That may just be a ramification of how difficult it is to pull off a tribute puzzle with a rather unknown tributee and a pretty insipid quote - great if it’s all in your “wheelhouse of interest” but all I can say is I admire the effort. While non of these are capital offenses, in the end it does add up to a dull, uninteresting solve. I think the biggest transgressions are in the south though - if your revealer is a proper name (unknown to many), why cross it with made up stuff like ORA and TOA. The theme is not particularly noteworthy or otherwise interesting, add in a few meaningless “LOVE YA” and “OH NEAT” and their rudimentary clues and the whole thing starts to become a bit of a bore. Similarly, the clue for SMITE (Strike from the Bible?) is trying way too hard to be cute. SEXY ELF is just an icky start to the NE, then you bump into a WTF clue for CROC (slogging through nonsense already). It may be a type of “wheelhouse effect” (interest-wise) in that there is just too, too much stuff that I really don’t care about and it turned into a grueling slog. STENCILs are no more "shortcuts" than any tools are "shortcuts." "Are you tired of pounding nails with your forehead!? So time-consuming, so painful! Well, now-there's a shortcut!" A STENCIL is a tool with a very specific use, not a "shortcut," what the hell? ( 10D: Artist's shortcut). So did CROC, since I don't think of CROCs as either "foam" or "clog," though I can see the case for both. Anyway, SUNS (?) over " OH, NEAT" added time to an already slow solve. The "OH" plague continues today with " OH, NEAT." It's like somebody, when making their Giant Word List, thought "how about we put 'OH' in front of literally everything a human being might say, thus instantly making our Giant Word List even gianter, which obviously means better!? Oh, and, hey, while we're at it, um, let's do the same thing with 'UM'." I don't think constructors or editors yet understand how hard some of these "OH" expressions are to pick up, and what a letdown they can be when they are picked up. The bizarrely bigoted billionaire child's author gets a cutesy shoutout at 36D: School where students learn to spell? ( HOGWARTS), so that's gross. SEXY ELF is creepy and leering, the way most "sexy" costumes are (sure, theoretically the SEXY ELF could be a man, but come on). So the puzzle shape is interesting, that's another check in the Plus column. They you've got mirror symmetry instead of the usual rotational symmetry, so the quotation parts are all an even number of letters long so they can all sit dead center in their respective rows. The grid is 14x16 instead of the usual 15x15 in order to accommodate MARGARET FARRAR's 14-letter span. She was also the last woman to edit the puzzle. The only upside I can see to this puzzle at all is that it will teach those who didn't know already who the first editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle was. Today's quotation leans more toward the latter-a completely banal and (worse) self-congratulatory statement that at best is going to elicit a smug "ah, yes, so true" or a wry half-chuckle. Usually you end up with some groaner pun or some Hallmark-level sentiment. funny or surprising or clever enough) to justify the whole enterprise. 2x nails on chalkboard, actually, since first, it's a quote puzzle, and those are almost never fun-their very nature makes them hard to solve (clues don't give you any pertinent content info and it's very hard to imagine what a random sentence is going to be) and the quotation is almost never strong enough (i.e. Well, maybe *you* can't think of your troubles while solving a crossword, but I write about the damn thing every day, so if the crossword is bad, then the crossword is my trouble? The very concept of this puzzle was nails on a chalkboard to me.
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