Constructor: Joe Marquez
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: UPS AND DOWNS (57A: Uncertainties of life ... or a feature of four answers in this puzzle?)— circled squares contain letters that go UP and DOWN inside four longer Across answers:
Theme answers:
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A very easy "trick" puzzle. Kind of a Wednesday Thursday. And the grid as a whole ... it's really remedial. I'd say "smooth," but "bland" gets at it better. Lots of boring short stuff, and longer stuff that doesn't do much to liven up the joint. So once again, *everything* rests on the theme today ... which I think is clever, for sure. I'm very aware now that "finding" these kinds of answers (in this case, ones that have a palindromic set of three-up / three-back letters inside them) is more than likely the work of computers than any human "finding," but the effect on the page is still nice. I like that the three-up / three-back segments all involve every word in the theme answers. No tacked-on extra bits. Parts (or all) of every word get caught up in the up/down swing. I especially like the two answers that get three words involved, where the middle word appears entirely in the up/down. And thankfully, these were the last two themers I got. The first got an "oh, OK, I see what you're doing" from me (HEART TRANSPLANT). The next got an "oof, what a boring answer" from me (USER RESEARCH). But the next two really shined (had to look up "shone" v. "shined" there, and since I'm American ... "shined" it is!). CAN'T SEE STRAIGHT got a genuine "Nice!" out of me (not sure if I literally said it, but I definitely thought it), and then later I went up and got the last themer, the one in the NE corner (SOLDIER OF FORTUNE) and that one also impressed with its three-worder-ness. So the theme (as I solved it) finished strong, at least. So I really enjoyed half the themers. Don't have much more good to say about this one, I'm afraid. But while I was in the theme material, I was more than sufficiently entertained.
Notes:
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- SOLDIER OF / FORTUNE (18A: Mercenary)
- HEART / TRANSPLANT (23A: Groundbreaking medical procedure first accomplished in 1967)
- USER / RESEARCH (38A: Focus of a product development test)
- CAN'T SE / E STRAIGHT (52A: Has a clouded mind)
Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was a Canadian-American actor. A major leading man during the Golden Age of Hollywood, known for his "portrayals of men who prove both sturdy and wise,"[2] Pidgeon earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, for his roles in Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Madame Curie (1943).Pidgeon also starred in many other notable films, such as How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Forbidden Planet (1956), Executive Suite (1954), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), Advise & Consent (1962), Funny Girl (1968), and Harry in Your Pocket (1973).
Aside from his acting career, Pidgeon served as the 10th President of the Screen Actors Guild, between 1952 and 1957. He received the Guild's Life Achievement Award in 1975, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, for his contributions to the motion picture industry. (wikipedia)
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[ARETHA! (1D: Singer with the 1972 album "Young, Gifted and Black," informally)]
The fill was on the (very) weak side. But as I said up front, it was mostly just dull. Looking the grid over to try to find a Word of the Day, I was struck by how nothing seemed worthy. Nothing seemed interesting or extraordinary or weird enough to merit such a designation. It's mostly very plain language or very familiar crosswordese. It tries a couple longer proper nouns, but ... honestly, I'd rather it hadn't. Horrible to see HP content (AZKABAN) (26D: Fictional prison guarded by Dementors) centered in the grid the day after Rowling's anti-trans bigotry finally got its political expression in the form of an Executive Order hunting trans kids and the people who support them. Congrats on that, all you "protect women's spaces" / "save women's sports" people. Nice job. Pat selves on back. ("No one comes here for your political opinions"— cool cool please go enjoy one of those highly entertaining apolitical crossword blogs then, no one's stopping you!). The other attempt at adding some proper-noun color to this grid (TED LASSO) ends up creating a less-than-ideal TV character / TV character crossing (TED LASSO / HOLT). No one's likely to get stuck there (all the crosses on HOLT are easy), but ... that is not how I would've clued HOLT in this specific situation. I mean, it's not how I would've clued HOLT ever, but as editor, in this instance, I probably would've nudged that clue toward HOLT's regular meaning (a wood, grove, or copse; or the lair of an otter!) ... non-proper-noun HOLT is not exactly a common word, but hey, it's Thursday, some part of this puzzle should actually be a little challenging.
["Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth / Inspired hath in every HOLT and heeth / The tendre croppes..."]
My errors today were, like much of this grid, super-boring. Wanted SKOSH before SPECK (32A: Tiny bit). Wanted -ANE before -ENE (12D: Suffix with methyl). Oof, suffix confusion ... fun! Were those my only missteps? It looks like it. I had trouble with FARCE, but only because it crossed ENE-not-ANE. HOLT is really the only thing I can see holding people up today, and as I said, there's no reason it should hold anyone up for long.
Notes:
- 1A: First U.S. prez to be born outside the original 13 Colonies (ABE) — I started to actually think about this one, but then some (wise, experienced) part of my brain was like "just write ABE, it's probably ABE." And so it was.
- 51A: Supermodel Carangi (GIA)— I know one other GIA. Actress GIA Scala. There's apparently some social media "influencer" named GIA, but I don't want to give constructors / editors any ideas.
- 31D: Division of the Dept. of Labor (OSHA) — Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Do we still have one of these? I can't keep up with the deregulatory news this week.
- 64A: This is "plagiarism or revolution," per Gauguin (ART) — ideally you would not have a standalone answer that essentially dupes one of your up/down three-letter strings (the "ART" in HEART / TRANSPLANT). See also EST (17A: "Sic vita ___" ("Such is life")) / CAN'T SEE STRAIGHT.
- 49D: Possible answer to "Whose?" (THE I.R.S.) — As in, "Whose (money is this)?" It's a question you ask around April.*