• BALL OF FIRE (16A: *High-energy individual, metaphorically)
• BONE CHINA (10D: *Some advantageous porcelain)
• STICK TO IT (33D: *”Don’t stop now!”)
• PAPER TRAIL (63A: *Documentation resulting in proof)

Word of the Day: BONE CHINA (10D) —

Bone china is a kind of ceramic that’s composed of bone ash, feldspathic materials, and kaolin. It has been outlined as “ware with a translucent physique” containing a minimal of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate. Bone china is the strongest of the porcelain or china ceramics, having very excessive mechanical and bodily energy and chip resistance, and is thought for its excessive ranges of whiteness and translucency. Its excessive energy permits it to be produced in thinner cross-sections than different sorts of porcelain. Like stoneware, it’s vitrified, however is translucent attributable to differing mineral properties. (wikipedia)

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Pretty boring instance of an old school theme. It’s true that every of the fetched objects have been clued as unfetched objects (i.e. this STICK just isn’t a fetched STICK, this PAPER just isn’t a fetched (information) PAPER, and so on.), however that is fairly normal. There’s nothing right here you could not have seen 20+ years in the past, besides possibly EMOPOP, which is possibly the worst factor within the grid, because the phrase is simply EMO, they name it EMO, simply EMO. Crosswordese abounds (IBIS TAT ALOE ALBA I have not even left the SW nook however you get the concept). It’s not that the puzzle is very made, it is simply … laborious to seek out something constructive to say about it. Frankly, it is laborious to seek out something to say about it—it is about as drab a bit of labor as I’ve seen shortly. I’ve seen puzzles I actually disliked that had extra creativeness and ambition than this one. I really like a easy, snappy theme, however this is not that. It’s a drained first-worder. I could not even discover a very attention-grabbing phrase to be Word of the Day right this moment, so that you’re caught with BONE CHINA, sorry. A BALL OF FIRE, this is not. Speaking of BALL OF FIRE, have you ever seen it? The 1941 Howard Hawks film with Barbara Stanwyck as a showgirl hiding out from the mob in an enormous home with fuddy-duddy lexicographers (together with Gary Cooper)? Yes? No? Well, if no, it is best to repair that. It’s within the Criterion Channel’s “Screwball Comedy” assortment this month. Yes sir, Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper, a can’t-lose mixture. (This is how I amuse myself when the puzzle does nothing for me—remembering nice films).

Again, extremely beneficial. OK, sure, the puzzle. Uh … I purchased a transportable cassette / CD participant actually simply right this moment (to interchange my outdated one, which remains to be sitting right here on my residence desktop, damaged), so to the clue on CDS I say “obsolescent, shmobsolescent”! (31A: Obsolescent music purchases, in short). Not a lot bother fixing this one right this moment, nevertheless it did not really feel any simpler than Mondays normally really feel. I do not suppose CABINs are by definition “cozy,” so I had an uncommon quantity of hesitation straight out of the gate (1A: Cozy residence within the woods). I believed the cube had been CUBED versus CUBIC (1D: Shaped like cube). I had CHINA and stored wanting it to be FINE CHINA even though “advantageous” was proper there within the clue and due to this fact clearly off-limits for the reply. I had the BEA- at 23D: Snoopy and Gromit, for 2 and, properly, I confess I didn’t know Gromit was a beagle, so I might solely think about some form of BEASTS, BEASTIES, one thing like that. I’m now very a lot out of issues to say about this puzzle. Hope you discovered far more to take pleasure in about it than I did. I’ll be away for a couple of days whereas I relocate myself to the opposite aspect of the globe. But you will be in good palms. See you quickly. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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