Constructor: Erik Agard
Relative difficulty: Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)
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THEME:"Seriously?!"— same clue for four answers (the context being an imagined reaction to someone behaving outrageously):
Theme answers:
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I liked this theme. I didn't like it at first because the "YOU" part of "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" seemed contrived. Like ... where was the context for "you." I'd've believed "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" (an ordinary enough phrase), but "YOU?" It's something you might say to someone, sure, but the clue wasn't giving me enough to justify the far less common phrase. But then as I went on, I saw that all the clues were identical and all of them required you to imagine exactly the same context—a reaction to someone behaving ... badly? Inappropriately? Outrageously? One of those. So somehow the cumulative effect of the theme was enough to make that first themer OK. And that last themer is was a fun adventure and a nice way to close things out. I started from the back end and as soon as I saw there was more than one "O" before that final W"," I was like "OK, how far is this going to go?" and I just kept assuming "O"s and solving the Down crosses until I got to the very front of the answer, the first letter, where I wrote in ... [drumroll] ... "H.""HOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!?" Seriously, how is it not "How?" LOL, I was looking at the black and/or white bird with the second letter "H" (56D: Black and/or white water bird), thinking, "What the hell bird is this? What has happened to my four-letter bird knowledge!?" But of course the second letter of the bird wasn't an "H"—it was a "W." Wow. OK, yes, that also makes sense. Puzzle, done.
Notes:![]()
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)
Theme answers:
- "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" (17A: "Seriously?!")
- "WHO DOES THAT?!" (36A: "Seriously?!")
- "THE AUDACITY!" (44A: "Seriously?!")
- "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!" (66A: "Seriously?!")
A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Inaugurated in 1923, powwows today are an opportunity for Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or public, indoors or outdoors. Dancing events can be competitive with monetary prizes. Powwows vary in length from single-day to weeklong events. [...] The head dancers consist of the Head Man Dancer and the Head Woman Dancer, and often Head Teen Dancers, Head Little Boy and Girl Dancers, Head Golden Age Dancers, and a Head Gourd Dancer if the pow wow has a Gourd Dance. The head dancers lead the other dancers in the grand entry or parade of dancers that opens a pow-wow. In many cases, the head dancers are also responsible for leading the dancers during songs, and often dancers will not enter the arena unless the head dancers are already out dancing. (wikipedia)
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I liked this theme. I didn't like it at first because the "YOU" part of "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" seemed contrived. Like ... where was the context for "you." I'd've believed "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" (an ordinary enough phrase), but "YOU?" It's something you might say to someone, sure, but the clue wasn't giving me enough to justify the far less common phrase. But then as I went on, I saw that all the clues were identical and all of them required you to imagine exactly the same context—a reaction to someone behaving ... badly? Inappropriately? Outrageously? One of those. So somehow the cumulative effect of the theme was enough to make that first themer OK. And that last themer is was a fun adventure and a nice way to close things out. I started from the back end and as soon as I saw there was more than one "O" before that final W"," I was like "OK, how far is this going to go?" and I just kept assuming "O"s and solving the Down crosses until I got to the very front of the answer, the first letter, where I wrote in ... [drumroll] ... "H.""HOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!?" Seriously, how is it not "How?" LOL, I was looking at the black and/or white bird with the second letter "H" (56D: Black and/or white water bird), thinking, "What the hell bird is this? What has happened to my four-letter bird knowledge!?" But of course the second letter of the bird wasn't an "H"—it was a "W." Wow. OK, yes, that also makes sense. Puzzle, done.
When I saw Erik's name on the byline,* I thought "OK, so this is going to be good, but there are definitely going to be a handful of terms and names from marginalized cultures of one kind or another that I absolutely will not know and will have to piece together from crosses." And ... bingo. Three answers where I needed all (or almost all) the crosses to make sense of them: HEAD DANCER (3D: Important powwow figure), AHED (29D: Palestinian activist Tamimi), CHURCH ROCK (32D: New Mexico site of the largest radioactive accident in U.S. history). Never heard of any of those. CHURCH ROCK doesn't seem like it has anything to do with any particular culture on its surface, but the "radioactive accident" in question has been the source of much recent Native American activism (trying to get the environmental impact of the 1979 accident studied and, however possible, remedied). CHURCH ROCK is named after a rock formation that is sacred to the Navajo people. Anyway, I think this is a fine thing to do with your puzzle—include names and terms from groups you think are underrepresented. There's a predictable uptick in difficulty for a good chunk of solvers when you do this, but if the crosses are fair and the puzzle is appropriately slotted for its difficulty, that's fine. I thought this played much more like a Wednesday than a Tuesday, but again, that is solely because of the three answers I mentioned. Everything else was Tuesday Easy.
Notes:
- 14A: 918 or 539, on the Cherokee Nation (AREA CODE) — love this clue. Great way of being inclusive without really adding any difficulty at all.
- 28A: Kennewick ___ (ancient ancestor discovered in 1996) (MAN)— oof, forgot about this one. Never heard of it. And it crossed AHED (another never-heard-of). Luckily, MAN was totally inferrable. This makes at least the fourth Native American-oriented clue in this puzzle:
Kennewick Man or Ancient One was a Native American man who lived during the early Holocene, whose skeletal remains were found washed out on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, 1996. Radiocarbon tests show the man lived about 8,400 to 8,690 years Before Present, making his skeleton one of the most complete ever found this old in the Americas, and thus of high scientific interest for understanding the peopling of the Americas. (wikipedia)
- 43A: Currency common to Cyprus and Croatia (EURO)— nice, oblique way of coming at this very common crossword answer.
- 1D: ___ trail (rhyming path that formerly had tracks) (RAIL) — we love ours (well maintained, no cars to worry about). The weird thing was that though I wanted RAIL right away, I briefly thought it had to be wrong because I'd never really thought about the term as a general term. "How would anyone solving the puzzle know about the RAIL Trail in Vestal behind the HomeGoods store?" But apparently they're everywhere. Which ... makes sense.
See you next time.
*In case you didn't know, Erik is a veteran constructor and former editor of the USA Today crossword, as well as the 2018 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion