Headwear in Prince hit / THU 10-11-18 / Annual event to support breast cancer awareness / Car named after automotive competition

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:27)

THEME: NO BRA DAY (61A: Annual event to support breast cancer awareness ... or a hint to answering 16-, 22-, 24-, 35-, 53- and 55-Across) — theme answers have letter string "BRA" in them, which you must remove for the answer to make any sense vis-a-vis the clue:

Theme answers:

• BRAIDING (16A: Picking out of a lineup, e.g.)
• LAB RATS (22A: Upper body muscles, for short)
• BRAVERY (24A: Extremely)
• LEFT BRAIN (35A: Didn't delete)
• VIBRATO (53A: First name in "The Godfather")
• BRAKING (55A: Chess piece)

Word of the Day: CINERAMA (7D: Precursor to IMAX) —

Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporation. It was the first of a number of novel processes introduced during the 1950s, when the movie industry was reacting to competition from television. Cinerama was presented to the public as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs, and audience members often dressed in their best attire for the evening. [...] The word "Cinerama" combines cinema with panorama, the origin of all the "-orama" neologisms (the word "panorama" comes from the Greek words "pan", meaning all, and "orama", which translates into that which is seen, a sight, or a spectacle). It has been suggested that Cineramacould have been an intentional anagram of the word American; but an online posting by Dick Babish, describing the meeting at which it was named, says that this is "purely accidental, however delightful."
(wikipedia)

• • •

Where to start? First, what is ... this? Is this "day" really a well-known thing? I've never heard of it until just now. Looking it up online, it does appear to be real—so I'll give it that—but it also appears to date from 2011 (!) and also to have been spun off of (!?) BRA Day, which was a Breast Reconstruction Awareness day started by a plastic surgeon. Wikipedia notes: "The day is controversial as some see it as sexualizing and exploiting women's bodies while at the same time belittling a serious disease." Also, well, here's my other favorite tidbit from the wikipedia entry on this alleged "day":

I don't think this "day" is sufficiently well known to be a viable theme answer. It's Breast Cancer Awareness month, and I am all in favor of drawing attention to that in crossword form, but this cutesy use of a not-famous "day" feels a little off. Also off—the date. I mean, if you're going to use a "day" as the basis for your puzzle theme, maybe run the puzzle on the actual day. NO BRA DAY is, technically, Saturday (Oct. 13). Lastly, I get that you have to take the BRAs out to make the clues make sense, but visually it just looks like you've put a bunch of bras *in* to your puzzle. So it's more SIX BRAS DAY than NO BRA DAY.

[15% of respondents are serious "The Good Place" fans]

LAB crossing LAB? NO, DOG(S). No. Just no. I mean, you cross a couple of "UP"s, something small like that, no one's really gonna care. But you can't cross LAB with LAB. They aren't even different meanings of the word LAB, really. I get that the *actual* "no-bra" answer doesn't have LAB in it, but the grid does, so ... no. LABRATS was interesting, though, as it was the answer that tipped me to the theme (I already had BRAIDING but didn't really get it), and the clue sent me into some weird wrong-answer territory. I had LABRUMS in there at one point. Are those muscles? No, it's cartilage. Well ... it was anatomical, anyway, so I'm gonna give my wrong answer partial credit. The hardest part of this puzzle for me was, weirdly, IROC (47A: Car named after an automotive competition). I had the "I" and then the "O" and thought "I know four-letter car names, what the hell?!" Ugh. IROC. Do they even make those any more? Also, how in the world is that clue supposed to be useful??? There's nothing helpful about it, nothing competition-y about its name. Nothing. Bizarre clue choice. The fill on this one is clean enough. No serious complaints. And it's nice to crush an easy puzzle every once in a while. But the theme just came up short on multiple levels.


Five things:

• 26A: Pulitzer Prize winner for "A Death in the Family" (AGEE) — ok maybe I spoke too soon about fill quality, as the grid is a bit heavy on the crosswordese, at least up top. Near AGEE is ISM and ELIA (which, like yesterday's BRAE, has been largely absent from grids for a while). Crosswordese makes me solving life easier, as I am, uh, fairly fluent, but it's not particularly enjoyable.
• 42A: One choice in a party game (DARE) — first thought: SKINS. Weird.
• 18A: Sign at some beaches (NO DOGS) — booooooooo! Beach near my parents' home is very dog-friendly and if you've ever seen a dog on a beach, you'd never deprive a dog of a beach again. It's basically like dog heaven.
• 44D: She helped Theseus navigate the Labyrinth (ARIADNE) — ... and then he promptly ditched her on some island. Ovid has all the juicy deets on these jackass womanizing heroes. Oh, and you'll want to confuse her with ARACHNE. Don't.
• 2D: Scale awkwardly, with "up" (CLAMBER) — Not sure why, but I find this word adorable. This may be my favorite thing in the grid.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Literally, "disciple" / FRI 9-10-21 / River personified by god Hapi / Jewelry creator Elsa who helped define the Tiffany brand / Hybrid citrus fruit native to China / Dispenser in many a vestibule / Nickname for Chicago's Cloud Gate sculpture / Matar in Indian cuisine

Constructor: Adrian Kabigting

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Jacqueline DU PRÉ (37D: Cellist Jacqueline) —

Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was a British cellist. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity. Despite her short career, she is regarded as one of the greatest cellists of all time.

Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at the age of 28; she died 14 years later at the age of 42. 

She was the subject of the 1998 biographical film Hilary and Jackie, which attracted criticism for perceived inaccuracy and sensationalism.

• • •

Image from Thirdlove

In retrospect, I wish I'd enjoyed solving this more. I guess I could say this about a lot of puzzles, but when I look over the grid now, it seems fine. It has nice parts. It's not as sizzling and bouncy and fresh as the best Fridays, but that NW corner looks pretty good, and the grid seems pretty clean overall. It just wasn't on my wavelength and the cluing often seemed off or awkward and for that reason (and possibly others) it played sluggish, more like a Saturday, and with little of that Friday "wheeeee" factor I always look forward to. It didn't work for me, but I don't think that means it didn't work. I'm not as thrilled by tech stuff as some are, so something like EXECUTABLE leaves me cold. DATA BREACH is a fine answer, but [Hack job] seemed so promising as a clue, like I was going to get some kind of cool slang, but all I got was a depressing real-world problem. Makes me think of the joy of having to change one or more of my roughly 3,000 passwords. I just didn't get a *hit* from many of these clues and answers. Some of my problems were slightly gendered, in that DEMI bra was not at all familiar to me, and jewelry designers? Not anything I pay attention to or care about. As soon as I got DEMI bra, I could imagine what it was, and it's certainly a familiar term in bra marketing, but it was weird to me that when I googled [define demi bra] I couldn't get just, like, a bra wiki with bra types, but instead just got commercial sites trying to sell me bras. Yet another example of how the internet (google in particular) is very broken, committed to selling you things rather than informing you about them. Anyway, DEMI bras are real! I also had no idea what the hell "G2G" was (3D: "G2G" (TTYL)). I assumed it meant "girl to girl"... like something one woman tells another woman, confidentially. But now I see it means "gone to ground"* ... 

I technically finished with an error, in that I spelled the [Cry of relief] WHEW and since I don't know jewelry designers, never went back to see how WERETTI was obviously prong. Are SET DESIGNS just "backgrounds" (62A: Backgrounds in theater). Wait, was that clue supposed to be a play on words?? Maybe that's the problem. Anyway, I assume designers design the whole set. Also, they're just sets. That's the word for what you're seeing up there on the stage. Design is the art of making them. A bunch of clues felt slightly off to me like this. EXECUTABLE had [Performing tasks according to encoded instructions, as a computer file], and the -ing implies something is happening whereas EXECUTABLE implies that it could happen, is able to happen, but isn't necessarily currently happening. See also [Pending acceptance, in a way] for WAITLISTED. Still not able to make that clue/answer swap work out in a sentence. I'm sure it's doable, but it shouldn't be this hard. "She got WAITLISTED," "She got pending acceptance"... nope. "I am WAITLISTED," "I am pending acceptance"... oof, I hope that's not it. When did we start calling the Arabian Peninsula a "boot"?? (18A: The toe of a geographical boot (OMAN)). There's one geographical boot, and only one. After Italy, all other "boots" are gonna look like massive pretenders, so stop, please. It looks like a cartoon boot, maybe, or one of those boots you wear if you break your foot. Anyway, I was looking for some Italian city there, maybe one that sits *right* on the toe. But no.

OK, when you isolate it like this, I see how it's boot-ish, I guess

Loved seeing Jacqueline DU PRÉ and MEYER LEMON in this puzzle, two things I like a whole lot. Had no idea a MEYER LEMON was a hybrid, LOL. I just thought "Meyer" was somebody who realized lemons should be slightly smaller and extra good (17A: Hybrid citrus fruit native to China). Wikipedia says it's a cross between a citron and a mandarin/pomelo hybrid, so ... double hybrid! Clever having DEBRIEF and HANES in the same puzzle, since DEBRIEF = [PEEL off one's HANES?]. SCREW IT! feels like a milestone in crossword profanity (52A: Words when throwing caution to the wind). Not sure of the substantive difference between "SCREW IT!" and "FUCK IT!" (the phrase I use hear more often). I assume the F-word isn't coming to a grid near you any time soon, but if I'm the F-word's agent, I'm making some phone calls.

Pretty sure this is a debut, so congrats to Adrian on that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*I know "G2G" is "gotta go" please don't email me about this :)

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Reinvest some funds / MON 2-7-11 / It offers flexible support for women / Quantity picked by Peter Piper / Perpetually dirty kid in Peanuts

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Morning movements (!) — theme answers begin with STIR, WAKE, ROLL OVER, STRETCH, and GET UP, respectively


Word of the Day: PECK (1A: Quantity picked by Peter Piper) —

n.

1. (Abbr. pk.)
   1. A unit of dry volume or capacity in the U.S. Customary System equal to 8 quarts or approximately 537.6 cubic inches.
   2. A unit of dry volume or capacity in the British Imperial System equal to 8 quarts or approximately 554.8 cubic inches.
2. A container holding or measuring a peck.
3. Informal. A large quantity; a lot: a peck of troubles. (answers.com)
   

• • •

I have no idea how difficult this was, as I did it on paper, on the couch, in front of the TV. I do know that I had a few write-overs (PVT for PFC, WOW for YOW, SHAPE for SOLID, etc.) and said "What?" several times. First "What?"=ROLL OVER A CD, one of the ugliest theme answers I've seen in a long time, especially on a Monday, when I expect the theme answers to be silken. About as coherent as EAT A SANDWICH. I had the entire answer in place before I knew what I was looking at. ROLLOVER ... ACcount? ACT? What the? It's godawful. Almost but not quite as bad is STRETCH BRA, which I'd never heard of. Checked with wife—also never heard of it. How is this different from the (far far far more in-the-language) SPORTS BRA? Or the (quite a bit more in-the-language) JOG BRA? I tried to find a definition of STRETCH BRA but couldn't. I assume it stretches ... ? Good theme idea, poor execution.


Theme answers:

• 18A: Cooking in a wok, e.g. (STIR-FRYING)
  
• 24A: University in Winston-Salem, N.C. (WAKE FOREST)
  
• 37A: Reinvest some funds (ROLL OVER A C.D.)
  
• 51A: It offers flexible support for women (STRETCH BRA)
  
• 58A: Pep (GET UP AND GO)
  

Not much else to say about this except that I time-traveled and put KATIE Couric on NBC (4D: Newswoman Couric) (5D: 4-Down's network), largely because of this recently viral video:



Bullets:

• 13D: Perpetually dirty kid in "Peanuts" (PIGPEN) — Comically, impossibly dirty. Would never appear in a contemporary comic; someone would have to call child protective services, stat.
  
• 27D: Dance to Donna Summer's "Last Dance," e.g. (DISCO) — do Not like "DISCO" as a verb (though it's legit ... dated legit, but legit).

• 55A: Lines scanned by a supermarket scanner, in brief (UPC) — glad I never saw this clue, as I'd surely have botched the abbreviation. UPC, CPU, PFC, CFC, CBC, LMNOP ... I can't keep these things straight.
  

Last I checked, Green Bay was up, but barely.

Have a fine Monday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Athenian colonnade / MON 4-11-16 / Unfiltered unpasteurized brew / Poetic paeans / Hairy Halloween rentals / Double-decker checker

Constructor: Ron Toth and Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Slightly easier than usual for a Monday

THEME: POCKETS (53A: Keeps for oneself ... or features of the answers to all the starred CLUEs) — things that have ... them.

Theme answers:

• CARGO / PANTS (1A: *With 9-Across, loose-fitting bottoms)
• BOWLING LANE (24A: *Where you can hear a pin drop) (the "lane"??? ... I'd've thought the pocket was in the PINS ... which are in the lane ... which are in the alley ... which is on a street in a town on earth, presumably; the answer just seems odd / off / imprecise; that is, it's odd to say that pockets are a "feature of" bowling *lanes* ...) 
• POOL TABLE (31D: *Where you might be behind the eight ball)
• PITA BREAD (34D: *Falafel holder)

Word of the Day: Pocket (in bowling) —

Pocket:

The 1-3 for right-handers and 1-2 for lefties. (The Bowler's Bowling Dictionary) (For Bowlers Who Bowl) (I made that last part up) (but not the first part)

• • •

Well, the theme is straight-up dull, but I really dig the shape of this grid, and the interesting long non-themers that result from it. WORLD CUP and ENCHILADAS and SOUR GRAPES and APE SUITS really steal the show here. The theme is not really NYT-worthy, and would never have made the grade without this cool-looking grid. It's just ... things with POCKETS. Random things. I got a little thrown off, because I assume SKI BAGS (whatever those are?) have POCKETS, but it's not a themer. I also got a little thrown off by the shorter fill, which is pretty rough for a 77-worder. If I were making this, the answers I would have RUED are: STOA, RHOMB (ugh), KEMO, CRU, ALLS, THUR, ATAB, CANTI, and ESTE. I'm not that thrilled with NUDIE either, since it's ultra-dated, but it's at least racy, so I probably wouldn't actually regret putting it in a grid.


A couple of weird coincidences are adding a small amount of delight to this solve, namely the crossing of the wine word CRU with the answer SOUR GRAPES, as well as the proximity of BRA to the CUP in WORLD CUP. BRAs don't have POCKETS. Well, some probably do. I always liked, in old movies, when women would just put things into / pull things out of their BRAs (usually money). It's a makeshift pocket. Of sorts. Wait, I'm just now seeing the answer REAL ALE and wondering WTF? That is, uh, something I've never seen before. And I drink. I drink ale. I like to think it's real. Wow. On a Monday, that answer? Well, it clearly didn't matter what day of the week it appeared on, as I never even saw it. Odd. My only hold-up in this puzzle came right off the bat, when, faced with SL- at 17A: Incline, I confidently wrote in SLANT. Nope. SLOPE. Otherwise, no problem.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Depression Era architectural movement / THU 8-28-14 / Part of spiral galaxy farthest from center / Kitschy quality / Carriage puller in rural dialect / Boutros-Ghali's successor as UN chief / Adolf Hitler according to 1983 hoax / 1920s-30s Ford output

Constructor: Ned White

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DOWN / WARD (21D: With 40-Down, how rain falls … or a literal description of the answers to the four themed clues) — four theme answers all run DOWN and all are definitions of WARD:

Theme answers:

• PATIENT AREA (3D: 21-/40-Down to a doctor)
• BEAVER'S DAD (10D: 21-/40-Down on 1950s-'60s TV)
• PRISON WING (28D: 21-/40-Down to a penologist)
• ACTRESS SELA (24D: 21-/40-Down in Hollywood)

Word of the Day: MODERNE (38A: Depression Era architectural movement) —

Streamline Moderne, or Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Its architectural style emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. (wikipedia)

• • •

I feel like this puzzle's heart is in the right place. Something about its playful spirit makes me want to be fond of it. It's just that there are some core problems, and then a bunch of non-core problems (mainly the fill), that make me want to say, you know, E FOR effort, but nowhere close to A MINUS. (Both the answers mentioned in that last sentence are part of the problem today—EFOR is just terrible fill, and A MINUS is so inaccurately clued that I don't know where to begin. It just is. As someone who grades, a lot, trust me, there's nothing "nearly perfect" about an A MINUS, if only because this would imply that an A is perfect, which, just, no. No no. No.). So let's take the theme. To start, DOWNWARD is one word, not two. Picky? Yes. But with no "?" or … anything to indicate you're snapping a word in half, I don't see how you can do this. So there's that. Then there's the definitions-for-answers, which I don't care for, but I recognize other people's opinions about this feature might differ, and that's fine. It's just … BEAVER'S DAD actually strikes me as quite an interesting and unexpected answer of the Definition variety, where the others do not. PATIENT AREA is a pretty weak/general definition for "WARD." Are "wing" and "WARD" synonymous now? "Wing" signifies to me a sizable architectural feature. Is that what "WARD"s are in prisons? WARDs are "sections" of hospitals, and "sections" of prisons, so making one a highly vague "AREA" and the other an oddly specific and ambitious WING just seems wildly arbitrary.


There should've been "?" or something similar somewhere in all the theme clues. I mean, imagine seeing [Down Ward in Hollywood], no "?", in your clues. Makes no sense. Never mind that having "Down" in so many clues is weird when it's half your revealer. Not sure how you'd get around that, but it feels like a design flaw. Also, [How rain falls]? This is a most bizarre clue for DOWN/WARD. Of all the way rain might fall … down? What *doesn't* fall down? Do other things fall up? Sideways? Man alive there's gotta be some better way to clue DOWN/WARD. [How rain falls] is only a hair's breadth better than [Opposite of UPWARD].


Fill is hurting all over. Currently having a debate online about whether BRA SALE is "green paint" or not. I have no problem with it, but it does have that "yes it's a thing but no it's not a specific enough thing to be an answer" quality. But "bra sale" googles astonishingly well, so I'm going to stand by my pro-BRA SALE instincts. But I won't stand by a lot of this other stuff: STR ARB ARIB ESS (when you already have both ACTRESS and EGRESS in your grid) NO TASTE (?) IN A TRAP DE ORO ITT GES GIS + two RE-words etc. With very little strong fill to offset it. (Note: I liked OFFSETS fine) OUTER ARM is easily the most interesting answer in the grid (23A: Part of a spiral galaxy farthest from the center). Vivid, inventive, good. Rest of it kind of creaks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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MONDAY, Jun. 11, 2007 - Harriet Clifton

Relative difficulty: Medium (this means average for a Monday)

THEME: "Short on dough" - this is the clue for five themed answers ... so lots of words and phrases meaning "broke" (including FLAT BROKE)

This is a nice Monday puzzle, and the theme allows for the inclusion of a lot of great idiomatic phrases, which are never unwelcome, particularly in an early-week grid. Started out fast, tripped around a bit - couldn't pull out VICAR (34D: Church official) off just the "V," which broke my rhythm, then couldn't spell LOOIE right (45A: Sarge's superior); I had LOUIE; then couldn't (and still can't) figure out how CUE IN works for 27D: Give hints to; wanted CLUE IN - but still ended up with right around my typical Monday time (low 4's). There's some good multi-word phrases, at least one answer I didn't know at all, and a very interesting BRA mini-theme going on in the NW. But first, your (maxi-)theme answers (all of them clued [Short on dough])

• 17A: FLAT BROKE
• 21A: STRAPPED
• 41A: FEELING THE PINCH
• 56A: IN THE RED
• 66A: TAPPED OUT

All good. I especially like TAPPED OUT, even though it makes me think more of a keg than a wallet. But let's get straight to the BRAS, shall we?

3D: Garments that usually clasp at the back (bras)

I always like BRAS in my puzzle. BRAS yes, toilets no. That's pretty much a constructing rule to live by, right there. But today's BRAS are unlike any other day's BRAS because of the fabulous intersecting and surrounding fill ("fill," HA ha - BRAS is giving every other word I type a new meaning...). I love how BRAS intersects both FLAT (from FLAT BROKE) and TISSUE (20A: Kind of paper for gift-wrapping). Because, you know, if you're FLAT, you might wanna stuff your BRA with TISSUE. After all (and here comes the nearby parallel fill), you want your breasts to appear nice and SOFT (1D: Downy), and not at all UGLI (2D: Wrinkly fruit, HA ha). I love also how the first three theme answers can all be read in BRA-related ways: FLAT ... STRAPPED ... FEELING THE PINCH. If this is a coincidence, it's a glorious one.

4D: Takes off on a cruise (sets sail)
43D: "Enough already!" ("I've had it")

I love when the long non-theme fill is multi-word and vibrant like these symmetrical answers. A very weird thing happened when I read the clue ["Enough already!"] - immediately, even before I looked at the grid, a song popped into my head: an Aimee Mann song called (luckily, eerily) "I've Had It." Have I raved about her before? Well, she deserves it. Love her.

24D: Ballet's Fonteyn (Margot)

Absolutely no clue who this is. Who will be the first jackass to write in expressing shock and dismay at my appalling ignorance? It could be you! Hurry!

42D: Polite refusal ("No, sir")
57D: "Uh-uh" ("Nope")
35D: Prefix with -centric (ethno-)

At first I was a bit irked to see "NO SIR" and "NOPE" in the grid together. But then ETHNO came along and gave a new spin to the whole "NO" theme, and somehow I'm no longer irked.

MAPPED (50D: In an atlas) pairs nicely with TAPPED (in TAPPED OUT), which it intersects. Other nice pairings include ROSIE and PEREZ (22D: With 71-Across, "White Men Can't Jump" co-star), and AUDIO (36A: The "A" in A/V) followed immediately by RADIO (38A: Howard Stern's medium). Speaking of nice pairings ... I refer you to BRAS, above.

Thank you. Good night. Tip your waitress. Etc.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Heavy ankle-high shoe / WED 6-5-19 / Three stooges laugh sound / Landon who lost to FDR in 1936 / Arp Duchamp output / Co-owner of Pequod / Title girl in 2001 Oscar-nominated French comedy / 2005 dystopian novel adapted into 2010 film

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:05) (though I'm seeing people say it's both very easy and very hard, so who knows?)

THEME: SEVEN WONDERS (49A: Monuments of classical antiquity ... or what literally is missing from this puzzle) — seven answers need "WONDER" before or after them to make (full) sense:

Theme answers:

• BREAD
• ONE-HIT
• DRUG
• BRA
• STEVIE
• WOMAN 
• LAND (32D: Domain of the Queen of Hearts)

Word of the Day: "NEVER LET ME GO" (19A: 2005 dystopian novel adapted into a 2010 film) —

Never Let Me Go is a 2005 dystopian science fiction novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize (an award Ishiguro had previously won in 1989 for The Remains of the Day), for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award and for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award. Time magazine named it the best novel of 2005 and included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.^[1] It also received an ALA Alex Award in 2006. A film adaptation directed by Mark Romanek was released in 2010; a Japanese television drama aired in 2016. (wikipedia)

• • •

Bizarre theme execution here. The NW is essentially a (half-way decent!) themeless puzzle: lots of white space, splashy marquee answer, Totally Devoid Of Theme. Then you go tripping through the rest of the grid, encountering theme material on the NE-to-SW axis, though probably not even knowing you're encountering some of it, as stuff like BRA and DRUG went in for me without my knowing they were theme material. The "WONDER"s sometimes come before the answer, sometimes after. Maybe you think there's a pattern, but beyond symmetry, there really isn't. Then the revealer comes, and the wording of the clue is weird: they are the "SEVEN WONDERS *Of The Ancient World*" in every formulation I've ever heard. Why not just say "Monuments of the ancient world" in your clue? (clue isn't bad, just odd, for this reason). And there you are. The "Seven" part, by the time you get it to it, is less big revelation and more "oh, is that how many there are? I wasn't really paying attention." There's an added problem if you decide to overthink the theme, which I saw expressed by Evan Birnholz (Washington Post xword writer/editor) on Twitter: if you know that the SEVEN WONDERS have largely disappeared, then you are apt to wonder (!) if there's some theme connection between the actual "wonders" being gone and the word "WONDER" being gone seven times in this grid ... the problem with that idea being that one of the original SEVEN WONDERS still exists (the Great Pyramid of Giza). So ... yeah. Frustrating to see an *almost* next-level theme idea not quite come into focus. Thankfully, I was not thinking as deeply as Evan.


Those giant corners are so weird for a mid-week themed puzzles. I'm not mad, as they are pretty well filled, but the puzzle definitely took a quality dip once I moved from that NW corner into the rest of the grid. Themes are just Hard to do perfectly, and if they're not done perfectly, they mostly just feel like a burden on the fill (resulting in ASYLA and DROITS and KOR AGIN UTE OISE and what not). Giant corners are pretty E-R-S-T heavy, but they came out OK.


DADAART feels painfully redundant (YEW TREES slightly less so). The second half of OVERFILL held me up pretty bad, for some reason. Seemed like those four letters could go anywhere (16A: Exceed the capacity of). I lucked out with PELEG, having seen it just this past weekend at the tournament (I've read "Moby-Dick" and would've gotten it eventually, but it was nice to have PELEG fresh on my mind). SLOW JAM is great. This puzzle feels like a good themeless that got infected by Dutch Theme Disease (that's a play on "Dutch elm disease," not a slur against the Dutch). The NRA remains a terrorist org. that profits from the blood of children (40A: Range org.) and you should keep them the hell out of your grids. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Mansard alternative / FRI 2-1-13 / Laughable Lyrics poet / Q-Tip specialty / Three-time Newhart Emmy nominee / Time-traveling 1980s film character / Ecosystem-replicating facility / Barbie greeting / Fizzy drink measure / Piece of gladiatorial combat gear

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Tom POSTON (41D: Three-time "Newhart" Emmy nominee) —

Thomas Gordon "Tom" Poston (October 17, 1921 – April 30, 2007) was an American television and film actor. He starred on television in a career that began in 1950. He appeared as a comic actor, game show panelist, comedy/variety show host, film actor, television actor, and Broadway performer. [...] Poston was a recurring guest star on The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s. He later played the role of Franklin Delano Bickley on Mork & Mindy. A longtime friend of Bob Newhart, Poston played George Utley, bumbling country handyman of the Stratford Inn, on Newhart and appeared with Newhart in Cold Turkey (1971) as the town drunk, Edgar Stopworth. He was nominated for an Emmy Award three times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on Newhart in 1984, 1986, and 1987. He had a third role with Newhart in the short-lived Bob. // Poston also had regular roles on many other television series: Family Matters, Murphy Brown, Home Improvement, Cosby, Malcolm & Eddie, ER, Grace Under Fire, That '70s Show, Will & Grace, and guest starred in an episode of The Simpsons as the Capital City Goofball. He also played dentist / jeweler, Art Hibke, on ABC's Coach, for which he was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 1991. (wikipedia)

• • •

Loved this one despite solving it in a groggy, post-sleep state just now (a solving state that usually increases grumpiness). Normally I solve the puzzle as soon as it comes out online, the night before its official publication date, but yesterday was my first full day of teaching this semester, and I forgot how exhausted I get. I got home around late afternoon and barely left the couch the rest of the night. At 10pm my body was like "nope, no way you're solving and blogging." And so to bed. Good choice. But back to the puzzle— lots of zing and hardly any crap. A very fun puzzle to solve. MARTY MCFLY! (29D: Time-traveling 1980s film character). I don't know if he's been in the puzzle before, but he looks fantastic in the  grid, especially crossing PLAYING HOOKY (41A: Absent without leave?) and CRAZY. McFly did the opposite of PLAYING HOOKY, which is to say he went to a high school that was *not* properly his (his parents' high school ... in the past ... where he time-traveled ... in the DeLorean ... with the flux capacitor ... at least I think he attends their high school ... I know there's a school dance ...). FRENEMY (58A: Semi-opponent) and WHAT THE!? give the grid a nice contemporary colloquial feel. There's very little in the way of blech. I mean, what ... AN OAK? Yeah, I can take that in a grid this good.


I didn't have a main area of struggle in this one, as everything seemed to fall into place fairly consistently, but there were some noteworthy sticking points that I had to work my way around. First was the [Piece of gladiatorial gear], which I should've just left and come back to, but which I got frustrated with as I stubbornly imagined a gladiator in full get-up, from head to toe, and could think of nothing three-lettered. Me: "BRA!? Is the chestpiece called a BRA?!?" No, it is not. The answer is NET. I must have seen said bit of gear in movies before, because I have a vague memory, but only very vague. I misspelled SCOW as SKOW. I think I just *wish* it were spelled that way. Thought that [What a dolorimeter measures] was sadness, then RAIN (!?). Sadness was closer (PAIN). Ridiculous miscomprehension at 16A: Comment from one who's just getting by. I had the "M" and immediately wrote the "I" in before it, imagining that the phrase started "I'M ... I'M A ..." Finally ended up with "I'M AN AGE." Me: "WHAT THE!? ... oh. I MANAGE. Yes. Better." The toughest part for me to grasp today was 32A: ID tag? (MST). I had EST, and thought "how clever!" (tag EST onto ID and you get ID EST, i.e. "i.e."). But I was *pretty* sure EELODRAMA was not a thing (though imagining a soap opera with an all-eel cast is pretty amusing) (32D: Common soap ingredient = MELODRAMA). So I wrote in MST, with No Idea how it could be right. The only thing I know MST stands for is Mountain Standard Time. And what could ID have to do with ... Eventually had a pretty great Aha Moment when I recalled ID = Idaho = state in the Mountain Time Zone (state where my mom was born, state where my grandma lives). So that clue went from Most Hated to Clue of the Day, instantly.

Bullets:

• 28A: 2011 Emmy-winning MSNBC host (RACHEL MADDOW) — First thing in the grid. A gimme. The only bearable MSNBC host I know of (though my wife is allergic to her voice and has to leave the room if for whatever reason I had Maddow's show on). Actually, I think there's an Alex someone I kind of like, and then another woman ... Alex Wagner and Chris Jansing. Those two. I like them. The belligerent self-righteous dudes on that network are the ones that make me cringe / channel-change.
• 43A: Ecosystem-replicating facility (BIODOME) — dollars to donuts this had a Pauly Shore clue to start out with.
• 49A: Q-Tip specialty (RAP) — any opportunity I have to play music from the greatest RAP album of the '90s (sorry, DRE), I'll take:

• 12D: Mansard alternative (GABLE) — I had this vague inkling that "Mansard" had something to do with roofs. Correct! Didn't get it straight off, but got it off the -LE.
• 43D: Screw-up (BONER) — appropriately, I botched this. With BOTCH.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Figure skater Mao / SUN 8-24-14 / Connie's husband in Godfather / Boccaccio wrote biography of him / Cantor German mathematician who invented set theory / Joseph Anton memoir autobiographer / Lane acting first lady during Buchanan's tenure

Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Second Shift" — second and third letters in first words of common phrases swap places. Wackiness ensues.

Theme answers:

• BLOT ACTION RIFLE (23A: Paintball gun?)
• LEI DETECTOR (28A: Device that can tell if someone's recently vacationed in Hawaii?)
• SLIVER MINE (33A: Narrow shaft in a mountain?)
• BRA OF CHOCOLATE (44A: Item from the Victoria's Sweetness catalog?)
• DIARY MAID (57A: Anne Frank, e.g.?)
• ERA OF CORN (73A: "Hee Haw" heyday, say?)
• SATINLESS STEEL (89A: Novelist Danielle without her glossy dress?)
• CLOD CEREAL (95A: Honey Bunches of Oafs, e.g.?)
• CALM CHOWDER (101A: Soup after it's been taken off the burner?)
• CROONER'S INQUEST (113A: What might determine if the moon hitting your eye like a big pizza pie is truly amore?)

Word of the Day: HARRIET Lane (117A: ___ Lane, acting first lady during Buchanan's tenure) —

Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston (May 9, 1830 – July 3, 1903), acted as First Lady of the United Statesduring the presidency of her uncle, lifelong bachelor James Buchanan, from 1857 to 1861. Among the handful of women who have served as first lady while not being married to the president, she is by far the best known. (Most of the other women were relatives of widowed presidents.) // The capital welcomed its new "Democratic Queen" to the White House in 1857. Harriet was a popular hostess during the four years of the Buchanan presidency. Women copied her hair and clothing styles (especially when she lowered the neckline on her inaugural gown by 2.5 inches), parents named their daughters for her, and a popular song ("Listen to the Mockingbird") was dedicated to her. While in the White House, she used her position to promote social causes, such as improving the living conditions of Native Americans in reservations. She also made a point of inviting artists and musicians to White House functions. For both her popularity and her advocacy work, she has been described as the first of the modern first ladies, and her popularity at the time is compared to that of Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s. The presidential yacht was named for her—the first of several ships to be named for her, one of which is still in service today. // From her teenage years, the popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous men, calling them "pleasant but dreadfully troublesome". Buchanan often warned her against "rushing precipitately into matrimonial connections", and she waited until she was almost 36 to marry. She chose, with her uncle's approval, Henry Elliott Johnston, a Baltimore banker. Within the next 18 years she lost her uncle, both her young sons, and her husband. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well you're not going to find a theme with a simpler conceit than this. Are you? That isn't a dare, by the way. Anyway, just the tiniest of adjustments (or "shifts," if you must), and the original answer goes all Transformers (™) on you. This is a dangerous game. if you are going to enter the ring with something this lo-fi, and something that relies on what the Ancients called "humor," then your game better be tight. While this effort didn't wow me, it batted about .500 in the Wacky Humor department, which is a higher average than virtually any other wackiness-depenendent puzzle is likely to see. Kind of a tepid opening, but once we hit BRA OF CHOCOLATE I was like "Now we're talking …" DIARY MAID was a bit jarring, as I'm not used to seeing Anne Frank used for whimsy, but ERA OF CORN was dead-on, as was CLOD CEREAL and CROONER'S INQUEST. The clues are particularly nice. Again, the rule with Wacky is go big or go home. I love the invented products in today's clues. I'm telling you right now that Victoria's Sweetness would do huge (Huge) business. How does that not exist already? A little adjacent candy shop where you can buy the perfect complement to Gift of Underwear? Somewhere there is an EXEC going "oh hell yes." And then there's Honey Bunches of Oafs, a perfect vintage Mad Magazine-type spoof name. True, this puzzle is not a jaw-dropper, but it's entertaining, and the fill (as always w/ Mr. Berry) is air tight. Could've been a bit more colorful, perhaps, but overall this was somewhat north of Satisfying.


Puzzle seemed to be of roughly uniform difficulty throughout, except for the NW, which seriously, if somewhat briefly, threatened to remain a wee white hole. Thankfully I had the LEID in the theme answer, and from that was able to infer LEI DETECTOR, because before that, yeesh. First pass at all the Acrosses and Downs yielded squat, plus I had a 1/4 dozen flat-out wrong answers. OILS for TALC (29D: Masseur's supply); BASS for ALTO (17D: ___ clef); OLD for SAW (32A: Dated). Couldn't remember where Ovid was from. "Virgil's from Mantua, and Ovid's from … from … come on, 20+-year-old Latin education, where are you!?" Turns out clue didn't care where he was from; just wanted EXILE. In the end, LEI DETECTOR settled things. But it was a harrowing 30 seconds or so.


It was a nicely literary puzzle today, with RUSHDIE and DEFOE really classing up the joint. And of course Danielle Steel. Didn't mean to overlook her. There were several names I did not know, but they ended up being names I had at least seen before—names that were recognizable as names one might have, as opposed to some dumb name like EDEL. I mean I know a GEORG Solti (98D: ___ Cantor, German mathematician who invented set theory) and a HARRIET Tubman (117A: ___ Lane, acting first lady during Buchanan's tenure) and a Carne ASADA (83A: Figure skater Mao), so even though I didn't know any of those names based on their clues, it was just a matter of a few crosses before I set each of them in place.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Gaming trailblazer / SUN 2-12-17 / 1950s French president Rene / Dismaying announcement about disaster relief / Roker's appeal before bastric bypass surgery / Abductor of Persephone

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Do the Splits" — familiar phrases are clued as if one of the words is in fact two words, i.e. clued wackily

Theme answers:

• GO OFF ON A TAN GENT (23A: Berate some guy for getting too much sun?)
• POE, TRY READING (37A: Suggestion to a bored short story writer?)
• BRA IN WAVES (55A: Result of a serious wardrobe malfunction at the beach?)
• LAB OR PARTY? (74A: Scientist's dilemma regarding work vs. play?)
• JUST ICE FOR ALL (86A: Dismaying announcement about disaster aid?)
• FAT AL ATTRACTION (106A: Roker's appeal before gastric bypass surgery?)
• UNFUNDED MAN DATES (36D: What a cash-strapped beau might take you on?)
• FU MANCHU MUST ACHE (16D: "That villain in comics has sure gotta be sore!"?)

Word of the Day: POUFS (75D: High hairdos) —

noun: pouf; plural noun: poufs

1. a dress or part of a dress in which a large mass of material has been gathered so that it stands away from the body.

   
   

   "a dress with a pouf skirt"

   • a bouffant hairstyle.

     
     

     "he grew his hair out in a sort of pouf" (google.com)

• • •

Started out loving this one, but also started out thinking the theme was something very different, more amusing, and more specific than it ended up being. First two themers I got were GO OFF ON A TAN GENT and UNFUNDED MAN DATES, so I thought it was going to be all about dudes somehow ... but then it just ended up being "split" words. Results were often good, but it's an extremely loose premise. There must be tons of words one can split. Why these? Just 'cause. I'm not a big fan of "some stuff I could think of that's symmetrical" as the primary limiter on a theme. Still, as I say, some were quite funny, including BRA IN WAVES and LAB OR PARTY? I still don't get what JUST ICE FOR ALL means in the context of its clue. How is "disaster aid" relevant here? It's dismaying to get ice as a form of disaster aid? To get *only* ice? But ... who brings ice to a disaster at all? I can't even imagine the context in which this makes any sense, let alone is funny. I asked Twitter. No response. Fu Manchu is a creation of *novelist* Sax Rohmer, so that whole "villain in comics" angle in the clue (16D) was lost on me. Also, that FAT AL ATTRACTION clue is super-off-putting. Somehow referring to someone's gastric bypass surgery felt ... overly personal. Dumb. Bad. There had to be a better way to go. I was thinking maybe Weird Al's video for "Eat It," but, improbably, that's NOT the one in which he gets fat. The one in which he gets fat is (improbably) yet another Michael Jackson parody: "Fat." 



I finished with a wrong square. Totally unfindable for me, even though I suspected that one of the words involved was wrong. But POUFS (75D: High hairdos) is not a thing I know very well, if at all, and as clued, well, I went with POOFS. If you hair is poofy ... POOFS. So I had NOB at 83A: Gist, and, as my friend Austin (who made the Same Mistake) said,  NOB "sounded perfectly gist-like to me." NUB, like POUFS, is a fussy word I'd never use. Also, I think of a NUB as a little stump, like a worn-down pencil. Just change NUB to SUB and the whole thing would've been confusion-free. But no. NUB. NUB was the preferred answer.


It's terrible form, design-wise, to have a 10-letter non-themer literally abutting a 10-letter non-themer (as happens twice in this grid). When themers are longer answers (as they are the vast majority of the time), there shouldn't be any non-themers as long (at least not running in the same direction). This is basic. Avoids confusion. Is elegant. RAWRECRUIT (51A: Greenhorn on the force) on top of BRAINWAVES is just yuck. I kept wanting RAWRECRUIT to be theme material and couldn't "split" it. ADMITTANCE (77A: Entry) didn't bug me as much (though, again, a word I'd never use), but the principle holds—non-themers are Shorter than themers. This is 101 stuff. The grid overall seems pretty solid, and many themers were enjoyable, but there was more clunk here, esp. in the theme, than there should've been.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS this is a treasure (the things you stumble on to when you're blogging a crossword...)


[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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