Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: 2004 film featuring Dustin Hoffman / TUE 10-22-13 / He-Man's sister / Instruction to play with bow / Old draft category for civilian workers / Allies of Trojans in Iliad

Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle A Crossword Blog

2004 film featuring Dustin Hoffman / TUE 10-22-13 / He-Man's sister / Instruction to play with bow / Old draft category for civilian workers / Allies of Trojans in Iliad Oct 22nd 2013, 04:00, by Rex Parker Constructor: Kevan Choset Relative difficulty: Medium for me, apparently harder for others... THEME: MIDDLE EARTH (59A: "The Lord of the Rings" setting ... or a feature of 17-, 24-, 38- and 49-Across) — the letter string "EARTH" is embedded inside four theme answers: Theme answers: 17A: Overcome an unpleasant misunderstanding (CLEAR THE AIR) 24A: Left-brain activity (LINEAR THINKING) 38A: 2004 film featuring Dustin Hoffman ("I HEART HUCKABEES") 49A: Reason to see a rheumatologist (ACUTE ARTHRITIS) Word of the Day: HALAL (2D: Special-request flight meal option) — Ḥalāl (Arabic: حلال‎ ḥalāl, 'permissible') is any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term covers and designates not only food and drink as permissible according to Islamic law, but also all matters of daily life. The opposite of this word is haraam. (wikipedia) • • • Tore through this one pretty easily, but the times being posted at the NYT site are definitely running high. I tied or beat people who are much better solvers than I, so I must've just had this puzzle's number. Lucky day. I do like the revealer on this one. The theme answers themselves seem fine. Reasonably tight. I think there are probably a lot of people who are not familiar with the film "I HEART HUCKABEES"—maybe that's part of the reason times are running slow. I never saw the film, but I'd heard of it, and had most of the middle crosses before I ever looked at the clue. Even though it wasn't the most popular film ever made, I think it's a reasonable Tuesday theme answer. But the fill—it's somewhat less reasonable. Or less pretty, anyway. Lots of rather icky stuff. DLI OID in the NW, ESA IN REM in the SW, and then, all over the place, INI ARR ANY TWOA STPAT SHA ENTR ISOK ARCO VSO OTERI CTA ... that's a lot of sub-optimal fill. Three of the four long Downs are quite good (I'll let you guess which one I didn't care for), but overall, too much short junk. That's all I've got to say about this one. Talk to you tomorrow. Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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