Constructor: Ian Livengood
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: HALITE (16A: Melter on winter sidewalks) —
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This one was pretty sweet. Smooth and practically groaner-free. Nice mix of contemporary names and common words/phrases. I think I'm becoming one of Those People who doesn't like to see a ton of brand names in the grid. I don't mind them, I just … have limits. And when you lead with SNAPCHAT over KETEL ONE, part of me's like "easy there, Pitchy McAdman." But the commercial density of the rest of the puzzle was less intense. The puzzle also flirted with my indeterminate but very real Proper Noun Limit, generally, but managed to stay a safe distance from Insufferable Territory. Proper nouns can be boring you-know-it-or-you-don't exercises in trivia … or they can be 12D: Fox hunt leader of old (SIMON COWELL), which is some kind of genius clue. Playful yet literal, and spot-on (the "Fox" is the TV network and the "hunt" is "American Idol"). My only complaint was that it was too easy. SNAPCHAT was a gimme (1A: Instagram alternative), and that set me up to knock out the NW and then flow easily into the west and center of the grid. Thusly:
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The openness of the grid—that is, the multiple access points that every section has—made consistent progress easy. I didn't get significantly held up at all. I wrote in SHOO for SCAT (36D: "Beat it!"), and that took some time off the clock, but that's a pretty minor hiccup.
I often find cross-referenced clues annoying, but today I found one very helpful. As I moved from one answer to its counterpart across the grid (the way one might move, say, from the Conservatory to the Lounge in Clue), I thought "Oh, this is what cross-referenced clues are supposed to do. Neat." Fortuitously, I got the --K at 48A: Official 18-Across of Utah and immediately saw it had to be ELK, which meant 18A: See 48-Across was probably ANIMAL. So I abandoned the ELK corner for the ANIMAL corner and worked my way methodically down and around, back to the ELK region, with the "E" in NESTED my final letter. Here's the key moment of cross-grid / cross-reference transition:
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Really liked COACH K as fill. Not sure if it's completely original, but it's fresh and unusual and very much in-the-language, sports-talk-wise. I remembered what HESSIANs were, which was my big memory coup of the day. HESSIAN is a word I learned from crosswords. Not sure how they eluded me in US History class, but so many other things did, I can't be that surprised. I forgot who the hero of the 1960 World Series was, so thank god that "Z" cross was easy—as soon as I got it, I remembered Bill Mazeroski. Not sure I knew people called him MAZ (the way people called Carl Yastrzemski "YAZ"), but I do like that "Z" there. Much better than the "E" that would've taken its place otherwise (probably) (you can put a couple other letters there, but they're not great).
A nice, novice-friendly Friday.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: HALITE (16A: Melter on winter sidewalks) —
noun
• • •
I often find cross-referenced clues annoying, but today I found one very helpful. As I moved from one answer to its counterpart across the grid (the way one might move, say, from the Conservatory to the Lounge in Clue), I thought "Oh, this is what cross-referenced clues are supposed to do. Neat." Fortuitously, I got the --K at 48A: Official 18-Across of Utah and immediately saw it had to be ELK, which meant 18A: See 48-Across was probably ANIMAL. So I abandoned the ELK corner for the ANIMAL corner and worked my way methodically down and around, back to the ELK region, with the "E" in NESTED my final letter. Here's the key moment of cross-grid / cross-reference transition:
A nice, novice-friendly Friday.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld