Capital city on Daugava River / THU 4-26-12 / Oto neighbors / Hebdomodally / Doggie old cartoon pooch / 1970 Hugo Award-winning novel by Larry Niven / Indian sauce with coriander cumin / Group making billion-dollar loans /

Constructor: Julian Lim

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: "IT'S / A SMALL [WORLD] AFTER ALL" (1A: With 40-Across, a chorus line ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — a [WORLD] rebus, with 5 [WORLD] squares

Word of the Day: "RING[WORLD]" (50D: 1970 Hugo Award-winning novel by Larry Niven) —

Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and preceded by four prequels, and ties into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Hugo Award in 1970,^[1] as well as both the Nebula Award and Locus Award in 1971. (wikipedia)

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Over the past six weeks, my Tuesdays are a minute slower than Mondays, Wednesdays a minute slower than Tuesdays, Thursdays *three minutes* slower than Wednesdays, and Fridays just 13 seconds slower than Thursdays, and Saturdays just six seconds slower than Fridays. This means that there is hardly any difference between my average Thursday and Saturday solving times of late: 19 seconds. Zero difficulty gradation. I don't think I like this. And yet, I do like challenging puzzles. It just seems like Saturdays should be appreciably harder than Thursdays, and they just haven't been, of late. Today, I had a rebus in a grid that didn't look like a rebus grid (i.e. it has a bunch of longish Acrosses that looked like typical theme answers). There was the initial difficulty of turning up the theme, and then the added difficulty of Fri/Sat-style cluing, all over the place. By far the toughest parts were the NE and SW. I say this having taken my first stab at the NE w/o knowing the theme. After I figured that out, that corner got easier. But I knew the theme when solving the SW, and it didn't help as much as it should have. Or, that is, it did, eventually. Who knows where the damned [WORLD]s are gonna be? I had to remind myself of the theme in order to pick up (finally) OLD [WORLD]. Never heard of "RING[WORLD]". Did not know THIRD had anything to do with yellow ribbons (49D: Place for a yellow ribbon), which I associate with oak trees.

I think the revealer is a winner. Otherwise, it's just a rebus, like any other. Well, better/tougher, in that the [WORLD]s are not symmetrical, but there was an utter haphazardness about the [WORLD] placement here that was actually a little annoying. Three of the five long Acrosses have them, but their symmetrical counterparts don't. The fill is pretty strained in many places. I would've gutted the whole grid from NROTC (29A: Campus org. for ensigns-in-training) all the way east (theme matter excepted). That Down sequence of CRT / RAITA (37D: Indian sauce with coriander and cumin) / OL' MAN / PLEUT is particularly unlovely. One or two of those answers, fine; jammed together like that, suffocating. ROOT CROP made me wince (35A: Turnips, e.g.), as ROOT VEGETABLE is the far more common phrase—but it's validish, so no big problem. But having TOSS DOWN instead of TOSS BACK was a huge letdown. It always sucks when an answer is defensible, OK, but not really the mot (or phrase) juste. It's like soy cheese. Maybe passable, but just ... not right.



UNHINGE is a fantastic word (55A: Drive mad). HAB ... isn't (60D: Old Testament book before Zephaniah: Abbr.).

Theme answers:

• SEA [WORLD] / [WORLD] BANK
• "REAL [WORLD]" / FIRST [WORLD] WAR
• "IT'S A SMALL [WORLD] AFTER ALL" / [WORLD] WIDE WEB
• "A WHOLE NEW [WORLD]" /  [WORLD]LY
• OLD [WORLD] / "RING[WORLD]"

Also, "a chorus line" for the revealer? Vague to the point of absurdity. Yes, the line is from the chorus ... of a song. Something a little more specific/vivid would've been nice.

Bullets:

• 19A: Capital city on the Daugava River (RIGA) — total lucky guess. Four-letter capitals FTW!
• 27A: Hebdomadally (A WEEK) — kind of an ostentatious clue for not-so-great fill. Still, that is a good (insane) word.
• 7D: Result of rampant inflation? (POP) — cute
• 12D: ___ Doggie (old cartoon pooch) (AUGIE) — just not happening today. No idea where this name disappeared to, but I had a lot of trouble getting it back. Deputy Dawg, sure, but AUGIE Doggie was nowhere to be found.

• 22D: Arizona and Arizona State joined it in '78 (PAC-TEN) — a most welcome gimme.
• 34D: Plum look-alike (SLOE) — this helped me change TOSS BACK to TOSS DOWN (an answer I had to choke down ... while I choked back tears ... not really, but it's interesting that "back" and "down" can (it seems) follow both "toss" and "choke")

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld