Share a workspace in modern lingo / SUN 10-18-20 / Titular film character opposite Harold / Place for a shvitz / Lead role on Parks and Recreation / Subject of Rick Steves's travel guides / Brit's term of affection

Constructor: Miriam Estrin

Relative difficulty: Medium (10:17)

THEME: "Title Basin" — book titles made wacky by changing last word in the title into a homophone of the original word:

Theme answers:

• "LIFE OF PIE" (23A: Yann Martel's baking memoir?)
• "TENDER IS THE KNIGHT" (30A: F. Scott Fitzgerald's chivalric tale?)
• "CANDIED" (46A: Voltaire's sweet novel?)
• "IN SEARCH OF LOST THYME" (63A: Marcel Proust's kitchen mystery?)
• "THE LITTLE PRINTS" (90A: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's pet story?)
• "JULIUS SEES HER" (112A: William Shakespeare's historical romance?)

Word of the Day: TOE PICK (44A: What a figure skate has that a hockey skate lacks) —

noun

one of the sharp teeth in the front part of a figure-skating blade. (dictionary.com)

• • •

Jane Air. Huckleberry Fin. Cannery Roe. Native Sun. I could keep going, but why? Why? Why? This is the operative question today. Unless I'm missing some very sneaky hidden element to this theme, I don't see how this very weak theme, with very few elements, passes muster on a Sunday, especially when there is almost nothing to recommend the non-theme parts of the grid. A couple answers here and there are sort of nice (ABOUT TIME, SLUGFESTS), but most of it is just filler, and a lot of filler. The grid is constructed in such a way that it's very choppy, with a surfeit of short fill—3s, 4s, and 5s as far as the eye can see. That doesn't leave much in the way of potential interest, especially when the theme is so one-note, so weak. There's absolutely nothing clever or surprising about the pi / pie pun. It's exceedingly familiar by now (from Pi(e) Day, for one). Same with (k)night. Same with thyme / time. The prints pun is a little better, and the best one of all is probably "JULIUS SEES HER," though it was also the most annoying in some ways because it broke pattern (the pun going to two words instead of just one). CANDIED should not even be here, as it's not actually a pun. it's "Can-DIDE" (pronounced "can-DEED"), accent on the second syllable, whereas CANDIED has the accent on the first. Also, CANDIED really really breaks form by not being a multiple-word title where the pun is in the last word. And by being just a paltry seven letters long (not really theme territory). There are so few answers here ... you can't sneak a 7-letter one in there and expect it to have any impact. My friend Austin had to point out to me that there were six, not five themers, because I totally forgot to count it the first time through. In short, the theme is overly simple, with almost no comedic value, and the fill is bland (ECRU ... FLAX (???))—overwhelmingly short and (consequently) with almost no zip to it. 

Not much to say about this one, actually. There were no real tough spots, no posers, no hot spots, no traps. I just plodded to the end. Oh, OK, there was one sticking point / trap. I wrote in KUMAR for 6A: Titular film character opposite Harold (MAUDE). That was very clearly obviously deliberately a trap. I didn't even consider MAUDE, despite the fact that I love (and own) that movie, and don't even remember "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" (or whatever it is they did). In that same section, though far less of a trap and far more of a personal screw-up, 17D: Goes undercover? (SLEEPS) really flummoxed me til the very last cross. I actually had BLEEPS (because if you "bleep" something ... you ... cover it up??). That was leaving me with something like BLOGFESTS at 17A: Knock-down-drag-out fights, which *almost* seemed plausible, but not quite. MUFFIN ended up being very clarifying, in the end. After I got out of that section, I had no trouble to speak of. So I will speak no more. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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