Lizards with sticky toe pads / MON 4-29-24 / Unorthodox spot from which to take a meeting while working from home / Point at an off-target spot / Ring surrounding a nipple

Constructor: Tom Locke

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: HUE AND CRY (65A: Public uproar ... or a phonetic hint to the two words in 17-, 28- and 48-Across) — first part of the theme answer is a color ("hue"), second part is a homophone of a word meaning "cry":

Theme answers:

• BLUE WHALE ("wail") (17A: Marine creature that can weigh over 400,000 pounds)
• BLACKBALL ("bawl") (28A: Bar from joining a private club, e.g.)
• WHITE WINE ("whine") (48A: Chardonnay or pinot grigio, e.g.)

Word of the Day: WILCO (18D: Radio reply after "Roger") —

Procedure words (abbreviated to prowords) are words or phrases limited to radio telephone procedure used to facilitate communication by conveying information in a condensed standard verbal format. Prowords are voice versions of the much older procedural signs for Morse code which were first developed in the 1860s for Morse telegraphy, and their meaning is identical. [...] [definition of WILCO]: "I understand and will comply." It is used on receipt of an order. "Roger" and "Wilco" used together (e.g. "Roger, Wilco") are redundant, since "Wilco" includes the acknowledgement element of "Roger". (wikipedia) (my emph.)

• • •

Hey, this works! I don't know if I loved this theme, but I loved that it made sense and was consistent and did not seem forced or awkward at all. All the theme answers are real, ordinary terms and fulfill the requirements of the theme perfectly. A clean, light theme, a little wordplay, no burps or cracks or smudges. Monday! This is it. Fillwise, things are a bit creakier—no good longer answers to spice things up, and a decent amount of somewhat crummy short fill (ABRA is the worst, as always, but ITSY's not much better—the rest of it's mostly just ordinary and tiresome). MISAIM, really? If you are pointing at an off-target spot ... yeah, I guess you are misaiming, OK. I never saw this clue, so parsing MISAIM was a bit of a ??? Also, reading that clue now, "pointing" is kind of ambiguous. I imagined someone literally pointing, with their finger. "Why would you point at an off-target spot?" was my main question. But I see it now. "Pointing" implies being deliberate—you point at something to indicate or identify it. But here, the pointing is simply the orientation, not the orientation you intended. The clue decouples aiming and pointing. This is my mental hurdle. But I'm over it. Now.

There wasn't much real difficulty here, but there were plenty of minor stumbling blocks for me on my Downs-only voyage. The first and worst was my god I could not figure out the Halloween decorations. We have both a spider-web welcome mat and a spider-web shower curtain that we Never Take Down ... but still my only thought for 1D: Some Halloween decorations (WEBS) was BATS... then CATS ... then nothing, even after I got the "B" ("ORBS?," I half-seriously wondered). No chance at EYEFUL at first pass (4D: Quite a sight to behold)—needed to infer several Acrosses before I could parse that one. Had BARE before BALD (7D: Hairless). Got GECKOS easily and needed it because I could Not parse DOG TREAT even when I had it down to DO-TREAT ("DO A TREAT?," I half-seriously wondered). Thought the [Unorthodox spot from which to take a meeting while working from home] (BED) might be LOO (LAV? CAN?). Guessed right on the LUTE v. LYRE challenge (33D: Bard's instrument). Took me a bit to get "YOU IN?" because I was imagining a professional dealer, who would not (I don't think?) say this (46D: Dealer's "Wanna play?"). Had a real dilemma on my hands with 66D: Long stretch of time, which I wanted to be EON (correct!) but which seemed like it could maybe possibly also be ERA. That would've given me ERRS and SOAS in the crosses, and the improbability of the latter is what made me choose EON, though ... I can imagine the puzzle trying to perpetrate SOAS on me. It hasn't been seen in fourteen years, but it has been seen (usually clued [In order (to)]). Also, the "Long" part of [Long stretch of time] just goes better with EON than ERA. Still, that was a definite Downs-only danger zone.

The only other issue I had was FACE before ABUT (55D: Be up against). An understandable and highly fixable mistake. Overall, a textbook Monday: simple but clever. Light theme, smooth (if somewhat tired) fill. I'll take it. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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