Ben Canaan of Exodus / MON 5-18-15 / Savory filled pastries / Hit 1977 musical with song It's Hard-Knock Life

Constructor: Gene Newman

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday)

THEME: Tom Swifties — "A Tom Swifty (or Tom Swiftie) is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed." (wikipedia) — one of the oldest "joke"-types (or pun-types, I guess) in the book. Huge lists of them all over the internet. (See ... well, you have google, just see. For instance, #2, here) (or look under "U" here for "unwillingly") (or find "shiftlessly" on this page) (or "witheringly" on this page)

Theme answers:

• WITHERINGLY (18A: "You forgot to water the plants," Tom said ___)
• UNWILLINGLY (3D: "As much as I'd like, you're not getting any of my estate," Tom said ___)
• SHIFTLESSLY (28D: "Being a bit lazy, I prefer automatic," Tom said ___)
• OFFHANDEDLY (61A: "Oh, I just fed the alligator," Tom said ___)

Word of the Day: "ANNIE" (69A: Hit 1977 musical with the song "It's the Hard-Knock Life") —

Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre). It spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical's songs "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life" are among its most popular musical numbers. (wikipedia)

• • •

If this is the first time you've ever encountered a Tom Swifty, well now that milestone in your life has passed. I hope you enjoyed that. This particular pun form is old as dirt. I will say one good thing about this puzzle—the fill is pretty darned clean. Now if only we could get clean fill and Reasonably Decent Theme to show up on the same day. Today's theme ("theme") is out of a box. Canned. Stale.  Conceptually bankrupt. Ridiculous. Not NYT-worthy—not by a long shot. When your theme is, essentially, four adverbs (honestly, you could remake this grid infinitely, with symmetrically placed adverbs), you don't have a theme.


I will continue writing about puzzles when they return to some semblance of worthiness. This is now back-to-back I-Can't-Believe-This-Got-Accepted puzzles. Unreal. I understand why the best constructors are producing for their own sites or other outlets now, I really do. But days like this I almost want to beg them to come back. Almost.


To be clear, these are all *fine* Tom Swifties. But Tom Swifties do not a puzzle theme make. No. No they don't.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]

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Old-time actress Normand / TUE 12-11-12 / Persian fairy / Havana beauty maybe / Sot's peril / Licorice flavorer / Illusory pictures / Loamy soil

Constructor: Gene Newman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: The eight reindeer of SAINT NICHOLAS (35A: Figure associated with eight answers in this puzzle) — eight reindeer names appear in the grid, each clued in non-reindeer fashion

• DASHER
• DANCER 
• PRANCER 
• VIXEN
• PILSENER
• MABEL 
• CAPRA
• BLITZEN

Word of the Day: ARIANA Grande (2D: Actress Grande) —

Ariana Grande-Butera, (born June 26, 1993) known professionally as Ariana Grande, is an American actress, singer, and dancer. She made her performance debut on Broadway at age 15, originating the role of Charlotte in 13 in 2008. Recently, she has gained attention for her role as Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious, which she will reprise in Sam & Cat, a spinoff of iCarly and Victorious. (wikipedia)

• • •

It's weird when you guess a theme based on an answer so bad you realize it can't be serious (today, 1D: 100-meter competitor, e.g. for DASHER). There's no way you would clue DASHER in a non-reindeer way ... unless! And so the rest of the puzzle was essentially themeless puzzle with reindeer names. Puzzle gave me more trouble than Tuesdays normally do. First off, I couldn't get out of the NW. 21D: "Good as done" didn't scream "I'M ON IT" to me. "I'M ... something! Who knows?" And since that was the only way out of the NW, I had to reboot, but had some trouble in the middle, as clues on stuff like NEW AGE (31A: Kind of music not known for its beat) and SEA LIONS (35D: Fish-eating creatures) and even CHAIR (27A: Professorship) were not at all obvious to me (I know many professors who do not hold CHAIRs). Then there was the self-imposed difficulty brought about by my forgetting the theme, i.e. who the hell knows [Flash: Ger.] except Germans? Then there was the utter made-up-edness of MISS CUBA (11D: Havana beauty, maybe), which I actually kind of like for its brazen arbitrariness (I assume I can go ahead with MISS BELIZE in my next themeless puzzle). Then there's CWT, which I never see outside of crosswords (27D: 100 pounds: Abbr.). The end result was slower than normal time and a mildly interesting reindeer hunt.


Bullets:

• 20A: Home that usually has a tile roof (HACIENDA) — as usual, the longer answers are the more interesting answers. As Spanish answers go, I much prefer this one to the strange-looking RARO nearby (26A: Uncommon: Sp.). 
• 33A: Old-time actress Normand (MABEL) — I had the "M" and wrote in MERLE, which is kinda funny, if you know anything about cosmetics.
• 8D: Sot's peril (DTS) — delirium tremens, an affliction I learned about from crosswords circa twenty years ago. I feel as if there's been a serious fall-off in the number of sot-related clues and answers lately. Puzzle used to be loaded (!) with them.
• 51D: Persian fairy (PERI) — rhymes with "fairy" and all its letters are contained in "Persian." Alternate clue: [Actress Gilpin of "Frasier"].

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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