Egg-shaped tomato / MON 11-3-25 / Fleming who was the original host of "Jeopardy!" / Two-time Emmy-winner Remini / Record art space / Overly eager personal injury lawyer, derisively / Film that may have inspired "Sharknado" / Guitarist, in slang / Roaring Twenties style, informally / Morning waker-upper / Not express, as a train

Constructor: Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy 

THEME: ACS (65D: Summer coolers, for short ... or a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — theme answers are familiar phrases/names with the initials "A.C.":

Theme answers:

• ACCESS CODE (17A: *PIN, e.g.)
• ALLEY CAT (26A: *Stray feline)
• AMBULANCE CHASER (40A: *Overly eager personal injury lawyer, derisively)
• AL CAPONE (52A: *Gangster a.k.a. Scarface)
• ALARM CLOCK (66A: *Morning waker-upper)
• AREA CLOSED (10D: *Warning sign that might be seen on a chain-link fence)
• ALBUM COVER (30D: *Record art space)

Word of the Day: ART Fleming (24A: Fleming who was the original host of "Jeopardy!") —

Arthur Fleming Fazzin (May 1, 1924 – April 25, 1995) was an American actor and television host. He hosted the first version of the television game show Jeopardy!, which aired on NBC from 1964 until 1975 and again from 1978 to 1979. [...] After leaving the Navy, Fleming became an announcer at a radio station in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Here, he changed his name to "Art Fleming". His radio career later took him to Akron, Ohio, and back home to New York. He was the first announcer to deliver the slogan "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should" for Winston cigarettes. [...] Fleming also appeared in many television commercials, in addition to anchoring the eleven o’clock news on WNBC. He was first spotted by Merv Griffin on a commercial for Trans World Airlines. Griffin thought Fleming was "authoritative, yet warm and interesting", and Fleming was invited to audition to be the host of Griffin's new game show Jeopardy!. Fleming won the job, and hosted the show during its original run of March 30, 1964, to January 3, 1975, and again from October 2, 1978, to March 2, 1979. Rather than describe him as the "host" of the program, announcer Don Pardo introduced him by saying, "and here's the star of Jeopardy!, Art Fleming". Fleming would immediately return the favor and thank Pardo during his introduction. As "the world's greatest quiz show's" first host, Fleming earned two Emmy Award nominations. While he was host of Jeopardy!, Fleming never missed a taping. (wikipedia)

• • •

This doesn't seem like much of a theme. Or, rather, it seems like a theme from thirty years ago. Having phrases with all the same initials is an old and perfectly acceptable theme type, but you expect something more from a revealer these days than just ACS. That is, more than just the initials themselves. There's zero cleverness here, nothing beyond the most rudimentary wordplay. If there were something that made ACS particularly *appropriate* beyond the initials, or if "AC" had been part of a longer, more colorful, more interesting revealer phrase. But as it is, there's none of that. I mean, you could've at least run this one at the peak of summer heat, so that ACS would've felt seasonally appropriate. But instead it runs at the time of year when everyone is finally putting their window AC unit away after weeks of putting it off (just me? seriously, that's on today's to-do list). You can see how this theme type could be done infinitely. An MCS puzzle. A PCS puzzle. A DAS puzzle. And on and on. But why? Conceptually, this is quite flat. What this one lacks in originality it makes up for in volume, with seven (!) theme answers crisscrossing the grid. Are some of them interesting? Yes, AMBULANCE CHASER is interesting, and it knows it, as it has decided to take center stage. The rest are just ... there. ALBUM COVER is nice. But mostly the themers aren't here to be exciting; they're here to fulfill their "A.C." duties and that is all. At least the themers are solid—well, all except AREA CLOSED, that one did not feel ... great. I had AREA and no idea what the AREA was supposed to be doing (or, in this case, not doing). Anyway, AREA CLOSED definitely seems like the weakest themer to me. It's always the seventh themer that trips you up. Thematic hubris. Greek tragedians warned us about this.

I have a little side-eye today for AXEMAN. It caught my attention because it looks like an "A.M." answer in a sea of "A.C." answers and I thought it was probably more elegant not to have any stray two-word phrases that started with "A." but whose second word did not start with "C." But then I thought, no, AXEMAN is probably one word, not two. Which is true. The problem is that AXEMAN isn't how you spell this "word" at all. It's AXMAN. Merriam-Webster dot com doesn't even list AXEMAN as a variant spelling. [actually, if you search "axeman" separately, it does say "variant spelling of AXMAN"—why isn't that variant listed in the AXMAN entry?]. The word is just AXMAN. Like "taxman," without the "t." There have only been six AXEMANs in all of NYTXW history, and today is the first time the clue has swung guitarward (in all other cases, the context is lumber). Eighteen years ago, there was an AXEMEN, plural, that had a guitar clue, but that's the last time anyone heard from that particular plural. What's weird to me is that for every iteration of this word (AXMAN/AXMEN, AXEMAN/AXEMEN) there has, to date, been one and only one guitar clue. All the other clues involve guys chopping trees. More oddly, given that AXMAN is the only correct spelling, and AXMAN is shorter (which means it should have more opportunities to appear in puzzles over time), is the fact that AXMAN does not appear that much more frequently. AXMAN beats AXEMAN by just 10 to 6. And AXMEN beats AXEMEN by 7 to 4. Which is to say that the NYTXW treats them as equally valid. But they aren't. The only good axman is an e-less axman. I'd rather see E-LESS in a puzzle than AXEMAN (that's not true, but it was fun to write). 

As a Downs-only solve, this was astonishingly easy. The only slow-downs came, predictably, on the longer theme answers, particularly AREA CLOSED. I also hesitated at ALBUM cover, mainly because the clue seemed so inscrutable: 30D: *Record art space. I know all those words, but what they were doing in that order, my brain could not compute. It felt like three random words, or like a long lost collaboration between Yoko Ono and Sun Ra: RECORD / ART / SPACE (I'd listen to that album). "Record" has multiple meanings, obviously, and that was throwing me. But not for long. And every other clue I looked at, I got instantly, or nearly so. Maybe I hesitated for a few seconds (at MESA v. YUMA, for instance) (27D: Arizona city or Native American tribe), but a moment's hesitation was the closest I ever got to stuck. 

If I'd been solving the regular way (i.e. using the Across clues), I think I might've been slower, if only because I wouldn't have known ART Fleming right off the bat. The name rings a bell, but he was Jeopardy! host way before my time. I was happy to learn about him, though, as I found his wikipedia bio most entertaining. It seems I have seen ART Fleming before but just didn't remember: "Fleming reprised his role as host of Jeopardy! in the 1982 movie Airplane II: The Sequel and in "Weird Al" Yankovic's music video "I Lost on Jeopardy". Fleming was also often called upon to host mock versions of Jeopardy! at trade shows and conventions." I like '80s ART Fleming. He'll do anything. 

[from Airplane II: The Sequel]

He'll also say anything. This bit is gold. Go off, ART!:

Fleming declined an offer to reprise his role as Jeopardy! host when Merv Griffin began developing a revival of the show in 1983. As a result, Alex Trebek (a personal friend of Fleming's) took the position instead and continued to host the program until his death in 2020. In interviews conducted in the early years of the Trebek version, he stated that he disliked the show's new direction and the various changes that the revival's producers had made. He disapproved of moving production from his native New York to Los Angeles, suggesting to a Sports Illustrated journalist in 1989 that filming in California made the show feel superficial and anti-intellectual:

[Fleming] hates the glitz, the polish. "It's not part of the real world." he says, "it's part of Hollywood." In his day, the show was filmed in Manhattan. "People are more intelligent in New York," says Fleming, a native of the Bronx. "New Yorkers are alive, with-it. They know what's going on in the world. In California there's no mental stimulation. A typical conversation consists of 'I've got a new diet. How's your tennis game? Are those clothes from Gucci?' And then you look at each other."

— Franz Lidz, "What is Jeopardy!", Sports Illustrated (May 1, 1989) (wikipedia)

"And then you look at each other"!! LOL I don't even know what that means, but I love it. Laugh-out-loud-at-4-in-the-morning love it. I grew up in California and I couldn't be less offended. You tell 'em, ART. I miss this kind of harmless regional prejudice. I think I'll let ART have the last word today. "New Yorkers are alive, with-it." Amazing. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Glenn of the Eagles / MON 12-2-24 / Old LP format / Culinary tearjerker / Dispensed, as Halloween candy / Glossy magazines have a lot of them

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels and Kevin Christian

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: P-SS vowel ladder — themers start with PASS, PESS, PISS, POSS, and PUSS, respectively

Theme answers:

• PASSING FAD (16A: Trend that's here today, gone tomorrow)
• PESSIMISTIC (23A: Seeing the glass half-empty)
• PISSED OFF (33A: Beyond irritated)
• POSSIBILITY (47A: Potential option)
• PUSSYFOOTS (56A: Tiptoes, as around a touchy subject)

Word of the Day: Glenn FREY (35D: Glenn of the Eagles) —

Glenn Lewis Frey (/fraɪ/ FRY; November 6, 1948 – January 18, 2016) was an American musician. He was a founding member of the rock band Eagles. Frey was the co-lead singer and frontman for Eagles, roles he came to share with fellow member Don Henley, with whom he wrote most of Eagles' material. Frey played guitar and keyboards as well as singing lead vocals on songs such as "Take It Easy", "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Tequila Sunrise", "Already Gone", "James Dean", "Lyin' Eyes", "New Kid in Town", and "Heartache Tonight".

While Eagles were on hiatus from 1980 to 1994, Frey embarked on a successful solo career. He released his debut album, No Fun Aloud, in 1982 and went on to record Top 40 hits "The One You Love", "Smuggler's Blues", "Sexy Girl", "The Heat Is On", "You Belong to the City", "True Love", "Soul Searchin'" and "Livin' Right". As a member of Eagles, Frey won six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards. Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, the first year they were nominated. Consolidating his solo recordings and those with the Eagles, Frey had 24 Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. (wikipedia)

• • •

[PUSS 'N' BOOTS fit!]

A 74-worder today, which is slightly on the low side for a Monday, and you can feel it, especially if you are solving the puzzle Downs-only. Big corners, lots of white space, and lots and lots of long Downs—twelve (12!) answers of 7 letters or longer. Generally, the longer the Down, the harder it is likely to be to get without any crosses, and while most Downs didn't give me any trouble at all, my big trouble did indeed come from long Downs in the corners. Actually, the first corner went remarkably well. First five Downs went in 1-2-3-4-5, so I was feeling pretty good about myself, but then in the NE, things didn't go so well. First of all, PROVOST and TRUSTEE have the same number of letters, I just found out (10D: Member of a college's governing board). Only one of them truly fits the clue, but when it comes to levels of university admin, it all kind of blurs together in my head, so PROVOST went in first, and TRUSTEE only later. Next door was HEMLINE, which has a hardish "?" clue on it (11D: Height of fashion?). Feels old-fashioned, this idea of HEMLINE height being the thing that changes from year to year, dividing old from new fashions, but then the puzzle feels old generally. Lots of olden fill, very little contemporary about it. The HEMLINE clue is clever, though. Just tough for me. But I got it, eventually. 

Weirdly, the thing that baffled me the most up in the NE was EXPECTS (12D: Anticipates). In retrospect, it makes no sense that I had trouble—the clue and answer are pretty clearly synonyms. But I had -ECTS and just couldn't make a word that I wanted. Even when I mentally inserted the "P" in there (to make HUMP in the cross), it took me a few beats for the "X" to come to me. The other tough Down for me was GAVE OUT, specifically the GAVE part (41D: Dispensed, as Halloween candy). I think of GAVE OUT as "died." Halloween candy, I hand out. Maybe pass out. Dole out? Mete out? "GAVE OUT" certainly tracks, but the only reason I eventually got it was that I needed a four-letter past tense verb that (because the fourth cross was T-RI) ended in an "E" (or an "O," but that seemed unlikely). The rest of the grid pretty much whizzed by, but the NE and SE had me sweating a little.

The theme is rudimentary. I've seen a million of these. Hell, I made one once (actually, mine was more vowel sound progression (STALE, STEAL, STYLE, STOLE, STOOL), but it's in the same ballpark). I guess PISSED OFF is supposed to be the scene stealer, the marquee themer. It's too bad that the only thing that passes for contemporary or modern in this puzzle is this crudeness. I don't mind PISSED OFF in my grid, but I wish the other themers, and the grid as a whole, had a little more zip and zing about it (although, OK, I do kinda like PUSSYFOOTS). The grid on the whole isn't bad, but it is awash in repeaters: PSST EST ASAHI ANI TERI TODO ASHE IRULE ERIE SSN.  I enjoyed HAS AN IN (38D: Knows somebody who might help) and HEMLINE, whereas SUPERSIZE did nothing for me, and "THIS IS FUN" was far less fun than the first thing I wanted there: "LET'S PARTY!" (15D: "Wheeeeeee!"). Overall, solid if staid work, with a bit more bite than the usual Monday, if only because of those open corners.

Bullets:

• 24D: Old LP format (MONO) — I have a lot of LPs and yet I still stared at this answer like "???" I had to fill four letters with an "old ... format?" But "LP" is the "format." So I was confused. Turned out to be about the recording (or sound) format—before the advent of stereo recording, music was recorded in MONO:

Mono (monophonic) sound is single-channel audio where all the instruments are mixed into one signal, intended to be heard as if emanating from one position. 

Stereo (stereophonic) sound is achieved by using two audio channels feeding 2 separate speakers. This creates a more three-dimensional sound, and better resembles how we hear things in the world at large. (dittomusic.com)

• 49D: Kids make them for Santa (LISTS) — "COOKIES" wouldn't fit. Did you do that? Make cookies for Santa? And then leave them out and in the morning they would be gone, or there'd be a big bite out of one? Because Santa and/or your parents are real? This was definitely part of my childhood Christmas experience, but I don't remember doing the cookie thing with our kid. We probably just told her that Santa was phony and Christmas was a capitalist ruse. Whatever, she survived. In fact ...
• 55A: Group born between 1997 and 2012, for short (GEN Z) — our daughter, born 2000, came home for the Thanksgiving holiday last week. Over the weekend, things got festive. 

[Merry Capitalist Ruse!]

Speaking of festive, it's officially Holiday Season! This means two things for this blog. First, starting next week (Sunday, Dec. 8) and for at least one Sunday after that, I'll have a Holiday Gift Guide, featuring crossword and other puzzle-related gifts you can get for the puzzle-lover in your life (or for yourself, why not?). So if you have something puzzle-related to sell, or you have a puzzle-related gift suggestion, please pass that along to me. Second, also starting Sunday, Dec. 8, and then continuing for as long as I've got material, I'll be posting Holiday Pet Pics—send me pictures of your non-human loved ones in festive settings (dressed in a Santa hat, playing with a dreidel chew toy, whatever) (crossword content optional), and I'll post a few at the end of my write-up every day throughout the Holiday Season. For both gift suggestions and Holiday Pet Pics, you can reach me at rexparker at icloud dot com. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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High-end ridesharing option / TUE 11-21-23 / Vaping stick, for short / Bach piece whose title sounds a bit risque / Gelatin made from seaweed / Deviated temporarily from a straight course

Constructor: Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BEAN COUNTER (56A: Corporate number cruncher who might be interested in the ends of 17-, 26-, 37- and 47-Across?) — last words of theme answers are all types of beans. If you "count" all the beans ... there are FOUR (54D: What a 56-Across would tally for this puzzle?):

Theme answers:

• FREIDA PINTO (17A: "Slumdog Millionaire" actress)
• UBER BLACK (26A: High-end ridesharing option)
• AIR ON THE G STRING (37A: Bach piece whose title sounds a bit risque)
• ROYAL NAVY (47A: U.K. military force)

Word of the Day: FREIDA PINTO (17A) —

Freida Selena Pinto (born 18 October 1984) is an Indian actress who has appeared mainly in American and British films. Born and raised in Mumbai, Maharashtra, she resolved at a young age to become an actress. As a student at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, she took part in amateur plays. After graduation, she briefly worked as a model and then as a television presenter.

Pinto rose to prominence with her film debut in the drama Slumdog Millionaire (2008) for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She earned critical acclaim for her roles in Miral (2010), Trishna(2011), and Desert Dancer (2014). She also saw commercial success with the science fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), and the epic fantasy action film Immortals (2011). Pinto's other notable roles include You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), Love Sonia (2018), Hillbilly Elegy (2020), and Mr. Malcolm's List (2022). She also starred in the Showtime miniseries Guerrilla (2017), and had a recurring role in the Hulu series The Path (2018). (wikipedia)

• • •

I have no idea who FREIDA PINTO is. Looks like "Slumdog" was her first film role, and, to date, by far her biggest. She's a weird choice for the lead themer on a *Tuesday* puzzle, and all I can think is that her name must've actually inspired the puzzle. Not sure how else you come up w/ a bean-themed puzzle like this. Sadly, there's really nowhere for the puzzle to go without a great revealer, and this puzzle definitely does not have one. BEAN COUNTER makes no sense. The "counter" part I mean. None. Yes, there are FOUR themers, ergo FOUR beans in this puzzle, but ... so? I mean, the fact that you have to add that FOUR answer basically screams "My Revealer Makes No Sense." If it made sense—no need for the extra FOUR bit. Just bizarre. Also, string beans aren't really beans. They're legumes, but not beans, the way the others are beans, despite being called "beans." 

Legumes are plants that bear fruit that grows in pods. Beans are the seed from different varieties of plants, although typically the whole plant is referred to as beans. In other words: all beans are legumes, but legumes aren’t necessarily beans. (randallbeans.com)

I also don't really know what UBER BLACK is, but my first guess for that second word was BLACK, so I must've heard of it. It's a weird couple of opening themers, esp. for a Tuesday. But the main problem is that the theme has nowhere to go, has no revealer to make it make sense, and so we get this whole FOUR fiasco today. Crossing FREIDA with COE (3D: Iowa college) seems pretty dicey (neither is terribly famous), but I guess there's no other letter that could realistically go there. 

The other main problem is the fill, which was giving off mothball smell before I even got out of the NW corner. SLR COE ECIG RASSLE LEANTO SEABEES AGAR RAMA YAWED OOH *and* AAH and EMO Philips!? EMO Philips?! That is what's called "steering into the crosswordese." Before EMO became recognizable music genre, it was *always* clued as EMO Philips. Here's roughly six years' worth of EMO cluing from around the turn of the century:

That's a lot to put on one guy's shoulders. Not a lot of room for interesting cluing variations. But then in 2004, [Modern rock genre] made its debut as an EMO clue, and after that, the puzzle rarely looked back. EMO appears in the grid pretty regularly, but EMO Philips hadn't been seen for four years before today. This is just his sixth appearance in the past 13 years. To use EMO Philips now is like playing the oldies ... but I don't know why you'd do that today, when the grid already feels kinda stale. 

It was hard to find things to like today. I like "Peanuts," a lot, and didn't mind RED BARON (5D: Snoopy's nemesis), but in an already old-feeling puzzle, it just made things feel older.  TEAHOUSE was probably the nicest thing in the grid (39D: Japanese meeting place that serves refreshments). Gotta get back to my family, who sound like they're having all kinds of dessert-related fun without me. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Temporary price reduction to drive sales / MON 9-18-23 / Actor Danny or Stubby of old Hollywood / Utah city that shares its name with a biblical kingdom / Rapper with a Harvard hip-hop fellowship named in his honor

Constructor: Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium (solving Downs-only)

THEME: COLOR COMMENTARY (62A: Broadcast booth analysis ... or a hint to 17-, 27- and 47-Across) — theme answers are verb phrases that describe a kind of speech (or "commentary") and that also contain a color:

Theme answers:

• TALK A BLUE STREAK (17A: Blabber continuously)
• TELL A WHITE LIE (27A: Harmlessly deceive)
• RAISE A RED FLAG (47A: Be cause for serious concern, say)

Word of the Day: "WHOSE Line Is It Anyway?" (28D: "___ Line Is It Anyway?") —

 

Whose Line Is It Anyway? is a short-form improvisational comedy show originating as a British radio programme, before moving to British television in 1988. Following the conclusion of the British run in 1999, ABC began airing an American version, which ran until 2007 and was later revived by The CW in 2013.

Each version of the show consists of a panel of four performers who create characters, scenes, and songs on the spot, in the style of short-form improvisation games, many taken from theatresports. Topics for the games are based on either audience suggestions or predetermined prompts from the host. The show ostensibly takes the form of a game show, with the host arbitrarily assigning points and likewise choosing a winner at the end of each episode. (wikipedia)

• • •

This theme has one thing going for it, and that's the parallel rhythms / structures of all the theme answers. Yes, they all have colors, but more impressively, they all follow a strict "[VERB] A [COLOR] [NOUN]" pattern. This gives the set a thematic coherence that transcends the mere presence of colors. The one major problem I have with the theme set is that the first two themers are very much about speaking, whereas neither the clue on 47A: Be cause for serious concern, say, nor the answer (RAISE A RED FLAG), are necessarily speech-related, so the "commentary" connection there feels particularly tenuous. Behavior raises red flags. Maybe that behavior is speech, maybe it isn't. Frequently it isn't. And nothing in the clue points toward a spoken context, so that themer really feels like an outlier. Just doesn't have the obvious emphatic spokenness that the theme seems to require. But I think this is one of those horseshoes/hand grenades situations, where meh, it's fine, good enough, and as I said at the outset, the structural consistency on this set of phrases elevates the theme, making any infelicities much more forgivable. 

As for the Downs-only solve, there were four troublesome answers, but only one was truly daunting:

That was how much of the grid I had in place before I (finally!) got ROLLBACK (6D: Temporary price reduction to drive sales). Before that, yeesh. Wasn't til I got to the crosses at the bottom half of the answer that I was able to put something together that allowed me to parse the word. I needed MOA- (which was an obvious "B"), and LE-H (which, here, was an obvious "C"), before the back end of the answer (fittingly, BACK) became clear, which then allowed me to imagine ROLLBACK. The clue on that ROLLBACK just did nothing for me. I kept wanting the answer to be some kind of "sale," but "sales" was in the clue, so I knew that was out. But from there, where to go? At sea, I was, for ... well, you can see. Something close to half the puzzle. 

Before that, I had trouble with "MAKE ME!," which is horribly clued (4D: "What are you gonna do about it?!"). Make me what? I guess you are supposed to infer that the clue / answer is in response to a very specific demand, i.e. "Stop it!" But the "it" is ambiguous and what the taunter wants you to "make" him do is also ambiguous and it just didn't play right. The other two trouble spots were minor, and were not the puzzle's fault. I could Not think of a word for [Ordinary] in five letters (it was PLAIN), and I couldn't figure out what [Many] could be with nothing in place, so I went to the SE corner to get WANE / ARCS / NYET, which was great, except ... --WAN made me think "Oh, it's ASWAN, like the dam." Only no. No. It's IOWAN, like the state. Sigh. That took a little doing / undoing / redoing. Then at the end I just couldn't come up with BUSY WORK for far too long—for many seconds after I actually had the WORK part in place (which came only after I'd changed CAMAY (!?) to CAMRY). Brain just wouldn't offer it up. Oh, and I would not commit to nearby GALA because its clue (33D: Inaugural celebration) did not seem quite accurate. It's called the Inaugural BALL. Yes, I'm sure it is a GALA event, and the answer kind of had to be GALA given the terminal "A" I had firmly in place. But still, I was not sure. Not sure sure. So I waited. Then committed after ALEUT became obvious. Then got BUSY. The end.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Bluish-gray pet / SAT 1-28-23 / Self-driving car company that started as a Google project / Cousin of Spanish chirimía or Italian piffero / Horror movie franchise known for both its action and slapstick humor / First NPR reporter promoted to correspondent before age 30 / TV bar with frequent health code violations overlooked by the city's mayor

Constructor: Kevin Christian

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (much, much harder if those longer proper nouns are out of your wheelhouse)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALPHAVILLE (27D: "Forever Young" band, 1984) —

Alphaville is a German synth-pop band formed in Münster in 1982. They gained popularity in the 1980s. The group was founded by singer Marian Gold, Bernhard Lloyd, and Frank Mertens. They achieved chart success with the singles "Forever Young", "Big in Japan", "Sounds Like a Melody", "The Jet Set" and "Dance with Me". Gold remains the only continuous member of Alphaville. [...] Alphaville's song "Forever Young" was featured in the movie Listen to Me (1989) featuring Kirk Cameron in one of his first film roles. (wikipedia) (emphasis—and movie-going low point—mine)

Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution) is a 1965 French New Wave science fiction neo-noir film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon and Akim Tamiroff. The film won the Golden Bear award of the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965.

Alphaville combines the genres of dystopian science fiction and film noir. There are no special props or futuristic sets; instead, the film was shot in real locations in Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming the streets of Alphaville, while modernist glass and concrete buildings (that in 1965 were new and strange architectural designs) represent the city's interiors. The film is set in the future but the characters also refer to twentieth-century events; for example, the hero describes himself as a Guadalcanal veteran.

Expatriate American actor Eddie Constantine plays Lemmy Caution, a trenchcoat-wearing secret agent. Constantine had already played this or similar roles in dozens of previous films; the character was originally created by British crime novelist Peter Cheyney. However, in Alphaville, director Jean-Luc Godard moves Caution away from his usual twentieth-century setting and places him in a futuristic sci-fi dystopia, the technocratic dictatorship of Alphaville. [...] German synthpop band Alphaville took their name from the film. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle had its moments but all I could think of was the rather large segment of the solving population that is going to be brutalized by the proper nouns. I wrote in ALPHAVILLE no problem because holy cow is that in my particular generational wheelhouse but I would never, ever expect anyone not solidly Gen-X to know who the hell ALPHAVILLE are. I'd've expected to go to the Godard film of the same name, but even that is pretty obscure. Wow, "Forever Young" ... a semi-iconic melancholy anthem if you were a suburban 80s teen. The song was almost wholly ruined for me when, in my first semester of college (at POMONA, in fact), I went to a test-screening of Listen to Me, a college debate drama (!?) starring Jami Gertz and Kirk Cameron (back when he was famous for starring on the TV show Growing Pains, not for being a religious and zealot and bigot like he is today). I guess the college thought they were doing something "fun" by giving us these free test-screening tickets. We saw it at a mall, I remember that—the Montclair mall ... Montclair Place, was it? Maybe. Anyway, the movie was not just bad, it also featured a clumsy climactic debate between whatever fictional college the movie's stars went to and (of course) Harvard. The subject: abortion. Yes, the hot topic all the kids are talking about, the topic that can *definitely* be done justice in a Kirk Cameron vehicle. So I had to watch these allegedly sympathetic characters wax poetic about the merits of making abortion illegal or whatever and even at 17 I was like "this is bad, right?" And *then* "Forever Young" by Alphaville started playing. I was like "But ... but ... I like this song ... I LIKE THIS SONG, STOP THE MOVIE!" We filled out comment cards at the end. I like to believe I just wrote "No" in big letters. I also have a traumatic memory of Kirk Cameron hosting some kind of wacky Ice Capades TV special in the late '80s, with, like, skating Smurfs and random musical acts ... that can't be real, can it? CAN IT!?

Then there's POST MALONE, which ... sigh (13D: His 2016 debut album unseated "Thriller" for the most weeks spent in the top 10 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop chart (77)). Yes, he's somehow tremendously popular and yet if you are over 50 it's entirely possible you have literally never heard of him. Pop culture is weird these days. Heavily sectored, segmented, silo'd. Between ALPHAVILLE and POST MALONE I could practically hear many older and/or pop-culture-challenged solvers tearing their hair out (if they still have hair) (I sure don't). My own personal proper noun struggle came with WAYMO (40A: Self-driving car company that started as a Google project), which I hated not because I didn't know it, but because ugh, cars, self-driving cars, Google ... it's a dystopic tech bro nightmare. Build efficient public transportation! It's doable! And it's so much better than this apocalyptic vision of hyper-individualism they're trying to sell you. "Oooh, robot cars." Bah. Pffffft. WAYMO, because you'll get "way mo'" pedestrian deaths and way less human accountability for those deaths. Google will not be satisfied until you have Google Brain Implants. At some point you have to stop worshiping your tech overlords, who hate people except insofar as they can be hooked up to machines (literally or figuratively) and drained of their resources and volition. Gonna stop before I write a manifesto and Google tells the feds on me. 

I think that ultimately the proper nouns in the puzzle are crossed fairly, but I'm kinda giving side-eye to a couple of those ALPHAVILLE crosses, the proper noun crosses: CHE and "EVIL DEAD" (another longer proper noun that I suspect is unknown to many solvers) (46A: Horror movie franchise known for both its action and slapstick humor). Puzzles should not get *all* their difficulty from proper nouns, because for those who know the nouns, it's not difficult at all, and for those who don't, there's rarely a feeling of satisfaction waiting for you once you get the answer. I like proper nouns, I think they can give a puzzle personality and life, but I wish constructors/editors were more careful about how they used them. Oh well, at least this one started with a gimme. Too easy, perhaps, but it's nice to start out with a little success:

That WAYMO section was tough not just because I didn't know WTF WAYMO was, but because it gets really tight in there, and there are only a few clues to help you out with WAYMO, and those are either cross-referenced or vague. Two of my three initially wrong answers today went straight through WAYMO (STUN for SLAY, WIN for AIM) (29D: Knock dead, 33D: Hoped-for result). Figuring out that CROC / LACED pairing was the key to finally fixing all that mess, but that really was the only Saturday-hard part of the grid for me today. There was one other clue that wicked + clever quality I like in a Saturday: 12D: Props for some plays (OBIE AWARDS). Just a fantastic example of clue misdirection with "Props" there (it's common slang for "credit," short for "proper dues"). I had SOD before ALE (35A: Product that may be sold by the yard), but no other troubles. Tougher than yesterday's, but not by much. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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