Rhyming title character who plays the tuba in Cuba, in a Rudy Vallee song / MON 2-15-21 / Windsurfing locale NE of Honolulu

Constructor: Meconya Alford

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for second week in a row, the Monday puzzle is more like a Tuesday/Wednesday puzzle)

THEME: WHITE HOUSE DOGS (56A: What the starts of 21-, 26-, 40- and 50-Across) — first words of familiar phrases / names are all also the names of presidential pooches:

Theme answers:

• BUDDY COP MOVIES (21A: "Rush Hour" and "21 Jump Street" [Clinton])
• BARNEY FIFE (26A: TV deputy of Mayberry [Bush 43])
• BO TREE (40A: The Buddha is often depicted meditating under it [Obama]
• MAJOR SCALE (50A: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, e.g. [Biden]

Word of the Day: BO TREE (40A) —

The Bodhi Tree or Bodhi Fig Tree ("tree of awakening") -- also called the Bo Tree -- was a large and ancient sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa) located in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India.  Siddhartha Gautama, the spiritual teacher who became known as the Buddha, is said to have attained enlightenment or Bodhi circa 500 BCE under it. In religious iconography, the Bodhi Tree is recognizable by its heart-shaped leaves, which are usually prominently displayed. 

The proper term "Bodhi Tree" is also applied to existing sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) trees, also known as bodhi trees. The foremost example of an existing tree is the Mahabodhi Tree growing at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, which is often cited as a direct descendant of the original tree. This tree, planted around 250 BCE, is a frequent destination for pilgrims, being the most important of the four main Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

Other holy bodhi trees with great significance in the history of Buddhism are the Anandabodhi Tree at Jetavana in Sravasti in North India and the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Both are also believed to have been propagated from the original Bodhi Tree. (wikipedia)

• • •

I will start by saying I really like this theme, and I'm especially impressed that the dogs all appear in chronological order, going through Presidents 42, 43, 44 ... skipping the *$%^ing monster at 45, whom you wouldn't trust to take care of a chia pet let alone an actual sentient creature ... and ending at 46. I feel a little bad for CHAMP, who should've at least been given a walk-on role as part of the fill, come on, have a heart. So, hurray theme. I do think there are some issues with theme execution, and I emphatically assert that this is not a Monday puzzle. The execution issues and the day-of-the-week issues are semi-related. I'll start with the difficulty issue—like last week, this puzzle was off the charts in terms of my normal Monday times. It is oversized, but even allowing for that, high 3's is a full minute slower than normal, and a full minute, when you typically take just under 3 minutes to finish, is a *ton* of time. While the puzzle felt very Mondayish in places, there is one place in particular where it felt closer to Saturday, and that problem area has *everything* to do with theme execution (i.e. what themers you use and where you place them). So the problem, for me, was YUBA (!?!?!?!), which all on its own is a total mystery, but crossing BO TREE (literally no idea) and KAILUA (rings a bell, but ???), yeah, YUBA was a nightmare. It was made more nightmarish by its actually not-at-all-helpful clue, 27D: Rhyming title character who plays the tuba in Cuba, in a Rudy Vallee song. "Rhyming title character" ... what? Rhyming with what? I assumed this meant it rhymed with itself, i.e. internally, so, having YU, I wrote in YUYU. I see, now, that the clue has "helpfully" included "tuba" and "Cuba" in the clue, but those did not At All register as rhymes for the actual answer when I read the clue. I was so stuck through that area: three answers that I've never heard of, all crossing, on a Monday. Insanity. 

The root of the problem is the theme answer placement. When you put BARNEY FIFE and BO TREE (again, ???) in their current locations, as a constructor you've put yourself in a position where you've got to deal with Y-B- as one of the Downs, and wow, good luck with that. If you're building a puzzle, you place your themers first, and I can guarantee you, Y-B- is (or should be) the Very First cross that you wrangle, because it's a mess. Virtually nothing follows the Y-B- letter pattern. Only word I can think of that fits there is YOBS? Is that a thing? Yes, YOB is British slang for a "loutish or uncultured person." But that's not really a Monday answer either. I don't really get why, faced with Y-B-, the constructor didn't move some things around to avoid that truly limiting scenario. I also don't know why the editor didn't suggest as much, given that you end up with such an un-Mondayish pile-up precisely at that point. If all the YUBA crosses were common, and the clue had been more clearly written, then OK, it's a bizarre anomaly in the grid, but no big deal. But as is, it's a [record needle scratch sound] on an otherwise really interesting puzzle. I'm not sure why this is 16 wide. I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to build your puzzle around a more famous BO, like DEREK or JACKSON. You want people to glide easily through your Monday, and to be able to finish with a clear sense that all the answers are correct, so they can appreciate your theme. YUBA / BO TREE / KAILUA cruelly un-Mondays this puzzle. I mean, a *Rudy Vallee* song!?!? I honestly don't even know who that is. Name is familiar, but ... hard shrug. Again, I think editors should've seen all these problems and advised accordingly. Still, all in all, this is promising work. The theme really is a good one.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. looks like Rudy Vallee was born "Vallée," with the accent aigu on that first "e"; that's even how it is spelled on the record label in the video, above. Not sure where or how the accent got lost between the 1930s and today's clues ...

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