Vegan cheese ingredient, often / THU 8-8-2024 / First nonhuman species encountered in the "Star Wars" franchise / Response to an anticlimactic reveal / Basic level of a popular ridesharing app / Company with a purple heart in its logo / French vineyards

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy; even tired and unable to type, still a 3:30 solve

THEME: MINUTE HAND [Part of a clock depicted four times in this puzzle?] — there's four HAND rebuses; I'm a fan of the reveal in that in involves repronouncing "minute" to make the theme work

Word of the Day: LOU (He asked Bud "Who's on first?") —

The Heptapod languages are two constructed fictional languages used in Ted Chiang's short story, Story of Your Life, as well as its later film adaptation, Arrival. In-universe, they are used by the "heptapods", an alien race that makes contact with humanity.

The languages are classified by two separate names, "Heptapod A" and "Heptapod B", as the species uses two separate languages; the former is a spoken language, and the latter a semasiography. These two languages together encapsulate two different concepts of time—Heptapod B presents time as synchronous, while A presents time as sequential, with causality. The two languages are grammatically unrelated. [wikipedia; in the film the alien creatures are nicknamed Abbott and Costello, who are the Bud and Lou (respectively) actually referred to in the clue]

• • •

Christopher Adams here again, filling in today (and also Saturday) for some tricky puzzles. Full disclosure: I solved this while dead tired (two full time jobs after an ungodly early morning run). Thankfully it seemed like a lot of answers / clues were ones I've seen before, and those dropped in quickly enough (even if my tired fingers couldn't quite type them correctly the first, or second, or even third time). Only real problem was going for UNCLE at 5D first, and even then my thoughts while solving were "UN---, "unhand" doesn't fit, let's go UNCLE, but that doesn't fit with "scotch and..."...oh, there's a rebus here", and (in theory) I was off to the races again.

Theme answers:

• SCOTC[H AND] SODA [Mixed drink with an alliterative name]
• [HAN D]YNASY [Preceder of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese history]
• EASIER SAID T[HAN D]ONE ["It's not as simple as it sounds"]
• C[HAND]ELIER [Ornate lighting fixture]

Anyway, thank goodness this was an easy solve, which, nothing wrong with that sometimes for a Thursday. Sometimes it's a tricky hard puzzle. Sometimes it's an easy puzzle to introduce a tricky concept (here, a rebus). And sometimes it's just a relief to have an easy puzzle after a long day; not every Thursday needs to be hard, and if nothing else, this provides a greater contrast for when it actually is difficult.

And thankfully it was also a fun theme; the theme answers were more fun than not (especially the spanner, which I assume was one of the seeds, but also SCOTCH AND SODA and even HANDY NASTY HAN DYNASTY). The down answers were also lively; it's easy as a constructor to focus only on the long entries since they take up more real estate and are what most solvers will notice first, but the shorter rebus entries were all fun. Admittedly, they all used HAND quite literally (as opposed to the acrosses), but three of the four (all but AT HAND) had clues that were evocative and made them fun, and bonus points for the consistency of having actual hands in all the downs but none of the acrosses. Also, bonus points for running REDHANDED through two theme entries pretty cleanly (only the nearby EVO is a demerit), which is a nice touch.

Olio:

• STU [Name spelled out in "The Alphabet Song"] — As far as clues go, this is an old chestnut that's oft RETOLD, and I wish it weren't. It is the second worst cluing angle that I see regularly in the NYTXW; the first, of course, is the NYTXW cluing names (and especially female names) as anything but actual people with that name. I am once again asking Will, Joel, etc. to stop this practice (and I am once again tired of having to make this point).
• ODD [Like most primes] — Two is, of course, the oddest prime of all, as it's the only one that isn't odd.
• COD [A carved one hangs in the chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives]— It's known as the Sacred Cod, and the state Senate does them one better with (and I am not making this up) the Holy Mackerel (which, imo, is the best fish; it's certainly my favorite to eat).
• CASHEW [Vegan cheese ingredient, often] — I did not know this, and now I have a new quest for the next time I'm at the local Hy-Vee (assuming this doesn't happen at the Iowa State Fair this weekend).
• EPEE [Weapon that shares an etymology with "spade" and "spatula"] — Also did not know this, very interesting to learn this and will research it more tomorrow. Will not, however, watch any Olympic fencing; too busy rewatching the men's 1500m and 400m races.
• ASIA [Setting for the FIFA World Cups of 2002 and 2022] — Given that I lived in one of the host countries here while they were building some of the host cities for the Men's World Cup, quite easily saw through the misdirect of country vs continent here.
• SLEEP ["Don't give up on your dreams. ___ longer" (quip)] — I'm going to bed, no alarm, see you all Saturday.

Yours truly, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Offer kudos, in modern lingo / MON 5-27-24 / Rare tennis feat in which one player wins 24 straight points / Programming language since 1995 / Soft leather variety / Ref. that added "turnt" and "deepfake" in 2023

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy (if only I knew how to spell NOVOCAINE...) (solved Downs-only)

THEME: PUT ON A SHOW (62A: Keep up appearances, say ... or what to do with the ends of 17-, 24-, 39- and 50-Across) — ends of the theme answers are things related associated with a theatrical or movie production:

Theme answers:

• JAVASCRIPT (17A: Programming language since 1995)
• GOLDEN SET (24A: Rare tennis feat in which one player wins 24 straight points)
• PODCAST (39A: Audio download)
• GIVE PROPS (50A: Offer kudos, in modern lingo)

Word of the Day: GOLDEN SET (24A) —

In tennis, a golden set is a set which is won without losing a single point. This means scoring the 24 minimum points required to win the set 6–0, without conceding any points.

In professional tennis, this has occurred twice in the main draw of top-level events. It has also happened a number of times in the pre-tournament qualifier of the lowest-level events. Bill Scanlon had a golden second set in his win over Marcos Hocevar at the 1983 Delray Beach WCT event. Yaroslava Shvedova had a golden first set in her win over Sara Errani at the 2012 Wimbledon Championships. Steffi Graf came close to achieving the feat in the finals of the 1989 Virginia Slims of Washington tournament, winning the first five games to love against Zina Garrison, before winning the match 6–1, 7–5. At the 2023 Western & Southern Open, Taylor Fritz won the first five games to love in his round of sixteen match before his opponent, Dusan Lajovic, retired. 

A golden match is when a player does not lose a single point in the entire match. There are five documented cases of this at low-level events. Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman did so in a 1910 amateur match in the state of Washington. Then it happened twice in France in the qualifiers of lowest-level professional events, two of them in the span of two months, both against the same 55-year-old man, Tomas Fabian. A more recent televised Golden Match involved Krittin Koaykul beating Artem Bahmet during a qualifying match at ITF World Tennis Tour event in Doha, and scoring the minimum 48 points to win. (wikipedia)

• • •

This theme seems fine. A basic "last/first-words-associated-with"-type theme. Pains have been taken to make sure that all of the relevant words appear in decidedly non-theatrical contexts in their respective answers, which is nice. Fill's a little flaccid (esp. down below, in the OVULE PETE'S ELENA RESEW area), but I've seen worse. I don't think PUT ON A SHOW is exactly equivalent to [Keep up appearances], but I guess it's close enough. It was a fairly forgettable solving experience but for two moments. First, I technically failed my Downs-only solve because I finished with a misspelled NOVOCAINE. I had it as NOVACAINE (crossing SNARES) as opposed to NOVOCAINE (crossing SNORES). It's a word I've struggled with before, which is why I convinced myself NOVACAINE was right. See, I wanted NOVOCAINE, but because I had misspelled it in the past, or else had seen it written out at some point and thought "that spelling is weird," I assumed that the spelling I wanted was the wrong spelling, so I went with the weirder-looking spelling, NOVACAINE, which honestly still looks pretty good. Maybe it's because it shares its first six letters with the familiar "NO VACANCY." Anyway, wanted the right thing, second-guessed myself and went with the wrong thing, end of story. 

The other thing about this puzzle that is semi-memorable is GOLDEN SET, which made me groan when I got it. Well, no, not groan. It made me make a horrible, dubious face. I got every letter of GOLDEN SET from crosses, checked all those crosses a second time, and then had to concede that yes, the answer was probably GOLDEN SET, but what the hell is that? I figured it was a mathematical term (like the "golden ratio"). After I finished, I looked at the clue and saw that it was a tennis term, which, as someone who played tennis a lot as a kid, and followed professional tennis reasonably closely for a time, was news to me. Never heard of it. When they say "rare," they aren't kidding. See the "Word of the Day" entry for details, but tl;dr it's only ever happened twice at the top level of professional play for men or women. I can't even believe there's a name for it, that's how rare it is. EGOTs are common compared to GOLDEN SETs. So I'm not in love with GOLDEN SET as the chosen (Monday) SET. Must've been pretty hard to find a six-letter set, I guess. I like HORSEY SET, myself. STEREO SET would've worked just fine. But I guess if everything else is Monday easy (and then some—seriously, zero resistance today outside this answer), then you can introduce your weirdo GOLDEN SET. But I will say that looking up GOLDEN SET did lead me to one of my favorite sports stories, out of France—it involves Tomas Fabian, the Czech player who was on the losing end of not one but two (!) golden matches (!!!) inside of two months (!!!!). Wikipedia actually contradicts itself here—the body of their GOLDEN SET write-up says both losses were golden matches, but the match details below say he actually managed to score one point in one of those matches. No matter, still a colossal (under-) achievement. Check out this French write-up of one of those matches. It's amazing:

Le Blockbuster Tomas Fabian a encore frappé ! Ce Tchèque Non Classé de 55 ans s'amuse à écumer les tournois ITF, offrant un étrange spectacle aux yeux ébahis des spectateurs puisqu'il ne sait pas du tout jouer au tennis. Le suspens est toujours à son comble quand il a la raquette à la main : va-t-il, ou non, remporter un point ou offrir un golden score à ses adversaires ? Joffrey De Schepper, tête de série n°3 (25 ans, 1035 ATP) des qualifications du tournoi de Rodez a manqué de peu le score parfait. 48 points à 1 et 21 minutes de jeu plus tard, il a pu poursuivre son chemin et retrouvera au prochain tour Pierre-Olivier Lassalle. (Tennis ACTU)

Blockbuster Tomas Fabian strikes again! This 55-year-old Unranked Czech has fun roaming the ITF tournaments, offering a strange spectacle to the amazed eyes of the spectators since he doesn't know how to play tennis at all. The suspense is always at its height when he has the racket in his hand: will he, or not, win a point or offer a golden score to his opponents? Joffrey De Schepper, seeded n°3 (25 years old, 1035 ATP) in qualifying for the Rodez tournament, narrowly missed the perfect score. 48 points [to] 1 and 21 minutes of play later, he was able to continue his path and will meet Pierre-Olivier Lassalle in the next round. (Google Translate) (emph. mine)

As a 54-year-old unranked American, I adore this "55-year-old unranked Czech" who apparently has no idea what to do with his tennis racket. Tomas Fabian! Where is his Wheaties box!!? Thank you, Monday puzzle, for giving me a new sports idol.

I've heard of "kid gloves" but not DOESKIN gloves (43D: Soft leather variety). Still, I was able to infer it from just the "D" (which I had because what else is gonna go in the "SWE-E" spot?). I forgot for a second that Adobe made PHOTOSHOP, but again, crosses came to the rescue and I got a good "D'oh" out of it once I finally saw it. I would've gone to DOTED U. but got rejected and had to go to a small liberal arts college instead, boo hoo (9D: End of an academic URL). I hear they treat you pretty good at DOTED U. — MAID service, PICASSOs in every room, the works. Must be nice. 

[45D: Painter with a noted "blue period"]

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Cotton fabric named for a French city / MON 6-20-22 / Strong negative reaction as from the public / Late-1950s car stylings designed to look aerodynamic / Lady in Progressive ads / Large props held by contest winners in publicity photos / Leafy fresh herb in caprese salad / Singer Paul with star on Canada's Walk of Fame

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Normal Easy

THEME: NATIONALS (65A: D.C. baseball players ... or what the ends of 17-, 21-, 39- and 55-Across sound like) — last words of themers sound like the name of people of various nationalities:

Theme answers:

• EXIT POLLS (Poles) (17A: Data sources for Election Day coverage)
• NECK TIES (Thais) (21A: Accessories that may feature Windsor knots)
• OVERSIZED CHECKS (Czechs) (39A: Large props held by contest winners in publicity photos)
• TAILFINS (Finns) (55A: Late-1950s car stylings designed to look aerodynamic)

Word of the Day: METTLE (4D: Test one's ___ (be a challenge)) —

1a: vigor and strength of spirit or temperament (see TEMPERAMENT sense 1a)a girl of … mettle who lost a baby brother to leukemia— Bill Zehme

b: staying quality : STAMINAequipment that proved its mettleproved his mettle in battle

2: quality of temperament or dispositiongentlemen of brave mettle— William Shakespeare

on one's mettle

: aroused to do one's best (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Some days, I just ... don't have much of anything to say about a puzzle. I nearly fell asleep in the middle of this one. Do you know how unlikely that is? It's Monday—there's only a 3-or-4-minute window for falling asleep. But this thing just couldn't get up off the ground, somehow, and so I felt very tuned out. The puzzle had a couple of remarkable moments, at the very middle, and the very end (when I went back to see what the hell NATIONALS meant), but in between, it was like watching paint dry. Beige paint. Eggshell. You might say it was ... Ecru-ciating (how is ECRU not in this puzzle?—it really feels like the kind of puzzle where ECRU is lurking, somewhere...). I think the theme works just fine, actually. Of course I didn't notice the theme at all as I was solving, but realizing what the theme was, and that it was pretty consistent and tight, did elicit a little curious / mildly impressed "huh" from me, I'll admit that. I just wish there'd been anything between start and finish to kind of liven things up a bit. There's nothing horrible here. There's just a lot of stale, if perfectly legitimate, short stuff. Well, I said "nothing horrible," but that's not entirely true. There's ISMS. I'm never going to understand any constructor being content to have a non-word like ISMS in their grid when there's absolutely no need for it (as, today, there is not). Do you have any crosswordese like this that drives you nuts, where you're like "no, come on, anything, Anything, but that." ISMS is so made-up that I would happily accept ESAI and ECRU and EPEE in the same small section if it meant not having to see ISMS. I redid the ISMS corner just so I wouldn't have to look at ISMS any more. It came out blah, but blah is 1000x better than what's currently in the grid because what's currently in the grid is ISMS.

And before you knock IRMA, first of all, IRMA Thomas was a great soul singer, and secondly, there's a new TV series on HBO called "Irma Vep," based on a mid-'90s French movie of the same name (starring Maggie Cheung, really worth seeing). "Irma Vep" anagrams to "Vampire." But it's not a vampire movie. Not in the traditional sense. Anyway, the movie version is on The Criterion Channel. Where was I? Ah yes, my No-ISMS policy, which is firm. Definitely a "break only in case of emergency" word.

So, aside from the realization that the theme works just fine, even if it's not terribly exciting, the puzzle's other slight high point came midway, with OVERSIZED CHECKS, easily the most original and interesting answer in the grid. But to my ears the phrase is missing something, specifically the word "NOVELTY" between OVERSIZED and CHECKS. The phrase OVERSIZED CHECKS just doesn't get across the uncashability of said checks. I like the visual image that the clue conveys, but the phrase itself feels, well, passable but not on-the-nose.

 

I had trouble (not capital-T trouble, but trouble nonetheless) coming up with POOL (18D: Game with 15 numbered balls) and METTLE. I kept wanting POOL to be KENO, despite the fact that there are (I think) way more than 15 balls involved in KENO. Something about the way the clue was asking me to imagine POOL just didn't click. As for METTLE, the clue phrase wasn't terribly familiar to me, and the parenthetical part only made things worse (4D: Test one's ___ (be a challenge)). I think if I'd been constructing this I'd've done Anything I could've to turn METTLE into KETTLE. Oh, hey, look: change ATOM (1A: Tiny unit of matter) to AMOK, and bingo, there you go. Done and done. And you get a bonus "K" in the bargain. Sigh. Anyway, METTLE is not bad. I'm not knocking METTLE as a word. But I am saying KETTLE is better. Esp. for a Monday. That's quite enough about this puzzle. See you tomorrow. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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One-named ancient satirist or a Pokemon character / WED 5-25-22 / Convert into a higher-level language, as computer code / Hinged bit of hardware / Art of bone carving

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: I, um, don't really know — looks like "-IUM" has been added to familiar phrases to create wacky phrases. Why, I don't know. But there it is:

Theme answers:

• PODIUM CAST (17A: Group of winners at a film awards show?) (podcast)
• CRANIUM APPLE (27A: Target for William Tell?) (Cran-Apple)
• MEDIUM SCHOOL (46A: Where séance leaders get their degrees?) (med school)
• TEDIUM TALK (62A: Lo-o-ong lecture from a parent?) (Ted Talk)

Word of the Day: IMPOSTORS (21A: Not real royals, maybe) —

The noun referring to one who takes an assumed identity in order to deceive is variously spelled imposter and impostor. Impostor has the edge, and it is the form recommended by most English reference sources, but imposter is not wrong. Not only is it nearly as common as impostor, but it is also nearly as old. Impostor came to English from the French imposteur in the late 16th century, and imposter first appeared almost immediately thereafter. And though the -or spelling has always been more common, imposter has always been present to some degree. // In fact, imposter is more common than impostor in some areas of English. In a search covering a few dozen of the most popular blogs in the English-speaking world, for instance, the ratio of imposter to impostor is about 6:5. Imposter is also a little more common than impostor in 21st-century Australian and New Zealand news publications that make content available online. The two forms are neck and neck in British and American news publications from this century. Meanwhile, in a Google Books search—which covers millions [of] books, journals, and magazines—limited to 2000 to the present, impostor remains about three times more common than imposter. (grammarist.com) (emph. mine)

• • •

There's only one thing I'll remember about this puzzle, if I remember anything, and that's that I default to -ER spellings over -OR spellings (at the ends of nouns) if I'm not entirely sure. And now I'll remember that my "wrong" answer today (IMPOSTERS instead of IMPOSTORS) was not, technically, wrong. Attestations for that spelling are all over the place, and all over the globe. But my answer was "wrong" for this puzzle, since DECOMPILE is (apparently) a word, and DECEMPILE is nonsense, only if you clue that word as some coding jargon, I'm not *exactly* sure how I'm supposed to know that the nonsense is nonsense. Mostly I'm just struggling to understand why you'd burn one of your long Downs on a word as phenomenally boring as DECOMPILE (11D: Convert into a higher-level language, as computer code). I gotta believe that even if you *knew* that word, you were like "oh, I know this! ... yeah, still boring." This grid is desperate, starved for entertainment, starved for interesting fill or genuine pleasure of any sort. Typically, the long Downs (in an Across-oriented theme puzzle) are places to throw down some sparkly fill to add to solving pleasure or at least to make up for a dull theme. But here, we get DECOMPILE and EPIDERMIS. I don't mind the latter, but you wouldn't call either of them gems, and man this theme needed gems—a passel of gems to make up for an inexplicably flat theme. Why -IUM? I still don't see it. Even if there had been some kind wordplay revealer, you're still left with a set of wacky theme answers without a laugher in the bunch. CRANIUM APPLE comes close; you definitely get the most mileage from your -IUM with that one. But the first one, PODIUM CAST, just falls flat—not a great way to open. MEDIUM SCHOOL doesn't pick things up much. By the time I got to TEDIUM TALK I just wanted it to be over. I had the TEDIUM part and thought "which TED is this? Knight? Danson? Oh, TALK, great, thank god that's over."

The grid is absolutely teeming with 3- 4- and 5-letter fill of the commonest variety, which makes it hard to know what to talk about besides how uninteresting it all is. SCRIMSHAW is about the sassiest, liveliest thing here today (54A: Art of bone carving). The short stuff isn't horrendous, just, well, to reuse a word I've used a lot already today, flat. I won't bother listing it all out; you can just look at the grid and see for yourself. If the theme had been a sizzler or even if the longer answers had been winners, all the repeaters that populate the bulk of the grid wouldn't be nearly so disappointing, or even noticeable. Short fill can be familiar and merely adequate if the marquee stuff really shines. Today, it did not. 

["See, EPIDERMIS means your hair ..."] 

Notes:

• 6D: One-named ancient satirist ... or a Pokémon character (LUCIAN) — choose your fighter, I guess. The second half of this clue is depressing to me. A sad, random afterthought that I guess is supposed to act as a bone to ... some class of solver, I don't know. Or maybe it's the puzzle's one very weak attempt to be "current" (never mind that Pokémon is old by now). Anyway, LUCIAN is rolling over in his non-Pokémon grave, and I sympathize with him. "Everything that is known about Lucian's life comes from his own writings, which are often difficult to interpret because of his extensive use of sarcasm." (wikipedia). A writer after my own heart. 
• 14A: Monopoly token replaced by a cat in 2013 (IRON) — I love cats, as you likely know and/or are tired of hearing about by now, but the IRON was a great token and I miss it. That is, I miss it theoretically. Monopoly is a soul-crushingly dull game that I haven't played in decades, so I don't miss it miss it.
• 49A: Unfinished crusade of the 1970s in brief (ERA) — Equal Rights Amendment. The first version was introduced in Congress in 1923. 
• 19A: Reminder of a past injury (SCAR) — here's how to know if the answer to a clue like this is SCAR or SCAB: ... it's just SCAR. "R" is a more common letter, so guess "R." Also, a SCAB will be fresher, so it'll probably have a neutral "wound covering"-type clue, whereas SCAR is likely to be clued in reference to the "past." But again, just guess "R." There are way, way more appearances of SCAR, and anyway half the SCAB clues refer to strikebreakers.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Lib balm brand with a pod-shaped container / WED 12-1-21 / Totally wreck as a noob / Play a wrong note during a violin sonata / 1996 musical set in New York's Alphabet City / One of three in foreground of american gothic

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "ayer" (rhymes with 'mayor') swaps — words that sound like "ayer" are swapped for different words that also sound like "ayer," creating wackiness, I guess:

Theme answers:

• ERR ON THE G-STRING (17A: Play a wrong note during a violin sonata?)
• CLEAN-HEIR ACT (28A: Little prince taking a bath?)
• TO AIR IS HUMAN (44A: "We all put things on TV sometimes?")
• EYRE TO THE THRONE (59A: Headline after Jane becomes queen?)

Word of the Day: Air on the G String (17A) —

"Air on the G String", also known as "Air for G String" and "Celebrated Air", is August Wilhelmj's 1871 arrangement of the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The arrangement differs from the original in that the part of the first violins is transposed down so that the entire piece can be played on just the violin's lowest string (the G string). In performance, that part is generally played by a single violin (instead of by the first violins as a group).

• • •

Yes, all these words rhyme, and you can swap them out and make wackiness, but if you're going to use such an obvious gag, you could at least come up with some rhyme or reason for the pattern of the gag. The "ayer" swaps make no sense. They're completely arbitrary. You've managed to come in with four different "ayers," OK, but you did not come in with four different "ayers" in the base phrases. That is, the first two original phrases are "air" phrases, but then (randomly) they next to are "err" and "heir" phrases, respectively. That repetition of "air" phrases up front of course creates an *apparent* pattern ... but then that pattern doesn't hold up, not because the pattern is different than you imagined, but because there is no pattern. There is no logic to why one "ayer" becomes another "ayer"; it's all just slapdash. "Air" becomes ERR, and then "Air" becomes HEIR. But then "Err" becomes AIR—this ruins the progression of "Air" in the base phrases, but since this third answer reverses the first, there's still some hope that a pattern will emerge. But that would've meant AIR TO THE THRONE. Instead we get EYRE. I don't mind EYRE per se, I just mind that this whole "ayer" business is slopped down on my grid with not thought to order or wit or anything. Also, the puns aren't that great. Maybe genuinely LOL puns would've made up for the sloppiness of the theme execution. The only clue that was funny was the clue that *wasn't* there but that you can't help imagining; that is, a *genuinely* funny clue for ERR ON THE G STRING. The perfect clue is out there, somewhere! Yes, it involves reimagining the meaning of G STRING, but ... why not? You've randomly thrown EYRE in here, so there are no rules, apparently; may as well have some fun. . . 

There were no real issues with the fill, and I liked seeing a couple of the longer answers. FARMER'S TAN was a colorful (!) surprise (10D: What wearing a shirt at the beach might get you), and MUSKETRY ... I don't know why I like it, I just do. I'm not even sure I knew it was a word. It's not called "The Three Guys Who Were Good at MUSKETRY," after all. But I just like the way the word looks / sounds, and it's at least slightly clever that they were able to cross-reference the clue to one third of the actual Musketeers (ATHOS). The short fill was unremarkable but largely unbothersome, which is just fine. Only a couple of pained faces. One for the O'ER / -EER crossing; I wouldn't allow these two crosswordese crutches to share the same grid, let alone have them crossing (also, if I see EER in the grid, I assume it's punctuated E'ER, which ... is pronounced "ayer" ... which kind of reads like static in this grid. Did it want to be the revealer, but then got demoted (and off-centered)? No. But that's what it looks like. The other pained face came at 37A: "Get out!" but only because I found myself in another one of those Kea/Loa situations where you have a letter and then two equally appropriate possibilities present themselves and you have No Way to know which is right without working the crosses. In this case, it was a Scat/SHOO situation. This is just a normal part of doing crosswords, but certain kealoas irk more than others (ALOT/ATON, for instance ... there are others ...)

Five things:

• 28D: Delegation (CONTINGENT) — I just realized that [Trick the fellow who needs a heart in 'The Wizard of Oz"?] would also "work."
• 1A: Titan of industry (CZAR) — Yes. Correct use of the "C" CZAR. Hail "C" CZAR!
• 67A: Mother of Helen of Troy (LEDA) — 30 years of reading / teaching about the Trojan War, still can't get Helen's mom straight. I wrote in LEIA and immediately thought "well that's the wrong Wars entirely..."
• 2D: Swordsman with a horse named Tornado (ZORRO) — If I knew this, I forgot. I kinda wanted this to be EL CID.
• 65D: First word of Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" ("ISN'T") — the musical theater *and* the crossword world mourned the passing of a titan of wordplay this past weekend. Francis Heaney (one of my favorite constructors) put together a tribute puzzle, which you can download for free here. Treat yourself. Good day. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I guess PWN is still a gaming term ("to get the better of" or "dominate," stylized from a typo for "own"). Or else it's a ghost of gaming term and like so much ghost terminology still haunts the grid.

P.P.S. No I never heard of the lip-balm brand with the pod-shaped container either (EOS). Not sure how "pod-shaped container" helps any. Not seeing the connection between pods and the Goddess of the Dawn. But I *am* noticing that my lips are dry, dammit!

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