Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: What X has? — three pairs of theme answers. First answer of each pair is just an answer, while second has a clue that asks [What [the first one] has?], a clue which is meant to be taken literally; thus HAAGEN-DAZS has a HIDDEN AGENDA, because "AGENDA" is "HIDDEN" inside the answer "HAAGEN-DAZS" ...
Word of the Day: LEO Gorcey (25D: Actor Gorcey) —
Leo Bernard Gorcey (June 3, 1917 – June 2, 1969) was an American stage and movie actor who became famous for portraying on film the leader of the group of young hooligans known variously as the Dead End Kids, The East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys. Always the most pugnacious member of the gangs he participated in, young Leo was the filmic prototype of the young punk. He was the shortest and the oldest of the original gang. (wikipedia)
• • •
The theme is loose, to say the least—three pairs of answers that have virtually nothing to do with each other besides the literal meaning of the second clue in each pair. No thematic unity. There have been two INSIDE DOPE puzzles since I started blogging (here and here). The second one inspired me to write my own version (here). Cute wordplay involved in today's puzzle, but lack of theme coherence made it less than totally enjoyable. 
Also less than enjoyable were the random oooolde-timey actors I've never heard of: LEO Gorcey? Noel NEILL? (50D: Noel who played Lois Lane) LILA Kedrova? (57A: Oscar winner Kedrova) Then there were the olde-timey names that are genuinely famous, like IMOGENE Coca (9D: Sid's sidekick of early TV) and Sammy CAHN (1D: "All the Way" lyricist). We get it. You like old stuff (see Wechsler's last puzzle, here). OK. Enough already. Give the last quarter century some love. If anyone wrote a puzzle that was as aggressively contemporary as this one is aggressively dated, people would lose their ... let's say "minds." To this puzzle's credit, it has NED (41D: Leftorium proprietor on "The Simpsons"). Also to its credit, despite the slew of obscure proper nouns (LEO, NOEL, and LILA), it was very doable. I was under 4 minutes—fast for me, for a Wednesday, and faster even than yesterday's puzzle. ENNEADS (40D: Diamond complements) and CEMENT NAIL (10D: Fastener for basement flooring, perhaps) are less than lovely, as long answers go, but USED CAR LOT is OK (26D: Sleazy salesman's site, stereotypically), and overall I thought the puzzle was reasonably enjoyable.[LILA Kedrova as Madame Hortence, a role for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award]
Theme answers:
- 16A: Food product whose name is an example of "foreign branding" (HAAGEN-DAZS)
22A: What 16-Across has? (HIDDEN AGENDA)- 28A: Guest worker, e.g. (RESIDENT ALIEN)
- 39A: What 28-Across has? (DENTAL FILLING) — this is the answer that caused me to get the theme. Took a few, awkward seconds.
- 46A: Ribbon-cutting event (GRAND OPENING)
- 58A: What 46-Across has? (INSIDE DOPE)
- 21A: Thousand-dollar sums, slangily (GEES) — I would not write out "GEE" like that. Just the letter. Five Gs, e.g.
- 24A: Quark-binding particle (GLUON) — all the -ONs, (MU- GLU- etc.) I know about only from crosswords. "Glue" binds, so GLUON is one of the easier -ONs to remember.
- 27A: Hobby farm denizens (ANTS) — Are there other "hobby farms" besides ANT farms?
- 2D: Computer serviced at Genius Bars (IMAC) — *might be* serviced at Genius Bars (which is just the name of service desks in Apple stores).
- 7D: Former NPR host Hansen (LIANE) — Will's weekly interlocutor for many years.
- 47D: Piece of kabuki costumery (OBI) — I'm just including this because I like the word "costumery."
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
No comments:
Post a Comment