Relative difficulty: Monday-Easy, with fussy theme stuff pushing it to just "Easy"
Theme answers:
- DOLE (17A: Firm fruit) (i.e. Fruit firm)
- NEIL (41A: Young musician) (i.e. Musician Young)
- TRIPOD (42A: Mount Olympus) (i.e. Olympus mount) (etc.)
- SCAN (44A: Look good)
- BATTER UP (50A: Call home)
- BOBS (69A: Cuts short)
- ERIE (72A: Water buffalo)
- BOUT (11D: Engagement ring)
- A-TEAM (29D: Crew top)
- HEIST (30D: Job bank)
- BUCKS (33D: Does not)
- MENSA (35D: Group thinking)
- OGRE (43D: Giant storybook)
- TUBE (57D: Part IV)
- WOK (67D: Pan Asian)
- ORE (68D: Rock hard)
Saint Caspar (otherwise known as Casper, Gaspar, Kaspar, Jasper, and other variations) was one of the 'Three Kings', along with Melchior and Balthazar, representing the wise men or 'Biblical Magi' mentioned in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew, verses 2:1-9. Although the Bible does not specify who or what the Magi were, since the seventh century, the Magi have been identified in Western Christianity as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Caspar and the other two are considered saints by the Catholic Church. (wikipedia)
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The grid is 16 wide. I don't know why. Probably so TRIPOD can sit in the center—it is the marquee clue/answer pairing, after all. But the grid width is yet another thing that seems arbitrary about this puzzle. As for difficulty, there was none, for a while, and then themers came, and even then I somehow worked out those areas. The NE corner, for example—just worked BOUT/DOLE down to the last letter and guessed what it had to be from what the clue words suggested, but at that point, I did not see the reversal thing. I somehow got all the way to the bottom of the grid without knowing the trick (via AIG OGRE (educated guess!) RESIN SPINDLE) and managed to put together the second part of the instructions, and that was that. Only real difficulty came, as usual, with proper nouns I didn't know (ZEKE, for instance) (73A: ___ Midas Wolf (Disney's "Three Little Pigs" antagonist)), and then with the single square in the puzzle that absolutely tripped me up. No idea what the Magi's names are (45A: One of the Three Magi), and no idea what Grossglockner is (37D: Grossglockner, for one). I had the latter down as an ALE ... which made one of the Magi CASEAR, which seemed both nuts and ... I don't know, kinda like CAESAR, so kinda plausible. Anyway, when I completed the grid, at first, the "Congratulations!" message did not go off, so I thought "well, it's gotta be CASEAR, what kind of name is that!?" But honestly every cross looked good. But then I thought about Grossglockner, and how I had no idea, and so I pulled the last letter in ALE and boom, ALP, CASPAR, done.
I don't think the puzzle really plays fair with you at 72A: Water buffalo, though that clue is certainly one of the most inventive. First words of all clues are capitals by position, but "Buffalo" is capital "B" by nature. The idea that you have to mentally capitalize something in order to make it make sense seems wrong. Yes, if you move "buffalo" to the beginning of the clue, its first letter becomes (by position) a capital, but still. Seems more "we're making up rules as we go" than properly tricky. Once you get the theme, though, it's easy to see what's going on, and as I say, the reversal there is one of the good ones, so maybe it works despite (or even because of) its unfairness. The one answer that was bugging me long after I'd finished solving was ADAM (8D: Only human, briefly). I just could not make sense of it. I knew that ADAM was the first human (biblically), but I could not make sense of the "Only" and I really really couldn't make sense of the "briefly"—which is the great trick here. The clue takes a bit of clue phrasing you see all the time "briefly" added (after a comma) to the end of a clue to signify an abbreviation of some kind), and uses it in a completely unexpected way. I went looking for an abbreviation that meant "only human" (as in "error-prone" or "subject to screw-ups" or whatever else that Billy Joel song is about), but what I got was someone who was THE only human for a BRIEF period of time. Like, there was ADAM, briefly, and then Eve came along and ADAM was no longer the ... only human. Great clue that had me totally lost. I wish the puzzle had more clever and challenging stuff like that. But most of the non-theme stuff today is pretty humdrum and Very easy. The theme ... well it's the theme. Doesn't seem like much of one, but some of those reversals are good. I hope you enjoyed it all more than I did.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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