Title island of 2005 DreamWorks animated film / WED 7-9-14 / Hip-hop's Racist / Ancient fertility goddess / Some Scandinavian co
THEME: STAR-STUDDED (60A: Like the Oscars … or the answers to this puzzle's seven asterisked clues?) — letter string "STAR" appears in seven answers:
Theme answers:
- JUST ARRIVED (17A: *Words on a birth announcement)
- SALES TARGET (26A: *Quota for a rep to achieve)
- COSTA RICA (37A: *Oldest continuous democracy in Central America)
- TOURIST AREA (51A: *Where to find money exchange shops)
- LESS TAR (13D: *Cigarette ad claim) (note: AD is in the grid at AD MEN)
- ASTARTE (40D: *Ancient fertility goddess)
- STARE (!?!?) (27D: *Prefight psych job)
Bal Harbour is a village in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,305 at the 2000 census. (Must be a major tourist spot? Because 3,305 … ?) (wikipedia)• • •
I'm legitimately surprised at how deficient this puzzle is. The revealer is promising, actually, and five of the theme answers fulfill that promise adequately (all the longer Across ones LESS TAR). But ASTARTE is a sore thumb, in that it's the only longer theme answer where STAR is *not* broken across two words (a really inelegant inconsistency); and STARE … I can't believe anyone is trying to convince anyone that STARE is a theme answer. It's practically just the word STAR. Not only is STAR not broken across two words, it completely destroys the thematical symmetry. It's not a bonus answer, it's a wart. There's more: you should never, ever have these long Across answers that are *not* theme answers. MADAGASCAR *and* WISECRACKS are both longer than the theme answer they abut (COSTA RICA). Clunky design, which is also evident in the way those little 3x3 sections in the E and W just sit there like sad appendages. Segmentation adds to the slew of three-letter words, which really downgrade the overall fill quality. And thus we come to perhaps the biggest problem: deathly fill. Where to begin? Maybe ACRED? Maybe GIE!? Those just made me wince. CAS ASWAS SORORAL USEIN, all wince-ome. With the rest, there's just an overwhelming mediocrity. The S / SW is particularly illustrative here. EST and TEE and (put 'em together …) ESTEE and then TSE and (remonogram me!) RLS and then a lot more Es and Rs blah.
This could've worked. Find a replacement for ASTARTE. Get rid of the absurd STARE. Redesign grid so you don't have these awkward structural problems, i.e. over-long Across non-themers, on the one hand, and a hyper-choppy, 3-letter-heavy grid, on the other. Then completely refill the grid with a hell of a lot more actual words. Really sad to see a decent concept just mangled in the execution like this.
I did like the clue on BEER GUT, though (11D: Opposite of six-pack abs, ironically).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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