Constructor: Patrick Berry
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME:"Flip-Flops"— overlapping theme answers have letter strings that sit atop one another (signified by circled squares), and they flip-flop, i.e. the top letter string goes "down" and the bottom letter string goes "up"; the letters in these strings are clued by clues appended to each theme clue, such that the letter string makes sense as a free-standing answer if you supply the "down" or the "up" (respectively). Thus SALIERI over TENDER-HEARTED becomes, in the grid, SAENDRI over TLIEER-HEARTED because END has gone "up" and LIE has gone "down"—with END [UP] and LIE [DOWN] clued by the bracketed clues at the ends of their respective theme clues (in this case [finally become] and [go to bed]). Whole thing tied together by central answer: 65A: What each group of circled words in this puzzle does (GOES UP AND DOWN)
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: PAOLO Uccello (17D: Painter Uccello) —
This was way harder to describe than it was to grasp. I could see very quickly that the letter strings had swapped places, but I didn't get the relationship to the appended, bracketed clues until I got to this point:
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Aha, STARE "down"! So … CATCH "up"! Then I looked back at the NW and there it was: END "up" / LIE "down." After that, this thing was a cake walk. I had exactly two places where I encountered resistance: in and around TWIT (which I only ever use in noun form) (38A: Ridicule) and at the DOGIES / DANA crosses (don't know DANA, forgot "motherless or neglected *calves*" were called DOGIES—was wondering who allowed this horrible perversion of "doggies" into the grid…) (80A: Four-legged orphans / 80D: Writer Richard Henry ___). Thought the relocation of those letter strings throughout the grid would at least put some speed bumps into the solving, but the themers were often long enough to give me enough information to get the right answer before I even dealt with the circled parts, and since the Downs all worked normally, I could often just drive Downs through the circles and the themers would jump right out.
Despite the apparent presence of nonsense in the grid (i.e. BDIEETTE = !?!?), the fact that I can just look "up" or "down" where appropriate and have the answer work out means that I am not as bothered by this as I might otherwise be. My only issue with this puzzle is that the fill wasn't more interesting—there's not much great, marquee fill. I like the conceit, and the grid is Berry-clean, but I rarely went "ooh, good one" in my head. ELBOW PAD / STALACTITE was probably the nicest long pairing. The rest were just OK—they were answers that worked. This puzzle wasn't about dazzling fill; it was about a pretty neat idea, nicely executed. Wish it had more bite, but I'll take smart and clean any day. And dense. I left out dense. There's Soooo much theme here. Pretty impressive.
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME:"Flip-Flops"— overlapping theme answers have letter strings that sit atop one another (signified by circled squares), and they flip-flop, i.e. the top letter string goes "down" and the bottom letter string goes "up"; the letters in these strings are clued by clues appended to each theme clue, such that the letter string makes sense as a free-standing answer if you supply the "down" or the "up" (respectively). Thus SALIERI over TENDER-HEARTED becomes, in the grid, SAENDRI over TLIEER-HEARTED because END has gone "up" and LIE has gone "down"—with END [UP] and LIE [DOWN] clued by the bracketed clues at the ends of their respective theme clues (in this case [finally become] and [go to bed]). Whole thing tied together by central answer: 65A: What each group of circled words in this puzzle does (GOES UP AND DOWN)
Theme answers:
- SAENDRI (23A: Narrator of "Amadeus" [go to bed])
- TLIEERHEARTED (26A: Compassionate [finally become])
- RECATCHAS (21A: Turnpike turnoffs [intimidate, in a way])
- PURINASTAREOW (24A: Pet food brand [recover lost ground])
- ELACTPAD (45A: Skateboarder's safety item [salaam])
- STALBOWITE (53A: Point at the ceiling? [misbehave])
- ARUNUS (51A: Goodbyes [abate])
- BDIEETTE (55A: She's not light-headed [amass])
- WARIDEPAPER (85A: Office trash [resign])
- STSTEPNT (90A: Loud and harsh [start crowding the crotch])
- PRIMUSEG (83A: Activity done in front of a mirror [clearly define])
- NAPINA (89A: Upset stomach [consume])
- SCROPMOUNTAIN (114A: Granite dome in Georgia [moderate])
- ATONEEOLIS (119A: Athens landmark [arise])
- SELFRESTANTET (109A: Control of one's actions [fall in great quantities])
- BRAINRS (117A: Converses à la Tracy and Hepburn [pay in advance])
Word of the Day: PAOLO Uccello (17D: Painter Uccello) —
Paolo Uccello (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpaːolo utˈtʃɛlo]; 1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artistswrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point. He used perspective in order to create a feeling of depth in his paintings and not, as his contemporaries, to narrate different or succeeding stories. His best known works are the three paintings representing the battle of San Romano (for a long time these were wrongly entitled the "Battle of Sant' Egidio of 1416").Paolo worked in the Late Gothic tradition, and emphasized colour and pageantry rather than the Classical realism that other artists were pioneering. His style is best described as idiosyncratic, and he left no school of followers. He has had some influence on twentieth-century art and literary criticism (e.g., in the "Vies imaginaires" by Marcel Schwob, "Uccello le poil" by Antonin Artaud and "O Mundo Como Ideia" by Bruno Tolentino). (wikipedia)
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This was way harder to describe than it was to grasp. I could see very quickly that the letter strings had swapped places, but I didn't get the relationship to the appended, bracketed clues until I got to this point:
Despite the apparent presence of nonsense in the grid (i.e. BDIEETTE = !?!?), the fact that I can just look "up" or "down" where appropriate and have the answer work out means that I am not as bothered by this as I might otherwise be. My only issue with this puzzle is that the fill wasn't more interesting—there's not much great, marquee fill. I like the conceit, and the grid is Berry-clean, but I rarely went "ooh, good one" in my head. ELBOW PAD / STALACTITE was probably the nicest long pairing. The rest were just OK—they were answers that worked. This puzzle wasn't about dazzling fill; it was about a pretty neat idea, nicely executed. Wish it had more bite, but I'll take smart and clean any day. And dense. I left out dense. There's Soooo much theme here. Pretty impressive.
Bullets:
- 33D: "Taxi" character Elaine (NARDO) — at first I just saw "Elaine" and thought "… well, it's BENES … why don't these crosses work?" Then I thought PARDO. You could pretty much feel the hamsters in my brain spinning away.
- 11D: Physicist Rutherford after whom rutherfordium is named (ERNEST)— oh, *that* physicist Rutherford. Gotcha.
- 37D: Estrangement (RIFT) — have we seen "Oculus RIFT" yet? If not, we will…
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld