"OK," in modern slang / WED 9-9-26 / Character in "Monsters, Inc." / Equatorial ocean area notorious for lack of winds / Top starter / Creature of Egyptian myth / Bosun's whistled call signaling a shift change / Flattened against the masts in a changing wind / Part of many a shallow-water ecosystem / Plow puller of old / Jailed New York crime boss / Sicilian smoker / Old-timey "Listen!" / Roman theaters / Fiddler-emperor, legend has it

Constructor: Dario Salvucci

Relative difficulty: Medium

[15A: Ewok's home = ENDOR]

THEME: AT SEA (41A: Completely lost ... or where the now-idiomatic answer to each italicized clue has a literal meaning) — now-idiomatic expressions that (apparently) originated AT SEA:

Theme answers:

• LOOSE CANNON (18A: Unsecured artillery that can slide across the deck)
• THE DOLDRUMS (64A: Equatorial ocean area notorious for lack of winds)
• TOE THE LINE (3D: Stand barefoot in formation along seams of deck planks)
• TIDE OVER (21D: Drift with the natural flow of currents)
• PIPE DOWN (27D: Bosun's whistled call signaling a shift change)
• TAKEN ABACK (32D: Flattened against the masts in a changing wind)

Word of the Day: THE DOLDRUMS (64A) —

[from The Phantom Tollbooth, illus. Jules Feiffer]

noun

(used with a plural verb)

1. a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art.

   August is a time of doldrums for many enterprises.

2. the doldrums,

   1. a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

   2. the weather prevailing in this area.

3. a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits. (dictionary.com)

2. 
   

• • •

Well I definitely was AT SEA for much of this puzzle. I could not figure out what the (long, descriptive) clues were doing. I thought maybe they were trying to be funny—taking a familiar phrase and imagining it as literal (see LOOSE CANNON); but no, turns out the joke (or, non-joke) is on me, as the clues were doing precisely the opposite—they explain the literal meaning behind the idiomatic phrase. Combine the fact that I don't really have any interest in things nautical with a cluing concept that's didactic and completely humorless (by design), and the result is me not having that great of a time. I am impressed that there are this many such phrases, and that they fit in the grid in any kind of symmetrical order, and I'm impressed with how many are crammed in here. But the experience of solving was disorienting. I felt off. Faintly seasick. The theme never clicked for me, largely because I did not fully read the (long, descriptive) part of the revealer clue that followed [Completely lost], and even if I had, I don't know how much help it would've been.  Boring clues, vaguely sea-related—that's what I got. The phrases themselves were interesting, for sure—they make for really good fill, mostly. But the way the theme was executed, this was too much like being lectured to ("did you know...?") and not enough like being entertained.

Perhaps because of the theme density, the fill gets kind of ugly in places, notably the ODEA / REDD / EKED patch, but mostly it holds up. I had real trouble right out of the gate in the NW. Missed on 1A: "OK," in modern slang ("BET") (I had "DEF"), I had no idea what was meant by 17A: Top starter (ACE) ("oh, baseball") (I was looking for a word or prefix that could precede "Top," I think), and 1D: Has a happy face (BEAMS) had me thinking only GRINS. Total wipeout. Something similar happened in the SW, where I absolutely could not get THE DOLDRUMS from the clue ("THE ... COLD RUMS??"), and so had trouble with much of the surrounding fill. Thought 52A: Part of many a shallow-water ecosystem (REEF) was a REED. Couldn't get COMMA from just the "A" or HOIST from just the "T", so had to go into the far SW corner with no help from crosses to try to work it out, and the first thing I did was write in SCAR at 57D: Bite reminder, maybe (ITCH). So, not a dog bite, but a bug bite. Very last square was the "D" in DMS / DOLDRUMS. I wanted IMS before DMS (65D: Personally contacts online, for short) but that gave me the THE IOL DRUMS, which is intriguingly close to THE OIL DRUMS, but ... whatever, the "D" is what worked. It's weird—I know what THE DOLDRUMS are, and I knew they originally had to do with places of dead calm at sea, but I just couldn't see the phrase today at all. I learned the term young, from The Phantom Tollbooth. But it just wouldn't rise to the surface today, not as clued. Couldn't parse it. 

Bullets:

• 24A: Creature of Egyptian myth (SPHINX) — this probably should've been easy, but I think of the SPHINX as a statue, not an actual "creature of myth," so my brain couldn't get past, like, SCARAB beetle.
• 35A: Plow puller of old (MULE) — I wrote in OXEN. Which is plural. Whereas the clue is singular. Sigh. 
• 54A: Music genre for some yoga classes (NEW AGE) — I always appreciated the classes where they played real music (actual rock/pop/jazz/blues/country songs one might now). Or better yet, no music. There's something too ... on-the-nose about NEW AGE music in yoga class. Like the music's trying too hard to convince me something cosmic is happening.

• 68A: Character in "Monsters, Inc." (COMMA) — in case it wasn't entirely clear, "Character" is referring to the literal COMMA that is literally in the title, Monsters, Inc.
• 11D: "Sofa, so good" and such (PUNS) — is that a pun? Who says "So-FAH"? "Sofa so good" is something I might non-punnily say when I hit the couch after a long day at work and I no longer feel like using energy to form complete sentences.
• 55D: Jailed New York crime boss (GOTTI) — "Jailed?" More like "Dead for 24 years." But sure, before that, "jailed" I think it's safe to say his general fame is fading, but his crossword fame isn't. That's what happens when your name has such strong grid usefulness. Five letters, four of them common, terminal "I"—that guy's not going anywhere (28 NYTXW appearances, 27 of them following his death in 2002).

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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