Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Livvie is Back

Constructor: Alex Vratsanos

Relative difficulty: Medium Rare

THEME: Political Spectrum — Circled letters, reading from top to bottom, spell out political positions, from far left to far right.

Word of the Day: SANDY —

"Sandy Leah Lima (born January 28, 1983) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, producer and actress. She is best known by the mononymous stage name 'Sandy.' ... Sandy Leah Lima's first name, 'Sandy' was chosen because it was the name of the central character in the movie Grease starring Olivia Newton-John. Her parents saw the movie together on the day they started dating ... In a Billboard magazine interview, Sandy said she often practices boxing, she is 'kind of melancholy' and she sees a sad beauty in the world ... According to official data, Sandy had over 60 nominations in awards, and won dozens." For more fascinating facts, read the whole article, Sandy (singer), on Wikipedia.

• • •

"A sad beauty in the world." Isn't that special? Howdy, folks. Doug here, filling in for Rex, who's battened down the hatches and stocked up on Hurricane Chow as he waits for Sandy to land. Here's an early report from Rex Parker HQ: "Still nothing here to speak of. My deep sympathies to NYC, which appears quite messed up." Stay safe, East Coasters!

Interesting theme today. I'm surprised that Will didn't save it for next Tuesday, Election Day. Maybe he has a doozy scheduled for November 6th.

Theme answers:

1D / 26D / 51D : RADS /OBIS / FOCAL - RADICAL
4D / 38D: LIBRAS / E NATURAL - LIBERAL
7D / 29D / 56D: MODS / ERI TU / FATE - MODERATE
10D / 50D: CONSERVE / ACTIVE - CONSERVATIVE
13D / 36D / 59D: REACH / TIOS / NARY - REACTIONARY

Pretty cool. You've got the left-wingers on the left side of the grid, the right-wingers on the right side of the grid, and the moderates in the middle. The undecided voters are in a diagramless puzzle somewhere, because they haven't figured out where to put the black squares yet.

Now for the bad stuff. Because of the way the theme is structured, there are no entries longer than eight letters in the grid. And that's my main beef. The long entries in a puzzle are usually the most memorable entries, the ones that sparkle. The longest entries in this grid are STERNUMS, E NATURAL, FOURTEEN, and CONSERVE. Not much sparkle there. Was the theme interesting enough to make up for the lack of long answers? I report, you decide.

And that last eight-letter entry, CONSERVE, made me cringe for another reason. CONSERVE and CONSERVATIVE are practically the same word. Look at REACTIONARY. That's the way to disguise an answer. It's split up among three words that have nothing to do with "react" or "reaction." Well done. But using CONSERVE to hide part of CONSERVATIVE is a major flaw.

Bullets:

17A: Competition for 3-year-olds (DERBY) — Did you know that all thoroughbred horses have the same birthday, January 1st? If you're a thoroughbred born during 2012, no matter what day, you're assigned the birthday 1/1/2012. It makes it easier to keep track of which horses are three-year-olds, etc. So if you're a horse with a Facebook account, on January 1st, you get an alert that says "371 of your friends have birthdays today."
22A: Resin in varnish (MASTIC) — That's a tough entry. When I read the clue, I thought it was going to be ELEMI, or maybe ELENI. I always confuse those two. Trust me, one of them is a dreaded "Varnish resin." Other toughies in this grid include OGEE, URANO, ENOL, SENNA, ANIS, and ANZIO.

30A: Roy G. ___ (BIV) — He was my favorite member of Bell Biv Devoe.
49A: "The Hitler Diaries" and others (HOAXES) — That's a nice clue. I was big into WWII when I was in junior high and high school, and I remember reading everything I could find on the diaries and the forgers behind the hoax. And this was before the internet, so it was hard to find stuff! Especially when the Billings Gazette was your local newspaper.
28D: Like certain odds, paradoxically (EVEN) — Are even odds really a paradox? More of an oxymoron.
34D: Quizmaster Trebek (ALEX) — Aha! The constructor snuck his name into the grid. Nice touch, Alex, but I want to see VRATSANOS in your next one.