SAG's partner / SUN 10-27-13 / One White of rock's White Stripes / Etched computer component / Primitive radio receiver / British novelist Anthony

Constructor: Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Who's Left?" — five men's and five women's names run backwards (i.e. to the 'left') inside theme answers

Theme answers:

• 2A: McMansion's storage (THREE-CAR GARAGE)
• 37A: Attack on sacred custom (LÈSE-MAJESTÈ)
• 39A: Dotty? (PIXELATED)
• 50A: Piece of road construction equipment (CONCRETE PUMP)
• 67A: Lot (FAIR AMOUNT)
• 69A: Badgering (HARASSMENT)
• 80A: What the Red Baron engaged in (AERIAL COMBAT)
• 91A: Generally speaking (ON AVERAGE)
• 96A: Famous (WIDELY KNOWN)
• 113: They may keep you on your toes (BALLET SLIPPERS)

Word of the Day: COHERER (2D: Primitive radio receiver) —

The coherer is a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the first radio receivers during the wireless telegraphy era at the beginning of the 20th century. Invented around 1890 by French scientist Édouard Branly, it consists of a tube or capsule containing two electrodes spaced a small distance apart, with metal filings in the space between them. When a radio frequency signal is applied to the device, the initial high resistance of the filings reduces, allowing an electric current to flow through it. The coherer was a key enabling technology for radio, and was the first device used to detect radio signals in practical spark gap transmitter wireless telegraphy. It became the basis for radio reception around 1900, and remained in widespread use for about ten years. It was superseded by more sensitive electrolytic and crystal detectors and became obsolete, although in the 1950s a coherer was briefly used in at least one radio-controlled toy. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well made but strange. I thought there must be something more to the names than just ... names. But no. Makes the whole enterprise feel very void of context. The title doesn't really mean much on its own, as a self-standing phrase, so I'm not really sure what to think. The grid is solid, occasionally entertaining, but this doesn't have the usual zing I've come to associate with BEQ's puzzles. His NYT stuff, when it appears, always feels a bit ... on leash. I know that a lot of these clues were changed. Tamed. Neutered. Sometimes you can see something Quigleyesque sneak through, but otherwise his puzzles have to be, let's say, mainstreamed (in case you didn't already know, BEQ has his own site where he publishes a couple of independent puzzles every week—well worth checking out). He also has a band:

I have never heard of either PC BOARD (1A: Etched computer component) or COHERER, so that NW was, uh, interesting. Never heard of CONCRETE PUMP, either, and briefly imagined that the piece of road construction equipment was a CONCRETE BUMP. Seemed plausible-ish. Only other never-heard-of was AFTRA, and to be fair, I've probably *heard* of it, somewhere, some time, but it doesn't mean I could define it (I can't) (American Federation of Television and Radio Arts—sometimes I can be bothered to look things up!) (62D: SAG's partner). My favorite answer, in that it is the loopiest, most roll-your-own, most desperately creative thing in the grid, is PREWWI (13D: Like the time of Franz Ferdinand's reign). The more you stare at it, the awesomer it looks. See also ISAOAOKI, which is not in any way made-up; it's just that you rarely see it (in xwords) all complete and laid out like that, with the insane double-consecutive "AO." Nothing else in the grid really catches my fancy, except MIAOWS, which is by far the fancier spelling of that "word."

I thought LANNY was a LONNY (72A: Lawyer Davis who served in the Cinton and Bush administrations). Had trouble picking up IMMORTAL for a while (ironically, that word can be parsed "I'M MORTAL") (31D: Any Mount Olympus dweller). Not much else here to gawk at.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld