Like old-fashioned railroad crossing signs / MON 12-26-22 / Landslide of wet sediment / Princess who says into the garbage chute flyboy / 97.5% of a penny / Bitter part of an orange /

Constructor: Kurt Weller

Relative difficulty: No Idea (did it Downs-Only to escape potential boredom)

THEME: CLOCKWORK (59A: Epitome of precision ... or a description of 20-, 34- and 43-Across?) — familiar phrases that also sound like verb phrases related to "working" on a "clock":

Theme answers:

• MAKE A FACE (20A: Stick your tongue out, say)
• SWITCH GEARS (34A: Move onto a new topic of conversation, metaphorically)
• CHANGE HANDS (43A: Pass to a different owner, as a business)

Word of the Day: "The Wall" (3D: Pink Floyd's "The Wall," for one => ROCK OPERA) —

The Wall is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 30 November 1979 by Harvest/EMI and Columbia/CBS Records. It is a rock opera that explores Pink, a jaded rock star whose eventual self-imposed isolation from society forms a figurative wall. The album was a commercial success, topping the US charts for 15 weeks and reaching number three in the UK. It initially received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom found it overblown and pretentious, but later received accolades as one of the greatest albums of all time and one of the band's finest works. [...] The Wall is one of the best-known concept albums. With over 30 million copies sold, it is the second best-selling album in the band's catalogue (behind The Dark Side of the Moon), the best selling double-album of all time, and one of the best-selling albums of all time overall. Some of the outtakes from the recording sessions were used on the group's next album, The Final Cut (1983). In 2000, it was voted number 30 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, 2012, and 2020, it was included in Rolling Stone's lists of the greatest albums of all time. From 2010 to 2013, Waters staged a new Wall live tour that became the highest-grossing tour by a solo musician. (wikipedia)

• • •

This seemed like a pretty remedial theme at first—parts of a watch, big whoop. But then I read the revealer clue a little more closely and realized that the theme answers didn't just have watch parts as their final words, they appeared to specific things one might do while "working" on a "clock"—someone engaged in such CLOCKWORK might MAKE A (clock) FACE or SWITCH (clock) GEARS or CHANGE (clock) HANDS. This gives the theme a little something extra. Not that it made it any more interesting to solve, but conceptually, at least, it's got the kind of next-level ambition and elegance that you'd hope to find every day in your NYTXW themed puzzles. I can't really speak to what it was like to solve normally, as I solved it very abnormally—by looking only at the Down clues. Downs-only solving puts you into a whole other world, one where you avoid the help—and the pitfalls—that Across clues normally provide. So you can go very very fast, but also, you can get very, very stuck. I did a little of both today. The hardest thing was probably (to my mind) the iffiest thing in the grid: MUDFLOW. Uh, what? What is ... that? Is it ... mud ... that flows? I was not aware that that was a phenomenon noteworthy enough to be its own answer. I've damn sure heard of MUDSLIDES, but just MUDFLOWs? Mmm, no. And since I couldn't get ZINC (7D: 97.5% of a penny) I was trying to make the first themer into MAKE A .... DATE? Something like that. Really not a fan of the MUDFLOW.

The other main Downs-only issue I had was ANTITOXIN (36D: Venom neutralizer, e.g.). My brain was like "ANTIVENOM!" and I was like "look, brain, 'venom' is in the clue, it can't be ANTIVENOM" and then brain was like "ah well, can't help you, gonna think about Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' now" and I said "oh come on, brain" but it plugged its ears and started shout-singing: "We Don't Need No / ANTIVENOM!" So childish, sometimes, brain is. Probably the funniest part of Downs-only solving was getting PENI- (!) over EREC- (!!) there in the SW corner and thinking "well, I've gotta have an error there ... I hope I have an error there ... because ... OK, what is happening!?" I couldn't think of anything that could complete PENI- and also be allowable in mainstream crosswords. Crosses were leading me to PENIN but all I could think was "well, that's not a word." Then I thought "oof, it could be an awful partial." And then I thought, oh, it's just a verb phrase ... OK, then." Remarkably hard, from a Downs-only standpoint, was 30D: Bitter part of an orange (PITH). You think, "how many four-letter answers can there be?" Well three, at least, I can tell you from experience. I had PEEL at first (back when I wanted CHANGE HANDS to be CHANGE LANES). Then I thought, "well, if it's not that, then maybe ... RIND?" Maybe, but also maybe not. Sigh. Your brain really has to work in weird ways to suss out these Down-only dilemmas (or trilemmas). 

I've never really heard anyone say "CLOCKWORK" unless they said "like" first, or happened to be discussing a very famous Kubrick film. But that's alright. It's a word, you can't dispute that. Overall, the experience was entertaining, though I think most of the entertainment came from the self-imposed Downs-only restriction, rather than from anything inherent in the theme or fill. Putting together those long Across themers with absolutely no clues was an adventure: MAKE A DATE! CHANGE LANES! CLONE WARS! (before CLOCKWORK, LOL). SWITCH GEARS was the only themer that really wanted to stay put. 

I'm leaving Dunedin tomorrow and will be in transit for a few days, so after your regular monthly Clare Tuesday tomorrow, you'll have Mali one of the days and I think Eli the other two. Then I'm back for good on Saturday. I'll fill you in a bit on my NZ adventures then. Here's a picture of me today at the beach, where it was sunny and 75 degrees and ice cream trucks had long lines and a seal kept trying to play with all the surfers who were out there floating, waiting for waves. Then the seal tried to play with people just walking on the beach and that was a little less fun, a little more frightening. But everyone gave Mr. Frolic Seal a lot of room and he headed back to sea. Good times. 

Oh and then a seagull got on my car and said 'hey'; slightly menacing, but mostly just ... close. 

Oh, and since [A rainbow may be seen as a good one] is in the puzzle today (OMEN!), here's an incredible full rainbow I saw walking home from Christmas lunch at my mother-in-law's yesterday:

OK, enough pics. See you later this week.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Toluca lucre / SUN 12-25-22 / Nickname of Looney Tunes animator Ben Hardaway / Grilled cornmeal cake popular in Latin America / Purple-crayon-carrying boy of children's literature / Cat breed with a shabby-sounding name / Animal whose name comes from the Narragansett word for twig-eater / The Rose City so nicknamed for its pink sandstone

Constructor: John Martz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Novel Thinking" — ordinary phrases are clued as if they related to famous novels:

[not by RLS!]

Theme answers:

• HOME PAGES (24A: "Little House on the Prairie," e.g.?) (because it's "pages" ... about a "home") (!?!?)
• GHOSTWRITING (26A: "The Haunting of Hill House," e.g.?) (because it's "writing" ... about a "ghost")
• FLUID VOLUME (40A: "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," e.g.?) (because it's a "volume" ... set in "fluid" (i.e. the sea)) 
• SECOND STORY (45A: "Back to Treasure Island," e.g.?) (because it's the "second" part of the "Treasure Island" "story") (?!?!?!)
• PRISON SENTENCES (61A: "Crime and Punishment," e.g.?) (because it's "sentences" about a "prison") (there's not really a prison in this book, I don't think, but ... OK)
• ADDRESS BOOK (80A: "If Beale Street Could Talk," e.g.?) (because it's a "book" about an ... "address")
• ANIMAL PRINT (89A: "Fantastic Mr. Fox," e.g.?) (because it is a "print" (well, printed material, anyway) about an "animal")
• WORKING TITLE (99A: "The Help," e.g.?) (because it is a "title" about people who are "working")
• BUZZ WORDS (105A: "The Secret Life of Bees," e.g.?) (because it is "words" about creatures that "buzz")

Word of the Day: "The Haunting of Hill House" (26A) —

The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. A finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century, it has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series. Jackson's novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion in the reader, using complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters' psyches. (wikipedia)

• • •

So much Christmas disappointment. First of all, the holiday *actually* falls on the crossword's big day (literally, the biggest day), and you ... pass? I've seen so many holiday puzzles published on holiday-adjacent days, but here you have the opportunity to hit it right on the money and ... nothing. But OK, you're not feeling festive, that's fine, but it's a big holiday, lots of people sitting around doing nothing, avoiding family, whatever, so lots of people are going to be doing this one; surely you're gonna put forth your "A" game—something really impressive. But ... no. It's an ordinary, workmanlike effort that stretches the concept of "wordplay" too thin and generally yields no laughs, chuckles, guffaws, or other gleeful noises. The "novel" concept just doesn't work here, in that so many of these "novel"-related terms are only horrifically vaguely related to actual novels. "Book," "volume," great, "story," OK, but after that the connection becomes tenuous and the words become fragments of novels so small that they could relate to any piece of writing. Like "writing." Or "title." And "sentences?" "Words?" The whole "Novel" conceit just doesn't hold up. 

And yet ... if the theme answers were themselves snappy and fun and clearly novel-related, I would still have been happy. But ..."HOME"?? The connection to "Little House on the Prairie" is just ... HOME? They're PAGES about ... HOME? Because ... what, "house" means "HOME?" The whole thing is literal to a painful degree, such that it doesn't even matter what the novels are actually about. A fox *is* an animal, the help ... work, I guess. So you don't even get the spark of some real thematic connection between novels and theme answers. In the case of PRISON SENTENCES, it's like there's no connection at all. I just read a summary of "Crime and Punishment" and (as I thought) there's no "PRISON" in it at all, except in the epilogue. But I guess that "punishment" for "crime" is (often) "PRISON," so ... good enough?  In the case of SECOND STORY, the content of the novel really really Really doesn't matter. Nothing particularly "Treasure Island"-y at all there. Could've used literally any sequel in that clue. Sigh. I love novels, but I just don't get this theme. Or I do get it, but I cannot feel whatever it is that's supposed to make it joyful to solve.

The puzzle was not hard, but it was slow-going with the theme answers, mostly due to issues discussed above (i.e. I could not make sense of the answers because their connections to the novels in question seemed so wispy). I'd get the front end of an answer and still have no idea about the back end, and then vice versa. But this just meant hacking at crosses—never really getting stuck. I could easily have finished with an error, since I had *no* idea what the animator's nickname was supposed to be at 1A: Nickname of Looney Tunes animator Ben Hardaway (who???), so I had to get it all from crosses, and let me tell you, GONG seemed like a very good answer to 1D: Hit it! When that gave me GUGS for the animator's nickname, I figured it must be right—obscure clue for an obscure answer. But then my brain went, "yeesh, why didn't they change that first letter to something like [rolodexes through -UGS words] BUGS ... oh ... oh, hang on! BUGS ... BUGS Bunny ... and then BONG for [Hit it!] ... yeah, that must be it. And now we're back to 'yeesh'." If you'd had a reasonable clue on BUGS, then you wouldn't have had "Ben" in the clue and *then* you could've turned 76-Across from BON to BEN, which is better, but also much Much better in the cross (changing NOONS :( to NEONS :). 

Part of the puzzle I loved was the clue on T-BONE STEAK (69D: Cut with a letter opener?). That is all kinds of devilish and brilliant. Just a great double misdirect, with both "Cut" and "letter opener" knocking you off balance. That answer next to BAD VIBES was the highlight of the puzzle for me, for sure. LOOT BAGS threw me, as I know them as MONEYBAGS, if I know them at all. And PETRA really threw me, as there was no "ancient" in the clue and the only "Rose City" I know (I thought!) was Portland, OR. Yes, I remembered correctly: Portland is the "City of Roses" or "Rose City" (per wikipedia). And it's an actual city that still exists, whereas PETRA is more UNESCO site than city now. What else? I had TEMPLE before CHAPEL (14D: Place of worship), but that's the only real mistake I made (besides GUGS, of course, LOL). Hope you liked this one more than I did, and that you are having a lovely Christmas or just a lovely Sunday, whichever is more meaningful to you. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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