Thrill-seeker's acronymic motto / WED 4-27-22 / One inclined to go in and out / County north of Firth of Forth / It may lead to a no catch ruling / Big retailer in camping gear / Tuft & Needle competitor / Hairstyle that sounds edible

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: PINBALL — theme answers contain words associated with pinball, circled squares contain letters that spell pinball and (I guess) trace a theoretical pinball trajectory:

Theme answers:

• COMBO MEALS (18A: Deals with fries and a beverage)
• INSTANT REPLAY (23A: It may lead to a "no catch" ruling)
• TILT AT WINDMILLS (36A: Fight a needless fight, metaphorically)
• BURGER FLIPPER (44A: One with a quintessential McJob)
• BUMPER CROP (53A: Extra-bountiful harvest)

Word of the Day: BEBE Rexha (57A: Singer Rexha) —

Bleta Rexha (Albanian pronunciation: [ˈblɛta ˈɾɛdʒa]; born August 30, 1989), known professionally as Bebe Rexha (/ˈbiːbi ˈrɛksə/ BEE-bee REK-sə), is an American singer and songwriter. After signing with Warner Records in 2013, Rexha received songwriting credits on Eminem's single "The Monster" (which later received the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Performance) and has also contributed songwriting to songs recorded by Shinee, Selena Gomez, and Nick Jonas. Rexha released her debut extended play in 2015, I Don't Wanna Grow Up, which saw the moderate commercial success of the singles "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" and "I'm Gonna Show You Crazy".

[...] Rexha has also seen success with several collaborations including "Hey Mama" with David Guetta, Nicki Minaj and Afrojack, "Me, Myself & I" with G-Eazy, "In the Name of Love" with Martin Garrix, and "Meant to Be" with Florida Georgia Line, the latter of which had large success as a country crossover single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. Rexha's debut studio album, Expectations (2018), reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and saw the success of its lead single, "I'm a Mess", and brought Rexha two nominations for Best New Artist and Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 61st Grammy Awards. Rexha released her second studio album, Better Mistakes, in 2021. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did the newspaper version have "Notes?" My puzzle popped a message up when I opened it, telling me that the circled letters would reveal a hint, but why? That's some remedial nonsense. It's obvious, once you're done, that those letters spell "PINBALL," and once you see that, you can make sense of what the theme answers have in common. Shoving the explanation in my face is the worst kind of dumbing down. Let People Figure Sh*t Out. It's part of how people get good at crosswords, part of how they learn to decipher patterns, find rebuses, etc. Stop the spoon-feeding, especially when (as with today) it's completely unnecessary. Condescending. The problem with the puzzle, though, isn't the notes—the notes are an editorial decision. Rather, the problem with the puzzle is that conceptually it makes very little sense. The circled squares are completely unevocative. They don't read like a pinball trajectory, they read like a wonky rectangle. If you had two FLIPPERs, maybe, and had them on the diagonal, you might be getting somewhere. A Sunday-sized puzzle might be a good place to work out a plausible pinball machine surface. Here, it doesn't even look like the "PINBALL" path is planned. It looks like an afterthought. You can find a very different, equally plausible "PINBALL" letter path in this grid if you really want to. Try it! You'll see. I don't know what a "COMBO" is (in pinball), but that's my problem. The weak execution of the theme? That is very much the puzzle's problem.

Got slowed down a few times by tricky clues, and by my own faulty processing skills. Couldn't make any sense of 1A: One inclined to go in and out (RAMP) until I had almost all the crosses. It's a freeway on / off ramp clue, very literal, very misdirective. I also needed every single cross for LACING (5D: Pretty trim). Had LA-ING and still no idea. Further, couldn't make sense of 23A: It may lead to a "no catch" ruling (INSTANT REPLAY) because there was no context. I guess "catch" was the context, or maybe "ruling," but I had INSTANT and still was lost. I thought maybe "no catch" had something to do with ... fishing? But again, working the crosses yielded results. Things smoothed out after that, though our two-car garage growing up did not have BAYS, unless that is just a word for "empty space where a car will fit." There was no demarcation, no boundaries, nothing separating one car spot from another car spot. The only answer that made actual sense for this clue was CARS, but that couldn't be the answer, for obvious reasons (56A: Two in a two-car garage). Again, with BAYS, as with aforementioned answers in this paragraph, I had all but one of the letters and still no clue. And again, crosses bailed me out. Nothing else in the puzzle presented much difficulty. 

Cringed at BURGER FLIPPER, which has such a sneering, classist ring to it, especially as clued (44A: One with a quintessential McJob). Not here for the largely white upper-middle-class "cultured" audience of the NYTXW looking down on "McJobs" (have never, ever liked that term in my puzzle, in any form). Nobody uses the term BURGER FLIPPER who is not in some way trying to denigrate the position of a fast-food worker. Tone matters, and the tone here sucks. Low point for fill was ASAMI x/w SUER. The former is always wretched (as is its counterpart ASDOI, and its other counterparts, SODOI and SOAMI, ugh, the lot of them can jump in the sea). SUER ... just looks dumb. Luckily, there wasn't much wretchedness in the rest of the grid. Except for CXX, whose idea was that? (55D: Roman numeral equal to 12% of M).  That's the kind of crap you pull when you *need* those "X"s for some theme gimmick. But here ... there is no need. If your consecutive "X" plan involves a RRN (random Roman numeral), abort that plan. Please. Just fill the grid nicely. Spare me the Roman math. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Sea urchin at a sushi bar / SUN 1-10-21 / Overnighting option / Classic saying originated by John Donne / Oscar 1987 Peace Nobelist from Costa Rica / First ruler of a united Hawaii / Quack doctor's offering / the Doughnut children's book series

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Medium (10-something)

THEME: "Oh, Fourpeat's Sake!" — repeating four-letter strings ... yes, that is all:

Theme answers:

• NO MAN IS AN ISLAND (22A: Classic saying originated by John Donne)
• BAHAMA MAMA MIX (31A: Aid for making a tiki bar cocktail)
• "WELCOME HOME, HON" (48A: "Glad to have you back, dear!")
• PRIMETIME TV (62A: Most expensive block)
• "WHERE WERE WE?" (72A: Post-interruption question)
• KING KAMEHAMEHA (87A: First ruler of a united Hawaii)
• ALUMINUM INGOT (103A: Relatively light foundry product)
• ROMA TOMATO SAUCE (118A: Potful in some Italian kitchens)

Word of the Day: ARTURO Schomburg, Harlem Renaissance figure (77A) —

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (January 24, 1874 – June 10, 1938), was a historian, writer, and activist. Schomburg was a Puerto Rican of African and German descent who moved to the United States and researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years, he collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other materials of African history, which were purchased to become the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, named in his honor, at the New York Public Library (NYPL) branch in Harlem. (wikipedia)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS!*** This is the last day of my annual week-long fundraising effort for the blog. It's been a weird week, to say the least. An assault on the Capitol—did not see that coming. I spent the week being buffeted back and forth emotionally, with the horrible news out of DC dragging me down, but then the generosity and kind messages from blog readers lifting me up. It's been so nice to hear from readers this week, and to be reminded of what a big, weird, wonderful world crossword solverdom is. People have been particularly complimentary of (and desirous of) the Alfie postcards my daughter designed (see below). Many of you have asked whether they were available for purchase as a complete set. As of now, they are not, but that may change. I'll let you know. Anyway, it's been very gratifying to hear from readers. So often writing the blog feels a bit like shouting into the void, so it's nice to be reminded the void isn't such a void after all. I can't thank you enough for your readership and for seeing the value in what I do here, whether that's explaining the themes, or helping you understand tricky clues, or just giving you a feeling of commiseration when you, too, are disappointed in or furious at or madly in love with the puzzle. It's about community. Feeling less alone in this otherwise (mostly) solitary endeavor. I see you out there. And I'm grateful. 

The PayPal button and snail mail address are always sitting over in the blog sidebar, but otherwise, that's it for fundraising pitches for the next 51 weeks. Really REALLY hope they're better than the past 52. Happy New Puzzling Year, everybody.

Here are the annual contribution options one last time. 

First, Paypal:

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

And heck, why don't I throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which they did that one time someone contributed that way—but it worked!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. And my thank-you postcards this year are really special. They are portraits of my new cat Alfie (a bright spot of 2020), designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. And they look like this:

He's eating kale in that middle one, in case you're wondering. Anyway, these cards are personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share them with the snail-mailers. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD."  Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

* * *

Wow, well, I guess karmically things have to even out eventually. Last Sunday's puzzle was so nice ... and we now return you to our regularly scheduled program of Sunday tedium. This was somehow both way, way too straightforward (you can tell just from the title and looking at the grid how the theme is going to express itself) and confoundingly forced and tortured. Some of these themers are just painful, first among them being BAHAMA MAMA MIX. It's the MIX that really gets me. There's a mix?? I barely know this cocktail exists, and you are telling me there is a mix. You use a mix. A mix? A mix. Margarita mix, hell yeah, I got you. Bloody Mary mix, OK, sure. Daiquiri mix? Yes, we're still friends. BAHAMA MAMA ... MIX? Come on now. I'm not saying there isn't such a thing, but come on. Further, ALUMINUM INGOT!?!?!? Look, these themers should be things, real things, actual things, not some preposterous theoretical thing that you would never ever ever accept in a puzzle as a self-standing answer. "WELCOME HOME, HON!?!?!?!" I had "SON," which at least you can imagine someone saying. Presumably a SON might've been away for a long time. Possibly he doesn't live with you any more. But a HON has maybe just been at work? Or the store? I don't know, but it's not the '50s, what is with this weird formal "WELCOME HOME, HON?" Again, son comes back from, I don't know, war, maybe, it's an Event. The formality of the phrasing makes sense. HON, my word. INGOT, dear gracious everloving wow. What are these themers? And the SAUCE is just sitting out there in that last themer, the only word in alllll the theme answers not touching any of the fourpeated letter strings. Sad. In the end, this is a bland concept, ridiculously executed.

The MIX thing was really gahhhh because I couldn't make sense of the "X"—the cross was FEDEX, and I ... guess I just have a different idea of what "overnighting" means (18D: Overnighting option). See now it refers to shipping, but the "-ing" isn't even strictly necessary, and makes it seem like camping or other kind of sleeping arrangement is the context. What else? I misspelled Hans Christian ANDERSEN of course ("-ON") (90D: Giant in fairy tales?). Had AMEN RA because as I've said before that damn second vowel can go all kinds of ways (40A: Supreme Egyptian deity). "Circular arrow button" doesn't mean anything to me—I don't even know where that is, or what context I'm supposed to be imagining. Very unevocative. So RELOAD, pfft, needed a bunch of crosses (10D: Click the circular arrow button, say). Had HEAT before RIOT (2D: ___ shield) (sidenote: RIOT shield, maybe not a direction I would've taken the puzzle this week). STOMP before STAMP (25A: Really put one's foot down). CAF remains very much not a thing you order. It's regular or decaf, those are the options. You could order a half-CAF. But no one is like "gimme a CAF!" Stop with this tone-deaf nonsense cluing! (80D: Quick pick-me-up?) ("Quick" because it's an abbrev.). Haven't seen "R.U.R." in a very long time. Old school crosswordese. Seeing it again ... honestly, not TERRIF. Still, not as painful as the EMS clue (43D: Mammal's head and heart?) (its "head and heart" because it starts with an "M" and has two "M"s in its middle, GET IT!?!?!). For pete's sake, somebody submit some decent Sunday puzzles to the NYTXW. Your marquee puzzle should not be batting below the Mendoza line. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Ron of Tarzan on 1960s TV / WED 11-11-20 / Lye in chemistry class / Suave 1991 hit / Converted into fuel as coal / Former gridiron org for Memphis Maniax Orlando Rage / Series of bookings across America

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Easy (faster than yesterday, and today's was 16 wide)

THEME: DOUBLEDAY (62A: Big name in American book publishing for 120+ years ... and a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — every theme answer is a "DOUBLE DAY" because it contains two words that can precede "DAY":

Theme answers:

• HOLYFIELD (18A: *Four-time heavyweight champ nicknamed "The Real Deal")
• WEDDING PRESENT (23A: *Gift that comes with a hitch?)
• VETERANS MEMORIAL (38A: *Place that honors those who've served)
• BUSINESS SCHOOL (51A: *Producer of a lot of suits?)

Word of the Day: HOBS (54D: Goblins, in folklore) —

• noun A shelf or projection at the back or side of a fireplace, used for keeping food or utensils warm.
• noun A tool used for cutting the teeth of machine parts, as of a gearwheel.
• noun Chiefly British A hobgoblin, sprite, or elf.
• noun Mischievous behavior. (American Heritage Dictionary, 5th ed.)

• • •

Either this one was much easier, comparatively, than either of the past two days' puzzles, or giving myself ten or so minutes to wake up in the morning before I start solving really makes a world of difference. Or both. This one has an oversized grid (16x15) and I still came in under my average Wednesday time. Since I struggled (again, comparatively) with the past two days' puzzles, I thought maybe acing a puzzle would make me like it more, but much as I wanted to like this one, there are just so many problems. The theme is not bad so much as bland. It's totally passable but not very interesting. This type of theme (both parts of an answer can precede / follow a word to make a familiar phrase) is old as the hills, and virtually every example of it that I've ever seen has two unfortunate qualities. First, the revealer doesn't have any "aha" magic in it. It definitely "reveals" what the theme is (and in today's case, you'd never know it without the revealer), but my reaction tends to be (as it was today) "oh..." rather than "oh!" Second, the theme answers, as a set, tend to be dull. I mean, HOLYFIELD looks *scintillating* next to all the rest of them. WEDDING PRESENT ... BUSINESS SCHOOL ... I almost fell (back) asleep just typing that last one out. VETERANS MEMORIAL is interesting only insofar as it makes the puzzle *look like* it's a Veterans Day-themed puzzle ... but then it isn't, which almost seems insulting. It's Veterans Day. Do a Veterans Day puzzle or don't (this is not the constructor's fault, btw). This puzzle just sorta waves at the holiday on its way to ... a publisher. Anticlimactic, in the extreme. Anyway, today, blandness reigns, themewise.

The fill is pretty weak all over, starting with COKED (!?!?!) (1A: Converted into fuel, as coal). I've only ever heard that used in phrases, usually preceding "up" or "out of his mind." Needed every cross to get it here. That whole corner should've been handled so much more smoothly. COKED is awkward, CAHN is crosswordese (especially unwelcome with ICAHN is somehow also in the grid), ELY is even more crosswordesey than CAHN, and DIF NEO OBOE aren't doing much for you up there either. Handling the "B" and the "K" seems to have presented real constructing problems, but these are problems worth working through. Smooth it out! Answers too often felt like they'd been grabbed out of a bag of Ye Olde Answeres of the Past. EPEE GOAPE ESS all in the same section, crossing the bizarre-looking "Var." ANTEED (borderline inexcusable, esp. in a grid that is already creaking under the weight of iffy fill). GYRE and NAOH and ENG and HOBS down below are not, esp. collectively, gonna brighten anyone's day. CAHN ICAHN ELY ELWES EVA ELON ... that's really too many overfamiliar faces. The most interesting thing in the grid was XIÈXIE, which I don't think I've ever seen and definitely needed every cross for (6D: Mandarin "thank you"). I'm not sure I *liked* it, I just know it broke up the monotony. I really hope you knew it, or remembered the XFL, because otherwise it really seems like you might have had a Natick* situation on your hands. Is that how you spell EYELETS? (31A: Holes in shoes). Wow, only just now realizing that EYELETS and aiglets are somehow both parts of shoes (well, aiglets are part of shoelaces, but same DIF). They could've made that less confusing (and by "they" I guess I mean "the word gods," I don't know). OK, that's all, Happy Wednesday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*uninferrable crossing of two not-universally-familiar answers, especially proper names

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Voldemort, to Harry Potter / WED 8-29-18 / Rough spots for teens? / Grp. co-founded by Helen Keller

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: City work — Each theme answer is a city name preceded by a "profession" which is an anagram of the city name

Theme answers:

• DIAGNOSES SAN DIEGO (18a: Work as a metropolitan health official?)
• COUNTS TUSCON (29a: Works as a metropolitan census taker?)
• HASTEN ATHENS (44a: Work as a metropolitan traffic engineer?)
• SALVAGES LAS VEGAS (55a: Works as a metropolitan reclaimant?)

Word of the Day: KENKEN (27d: Numbers game) —

KenKen is a trademarked name for a style of arithmetic and logic puzzle invented in 2004 by Japanese math teacher Tetsuya Miyamoto. As in Sudoku, the goal of each puzzle is to fill a grid with digits so that no digit appears more than once in any row or any column (a Latin square). KenKen grids are divided into heavily outlined groups of cells –– often called “cages” –– and the numbers in the cells of each cage must produce a certain “target” number when combined using a specified mathematical operation.

• • •

Hi y'all! It's Matthew, your friendly neighborhood radio producer/baseball fan/whale enthusiast in for Rex on this fine Wednesday. To all of you in the comments who thought I was ~too tough~ on last Monday's puzzle: Don't fret! With very few exceptions, today's puzzle was a joy! But as the winds of the anonymous Internet go, you probably hated it. Oh well.

Anywho: let's puzzle! Got off to a disgruntled start with UNSEAL (1a: Open, as an envelope) — you can reseal an envelope, and you can unseal other things ... but "unseal" an envelope? I'm skeptical. HOWEVER the rest of this puzzle was so darn exciting that before long it didn't matter one bit. I had my share of stumbles here and there along with several double-takes — TANK for REEF (24a: Home for a clown fish) (sorry @Nemo), BEGINS for ONSETS (34a: Starts), and JUMP for LEAP (41a: Jeté, e.g.) — but used my trusty crosses to right those wrongs without incurring any serious damage and came in comfortably under my average Wednesday time. Cracking the theme was really fun working from the bottom up. I cobbled together both SALVAGES LAS VEGAS and HASTEN ATHENS before picking up on the anagram component, at which point the other two themers fell nicely into place amidst a grid chock-full of delightful fill. 

I definitely want to give EAGERNESS, USED CAR LOT and ARCHENEMY their due (4d: Zeal / 31d: Place for junkers / 34d: Voldemort, to Harry Potter)  — but the real prize of this puzzle, in my eye, is the staircase of 6- to 8-letter money words cruising right through the middle, with only NOAA (38a: Operator of weather.gov) feeling more like a tourniquet than a snazzy belt.

Yes, I had a great time on this puzzle. Yes, I think it feels like the ~perfect~ Wednesday difficulty. But I've already proclaimed my baseball obsession on this blog and would be remiss if we didn't talk about that pesky clue for ON BASE (30d: In scoring position, in a way). This wouldn't be a big deal except that "scoring position" is a technical tern in baseball to refer only to runners on either second or third. Most runners who end up ON BASE start at first, which, while closer to scoring than the batter's box, is not in "scoring position." 

End mini rant. Hats off to a great hump day.

Bullets:

(The Chicago Cubs have not lost a baseball game since my CrossWorld debut.)

• SCRAPE (26d: Pickle) — Synonymous, sure, but "in a pickle" is so much more fun to say.
• BARISTA (42d: Fitting occupation for a "Joe") — My go-to barista in my hometown is named Magic, and he is cooler than I could ever hope to be.
• ROYAL (49a: Word before flush or pain) — An exemplary Wednesday clue, in my opinion. Makes you think and perhaps second guess yourself (flush?) but doesn't bust your grid. 
• OBOE (59a: Item with a bore and a bell) — Link your favorite oboist in the comments below. (Seems safe to assume that the worlds of oboe enthusiasts and crossworders aren't mutually exclusive. Let's find out!) 

Signed, Matthew Stock, CrossWorld utility infielder in for Rex

[Follow Matthew Stock on Twitter]
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Rear seating compartment in old automobiels / Purple smoothie flavorer / Org that's nearly one fourth Canadian / Portrayer of Mr Chips / Spring river breakup

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Preposition Proposition" — verb phrases that are modeled (verb + preposition) are reimagined as hyphenated noun phrases, with resulting wackiness:

Theme answers:

• PULL-UP STAKES (23A: Wagers for a gym exercise?)
• PICK-UP STEAM (33A: Bad thing to see under a truck's hood?)
• WALK-ON WATER (48A: Unrecruited athlete's bottleful?)
• DEAD-ON ARRIVAL (64A: Timely entrance?)
• STAND-IN LINE (82:A Understudy's delivery?)
• PUT-ON NOTICE (97A: Scam alert?)
• RUN-IN CIRCLES (112A: Fight clubs?)
• SET-TO MUSIC (37D: Soundtrack for a brawl?)
• GO-TO PIECES (44D: Compositions often chosen for encores?)

Word of the Day: TONNEAU (20A: Rear seating compartment in old automobiles) —

noun

1. the part of an automobile, typically an open car, occupied by the back seats.

   • short for tonneau cover. (google)

• • •

It's a simple concept, and it is ... executed. I mean, it does what it does. More of a "hey ... interesting" -type theme than an "ooooh"-type theme, but OK.  There is a certain (perhaps numbing) consistency to the structure of these themers. The clues very rarely get to the level of wackiness normally required for me to enjoy wacky puzzles. And man oh man, with a puzzle saturated with prepositions (in the themers), it would be great if it were not also saturated with prepositions generally. I mean, yikes and EEKS. You've got PUSH IN, TOSSES TO, FLIES TO, OD ON, not to mention ONA and ATA ... it's a lot. It's possible I missed one. Don't really feel like checking thoroughly. The theme is very dense, which ... why? It's not like I"m clamoring for more of this theme. If you've seen 7, you've seen 9. I'd prefer a cleaner / more interesting overall grid to more theme stuff. Sometimes themes seem to try to compensate for mediocrity with density. I don't recommend this. I recommend starting with a baseline of non-mediocrity. I have nothing much against this puzzle, but nothing much for it, either. I really like PINCHRAN (21A: Replaced someone on a base). Is that weird? Probably. I'm just really into baseball right now, despite my team's being abysmal. Longer fill is normally a chance for a grid to shine, but today there's some really awkward stuff, like MISSES A CUE and STEP OUT OF (more prepositions!), and it just doesn't Do much to enliven the grid. ATE RIGHT, that's pretty good. In-the-language, original. More of that would've been nice.


I flew right through this one, and didn't notice much worth commenting on. I found that bank of Downs up top—APEAK, DISGUSTED, ENCIPHER—pretty tough, first because I forgot APEAK and wrote in ABEAM, second because the clue for DISGUSTED did not really seem like it was looking for an adjective (13D: Saying "Ewww!," say), and third because ENCIPHER ... I'd say DECIPHER, but ENCRYPT. So ENCIPHER just took some patience and acceptance. Your boy ANKA is back for another go 'round. Let's hear more of his pop warblings, shall we?


And now a word about GO OK. In the grid there is no space between GO and OK, and so you get an answer that looks like a racial slur, and while I didn't even blink at this (I was going too fast to think about parsing), lots of people did, in fact, blink:

I know the answer is totally defensible (it's not clued in a racial way, etc.), I think it's reasonable to ditch the answer entirely in the interest of not having an apparent racial slur hanging out in your grid. It's not as if GO OK is such great fill. As Evan Birnholz rightly pointed out to me, you lose Nothing in terms of puzzle quality by going with AREN'T / ROOK instead of AGENT / GO OK. Without having a big fight over this issue, please consider deleting this letter sequence from your wordlist. It costs you nothing, zip, nil, zero, and eliminates a possibility for people's taking offense, or even just being mildly put off. It's not as if GO OK is beloved—losing it is not a hardship.

Also, this from sportswriter / radio host Dan Bernstein, re: 48A: Unrecruited athlete's bottleful? (WALK-ON WATER):

[*athletes]

So there you go. Enjoy your Sunday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Failure to sneeze / THU 4-21-16 / Brilliantly blue / Textbook market shorthand / Drunk's woe / Redheads book lovers maybe / Title figures in Gilbert Sullivan opera / Nevada county with part of Death Valley National Monument

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: SST to SD — ST- goes to D- at the front of the second word in two-word phrases where first word ends in -S, creating wacky near-homophones, clued "?"-style:

Theme answers:

• BLUEGRASS DATE (19A: Romantic night in Kentucky?) (Bluegrass State)
• NOSE DUD (4D: Failure to sneeze?) (nose stud)
• PLEASE DAY (34A: "Come on, Doris"?) (please stay)
• FALSE DART (41A: Counterfeit Dodge?) (false start)
• CHILDREN'S DORY (57A: Fishing boat at summer camp?) (children's story)
• ICE DORM (45D: Student housing in Fairbanks?) (ice storm)

Word of the Day: Harvey MUDD College (8D: Harvey ___ College) —

Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, founded in 1955 and located in Claremont, California, United States. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds. The college's mission is: "Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities and the social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society." (wikipedia)

• • •

I woke up to this in my Twitter feed:

This never happens. That is to say, this kind of immediate collective outcry about a single answer, this kind of anguish, this kind of astonishment that is so keen you have to shout it at someone the second you're finished—people do shout their puzzle displeasure at me from time to time, because they know I'll understand, if not agree, but to wake up to this kind of singular unanimity: weird. So it was with trepidation and an odd excitement that I dug into today's puzzle, wondering if the answer would have the same impact on me. As I saw 25-Down coming together, my only thought was "... no ... it's not ..." but because other people had already BORNE the impact of that one, I laughed instead of some more violent reaction. How can you not have known that putting that answer in your puzzle would render Everything Else You Did In Your Puzzle virtually invisible. I think this is a relatively novice constructor, so I'll forgive the very common new-constructor thing where you overlook really bad fill because Holy @&$%! I actually built a grid that's fillable! But the editor should've been like "Uh, fix that. Please. Now."

Theme is pretty ho-hum. I think it must have been deemed acceptable (or deemed Thursday, at any rate) because of theme density (i.e. you get those extra Down themers in the NW and SE). There is a Bit of a problem with the answers where the "S" is actually more of a "Z" sound—the homophone part works a lot less well in those cases. That is, PLEASE DAY sounds like PLEASE DAY, not "please stay," and NOSE DUD, well, that second "D" was my last letter and I still didn't get it. I just kept saying NOSE DUD over and over to myself until it dawned on me the base phrase was supposed to be "nose stud," which a. is a million times less familiar / common as a phrase than the others, and b. has the "Z" problem mentioned above, which kills the sound gag.


Struggles:

• HERSHEL (7D: ___ Greene, character on "The Walking Dead") — gave up on that show after season 1. Had HERSHEY there for a bit.
• POWERED ON (11D: Booted, say) — had POWERED UP. This made the SKYEY section more ... I don't know, SKYEY?
• ET TU (51A: "I thought you had my back!") / GUN SHY (48SD: Nervous and apprehensive) — "ET TU" is never not facetious in modern parlance, so a "facetiously" would've been appreciated. As for GUN SHY, I needed every cross and then thought it was a one-word adjective pronounced "GUN'-shee"; I mean, you've already got SKYEY, so why not?
• TYPE (27D: Redheads or book lovers, maybe) — still not sure about this. Is this a dating thing? Like, a kind of woman (man?) you tend to be attracted to? It's a weird, weird clue.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S.

 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Hungarian patriot Nagy / TUE 5-6-14 / Pop star portrayed by J.Lo / Wii ancestor briefly / Player of summer lilt / Chevrolet model beginning in 1958 / H.H. Munro pseudonym

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: PICK UP (47D: Learn … or a word that can precede the ends of 20-, 29-, 44- and 53-Across) — just what it says

Theme answers:

• ICE CREAM TRUCK
• CUTS IN LINE
• TRIVIA GAME
• SWIZZLE STICKS

Word of the Day: PICAYUNE (6D: Paltry) —

adj.

1. Of little value or importance; paltry. See synonyms at trivial.
2. Petty; mean.

n.

1. A Spanish-American half-real piece formerly used in parts of the southern United States.
2. A five-cent piece.
3. Something of very little value; a trifle: not worth a picayune.

[Louisiana French picaillon, small coin, from French, from Provençal picaioun, from picaio, money, perhaps from Old Provençal piquar, to jingle, clink, from Vulgar Latin *piccāre, to pierce. See pique.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/picayune#ixzz30tjIngOC

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Pretty standard words-that-can-follow puzzle with an oddly placed revealer.  Much of the short fill is pretty bad (IMRE, YAH (?), D.A. crossing P.D.A., NEDS and STANS, etc.), but some of the longer fill is pretty good (PICAYUNE, SWIZZLE STICKS, BALL PIT). Puzzle started out kinda hard for me, as NO TIME (1D: "Gotta fly, sorry!"), MINUS (23A: -) and (esp.) CULT (21D: Kind of movie) proved very elusive, but once I got moving, difficulty level swung back to normal. Trying to see if there's very much interesting to say about this puzzle … there's an over-reliance on abbrevs., I think. I wonder if anyone but me tried to answer 61A: Staple of Agatha Christie mysteries with POIROT (instead of the correct POISON). I never had PRE-CALC, just Algebra II then Trig then Calc, so I didn't know PRE-CALC was related to algebra (9D: Advanced algebra class, informally). That meant that I closed the puzzle about as slowly as I opened it, relying on crosses to LOOK ALIKE to get me into that NE corner, and even then screwing things up a bit (PLAN for PLOY initially at 9A: Stratagem).


I believe that's all I have to say about this one. An acceptable, fairly average Tuesday offering.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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