Newspaper VIP Baquet / SUN 6-5-16 / Fictional braggart / Default avatar for new Twitter user / Silmarillion creature / Flirtatious wife in Of Mice Men / Finnigan friend of Harry Potter / Charm City baseball player

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Word Search — clues all start "Where you can find...?" (see, you're "searching" for a "word"), and then every answer is both a familiar term / phrase *and* directions telling you where you might find the other word (in different familiar terms / phrases). Hence:

Theme answers:

• 23A: Where you can find ... "jacket" or "yourself"? (FOLLOWING SUIT) (because "suit jacket" and "suit yourself")
• 31A: ... "go" or "so"? (BEFORE LONG)
• 37A: ... "anybody" or "cooking"? (CLOSE TO HOME)
• 65A: ... "got" or "tell"? (BETWEEN YOU AND ME)
• 93A: ... "two"or "face"? (AHEAD OF TIME)
• 95A: ... "building" or"hours"? (POST OFFICE)
• 113A: ... "that's" or "special"? (NEXT TO NOTHING) 

Word of the Day: ASA Gray (84D: Botanist Gray) —

Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was also considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. (wikipedia)

• • •

JUST NOW ASTRIDE ... WHOOPEE! Racy.

A good deal thornier than recent Sunday offerings, which is to say, about what an average Sunday puzzle should be, difficulty-wise. I solved this at the tail end of a tournament day, so my puzzle brain was a little fried, so the themers kept requiring many many crosses for me to get them, but the grid is clean and crosses fair, and the themers all work perfectly. Even though it feels like a *type* of puzzle I've seen somewhere before, the execution is so tight and clever that it felt, original, fresh, nice. It *did* do that thing I don't like where it called attention to terrible short stuff by doing cutesy clue stuff with them (see clues on E'EN and NE'ER —[Contraction missing a V]— ... there's also an ERE, if you dare). But that has virtually no impact on the overall solving experience.


It's pretty funny that this puzzle is titled "Word Search" because if you follow mentions of the word "crossword" on Twitter (as I do), you know that So Many people out there refer to things that are not "crosswords" as "crosswords," most commonly "criss-cross" puzzles (you may have seen these in some stupid assignment your child's third- or seventh- or twelfth- or college freshman teacher thought was "fun") and most annoyingly "word searches." All the time. Total public confusion about what the hell a "crossword puzzle" even is. The "criss-cross" confusion I kind of get. I mean, these *are* "words" that are "crossing" ...

But that's not a crossword. So calling this "Word Search" had me all worried I'd have to actually search for words in this puzzle like some kind of dope, but no. No. Thank you, Tom, for not making me circle stuff in my finished grid.

["Can't read my, can't read my..."]

[SRO = Standing Rhino, Ogling]

I'm still IN D.C. because of yesterday's Indie 500, and we're going to have to leave very soon because our entire route home is thunderstorm alley, and it's going to get quite terrible later in the day. I'll report on the tournament in a future post (Tuesday). For now, I can tell you that I won ... this:

So, you know, that's something. I also drank the crosswordesiest wine of all time—a Chateau STE Michelle Riesling called ... well, look for yourself:

It was, not surprisingly, Delicious.

See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]