Well, dear Readers, you win some, you lose some. If yesterday's puzzle was perfectly tuned to my interests, today's was as incomprehensible as static. To begin with, on my puzzle app, the theme clues appeared as empty black rectangles, with no associated imagery or text. It is Thursday, so I thought there would eventually be a revealer to provide a hint, or that I would be able to fit 'black box' into the answers somehow, but, as solvers of today's puzzle know, that was not the case. I discussed the puzzle with Horace, who had solved the puzzle on a computer, and he told me that for him, the theme clues were musical staffs plus text. The text provided a clue to the first part of the theme answer, for example, "Energy drinks," (or similar, I still can't see the actual clues), to which one was then supposed to add "in X" where X is a key(?) possibly indicated by the image that accompanied the clue, in this case, resulting in
MONSTERSINC. Another answer was
PALESTINE, the clue for which was something like least tanned. Horace said he found the theme answers amusing. My reaction is
MEH, partly out of frustration for not having access to the complete set of clues, and partly because I don't really understand the musical aspect of the theme clues or why it might be either relevant or amusing to choose IN E, instead of IN D, except as it makes another valid word.
Much of the rest of the fill was also outside my wheelhouse, including "Video game hero who battles the evil Dr. Wily" (MEGAMAN), "Martial arts rank" (DAN), "Wii Sports sport" (TENNIS), and "'Twilight' vampire" (EDWARD). There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but it added to the difficulty level for this solver. I'm not sure I totally get STEERED as the answer for "Made a semi circle, say?" either. I also felt that the intensity level in the clue at 43A: "Nag (at)" struck an off note with that of the answer, GNAW. Plus, it took me forever to parse DOTORG for "Ending with Wikipedia." Maybe today just wasn't my day.
On the upside, I did solve the entire puzzle without any of the theme answer clues, so that's something, although, I ended up with a FWOE. I spelled POLLOCKS ("Some splattery paintings at MoMA") with an A in place of the second O. The painter's name crossed with another unfamiliar-to-me concept/term, "Portmanteau for a certain self-taken video on a smartphone," so the entry SLaFIE seemed AOK to me, but I must admit that SLOFIE is much better sounding.
I'm starting to sound like a broken record. I guess that's enough COMPLAIN IN G for today.
~Frannie.
Hi Frannie,
ReplyDeleteYour post verified what I was thinking during the solve on my computer...what about the people who can't see the artwork in the clues? I appreciate the really great finds the constructor found in the theme answers. That said? I'm wondering about the advisability of "clue artwork." Grid art, yes, I like it, often. I mean it's still done with black and white squares, and at least some semblance of symmetry. It's fair and can many times add an extra layer to a puzzle. But artwork in the clues? Not done with words, but actual pictures? Seems to take a little something away from the concept of WORD play in a crossword puzzle. 'Course, it could be that I'm just super old-fashioned.
I hear you, Kelly! Although I also blame myself. The app I use contributed to the problem, as did my complete lack of understanding of music, but I do think in cases where they use special graphics, maybe they could add a note under the info icon to alert people to potential display problems.
DeleteMy app on the iPad displayed the musical staffs, but there was a note in the info icon stating exactly that. I also FWOEd in the same place you did, Frannie!
ReplyDelete