Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Matt Matera

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "Closing the Deal" - nine theme answers are all phrases that end with words that are also card games

Word of the Day: ISSUANT - adj.

Heraldry. Designating an animal with only the upper part depicted.
Archaic. Emerging.

An interesting theme that I never saw. Finished and then went back trying to understand what the theme could have been. It's obvious, really, but since none of the clues for the theme answers seemed to have any unifying principle, the theme never dawned on me. Admittedly, I wasn't looking too hard, but still, weird. I like the theme, even though I've never heard of the card game SET. I thought maybe the neighboring ZOOT SUITS was the theme answer, SUITS seeming a much more likely name for a card game, but no, symmetry would not allow for that. So I looked up SET, and there it is. A real thing.

Theme answers:

25A: Painful prod (red-hot POKER)
27A: Engagement gift (diamond SOLITAIRE)
50A: Conflict of 1973 (Yom Kippur WAR)
57A: Showcase Showdown prize, perhaps (dinette SET)
67A: Fancy salad ingredients (artichoke HEARTS)
83A: Speakeasy supply (bathtub GIN)
92A: Subject of a nursery rhyme that has only eight different words (London BRIDGE)
109A: Big name in real estate (Century TWENTY-ONE) - they do not write out the number, but OK
119A: Classic name in chain restaurants (Pizzeria UNO) - if memory serves, many people across the country know Nothing of this Pizzeria. We have one in town, so no problem here.

What I didn't like so much about the puzzle was the deluge of answers that seemed not to be real things. Nutty names were the biggest problem. I have a lot of respect for a puzzle that is reasonably dense thematically and has a pretty high degree of Scrabbliness. And yet it felt a bit like the puzzle got ugly and iffy in places because the grid was straining to be so K- and Z-filled. Any one or two of the following names would be OK in a puzzle, but this many ... just hurt:

ROS (38D: Author Asquith of children's books)
ALOIS (34D: Eponymous Dr. Alzheimer)
LEE AAKER (65A: Star of 1950s TV's "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin") - this was the real groaner. I literally stopped my timer and looked it up once I got it. Ugh. The guy's name looks like a minor planet in the Star Wars universe. Maybe fans of "Duffy's Tavern" knew this. Not me.
ITURBI (69D: Pianist Jose) - I know that I have seen his name before, but that didn't help much today. I got two other names stuck in my head: Hideki IRABU and Claudio ARRAU (though perhaps if the clue had been asking for ARRAU, my brain would have gone to ITURBI - who knows?).

PYE (95A: English poet laureate Henry) - that little section of threes was a killer for me, as I can't spell TOW-HEADED (TOE!) and so had No idea what 85D: Certain m.p.g. rating: Abbr. was supposed to be. HE... HE... once I got the "W" then HWY became obvious.
EGDON (77D: Thomas Hardy's _____ Heath) - I've read 4-5 Hardy novels in my time, but all I remember in terms of geography is WESSEX.
NICOLE (41D: Designer Miller) - at least NICOLE looks like a name someone might actually have.

The cluing was also a bit too clever for its own good in places. I still don't understand the clue on UNIT (113D: Second, e.g.). Is it a math thing? A military thing? Is KTS supposed to be "karats?" As in gold. So pure (100%) gold is 24 KTS (49D: 24 of them = 100%: Abbr.)? I would have preferred a chess piece clue here, which is really, really saying something. Why would a comic, in particular, say "TOP THIS?" (84D: With 62-Across, comic's challenge). Is he or she at some kind of Comedy Slam? Sounds more like a rhetorical question than a "challenge."

Then there's the non-name stuff that didn't go down too well. NAOH is ugly as sin (111D: Sodium hydroxide, chemically). CLONK is in fourth place, at best, in the "Noises You Can Make From CL-NK" contest (35D: Dull, hollow sound). DAMOZEL (93D: Young woman, old style) appears to have modern currency only as the title of a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "The Blessed DAMOZEL." Weird - those pre-Raphaelites were all self-conscious medievalists - that word was "old style" even to Rossetti. Speaking of old-style words, you'd have to be into heraldry to have any clue what ISSUANT was (98A: Having only the forepart visible, as a beast in heraldry). That whole MIRABEL section (88A: Montreal-_____ International Airport) was bad news for me. An airport I didn't know ... ITURBI and ISSUANT ... a singular @!@#ing KUDO (81A: Singular praise?). Aargh. RONDE was new to me (6D: Typeface imitative of handwriting), SPIREA stirred only dim memories (42D: Flowering shrub), and OZMA ended up, sadly, as OZMO - clearly a princess's name should end in "A," but ESOS was an instinctive entry (118D: Juan's "those") and I never thought to change it.

I ended up mixing up stuff I didn't know with ugly stuff in that last paragraph, so let's move on to the good stuff. BATHTUB GIN is fantastic, as are ZOOT SUITS (52A: Bygone party attire) and DINETTE SET. HATE MAIL (36D: Often-anonymous intimidation technique), while a downer, is fresh and original. CROW BAR (15D: One with prier engagements?) and TAKES A WALK (16D: Leaves) right next to each other makes me think of a very cool, very violent mob movie. You know, tell one guy to TAKE A WALK so you can beat the remaining guy with a CROW BAR. That's how it's done, right? Anyway, good, vivid stuff. Also like ARTICHOKE HEARTS being at the "heart" of the puzzle.

Bullets:

21A: Manuscript marks noting possible errors (obeli) - I learned this from crosswords. Used in ancient manuscripts, just to be clear. Singular is "obelus" [from Late Latin obelus, Gr. obelos, spit]
30A: In Sicily it's about 10,920 ft. high (Mt. Etna) - ever since my MT. ABO / MOABO disaster at the tournament, I'm kind of sour on mountain answers that include the "MT" as part of their names.
76A: Man with cups and pieces (Reese) - cutish. I do love Reese's candy, in general.
103A: "A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a _____; what else does a man need to be happy?": Albert Einstein (violin) - well, "woman" didn't fit, and then I got the "V" and remembered that Einstein played.
9D: "Full House" actress Loughlin (Lori) - she might have been in the "WTF!?" category for many of you. Understandable. Sadly, I have a certain familiarity with bad TV, particularly bad bygone TV.
33A: "Zoom-zoom" sloganeer (Mazda) - I wrote MIATA at first. That's partially right.
88D: Home of Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie" (MoMA) - a museum in four letters, and the work is clearly modern art - there's really only one answer (though maybe the TATE has some modern stuff, I don't know). The painting has such a vibrant, evocative title. The painting itself looks like a road map to Toon Town or a badly frozen Pac-Man screen.