Puzzling thoughts:
Laura Dershewitz (see fourth constructor listed) is a relative newcomer to crossword puzzle construction. Likewise, Katherine Baicker is also new to constructing. Both debuted during COVID, and the two of them have collaborated on an LA Times puzzle before
I know that many of you who comment here are not in favor of circles in a puzzle. However, today's would've been quite difficult to "see the theme" if they weren't there. All three of the theme entries used the circled letters to complete the reveal, as you'll see in the highlighted grid. The circles spelled out the name of a member of the cat family - COUGAR, PUMA, and LION. There didn't seem to be any continuity as to how the circled cats came into view. In other words, one cat - the COUGAR - went above and counterclockwise; the LION went up and counterclockwise, too; the PUMA, though, decided to appear in a downward, clockwise pattern. Not a nit; and perhaps this was done to further support the fact that like domestic cats, the "wild varieties" are also difficult to herd
Entry #1 actually uses the singer's name (20-across. Big name in 1980s heartland rock: JOHN C MELLENCAMP) although most audiophiles refer to this singer by his full name - John COUGAR Mellencamp - as opposed to using just his middle initial
Entry #2 is a bit trickier, as (32-across. Some suede kicks: P SNEAKERS) the PUMA was mostly separate from the SNEAKERS part. What are suede-like PUMA SNEAKERS you ask? Here:
Entry #3 might have been the trickiest of all. The grid revealed (45-across. "If I Were King of the Forest" singer: COWARDLY L), which looked odd to me; but when I saw the LION appear in the circles, it made sense
Overall, it was a good puzzle; not great. Many words and phrases are not ones we would use daily, but as someone who's constructed puzzles, I know how difficult this must've been to create
This puzzle took me over 20 minutes to solve (on-line), and I give it a 7.1 on the MOE'S hardness scale. You might notice from the grid image that I had a couple of mistakes ... did you, too?
Let's throw in the grid; follow the circles as I've explained to see how the CATS became "herded":
Across:
1. Chow down: EAT. Easy start; three-letter beginners need to be easy IMO
4. Military bigwigs: BRASS. Named for their "BRASS" colored medals denoting rank, perhaps?
9. Bar codes?: LAWS. A slight bit of misdirection as "bar" refers to the test that lawyers take (and must pass) to practice LAW
13. Injure severely: MAIM. Kind of a harsh word, but OK as clued
15. "This __ to be good": OUGHT. What I hope you folks say when you're about to read a Chairman Moe blog!
16. Hemoglobin mineral: IRON.
17. College chem course, informally: ORGO. [vanderbilt.edu] "What does ORGO mean? Simply put, orgo is the study of organic chemical reactions, mainly involving the elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. A typical reaction may look something like this: You essentially need to know the mechanism of how the reaction works and be able to predict the product and reactant". Learning moment, and the first of the words I would not use on a daily basis
18. Basketry willow: OSIER. If it weren't for crossword puzzles, I would not know the word OSIER
19. Actress Garr: TERI.
23. Opening words: INTRO.
24. "Pomp and Circumstance" composer: ELGAR.
25. Leslie __ Jr. of "Hamilton": ODOM. I knew this, but when I first inserted it I made a correction because I thought that (26-down. Allowed: OKD) was LET
28. Not much: A BIT OF. Meh
37. One who may be shorthanded at work?: STENO. Good clue but easy to solve. Do STENOs even exist anymore?
38. Wish undone: RUE. Moe-ku #1:
Ms. McClanahan
Wishes folks knew her first name
Was Eddi. Rue, RUEd
39. Flag: DROOP. The verb version - "sag", as a clue, would've been TOO easy
41. "Baby Cobra" comedian Wong: ALI. Not Mohammed or Laila
42. Hub city for Royal Jordanian Airlines: AMMAN. Geography
48. Oh so very: TOO, TOO. Our Thesaurussaurus doesn't agree ...
50. Turn on an axis: SLUE.
51. Medieval Times prop: LANCE.
54. Shot-putter?: NURSE. Shot-sipper would also fit as a clue here if they used the verb. But in this case, the NURSE was the one "giving the shot". Cute
63. Brainstorm: IDEA.
64. Established beliefs: DOGMA. My error here was thinking too far ahead ... I placed an "S" in the fifth position before looking at the crossing words
65. Tall birds: EMUS. Just how tall is an EMU, you ask? [Smithsonian] "The EMU is the second largest living bird and the largest bird found in Australia. Its height averages 5.7 feet (1.75 meters). Males weigh 110 to 121 pounds (50 to 55 kilograms), and females weigh about 11 pounds (5 kilograms) more than males. Emus live only in Australia, where they are widespread". And now you know
66. Is appropriate: FITS. GIBES or AGREES do not "fit" here
67. Get 100% on the test: ACE IT.
68. Movie theater drink: SODA. If you can afford it
69. Quartet for Jennifer Hudson, for short: EGOT. This word is quickly becoming part of crossword-ese
70. Question type: YES/NO. TRUE/FALSE was too big for the five spaces here
71. BOS rivals: NYY. A posthumous CSO to Wilbur Charles who was a big Red Sox fan. Sadly for the fans of the Beantown baseball team, the Yankees lead the overall series, 1,259–1,052
Down:
1. Japanese term whose similarity to "emotion" is coincidental: EMOJI. Want to see how to create an EMOJI? Let's see if it works ... if I did it correctly there should be an EMOJU of Husker Gary swinging a golf club below ...
🏌️♀️
2. Crooner Neville: AARON. Hmm ... AARON not clued as: ___ Burr; or Hank ___; or Exodus Biblical character ... today it's clued as a crooner. Neville. I was trying to think, is it Neville AARON or AARON Neville? Guess I'll just have to insert one of his croonings ... and FTR, this is one of my favorite AARON Neville songs ... I was in 9th grade when this released ... and I remember it as being one of the more popular "slow dance" songs ...
3. Snug: TIGHT. Unfortunately, I've gained about 12 pounds since COVID began and can't lose it. Everything I wear is pretty TIGHT these days
4. Market upswing: BOOM. Better than a BUST, which is when the stock market swing is coming down
5. Scheme: RUSE. Moe-ku #2:
Ms. McClanahan
Thought that Sara's a schemer.
Yes, Rue rued Rue's RUSE
6. Spry: AGILE.
7. Narrow racing boat: SHELL. Here are a slew of SHELLs during a race ...
8. "__ Nona": Tomie dePaola picture book: STREGA. #2 of the words not usually mentioned daily. I had "no clue" but googled the word to learn more. Good old [wikipedia] says, "STREGA Nona is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola. If considered as a folktale, the story is Aarne-Thompson type 565, the Magic Mill. It concerns Strega Nona and her helper, Big Anthony. With only a single "n", the title actually means "Ninth Witch" in Italian". Another website says that the book has been banned in the US for promoting magic and witchcraft ...
9. English major's course, informally: LIT CRIT. #3 of the words/phrases not usually mentioned daily. Short for LITerary CRITicism. Margaret tells me that this subject is the informed analysis and evaluation of literature. And now I know ... 😀
10. Geometry calculation: AREA. Length times width, e.g.
11. Wriggly bait: WORM. Every kid who's ever gone fishing knows that it takes a few tries to get the wriggly WORM onto the hook. For those who need a brief tutorial:
12. Clean up loose ends, in a way: SNIP. I think this works on split ends, too
14. Basketball Hall of Famer Earl "The Pearl" __: MONROE. Laura and Katherine went old school on us twice today with their clues on proper names ... AARON Neville was a crooner in the 1960's, whilst Earl (The Pearl) MONROE was a hoopster during the same decade. He started his career with the Baltimore Bullets and retired with the New York Knicks
21. Symphonic finale: CODA. [Brittania dot com] "CODA, (Italian: “tail”) in musical composition, a concluding section (typically at the end of a sonata movement) that is based, as a general rule, on extensions or reelaborations of thematic material previously heard" ... basically, a fancy word for "repeat"
22. Snags: NABS. GRABS and TRAPS were too big; NETS fit, but then it didn't
27. Chi-town exchange, with "the": MERC. Would you like to know more about The MERC? Please click on the link. MERC also is a nickname for an erstwhile luxury brand of the Ford Motor Company. This bad boy:
29. Dark greenish blue: TEAL. My crayon box contained just the basic 8 colors; yours? I thought TEAL was a duck?
30. Part of YOLO: ONLY. As in YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE ... unless of course, you're James Bond
31. Wrap that shouldn't be microwaved: FOIL. [Reuters] "The FDA reiterates that food completely covered in aluminum FOIL should not be put in the microwave here . The electric fields in microwaves cause charges to flow through metal. Thin pieces of metal like aluminum foil are overwhelmed by these currents, causing them to heat up so quickly that they can ignite"
32. Brit twit: PRAT. #4 of the less likely-to-be-used-everyday words in today's puzzle
33. Sport that's big in Japan: SUMO. Moe-ku #3:
Japanese wrestler
Named Maurice was served. Someone
Wanted to SUMO.
34. Sought-after fish: NEMO. Moe-ku #4:
Chairman got too fresh,
And the only defense was
For her to NEMO
35. Hundred Acre Wood kid: ROO. TIGGER, EEYORE, and POOH didn't fit
36. Females with pig tails: SOWS. GIRLS didn't fit
40. Bud: PAL. Nice to see another "old time" word used - PAL, not BRO for a change
43. No less than: AT LEAST. Most of my blogs contain AT LEAST 3 Moe-kus
44. Ark-itect?: NOAH. Ha Ha!! 🤣
46. Step up: RUNG. As a step up on a ladder or stairs, I guess
47. Low pair: DEUCES. They still beat ACE-high in poker
49. Not now: ONE DAY. Ralph Cramden used to say, "ONE of these DAYs ..."
52. "Time in a Bottle" singer: CROCE. [wikipedia] "James Joseph CROCE was an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he released five studio albums and numerous singles. During this period, Croce took a series of odd jobs to pay bills while he continued to write, record, and perform concerts. On the night of Thursday, September 20, 1973, during Croce's Life and Times tour and the day before his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce and five others were killed when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed into a tree during takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana
53. Margins: EDGES. Something you always had to stay within when you wrote a paper in school, IIRC
55. "Will Trent" star RodrÃguez: RAMON.
56. Den: STUDY.
57. Many an assignment in 9-Down: ESSAY.
58. Board game with car-shaped tokens: LIFE. It's actually called: "The Game of LIFE"
59. "Capisce!": I DIG.
60. Atkins variant: KETO. Diets haven't worked too well for me over the years ...
61. "Sign me up!": I'M IN. Or as some poker players (and Jeopardy! contestants) say, "I'M all IN"
62. Gp. headed by Jens Stoltenberg: NATO. Him
Comments welcome below ... 👍
