Constructor: Neil Padrick Wilson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)
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THEME: ELMER'S GLUE (58A: What a kid might use to hold 17-, 24-, 35- and 47-Across together)— I have no idea what this kid is trying to make, tbh. Is it a face?
Theme answers:
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I have to say, I don't really get this. It's a child's art project of some kind, but why you'd glue all these things together, I don't know. I mean, I can see that it's some kind of PAPER PLATE art, but what it's supposed to represent, I can only guess. And my guess is: a face. COTTON BALLS for hair, MACARONI NOODLES for ... whatever, and maybe a PIPE CLEANER for a mouth? Did ELMER'S GLUE sponsor this puzzle? It's all so strange. Vague. Odd. Doesn't seem like a tight enough theme. Surprised it met NYTXW standards, but who knows these days. Anyway, that's it: a list of items in a child's art project. If there's something more here, I'm not seeing it. Hard to get excited about any of it. MACARONI NOODLES feels horribly redundant. MACARONI is noodles. You don't have to say "NOODLES." We know. Because that's what MACARONI is. Figuring that one out got a definite "ugh, no" out of me. Speaking of redundancy, yesterday we had the absurd AZURE BLUE, which, like MACARONI NOODLES, is clearly redundant, and here we are, one day later, and whaddya know? There's AZURE, all on its own (52D: Sky blue). It's almost like you don't even need the BLUE part. . .
This puzzle started out very easy. Remarkably easy. I wrote in PAPAW like "I dunno ... not sure about that one" (1D: Oblong yellowish fruit). But then every other Down checked out and very quickly I was here:
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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- PAPER PLATE (17A: Disposable BBQ dish)
- COTTON BALLS (24A: Doctor's office jarful)
- MACARONI NOODLES (35A: Elbows in a grocery store)
- PIPE CLEANER (47A: Makeshift twist-tie)
Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, podcaster, screenwriter and producer.Carvey is best known for his seven seasons on Saturday Night Live, from 1986 to 1993, which earned him five consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Carvey is also known for his film roles in comedies such as Tough Guys (1986), Opportunity Knocks (1990), Trapped in Paradise (1994), and The Master of Disguise (2002), as well as reprising his role of Garth Algar in the SNL spin-off film Wayne's World (1992) and its sequel Wayne's World 2 (1993). (wikipedia)
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This puzzle started out very easy. Remarkably easy. I wrote in PAPAW like "I dunno ... not sure about that one" (1D: Oblong yellowish fruit). But then every other Down checked out and very quickly I was here:
The long Downs, while providing the only real points of interest today, also provided the only real resistance. ROPE TRICK was easy enough (got it with no crosses whatsoever), but NOT SO FUN, hoo-wee (hooey? hoo-whee?), that was NOT SO FUN to parse (8D: Unenjoyable, to put it mildly). I'm not sure the clue goes that well with the answer. The clue seems to suggest something very Very "unenjoyable," but NOT SO FUN does not convey very Very. Or even just very. If you are going for "deeply ironic understatement," OK, but NOT SO FUN does, in fact, seem mild. About the same mildness as "Unenjoyable." So the clue really threw me. Plus it's just hard to parse a three-word answer, especially since "Unenjoyable" is just one word. I was prepared for two words (maybe "NO something"), but three surprised me a little. When I finally tried NOT SO FUN and realized that all the crosses would work OK, I just had to cross my fingers and go with it. Was not at all certain I had it right, but it was the best I could do. A little less tough, but still a bit of a struggle, was NAKED LIE (37D: Obvious untruth). I basically got that one by trying out LIE at the end and then mentally testing "N" words in front of it. I had a teeny bit of trouble with PLOT HOLES, but only because I assumed (wrongly) that the only letter that the only thing VI-LA could be was VILLA. Also, once I got ELMER, I figured I'd be looking for some guy named ELMER. A Fudd or a Gantry, something like that. So I had to make GLUE appear via the Down crosses, which, thankfully, weren't that hard to turn up. The end.
Other things:
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- 24D: Truck radio user (CBER)— that's an entry I'd tear my grid APART to get rid of, especially on a Monday. It's not hard so much as it is ugly. It reeks of olden crosswordese. Another answer I'd ditch is PAP. This is more a matter of personal taste. Nothing wrong with PAP, technically. I just find the answer repellent ... texturally. Pre-mushed food? Only in the case of a crossword emergency. Change YIP to GIN and everything's golden. GIN > PAP every time.
- 12D: Tired and predictable (BANAL) — really wanted this to be TRITE. Really really wanted it to be TRITE. And then I really wanted it to be STALE. Really really wanted it to be STALE.
- 32A: Family member who usually goes by one name (PET)— first of all, Santa's Little Helper. Second of all, does anyone in a family go by more than one name? What strangely formal family is this where they're all calling each other by their full names? I didn't look at Across clues while I was solving, but when I did look at this clue (just now), my first thought was "MOM?"
- 55A: Performer prone to theatrics (DIVA)— was wondering "when are we gonna see DIVA clued as [___ cup]?" (mainly because we're rewatching the first season of Hacks, which has a recurring DIVA cup joke in one episode). But then I went and looked it up and it turns out that while DIVA has not been clued this way before, DIVACUP has actually already appeared in the NYTXW, courtesy of none other than my First-Wednesday-of-Every-Month fill-in, Malaika Handa. Here's my write-up of that puzzle (Aug. 15, 2023). Did not expect to be dwelling on the menstrual potential of answers today, but I watch the TV shows I watch, and my brain goes where it goes.
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