Greek sauce with yogurt and cucumbers / TUE 4-2-19 / Dressed like hundred dollar millionaire / Who says speak hands for me in Julius Caesar

Constructor: Natasha Lyonne and Deb Amlen

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday) (4:30)

THEME: BOB / FOSSE (65A: With 66-Across, choreographer whose life is depicted in the starts of 19-, 36- and 50-Across) — first words of the themers form the title "ALL THAT JAZZ":

Theme answers:

• ALL FLASH, NO CASH (19A: Dressed like "a hundred-dollar millionaire")
• THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT (36A: "I think I made a mistake here")
• JAZZ UP THE PLACE (50A: "Add some throw pillows or a pop of color around here, why don't you!")

Word of the Day: BOB / FOSSE (65A) —

Robert Louis Fosse (June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) was an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, and film director.^[2]

He won eight Tony Awards for choreography, more than anyone else, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning for his direction of Cabaret. (wikipedia)

• • •

Having truly godawful crosswordese at 1A (CASCA) and then an opening themer I've never heard or seen, ever, in nearly half a century of life on this planet, made a pretty bad first impression on me, but then TZATZIKI, YOGA POSE, COPOUTS, and (ironically?) NOT FOR ME won back a lot of good will. And even though the theme concept is pretty thin (it's just a three-word first-words progression, and there are roughly a jillion phrases that begin wth "ALL" or "THAT"), it's hard to be mad when you're remembering BOB / FOSSE, and when the themers themselves are this, uh, jazzy. Congrats to Natasha Lyonne on her debut puzzle.


Five things:

• 20D: Actress Blair of "The Exorcist" (LINDA) — should've been a gimme, but a much more recent 5-letter "Actress Blair" was the only "Actress Blair" my brain would provide me. I seriously believed, for much longer than I should have, that SELMA Blair might've starred in a remake that I missed.
• 16A: Queen's domain (REALM) — again, should've been easy, but I must've gotten the middle letters from the crosses before ever looking at the clue, because my first answer in here was SEALY (!?).  
• 6A: Poehler vortex of funniness? (AMY) — oof, this pun. Didn't care for it. Knope. Not one bit.
• 47D: Slow, in music (ADAGIO) — aargh, some day I will get all my tempi (?) straight. I had ADANTE in here. Is that a thing? [checks] No, no it is not. ANDANTE is a thing. And it means "moderately slow." But ADANTE is just an Italian poet and nothing else.
• 6A: 52D: Facebook founder's nickname (ZUCK) — not a fan of the guy, but am a fan of this nickname as fill. I would say they Scrabble-f***ed the hell out of this SW corner, but when you've got JAZZ down there to begin with, as part of your theme, then even just one "Q" in close proximity is gonna look like Scrabble-f***ing. And I gotta respect a puzzle that goes right up to the pangram but stops just one "X" short. They coulda forced an "X" into this grid (it's possible), but it woulda been ugly. Three cheers for restraint!

I'm still on the tail end of a head cold, so I need to get some sleep. Apologies for the short write-up. Also, a sincere thanks to everyone who sent me condolence messages last week after I announced the death of my good old dog, Dutchess. In the comments section, on social media, and even through the dang US postal service, you people were exceedingly kind, and I appreciate it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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TUESDAY, Feb. 12, 2008 - Deb Amlen (SALSA PERCUSSION)

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: (Walking through the park and) Reminiscing - familiar phrases have a RE- prefix attached to the beginning, creating wacky phrases which are then clued, each clue starting "Reminisce about ..."

A very easy Tuesday. My only impediment was the theme itself. It's a fine theme, but I couldn't get into a groove, couldn't pick them off easily. Oh, I also pulled up short / lame at 64D: Home for Bulls, but not Bears: Abbr. (NBA), in that my brain went into a CHI loop, as in "CHI ... CHI ... CHI." Had to pull out and regroup. As for the theme, I'm not sure I noticed the theme until late in the process. I have one criticism about theme implementation - and it involves the last theme answer, RECOUNT CALORIES (which my wife and I both dislike, but for different reasons). For me, RECOUNT is fundamentally different from REMEMBER, RECOLLECT, and RECALL, all of which are specifically memory-related. Now, I realize that all the words here can be used to describe someone actually saying something, and yet my sense of the fundamental difference between the last answers and the others remains. My wife didn't like how CALORIES was clued. "CALORIES is not a 'pig-out,'" she exclaimed. I see what she's saying, and yet can't think of a better way to clue the answer.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Reminisce about a nice facial outline? (re member profile)
• 27A: Reminisce about spring cleaning? (re collect dust)
• 47A: Reminisce about working in a restaurant? (re call waiting)
• 63A: Reminisce about a pig-out? (re count calories)

"Reminisce" is not a word I can type over and over without feeling slightly disoriented. It looks like a typo, like letters are missing. And that -SCE ending! For some reason I can handle it in a word like "coalesce," but with the "i" ... no.

Oh, one other thing, before the bullet list - I had an error. A flat-out error. The kind that will cost me dearly in a tournament situation. Not just a mistake, but a mistake of the kind that a simple once-over will never catch. The problem: 14A: Vega of "Spy Kids" movies (Alexa) - never having heard of such a person, I wrote in ALEXI. This gave me LIMB in the Down cross, which is clearly not an acceptable answer for 5D: Mild-mannered type (lamb), but it's a word nonetheless, and not one anyone is likely to blink at while scanning the puzzle for errors before turning it in. Ugh.

Remarkable things:

• 15A: Marilyn Monroe facial mark (mole) - weird to have "facial mark" and "facial outline" (17A) in clues so close to one another. Also weird that I just yesterday included Emily Cureton's puzzle-inspired drawing of Ms. Monroe in my write-up.
• 21A: Cartoon villain Badenov (Boris) - Ah, Cold War cartoon villains. Scrumptious. "Moose and Squirrel!"
• 22A: Gangsters' gals (molls) - up there with YEGGS among my favorite words. I've spent a lot of time with olde timey crime fiction.
• 23A: Ambassador's forte (tact) - I like that TACT and TACIT (60A: Not spoken) are both in the puzzle. And that one has to do with speech, and the other with not speaking.
• 36A: Trifling amount (sou) - this was one of a series of words that came to me instantly, words that I threw into the grid quickly, with more hope than confidence, but that ended up being right. Other such words today included BOAS (67A: Jungle menaces), MANSE (68A: Minister's home), MARACAS (45D: Salsa percussion), and T-TOP (60D: 'Vette roof option).
• 54A: Starch-yielding palm (sago) - I like this word (which I learned from xwords). I find it ... bouncy. Like POGO mixed with PAGO PAGO mixed with A-GO-GO mixed with ... SAGE?
• 6D: Lagasse of the Food Network (Emeril) - I think I'm supposed to admire the pairing of this answer with its counterpart BAM (44A: Catchword of 6-Down), but what I admire more is the paralleling of EMERIL with GORILLA (7D: Big bully).
• 49D: Waikiki wingding (luau) - Wow, "wingding." Nice to see that word up and working again.
• 61D: Parts of a drum kit (toms) - not ... in my vocabulary, I don't think. TOMS are turkeys, as far as I know.

See you tomorrow,
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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