Suffix with Sydney / WED 11-13-2024 / Cloud name prefix / What strings of random letters make / Member of the constellation Aquila

Theme answers:

• ★ A big ditch in a big desert. Big deal. for ARIZONA
• RATING: ★  Sin, sun and sand … so? Not worth the gamble. for NEVADA
• RATING: ★★★ Graceland and the Great Smoky Mountains. I volunteer to visit again! for TENNESSEE
• RATING: ★★★★★★★★ Fresh salmon and spectacular scenery. Go north, young man! for ALASKA
• ★★★★★★★★★★★★★ Peaches, peanuts and pecan pie. You'll always be on my mind! for GEORGIA

Word of the Day: NYRO (Laura in the Songwriters Hall of Fame) —

Laura Nyro; born Laura Nigro; (October 18, 1947 – April 8, 1997) was an American songwriter and singer. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry (1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and the 5th Dimension recording her songs. Wider recognition for her artistry was posthumous, while her contemporaries such as Elton John idolized her. She was praised for her emotive three-octave mezzo-soprano voice.

Good morning folks! Happy off-schedule Malaika MWednesday to all who celebrate! Tonight I solved this puzzle listening to the soundtrack from Stereophonic, but particularly the song Bright. I listened to it a couple of times, since this puzzle took me longer than usual to get through. I'm excited to read every single comment as I always do and see what y'all thought!

This puzzle was hard, mainly due to the vocabulary, which is not how I like for puzzles to be hard. (Though if I'm honest, I don't like hard puzzles at all.) I figured out the theme and got every theme entry (there were eight of them!) and then had to spend seven-ish minutes guessing letters. Glancing at the puzzle now, OLIO (as clued), ALL IS, DIO, SIDER (as clued), NYRO, ASTA, NADIRS, CIRRO, POME, CEL, IN A SUIT, NAE, DONNA (as clued), ALI G, ALTAIR, CDL, and IPSO were all entries that tripped me up. Okay yikes, I didn't realize it was that many until I wrote them all out :(

Usually, a puzzle ends up with tough vocab like that because the theme constrains the grid in some way. In this puzzle, it was probably the fact that there were eight theme entries throughout, one of which was vertical. And there were some tough letters to work with, like the Z, V, an K. When I'm struggling through a constrained grid, I need the theme to really click with me so that I feel like the pain was worth it. Alas, this theme didn't.

I like the idea of cutesy fake reviews, but the execution on these felt off. The three star review seemed exactly as effusive as the eight and thirteen star reviews. Giving something Eight Stars Out Of Five isn't a known concept (vs "11/10" or "110%" which are both idiomatic to me), so I needed the clue to sell the above-and-beyond-ness. But they just ended up reading like regular good reviews... especially in this age of Instagram Influencers taking one bite out of a bowl of pasta and shrieking that it's the most life-changing show-stopping thing they've EVER had in their WHOLE LIVES!!!!!!! (The review for Georgia low-key felt like a 3.5 star review...)

The constructor clearly took care to arrange the states symmetrically in the grid and order them from fewest stars to least. Unfortunately, this type of symmetry is kind of lost on me when you end up having an asymmetric revealer. At that point, I say toss the symmetry away! That would have allowed the puzzle to include perhaps the most famous State With A Star On Its Flag-- Texas!! The theme really felt incomplete without Texas, in my opinion. The star on its flag is its whole thing!!

What did you guys think? Did the theme click with you or no? Was the vocab easy for you or hard? What would your one-star review for Texas look like? (Or maybe a four-star review for Chicago?) (I KNOW that Chicago is not a state btw!!!)

Bullets:

• [Catchphrase for Captain Underpants] for TRA LA LA — I adored these books when I was younger. My copies were in tatters. I still remember my prescribed weird name-- Pinky Wafflehead!
• [Old T-shirt, maybe] for DUST RAG — I filled this in with no problem, but when I was glancing over the grid to write this post, I kept on reading it as "Du Strag" and thinking it was someone's last name
• [Working on a board, perhaps] for IRONING — I had "planing" here at first. Cute clue!

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]