Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Lees material

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

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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.