How Usher Wants To Take It In A 1998 Hit

Constructor: Daniel Bodily and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "To Be Continued" — Theme answers are broken across what look like iii successive Across entries—you have to read the clues to those three entries equally one inkling in order to understand the total reply. The fundamental such answer is also supposed to be a clue as to how to empathize the theme answers themselves, i.e. you need to read BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES (63-67A: Read / Here / To / Understand / 23 answers in today's puzzle that don't seem to lucifer their clues):

Theme answers:

• ANTI / QUE ST / ORES (1, 5, 10A: Shops / Peddling / Collectibles)
• MIRA / CLEO / Overnice (35-37A: Historic / Hockey / Upset)
• GARB / Aged / UMPS (54-56A: Waste / Disposal / Locations)
• KALE / IDOS / COPE (76-78A: Dazzling / Pattern / Generator)
• DRAM / A LES / SONS (92-95A: Classes / For / Actors)
• MART / HASTE / WART (115-17A: Home / Decorating / Guru)

Discussion of the Day: ENOCH(24A: Nephew of Abel) —

Enoch [...]  is a biblical figure andpatriarch prior toNoah's flood and the son ofJared and father ofMethuselah. He was of theAntediluvian catamenia in the Hebrew Bible. [...] Enoch is the subject of many Jewish and Christian traditions. He was considered the author of theVolume of Enoch and also called the scribe of judgment.  In the New Attestation, Enoch is referenced in theGospel of Luke, theEpistle to the Hebrews, and in theEpistle of Jude, the last of which likewise quotes from it.  In theCatholic Church,Eastern Orthodoxy, andOriental Orthodoxy, he is venerated as asaint. (wikipedia)

• • •

The gimmick is clever, but this was no fun to solve. In one case you see what the hell is going on, the only interesting matter about the puzzle is laid bare, and all you're left with is an absolute ocean of short fill to slog your style through. Perhaps in that location's something vaguely entertaining about seeing exactly how the parsing is going to go along those theme answers—the fact that each answer part could besides pass as a standalone answer is definitely a bonus characteristic—but that's the simply mystery left to untangle. Is information technology interesting that MARTHA STEWART breaks down into MART + HASTE + WART ? Sure, kinda. Simply it'southward the constructor showing off—I don't actually discover anything myself. I just figure out that the answer is MARTHA STEWART and so sentry as the letters go in. I feel like the puzzle really wants me to clap, but the fact that is that I was only engaged in the puzzle upward until I discovered the gimmick, and after that the solve felt rote. The nature of the theme meant that there was So Much Short Fill, which made for an overall dull grid. There's not an Across answer longer than vii letters, and only two of those (yes, the theme answers are, taken in total, longer than that, merely even if so, this puzzle is absolutely awash in three-4-5-letter stuff). There are some nice longer Downs, simply just one that made me sit up and take observe—the first-class "I'M NOT A ROBOT" (4D: Captcha confirmation). What I dislike most well-nigh this grid is that it completely misunderstands how solving happens, at least online solving ... at least as I practise it, i.e. I never ever look at successive Beyond clues. Solving online, I tin can't even really meet them as a block. I mostly wait at the clue for the answer where my cursor is, which appears in a higher place the filigree as I'm solving. If y'all solve on newspaper, you can look at the banking company of Acrosses and see pretty clearly that the successive Across clues make sense as a unit of measurement, just that'due south not anything I can run into clearly equally a digital solver (and lots and lots of solvers are digital solvers). I still got an "aha" out of this matter, just it was a one-fourth dimension thing, a single jolt of puzzle adrenaline in an otherwise listless grid.

I also don't call up reading BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES really gets at what's going on hither. I'm not reading "between" anything. I have to read *across* a series of clues, and and so *beyond* some black squares, but there are no lines between which I am reading [addendum: I'grand told the "LINES" are the black-square diagonals … never noticed them]. Maybe I'1000 supposed to understand that phrase only in the almost metaphorical of means, i.e. I take to read non-literally. OK. But that revealer all the same feels less than spot-on. The simply existent difficulty I had today involved the theme, particularly before I figured out what was happening. "How does [Shops] mean ANTI " I wondered, every bit did probably most solvers in the early solving stages. It took longer than it should have, probably, for the penny to drop (once more, I blame the whole puzzle lay-out issue, the expectation that I could encounter successive Across clues or that I would ever look at them in order—no, never). Then in that location was ane time after I understood the theme where I merely got defenseless unawares by a themer that didn't brainstorm affluent left, specifically KALE / IDOS / COPE . I puzzled over [Dazzling] = KALE style, way longer than I should have. I think before that moment all the themers I had started on the far left of the grid. Only that was merely a hiccup. The journey from 'aha' to the stop was generally just a chore, an exercise in dutifully and methodically filling in boxes, without much in the fashion of excitement or surprise to burnish the journey.

A few more things:

• 30D: Audio of shear terror (MAA) — this is both bizarre and horrific. You're asking me to imagine the shorn animal screaming out in terror ... and you're request me to imagine that that animal is a caprine animal? Goats say MAA , correct? Sheeps BAA, goats MAA . I feel like these are the rules of American animal sounds. Anyway, the "terror" part of this clue is agonizing and mildly sadistic. I become that you want the "shear terror" pun, merely sheesh.
• 38A: ___ Toy Barn (where Emperor Zurg chases Buzz Lightyear) (AL'S) — wow you have vastly overestimated how much I remember about the "Toy Story" universe. The only AL'Southward I know is from "Happy Days" ... which I know was actually "Arnold's" but I really thought that information technology got renamed at some point after Al Delvecchio took over as possessor ... sigh, 8-year-old me would be and then disappointed at eye-aged me's poor memory of this obviously important prove.

• 43D: Fourth man to walk on the moon (ALAN Bean) — wow this respond would've killed me if I hadn't (eventually) figured out the BET office of BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES . I had ALAN -EAN and could easily have been convinced that he was ALAN DEAN. I feel like peradventure (certainly) people knew all those '60s/'70s astronauts a lot amend in and around the '60s and '70s. I think I know an Orson Edible bean? He's an thespian, right? Alan ... I probably heard of him at i indicate, but information technology clearly didn't stick.
• 47D: A charismatic person has 1 (Aureola) — ??? This feels like some weird New Age-y nonsense to me. Do you mean "allure?" Because I've known a bunch of charismatic people, simply I would never (ever) accept said they had an AURA .
• 65D: Makes honey (ENDEARS) — I had ENAMORS, which is incorrect for the inkling, but shut enough to the clue's universe that it felt correct. I didn't have whatever other missteps in this puzzle that I tin recall.
• 95A: Get off berth control? (UNDOCK) — this is simply the 2nd NYTXW appearance e'er for UNDOCK , possibly because it's a singularly unappealing discussion. The pun in the clue is skillful, the answer ... sigh. [Berth command devices?] would be a skilful inkling for MOORING (which has appeared seven times, merely not once in the by 20 years) (MOORINGS has appeared only once ever, and that was in 1950 (!?))

Signed, Rex Parker, Rex of CrossWorld

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Source: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2022/10/white-terrier-informally-sun-10-23-22.html

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