Half-filled auditorium to Frost / SAT 11-15-14 / Illness affecting wealthy / First video game character to be honored with figur
THEME: none
Word of the Day: Sir Richard STEELE (38D: Literary contemporary of Addison) —
Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator. (wikipedia)• • •
I've never seen a Saturday puzzle embarrass the rest of the week like this. I mean, the quality gap between this and the next best puzzle this week, let alone the average, is Grand Canyonesque. This was clean and delightful from front to back. Beautiful short-fill management—largely inoffensive and, due to the fantastic longer fill that dominates the grid, inconspicuous. I think YOHO is the only answer I actively dislike. Maybe XKES. I have to try hard to work up consternation, is what I'm saying, and if I have to work at it, it's not authentic, so: raspberries. I liked the stuff I got easily (AFFLUENZA), I liked the stuff I struggled for (MOON WALKS) … I just enjoyed myself. Would've been nice if the puzzle had put up a bit more of a fight on a Saturday (Saturday night being, as they say, alright for fighting), but when a puzzle is making me smile at virtually everything, right down to the clue for LOS (21D: ___ Pollos Hermanos ("Breaking Bad" restaurant)), I can't complain. I can only admire.
Here's something else that's great about this puzzle—it feels fresh despite not being drenched in up-to-the-minute slang or pop culture. It's got a huge range of answer-types: colloquial phrases, sports slang, ordinary words, animals, meats … but none of it is generationally exclusionary. It's colorful *and* accessible. I really enjoyed the literariness of the puzzle, with the great Frost quote up top, and then T.S. ELIOT talking to EMILE ZOLA about STEELE down below. I did struggle a bit in parts. I had most of KNEE PATCH (all but 2 letters, I think), before I realized what the clue was going for with "extender" (15A: Pants extender?). I wanted SMACKED for 32A: Hit as well as MINCES for 40A: Chops meat. This created a late-stage clusterf*** in the SE. But STEELE was a gimme, and it helped change MINCES to MUTTON, and things began to look up from there. I don't think I knew a HONEY BEAR was a real thing. I know that Pooh is a HONEY BEAR (right?), but … he's also fictional, so … yeah. It all worked out. Finished with the "M" in MILER. Then (literally) slow-clapped my appreciation.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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