Gryffindor who founded Gryffindor House at Hogwarts / THU 6-13-19 / East African native / Sedgwick 1960s it girl / Layer of Italiian muffuletta sandwich / Country that lost quarter of its territory in 2011 / Dweller on Arabian peninsula

Constructor: Michael Blake and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:58, and I was still asleep I think ... so sleepy ...)

THEME: UPPERHAND (58A: Advantage ... or what the answer to each starred clue has?) — answers to starred clues need the letter string "HAND" attached to their fronts to be complete—that letter string, in each case, is directly above said answers (inside a different Across answer):

Theme answers:

• OOH AND AAH / IWORK (20A: *Needlepoint, e.g.)
• CHANDELIER / ICAPS (33A: *Sets the odds for)
• HAN DYNASTY / YMEN (50A: *Plumber/carpenter types)
• UPPERHAND / ED IN (64A: *Submitted)

Word of the Day: WORD (CLUE) —

DEFINITION

• • •

I like this theme, and I like the way the revealer has also been incorporated into the theme gimmick (often, usually, revealers stand to the side and point at the theme, but this one joins in, or lends a hand, I guess (I'm sorry). I opened this puzzle while still yawning at 5:30AM knowing that my time was gonna come in slow (but being too tired to care) ... and then my time came in solidly faster than normal, which means this puzzle was Super easy. I just stumbled around answering the fairly simple short answers until theme stuff started to come into view, and then figured out IWORK was missing its HAND pretty readily, noticed there was a HAND just above it, imagined a HAND at the beginning of [*Sets the odds for], which made that answer obvious, changed DAM to VAC (24D: Hoover, e.g., for short), and I was off. After that, I ran into a few clues whose answers I just didn't know or remember at first (SEAN Parker, EDISON as a rival of Westinghouse, EYESHADE as a word for the EYEVISOR that accountants stereotypically wear), but mostly I just filled in answers as I encountered their clues, with only mild ambiguities (e.g. "is it SCAT or SHOO?" (39D: "Git!") holding me back at all.


The longer Downs in the NW and SE add some life and personality to this grid, which is otherwise, like sooooo many NYT grids of late, bogged down with tired short fill. Not so egregious today as it has been recently, but that SW corner really should be torn out and totally redone. I groaned my way through that. I realize that your theme, particularly that "D" in every "HAND," sets you up for some terrible letter combinations in the Down answers (GODRIC, BADPR and DNY being the other examples of D-handling today), so DNALAB was kind of inevitable, and that inevitability almost certainly put tremendous pressure on the corner as a whole. Still, OCULI and CINE and SABE was all a little xwordy / icky / much. Not sure why GODRIC couldn't have been (much more common) CEDRIC. Change it to CEDRIC / CLAD / EERO / ARA and you are not exactly in Beautiful territory but you are Definitely better off than GODRIC / GLAD / OENO (blargh) / ANA. And again, that "fix" took me three seconds. An actual constructor (or editor) actually constructing (or editing) could surely do better.


I would love it if the crossword weren't so obsessed with the suffering of alcoholics, i.e. the DTS (twice this week now!?) (51A: Rehab woes, for short). If you have to use that cruddy fill, there are always Defensive Tackles who could use the publicity. The best thing about this puzzle is being unable to read 44A as anything but HANDY NASTY, which, I mean, put a comma in there and it's a Tinder bio.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Former Italian PM whose name means beloved / MON 2-13-17 / Alternative to arbitrary governance / Chandon's partner in champagne

Constructor: Brent Sverdloff and Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal)

THEME: H_LL vowel progression 

Theme answers:

• HALL OF FAME (17A: Rock and roll has one in Cleveland)
• HELLO, HOW ARE YOU? (23A: Words of greeting)
• "HILL STREET BLUES" (36A: 1980s cop show that TV Guide once ranked as the greatest TV drama of all time)
• HOLLYWOOD ACTOR (46A: James Earl Jones or Tommy Lee Jones)
• HULLABALOO (58A: Ruckus) 

Word of the Day: Giuliano AMATO (7D: Former Italian P.M. whose name means "beloved") —

Giuliano Amato OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈljaːno aˈmaːto]; born 13 May 1938) is an Italian politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 1992 to 1993 and again from 2000 to 2001. Later, he was Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the European Constitution and headed the Amato Group. He is commonly nicknamed dottor Sottile, (which means "Doctor Subtilis", the sobriquet of the Scottish Medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus, a reference to his political subtlety). From 2006 to 2008, he was the Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's government. On 12 September 2013, President Giorgio Napolitano appointed him to the Constitutional Court of Italy, where he has served since then. (wikipedia)

• • •

Painful on multiple levels. First, there's the self-imposed level—I failed to check all my crosses, spelled HULLABALOO like it sounded in my head (i.e. "-BULOO"), and then spent a full minute after I'd finished trying to track down my error. The spelling of nonsense words is one of my least favorite things about crosswords (see the recent terminal-"H" version of YOWZAH, for instance). But that was entirely my fault. There are reasons you always check the crosses, *especially* with something like HULLABALOO where spelling could get dicey. But back to the pain. Honestly, I filled in OLAF / OSHA 1, 2 and thought "oh ... no." Sometimes you can just feel cruddiness coming right away.  (note: I know it's OLAV—I'm just trying to be historically accurate about what happened) (I fixed it soon thereafter) (OLAV is *not* any better, crosswordese-wise). And sure enough the fill continued to be quite poor, especially up top. Due north is an abomination. Truly terrible. OFART is a terrible partial; it has all the charm of O, FART! (where is thy sting!?). And it's over a French department capital (sigh) (NIMES). And *those* answers cross AMATO (!?!?!?!? on a Monday?!?!?!), REMOW (you must be joking), and the perennially grid-marring TSE. All in a row. How do you leave that section like that? How do you not try harder? How do you not send the grid back for edits? It's all a mystery.


The theme is tired—I've done a vowel progression before, so maybe it's just a thing every constructor does once. But this one seemed particularly weak. It's not restrictive at all, especially since the answers have different word counts, and sometimes the H-LL is its own word and sometimes ... not. HALL OF FAME and "HILL STREET BLUES" should've been ditched in favor of answers that began with words that *contained* "HALL" and "HILL," (e.g. HALLOWEEN or HALLELUJAH, or HILLARY). Consistency. Elegance. Craft. Come on. Try harder. Also, HOLLYWOOD ACTOR and HELLO, HOW ARE YOU? are not good answers. HOLLYWOOD SIGN or BOWL or HILLS, all better. All specific, real things. You just mean movie actor, so HOLLYWOOD ACTOR sounds ridiculous. HOLLIS, QUEENS or HOLLAND TUNNEL could've given you some NYC flavor. And as for "HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?"—it's a thing one might say, but it's pretty limp and robotic-sounding. Hello Stranger, Kitty, Dolly, Goodbye, all better. No one says "ALL-FEMALE" band. It's all-girl band, if it's anything. This thing is maybe an LAT puzzle. It's not (or shouldn't be) NYT-worthy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Bygone Korean automaker / TUE 5-5-15 / Small house in Latin America / Shoes named for antelope / Vera of haute couture / Vivacious wits /

Constructor: Michael Blake and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**) (time: 4:08)

THEME: ADDIE (69A: Girl's name that's a two-part hint to 1/20-, 27-, 45- and 53-Across) — put -IE on the ends of familiar phrases. You get wacky phrases.

Theme answers:

• SWEET / GEORGIA BROWNIE (1A: With 20-Across, chocolaty Atlanta treat?)
• BAR STOOLIE (27A: One ratting out a group of lawyers?)
• RARE BIRDIE (45A: What the duffer shot on a hole, surprisingly?)
• SHOCKING PINKIE (53A: Little finger that makes you go "Oh my God!"?) [What? Even with ample wackiness leeway, that clue makes no sense.]

Word of the Day: DAEWOO (10D: Bygone Korean automaker) —

Daewoo Motors was a South Korean automotive company established in 1982, part of the Daewoo Group. It sold most of its assets in 2001 to General Motors, after running into financial trouble, becoming a subsidiary of the American company and being renamed GM Daewoo. In 2011, it was replaced by GM Korea. (wikipedia)

• • •

Don't know a single person named ADDIE, real or fictional, so puzzle feels massively contrived. Actually, I think I might know of one. Hang on (… goes to wikipedia…); yes, the basis for the movie Paper Moon was a novel entitled ADDIE Pray by Joe David Brown. My friend Shelah taught me this 20+ years ago (she loved the novel, as I recall). Why I remember this factoid 20+ years later, I don't know … maybe because No One Else In The Universe Is Named ADDIE. So anyway, the theme is odd. The theme *type* is super-basic. The add-a-sound / letter thing is older than God, and here, the wackiness results are just so-so. I don't know what "shocking pink" is. Is it a kind of pink? A shade of pink? I know of "hot pink," but not "shocking pink," so SHOCKING PINKIE is strange to me. All in all, this is a placeholder puzzle. Fill is stale but serviceable, and concept is stale but adequately executed. There are cheater squares* in the E and W (black squares below EARL and above WEAR, respectively), lord only knows why. Tiny sections like that are not hard to fill. Cheaters also follow WATER and precede VIRAL. Theme does not seem so demanding that you have to black-square it to death like this. Whole puzzle feels tired and slapdash. And, most importantly, ADDIE? Shouldn't a name you base an entire puzzle on be a name someone actually has (my apologies if that's your name—the only ADDIE I know is a guy, and he doesn't spell it that way).


Because of the multiple cross-referenced clues, and the very narrow connecting passages between N and S parts of the grid, and some odd, yucky, initially inscrutable fill like ECCLES (?), my time was way slower than normal. I had to recall DAEWOO, which was odd / unpleasant. I also had to go up against the Law Offices of ILO ESSE ESTO ESAI ERI and OLE (they're not good, but they'll bury you in paperwork). Honestly, this puzzle feels just plain lazy. The puzzle equivalent of a shrug. Not enough thought or care went into making this an entertaining, fresh, 21st-century puzzle. It'll do, but it won't do well. Where are SHARPIE? JUNKIE? MOUNTIE? ARCHIE? This could've Easily been a Sunday (and if the theme answers were a lot funnier, it could even have been a tolerable Sunday).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*cheater squares = black squares that do not change the word count (added only to make filling the grid easier)

[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]

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Ernest nicknamed Texas troubadour / TUE 1-13-15 / Billboard's top rock group of 2000-09 / Resident of so-called Chicago of Japan / Prize annual international award for mathematics / Eating non-halal to Muslims / Prefix with plasty

Constructor: Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: NICKELBACK (58A: Billboard's top rock group of 2000-09 … or where to find a 23-Across (before 1939) or 17-Across (today))— stuff on the back of a nickel

Theme answers:

• MONTICELLO (17A: Tourist attraction in Charlottesville, Va.)
• AMERICAN BISON (23A: Largest wild animal in the United States)
• E PLURIBUS UNUM (47A: "Out of many, one")

Word of the Day: Ernest TUBB (39D: Ernest nicknamed "The Texas Troubadour") —

Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 – September 6, 1984), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" (1941), marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music. In 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of "Blue Christmas", a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his mid-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was "Waltz Across Texas" (1965) (written by his nephew Quanah Talmadge Tubb (Billy Talmadge)), which became one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, including their hit "Sweet Thang". Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. (wikipedia)

• • •

TUESDAY'S PUZZLE

This puzzle forced me to remember NICKELBACK, and for that I will never forgive it.

["I don't wanna hear that song no more"]

I can't decide what's more depressing: the clue for the revealer, or the revealer itself (one of my friends is saying: "coin toss" …) (the other: "the clue is fitting for how good NICKELBACK is"). But I'll refrain from trashing the band in question, and the hordes of people who apparently enjoy their music, because it would just be piling on. If they are one of the most popular bands of this century (and it appears they are), they are also one of the most vilified, their name synonymous (in many circles) with Terribleness. Think I'm exaggerating? The nickel-hate is so widespread, The New Yorker published a damn thinkpiece on it last year. Me, I actually probably couldn't pick their music out of a shitty music line-up. My brain lumps them in with Creed for some reason (which maybe tells you nothing, but maybe tells you a lot). This is all to say that the revealer is likely to evoke unpleasurable feelings in those who know the band in question, and just bemusement in those who don't. The theme in general is awfully, awfully dull, and the fill the same. Not sure what "tickled" the editor about this one, unless it's the jarring revealer. Puzzle doesn't have much else to offer but fairly pedestrian fill (though SINGAPORE and SCRIMMAGE are just fine).


Looking this over, I really have to say more about how subpar the fill is here. For an easy puzzle, there's way way way too much DAT and AGIN and ATEM here. Way way way way too much. "ERES ECRU!" Fill is just sad all over. The answer that's jarring me the most, however, is CUE TIP. It sounds like a real thing, but it does not look like a real thing. This is because 99% of the time, if someone says "CUE TIP," what they are really referring to is a cotton swab or the rapper in this video:


Clearly cues have tips. Still, there's something off-seeming about CUE TIP. Also OSAKAN, which is an answer that has long been used, but … it's not great. And once again grid construction is the issue: with EPLURIBUSUNUM and NICKELBACK locked into place, you've got -S-K--. There's not much *but* OSAKAN that can go there. In fact, I'm not sure there's anything. Hang on … well, there's Levi ESHKOL, but since you're already screwing up your face and going "Who?" I'm gonna say OSAKAN is actually the better choice. But the theme answer arrangement really paints the constructor into a corner there.

Hoping for more scintillating fare tomorrow. This week's been limping along a bit, puzzle quality-wise.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Parisian girlfriend / MON 3-3-14 / Complimentary road service in Sierra Leone's capital / America's Most Wanted host John / New Jersey governor whose first name starts his last name

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (**For A Monday**)

THEME: "N" the middle — semi-wacky two-word phrases where the first word ends in "N" and the  second word is identical, but minus the "N":
Theme answers:

• DIVAN DIVA
• PATTERN PATTER
• FREETOWN FREETOW
• EASTERN EASTER
• LEARN LEAR

Word of the Day: "THE X Factor" (13D: TV's "___ Factor") —

The X Factor is a television music competition franchise created by Simon Cowell. It originated in the United Kingdom, where it was devised as a replacement for Pop Idol. It is now held in various countries. The contestants are aspiring pop singers drawn from public competitive auditions. The programmes are produced by executive producer Simon Cowell and his company SYCOtv. The "X Factor" of the title refers to the undefinable "something" that makes for star quality.^[1] The prize is usually a recording contract, in addition to the publicity that appearance in the later stages of the show itself generates, not only for the winner but also for other highly ranked contestants. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one's a bit bland. Central answer has a lovely wackiness to it, but the rest seem like afterthoughts—mostly RLSTNEA (in fact, the final two theme answers are composed *only* of those letters), and just flat. The simplicity of the theme made all the answers supremely easy to get with just a few crosses. The puzzle did have a couple of long-answer highlights—a timely CHRISTIE answer, a much-needed ESTROGEN injection—but the fill here is, once again, not good. EENYNATLERSE all 1-2-3 like that? There's not the polish that you used to see in Andrea's puzzle many years ago. She helped me polish one of the very first grids I made, and that attention to detail really, really helped. Not sure why she's not holding herself to those same high standards any more. Also not sure why all the Scrabble-f***ing. Anyone can see that the NE corner, for instance, is diminished by that "X." THEX? If that's the cost of your "X," it's too expensive.


Since it's an easy-puzzle day, I want to take a second to plug Liz Gorski's "Crossword Nation" puzzle—a weekly M/T-level puzzle by one of the greatest constructors in the country. High-quality work every time out. Subscription info here. Also, check out the puzzle I awarded Puzzle of the Week for last week—Matt Jones's "Letter Chop" (get it from the Jonesin' Crossword Google Group, here). Matt shows how entertaining a very simple theme can be.

Had a great time at the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition over the weekend. Got to meet constructor Adam Perl, who made the tournament puzzles all himself, including a wicked, grid-busting puzzle for the Expert division. Not many tournaments feature all-original puzzles. I was really impressed. Plus I got to reconnect with some old students who showed up, do a little Q-and-A about The World of Crosswords, and meet a bunch of friendly people (including volunteers from a Cornell service fraternity, pictured right). Fun fact: the tournament champion came all the way from Ohio. He'd heard about the tourney on my website, and since he couldn't make this upcoming weekend's ACPT, he decided he'd get his tourney experience some other way. Turns out lots of central NY'ers either didn't know the tourney was happening or found out too late to plan for it, so next year I'm gonna work with the tournament organizers to do a little more planning and promotion, and maybe we can turn it into a regular regional tournament, accessible to all skill levels. That's the idea, anyway.

[Me, failing to solve Adam Perl's tough puzzle accurately; Adam, laughing sadistically]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Executioner in Mikado / MON 12-23-13 / Texas city on Brazos / Young Indiana Jones portrayer / Dry-ice contraption for theatrical effect / Newspaperman Ochs /

Constructor: Michael Blake and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TAKE IT TO THE BANK (39A: "Believe you me!" … or what you can do with the start of 18-, 24-, 53- or 63-Across) — first words of theme answers are kinds of banks:

Theme answers:

• SPERM WHALE
• PIGGY BACKING
• RIVER PHOENIX
• FOG MACHINE

Word of the Day: GREGG Allman (13D: Allman brother who married Cher) —

Gregory LeNoir "Gregg" Allman (born December 8, 1947) is an American rock and blues singer-songwriter, keyboardist, guitarist and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995  and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2006. His distinctive voice placed him in 70th place in the Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". (wikipedia)

• • •

It's a Monday puzzle. It is pretty average in that regard. First-words-have-X-in-common. Pretty standard fare. Valiant attempt at interestingness with the, let's say, revealer, but it doesn't really make sense. I "take" the RIVER to the "bank"? Like, the word? I take the word "RIVER" and put it next to the word "bank"? Yeah, that makes no sense. I see that the revealer is a "?" clue, which does give you some leeway, but … still. Doesn't work. Also, this pangram stuff is strictly amateur hour. I saw that "Q" at COQ/QUOI (!?) and I was like "Whoa! That is some serious Scrabble-f***ing. Why would you do that?" Then I finished, and sure enough—all 26 letters. Ugh. Surprised anyone still thinks this is a feat. Three extra foreign words just to get your precious "J" and "Q" (and "U", actually)?—patently not worth it. Of course who really cares on a Monday when it's easy? (This must be the rationale—people will tolerate sub-optimal fill 'cause they've seen it so many times and it didn't create added difficulty so why not?). But, again, for the millionth time, puzzles should be filled with quality, smoothness, and sparkle being the highest ideals. The pangram ideal is … not one. O'NINE? Come on. It's a Monday. The theme is not taxing. Fill the grid with real stuff. OOOH? Jeez louise. EIEI-no.


Hoping for somewhat more professional holiday fare,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. where's BLOOD? Not good to have one of these types of puzzles and have such an obvious candidate missing. It's not like there are infinite candidates. BLOOD is more common than FOG where "banks" are concerned. BLOOD is a weird omission, in that it's the one "bank" you'd *expect* to see. One of the first that is going to come to mind when confronted with "___ bank." Also SNOW. Also, re: FOG, at least RIVER, PIGGY, and SPERM had their contexts changed in the theme answers. Something like "FOG OF WAR" might've worked here (i.e. not a literal "fog"), but FOG MACHINE doesn't offer sufficient recontextualization.

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Ill-fated mission of 1967 / THU 9-19-13 / Pince librarian at Hogwarts / Nut Gone Flake celebrated 1968 Small Faces album / Posthumous inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame 1979 / Entice with music / Modified as software for different platform

Constructor: Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: C AND Y COATED (58A: Like M&M's ... or four words to describe 17-, 24-, 35- and 50-Across) — familiar phrases have C affixed to beginning AND Y affixed to the end, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style

Word of the Day: "OGDENS' Nut Gone Flake" (4D: "___ Nut Gone Flake," celebrated 1968 Small Faces album) —

Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is a successful concept album by the English rock band Small Faces. Released on 24 May 1968 the LP became a number one hit in the UK Album Charts on 29 June where it remained for a total of six weeks. [...] Side One is a mix of early heavy rock with "Song of a Baker"; psychedelic cockney knees-up songs "Lazy Sunday" and "Rene", the opening instrumental title track (which resembles their second single "I've Got Mine", which was a flop in 1965), and the soul influenced ballad "Afterglow", as it is called on the LP, but is titled "Afterglow of Your Love" on the subsequent single and some compilations. // Side Two is based on an original fairy tale about a boy called Happiness Stan, narrated in his unique ‘Unwinese’ gobbledegook by Stanley Unwin, who picked up modern slang from the band and incorporated it into the surreal narrative. (wikipedia)

• • •

An interesting idea, technically well executed, not terribly enjoyable.  The wacky answers just aren't funny. They don't land. They're dull. They do exactly what the theme answer says they will. They are spot-on from a technical standpoint. But CHOSE DOWNY? Snore. COLD MASTERY? Just ... odd. CLOCK PICKY? Awkward. CART FAIRY, I like. That one works. But the rest are just workmanlike. The revealer is nice, and I want to like the results of the whole thing, but I don't. Not much. Don't hate it, by any means. But in terms of enjoyability, it was somewhat wide of the mark for me.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Ability to survive freezing temperatures? (COLD MASTERY)
• 24A: Selected a certain fabric softener? (CHOSE DOWNY)
• 35A: Sprite who helps you find a shopping vehicle? (CART FAIRY)
• 50A: Super-choosy about time pieces? (CLOCK PICKY)

Somewhat slower than normal time, largely because I failed so terribly in my initial stab at the NW. I had nothing. ESS. I had ESS. Ugh. If I'd been a bit more systematic, I'd've gotten ULAN and possibly ELLE, but I ran all the Downs first—nothing. Two long Acrosses—nothing. I knew PORSCHE (27A: 911 maker), so rode that into the center, where I promptly put CFO where CPA was supposed to go and so had to do quite a bit of hacking about to sort out PEACH and the central theme answer. Floated rather easily from there down to the SE, where AIR BILL was totally unknown to me (64A: FedEx form), but the rest of the corner was pretty pliable. I can't imagine TWEEDLE connoting something enticing, but I'll take the clue at its word (44D: Entice with music). So I got the revealer and understood immediately the whole C/Y bit, but didn't really register that they were "coating" real phrases. Anyway, SW was the easiest section by far. Downs went down 1, 2, 3. Returned to the top where the NE proved a slight problem because I couldn't find the right test to put into 34A: Tests that consist of five subjects, for short (GEDS). Plural, eh? OK. Also, I had "GIT!" for "OUT!" (22A: "Shoo!"). NW was where I finished, with that pesky Roman numeral on the APOLLO mission being my last letter (2D: Ill-fated mission of 1967); [Family pet name] = SIS = strangely baffling.


My main take-away from today was that I really have to commit IRMA to memory (55A: ___ Pince, librarian at Hogwarts). Not that many viable crossword IRMAs. Good to know them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1957 Disney dog movie / MON 6-11-12 / African antelope Chevrolet / Sean who wrote Juno Paycock / Cousin of Calypso

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: F-LL — a vowel progression puzzle

Word of the Day: MAURA Tierney (54D: Actress Tierney of "ER") —

Maura Therese Tierney (born February 3, 1965) is an American film and television actress, who is best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on NewsRadio and Abby Lockhart on the television medical drama ER. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle has one interesting quality—the central answer: FILL IN THE BLANKS. It's cutesily self-referential in a way that seems appropriate for a breezy Monday puzzle. Beyond that, it's pretty ordinary. The concept is so threadbare that the bar should be pretty high in terms of a. quality of theme answers and b. consistency/tightness of the theme. Only the middle answer is very interesting to me. The others are just fine, just not interesting. Also, seems slightly substandard to have some of the F-LLs stand on their own and some be part of longer words. Awesome answers might have let me overlook that inconsistency (greatness tends to make little problems go away), but this is all ho-hum, so I notice. Better to have them all be parts of longer words ... except then you can't have FILL IN THE BLANKS. FILLO DOUGH, FULLER BRUSH, FALLEN ANGEL ... I like these all better than what's in the grid (and yes, that is totally acceptable spelling of "FILLO"). I'm sure there are tons of other possibilities. Tight. Smooth. Imaginative. Consistent. Easy puzzles need to be all, not some of these things. Again, this is totally publishable, passable, acceptable work. Just seems like it could've been better with a little more conceptual work at the outset.


Theme answers:

• 18A: One knocked off a pedestal (FALLEN IDOL)
• 24A: Paid postgraduate position at a university (FELLOWSHIP)
• 39A: Solve a crossword, e.g.? (FILL IN THE BLANKS)
• 55A: Put a spade atop a spade, say (FOLLOW SUIT)
• 63A: Illegal wrestling hold (FULL NELSON)

Strangely, the one answer that slowed me down more than anything in this puzzle was YEOW (28A: Cry after hitting a hammer on one's thumb, say). I had the "Y" and wrote in "YO..." before I really thought about it, then looked at the cross at 21D: Jane or John in court and did a total deer-in-headlights act as I stared at DOO (it's DOE. Duh). This was all corrected in probably something like 10 seconds, but that's a lot of time (for me) on a Monday. So on a puzzle in which it felt like I filled in almost all the blanks without any hesitation (I wrote in OLD YELLER, LIONEL, and FULL NELSON without even looking at their clues, I wasn't anywhere near my fastest time. Just fast. I also had trouble coming up with GRUFF (1D: Harsh and brusque), but that's less surprising given how unusual the word is (gridwise) and given that I encountered it at the very beginning, when I had hardly any crosses.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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The "A" in U.A.W. . MON 8-29-11 / Deborah of "The King and I" / Actor Jannings who won the first Best Actor Oscar / Capone henchman

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels & Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: Breakfast in New York — The last words of the first three theme answers are types of bagels. THE WHOLE SCHMEAR is an expression that means "everything" and a SCHMEAR is something that might be put on an "everything bagel."

Theme answers:

• 20A: Legendary San Francisco music/comedy club where Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen have performed (THE PURPLE ONION).
• 28A: Ali Baba's magic words (OPEN SESAME).
• 46A: Bad place to live when the river rises (FLOOD PLAIN).
• 52A: Everything ... or what might cover an everything 62-Across? (THE WHOLE SHMEAR).
• 62A: Item whose varieties include the endings of 20-, 28- and 46-Across (BAGEL).

Good Monday morning, everybody. PuzzleGirl here. As some of you probably know, Our Fearless Leader got "stuck in Detroit" last night and sent up a flare that was pointed right at me. I could have said no. I mean, I'm pretty exhausted from the earthquake and then the hurricane this week. The earthquake — well, I know it wasn't a huge one, but it's the biggest one I've ever felt. And I know all you Californians think we're big wimps out here for getting panicked about it, but I just have to say that y'all didn't have people flying planes into your buildings just a short ten years ago. Around here when a building starts shaking, there's no way not to panic.

So anyway, Rex got all whiny and pathetic and when he does that I can't stand it. I'm such a sucker. I have half a mind to spend the whole blog talking about Rachel Maddow and my weight-loss program (two things Rex accuses me of obsessing about), but I won't do that to you. I mean Rachel is awesome, and yes, as a matter of fact, I have lost 20 pounds, but we have more important things to talk about. Like, say, the puzzle ….

I tell you what. A big ol' Q right in the very first square is an awesome way to start a puzzle, amirite? As it turns out, there was much more Scrabbly goodness to follow. You got your Xs, your Z, your J … as a matter of fact I'm pretty sure what we've got right here is a pangram, which can actually be kind of helpful. If it's starting to look like there's a lot of Scrabbliness in the grid, you start to look for it. So if you're having trouble coming up with an answer, you think about whether there's a word with a Q or a V or a K in it that might work, and sometimes that allows you to hit on something pretty quick.

I have mixed feelings about this theme. I think it's probably fine but, I guess I'm not much of a bagel connoisseur. I know there's such a thing as an "everything bagel" and I know that a "schmear" is something you put on a bagel, but I couldn't tell you any more details about either of those things. Can a schmear be cream cheese? Or maybe that's exactly what a schmear is. Can it be anything else? Answers, people! I demand answers!

Also I've never heard of THE PURPLE ONION or the phrase "THE WHOLE SHMEAR." I'm not saying that the puzzle is necessarily bad just because I've never heard of those things. I'm just saying that I've never heard of those things. The great thing about Monday is that not having heard of a couple things doesn't mean the puzzle is undoable. Chances are (especially if you're dealing with Andrea and Michael) the crosses are all solid and the cluing is straightforward. So, really, no worries.

Most of the time when I'm blogging a puzzle, I like to look through the grid and see which entries jump out at me as especially colorful. Typically, they're the longer non-theme entries — I like to see colloquial phrases and words that seem to me inherently awesome for one reason or another. In today's grid, I don't see anything particularly colorful jumping out at me, but the Scrabbly letters distributed throughout do lend a lot of sparkle to this grid. I'm liking PIXEL, ROLEX, LEVI, SLEAZE, and JUMP. Wait, did somebody say JUMP?



Bullets:

• 1A: You can stick them in your ear (Q-TIPS). Ear doctors across the country are cringing en masse. But hey, if the average person has a GLOB (10A: Soft, thick lump) of something in there, they're gonna go for the Q-TIP. It's probably better to just accept it and move on.
• 17A: Bolivian capital (SUCRE). I believe Bolivia has two capitals. Or used to have two capitals. Or something. The other one is … I'm trying to think of it myself instead of looking it up … LA PAZ? Yesss!
• 24A: Extremity (END). I wanted this to be ARM but already had the E in place, which made me question the cross for a hot second, but I got over it.
• 25A: Got rid of some tobacco juices, say (SPAT). Ew.

• 42A: Poet/playwright Jones (LEROI). I once read a book by his first wife called How I Became Hettie Jones that, as I recall, was very interesting. I should probably say, though, that I also read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose in that general period of my life and when I tried it again last year I found it unreadable. So who knows. It might be awesome, it might suck.
• 61A: Group of birds (BEVY). Is it quail that come in a BEVY? Apparently, it can be any number of animals, but "especially" quail (according to Merriam-Webster online).
• 68A: 45 or 78 (DISC). You whippersnappers out there probably don't even know what this means. Sometimes it pays to be old.
• 22D: Minimal lead in baseball (ONE RUN). For some reason, I kept reading this clue as "Minimal lead in BASKETball" and couldn't think of a three-letter anything that would make sense here. D'oh!

• 32D: What a murder suspect needs (ALIBI). Okay, this is funny. I had ALI in place and thought "A LIFE?" Like some accused murderer is at home preparing for trial and his snotty teenage daughter tells him to "get a life." Probably not her best move.
• 47D: Examined deeply (PROBED). I cut a picture out of a newspaper many years ago because it really made me laugh. It was a guy sitting behind a desk and he was caught at just the wrong time for the picture. He had a dorky kind of surprised look on his face. And the caption said, "Joe Smith is the subject of a long probe." Someday I'll find it and share it with you. So you've got that to look forward to.

Love, PuzzleGirl

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Jazz saxophonist Gordon familiarly / TUE 5-24-11 / Julius Dithers wife Blondie / Raja Serpent Rope novelist / Chief Whitehorse tribesmen

Constructor: Michael Blake and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ["clue word"] partners? — two words that can each be paired with the clue word in a "___ AND ___" phrase paired are instead paired, awkwardly / strangely / unexpectedly, with each other in their own "___ AND ___" phrase


Word of the Day: TIT willow (65A: Lead-in for mouse or willow) —

The Willow Tit (Poecile montanus) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common resident breeder throughout temperate and subarctic Europe and northern Asia. It is more of a conifer specialist than the closely related Marsh Tit, which explains it breeding much further north. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate. [...] The Willow Tit is referenced in one of the musical numbers in the comedic opera "The Mikado" written by Gilbert and Sullivan, (On a Tree By a River). [that song is apparently listed officially as "Tit-Willow," the only instance I can find of that "tit"-in-front formulation] (wikipedia)

• • •

The awkwardness of this theme is neatly exemplified by the awkwardness of my explanation. There's something slightly cute and charming about the concept, but DRY AND MIGHTY is the only answer that really zings. The rest are just ... pairs. Not exciting. Not nearly as exciting as the brilliant HATCHET JOB (11D: Malicious attack) and only slightly less brilliant ARE YOU NUTS? (30D: Question after some 26-Down), two of the greatest long (non-theme) Downs I've seen in a while. The rest of the grid ... is the rest of the grid. Never (or barely) heard of Raja RAO (9D: Raja ___, "The Serpent and the Rope" novelist). Probably should've made that the "Word of the Day," but ... no, TIT-willow needed figuring out.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Tell partners? (KISS AND SHOW)
  
• 24A: High partners? (DRY AND MIGHTY)
  
• 38A: Pride partners? (PREJUDICE AND JOY)
  
• 49A: Go partners? (TOUCH AND STOP)
  
• 60A: Shine partners? (RISE AND SPIT)
  

Sometimes the clue word is the first word in the familiar phrases, sometimes it's the second. This is fine, but ideally answers that feature first words are symmetrical with answers that feature first words and answers that feature second words are symmetrical with answers that feature second words. ORTHO- (long prefix) crossing THERMO- (long prefix) = not great. Also not buying the extra "X" in XOXOX (70A: Complimentary close). Nice clue at 56-Down, Andrea [wink].

Is Hirschfeld the guy who does the NINAs (56A: Artist Hirschfeld and namesakes=>ALS)? Didn't know he was an AL, nor did I know Chief Whitehorse and his tribesmen were OTOS, but I got those plurals easily enough from crosses. I was baffled by 63D: Jazz saxophonist Gordon, familiarly for a few seconds, until I realized I owned a DEXter Gordon album. I just wondered what I'd call him if I were speaking to him familiarly. "DAD? DEXY!? No, probably just DEX. But that would mean a five-letter answer starting with "X" at 70-Across. Complimentary close, again? XANAX? XEROX?" I could go on.



Bullets:

• 26D: Motivations for some bungee jumps (DARES) — if that is your motivation, you are a weak-willed idiot.
  
• 50D: Friend of Kukla (OLLIE) — like a Friend of Dorothy, only *way* gayer.

["Sorry, Fran, I'm a madcap..."]

• 29D: Julius Dithers's wife in "Blondie" (CORA) — a crossword staple whose name I always botch, though today I CAME gave me the "C," which made it easy ("I CAME" also an important revelation in the tell-all autobiography "I, FIDO").
  
• 58D: "Come Sail Away" band, 1977 (STYX) — this song reminds me of the final scene of the pilot episode of the (great) TV series "Freaks & Geeks." Then of course there's Cartman's version.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

P.S. "Mighty" is in the clue for MIRA (27D)... which is a pretty mighty oversight (see 24A).

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