New York City suburb near Yonkers / MON 11-19-12 / 1980 Kool Gang Hit / Like bialys lyonnaise sauce / Pharmaceutical giant that makes Tamiflu / Spanish doubloon material / Janis's spouse in comics

Constructor: Paul Guttormsson

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: CHOCK-A-BLOCK — theme answers all have first syllable ending "-CK" and second syllable "A"

Theme answers:

• 16A: "My little ___" (W. C. Fields phrase) (CHICKADEE)
• 24A: Broncobuster (BUCKAROO)
• 37A: Lazy (LACKADAISICAL)
• 51A: New York City suburb near Yonkers (TUCKAHOE)
• 62A: "I Heart ___" (2004 film) ("HUCKABEE'S")
• 23D: Nutso (COCKAMAMIE)
• 15D: Early Elvis Presley style (ROCKABILLY)

Word of the Day: TUCKAHOE (51A: New York City suburb near Yonkers) —

Tuckahoe is a village in the town of Eastchester in Westchester County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the village's population was 6,486. [Is that a new low for "tiny place that has no business being in a crossword"?]

• • •

Really enjoyed this one despite TUCKAHOE's being today's CECILIAANDROBBIE (see yesterday's puzzle for that one).  This has a "We don't need no stinkin' theme" quality about it, in that the theme feels very thin, conceptually, but in practice it's a slew of bouncy, entertaining words, and I really can't ask for much more on a Monday. Took about 20% longer to complete than a normal Monday puzzle, partly because of HAR HAR for HEH HEH (hate those "laugh syllable" clues because they're always ambiguous), partly because of not knowing ROCHE (4D: Pharmaceutical giant that makes Tamiflu), somewhat more partly because of TUCKAHOE, but generally (probably) just because of the theme density. Oh, and also because I don't closely associate Toyota and SCION (or, rather, because I was thinking "model" and not "make") (33A: Toyota make).

Also adding potential difficulty to the puzzle: the clue on SENECA is not going to be a straight-up gimme for most people, though the name itself should be reasonably familiar (22A: Roman philosopher who originated the phrase "What fools these mortals be"). Also, because of &$^%ing TUCKAHOE, I had trouble picking up the 1980 Kool & the Gang hit (a mistake / hesitation like that is very depressing to me, as it doesn't get much closer to the Rex Parker pop cultural sweet spot than [1980 Kool & the Gang hit]). I didn't know there was such a thing as an "evolutionary ladder," so my brain transformed it to "food ladder" (or "food chain," I guess), which made APE something of a surprise. I was thinking maybe SHARK? "Doubloon" always makes me think of the Brasher Doubloon, the missing coin at the center of the Raymond Chandler novel "The High Window" (65A: Spanish doubloon material => ORO). There is a film noir adaptation of that novel from the late '40s called "The Brasher Doubloon." Thus concludes today's doubloon lesson.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Terminal Bliss actress Chandler / WED 8-3-11 / Tevye's good / Tackle-to-mast rope on ships / Teleflora competitor / Toledo tidbit

Constructor: Paul Guttormsson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Ts — every answer contains at least one "T" and every clue starts with "T"


Word of the Day: OTTO Harbach (13D: "The Touch of Your Hand" lyricist Harbach) —

Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach (August 18, 1873 – January 24, 1963) was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies. Some of his more famous lyrics are for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Indian Love Call" and "Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine". (wikipedia)

• • •

Lesson to be learned from this puzzle: just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should. What kind of joy can anyone get out of a grid loaded with Ts? More to the point, what about Ts justifies the absolutely substandard grid required to make the T gimmick come off? I I saw all the T clues and the two-part T.T. long answers, and thought "Why?" Then I saw the additional layer—the fact that every answer has at least one T. Then I thought, "Dear lord, WHY?!" If you want to know why there is nothing remotely interesting about this grid except two of the three long answers—*that's* why? "Gotta make sure every word has a T!" But ... it's T. It's not a desirable letter. ETTA (56D: "Tell Mama" singer James) and ETTU and ATTA in same 4x4 section of grid? How can this appeal to anyone except the constructor (marveling at his T-cramming abilities)? Painful all around, everywhere I looked. Finished quickly, but not successfully—turns out I put in the sensible verb RENDS at 21D: Tears instead of the much odder noun RENTS. At that point, I really didn't care. So I had DOV instead of TOV (36A: Tevye's "good"). Seemed reasonable.


Theme answers:

• all of them, I guess
  

Greatest clue was 10A: Turkey club? (NATO). Don't know if it's original, but I like it. Worst clue was 52A: Trap or record preceder (SET A). If you are serving up crud (e.g. this partial), then don't dress it in a tutu. Just put some jeans on the thing and let it go. By which I mean, a simple fill-in-the-blank clue will do. "Preceder" implies one word, but I get two, and one of them is "A." Ugh. I get that the phrase is one thing, hence a "preceder," but you see how I am talking about SET A instead of (in an ideal world) ignoring it? Innocuous clues for terrible fill—that should be the rule. Never heard of ESTEE Chandler (40D: "Terminal Bliss" actress Chandler) or OTTO Harbach. Also, never heard of "Terminal Bliss" or "The Touch of Your Hand." ESTEE Chandler hasn't acted in who knows how long and doesn't even have a Wikipedia page (could've clued her via "Teen Wolf Too"). OTTO Harbach seems to be quite a bit more famous, though "The Touch of Your Hand" isn't even mentioned on *his* Wikipedia page (he was lyricist for "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," among other things). But the T god must be served.


Bullets:

• 6A: TV/radio host John (TESH) — former "Entertainment Tonight" co-host.
  
• 23A: Tackle-to-mast rope on a ship (TYE) — more less-than-winning fill.
  
• 53A: Teleflora competitor (FTD) — Teleflora sounds more like a Telemundo competitor.
  
• 68A: Two-color horse (PINTO) — also, exploding car of old.

["People don't understand why I do certain things..."]

• 6D: Toledo tidbit (TAPA) — always hurts to see this answer in the singular, however valid.
  
• 12D: Two-time All-Star Martinez (TINO) — briefly forgot his name and went with TITO. Why not? It's got another "T" in it, after all, so it must be good.
  
• 26D: Title for Sulu on "Star Trek": Abbr. (LIEUT.) — forgot this, if I ever knew it.
  
• 35D: "The Closer" airer (TNT) — never seen an episode. Couldn't tell you the premise. Only know of its existence from watching ... what? "Conan?" NBA Playoffs?
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Feb. 4, 2007 - Paul Guttormsson

Solving time: 26:57

THEME: "INITIAL INITIALS" (61A: What the answers to the 15 starred clues have) - e.g. 38D: Apple variety (iMac), 71D: Critical time (D-Day), etc.

In a foul, foul mood for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that I have to blog now (Saturday night) because tomorrow a.m. is all filled up with crap. I am also having infuriating knee problems for No Good Reason, which is making me feel 30 years older than I am. To top it off, having to blog early meant having to solve early, and what began as an absolutely brilliant, lightning-fast solving experience was utterly derailed by daughter coming upstairs (like 15 feet away from where I type) for bathtime, during which she is notoriously shrill and hyper. Once she started with the shouting / singing / what not, I could Not concentrate, and once I got hung up (the entire S of the puzzle, particularly the SW), I really really got hung up. Sore, audibly creaky knee + sporadically loud child + a couple of thorny patches in the puzzle = me wanting to smash something. Then I told myself that these are really really bad solving conditions, and maybe I should solve like this more often in order to simulate whatever is going to annoy me about tournament conditions. And then I finished. What would have been a glorious, well-under-20 minute time ended up just slightly worse than average. This was also about the tenth puzzle I've solved today (and my third Sunday), so I might have been flagging a bit.

I enjoyed the theme somewhat, but the most exciting thing about it may have been the description in the middle of the puzzle: INITIAL INITIALS. The actual theme fill was, in large part, run-of-the-mill stuff, like the aforementioned IMAC and DDAY, plus

• 16A: Primo (A-one)
• 19D: In-box contents (e-mail)
• 64D: Fortune 500 company based in San Jose, Calif. (eBay)
• 109A: Backup for Dick Tracy (G-men)
• 111A: Benjamin (C-note)

Some theme answers were pretty colorful, like 53D: Saloon floozie (B-girl) and 110A: Gridiron lineup (I-formation), but mostly they just lay there. Somewhat disappointing as themes go.

There was, however, a subtheme. Three of the clues feature villains:

• 44D: Villain who says "For I am nothing if not critical" (Iago)
• 65D: Villain who says "That's a Dom Perignon '55. It would be a pity to break it" (Dr. No)
• 93D: Villain who says "So you don't like spinach?" (Bluto)

These were more fun than the actual theme answers, and the last one absolutely shot me down in the SSE. For some reason I was thinking that Popeye's nemesis was BRUTUS, not BLUTO. Turns out I had good reason for making this error. At any rate, BRUTUS wouldn't fit and my failure to get BLUTO led to my most serious snag in the puzzle (more below on the horrendous South). I like that all these villains kinda rhyme.


If the main theme was no great shakes, thankfully some of the non-theme fill is pretty hot.

Hot Fill

• 21A: "Hey, good lookin'!" ("Hubba hubba!") - for a non-theme answer, this goes especially well with the doubleness of the theme itself: INITIAL INITIALS
• 37D: Nowheresville (the sticks) - I like the clue even more than I like the answer
• 36D: Like sororities, at times (serenaded) - man this took me Way too long to get
• 73D: Gets blitzed (ties one on) - what one does in THE STICKS to dull the pain of not being SERENADED
• 93A: Treat for a dog (belly rub) - nice play on "treat" - I was thinking something edible, but the -LYR- combo brought the real treat to light. My dog does like BELLY RUBs - but not as much as she likes actual, edible treats, that's for sure.
• 42D: Product in an orange box (Wheaties) - a very nice clue. Beats hell out of "Breakfast of Champions" and goes nicely with ATHLETIC (80D: Fit)
• 91A: Sang on high: Var. (yodelled) - I guess the "Var." is that apparently extra "L" in there. "YO, DELL. It's ED!"
• 49D: Umpire's call ("Strike one!") - this is cool and odd. STRIKE OUT and STRIKE TWO would have worked here as well.
• 53A: Infamous innkeeper (Bates) - Psycho!

There were lots of "OR" sounds in this puzzle. I made a little story out of the "OR" fill, just fOR you. Ahem. "NORA (39D: Best-selling author Roberts) is a BOER (40D: _____ War of 1899) who lives on the MOORS (46A: Ties up). She PERFORMS (31A: Executes) for a LORD (82D: Follower of "O") named SOREN OSBORN (36A: Philosopher Kirkegaard and 89A: "The Paper Chase" author John Jay _____ Jr.)." That's all I have so far. What do you think?

Stuff I Didn't Know

Not much, actually, but some. For example, that OSBORN guy, above. Total blank. No idea. Further:

• 52D: _____ Kinnock, 1980's-90's British Labor Party leader (Neil) - to be fair, to myself, I'm pretty sure I've heard of this guy, but only vaguely.
• 72A: Retired N.H.L. great Hull (Brett) - OK, I knew this, but I clearly forgot it temporarily, because it was not a gimme. Kept wanting BOBBY even though I knew I was thinking of BOBBY ORR.
• 92D: Md.'s largest city (Balto) - I was pretty sure that yes, BALTimOre was the city in question, but I had never heard it / seen it abbreviated as such. Maybe it's common in their local newspapers? BALTO, in my mind, is a dog ... a sled dog, to be exact.

The Rough Spots

First was the far SW, where, as I've told you, I'd never heard of that damned OSBORN guy (89A), and I mysteriously had T-WING instead of O-RING at 89D: Certain gasket. This made 97A: Golf outing, whose answer is the innocuous ROUND, impossible to solve because in my grid it looked like this: WO-ND. WOUND? That's some odd golf slang right there. The whole situation "down there" was made worse by my having G-MAN instead of G-MEN: 109A: Backup for Dick Tracy looks like it wants a singular answer, dammit! So 91D: Dieter's problem looked like this: --L-A. That's right, that gives you Nothing. Further confusion resulted from 106A: Scrubbed (no go), which I could Not see, and which I had as NO NO for a while (so close!); that turned --L-A (for [Dieter's problem]) into the more wrong --LNA. How I got from --LNA to BULGE (the correct answer) is actually beyond me at this point.

Lastly, there was the Deep South, where I was in despair as I had so many Downs and yet couldn't buy an Across to save my life. I guessed (correctly) that 98A: Where St. Paul was shipwrecked, in Acts was MALTA (it was that or YALTA). But I still don't know what MILLENNIUM means as an answer to 102A: Period of future bliss. What year is it? Was this puzzle written in the 90's. Or better yet, the 50's, when everyone believed the MILLENNIUM would bring us jet packs and world peace? Nope, this puzzle must have been written since the 90's, because there's a Better Than EZRA clue in here (25A: Rock music's Better Than _____).
Also, I know it's not the 50's because my answer of SEN for 103D: D.C. baseballer was mysteriously wrong. Apparently D.C. has a new team called the NATs (at least that's what they call them in BALTO). Back to MILLENNIUM: Maybe I'm supposed to believe that the year 3000 is going to be Edenic? God only knows (seriously, He does). Under MILLENNIUM we have AFTERTASTE (107A: Diet soda feature). This answer is highly subjective. Not sure diet soda has more of an AFTERTASTE than regular soda, or lots of other drinks. I can't tell you how many times I tried to make ASPARTAME fit in here. My mind would Not let it go. Would have been a much better answer, btw. But not Better Than EZRA, because EZRA, well, that's some A-ONE fill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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