Does one "bury the hatchet" in its SHEATH? Really? If the puzzle wasn't so otherwise pretentiously obtuse, I might have smiled at that one.
A BATTLE may be described as Knock-down-drag-out. Rex mentioned the prevalence of "off cluing," and I had the same visceral reaction several times along the solve. He's nobody to other then skinny jeans wearing, latte sipping, college radio listening hipsters too cool for the room. I suspect, however, that our adolescent savant wouldn't know any of these things but for access to, oh, I dunno, an Internet?
And grew up in a family steeped in appreciation of baseball history. intent on showing puzzledom's masses who's the smartest man in town? On the one hand, young Master Steinberg continues to amaze with the sheer depth of generations-spanning cultural and historical miniatiae that pings around in his grey matter On the other hand, does he? Or is he just a precocious, if competent, li'l. Except for TWINBILL as a "Diamond deal," which I thought one of the fairer, genuinely humorous clues in the puzzle. It's not like the title is in the lyrics.Īgain, some lovely moments here and there, but the cluster of junky names and the potentially unfair crossings and some less-than-great cluing made this less-than-enjoyable for me. "O" seems as reasonable a guess as "A." That's a truly terrible crossing.
I would not be surprised if tons of people out there have an error and don't even know it at the DEODATO / PASA crossing. Clue it however you want, it will always be some white person's racist imitation of a Japanese person. AH SO needs to die a hard, permanent death as crossword fill. I liked that documentary a lot, but ugh to the smug me me me-ness of that clue, for sure. And yet we have to endure it as a clue because of the obnoxious self-congratulatory inside-jokiness of the song title, which shares its name with the 2006 crossword documentary all about Shortz and his tournament. Yes, that is, in part, why you have not heard of it. somehow? Man, that's a huge stretch.īut back to JASON MRAZ's "Wordplay"-that song went all the way to. the absolutely vaguest sense of that word? Is it that I pay for one ticket but get to see two games? So I get a. In what sense is the word being used there? A general "thing"? I.e. ORIENTE is less than great fill ( 20A: Cuban province where Castro was born), and the "deal" in the TWIN BILL clue makes absolutely no sense to me ( 23A: Diamond deal).
Again, I can take it, even like it, but the crosses were wickedly vague. " STILL DRE!?" ( 1A: "1999 rap hit featuring Snoop Dogg) Yikes. If I hadn't known (or educatedly guessed) TOREADOR, I'd still be working on this puzzle. TESSAS? Crossing STEARNES? Crossing DEODATO (!!?) ( 33D: Musician who arranged the theme for "2001") *and* the astonishingly self-indulgently clued JASON MRAZ (25D: "Wordplay" vocalist)? Crossing DESERET? ( 29A: Informal name of the 45th state) I can accept any one of those names (except TESSAS horrible), but that jam up is obscene. They're running somewhat high even for a Saturday. Times being posted at the NYT site are hilariously un-Fridayish. Also, it should very very clearly have been a Saturday puzzle. Obscure names and off cluing made this one hard to bear.
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