First name of Peace Nobelist that ends ironically / SUN 8-16-20 / Phillipa who played Eliza in original cast of Hamilton / Charles religious leader known as Father of Modern Revivalism / Slugger Hideki / What a dental scalar removes / Actress Tyler who will be apt age in 2031

Constructor: Francis Heaney

Relative difficulty: Easy (7:55)

THEME: "Alternative Cinema" — Movies are clued as "Alternative titles" for other movies; they're "alternatives" because their titles make them sound like their titles are about the same thing as the originals (even if, in every case, they are very much not):

Theme answers:

• "TWELVE ANGRY MEN" (23A: Alternative title for "The Dirty Dozen")
• "THE AFRICAN QUEEN" (33A: Alternative title for "Cleopatra")
• "DOCTOR STRANGE" (51A: Alternative title for "Frankenstein")
• "BYE BYE / BIRDIE" (68A: With 70-Across, alternative title for "To Kill a Mockingbird")
• "WATERSHIP DOWN" (92A: Alternative title for "Titanic")
• "THE LADY VANISHES" (106A: Alternative title for "Gone Girl")
• "AMERICAN BEAUTY" (121A: Alternative title for "The Name of the Rose")

Word of the Day: SANRIO (94A: Hello Kitty company) —

Sanrio Co., Ltd. (株式会社サンリオ, Kabushikigaisha Sanrio) is a Japanese company that designs, licenses and produces products focusing on the kawaii (cute) segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts and accessories that are sold worldwide and at specialty brand retail stores in Japan. Sanrio's best-known character is Hello Kitty, a little anthropomorphic cat girl, one of the most successful marketing brands in the world. (wikipedia)

• • •

The funniest thing about [Hello Kitty company] is remembering how Will once told a veteran constructor that HELLO KITTY was not well enough known to be in the NYTXW ... (!) ... and now it's so obviously well known that we're apparently supposed to know the parent company!? Wow. Tables, turned. I will say that the SANRIO / LAILA crossing was one of the only weak spots in this puzzle, in that lots and lots of people won't know SANRIO, and it's totally plausible that even if you know LAILA Ali you will misspell her name LAYLA. So ... SANRYO? Did anyone make that error? You can say "well SANRYO just looks wrong" but I would then direct your attention to the company name SANYO, which is just one letter shy of SANRYO. I just think that is a potential Natick for people (non-universally-known proper nouns crossing at a hard-to-guess vowel). Might mess some people up, which would be a shame, because I found this puzzle clever and delightful. How often do I say that about Sunday puzzles? (It's a rhetorical question! We all know the answer is "almost never"). The theme ... works. And it's clever. And genuinely funny. (Outright LOL at "BYE BYE / BIRDIE"). I will say that (to me) "DOCTOR STRANGE" is a comics character and "WATERSHIP DOWN" is a novel, but there's no disputing the fact that both were movies, so fair enough. There were very few ugly moments. Just a clean, entertaining breeze. 

If you didn't know SANRIO, well, I had a little taste of that bafflement at UNEEDA (!?!?!??!!), which had me feeling worried that I had an error. I mean, how would I know. UNEEDA cracker from this century (or at least last century) if you want me to have a shot at getting it. Just finished watching "The Office" in its entirety, so I've been staring at EDHELMS a lot of late. TWYLA SHARON MATSUI SMEE LOUIS was quite the proper name mash-up there in the lower center, but MATSUI's the only one I can see giving people real grief. ISSICK made me wince, the way ISDUMB or ISANYADJECTIVE might, and every letter of FINNEY was a mystery to me (34D: Charles ___, religious leader known as "The Father of Modern Revivalism"), but whatever issues I had were quickly overcome, and the bulk of the puzzle was very easy to move through. I could do without MOR and DIC (...!), but otherwise I can't fault the fill very much at all. Lots of great longer fill in the (non-theme) Downs too, which is always nice. 

Congrats to Brian Cimmet and Patrick Blindauer, the organizers of the Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament, which took place online yesterday with something north of 1800 (!!) contestants. I didn't participate but I did get to catch the finals of both the Local (novice) and Express (advanced) divisions, which were both oddly *thrilling*. Congratulations especially to David Plotkin, who won the whole shebang.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I used to watch a show called "Alphas." It was partially set in Binghamton. I watched it with my daughter, roughly a decade ago. I liked the show enough to buy a t-shirt. It looks like this:

Fast forward nine years, my daughter is now in college, and all my wife and I have to fill the void is an ornery but adorable kitten named Alfie. 

On Friday, I got a package in the mail from my daughter. It contained this:

The one discolored toe bean in the exponent really put it over the top for me. That is a true-to-life detail. I'm either never going to wear this shirt (too precious) or I'm going to put it on and never take it off. Can't decide. 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Toy brand with plastic figures / WED 2-26-20 / Actress O'Hara with Tony for King and I / Anise-flavored aperitif / Gal pal of Dennis the Menace / Old airline with globe in its logo / Peaceful pastoral scene

Constructor: Francis Heaney

Relative difficulty: Medium (untimed, on paper)

THEME: BILLIE EILISH — tribute puzzle honoring this singer/songwriter, who won a bunch of GRAMMYs at the most recent Grammy Awards (1A: Award notably won in each of the "big four" categories by this puzzle's honoree). The idea here is she won a GRAMMY in each of the "big four" categories, and her name divides into four equal parts (as seen at the ends of this puzzle's theme answers). I think that's it. There's also her biggest hit ("BAD GUY"), which gets the revealer clue (67A: Hit song by the 1-Across winner whose name is spelled out by the final three letters of 21-, 25-, 47- and 52-Across)

Theme answers:

• PLAYMOBIL (21A: Toy brand with plastic figures)
• "HIPS DON'T LIE" (25A: 2006 #1 Shakira hit)
• TROMPE L'OEIL (47A: Art technique that's French for "fools the eye")
• "AS YOU WISH" (52A: Butler's "Gladly")

Word of the Day: KELLI O'Hara (30D: Actress O'Hara with a Tony for "The King and I") —

Kelli Christine O'Hara (born April 16, 1976) is an American actress and singer. She has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway in many musicals since making her Broadway debut as a replacement in Jekyll & Hyde in 2000. She has also acted on television, film and opera, appearing with The Metropolitan Opera. In 2018 she made her West End debut.

O'Hara has received seven Tony Award nominations, first for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 2005 production of The Light in the Piazza. Her subsequent nominations include The Pajama Game (2006), South Pacific (2008), Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), The Bridges of Madison County (2014), and Kiss Me, Kate (2019), winning Best Actress in a Musical in 2015 for her performance as Anna Leonowens in The King and I.^[2]

She has also played roles in television series, such as Masters of Sex and 13 Reasons Why, receiving a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her starring role in the 2017 web drama series The Accidental Wolf. She has appeared in films, such as Sex and the City 2, and operas, such as The Merry Widow and Così fan tutte. (wikipedia)

• • •

Francis Heaney has made some of my favorite puzzles. He did this candy cane-themed meta-puzzle a handful of years back (around Christmastime, 2013) that remains one of my favorite crosswords of all time—one of the few crosswords that I still think about years later ("Seasonal Staff"—see it here). I encounter his work primarily in the American Values Crossword Club puzzle, and I've been groomed to expect a very clever hook—something that makes the whole puzzle snap into place, some ingenious bit of wordplay, some didn't-see-it-coming gimmick. I make these prefatory remarks to try to explain why today's puzzle was such a disappointment. I never got that feeling of "wow." Worse, I was sure the problem was mine, so I kept scanning and rescanning the finished grid, wondering what the hook was, only to discover, in the end, that it's just ... that her name divides into "four" equal parts (to match (?) the "big four" GRAMMYs that she won earlier this year). Like ... that's it. Since the revealer clue basically holds your hand through the BIL / LIE / EIL / ISH revealer, so there's not really anything to discover (on your own), I figured that, since it's Francis here, there had to be more. Something special. Some extra level. And there just wasn't. It all seemed very flimsy as tribute puzzles go ... though as soon as I write that sentence, I realize that "tribute puzzles" are actually routinely disappointing. At least this one isn't just a bunch of trivia about a dead celebrity crammed hastily into a grid so that the "tribute" can come out in semi-timely fashion. This one at least tries to do something with the whole "big four" thing. It's just ... I didn't even know "big four" was a thing. At all. I couldn't name the "big four" categories. Album song record artist? Is that it? Oh, close. It's Album song record and then Best New Artist. Seems weird to make this "feat" contingent on the artist's being "New." "New" is just a matter of timing, not quality. So you can only win "big four" once in your life? Shrug. ANYway ... I know who Billie Eilish is, I know the hit song, this all should've been very much up my alley. But ... well, it was an alley, but mainly it was dark and I was kind of lost and then it turns out there wasn't anywhere to go because I was really just standing in my backyard the whole time. Or something like that.


Hardest part of the puzzle for me By Far was PLAYMOBIL, which ... what is that? I really (Really) wanted PLAYSKOOL ... that's a thing, right? I feel like I had a lot of PLAYSKOOL toys as a kid, like a barn that made a "moo" sound when the doors opened, does that sound right? Familiar? I don't think they had PLAYMOBIL toys when I was a kid. Wikipedia says the company was founded in '74, which is very much me-as-a-kid time. But I was PLAYSKOOL. So that whole -MOBIL part had me tilting my head. But the crosses checked out.

[the audience!!!! i love this]

The only other real head-scratcher for me was KELLI O'Hara, whose career is so accomplished (see Word of the Day, above) that I'm embarrassed I've never even heard of her. Oh, and I definitely did not know that GINA was Dennis the Menace's "gal pal" (though I do love the use of that phrase in this instance—guys have "gal pal"s too!) (63A: Gal pal of Dennis the Menace). The only girl I can picture in the Dennis-the-Menaceverse is (it turns out) Margaret, a bespectacled redhead who is more nemesis than gal pal. As for the rest of this puzzle, well, it just played like a somewhat disappointing themeless. The west was the wobbliest, fill-wise (ESAI ISEEM SMS), but overall it was solid enough. I just didn't get the aha moment I really truly expected. This puzzle is likely the victim of my having set the bar so incredibly high. Let me phrase that—of *Francis's* having set the bar so incredibly high, with his previous work.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. partials are never gonna be *great* fill, but I did enjoy ADOG about as much as I'm ever gonna enjoy a partial (3D: On the internet, nobody knows you're ___" (classic New Yorker cartoon caption)). And "classic" is actually not much of an overstatement. This cartoon's got its own wikipedia page, from which I learned that, "As of 2013, the panel was the most reproduced cartoon from The New Yorker, and Steiner had earned between $200,000 and $250,000 US from its reprinting" (wikipedia)

July 5, 1993 (!!!)

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Country singer Collin / SUN 1-24-16 / Quorum for Jewish worship / John of Plymouth Colony / Daily schedule for filming / Theodore who directed St Vincent 2014 / Last king of Spain before Juan Carlos / VW head / Soggy computer brain

Constructor: Francis Heaney and Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Initial Turn" — 3-letter first words in familiar phrases have their second and third letters switched, creating familiar 3-letter abbreviations (or "initials"), which results in wacky phrases / wacky "?"-cluing:

Theme answers:

• SDI AND NANCY (23A: Two things on Ronald Reagan's mind?)
• TBA COLA (30A: "We'll tell you what soda we're serving later"?)
• DNA SAVAGE (32A: Brute working on the Human Genome Project?)
• CPU OF NOODLES (48A: Soggy computer brain?)
• CPA GUNS (50A: H&R Block employee's biceps?)
• PDA OF PAPER (65A: Origami BlackBerry, e.g.?)
• RBI TICKLER (68A: Amusing baseball scoring play?)
• GTO MILK (91A: Drink in an old Pontiac?)
• BTU? SERIOUSLY? (93A: "An A/C measure? Are you kidding me?")
• BYO WONDER (104A: Sign in a restaurant that doesn't serve white bread?)
• TMI COOK (108A: Chef who explains in detail how the sausages are made?)
• BYU ON CREDIT (117A: Financial aid plan for a school in Provo?)

Word of the Day: Theodore MELFI (60A: Theodore who directed "St. Vincent," 2014) —

Theodore Melfi (Brooklyn, New York, USA) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for his feature length debut film St. Vincent starring Bill Murray. (This is the Entirety of his awesomely bullshit-free wikipedia page)

• • •

This one threatened to be brutal, but then mellowed out nicely. I spent something like 4+ minutes on the NW alone, trying to figure out what was going on, putting malls in wrong places and misremembering early American Johns (I went with ROLFE ... that's somebody, right?) and forgetting my scant Hebrew etc. I had to go pick up the NANCY of that first themer and then back slowly up before a. seeing there was some play on the movie title "Sid and Nancy," and then b. figuring out what that play was. Nobody likes three-letter abbrs. much—not in crosswords anyway—but I'd file this under "Crosswordese Repurposing" themes, and as such, it's pretty good. The answers were clever, and somewhat tough to uncover. Tough enough, anyway. The fill gets away from them a bunch. Never cross-ref your unfortunate short stuff (ABA, ATTYS). One WALLA is about as bad as multiple MYOPIAS. The far SW corner is a little sour and the broader SE, same. In the latter's case, all I can think is that someone *really* wanted "MEIN HERR," grid quality be damned. That SAR TIERI STYRO chunk is flat-out painful. IS LOYAL TO is pretty iffy. Imagine IS PRETTY IFFY as fill, and you see what I mean. So I wish this had been cleaner. But the theme is entertaining (and dense!), and the toughness level was decent. Acceptable fare, overall.


I was trying to remember the exact number of the [Quorum for Jewish worship] and I was like "I think it's ten" (correct!) "... but this is six letters ending in 'N', so it must be ELEVEN" (noooooooo!). With every passing day, I am less and less able to get a grip on the current pop culture. I find this alarming, as I am someone who pays attention to the news every day, listens to new music, has some awareness of new books. It's movies and TV that are gonna kill me. My watching habits have just atrophied. What I do watch tends to be movies on TCM. I think this has been a great boon for my life, my mental health, my fitness, but for crosswords, er, not so much. This is all to say that I *got* you, Eliza DUSHKU, despite having only the faintest idea who you are. And I got *you*, NATALIE Dormer, despite having no idea who you are (had NA-, guessed), but MELFI, lord help me no. Needed every cross. And I'll just take y'all's word for it that Collin RAYE is a thing.

[RIP Glenn Frey]

I have occasionally gotten questions about puzzles for kids, and while I do know of some books out there that are pretty decent, I want to direct your attention to the Kickstarter project of Eric Berlin, accomplished author (of "The Puzzling World of Winston Breen" and its sequels), and top-tier (TIER I?) puzzle-maker. He's filling the kid-puzzle void (ages 9+) with "PUZZLE YOUR KIDS," a subscription service that gives you two kid-friendly puzzles a week, and, at least twice a year, a puzzle hunt—a suite of puzzles that fit together to tell a story. The weekly puzzles are word puzzles of all different kinds. He's got samples on the Kickstarter page. If you have a kid or know a kid who likes puzzles, or whom you think you can hook on puzzles (I mean, beats drugs, right? Probably?), then you should definitely subscribe, or buy a gift subscription for a curious kid that you know. Eric's very close to funding this project, so please go put him over the top today. That would be great. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Michael of "Superbad" / THU 8-25-11 / Harold of the Clinton White House / Lepidopterist's tool / Patty Hearst alias / Tennis great born in Serbia

Constructor: Patrick Blindauer & Francis Heaney

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Food Pyramids — Circled letters form the name of a food in the shape of a pyramid.

Hi hi, Andrea Carla Michaels here getting to blog today's SASSY (1D: Fresh) puzzle. The lovely PuzzleGirl will help me technically: editing, embedding the images and doing my laundry, because she's just that kind of friend! Speaking of friends, should I recuse myself because Patrick Blindauer and Francis Heaney and I are close buddies? Full disclosure: Patrick and I are frequent puzzle collaborators and I'm going to Patrick's wedding in a couple of weeks.* Well, I would pass on guest-blogging, if I didn't honestly love this puzzle and felt the least bit conflicted. Instead I've got lots to say about this little gem … and Rex was nice enough to let me sit in and say it!

First of all, let's look at the construction. You've got four food "pyramids" stacked across the grid: SOUR CREAM, COBB SALAD, SNOW CONES, SWEET ROLL. Clever, clever construction, if not the most nutritious four-course meal. Love me some Cobb Salad, tho you never know what you are going to get. Sometimes they forget the avocado and put peas in there, sometimes there is a hard boiled egg, sometimes blue cheese delicately sprinkled, sometimes just a huge chunk. It's always an adventure! Hmmm, now that I think about it, is a COBB SALAD a "food" per se or a type of meal made of up different foods? Same slight stutter in initially wanting SNOWpeas because I was unsure if snow cones were food. (By the way, do not, I repeat, do not look up "SNOWCONES" in the Urban Dictionary.)

One minor quibble, theme-wise. Being a start-at-1A solver, I'm not sure I wanted the theme circles to be given away in just the second entry of the grid .… I would rather have been enlightened at the end.

Loved that the grid was rife with food imagery! Patrick and Francis sweetened the solving experience with a little SUET here (4D: Ingredient in some English pudding … yuck), a little ROCA there (49D: Almond ___ (candy brand)), sprinkled with LESS SALT (24D: Dietary dictum for one with hyper tension … and with an echo of EKCO (30D: Kitchenware brand), all washed down with some wine (48D: Blush stoppers (CORKS)).

I would rate this fairly easy, because although I don't time myself, I see my only writeover was CaliSTOGA for CONESTOGA (38A: Pioneer carrier). That would be my Word of the Day, but you can look it up yourself. Just do not google SNOWCONES! I'm serious! I'll never sleep again!

Being a lady of a "certain age" (OLDIE?) I had an easier time with certain clues, e.g. SHE'S A LADY (33A: 1971 Tom Jones hit). How cool is that that Francis and/or Patrick spotted the word SALAD in there???!!



And I still vividly remember the SLA and TANIA (37A: Patty Hearst alias).

Some folks might have had trouble in the heavily-peopled far right middle section, what with EDIE (28D: Falco, of "Nurse Jackie"), the aforementioned TANIA and ICKES (40A: Harold of the Clinton White House). ICKES will live up/down to his name and be icky for some. Why on earth did Harold's parents not change their name when they had the chance? Younger folks are probably more likely to suss out KYLE (60A: "South Park" Boy), CERA (27D: Michael of "Superbad") and ELMO (15A: Friend of Zoe and Abby). I didn't know who Zoe and Abby were. "Sesame Street" premiered in 1969 … I was already ten and knew my alphabet fairly well at that point, so the Muppets were not part of my education. Though I have a vague recovered memory of two silhouettes mouthing, "MMM … OP … MOP"! Trickiest clue, I'm guessing, was "55D Mad people, e.g.: Abbr." If that tripped you up, the answer is EDS., which is short for editors, as in editors of MAD Magazine. Get it now? You're welcome! In my lifetime, we've gone from "What me worry?" to "No worries." Whenever someone says "No worries" instead of "You're welcome," I always feel compelled to respond, "Some worries!" (Then again, I'm Jewish.)

You could see the constructors' predilection for Broadway peek out with the RAITT clue referring to Bonnie's dad John, rather than the "Let's Give Them Something to Talk About" songstress. Bonnie lives here in San Francisco. We have mutual friends and I occasionally run into her, and we have this weird vibe where something always goes terribly wrong between us (once she sort of accused me of stressing out her blind poodle, but that's another story for another time!).

Speaking of San Francisco, I took TROLLEY CAR (54A: Conductor's place) as a personal shoutout to me. But then again, I take everything personally … even CLOBBER (my favorite word in the puzzle!)

Needless to say, these two brilliant creators rarely have DRECK (58A: Shoddy stuff) in their puzzles. The closest they come is DIPL. (42D: Embassy worker), which a little birdie told me may even have been changed. If WEEP were simply changed to PEEL, DIPL. would be transformed into DILL, two more food references (!). Plus you wouldn't lose their clever SEOUL entry (44D: City whose name sounds like a fish). That, by the way, is why Patrick and Francis are too clever by half … and I mean that in a good way … Their SEOUL is a triple Seoul Food/Sole Food/Soul Food pun! And, as we know, Seoul is the brevity of wit! (You would, however, lose the lovely Ms. Fay WRAY (51D "King Kong" costar, 1933).)

Finally, I would be betraying my Minnesota roots if I did not mention the very light Scandinavian theme (by light, I mean a total of two clues!). Scrabble players will recognize RYAS (29D: Scandinavian rugs) if they know their three-letter words (-YA also takes a P front hook!) … and PELLE (45D: "___ The Conqueror" (Max Von Sydow film)) is Norwegian, even tho Max Von Sydow (who was nominated for an Academy award for his role) is Swedish. That was a gimme for me as I have been in love with his son Clas going on 35 years now! Fun fact: Max Von Sydow (who's played everyone from Jesus Christ to the Exorcist to Ming the Merciless to the assassin in "Three Days of the Condor"; he was in all the early Bergman films and was the knight who played Chess with Death!) looks just like the picture on a $20 bill.



And on that (twenty-dollar) note, I'll say CIAO! (56A: Foreign farewell)

HUG (34D: O, Symbolically),

acme

* P.S. By the way, if you love Patrick's puzzles, be sure to check out his website. And you can hop on over to the Crossword Fiend Forum for a little puzzle I made for Patrick and his lovely-bride-to-be Rebecca in lieu of a proper engagement present!

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Daughter of rocker Kurt Courtney Love —SUN 6-13-10— Greedy race in Star Trek universe / Longtime Yes drummer / Half of old Latin aphorism

Constructor: Francis Heaney

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: FLAG DAY — select answers have country names embedded in them; those country names are turned into the three colors of their flags, with the colors presented rebus-style, in three successive squares (i.e. one color in each square)

[Just click on the grid: you can read my handwriting *just* fine...]

Word of the Day: AGAMAS (24A: Brilliantly colored lizards) —

An agama is any one of the various small, long-tailed, insect-eating lizards of the genus Agama. The agamid genus is composed of at least 37 species across Africa, where they are the most common lizard. They can be found in many sizes, from 12.5 to 30 cm (5 in. to 1 ft.) in length and a wide variety of colours. One of the best known species is the Agama agama), widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. For Eurasian agamas, see the genus Laudakia. // Agamas originally lived in forest and bush across Africa, but have since adapted to live in villages and compounds where their habitat has been cleared. They live inside the thatch of huts and other small spaces, emerging only to feed. If caught out in the open, agamas are able to run quickly on their hind legs to reach shelter. The desert agama can still be found in the dry areas of North Africa. Despite their name, they avoid bare sand. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did this one on paper, sitting in Barnes & Noble cafe. Wife is still toiling away on it. I believe this to be the hardest NYT Sunday puzzle I've ever done. That could be an exaggeration, but I can't think of one that ever took me this long, and left me with So Many words / phrases I did not know or had barely heard of. At first ... well, at first I was just annoyed at the NW corner and the fact that I couldn't get any of the Downs. Then, a bit later, once I remembered FRANCES BEAN and got the theme trick, I thought I was going to have to remember all the flag colors *from memory* — now that definitely *would have* been the hardest Sunday puzzle I'd ever done. I had run into Romania without ever realizing it had anything to do with the theme, but then I hit IRELAND (whose flag I'd already discovered) and I realized that (mercifully) all the flag colors were in the clues themselves. It was just (just!) a matter of finding out where the embedded countries were. The hardest for me (by far) was MINI(MALI)STS, probably because I found MALI soooooo late in the game. Also, because I had written in MINIMALSTS, thinking it was a non-theme answer and neglecting to note the *missing &$^#ing "I"*. Also, ELECTRUM? Never heard of it (60A: Alloy of gold and silver). Other answers that were only vaguely familiar or utterly mysterious:

• FERENGI (119A: Greedy race in the "Star Trek" universe) — to be honest, I *have* heard of them, but only barely, and couldn't pick them out of a line-up (that might be a lie ... I have a hazy picture). At any rate, that answer seems hard and I needed many crosses.
• SCRIBER (93D: Wood-marking tool) — uh ... no. I was looking for SCORER then SCRAPER then ... Pff, I dunno. Just waited for every cross.
• OHMAGE (108A: Amount of electrical resistance) — OK, that one's at least inferrable, in that I know OHM. And WATTAGE / CARNAGE / BONDAGE ... I know -AGE words.
• AGAMAS (24A: Brilliantly colored lizards) — no idea.
• ALAN [WHITE] (16D: Longtime Yes drummer) — Yes? No.
• SCARNE (31D: Card game expert John) — probably seen it in a puzzle before, but had no recollection.
  
• WEST [ORANGE] (17D: New Jersey community next to Montclair) — I'm sure this means something to locals, but it's just a random place name to me. I must have heard of it sometime, because I got it, and like FERENGI, it rings a faint bell.
• Colin KAPP (104A: British science fiction author Colin ___) — again, no. No way. Honestly, it's a phenomenally good thing that I know what a .PDF is (105D: Sharable PC file), or I might have been screwed with KAPP *and* FERENGI.
• SENNA (91D: Medicinal plant) — I D[RED]GEd this up from somewhere (107D: Bring (up) from the past), but I couldn't define it for you. Or pick it out of a line-up of ... plants.
  

Overall, this was memorable and entertaining, and gave me a workout like few other Sundays have (frankly, I often find Sundays more chore than joy — the theme has to be Stunning, or I just get bored). It also gave me a new word for "tough but ultimately doable" => HEWABLE (62A: Within a lumberjack's ability to cut down). Some good should come of that word.

Theme answers:

• 22A: Daughter of rocker Kurt and Courtney Love (FRANCES BEAN COBAIN =>[BLUE][WHITE][RED]S BEAN COBAIN)
  
• 36A: Buy real estate (ACQUIRE LAND => ACQU [GREEN][WHITE][ORANGE])
  
• 51A: Composer Philip Glass and others (MINIMALISTS => MINI[GREEN][YELLOW][RED]STS)
  
• 80A: Not troubled by (SANGUINE ABOUT => SAN[RED][YELLOW][GREEN]BOUT)
  
• 98A: Lighting enthusiasts? (PYROMANIACS => PY[BLUE][YELLOW][RED]CS)
  
• 110A: Modern school keepsakes (DIGITAL YEARBOOKS => DIG[GREEN][WHITE][RED]EARBOOKS)
  

All of the puzzle's flagged countries appear as answers, clued via the colors in their flags (thank goodness).

Bullets:

• 13A: Show whose title was seen on a license plate ("L.A. LAW") — New York State just got new plates (navy/orange) and it made me recall all the different colors CA plates had been when I lived there. After Blue with Yellow lettering came a white one with a sun on it. Then a white one with cursive "California" ... I think "L.A. LAW" was sun-era. Let's see... yep, I think that's a sun on there.
• 29A: Mixed-ancestry Latin Americans (MESTIZOS) — this strikes me as a tough word. I know it from some ethnic/feminist/lordknowswhat studies class I had at some point in college or grad school.
  
• 59A: Horror director Roth (ELI) — this answer has a very large number of potential clues, many of them quite current (the quarterback, the director, the Denzel Washington movie, etc.)
  
• 73A: Half of an old Latin aphorism (ARS LONGA) — ... VITA BREVIS. I love this clue/answer. It's daring.
  
• 82A: Singer Lisa and newspaper publisher William (LOEBS) — also Harvard UP editions of classical Latin and Greek texts.
  
• 1D: 1959 #1 hit for the Fleetwoods ("MR. [BLUE]") — I know this song. Feels like I know it from a David Lynch film. Nope, I'm confusing it with the song "Blue Velvet," clearly.

63D: Drugstore eponym (WAL[GREEN]) — was looking for DUANE or READE.

OK, I'm done.

Now your Tweets of the Week — puzzle chatter from the Twitterverse:

• @corcoran Left my paper in the cafe but tore out the Times crossword page .. Just realised it has the 'men seeking men' dating page on the back. Hah.
• @plannerben Is dragging the Saturday xword off to Jersey, where I will dismember it. That's what Jersey is for, after all.
• @PhilofProverbs Y r these kids still n school? They're just vwatching movies & doing crossword puzzles
• @ohhleary MBTA conductor: "Do crosswords, you can learn a new word. You can't learn new numbers in Sudoku, and if you do, you're not doing it right."
• @simonpegg Dear The Guardian newspaper, please consider creating an app archiving all your quick crosswords. That would be primo fun times!
• @mikejoosse If I see one more crossword using OLEO as an answer, I'm going to lose it.
• @MaisieCouchant I was young, once. Now I'm sitting with the f***ing Prospect crossword drinking tea, watching the drizzle & thinking about buying an oven.
• @donnf @nathanhurst they stuck with that stupid UFS crossword?!? even @michigandaily springs for LAT. 2 pages of puzzles, nothing good BAH @detnews
• @stagemc feeling deflated after a stupid confrontation with a student. Of course it was my fault you didn't pay attention in class, crossword boy #fb
• @RobinHood89 It's cheating I know, but on a scale of 1-10 how bad is it to use Google to help you complete a crossword? (1 being God & 10 being Hitler)
• @smlear2 Dear Honolulu Advertiser, You will be missed even though I could never do your crosswords. Sincerly, Stephen
• @xbicoastalkidx "Pei phone" is the worst pun I've yet to see in a crossword.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Sweet frozen treat — THURSDAY, Dec. 17 2009 — Subject of Hoffman's Potion / Locale in Carlo Levi best seller / Allen and * old comedy duo

Constructors: Francis Heaney and Patrick Blindauer

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: NOAH'S ARK (21A: Craft that's the subject of this puzzle) — six different animals appear TWO BY TWO (51A: How the passengers went in 21-Across) in the grid, i.e. SEAL next to SEAL, CAT next to CAT, etc., with each ANIMAL (54A: Brute) trying to escape an ALL OUT (19A: No holds barred) FLOOD (31D: Reason for 21-Across)

Word of the Day: ADÉLIE (63A: Penguin from Antarctica) — The Adélie Penguin, Pygoscelis adeliae, is a species of penguin common along the entire Antarctic coast and its nearby islands. They are among the most southerly distributed of all seabirds, along with the Emperor Penguin, South Polar Skua, Wilson's Storm Petrel, Snow Petrel, and Antarctic Petrel. In 1830, French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville named them to for his wife, Adélie. (wikipedia) [sadly, it appears the ADÉLIE was not allowed on board the ARK. He will be missed]

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What a weird, fun puzzle! I knew what the theme was going to be before I ever made it out of that tiny piece of real estate in the NW ("SEAL next SEAL ... pairs of animals ... NOAH'S ARK"), but the puzzle still held many surprises and was plenty tough for me, if only because of that damned OTTER POP (22D: Sweet frozen treat). When I was done I looked OTTER POP up online and instantly recognized them from my childhood, but I can't say that I've seen or even heard about OTTER POPs since the early 80s. I had the far scarier / less appetizing OTTER PIE there at first. If Eskimos can have pies, why not OTTERs? Actually, I had OTTERPYE, figuring the nickname of the mystery astronaut was GORDY (bec. GORDY Howe would have been too easy?). Then I changed it to GORDI (!?!?!). Finally had put in PBA, which I'd suspected was right all along, at 49A: Group of pin-heads?: Abbr., which changed PYE/PIE to POP, and I just knew that was the right answer. GORDO! (45A: Mercury and Gemini astronaut, informally). It means fat! Rest of the grid was far easier to navigate than OTTER POP valley.

The ANIMALs:

• 14A: Hipster (CAT)
• 17A: Tractor make, briefly (CAT)
• 38A: Spicy sauce (MOLE)
• 41A: Marilyn's mark (MOLE)
• 60A: Frank (DOG)
• 64A: Follow relentlessly (DOG)
• 65A: Viking foe? (LION)
• 68A: Louis VIII nickname, with "the" (LION)
• 2D: It makes an impression (SEAL)
• 3D: Navy commando (SEAL)
• 33D: Basketball shooting game (HORSE)
• 34D: Gymnast's equipment (HORSE)

Obviously forcing identical words alongside one another Really ties your hands when it comes to filling the grid, and considering that restriction, I think things look really good. Only the east, with its crosswordesey mash-up of I, TOO, LIRR, and ILLE, gave me any pause at all. Favorite answers of the day are GAY LIT (45D: Works stocked by a bookstore with a rainbow flag) and SCOTTIE (39D: Certain terrier) — the latter primarily because it appears in the same grid as James DOOHAN (8D: James of "Star Trek"), who played SCOTTY on "Star Trek." Completely forgot that DOCTOROW wrote "Billy Bathgate" (24D: "Billy Bathgate" novelist, 1989) — kept wanting John Irving to fit. Also totally forgot that SOON-YI was a Previn (15A: A Previn). Had that terminal "I" and thought "Did Andre have a brother named ... ALEXEI?"

Bullets:

• 61D: "That's gotta hurt!" ("Ooh!") — if you're gonna have "AHH" (32A: Physical sound), then by all means, throw "OOH" in there as well.
• 5A: "What Do You Do With ___ in English?" ("Avenue Q" song) ("A B.A.") — about the best way ABA will ever be clued, though I wouldn't look for it to take over primary cluing duties from the American Bar Association any time soon.
• 23A: Subject of "Hofmann's Potion" (LSD) — made an educated guess here. Never heard of this. Also never heard of CLEM Haskins (36A: _____ Haskins, 1960s-'70s N.B.A. player) or Allen and ROSSI (9D: Allen and ___, old comedy duo), though the latter feels like a name I've said I don't know before.

• 59A: Paris's Rue de ___ (Rivoli) — Only barely familiar to me. Sounds Italian.
• 4D: ___ City Hall, Nobel ceremony locale (Oslo) — I like that a lot of the crosswordese in this puzzle was giving odd or interesting or unusual cluing. See also the cluing of I, TOO as a piece of verse, and not just the poem title at 37A: "___, sing America": Langston Hughes.

Finally, please allow me to direct you to a bonus puzzle, constructed by me and one of today's NYT constructors, Patrick Blindauer, in honor of a certain television show that turns 20 today. Click on "Print," below, or go here, to Amy Reynaldo's crosswordfiend.com forum, and download a .puz / AcrossLite version of the puzzle. You can comment on the puzzle (and find a link to the solution) here. Thanks so much.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

20 Years of Detention

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