1887 Chekhov play / SUN 3-22-20 / Billionaire Blavatnik / Noted satellite of 1962 / Vacuum tube with five active components / Literary character whose house is uprooted by tornado / Dipped in egg bread crumbs then fried / Setting of 1903 Victor Herbert operetta

Constructor: Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium (very easy theme, but weirdly out-of-my-wheelhouse fill/clues, all over the place) (11:20) (that time would normally put it in Medium-Challenging territory, but the one drink I had before solving feels like it was Verrry strong ... or maybe I'm dehydrated ... there are just too many things to keep track of these days ...)

THEME: "Bring Your 'A' Game" — wacky two-part phrases where one part is a word starting with "A" and another part is a homophone of that word that starts with the indefinite article "A"; so:

Theme answers:

• ACQUIRE A CHOIR (23A: What the church's music director wanted to do?)
• A NOISE ANNOYS (32A: Truism about unwanted sound?)
• APPALL A PAUL (50A: Greatly dismay one of the Beatles?)
• A RIVAL'S ARRIVALS (65A: Times when your archenemy shows up?)
• ATTACKS A TAX (81A: What the antigovernment activist does?)
• A VOWEL AVOWAL (96A: "Aye" or "Oui"?)
• A PATCHY APACHE (111A: Geronimo, when his beard was just coming in?)

Word of the Day: "IVANOV" (36D: 1887 Chekhov play) —

Ivanov (Russian: Иванов: драма в четырёх действиях (Ivanov: drama in four acts); also translated as "Ivanoff") is a four-act drama by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.

Ivanov was first performed in 1887, when Fiodor Korsh, owner of the Korsh Theatre in Moscow, commissioned Chekhov to write a comedy. Chekhov, however, responded with a four-act drama, which he wrote in ten days. The first performance was not a success and the production disgusted Chekhov himself. In a letter to his brother, he wrote that he "did not recognise his first remarks as my own" and that the actors "do not know their parts and talk nonsense". Irritated by this failure, Chekhov made alterations to the play. Consequently, the final version is different from that first performance. After this revision, it was accepted to be performed in St. Petersburg in 1889. Chekhov's revised version was a success and offered a foretaste of the style and themes of his subsequent masterpieces. (wikipedia)

• • •

Brendan publishes wonderful themed and themeless puzzles, twice a week, at his independent puzzle blog. You should definitely put those puzzles on your puzzle schedule, and if you don't have a puzzle schedule, honestly, what's wrong with you? What are you waiting for? So many puzzles in the world! The puzzle we have before us feels way too basic, way too ... I don't know. Straighforward and corny? It's got wackiness, but it's wackiness of a pretty low order. The "A" phrases (that is, the indefinite article parts of the themers) are particularly thudsome and off-putting. A PAUL? The clue seems to be asking for APPALL PAUL, but ... to follow the specifics of the theme ... you gotta put that "A" in there, and oof. I think I kinda like the idea of Geronimo with a bad teen beard, so A PATCHY APACHE is OK—it's outrageous and weird and funny enough to work. But the rest just kinda sit there. They definitely fit the pattern, but they don't do much more than that. The rest of the grid is fine, though I just could not groove on a lot of it. Outside my wheelhouse in many places. Never heard of BLUECAP, never heard of PENTODE, can't imagine anyone saying INCANTS, really really don't pay attention to billionaires if I don't have to, so that LEN guy? Nope. If the only thing you're famous for is being rich ... yeah, chances are I haven't noticed. Never heard of "IVANOV." No idea who Victor Herbert is, so the setting of one of his operettas? No chance. I assume the operetta is "Babes in TOYLAND" [... looks it up ...) yup, that's it. I don't know what a "Flatpack" is, but IKEA fit in that space (93D). I am sure that "dull" is one possible meaning of INSIPID but I'd never in a million years use them interchangeably. That's some undergrad-abusing-the-thesaurus action right there. Anyway, between the oddly strong drink I had, and bad luck, and the puzzle's, let's say, INSIPIDness, this just wasn't for me. But again, do BEQ's puzzles 2x/week at his site. Even when they're maddening, they're good: fresh, current, interesting.


I liked GOES POSTAL, though the roots of that phrase are pretty grim. I liked (really liked) that this puzzle saw fit to spell TEEHEE correctly. None of this TEHEE garbage. There's probably no such thing as RED BEANS MILANESE, but I like that those two food answers are symmetrical. My car thief was working with a CROWBAR at first, not a SLIMJIM (which I think of as a convenience store food product that one "snaps into"). I thought RADS were [Radiation units]. Don't remember seeing REMS clued this way (or ever seeing REMS at all, frankly). Hmm, looks like I've actually seen it *nine* times since I started blogging, but I haven't seen this radiation clue in ~11 years (all the other clues were sleep-related). Hey, wait, is PLAN AHEAD part of the theme?? (45D: Do some prescheduling). It sits dead center, and it kinda sorta relates ... I mean, each segment of the theme answer has an "A" at its "HEAD." I'm going to say yes, that counts, and my appreciation of the theme just ticked up a notch.


I don't think I have much else to say about this one. I'm kind of tired. Probably a lot of you are, too. Things are hard all over. I am trying and will continue to try like hell not to let the broader troubles of the world weigh me down, and thus weigh my writing down. I really will. But I can't promise you won't hear some weariness. Somehow the whole shut-down of daily life has really made me realize how much crosswords are part of the rhythm of my day. But now they are *the* rhythm of my day. I have a lot of other things in my life, but not a lot of other things that give it regularity and structure. My classes have moved online, and those technically "meet" at the same old scheduled times, but it's not the same. The getting dressed, taking the bus, performing 2x/day, chatting to students ... all that dumb ordinary stuff is just gone and all of a sudden it doesn't seem so dumb or ordinary. I miss it. And now there's lots more pressure on crosswords to provide me with ... something. Some simple quotidian pleasure. And as we know, the NYTXW just hasn't been reliable on that count. I want great creative joyful puzzles; barring that, I want clean bouncy solid puzzles, and barring that ... well, just go the whole other direction: give me *terrible* puzzles so I can really sink my teeth in. Giving me PAP ... it just feels cruel. Crosswords are just a pastime, it's true, but the best crosswords (and the NYTXW at least purports to be the best), those should make us feel *something*. Good or bad, they should make an impact. So thank you to all the great constructors, and to all those who are making a good-faith effort to be great, and also to the epic failures who make my job easy (tearing a bad puzzle apart is a real joy). I know this paragraph is all over the map, I see that. I'm just trying to get at this feeling ... that I wish the puzzles seemed more worth my effort, more of the time. But honestly the only thing reliably worth my effort is you people. You all have been very, very good to me. If I think about readers, about shared experience, about community ... if I just look at the box full of mail that I've received this year ... then doing this every day does all seem worth it. Even now. I'm just struggling a little is all. Sputtering, maybe. Please be patient. Thank you.

[RIP, Kenny]

Here, let's end with something fun: let's play, "Where's Brendan Emmett Quigley!?" (hint: he's in this video ... he's the white guy ... in the white shirt ... I've said too much!). Seriously, though, this video is cute.


Take care, everyone! I appreciate you more than you know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]