Old color print informally / TUE 8-25-15 / Granny's darn it / Old Mach 2 fliers for short / High-ceilinged courtyards / Demolish British style

Constructor: John E. Bennett

Relative difficulty: Tuesdayish


THEME:JUST HAVING A BALL (36A: Living it up ... or a hint to the six groups of circled letters) — circled squares spell out words that can precede BALL in a familiar phase / word

Theme answers:

• SOUR 
• HAIR 
• FOOT 
• BASE 
• MEAT 
• POOL

Word of the Day: PARONOMASIA (56A: Art of punning) —

noun, Rhetoric

1.

theuseofawordindifferentsensesortheuseofwordssimilarinsoundtoachieveaspecificeffect,ashumororadualmeaning;punning.

2.

apun. (dictionary.com)

This should've been rejected on the basis of the revealer alone. The equivalent of [Living it up] is HAVING A BALL. The JUST is absurdly gratuitous. It doesn't fit the clue. It's a qualifier that is nowhere indicated in the clue, and it is *only* here because this grid would've been way way harder to pull off if the appropriate, JUST-less phrase, had been simply centered in the grid (for reasons having to do with where black squares would've had to go). At least I assume this is the reason. Because otherwise Why On God's Green Earth is your revealer not the obvious, indisputable best choice: HAVING A BALL? If you can't do something right, don't do it at all. To be clear, and to repeat. This should've been sent back with a note indicating that it's a no-go without the proper central answer / revealer. I mean, the puzzle is just D.O.A. as is.

But the fill is a problem too. Weak all over, except for one preposterous moment where it's not weak but also not even close to Tuesday-level. PARONOMASIA is some kind of weird showing off that is totally out of tune with the general caliber / tenor / fill quality of this this puzzle. I hope to god that there isn't some implication that the connection between the revealer and the little word "balls" is an example of this phenomenon, because a. that stretches credulity, and b. that means FOOL'S ERRAND would also be thematic ... hmmm. Wait ... nah. Could the puzzle be so meta, so self-aware, that it actually knows it's got major issues, and is trying to tell us as much? That would be some pretty Next Level stuff. Also, EELWORM, wtf? That is desperation fill. You can't make up for a snoozefest with random jolts of obscurity like EELWORM and PARONOMASIA. Well, you can, but it's pretty sadistic. See also "OH FOO" (wtf x 1000).


Ultimately, this looks like a potentially promising idea that got wrecked on execution. I JUST can't get over the JUST.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]