Hunks of plastic? / FRI 3-29-24 / Enlightened Buddhist / Sweet message bearer / Emoji that might be used in response to a funny text / One of the Minecraft protagonists / Computer acronym since the 1960s / Question asked while tapping
Friday, March 29, 2024
Constructor: Jake Bunch
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: ARHAT (2D: Enlightened Buddhist) —
In Buddhism, an arhat (Sanskrit: अर्हत्) or arahant (Pali: अरहन्त्, 𑀅𑀭𑀳𑀦𑁆𑀢𑁆) is one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved Nirvana and liberated from the endless cycle of rebirth. [...] Mahayana Buddhism regarded a group of Eighteen Arhats (with names and personalities) as awaiting the return of the Buddha as Maitreya, while other groupings of 6, 8, 16, 100, and 500 also appear in tradition and Buddhist art, especially in East Asia called luohan or lohan. They may be seen as the Buddhist equivalents of the Christian saint, apostles or early disciples and leaders of the faith. (wikipedia)
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Judging from where the blue ink is on my printed-out puzzle (I really need to get new green felt-tips...), looks like the bottom of the puzzle was much easier for me than the rest of it, but overall, and even down below, I had lots and lots (and lots) of initially wrong answers. WHIM before WANT (48D: Fancy). WAVED TO and WAVED AT before (ugh) WAVED HI (35D: Greeted someone across the room). The aforementioned ASAP before STAT (3D: "Don't delay!") and NONET before OCTET (18A: Large combo). HYPOS before KILOS (26D: Contents of a drug shipment). TIED UP before TOSS-UP (15D: Anyone's game)*. BARK AT before TALK AT (?!) (15A: Lecture). Hardest thing to parse, by far, was FELT UP TO (12D: Was ready for). "Was ready for" gets nowhere near the context implied by a phrase by FELT UP TO, which suggests you've been ailing in one way or another. It's not an inaccurate clue, but it's vague in the extreme. FELT UP TO was always going to be hard to parse, and the overly general clue just made it harder. The CANNIBALS joke didn't land because of the "you" (me?) part of it (13D: Ones who might roast you). None of us, literally zero solvers, will ever be roasted by CANNIBALS, so please stop. I get that you're trying to be funny, and that you wanted me to think of a comedy roast (mission accomplished), but the "you" takes this into preposterous territory. The cluing today ... sometimes it lands (KENS!) but too often you can feel the *effort*, which rarely leads to anything genuinely funny.
I don't even know what [Drag racer?] is getting at. Because you ... drag your SLED up the hill? [I’m told this is supposed to refer to dog sledding. As with most things, this clue needs more dog-specific content] And [Place for bucks at the bar?]?? I understand the answer (a MECHANICAL BULL bucks and you might find one at some (Texas?) bar), but I don't know what the surface meaning of the clue was supposed to refer to. What wordplay or pun is that? Are "bucks" one dollar bills. Am I supposed to think of a cash register till? The "?" clue on SUN, on the other hand, makes sense (4D: High light?). It's playing on the term "highlight," but it's giving you a light that is actually high (in the sky). [Hunks of plastic?] also works, in that I know what actual "hunks of plastic" are ... but then "hunks" ends up having a different / unexpected meaning. Real hit-and-miss "?" action today.
ONLSD is somehow worse than ONPOT, largely because if you absolutely have to use the prepositional phrase, the only one that seems standalone valid is ONACID (20D: Tripping). Otherwise, you just open up the floodgate for any drug phrase: ONUPPERS, ONLUDES, ONSPEED, ONBENZOS, ONCOKE (can you tell I only know about drugs from '70s crime films?) ONSHROOMS, ONMDMA etc. ON ACID at least has some standalone currency. Unlike ONLSD. Or GON. I have nothing to say ONGON except I wish it were gone. In short, the thin stacks of long answers up top and down below work just fine (52A: Question asked while tapping ("IS THIS THING ON?"), in particular, is excellent), but there needs to be like twice this much marquee fill, and the rest of the grid, while mostly very reasonably filled, was clued in a way that too frequently felt off (off my wavelength or just off the mark).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*I feel like the phrase "anyone's game" is mostly used adjectivally, roughly synonymous with "too close to call," so the noun "TOSS-UP" didn't quite track for me, though I see how it's defensible.
P.S. how in the world is this the top result when I search "STEVE" on Google???
P.P.S. OMG if you google [STEVE] (I can't believe this is my life, googling [STEVE]), almost all of the "Images" are Minecraft STEVE!? Just a wall of Minecraft STEVEs, with a smattering of Jobs and Harvey.
*a SKULL 💀 emoji signifies that your joke was so funny that the listener has (figuratively, hopefully) died
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