Old Spanish coins / THU 11-25-21 / Nabokov title character / Rapper who had an infamous rivalry with Tupac / Han Solo claims to have made the Kessel Run in less than 12 of these / Pygmalion author's monogram / Backsplash installer

Constructor: Chase Dittrich

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: TRUE / FALSE (71A & 38D: One of two options in five squares in this puzzle) — five rebus squares sit inside ten answers, each of which is clued twice: once to work with "T" in the square and once to work with "F" in the square:

Acrosses:

• TREE SPIRIT / FREE SPIRIT (18A: Wood nymph / Independent person)
• TAKE GOLD / FAKE GOLD (24A: Win at the Olympics / Cheap jewelry material)
• TEED OFF / FEED OFF (40A: Drove a golf ball / Gain strength from)
• TIRE SALE / FIRE SALE (54A: Goodyear blowout / "Everything must go" event)
• TEAR GLANDS / FEAR GLANDS (60A: Waterworks parts / Amygdalae)

Downs:

• ALT / "ALF" (5D: PC key / Sitcom ET) 
• TRAIL / FRAIL (24D: Lag behind / Weak)
• TOLD / FOLD (40D: Snitched / Throw in the cards)
• INTER / INFER (51D: Lay to rest / Deduce)
• TANGS / FANGS (54D: Zesty flavors / Part of a Dracula costume)

Word of the Day: LESLIE Nielsen (48D: Nielsen of "The Naked Gun") —

Leslie William Nielsen OC (11 February 1926 – 28 November 2010) was a Canadian actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he appeared in more than 100 films and 150 television programs, portraying more than 220 characters.

Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. After high school, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943 and served until the end of World War II. Upon his discharge, Nielsen worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to study theatre at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his acting debut in 1950, appearing in 46 live television programs a year. Nielsen made his film debut in 1956, with supporting roles in several dramas and western and romance films produced between the 1950s and the 1970s.

Although his notable performances in the films Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure gave him standing as a serious actor, Nielsen later gained enduring recognition for his deadpan comedy roles during the 1980s, after being cast for the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker comedy film Airplane!. In his comedy roles, Nielsen specialized in portraying characters oblivious to and complicit in their absurd surroundings. Nielsen's performance in Airplane! marked his turning point, which made him "the Olivierof spoofs" according to film critic Roger Ebert, and leading to further success in the genre with The Naked Gun film series, based on the earlier short-lived television series Police Squad!, in which Nielsen also starred. Nielsen received a variety of awards and was inducted into the Canada's Walk of Fame and Hollywood Walk of Fame. (wikipedia)

• • •

Bad timing on my part, as I got my Moderna booster yesterday, and so now, on Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, I feel like death warmed over. Death NUKEd in the microwave for like 20 seconds. Tepid death. I've definitely felt worse, everything is very low-grade, but yeah, achy sorta, fevery sorta, and worst of all: appetite gone. Arm hurts like hell. Slept awfully and just can't get comfortable. Blecch. *But* if it's anything like the last shots, I'll be feeling fine by tomorrow, my birthday, the holiest of days on the Me calendar. For now, I have this puzzle, which I poked through, trying to just take it easy and *really* trying to be generous-minded, since it's not the puzzle's fault I feel cruddy. And what I can say about the puzzle is: it's easy. It's simple. Maybe it's supposed to be a kind of rudimentary rebus—lots of folks are home, or otherwise off work, they got time to kill, so the crossword is gonna get a lot of attention today, a lot of it from people who don't do the crossword every single day like you weirdos. This is a gateway rebus. Nothing to figure out, nothing to INFER. The clues spell everything out, and in case the clues don't clue you in, you've got the revealers, which, for me, were spectacularly anticlimactic and just gave me two more gimmes to write instantly into the grid. But maybe they actually functioned as *revealers* to people who are new to rebus puzzles and so are baffled by the idea of two letters / one square. OK. On that level, I can accept this puzzle. But on every other level, it's not really up to snuff. Concept too basic, answers too easy, and without any real zing or zazz or fun to make the short trip through the grid seem at least a little worthwhile. And the fill, yeesh, this is not the stuff you want to be throwing down if your goal is to get newcomers or part-timers more interested in solving. The fill IS OLDE (51A: Wagner heroine). OLDE, I say (and the puzzle says) (26D: Renaissance Faire adjective). Pray for us, ORA pro nobis, tell EDY and EDNA to hide the REALES and close the ORIEL because GBS (God Blessed Sakes!) the fill in this grid is dangerously OLDE. Really hope no one gets Naticked by the ORA / ORIEL crossing, because that would be the most painfully crosswordese way to go down, truly.

The double cluing really was the thing that took this into remedial-ville. I got TRAIL, thought "why is there's a separate clue that doesn't work?" then got TAKE GOLD and could see plainly what the second clue was referring to (FAKE GOLD), and there, right there, inside three seconds, I had the entire premise worked out. "T and F work? Is this really just a T/F rebus?" And it was. I tripped over a lot of little things, which is not the way you want to experience difficulty in a puzzle. Give me the cleverly worded clue with the big Aha finish, not the deflating experience of "ugh is it LOLL or LOAF?" or "ugh is it DANG or DRAT?" (I guessed wrong both times). Had PAID before TIED (8D: All square) and "GLAD TO" before "GLADLY," which I still very much like better (27A: "I'd be delighted!"). I had trouble with BIGGIE, oddly, since I knew very well the person being asked for, but I had BIG POPPA in my head, as well as Notorious B.I.G., and it's also possible that the sound of "BIGGIE" was in there but my brain imagined his name was rendered BIG + middle initial + E. + SMALLS. I thought at first that the clue for BIGGIE should have "familiarly" in it, since the "Tupac" of the clue did not seem parallel to BIGGIE, but I guess BIGGIE is defensibly parallel in that both are technically first names (even if TUPAC Shakur was a legal name and BIGGIE Smalls was only a stage name—BIGGIE's legal name was Christopher Wallace). 

If I could just keep things focused on BIGGIE and Ida LUPINO, then I could stay in my happy place, but alas there's the rest of the grid that must be accounted for. Oh well, if nothing else, children will be delighted by this grid, as it gives them an excuse to run around the house disrupting the Thanksgiving celebration with cries of "HAS A TIT!" HAS A TIT! Whaaaat, I can say it! It's in the puzzle! Look. HAS! A! TIT! [Runs off for more shouting]" You gotta enjoy yourself somehow. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I am indeed grateful for you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. the clue on REDS is just wrong (33D: Traffic lights you can't go through). Or it's misleading. I turn right on red all the time, as do millions of other drivers. I guess if you're being super-strict about the meaning of "through," then maybe there's validity to this clue, but ... also, you can definitely go through a blinking red (after you stop). I just don't think the clue writer thought this one ... through. Also, anyone *can* go through REDS. It's not legal, but can you do it? Well, don't, but yes, you can.

P.P.S. why do you go with the biblical clues on both AMOS *and* ENOS. This is part of what gives the puzzle such a stuffy feeling. Come on, mix it up! It's not great fill, but you can at least move the cluing around to give us some sense of variety. (This is the editor's actual literal job)

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