Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Dang Quang Thang

Constructor: Dang Quang Thang

Relative difficulty: Medium (?) (normal-seeming Monday, maybe tougher if you don't know the names in question)

THEME: AS SEEN ON TV (58A: Print ad phrase for infomercial products ... or, parsed differently, a description of 17-, 25-, 35- or 50-Across) — people who appear on TV whose initials are A.S.:

Theme answers:

ADAM SAVAGE (17A: Educator who co-hosted "MythBusters")
AMY SCHUMER (25A: Stand-up comedian with a self-titled sketch show)
ANDY SAMBERG (35A: Actor who starred as Jake Peralta on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine")
AL SHARPTON (50A: Civil rights activist hosting MSNBC's "PoliticsNation")

Word of the Day: Anna SUI (59D: Fashion designer Anna) —

Anna Sui (Chinese: 蕭志美; pinyin: Xiāo Zhìměi; born August 4, 1964) is an American fashion designer. She was named one of the "Top 5 Fashion Icons of the Decade", and in 2009 earned the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), joining the ranks of Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Diane von Furstenberg. Her brand categories include several fashion lines, footwear, cosmetics, fragrances, eyewear, jewelry, accessories, home goods and a gifts line. (wikipedia)

• • •

One of those days where I was grateful to be solving Downs-only. I really had to work for it in the S/SE of the grid, so that what could've been a very HUM-drum experience turned into a semi-harrowing adventure. That area of my greatest struggle (the, uh, BAD AREA, you might say) contained the entirety of the revealer, which was the only interesting part of the theme. So the upshot was that I was forced to spend most of my time in the most interesting part of the grid, and the revealer was pleasingly delayed, so it really came as a reward for hard work and patience, as opposed to just being a regular old easy-to-get Monday answer. Essentially, solving Downs-only turned a puzzle with a pretty mediocre theme into a really engaging exercise in inference and pattern recognition, with the revealer coming as a nice little reward. I got the "A.S." pattern early, right after getting AMY SCHUMER. "Is that it? A.S. names? Sigh, OK. The revealer better be worth it..." ANDY SAMBERG and AL SHARPTON went in pretty easily, thought Sharpton was much harder to parse (his extremely short first name threw me—I was looking for the "S" to appear closer to the middle of the answer). So I got all the themers without too much struggle. I don't really know who ADAM SAVAGE is (my Savage knowledge mostly ends with Fred and Dan), but the name rang a faint bell, and anyway the crosses all worked. Parsing his name took me longer than it should have, but it wasn't hard. Nothing else gave me much trouble until it came time to enter the SE... I got blocked all over. 36D: "It's not for me to decide" was, let's see, YOUR ... MOVE? Maybe? 38D: Unexpected blessings was G- ... G- ... Goshdarnit I don't know. 46D: "I'm set, but thanks anyway" was ... I had no idea. 41D: Heard something via the police hotline, say — also a blank (wanted something-IN or something-UP). So that's four initial strikeouts on longish Downs in the SE. Plus a revealer that I could not parse, and that appeared to end in "V" (how??!). Bad, bad news. I was legit worried about being able to finish.

But RUSTIC gave me the "C" that got me to YOUR C-, which had to be YOUR CALL. Figured LUT- had to be LUTE, and that "E" helped me see "NO NEED." From there (with other short stuff I had in place) I was able to parse AS SEEN ON TV, and that was *only* way I was able to see GOT A TIP and then (finally) GODSENDS. Love to end the puzzle on GODSENDS, hallelujah, amen. Much better than ending on GOT A TIP, an answer that lands pretty firmly in the EAT A SANDWICH category (OK maybe it's slightly more plausible as a stand-alone answer, but only slightly). If I look only at the SE corner of the grid, where I spent most of my time, then I like this puzzle fine. I was not liking it much before that. BAD AREA felt ... bad (2D: Dangerous neighborhood). I've GOT A TIP for constructors—stay away from BAD AREA. It's super-weak. The rest of the grid is passable (GLEE CLUB stands out, in a good way). But the meat of the tomato here is the S and SE. Brings the puzzle back to life. Rescues it. Even with GOT A TIP, it tilts the whole puzzle toward The Good. Those three other long Downs I struggled with, the revealer—all ended up being worth the effort. I'm grateful for the Downs-only experience, which allowed me to really soak in the best parts of the grid (and largely forget the rest). See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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