Mac former Bay Area hip hop great / FRI 4-19-19 / Sportscaster inducted into Television Hall of Fame in 2013 / Tayside turndown / Opera with Gypsy song

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:19)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Mac DRE (22A: Mac ___ (former Bay Area hip-hop great)) —

Andre Louis Hicks (July 5, 1970 – November 1, 2004), known professionally as Mac Dre, was an American rapper and record producer based in Oakland, CA.  He was instrumental in the emergence of Hyphy, a cultural movement in the Bay Area hip-hop scene that emerged in the early 00s. Hicks is considered one of the movement's key pioneers that fueled its popularity into mainstream, releasing songs with fast-paced rhymes and baselines that inspired a new style of dance. As the founder of the independent record label, Thizz Entertainment, Hicks recorded dozens of albums and gave aspiring rappers an outlet to release albums locally.

In 2004, Hicks was killed by an unknown assailant after a performance in Kansas City, Missouri, a case that remains unsolved. (wikipedia)

• • •

An average experience, but average on Friday is pretty nice. A nice assortment of answers here, and very little junk. IDE rather not see IDE anywhere, but nothing else in the whole grid is really that wince-worthy. Smoothness, with an occasional little crispy or crunch treat. Is an amoeba really a BLOB? That seems somehow ... I dunno, unscientific? Had trouble with BLOB / BLIP, as well as SKAT (50D: Three-player game), which I wanted to be SPIT (which I think is also a card game ... maybe). Took a hilariously long time getting CLAUS (41A: Santa ___). My crossword reflexes are super sharp—perhaps too sharp; so sharp, in fact, that "Santa" makes me think instantly of ANA(S), and nothing else. Maybe ANITA, but this had "S" at the end. Just blanked. Also wrote in GEE for 5D: An end to smoking? (ASH) ('Cause, uh, "smoking" "ends" with the letter "G"). Wrote in ALOT for 4D: Large number (HOST). Wrote in RIOT for 6D: Hilarious sort (HOOT). Hey, what do hilarious sorts race? HOOTRODS! Please use that inscrutably corny joke whenever you like. Anyway, as you can see, several of my errors came in succession in the NW, which was where I spent close to half my solving time. The rest of the puzzle was not nearly so rough to get through.


ALTERED is an anagram of ALERTED, and it's directly above ALERTED, and my brain keeps wanting to make these facts meaningful, but I'm pretty sure they're just coincidences. I am frequently against cross-referencing clues, but SNOOP and DRE really do cry out for each other. I've never heard of today's DRE, but some of my much hipper musical friends are impressed by his inclusion here, so I'm going to defer to them. Seemed like the MICHAELS clue was really tough; I mean, you didn't give me "Al" or nothin' ... people who know nothing about sports are going to be super-confused by that one. Maybe just as confused as if you'd handed them "Al," but at least "Al" would've given them some of hope jarring MICHAELS loose via in-the-air name association. Enjoyed the clues on TETRIS (20A: Game where you don't want to reach the top) and ANDREA (25D: Girl's name in the U.S. that's a boy's name in Italy). Briefly doubted the thingness of COLD ROOM (12D: Food storage spot), but my friend Lena set me straight.

Lena also shared my most cherished error of the day. I wrote in MOTE for 39D: Tiny bit (MITE) and so ended up with a whip-wielding LOON TAMER at 42A: Person who's whip-smart? (LION TAMER). Loon-taming's gotta be at least as hard as lion-taming. Next time you want to use "herding cats" as a metaphor for a leadership challenge, may I suggest you substitute "taming loons"? It's more colorful, and a hell of a lot less cliche.

So yeah. Overall, a good time was had by me. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. pretty sure "epistaxis" is just a "medical term"—not sure where "fancy" comes in (26A: What "epistaxis" is a fancy medical term for = NOSEBLEED). "Myocardial infarction" isn't "fancy." It's technical. Respect the Greek, man

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Romanian currency units / FRI 6-8-18 / Annual fashion event since 1948 / Seller of calorific pastries / Crushed cacao beans used to make chocolate

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (6:09)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: OSSICLE (38D: Anvil, hammer or stirrup) —

noun

ANATOMYZOOLOGY

1. a very small bone, especially one of those in the middle ear. (google)

• • •

Aggressively now, this puzzle is. That's better than "aggressively dated," for sure, though sometimes this kind of hyper-contemporariness feels slightly precious and put on. Like the puzzle is about to morph into a meme or a Vine or something aaaaaany second. I believe the 17A clue when it says that THE MET GALA has been a thing since 1948, but it hasn't really been a Thing Everyone Talks About On Social Media for very long at all. Feels like last five years, and more this year and I've ever seen. The ILLUMINATI is some boring conspiracy theory stuff I can't even laugh it. Like, I don't get it and have no desire to get it (this is how I feel about 99% of conspiracy theories). GO COMMANDO is a phrase that's been around a while. I associate it with Joey from a specific episode of "Friends" (late '90s?), which makes it not exactly fresh ... but not like NEATO- or NERTS- or HEP-old, either. BEATS BY DRE have been around for a little over a decade now—that was the first clue I looked at and the first answer I got (dropped it in immediately and went to work on the crosses).


Anyway, all of this "Down With The Olds!" stuff is perfectly good fill. I have a question about the clue on TRANSGENDER, though (31A: Taking on a new identity, in a way). First, the part of speech seems off, but let's just say that the clue is being used essentially adjectivally ... OK, fine. The bigger issue is ... is that what TRANSGENDER is? It's not a makeover. It's not "The New You." It's just ... you. You with a gender expression that is different from the one that conventionally corresponds with your sex at birth. I mean, you might come out as TRANSGENDER, and coming out is a kind of "taking on a new identity." But lots of people just *are* TRANSGENDER. It's not a new identity. It's ... their identity. Also, something about the cluing makes being TRANSGENDER seem like dyeing your hair or getting really into cycling or something. I dunno. It's not an offensive clue, and I recognize the trickiness of being accurate and concise and (ideally) clever while cluing a term about which people are understandably sensitive. Still, this one missed a little, for me.

I stormed out of the gates on this one, but after the NW, things slowed a little. Balked at singular STRAIT. Really really balked at SCRIPT (do you mean "cursive"?) (34A: Once-standard subject no longer taught in most schools). Two answers were just total mysteries to me: this BYRNES guy (39D: James F. ___, Truman secretary of state) and OSSICLE, which sounds like something a toddler calls a "Popsicle" (38D: Anvil, hammer or stirrup). The clue on IT IS SO ... I dunno ... IT IS SO off, to my ears (36A: "That must be the case"). There is still an element of surmising in the clue phrase, whereas IT IS SO is straight-up certain. "That must be the case" sounds like something you'd say when you're making your best guess. IT IS SO is something  ... well, no actual human would say, but maybe a religious figure in a movie? Someone certain of their utterances, at any rate. Lastly, what's with the "L" in in FRIZZLES (12D: Makes curly). 🎶"Take the L out of FRIZZLES and it's FRIZZES!"🎶 ... which is the only word I recognize here.

Errors include SNYDER for SNIDER (despite having seen him in a puzzle very recently), NOTTE (?) for NOZZE (25A: Mozart's "Le ___ di Figaro"), and ... nope, I think that's it. OK, goodnight.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Sobriquet for filmdom's Daniel LaRusso / FRI 1-26-18 / Stud poker variation informally / Ursine sci-fi creature / Atom with electronic imbalance / Verbal outpouring in slang / Life instinct in psychology

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TALIA al Ghul (Batman foe) (44D) —

Talia al Ghul (Arabic: تاليا الغول) is a fictional character appearing in American comic bookspublished by DC Comics, commonly in association with Batman. The character was created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Bob Brown, and first appeared in Detective Comics #411 (May 1971). Talia is the daughter of the supervillain Ra's al Ghul, the half-sister of Nyssa Raatko, on-and-off romantic interest of the superhero Batman, and the mother of Damian Wayne (the fifth Robin). She has alternately been depicted as an anti-hero.

Talia has appeared in over 200 individual comics issues,^[1] and has been featured in various media adaptions. The character was voiced by Helen Slater in Batman: The Animated Series, which became her first appearance in media other than the comic books. Talia was subsequently portrayed by Marion Cotillard in the 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises, and by Lexa Doig in the television series Arrow. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one was OK. Had ups and downs, high points and low points. HILO! (37D: Stud poker variation, informally) It's trying very hard to be contemporary, at least in a couple places, but in other ways (everything south of SISTER WIVES), it's kind of ordinary and dull (though I did like WET KISS and its clue, 40D: Sloppy planting job?). Difficulty-wise, it was very easy *except* for the NW corner, which threatened to stop me completely when I couldn't get Any of the longs Downs to work. I recognized Daniel LaRusso's name, but couldn't place it, and "filmdom" in the clue made me think LaRusso was an actor, not a fictional, titular character (3D: Sobriquet for filmdom's Daniel LaRusso, with "The"). And then 2D: Dead was just too vague for me to even guess at what INAN- could be. I thought maybe a phrase, like IN AN ... COMA? Something like that. Oh, and then there's WORD SALAD, which is what I had (confidently) written in at 1D: Verbal outpouring, in slang. WORD VOMIT is a. far less common than WORD SALAD, b. gross (has "VOMIT" ever appeared in the NYT!?) (A: no), and c. see a. and b. Luckily I didn't end there, because that would truly have been ending ON A DOWNER (15A: How buzzkills end things).


I know SISTER WIVES only because I'm vaguely aware that there was (is?) a TV show of that name. Like VOMIT, this isn't something that excites me. LORDE, though, is great, and I'm surprised she doesn't appear a lot lot lot more in crosswords. Short answer, favorable letters, super famous. Definitely a keeper. Just replace REUNE and all OLAF / OLAVs with LORDE wherever possible, is my suggestion. Outside of the NW, I got slowed down only in the SE, briefly, as WET KISS suddenly seemed wrong when I dropped in the definitely-right III (55D: Jr.'s son). III next to WET KISS gave me consecutive "I"s and everyone knows that's not possi- ... and then eventually I saw the clue for HAWAIIANS. And I put WET KISS back in. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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1943 French novella / SUN 7-23-17 / Pacific capital / The Big Pineapple / Dance craze 2010s / Agency Human Genome Project / Bert who sang "If I Only Had the Nerve" / 1990 Nobelist Octavio

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Easy (16:36)

THEME: "Back on the Charts" — Names of musical artists are "back" -- i.e. at the end of the entries -- and on the charts -- i.e. in the grid.

Theme answers:

• 30A: Title character in a 1943 French novella [6] (LITTLE PRINCE)
• 47A: The Big Pineapple [4] (HONOLULU)
• 66A: Like some lawyers' work [4] (PRO BONO)
• 86A: "Why are you looking at me?" [4] (WHAT'D I DO)
• 100A: 11th-century campaign [4] (FIRST CRUSADE)

  

  First Crusade

• 3D: 17,000+-foot peak near the Equator (MOUNT KENYA)  
• 5D: Make airtight, in a way [4] (HEATSEAL)
• 10D: Healthy [4] (IN THE PINK)
• 12D: Nightshade family member [4] (MANDRAKE)
• 13D: Prized possession [5] (CROWN JEWEL)
• 26D: One doing routine office work, informally [5] (PEN PUSHER)
• 51D: Dave of jazz [4] (BRUBECK)
• 63D: One leading the exercises, for short? [4] (PE TEACHER)
• 70D: Fruity spirit [6] (PEAR BRANDY)
• 73D: Vain, temperamental sort [7] (PRIMADONNA)
• 77D: Band member's main squeeze? [4] (ACCORDION)
• 82D: 1940 Disney release [3] (FANTASIA)*
• 87D: Pulling off bank jobs [5] (HEISTING)

* Depending on your preferred cultural frame of reference, this could have also been early 80s synth-rock band ASIA (with their chart-topping hit "Heat of the Moment") or third-season American Idol champion FANTASIA (with her chart-topping hit "I Believe"). Also, dude. DAVE BRUBECK. Take Five and take him back to the charts.

Word of the Day: AGOUTI (69A: Guinea pig relative) —

The term agouti (Spanish: agutí, pronounced [aɣuˈti]) or common agouti designates several rodent species of the genus Dasyprocta. They are native to Middle America, northern and central South America, and the southern Lesser Antilles. Some species have also been introduced elsewhere in the West Indies.^[1] They are related to guinea pigs and look quite similar, but are larger and have longer legs. The species vary considerably in colour, being brown, reddish, dull orange, greyish or blackish, but typically with lighter underparts. Their bodies are covered with coarse hair which is raised when alarmed. They weigh 2.4–6 kg (5.3–13.2 lb) and are 40.5–76 cm (15.9–29.9 in) in length, with short, hairless tails. (Wikipedia) [Them are cute rodents. (Me)]

• • •

Hello, CrossWorld! Rex is on a well-deserved vacation, so you get me, Laura, blogging the puzzle through next Sunday. Be confident there will be no disruptions in your regularly scheduled crossword blogging service. Between you and me, I didn't find this a terribly exciting Sunday with which to start our week together. I wanted the theme to do more than just hide the names of chart-topping popular musical artists -- in fact, I even spent a little time browsing the Billboard charts to see if there was any correlation between, say, the entry number and the artist's chart position re their biggest hit -- but, no, unless I'm missing something. (Mansplain at me in the comments, if so.) A few of the artists are hidden beautifully in the entries (86A: WHAT'D I DO, 26D: PEN PUSHER [wait, don't we usually say PENCIL PUSHER? or PAPER PUSHER?]) but others were more than obvious (30A: LITTLE PRINCE, 10D: IN THE PINK). Also -- and this is likely a function of cramming so many (eighteen!) themers into the grid -- we've got some oldies in there -- Dion! Lulu! -- who are outliers from the rest of the late-1980s-to-the-present playlist.

Double helix in the sky tonight

Fill-wise ... wow, lots of little words. I'm working hard on improving my own constructing skills, and I struggle the most with limiting the inclusion of three-letter entries that are abbreviations or tired crosswordese. It's difficult to do this well, and this grid suffers a bit with EST, WTO, AEC, NIH, DSO, DOA, OTB, FCC, CNN, NEA and the like.

Bullets:

• 89A: Inverse trig function (ARCTAN) — One of my crossword twitter friends (who is also a fine constructor) goes by the handle @ArctanPrime. Being a humanities person/librarian who hasn't taken math since my first year of college, I didn't quite remember what this meant. Now I know! Raising a glass in your general direction, Chris!
• 99A: Lewis ___, 1848 Democratic candidate for president (CASS) — Is he the most famous CASS out there? Not Ellen Naomi "Mama CASS Elliot" Cohen? Or legal scholar CASS Sunstein? Anyone?

• 55A Bert who sang "If I Only Had the Nerve" (LAHR) — But I could show my prowess/ Be a lion, not a mowess/ If I only had the noive ...

See you tomorrow! And the day after that. And a few more after that!

Signed, Laura Braunstein, Sorceress of CrossWorld

[Follow Laura on Twitter]

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Faction in Twilight fandom / SUN 10-30-16 / 2000s group with three eponymous Disney Channel films / Event code-named Operation Neptune / Angel who visited Joseph Smith / 1998 Faith Hill hit that describes perpetual bliss

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Updates" — first words of themer begin with names of MAC OPERATING SYSTEMS (65A: Things found at the starts of the answers to the six starred clues); the "Updates" appear in real-life order:

Theme answers:

• CHEETAH GIRLS (28A: *2000s group with three eponymous Disney Channel films, with "the')
• PUMA SNEAKERS (34A: *Athletic footwear once promoted by Pelé)
• JAGUAR XKE (58A: *Enzo Ferrari called it "the most beautiful car ever made")
• TIGERLILY (75A: *Showy orange bloom)
• LEOPARD PRINT (96A: *Something spotted on a runway?)
• LION IN WINTER (103A: *1968 Peter O'Toole drama, with "The")

Word of the Day: CHEETAH GIRLS  —

The Cheetah Girls were an American girl group consisting of Adrienne Bailon, Kiely Williams, and Sabrina Bryan. The group was created by Disney, and were made famous by the eponymous Disney Channel original film and its sequels, The Cheetah Girls 2 and The Cheetah Girls: One World. The group has released three studio albums, Cheetah-licious Christmas, In Concert: The Party's Just Begun Tour, and TCG and several RIAA certified Platinum albums including, The Cheetah Girls, The Cheetah Girls 2, and The Cheetah Girls: One World. All of their albums and soundtracks have debuted in the Billboard 200. The soundtrack to their first movie sold over 2 million copies. (wikipedia)

• • •

I enjoyed solving this, for the most part, though the theme is semi-blah. I do like that the MAC OPERATING SYSTEMS appear in actual chronological order, so the "Updates" title makes sense, but the cats ... are just cats ... and not even "hidden cats" or "cat names in non-cat contexts." I mean, LEOPARD PRINT is just a print ... of the skin ... of the cat. PUMA SNEAKERS have a very famous logo ... or a cat. Dunno. I'm lukewarm on the concept. And *yet*, the grid itself I found pretty sassy and fun. "Contemporary" and "young" in that way that is going to make the pop-culture haters scream. This pleases me.


Things that I enjoyed seeing include COACHELLA, GENIUS BAR, and BE THAT WAY, which in the grid looks like someone named BETH ATWAY. I never entered the whole "Twilight" world of things, but #TEAMJACOB came oddly easily. Ditto CHEETAH GIRLS, whom I could not pick out of a lineup. That's pretty much it for the youth culture, except possibly LARP, which is one of the most amazingly ugly acronyms known to humankind (stands for Live-Action Role-Playing, FYI). I finished this baby in about eight and a half minutes, which is possibly my Sunday NYT record (I've been around 7 on other Sunday-sized puzzles before), but I did have some trouble spots. Ironically, the answer it took me longest to get was the revealer. Couldn't parse it, and didn't think too much of it, since I was tearing up the grid so bad. I have no idea what ATC is (53D: J.F.K. tower grp.). Oh, Air Traffic Control, duh. Man, you never see that in crosswords. Weird. I kept thinking "tower" was being used in the sense of "one who tows," so, yeah, no hope there. Had BASK for BAKE (56A: Lie on the beach), so that hurt, briefly. ALER (along with its NL counterpart) remains deplorable, even during the World Series, where such a word might almost have a place (16D: 'Stro, e.g.). Speaking of World Series ... gotta go watch. Bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I'm in US Weekly this week. Yeah, I know. "What?" I also said that.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Popular six-second clips since 2013 / SUN 8-17-14 / Title film locale in Springwood, Oh / Singer with 2009 hit Tik Tok / Accoutrement popularized by a Seinfeld episode / Mortal queen of Thebes who was transfigured into goddess / R&B sing with 2004 #1 hit Goodies

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for reasons I don't understand, as the theme was easy enough to pick up …)

THEME: "Sittin' Solve"— theme answers are "___ AND ___" phrases that have been converted to "___IN' ___" phrases by way of Texan homophony. Yes, Virginia, there is wackiness.

Theme answers:

• WRITIN' WRONG (20A: Spellin' things incorrectly?)
• JACKIN' COKE (29A: Stealin' a hard drug?)
• ROCKIN' ROLL (32A: Pushin' some bread back and forth?)
• BARRIN' GRILL (66A: Not allowin' anyone to cook burgers and franks?)
• TIMIN' AGAIN (104A: Recheckin' with a stopwatch?)
• SHOWIN' TELL (106A: Demonstratin' how to shoot an apple off someone's head?)
• CUTTIN' PASTE (116A: Usin' less stickum?)
• HITTIN' MISS (2D: Givin' a female casino patron another card?)
• BUYIN' LARGE (12D: Makin' some big purchases?)
• WILLIN' GRACE (38D: Hopin' favor is bestowed?)
• NIPPIN' TUCK (73D: Btitin' a friend of Robin Hood?)
• HAULIN' OATS (75D: Carryin' a load of grain?)

Word of the Day: Clark GREGG (79D: Clark ___, "The Avengers" actor) —

Robert Clark Gregg (born April 2, 1962) is an American actor, screenwriter and director, best known for his role as Phil Coulson in the films Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), and Marvel's The Avengers (2012), and in the television series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which airs on the ABC network. He also voices the character on the animated television series Ultimate Spider-Man. Gregg has also co-starred as Christine Campbell's ex-husband Richard in the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which debuted in March 2006 and concluded in May 2010. He also played FBI Special Agent Mike Casper on the NBC series The West Wing and Cam, the on-and-off boyfriend of Jack (and client of Grace) on the NBC series Will & Grace. [BOOM, stealth "Will & Grace" / WILLIN' GRACE tie-in! All the points to Slytherin'!]

• • •

Former Shortz assistant and former co-constructor of mine Caleb Methuselah Madison has a new offering for us. He wrote me ahead of its publication, not (as I expected) to plead for a kind review, but to ask ("insist" is closer to it) that I tell everyone about his insane summer vacation experiences, about which he has created a most bizarre and mesmerizing tumblr: "If you didn't see on my various social media hubs, I spent [the summer] living in an RV in Forks, Washington with the owner and only tour guide of the last surviving "Twilight" tour company, taking pix and interview people in the town. It was surreal and crazy and what am I doing with my life." So there you go. Now I am going to segue to the puzzle via the observation that, like many of today's young people, Mr. Madison is highly attuned to the tech / pop culture / social media world (witness the tumblr account you have just witnessed) (segue!). This puzzle grid roils with such modern contrivances as The ZUNE The SNAPCHAT and The EMOJI and The VINES (actually *The* VINES are a musical group, which Caleb also probably knows—his name-dropping of CIARA and KESHA and 50 Cent lets you know he's fluent in most popular music forms right up to 2009). Throw in SASHA Fierce and whoever Clark GREGG is, and you can see that Mr. Madison is a young man of this century.


Like Friday's puzzle, this puzzle's theme was somewhat unremarkable (from a solving standpoint) and easy to uncover. Unlike Friday's puzzle, this grid abounds in good fill. It looks like a highly segmented nightmare, scattershot through with black squares, like an English muffin or a honeycomb or some kind of horrid life-size human maze that you'd get lost in as a child. The design made me think the puzzle would be easy to cut through, and that the interesting answers would be few and far between, but I was wrong on both counts. Clues were both smart and tough, so that I *repeatedly* got stuck and had to break my preferred method of constant interlock solving (Always Work Crosses, Never Jump Around … unless ordered to by these guys) and leap into the void anew. It looks like you'd have a million different ways to get into each section of the puzzle, but in practice, if you wanna come down the left and drop into the SW, it's go through INO or go home. You can try to get around via GRAVEN, but that's a narrow aperture as well. Even coming up via V-NECKS really just takes you back to GRAVEN again. What I'm saying is that it was a funhouse of a puzzle, and I got all confused and twisted around. The experience was not entirely unpleasant.


Some of the theme answers did, in fact, amuse me (HAULIN' OATS, for instance), and it's at least somewhat impressive that the Down theme answers run through one and sometimes two other theme answers. Yes, the preponderance of short answers in a big puzzle meant that there was some yuck along the way. I did not stand and applaud for: INO CIARA AGGRESS ELMST ELIE ELS KAN IDE EEO and some other things. But stuff like VERTICALS and MAN PURSE and SNAPCHAT and MORAY EEL kept me very much entertained. ROBOTRY! So proper. That's what Jeeves, my butler, calls it. I'm a rube who says "robotics."


My post-vacation cold means I'm even more behind on puzzle-solving than ever, so it'll be another week, at least, before I discuss the Great Puzzles out there in the rest of puzzle world. I'm all hopped up on the start of the Premier League season today, so I'm gonna go watch highlights and drink some tea and see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Wednesday, April 10

Constructor: Julian Lim

Relative difficulty: Easy if you're a movie buff, challenging if not.

THEME: Memorable movie lines — 6 quotes from AFI (11a: Movie org. that created a top-100 list from which all of this puzzle's quotes come)

Word of the Day: DAVIT (38a: Shipboard crane) —

a crane that project over the side of a ship or hatchway and is used especially for boats, anchors, or cargo (Merriam-Webster online dictionary)

• • •

Hello again! Welcome to 20 Under 30 Does the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, Part III. Alex Blum and Caleb Madison, just a couple of SEX (66a: Kinsey topic) CUTIEs (67a: Adorable one) coming atcha once again from Yale U. What a puzzle! 15x16 with a stack of double 15s in the center (check out that L-square in the mideast!) Julian Lim reels off a smattering of movie quotes... and there's the theme.

Theme answers:

• 17a: Memorable movie line spoken by... Jack Nicholson (HERE'S JOHNNY)
• 22a: ...Haley Joel Osment (I SEE DEAD PEOPLE)
• 37a:...Renée Zellweger (YOU HAD ME AT HELLO)

Caleb insisted this happen. Hungry for more?

• 40a:...Marlon Brando (STELLA, HEY, STELLA) - we usually think of this as just "STELLA!" but AFI confirms this is the exact quote.
• 46a:...Greta Garbo (I WANT TO BE ALONE) - this is the only quote we were both unfamiliar with... but it's a thing. 
• 58a:...Debra Winger (heard but not seen) (E.T. PHONE HOME) - our favorite of the bunch. It looks weird in the grid (ETPH) and we had no idea that she voiced ET!

We like the quotation density and the theme-stacking architectural feat, but the theme itself is a little straightforward. Themes like this, which reveal themselves completely in the first theme answer, run the risk of feeling like an inventory, which is both incomplete and arbitrarily-chosen (or chosen based solely on how they fit into a grid). Still, it was a generally fun solve with some splashy fill in what must have been a tricky construction job.

We also appreciated the bonus movie-related fill: ALI(63a: 2001 Will Smith biopic), ELF(57a: Snap, Crackle or Pop), WALL-E(47d: 2008 Pixar robot), OSHEA(54d: Milo of "The Verdict"), LOEWS(53d: Bygone theater chain), HE-MEN (43a: Many Sylvester Stallone Characters), and AHN (52d: Philip of "Kung Fu").

Bullets:

• 18d: President Bartlett of "The West Wing" (JED) — you had Blum at "The West Wing"
• 10d: "Gangnam Style" rapper (PSY) — We thought this was a first! Turns out the Korean dance sensation made his debut in another puzzle by Mr. Lim a few months ago. Still fun to see in the puzzle.

• 49d: Baked, so to speak (ON POT) — hm... not sure how in the language this is. Most Google hits of this phrase use "on" to mean "concerning" or "about" rather than "under the influence of." Unrelatedly, see EIGHTH (25d: Pizza slice, often), REEK (32d: Stink), ALLMAN (34d: Rocker Gregg who married Cher)... and later probably NACHOS (56a: Cheesy treat). 
• 11d: There was always a point to what he wrote (AESOP) — We mean, hopefully true for all writers. Originally, we were expecting something like PENNER... or something to do with a nib... Anyway, we think there's a difference between a moral and a point.

This is Blum's Facebook cover photo #RealLife

• 41a: Digital communication, for short? (ASL) - great clue.
• 62d: The ___ [fittingly] (END)

Signed, Caleb Madison and Alex Blum, IDIOTS of CrossWorld

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Recurring Stephen King antagonist Randall / SUN 3-31-13 / Device Professor X wears over his head in X-men / 1983 film debut of Bill Maher / One-named R&B singer / Noted American writer in Yiddish / Ones who wrote in Ogham alphabet / Mythological figure kithara / Computer used to predict 1952 election / Aconcagua setting

Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Special Features" — An Easter puzzle with the revealer EASTER EGGS (115A: Hidden DVD feature ... which can be found, literally, in the answers to the starred clues) — each letter of "EASTER EGGS" (in order) has been added to the first word of movie titles, creating wacky movie titles, clued "?"-style.

Theme answers:

• 23A: *Movie about ... an intense blinking context? ("STARE WARS")
• 28A: *... a housecleaner? ("NEAT WORK")
• 30A: *... a sled racer? ("SNOW VOYAGER")
• 44A: *... a bee during a downpour? ("STINGIN' IN THE RAIN")
• 56A: *... actor Jason's fan club? ("BATEMAN FOREVER")
• 80A: *... Jerry Garcia's band's portraits? ("DRAWN OF THE DEAD") — trying to figure out how grammar on this works ... 
• 88A: *... a parent's edicts? ("TEEN COMMANDMENTS")
• 100A: *... a king's brilliance? ("REGAL GENIUS")
• 108A: *... a harvester? ("GRAIN MAN")

Word of the Day: CEREBRO (72A: Device Professor X wears over his head in "X-Men") —

In the Marvel Universe, Cerebro (Portuguese and Spanish for "brain") is a device that the X-Men (in particular, their leader, Professor Charles Xavier) use to detect humans, specifically mutants. It was created by Xavier and Magneto, and was later enhanced by Dr. Hank McCoy. The current version of Cerebro is called Cerebra, to be distinguished from the character of the same name. Cerebro first appeared in X-Men (vol 1) #7 (1964). (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this was a lot of fun. There were some weird moments—I don't know how "DRAWN" (or maybe "OF") is being used in "DRAWN OF THE DEAD"; I loved / was mystified by CEREBRO, which seems nerdily arcane; and though the puzzle overall felt *very* easy, the tiny patch in the NNW was absurdly hard. I spent about a quarter of my time on this puzzle trying to figure out what amounts to little more than a 3x5 patch of land. But none of these things (except the "DRAWN" thing) is knock on the puzzle. Just strange moments that stand out in an overall fast and fluid solve. Having worked with Caleb, I know and value how much care he puts into non-theme fill. Many Sundays, what you get is All Theme, and at best the fill is mediocre, at worst it's been compromised to make the theme work. Here, not only is the fill mostly smooth, but there are these great bonuses in the Downs, CAROL KANE and DEATH METAL (13D: Music genre of Possessed and Deicide), CUT CORNERS and CHEWBACCA (such a good clue—78D: Solo companion). LADIES' NIGHT! The only one I didn't like was "LOST WEEKEND," and the only reason I didn't like it was that it felt mildly distracting to have a long movie title in the puzzle that fell *outside* the whole EASTER EGG theme. Also, I don't like when "THE"s and "A"s are omitted on titles, esp. long ones (4D: 1945 Best Picture winner, with "The"). But again, these are minor quibbles. There are a lot of very good constructors under 30 at this moment, and Caleb (who is Way under 30) might just be the best of them. If he's not, he's close.

Now about that patch of trouble up top. I got "STARE WARS" easily enough, but hadn't yet clearly grasped the theme, so "SNOWV-" did not trigger the movie "NOW, VOYAGER" the way it was supposed to. So I didn't have the back end of that answer, and I didn't know HENRY I (20D: English king who was a son of William the Conqueror) (I had HENGST in there... which is wrong on so many levels—five centuries to early, misspelled, legendary ...). I had ROE but absolute didn't know FLAGG (8D: Recurring Stephen King antagonist Randall ___) or ARGONS (27A: Atoms in some light bulbs) and, most importantly, thought SEL was EAU (19A: It's found in la mer). So ... I was just stopped. For I don't know how long. Once I (finally) ditched EAU, ASSAY and TETRA went in pretty quickly, and then I pieced it all together. Wrong answers are The Worst. Lately, all of my disastrous time losses have been due not to ignorance, but to a wrong answer I am sure is right (so sure that I don't even question it).


There was a good deal of pop culture in the grid, beyond the theme itself (not atypical for a Madison grid). I never saw "D.C. CAB," but I do know it exists, so the odd combination of letters in that answer didn't throw me off (13A: 1983 film debut of Bill Maher). I never listened to MYA, but I know her name (this is true for me of almost all pop singers who got famous after 1996) (95A: One-named R&B singer). I know NATASHA Bedingfield from ... something. "Torn?" Nope, that's Natalie Imbruglia. Hmmm ... It's a name I know from people mentioning it on "Idol" (way back when, when I watched "Idol"). Oh, right, "Unwritten." Some girl sang it and promptly got sent home. Anyway, her name has stuck for some reason (74A: Pop singer Bedingfield).


Bullets:

• 3D: Mythological figure often depicted holding a kithara (ERATO) — looks forbidding. Isn't. Just good ol' ERATO. A "kithara" is a lyre-like instrument. 
• 29D: Noted American writer in Yiddish (ASCH) — Sholem. Never read him. Just know him.
• 35D: Computer used to predict the 1952 presidential election (UNIVAC) — ENIAC wouldn't fit. I have heard of UNIVAC (which always sounds like a vacuum brand to me), but had no idea it predicted anything, let alone the '52 election.
• 102D: Ones who wrote in the Ogham alphabet (GAELS) — got it off the "G"; I don't know ... just sounded Gaelic. And that's how I solved that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Popsicle in Fifty Shades of Grey / SUN 10-28-12 / Psychologist Jean / Prime minister of 1945 / 1978-79 CBS detective drama / Softly exhale cheap sentiment / Hoarders airer

Constructor: Michael Sharp and Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: ???

THEME: "WHAT THE ..." — familiar phrases have the sound "-THE" added to end of a word in that phrase, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style

Theme answers:

• 23A: "Come on, woman, shape that wood!"? ("LATHE, LADY, LATHE")
• 38A: Cheerful superhero? (CAPTAIN BLITHE)
• 52A: Take a patient approach to revenge? (WAIT AND SEETHE)
• 71A: Ones who stop giving to their church? (TITHE BREAKERS)
• 89A: Softly exhale cheap sentiment? (BREATHE CHEESE)
• 101A: Mad scientist's sadistic exclamation upon attacking the Empire State? ("WRITHE, NEW YORK!")
• 119A: What the Grim Reaper's backup carries? (SCYTHE OF RELIEF)
• 15D: "If you don't like my anger, do something about it!"? ("SO SOOTHE ME!")
• 76D: Hate coke? (LOATHE BLOW)

Word of the Day: "KAZ" (96A: 1978-79 CBS detective drama) —

Kaz is an American crime drama series that aired on CBS from September 10, 1978 to April 22, 1979. // Ron Leibman starred as Martin "Kaz" Kazinsky, a Polish American former convict who became a criminal defense attorney after he was released from prison. Leibman won anEmmy Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a drama. Nevertheless, the show failed to capture an audience and was cancelled due to low ratings. In all, 22 episodes aired. (wikipedia)

• • •

Origins (from memory, so I might get a detail wrong here or there): Caleb wrote me with "LATHE LADY LATHE" and asked if I wanted to help build a theme around that answer. We brainstormed a *lot* of words to which you could successfully add "-THE," and then a lot of potential phrases using those words ("LATHE LADY LATHE" is still my favorite, esp. as clued—if you're gonna do wacky, Do Wacky, i.e. Absurd—this is also why I like my second-favorite theme answer, "WRITHE, NEW YORK!"). Once we settled on a symmetrical group of answers, Caleb put together the grid. Fast. One second we were talking about it as a hypothetical, next thing I know, he sends me a fillable grid, with all the theme answers in place, and (impressively) with theme answers even intersecting in the NE and SW. Then we filled it. This is a weird thing to do with two people. I think at first he took the east and I took the west. Then we took passes making things mesh. Back and forth a few times. Done. But ... this is not the grid we initially submitted (dum dum DUM!).


Well, most of it is, but the entire SW corner has been rewritten since we first submitted it. This is because Will liked the theme, wanted to run the puzzle, but balked at including one of our longer answers: Chinese artist and dissident AI WEIWEI. Will wrote:

I like the theme, but ... would you be willing to change the lower-left corner? I'm not crazy about the entry AI WEIWEI. He's not so well-known yet, and his name is crazily spelled and not inferable. IS DONE in the same corner isn't so wonderful either. Maybe the whole area can be improved.

He was certainly right about IS DONE, but I was a bit surprised about the AI WEIWEI rejection. I thought he was pretty famous, or at least NYT-reader famous. Just this week, a video of AI WEIWEI has been making the rounds (via sites like The New Yorker, New York Magazine, etc.). Maybe you've seen it.

Plus, I thought we'd made sure all the crosses were fair, so even people who hadn't heard of him could still solve the puzzle. But Will knows his audience better than we do, so we happily obliged. Since that was "my" corner, I tore it up and started plugging in AI WEI WEI substitutes. Now, both Caleb and I like to make the most of longer answers—to find new, weird, fresh, strange, or otherwise grabby words, names, or phrases to work into the grid. So I started throwing in as many good 8s as I had lying around. I got some of them to work, but there was always something not-quite-right about the resulting fill. Then, perhaps because I was constructing the puzzle at the height of "Fifty Shades" mania, I hit upon SAFE WORD and refused to let go. Hence TROW, which I kinda hate (90D: Suppose, to Shakespeare). But the rest of the adjacent fill works just fine, and I can't tell you how happy I am that SAFE WORD got in, and got in just as I'd clued it (106A: "Popsicle," in "Fifty Shades of Grey," for one).


DAAÉ is one of my least favorite crossword names (55D: Christine ___, "The Phantom of the Opera" girl); it's a name that looks like it was invented by a crossword constructor just to get herself out of a jam. Blecch. But I was intent on marrying Caleb's great SE corner with the fill he had going on up top, and so that middle-right portion of the grid was wicked hard to pull off. I had to invent CABLEMEN (which, thankfully, it turns out, is a real thing; 65A: Some electrical workers), and choke down NHLER and that ugly little LST / ATA crossing, but I was generally happy with the result. There's a Random Roman Numeral in there, so, you know, yuck, but as clues for DLIX go, I like mine (131A: 1,000 years before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I).


Bullets:

• 19A: Setting for the 2012 film "Argo" (IRAN) — Sometimes Will modernizes the clue. Like here. I certainly didn't know what "Argo" was when C and I were making this puzzle. Other current clues Will added include 95A: San Antonio mayor Julián, keynote speaker at the 2012 Democratic convention (CASTRO) (interesting, considering Will took *out* my Republican convention clue for CLINT (16D)... ), and 32D: Replacement refs, maybe? (SCABS).
• 42A: Oklahoma birthplace of Oral Roberts (ADA) — I'm reasonably certain Oral Roberts did not figure in our original cluing. I just started watching "The United States of Tara" earlier tonight, and in an earlier episode the actor who plays Buster Bluth in "Arrested Development" plays an English teacher named Oral. Or Orel, I guess. It wasn't spelled out.
• 116A: Canon fodder? (FILM) — nice clue. Not mine. Maybe Caleb's, maybe Will's, can't remember. My wife didn't like the clue until I explained "Canon" referred to the camera. She was thinking of "canon" as a set of great works.
• 53D: Carnival Cruise Lines stop (ARUBA) — seems pretty vague. I think our original clue had something about the capital, Oranjestad, which now that I think of it would look beautiful in a grid.

Hope you enjoyed the puzzle. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex "Michael Sharp" Parker, King of CrossWorld

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