Glenn Close title role / THU 7-11-13 / US city named for Tennyson character / Queen in Three Musketeers / Tony winner Carriou / Nast's symbol for Tammany Hall / Gray in novel painting / Craters of Moon National Monument locale

Constructor: Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: balls — theme clues are related to things associated with 3, 4, and 5 balls, respectively

Theme answers:

• 20A: Many traditionally have three balls (PAWN SHOP SIGNS)
• 35A: What four balls may let you do (WALK TO FIRST BASE)
• 52A: Gizmo often with five balls that demonstrates conservation of momentum and energy (NEWTON'S CRADLE)

Word of the Day: MIELE (8A: Vacuum cleaner brand) —

Miele (pronounced 'mee-luh') is a German based manufacturer of high-end domestic appliances, commercial equipment and fitted kitchens, based in Gütersloh, Germany. Miele has always been a family-owned and -run company, founded in 1899 byCarl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann. [...] 
Miele's first products were a cream separator, butter churn, and tub washing machine, under the Meteor brand. (wikipedia)

• • •

What a strange, loose, weird, entertaining puzzle. I had to ask friends "is there a theme, uh, beyond the balls, as it were"? Looks like no, but I strangely I don't care. I'll take increasing number of ball themes if the answers are this interesting and the fill is this solid. Two exceptions—WALK TO FIRST BASE doesn't exactly jump off the page and kiss you on the mouth. Kind of limp and not in-the-language. But it fits the theme fine and the other two theme answers are interesting, so no big deal. Other exception, in the fill—MIELE? Never heard of it. This doesn't necessarily make it bad fill, but it is bad fill. An uncommon proper noun / brand name in an area that could've been filled a ton of different ways?! Why? There's also LEN (11D: Tony winner Cariou) and IN ONE up there. Not sure why that corner is so weak when virtually everything else is so tight. Anyway, cluing was toughish and odd (at times) and fill was mostly very strong. This puzzle is my kind of wacky.


I should add that the puzzle was In No Way in my wheelhouse and yet my pleasure was diminished not one or two IOTAS. Never heard of MAXIE (31D: Glenn Close title role), didn't know a NEWTON'S CRADLE was called that, had no idea what's in an ALEXANDER, never heard of MIELE (clearly), no idea what the hell SAMP is (I'd've gone with NFL All-Star Warren SAPP in that spot) (1D: Hominy cereal), didn't know what "Lyonnaise" meant, Don't remember Queen ANNE from "Three Musketeers," etc. But struggling against a devious, talented, and ALIEN mind can be a great treat, and today, the puzzle was easy enough in other places that I didn't feel brutalized. I just felt like I got a healthy and enjoyable Thursday work-out. I am at least a little stunned that Will allowed a purely cryptic clue into the puzzle (10D: Pepsi-Cola mix?=>EPISCOPAL). I don't know if I've ever seen that before. Violates so many rules—mainly, that there be a definition of the word, like, somewhere. Anywhere. So weird. It's just a "mix" of the letters in "Pepsi-Cola." I guess when you are crossword royalty, you can get away with crazy whimsical crap like that. What a world.


I know my Tennyson, so ENID was easy (14A: U.S. city named for a Tennyson character). I can see how that clue might be rough for some. The word "modernspeak" makes me miss yesterday's "toondom," which I would've thought impossible (17A: Self-referential, in modernspeak=>META). Managed to remember the phrase "TIGER of Tammany Hall" (26D: Nast's symbol for Tammany Hall)—NAST himself is someone I learned of first thought crosswords. I still remember the clue [Tweed twitter Thomas]. Things I learned today include the fact that the Craters of the Moon National Monument locale is IDAHO and the fact that Mandela co-wrote a book with CASTRO (45D: World leader who co-wrote the book "How Far We Slaves Have Come!" with Mandela). Also, YOWZAH sometimes has an "H." Only 80K Google hits to non-"H"'s 1.2 million, but ... It's Out There!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Spy vs. Spy cartoonist Prohias / THU 4-7-11 / Clothing company since 1992 / Pousse multicolored drink / Rum-enhanced dessert / Painter Schiele

Constructor: Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: ... with "The" — Theme clues all end with the phrase "with 'The'" (a common crossword direction), but in this case, the direction is literal, i.e. you have to supply the letters "THE" at the beginning of the answer to make any sense of it


Word of the Day: ANTONIO Prohias (14A: Original "Spy vs. Spy" cartoonist Prohias) —

Antonio Prohías (January 17, 1921 – February 24, 1998), born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, was a cartoonist most famous for creating the comic strip Spy vs. Spy for MAD Magazine. [...] Although he is most famous for Spy vs. Spy, the majority of his comic strips, such as El Hombre Siniestro, La Mujer Siniestra, and Tovarich, were published mostly or only in Cuba. Altogether, only about 20 of his roughly 270 contributions to Mad were of anything other than the spy series. As a result, most of the available information on this other work comes from the Spy Vs Spy Complete Casebook (Watson-Guptill, 2001). (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow. I did not like this at all. An idea that should have been discarded (if only for yielding ridiculous mangled answers in the grid), but was instead worked up into a whole puzzle. It's a one-note puzzle, and a bad note at that. Yes, there's a clever twist on a common crossword convention (that is, the convention of using "with 'The'" to indicate that the def. article won't appear in the grid). But the problem is that the actual grid results of that twist are dreadful and joyless. Potential theme answers could have been anything under the sun beginning with "THE-," and this group has nothing more than that holding it together, so theme coherence is terrible. Throw in a bunch of out-of-left-field proper nouns, and you have ... whatever this is. Big thumbs-down.

I can see how someone might have found this enjoyable and clever. I'll give you 'clever,' esp. for the initial gimmick idea. But the execution of that gimmick just rubbed me the wrong way.

Theme answers:

• 19A: Churchill subject, with "The" (IR FINEST HOUR)
  
• 30A: Rodgers and Hart song, with "The" ("RE'S A SMALL HOTEL")
  
• 36A: George C. Scott movie with a rock band namesake, with "The" ("EY MIGHT BE GIANTS") — this is where I picked up the theme, because it's the first theme answer I knew. Before that, I assumed there was some kind of IOU theme ... because the "I" from BASIC (1D: Computer language from 1964) appeared to be where an "OU" should be in the Across answer: [OU]R FINEST HOUR. But no...

• 48A: Hit movie of 1991, with "The" ("LMA AND LOUISE") — so, two movies and a song and a ... subject. Nice tight grouping [/sarcasm]
  

Pousse-what? (21A: Pousse-___ (multicolored drink)) Prohias who? Pierre wha? (50D: Pierre who wrote "Pêcheur d'Islande") (Oh, *that* Pierre...([/facetiousness]) (actually, those last two were kicking around the dark recesses of my skull somewhere, but ... wherever it was, it was Really dark). I would not willingly RETASTE this puzzle.

Bullets:

• 7A: Rum-enhanced dessert (TORTONI) — not familiar. Sounds like pasta. Easy enough to piece together from crosses.
  
• 58A: Big band brothers (DORSEYS) — adding to the decidedly olde thymey flavor of this thing. Had trouble here primarily because I had BAHRAIN as the answer to 37D: Its coat-of-arms includes a marlin and a flamingo
  
• 8D: Topic of Weird Al Yankovic's "The White Stuff" (OREOS) — never heard of it. Have heard of Weird Al's other White song: "White and Nerdy"...

• 13D: Lemieux milieu (ICE) — Mario Lemieux. Former hockey great and current owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
  
• 26D: Utterance from Reagan mimics ("WELL...") — this made me laugh, though ... for anyone not at least a teen in the 80s, good luck.
  
• 44D: Clothing company since 1992 (FUBU) — haven't seen, thought about, or heard of FUBU in what seems like at least a decade. Forgot it existed. I associate the brand with mid-late-90s hip hop.
  
• 46D: Actor who played himself in 1988's "Moon Over Parador" (ASNER) — no idea, but ... when in doubt, guess ASNER.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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High priest in Aida / FRI 2-25-11 / 1988 animated action film set in 2019 Tokyo / Winner famous 1938 rematch / 16th-century assembly

Constructor: Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none


Word of the Day: "AKIRA" (37A: 1988 animated action film set in 2019 Tokyo) —

AKIRA (アキラ^?) is a 1988 Japanese animated epic action film. It was written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, who based it on his manga of the same name. The film is set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019. The film's plot focuses on Shotaro Kaneda, a biker gang member, as he tries to stop Tetsuo Shima from releasing Akira. While most of the character designs and basic settings were adapted from the original 2182-page manga epic, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, pruning much of the last half of the manga. The film became a hugely popular cult film and is widely considered to be a landmark in Japanese animation and film. (wikipedia)

• • •

Not sure how a puzzle with a word count this low (66) could be so lacking in longish, interesting fill. Big problem for me was finding the jokiness of the THE DIET OF WORMS (19A: 16th-century assembly) and IT'S FOR THE BIRDS (44A: Detractors' comment concering 19-Across?) pairing really corny. There's just not much else to admire here. I enjoyed the challenge — clues were devilishly clever at times — but the vast majority of answers are either ordinary or (less often) unpleasantly odd. The west felt particularly ugly to me, mostly because of the pile-up of regional answers. CANARSIE is going to be nuts to a non-New Yorker (32A: Brooklyn neighborhood), just as LAVAL (LA VAL?) will be to a non-Montrealer (23D: Montreal suburb), and AVILA ... well, that one I just inferred from knowing that there is a Saint Teresa of AVILA (34A: Kansas City university). But still, a Kansas City university? Does anyone outside K.C. know that? Elsewhere ... RAMFIS (7D: High priest in "Aida") is about the stupidest-looking name I've ever seen. I could Not believe it was right. I was delighted to see "AKIRA," which I love (in both its manga and anime forms), but I know most of you don't know it. No, you don't. I'm glad it's here, but it probably made the east a little hard for some folks.

I look at the rest of this grid and simply don't have much to say. Lucked out by knowing "AKIRA," ANITA (24D: Novelist Brookner), and IEOH straight off (though I spelled that last one IAOH for some reason) (44D: Architect ___ Ming Pei). Also saw right through the clue at 36D: Bench, for example (CATCHER), which ended up being a Big help in that nightmarish western region (got me PLATE, which helped me get both SCAMP and VALET ... ended up educatedly guessing that "A" at LAVAL / CANARSIE). Not many initial missteps, though did want ARID instead of SERE, and IDOL instead of ICON, and, oddly, TALC for CALM (confused my Beaufort scale with my Mohs scale). This puzzle was a worthy opponent, but not a particularly pretty one.

Bullets:

• 1A: Spice mix used in Indian cuisine (MASALA) — I felt certain that I had whatever this answer was in my cupboard, and I literally sounded out the first part just to get some letters in the grid. I think the spice I was thinking of was GARAM MASALA. I just plunked the M and A down and waited to see what would happen...
  
• 21A: Winner of a famous 1938 rematch (LOUIS) — as in Joe. This took me way too long. I had LOU-S before the answer ever dawned on me. Stupid RAMFIS. Rematch was against Max Schmeling.
  
• 5D: 1970s pinup name (LONI) — as in Anderson. I don't remember her as a pinup, but I guess she was ... Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs are the pinups I remember best from that era.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Angelique composer / THU 8-26-10 / Period of Cenozoic Era / Bing Crosby hit your branches speak to me of love

Constructor: Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: [Where to see X's and O's] — that's the clue for three grid-spanning *16*-letter theme entries:

• FOOTBALL DIAGRAMS (18A)
• END OF A LOVE LETTER (35A)
• HOLLYWOOD SQUARES (56A)

Word of the Day: IBERT (25A: "Angélique" composer) —

Jacques François Antoine Ibert (15 August 1890 – 5 February 1962) was a French composer of classical music. [...] Ibert's music is considered to be typically quite "light" in character, often witty, colourfully orchestrated with attractive melodies. Although he was not a member of Les Six, his music shares some characteristics with theirs. His best known work is probably the orchestral Divertissement (1930), based on his incidental music for Eugène Labiche's play, Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (The Italian Straw Hat). In the course of the work he comically quotes many pieces, including Mendelssohn's Wedding March. Other prominent pieces include Escales (1924) for orchestra, the symphonic poem La ballade de la geôle de Reading (based on the poem by Oscar Wilde), his concerto for flute and Concertino da Camera for saxophone and Histoires for solo piano. He composed a number of operas, such as L'aiglon (The Eaglet), and the operetta Les petites cardinal, some together with Arthur Honegger. His ballet Le chevalier errant (épopée choréographique, 1951) was premiered by Georges Tzipine with the ORTF. Among his film scores is the one for Orson Welles' version of Macbeth (1948). In 1956 he wrote the work Bacchanale to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the BBC Third Programme. Its premiere was given by Sir Eugene Goossens.

• • •

Wow, that was easy. So easy, I thought I must be missing something. I mean, this is Henry Hook we're talking about here—his puzzles can be wicked hard; in fact, just this past weekend, there was a crossing at 1A/1D in one of his Boston Globe puzzles that was pure impossibility. I just shut the puzzle down in frustration. More than tough, however, he's good, and this is a nicely filled grid. Doesn't feel like it belongs on a Thursday — extremely straightforward, themewise — but with a superwide grid and at least two low-familiarity proper nouns, the puzzle is sufficiently interesting. In addition to the 16-wide grid, there are cheater squares galore. I don't know that I've ever seen this many in a weekday Times puzzle (these are black squares that don't change the word count — two in the east, two in the west, and then one each in the NW and SE). Gives the grid an unusual look, and likely makes the fill smoother. What's weird to me: IBERT is not an unfortunate obscurity necessitated by the surrounding fill. That's choice. Just change the "B" to "N" and you've got common words all around. Sometimes, constructors actually enjoy sending you into dark corners, I guess. Also, INERT / NUDGE is boringer.

Was actually taken aback with how fast I was doing the puzzle. Kept waiting for the axe of horror to fall, and it never did — POINCIANA (51A: Bing Crosby hit in which "your branches speak to me of love") felt like some kind of ax, in that I had to get literally Every letter from crosses — but I got it. TERTIARY (38D: Period of the Cenozoic Era) isn't a period I'm familiar with, but it's a word I recognize. Otherwise, the only place that gave me any trouble was the NE. I plopped down FOOTBALL DIAGRAMS quickly, but then doubted DIAGRAMS when I couldn't get the NE to work. All those little Downs — 11D: Big section of Bartlett's: Abbr. (SHAK.); 12D: "___ Strange Loop," 2007 Douglas Hofstadter book ("I AM A"); and 13D: Symbol of revolutionary power (FIST) — failed to roll over for me at first. Wanted ANON. for the Bartlett's clue, never heard of the Hofstadter book, and FIST (while perfectly clued) wasn't anywhere near the front of my mind. Managed to push back up into that section with momentum from the (easy) center of the puzzle.



Bullets:

• 44D: V as in Versailles (CINQ) — big help knowing French. "V" is Roman numeral for "five," and French for "five" is CINQ. That "Q" made HOLLYWOOD SQUARES a cinch to uncover.
  
• 48D: Captain with a "regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe" (AHAB) — a great quote, but you don't really need it. Captain + four letters = AHAB. On Monday, On Saturday, On Any Day. Unless it's KIRK, I guess. [or NEMO, of course; another crosswordesey captain who might be described through a literary quotation — I think I had the initial "A" in place before I ever saw the clue, and that made AHAB certain.]
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Summer wind in Mediterranean / FRI 3-26-10 / Actress Felton 1950s TV / Oldest of literary quartet / Gradually quieting in music / 1932 song 1984 movie

Constructor: Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none


Word of the Day: ETESIAN (12D: Summer wind in the Mediterranean) —

The etesians (Ancient Greek ετησίαι 'annual (winds)', sometimes found in the Latin form etesiae), meltemi μελτέμι (Greek), or meltem (Turkish) are the strong, dry north winds of the Aegean Sea, which blow from about mid-May to mid-September. During hot summer days, this is by far the most preferred weather type and is considered a blessing. They are at their strongest in the afternoon and often die down at night, but sometimes meltemi winds last for days without a break. Similar winds blow in the Adriatic and Ionian regions. Meltemi winds are dangerous to sailors because they come up in clear weather without warning and can blow at 7-8 Beaufort. Some yachts and most inter island ferries cannot sail under such conditions. (wikipedia)

• • •

Henry Hook is a legendary, and legendarily tough, constructor. I can't remember the last time I saw his by-line in the NYT, but it feels like a long time ago. I spied his name before I started in on this one, and was prepared for some entertaining brutality. Somewhat sadly, it ended up being (mostly) simply brutal. There are some amazing aspects of this puzzle: the symmetrical body builders — SCHWARZENEGGER (16A: Famous bodybuilder) and DR. FRANKENTSTEIN (48A: Famous body builder?) — paralleled by the symmetrical "EN" phrases — EN ROUTE and EN MASSE; the hard-to-make-out but totally-worth-the-wait ZERO SUM GAME (17D: Balancing act?); the deftly clued MEG MARCH (35A: Oldest of a literary quartet). All of these brought happiness to my solving experience. But other things about solving the puzzle changed the experience from tough workout to ... what do you call the experience of being gutted with a dull knife? Maybe that's too strong, but this puzzle relied too much on pure oddness and obscurity, on the one hand, and grimace-inducing semi-made-up words on the other.

Let's start with the proper nouns. Some of the clues felt like jokes. My two "favorite" are:

• 43A: Racehorse whose 1955 Kentucky Derby win kept Nashua from taking the Triple Crown (SWAPS) — this clue indicates that the constructor hates you and the editor was too indulgent. As a non-horse-racing follower who was born 14 years after this particular Derby ... come on. What's worse, it was part of a stack of proper nouns, the only one of which I finally, dimly recalled, was BEAME (46A: New York City's first Jewish mayor). Cluing "AGONY" via musical theater (40A: Song from Sondheim's "Into the Woods")? Well, yes, "AGONY."
• 23D: Actress Felton of 1950s TV's "December Bride" (VERNA) — OK, I'm guessing that even octogenarians are going to have a little trouble coming up with SWAPS and VERNA. "1950s TV's" made me laugh out loud. If I've heard of VERNA, I can't remember. Never heard of "December Bride." I see it was a sitcom that ran five season in the late '50s and also featured ... Harry Morgan (Sherman Potter of TV's "M*A*S*H"). VERNA was in yet another trouble spot for me, as I'd never heard of ETESIAN (the "S" was a flat-out, if semi-educated, guess), and couldn't remember what 29A: Apollonian meant (SERENE).

Add to this a baseballer I've never heard of — STAN somebody (47D: Coveleski of Cooperstown), a spitballer who played most of his career for the 1910s-20s Indians ... — and a SADAT clue that did nothing to clue SADAT (47A: "In Search of Identity" autobiographer), and you have a Name morass, know-it-or-you-don't answers that give the solver no sense of revelation when discovered. I want to go "Ohhhhh," not "Whaaaaa?" when I work hard to get an answer. I was "Whaaaa"ing all over the place today.


Another big issue: What the hell is up with RECLASPS and AWAKER. If you're going to be brutal, at least give me a cleanish grid. RECLASPS is up there with RECARVE as the most ridiculous RE-word I've seen in a puzzle. It's made more ridiculous by sharing the stage with its better-looking brothers, REENTER and REOPENED, and its not wholly unpresentable cousins, REVUE (19A: "Closer Than Ever," e.g.), REEVES, and REEDIER. As for AWAKER ... I'd buy AWAKER (barely) as a relative adjective before I buy it as a noun. Good luck trying to find it as anything but a weird name / title, anywhere in the English language. I get 2.5 times more hits for "ZYZZYVA."

Wait, can we go back to the clue on REVUE (19A: "Closer Than Ever," e.g.)? I've never not understood a clue more than I did this one. How am I supposed to recognize that title, whatever it is, as a REVUE? O god, it's more musical theater [shakes fist] — specifically, a musical REVUE in two acts from the late '80s — this time with a wink to well known puzzle constructor Richard Maltby, Jr., who wrote the words to "Closer Than Ever." Ugh. Share your winks somewhere else, please. That's (at least) three Broadway / Off-Broadway clues. The limit should be one. If you're going to rely on obscurity in your puzzles, at least pull it from different fields. "AGONY!"



Bullets:

• 1A: Nightclub in the Trump Taj (CASBAH) — news to me, but inferrable after a few crosses, at least.
  
• 14A: Part of the iris bordering the pupil (AREOLA) — this is an astonishingly prevalent word — if it's ring-shaped, good chance someone somewhere has referred to it as an AREOLA.
  
• 16A: "On Golden Pond" wife (ETHEL) — vaguely memorable. Again, inferrable from a few crosses.
  
• 24A: TV lawyer Stone (ELI) — a gimme (along with DIAN and DER ALTE (13D: Nickname of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer) and a EDER (18D: Broadway star Linda who won $100,000 on "Star Search")), but this clue should be retired starting today, as that show only lasted about 18 months. Already the clue should read [Old TV lawyer Stone].

• 25A: Splotchy apparel, familiarly (CAMOS) — look, I'll give you CAMO, but CAMOS, with an "S!?!" I see it's got some traction out there in some quarters, but boo.
  
• 1D: Vegetable oil soap (CASTILE) — no idea. More guessing / inferring.
  
• 6D: Disapproving comment (HARRUMPH) — LOVE this. One of the best things about the grid. Great "word."
  
• 3D: To look, in Leipzig (SEHEN) — too German for my blood. Again, inferrable, after a while.
• 32D: Some people do it to think (SHUDDER) — fantastic clue.
• 30A: In days of knights? (ARTHURIAN) — couldn't get this, or much of the center of the puzzle, until the end. Had virtually all the periphery and none of the center. Fun fact: I'm teaching ARTHURIAN Literature in the fall.
  
• 34D: 1932 song or 1984 movie ("ALL OF ME") — thank god the clue went past [1932 song] ... I was dying for *anything* contemporary (i.e. of the past quarter century). I should say *anything* that wasn't #$%&ing Broadway.
  
• 37D: Gradually quieting, in music (CALANDO) — seriously, is this a love letter to Maltby? It's kind of cloying. Is it his birthday?
  
• 46D: Cordage fiber (BAST) — vaguely familiar from puzzles bast, I mean "past."
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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WEDNESDAY, Apr. 30, 2008 - Henry Hook (BELLINI TWO-ACTER)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "... ON MY MIND" - three theme answers are songs whose titles end with the phrase "ON MY MIND"

I breathed a great sigh of relief when I saw Henry Hook's name on this puzzle last night, not because I thought it would be easy - his puzzles usually skew toward the harder side - but because I knew it would be Good. After yesterday's misfire - which needed harder clues throughout and a Thursday placement, or else a complete reconstruction of that SE corner - I needed something smooth, and I got it. Hot knife meets butter. This was far easier than I expected - I don't think I hesitated more than once or twice while completing the puzzle and finished in about 4:30. The thorniest part of the puzzle, to me, was the middle - when white squares run low and flat through the middle like that, it's always dicey for me. I knew two of those little Downs, but the German one (TOD - 31D: Mann's "Der _____ in Venedig") eluded me, though I've seen it before. It intersected the answer I had most trouble with: ARCADIA (40A: Peace-and-quiet venue). This is ironic because a member of my writing group is working on a book that has a working title of AMERICAN ARCADIA. The clue makes it sound like it's a nook in a library as opposed to a remote, mountainous part of Greece; the subject of a Nicolas Poussin painting ("Et in Arcadia Ego"); or a Tom Stoppard play (all of which would have screamed "ARCADIA" more than "peace-and-quiet venue"). Not that the clue is wrong - it's just ... deceptively ordinary-sounding. Another place of "peace-and-quiet" => AVALON (42D: Burial place of King Arthur). PS he's not dead, he's just resting up.

Theme answers:

• 20A: 1968 Glen Campbell hit ("Gentle on My Mind")
• 34A: 1960 Ray Charles hit ("Georgia on My Mind")
• 53A: 1982 Willie Nelson hit ("Always on My Mind")

Worthy songs all. Of the above youtube clips, the Glen Campbell performance is, IMOO, the best.

I have several favorite parts of this puzzle. First, there's INITIATE (37D: Begin) next to NOMINATE (38D: Put up) in the SE, giving us three stacked four-letter answers that have double-letters in their middles: BAAL (57A: False deity), ETTE (60A: Novel ending?), and REED (63A: Accordion part). Nice. Then there's RAILWAYS (35D: Things people are trained in?) crossing ALWAYS (in ALWAYS ON MY MIND), which is daring, since RAILWAYS is just ALWAYS hiding in some really sparse shrubbery. Then there's IGNATZ Mouse (25A: Mouse who's always throwing bricks at Krazy Kat), one of my very very favorite comics characters of all time. I have a reprint volume of "Krazy Kat" sitting not three feet from me. If I ever got a tattoo, there is a very short list of images I would allow on my body - IGNATZ beaning KRAZY KAT with a brick is one of them. But perhaps my favorite part of the puzzle is a nice shout-out to all the solvers who crash and burn and eventually find their way here: GOOGLING (1D: Solver's online recourse). No GOOGLING today.

The part wherein I describe my reaction to assorted other clues and answers:

• 5A: Slalomer's moves (zags) - when ESSES wouldn't fit, I knew it was ZIGS or ZAGS. Is there a way to know which is which?
• 9A: "And _____ ask is a tall ship ...": John Masefield ("all I") - literally none of this clue is familiar to me, but the answer was easy to infer. And now I've got Eliza Doolittle in my ear: "ALL I want is a room somewhere..."
• 13A: Sans deferment (One-A) - "Sans" is jarring here. I'm trying (and failing) to imagine an enlisted man using it to describe how he ended up in the Army. Still, it was easy to get, as the NW came together very quickly.
• 17A: Acapulco acclamations (oles) - alliteration!
• 18A: Bellini two-acter ("Norma") - thank god I never saw this clue. Yeeps.
• 19A: Fail miserably, in slang (tank) - not surprisingly, I got this instantly.
• 42A: Title lover in a 1920s Broadway hit (Abie) - he's back. Clearly, some day, I'm going to have to see a performance of this damned play. Which reminds me - I am going to see a grey wolf this weekend, partly to help support wolf preservation efforts, but mostly because the wolf's name is ... ATKA. He's a living, breathing, canine crossword puzzle answer of the highest order. How can I pass that up? I'll try to take pictures.
• 44A: Little fingers or toes (minimi) - Oh I love this answer. Love It. It's so ridiculous, it's beautiful. It means "the smallest ones" in Latin, so ... it's apt!
• 47A: He wrote "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" (Voltaire) - my first instinct was, oddly, Nietzsche, but then I remembered he was famous for a different God quote. Got a cross or two and then got Voltaire easily.
• 61A: 1961 "spacechimp" (Enos) - had ENOS for EZRA yesterday, and was wrong. Glad you trot ENOS out again today, especially in his "spacechimp" form.
• 63A: Accordion part (reed) - had the -EED, wrote in REED and thought "really?" NUMBER (46D: Repertoire component) confirmed it.
• 4D: Title locale in a Cheech Marin flick (East L.A.) - seen it before, love it still.
• 5D: Actor Billy of "Titanic" (Zane) - why isn't he in more stuff. And moreover, why do I know his name so well if he is mostly famous for being a supporting actor in this bloated monstrosity of a film?
• 7D: Adorned, in the kitchen (garni) - wanted APRONED, but then GARNI came to me out of the blue. Seen most often (in my life) in the phrase "bouquet GARNI."
• 8D: Super Bowl XXI M.V.P., first to say "I'm going to Disney World!" (Simms) - Phil Simms, NY Giants. His son, Chris, is a QB for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Along with LANDRY (11D: Longtime Cowboys coach Tom), SIMMS makes the NNE football country (I doubt Tom would have liked being put in the NE...). Sidenote: Bobby Hill (on "King of the Hill") attends Tom LANDRY Middle School.
  
• 9D: What demonstrators demonstrate (activism) - this feels clunky. "Come on, let's go demonstrate some ACTIVISM!" And yet ... it's literally true, on some level.
• 10D: Auto shop's offering (loaner) - aargh. Thinking of LUBE JOB or some other form of maintenance or repair, and the answer is just ... another car for you to drive for the day.
• 15D: Senate tally (nays) / 48D: Senate tally (ayes) - symmetry! Beautiful.
• 26D: Suffix with Meso- or Paleo- (-zoic) - didn't trust that "Z" until I saw the fabulous IGNATZ. That moment - ZOIC into IGNATZ - was perhaps the happiest moment of the puzzle for me. Kind of like the moment where the roller coaster just crosses the highest point of its ascent and you start to fall. . .

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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** Violinist Mischa **: SUNDAY, Feb. 17, 2008 - Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: "Political Leaders" - 10 starred answers all begin with SCRAMBLED / PRESIDENT (19A: With 105-Across, what the answer to each starred clue starts with)

You know a puzzle is tough when you feel like you tanked it, your time is a good 30%-50% higher than your recent Sunday averages, and you still end up with a time that would have you on the Top Ten leader board for much of the night. In the end, I enjoyed this puzzle, because it was wicked and entertaining, but while I was doing it, there were times when I felt like a drowning man gasping for air and reaching out desperately for anything, any three-letter answer, that might keep me afloat. The theme is ingenious and took me way too long to get. I had SCRAMBLED within the first minute, but by the time I got into the SE, where PRESIDENT lies, I had run out of steam. I was in flailing mode. It was only when frustration forced me to read the theme clue and really look hard at the starred answers I had that the theme leaped out at me: the SAYHE at the beginning of SAY HEY KID (a great, great theme answer, btw) just anagrammed itself right into HAYES, I wrote in PRESIDENT at 105A, and the tide begin to turn. But even so, I still had to fight my way to the finish line (which, by the way, was somewhere near ARUBA - 39D: Tourist mecca near Venezuela).

Theme answers:

21A: *Again (ONE MORe time) => MONROE
23A: *Baseball's Willie Mays, with "the" (SAY HEy Kid) => HAYES
24A: *Fiancé (HUSBand-to-be) => BUSH (not sure which one)
53A: *Metal used for swords (DAMAScus steel) => ADAMS - the first theme answer to give me real trouble. Main problem: never heard of DAMASCUS STEEL before. Luckily, I had heard of DAMASCUS. Note: my beloved Laura Linney stars as Abigail Adams in the HBO biopic of John ADAMS. Linney's co-star, while not as hot to me, is a very fine actor: Paul Giamatti. I know him from such comic-book-inspired movies as "American Splendor."
58A: *Symbol of rejoicing for someone's long-awaited return (FATTed calf) => TAFT - I had no idea this is what a FATTED CALF meant, so I'm just as surprised as you are that I got this almost immediately, with just a few crosses in place.
61A: *Brownish-orange (TERRA Cotta) => CARTER - this was hard to get for me, as TERRA COTTA is more a material than a color, in my mind.
68A: *Kind of ratio (PRICE-Earnings) => PIERCE - familiar only from chatter on various investment-oriented ads I've heard on TV.
100A: *Decelerating (SLOWINg down) => WILSON
102A: *Composer's due (ROYALTies) => TAYLOR - this answer was so hard to get, in part because my brain would not register "due" as anything but Italian for "two"
104A: *Whatever happens (RAIN OR SHine) => HARRISON - it just took me way too long to figure out which president was buried in there.

The toughest parts:

Let's start in the NE, where I first stumbled badly, even after having the long theme answers in place. There were three consecutive Downs that I found baffling:

• 13D: Ball handler? (Arnaz) - handler! What is she, a ferret? [from reader M.S. - Lucille Ball's "Vitameatavegamin" bit ... it's So Good]
  
• 14D: "Not I!" hearer (red hen) - is this from "Chicken Little"? "Hearer," ugh.
• 15D: Titular Verdi role (Attila) - I had No idea and refused to enter it for a little while even though it was the Only name that could possibly go there. The Hun?

Then there was the fact that those Downs all crossed TAHITI, which was clued bizarrely (28A: Home of Faa'a International Airport) and BEZEL, which thank god I've seen in puzzles before (31A: Watch-crystal holder).

Then there was the entire mountain west, south of DAMASCUS and north of UPC CODE (75A: Supermarket lines?). I idiotically put an "S" at the end of 85A: With 20-Down airshow activities in anticipation of a plural that never came - or came, rather, at 20D, not 85A - FLY / BYS. Thus DELANCEY (53D: Manhattan street) remained hidden for a long time. Also hidden, for reasons of my never having heard of it ever, was HAIR CELL (56D: Sensory receptor in the ear). Even after I had H--- CELL, I was lost. Took me an embarrassingly long time to retrieve the name of EMILIA (65A: Lady-in-waiting in "Othello"), about whom I wrote a paper in college, but once I got her, and FATTED CALF, I finally had what I needed to finish the puzzle.

Lastly, as far as major rough spots go, is the SE, where I was Locked Out for a long time due to the fact that I didn't know either of the gateway answers:

• 80D: Muse of music (Euterpe) - perhaps the ugliest name in all mythology - also something you might say to a student at the University of Maryland (although technically I think you pronounce that final "e")
• 76D: "Death in the Afternoon" figures (matadors) - no idea. None. Just none. Took So Long to get.

Without these two answers, I couldn't get the two long Acrosses down there, and the shortish Downs were being very recalcitrant, so, disaster. I somehow suspected that 94D: Capital of East Flanders ended in -ENT, so that helped (it's GHENT). I have never ever heard of COIGN (91A: _____ of vantage (good position for viewing)), but recognize it as the French word for "corner." Still puzzling over what (the hell) FORTS means as the answer to 109A: Magazine holders. Is this "magazine" in the sense of ammo? Must be.

And the rest!

• 1A: Words "beautifully marked in currants" in "Alice in Wonderland" ("Eat me") - deceptively easy way to start the puzzle...
• 13A: Destination in Genesis 8 (Ararat) - I believe I wrote in GILEAD, which means I was exactly 23 chapters off.
• 26A: Football Hall-of-famer Ernie (Nevers) - that is one weird last name.
• 30A: Jury pool (venire) - first evidence that this puzzle was going to try to take my scalp.
• 44A: Brawl motivator (ire) - such an anticlimactic answer for such a promising clue.
• 45A: Crunch's title (Cap'n) - not CAPT. as some of you will have guessed - causing you to wonder, perhaps aloud, what (the hell) REINED IT mean - it's REINED IN (7D: Exercised power over).
• 46A: Rod holders (retinae) - gotta look out for that Latin plural.
• 67A: West coast wine city (Ukiah) - blow to the stomach. UKIAH should be the name of some kind of sucker punch. I lived in CALIF (91D: Home of 67-Across: Abbr.) and never heard of this place.
• 74A: New York's _____-Fontanne Theater (Lunt) - no clue. Had both LUND and LUNE for a bit.
• 76A: "We Need a Little Christmas" singer (Mame) - no clue. Just ... none.
• 78A: Alma mater for Neil Armstrong and Pat Nixon: Abbr. (USC) - insert random university here.
• 80A: Gutter locale (eaves) - I wrote in ALLEY. So that was a problem ...
• 81A: Thomas Mann's "Der _____ in Venedig" ("Tod") - got this only because I own many recordings of Strauss's "TOD und Verklärung")
• 86A: Jim who wrote "Ball Four" (Bouton) - kept writing it in and erasing it, writing it in and erasing it; recall that this is the EUTERPE / MATADORS section of the puzzle, where all hell had broken loose. Or not broken loose, to be precise.
• 1D: Mississippi quartet (esses) - two weird things. First, I finished this puzzle, and then later in the day, just before bed, solved another puzzle with this exact clue / answer pairing. Second, 1D is precisely the place where I wanted QUARTET yesterday (for that clue about "The View" that ended up being GABFEST).
• 4D: "Real Time" moderator (Maher) - used to hate "Politically Incorrect" because if I really wanted to hear uninformed jackasses go on and on about politics, I'd watch cable news. But after the demise of that show, Maher began to grow on me, and I now kinda like him.
• 6D: Variety of leather (elk) - poor majestic ELK, reduced to clothing.
• 8D: All the parts of a column except the bottom (addends) - had ADDENDA for a bit (?).
• 22D: Author of the Oprah's Book Club selection "We Were the Mulvaneys" (Oates) - as in Joyce Carol. We read her "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" in my Honors class last term. It's a confusing, freaky, and oddly (unintentionally) funny story. Some of the things the main BADDIE (32A: Villain) says made my prisoner students laugh til they cried. Not that the story isn't also chilling.
• 41D: Passing remark? ('scuse me) - is that how you write that? This one hurt. It's clever, but it hurt, almost as bad as 'TISN'T (62D: Denier's reply).
• 46D: Schumacher of auto racing (Ralf) - !?!?! Willie? Is it Willie? Because I know exactly one Schumacher, and his name is Willie. What's that? Willie is a jockey, not an auto racer? OK. And he spells his name "Shoemaker?" Ah. I see.
• 48A: Violinist Mischa (Auer) - oh my. Do you see what I'm saying about this puzzle trying to take my scalp?! [I'm told this is an error - Mischa AUER is an actor; his grandfather, Leopold, was the famous violinist]
  
• 61D: Dog of old comics (Tige) - Buster Brown's dog. Didn't realize this until I'd gotten the entire answer from crosses.
• 83D: Creator of "Hagar the Horrible" (Browne) - now this comic dog I know: SNERT. Sadly, this comic creator, I forgot.
• 69D: Impair through inactivity (rust) - this one took a while to puzzle out. "Impair" is a transitive verb, but RUST ... is not.
• 89D: _____ Fleming, central character in "The Red Badge of Courage" (Henry) - haven't read it in 25 years. No dice.
• 99D: Braggadocio (gas) - I had EGO. Yet another reason why the SE was the 9th ring hell.

Good day to you all.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 23, 2008 - Henry Hook (HADRIAN'S PREDECESSOR)

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Rhymes with "SWAYZE" (or, "Theme? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Theme")

Before I begin today's write-up, two things. Well, three. First, I'm reminding you to register for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I'll probably do this several more times between now and late February. There is a link in my sidebar (see all the red lettering over there?) that will take you (eventually) to the necessary forms. Second, for those of you who have been missing Emily's drawings lately, those too are available through a link in my sidebar (under "Crossword Sites"). She has given me permission to reprint any drawings I like, and I will undoubtedly do this from time to time, but if you like her stuff, just make a point of going to her site every day after you read my write-up (or before, I suppose). Third, I must thank a certain reader in San Diego who - I found out only yesterday - sent me the kindest, most thoughtful Christmas gift as a token of his appreciation for this site. That gift: a gift card to IHOP! So sweet. Honestly, it was quite touching. I got it only yesterday because it was sent to my office, which I've steered clear of for nearly a month now (our winter break is Long). Anyway, San Diego reader, your thank-you card is already in the mail, but I wanted to acknowledge your generosity as soon as possible, in case you somehow imagined that I was enjoying pancakes at your expense without so much as a thank-you. Now on to the puzzle...

I loved this puzzle. It was a bit too easy, and the non-theme fill was not as inspired as Hook puzzles often are, but something about the brazen looseness of the theme makes me very happy. Is there something connecting these long answers beyond the fact that they could be used to make a limerick? "There once was an actor named SWAYZE," etc. I especially like the final theme answer, as it has an "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" feel, like "how many damn '-AZY' words do you think I can fit in here...?" Overall, the puzzle was light, fun, playful, and entertaining, even if it took far too little time to do.

Theme answers:

• 20A: "She's Like the Wind" singer, 1988 (Patrick Swayze) - I feel as if Mr. Hook is taunting me, trying to get a most horrible late-80s pop song stuck in my my head. Thankfully, the only part of this song I remember is "She's like the wind...," which I think is the first line of the song and possibly the last line of the chorus. I beg you all not to fill me in here. PATRICK SWAYZE is (far) better known as the co-star of the movie "Dirty Dancing" (1987).
• 36A: Aster (Michaelmas daisy) - I had no idea that this was another name for "aster." What I love most about this clue is that it takes an exceedingly common bit of fill ("aster") and uses it as a clue for a very unusual, even gaudy answer.
• 55A: Like some days of summer, in song ("lazy, hazy, crazy") - I don't think I know this song, but I inferred the answer easily enough.

Let's take a little tour of the puzzle:

• 9A: Some Spanish Surrealist paintings (Mirós) - I don't think of him as a surrealist, but I guess I'm wrong. He was included in a surrealist exhibition I saw in Edinburgh a few years ago. I guess you were supposed to enter DALIS here and be frustrated at your presumption, but I already had the "M" before I saw the clue, so that didn't happen.
• 24A: C's in shop class? (clamps) - I learned what a "C-clamp" is ... from crosswords. It's true. It's one of the handier tools for crossword constructors, for whatever reason. Good way to refer to the letter "CEE" ... gets you an odd opening "CC" if you want it ...
• 43A: Part of the Dept. of Homeland Security since 2003 (FEMA) - their very name reeks of incompetence now.
• 35A: Soul singer Corinne Bailey ____ (Rae) - welcome to the RAE family, Corinne. Say hello to Charlotte RAE, explorer John RAE, and "Quest for Fire" star RAE Dawn Chong.
• 49A: Hadrian's predecessor (Trajan) - I like that his name looks like a typo.
• 51A: Musical based on a T. H. White novel ("Camelot") - really wanted "SPAM-A-LOT."
• 58A: She said "Don't get mad, get everything!" (Ivana) - as in "Trump," as in ugh.
• 62A: To say in Spanish? (decir) - weird clue. It's literal (but for missing quot. marks around 'to say') and yet it's got a question mark. Usually "?" clues are misdirective somehow. Can't see that here.
• 63A: La Cittá Eterna (Roma) - Not sure if I've heard this phrase before, but it makes sense.
• 1D: Michael of R.E.M. (Stipe) - had a reader wonder aloud yesterday when she'd get the R.E.M. clue she's been longing for (after the barrage of recent rap references). And here it is. STIPE is not new to the puzzle, though his band's name is far more common.
• 3D: Travis who sang "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" (Tritt) - I love STIPE and TRITT up here together in the "Seattle" portion of the puzzle. They should sing a duet. No one would see that coming.
• 7D: Willa Cather's "One of _____" ("Ours") - don't know it, but had the O--S before I ever read the clue, so it was an easy guess. I think one of the things that separates good from very good and very good from great solvers is their guessing instincts. The more puzzles you do, the better they get.
• 9D: Its motto is "Manly deeds, womanly words" (Maryland) - what a bunch of Marys. . . I love this motto, and I especially love that the state keeps it despite its being all kinds of embarrassing.
• 10D: Resort island near Majorca (Ibiza) - one of the Balearic Islands, along with Mallorca and Menorca. IBIZA is a very popular European tourist destination.
• 11D: Longtime "Hollywood Squares" regular (Rose Marie) - she was also a "Dick Van Dyke Show" regular.
• 25D: Cellular biology material (plasm) - this word is creeping me out this morning. I really want to put an "A" on the end of it.
• 33D: Winter carnival structure (ice palace) - is this a thing? I mean ... are PALACEs in particular a common ice sculpture subject, or could his have been ICE anything? ICE CASTLE comes to mind. ICE TEPEE? ICE ... well, you get the picture.
• 38D: Sister magazine of Jet (Ebony) - They are sisters and synonyms. This only just occurred to me, as, growing up, I imagined that JET had some kind of aeronautic or space-age frame of reference. Not until I read the Donne line "cloistered in these living walls of jet" (from "The Flea") did I know that JET meant "black." Now I've known that for a while, but somehow never applied that knowledge to the magazine title. And now I have. Fascinating.
• 50D: Title girl with a gun in a 1989 Aerosmith hit (Janie) - must you keep bringing me back to the late 80's, Mr. Hook. Thankfully, this time (unlike with the SWAYZE clue, above), the referenced song is Much more pleasant to remember, despite its highly disturbing lyrical content.
• 53D: A high flier may fly in it (ozone) - that's pretty damned high. What flies in the OZONE? I thought planes flew well beneath it, while most spacecraft flew through it. For future reference, you might like to know that O-ZONE is also the name of a Moldovian (?!) pop trio. I learned on a recent "Daily Show" that Moldova is, according to scientific studies, the Least Happy Place on Earth.
• 54D: English drama critic Kenneth (Tynan) - the only answer today that I flat-out didn't know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Emily has an artist friend / colleague who does her own version of NYT puzzle-related art every day. See it here.

Today's other puzzles:

• NYS untimed (C) - "And the Nominees Are ..." by "Roger DePont" - RECOMMENDED: a fun, super-current puzzle, which, you will see, was clearly written in something under a day.
• CS untimed (P) - "Lingo" by Patrick Jordan
• LAT untimed (P) - Venzke and Daily - RECOMMENDED: four colorful 15-letter theme answers, with a thematically-related "K"-laden throw-in to boot. Nice.
  

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THURSDAY, Jan. 3, 2008 - Henry Hook

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Famous folks who CARRY UMBRELLAS (56A: What 16- and 37-Across and 11- and 24-Down were all known to do)

A breath of fresh air. A truly original and entertaining production by a legendary constructor who rarely disappoints. As is typical when solving a Henry Hook puzzle, I began by scanning the clues and thinking "???" and then I settled in and chipped away at it, and steadily it took shape, with many moments of "aha"-inspiring revelation. The cluing on this puzzle is pitch-perfect. Somewhat rough, but in a clever, not sadistic way. There were only a small few answers that made me wince, and those were more than made up for by elegant, and frequently interrelated, fill.

Theme answers:

• 16A: Ad icon since 1914 (Morton Salt girl)
• 11D: Caretaker for the Banks household (Mary Poppins) - I'm not ashamed to admit that "Banks family" had me struggling to remember the butler's name from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." OK, I'm a little ashamed. The butler's name was Geoffrey. Geoffrey Butler. It's true.
• 37A: Oswald Cobblepot's nom de crime (Penguin) - I love this for so many reasons, only one of which is its Batman-tasticness. The French phrase makes for a wonderfully absurd combination with the already absurd name "Oswald Cobblepot." My first pass at this clue had me scanning quickly and thinking the answer had to do with some alias of Lee Harvey Oswald.
• 24D: Churchill predecessor (Chamberlain)

Looking at the grid now, I see that there is a lot of familiar, even ordinary fill, but somehow the way it's spread out, and especially the way it's clued, makes it not so offensive. Perhaps its the harmonious overall quality of the puzzle that virtually eliminates any negative effect that common fill might have. First, there's the theme, which is charming. Second ... just look at the resonances and echoes between words in this puzzle:

• 13A: Pleasure seeker (roué)
• 47D: Grimace (moue)

Now I know these are pronounced differently, but their similarity, quaintness, Frenchness, and insane final triple-vowelness make them an interrelated pair in my head. They are two of my favorite crossword words, and they go great together.

• 25A: Crow's nest? (teepee)
• 28A: Rebel yell (wahoo!)

First, the cluing on TEEPEE is great. Crow = native American tribe. Second, WAHOO is the name of the Cleveland Indians', er, mascot. So the fact that these follow one on the heels of the other makes them a thematically interrelated pair to me, even if the WAHOO part is less than, let's say, respectful. I had WHOOP! for [Rebel yell] at first. And now I have Billy Idol in my head. Plus, the PEE in TEEPEE intersects WEE (21D: Itty-bitty), to give you an intersecting PEE WEE. Bonus wordplay.

• 37D: Untarnished (pure) - and what's the MORTON SALT slogan? "When it rains it pours" - damn, I was getting it confused with the Ivory Soap slogan: "99 44/100% PURE." Nevermind.

• 1D: Half a huge cost? (arm)
• 42D: Half a huge cost? (leg)

More thoughtful harmonizing of puzzle elements. I remember a rebus that had ARMs and LEGs in it not too long ago. Brilliant.

Some other stuff:

• 19A: Acupressure technique (shiatsu) - always looks good in the grid
• 20A: Tree sacred to the Druids (yew) - not sure I knew that. Druids always make me think of "Spinal Tap."
• 22A: Regular at Kelsey's Bar, on TV (Archie) - Bunker. I'd forgotten the name of the bar
• 43A: Backsplash component (tile) - "Backsplash" is the tiled part of the wall above a counter in a kitchen. An interesting way to clue ho-hum TILE.
• 48A: Recipient of a 1937 wooden Oscar (Bergen) - Snerd's handler
• 51A: _____ Paradise, protagonist of "On the Road" (Sal) - Actually didn't know this. I have studiously avoided all things Beat for my whole life. Not sure why.
• 63A: Roast setting (dais) - had SPIT, then thought "No - LUAU"
• 67A: First batter to hit a home run against every major League Baseball team (Sosa) - gimme. This guy is probably the most important player in the last 25 years, crossword wise. AROD is going to give him a run for his money, though. I'm leaving out the ALOUS, because no single one of them has the power of a SOSA or AROD (though as a family, they are indestructible)
• 17D: Allegheny + Monongahela (Ohio) - don't see the "+" sign in clues very often. NICE (14A: Respectable)
• 29D: Bottled spirit (jinni) - gave me a little trouble. Is this not a "Var." of GENIE?
• 30D: Element whose name roughly means "lazy" (argon) - from Wikipedia: "Greek αργόν meaning "the lazy one," in reference to its chemical inactivity"
• 44D: Literary monogram (GBS) - Shaw! Anything that's not TSE or RLS is welcome. I think Shaw's monogram typically comes in fourth behind Eliot, Stevenson, and Poe.
• 55D: Everglades denizen (ibis) - "Denizen!" The fact that this answer was not CROC pleases me.
• 59D: Seven-faced doctor of film (Lao) - stumped me. Thank god for crosses.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Today's other puzzles:

NYS 8:58 (C) - RECOMMENDED: Alan Arbesfeld, "Strange Signs from Above"
LAT 6:10 (C) - ["TV Spouses"]
CS 3:56 (C) - "Seeing Stars"
Jonesin' 9:07 (P) - "For the Bards"
Universal 5:36 (P) - "Contradictions"

[drawing by Emily Cureton]

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