Composer Dominick whose name means silver in Italian / THU 11-1-12 / Princess known as Defender of Elijans / role that garnered 12 consecutive unsuccessful Emmy nominations 1985-96 / Fredric March's last film / Tributary of High Rhine

Constructor: George Barany and Victor Barocas

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: BLIND [c]ARBON [c]OPY (73A: With 74- & 75-Across, "invisible" part of a distribution list ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — theme answers are 3-part grid-spanners where each of the two black squares represents the letter "C" (because the "C" and the "C" are "BLIND"...)

Word of the Day: LALLY column (2D: ___ column (construction piece)) —

A lally column is round thin walled structural steel column oriented vertically to provide support to beams or timbers stretching over long spans. A lally column is filled with concrete to prevent buckling. The advantage of a lally column over conventional structural steel is the ability to cut it to length on a construction site with simple hand tools such as a plumber’s pipe cutter. Lally columns are generally not as strong or durable as conventional structural steel columns. The term “lally column” is sometimes incorrectly used in reference to other types of prefabricated steel columns.

The lally column is named after a U. S. inventor, John Lally, who owned a construction company that started production of these columns in the late 19th century. He resided in Waltham, Massachusetts and Boston during the period 1898 through 1907. He was issued four U. S. Patents on composite columns: #61472, #869869, #901453,and #905888. Pat. #869869 was assigned to the U. S. Column Company of Cambridge, MA. (wikipedia)

• • •

Mixed feelings. I am quite impressed by the sheer number of theme answers, considering how particular the placement of the "C"s within each answer has to be. I'm also impressed that (for consistency's sake) there are no "C"s at all in the grid. But conceptually I don't quite get it. I know what "bcc" is, and "blind carbon copy," but I've never heard of "blind cc," which is the phrase that would describe what's happening in this grid. I googled that phrase, and it's a thing, of sorts, but, I don't know. Maybe it's something to do with "C" being the symbol for Carbon? The concept feels slightly rickety. Still, I mostly liked the challenge—there's some truly terrible fill here and there (SOHIO, -EAL, ONER, LALLY, ASE, SAR, EFOR, AREAR, etc.), but at least it's all gettable. Maybe if this puzzle had been titled "The Black Sea" or something different, I would feel more warmly about it. Again, I do admire the number and symmetricality of the theme answers.


Theme answers:

• 1A: sports news of 1919 (BLAcK SOX ScANDAL)
• 17A: Toys "R" Us department (ELEcTRONIcGAMES)
• 34A: Frederic March's last film ("THE IcEMAN cOMETH")
• 45A: like some student activities (EXTRAcURRIcULAR)
• 64A: role that garnered 12 consecutive unsuccessful Emmy nominations, 1985-96 (JESSIcA FLETcHER) — of "Murder, She Wrote," played by Angela Lansbury; I could think only of ERIcA KANE.

Not sure why "invisible" is in quotation marks. Clue works fine (i.e. is literally correct) without the quotation marks. Had real trouble with the little areas in NE and SW (where, in each case, two theme answers were in play). Also had trouble in the NW, as BEEPS (1D: Urban cacophony) are computer or timer sounds to me, LALLY meant nothing to me, and AREAR ... well, actually, I got that, but ugh. Also didn't know KETONE (4D: Organic compound with a double-bonded oxygen). Wrote in LEIA for XENA (7D: Princess known as the Defender of the Elijans) (not a trap I've fallen into before, to my recollection, which is shocking, given how many times both princesses appear in crosswords). No idea who this composer guy is, but "silver" in Italian was no problem (9D: Composer Dominick whose name means silver in Italian). I think Dario ARGENTO is more famous than this composer ARGENTO (Dario outgoogles Dominick by 30x when names are put inside quotation marks). I (and many of my friends) went through a ravenous "Tales of the City" phase in college. Those books are entertaining—smart, funny, and very, very readable. This is to say that MAUPIN was a gimme. Cluing in this puzzle wasn't terribly impressive, but 24A: Drawer in a doctor's office? (SYRINGE) was pretty damned good, I must say.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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