Stress between you and your former lover / MON 8-24-20 / Undercoat of oil painting / Money to tide you over

Constructor: David Alfred Bywaters

Relative difficulty: slow for me at 3:21 (so "Medium-Challenging," I guess)

THEME: "your former lover" [shudder] — EX- words clued as if they have something to do with your "ex": 

Theme answers:

• EXTENSION (17A: Stress between you and your former lover?)
• EXCLAIM (26A: Thing your former lover said about you?)
• EXCOMMUNICATION (41A: Former lover's text, e.g.?)
• EXPOSES (51A: Former lovers' stances in photos?)
• EXPENDING (66A: Current lover who seems suspiciously preoccupied?)

Word of the Day: ESTHER (21A: One of a pair of Old Testament books with female names) —

The Book of Esther (hebrew: מְגִלַּת אֶסְתֵּר, Megillat Esther), also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" (Megillah), is a book in the third section (Ketuvim, "Writings") of the Jewish Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and in the Christian Old Testament. It is one of the five Scrolls (Megillot) in the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of a Hebrew woman in Persia, born as Hadassah but known as Esther, who becomes queen of Persia and thwarts a genocide of her people. The story forms the core of the Jewish festival of Purim, during which it is read aloud twice: once in the evening and again the following morning. The books of Esther and Song of Songs are the only books in the Hebrew Bible that do not mention God. (wikipedia)

• • •

The vibe on this one is very '70s, hey baby, have you met my lovvvvvuh hot tub etc. Something about the phrase "lover" has always rubbed me the wrong way—like, we get it, you're f***ing, dial it back. The whole thing felt some kind of weird thematic mash-up of Rupert Holmes' "Escape" and Ambrosia's "How Much I Feel":

You get a bunch of free EX-s (once you grasp the theme), but then the whole weirdness of the "?" clues makes it harder than a usual Monday, so I don't know, maybe difficulty-wise that comes out as a wash. For me, the "?" stuff, and the reparsing it entailed, made it more Tuesday than Monday for me. I don't think I fully grasped any of the themers as I was solving them. I was just dimly aware that they were phrases where an EX was doing something, but the answers themselves were just EX words, so I just got crosses and sort of waited for an EX word to appear that looked like it had something vaguely to do with the content of the theme clue. Found the whole thing repetitive and a little boring. I also got weirdly held up in the north, where 5A: Oaf, ugh, that could be like two thousand things, and the first one thousand I guessed were wrong (LOUT was my main guess). Also had Hop TO IT, not ON IT—"Hop TO IT" feels way way way more idiomatically correct to my ears, especially as a command. Super-annoying to have the clue on the crappy fill be the thing that throws you off. ON IT could be clued so much more clearly and cleanly. And cluing OTOH as merely "transition" slowed me down too (7D: Texter's transition); no hint there that it's an abbr. One more slow-down at COSMOS, where the clue ... just did nothing for me (54A: Absolutely everything). I'm focusing on slow-downs because nothing else about the puzzle (after the "lovvvvvvuh" stuff) seemed remarkable.

[Only Prince may say "lover"]

IN TWO *and* IN TOW? That's ... bold. I teach Shakespeare not infrequently and still canNot keep all the Italian men's names straight to save my life. ANTONIO, sure, sounds right (25D: Villain in Shakespeare's "The Tempest"). Again, just got some crosses and waited for something familiar to arise. Don't think of TEA (like, black tea, normal tea, tea) as a "throat soother"—that's more "herbal tea." Did not expect something as generic as MESS for 42D: Target of a cleanup. "Target your mess with a cleanup, children!" Meh. REUNE will always be an awful word. Wish there were more fun things in this grid to talk about. Alas. Bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

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Painter of maja both desnuda vestida / TUE 2-19-19 / Heyday of taxis in Beijing / Producer of Jacksons

Constructor: David Alfred Bywaters

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:57)

THEME: TO BE / OR NOT / TO BE (38A: With 39- and 40-Across, classic Shakespearean question phonetically suggested by 17-, 23-, 47- and 59-Across) — first two themers have "two B"s (when they should have one), and second two themers have one "B" (when they should have two):

Theme answers:

• 17A: One who's taking a polar vortex pretty hard? (COLD SOBBER)
• 23A: One who cheats on a weight-reduction plan? (DIETARY FIBBER)
• 47A: Heyday of taxis in Beijing? (CHINESE CAB AGE)
• 59A: Defense against a charge of public nudity? ("WE WAS ROBED!") (if the base phrase here, "we was robbed!", is not familiar to you, it's a sports thing you say when your sports team lost because of a "bad" call by the ump / ref) (not sure what the origin of the bad-grammar construction is...)

Word of the Day: IMPECUNIOUS (24D: Lacking money) —

adjective

1. having little or no money.

   
   

   "a titled but impecunious family" (google)

• • •

my nephew, playing Hamlet

To like or not to like, that is the question. I think I'm neutral on this puzzle. I didn't exactly enjoy it, but it's ... *trying* to do something that I think ... *kind* of holds up. *Kind* of withstands scrutiny. I think my main problem is that I have to do some gymnastics and lawyering, some gymnastic lawyering, in my head in order to justify the wording of the revealer. I'll give you the non-grammatical "two B" (instead of "two B's"), but something about the Shakespearean phrase doesn't really get at the deliberate wrongness of all the themers. Some part of me wants the "not two B" answers to lack a double-B. Like, say, BLUBBER to BLUER. FLABBY to FLAY.* But that's a much taller order, and is itself weird. In the end, I think this one comes in at Adequate, themewise. The non-theme fill was a chore, but an average chore, not an atrocity (except OLA, which feels inexcusable in a corner that untaxing, esp with that clue) (61D: Rock-___ (classic jukebox brand)).


Cluing on the short stuff was quite off for me today, in that the puzzle was asking me to think of words in ways I normally don't. To [Own up to] something is to ADMIT it; AVOW feels much more oath-y, like you're swearing something, not confessing it. It's the idea that you're saying something embarrassing or admitting guilt, implied by the clue, that did not compute for me. Then there's "OH, OK," which is one of those answer types where I don't have any good way of knowing what the first two letters are going to be (kinda wanted "UH" or "AH") (19A: "Ah, now I see") (Ah, now I see that "Ah" is actually in the clue ... ah). Put in "MOI?" for 30D: "Is that true about me?" and, as I was forced to change it by ADAPT, briefly wondered why, in my seven years of high school / college French, I'd never learned the word "DOI?" ("Dwah!?").** The clue [Cats' catches] just wasn't getting any traction in my brain. Something about the potential ambiguity of "cat" and the verb-to-nounness of "catches" had me needing every cross to get the simple RATS. Had ALONE for ALOOF (not that surprising) (64A: Socially disengaged). People go to REHAB, not houses (11D: Fix up, as a building). Lastly, I had IMPECUNIARY (it fits, and apparently means the same thing!) where IMPECUNIOUS belonged (24D: Lacking money). I use neither word, and no one would use either word these days except facetiously. It's a word, but it's a word the only proper response to which is a laugh or an eyeroll, depending on the seriousness of the user.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*hey you could do the trick twice with chef Bobby Flay (BOY FLABBY), though that would "Not to be or to be?" I guess...

**yes I know it's "DO [space] I?" please no letters thank you

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Philosophical argument for belief in God / SUN 12-23-18 / Arabic name that sounds like polite affirmative / Lee singer with 2011 #1 album Mission Bell / Alcorn creator of Pong / Modern prefix with tag

Constructor: David Alfred Bywaters

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (9:23)

THEME: "Labor Contract(ion)s" — familiar phrases have the letter string "ion" either added or taken away, i.e. they are either ion-ized or UNIONIZED (70A: Like some factories ... or, in a different sense, like 90-, 109- and 119-Across (but not 24-, 32- and 53-Across)?)

Theme answers:

• WITH ONE ACCORDION (24A: How polka bands get their start?)
• PAPAL BULLION (32A: Pontiff's gold treasure?)
• IS THAT A FACTION? (53A: Query about the Freedom Caucus or Berniecrats?)
• MISS IMPOSSIBLE (90A: Nickname for a hard-to-please girl?)
• FILLING STATS (109A: Data maintained by competitive dentists?)
• RHETORICAL QUEST (119A: Speakers' searches for just the right words?)

Word of the Day: PASCAL'S WAGER (4D: Philosophical argument for belief in God) —

noun

PHILOSOPHY

unpunctuated: Pascals wager

1. the argument that it is in one's own best interest to behave as if God exists, since the possibility of eternal punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise. (google)

• • •

So weird. First, extremely weird to give away the theme in the title. You'd think "Labor Contractions" would be fine, but to go ahead and parenthesize the "ion," what the hell? This isn't preschool. Let the people figure stuff out on their own. Second, this theme doesn't know what it's doing. It's trying to do two things and it ends up doing nothing very interesting. IONIZED is really the operative word. Certain words are IONIZED, in that they have "ION" added to them—a gimmick that is not at all interesting, but is at least consistent. But this revealer adds a new bit of wordplay to the mix by giving us UNIONIZED, a real word that is also, now, the fake (is it fake?) word UN-IONIZED, or de-ionized (if that's a word, which, who knows?). So the UNIONIZED words are the ones that ... (does the double negative math) ... don't ... have the ION. And then the others are the others. And after all of that, you're left with wacky phrases that aren't very funny, and a mostly run-of-the-mill grid that is rather heavy on the old-skool crosswordese (Et tu, ATTU!?). Can you do something with multiple accords? That base phrase seemed off. It seems like such a basic theme should've yielded tons and tons of possible answers, some of which surely must be funnier, or have funnier cluing possibilities, than any of these. Really like CLICKBAIT, and (even though I've never heard of it) PASCAL'S WAGER, but even something interesting like STAGE MOTHERS seems fumbled ("stage moms" is the phrase I know). It's not that the answer is invalid, it just doesn't ... pop. It's OK. It DIDOK. Unlike DRACONIC, which didn't do anywhere near OK (the word is DRACONIAN— it's IANIZED) (38D: Unduly harsh)!


Jeez louise in what world am I supposed to know the first name of the guy who invented Pong!? This one, apparently, but what a hellaciously stupid clue for Edgar Poe's middle name. The puzzle was mostly very easy, but I got slowed right down there toward the end, in the SW, when I couldn't get COMELIER to save my life, despite knowing very well what "pulchritudinous" means. Starts with "C" ... no idea. None. Perhaps because, like many things in this grid, No One Says This. I also botched the AMIE answer because ... the grid was already so crosswordesey that my brain somehow thought this clue was to do with "ABIE's Irish Rose," which ... look, I'm not going to go in to it, for fear of waking that answer from the dead, but it was a thing that used to appear in crosswords. Maybe my brain thought "ABIE's Irish Beau"? Dunno. Also, the SAMANTHA clue is garbage (91D: Bee, e.g.), in that you would never clue KANYE [West, e.g.] or WILL [Smith, e.g.]. Write a damn clue, for bee's sake!


On a technical level, you can see how theme answer placement gets the constructor into trouble in the south, where themers end up requiring a four-letter word that both starts and ends with "I"—unlikely. Choices are exceedingly limited right off the bat. So we get crosswordese, INRI, and also crosswordese STENO and crosswordese ASTI, and then this weird answer DOSO.

Let's see, what else? I had MARROW before YARROW, probably because my brain thought I was writing MALLOW (that's a plant, right?) (105D: Flowering herb also known as devil's nettle). In case you didn't know, HERA lost a beauty contest in which there were two other contestants: Athena and Aphrodite. Paris was the judge and he chose Aphrodite, for which he was "rewarded" with Helen, and the rest is ancient history (namely, the Trojan War). OK, enough with the mythology lessons—Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

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Object of early Christian condemnation / TUE 12-13-16 / Legal actions provoked by oversimple jigsaw puzzles / South American animal also known as hog-nosed coon / Conglomerate originally named Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo / Company that buried 700,000+ unsold video games in 1983

Constructor: David Alfred Bywaters

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (3:50-something for me)

THEME: lawyer humor — familiar phrases clued (wackily / "?"-style) as if their final words had some relation to the legal field:

Theme answers:

• THREE-PIECE SUITS (17A: Legal actions provoked by oversimple jigsaw puzzles?)
• BOXER BRIEFS (35A: Law documents concerning pugilists?)
• BASKET CASES (43A: Court precedents involving games of hoops?)
• DENTAL RETAINERS (61A: Attorneys' fees paid with gold fillings?)

Word of the Day: WINEY (22A: Like some French sauces) —

adj, winier or winiest

(Cookery) having the taste or qualities of wine (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

SPECIAL MESSAGE for Solvers in Syndication (for the week of January 15-January 22, 2017)

Hello, solvers. A new year has begun, and that means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. Despite my regular grumbling about puzzle quality, constructor pay, and other things that should be better in the world of crosswords, I still love solving, I still love writing about puzzles, and I love love love the people I meet and interact with because of this blog. Well, most of them. Some I mute on Twitter, but mostly: there is love. The blog turned 10 in September, and despite the day-in, day-out nature of the job, I can't foresee stopping any time soon. The community of friends and fellow enthusiasts are all just too dear to me. You can expect me to be here every day, praising / yelling at the puzzle—independent and ad-free. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

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All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Cookery Postcards from Penguin"—beautifully designed covers of vintage cookbooks, with provocative titles like "Cookery For Men Only " (!) or "Good Meals from Tinned Foods" (!?). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

---------------------------

Yeah, this feels NYT-normal. Corny theme that could've come from decades ago, fill that could've come from decades ago. All of it straight over the plate—the plate is just an old, familiar plate. There's really no reason, in a high word-count / low theme-density puzzle we should be seeing stuff like SAUER and DRI and *especially* WINEY. I don't mean to be whiny, but oof. And double-oof, given the really ambiguous clue. If you're going to have an oofy answer, don't make it tough to suss out. Water on a grease fire. Only makes it ERSE, I mean worse (and there's not much worse than ERSE). Took me longer than normal to finish this largely because of the nature of the theme, which, until I had a couple answers from crosses, was not at all apparent to me. Clues looked like [Concatenation of random words question mark?], so whatever humor or cleverness was there was (at least initially) lost on me. Placeholder puzzle. Adequate. Inoffensive. DRI as a bone.


Many dumb mistakes today, including DROPS for ERROR (18D: What "oopsy" signals) and TERNS (?!) for SWANS (19D: Graceful birds). Are TERNS graceful? I don't know. I do know I was clearly still under the heavy influence of ERNS at that point (30D: Shore birds). Real trouble getting front end of DENTAL RETAINERS (I only ever called mine a "retainer"). And had BIOME for BIOTA (another ugh-word) (43D: Flora and fauna). WHEEDLED and VARMINTS are fine entries—easily my favorite. GO FETCH is ridiculous, esp. as clued (26D: Command to a dog after a ball is thrown). I mean, it's a phrase that I recognize, but, well ... do you have a dog? I do. A lab. She was basically bred to fetch. The idea that I would have to give her a "Command" after throwing a ball is hilarious. She would be like "yeah, I know, why are you talking?" Actually, she wouldn't even be there to listen. She'd be where the ball is already. It's the "after" part of the clue that really kills me. "After" I throw the ball, she's gone. She's chasing it before it has left my hand. Once the arm goes in motion, she anticipates direction and goodbye. Unless I taunt her with false throws, which I sometimes do. Anyway, telling my dog to GO FETCH "after" the ball is thrown would be like telling me to GO EAT "after" the pizza is put in front of me. "Way ahead of you," I would say, through my mouthful of pizza.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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