SUNDAY, May 18, 2008 - Brendan Emmett Quigley (FORMER L.A. RAM WHO HOLDS THE N.F.L. RECORD FOR MOST RECEIVING YARDS IN A GAME (336))

Relative difficulty: Medium (-Challenging?)

THEME: "Pinball Wizard" - nine theme answers all begin with words related to pinball

This puzzle will feel TILTed to most people, which seems appropriate. We are used to seeing theme answers run predominantly across a puzzle. 7 across, 2 down is a relative common pattern, but here, that pattern is reversed, making the whole solving experience feel quite unconventional, but not in a bad way. Two other things to say about this puzzle: a lot of names I've never encountered (or forgotten), and ... AZAN (92A: Mideast call to prayer). This answer was funny to me (though perhaps not to you) because it was one of the laundry list of Terrible, super-obscure fill that I rattled off when I was criticizing the abysmal Star-Tribune puzzle from a couple weeks back. Here, it doesn't seem so egregious, because most of the rest of the fill is so CLEAN (79A: Drug-free) ... though that "Z" crossing might have thrown some people. I didn't know who SALAZAR (67D: Marathoner Alberto) was, though I think I would haven't guessed that "Z" as the only plausible cross.

Speaking of CLEAN, this puzzle is Loaded with drug references. CLEAN is clued as [Drug-free], and it sits right underneath NARCO (73A: Buster), and then across the grid you have CHECKS INTO (107A: Starts, as rehab). There's also 104A: Dealer's handout (price list) - though I imagine that drug dealers don't really have those (maybe on your fancier street corners, or Amsterdam, they do). This brings up what I think is a huge hypocrisy and contradiction in the rules of the puzzle. Why is it that drunks and addicts of all kinds are fair game - are made fun of, even (I mean SOTS, BOOZEHOUNDS, TOSSPOT, etc ... these are words of mockery and derision, much as I Love them). And yet diseases ... almost nowhere to be found. CANCER's been in the NYT exactly once (from what I can tell) in the past 11 years, even though it's a perfectly good constellation. I understand that omission - CANCER is common and depressing. But last night, as I reworked my own puzzle, I built a fantastic corner that hinged on OCD. It occurred to me that, as a disorder, OCD might be an issue, so I looked it up in the cruciverb.com database - zip. Actually, it occurs once, but in a rebus where "O" = "ON." How sensitive is too sensitive. People are sensitive about their weight, but we let OBESE in. It seems like if you "did it to yourself," puzzle thinks it can have at you, but if you are "not responsible" for your condition, then hands off (quotation marks mean that I would never use that language myself). This seems ... wrong. I'm all for sensitivity, but OCD and ADD and ADHD should Totally be allowed in the puzzle. With the move toward categorizing addiction as disease, it seems only fitting that you either bar it from the puzzle, or open the puzzle up to other not-necessarily-fatal disorders.

Theme answers:

• 22A: Fight imaginary foes (TILT at windmills) - Quixote is back ... this time in a phrase that BEQ used last year in one of the greatest puzzles of the year (the answer ran diagonally through the puzzle from NW to SE)
• 115A: Former L.A. Ram who holds the N.F.L. record for most receiving yards in a game (336) (FLIPPER Anderson) - uh ... who? Finding this guy must have been the inspiration to go forward with this puzzle.
• 5D: Test extras (BONUS questions)
• 15D: Opening track of "The Beatles' Second Album" ("Roll Over Beethoven")
• 30D: Einstein subject (SPECIAL relativity)
• 33D: Push for more business orders (RAMP up sales)
• 39D: Sloping surfaces next to sinks (DRAIN boards)
  
• 46D: Good farming results (BUMPER crops)
• 53D: Awarding of huge settlements to plaintiffs, in modern lingo (JACKPOT justice)

It's late, so I'll just tell you the names I didn't know and that rattle off the rest now. OK? OK.

Mystery (Wo)Men

• 6A: Ancient pueblo dwellers (Anasazi) - now I know these guys, or at least have seen them in my puzzle, but I had ASHKENAZI and ANASTASIA and ASTANSI (whatever that is) clogging the pipeline, so that "S" ... came late, and it came from guessing...
• 9D: _____ Phillips, who played Livia in "I, Claudius" (Sian) - I have decided I should not care how obscure the names in my puzzle are any more... if this person can get in ...
• 13A: Norm of "This Old House" (Abram) - Sure, why not? Don't watch it, but ABRAM's a name. Fine.
• 27A: Sylph in Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" (Ariel) - wow ... bypassing the more obvious Shakespeare reference in favor of Pope. Fancy.
• 32A: "Sixteen Tons" singer, 1955 (Ernie Ford) - I have never seen / heard his name NOT preceded by "Tennessee."
• 49A: "Alice in Wonderland" sister (Lacie) - Have completely forgotten this, if I ever knew it. Ditto...
• 93D: "Bambi" author (Salten) - what an insidious name. Utterly common letters in completey unholy combination. SALTED, SALTINE, PSALTER, SULTAN ... all so close.
• 53A: "Lawrence of Arabia" composer (Jarre) - my freshman year roommate, Dave, was into Jean-Michel Jarre ... or at least I learned that name from him. Anyway, Jean-Michel is Maurice Jarre's son. I'm just saying the name JARRE was familiar.
• 83A: "Pearly Shells" singer (Don Ho) - OK, he's not a mystery, I just love that this guy's entire name has eternal crossword fame. I can't think of many people who can say that.
• 20D: Oscar-winning Brody (Adrien) - with an "E" ...
• 23D: Jack of "Eraserhead" (Nance) - this name came to me like a bolt out of the blue. Nothing, nothing, NANCE. Larry NANCE was a forward for the Phoenix Suns when I was a teenager. Jim NANTZ is a sportscaster.
• 57D: Zoologist Fossey (Dian) - I assume everyone knows her and her name-spelling by now, but you never know...

OK ... what's left?

• 1A: Site of campus workstations (PC labs) - not many PCL-starting words out there
• 18A: Muse with a wreath of myrtle and roses (Erato) - yeah, yeah, you had me at "Muse" ...
• 21A: Bill formerly of the Rolling Stones (Wyman) - any relation to Jane? I had "Rocks Off" in my head all day yesterday, and now ... yep, it's back.
• 65A: Surfing spot (crest) - mercifully, not THE NET or THE WEB
• 31D: Short-billed rail (crake) - whoa. Didn't know this. I think it's in the title of a Margaret Atwood novel: Oryx and CRAKE.
  
• 77A: Sure application spot (armpit) - again, why do I have to contemplate ARMPIT and am not allowed to look at OCD? I practically have OCD. Come on!
• 125A: Explorer of sorts (caver) - huh-orrible. Change it to CAVIL (a great word). OLY is so a word. A great word. Familiar name for a bygone beer. "Ice ... cold ... OLY." And GIL, of course, is the hero of the world's greatest comic strip.
• 1D: Missal location (pew) - I completely blanked on what a "missal" was, HA ha. Need more sleep.
• 7D: Match _____ (tie game, in France) (nul) - some of this fill is pretty reachy.
• 64D: The Nutmeg State: Abbr. (Conn) - could Not think of a state beginning with "C" besides California. It was comical how long it took CONNecticut to come to me.
• 96D: Sovereign's representative (viceroy) - ooh, I like this word. Fancy.
• 108D: Old Treasury offering (E bond) - later changed their name to the E Street Bond and went on to great fame backing up Bruce Springston.
• 112D: Month in which Moses is said to have been born and died (Adar) - You can stop at "Moses," 'cause I know only one Hebraic month. Thankfully, today, it's the right one.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

SATURDAY, May 17, 2008 - Mike Nothnagel (DREADED VICTIMIZER OF CHARLIE BROWN)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Leaving the house shortly for writing group, so short shrift for Mr. Nothnagel today. This puzzle was pitched at almost perfect Saturday level. I stared at blanks, and then a patchy grid, for a while, and then one big gimme (TOWN AND GOWN - 24D: Of a university's relationship with its surroundings) opened up the whole SE section, and I worked my way methodically around the grid from there (in generally clockwise fashion). Overall, I'd say this is very solid, professional work. Nothing AWE-inspiring (52D: It's inspired), but virtually nothing to make you groan or grumble either, and lots of little bits of entertaining fill and twisty clues throughout.

And now, a brief word about proper nouns: I'm not sure there is consensus on the topic of names and how (much) to use them. I love names in my puzzles - keeps things fresh, lively, and (above all) culturally relevant and connected. Dictionaries are lovely (necessary, even), but they are also where words go to die. Names give a puzzle personality and zing, so I am a big fan. I have received letters from readers, however (and criticism on my own puzzles, I should add), indicating that there is such a thing as too many names - that names are a crutch, that they weaken a puzzle, that they turn the puzzle into a kind of trivia game, a kind of "you know it or you don't" enterprise that takes the fun out of solving. I want to open this topic up to you all, because this question - the proper noun question - gets at the heart of why I love crossword puzzles above all other puzzles - they connect with the big, bad messiness of culture (popular and otherwise). And as anyone who lives in this country knows, "culture" is a danger zone (not to be confused with "THE DEAD ZONE" starring Anthony Michael Hall - 5D: 1979 novel, 1983 film and 2002-07 series). This puzzle raises this issue in powerful ways, with (counting conservatively) 17 proper nouns. I don't mind this in the least. What do you think? Do names faze you? Bother you? Inspire you? Is there a limit? An area of knowledge / culture where the puzzle should not go, or should go only sparingly?

Quickly:

• 1A: Places such as Anatevka in "Fiddler on the Roof" (shtetls) - just revised a puzzle so I wouldn't have to use this word. Not that it's a bad word, exactly. Just very "Help Me Crossword Gods!" Sometimes you need those.
• 8A: Helper after a crash (techie) - computer crash (thought plane, then - having just watched a doc on FDR's early political career - stock market)
• 14A: Big syrup maker (Hershey) - Log Cabin wouldn't fit
• 15A: Designer of a stained-glass window in the U.N. building (Chagall) - had a huge thing for his work when I was in college.
• 17A: Holy Roman Emperor, 855-75 (Louis II) - yesterday Pete M. gave us YOTP for the random Roman numeral designating something about a pope. I think we need a term for Random Emperor or Pope. Name + Roman numeral Guy. Name and number guy. NANG?
• 19A: Architectural starting point (plat) - learned from xwords (the actual word in the grid is PLAN ... my brain wanted it to be PLAT so bad that it made it so)
  
• 21A: Jacket locales: Abbr. (bks) - don't like "locales" here (but I rarely like "locales)
• 22A: Dreaded victimizer of Charlie Brown (kite-eating tree) - holy moly this took me forever, even with the EATING firmly in place. CAKE-EATING TIME? I did not know the tree had an official name, and I tried to remember LUCY's last name, because all I could think of was how she would pull the football away at the last second...
• 28A: Newsman Roger (O'Neil) - I wanted AILES. Is that ... someone?
• 32A: Moves briskly and easily (waltzes) - I strangely admire this clue. I had GALLOPS at first.
• 36A: Star of the 1970s detective drama "Harry O" (Janssen) - no idea
• 37A: _____ Hargreaves, first woman to complete a solo climb of Everest, 1995 (Alison) - no idea
• 39A: "McSorley's Bar" painter (Sloan) - no idea (no, I'm not kidding, I don't know any of these folks ... not that I recall, anyway)
• 41A: One of the Bobbsey twins (Nan) - NAN, I know
• 48A: Site of a much-visited mausoleum (Agra) - kind of a gimme
• 49A: World of Warcraft participant, e.g. (gamer) - the future of crosswords will be littered with computer and gaming terminology... don't say you weren't warned.
• 50A: Cardinals' wear (red hats) - the most made-up answer in the whole grid
• 56A: Grateful person's reply ("I owe you") - nice letter combos in that one - good for when you need a boatload of vowels
• 58A: Jumper's cables? (tendons) - if this clue were an Achilles TENDON, it would be torn and the puzzle would be on the DL.
• 1D: Swindlers, in slang (sharks) - also a hockey team
• 6D: Place for woolgathering? (lea) - so WOOL = sheep. Is that synecdoche or metonymy? I always forget the difference.
• 10D: Film special effect, for short (CGI) - oft-abused technology
• 9D: Fontaine contents (eau) - nothing fancy, just French for "water"
• 13D: "We'll give a long cheer for _____ men" ("Down the Field" lyric) ("Eli's") - nothing fancy, just ELI again
• 15D: Chuck wagon bell sound (clang) - also, trolley sound
• 25D: They're stranded in the body (RNAs) - witty if instantly gettable clue. Why don't I like RNAS in the plural?
• 29D: _____ St. James, first woman to be named Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, 1992 (Lyn)
• 31D: "Relache" composer (Satie) - my first thought: FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD.
• 35D: Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Tale of _____ Saltan" ("Tsar") - see also ELIS. Typical late-week stunt: hide the crosswordese in fancy cluing. I'm not complaining. It's entertaining.
• 38D: Four and four, say (pair) - oddly mystifying
• 40D: Crime syndicate sobriquet (Bugsy) - never saw this movie. Love Annette Bening.
• 42D: Photographer who was the inspiration for "Funny Face" (Avedon) - interesting. Now if I only knew what "Funny Face" was ... (AVEDON, I know)
• 43D: Shape-shifting Greek god (Nereus) - despite decent background in Greek mythology, I had to wait on this one.
• 45D: Land of Wahhabis (Qatar) - best country name Ever.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

FRIDAY, May 16, 2008 - Kevin G. Der (OPPOSITE OF AGITATO)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

When I look at the times at the NYT website, I see that I would currently be in the top ten, and this shocks me, as a. I didn't rush, and b. I thought the puzzle was a cinch. Clearly, my rating may not reflect the majority experience today. But once I got JACUZZI (1A: Steam room alternative), it was was all alpine from there. Kevin Der is the elder statesman of teen constructors (wait, you are a teen, aren't you Kevin? - he's quite young, at any rate), and I love that this puzzle shows his age. WHASSUP!? (8A: "Yo!") is the kind of expression you might see on someone's FACEBOOK (39A: Alternative to Friendster or MySpace) page, and if you don't know what FACEBOOK is, you are over 50 and/or not affiliated with a college, university, high school, or any place where people under 25 might be found. Most of my students have FACEBOOK pages. One other very modern word in the puzzle is NETIZEN (60A: Blogger, e.g.), a word I can't stand, but ... I can't knock the clue. This puzzle makes me think of unhealthy habits of many of my nerdier students - it's all computers and MARS BARs (26D: Chocolate treat) and SODA CANs (36D: Crush holder that's crushable) with them ... though the 20 OUNCE (43A: Bit) plastic bottle is almost certainly more prevalent than the can.

Only a few frowny faces today, and they aren't very frowny, frankly. Ironically, one of the frowny faces goes to SMILERS (20A: Most clowns) - it's got the twin crutches of -ER and -S resulting in a word one rarely uses. Plus clowns are satanic, and they aren't really smiling - those smiles are painted on. AMBS (10D: Many former senators and governors: Abbr.) is one of those abbrev.'s you never want but occasionally need, and this puzzle is mostly free of such stuff, so no problem. PETALED is a bit painful (14D: Like many blooms). Finally, there's AÑO (29A: Marzo to marzo, e.g.) - actually, on second thought, no comment.

Zingers today include the musical answers GAVOTTES (35D: Parts of some Bach suites) and MERL (26A: Jazzman Saunders). The latter is an old friend as Googlers lit up my site the last time this clue / answer pairing appeared in the puzzle. Here's a sample of MERL's "jazz" stylings. His body of work seems more bluesy (or funky, or jam band-y) than jazzy, but maybe that's a fine distinction. More beanballs: AA MILNE, clued from the deep dark recesses of his literary resumé: 16A: His last novel was "Chloe Marr," 1946; DOREEN Tracey - who should more than make up for the 21st-century focus of some of today's clues, as she was three years old when "Chloe Marr" was published: 44D: "The Mickey Mouse Club" regular _____ Tracey; STOWE, whose "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has about four other characters better known than Topsy: 28D: She wrote of Topsy; and finally RETE, which is only a beanball if you are outside the medical field and / or have never done crosswords: 49A: Bundle of nerves. Strangely, it only this second occurred to me that [Bundle of nerves] is playing on an idiomatic expression for a nervous person ...

There's some wonderful stuff in this puzzle - the one-two punch of ZIPS / ZOOMS is really snazzy (5D: Flies / 6D: Flies). The misdirection on SMITS (25A: "The West Wing" actor) is amazing - I wonder how many people came down out of the NW corner, got the inital "S" in this answer, and proceeded to write in SHEEN. I know I did. I used to know all the Super Bowl teams back when there had only been about ten Super Bowls, and probably the most famous Super Bowl to date, at that time, was III - Namath's Jets over Unitas's Colts. So I loved 1D: Elated person after Super Bowl III (Jets fan), if only because it was a gimme that took me back to my not-terribly-distant youth. Wife and daughter take karate, so DOJOS was less difficult to uncover than it might have been - clever clue: 47A: Places to develop one's chops? - I initially suspected some equivalent of BARBECUES or OVENS. I remember liking "The Truman Show," but I don't remember the FIJI part (39D: Island that Truman wants to go to in "The Truman Show"). No matter; I had the "J" in place. This clue reminds me that it's Laura Linney day today ... in my mind. She was in "The Truman Show" (as Truman's wife) as well as the biopic "John ADAMS" (27A: He called the U.S. vice presidency a "most insignificant office"). I'm still waiting for her to come out of hiding and declare her undying love for me ... remind me to put "The Savages" in my Netflix queue.

The rest:

• 17A: Cellar's opposite (top spot) - kind of a baseball clue, which is alright by me.
• 23A: Emerson said intellect annuls it (fate) - guessed this off the "F" ... Emerson would not have lasted long in an ancient Greek play.
• 45A: Old sticker (lance) - It's weird - I doubt anyone impaled and / or driven off one's horse by a LANCE would have been heard to exclaim "I've been stuck." A burr is a "sticker."
• 56A: Water-skiing need (tow line) - even just now I started typing in TOW ROPE, which I believe is the expression I know better.
• 59A: Merchant whose customers click (e-tailer) - this takes the techno-modernity of this puzzle just a skosh too far. Most e-words are god awful. I accept EMAIL and few others.
• 2D: Tree of the laurel family (avocado) - I did not know that.
• 24D: Typography measure (em space) - I knew EMS and ENS were print measurements. EM SPACE sounds like the Rolek watch of social networking sites.
• 33D: Muscle mag topic (pec) - I'm pretty sure the mag would talk about PECS in the plural, but OK.
• 41D: Pump numbers (octanes) - didn't I just see this clue, in the form of [87 and 91]? Sometimes puzzles blur together.
• 47D: Opposite of agitato (dolce) - because [_____ & Gabbana] would have taken the modernity of this puzzle truly over the top.
• 3D: Santiago skipper (capitán) - is this a specific skipper, or is "Santiago" an arbitrary, Spanish-speaking place name?
• 51D: She co-starred in "Gangs of New York," 2002 (Diaz) - never saw it, and still have no desire. Something about the self-importance ... and the costumes ... turns me off.
• 55D: Designer born in Guangzhou, China (Pei)
• 57D: Chinese author _____ Yutang (Lin) - way to double down on the Chinese answers here at the very end!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS whoops, left out the marvelous QUIXOTE (37D: Visionary) - the fictional character's name is normally associated with foolish hope, and [Visionary] does not tip the "foolish" part well at all. Still, even if you can't get AXE (50A: It can be double-sided) from the weird way that it's clued, I would think QUIXOTE would come into view eventually.

THURSDAY, May 15, 2008 - Elizabeth C. Gorski (HEAVIEST MEMBER OF THE WEASEL FAMILY)

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SUNRISE, SUNSET (36A: Classic Broadway show tune, or a hint to the word ladder revealed by the answers to the eight starred clues) - word ladder goes from DAWN to DUSK

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and yet this puzzle has DAWN in the west and DUSK in the east. Isn't anyone editing this puzzle!?!? I am of course kidding. This puzzle is fantastic - everything a Thursday puzzle should be. It's got a complex theme that covers the grid in an unexpected pattern, and though I'm not big on Broadway, the central theme answer, SUNRISE, SUNSET, clues the word ladder perfectly. There are also a host of wacky, odd, offbeat answers in the non-theme fill that made the entire solving experience a real pleasure. Oh, I didn't even mention the majestic 3x8 letter columns in the NE and SW. Really professional work all around.


Theme answers:

• 1: *Beginning (dawn)
• 18A: *"Rats!" ("darn!")
• 22A: *Makeshift hangar (barn)
• 33A: *_____ center (burn)
• 41A: *Right face, e.g. (turn)
• 53A: *Relative of an Azerbaijani (Turk)
• 59A: *Narwhal feature (tusk)
• 66A: *End (dusk)

Also very impressive to have completed the word ladder without having gone through DARK, which would have screwed up the theme but good. If it's DARK before DUSK ... you've got one of three problems: 1. Blindness, 2. Eclipse, 3. Armageddon.

There are lots of names in this puzzle, many of them delightfully uncommon. We've seen OLEG before, but usually as Cassini, not as whoever this guy is: 15A: Former heavyweight champ Maskaev. We've seen RENEE before, but usually not in a gaggle (RENEES!?) and almost certainly not in the form of an actress who played a secondary role on a (mercifully) bygone TV show (40A: Taylor of "The Nanny" and others). Fleming and Zellweger will have to sit this one out. I've read ALISON Lurie before, otherwise I might have been in trouble there (2D: "Familiar Spirits" author Lurie), and I remember Melvin BELLI as a famous attorney from the pre-OJ era of famous attorneys (61A: Attorney with the autobiography "My Life on Trial"). I thank "The Daily Show" for hammering the name Porter GOSS into my head (65A: Porter _____, former C.I.A. director). I guess I should have known that Llosa was from PERU, but I did not (25A: Home of novelist Mario Vargas Llosa). Further, "film producer" is not the first thing that pops into my head for DODI Al-Fayed (5D: Film producer _____ Al-Fayed), though what does pop into my head involves either sex or death in ways that probably aren't puzzle-appropriate. I enjoyed seeing a blast from my 70s TV past in KRIS (54D: "Charlie's Angels" role) - though I wrote in KATE, confusing a character with the actress KATE Jackson, who played Sabrina. But my favorite of all names in the puzzle, and the one I'm proud came back to me as quickly as it did, was NANOOK (48D: Title subject of a 1922 documentary in the National Film Registry). I don't think I knew what the phrase "Nanook of the North" referred to until very receently - I must have looked it up for something crossword-related (I mean, what else do I do all day?). This would have been easy enough to piece together from crosses, but it was nice to get it off just the "K" today.

Closing credits:

• 5A: Year of Pope Sabinian's death (DCVI) - oh, the dreaded Roman numerical pope clue! My first response to this clue: "Pope who?"
• 14A: Program of variety acts (olio) - the other OLEO. I know OLIO as a general hodgepodge; didn't know it had any theatrical significance.
• 21A: _____ jure (by the law itself) (ipso) - one of many instance where ordinary fill is hiding behind fancy cluing. The "itself" part of the clue tells you IPSO (or IPSA, I guess, theoretically).
• 27A: Peter who wrote "Underboss" (Maas) - I've been fooled by this @#$# several times. By "fooled" I mean "completely stumped." Never again, Mr. MAAS. Mafia + Boss = MAAS.
• 31A: Sight from Lake Victoria (Entebbe) - had a word ending in -BBE ... hmm, what could that be. Buster CRABBE? ... too short.
• 49A: Some particulates (soot) - I wanted SOFT. Is that a thing? SOFT particulates?
• 42A: Apple picker? (Mac user) - hey, the puzzle's talking about me. This clue / answer pairing is So good. I looked at my grid this morning and thought I had an error: "What's a MACUSER!" A: Someone who sullies you by accusing you of a horrible crime while holding artwork by Constantin Brancusi. It's a very specialized word.
• 52A: Lobster claw (chela) - welcome to wonderful word of high-end crosswordese. "How will I remember this?," you ask. Well, just start calling all the lobsters that you meet "Sheila," and you are well on your way.
• 7A: They've got a lot of pull (oxen) - cute, but, not being familiar with how one controls OXEN, I balked at the tie-in answer, GEES (55A: Calls to 57-Across). I thought GEES were for horses.
• 60D: Nearest major airport to Bush's Crawford ranch (Waco) - busy airport this past weekend, I bet, what with all the wedding festivities and what not.
• 62A: Culturally showy (arty) - not sure about "culturally" here. What does that even mean? It's too vague and imprecise a word here. Clue needs some indication of self-consciousness or pretentiousness.
• 64A: Leaves in a salad (cress) - very nice. Seen the clue before (or one like it), but not for CRESS.
• 1D: Mater _____ (Mary, in Latin prayers) (Domini) - OK, I guess I had DOMINE here ... it's all fuzzy at this point.
  
• 7A: The "16" in "3:16" (verse) - here's Matthew 3:16, for example:

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.

In other dove news, I have been seeing doves lighting upon my garage.

• 10D: Portion of a trick-or-treater's haul (caramels) - just a fantastic clue. Trying to write clues for my first puzzle, and it is Way harder than you might imagine (I mean, you can just steal old clues from the cruciverb database, but I tend to go there only as a last resort, just to see what the conventions have been).
• 13D: J.F.K. visitor, once (SST) - aha, the old anthropomorphosis trick (didn't fool me for one second, so find it adorable).
• 32D: Kind of acid found in oak (tannic) - for all you (insufferable) wine experts out there.
• 36D: Heaviest member of the weasel family (sea otter) - THIS is my favorite clue in the whole puzzle, in that I imagine a big otter floating on his back eating abalone (if there's any left in the ocean at this point), hearing this clue and replying "Hey, who you callin' heavy!?" Or I imagine a big, fat weasel sitting in his lounge chair in front of the TV making one of the other members of his weasel family get him another beer.
• 38D: Swiss nationals, historically (neutrals) - one step below "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys."
• 46D: Austin school, informally (Texas U.) - ??????? So "informally" that I've Never heard this expression. Emily, I need a ruling. Do you guys actually call yourselves this?
• 58D: "Dirty Sexy Money" airer (ABC) - I miss this show. It can't decide if it's campy or serious ... which is a kind of confusion I love.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld