Puzzles

Constructor: Victoria Fernandez Grande
Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: TRIPLE JUMP (62A: Track-and-field event with a sandpit ... or a hint to the ends of 17-, 23- and 51-Across) — each of the three theme answers ends with a synonym for "jump":

Theme answers:

• ARAB SPRING (17A: Wave of antigovernment protests in the early 2010s)
• HOMEWARD BOUND (23A: Heading back to where one lives)
• DOOMSDAY VAULT (51A: Repository of seeds from all corners of the globe, informally)

Word of the Day: DOOMSDAY VAULT (51A) — The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure backup facility for the Earth's crop diversity on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The Seed Vault provides long-term storage for duplicates of seeds from around the world, conserved in gene banks. This provides security of the world's food supply against the loss of seeds in gene banks due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts, war, sabotage, disease, and natural disasters. The Seed Vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement among the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen).The Norwegian government entirely funded the Seed Vault's approximately 45 million agricultural history.• • • Adequate, but kind of uninspired. Last words = synonyms for "jump." That's it. The revealer tries to make it more exciting than that. But all the "triple" means is that you have (only) three themers. The concept lacks a certain cleverness and zing that the best Monday puzzles have. It does have one wholly original and, to me, mysterious answer: DOOMSDAY VAULT. It might be "mysterious" to me because ... it's not actually called that except in sensationalist news headlines (see "Word of the Day," above). As I was working that answer out from the Downs alone, I got the DOOMSDAY part but still had no idea what the phrase could be. I don't know that many "DOOMSDAY" phrases. There's the Doomsday Clock. There's a Doomsday scenario, I've heard of that. There's also the Doomsday Book, but that seemed pretty obscure. It's actually, technically, the "Domesday Book," and I'd be surprised if very many non-medievalists knew what it was. It's an important late 11c. English MS containing a survey of England and Wales: "The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, labour force, and livestock from which the value derived" (wikipedia). Anyway, of all these options, only CLOCK fit, and the crosses made that impossible, so I just had to wait for the letters in VAULT to appear. I think that was the first actual "jump" that I got. That "V" was hard since TVAPPS was a nightmare to parse (the only thing I could think of was "streamers" / "streaming services," and I couldn't think of a shortened form for that). I think I have actually heard of the DOOMSDAY VAULT before. I remember learning about the phenomenon, though clearly the name didn't stick. Anyway, it's a fun answer, the one genuinely original thing about the puzzle. The rest, as I say, is fine. Standard fare. Not exciting, not terrible.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/2seCB54Bv ... x3u9Brn09g
[28D: Group whose "Gold: Greatest Hits" is the second-best-selling album] Three wrong answers and a handful of ???s kept this one interesting, from a Downs-only perspective. Wrote in FOOL for 1D: Hoodwink (SCAM), which was a foolish mistake. Should've just waited for crosses. That one kept ARAB SPRING from coming into view very quickly. Also, just couldn't figure out SHREWD. No good reason, just ... wasn't coming to me (6D: Brilliant at negotiating). Worst, though, in the end was NYG (9D: MetLife Stadium team, on scoreboards). Also these corporate-named arenas, I cannot keep track of them. Had no idea what kind of sport I was even dealing with. Blank-blank-G gave me fits. Seemed to want to start with "N," but only PHONE or PHONO seemed to work at PHON-, which gave me NEG or NOG, respectively, and neither of those is a team (that I know of!). Finally realized PHONY was also on the table, and bam, there it was: NYG. New York Giants. Very weird to be held up by something so minor, but that's the great thing about solving Downs-only: the potential chaos created by the most ordinary of answers. I also had trouble parsing "I'M MAD" (I had ANGER in there at first) (13D: What the "face with steam from nose" emoji suggests), and THAN—that one was really rough (37D: Greater ___). I had GOOD in there for a bit. And yet I dropped A FIRST in without a second thought (32D: Unprecedented). That two-word-ness of that answer is the kind of thing that would normally trip me up, but somehow I saw right through it today. 
https://www.youtube.com/embed/HAnj2fyjx ... ug-LC-d7lm

Bullets:

• 31A: Harsh, as a takedown (BRUTAL) — not sure how "as a takedown" adds anything here. I don't associate BRUTAL with "a takedown" any more than I do "harsh." BRUTAL is just a word for "Harsh." The clue could've just been "Harsh," or "Very harsh," I suppose. 
• 16A: Scholarly "same" (IDEM) — oof. Brutal. The kind of crusty crosswordese that a Monday puzzle should avoid at all costs. ("Avoid at all costs" is a cliché, another thing you should avoid) (not as bad as "avoid like the plague," though)
• 35D: Explosive personality trait (SHORT FUSE) — nice. Probably the nicest non-theme answer. This was a bit of a challenge to get Downs-only. Somehow, "Explosive" wasn't giving me "anger," necessarily. I thought maybe the person in question was just ... a firecracker, you know. Like, maybe they had a big, dynamic personality. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KH-OOKjnK ... B-YVElhcLI

• 52D: One dental speciality, informally (ORTHO) — this is a small technical matter, but ... I don't really get what "One" is doing in this clue. [Dental specialty, informally] works perfectly. Of course it's one. All answers are "one" unless you say otherwise. Baffling, unnecessary use of "One" here. Not that anyone's going to care, or even notice. I'm just curious what the logic is for including it.

That's all. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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