Thursday, November 21, 2019

11/21/19 "Mind the Gap" by Aimee Lucido


Hard, but excellent, puzzle! I got the revealer (MIND THE GAP) very early on in my solve, after realizing that 41D needed a blank square to fit GYM SHOE. But it took me a long time to realize that while the blank squares read blank in the downs, they are in fact rebuses that read GAP across. I imagine this made the puzzle very difficult to fill as I would have no idea how to make my fill program understand that directionality.

The theme entries were done quite well -- YOGA PANTS, TOGA PARTY, and THE BIG APPLE are all fantastic, with SINGAPOREAN being a step down IMO. The surrounding fill was definitely a little lackluster, but nothing stood out as particularly egregious to me. GYM SHOE and SNEAKER were a fun combo. I'd never heard of REPO MAN before; I spent the whole time reading the clue as a tower (read: building) of cars, like a parking garage or a freeway pileup or a wreckage yard. But my post-puzzle googling tells me this is indeed a thing. 

As for clues: Very sad that Ms. Lucido missed out on the opportunity to clue 57A SINGAPOREAN as related to one of my favorite films of last year, "Crazy Rich Asians." The puzzle's clue, Native of the Lion City, is just boring. Also thought that 73A would have been better clued as the shoe company. I enjoyed the clue at 42A for PRAYER: Occasion to speak up?

Aimee Lucido, Will Shortz, Crossword, Crosswords, NYT, New York Times, crossword answers, crossword blog, crossword blogger

No comments:

Post a Comment

11/21/19 "Mind the Gap" by Aimee Lucido

Hard, but excellent, puzzle! I got the revealer (MIND THE GAP) very early on in my solve, after realizing that 41D needed a blank squar...