Dark European thrush / TUE 11-1-22 / Big title in water purification / On-demand digital video model / Russian waterway famed for its sturgeon fishery / Sixties movie villain with prosthetic steel palms / Sweet sweetheart in a barbershop quartet customary

Puzzles

Dark European thrush / TUE 11-1-22 / Big title in water purification / On-demand digital video model / Russian waterway famed for its sturgeon fishery / Sixties movie villain with prosthetic steel palms / Sweet sweetheart in a barbershop quartet customary

Team FunTrove

November 1, 2022

Dark European thrush / TUE 11-1-22 / Big title in water purification / On-demand digital video model / Russian waterway famed for its sturgeon fishery / Sixties movie villain with prosthetic steel palms / Sweet sweetheart in a barbershop quartet customary

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Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative issue: Medium-Challenging (***for a Tuesday***)

THEME: LINKING VERB (59A: Grammatical connector like “is” or “appear” … or a connector discovered actually in 16-, 24-, 35- and 49-Across) — the letter string “VERB” might be discovered contained in the theme solutions, “linking” the primary phrase within the reply to the second phrase within the reply:

Theme solutions:

NEVER BETTER (16A: Upbeat response to “How are you?”)
RIVER BASIN (24A: Central Brazil, for the Amazon)
COVER BAND (35A: Musical group that does not play unique songs)
OVER BUDGET (49A: Costlier than projected)

Word of the Day: ECOLAB (28D: Big title in water purification) —

Ecolab Inc. is an American company that’s headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It develops and provides companies, know-how and programs specializing in remedy, purification, cleansing and hygiene of water in broad number of functions. It helps organizations, each in personal in addition to public market deal with their water, not just for consuming immediately, but additionally to be used in meals, healthcare, hospitality associated security and trade. Founded as Economics Laboratory in 1923 by Merritt J. Osborn, it was ultimately renamed “Ecolab” in 1986. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, it is a fairly good theme. Now take actually each single reply that’s not a theme reply out of this puzzle and begin over. Please. I’m begging you. The fill on this one was so tough, so old school and rancid, so head-shakingly unsmooth, that I do not know why …. I do not know the way … I do not … know. The purple lights and alarms went off very, very early after I realized (with a begin) that I used to be seeing MERL on a Monday. Like the canary within the coal mine, the MERL is a harbinger of doom, particularly the type of doom that befalls you whenever you wander innocently right into a Monday puzzle and get buried below a mountain of crosswordese and outdated world fill. I’ll have actually mentioned “uh oh” after I hit MERL. Then ADELE … crossed the “barbershop quartet” ADELINE … which looks as if lots of ADEL-action, particularly for crossing solutions, however OK, you make it out of the NW alive, tremendous. Maybe issues enhance. But they don’t. ACTIV TRE OER … and on a regular basis, you are getting what looks like a heightened variety of cutesy “?” thrown at you (17D: Frequent flier? 7D: Coffee within the milky manner? 27A: Slept soundly?). You actually ought to earn that cutesiness. In a clean grid, tremendous. In a mirthless, olden grid, the “?” are much less welcome. As for the fill … it will get worse. O’ER / ORE pair is unwelcome however seems innocent and quaint subsequent to the *crossing* EERIE / ERIE pair. How in … why … why does nobody balk at that, at any stage of the puzzle-making? Baffling. “IT” is right here, twice. The correct noun “I” is right here, twice. Even the appropriate stuff within the grid is fairly customary and rancid (TEL OGLED (ugh) IRE DRNO EEO SAN ODE, these final three all stacked collectively). I do not know why larger polish is just not required of the early-week themed grids.

Then there are the solutions from outer house. First, VUDU, lol, I feel possibly I kinda heard of that? Maybe? (36D: On-demand digital video model). I had HULU in there, as folks use HULU, and HULU appears the extra Tuesday reply. But tremendous, positive, VUDU, no matter that’s. Moving on, ECOLAB (28D: Big title in water purification) “Big title”? My dumb ass has been fixing crosswords for 30 years and usually taking note of the world for chunk of that point, and but right here it’s, a Tuesday, and I get VUDU (faint bell) subsequent to ECOLAB (actually no bell in any respect), again to again, aspect by aspect. And it is not like ECOLAB seems nice. It would not appear like cool, imaginative fill. It seems like product placement for a model with an unloveable title. It seems like Yet Another ECO phrase. So it is each unfamiliar (to me) and unexciting. Last and probably least within the “what?” division was MOVIE AD (39D: Trailer in a theater), a solution that’s gorgeous in its failure to acknowledge that it’s a clue, not a solution. That is, [Movie ad] is ideal for TRAILER. The reverse, a lot a lot much less so. They’re known as TRAILERS. I noticed about six of them earlier than “TÁR” on Sunday. I may need accepted TEASER and even TEASER AD. Maybe. But MOVIE AD feels so utterly tin-eared that I … am out of phrases to explain how out of tune with the editorial course of I’m at present. You’ve obtained theme. Seriously, easy idea, proper on the cash. Themers are all strong. All you have gotta do is fill a 76-word grid cleanly (and you could possibly’ve made it 78 if 76 was too onerous—nobody would’ve blinked). But as an alternative we get this. I’ve adored early-week puzzles in latest weeks, so when you wanna consider that I’m simply “being a grump” or no matter, have at it. Or you could possibly return and have a look at *these* grids and acknowledge the general high quality distinction. There’s weak stuff in each grid; I solely spend time enumerating it at size when the puzzle’s not likely giving me a lot else to do. This (intelligent) theme deserved (a lot) higher fill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I did (very a lot) like seeing [“Rumor has it…”] in a puzzle that additionally comprises ADELE. Don’t know if that was an intentional little wink, or an accident, however both manner: good:

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