Constructor: Peter A. Collins
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME:"Personal Statements"— famous people whose last names begin with "S" have their names re-imagined as possessive phrases, with the "S" becoming an apostrophe-S attached to the first name. Clues are lengthy joke set-ups...
Theme answers:
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Hi all. It's time for my just-once-a-year-I-swear pitch for financial contributions to the blog. If you enjoy (or some other verb) this blog on a regular or fairly regular basis, please consider what the blog is worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for your enjoyment (or some other noun) for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. I'm in my ninth (!) year of writing about the puzzle every single day, and while there are occasions when the daily grind gets a little wearisome, for the most part I've been surprised by how resilient my passion for solving and talking about crosswords has been. It's energizing to be part of such an enthusiastic and diverse community of solvers, and I'm excited about the coming year (I have reason to be hopeful … mysterious reasons …). Anyway, I appreciate your generosity more than I can say. This year, said generosity allowed me to hire a regular guest blogger, Annabel Thompson, who now brings a fresh, youthful voice to my blog on the first Monday of every month. So thanks for that. As I said last year, I know that some people are opposed to paying for what they can get for free, and still others really don't have money to spare. Both kinds of people are welcome to continue reading my blog, with my compliments. It will always be free. I have no interest in cordoning it off, nor do I have any interest in taking advertising. I value my independence too much. Anyway, if you are so moved, there is a Paypal button in the sidebar, and a mailing address here:
Rex Parker
℅ Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton NY 13905
And here: I'll stick a PayPal button in here for the mobile users.
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For people who send me actual, honest-to-god (i.e. "snail") mail (I love snail mail!), this year my thank-you cards are "Postcards from Penguin"—each card a different vintage Penguin paperback book cover. Who will be the lucky person who gets … let's see … "Kiss, Kiss" by Roald DAHL? Or "The Case of the Careless Kitten" by ERLE Stanley Gardner? Or the Selected Verse of Heinrich HEINE? It could be you. Or give via PayPal and get a thank-you email. That's cool too. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say so. No problem. Anyway, whatever you choose to do, I remain most grateful for your readership. Now on to the puzzle …
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME:"Personal Statements"— famous people whose last names begin with "S" have their names re-imagined as possessive phrases, with the "S" becoming an apostrophe-S attached to the first name. Clues are lengthy joke set-ups...
Theme answers:
- 23A: The makeup affected the appearance of all the cast of "Casino," including ___ (SHARON'S TONE)
- 35A: Afgter the 1946 World Series, the dugout was filled with the Cardinals and their happy sounds, including ___ (ENOS'S LAUGHTER)
- 51A: She said that when it comes to '60s teen idols, all you need to know is one thing: ___ (BOBBY'S HER MAN)
- 67A: The bartender poured beers of r all the action movie stars, including ___ (SYLVESTER'S TALL ONE)
- 85A: The members of the Metropolitan Opera were hit with a host of problems, including ___ (BEVERLY'S ILLS)
- 99A: At Thanksgiving the Indians were impressed with the Pilgrims and their earth-toned platters, especially ___ (MYLES'S TAN DISH)
- 116A: While trading barbs during the filming of "M*A*S*H," no one was able to match ___ (LORETTA'S WIT)
CONN (also CON) (v) To conduct or superintend the steering of (a ship or airplane): watch the course of (a ship) and direct the helmsman how to steer. (Webster's 3rd Int'l)
• • •
℅ Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton NY 13905
And here: I'll stick a PayPal button in here for the mobile users.
• • •
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I grimaced my way through most of this puzzle. The theme concept seemed plagued by problems from the outset. First, I've seen this theme before, at least once, most notably in a puzzle by the great Bernice Gordon a few years back (September 2009). I doubt the concept was original to her, but she did it well, and she did it in a 15x15, the size to which it's best suited. The gag wears thin quickly. In addition to the mustiness of the concept, there's the labored quality of the cluing—these exceedingly long, highly contrived clues that make the theme answers (i.e. the punchlines) go Thud. Some of the clues don't even make any sense. The SHARON'S TONE one, for instance. The way that clue is written, the answer should just be her name: SHARON STONE. "… all the cast of 'Casino,' including SHARON STONE." If you make it SHARON'S TONE, then you are asking me to imagine someone's using nearly impossible syntax. I get that the premises of the clues are outlandish, but the basic grammar ought not to be. I was initially bothered by the fact that some re-imaginings asked for sound changes and others didn't, but I'm not bothered by it now. The themers all work as sight gags. That's fine. But the oldness of the theme and the contrived, unfunny nature of the clues—those are less fine.
See you tomorrow.
Fill is OK (OK), but seemed surprisingly shaky in places, notably the far SE and SW corners, and then in and around LOCKA :( and ALAR (so, toward the upper middle of the grid). I liked BUBBLY and MONOGAMY and WHOLE MILK and EYE LIFT. By far the greatest struggle for me today was figuring out what I had wrong at 58D: High-minded sort? I had POTUSER, so I knew that was wrong. I know what POTUS is, but a POTUSER is clearly not a thing. So I checked every cross. Methodically. And it kept coming up POTUSER (didn't help that the fill through here is generally cruddy and the clue was a "?" clue—both of these added to self-doubt/confusion). Then I had my (big) aha moment. POTUSER isn't one word. It's POT [space] USER. I see that that is a phrase one might use, but [insert drug here] USER feels slippery-slope-ish. DRUG USER seems like a thing. But METH USER? Yeah, OK. Maybe that works too. But that's a phrase one actually says, whereas we're more likely to say "pot smoker" or "pothead" than POT USER (which googles pretty poorly as a phrase). Anyway, I won't gripe too much here, because I realize most of my griping is sour gripes; I just failed to parse it correctly. Full stop.
Also had real trouble in the BREDA (never heard of it) AFR FENLAND (really never heard of it) LATTER area. Wanting ATL for AFR really, really didn't help (89A: It's east of S.A.). Best error of the day: MAORI for MASAI (20A: People of Kenya) (my wife's from NZ, you'd *think* I'd know the MAORI aren't from Kenya). Biggest laugh of the day: ASS IN, The Sequel! (25A: Guilty ___). Back to back days for that improbable and fun to reparse partial! Good stuff.
Also had real trouble in the BREDA (never heard of it) AFR FENLAND (really never heard of it) LATTER area. Wanting ATL for AFR really, really didn't help (89A: It's east of S.A.). Best error of the day: MAORI for MASAI (20A: People of Kenya) (my wife's from NZ, you'd *think* I'd know the MAORI aren't from Kenya). Biggest laugh of the day: ASS IN, The Sequel! (25A: Guilty ___). Back to back days for that improbable and fun to reparse partial! Good stuff.
See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Yoni Brenner, a student of mine from back when I TA'd in the Great Books program at Michigan (16 years ago), has a funny piece in this week's New Yorker ("The Eight Serious Relationships of Hercules"), and I'm way prouder and more excited than I have any right to be. It's cute and smart. Check it out.
P.S. Yoni Brenner, a student of mine from back when I TA'd in the Great Books program at Michigan (16 years ago), has a funny piece in this week's New Yorker ("The Eight Serious Relationships of Hercules"), and I'm way prouder and more excited than I have any right to be. It's cute and smart. Check it out.