Constructor: Sam Ezersky
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME:"From Start to Finish" — words with prefixes are made into two-word phrases by detaching the prefix and making it a second word. This results in wacky phrases, clued wackily:
Theme answers:
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From start to finish, this just wasn't for me. I don't mind a simple theme concept—they can be very effective and yield genuinely amusing results. But the results here just felt flat. The theme was easy to understand but the answers were still somewhat difficult to grasp on a case by case basis. Solving them ended up being frequently tough without being at all rewarding. The clues ended up mattering very little, once I got the basic idea. You put the prefix at the end, OK. But mostly that just required me to infer the prefix from the root word or the root word for the prefix. The clues were there ... but they were usually either way too plain ([Eye doctor?]) or way too cryptic ([Someone shouting that maybe YOU should try fixing your apartment?]) to be much help. You can tell when a Sunday theme is particularly weak because we get "treated" to an excess, a surfeit, a glut of theme answers. "Unsatisfying, yes, but also plentiful!" Ten times blah is still blah. You can stack themers and do whatever kind of architectural mumbo jumbo you want, but none of it matters if the core concept doesn't pay off, and today, it really doesn't.
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Here are some more clues and answers of note, arranged in "bullet" list form:
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As of Monday, 11/4/24, the NYT Tech Guild is on strike.
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Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- STANDARD SUB (23A: Six-inch or footlong?)
- PENSIVE EX (25A: Who might tearfully wonder "Were we just not meant to be ..."?)
- MANAGED MICRO (27A: Made it through Econ 101?)
- PENULTIMATE ANTE (42A: Buy-in the round before going all in?)
- AFRICAN PAN (68A: Vessel for cooking jollof rice or injera bread?)
- SOLVING DIS (70A: "Next time try reading the clue!" or "Stick to sudoku!"?)
- APOCALYPTIC POST (87A: Something in a doomscroller's feed?)
- COMPLETE AUTO (109A: The engine, the steering wheel, the catalytic converter, all of it?)
- VISION PRO (112A: Eye doctor?)
- HEATED SUPER (114A: Someone shouting that maybe YOU should try fixing your apartment?)
Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness, An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.
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I don't even know what "superheated" means, beyond just ... heated ... a lot? "In thermodynamics, superheating (sometimes referred to as boiling retardation, or boiling delay) is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point without boiling" (wikipedia). Huh. Exciting.
As for the (non-theme) fill and clues, they weren't helping make the experience any more entertaining. "YES, BABE"? (101A: "Sure thing, dear"). That doesn't seem like a very coherent, standalone expression, any more than "SURE, BABE" or "OK, BABE" or "LET'S GO TO ARBY'S, BABE" does. You just wrote a clue with a synonym for "YES" and a synonym for "BABE" and then tried to pass it off as a standalone thing. "YES, DEAR" and "YES, MAAM" and "YES, SIR" and "YES I DO" and "YES WE CAN" and "YES, PLEASE," these are all coherent. "YES, BABE" is something one might say, but it does not have standalone status. Boo.
And GET A TIP!?!?!? (2D: What servers and sleuths each hope to do). I want to say this is a real "EAT A SANDWICH"-type answer, but it's actually worse than EAT A SANDWICH, which itself was supposed to be hyperbolically bad in the first place. ONE MONTH is a horrible standalone answer, especially with ONE TON already in the grid. The I LOSE / I WIN thing is bad enough when just one of them appears in the grid (it's never clear whether it'll be "I LOST!" / "I WON!" or "I LOSE!" / "I WIN!"). Cross-referencing just doubled the annoyance. "WAS I?"and"CAN'T I?" feels like going to the interrogative "I?" well one too many times. And who says "CAN'T I?" The equivalent of "Pretty please?" is "CAN I?" not "CAN'T I?" The kids I've known are not this linguistically fancy or formal. On and on these little annoyances kept coming, with very little in the way of fun fill to lighten things up. I really enjoyed "I'M DYING!" and (as clued) UPSTAIRS (82D: Above the strike zone, to a baseball announcer) and GLARE (76A: Daytime annoyance while watching TV). I don't think there was a single other thing in the grid that made me smile. Oh, ALT TEXT is pretty good. Not smile good, but original for sure (Just looked and it is, in fact, a debut).
Do people know how EDGAR LEE Masters is? I'm really torn on that answer, as I love Masters's Spoon River Anthology, a moving and haunting group of elegies, but I hate EDGAR LEE as an answer, in that it's a very long name fragment. It's like having ARTHUR CONAN as an answer. Bah. But again, can't recommend Spoon River Anthology enough. As for the other names in this grid ... LUANN (57A: ___ de Lesseps of the "Real Housewives" franchise) and COLMAN (69D: ___ Domingo, Best Actor nominee for 2023's "Rustin") were complete unknowns, but nothing else gave me much trouble, that I can remember. It's so weird to me that not only do I not know COLMAN Domingo, I also have absolutely no recollection of the (very recent!) movie he got an Academy Award nomination for. Rustin? How did that get by me? Embarrassing (for me). I really thought I was paying close attention to movies these past few years, but I guess the film universe is just too big for my brain to take in everything. Oh, wait, it was a Netflix movie. There's the problem. If it lives exclusively in streaming land, I tend to miss it. Oh, and now I remember that I didn't know who BAYARD RUSTIN was when his complete name appeared in the puzzle earlier this year (just last month), and some people shouted at me "how is that possible, did you not see the movie?" and I was like "what?" and now here we are. Let's see if any of this sticks the next time BAYARD or RUSTIN (or COLMAN or DOMINGO) appears in the grid. I did know TINA Turner (4D: Turner backed by the Ikettes) and Kenneth BRANAGH (3D: Kenneth of "Oppenheimer") and Punxsutawney PHIL (40A: Groundhog of renown) and EL GRECO (59D: Young disciple of an old Titian) and Jacques CHIRAC (78D: Former French president Jacques) and Stanley "Stella!"KOWALSKI (83D: Brando's role in "A Streetcar Named Desire"), which was probably the name I most enjoyed seeing today, if only for the fact that it started Brando playing on a loop in my head:
Here are some more clues and answers of note, arranged in "bullet" list form:
- 38A: Stirrup's place (EAR)— lots of ear puns in crossword clues. The stirrup is a tiny bone in your EAR that helps transmit sound vibrations. You've got a hammer and anvil in there too. And a drum, of course. And a canal. You can do ear-based clue humor all day long, and the NYTXW definitely has. I saw right through this clue, immediately.
- 52A: Rum, in Spanish (RON) — I thought "rum" here was going to have its slangy adjectival meaning ("strange, odd, unusual"—chiefly British), but no, it's just the drink. Very straightforward English-to-Spanish translation.
- 74A: Yellow-green soft drink per the stylization on its packaging (MTN DEW) — so ugly. Definitely a Fagliano-era word (debuted in August, and here it is again). Are we better off with MTN DEW in the grid? Especially given that the clue is going to always have to add the qualification that the answer involves "stylized" spelling? We are not. Pour the MTN DEW into the harbor.
- 84A: N.Y.C.-based sports channel (MSG) — stands for Madison Square Garden. Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Sabres, Devils. Lotta hockey, basically. The puzzle really leaned into regionality today with this one and WAWA (50D: East Coast convenience store chain), which is a Philly phenomenon that has made its way along the eastern seaboard but hasn't gone west of Pennsylvania at all, as far as I can tell. "The WAWA business began in 1803 as an iron foundry." There's your useless fact for the day. Thanks, wikipedia!
- 100A: Asia's so-called "___ countries" (STAN) — the phrasing on this clue absolutely killed me. I know the countries in question, but they're just "the STANs" (you know, AfghaniSTAN, PakiSTAN, TurkmeniSTAN, etc.). I've never heard this so-called quote unquote "STAN countries" so I was sure there was some Asian country group I simply hadn't heard of. The "STAR countries," maybe (countries with stars on their flags??).
- 33D: Not supporting, maybe (MAIN) — another tough one. "Not supporting" looks like it means "not in favor of,""not backing,""against," something like that. But here it refers to roles in a theatrical or TV or movie production. There are supporting roles and there are MAIN roles. I think LEAD is a better counterpart for "supporting" than MAIN is, but MAIN still works.
- 67D: Thunder shower? (ESPN) — oof. Hyper-specific clue for a very general answer. How much ESPN's programming involves showing The OKC Thunder basketball team, specifically? <1%? You are more than forgiven if you found this clue inscrutable.
- 101D: Broadway gossip (YENTE) — thought maybe there was a word for gossip about Broadway, but no, it's just a "gossip" made famous by a Broadway musical, namely Fiddler on the Roof. YENTE is the "matchmaker."
Since the holiday season is coming up, and since I've been getting a lot of "what other high-quality puzzles are out there besides the NYTX?" questions lately, I want to take this opportunity to plug The American Values Club Crossword (AVCX), which expanded in recent years from its brilliantly inventive and modern "classic" crossword and now includes two regular-sized crosswords (15x15), two smaller crosswords, a cryptic crossword (yesssss!), and a trivia quiz. A whole team of great constructors and editors put these things together, including Francis Heaney, Wyna Liu, Paolo Pasco, Quiara Vasquez, Ada Nicolle, Rafael Musa, Stella Zawistowski ("Stella!"), Nate Cardin, Aimee Lucido, and many more, all under the leadership of one of my favorite crossword editors, Ben Tausig. That's six puzzles a week from the best puzzlemakers in the business. Standard subscription rate right now is $44/year, but there are various rates based on your ability to pay. They're doing things right over there. AVCX is one of only a handful of non-NYTXW puzzles that I solve regularly. Expand your puzzle horizons! Get yourself a subscription, or get one for someone you love. Very much worth it! (Hey, look, there's even a free trial subscription if you want)
I'm going to start plugging crossword-related gift ideas in the coming weeks, so if you've got puzzle-related things to sell, or you have any crossword books or subscriptions or throw pillows or whatever that you'd recommend, shoot me an email and let me know about them.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Important Note:
From The Guardian:
The Guild is asking that readers honor their picket line by boycotting the Times’ selection of games, including Wordle and the daily digital crossword, and to avoid other digital extensions such as the Cooking app.
Annie Shields, a campaign lead for the News Guild of New York, encouraged people to sacrifice their streaks in the wildly popular Wordle and Connections games in order to support the strike.
You can read more about the strike here (nyguild.org).
There were some anti-union talking points being credulously repeated in the comments recently, so just to be clear (per Vanity Fair): "The union said Tech Guild workers' main concerns that remain unresolved are: remote/hybrid work protections; “just cause” job protections, which “the newsroom union has had for decades”; limits on subcontracting; and pay equity/fair pay."
Since the picket line is "digital," it would appear to apply only to Games solved in the NYT digital environment—basically anything you solve on your phone or on the NYT website per se. If you get the puzzle in an actual dead-tree newspaper, or if you solve it outside the NYT's proprietary environment (via a third-party app, as I do), then technically you're not crossing the picket line by solving. You can honor the digital picket line by not using the Games app (or the Cooking app) at all until the strike is resolved. No Spelling Bee, no Connections ... none of it. My morning Wordle ritual is was very important to me, but ... I'll survive, I assume.
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