Constructor: Peter Broda
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
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THEME: GO BELLY UP(37A: File for Chapter 11 ... or do an 18-, 20-, 60- or 64-Across)— theme answers are all activities in which the participant literally goes belly up:
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: EUNICE Shriver (14A: One of the Shrivers) —
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Pretty clever post-Tax Day puzzle. Solving experience was very weird. Absurdly slow start. Got virtually nothing in the NW, which felt more Wed-Thu than Tuesday for sure, but then I finally got DRACOS (ouch) (17A: "Harry Potter" antagonist and namesakes), and that corner began to come into view. No way I was seeing stuff like REIN IN, NESTLE (6D: Hot Pockets maker) (???), or EURASIA without crosses, which I just couldn't come by. ForgotICOSA (5D: Twenty: Prefix). Didn't really know EUNICE (who is a Kennedy to me) (14A: One of the Shrivers). Should've got RED BULL but didn't for a while (1D: Popular energy drink). It was really a disaster up there. Then things leveled off and my time was bad for a Tuesday but not HELLA bad. I like the theme, and I love much of the fill, but the grid is weird / awkward. Huge corners and super-choppy middle make for a very uneven feel. This puzzle is 78 words (the max), which seems impossible given those corners (esp. the NW / SE). But the chopped up middle, with all those short answers, are where the grid really drives up the word count. This made the center very easy, the corners less so. Center keeps from being dull by virtue of the revealer and HELLA, which I'm pleasantly surprised to see (29D: Very, slangily). It's dated by now, but ... why not throw it in to the mix? I was more surprised to see the "BO KNOWS" campaign show up out of nowhere (13D: Onetime catchphrase for athlete Jackson). The NEXT GEN SEX SHOP in the SW took me by surprise as well (43D: Like many newly unveiled electronics, casually + 41D: Store for couples, maybe). This was entertaining overall. NW feels slightly awkward and jury-rigged (IN A CAST? DRACOS?), but theme is strong and fill is smooth with occasional moments of ELAN and sass.
Bullets:
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Theme answers:
- 18A: Proceed on all fours, in a way (CRAB WALK)
- 20A: Butterfly alternative (BACKSTROKE)
- 60A: Caribbean party event (LIMBO DANCE)
- 64A: Decathlon event (HIGH JUMP)
Word of the Day: EUNICE Shriver (14A: One of the Shrivers) —
Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver, DSG (July 10, 1921 – August 11, 2009) was a member of the Kennedy family, sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver which started on her Maryland farm known as Timberlawn and, in 1968 evolved into the Special Olympics. Her husband, Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., was United States Ambassador to France and the Democratic vice presidential candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. (wikipedia)
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Bullets:
- 15A: Like a day in June, according to Lowell (RARE)— odd. There are thirty of them. How RARE can they be?
- 69A: Old McDonnell Douglas aircraft (DC NINE)— Old McDonnell had an aircraft and DC NINE was its name. Oh.
- 62D: Compressed video file format (MPEG)— one of many answers that make this puzzle feel as if (unlike yesterday's) it was, in fact, a product of this millennium.
- 72A: Like Cheech & Chong, in most of their movies (STONED)— HELLA STONED.