Japanese sliding door / FRI 5-10-13 / Moldau composer / 1950s backup group with four top 10 hits / Bill in bow tie / Party label for Brit PM William Gladstone / Hometown of band Hanson / Much filmed swinger

Constructor: Derek Bowman

Relative difficulty: Easy



THEME: None 

Word of the Day: SHOJI (48D: Japanese sliding door) —

n., pl., shoji, or -jis.
A translucent screen consisting of a wooden frame covered in rice paper, used as a sliding door or partition in a Japanese house.

[Japanese shōji : shō, barrier, screen (from Middle Chinese tsiang) + ji, seed, n. suff. (from Middle Chinese tsz).]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/shoji#ixzz2SquzPnby

Hey, we're allowing 16s now, for no thematic reason? OK, cool. Not the biggest stack fan in the world, but this 16 stack does not result in the disastrous fill that usually accompanies 15 stacks, for whatever reason, so I'll take it. Clean and interesting fill all around, with the short / weaker stuff spread out and inconspicuous. Nice that two of the 16s relate to one another, too. The one weird thing about this puzzle was how cut off the NE and SW corners are—just a one-square opening connecting them to the rest of the grid. OK, that's not *that* weird, but what that segmentation does is turn those corners into independent mini-puzzles. and the SE corner mini-puzzle was on a whole different plane of Difficulty from the rest of the grid. I ran TARZAN THE APEMAN down into that corner easily (4D: Much-filmed swinger), and early, but after that ... yikes. Got ROY (62D: "The Natural" hero Hobbes) and guessed TEJANO (65A: Certain Mexican-American) but having *zero* idea about SHOJI (never heard of it) (48D: Japanese sliding door), SENG (ditto) (54D: Hong Kong's Hang ___ Index) and "Tarantula hawk" (ditto ditto) (46A: Tarantula hawk, e.g. => WASP), I was in a bit of a jam there for a bit. Not sure how I got out of it. I think ISOMER was a gut-level guess that I tested out (61A: Chemistry test topic). And STINGY just came to me, eventually (67A: Tight). Even so, I crawled through that corner, whereas I sprinted through the rest of the puzzle. Finished under 7. Not bad, especially considering the extra-wide grid.


I had a few errant answers today. Thought Hanson was from OMAHA (five letters, ends in A, more common in crosswords than TULSA ... well, I thought it was a good guess) (12D: Hometown of the band Hanson); thought [Culture centers?] were TEES. See, that's me, outsmarting a clue that isn't being smart. Or, that is being smart. Smarter than I. Don't even remember seeing the clue at 35D: Party label for Brit. P.M. William Gladstone (LIB), which is just as well, since I wouldn't have known it anyway. I was happy to get SMETANA from just a few crosses, even though SMETANA is my least favoritely named composer (25D: "The Moldau" composer). His name sounds like a synonym for "phlegm." Do people outside New York remember AL D'AMATO? I'm inside New York, so it was practically a gimme for me (37D: Chuck Schumer's predecessor in the Senate).


First thought on seeing the clue at 58D: Pull felt on earth: "Why would you want to pull felt, and where else would you do it besides earth?"

Drank a lot at dinner (it's the last day of classes, so I felt entitled), so now I'm gonna go drink a lot of water and watch "The Daily Show." See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld