Classic line from the Superfans sketch on SNL / WED 10-27-21 / Overseer of Hamlet's duel with Laertes / Portable structure that's pitched / Wabbit pursuer Elmer

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore

Relative difficulty: Easy (esp. if you are a Gen-Xer who used to watch SNL in the '90s and early '00s)

THEME: "LIVE FROM NEW YORK..." (38A: Classic opening line from an NBC sketch show)— old SNL catchphrases ... that's honestly it:

Theme answers:

• "DAAAAA BEARS!" (17A: Classic line from the Superfans sketch on "S.N.L.")
• "SCHWEDDY BALLS" (24A: Classic line from the Delicious Dish sketch on "S.N.L.")
• "WE'RE NOT WORTHY!" (49A: Classic line from the Wayne's World sketch on "S.N.L.")
• "MORE COWBELL!" (60A: Classic line from the Blue Öyster Cult sketch on "S.N.L.")

Word of the Day: Mirin (32D: Mirin and sake => RICE WINES) —

Mirin (味醂 or みりん, Japanese: [miɾiɴ]) is a type of rice wine and a common ingredient in Japanese cooking. It is similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol content and higher sugar content. The sugar content is a complex carbohydrate that forms naturally during the fermentation process; no sugars are added. The alcohol content is further lowered when the liquid is heated.

• • •

"LIVE FROM NEW YORK..." is a cool 15, but this is not what you do with it. I'm baffled by how this counts as a passable theme, as they're just ... "lines." It's basically an ad for the show. Worse, it's an ad for the show's ghost—the most recent of these "lines" is 21 years old. Yes, "MORE COWBELL!" can legally drink now. Does Gen X not think that its pop culture can be "bygone"? Some bygone is fine, but this is entirely bygone, which may speak to the waning real-world impact of that show (what "classic" lines are there from the 2010s on?), but still this puzzle feels exclusionary, age-wise, and also feels like a grave. Further, "LIVE FROM NEW YORK..." line doesn't go with the others, as it's not part of a sketch. They still open the show with that line (I think). Even further, SCHWEDDY BALLS isn't really a "line"—it's a product. Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, and Alec Baldwin do say it over and over, to comical effect, but ... that's what actors do. They say words and phrases. Not all of those words and phrases count as "lines." The other themers in this puzzle are all decidedly "lines." SCHWEDDY BALLS, isn't. I think the number of "A"s in "DAAAAA BEARS" is absolutely fudged to get the symmetry with "MORE COWBELL" to work out. I know this because it has always appeared as merely "DA BEARS" in ... [checks notes] ... the New York Times Crossword Puzzle ([Chicago team in old "S.N.L." sketches], just this past May). Remembering olden catchphrases isn't unpleasant, if you're of a certain age (I am), but I'm not sure that, as a theme, it's ... worthy.

But at least it's possible to enjoy the theme. The fill ... wow, it is truly bygone and in desperate need of clean-up (I don't really get why the team of experienced editors doesn't provide more fill polishing in cases like this, but oh well). When I put in ANAÏS, very early, a little warning light went off. Obviously ANAÏS Nin is crossworthy, but she's also old-school crosswordese, and as constructing programs have gotten more common over the years, and fill has consequently improved (somewhat), ANAÏS has drifted from puzzle prominence, to the point where you hardly see her anymore. [UPDATE: bizarrely, this is untrue; it *feels* true, but there are more 2021 appearances of ANAÏS so far (four) than there were total appearances of ANAÏS in 2001 (grand total: two). How is the era of constructing software making crosswordese reliance worse?? Annnnnnyway...] I worried that a bevy of old names and terms were going to come barreling into the grid ... and I wasn't wrong. "Bevy" may be an understatement. OLA EST (both suffixes??) IIS (grim), IWO ORR OSRIC (OSRIC is the real tell ... if ANAÏS hadn't set off the alarm, OSRIC would have), SRIS plural, ININK ANO FEU INA. The SE corner is truly baffling. EENIE BAAED YALIE ... all in the same tiny corner. It's like some "how many YALIEs can we stuff in a phone booth" college stunt, only in this case YALIEs (fittingly) are moribund repeating crossword terms. No, seriously, how do you go with EENIE / BEA over ERNIE / BRA?!?! How do you *choose* EENIE? Even that tiny, effortless change immediately improves the overall quality of the section. It's like no one really thought any of this through, or cared enough to try. There's just a "well, these answers have all been in grids before, so ... we're good!" attitude here. Very disheartening. 

Very grateful to @hazelnym for this meme
based on my Monday puzzle write-up

And IMPULSION, wtf?! I had the first part of the word and thought "Well they clearly mean IMPULSE ... don't they? This can't be ... IMPULSION ... is it? That's not a word. It must be IMPULSSSE ... like DAAAAA BEARS but with esses..." COMPULSION is a word, IMPULSE is a word, I have no idea what IMPULSION thinks it's doing, please don't wave dictionaries at me, it's rotten. On the other hand, I loved WRAP SKIRTS and RICE WINES. I'm surprised we don't see MIRIN in the puzzle way more often. Wait ... [again, checks notes] ... we've *never* seen MIRIN in the puzzle!?!?!?! How is that even possible? MIRIN is a staple in this household. Hi there, hey, hello, constructors!? Yeah, here's a never-used (5) just waiting for you to invite it into your grid(s)! I promised you, it's good. "MIRIN: Better than EENIE!"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Long straight-sided smoke / TUE 2-16-21 / Popular video game console released in 2013

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tuesday)

THEME: "BEER ME!" (62A: "I'll have a cold one, please" ... or a hint to 17-, 26-, 43- and 57-Across) — words on the front or back ends (alternating) of longer answers are brands of BEER:

Theme answers:

• NIP IN THE BUD (17A: Do something)
• STELLA MCCARTNEY (26A: British fashion designer who's the daughter of Linda and Sir Paul)
• ONCE IN A BLUE MOON (43A: Very rarely)
• CORONA CIGAR (57A: Long, straight-sided smoke)

Word of the Day: XBOX ONE (41D: Popular video game console released in 2013) —

The Xbox One is a line of home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Australia, and South America in November 2013, and in Japan, China, and other European countries in September 2014. It is the first Xbox game console to be released in China, specifically in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone. Microsoft marketed the device as an "all-in-one entertainment system", hence the name 'Xbox One'. An eighth-generation console, it mainly competed against Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and later the  Switch. [...] The system was succeeded by the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, which launched on November 10, 2020. (wikipedia)

• • •

Really enjoyed this one, partly because I have such low expectations for Tuesday that anything halfway decent is likely to come across as pleasing, but mostly because the revealer is fresh and fun (even if, again, it's not in the *final* Across position—what is with this trend with revealers *hovering* one line up from the bottom in the SE? ... although ... I guess if you can get far better fill results by lifting the revealer off the bottom by one row, then it's enough for the revealer just to be in the SE section—still has a terminal feel, and quality of fill should be a paramount concern ... although DIEM and TREY and CEO aren't exactly eye-popping ... OK, stopping overthinking this now). NIP IN THE BUD is a tight idiomatic phrase that makes me not mind the presence of NIP so much (if it shows up on the first page of search results as an ethnic slur, it's worth thinking hard about whether you really want to use it). STELLA MCCARTNEY is a pretty inspired way to get a 15-letter STELLA (to balance out the 15-letter ONCE IN A BLUE MOON, which is about the only BLUE MOON phrase there is). I sadly thought she was STELLA MCCARTHY, which didn't stretch to the whole 15, and which is obviously wrong if you bother to Read The Whole Clue (my clue-reading impatience costs me once again). I don't really know what a CORONA CIGAR is, but I trust that it is a thing. "Cigar" feels redundant—I think I've heard of "corona," the way I've heard of "claro" and "panatela" (my entire cigar vocabulary, besides "stogie" comes from crosswords). It's a type of cigar, not a brand (according to Cigar Aficionado, which is not a phrase I ever imagined writing, "corona" is the "benchmark size against which all other sizes are measured," so there). The whole grid is very lively, the revealer pops ... yes, I'll take this.

I liked both "AW, C'MON" (11D: "Pretty, pretty please") and COME BY (65A: Acquire) even though that *almost* feels like a dupe (i.e. duplicate, i.e. "come" is (sorta) in both answers). I'm not sure there's any "please" implied in "AW, C'MON." Speaking of which, I *know* there's not any "please" implied in "BEER ME!" so I have no idea why they've appended "please" to "I'll have a cold one" in that clue. I know ARES very well but do not think of him as a "symbol," so that clue was bizarrely hard for me (51D: Symbol of militarism). I seriously wanted APES in there at one point. I forgot the XBOX ONE existed. I wanted XBOX NOW, which is probably a conflation of XBOX LIVE and some other product name. I shave my head so the BRUSHES clue was not intuitive for me (25D: Items often used in front of mirrors). Didn't know EMILIA (14A: "Game of Thrones" actress Clarke) or RORY (49A: ___ Storm and the Hurricanes (Ringo's band before the Beatles)), but didn't even see the clue for the former (got the whole NW corner from Downs), and the latter came easily with crosses. I think I thought OARMEN had an "S" in it ... so, "oarsmen." I'm never 100% sure about the final vowel in AUGUR (33A: Foretell), possibly because AUGER ("a tool with a helical bit for boring holes in wood") also exists. But outside the ARES next to XBOX ONE section, this one went pretty smoothly. Really hit the Tuesday spot. That does not often happen. So, ok then, good. Moving on ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Singer whose 1980 single The Breaks was first gold record rap song / WED 6-3-20 / Starting point for German count / Actress director Lupino

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore

Relative difficulty: Easy (under 4)

THEME: BIG BAD WOLF (57A: Fairy tale villain associated with the ends of 20-, 27- and 49-Across) — HUFF and PUFF and BLOW are the ends of the themers:

Theme answers:

• LEAVES IN A HUFF (20A: Storms out)
• CHEESE PUFF (27A: Airy snack item)
• KURTIS BLOW (49A: Singer whose 1980 single "The Breaks" was the first gold record rap song)

Word of the Day: KURTIS BLOW (49A) —

Kurtis Walker (born August 9, 1959), professionally known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record/film producer, b-boy, DJ, public speaker and minister. He is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major record label. "The Breaks", a single from his 1980 self-titled debut album, is the first certified gold record rap song for Hip Hop. Throughout his career he has released 15 albums and is currently an ordained minister.

• • •

I was solving this puzzle and had no real idea what the theme was and wasn't particularly in love with the fill, but then two things happened to brighten my mood considerably. First, I ran into the name of my new kitten, who is currently the center of my life, because ... well, I mean, come on:

4 weeks old when we found him in our bushes

7 weeks old now

So when someone asks me "What's it all about?" I can honestly answer: "ALFIE" (22D: Title role for Michael Caine and Jude Law). So that answer was a joy to get, and then right after that I ran into KURTIS BLOW and it's my sincere belief that no puzzle that contains KURTIS BLOW can be truly bad. Throw all the EWW and AONE and LETO ETTA PASHA ALEE you want in there, the power of KURTIS BLOW cancels them all out. These are the breaks.

After KURTIS BLOW, I was set. The theme ... well, I really really (really) wish that there had been some way to incorporate HOUSE DOWN into the theme somehow. Even if HOUSE had just been one of the Down answers in the grid somewhere, that would've made me smile. As it is, it doesn't really represent the Wolf threat trifecta: huff, puff, blow your house down (not huff, puff, blow). Still, the themers are good on their own, and the fill is, at worst, average, and so, by the transitive property of KURTIS BLOW and the mystical power of ALFIE, I declare this puzzle just fine.

["You're free to come and go / Or talk like KURTIS BLOW ..."]

I sailed through this, though looking back, I appear to have made a number of initial errors. Writing in AID for ACT was weirdly obstructive (23D: Be effective), I think because TORIC ran through that answer, and I was somehow not seeing the capital letters on "Life Savers" and so kept wanting some word like "heroic." I also had OPTIMAL (which is the adjective I'd use) rather than OPTIMUM (which is ... a noun to me). OPTIMUM is suboptimal imho, but it's valid, so fine. Speaking of suboptimal: NIKKI Haley, who almost single-handedly un-KURTIS BLOWs this puzzle with her horrid Trump handmaidenness. Please don't put (R) bootlickers in my puzzles!!! But then there's a big cup of coffee there with ARABICA and suddenly I'm happy again. So many moods! To sum up: my cat ALFIE is great, KURTIS BLOW is great, the fill has issues, NIKKI Haley has issues. Verdict: just fine.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. TWEENER is not a word and won't ever be so delete it from your wordlists Thank U!

P.P.S. I knew how to spell KURTIS but I did not know how to spell NIKKI and it seems *entirely* possible that many many Many people will put a "C" at that crossing and it will feel right and look right And Sound Right When You Say Both Of Their Names and yet not be right. That is cruel. This cross probably should never have happened. If the puzzlemakers had followed my "no (R) bootlickers" rule, this would never have happened.

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Headwear in Prince hit / THU 10-11-18 / Annual event to support breast cancer awareness / Car named after automotive competition

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:27)

THEME: NO BRA DAY (61A: Annual event to support breast cancer awareness ... or a hint to answering 16-, 22-, 24-, 35-, 53- and 55-Across) — theme answers have letter string "BRA" in them, which you must remove for the answer to make any sense vis-a-vis the clue:

Theme answers:

• BRAIDING (16A: Picking out of a lineup, e.g.)
• LAB RATS (22A: Upper body muscles, for short)
• BRAVERY (24A: Extremely)
• LEFT BRAIN (35A: Didn't delete)
• VIBRATO (53A: First name in "The Godfather")
• BRAKING (55A: Chess piece)

Word of the Day: CINERAMA (7D: Precursor to IMAX) —

Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporation. It was the first of a number of novel processes introduced during the 1950s, when the movie industry was reacting to competition from television. Cinerama was presented to the public as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs, and audience members often dressed in their best attire for the evening. [...] The word "Cinerama" combines cinema with panorama, the origin of all the "-orama" neologisms (the word "panorama" comes from the Greek words "pan", meaning all, and "orama", which translates into that which is seen, a sight, or a spectacle). It has been suggested that Cineramacould have been an intentional anagram of the word American; but an online posting by Dick Babish, describing the meeting at which it was named, says that this is "purely accidental, however delightful."
(wikipedia)

• • •

Where to start? First, what is ... this? Is this "day" really a well-known thing? I've never heard of it until just now. Looking it up online, it does appear to be real—so I'll give it that—but it also appears to date from 2011 (!) and also to have been spun off of (!?) BRA Day, which was a Breast Reconstruction Awareness day started by a plastic surgeon. Wikipedia notes: "The day is controversial as some see it as sexualizing and exploiting women's bodies while at the same time belittling a serious disease." Also, well, here's my other favorite tidbit from the wikipedia entry on this alleged "day":

I don't think this "day" is sufficiently well known to be a viable theme answer. It's Breast Cancer Awareness month, and I am all in favor of drawing attention to that in crossword form, but this cutesy use of a not-famous "day" feels a little off. Also off—the date. I mean, if you're going to use a "day" as the basis for your puzzle theme, maybe run the puzzle on the actual day. NO BRA DAY is, technically, Saturday (Oct. 13). Lastly, I get that you have to take the BRAs out to make the clues make sense, but visually it just looks like you've put a bunch of bras *in* to your puzzle. So it's more SIX BRAS DAY than NO BRA DAY.

[15% of respondents are serious "The Good Place" fans]

LAB crossing LAB? NO, DOG(S). No. Just no. I mean, you cross a couple of "UP"s, something small like that, no one's really gonna care. But you can't cross LAB with LAB. They aren't even different meanings of the word LAB, really. I get that the *actual* "no-bra" answer doesn't have LAB in it, but the grid does, so ... no. LABRATS was interesting, though, as it was the answer that tipped me to the theme (I already had BRAIDING but didn't really get it), and the clue sent me into some weird wrong-answer territory. I had LABRUMS in there at one point. Are those muscles? No, it's cartilage. Well ... it was anatomical, anyway, so I'm gonna give my wrong answer partial credit. The hardest part of this puzzle for me was, weirdly, IROC (47A: Car named after an automotive competition). I had the "I" and then the "O" and thought "I know four-letter car names, what the hell?!" Ugh. IROC. Do they even make those any more? Also, how in the world is that clue supposed to be useful??? There's nothing helpful about it, nothing competition-y about its name. Nothing. Bizarre clue choice. The fill on this one is clean enough. No serious complaints. And it's nice to crush an easy puzzle every once in a while. But the theme just came up short on multiple levels.


Five things:

• 26A: Pulitzer Prize winner for "A Death in the Family" (AGEE) — ok maybe I spoke too soon about fill quality, as the grid is a bit heavy on the crosswordese, at least up top. Near AGEE is ISM and ELIA (which, like yesterday's BRAE, has been largely absent from grids for a while). Crosswordese makes me solving life easier, as I am, uh, fairly fluent, but it's not particularly enjoyable.
• 42A: One choice in a party game (DARE) — first thought: SKINS. Weird.
• 18A: Sign at some beaches (NO DOGS) — booooooooo! Beach near my parents' home is very dog-friendly and if you've ever seen a dog on a beach, you'd never deprive a dog of a beach again. It's basically like dog heaven.
• 44D: She helped Theseus navigate the Labyrinth (ARIADNE) — ... and then he promptly ditched her on some island. Ovid has all the juicy deets on these jackass womanizing heroes. Oh, and you'll want to confuse her with ARACHNE. Don't.
• 2D: Scale awkwardly, with "up" (CLAMBER) — Not sure why, but I find this word adorable. This may be my favorite thing in the grid.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Transylvanian count informally / MON 4-27-15 / Desert green spots / Precious stringed instrument informally

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (time: 2:52)

THEME: [Left speechless] — same clue for five answers:

Theme answers:

• BLEW / AWAY
• DUMBSTRUCK
• KICKED IN THE HEAD
• KNOCKED FOR A LOOP
• GOBSMACKED

Word of the Day: HOOKAH (9D: Hashish pipe) —

noun

1. an oriental tobacco pipe with a long, flexible tube that draws the smoke through water contained in a bowl. (google)

• • •

Vanilla in extremis. I'm not sure I used "in extremis" correctly there. I meant to convey both "extremely" and "deathly"—though "deathly" is an exaggeration, and Death by Vanilla, honestly, I can imagine worse things. It's just that the grid is constructed in such a way that there is virtually no non-theme fill longer than 6 letters, and what there is is mostly 3 4 5s, which is (predictably) very, very familiar stuff. So there's almost no interest outside the theme (HOOKAH is wondering what it's doing in this puzzle—it's got no one exotic or adventurous to hang out with here; no, wait, I see it's met HECK YES and they appear to be getting on pretty well). But if it's workmanlike, it's at least solid. CIEL (22D: Sky: Fr.) has absolutely no business in an easy Monday puzzle like this, but nothing else strikes me as yuck or out of place.


But the theme … there's a wonkiness. An off-ness. It has something to do with KICKED IN THE HEAD (which, in its familiarity / commonness, is a massive outlier), but much, much more to do with verb tense / part of speech. With the exception of BLEW / AWAY, all the others are past participles or adjectival. So is "Left" a transitive verb (I left her speechless) or a past participle (I was left speechless)?  Seems like meaning shifts from answer to answer. BLEW / AWAY and KICKED IN THE HEAD seem to necessitate a transitive verb interpretation, where as all the others seem synonymous with "blown away" (i.e. they can all be preceded by "I was …"). Maybe it doesn't matter that you have to continually shift context to make [Left speechless] make sense. I found the inconsistency maddening, but I can be OCD like that. And I am still having a tough time accepting KICKED IN THE HEAD at all. If you google "in the head" there's "soft in the head" and "not right in the head" and "hole in the head" right there on the first page of results. Ooh, there's one hit titled "People Are Getting Kicked in the Head Out There," but that's about police violence, so … more literal. Anyway, here is the only kick(ed) in the head I can unhesitatingly accept:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Deuce topper in cards / MON 6-17-13 / Bad-check passer / Plains animal that tunnels / Vehicular antitheft devices / Purchase from Google

Constructor: Johanna Fenimore and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium 

THEME: POP UP (69A: Easy-to-catch hit ... or what 1-, 21-, 26-, 48- and 55-Across all do) — self-explanatory


Theme answers:

• 1A: Breakfast bread (TOAST)
• 21A: Plains animal that tunnels (PRAIRIE DOG)
• 26A: Fast-food rival of Wendy's (JACK-IN-THE-BOX)
• 48A: Vehicular antitheft devices (CAR DOOR LOCKS)
• 55A: Purchase from Google (INTERNET AD)

Word of the Day: AARE (3D: Swiss river) —

The Aar (German Aare), a tributary of the High Rhine, is the longest river that both rises and ends entirely within Switzerland. // Its total length from its source to its junction with the Rhine comprises about 295^[2]km (183 miles), during which distance it descends 1,565 m (5,135 ft), draining an area of 17,779 km² (6,865 sq mi), including the whole of central Switzerland. (wikipedia)

• • •

I liked this one much more after I got to the revealer than I did before. Not that I was actively disliking it while I was solving, but CAR DOOR LOCKS didn't feel like ... a thing. I mean, obviously, they are a thing, but I've never heard of them referred to as an "antitheft device." That's a term solely reserved for alarms, or lojacks (do they still make those?), or whatever those bars are that go across the steering wheels ... something above the very ordinary, standard thing that is in every car door in every car ever made, at least in my lifetime. That answer is redeemed somewhat by POP UP, because the image is very specific and there's not a better way to describe what's popping up. I think it's the clue I'm objecting to. Also, the clue on INTERNET AD was really vague (I love the answer, though). Do Google Ads POP UP? Not to my knowledge, but I could be wrong. I don't think most INTERNET ADs involve paying Google, but rather paying the owner of some website or another. Again, the clue isn't *wrong*, just ... odd. The bottom was certainly the harder part of the puzzle for these reasons. Also harder because I couldn't spell AVOCADOS—I went with AVA- :( at first.


Overall I enjoyed this, and admired the attempt to make a Monday grid interesting, even beyond the theme answers. There's a *little* bit of Scrabble-f*cking going on in the NW and SW—where great answers w/ Scrabbly letters (SQUEAK and KOOKIER, respectively) are inserted into small corners, to the apparent detriment of all the surrounding fill. Constructors will sometimes pursue the high-value letters at the expense of overall grid smoothness. But — it's a Monday, and as I say, I appreciate the attempt to liven up the grid, and it's not like we don't get crap like ORIG. and OGEE and AARE and KITER and ON RYE and OTERI in far less imaginative puzzles than this one, so today I'm merely pointing out the phenomenon of Scrabble-f*cking (which is always a judgment call), rather than condemning the constructors for it. It's hard to stay mad at SQUEAK and KOOKIER.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Chief Theban deity / TUE 7-5-11 / Lead pumper in old slang / Lanai ladies / Winemaking province of Italy / Former Polish capital

Constructors: Andrea Carla Michaels & Johanna Fenimore

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: OH SAY ... (14A: Anthem's opener) — "O" is added to familiar (-ish) phrases, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style


Word of the Day: WAHINES (10D: Lanai ladies) —

n.

1. Hawaii. A Polynesian woman.
2. Sports. A woman surfer.

[Hawaiian, from Proto-Polynesian *fafine.] (answers.com)

• • •

Very slow start due entirely to AMON (20A: Chief Theban deity). He's Theban? Is he different from AMON-RA? And AMUN / AMUN-RA? So confusing. If you're gonna go ancient Greek, go AGON—at least I know what that means, and there's only one way to spell it. Anyway, once I got going, things settled back down closer to normal Tuesday difficulty levels. Still, ended up over 4—slow for me, for a Tuesday. The theme is slight, and doesn't quite work. First, if your SPEEDO is indeed FULL, well, that has little to do with whether you are "chubby" and more to do with other anatomical factors. Second, DIRTY ROTTEN EGG is not a phrase. DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDREL is a phrase. Third, SNOWBALL IN HELLO only barely, super-tangentially, ultra-metaphorically, works with its clue. NO LEGO TO STAND ON works OK, I guess. Overall, this doesn't have the smoothness and thematic exactness that I expect from these constructors. The whole thing just feels slightly wobbly all over.



Theme answers:

• 17A: Warning about a chubby guy in some skimpy swimwear? (FULL SPEEDO AHEAD)
  
• 26A: No-good, awful frozen waffle? (DIRTY ROTTEN EGGO)
  
• 45A: Icy winter greeting? (SNOWBALL IN HELLO)
  
• 59A: Result of cleaning up some building toys? (NO LEGO TO STAND ON)
  

Three brand name-Os. One ... not. I misspelled WAHINES the first time through, confusing them with TAHINI sauce. Thought the clue on ASEA was about the hardest ASEA clue I'd ever seen (11D: Researching whales, say). Adjectival when it appears nominative. St. DENYS, IXION (27D: Zeus bound him to an eternally revolving wheel), and RINGO make an odd trio. You are reading a BLOG right now. Yoga is way way way more than "meditation." It *can* be meditaTIVE ... but I don't like the clue At All (40A: Meditation on a mat). I don't think I've ever done WASH on a Monday. Whose "tradition" is that? (10A: Do a traditional Monday chore) Really like the slangy clue on the slangy GAT (39A: Lead pumper, in old slang). BLOOPERS is my favorite word in the grid (9D: Filmed bits that don't make it on the air). The clue is not accurate, however, in the case of "The Carol Burnett Show," which was never better than when the actors flubbed lines and made each other laugh.


See you tomorrow,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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