Constructor: David Woolf
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: Fela KUTI (23A: Fela ___, Afrobeat music pioneer) —
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Sleep nearly took me out early again tonight, but I had to be up late because my daughter was getting back from a trip to NYC at close to midnight, so ha, sleep, you lose. Still awake. OK, I might've rested my eyes there for a little, but I'm awake now, which is the point. This puzzle was weird for me, perhaps because of the heretofore mentioned "resting of the eyes." I started in on this puzzle as I usually do with such stack-oriented puzzles: I went for all the Downs up top, one after the other, without even looking at the Acrosses until I'd made my way all the way across the top of the grid. This may not actually be the most efficient solving method—perhaps one ought to at least glance at the long Across clues—but it feels efficient to me, and usually yields great results once I've traversed the grid and finally look at the Acrosses. Even if several of the Downs are wrong (they usually are), I'm often able to see the correct answers through all the muck. Pattern recognition! Anyway, my first pass through the Downs up top yielded very little, so I ended up getting my first real start in the grid at a very odd place—sort of ENE, starting around KUTI (a gimme) and working down toward the middle. Like so:
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You can see that my northern grid is a pathetic combination of empty and wrong, with a smattering of right. Don't speak Spanish, so just had the first two letters of SABADO there. I was wrong about KIA; I knew there was a KIA with a short model name (it's the RIO), so I just wrote in KIA and waited. I see now that I could also easily have gone with the equally wrong answer, HYUNDAI. Interesting. I'd be surprised if I was the only one who dropped ADESTE in there without hesitation. As six-letter carol starters go, none ranks higher, grid frequency-wise, than ADESTE (of "Adeste Fideles" fame). IT CAME ... would not have occurred to me (it's by far the most terrible answer in the grid, one of the dumbest 6+ partials I've ever encountered). But KUTI got me going, and then all that failure up top turned quickly to success when I noticed 15D: Many an Instagram had to be SELFIE. With those last three Downs in place up top, the long Acrosses went down fast. Despite the wrong answers I had in place, I saw ALL OVER THE PLACE almost instantly after SELFIE dropped. The -ISS at the end of 1A: Message accompanied by red lips suggested KISS, which then suggested the rest of the answer. And then it was just a matter of LUGGAGE or BAGGAGE CAROUSEL (the latter, it turned out). So after a terrible first trip across the top of the grid, I caught fire and ended up here in what felt like no time:
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As for the bottom of the grid, it might as well not have existed. I've never finished that much of a late-week puzzle that quickly. With the first three letters of the long Acrosses in place, I got ONHANDS AND KNEES and then TRACTOR TRAILERS. With one more cross (the "S" from 51D: CSA), I got RUSSIAN ROULETTE. The Downs were helpless at that point. I picked them off methodically without even seeing the shorter Across clues toward the middle there. You're welcome for GALEN, by the way (46D: Ancient medical researcher). (I jokingly brought him up in the write-up of that ANGEL anagram puzzle earlier this week, and now, several days later, he materializes, like some kind of slow-to-respond genie).
Despite some iffiness here and there in the fill, this seemed an entirely acceptable puzzle. Too too easy down below, and with no real killer answers, but solid nonetheless.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: Fela KUTI (23A: Fela ___, Afrobeat music pioneer) —
Fela Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti;[1] 15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997), also known as Fela Anikulapo Kuti or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre, human rights activist, and political maverick. (wikipedia)
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["A CUPS in T TOPS!" Coming soon to Cinemax.]
As for the bottom of the grid, it might as well not have existed. I've never finished that much of a late-week puzzle that quickly. With the first three letters of the long Acrosses in place, I got ONHANDS AND KNEES and then TRACTOR TRAILERS. With one more cross (the "S" from 51D: CSA), I got RUSSIAN ROULETTE. The Downs were helpless at that point. I picked them off methodically without even seeing the shorter Across clues toward the middle there. You're welcome for GALEN, by the way (46D: Ancient medical researcher). (I jokingly brought him up in the write-up of that ANGEL anagram puzzle earlier this week, and now, several days later, he materializes, like some kind of slow-to-respond genie).
Despite some iffiness here and there in the fill, this seemed an entirely acceptable puzzle. Too too easy down below, and with no real killer answers, but solid nonetheless.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]