Robinhood competitor / FRI 2-26-21 / Fencing sport with bamboo swords / Flavoring of Cedilla liqueur / and Ole stock characters in Upper Midwest jokes / Equatorial plantation crop / Bring aboard sci-fi style / Follower of McCarthy

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (???!) (no idea, solved it on ZOOM whilst chatting)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GIO Ponti (19A: Italian architect Ponti) —

Superleggera chair

Giovanni "Gio" Ponti (18 November 1891 – 16 September 1979) was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher.

During his career, which spanned six decades, Ponti built more than a hundred buildings in Italy and in the rest of the world. He designed a considerable number of decorative art and design objects as well as furniture. Thanks to the magazine Domus, which he founded in 1928 and directed almost all his life, and thanks to his active participation in exhibitions such as the Milan Triennial, he was also an enthusiastic advocate of an Italian-style art of living and a major player in the renewal of Italian design after the Second World War. From 1936 to 1961, he taught at the Milan Polytechnic School and trained several generations of designers. Ponti also contributed to the creation in 1954 of one of the most important design awards: the Compasso d'Oro prize. Ponti died on 16 September 1979.

His most famous works are the Pirelli Tower, built from 1956 to 1960 in Milan in collaboration with the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, the Villa Planchart in Caracas and the Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina in 1957. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello! It's time for my monthly Zoom-solve with my friend and fellow central New Yorker, crossword constructor Rachel Fabi. Normally we'd do it on the 23rd, but ... you know, circumstances, so here we are, solving a Friday puzzle on the 26th. 

Our overall take was: very nice central stack, decent long Downs, rough everywhere else. Which seemed upside-down, as pulling off a clean 15 stack seems like it would be more challenging than simply filling a relatively small and highly sequestered corner, but, yeah, none of the corners was very good, and one (the NE) was just baffling. You can watch the video and see us solve it in real time, but if you're not so inclined, I can tell you there is a good chunk of time where I just keep changing IMPASTO (!?!?!) to IMPASSE over and over and over again. The IMPASTO / TAW (!?!?!?!?!) cross is extremely likely to cause some subset of solvers to just stare at the grid in befuddlement. I don't think IMPASTO or TAW is particularly good on its own, but I *know* they're awful when they team up to cross at that "T." It's been 60 years since anyone could tell you the different marble types—since anyone played marbles at all, honestly—so what in the hell is that clue even doing? IMPASSE / SAW / ERS ... why did the puzzle not go this direction? I'm all for the road less traveled, but sometimes you don't travel down a road because it's full of potholes or leads off a cliff. It's true that TO SEE is already in the grid, and maybe you don't want SAW and SEE in the same grid, but. you can clue SAW as a noun, a bunch of ways, so that ... really shouldn't be a problem. Honestly, on every level, IMPASTO / TAW is such a terrible choice. To make things worse, someone's gone and parked a GREEN CAR up in that corner as well. I've only just begun to accept ECOCAR, so there is no way I'm accepting GREEN CAR ... unless the car is actually painted GREEN or belongs to singer Al GREEN. The other corners are merely mediocre and mildly tiresome, but that NE corner has me just shaking my head.

But the middle part, as I say, is wonderful, with PUT A FACE TO A NAME occupying its rightful place of glory at center stage (38A: Meet somebody you've heard lots about). This puzzle played hard for me, with a bunch of names I just didn't know (GIO, SVEN??) and cluing I couldn't make sense of very readily. There are many more little details in the video. Enjoy! Or don't! See you tomorrow!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Monarch renowned for his wealth / MON 10-1-2018 / Going off script / Yom Kippur War clash / Architect Frank

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: THE END IS NIGH — Theme answers end in homophones for "nigh." (I'm not sure if it's called a homophone when it's just a syllable but bear with me. I've spent my English major focusing on analyzing poetry, not on the finer points of grammar.)

Theme answers:

• THE END (38A: With 39-Across, doomsayer's assertion...or a phonetic hint to 18-, 24-, 51- and 61-Across)
• IS NIGH (39A: See 38-Across)
• DRAMATIS PERSONAE (18A: Characters in a play, formally)
•  SULTAN OF BRUNEI (24A: Monarch renowned for his wealth)
• FIGHTING ILLINI (51A: College team from the land of Lincoln)
• BATTLE OF THE SINAI (61A: Yom Kippur War clash)

Word of the Day: ARRAU (2D: Pianist Claudio) —

Claudio Arrau León (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈklau̯ðjo aˈrau̯]; February 6, 1903 – June 9, 1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.^[1] Arrau was a pupil of Martin Krause, who was a student of Franz Liszt.

 (Wikipedia)

• • •

So Rex apparently hated this one (he even called it a "clunker" on Twitter!) but I don't really get it? I think he said there were a lot of duplicates but I'm not sure what that means exactly. Were any of the words duplicated? I swear, I've been doing this for years but I still don't get all the lingo. I was admittedly a little disappointed by such pedestrian fill as NYSE, IRT and LAPD. But I thought it was cool how GENE XER ended up (sounds like the punchline to an extremely dorky joke), and some of the fill was okay; LADES is a neat word, for instance, and...okay maybe that's it. Listen, it's a Monday, let it live!   

I literally* did not understand the theme until after I finished the puzzle, but I think that's more of a testament to how I should probably go to bed than it is a reflection on the puzzle. It was actually one of the more interesting Monday themes I've done in a while, even though I have no idea how anyone should be expected to have heard of the "Fighting Illini." What in the heck is an Illini? Illinus? I can't really say anything, though, Wellesley's mascot is "the Blue." Like, literally just the color blue.  It would have killed them to make us the Bluebirds or something? We play pretty well, though! "...for a bunch of stinkin' girls," the antagonist in a '90s movie with lovable child stars might say.

Bullets:

• GORP (47A: Trail mix) — Here's my recipe for Gorp: 
• 1/2 cup M&M's  
• That's it
• Seriously who likes raisins anyway? Not me, that's for sure
• IX-NAY (54D: No in pig latin)  — OMG. According to the laws of pig latin, "no" would be "oh-nay." Just saying.
• HANG TEN (45D: Do a surfing manuever) — I actually learned how to surf when I was a kid. I did a lot of crashing into the beach, not a lot of hanging ten, though. But my sister is a pro at it! I forget how old she was when she learned but right now she's thirteen and could kick my butt in a surfing contest any day.
• FUN (63D: When said three times, Beach Boys hit) — This is one of the nicest Monday earworms I've posted yet. So upbeat!

*speaking of grammar, please don't rules-lawyer me over the use of the word literally, that's my pet peeve and I will literally dissolve into dust

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Old-fashioned dagger / TUE 10-3-17 / Famed German hypnotist / Manager at train depot / Tureen dipper

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Challenging (not sure why, exactly ... but 4:00 is slooow for me, for Tuesday)

THEME: CENTER / ISLAND (36A: With 38-Across, feature of an upscale kitchen ... or of 17-, 23-, 47- and 58-Across) — there are names of (actual) islands embedded in the center of each theme answer:

Theme answers:

• BALTIMOREAN (17A: One might stare at the Sun)
• BUSHEL BASKET (23A: It holds four pecks)
• STATION AGENT (47A: Manager at a train depot)
• FORMAL TALKS (58A: Discussions that might lead to a treaty)  

Word of the Day: Carson DALY (26A: NBC host Carson) —

Carson Jones Daly (born June 22, 1973) is an American television host, radio personality, producer and television personality. Prior to 2002, Daly was a VJ on MTV's Total Request Live, and a DJ for the Southern California-based radio station 106.7 KROQ-FM. In 2002, Daly joined NBC, where he began hosting and producing the late night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly, and occasionally hosting special event programming for NBC, such as the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks show, and executive producing New Year's Eve with Carson Daly from Times Square beginning in 2003.
Daly has since been involved in more prominent roles at NBC, such as becoming host for its reality music competition The Voice in 2011, and joining NBC's morning show Today as a social media correspondent in 2013. (wikipedia)

• • •

So the islands are in fact dead center, which is a nice touch. I don't expect most people to notice this, but I appreciate attention to detail and careful craftsmanship. That first themer doesn't have the island broken across two words, which is of course the IDEAL (and the fate of all the other center islands), but the consistent centering makes me care about this little detail less. Also, that clue is pretty good (17A: One might stare at the Sun). I didn't find the puzzle particularly entertaining, largely because the themers were all either dull or unfamiliar to me (or both). Is it BALTIMOREAN like Delorean and Korean or like foreign. BALTIMOREEEEEAN? Or Baltimoran? You see, I've literally never heard anyone say it. See also BUSHEL BASKET (?). I know the phrase STATION AGENT only from the title of a movie I never saw, and FORMAL TALKS is about as interesting as beige paint. But, despite the fact that the theme type here is very old/common, it's done in a neat way, and the grid is satisfactory, so this certainly beats your average Tuesday puzzle.


There is one answer that I am having trouble stomaching, though, and that's 13D: Writing in digital format (E-TEXT). I can't begin to say how terrible this is, how tin-eared, how technologically illiterate-sounding this is. "I'll send you an E-TEXT!" Just try saying this to ... well, anyone with an E-TEXT-receiving device in the 21st century. I can't tell if it's another word for "text message," or a word for any writing (text) written electronically, or what? Is this E-TEXT? These words that you are reading right now? If so, how weird that I've been writing in E-TEXT, for the general public, for 11 years, and I have never even heard the term that apparently describes the thing that I am writing.* Also, how weird that I watch "Psycho" every year on Halloween—I've probably seen it more than any movie save "Dazed & Confused"—and I couldn't remember Norman's mother's name (NORMA). I had MOMMA at one point, ugh. Also, wtf, Norman's mother's name is NORMA? Norman, NORMA. That's ... not normal. I also struggled to get IN HELL x/w YAH and also x/w LA ROSA (which I had as DEROSA ... I only ever see that guy's name in crosswords).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*E-TEXT appears to be a word for electronic textbooks ... for scholastic use ... nothing about the clue suggests this ... ??

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Indiana/Illinois separator / MON 1-2-17 / Invaded in large numbers / "I understand," facetiously / Classic Eric Clapton song about unrequited love / To be, to Tacitus

Hi Puzzlers!!! It may be a new year but it's the same old Annabel you get on the first Monday of every mouth! My new year's resolution is to not accidentally type "mouth" instead of "month" like I just did there. 

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Hard!

THEME: PARTY DOWN — Circles hidden within Down clues spelled out synonyms for "party." Different ways to celebrate NYE, I guess!

Theme answers:

• LI(FEST)YLE CHOICE (3D: Vegetarianism or bohemianism)
• RADIO (GALA)XY (5D: Source of faraway X-rays)
• WA(BASH) RIVER (25D: Indiana/Illinois separator)
• SCHOOL CA(FETE)RIA (11D: Spot for a food fight)
• PARTY DOWN (21D: Really revel...or a hint to the words formed by the circled letters)

Word of the Day: RADIO GALAXY (5D: Source of faraway X-rays) —

Radio galaxies and their relatives, radio-loud quasars and blazars, are types of active galaxy that are very luminous at radio wavelengths, with luminosities up to 10³⁹ W between 10 MHz and 100 GHz.^[1] The radio emission is due to the synchrotron process. The observed structure in radio emission is determined by the interaction between twin jets and the external medium, modified by the effects of relativistic beaming. The host galaxies are almost exclusively large elliptical galaxies. Radio-loud active galaxies can be detected at large distances, making them valuable tools for observational cosmology. Recently, much work has been done on the effects of these objects on the intergalactic medium, particularly in galaxy groups and clusters.

(Wikipedia) 

• • •

HOLY moly, this puzzle gave me so much trouble!! I was stuck in the center (around 29) and the bottom right corner for about a million years. I've never been good with US geography, and how am I supposed to know anything about DVD brands when they haven't been relevant since I was about eight years old?!? Oh well, maybe I'm just DENSE. I did like the double meaning of "web," and all the vaguely scientific words like GENE, ATOMS, IONS and of course RADIO GALAXY. It reminded me of the five seconds around the beginning of freshman year when I wanted to be a bio major. (Sorry, bio, but four years of reading eighteenth-century poetry mixed with emotional feminist texts won out.)

By the way, what was up with TOBACCOS? Is that really the plural of TOBACCO?

The theme was cool - I'm always happy when the theme includes Downs so the down-only solvers get to take part in the fun! Once I got LIFESTYLE CHOICE my sister and I were convinced the theme answers would be FEST / IVAL / OF LI / GHTS as a late Chanukah celebration. Oh well. What kind of FESTs, GALAs, BASHes and FÊTEs did you all have the other night? All I did was go to a friend's house to watch the ball drop, but it was probably the best party I'd been to in years because she had two big, droopy mastiffs which were absolutely adorable. Watching the ball drop paled in comparison to watching the big cute dogs play.

Bullets:

• HAITIAN (14A: Port-au-Prince resident) — Tragically, I am no longer able to mentally pronounce this word correctly because of Clueless. However, I would like to remind everyone that it does not say R.S.V.P. on the Statue of Liberty! :p 
• CICADAS (65D: 17-year insects) — I still think cicadas are about the coolest bugs ever. First of all, they have TWO separate Pokèmon lines based on them, so you know they have to be good...second of all, the latest cicada summer happened when I was a kid so I have all these memories of trees absolutely covered in cicada shells. I think we used to play with them like they were dolls. Kinda morbid, when you think about it now, but oh well.
• NECK (56D: Part bitten by a vampire) — Am I the only one who thought this meant "partly bitten by a vampire"? Like a half-vampire or something? I was so confused and I spent about ten minutes racking my brain for all the vampire lore I knew, all the while wondering how being partly bitten by a vampire would even work. The vampire just bites you with one fang? You can turn into a bat but only on Wednesdays? You don't drink blood, you just eat really rare steaks?
• LAYLA (39D: Classic Eric Clapton song about unrequited love) — Believe it or not (okay, you probably believe it, because I didn't even know the DVD thing) I actually didn't know this song. So here's some Eric Clapton to brighten up your day.

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Oka River citiy / WED 1-11-12 / Five-time All-Star second baseman Chase / Mecca for oenophiles / Toy consisting of 80 feet of wire

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: HATCH CHECK — "CH" is added to end of "-AT" word in familiar expressions, creating wacky expressions, which are clued "?"-style

Word of the Day: Chase UTLEY (52D: Five-time All-Star second baseman Chase ___) —

Chase Cameron Utley [...] is a second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball. A native of the Greater Los Angeles area, he was raised in the city of Long Beach. He was a star baseball player at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, before moving on to UCLA. He now currently plays for the Philadelphia Phillies as a second basemen. (wikipedia)

• • •

Simple add-some-letters theme with no revealer—not very impressive, but you do get one great theme answer (BATCH OUT OF HELL), which is often as much as you can expect from this type of theme. I'm kind of mesmerized by this grid, specifically by how its middle is chock full of theme squares but with black squares placed so artfully that the theme answers don't seem to crowd each other or create any complications at all. And it's not like this grid has an excessive number of black squares (40 is a little high, but not distractingly so). The grid's not even at the maximum word count (the max is 78—this one's 76). It takes some care to get a 14/15/14 progression of theme answers to come out well, with a nice light touch and no real strain on the fill. Fill-wise, there's nothing spectacular, but only -ITES is really irksome. The rest is very solid (though I could do without the ORAL / OREL pairing). So the puzzle is skillfully made, if not scintillating.


Theme answers:

• 17A: Fabric store employees? (SWATCH TEAM)
• 23A: Repair for a torn pullover? (PATCH ON THE BACK) 
• 35A: Attend a tennis tournament because one is a fan of? (GO TO THE MATCH FOR)—this wins the award for Most Awkwardly Phrased Clue Of All Time. Why not just [Support by attending a tennis tournament]?
• 50A: Cookies baked by Satan? (BATCH OUT OF HELL)
• 59A: Arrest made on a side street? (ALLEY CATCH)

I made pretty good time through this one, with my one and only big holdup coming at 54D: Sidestep (EVADE). I had the "V," which is about the least helpful letter to have with that clue. I wrote in AVERT. When that proved wrong, I could think only of AVOID. Bah. Annoying to get held up by something so rudimentary. Got COLD CASES pretty easily, but not sure why the investigations are "Dead-ended" as opposed to "Dead-end." Maybe because they hit a dead end ... in the past? I think that still means they are "dead-end" in the present, but whatever. Interesting to see OKA in a clue here today (39D: Oka River city => OREL) after it featured so prominently in my write-up of that disastrous Friday puzzle. Did not know that a [Young termite, e.g.] was called a NYMPH. Very incongruous with the images of NYMPHs that dance in my head (from time to time). Broadway clue looked impossible to me until it wasn't (3D: 2005 Broadway hit based on a 1974 film => "SPAMALOT"). My parents live reasonably close to NAPA, but I've never been (14A: Mecca for oenophiles). Do they still make the SLINKY (13D: Toy consisting of 80 feet of wire)? It's fun for a girl and a boy. It's fun for a girl and a boy.




Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Central Sicilian city / WED 3-31-10 / Upscale shoe brand / Izmir native / Fleming supervillain / Bolshevik's foe / Anticlimactic putt

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challening

THEME: SPREAD THE WEALTH (38A: Redistributionist's catchphrase ... or a hint to the words formed by the circled letters) — circles spell out words for "money."


Word of the Day: ARNE Duncan (12D: Obama education secretary ___ Duncan) —

Arne Duncan (born November 6, 1964) is an American education administrator and currently United States Secretary of Education. Duncan had previously served as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. [...] From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Melbourne, Australia with the Eastside Spectres of the National Basketball League, and while there, worked with children who were wards of the state. In the U.S., he also played with the Rhode Island Gulls and tried out for the New Jersey Jammers. While in Tasmania he met his future wife, Karen. A Time magazine article also mentions that he has played pickup games with Michael Jordan [...] In 1992, Duncan became director of the Ariel Education Initiative, a program to enhance educational opportunities for children on Chicago's South Side that was started by John W. Rogers, Jr.. In 1996, along with Rogers, he was part of a network that funded and supported Ariel Community Academy. In 1999, he became Deputy Chief of Staff for former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas. Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Duncan to serve as CEO of Chicago Public Schools on June 26, 2001. (wikipedia)

• • •

As you know, this is my least favorite type of theme. Non-consecutive circled squares that spell out things. Here, at least, the fact that the circles are stupidly SPREAD out is actually integral to the theme, so that's something. Knowing the theme didn't help at all. It might have helped with MANOLO BLAHNIK, except the parts of that answer I didn't know how to spell were not the parts in circles — couldn't remember exact composition of the second name: BLAHGA? BLAHNKA? BLAHGO? Blah. It's a cool theme answer. Not much else about the grid is particularly cool. The difficulty rating is a bit deceptive. I actually found it quite Medium, but it's hard for me to determine difficulty on Wednesdays. This is because, remarkably, all of my Wednesday times this year, with the exception of one hard outlier (6:17), are grouped between 3:40 and 4:39. Today was the 4:39. I'm going to stick with the admittedly idiosyncratic data and say this one will skew slightly tougher-than-usual. Why, I don't know...

Maybe people will stumble over the shoes. I have a feeling that shoe hounds and puzzle solvers would create a not very substantial overlap in a Venn diagram. Then again, it is the *New York* times, so maybe people in the city can spell MANOLO BLAHNIK as easily as they can NIKE. Maybe the trouble came, as it did for me, in the NE, where there was a ton of crosswordese, but it was clued in ways I couldn't understand at first. Didn't know the guy whose *first* name was ARNE. The usual go-to clue there involves a British composer, *last* name ARNE. Haven't seen the "CZ-" CZAR in a while, so I don't know what I was looking for at 10A: Bolshevik's foe, but it wasn't that. Maybe CAPITALIST? JOE MCCARTHY? I wanted something like an I-BEAM or REBAR to be my 13D: Concrete reinforcers today. No. Just RODS. Anyway, that's the only section that actually caused me significant slowage. That and the SE (south of the -NIK in BLAHNIK).

Theme answers:

• 17A: How a former product may be brought back (BY POPULAR DEMAND) — B-R-E-A-D
  
• 23A: Tale of a hellish trip (DANTE'S INFERNO) — D-I-N-E-R-O
  
• 49A: Upscale shoe brand (MANOLO BLAHNIK) — M-O-O-L-A-H
  
• 59A: Escapes via luxury liner (PLEASURE CRUISES) — L-U-C-R-E
  

Bullets:

• 14: Lake of the Ozarks feeder (OSAGE) — Pieced together without looking at clue. A very common crossword river / tribe.
  
• 65A: Izmir native (TURK) — Guessed off the -RK. No idea where Izmir Iz. I know a Scott Kazmir, a great southpaw who now plays for the Angels. His name always makes me think of this:

• 3D: Anticlimactic putt (TAP-IN) — Odd-looking but accurate clue.
  
• 24D: Dendrologist's subject (TREE) — also known as XYLOLOGY, a much cooler word. Actually, it seems XYLOLOGY is a branch (ha ha) of dendrology. How many branches does dendrology have? That sounds like the opening to a serious tree nerd joke.
  
• 25D: Central Sicilian city (ENNA) — some words reek of crosswordese. This word, for instance. I know it because of crosswords. I've never seen it outside of crosswords. It's a word of convenience.
  
• 31D: Cries from the momentarily stupid (DUHS) — I went with DOHS. Luckily, I know what a SOU is (37A: Trifling amount).
  
• 34D: Superstar assembly (DREAM TEAM) — Currently reading "When the Game Was Ours," about Magic and Bird (part of the core of the U.S. Olympic basketabll "DREAM TEAM" of 1992).
  
• 39D: Fleming supervillain (DR. NO) — Fleming's four-letter gift to crossword constructors. What else are you going to do with -RN- in the middle of your four-letter word. Go with ARNE!? That's absurd.
  
• Cross-dressing "Dame" of humor (EDNA) — "of humor" made me laugh. What would people's answer have been without that phrase? JUDI Dench? Never actually seen Dame EDNA? Have a gander:

• 50D: Teatro La Fenice offering (OPERA) — really, what else could it be? PORNO?
  
• 54D: Merry Prankster Ken (KESEY) — I don't know about the "Merry Pranksters" (promoters of psychedelic drug use and takers of famously chronicled bus trips). If I'd read Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," as I'm pretty sure my mom once suggested, I'd have known. Nothing is more boring to me than other people's drug use. Had to piece Kesey's name together from crosses. I know him only as the author of "Cuckoo's Nest."
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TV's Ramsey / SAT 1-9-10 / Canterbury Tales charlatan / Collectible card creatures / E.T. follower / Its logo is rubber band ball

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: DEVI (56D: Supreme Hindu goddess) —

Devi (Devanagari: देवी) is the Sanskrit word for Goddess, used mostly in Hinduism. Devi is synonymous with Shakti, the female aspect of the divine, as conceptualized by the Shakta tradition of Hinduism. She is the female counterpart without whom the male aspect, which represents consciousness or discrimination, remains impotent and void. Goddess worship is an integral part of Hinduism. // Devi is, quintessentially, the core form of every Hindu Goddess. As the female manifestation of the supreme lord, she is also called Prakriti, as she balances out the male aspect of the divine addressed Purusha. (wikipedia)

-----

Another easy puzzle. Weird to have such brutality on Wednesday and Thursday, and then such light playfulness the next two days. Actually, if you didn't know PIERRE DE RONSARD, then yesterday wasn't so light, but today, there really isn't any one answer that should have held anyone back. Clues were typically misdirective, but in ways that seemed very gettable. I started this puzzle in weird fashion — by going from top to bottom with interconnected answers inside the first couple of minutes. ANNE (4D: Last of the Stuarts) to LONER (19A: Antisocial type) to RETRO (5D: In once more) ... reboot ... TRE (25D: 26-Across and 26-Across and 26-Across) (via UNO — 26A: Not quite none, in Naples) to OPTICAL (23A: Like some thin fibers) to ARSON (29A: Reason for a lighter conviction?) to PARDONER to NAVEL (46A: Popular piercing site) to VIE FOR (47D: Try to win). I then stared at the grid, thinking "well, you don't see that very often on a Saturday."

With the middle largely taken care of, I had nice routes in to each corner ... one of which, I figured, would give me fits. But (after a few moments pondering) DIPLOMAT (20A: Type with finesse) went in and handed me the NE. HELIPAD (41A: Where some touchdowns are made) and TREE-LINED (64A: Like many avenues) took care of the SE. SWALLOW (37A: Get down) and THE FORCE (53A: It has a dark side, in sci-fi) got me into the SW, and (finally) MOUNTIE uncovered U.S. *M*ARSHAL (1A: Fugitive-hunting Fed) , and the NW fell. Actually, I think the last letter I put in was somewhere in the SW, so maybe things didn't happen in that order. But they happened. Quickly. I'd be surprised if today's puzzle wasn't significantly easier than yesterday's for most people.

I was helped by some old (old!) crossword friends. I once got punched in the face by HEC Ramsey, but he and I are cool now, so that answer was a gimme (41D: TV's "___ Ramsey"). I spent the better part of a decade (the '90s) studying Middle English literature, and Chaucer in particular, so I consider the PARDONER an old friend (24D: "The Canterbury Tales" charlatan). Though the only Stones answer that was coming to mind at first for 7D: With 63-Across, 1972 Rolling Stones "greatest hits" album was "Rocks Off" (opening song on "Exile on Main Street"), I eventually got from there to "HOT / ROCKS." I balked at it at first, since I knew it was the title a. of a Donald Westlake and subsequent movie ("The Hot Rock"), and b. of an album by the rock band Sleater-Kinney (also, "The Hot Rock"). Again, time in grad school made Derek WALCOTT no problem (40D: Literature Nobelist Derek). And, staying with the '90s, I listened to plenty of Cranberries songs in my day, so "ODE TO My Family" was a piece of cake (55A: "___ My Family" (Cranberries song)).

I think my favorite answers of the day is POKEMON, as as plural! (42D: Collectible card creatures). I believe they began as a '90s phenomenon as well. My abhorrence of that decade is well known, but apparently I remember it So well that if you build a puzzle out of the remains of that decade, I will be able to beat it into bloody submission, no problem. Familiarity breeds contempt, I guess.

Bullets:

• 15A: "E.T." follower ("phone home") — my favorite clue of the day. Thought maybe SETI, but too short.
• 18A: Plume hunter's prey (egret) — where was I reading about some island in the Atlantic that some president (Jackson?) made into a sanctuary because birds were being hunted for their plumage, which was being used in lady's hats???
• 30A: Like many smoothies (glib) — good misdirection. Couldn't get into the NE that way and had to go via DIPLOMAT. Had the "G" here and could think of "smoothies" only as drinks: "GOOD? GRAY?"
• 58A: Its logo is a rubber-band ball (Office Max) — didn't know it, but a few crosses up front made it obvious.
• 2D: Pennsylvania Dutch pie (shoo fly) — a molasses pie I've never had. I know a child's song, or part of one, that has "SHOO FLY, don't bother me" in it. Then there's this:

• 30D: Percival caught sight of it (grail) — gimme that. Very medieval puzzle today, with GRAIL and the PARDONER and AMADIS (8D: Knight of medieval literature) and THE FORCE ... the Jedi are knights, after all.
• 32D: Permian Basin yield (oil) — if it's a "basin" and it's "yielding" something ... come on.
• 38D: Bronze Star recipient (war hero) — too many war decorations for me to keep track of. Had most of the crosses by the time I saw this, so it was No Problem.
• 54D: 1972 A.L. Rookie of the Year (Fisk) — as in Carlton, the Doorman ... er, catcher. Hitter of one of the most famous home runs in MLB history.
• 60D: Memorable 2008 Gulf hurricane (Ike) — not memorable to me. Guess you had to be there. Still, easy to get with a "K" in place.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Fernando * painter of plump figures — TUESDAY, Oct. 27 2009 — High muck a muck / 1958 sci-fi classic with The / Post W.W. II demographic, informally

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: CHEERLEADER's cheer (57A: Shouter of this puzzle's circled sounds) — circled letters spell out the cheer "RAH RAH SIS BOOM BAH"

Word of the Day: Fernando BOTERO (47D: Fernando _____, painter of plump figures) — Fernando Botero Angulo (born April 19,1932) is a Colombian figurative artist, self-titled "the most Colombian of Colombian artists" early on, coming to prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1959. [...] Botero's work includes still-lifes and landscapes, but Botero tends to primarily focus on situational portraiture. His paintings and sculptures are, on first examination, noted for their exaggerated proportions and the corpulence of the human and animal figures. (wikipedia)

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If the reveal answer here had been "1920s YALE CHEERLEADER" or "CHEERLEADER WHEN MR. BURNS WAS IN COLLEGE," I might have liked this better. Placement of the circles seems to have a kind of structure, but not a consistent one, and the circles don't do anything fancy like run across two words in an answer or anything. So theme feels dated and technically unimpressive. On the other hand, the first two theme answers — TETRAHEDRON (17A: Solid with four triangular faces) and RAHM EMANUEL (25A: Chief of staff in the Obama White House) — are fabulous (in the sense of feeling fresh and original). Rest of the grid is solidly filled — not as lively as yesterday's, but pretty good nonetheless. LOWBALL (34D: Like an offer that's under actual value) should have been clued as a verb — I've been explaining importance of active verbs in the margins of papers lately so I want to turn everything into an active verb. But LOWBALL in any form is a nice answer, as is DEEP END (29D: Part of a pool for diving), though that could have used a more vivid clue too. BOTERO and SAN MATEO are proper nouns that I don't expect a lot of people to know right off the bat. I knew both, but I a. like modern art and b. grew up in California, so both names are familiar. BOTERO's work is very distinctive. I can't show you a good deal of it (nudity and other allegedly family-unfriendly things), so in lieu of some of his more edgy work, here's some Loretta LYNN (54A: Loretta who sang "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' on your Mind)"):

[OMG her hair! Also, watch til the end, when she gets pushed aside for Bill Monroe: "That's fine, sweetie, let's bring your rhythm player out here in front of you and talk to him..."]

Theme answers:

• 17A: Solid with four triangular faces (tetRAHedron)
• 25A: Chief of staff in the Obama White House (RAHm Emanuel)
• 35A: Start of the Bible (GeneSIS)
• 37A: Post-W.W. II demographic (BOOMers)
• 49A: High muck-a-muck (Grand PooBAH) — I always knew this expression as "high muckety-muck," but there may be some WB cartoon influence in there...

Bullets:

• 6A: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" has five of these (iambs) — IAMBic pentameter = five IAMBS. Unstressed/stressed x 5. I start teaching Renaissance poetry today (Medieval is done and done!)
• 47A: 1958 sci-fi classic with "The" ("Blob") — I especially like this crossing BOOB (37D: Idiot). Say BOOB BLOB five times fast. That could be your scary Halloween voice.
• 66A: Bird of prey's dip (salsa)
• 18D: First thing usually hit by a bowling ball (head pin) — Could only think ONE PIN. Need to bowl more. I probably don't mean that.
• 42D: Driver's caution to reduce speed (Slo) — I guess the "driver's" part is supposed to tip us to the abbrev., because nothing else in the clue does. SLO is a horrible abbrev. You shed one letter? You need to shed at least half your weight to be a proper abbrev., I say. "CA" — now that's an abbrev.! "Goodbye, LIFORNIA. Don't need you any more."
• 58D: Popular music style (emo) / 59D: Popular music style (rap) — EMO is crossword famous all out of proportion to its actual fame. If you asked me to name RAP acts, I could go on and on and on. Ask me to name EMO acts ... I don't really know. Wikipedia tells me Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco ... all names I recognize, but not well. No matter. EMO is here to stay, relieving Comedian Phillips of his long-held, burdensome cluing duties.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Moravian capital — SATURDAY, Oct. 17 2009 — Matricidal figure of myth / Belgian balladeer / Klaxon-sounding occasion / Track speedster beginning 2000

Constructor: Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BENTHIC (23A: Of the seafloor) — Occurring at the base of bodies of water: lakes, oceans, and seas. Benthos refers to life attached to the bottom or moving in the bottom mud. (Geography Dictionary)

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A nice little workout. Found it (no surprise) vastly easier than yesterday's puzzle, though I still had to fight my way through many spots. Seems slightly unambitious for a Saturday. The SW corner is beautiful (especially like TAX DODGE — 36D: Bit of trickery on the schedule), but the rest is kind of blah. Two zingers today (i.e. a word I'd never seen and could not infer in any way shape or form): BENTHIC, which appears to mean "of or relate to the writings of Jeremy Bentham," but doesn't; and HEL (25A: Underworld goddess). What the HEL? There's a goddess named HEL? Indeed there is. I teach about HEL(L) all the time in Virgil, and Dante, and Milton, and yet somehow Ms. HEL has eluded my notice all these years. She now joins TYR in the "Norse Gods I learned from doing crosswords" category. My ignorance of HEL led to my favorite mistake of the day...

I had the most trouble (by far) getting into the NE corner. Even with the two potential points of entry, I got stuck. Had everything from ROVE (29A: Drift) down (i.e. the last three letters of ever Down up there) and made a good, solid, and ultimately correct guess at AGE LEVEL (12D: What pupils are separated by), and then just sat there for a bit, unable to work anything else. Finally, off -OPE, I decided that 11D: Offered a way out could mean only one thing: GAVE ROPE. And it worked! Got SUGAR (9A: Crystals used for dishes), then SUMAC (9D: Cause of a rash response?), and then a few seconds later I was done ... well, sort of. REL? There's a goddess named REL? I just couldn't accept that. Then I could. Then I couldn't again. Finally I decided to test other letters in R, E, and L's places, pulled the "R" and "H" popped right in. I am now totally in love with my wrong answer. I meant GAVE ROPE in the sense of "throw someone a lifeline," but now all I can imagine is someone saying "hey, I can offer you a way out ... hang yourself with this rope." The diametric opposition of my answer and the right answer is fantastic. Good Halloween-time morbidity.



Bullets:

• 1A: Through the efforts of (thanks to) — oddly, I started this puzzle by simply writing in the TO in this answer. Figured that would have be how the phrase ended, since the preposition "OF" was in the clue. Off of "TO" I immediately got ORESTES (8D: Matricidal figure of myth — which I could have gotten w/o crosses, frankly) and TETON (7D: County in Idaho, Montana or Wyoming). I should say that I got so excited by the mythology clue that I instinctively wrote in OEDIPUS before remembering that he killed his dad, not his mom. He did something else to his mom. ORESTES killed Clytemnestra for her role in killing ORESTES' (asshole) father, AGAMEMNON. This is all dramatized in Aeschylus's Oresteia (named after our boy here).
• 14A: Sputnik launch time (Soviet Era) — well, you knew it wasn't going to be something like "TEN A.M.," so you think Bigger period of time. Had the "ER" in ERA already sitting there, so piece of cake.
• 19A: Pooch in panels (Odie) — other options? OTTO. DAWG. That's all I can come up with right now.
• 21A: Track speedster beginning in 2000 (ACELA) — I learned this train name from crosswords, and had no idea it was so (relatively) new.
• 44A: Minute (bitsy) — yuck.
• 56A: Moravian capital (Brno) — I've been Brned by BRNO bfore. Never again!
• 58A: Get some quick lodging (rent a room) — not sure why this is "quick."
• 60A: Sen. Bayh's senior counterpart (Lugar) — R-IN. Nice counterpoint to SUGAR in the NE.
• 61A: Guard against drifting (snow fence) — that's a thing? OK.
• 2D: Hip-hop top (hoodie) — just 'cause it's got "'hood" in it doesn't mean it's hip-hop (though, yes, you can see HOODIES aplenty in hip-hop videos, I suppose). LOTS of people wear hoodies, just as lots (and lots) of people wear NIKE (4D: Brand that may be worn with a 2-Down). The NIKE tie-in feels really weak to me. ANY brand may be worn with a HOODIE.
• 5D: The New Yorker writer Auletta (Ken) — Never heard of him. I read Harper's and (for now) The Atlantic. Once The New Yorker dropped its cryptic (a decade ago?), I had no use for it.
• 13D: Klaxon-sounding occasion (red alert) — KLAXON was just in the puzzle, wasn't it? I thought it was an instrument, a horn you might blow on to signal the entrance of the king or something. But no, it's a trademark (!?) for an electromechanical horn or alerting device (wikipedia).
• 31D: He said "If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic?" (Albee) — easy. Had the "AL," and ALBEE's up there with AGEE in grid frequency.
• 32D: Fusty greeting (Dear Sirs) — Oddly, my first guess. Didn't exactly trust it, but cross after cross proved correct.
• 41D: Fishing weapon (trident) — I thought this was mainly just a symbol for Neptune. You actually fish with it, eh? Cool.
• 46D: BP competitor (Sunoco) — wanted Conoco at first. That's something, right?
• 50D: Piazza de Ferrari setting (Genoa) — just wait for recognizable Italian city to show up. Once you've got the "G," no problem.
• 56D: Belgian balladeer (Brel) — as in Jacques. Learned him from crosswords. As Euro balladeers go, I prefer Yves Montand. Let's compare.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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FRIDAY, Nov. 16, 2007 - Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

This puzzle was bland-to-unpleasant. It has almost none of the sizzle that I expect from FRI-SAT puzzles. Its "difficult" (quotation marks!) answers are few, and those are just obscurities - nothing you're terribly happy to see in a puzzle. I mean, SYOSSET (51A: Town on the Long Island Rail Road). Where the F---?! Gimme for locals, I imagine, but I had to get it all from crosses. And ENOUNCE (25D: Proclaim) makes me want to EGEST my breakfast. If I have to endure an an answer like ENOUNCE, I expect Payoff, and there is none. TRADE NAME (16A: Product identifier)? I would accept TRADEMARK or BRAND NAME, but not TRADE NAME, which well and truly sucks. STEERSMAN (6A: One at the helm) is also kinda crappy, in that you would call that guy a HELMSMAN, probably.

Add to weak fill the problem of seriously forced cluing. AUTOPILOT gets 18A: It maintains a proper attitude, Q AND A gets 1A: Back-and-forth, KID gets 54A: Sprout, and so on. The only way I got KID from [Sprout] was by thinking of the Jolly Green Giant commercials. For every great clue (e.g. YOGA = 49A: Poses in a studio?) there was some piece of tortured nonsense like 1D: Nitpicking (quibbles) - you have to squint So Hard to make those two words synonymous. I don't care for squinting.

Let's see, what else?

• 19A: "Western Star" poet (Benet) - as of this very second, I couldn't tell you this person's first name, though I know I know it. Reforgetful!
• 36A: First-class handouts? (syllabi) - I understand that the whole of the academic world uses this form of the plural, but the would-be classicist in me can't use a Latin plural for a word of Greek origin, even if the word did technically come down to us through Medieval Latin. I use "syllabuses."
• 27A: Bbl. fraction (gal.) - I honestly have no idea what "Bbl." means
• 44A: Time magazine Person of the Year, 2005 (Bono) - slow year, I guess
• 50A: Photographer Goldin (Nan) - her photogs can be hawt. She was a gimme for me 'cause I've blogged her before, and I used a pretty racy photo, and I often get hits to this site because of that photo. Here's another one for you.

• 67A: Common dog name (Sport) - I have never known a dog with this name
• 11D: Scissor (snip) - had SWIM at one point ... the NE was a bit of a slog for me
• 12D: Costa del Sol port (Malaga) - did not know; completely guessed on that "G" - I had at least heard of a place called MALAGA...
• 29D: 1990s sitcom ("Ellen") - remember Jeremy Piven!? [I can't make that joke any more, as he is all pseudo-famous now because of "Entourage," which I would happily disparage if I had actually seen it.]
• 41D: Cavalier evaluation? (road test) - so badly wanted this to have something to do with basketball - the Chevy frame of reference didn't occur to me 'til very late. I was angry with the clue at the time of solving, but now I kinda like it.
• 30A: Bills are in it: Abbr. (AFC) - my second answer after NFL
• 61D: It was deorbited in 2001 (Mir) - my favorite thing about this: "deorbited"; weird "DEO" beginning (just like puzzle author's name)
• 20A: Mount _____, sacred Chinese site (Tai) - nope, never heard of it
• 63A: Newswoman Poussaint (Renée) - almost rings a bell, but not quite
  
• 4D: _____ City, seat of Pasco County, Fla. (Dade) - seems a rather ungainly clew for DADE. Seems like Florida is the puzzle's second-most referenced U.S. state after NY. Is that true or am I making stuff up? Anything to do with solver demographics? If statcounter is correct, I have a lot of Florida readers. Just wondering.

Off to recover from this puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TUESDAY, Sep. 18, 2007 - Chuck Deodene

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Helpful person's line" = clue for three theme answers, which are all phrases a helpful person might utter after, well, helping someone

This took me longer than your average Tuesday, I think. Missed the first two Acrosses and so my first entry was ZONED (9A: Districted), and then I built off of that. I think it's generally slower going when you work the puzzle in a (generally) right to left direction - always getting the back end of Across answers, which is a lot less helpful (generally) than the front end. For instance, had the THANK ME part of 17A: Helpful person's line ("No need to thank me") and all I could think of was "Aren't you going to thank me?" or "Shouldn't you thank me?" or "Feel free to thank me," all of which are less "helpful" than "ungracious" or "a$$holish." So I went in a vaguely clockwise pattern on this one, starting in the NE and ending in the NW - not sure when I did the far north. It got done.

Remaining theme answers:

• 32A: With 42-Across, helpful person's line ("Glad to be of / assistance")
• 61A: Helpful person's line ("It was my pleasure")

I had a hard time with the theme answers because I kept wanting to give the helpful person lines from when she was actually being helpful, e.g. "Might I be of assistance?" That was my first stab at 32A. Didn't help that the "T" in MIGHT was right - from the lovely EXPATS (18D: Sojourners abroad, for short). Also had "It'd be my pleasure" at 61A.

Did not like DUMB at 1A: Inane, mainly because that's a highly colloquial use of DUMB, which I was not expecting from the Times today, especially given that the clue is not colloquial at all. Wife loved DUMB, but only because she got it right away (like many of you, I'm sure). Sometimes, I think too much. Wife also enjoyed and readily answered 56A: Spode ensembles (tea sets), but she's from a tea-drinking, Brit-loving country, so she would. I'd heard of "Spode," but could not place it at all and needed the entire back end of this answer before I could guess it. Never heard of the word "Kriegsmarine," but 2A: Kriegsmarine vessel (U-boat) was easy enough with a cross or two. U-BOAT is very nearly Crossword Pantheon material. I remember the 1989 Bay Area earthquake well (I was in Scotland and found out about it from a newsstand sign - low tech!), but had no idea there was any place called LOMA Prieta involved (26D: 1989's _____ Prieta earthquake). Being rather unhandy, I've only vaguely heard of PVC (62D: Piping compound, briefly), though I am well aware of the shopping channel QVC, which would be a great puzzle entry. Realized after reading 15A: Payload delivery org. (NASA) that I had no clear idea what "payload" meant. I associate it with ads for pick-up trucks, for some reason. Very thrown at first by the idea of a fowl ending in -AB. Then recalled a bird called a SQUAB (53D: Fowl entree). No idea what this bird looks like - let's find out... Gross. Baby pigeon. Here's one uncooked:

And here's where you can go for advice on how to start your own squab business. Good luck!

There were some good names in today's puzzle, including SATCHMO (8D: "Hello, Dolly!" jazzman), ZSA ZSA (9D: One of the Gabors), and LULU (33D: "To Sir With Love" singer, 1967). Not-so-great names include ... well, just ALEC (41A: Writer Waugh), the Waugh that Time would have Completely Forgotten were it not for crosswords. I hear and use the word CLIQUE (60A: Coterie) often enough, but it looks startlingly fancy when written out. This may be the first fall (near fall) when I have actually noticed ASTERs (27A: Autumn bloomer). The crossword was right all along - they do bloom in the fall. They're all over the local woods right now, in at least two colors. Off-putting entries in today's puzzle include DEET (13D: It's repellent - it sure is) and JOHNS (23A: Vice squad arrestees, perhaps), and SEEDY (55D: Not yet gentrified) - that last clue is funny because it assumes that all SEEDY places are just yuppie habitats in the making. I'm pretty sure some SEEDY places are just SEEDY and destined to stay that way. Lastly, I've never ordered an "adult" film from my hotel room, but if I saw one entitled "STELLA (40D: _____ Artois beer) SAYS YES (43D: Agrees) to NUDISM" (38A: Philosophy of bare existence?), I must say I'd be tempted.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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