Ancient Greek poet sometimes called Tenth Muse / SUN 4-5-20 / Nickname for Ernie Banks / Second-most common Vietnamese surname / Cartomancer's deck / Undergo rapprochement / Ugly ones sometimes come out in December / Canonized fifth-century pope called Great / Coverings on ancient Roman statuary / Gas-relieving brand

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy (8:47)

THEME: "Double Talk" — common expressions that are clued via plays on words (i.e. "double talk"), where the second word in the clue is a word meaning (vaguely) "expression" and the first word is a thing that the "expression" is about sorta like if the clue was [Double talk] and the answer was some expression *about* double-ness or two-ness, like IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO or TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE or THINK TWICE or, I don't know, something better than those:

Theme answers:

• GO AHEAD WITHOUT ME (22A: Run-on sentence?) (i.e. a sentence about running on) (the expression is really "run along," not "run on," but no reason we can't give some leeway here)
• THE AYES HAVE IT (36A: Passing comment?) (i.e. a quote about passing ... a bill)
• I WANT TO BE ALONE (44A: Single quote?) (i.e. a quote about being single)
• TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY (66A: Just saying?) (i.e. a saying about being just)
• HOW NOW BROWN COW? (87A: Stock phrase?) (i.e. a phrase about stock)
• COGITO ERGO SUM (94A: Self expression?) (i.e. an expression about one's self)
• AGE IS JUST A NUMBER (115A: Old saw?) (i.e. a saw about being old) 

Word of the Day: ANAIS Mitchell (121A: ___ Mitchell, creator of the Tony-winning musical "Hadestown") —

Anaïs Mitchell (/əˈneɪ.ɪs/; born March 26, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and playwright. Mitchell has released seven albums, including Hadestown (2010), Young Man in America (2012), and Child Ballads (2013).

She developed her album Hadestown into a stage musical (together with director Rachel Chavkin), which received its US debut at New York Theatre Workshop in summer 2016, and its Canadian debut at the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton the following year. The show opened at London's National Theatre in November 2018 and then on Broadway on April 17, 2019 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The Broadway production of Hadestown won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Musical. Mitchell received the Tony Award for Best Original Score; she was also nominated for Best Book of a Musical. (wikipedia)

• • •

You can tell that this whole staying-home thing is starting to get to me because I have gotten uncharacteristically crafty. For instance, today I made a face mask out of an old crossword tournament t-shirt. Here's a picture, in which I look like the world's nerdiest stagecoach robber.

As for the puzzle—Finished this one superfast and sincerely had no idea what the theme was, even after I was done. Had to go back and see the cluing pattern. It's fine. Average. Very tame. Very forgettable. Not genuinely funny, more ... interesting. Like a joke you have to explain to someone and then they "get" it but not really. Not in that aha rush kind of way that you're supposed to get the theme. No click or bang or anything. It's like when the pilot suddenly announces your ETA after you haven't been paying attention for a while—it's interesting information, perhaps slightly surprising (you were really into the third season of "Gilmore Girls" and lost track of time), but, you know, it didn't make you laugh or think or anything. It's just ... information that allows you to orient yourself somewhat. And it's Exactly that dry. I do like the ailments section of the grid, i.e. the far east, where BODY ODOR and SCIATICA are doing a little DOSIDO of sadness. Oh, and I liked the clue on SWEATERS (39D: Ugly ones sometimes come out in December). But most of the grid is pretty much just paint, drying. Nothing horrible, really, just absolutely average fill, as far as the eye can see (oh, except STLEOI, which is, in fact, horrible) (16D: Canonized fifth-century pope called "the Great").


There weren't many trouble spots. I didn't know that NEWTS "scurried," but now I do, I guess (7D: Scurriers near streams). Needed most every cross to get COIL, largely because "spring" has so many different possible meanings (20A: Spring feature). I spelled CUTIE thusly, instead of the way the grid wanted (i.e. CUTEY) (20D: Adorable one). NO SOAP is a SNERD-era expression, but I got it easily because I've been doing crosswords forever and it's a phrase I've come to expect from crosswords (and literally only crosswords) (105A: "Outta luck!"). Not sure how I can be such a big NO DICE! fan and such a non-NO SOAP! fan, but here we are. EAT LUNCH is up there with the dumbest longest answers I've seen. I typically use EAT A SANDWICH as the (made-up, never actually seen) paradigmatic "green paint" phrase (that is, a phrase you might say in conversation but that is not nearly strong enough to stand alone as a crossword answer). EAT LUNCH comes damn close to EAT A SANDWICH perfection. "Perfection." WEAR SHOES ... that is an equivalent phrase. STACK PLATES. PET ONE'S CAT. All of these every bit as "good" as EAT LUNCH. ESAI ESAI had a farm, EIEIO! And on that farm he had an ... EGRET! OK, I clearly have nothing left to say about this puzzle.


My grandmother, Inez Alcorn, died on Friday morning, one month shy of her 100th birthday. She was the first person I ever saw solve a crossword, and I don't know if that had anything to do with my future obsession, but the fact that I remember *that* and can hardly remember any other detail about my life pre- let's say 2012 suggests that the moment made a big impression. She was a formidable woman who led an extraordinary life, which you can read about here (in the colorful obituary written by my aunt Nancy). Anyway, her death was not exactly unexpected, but it's sad nonetheless, especially since social distancing kept her isolated in her final days, and keeps her family from coming together now. Thanks to all of you who saw my Twitter and Facebook posts about her and expressed condolences. I'm very grateful. Here's a picture of me with grandma at her 90th birthday party (May, 2010).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. thanks to Rachel Fabi for filling in for me yesterday
P.P.S. [Busy Bee] is SAM (43A) because (I assume) SAM (as in "Samantha") Bee is a late-night talk show host ("Full Frontal" on TBS), and that keeps her ... busy? It's a well-meaning clue but it's going to confuse a bunch of people.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Hacienda drudge / TUE 1-14-20 / Video game franchise in which enemies are pigs / Dadism pioneer / Vikki who sang it must be him / BuzzFeed competitor / Rogue computer in 2001

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" was *entirely* the fault of the NW)

THEME: animals feeling various levels of ire — famous names / titles which follow the pattern [adjectives meaning some level of "displeased" + animal]

Theme answers:

• ANGRY BIRDS (18A: Video game franchise in which the enemies are pigs)
• GROUCHY / LADYBUG (23A: With 51-Across, Eric Carle kid-lit book, after "The")
• GRUMPY CAT (34A: Feline in an internet meme)
• RAGING BULL (57A: 1980 Boxing biopic)

Word of the Day: MASHABLE (36D: BuzzFeed competitor) (really? "competitor"?) —

Mashable is a digital media website founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005.

Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a simple WordPress blog, with Cashmore as sole author. Fame came relatively quickly, with Time magazine noting Mashable as one of the 25 best blogs of 2009. As of November 2015, it had over 6,000,000 Twitter followers and over 3,200,000 fans on Facebook. In June 2016, it acquired YouTube channel CineFix from Whalerock Industries.

In December 2017, Ziff Davis bought Mashable for $50 million, a price described by Recode as a "fire sale" price. Mashable had not been meeting its advertising targets, accumulating $4.2 million in losses in the quarter ending September 2017. After the sale, Mashable laid off 50 staffers, but preserved top management. Because of the drop in value, stock options previously issued to employees became worthless. (wikipedia)

• • •

This solve was pretty much defined by my never having heard of "The GROUCHY / LADYBUG"; that answer crossed the end of NOTAONE, whose quaintness was inscrutable to me (I had NOTHING and NOT A BIT before getting to the correct answer). I don't think of a PEON as having anything to do with a "Hacienda" specifically or Spanish generally, so 14A: Hacienda drudge was a bizarre clue to my eyes. And then 1D was a cross-reference, ERGO useless (1D: 18-Across, e.g.). Thus, that GROUCHY bit could not have been better situated to mess me up. That whole NW section was an awkward struggle—and I actually *knew* CARR (24D: Vikki who sang "It Must Be Him"), which, if you are not a longtime solver and are under, say, 50, might very well have been baffling. Vikki is no longer what I would call a Tuesday CARR. Are there any Tuesday CARRs? Caleb? I'll have to think on this one. Anyway, once, I got (the hell) out of the NW, the puzzle suddenly got ridiculously easy. I wrote in RAGING BULL without ever looking at the clue, that's how fast things were going. EASY (66A: "No problemo!"). In the end, I think this one is pretty solid. It's got a fun, consistent, modern theme, and the fill is very smooth, for the most part. Angry, Grouchy, Grumpy, Raging. Yes, this works. If only my Eric Carle knowledge went further than "The Hungry Caterpillar"...


I hope you are not one of the people who will inevitably be shouting that the NYTXW made an error today with DESERTS (13D: "Just" punishment). The answer is correct. Just DESERTS are what you *deserve*, not some kind of Banana Split of Justice or pie to the face. Is MASHABLE really a "competitor" or BuzzFeed. I am aware that MASHABLE exists only because its stories get forced into my social media feeds from time to time. I'm not business-type person, but my guess is that this alleged "competition" is, uh, asymmetrical. BuzzFeed feels like a monolith, MASHABLE feels like someone in 2030 making a joke about what the internet was like in 2015. I only ever hear BANE in the phrase "BANE of my existence," where it is idiomatic and means nothing like "ruination." Thus I had trouble getting to BANE from its clue (which is perfectly dictionary-correct) (19D: Cause of ruination). After all those stumbles in the NW, I made just one stumble the rest of the way. I had -O-E at 38A: A wartime communication might be sent in it (CODE), and I unblinkingly wrote in DOVE. I guess they didn't really put the message *in* the doves ... and, wait, am I thinking of pigeons? Oh, dang, I'm thinking of pigeons. Wow. Well, that was fun. Have a nice Tuesday!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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2015 Whitey Bolger biopic / WED 11-161-16 / Early American diplomat Silas / Silent screen actress Naldi / Indian drums similar to bongos / Question repeatdly posed by Ferris Bueller's teacher / Hendrix famously used on in his woodstock rendition of Star-spangled banner / 1960s tv icon whose name follows pair of letters found 16 times in this puzzle's Across answers

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BATMAN (71A: 1960s TV icon whose name follows a pair of letters found, appropriately, 16 times in this puzzle's Across answers) — themers begin with comic book sounds and then, I guess "NA" appears 16 times? because ... of the TV theme?:

Theme answers:

• BANGALORE (21A: City called the "Silicon Valley of India")
• BAMBINAS (34A: Little Italian girls)
• POWER NAP (45A: Post-lunch pick-me-up)
• WHAMMY BAR (55A: Hendrix famously used one in his Woodstock rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner")

Word of the Day: "BLACK MASS" (35D: 2015 Whitey Bulger biopic) —

Black Mass is a 2015 American biographical crime drama film directed by Scott Cooper and written by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, based on the 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill. The film has an ensemble cast including Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Jesse Plemons, Peter Sarsgaard, Rory Cochrane, Adam Scott, Dakota Johnson, and Corey Stoll. // The film follows the criminal career of infamous American mobster Whitey Bulger (Depp). Principal photography of the film began on May 19, 2014 in Boston, and wrapped on August 1, 2014. It had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. The film was released by Warner Bros. worldwide on September 18, 2015. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow. The "NA" x 16 thing probably sounded interesting in your head, but on paper all it does is create a weak-fill train wreck. Oy. Talk about stressing out the grid for No Good Reason. Actually theme material is really thin, and then remaining answers are blah to bad much of the time (N, NE, S, ABEAR, ANEG, etc.). I love BATMAN, but this did nothing for me. Counting NAs? Nah. Also, as you can see, those comic books noises that open the themers aren't the ones that appear over the actual nananananananana opening theme. Where is my ZOK! answer?:


Exceedingly easy to solve: more Tuesday than Wednesday. Every single bit of resistance in this puzzle, for me, came from "BLACK MASS," of which I have never, ever heard. I also had trouble with the WHAMMY BAR cross (don't really know what that is), and so I was sitting on BLACK _ASS for a bit, and you could've convinced me that many different letters went there. On reading the summary of "BLACK MASS," I see that I definitely remember hearing about the basic subject matter of this movie, but the title? No. Did it win anything? Nominated for anything? Do huge box office? Bueller? Bueller? ANYONE? ANYONE? (48D: Question repeatedly posed by Ferris Bueller's teacher).


Nothing much interesting to comment on. I flagged the clue on ANYONE? (which is good), and ... that's it. This is a puzzle! The end!


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Nine-fingered hobbit / WED 12-23-15 / Toy Story dog that shares its name with missile / French upper crust / Singer Williams of Temptations / Uncle on Duck Dynasty / Dios's enemy

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE" —each word from this quote from "A CHRISTMAS CAROL" (36A: Novella whose final words are found in the circled squares) is embedded in its own theme answer. Speaker of the quote is TINY TIM (with "TIM" all "tiny" there in his own little square) (65A: Speaker of the words in the circled squares, expressed literally)

Theme answers:

• GODOT (13A: Samuel Beckett's "En attendant ___")
• NOBLESSE (22A: French upper crust)
• PUSSY GALORE (27A: "Goldfinger" temptress)
• THE VERY IDEA (44A: "Nonsense!")
• SKIN TONE (53A: Complexion)

Word of the Day: MONA Van Duyn (56D: Poet ___ Van Duyn) —

Mona Jane Van Duyn (May 9, 1921 – December 2, 2004) was an American poet. She won every major American award for poetry and was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1992. // Van Duyn won every major U.S. prize for poetry, including the National Book Award (1971) for To See, To Take, the Bollingen Prize (1971), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1989), and the Pulitzer Prize (1991) for Near Changes. She was the U.S. Poet Laureate between 1992 and 1993. (wikipedia)

• • •

I was mostly indifferent to this puzzle until that TINY [TIM] moment. That made it all worth while. You've got a dense theme with a quotation *and* a work title *and* a speaker *and* a rebus square all going at once. Plus the fill's not bad overall. I didn't know OTIS or SCUD or MONA Van Duyn and I never would've guessed the plural UGHS, and I had NOBILITÉ at first instead of NOBLESSE. PLUS, I didn't pick up the battlefield context of 38D: Call preceding "Medic!" and I had NOUN instead of TOOL at 2D: Jack, hammer or jackhammer and then I got sidetracked for a moment wondering if the clue on UNCOOL was still correct (7D: Like wearing socks with sandals, say). If you were paying attention this past summer, you probably noticed teenage boys wearing dark socks with shorts, which used to be an UNCOOL old-man look, but apparently no longer. I would not be surprised if socks w/ sandals ended up on the "cool" side of the ledger sometime very soon. But back to my main point, which is I had all these moments of sputtering and stalling and *still* finished this one in the mid-low 3s (fast, for me, for Wednesday). I'd like to thank PUSSY GALORE. At least I assume that's how I got rocket-boosted through this grid.


One issue: the clue on TINY [TIM] (65A: Speaker of the words in the circled squares, expressed literally). It's not "expressed literally." It's redundant, literally. Expressed literally, there would simply be the "TIM" box, i.e. a tiny TIM. So ... phrasing. Everything would've been great if you'd just left the unnecessary "expressed literally" out of it. Just leave clue as is. It's great. We can find TIM. We can see he's "tiny." It's a great, great, unexpected little discovery awaiting us at the end of the puzzle. Don't overexplain, thus mucking things up. Just let it be, man.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I constructed today's BuzzFeed crossword puzzle. Let's just say ... it stinks! (all short, punny reviews, welcome!!)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Japanese mat / THU 3-5-15 / CSA general Stuart / Funny Silverman / Jean-Claude Van Damme film set in 1994 2004 / Kona catch / Jose to friends / Great Wonder Woman cry / Session meeting after legislative dissolution

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: FALLING BEHIND (38A: Lagging … or a hint to 17-, 19-, 56- and 61-Across) — several Across answers "fall" (i.e. go Down) at their tail end … the parts that "fall" are all synonyms for "behind":

Theme answers:

• BABY AL(BUM) (19A: Record of infantile behavior?)
• DONALD T(RUMP) (17A: Who said about himself "Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money")
• UNAMERI(CAN) (61A: Hating baseball and apple pie?)
• GORY DE(TAIL) (56A: Part of a story you might not want to know)

Word of the Day: DRAY (58D: Farm cart) —

noun

1. a truck or cart for delivering beer barrels or other heavy loads, especially a low one without sides. (google)

• • •

Hey, this works. I wasn't so sure at first. I wasn't having a ton of fun cutting through the grid (even though the fill was OK), and when I saw that BABY AL(BUM) drop I was like "man, didn't we just see this idea? … answers that turn or bend or whatever … this better be good." I had no real hope that it would, in fact, be good. I could see that the Acrosses made nonsense but the Downs made real words—or, rather, that the Acrosses made sense if you threw in the Down bits. But I honestly didn't see the connection that all the Downs had until pretty late, because I didn't get the front part of the revealer until pretty late (3/4 done). This is all to say that when I did, finally, fill in FALLING BEHIND, I did, in fact, have a genuine AHA moment. (I think I'm going to call the opposite of an AHA moment an "AHI moment," as in "Oh … I get it … that's fishy.")

[Profanity, but mostly incomprehensibility, ahead]
So the theme wins—makes a tired concept (bend-the-answer) interesting, and BEHIND ends up having a cool double-meaning (i.e. the part that falls means "behind," *and* comes at the "tail" end of the answer). The overall grid has pretty solid bones, and GALACTIC and (esp.) WE'RE LOST add a little color. Not much to complain about in the fill. Suboptimal stuff is pretty spread out. Things get a mite dicey in the NE (with the two 5-letter prefixes and the French and the two abbrevs.), but whatever bad taste is up there doesn't linger. Very decent Thursday.
Bullets:

• 45A: José, to friends (PEPE) — José Le Pew?? I had no idea. 
• 62D: Low (MOO) — last letter in the grid were those "O"s, both because I forgot exactly what James DOOHAN's last name was, and because (predictably) I misspelled DIARAMA thusly.
• 3D: "Hurray" or "alas" (IAMB) — very, very tough clue. I spend much of Tuesday explaining exactly what an IAMB is to my 17th-century lit class, and *I* didn't get this until virtually everything around it was filled in. Unstressed stressed. "Eclipse," "Today," etc. The opposite (stressed unstressed, e.g. "tailor," "panic," "Batter (my heart three-personed God…") is a TROCHEE, which we somehow never see in crosswords.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Title hunter of 1922 film / SUN 12-14-14 / Full complement for Quidditch team / Closest friend slangily / Korda who directed Sahara / Flux 2005 sci-fi film

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Well, Golly!" — "Gee" sound added to familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases, clued wackily ("?"-style)

Theme answers:

• KITTY LITURGY (23A: Religious rituals for cats?)
• KANJI ARTIST (42A: Master of Japanese writing?)
• WEIRD ALGAE (52A: Strange pond scum?)
• GENIE JERK REACTION (67A: "Grant your own damn wishes," e.g.?)
• BEE GEE LINE (87A: "How deep is your love?" or "You should be dancing"?)
• GPS, I LOVE YOU (93A: Comment from a driver who finally reached his destination?)
• OH, DARJEELING (115A: Surprised comment upon rummaging through a tea chest?)

Word of the Day: ZOLTAN Korda (26D: Korda who directed "Sahara") —

Zoltan Korda (3 June 1895 – 13 October 1961) was a Hungarian-born motion picturescreenwriter, director and producer. He made his first film in Hungary in 1918, and worked with his brother Alexander Korda on filmmaking there and in London. They both moved to the United States in 1940 to Hollywood and the American film industry. […]  In 1940, Zoltan Korda joined his brother Alexander in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Working through United Artists, he served as executive producer of The Thief of Bagdad. Zoltan Korda spent the rest of his life in southern California. He made another seven films, including the acclaimed 1943 World War II drama, Sahara (1943), for which he wrote the screenplay. It starred Humphrey Bogart. His films included A Woman's Vengeance (1947) with Charles Boyer and Jessica Tandy. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is the oldest theme in the book—or one of them—but it's mostly redeemed by a couple of features: genuinely funny theme answers, and a fairly wide open, fairly clean grid. I have to say that just this week, the overall fill quality of the puzzles appears to have taken at least a slight upturn. I haven't seen an avalanche of crud all week, that I can recall. I don't know if this is an anomaly, but I hope not. Perhaps there will be a renewed sense of commitment to polish. One can hope.


This is not the most contemporary of grids. Most of the fill feels like it could've come straight out of the era in which one might've said "Well, Golly" unironically. Even the internet slang (NETIZENS) feels dated. Still, though, we're not talking about bad dated. We're just talking about a lack of contemporary reference, which is fine if most of the answers are well-known words or phrases, one that people of any generation might know and use. I do want to give props to BESTIE, though—a nice little modern flourish. There's only one teensy glitch in the theme, and that's that you have to change the stress of the phrase pronunciation when you add the "gee" sound in GENIE JERK REACTION. "Knee" goes from stressed to unstressed syllable. This (admittedly minor) change doesn't happen with the others. It almost happens with DARJEELING, but I think of that word as (oddly) having three equally stressed syllables. Am I in the woods here, in the minutiae, chasing fireflies as they (don't) say? But it's true, none of those other added "gee" sounds change the stress of the original phrase. Consider it an observation rather than a criticism.

[Two of the base phrases are Beatles songs—can you find the other?]

Trouble? Some. Not much. ZOLTAN and JALAPA (exotic proper nouns both) were unknown to me, so there was some effort required in the NE. I had to scan the whole grid to find my error at DIPS / DOODLER. I had TIPS / TOODLER. I couldn't make any sense of the DOODLER clue (66D: Many a bored student). I had TODDLER at one point. I also couldn't process 103A: Arsenal workers (ARMORERS), as I now know Arsenal primarily / exclusively as an English Premiere League football team, and thus briefly couldn't remember what "arsenal" even meant. Even picturing the damn cannon logo of the football team, I couldn't remember. I had ARBORERS at one point, that's how far I'd lost the thread. Also, 121A: "Just ___" left me blank. And I had AS-. "Just a se-"? "Just as I…"? Not (for me) an easy FITB. Anyway, overall, nice little diversion. Simple theme, pleasantly executed. Nothing stunning, but not a faceplant, either.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Sinatra's big band leader / WED 9-10-14 / Bandoleer filler / Cleanser brand that hasn't scratched yet / Beachgoer's cooler-offer / Half exorbitant fee

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Been There, Done That — "message" referred to in the clue 69A: Where you might see the message formed by the last words in 21-, 32-, 42- and 54-Across (T-SHIRT)

Theme answers:

• "HOW YOU BEEN?" (21A: "What's goin' on?") (first guess: HOW YOU DOIN'?)
• "PUT 'ER THERE!" (32A: "Let's shake!")
• "NO HARM DONE" (42A: "Don't worry, I'm O.K.")
• "GIVE ME THAT!" (54A: "Hand it over!")

Word of the Day: Tommy DORSEY (52A: Sinatra's big band leader) —

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. Although he was not known for being a notable soloist, his technical skill on the trombone gave him renown amongst other musicians. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely popular and highly successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s. (wikipedia)

• • •

I have to say that I love the theme answers. The theme itself … we'll get to that. But the answers in their own right, regardless of the theme, make a great set. A colloquial barrage, the first two expressing happiness upon meeting an old friend, the third expressing forgiveness for his friend's stupid loud ring tone, and the fourth expressing less forgiveness. I just like saying all four of these answers in a row. Joy up top, annoyance underneath. As for the theme itself, I've never seen the old/trite phrase "Been There, Done That" on a T-SHIRT. It's annoying enough when someone says it out loud—why would you want to print something that banal and meaningless on a shirt and thus figuratively shout it at everyone you see? I actually haven't even heard anyone say the phrase in something like a decade, maybe more. I feel like it was big in 1993. Anyway, theme shmeme. But theme *answers*, as a set—big thumbs-up.

Fill is average. Maybe slightly below. Long Downs are just fine, but the shorter stuff really creaks. Stuff like JAI and LOA and ATTA and KARTS, which are really just phrase parts, are less than ideal. I was not aware the KARTS could go without the GO. In most cases I think "K" beats "T," but TARTS > KARTS as fill, I think. And UTE / UKE is probably a tie. The team name "Redskins" is flat-out racist and you shouldn't dignify its somehow continued existence by putting it in a puzzle clue—dropping the "red" doesn't make it better. When they eventually change their name, and they will, I really hope they find something more creative than "SKINS." The Washington Skins … would be creepy.


Puzzle was mostly easy. Clue on PER YEAR threw me off (8D: How salaries or rainfall may be reported), as it sounds like the reporting itself is happening only once a year. I'm not sure I even know what "report" means in this context. "Measured"? "Recorded"? Anyway, I probably wanted something like ANNUALLY, and had to wait for crosses to fill it in. I briefly invented a kind of styptic pencil that you use on TICKs (16A: Styptic pencil target). I think it's going to be a big seller. I also CHARred whatever was on my barbecue. I don't associate SEAR with "blackening," or, rather, I associate CHAR with "blackening" more. Couldn't figure out which CD was being referred to, and even when I thought of the financial instrument, I couldn't remember (quickly) what the "C" was or how to abbr. it. CERT. is a less-than-great answer, so I felt ill-rewarded for my confusion. And then lord knows how you spell HOOHAHS. I had 65A: Electric bill abbr. as KWT and thus ended up with HOOHATS.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Theme From Shaft composer 1971 / MON 9-2-13 / Classic computer game set on island / Alternatives to Slurpees / So-called mansiere essentially in Seinfeld episode / Complement of Disney dwarfs

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "We call it 'maize'..." — ends of theme answers all rhyme with "Maize" (with the 'aize' sound spelled different each time)


Theme answers:

• 17A: "Theme From Shaft" composer, 1971 (ISAAC HAYES)
• 25A: Part of a project just before the end (FINAL PHASE)
• 53A: Condiment that can remove crayon marks (MAYONNAISE)
• 66A: Intense look (STEELY GAZE)
• 11D: Team in "Moneyball" (OAKLAND A'S)
• 33D: The Fonz's sitcom ("HAPPY DAYS")

Word of the Day: GTO (32D: Old Pontiac muscle car) —

The Pontiac GTO is an American automobile built by Pontiac Division of General Motors from 1964 to 1974, and by GM subsidiary Holden in Australia from 2004 to 2006.

It was a muscle car classic of the 1960s and 1970s era. Although there were earlier muscle cars,^[1][2] the Pontiac GTO is considered by some to have started the trend with all four domestic automakers offering a variety of competing models. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was ... a puzzle! Done in 2:36, which is "Easy" for me, but I seem to be slightly ahead of the curve today, so I'm gonna knock this one back to "Easy-Medium"—appropriately Mondayish, probably slightly easier than usual. I thought the theme must have something to do with 1A: "What ___ in the 5-Down!" at first. Often, cross-referenced 1-Acrosses are thematic. Since it's Monday, I didn't slow down to figure out what was going on; I just blew through all the crosses. Never noticed the theme until I was done. Two things this theme has that it *has* to have to get into the NYT—a. 6 answers (i.e. a lot of answers), and b. 6 different ways of spelling the rhyme. Just having a bunch of rhyming words would not be sufficient. We could all come up with theme answers that end with rhymes for "maize" ad infinitum—the bar needs to be a bit higher for the theme to be NYT-worthy. I didn't love this, but it's an appropriately easy lark of a puzzle, and the fill is quite clean. It's like a nice, easy themeless that, look, just happens to have a theme. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Hit 1980s exercise video / MON 1-7-13 / Tech news site / Baldie's nickname / Vehicle of future since 1950s / Singsongy comment in a sticky situation

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Monday)

THEME: METAL MOUTH — actually, metal + body part (or body part + metal)

Word of the Day: ASWIRL (12D: Spinning dizzily) —

adj.

Moving with a swirling or whirling motion: couples aswirl on the dance floor. (freedictionary.com)

• • •

Lots of great answers in this one. Looking back on it, I think it's a really fine puzzle, but as I was solving, I didn't fully appreciate it. For one, that NE corner beat me up—so many of those answers had plausible alternatives. I tried AWHIRL and ATWIRL, never considering ASWIRL (they're all relatively equally absurd words). Tried BAWL (?) and then HOWL before ever getting to YOWL (19A: Wailing cry). Had TALK TO for LOOK TO (11D: Consult). Worst of all, I had no idea what kind of CAR I was dealing with at 10D: "Vehicle of the future" since the 1950s (FLYING CAR). That clue, more than any of them, irritated the hell out of me. Why are there quotation marks? Who is saying that? Is that the slogan of the (non-existent) FLYING CAR? Quotation marks usually imply a slogan or at least a thing that is actually known to be said, so I was looking for something very specifically associated with the quoted part. Ridiculous cluing. Anyway, that corner was a disaster, but the rest was pretty normal Monday (skewing toward Tuesday) stuff. Yet even when I was done, I didn't get the theme. I had to ask my Facebook group because I couldn't believe it was just ... metals. And at the time I asked, I only noticed four theme answers. Then I noticed that there were two more, but still all I saw were metals. Finally someone clued me in that the metals were all attached to body parts. I would never consider "DOME" a body part (though obviously in this context it is), which is probably why this connection Never occurred to me. SKIN, first thing I think of is body part. HEART, ditto. BUNS ... well,  yes, ditto, actually. DOME, no. FIST, yes. FOOT, yes. Also, BRONZE SKIN is kind of a GREEN PAINT answer. Arbitrary adj/noun pairing. Not very tight. Also, that phrase is the only non-figurative use of metal in the whole puzzle. The skin is literally bronze (in color), whereas in no other case is the "metal" used non-figuratively. I guess the idea is that the skin is not made of the metal bronze, but since bronze is a real color, there's nothing figurative here, which bugged me. So the theme wobbles slightly in places, but it's pretty tight overall, and it's very ambitious, and the phrases it yields are mostly great (hard to hate BUNS OF STEEL and CHROME DOME). It's a really wonderful grid. Probably more a Tuesday than a Monday puzzle, but still quite enjoyable.

[This. Is. Awesome]

I think I didn't notice the two Down theme answers because there are two *longer* Down answers that are non-theme. This almost never (ever) happens.

Another fellow crossworder from my FB group points out that this is at least the fourth time this theme has appeared in the NYT. There's also here (Gorski), here (Kavanaugh), and here (S. Kahn), though, to be fair, today's seems to be the first with six theme answers, so it's the most ambitious (and arguably the best) of them all.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Result of tanning (BRONZE SKIN)
• 28A: Generous spirit, metaphorically (HEART OF GOLD)
• 44A: Hit 1980s exercise video (BUNS OF STEEL)
• 58A: Baldie's nickname (CHROME DOME)
• 3D: What a tyrant rules with (IRON FIST)
• 38D: Speed demon (LEAD FOOT)

Some great colloquial phrases in this one, and an especially inventive clue on "AWKWARD" (7D: Singsongy comment in a sticky situation).

Gotta get back to watching some Kurosawa now. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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