Old bandleader with Egyptian inspired name / SUN 1-8-17 / Entourage of 1990s white rapper / Headwear NBA banned in 2005 / Literary device used to address plot inconsistencies

Constructor: Peter Broda and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "The Downsizing of Nathaniel Ames" — familiar multi-word phrases where first word is reimagined as if it were first initial + last name of a famous person (this is also the key to understanding the title):

Theme answers:

• CLOVE (i.e. C. Love) CIGARETTES (20A: Things smoked by singer Courtney?)
• PROSE POETRY (31A: "Charlie Hustle is my name / I am banned from Hall of Fame," e.g.?)
• SCURRY AWAY (56A: Hoopster Steph not playing at home?)
• MALI EMPIRE (73A: The sport of boxing in the 1960s and '70s, essentially?)
• CHART TOPPER (100A: Hat for pop singer Corey?)
• THANKS IN ADVANCE (112A: Two-time Best Actor winner arriving early?)
• CROCK POT (3D: Something smoked by comic Chris?)
• SHARPER IMAGE (8D: Photo of Canada's former prime minister Stephen?)
• CHANDLER BING (61D: Cherry for talk show host Chelsea?)
• VICE UNIT (86D: Entourage of a 1990s white rapper?) (Vanilla Ice)

Word of the Day: SUN RA (18A: Old bandleader with an Egyptian-inspired name) —

Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony'r Ra; May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. [...] Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained both influential and controversial throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1000 songs, and making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century. Following Sun Ra's death in 1993, the Arkestra continues to perform. (wikipedia)

• • •

SPECIAL MESSAGE for Solvers in Syndication (for the week of January 15-January 22, 2017)

Hello, solvers. A new year has begun, and that means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. Despite my regular grumbling about puzzle quality, constructor pay, and other things that should be better in the world of crosswords, I still love solving, I still love writing about puzzles, and I love love love the people I meet and interact with because of this blog. Well, most of them. Some I mute on Twitter, but mostly: there is love. The blog turned 10 in September, and despite the day-in, day-out nature of the job, I can't foresee stopping any time soon. The community of friends and fellow enthusiasts are all just too dear to me. You can expect me to be here every day, praising / yelling at the puzzle—independent and ad-free. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address:

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Cookery Postcards from Penguin"—beautifully designed covers of vintage cookbooks, with provocative titles like "Cookery For Men Only " (!) or "Good Meals from Tinned Foods" (!?). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

---------------------------

Wow. A rollercoaster of emotions. First, I saw the byline and got Very excited, as Erik Agard is one of my favorite constructors. Peter Broda is also very good, but it seems like a long time since I've seen his byline. Anyway, I know them both and they are smart, funny, careful constructors, so I was psyched. Then ... the NYT had technical glitches with the puzzle. Again. "The World's Best Puzzle" everyone! So when I opened my .puz file I got ... this:

Just ... nothing. There's the title, but the grid, the clues ... not there. So I thought fine, I'll solve it in the browser. But not much more luck there. I did manage to see the clues, but grid: still gone. So I opted for the "Print newspaper version" option and solved on paper like some kind of animal. My handwriting is so bad that even I can't stand it. I mean look:

[AWK]

But the good news was that I *did* manage to get the puzzle and it was delightful. Simple, quirky, funny, weird, incredibly dense with themers, clean, modern, interesting. Just nice. I will say that SNES (68A: Sega Genesis competitor, in brief) is a terrible answer to look at, and ERM (104A: "Uhh..."), while real, is almost too improvised for my tastes (though I've been reading a lot of "Krazy Kat" lately, so I'm getting acclimated to improvised spellings). But any infelicities in the grid are pretty minor, *especially* when you consider the insane layout of the themers. They interlock like mad. I can't remember seeing anything like it. Six Acrosses, four Downs, and every themer intersects at least one other. Bonkers. S.HARPER IMAGE intersects Three Other Themers (ditto C.HANDLER BING, obviously). And then there are these weird red decoys in the NE / SW, long Downs that look like they're going to be themers for sure ... but then aren't. The whole enterprise is unusual, original, and very well crafted.


I did not fully grasp the theme at first. I got C.LOVE CIGARETTES fast, but I didn't get that "C." was an initial (for "Courtney"). I saw LOVE in there, but wondered what C. CIGARETTES were and what kind of wordplay was going on. Further, I thought the theme was going to be smoking, because the first two themers I saw were clued that way ([Things smoked by ...] and then on C.ROCK POT, [Something smoked by ...]). Plus the initial letter of both those themers was "C." So I started with 2 x smoke and 2 x "C" and just shrugged and plowed on. Wasn't til S.HARPER IMAGE that I got the whole first-initial idea. I don't know what the M.ALI EMPIRE is—that answer seemed like a big familiarity-outlier. But everything else was solid and funny, esp. the P.ROSE POETRY clue.

Bullets:

• 98D: Dude, in British lingo (BRUV) — I think this is like "bro" or its variant "bruh"; its appearance in the grid makes me happy. Fun with language! I also enjoyed NUJAZZ (though I wanted NUJACK, for reasons known only to early '90s me) and MIX CDS (a lovely phenomenon and lost art). I am just trusting that URL HIJACKING is a real thing because the puzzle tells me it is; I'm not mad because it was highly guessable.
• 46A: Televangelist Joel (OSTEEN) — I could see this guy's horrid mug but his name was blocked because of *&$^&$*% Haley Joel OSMENT. 
• 17A: Fish whose name is a celebrity's name minus an R (OPAH) — I love this clue so much I want to adopt it. If you gotta use some crosswordesey fish, give us a clue so good-naturedly absurd that I don't even mind.
• 26A: Game involving sharp projectiles and alcohol (BEER DARTS) — Is this like BEER POOL and BEER YAHTZEE and BEER GAMES I PLAY WHILE DRUNK? Seriously, how is this different from just drinking beer while playing darts? As with URL HIJACKING, I'm just gonna trust that it's a real thing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Annabel has been blogging the first puzzle of every month for over two years now, but only today (Saturday) did I finally get to meet her in person. She and her mom just happened to be driving through. We had a lovely long lunch.

 [Bell and me]

 [lady in the middle is Bell's mom, Liz; they brought me Bergers cookies, which are apparently some kind of a Baltimore thing—lots of chocolate icing. Pretty delicious.]

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Winner of annual posedown / SAT 8-16-14 / Genre for Django Reinhardt / 1959 #1 hit for Fleetwoods / Eric Cartman's mom on South Park / Next President comedian / 2009 Grammy winner for Crack Bottle

Constructor: Peter Broda

Relative difficulty: Medium for me, but this will vary widely today...

THEME: none

Word of the Day: VITUS (26A: One of saintdom's Fourteen Holy Helpers) —

Saint Vitus /sɨnt ˈvaɪtəs/, according to Christian legend, was a Christian saint from Sicily. He died as a martyrduring the persecution of Christians by co-ruling Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 303. Vitus is counted as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of the Roman Catholic Church.

Saint Vitus' Day is celebrated on 15 June. In places where the Julian Calendar is used, this date coincides, in the 20th and 21st centuries, with 28 June on the Gregorian Calendar.

In the late Middle Ages, people in Germany and countries such as Latvia celebrated the feast of Vitus by dancing before his statue. This dancing became popular and the name "Saint Vitus Dance" was given to theneurological disorder Sydenham's chorea. It also led to Vitus being considered the patron saint of dancers and of entertainers in general.

Vitus is considered the patron saint of actors, comedians, dancers, and epileptics. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks and oversleeping, and is the patron saint of Bohemia. (wikipedia)

• • •

Saw the constructor name and buckled my damn seatbelt. I know Peter Broda (and you should know him too) from his independent puzzle site, The Cross Nerd, which ceased regular production earlier this summer but seems poised to maintain irregular production (you can sign up for his Google Group and get new puzzles sent free, right to your Inbox).  I gave one of Peter's puzzles Puzzle of the Week honors back in March, and he's been on the short list many other weeks this year. I generally think of his stuff as slightly too edgy or avant-garde for the NYT, so I'm glad in this case that I was wrong. This is a fresh and colorful puzzle, one that abounds in lively longer words and phrases. He's got a great ear for modern colloquialisms, and this lends his puzzles a lot of character and charm. Sure, AHA MOMENT's been done before, but "NOT YOU TOO!" and "DID I STUTTER?" are wonderful, wish-I'd-thought-of-it phrases, and even short ordinary stuff like META (41A: Like some horror films, in modern lingo) and GUMS (28A: Windbags beat them) is jazzed up by clues that situate those words in the context of the slangy way people talk. Common turns of phrase are something an observant, artful constructor is always looking out for. They lend unexpected pop to puzzles, and are more likely to make me smile than virtually any other category of answer.  I love a deep dictionary cut like PTARMIGAN, but there's something magical about an answer rooted in the vagaries of human speech. Makes the puzzle feel alive.


Yes, there are weak spots. SAME'S and ELSE'S are particularly insidious S-ending contractions, and MESS TENTS is just a giant safety net of 1-point letters. ENATE never excited anyone, IDI and OTERI are hoary, and RST YOO must be kidding. Still, there's just too much good for any of that smaller stuff to matter much. I don't like the choice to cross IAN and LIANE and then give both of them contemporary TV show clues (51A: "Pretty Little Liars" actor Harding / 46D: Eric Cartman's mom on "South Park"). That's the kind of thing that gets you into Natick territory real quick. But that "I" really couldn't have been any other letter, so no real harm done.

I found this one relatively easy to start with because I knew the [Genre for Django Reinhardt] had to have JAZZ in it somewhere. I wanted GUITAR JAZZ or JAZZ GUITAR, but … no fit. So I just mentally slid JAZZ to the end of the answer and checked the crosses. Let me tell you, when you start with the Js and the Zs, especially in initial positions, those crosses come quick. Got all of them in short order (though had JOLT for JUMP at first). So despite not knowing VITUS and thinking PTARMIGAN (3D: Prey for an arctic fox) had a "T" on the end (through a bizarre conflation of TERMAGANT and CORMORANT), the NW went down easily enough. Had a little trouble with the word after DEGREE—seriously considered MINES and MINTS before the (now seemingly obvious) MILLS came into view. Had DRAKE / CHEEKIEST before eventually correcting to DR. DRE / CHEERIEST. Bottom half of the puzzle was very pliable, in general. Hardest part of puzzle for me by far was uncovering (!) MS. OLYMPIA. First letters were both solid and (to me) inscrutable. MSO-??? The only famous MS. I know is surnamed PAC-MAN. But then EPONYMS and UNSURE ended up coming pretty easily, and I eventually set MS. OLYMPIA into place to end the puzzle.



I did not know YO HEAVE HO was a thing (2D: Cry that helps people pull together). YO HO HO, yes. HEAVE HO, yes. YO HEAVE  HO, no. But there it is.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Hot Pockets maker / TUE 4-16-13 / Onetime catchprhase for athlete Jackson / Compressed video file format / Old McDonnell Douglas aircraft / Scripps-sponsored event for kids / Very slangily

Constructor: Peter Broda

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: GO BELLY UP (37A: File for Chapter 11 ... or do an 18-, 20-, 60- or 64-Across)— theme answers are all activities in which the participant literally goes belly up:

Theme answers:

• 18A: Proceed on all fours, in a way (CRAB WALK)
• 20A: Butterfly alternative (BACKSTROKE)
• 60A: Caribbean party event (LIMBO DANCE)
• 64A: Decathlon event (HIGH JUMP) 

Word of the Day: EUNICE Shriver (14A: One of the Shrivers) —

Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver, DSG (July 10, 1921 – August 11, 2009) was a member of the Kennedy family, sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver which started on her Maryland farm known as Timberlawn and, in 1968 evolved into the Special Olympics. Her husband, Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., was United States Ambassador to France and the Democratic vice presidential candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. (wikipedia)

• • •

Pretty clever post-Tax Day puzzle. Solving experience was very weird. Absurdly slow start. Got virtually nothing in the NW, which felt more Wed-Thu than Tuesday for sure, but then I finally got DRACOS (ouch) (17A: "Harry Potter" antagonist and namesakes), and that corner began to come into view. No way I was seeing stuff like REIN IN, NESTLE (6D: Hot Pockets maker) (???), or EURASIA without crosses, which I just couldn't come by. Forgot ICOSA (5D: Twenty: Prefix). Didn't really know EUNICE (who is a Kennedy to me) (14A: One of the Shrivers). Should've got RED BULL but didn't for a while (1D: Popular energy drink). It was really a disaster up there. Then things leveled off and my time was bad for a Tuesday but not HELLA bad. I like the theme, and I love much of the fill, but the grid is weird / awkward. Huge corners and super-choppy middle make for a very uneven feel. This puzzle is 78 words (the max), which seems impossible given those corners (esp. the NW / SE). But the chopped up middle, with all those short answers, are where the grid really drives up the word count. This made the center very easy, the corners less so. Center keeps from being dull by virtue of the revealer and HELLA, which I'm pleasantly surprised to see (29D: Very, slangily). It's dated by now, but ... why not throw it in to the mix? I was more surprised to see the "BO KNOWS" campaign show up out of nowhere (13D: Onetime catchphrase for athlete Jackson). The NEXT GEN SEX SHOP in the SW took me by surprise as well (43D: Like many newly unveiled electronics, casually + 41D: Store for couples, maybe). This was entertaining overall. NW feels slightly awkward and jury-rigged (IN A CAST? DRACOS?), but theme is strong and fill is smooth with occasional moments of ELAN and sass.


Bullets:

• 15A: Like a day in June, according to Lowell (RARE) — odd. There are thirty of them. How RARE can they be?
• 69A: Old McDonnell Douglas aircraft (DC NINE) — Old McDonnell had an aircraft and DC NINE was its name. Oh. 
• 62D: Compressed video file format (MPEG) — one of many answers that make this puzzle feel as if (unlike yesterday's) it was, in fact, a product of this millennium. 
• 72A: Like Cheech & Chong, in most of their movies (STONED) — HELLA STONED. 

 Hang in there, Boston.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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