Late TV newsman Garrick / WED 1-7-15 / Third-largest French speaking city in world Ivory Coast / Slangy word of regret / JFK-based carrier

Constructor: Greg Johnson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Story of THESEUS and the [Minotaur]— theme answers relate to this myth. Circled squares spell out "MINOTAUR," which the puzzle note says goes in the center of the grid: "When this puzzle is done, the circled letters, reading from top to bottom, will spell something that belongs in the center of the grid."

Theme answers:

• THESEUS (13A: Maze runner?)
• LABYRINTH (22A: Home of the [circled letters])
• THREAD (15A: Item used by 13-Across to navigate the 22-Across)
• KING MINOS (48A: Ruler of 30-Down)
• ESCAPE (63A: Avoid, as the [circled letters])
• ARIADNE (64A: Daughter of 48-Across who helped 13-Across)
• CRETE (30D: Home of the [circled letters])
• SWORD (26D: Weapon used to slay the [circled letters])

Word of the Day: Garrick UTLEY (21A: Late TV newsman Garrick) —

Clifton Garrick Utley (November 19, 1939 – February 20, 2014) was an American television journalist. He established his career reporting about the Vietnam War and has the distinction of being the first full-time television correspondent covering the war on-site. (wikipedia)

This just doesn't work, for several reasons. First of all, it's a very straightforward puzzle masquerading as some kind of elaborate, tricky puzzle. But the elaborate / tricky part is smoke and mirrors. The "circled letters" are not uncommon letters, scattered asymmetrically around the grid. No great feat to find MINOTAUR in a descending pattern in the grid. In fact, you can do it in yesterday's puzzle. Go ahead, check. The center blank square: who cares? Not hard to construct, filled with nothing. The grid is not exactly "maze"-shaped (any more than any other grid is). So, what is there? Just a myth puzzle with blah answers. I don't know how this puzzle looks in the actual paper—maybe there's some cool visual element that the online version can't capture. The weirdest / least explicable thing about this puzzle is that the thing in the center (the isolated center, ???) is indicated by letter strewn all over the grid. So … it's not in the center, the MINOTAUR. Literally, not. But it is. So … I don't know what that's all about.


Fill was average, skewing poor/tired. Hardest part for me was the NE, which was also the Oldest. Garrick UTLEY (???) crossing 12D: Old TV's "Queen for A DAY"(??). Actually, the latter was easy to infer. But SHOULDA wasn't (17A: Slangy word of regret). And ATH (!?!) wasn't. [Sports dept.] is ATH? The ATHletic department? Yikes, that's weak. Unwelcome returns include OHNO, RRR, NSC. How does the "hint" in the ABIDJAN clue help? (42D: Third-largest French-speaking city in the world [hint: it's in Ivory Coast]) I've never heard of ABIDJAN at all. I kept looking for cognates of "ivory" or "coast." Nothing. That answer redefines "outlier," in that it's by Far the most obscure thing in the grid. Well, that and UTLEY, but I'm guessing far more people know UTLEY than know ABIDJAN. I'm just too young to know UTLEY. Nothing wrong with learning some geography, but in this puzzle, ABIDJAN is a sore thumb.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld