Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Chris Leatherberry

Constructor: Chris Leatherberry

Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. a normal Tues.)

THEME: WATER / SIGNS (38A: With 42-Across, zodiac trio that hints at the longest answers in this puzzle) — longest answers are literal signs (i.e. "postings") that relate to water in some way:

Theme answers:

WASH HANDS BEFORE / RETURNING TO WORK (17A: With 23-Across, restroom posting for employees)
WARNING: HIGH TIDE (53A: Beach posting)
CAUTION: WET FLOOR (63A: Posting after a spill)

Word of the Day: EVIE Sands (47A: Singer Sands of the '60s) —

Evie Sands (born July 18, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter and musician.
Sands' music career spans more than 50 years. In the mid-1960s, while still a teenager, she began her career and eventually found chart success in 1969. Sands retired from performing in 1979 to concentrate on writing and production. She experienced a surge in cult popularity in the 1990s and returned to live performance in mid-1998. Sands continues to write and perform. (wikipedia)

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The wording of the "signs" is a *little* contrived, in order to get them all into 15-letter slots. The sign in restrooms about washing hands always has "EMPLOYEES MUST" in front of it, doesn't it? Dumping the "employees" part into the clue feels like a bit of a cheat. Tides go in and out every day, so I wasn't quite sure what the WARNING: HIGH TIDE sign was warning against, but it looks like on occasion there are specific times of day associated with such signs, letting you know when high tide is, so you don't get stuck on rocks or other places, cut off from the shore, or so you don't park your Jeep or other beach vehicle somewhere where the sea can take it. Most places I've been, the tide just kinda slowly comes in, then slowly goes out, no big deal. No signs. As for CAUTION: WET FLOOR, no problem there, that seems right on the money. Anyway, the "joke" here (take the zodiac term literally) works. I do not love the split revealer with a word in between—there's something aesthetically displeasing about a revealer (moreso than any other answer in the grid) being split in two. It wants to be one, or at least split in a way that keeps the parts adjacent. Actually. I think you either don't split the parts, split them but with nothing in between the parts, or you really really split them (opposite sides of the grid). Here, the single word in between WATER and SIGNS really calls attention to the split and makes the answer look weird: WATER LAD SIGNS! Who is WATER LAD?, the puzzle makes me wonder. Sounds like a character in the '60s superhero discard bin.

Today's fill was pretty rough. What are you doing with Red ADAIR? And BATE?? (19D: Hold, as one's breath). Come on. No one says BATE. People talk (clichély) about "BATEd breath," and that is the only way anyone uses "BATE" as a verb (except as a letter string in common verbs like ABATE, DEBATE, REBATE). It is possible to get high on the dictionary, letting it convince you to put some dumb *&$% in the puzzle that you *know* isn't really (in practice) a thing. If the answer makes you balk in the slightest, a good rule of thumb is: chuck it. Chuck BATE, for sure. The crosswordese comes a bit thick in this one generally, from ETNA NENA to that ugly ACH CHA pair to multiple prefixes (UNI, INDO) to stuff like EERIE and ORATE, which are obviously fine ordinary words, but which add to the overall crusty-crossword feel of a grid when so many other words are subpar or otherwise failing to be interesting. There are only two longer non-theme answers, and one of them is that horrible CANNIBAL joke, ugh (second one of those in recent months) (6D: Someone you might be reluctant to give a hand to?). The humor also misses bad at ETA Pi (which makes me think people are pronouncing the Greek letter "eat-a"?? though I guess the correct pronunciation does sound like "ate-a," which validates the corny fraternity joke) (46A: ___ Pi (fraternity for the sweet-toothed?)). There's just lots of crummy short stuff today. Lots. And food-based fraternity and cannibal puns somehow didn't aBATE the crumminess.

Bottom half of the grid felt much rougher / tougher than the top to me. I couldn't figure out what kind of "Citation" the clue meant at 52D: Citation abbr. (commendation? speeding ticket?), so ET AL was weirdly slow, and since it was adjacent to "I'M OUT" (hard to parse) and DIONE (unknown, then misspelled) (58D: Moon of Saturn), that whole SE section was messy. But not nearly as messy as everything around VIEIRA, which I spelled like "Sierra" (i.e. VIERRA). I'm just dead lucky that I knew who Meredith VIEIRA was at all, since that "V" cross was a doozy—I initially had 47A: Singer Sands of the '60s (really? just ... "of the '60s!?"), as EDIE. Seems like a bad cross, EVIE / VIEIRA. Maybe Meredith is famous enough to eliminate all troubles, but that "V" sure seems like a place someone might trip. To a lesser extent, I'd say the same thing about the "A" at NENA / WADI. Just don't confuse the "99 Luftballons" crosswordese with the Hawaiian goose crosswordese and you'll be fine. I know WADI, but largely from crosswords, I think. If that word is new to you, you aren't alone (whether people will admit it or not). The hardest answer in the puzzle for me was HEW TO (56D: Follow, as orders). You follow orders, you obey orders, you do not HEW TO orders, that is So Awkward. I had the answer as SEE TO for a bit, which isn't good, but it's at least as good as HEW TO (as clued). You HEW TO a norm or standard or set of specifications. It has to do with conforming, not obeying. Those are related, but they are not the same. It's already an ugly piece of fill—botching the clue just makes things worse. Overall, the theme concept was good, the execution so-so, and the fill (and its cluing) somewhat below average. Oh, and note to self (and others?): the sculptor is RODIN, the Japanese movie monster is RODAN (argh!) (7D: Flying adversary of Godzilla).

[this was literally my introduction to RODAN, circa 1982. God bless you, Michael Nesmith—"Elephant Parts" was everything to me as a kid]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. about those side-by-side TOs (DECIDE TO & HEW TO) — nobody's gonna care about your "TO" dupe unless you make them walk hand in hand like that. There's another "TO" up there in RETURNING TO WORK, and I didn't notice or care ... until the TO-TO twins here decided to get cute.

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