Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: TAILING OFF (59A: Waning ... or a hint to what is found by circling all the Ts in the completed puzzle) — circles spell out and form the outline of a KITE; circling the Ts in the grid provides the KITE's "tail"...
Word of the Day: Dan ISSEL (39D: Hall-of-Fame hoopster Dan) —
Daniel (Dan) Paul Issel (born October 25, 1948 in Batavia, Illinois) is a retired American Hall of Fame professional basketball player and coach. [...] Issel accumulated over 27,000 points in his combined ABA and NBA career. At the time of his retirement the only professional basketball players to have scored more points than Issel were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. He currently ranks #8 on the all time combined ABA/NBA scoring list.
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Circles! Four of them. Well, nine if you actually circle the Ts ... which are "OFF" how? I didn't quite see how TAILING OFF was a "hint." I mean, I get the TAIL part, but the "OFF," not so much. Is the expression "TAILING OFF" related to a kite's tail? I thought, briefly, that the "OFF" was related to the fact that the *circles* had been left "OFF." Whatever, the reveal works well enough, I suppose. Not a very satisfying puzzle for me, but after yesterday's, it looks almost solid. Biggest issue was the center, where I took a long, long time to drop the "G" from "BLOWING" to get "BLOWIN IN THE WIND" (38A: Bob Dylan song ... or a hint to the object found by connecting the four circled letters in a diamond). I thought briefly that it was "BLOWING 'N THE WIND." Downs in there weren't immediately clear to me either—I'm talking about DRIEST (Least sweet, as wine) and HYATTS (25D: Some hotels), and especially NHS (36D: Selective high-school org.), which I only just now figured out—it must stand for National Honor Society. I have never seen that abbrev. in a puzzle. Ever. Appears to be a first-ever NYT appearance. Sometimes "fresh" is terrible. Rest of puzzle is mediocre, but nothing's terribly objectionable. Maybe a few too many crosswordy names like LEILA (26A: Role in Bizet's Pearl Fishers) and ILONA and HEDDA and NALA and RAE and SELA, and weird geographical partials like YORBA and ILE DE.FLYING HIGH (17A: On cloud nine) has got "CLOUD NINE" stuck in my head, which is not so terrible.
The album "KITE" (1987) by the late, great Kirsty MacColl, is one of my favorite albums of all time. Should be much, much better known. Wall-to-wall awesome.
Not much else to say. Moving on.
Bullets:
- 21A: Commercially prized ducks (EIDERS) — I had no idea. I didn't know the down was rare enough to be "prized."
- 51A: Discontinued Chevrolet model (COBALT) — so COBALT goes the way of the ALERO ... I don't expect its afterlife to be as pronounced.
4D: Anti-honking ordinance, e.g. (NOISE LAW) — just had exchange with another puzzle blogger who didn't like this one. Seemed fine to me, but that may just be because the last two mornings, our (uh ... let's say "OCD") neighbor has been up before 5am, snow-BLOWING. The best part was when I looked outside and the snow blower was idling (loudly) while he cleared off his car. Nuts. So nuts that we don't even get mad anymore. His need to CONTROL his ENVIRONMENT is like a disease. Oh, and he Hates us, but that's another story. Anyway, we're pretty sure that running your snow BLOWer before 5am is against local NOISE LAWs, but we weren't about to call Code on him (as he has on us, multiple times, for stuff like ... chipped paint near a side attic window that No One but he can see; but, as I say, that's another story...).- 52D: Letter before Peter in an old phonetic alphabet (OBOE) — alphabet used by U.S. forces in WWII, apparently. In "Peter and the Wolf," the OBOE is ... the duck, right? Yes! Memory!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
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