musician, but she can act, for sure.
- 35D: Name rhymed with "says" in Taylor Swift's "Betty" (INEZ) — and the Swiftification of the NYTXW continued unabated ... (I actually like this clue, since you can suss out the answer even if you've never heard the song. Clever.).
- 91D: Flowing movement between yoga poses (VINYASA) — most of the yoga I've practiced over the years has been Iyengar or Iyengar-adjacent, and so VINYASA isn't a huge part of it (it's more of an Ashtanga, yoga-as-exercise thing), but that doesn't mean I didn't love seeing this answer today—as I suspected, a debut.
- 3D: Country that counts the French president as a co-prince (ANDORRA) — a country I learned about in 7th-grade geography and then never heard from again (but never forgot, either). It's in the Pyrenees, has a total population just north of 80,000, and, at ~181 sq. mi., is one of the smallest countries in the Europe (though now that I think about it / look it up, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City are all even smaller)
- 106D: School with the mascot Big Al, for short ('BAMA) — he's an elephant. Because a "Crimson Tide" would be pretty hard to render in mascot form.
See you next time.
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