how much does a fashion designer make in nyc
Constructor: Brianne McManis
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (proper nouns could cause your experience to vary wildly)
THEME: SEE / EYE / TO EYE (65D: With 70- and 71-Across, agree ... and a phonetic hint to this puzzle's theme) — four names that start with "I" and end with "I" ... so I guess when you "see" the names (?) you "see I to I":
Theme answers:
- INDIRA GANDHI (20A: First and only female prime minister of India)
- ISAMU NOGUCHI (32A : "Red Cube" sculptor with an eponymous museum in New York)
- ICHIRO SUZUKI (42A: First M.L.B. player to enter the Meikyukai (a Japanese baseball hall of fame))
- ISAAC MIZRAHI (57A: Fashion designer and judge on "Project Runway All Stars")
Word of the Day: ISAMU NOGUCHI(32A) —
Isamu Noguchi (野口 勇,Noguchi Isamu, November 17, 1904 – December 30, 1988) was a Japanese-American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.
In 1947, Noguchi began a collaboration with the Herman Miller company, when he joined with George Nelson, Paul László and Charles Eames to produce a catalog containing what is often considered to be the most influential body of modern furniture ever produced, including the iconic Noguchi table which remains in production today. His work lives on around the world and at the Noguchi Museum in New York City. (wikipedia)
• • •
The basic concept here is good, and that's a nice set of names. One name— ISAMU NOGUCHI —is a massive outlier, fame-wise, from the others. I mean, I have admired the man's work before and *I* forgot his name (esp. his first name—the last name came to me with a little prodding from crosses). His name alone increases the potential difficulty of this one substantially. But it's a worthy name; they all are (Isaac has got to be pretty chuffed this morning—he's a longtime solver). So conceptually, everything is fine, and the name set is fine, but there are small and big things that made solving this less than pleasant. The small thing is the revealer. First, the "see" part is weird to me, because I don't know what it's doing precisely. It seems to want to be part of the "phonetic hint," i.e. a "phonetic hint" for "C," the way that "eye" is a phonetic hint for "I." I double-checked the answers for some "C" angle, but nothing. So it's a weird red herring. Also, I don't really get how "see" works. Is the idea that I, the solver, am "see"ing the names? I am seeing the whole grid every time I solve, so ... sure, I guess on a technical level this is an accurate assessment of what I'm doing—"seeing" (?) an answer that begins with "I" and ends with "I." The phrasing somehow doesn't really feel like it sticks the landing, but maybe it's good enough. What's not good enough is the revealer *placement*. Nails + chalkboard. To have the first part come Down and cross with the back end of the third part, with the second part floating on its own off to the side, repeating a word that is in the third part!?!? What an inelegant mess. Is that redundant? Are there elegant messes? I believe there are. This is not one. I have a giant frowny face and a giant "?" written in the margin next to that revealer. It's like staring at a wreck.
The fill, too, was pretty disastrous. Felt ancient and awkward throughout. ESO OSSO and then CPL LAA ELS and then ILE UEY FT LEE HIT TO (all in the same corner!?). Lots more of that unpleasant short stuff. Then that awkwardly crossing / cross-referenced DE SAC / CUL , to say nothing of the ugliness of SCALIA and the NRA (I know it's not *that* NRA , but ... when I look at the grid, that's the NRA I think of). And somehow we're still doing NIP . The first time I ever heard that that word was a racial slur (abbr. of "Nippon," the Japanese word for "Japan") was during a conversation in college between a Thai student and a Japanese-American professor, and the exact context they mentioned was having (white) people say things "it's getting a little nippy in here" when Asian people were around. Like, pretending to make a comment about the temperature but really just being f***ing racists (as well as low-grade punsters). This was all news to me. But I never forgot it. Annnnnyway, if the grid had been more carefully filled through the middle, you probably could've improved on AAH and GAR *and* NIP . But it's not that carefully filled. It's just filled. And filling the fill is the bulk of what a solver does. So hurray for the decent theme, but the rest of the grid ... needs a medic.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. who are you people who "loathe" the heel (or, in this puzzle's parlance, END ) of a loaf of bread? (67A: Like-it-or-loathe-it bread piece). I mean, you don't have to love it, as I do, but ... it's bread. It's just bread. What are you, four?
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how much does a fashion designer make in nyc
Source: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2021/10/red-cube-sculptor-with-eponymous-museum.html