Cabinet resignee of 1988 / SAT 12-30-23 / Pair of hand drums, in Indian music / Letter of completion, in brief / Part of a turntablist's headgear for short / Dad on "Black-ish" / They work in meters / Relative of a slot canyon / Drogo Jason Momoa's character on "Game of Thrones" / Across a wide expanse of rural land / Coat named for a former Irish province

Constructor: Simeon Seigel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: PARTY (63A: Event suggested by this puzzle's circled squares, read clockwise from the top) — circled (and unchecked, i.e. uncrossed) squares spell out CONFETTI ... that's ... it? 

Word of the Day: "The ERL-King" (50D: Goethe's "The ___-King") —

[The Erlking, Albert Sterner, ca. 1910]

"Erlkönig" is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking, a king of the fairies. It was originally written by Goethe as part of a 1782 Singspiel, Die Fischerin.

"Erlkönig" has been called Goethe's "most famous ballad". The poem has been set to music by several composers, most notably by Franz Schubert. // An anxious young boy is being carried at night by his father on horseback. To where is not spelled out; German Hof has a rather broad meaning of "yard", "courtyard", "farm", or (royal) "court". The opening line tells that the time is late and that it is windy.

As the poem unfolds, the son claims to see and hear the "Erlkönig" (Erl-King). His father claims to not see or hear the creature, and he attempts to comfort his son, asserting natural explanations for what the child sees – a wisp of fog, rustling leaves, shimmering willows.

The Erl-King attempts to lure the child into joining him, promising amusement, rich clothes, and the attentions of his daughters. Finally, the Erl-King declares that he will take the child by force. The boy shrieks that he has been attacked, spurring the father to ride faster to the Hof. Upon reaching the destination, the child is already dead. [Happy Holidays!] (wikipedia)

• • •

You took my hard Saturday puzzle away for this? It's not even New Year's Eve yet. If you're gonna take away my hard Saturday puzzle, there better be good reason, and New Year's Eve Eve isn't it. Further, I don't really get it. Hard to think of a revealer more anticlimactic than PARTY [insert lone, sad, half-hearted party maker sound here]. Just ... PARTY? Are you or are you not a New Year's Eve-themed puzzle? Do the circled squares represent the earth orbiting the sun? Do they form the shape of a clock dial, or the famed ball that drops at midnight in Times Square? Because I know they Sure As Hell do not represent the CONFETTI that they spell out. CONFETTI does not fall in a perfect circle. There is nothing about those circles that evokes CONFETTI beyond the letters they contain. My best guess is that the black squares (!?!) represent the confetti. There are no contiguous black squares, so they kinda look like individual pieces of ... well, CONFETTI? Maybe? But then why doesn't the revealer say that: "... suggested by the black square pattern in this grid"? You see, I'm just guessing at this point. There are imaginative and unusual elements of this puzzle, particularly the unchecked squares that actually Do end up being checked by the broader theme (for newer solvers: one of the "rules" of crosswords is that all squares have to be involved in an Across and a Down, so you have two ways of getting at it—this puzzle takes away the cross, but gives it back to you, in a way by having those uncrossed letters be involved in an overarching, theme-defining answer, so ... the "rule" was broken, technically, but not substantively). There's just not enough thematic material here, and (the big problem), what is here is not particularly evocative of CONFETTI, or of any PARTY in particular. I hope that app solvers at least got some kind of confetti-animation explosion at the end. Some bit of visual entertainment for your troubles. [Well, look at that ... I was correct on all counts]

[Enjoy your not-solving-related decorative elements, I guess!]

This puzzle didn't just deprive me of a themeless puzzle, it also deprived me of any struggle. At all. This played like, what, a Tuesday? Wednesday? The hardest thing about it was all the old crosswordese and the odd congregation of proper nouns (these categories overlap). The fill started out cringily old-fashioned and it did not improve until I got into the longer stuff. I mean, you don't see "I, TINA" or "The ERL-King" around much any more, you really don't. I took some screenshots of the moments I went "ugh," then stopped as I worried I'd be going at it all day.

IRABU CERT EFREM EBAN MEESE and KHAL, LOL KHAL, (61A: ___ Drogo, Jason Momoa's character on "Game of Thrones"), man, constructors, you are letting "GOT" turn you lazy as hell. How many characters deep are you gonna go on the show? (apparently "KHAL" is a title (for a warlord)). At least KHAL is, uh, "fresh," whereas those others I just listed, hoo boy, no. As for the marquee answers, those six 15s, they're mostly fine, but they're a bit on the dull side, with OVER HILL AND DALE being borderline archaic. Quaint, for sure. Your marquees on a Saturday would normally (probably) be much better, as those answers wouldn't be restricted by a theme, as they are here. For a themed puzzle, the six 15s today are kind of impressive, though there is a significant point penalty for not using Talking Heads in the clue for 36-Across:

No real mistakes today, except TABOR (?) for TABLA at first (33A: Pair of hand drums, in Indian music) and then GULLY before GULCH (45D: Relative of a slot canyon). I don't think there's much that needs explaining today, but just in case ...

Explainers:

• 12A: Bucket of Bolts (JUNKER) — both slang terms for a beat-up and poor-functioning automobile
• 35A: Speakers in many classrooms, for short (PAS) — Public Address systems
• 22A: Letter of completion, in brief (CERT) — short for "certificate"
• 11D: "Dear" man (SIR) — because you might open a letter or archaically address any dude as "Dear SIR..."
• 32A: Boot (CAN) — I assume these are verbs meaning "fire" or "expel" and not nouns meaning "ass"
• 39D: Gig components (MEGS) — abbrs. for gigabytes, megabytes
• 47D: "The Faerie Queene" woman whose name means "peace" (IRENA) — I would tell you who she is but she Doesn't Even Show Up On The Extensive List of "Major Characters" at the Wikipedia Entry For "The Fairie Queene" ... there are like 30 characters on that list, no IRENA. How in the world are we still getting this clue / answer? I've actually read huge chunks of "The Fairie Queene"—taught it, even. But oof, no, this is bottom-of-the-barrel crosswordese. 

["West-ERN Spur"]

More Holiday Pet Pics! 

First, three cats from Matt: Ronda, Earl Grey, and Scarlet (again, not sure what the "Holiday" connection is here, but these cats are too cute to exclude on a technicality)

[Dear lord, those eyes]

[Earl looks worried. Somebody pet Earl]

[sometimes you want to smush your cat but you don't want to wake her and it's honestly a dilemma]

Here's Jeeves, frolicking by the fireside:

[Thanks, Peggy]

[Maggie is 16. She has learned to roll with this reindeer horns nonsense (thanks, Katherine!)]

This is Tuna, the tiniest Christmas kitty. Tuna is a sad baby who has to wear sweaters because it's oh so cold. Won't you help Tuna this holiday season (scritches and treats gratefully accepted).

 

[Thanks, Robin]

And lastly today ... a deer

["Hey ... hello! ... anyone home!? Hey, hi. So ...  they left me, Santa and them. I was late, I guess, technically, but now I'm just stuck here by myself ... anyway, you got any snacks?" (thanks, Angela)]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]