Feminist author Millett / SAT 6-20-15 / Chicago-born choreographer / Service begun in 1947 for short / Country created by Treaty of Sevres 1920 / Social media debut of 2010

Constructor: Kyle T. Dolan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Brienne of TARTH (10A: Brienne of ___, "Game of Thrones" protagonist) —

Brienne of Tarth is a fictional character in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fireseries of fantasy novels. She is a prominent point of view character in the fourth novel, A Feast for Crows, and a main character in the television adaptation. (wikipedia)

• • •

Need to wrap this up quickly, as I'm kind of at Peak Summer Cold right now, and also it's "Summer of Noir" on TCM so Friday nights are Always Something Good On nights, all summer. Nice to have illness dovetail with film noir marathon (and that is literally the only "nice" thing about this summer cold). I didn't love this one. Its marquee answers seemed not marquee enough—straining to be hip and relevant, but landing somehow just off the "Wow" mark. WIN AT LIFE is a phrase, I guess, but it left me cold, as did the '90s-era-Bud-ad "WASSUP!" and whatever SPANDRELS are (got that answer entirely from crosses).

[phase 1—tried "WHAT UP?" initially]

Really started to sour on this puzzle when I hit the truly hackneyed, seen-only-in-crosswords ICEAXE.

I've seen that answer a million times, and I doubt I've ever complained about it, and it's an actual thing, but it's … well, with SOG already in the books, it seemed to herald mediocrity. AMINO ACID, too, felt limp. Not bad. Just so-so. Didn't help that I immediately followed ICE AXE up with ENDO. ENDO is slang for pot. Just FYI, in case that ever shows up in a clue, which, in the NYT, it probably won't, but such a clue would almost make ENDO interesting. EMONEY will never be interesting unless someday there is a rapper called E MONEY. Or unless you clue that answer [How "Two Tickets to Paradise" singer signs his checks"]. The NE didn't liven things up much.

TARTH wants you to think it's fresh, contemporary fill, but it's not. It would be fine if it were necessary to hold something good together, but as a gratuitous "hey I watch GOT" reference, in a corner where we have to suffer through EASEIN and HENNAED, no, TARTH isn't good. Rest of the puzzle was too easy to be terribly remarkable.

[I have a crossword friend who *hates* seeing any reference to David Ortiz, aka BIG PAPI, in puzzles, so all such clues/answers make me laugh imagine his ire]

I almost like HAVE A BEER, in that I like having beer, but the clue (60A: Kick back while watching the ball game, say) struck me as odd. First, you HAVE A BEER as a possible addition to kicking back. You'd kick back *and* HAVE A BEER. You can certainly kick back without one, and I have been in plenty of baseball-watching, beer-drinking situations where I was not at all kicked back (if it's a tense game, I'm often standing and "talking" to the screen, decidedly unkicked back, possibly frightening my dogs and causing them to leave the room). Also, if that's your clue, then apparently any clue will do, e.g. [Relax after work], [Celebrate the end of the work week], [React to thirst], etc. It's weird that I find myself disappointed by beer, but here we are. Maybe STEAK RUB was supposed to be an exciting answer? It's acceptable, for sure, but like most of the rest of the grid's "highlights," it just didn't do much for me. Not a bad puzzle overall, but I'll forget about it as soon as I post this.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]

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Friend of Gandalf / TUE 9-30-14 / Marbles British Museum display / Canadian comedy show of 1970s-'80s / Mineralogist for whom scale is named

Constructor: Kyle T. Dolan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "THE PRICE IS RIGHT" (35A: Long-runninggame show with a feature spelled out clockwise by this puzzle's circled letters) — circles spell out "SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN"; other theme answers are a "modern host" and a "longtime host" of the show:

Theme answers:

• DREW CAREY
• BOB BARKER

Word of the Day: ELGIN Marbles (58A: ___ Marbles (British Museum display)) —

The Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles (/ˈɛlɡɪn/ el-gin), are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures (mostly by Phidias and his assistants), inscriptions and architectural members that originally were part of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens. Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin obtained a controversial permit from the Ottoman house to remove pieces from the Parthenon while serving as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803.

From 1801 to 1812, Elgin's agents removed about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, as well as architectural members and sculpture from the Propylaea and Erechtheum. The Marbles were transported by sea to Britain. In Britain, the acquisition of the collection was supported by some, while some critics compared Elgin's actions to vandalism or looting.

Following a public debate in Parliament and the subsequent exoneration of Elgin, the marbles were purchased by the British government in 1816 and placed on display in the British Museum, where they stand now on view in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wait, the ELGIN Marbles aren't … marbles? Like, playing marbles? Little spheres? Aggies or taws or whatever marbles are called? I'm somehow disappointed.


So, the SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN, if you're not familiar with the show, involves the spinning of a giant wheel with number amounts on it; the contestant closest to one dollar without going over gets to be in the SHOWDOWN, which is this bit where you bid on something fancy … I think whichever contestant guesses value of his/her prize most accurately without going over wins said prize … I haven't watched the show in a while. But here's the thing. The wheel spins along an axis perpendicular to the one represented by the circles in this grid. It doesn't spin like the "Wheel of Fortune" wheel—it spins more like a water mill, with the rim facing outward and the numbers printed on the rim itself. Here—"WOF" wheel:

And the SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN wheel:

Point is: this circle is a highly inaccurate of the wheel on "THE PRICE IS RIGHT" (if, in fact, that was what the circled letters were going for, which … I'm not 100% sure).


Fill continues to be abysmal, or at least far below where it should be. I've seen rejection letters where the editor claims to be upholding very high standards in the matter of fill, but that claim is belied by the vast majority of puzzles that have come out lately. Not that the trend is new. It's just been highly noticeable in the past week and a half or so. Longer stuff is not bad (LOVE BITES and BREWED UP and BEER CAN will do nicely), but shorter stuff is still manifestly subpar. I'll just highlight that southern region, with TERCE and OKSO (?), but there's also MEI and ARIL and SES and ATA and ONDVD and a bunch of stuff that's just OK. Just getting by. No craft, no attempt at polish. Just … good enough! Apparently "good enough" is the new "gold standard." No idea why the puzzle continues to limp along as it does. But it does. Broken theme, below-average fill … oh, Tuesday. Will you never win?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Magic Flute protagonist / SUN 6-17-12 / Mythical elixir of forgetfulness / Arctic waters on historical maps / Its stem is used in miso soup / Knowledge is food of soul / Classical bow wielder / Source of words mulligatawny catamaran / Long-jawed fish / Lovingly to musician

Constructor: Kyle T. Dolan

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Playable" — add "BLE" to familiar phrase, get wackiness, etc.

Word of the Day: BELOT (30A: Trick-taking game) —

Belot also Bridge belot is the name of a French trick-taking card game very popular in Bulgaria, in some parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia (Especially Bitola),^[1] and inSaudi Arabia. It is also played by the Armenian Diaspora, in former USSR area (Russia, Ukraine,Republic of Moldova) and by Jewish communities worldwide. (wikipedia)

• • •

Got theme quickly and then just mubbled through. WARBLE ON DRUGS is great, the rest, just OK. I was surprised at how yucky the fill was. If you have AMAH, BELOT and LITH in one little section of the grid ... well, something should change, and fast. And that's not even counting neighboring ABES and POR, yikes. And this is with cheaters aplenty. I mean, all over. Well, specifically up top and (especially) in the east and west. All those black squares whose only purpose is to make the grid easier to fill—so we get more short answers, and more crud. GAR! GAH! BOK! It's a (be)lot to take.

This puzzle also had some bad luck that you might not be aware of, i.e. it came out just one month after an LA Times Sunday puzzle with exactly the same theme.



Theme answers:

• 22A: Falter while imitating Jay-Z? (BUMBLE RAP) — this one is messed up a bit. Are you bumbling the genre? Or a specific rap (in which case leaving out the indef. article seems awkward). Also, "bubble wrap" is a thing, so the whole playful thing that's supposed to be going on is lost because it sounds like a very different playful thing is happening.
• 24A: Something thrown in "West Side Story"? (RUMBLE PUNCH)
• 36A: Sing high notes? (WARBLE ON DRUGS)
• 54A: Cry upon arriving at an earthquake site? ("THERE'S THE RUBBLE!")
• 77A: What the turnover-prone football player had? (DROPPING TROUBLE)
• 92A: Shenanigans at the royal court? (NOBLE NONSENSE)
• 110A: Nickname for a hard-to-understand monarch? (QUEEN MUMBLE)
• 114A: Lens cover for a large telescope? (HUBBLE CAP) — too easy

Bullets:

• 45A: Noted 2011 TV retiree, popularly (REGIS) — of course you're supposed to enter OPRAH here, but I already had crosses, so no such trouble.
• 108A: He wrote  "Knowledge is the food of the soul" (PLATO) — Somehow, with "PL-" in place, I thought PLINY would be a good answer ... ?!

• 116A: Classical bow wielder (EROS) — don't know how original the clue is, but it's good, insofar as it misdirects slightly toward classical music.
• 3D: Source of the words "mulligatawny" and "catamaran" (TAMIL) — I certainly did not know that.
• 39D: Baseball's Justin or B.J. (UPTON) — gimme. Both guys are good. Justin's got a few more accolades. 
• 53D: "The Magic Flute" protagonist (TAMINO) — I realize "The Magic Flute" is a big deal, but TAMINO looks nuts. Needed every cross.
• 62D: Lovingly, to a musician (AMOROSO) — this is not-great fill in the heart of a very dicey section. I mean, -OON? That's possibly worse than OOX [Tic tac toe loss]. Then there's the GAR (80D: Long-jawed fish) in the foreign OCEANO which feeds into the ICY SEA (wtf?) (78D: Arctic waters, on historical maps). 
• 79D: Mythical elixir of forgetfulness (NEPENTHE) — learned this from the book that has taught me more about great philosophical issues than almost any other book, ancient or modern. I'm speaking, of course, of "Watchmen."
• 111D: Its stem is used in miso soup (UDO) — U ... no.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Roman emperor born in Spain / TUE 5-22-12 / Rapid in music / Lees material / 2004 movie with screenplay by Tina Fey / Austrian-made pistol / Terminus of famous trail

Constructor: Kyle T. Dolan

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "ENIGMA VARIATIONS" (38A: Work by Sir Edward Elgar hinted at by this puzzle's circled squares) — consecutive circled squares inside theme answers are scramblings of the word "ENIGMA"

Word of the Day: MOSSO (4A: Rapid, in music) —

adv. Music
With motion or animation. Used chiefly as a direction.

[Italian, past participle of muovere, to move, from Latin movēre.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/mosso#ixzz1vYrmGzjD

• • •

Nice things can happen when you open the puzzle up to 16-wide. Think of all the sixteen-letter words and phrases out there just dying to be used, potential answers that will likely never see the light of day except in a Sunday puzzle. I want to start a telethon for those answers. In the meantime, let's admire this clever theme. I'm most impressed (and pleased) that the theme phrases (containing the messed-up "ENIGMA"s) are all actual, honest-to-god, not-at-all-forced phrases (including an Tina Fey film that I quote all the time ... in my mind ... specifically, the line "stop trying to make 'fetch' happen!," which I think of any time someone seems to be pushing really hard for his/her own neologism; but I digress). There are some fill problems here, though. Specifically, that northern area is a nightmare. You've already got a classical music theme. When you then go and cross one of your lesser known music tempos (or 'tempi') (I've never heard of MOSSO and can't recall seeing it in a puzzle ever, though I probably have) with an absolutely "&%^*-you!" music clue on SOLDAT (which is Fr. for "soldier"), then you have committed a kind of low-level crossword war crime. MOSSO would've slid right by as just some odd word I didn't know if not for SOLDAT (7D: Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du ___"). SOLDAT is ... truly unideal. If you're going to put it in your puzzle, *at least* give a clue that indicates what it means. Stravinsky? On a Tuesday, I'm supposed to just know everything Stravinsky did? Absurd. Bad editing there. That's a Saturday clue, though I don't recall ever seeing SOLDAT on any day of the week, ever. Shame to have such an ugly outlier in an otherwise nice grid. AVAUNT didn't thrill me either (35D: "___, and quit my sight!": Macbeth), but its only crime is being crosse with the ugly BAL. (a very gettable answer, eventually) (45A: Fig. on an A.T.M. receipt).


Theme answers:

• 18A: 2004 movie with a screenplay by Tina Fey ("MEAN GIRLS")
• 24A: Carved figure used for rituals (GRAVEN IMAGE)
• 54A: Industrial Revolution-era power source (STEAM ENGINE)
• 65A: Family play time (GAME NIGHT) — inventive; like it.

I couldn't make any sense of the clue on GLUED (48A: Like the cutouts in some children's artwork). I was trying to think what "cutouts" meant; that is, if there was some specific meaning, as opposed to just "pieces of paper that have been cut out of ... other pieces of paper." [Like corn kernels on some children's artwork] would've been easy, but I refused to put the "G" in for a (relatively) long time because ... hmmm ... maybe it's the "the" that's throwing me. It implies some kind of standard, as if all children's artwork has cutouts, and *sometimes* those cutouts are GLUED. [Like cutouts in some children's artwork] Yes. That's better ... don't mind me, I'm just thinking out loud. I wouldn't have been irked at all here if the "G" cross hadn't essentially been [Any letter from A to G] (48D: Key of Mozart's No. 25 or 40). Again with the classical music—we get it, you're in to it; get off the hobby horse and try some variety ... though, to be fair, with MOSSO and G MINOR in your grid, you can't really get around classical music. Of course, there's always the possibility of not putting them in your grid at all.


Bullets:

• 29A: Lees material (DENIM) — yuck. It's LEE Jeans. "Lees" is some kind of colloquial hogwash. I get that you wanted some trickery with "lees," but no. 
• 50A: Austrian-made pistol (GLOCK) — I remember reading a NYT book review earlier this year ... yes, here it is. "GLOCK: The Rise of America's Gun," by Paul M. Barrett. My first thought here was LUGER, but that's German, not Austrian.
• 3D: Roman emperor born in Spain (TRAJAN) — another roughie for a Tuesday. 
• 51D: Terminus of a famous trail (OREGON) — ... and Hansel & Gretel's trail of breadcrumbs led them safely back to OREGON. The End.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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