Actress Berger / SUN 6-12-11 / Superman II villainess / Old Church of England foe / Seaport on Adriatic / Diamond substitute / Line of cliffs

Constructor: C.W. Stewart

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Pullet" — theme answers (signaled by starred clues) are things that can be pulled. A pullet is a young chicken.


Word of the Day: SENTA Berger (103D: Actress Berger) —

Senta Berger (born May 13, 1941) is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author. // Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an Adolf Grimme Award, both a Deutscher and a Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, and a Goldene Kamera. // Berger married director and producer Michael Verhoeven in 1966. They are the parents of actors Simon and Luca Verhoeven. (wikipedia)

• • •

The title just doesn't work. I get that it's a pun (sounds like "pull it"), but the puzzle has nothing to do with chickens and there's no real play on words when you just have one word that has zero to do with the puzzle. Then there's the fact that "things that can be pulled" just doesn't make for a very satisfying theme. Clues are just ... literal. They're things. Nothing to discover. No aha moments. Just ... "Hmm. OK." Then there's ONE'S LEG, which is fine in theme context but Horrible as an answer to its clue, 51D: *Something to stand on. ONE LEG is the answer to the clue. ONE'S LEG is an absurdity. What else are you going to stand on? And which leg? Just makes no sense. (I also had a major issue with 66D: Ain't fixed? (IS NOT) as well—[Ain't fixed] is AREN'T. What's "wrong" with "ain't" is not the apostrophe. Parallel construction matters). I WANNA is too long for a partial (20D: Start of a childish plaint). The less said about HER'N, the better (8D: Not his'n). SENTA? Not on my radar. RELIC of the past??? What kind of redundancy is that? Ugh, I see that it has a lot of users, so it's valid, but I really hate it. ESNE!? I thought we'd buried you forever (76D: Feudal serf). GUN TRIGGER???? "Pull the gun trigger!" he said, redundantly. "Or else we'll just be a relic of the past!" I liked ALL-NIGHTER and LITURGY (89D: Service arrangement) and SHORTIE (13D: Shrimp) and not much else. No, wait—Ironically (or fittingly), I liked SOURPUSS (104A: Killjoy).


Middle of the puzzle was by far the hardest. IS NOT was part of the problem, as was NAIR v. NEET (67D: Classic brand of hair remover). Could not remember LINTEL (52D: Piece over a door or window) to save my life. Adriatic seaport also a mystery for a while (56A: Seaport of the Adriatic=>RIMINI). ONE'S LEG ... you know how I feel about that. Bah. Rest of the puzzle was pretty easy.

Theme answers:

• 23A: Boardwalk offering (SALT WATER TAFFY) — my favorite of the theme answers by far
  
• 38A: *Diamond substitute (RELIEF PITCHER) — I usually think of the RELIEF PITCHER as the guy who comes in for the guy who's been pulled, but you can certainly pull a RELIEF PITCHER, so it works.
  
• 64A: *Handy things for toys? (PUPPET STRINGS)
  
• 93A: *Staple of "Candid Camera" (PRACTICAL JOKE)
  
• 114A: *Radio Flyer, e.g. (LITTLE RED WAGON)
  
• 3D: *Certain study session (ALL-NIGHTER)
  
• 51D: *Something to stand on (ONE'S LEG)
  
• 75D: *It may be found near a barrel (GUN TRIGGER)
  

Bullets:

• 87A: "Up in the Air" actress Kendrick (ANNA) — actress #2 that I don't know today.
  
• 123A: "Superman II" villainess (URSA) — I've been bitten by this one before.
  
• 9D: Ad-packed Sunday newspaper section (TRAVEL) — now the puzzle is trying to get you to read other parts of the paper. Interesting.
  
• 14D: Old Church of England foe (PAPIST) — Weird. I never knew anyone to call himself a PAPIST. I've only ever seen the word in anti-Catholic rhetoric. Rare to see someone self-identify as a PAPIST. Webster's 3rd Int'l says "usu. used disparagingly." Clue should've marked the word's prejudicial nature.
  
• 16D: Chinese dynasty of 1,200 years ago (TANG) — pfft. I dunno. Wait for crosses. (and come on: TANG is an orange drink, or [Zestiness] ... it is also a fish ... as well as uncluable slang; well, uncluable in the NYT, that is)

• 68D: Line of cliffs (SCARP) — I went with ARETE. They're both produced by erosion. Sadly, that didn't make my answer right.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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Accented part of poetic foot / THU 2-10-11 / Glazier's frame / Line of cliffs / Star of TV's 8 Simple Rules / Part of New Haven landscape

Constructor: Derek Bowman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Name word ladder — from KARAN to SEGAL in four moves


Word of the Day: ARSIS (28A: Accented part of a poetic foot) —

n., pl., -ses (-sēz').

1. 1. The short or unaccented part of a metrical foot, especially in quantitative verse.
   2. The accented or long part of a metrical foot, especially in accentual verse.
2. Music. The upbeat or unaccented part of a measure.

[Middle English, raising of the voice, from Late Latin, raising of the voice, accented part of a metrical foot, from Greek, raising of the foot (marking the upbeat), the unaccented part of a metrical foot, from aeirein, to lift.] [oh, no, Definition 1 isn't confusing and contradictory-sounding at All...]

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Kept waiting for the trick to come into view. It never did. I was done and wondered what had happened. Then I saw the name ladder. Ho hum. Grid is OK, except the NW, what with the odd-looking REEDIT and MENTEES and the from-outer-space ARSIS (never heard of it, and I teach poetry on a regular basis—if it's obscure to a poetry-teaching English Ph.D., it's ObScure). I cannot imagine having any occasion to talk about something called the ARSIS—maybe the musical meaning is more common to musicians than the poetic one is to literary scholars. Little heavy on the odd names (TESSA, ROS, a pretty marginal O'CONNER) (38A: 2010 Olympic ice dancing gold medalist ___ Virtue + 59A: Children's author Asquith + 2D: Patricia who wrote "Woe Is I"), the RE-words (REEDIT, RENAMING, the vomity REASSESS), odd plurals (MENTEES, SETTERS), prefixes (ENTO-, SACRO-), and ITs (IT'S WAR, TAKE IT, KEEP AT IT). I do love MAIGRET. And KATEY SAGAL. And SERRANO peppers. Other than that, the best thing I can say about the puzzle is that it was wicked easy—about a minute faster than yesterday's. Only part that really held me up was the part where Ben Franklin apparently writes about CHESS (43D: Benjamin Franklin's "The Morals of ___"). I had no idea, just as I have no idea why anyone would want to go from KARAN to SEGAL. What's the point?


[IT'S WAR!]

Theme answers:

• 16A: Big name in women's fashion (DONNA KARAN)
  
• 20A: Supreme Court justice who was formerly a U.S. solicitor general (ELENA KAGAN)
  
• 31A: Host of an Emmy-winning PBS series (CARL SAGAN)
  
• 47A: Star of TV's "8 Simple Rules" (KATEY SAGAL) — more iconic parts for her include Peg Bundy on "Married... With Children" and the voice of Leela on "Futurama."
  
• 52A: Author who co-wrote the screenplay for the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" (ERICH SEGAL)
  

Bullets:

• 15A: Glazier's frame (SASH) — forgot what "glazier" meant—someone who cuts and sets glass.
  
• 54A: Part of the New Haven landscape (ELMS) — ugh. Why should anyone know or care what kind of trees are common at Yale? Eli-tist clue. I had ELIS!
  
• 57A: New York city where Ogden Nash was born (RYE) — yet more northeastern provincialism.
  
• 4D: "___ Man Answers" (1962 Bobby Darin / Sandra Dee film) ("IF A") — never heard of it, but the answer here was pretty easily inferrable.

• 11D: He said "I just put my feet in the air and move them around" (ASTAIRE) — another name for this very name-heavy puzzle. I barely saw the clue. Had the whole middle section, saw that the clue was asking for a person, looked at what I had ... and wrote in ASTAIRE.
  
• 15D: Line of cliffs (SCARP) — this eluded me for a bit, as all I could think of was ARETE.
• 39D: Oscar-winning actor who played Napoleon, Mussolini and W.C. Fields (STEIGER) — as in Rod, whom I used to get confused with ROD Serling (before moving to Rod Serling's birthplace). Guys just aren't named ROD anymore. I think ROD Carew was officially the last one.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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