Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Kate Jensen

Constructor: Kate Jensen

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Original Thinkers" — puns describing inventors or discoverers of various kinds (but also mountain climbers? I don't really understand the parameters, tbh)

Theme answers:

POWER COUPLE (23A: Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison?)
BIRDBRAIN (25A: John James Audubon?)
CABLE GUY (38A: Samuel Morse?)
MOUNTAIN GOAT (43A: Sir Edmund Hillary?)
MOTION DETECTOR (59A: Sir Isaac Newton?)
SEEDY CHARACTER (80A: Gregor Mendel?)
DRIVING FORCE (93A: Henry Ford?)
AIRHEADS (98A: Orville and Wilbur Wright?)
DREAM TEAM (115A: Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung?)
STAR WITNESS (118A: Galileo Galilei?)

Word of the Day: LENA Luthor (87A: Sister to Lex Luthor) —

Lena Luthor is the name of two fictional comic book characters in DC Comics. The first one, introduced in 1961, is the sister of Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor, while the second one, introduced in the year 2000, is Luthor's daughter, named after her aunt.
On live-action television, the original Lena Luthor was portrayed by Denise Gossett in a 1991 episode of Superboy, Cassidy Freeman in three seasons (2008–2011) of Smallville, and by Katie McGrath in five seasons (2016–2021) of Supergirl. (wikipedia)

• • •

[Sir Edmund Hillary]

People who love puns will probably like this. I think. I don't know. Some of the puns are decent, but the whole concept doesn't seem very coherent to me. I think the problem starts with the title: "Original Thinkers." What did Sir Edmund Hillary "think" of, besides climbing Everest? Most of these guys (all guys) are scientists of one kind or another, people who invented or discovered ... things. But then there's Hillary, who was just the first to do something. Same with the Wrights, maybe? And Ford ... he didn't invent the automobile, but he pioneered ... well, Fordism. The assembly line. Ford's Model T was the "first mass-affordable automobile," so like the others, he's associated with being "first" (or "Original??") at something. Ford is a big name, obviously, but he doesn't seem quite as in-keeping with the apparent theme of the puzzle is concerned. Is Hillary the GOAT in the sense of "Greatest of All Time?" I think that's what's meant. I just found myself shrugging a lot. Like, the puns are fine, but the theme set seems very loose, and the puzzle seems to be trying to make up for its lack of coherence with sheer volume (ten themers is a lot of themers). Figuring out the pun phrases did involve a bit of a challenge (for a change), so that was nice. And like I say, they mostly work, as puns. They didn't seem particularly funny to me, but I'm kind of immune to puns unless they are incredibly ambitious and ridiculous. POWER COUPLE is very apt, but aptness isn't exactly hilarity. As for the fill, it's a bit below average, but only just a bit, and I'm not that surprised if it buckles a little under the weight of all these themers. Still, CERSEI GRIS EERIE IDEST INRE TSAR SSNS is a lot of unpleasantness ... and that's just the SE corner. Other parts of the grid do fare better, but not much better. ANOD, OTIC, ENROOTS ... ****ing REMEND!?!? YIPES. All in all, this wasn't terrible, but it just fell a little flat.

Maybe we should look at the dudes in the themers systematically. What were the "original thoughts" that made them worthy of being in this grid?

Edison invented the electric light bulb (among many other "power"-related things), and Tesla helped designed the modern AC electricity supply system
Audubon, of course, invented birds
Morse invented a code used for telegraphs (sent by wires or "cables")
Hillary climbed a big mountain
Newton developed laws of motion
Mendel was the founder of modern genetics (due to his experiments with pea "seeds")
Ford, we covered
Wright Brothers were "First in Flight" (according to a license plate I read once)
Freud and Jung, like Freddy Krueger (Freudy Krueger?), are big names in "dreaming"
Galileo looked at stars ("the father of observational astronomy")

The nature of the theme is what gave this puzzle most of its difficulty (which, as I say, was about average). I got BIRD but then had to piece together the second part, I got MOUNTAIN but had to piece together the second part from crosses, lather rinse repeat. Not all the themers were like that, but most were. The toughest part of the puzzle for me was the deep south, where I absolutely could not remember CERSEI's name (never made it past ep. 1 of that show), and I definitely could've used her for O-RING, which I absolutely needed in order to get GRIS (????). Is that Spanish for "gray?" And "gray" is a "drab color?" How is any drabber than most house colors. White, off-white, brownish ... those all seem pretty "drab" to me. Nothing about "house color" says "gray" to me, at all. Also, foreign colors, meh. Anyway, CERSEI / O-RING / GRIS had me knotted up a little bit. Other problems were relatively small, sometimes just one square. Is it YIKES (me) or YIPES (the puzzle)? Is it GAITER or GAITOR? (it's the former) (65A: Shoe covering). CHAMP or CHOMP? (38D: Bite down hard) (if you "champ at the bit" you "bite down hard" on it, don't you?) (that last question is for horses only) (see: chomping v. champing (at the bit)). I could've sworn Buffalo was NNW from Pittsburgh, but ... no, it's NNE (I always think Buffalo's much closer to Erie than it really is).

There were also two "S" plurals that I don't think of as conventionally being "S" plurals. That is, BLINI and OGLALA both seem inherent plural to me, so putting an "S" on the end of either is ... odd (26D: Russian crepes + 37D: Crazy Horse and fellow tribespeople). In fact, the crossword has definitely taught me that BLINI is the plural and that BLIN is the singular, so BLINIS is like say horseses (I blame "champ/CHOMP" for this example).

[see? BLIN! No foolin']

Bullets:

40D: Personification of England, Scotland and Wales (BRITANNIA) — forgot that BRITANNIA was a ... person? Just sounds like an olde-tyme name for "Britain." But now that I think about it, I can picture her. Really wanted JOHN BULL here.

[BRITANNIA]

[JOHN BULL]

1D: Solos at a party (CUPS) — I know what Solo Cups are (they litter the streets in student neighborhoods on Sunday mornings), but this was still tough for me. "Solos" is disguised very neatly as a verb here. Han Solo at his family reunion, that would also involve [Solos at a party].
89D: Like many couples at theaters (ON DATES) — oof. Double oof. First oof is for the non-answer of it all (ON A DATE would be bad enough, but ON DATES, yeesh). Second oof is for the fact that "COUPLE" is already in the grid and therefore should not not not be in a clue. You can dupe short words, but COUPLE is too long to dupe, too conspicuous. This answer into REMEND was probably the most face-making part of the puzzle for me.
19A: Bit of letter-shaped hardware (U-BOLT) — bad enough to have one letter-shaped answer in the grid, we get to suffer through two (see O-RING—108A: Bit of letter-shaped hardware). Giving them the same clue does not provide nearly enough whimsy to overcome the gag factor).
51A: Trees commonly confused with birches (ASPENS) — me: "... all of them?" (I cannot identify trees to save my life—sugar maples, those are in my front yard, so I know those; and I know pines ... and palms ... and fig trees, weirdly (these were in my back yard as a child). But otherwise, I'm extremely tree illiterate. I know the names, but not the actual trees those names go with. I probably know more trees than I think I do, but I wouldn't steer toward the "Trees" category on Jeopardy!, is what I'm saying.
76A: Rain on your wedding day, perhaps (OMEN) — it rained on my wedding day. Is that bad? It's been 22 years and my marriage seems fine. Is that ironic? What does "ironic" even mean? Who can say? Let's ask this lady:

4D: Pest whose name is a homophone for what you might do when you see it (FLEA) — kept reading the first word as "Pet" and thinking "What do I do when I see a pet? Smile? GRIN? Say 'Who's a good boy!?'?" No idea. But it's a "pest." You flee from a FLEA. I guess you might. But if they're on your own pet, I don't think "fleeing" is gonna help you much.

Speaking of pets (and hopefully not fleas), it's 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲 time once again, so get those pictures of your animals in holiday settings in to me (rexparker at icloud dot com) before this Thursday, and then I'll start the animal parade, which (given how many pet pics I've received already) should continue through the New Year. Here's a preview—look how easy it is to turn your photo of Cinnamon and chewed-up tissues ...

... into a lovely holiday greeting card!

Just add a frame and a caption and voila! The tissues are now, uh, snow! Yeah, snow. [Thanks, Janine!]

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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