Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: none
Word of the Day: APLEY (9D: Marquand title character) —
The Late George Apley is a 1937 novel by John Phillips Marquand. It is a satire of Boston's upper class. The title character is a Harvard-educated WASP living on Beacon Hill in downtown Boston. // The book was acclaimed as the first "serious" work by Marquand, who had previously been known for his Mr. Moto spy novels and other popular fiction. It was a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. An article in The New Yorker decades later called the book the "best-wrought fictional monument to the nation's Protestant elite that we know of." (wikipedia)
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Very tough for me, possibly because I'm solving it at 2am after having fallen asleep around 9pm (?!), but possibly also because it was simply tough. I wish there had been somewhat fewer odd / obscure proper nouns, both because I wouldn't have floundered the way I did, and because I think odd/obscure proper nouns are icky and should be kept to a minimum. I was at a complete loss on RENI (5D: Painter of the "Crucifixion of St. Peter" in the Vatican), APLEY, BREA (11D: City next to Fullerton) and TIMUR (28A: King of Tartary in "Turandot")—the last one by far the most obscure, as well as the most unfortunate (crossing, as it does, another odd, albeit somewhat more familiar, proper noun in "ULALUME" (12D: Poem set "in the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir")—I have a Ph.D. in English and I'm only vaguely familiar with that poem title; there is precisely nothing inferrable about the name, making this cross a guaranteed knee-breaker for some people, since you can't really infer the "M" in TIMUR either). I took care of RENI from crosses, but APLEY's proximity to BREA and TIMUR, as well as my completely blanking on SAMISEN (even with -A-ISEN in place) (7D: Its three strings are plucked with a bachi) meant that the NE took a long time to come into focus. The upside of that particularly nightmare was that the big reveal, the "AHA" moment, was OSCAR BUZZ (6A: It's generated for high-quality pictures). Nice, bold, surprising way to finish off a puzzle. Once those "Z"s were in place, it was all over. Only way I overcame my DEAD STOP (38A: Brake-slamming result) in the NE was by running the alphabet at the first letter of SAMISEN—it worked; I hit the "S," remembered the "M," got I'M ALL EARS (after wanting only I CAN DIG IT) and OSCAR BUZZ, and that was that.I still can't believe I threw down HARPER LEE effortlessly ... and it did virtually Nothing for me in the NE (16A: Lifelong friend of Truman Capote).
Beginning was more auspicious, with LASER (1A: Kind of beam), EXILE (15A: What many are forced to live in), and AXL ROSE (2D: Frontman on the 2008 rock album "Chinese Democracy") coming straight away. Couldn't work across the top and so went down the coast.
After changing SONS to SEED (31D: Progeny) and GETS AT IT to GETS IT ON (30A: Begins brawling), the SW was fairly easy to get into—but then again I own a Mac (that runs Snow LEOPARD) (35D: Tiger's successor, computerwise) and I follow the N.F.L. reasonably closely (got DREW BREES off the "W"). Stalled out trying to exit the SW, so went over and rebooted in the SE with the quick 1-2-3 of TIER / TE AMO (later changed to TI AMO) / AMPLE. Barely heard of TRIMSPA (39D: Big name in weight-loss supplements), but crosses were easy to come by, so no sweat. Changed HARD STOP to DEAD STOP (38A: Brake-slamming result), and ended up in the mean NE. Ugh, BAD EMS (32A: Bathing resort on the Lahn River), why did you have to be right under TIMUR?? And why did you have to abandon my mind completely? I think that when I'm tired / disoriented (as I seem to be when I solve just after waking), my proper noun recall is horrrrrrrible. That's my theory, anyway. Frustration aside, I enjoyed the challenge, and thought the grid had some really nice fill.Embarrassed how long it took me to get "SILENT T," considering I watch "The Colbert Report" every night (or, rather, every morning, thanks to TiFaux, aka the DVR) (3D: "The Colbert Report" ends with one).
Bullets:
- 17A: Crazy, in rap slang (ILLIN') — uh ... wow. Yes. In precisely one song that can recall. From high school ("Today you won a ticket to see Dr. J!"):
- 33A: Issachar's uncle (ESAU) — now there's an ESAU clue I've never seen before...
- 42A: Exercise done while pedaling (ETUDE) — I had TRADE at first. See if you can figure out how I got there...
- 43A: Nickname for a Manhattan jail, with "the" (TOMBS) — no idea. Guessed it from the "T" and "M" (seemed a suitably depressing moniker)
- 1D: Battle of Nations site, 1813 (LEIPZIG) — again, no clue. Saw it only by entertaining the possibility of ZONE at 22A: Court area.
- 8D: Accessory popularized by Louis XIV (CRAVAT) — you know that lyric from Carly Simon's song "You're So Vain" that goes "you had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte?" I always thought it was "... you watched your silk CRAVAT," which would make for a suspiciously odd fixation on neckwear considering the song has already observed at that point that "your scarf it was apricot" ... but I heard what I heard.
And then there's this...
- 34D: Lands around mansions (DEMESNES) — DOMAINS... doesn't fit! I know this word, so I really should have gotten it sooner than I did.
- 43D: Capital whose central plaza is Skanderbeg Square (TIRANE) — got it of the -ANE, though to be honest I wrote in TISANE, which I believe is some kind of tea drink.
Never saw the clue at 54D: 43-Down's place: Abbr. (ALB.). - 36D: Lee who advised Reagan and Bush (ATWATER) — one of the first political operative names I ever remember learning. What I remember is that he died of a brain tumor, and that he played guitar.
- 47D: One going off on somebody? (PAGER) — not in this century. I had LUGER!
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
P.S. in case you missed it yesterday, Angela Halsted and I made yesterday's Guest Puzzle at BEQ's website—check it out. (It's a double-rejectee! Rejected once for not "tickling" the editor, and another time for having a theme answer that was simply deemed not famous enough)
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