Petr Im Begging You Again to Let Me Get This Crossword

Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:12)

THEME: double puns — so ... imagined spoken phrases where the first function is left blank, and instead of a familiar two-word phrase, there is a phrase made up of homophones of both words, i.eastward. a wacky phrase, which is suggested by the rest of the imagined spoken phrase in the theme clue (note: any theme that takes this long to accurately draw is well-nigh certainly a hot mess):

Theme answers:

• "Butt WEIGHT" (17A: "___, do these jeans make me expect fat?")
• "Aisle BEE" (25A: "___! The flight attendant just swatted a bug!")
• "Buy CHANTS" (36A: "___, would yous like to purchase some religious music?")
• "EWE GUISE" (53A: "___ and those crazy sheep costumes!")
• "CZECH PLEAS" (62A: "___! Petr, I'm begging yous again to let me go this!")

Word of the Day: SCREAMO(46D: Loud subgenre of punk) —

Screamo  (also referred to as skramz )  is an aggressive subgenre ofemo that emerged in the early 1990s, emphasizing "willfullyexperimentaldissonance and dynamics." ^[ii]  It was pioneered bySan Diego bandsHeroin andAntioch Pointer and developed in the late 1990s mainly by bands from theEast Coast of the United Statessuch asOrchid,Saetia, andPg. 99. Screamo is strongly influenced byhardcore punkand characterized by the employ ofscreamed vocals.  Lyrical themes unremarkably include emotional hurting, romantic interest, politics, and human rights.  "Screamo" has oft been mistakenly used as an umbrella term for whatsoever music that features screamed vocals. (wikipedia)

• • •

Painful from start to end, but peculiarly painful in the themers. At that place is no concept here. There is nada clever holding this together, giving it definition, making it ... in any fashion meaningful. The homophonic phrases are totally random, have null in mutual, are non the same role of speech fifty-fifty ... brand no sense on a grammatical level ... The cluing concept is awful. This is the editor'south chore. Doesn't matter if the constructor doesn't know what he'due south doing, the editor has to brand this matter work, and its "working" depends *entirely* on the clues. And what do we get? Horrendously forced and bad-mannered sounding quotes. The answers announced to desire to exist plays on words *and* work within the context of the imagined quote, but they just can't do both. And the relationship between the answer and the rest of the quotation is all over the map. What is the residual of the quotation supposed to exist doing? It's providing a context, just what kind and how much? "Do these jeans brand me wait fat?" is a question

almost

BUTT WEIGHT , but "Petr, I'm begging you again to allow me get this" appears to be the CZECH PLEAS

themselves

. The worst and well-nigh confusing of these is the "by chance" / Buy CHANTS substitutions, since it's asking you lot to imagine an imperative ( Buy CHANTS !) followed by an interrogative ??? ("would you like to buy some religious music?"). It'southward all just and so sloppy. There has to be some amend manner to tie all this double-homophone stuff together. Ugh, EWE GUISE is off too. "

Those

crazy sheep costumes!"? The diction but makes no sense. It'south all torture. Any wordplay fun is completed drained out past the incompetent cluing. These kinds of clues accept to work TOAT (ugh, one of my least fav crossword answers), and they have to exist Funny; these failed on both counts.

This kind of cornball clunker should not exist seeing the calorie-free of twenty-four hours in 2019. Also the fill is all over the map. THE? EELY? ITTY? SOAMI? TOAT? But then SCREAMO ? (46D: Loud subgenre of punk) A genre literally none of you (OK, maybe like 6 of you lot) know annihilation about? Why put that in a puzzle? Considering it'southward "new?" New is not inherently good. It should resonate with someone, somewhere. I might buy it in a different puzzle with a different vibe, only hither it but looks like "Hello, young man youths! What dope sounds are you listening to? SCREAMO , correct?" Don't just throw something in because yous retrieve information technology looks hip and cool. A robust wordlist is not a substitute for a good center and a skillful ear. Once more: discernment. Where is the discernment? The personality? The craft? The Everything Good About Puzzles??? I desire to challenge someone to accept this *exact* gear up of theme answers and make an actually good puzzle. I believe it can be done. But this ain't it.

Difficulty-wise, it was a little rough up top for me, esp. in the NW. The clue at 1D: Research assistant, informally was not nearly specific plenty to get me LAB TECH and I know cypher about Billy the Kid'due south Allonym and the clue on HAT didn't hateful much to me etc. But in one case I got out of there, it got a lot easier, themers bated.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

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Source: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2019/01/loud-subgenre-of-punk-wed-1-16-19.html

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