War-torn Syrian city / MON 12-28-15 / Irish language family / 2013 film queen who sings Let It Go / One-named art deco artist / Where Army brass is trained in brief

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Normal Monday

THEME: STS (63D: Aves. ... or the initals of 17-, 23-, 40-, 50- and 63-Across) —

Theme answers:

• SEAL TEAM SIX (17A: Navy special force in the bin Laden raid)
• SILVER TEASET (23A: Sterling service for an afternoon break)
• SINBAD THE SAILOR (40A: "Arabian Nights" voyager)
• SPEAK TOO SOON (50A: Say something before immediately being proven wrong)
• STEM TO STERN (63A: Completely)

Word of the Day: LANA Del Rey (32A: Singer Del Rey) —

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (born June 21, 1985), better known by her stage name Lana Del Rey, is an American singer, songwriter, and model. Her music has been noted for its cinematic style and its references to pop culture, particularly 1950s and 1960s Americana. // Del Rey first received recognition after the release of her major-label debut Born to Die January 2012; aided by initial Internet buzz surrounding her "Video Games" single.^[2] Born to Die peaked at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, and was the fifth best-selling album of 2012. A remix of its single "Summertime Sadness", produced by Cedric Gervais, peaked at number six on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The Paradise EP was released that November, and garnered Del Rey her first Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album. Three of its tracks were featured in her short film Tropico, which premiered in December 2013. Del Rey's third studio album, Ultraviolence, was released in 2014, becoming her first number-one record in the United States. She released her fourth studio album, Honeymoon, the following year. Del Rey is the most streamed female artist on Spotify in the United States, and the fourth worldwide. (wikipedia)

• • •

I have often been a fan of repurposed crosswordese—taking something stale and crossword-common and giving it new life as, say, a rebus square (saw this done with ERG once) or, perhaps, a revealer. The problem with STS is it doesn't even qualify as crosswordese. It's just an ugly abbr. that you would never ever be happy to see in (or put in) your puzzle. It just doesn't work as a revealer, and by "work" I mean provide any revelatory pleasure. It remains a three-letter piece of junk fill. Beyond that, I like some of the themers (SEAL TEAM SIX, STEM TO STERN) and others, I like less. Not fan of THE being included as a "T" for the admittedly nitpicky reason that one rarely if ever sees the definite article included in an abbr. or acronym (except in textspeak; e.g. "WTF"). Of course, this is usually true of all short words ("of," "to," "the," etc.), but "the" seems the most skippable of all. So the idea that it can rep a "T" feels weak to me. SEAL TEAM SIX, three solid words; SINBAD THE SAILOR, two solid words and a connecting word that doesn't merit inclusion in an abbr. Further into nitpicking, SPOKE TOO SOON seems infinitely better than SPEAK, in that it's a phrase you would say, on its own, after, well, speaking too soon. "Whoops ... SPOKE TOO SOON." SPEAK TO SOON ... just doesn't stand alone nearly as well. Not sure why SPEAK over SPOKE here, considering they're the same length. But give the theme some credit: there aren't a lot of other phrases out there that can fit this pattern. So ... if you're going to ride with STS (and I wouldn't, but if you are), you aren't going to do much better than these five right here.

[Profanity and drug references ahead...]

Fill is ordinary, somewhat on the dull/crusty side. Liked seeing HOMS in the puzzle (71A: War-torn Syrian city); it's in the news a lot these days (albeit for terrible reasons), and seems like it should get more grid recognition than it does. But ILSA *and* ELSA *and* ESAI ... there oughta be a law. Lots and lots of other exceedingly common stuff. "ANNABEL LEE" (29D: Poe poem that concludes "In her tomb by the sounding sea") gives the grid a little OOMPH, but in the end, the grid is just too smothered in ERTEs and OLEOS for a single longer answer to have much of a difference on the overall feel of the grid. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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