Constructor: Zachary David Levy
Relative issue: Straightforward-Medium
THEME: “GOOD CALL!” (38A: “You predicted that appropriately” … or what the ends of 18-, 24-, 48- and 57-Throughout will yield) — a cellphone puzzle—the ends of the theme solutions are you might want to make a (good) telephone name:
Theme solutions:
- KARAOKE BARS (18A: Locations the place nonprofessionals sing)
- STREAMING SERVICE (24A: Netflix or Hulu)
- WEDDING RECEPTION (48A: Event for toasts)
- MIXED SIGNAL (57A: Nodding sure whereas saying no, e.g.)
Phrase of the Day: Georges PEREC (13D: Georges who wrote “Life: A Consumer’s Guide”) —
Georges Perec (French: [ʒɔʁʒ peʁɛk]; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early within the Second World Warfare and his mom was killed in the Holocaust. A lot of his works take care of absence, loss, and identification, typically by means of phrase play. […] Perec is famous for his constrained writing. His 300-page novel La disparition (1969) is a lipogram, written with pure sentence construction and proper grammar, however utilizing solely phrases that don’t comprise the letter “e”. It has been translated into English by Gilbert Adair beneath the title A Void (1994). His novella Les revenentes (1972) is a complementary univocalic piece wherein the letter “e” is the one vowel used. This constraint impacts even the title, which might conventionally be spelt Revenantes. An English translation by Ian Monk was printed in 1996 as The Exeter Textual content: Jewels, Secrets and techniques, Intercourse within the assortment Three. It has been remarked by Jacques Roubaud that these two novels draw phrases from two disjoint units of the French language, and {that a} third novel can be doable, constructed from the phrases not used thus far (these containing each “e” and a vowel aside from “e”). // W ou le memento d’enfance, (W, or the Reminiscence of Childhood, 1975) is a semi-autobiographical work that’s exhausting to categorise. Two alternating narratives make up the amount: The primary is a fictional define of a distant island nation referred to as “W”, which at first seems to be a utopian society modelled on the Olympic superb however is progressively uncovered as a horrifying, totalitarian jail very like a focus camp. The second is an outline of Perec’s childhood throughout and after World Warfare II. Each narratives converge in the direction of the tip, highlighting the frequent theme of the Holocaust. // “Cantatrix sopranica L. Scientific Papers” is a spoof scientific paper detailing experiments on the “yelling response” provoked in sopranos by pelting them with rotten tomatoes. All references within the paper are multi-lingual puns and jokes; e.g., “(Karybb & Szyla, 1973)” [ed: I think that’s a play on “Scylla & Charybdis,” but I’m not sure]. (wikipedia)
Life: A Consumer’s Guide (unique title La Vie mode d’emploi) is Georges Perec‘s most well-known novel, printed in 1978, first translated into English by David Bellos in 1987. Its title web page describes it as “novels”, within the plural, the explanations for which change into obvious on studying. Some critics have cited the work for example of postmodern fiction, however Perec most well-liked to keep away from labels and his solely long-term affiliation with any motion was with the Oulipo or OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle.La Vie mode d’emploi options many interwoven tales and concepts in addition to literary and historic allusions. It’s primarily based on the lives of the inhabitants of a fictitious Parisian house block, 11 rue Simon-Crubellier. It was written in line with a fancy plan of writing constraints, and is primarily constructed from a number of components, every including a layer of complexity. (wikipedia)
• • •
The theme holds collectively, however barely. BARS *point out* a SIGNAL (i.e. RECEPTION, SERVICE), they are not the SIGNAL itself. However I feel the equivalency is shut sufficient. A few of these solutions (e.g. KARAOKE BARS) actually change the that means of the final phrase, i.e. take it into non-phone territory; however STREAMING SERVICE does not do that almost as strongly. The perfect themers, with any such theme, are going to radically recontextualize the thematic a part of the reply, and STREAMING SERVICE retains us too near the entire “telephone” context (within the folks undoubtedly stream these apps (Netflix, Hulu) on their telephones. However this too is sort of a minor challenge. The one main challenge for me in the present day, theme-wise, was MIXED SIGNAL, particularly its singularity??? The phrase is “MIXED SIGNALS.” Plural. At all times plural. You can not combine a single factor. MIXED NUT? Who ever heard of that? Positive, there’s MIXED BAG, however in that case, you are not mixing a number of luggage, you are mixing the contents of the bag, whereas MIXED SIGNALS all the time includes alerts, plural. The clue itself incorporates a number of alerts (plural!)—nodding sure + saying no. The truth that these actions are occurring concurrently does not make them any much less two discrete alerts (plural!). Arduous wince at MIXED SIGNAL. However in any other case, I assumed the theme was wonderful.
The fill, nonetheless, felt much less wonderful. It is bizarre the sort of exhausting “nope” response each time I see LEONA Lewis (particularly sizzling on the heels of NIA Lengthy). LEONA isn’t just crosswordese, it is like a harbinger of crosswordese to come back. I really feel like she had a second of fame that is now about 15-20 years previous (enormous debut album in ’07, however no albums in any respect since ’15), however whereas her fame was not sustained, her crossword fame is not going to die. I do not suppose she’s unhealthy fill, however let’s simply say that when the puzzle hit me with stuff like O-GAUGE and PEREC (and ERROL and ARA and ENOS and TONYA and so on.) instantly after LEONA, effectively, I wasn’t *that* stunned. A lot (a lot a lot) extra obscure in the present day is PEREC. I’ve seen PEREC dozens of occasions through the years, however most of these dozens had been dozens of years in the past, when puzzles had been more durable to fill (i.e. Earlier than Software program) and terminal-C five-letter phrases had been more durable to navigate. Puzzle folks (some puzzle folks, that’s) have a factor for PEREC due to the entire wordplay ingredient of his work (see “Phrase of the Day,” above). I used to be stunned to seek out (simply now) that his title did not debut within the NYTXW till 2001, almost 20 years after he died. If he had been that large, you’d suppose Weng or Maleska-era puzzles would’ve snatched him up. At the moment is PEREC’s twelfth look, with 9 of these appearances coming earlier than 2015, so if you have not seen him earlier than (notably in case you’re new to crosswords or on the youthful facet or each), I am not that stunned. I do not suppose he is an early-week reply in any respect. He is simply not that well-known. LEONA Lewis appears to be like like Taylor Swift subsequent to Georges PEREC. That is solely the second time PEREC has appeared on Tuesday. He debuted on a Friday, in a puzzle by the notoriously brutal (complimentary) Bob Klahn. Anyway, by the point I received to the underside of the grid and encountered FLAM, EENIE, TEHEE, and so on. I felt just like the LEONA Prophecy had been fulfilled. Regardless of the snazzy “Z”s, the grid actually leaned sludgeward.
Bullets:
- 15A: Steak ___ (dish flambéed tableside) (DIANE) — like LEONA Lewis, Georges PEREC, and rear-wheel drive vehicles, this reply feels prefer it’s from one other period. Like … from a restaurant in a film from the Nineteen Thirties. Aha, sure! I used to be shut. Off by a decade, however …
Steak Diane is a dish of pan-fried beefsteak with a sauce constructed from the seasoned pan juices. It was initially cooked tableside and generally flambéed. It was most certainly invented in London within the Nineteen Thirties. From the Nineteen Forties by means of the Nineteen Sixties it was a regular dish in “Continental delicacies”, and is now thought-about retro. (wikipedia) [my emphasis]
- 1A: Information acquired by scouts (INTEL) — so simply … [Info], then. Scouts? I assume. However I used to be searching for one thing rather more sports-specific. Like … STATS or one thing.
- 33A: Was verklempt (PLOTZED) — didn’t know these had been synonyms. I consider being verklempt as merely tearing up or getting choked up, whereas I consider plotzing as extra … dramatic. Being overwhelmed. Actually, it means “keeling over.”
- 1D: Texter’s “shrug” (IDK) — stands for “I do not know. Fairly frequent. And but my fingers nonetheless typed in SMH. Why? IDK!!! Drive of behavior. Shrugging My sHoulders??
See you subsequent time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
