Constructor: Amanda Winters
Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday) (solved Downs-only)
THEME: AS ABOVE / SO BELOW (39A: with 41-Across, philosophical principle in which Earth mirrors heaven ... or a hint to the shaded squares)— bunch of ASSO squares (top two letters "AS," bottom two letters "SO")
Word of the Day: ASIAN PEARS(3D: Yellow fruits that, despite their name, look more like apples) —
Pyrus pyrifoliais a species ofpear treenative to southernChinaand northernIndochinathat has been introduced toKorea,Japanand other parts of the world.The tree's edible fruit is known by many names, includingAsian pear,Persian pear,Japanese pear,Chinese pearKorean pear,Taiwanese pear,apple pearzodiac pear,three-halves pear,papple,naspatiandsand pear.Along with cultivars ofP. ×bretschneideriandP. ussuriensis, the fruit is also called thenashi pear.Cultivarsderived fromPyrus pyrifoliaare grown throughout East Asia, and in other countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Traditionally inEast Asiathe tree's flowers are a popular symbol of early spring, and it is a common sight in gardens and the countryside. //The fruits are not generally baked inpiesor made intojamsbecause they have a high water content and a crisp, grainy texture, very different from the European varieties. They are commonly served raw and peeled.The fruit tends to be quite large and fragrant, and when carefully wrapped (it has a tendency to bruise because of its juiciness), it can last for several weeks (or more) in a cold, dry place. (wikipedia)
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Hard to get excited about a bunch of ASSOs floating around your grid. Solved this one Downs-only and kept trying to make the ASSOs mean something, anything. Never saw the revealer, and so ended up very stuck at my very last answer: 27D: Thumbs-up equivalent. I had ... nothing. -IP, -SE, and -URL could've been many things. Then there was -SABOVE, and I figured it was probably AS ABOVE (some kind of footnote phrase?), but could not eliminate IS ABOVE as a possible answer (yes, it's terrible, but this grid isn't exactly brimming with great fill, so IS ABOVE seemed at least possible). Somehow my brain was eventually able to get from [Thumbs-up equivalent] to YEAH (a long journey), and I got the "Congratulations" message from my software, but yeesh, AS ABOVE? That seemed bad. Only then did I go back and try to make sense of all the ASSOs, and only then did I see SO BELOW (totally missed that while I was solving, somehow). I'm vaguely familiar with the phrase AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, and the puzzle seems only vaguely aware as well ("philosophical principle" isn't very evocative). I wish that phrase meant more to me, but what I really wish is that scattered ASSOs had anything pleasing about them whatsoever, from a solving standpoint. I kept trying to spell things ("is this ... a Sammy SOSA puzzle?"), but got nowhere. The problem with the concept isn't just that it isn't inherently compelling, it's that it also puts a Lot of pressure on the grid, and the fill ... buckles. Predictably. And that's *with* the two cheater squares (four, actually, because of symmetry—these are black squares that don't increase word count, added solely to make the grid easier to fill (today, above 62D: MAD and below 27D: YEAH)). But even with the cheaters: ESOS IPSO ESE OSSO ASUS (!?), ATAD ASEA ADOS AESOP SQIN CPL ... that's a lot to take. And the longer answers don't add nearly enough color to offset the short-fill unpleasantness.
That last answer (YEAH) was the only one that put up any kind of fight. I had some trouble with CLEAVE (21D: Split, as with an axe), largely because I couldn't infer the first letter ("C") because I couldn't think of *any* letter that could acceptably fill the blank at -PL (21A). I know that NPL is the National Puzzlers' League, but that seemed way too niche, even for the puzzle-happy NYTXW. I ran the alphabet and got nothing. Which means I didn't run it carefully enough—CPL is a standard military abbr. ("corporal"), and the only -PL possibility there is. I thought maybe PPL stood for "people" ... does it? Looks like it does. Also "parts per liter" and "participle." Good to know! Where else did I get slowed down on the Downs-only journey? Honestly, nowhere. ASIAN PEARS went in once I inferred the "AS," SOLAR PANELS went in once I inferred the "SO." I had a few moments of scrambling around 52D: Fix, as a printer, assuming the first two letters were going to be "RE-". Oh, and ASUS, yikes, haven't seen that in a while. Whoa, I haven't seen it *ever* in a NYTXW—it's a debut! That's a debut that's hard to celebrate, and an unfortunate corporate name, generally. After ACER, I'm all out of four-letter A-starting tech companies. I don't really get why "sign" was added to the clue at 36D: "Credit cards only" sign ("NO CASH"). "Credit cards only" is the equivalent of "NO CASH." What's "sign" got to do with it. One phrase could be a "sign" as well as the other. "Sign" is just muddling things, and ruining the equivalency. Bizarre cluing choice. Also, a very tiny matter. Gonna sign off before I get even further into minutiae and subminutiae. See you tomorrow. Oh, and go see La Chimera, it is the best film I've seen in a while.
OK, bye!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
