Constructor: Joe Krozel
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: REYNOSA (17A: City across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Tex.) —
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This was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be when I first looked at it. This is a very competent exercise in database management skills. Soon, robots will just make puzzles for other robots and we will pay to watch. Until then, this. Yes, there's some nutso fill (N STARs? REYNOSA? VENGE! ASS IN? ["Get your ___ here!"]), but seriously, almost all the interlocking 15s around the perimeter are solid. Only one (inevitable?) ONE'S answer in the bunch—easily the worst of the nine 15s (RESTS ON ONE'S OARS). I was surprised that a puzzle with this much white space was so (comparatively) easy to solve. I stopped a few times to take screen grabs (see below), and even then finished with a totally normal Saturday time. I credit this apparently normal state of affairs to the apparently normal, actual fill that populates much of the grid. Now, I hate the very phrase WASHINGTON STATE (it's just Washington—D.C. is the one that should be qualifying itself), and I am stunned to the point of being nearly almost completely AGOG that SAGEHENS got the clue it got (6D: Nevadans). I know for a fact that there's a Pomona College alum working right alongside Will on this stuff, and yet, when this one opportunity comes along to share our ridiculous mascot with the world, you pass it up? You Pass It Up? They should revoke your damned degree, Joel. For shame. No chirps for you.
So here's how you solve a daunting grid like this. Or, rather, here's how I solved it. Go straight for the short stuff. Had no hope at CTEAMS or ABOO or MIN, so I dove into the middle, where the odds of making something happen seemed higher. And I was right. I figured that's probably something-STAR at 14D: Many an old red giant, and then with that "T," that's probably ETHAN Frome, and pretty soon I had this:
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It's a start. Then I figure [Nevadans] probably ends in "S," so I plug it in, then guess SWEDE (correctly) (34A: Celsius, for one), and then drive straight down through the middle to the bottom. Then … nothing. So pfft, OK, now I'm going straight for the NE, where I've got the front ends of some Acrosses. Thankfully, I take one look at 7D: "Such gall!" and can see clearly that it's "THE NERVE!" And then somehow I know CHEROOT (15A: Cigar with both ends open). No idea where that came from. REYNOSA is a total no-hoper, but once THE MRS. goes in, I get ROSIE THE RIVETER easy (I don't think I would've needed any crosses at all, honestly) (11D: Per a 1942 song, "She's making history, working for victory"). So then here's my grid at this point:
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Right after I snapped that shot, I got MOONLIGHT SONATA no problem, and then things sped up considerably. Biggest issues between here and the end were that ON ICE was wrong (it was IN ICE) and so what was looking like TONTO ended up being PINTO at 48D: One with patches. Good thing, because … I was like "I … guess … TONTO had patches … on his … whatever he wore…" This helped me get EPI-, which was not on my radar at all. Other than that, no real issues. Had to go back and pick up the "Y" in REYNOSA, and had to carefully piece together T.C. CHEN (!?) (29A: Scorer of the first double eagle in U.S. Open history, 1985), but otherwise, as I say, having almost all real-word answers helped smooth out my landing. I'm not sure I really Liked the puzzle, but it definitely exceeded my admittedly low expectations. Not a DUD.
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: REYNOSA (17A: City across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Tex.) —
Reynosa is a border city in the northern part of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Hidalgo, Texas in the United States. As of 2013, the city of Reynosa has a population of 672,183. If the floating population is included in the census count, the population can reach up to approximately 1,000,000. (wikipedia)
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So here's how you solve a daunting grid like this. Or, rather, here's how I solved it. Go straight for the short stuff. Had no hope at CTEAMS or ABOO or MIN, so I dove into the middle, where the odds of making something happen seemed higher. And I was right. I figured that's probably something-STAR at 14D: Many an old red giant, and then with that "T," that's probably ETHAN Frome, and pretty soon I had this:
