Late media journalist David / SUN 5-17-15 / Iconic figure in Warhol work / Cubemeister Rubik / Egg-shaped tomato / Post-deluge sight / Many old monitor in brief / City in 1965 headlines

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Very, very easy

THEME: "To-Do List (Abridged)" — theme answers are clued as to-do lists, wherein the terms overlap, i.e. the noun at the the end of the first item becomes the verb at the beginning of the second.

Theme answers:

• WIND A WATCH A PLAY A PRANK (23A: Set time / Go to theater / Engage in tomfoolery) [i.e. wind a watch / watch a play / play a prank]
•  THUMB A RIDE A WAVE A FLAG (33A: Hitchhike / Surf / Show patriotism)
• DO A FLIP A COIN A PHRASE (54A: Somersault / Start football game / Invent some language) 
• RUN A LIGHT A FIRE A SHOT (75A: Not stop at intersection / Warm up / Use rifle)
• MAKE A CATCH A BUS A TABLE (89A: Play baseball / Take public transportation downtown / Clean up after diners leave)
• FILE A RETURN A BOOK A TRIP (108A: Finish taxes / Visit library / Plan vacation) 

Word of the Day: ANDREA del Sarto (92D: Renaissance artist ___ del Sarto) —

Andrea del Sarto (Italian: [anˈdrɛːa del ˈsarto]; 1486–1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori ("without errors"), his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. (wikipedia)

• • •

I just watched a movie called "Heart Beat" (1980), starring Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, and John Heard. It was about the relationships among Jack Kerouac and Neal and Carolyn Cassady in the '50s and '60s, mostly before On the Road was published. The movie's not readily available, but you can rent it on Amazon, so that's what I did. It's a weird little movie with big stars. I've never read Kerouac or any of the so-called beats, despite having a "Beat Generation" movie poster on my living room wall. I bought that poster on eBay in the late '90s, back when people still used dial-up, so the timing of the last-minute bidding always felt very precarious. I was going through a pretty heavy Mamie Van Doren phase, and I was spending a lot of money I didn't have on all manner of mid-century vintage crap—mostly paperback books with lurid covers (3,000 or so of which sit just to my left here in my home office). So late-grad school depression + vintage culture obsession + Mamie fandom led me to this poster—and it really is beautiful.

I like how the main painted figure at the center is either one face (looking at you) or two faces (with the nearer one in profile) depending on how you choose to look at it. If it's two faces, it's a white guy and a black guy. The mouth becomes a cigarette ("tea") in profile. And then it's got the word "Beatniks" on it, and that's Louis Armstrong way up top there, and then of course Mamie herself, in some Mondrian-inspired wrap. Amazing. But, as I say, my first-hand experience with actual "beat" writing is nil. I know SAL Paradise from crosswords. I once had a student who wrote a letter to Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Light Bookstore as part of her final project (He wrote back—a postcard—telling her he couldn't possibly answer all of her questions; I told her that was a Win). Why am I telling you all this? Because I'd rather do anything than talk about this puzzle. Seriously, anything. I don't do drugs, but if you had some, I'd sooner do them than talk about this puzzle.


Briefly: the theme is joyless and repetitive and phenomenally easy to pick up. If you really tried, you could probably get most of the theme answers without filling in a single cross (once you figured out the gimmick, that is). There is nothing to recommend this puzzle except easiness—except that it will certainly make some people who routinely struggle to finish Sundays feel like *****ing geniuses for once. And that's valid. Some Sundays should be Easy. But Easy doesn't have to mean lifeless. It really doesn't. If I weren't Rex Parker (i.e. if I didn't have to write ... this), I would not have bothered finishing this one. The good news (the only good news) was that I lost just 9 minutes of my life. But I've spent at least three times that writing this post. Well, at least 2/3 of it was spent writing about things I cared about. KARENS and MARCS of the world! Demand better puzzles. You deserve them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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