Constructor: John Lieb
Relative difficulty: Very Easy
THEME: NAME-DROPPER (12D: Status-seeking sort ... or a solver of this puzzle, initially?) — three theme answers are names ("dropping" Down) with the initials N.D.
Theme answers:
Started off fast with CASINOS being a gimme, and virtually all the Down crosses dropping easily and immediately from there (1A: Locales for "Ocean's Eleven" and several Bond films). And then I just Tore through the grid. Under 3 minutes, which is Very fast for me on a Tuesday. Faster than yesterday's puzzle, for sure. Only place I even hesitated was with the theme answer NAME DROPPER, and (less so) with BASEMEN (wasn't sure it was a word, since the term I'm more familiar with is BASERUNNER) (18A: Who, What and I Don't Know, in Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine). I had no idea that a whistle gave a lifeguard anything that would legitimately qualify as a TANLINE, so that took some crosses, but all the surrounding answers were so easy that I can hardly say the whistle clue slowed me down (66A: A lifeguard's whistle might create one). I enjoyed remembering "Song Sung Blue" and "Rio." Never been a "NAPOLEON DYNAMITE" fan, but I like it here, symmetrically, in the grid. Nice touch to give NANCY DREW a crossword-related clue.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Relative difficulty: Very Easy
THEME: NAME-DROPPER (12D: Status-seeking sort ... or a solver of this puzzle, initially?) — three theme answers are names ("dropping" Down) with the initials N.D.
Theme answers:
- 5D: With 41-Down, title teen in a 2004 indie hit (NAPOLEON / DYNAMITE)
- 24D: "Song Sung Blue" singer (NEIL DIAMOND)
- 20D: Amateur detective in 1967's "The Clue in the Crossword Cipher" (NANCY DREW)
The Nicene Creed (Latin: Symbolum Nicaenum) is the creed or profession of faith (Greek: Σύμβολον τῆς Πίστεως) that is most widely used in Christianliturgy. It is called Nicene (pron.:/ˈnaɪsiːn/) because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea (İznik in what is now Turkey) by the firstecumenical council, which met there in the year 325. (wikipedia)
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Despite the fact that this theme is borderline incoherent, I enjoyed this puzzle. It was weird; theme still doesn't make much sense to me, but the fill was clean and the answers were interesting. The phrasing on the revealer clue ... I just can't get it to make any grammatical sense. I see what it's going for—the names that are "dropping" around the grid all have the initials "N.D.," the same "initials" as NAME DROPPER—but the phrasing is convoluted. It's the "initially" that's off. "Solver of this puzzle" = NAME DROPPER. That I get. But from "initially" I am supposed to get a. that the theme answers all have the same initials and b. that those initials are the same initials as NAME DROPPER? That's something I could only figure out in retrospect. The phrasing in the clue is just broken. I guess that's why the "?" is there—to excuse the cluing infelicities. Still, I liked this. Very little of the junk you often see in Tuesday puzzles, and even if the puzzle was thin and weird, theme-wise, at least it was interesting. It's going for something wacky and different, and (importantly) not torturing fill in order to do it. So, thumbs up (esp. when judged on a Tuesday scale). Started off fast with CASINOS being a gimme, and virtually all the Down crosses dropping easily and immediately from there (1A: Locales for "Ocean's Eleven" and several Bond films). And then I just Tore through the grid. Under 3 minutes, which is Very fast for me on a Tuesday. Faster than yesterday's puzzle, for sure. Only place I even hesitated was with the theme answer NAME DROPPER, and (less so) with BASEMEN (wasn't sure it was a word, since the term I'm more familiar with is BASERUNNER) (18A: Who, What and I Don't Know, in Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine). I had no idea that a whistle gave a lifeguard anything that would legitimately qualify as a TANLINE, so that took some crosses, but all the surrounding answers were so easy that I can hardly say the whistle clue slowed me down (66A: A lifeguard's whistle might create one). I enjoyed remembering "Song Sung Blue" and "Rio." Never been a "NAPOLEON DYNAMITE" fan, but I like it here, symmetrically, in the grid. Nice touch to give NANCY DREW a crossword-related clue.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld