I liked the theme-found it clever and enjoyed that it was somewhat hidden. check out Tyler Green's interview with Liz Gorski about her recent Guggenheim anniversary tribute puzzle at "Modern Art Notes" The very question "Who betrayed Norway to the Nazis?" became a joke, an exclamation, an aborted "Who's on First?" comedy routine that ended with the (to our ears) hilarious reply: Vidkun Quisling! It's a really funny name, is all. Vidkun Quisling is an iconic Trivial Pursuit answer to me, one which, in the 80s, defined "WTF obscurity" for me and my sister.
Also "live-TV," while adding an interesting trivia tidbit to the mix, does nothing to affect clue difficulty. 44D: Ruby's live-TV victim (Oswald) - like the clue on IWO, this one's weird."You should have seen my incision, man! Flawless!" 38D: End of a Caesarean boast ("Vici") - "Caesarean boast" sounds like something an OB/GYN would exclaim.because KIA is already played out! Vote KEA!" It's a New Zealand parrot, common as a pigeon in some parts of the South Island. I'm still campaigning to get the KEA into heavy rotation as crosswordese. 34D: Sportage automaker (Kia) - this make of car has clearly been a boon to constructors everywhere.I find the way "a k a" is written, with spaces like that, and no periods, really disconcerting. 32D: Baseball's Al a k a the Hebrew Hammer (Rosen) - sounds like a kind of hotdog.38A: Barrio quaffs (vinos) - "barrio" + "quaffs" = two words that have never been adjacent to one another in the history of humanity.22D: Dharma's sitcom spouse (Greg) - ugh, the 90s.8D: PC-linking system (LAN) - Local Area Network, a true acronym.43A: French newspaper since 1944 (Le Monde) - the only one I know, I think.40A: Noted 1945 photo site, briefly (Iwo) - what a weird clue.I) - glad I never saw this clue, as I didn't know what "A.E.F." stood for: American Expeditionary Force. 49A: "Hägar the Horrible" creator Dik (Browne).Thumbs down for lack of attention to detail.
I know constructors who work really hard to avoid this kind of stuff - just worked with one who insisted on pulling a word out of the grid entirely because another word *clear across the grid* had the same root word (and unlike OVO and OVOLO, those words actually had really different meanings). You wouldn't cross OVO with OVULATE or OVOID or OVULE, and OVOLO should be no different. Those three letters "OVO" mean both words come from the same root word (Latin for "egg" - actually "OVO" *is* that word). In fact, ideally, they shouldn't even be in the same grid at all. But the real issue over here is OVOLO ( 31D: Convex molding), not so much because it's an odd word I can't recall seeing before (that happens all the time), but because - as I shouted at fellow xword blogger Amy Reynaldo at about 10:05 last night - there is no way on god's green earth that OVO should be crossing OVOLO in a crossword puzzle. First, despite years of Latin, I always up the phrase "Ab OVO." OVUM is a neuter noun, which means it's pluralized as OVA, which is always what I want to write (instead of the proper ablative OVO). Once I worked that out (via JINGLE, 42A: Ad music), I went into the east for my last stand. Mexican state JALISCO ( 42D: Guadalajara's state) gave me a bit of a fight, in that I might have heard of it before but TABASCO was the only state coming to mind. Only resistance in the puzzle came near the end, as I circled back up into the east from the south. Here I was, like a sucker, trying to think of a TREASURER ( 23A: Club official) who DUMBS DOWN ( 17A: Oversimplifies, as educational standards) a SALES SLIP ( 47A: Proof of purchase) after a CRASH TEST ( 58A: Job for a dummy?), whatever that means. Then went and looked for a theme-revealing clue. Did the puzzle so fast I never saw the clue on POP, and so spent a minute or so trying to figure out the theme. Makes for an unusual Wednesday, though I'm on the fence about whether it's good or bad "unusual." The theme is fine, but I find long Across answers with no thematic purpose kind of distracting. įortuitous POP star name lengths result in neat symmetrical pattern. Word of the Day: OVOLO (31D: Convex molding) - n., pl., -li ( -lī').Ī rounded convex molding, often a quarter section of a circle or ellipse. THEME: POP stars (65A: Genre for 1- & 22-Across, 22- & 26-Across, 26- & 46-Across and 46- & 49-Across) - (1980s) POP star name chain: BOY GEORGE / GEORGE MICHAEL / MICHAEL JACKSON / JACKSON BROWNE
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