Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: ÉRIK Bédard (20A: Pitcher Bedard) [no accent aigu in the clue...?] —
• • •Érik Joseph Bédard ([...] Born March 6, 1979) is a Canadian professional baseball starting pitcher who is currently a free agent. // Bédard previously pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Soxand Pittsburgh Pirates. With Baltimore, he was the staff ace, setting the franchise single-season strikeouts per nine innings record at 10.93 in 2007. On December 7, 2011, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Bédard to a one-year, $4.5 million contract. He was their 2012 Opening Day Starter. On August 28, 2012, Bédard was released. (wikipedia)
I was relieved to see the constructor's name, because I knew I would be getting, at a minimum, a solid, competent themeless with at least an interesting answer or two. Silk is a workhorse, and his work is generally good. This puzzle, also—generally good. Far too easy (close to my normal Wednesday time), but good. EELGRASSES will please no one, but besides that and ATTU, I thought this grid was sharp. Doesn't really look like a themeless grid, in that the areas around the margins are all heavily segmented, with lots of 4-letter words. But push in toward the center a bit and things get more open and interesting. Lots of longer answers, all of them intersecting with other longer answers—8s and 9s and 10s all dancing around together, and all of them looking good in the process. Slangy stuff like "IT'S ALL GOOD," BROMANCE (41A: Relative of a man crush), LONG BALL and WIGGLE ROOM makes the grid feel current and light-hearted. For those who buy the ridiculous notion that one can make a list of objectionable crosswordese for *every* puzzle, and that doing so constitutes unfair carping, behold. I see a bunch of commonish answers (there are lots of 4s, after all), but nothing in the krusty krosswordese category except ATTU (49D: 1943 U.S.-vs.-Japan battle site) and perhaps STOA (52A: Classic covered walkway). They're all real words, common words—stuff people might (and do) actually use. You don't see a fresh, topical 4 very often, but I think BAIN qualifies (14A: ___ Capital (investment firm)). First-rate work all around, for sure.
I had small struggles here and there. Wanted FAIL for FADE (5D: Die). Couldn't think of the ["All in the Family" exclamation] for a long time and didn't understand ZEE (31D: First character seen in "Zelig") until I had it all filled in from crosses. OILHOLE is ... not great fill, probably, and I certainly didn't know it (35A: Aperture in some drills). I think I wrote ANGORA WOOL, not understanding that there was such an animal as an ANGORA GOAT. Then I wrote in not BAAS but MAAS, which I believe is how goats prefer to have their speech transliterated. But Bill BLASS was indisputable, so ANGORA GOATs sound like sheep, I guess. Had no idea about some of the shorter names (that usually have much different / easier clues), like ISAAC, ABNER, and ALEC, but all were highly gettable from crosses. GO intersects GO at the GOGO DANCE / GO SOUTH crossing, but it's hard to object to that kind of duping when the word is so wee and the answers involved are so good.- 20A: Pitcher Bedard (ÉRIK) — wikipedia says he has the accents aigus in his name. Maybe his baseball card says otherwise. Puzzle wasn't very well-timed, Bédard-wise, as he was released by the Pirates just a few weeks ago. It's not like he was ever a very big name (lifetime record of 63-63), but he did pitch in the bigs off and on (mostly on) for a decade, and was Baltimore's ace for a while. Still, this must have been a huge WTF for non- and merely casual baseball fans.
- 25A: Holy higher-ups (PRELATES) — I like clues that read like exclamations Robin would say to Batman.
- 34A: With 11-Down, bugging no end (DRIVING / NUTS) — sweet answer. I was thinking of a totally different meaning for "bugging" (more like "tripping" or "freaking"), but that would probably be more accurately represented as "buggin'"
- 53A: Composition of some orange spheres (CANTALOUPE) — interesting clue. I'm calling foul, since the exterior of a CANTALOUPE is not at all orange, but still ... interesting.
- 58A: Flavian dynasty ruler (TITUS) — though the word "Flavian" means nothing to me, I got this easily (off of T---S). Thanks, Shakespeare. (I know "Titus Andronicus" is completely fictional, but that's still how the name popped into my head)
- 4D: Carver of Hells Canyon (SNAKE RIVER) — my people are Idaho people, so this one was not hard. I'm fairly certain my aunt and uncle used to live in a home overlooking the Snake in Lewiston, ID.
- 34D: 2009 Grammy winner for "Crack a Bottle," briefly (DRE) — Hmmm. I've never heard (or heard of) the song he won a grammy for. I'm mildly surprised by this. Not that the Grammys are now or have, in the past several decades, been relevant, but still: mild surprise.
- 28D: "High Fidelity" star, 2000 (JOHN CUSACK) — I'm reading Michael Chabon's "Telegraph Avenue" right now, which (like "High Fidelity") is centered on a record shop. The comparisons may end there. Not sure. Only a third of the way in. At any rate, love seeing CUSACK's name here (he was the teen (-ish) star I liked most in high school when I was supposed to be liking the Brat Packers). Clue was too easy. Shoulda gone with something like, say, "2012." I feel like I haven't seen CUSACK in movies recently. 2012 (the year) may not have ended the world, but "2012" (the movie) seems to have done something terrible to CUSACK's career. I hope the Mayans were wrong about him and that he eventually returns home to us, safely.
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