Constructor: Rich Proulx
Relative difficulty: Medium except NW corner, where I was stalled for (seemingly) ever...
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THEME:"Letter Openers"— seven Down answers have clues that are REBUSES (a term spelled out by the circled letters when the grid is completed); that is, the clues for those Downs are given in rebus (i.e. picture puzzle) form: "CIRCLED LETTER + [some picture]," in every case; the answers to those Down clues end up being the clues for the Across answers that run through the circled squares:
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: SITREPS (80A: War room briefings, in military shorthand) —
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Painful. Child's placemat puzzles incorporated into a very complicated theme. Not "complicated" in a good way, but ... fussy. I'm sure this was hard to make, architecturally, but there was virtually no "aha" payoff to any of this. That one point where I (finally) figured out that the REBUS answers were in fact the clues for the Across crosses—that was an "aha" of sorts, but it leaned more toward exasperated "oh." The pictures in the rebus clues were embarrassingly crude. And the rebus answers only kinda sorta worked as clues for their respective Acrosses much of the time. All that, just so we could spell out ... REBUSES at the end? "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine" was a more exciting reveal.
Notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium except NW corner, where I was stalled for (seemingly) ever...
Theme answers:
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| ["R" + CANE = ARCANE => CLEAR AS MUD (22A)] |
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| ["E" + ROAD = ERODE => EAT AWAY (29A)] |
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| ["B" + TRAY = BETRAY => BACKSTAB (42A)] |
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| ["U" + KNIT = UNIT => WORK GROUP (64A)] |
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| ["S" + CAPE = ESCAPE => SIDESTEP (87A)] |
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| ["E" + MITT = EMIT => GIVE OFF (98A)] |
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| ["S" + PIE = ESPY => HAVE EYES ON (111A)] |
Word of the Day: SITREPS (80A: War room briefings, in military shorthand) —
: a periodic report of the current military situation (merriam-webster.com) (emph. mine)
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WORK GROUP is a UNIT?? Isn't ... anything ... a UNIT? One of anything? I don't even know what WORK GROUP is. Is that a group that works ... together? And ARCANE and CLEAR AS MUD are totally different things. The former denotes something esoteric, known solely or primarily by an initiated group, whereas the latter denotes something hopelessly confusing. Parsing CLEAR AS MUD was so hard ... but ultimately it was the *only* reason I was able to complete the NW corner *at all*. Everything (I mean Everything) east of ARCANE and north of AIL in that section was a big old blank for me. Just empty space. I had STD written in at 9D: P.S.T. part: Abbr., but I didn't trust it (PAC?). And then at 18A: Lifted one's spirits? ... MADEA...?!?!!??! I was thinking of all the "spirits," including liquor, and still couldn't parse that (MADE A TOAST). The INCAS pioneered freeze-drying!? (5A: Pioneers of freeze-drying food). LOL I definitely wanted a brand name there (FOLGERS? MAXWELL HOUSE?). No idea that ASU (Arizona State) had the biggest enrollment. No idea what a [Temporary residence] could be at 7D. Thought 6D: Without regard to privacy (NOSILY) was OPENLY. And EAR CLIP, oof. Is that what that stupid thing is called? (25A: Aid for using Bluetooth). EARPIECE was what I wanted? EAR BUD? Kinda wanted CLIP, but EAR CLIP sounded like jewelry. And then there was the clue on ITALIC (5D: Just like that!). Brutal. Even with the "-IC." Wanted MAGIC. Or PRESTO or VOILA! I've never had so much white space for so long in any section of a Sunday. I rarely get that stuck even on Saturdays. But finally CLEAR AS MUD (fitting!) got me traction and I crawled out of there. Everything seemed (relatively) easy after that.
Tapping the "Not All Debuts Are Good" sign again, strenuously, at SITREPS, which sounds like something you do at the gym. Needed every single cross to get that one, never heard it in my life. And under NO-BRA DAY (74A: Annual observance for breast cancer awareness), which I've also never heard of, but which at least seems like a real thing that people *might* know about, or say, or participate in, unlike SITREPS, which seems like nonsense, like an unholy fusion of at least six words. Laughed out loud at KNURL, which is possibly the stupidest-sounding word in the English language (66D: Ridge in metalworking). Just say it out loud—you feel silly, right? Sounds like you made it up. Or, like, it's part of some imaginary creature, a cryptozoological body part, perhaps at the base of the antennae. "VENUSians are able to read human thoughts due to an organ located at the base of their well-developed KNURLs." As for SOFT A, I think of "soft" as related to consonants (SOFT G was in the puzzle very recently—that's the "G" in "gem" vs. the "G" in "guts," which is a HARD G). I think of vowels as either "short" or "long." So "SOFT A" is odd to me, though I'm sure I've seen it before. Bizarrely, when I look up [define "soft a"], the top hits are all about differentiating a certain racial slur ("hard R") from a more familiar / less derogatory term in African-American Vernacular English. In fact, this is the primary (sole) example used in the wiktionary definition of "SOFT A." It's hard to remember a part of this solved that seemed genuinely enjoyable—probably seeing Isabella ROSSELLINI, clued for her brief and nearly-silent but still stunning role in Conclave (109A: "Conclave" actress Isabella). I hope she wins that Oscar.
[Her little bow at the end of her speech to the Cardinals—dagger! I laughed out loud]
- 90A: Gordon ___ engineer with a "law" predicting a doubling of transistors on microchips every two years (MOORE)— and human beings lived happily ever after, The End
- 20A: Riveting persona of W.W. II (ROSIE) — Rosie the Riveter, icon of women in the (wartime) workforce.
- 34D: White House dog of the 1980s (REX) — I have no memory of this. I remember Millie, the Bushes' dog. That is the only presidential pet of the '80s that I remember. Why not just name the president??? I assume it's Reagan. Yeah, here we go. A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that Reagan gave to Nancy in 1984. I was too busy going through puberty to notice, apparently.
- 45D: ___ Urquhart, co-host of the podcast "Morbid" (ALAINA) — wow, this clue couldn't have been more gibberish to me if it tried. Names I've never heard of, podcasts I've never heard of. Truly a perfect storm of my particular pop culture ignorance. Ah, no wonder I don't know it. Ask me how I feel about the "true crime" genre in general. I find most of it exploitative and creepy. But I admit I'm an outlier here. You all seem to love it. It's a very popular podcast.
- 14D: Storage devices made obsolete by MP3 players (MINIDISCS) — were these ever ... "solete?" I mean, for something to become "obsolete," doesn't it first have to be popular?
- 1D: Network owned by Showtime (TMC) — The Movie Channel. This was another reason I struggled in the NW. In retrospect, TMC is sorta obvious, but I definitely had other "T" networks in there at times (TNT, TBS, TCM ... TNN, is that something?)
- 93D: Theseus' need in the Labyrinth (THREAD) — because "HELP FROM ARIADNE, WHOM HE WOULD LATER ABANDON" wouldn't fit.
Enjoy the rest of your day. See you next time.
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