Constructor: Joel Fagliano
Relative difficulty: Medium (slightly tougher, maybe)
THEME: PROs and CONs — three pairs of words where one word has PRO- prefix and the other CON-. Clues for both words in each pair are identical.
Theme answers:- 30A: PROTRACTOR / 42A: CONTRACTOR [One might be seen around a construction site]
- 17A: PROFESS / 18A: CONFESS [Claim openly]
- 56A: PROTEST / 59A: CONTEST [Fight back against]
Word of the Day: Ladysmith Black Mambazo (
1A: Musical genre for Ladysmith Black Mambazo => AFROPOP) —
Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya andmbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland, and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards. They were formed by Joseph Shabalala in 1960 and later became one of South Africa's most prolific recording artists, with their releases receiving gold and platinum disc honors. The group has now become a mobile academy, teaching people about South Africa and its culture. (wikipedia)
• • •
Deeply ambivalent here. Themewise, I find this dull as dirt. Words are dull, concept ... I didn't even notice. Cool that you can (without too much torture or strain) give both the PRO- and the CON- word the same clue in every case, but the theme simply does nothing for me. Didn't even know what the theme was when I'd finished. Something about a construction site? Where were the other answers? But then I quickly noticed the other PRO-/CON- pairs. And thought "Huh. Ok." But as an easy themeless puzzle, I really love this one. Grid is just slamming. Super-tasty. Barely any crap, tons of mid-range interesting fill. It's only 74 words, and it's pretty wide-open for a Tuesday grid, so I thought it played kind of hard ... but my time was mid-3s, which isn't that long. Anyway, the grid looks fantastic. Like Jeff and Angela yesterday, I know Joel to be a painstaking puzzle craftsperson. This grid is a great demonstration of how easy puzzles don't have to be dull (man, I did one yesterday that was so boring and banal I was yelling at it ... publicly ... in a diner ... my wife can tell you all about it). This one was a pleasure to solve. Highlights include "
OH, STOP IT!" and
BEESWAX (64A: Business, slangily). The
GAY clue is very fresh (
47A: Like the N.B.A.'s Jason Collins)—Collins came out earlier this year—the first NBA player and one of the first *male* professional athletes in the country to do so.
I made Many mistakes and had many hesitations, which is why my mid-3s time surprised me. Got
AFROPOP right out of the box, but made some mistakes on the Downs—namely, FOUL for
FORE (
2D: Cry after a bad swing), and OUT for
OFF (
4D: Out of whack) (yeah, that was a Really dumb mistake), and finally PSALM for
PAEAN (
5D: Song of praise). Three initial mistakes in the NW alone. Things were mostly smoother from there on out, though I could not get my brain to accept
PROTRACTOR as an acceptable answer to [
One might be seen around a construction site]. I just know protractors only as implements in geometry class. So I had to jump blindly into the NE corner, rather than building on existing fill (which is the way I proceed whenever possible, esp. w/ early-week puzzles). Wrote in DNA for
RNA (57D: Genetic material) and needed most of the crosses for
CATTAIL (63A: Marsh plant), but otherwise it was pretty easy, pretty clean, and very entertaining (fill-wise).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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