Swedish lake that's largest in European Union / SUN 12-25-16 / Coin portraying Queen Victoria once / Stows as banner / Onetime alternative to Facebook Messenger / Soy-based frozen dessert brand / Roman emblem of power adopted by Mussolini

Constructor: Kevin G. Der

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Married Couples" — themers are all two parts, where first and last parts are yoked (married) by a pair of letters (circled squares that represent the last two letters of the first part of the answer and the first two letters of the last part of the answer). Clues are all familiar phrases represented in the grid literally-ish:

Theme answers:

• DRAMATIC PIE(CE)NTER (22A: Play by heart?) (get it, 'cause a play is a "dramatic piece," and here it is "by" (i.e. next to ... ?) "center" (another word for "heart"))
• SYMBOL FOR AMPE(RE)GULAR (37A: A plus average?)
• ALI(AS)SSITANCE (60A: Handle with care?) 
• SERENI(TY)PHOON (75A: Calm before the storm?)
• CLUT(CH)INESE BOARD GAME (96A: Grab and go?)
• ABI(DE)CEPTIVE PITCH (116A: Stay ahead of the curve?)  

Word of the Day: FASCES (29A: Roman emblem of power adopted by Mussolini) —

Fasces (/ˈfæsiːz/, (Italian: Fasci, Latin pronunciation: [ˈfa.skeːs], a plurale tantum, from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle") is a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes including an axe with its blade emerging. The fasces had its origin in the Etruscan civilization, and was passed on to ancient Rome, where it symbolized a magistrate's power and jurisdiction. The image has survived in the modern world as a representation of magisterial or collective power. The fasces frequently occurs as a charge in heraldry, it is present on an older design of the Mercury dime and behind the podium in the United States House of Representatives, it is used as the symbol of a number of Italian syndicalist groups, including the Unione Sindacale Italiana, and it was the origin of the name of the National Fascist Party in Italy (from which the term fascism is derived). (wikipedia)

• • •

This was not pleasant at all. It's all backwards and strange, and the title doesn't really make any sense. I finished the entire puzzle without having any clear idea what the theme was trying to do. I mean, I got the whole letter-overlap thing, and I could somewhat see how the clues were signifying the answers in the grid, but I kept waiting for some big revelation, something that made sense of the whole fussy endeavor. But it never came. Unless I'm missing something, it just never came. There is no "aha" moment, just a series of "... oh, ok"s. Conceptually, this is a constructor's idea of a good time, not a solver's. If the solver had been taken into consideration, then the snappiness would be in the grid, not in the clues. You give away the fun in the clues, and then force the solver to endure the junky nonsense that appears in the grid. It's gibberish, these answers. You can see why I kept waiting for something Bigger—the only way the pain of putting those answers makes any sense is if there's some larger payoff. What do the two parts of each answer have to do with each other? What do the circled letters have to do with each other? Do they spell something? No. You give away the punchline in the clues and then make the solver cobble together the tortured set-up. No thanks.


And why "Married Couples"? Just the overlap? The clues don't express marriage at all. [Play by heart?] expresses adjacency, but not "marriage." And [Stay ahead of the curve?]... god knows how that relates to "marriage." The whole marriage concept seems to refer solely to the fact that a "couple" of letters unite (!?) two answer parts. The solve was just a bummer on almost every level. There were some nice non-theme moments, like ESPNRADIO and TOFUTTI, but there was also AREAR *and* AROAR, FAISAL *and* FASCES, and then whatever VANERN is (34D: Swedish lake that's the largest in the European Union) (if it's so all-fire "large," why have I never seen it in puzzles—weird). I'm stopping now so I can go get my Christmas spirit back (been gorging on TCM Christmas movies all day—got "Meet Me in St. Louis" waiting on DVR. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and have a wonderful day, whoever you are.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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