Rosalinde's maid in Strauss's Die Fledermaus / WED 5-8-19 / Jule who wrote music for Funny Girl / Nickname for Yale

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:54)

THEME: TABLE TENNIS (37A: Olympic sport since 1988) — circled squares use TABLE TENNIS table and NET (30D: [Item depicted here]) (?) to form the shapes of those things, and then there's also what looks like the path of a ball over the net, which spells the phrase BACKSPIN SERVE. Then in the very bottom corners of the grid there is PING and PONG (63A: With 65-Across, another name for 37-Across). Oh, wow, looks like there's a random ATARI tie-in too (15A: Its version of 37-Across was popular in the 1970s-'80s)

Word of the Day: Jule STYNE (13D: Jule who wrote the music for "Funny Girl") —

Jule Styne (/ˈdʒuːli staɪn/; born Julius Kerwin Stein, December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British-American song writer and composer known for a series of Broadway musicals, which include several famous and frequently revived shows which also became successful films, including Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Funny Girl. (wikipedia)

• • •

ATARI

Let's call this what it is: pandering. The crossword editor is, famously, a table tennis enthusiast, owner of a table tennis facility, etc. It's just gruesome that kissing up to the editor with a theme like this one (one that isn't even well executed) actually works. I guess fawning pays with certain leaders. I have no idea how the path of a "BACKSPIN SERVE" is different from the path of any other serve, or if the path depicted here is even representative of a "BACKSPIN SERVE." Likely, that phrase just happened to fit in the requisite number of spaces. It's such an arbitrary, odd phrase, and since it's literally the only thing keeping this theme from being completely boring and rudimentary, its oddness / strangeness / non-iconicness really hurts. There are some decent answers in here, in the bottom (i.e. not theme-dense) part, but that's also where the fill gets inexcusably weak and crosswordesey. SRTA ESTER etc.


Then there's BUSMAN??? Otto is a bus driver (though his last name is Mann). Hail to the bus driver, bus driver, bus driver. . .


BUSMAN ... what is that? I've heard of "BUSMAN's holiday," though I don't know what one is. Looking it up now ... Hmm, per wikipedia: "The phrase "busman's holiday" is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a period of holiday or leisure time spent doing something similar to one's normal occupation, first shown to be used in 1893." OK, but what is BUSMAN? Well, it's a word meaning "driver of a bus," but I wouldn't use it. People don't use it. More importantly, "The Simpsons" doesn't use it (I don't think). Whoa, no. No I'm wrong. I totally forgot about Otto's idea for a superhero called BUSMAN!: 

Otto's idea was that the character would drive a bus by day, but by night fight vampires in a post-apocalyptic war zone. Otto later went to a comic book convention, with the intention of showing his idea to Jack Tate, but it's still unknown whether Tate liked Otto's idea or not. While traversing The Desert Busman picks up various passengers and safely takes them to Garlicville after fighting off the hordes of Mutant Vampires. He also met Busbabewhile escorting the passengers. (Simpsons Wiki)

Looks like Bongo Comics even published an actual issue of this hypothetical comic, thus making it no longer hypothetical, I guess:

NONONO is bad, especially coming after the ridiculous no-no-no non-phrase NO EAR (!?). Loved PLUS ONE, both the answer and the (tough) clue (50A: Unidentified date). But very little else about this puzzle was pleasing. My only real hold-up came in the middle, with the non-clue on NET and the absurd clue on ADELE (34A: Rosalinde's maid in Strauss's "Die Fledermaus"). Other proper nouns in the puzzle didn't trouble me: I somehow remembered both ELSTON and STYNE today. In conclusion: Please let's all agree to a 10-year moratorium on PING / PONG puzzles. Thank you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. In case you think my accusations of flagrant sycophantism are unwarranted, please behold the constructor's own words: 

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Air carrier from Taiwan / THU 1-24-19 / Unlikely source of Top 40 song / Instrument that opens Stravinsky's rite of spring / Spamalot lyricist

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium (6-something, almost a minute of which was spent trying to dig myself out of a terrible predicament in the SW corner ...)

THEME: GOO GOO EYES (66A: Adoring looks seen 10 times in this puzzle's grid) — rebus puzzle where "OO" appears in a single box ten different times (including inside GOO GOO EYES itself)

Theme answers:

• VOODOO DOLL (17A: One stuck abroad?)
• FOOLPROOF (26A: Risk-free)
• TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD (41A: "I'm out")
• FOOTSTOOL (50A: Ottoman)

Word of the Day: STAG beetle (53A: ___ beetle) —

Stag beetles are a group of about 1,200 species of beetles in the family Lucanidae, presently classified in four subfamilies. Some species grow to over 12 cm (4.7 in), but most are about 5 cm (2.0 in). // The English name is derived from the large and distinctive mandibles found on the males of most species, which resemble the antlers of stags. (wikipedia)

• • •

Sincere question: what makes the eyes "GOO GOO"? I see that two "O"s can represent eyes, fine, but how are those eyes "GOO GOO"? They look like wide open or surprised eyes, maybe? But I honestly don't see how two "O"s next to each other gets you an "adoring look." I do see that "GOO GOO" gets you two sets of eyes inside the revealer itself, which is a cute touch, but the central idea—that the "OO"s represent specifically GOO GOO eyes, and not just, uh, eyes—that, I don't get. I got the theme very early, after CROON wouldn't fit and then VOODOO DOLL was indisputably a right answer. Still struggled a bit here and there trying to find the "eyes"—didn't know there would necessarily be such an orderly distribution. Slightly (read: very) odd to have non-theme answers (CRITICAL, MOUSSAKA longer than two of the themers, but I guesssss the rationale is that if you count all the letters in those themers, and not just the boxes, then they are longer. I love how TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD fits so neatly across the middle; it's a wonderful, colorful phrase, and my favorite thing about the puzzle by far. Doesn't change the fact that the theme doesn't really deliver what it says it delivers, though. Mostly I am mad that, between the revealer and VOODOO DOLL, this puzzle has made me remember the Goo Goo Dolls, and so now this will be in my head all night:


Had trouble with SEAL (23A: It can make an impression in correspondence) and wrote PEONS for PLEBS (28D: Commoners). Balked at I CAN'T because I kept wondering "you can't *what*!?" (36D: "That's beyond me") Also had to talk myself into REGINAL, because ??? Didn't really know what a STAG beetle was, so getting into the SE corner was a little challenging. DESI, not a term I remember hearing / seeing before. But by far the toughest hurdle for me was the SW, where everything was going great until TAX---. I had zero zip no idea about EVA Air (!??!) (64D: ___ Air, carrier to Taiwan), and—the real issue—I wrote in REF instead of REC (65D: Supporting letter, informally). REC is better, but "letter of reference" is a common enough term. I write these things all the time, and somehow when looking at RE- my brain couldn't come up with anything but REF. This was unfortunate, not just because it was wrong, but because it made me think TAX--- had to be TARIFF (71A: Revenue-raising measure). But TIMEX *had* to be right. Blargh. Eventually worked it out, but the corner ate up way way more time than it should've.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I guess in other formats you have to enter the "O"s in a kind of googly way and so the GOOGOO part of GOOGOO EYES makes sense on the page. As you can see from my printed grid above, that did not come through for me.

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Voiceless consonant like b or p / WED 2-7-18 / Old Happy Motoring brand / Actor who played Grandpa Munster / Bucolic hotel / Personal aide to Selina Meyer on Veep / Starz competitor / Sedgwick of Warhol films

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (disconnected sections + classic names = ?)

THEME: THE TIES THAT BIND (56A: Shared beliefs ... like this puzzle's circled four-letter words) — circled words are things you can "bind" with, and they MAKE CONNECTIONS (17A: Network) between the upper and lower sections to the center section (which is otherwise free-floating)

The binds:

• ROPE
• LACE
• WIRE
• CORD

Word of the Day: LENE (16A: Voiceless consonant like "b" or "p") —

[I honestly can't even find a good definition of this online ... they're all circular and weird an unhelpful. If I google [lene voiceless], almost all I get are crossword sites... I mean, look:  

Noun

(plural lenes)

1. (phonetics) The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).
2. (phonetics) Any of the lene consonants, such as p, k, or i (Greek pi, kappa, tau). (yourdictionary.com)

• • •

Once this was done, I noticed the gimmick and thought, "Oh, clever." But while I was solving, hoo boy, "clever" was not the word on my mind. The concept here is lovely but the execution is brutal. The fill was rough and dated all over. Everywhere. The worst part for me was flat-out guessing LENE (all the crosses checked, which is the only way I got even a single letter of that answer) and then discovering that the *only* reason LENE was even in the grid (I assume) was that PLIERS / LENE could not be turned to PRIERS / RENE because (astonishingly) PRIER was already in the grid (?) (28D: Inquisitive one) (28D: Inquisitive one). It just feels like whole corners should've been torn down and rebuilt. And the center in particular is really rough. PULLA? ALTAI? WIS? YOS? ALLEWIS!?!?! This was very unpleasant to solve. Discovering the theme at the end was kind of sad—no reason this concept couldn't have been executed smoothly.


Soooo many pop culture names. I've never seen "Frozen" or "Real Housewives of Atlanta," so this didn't start so well for me, what with HANS (1A: Prince in "Frozen") crossing SHEREE (?) (4D: Whitfield of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta") in the NW. Please don't try to sell me on SHEREE's being good or modern or whatever. It's here because it's 5/6 super-common letters (a good sign that a grid section is under considerable stress). Then there's the bully in "Calvin & Hobbes" (forgot him) (MOE), some character from "Veep" (GARY), Grandpa forkin' Munster (ALLEWIS), EDIE Sedgwick. ANNETTE Bening is legit famous (12D: Actress Bening), but the rest of those names are varying degrees of rough. It's not any one of them that's the issue—it's just that there are so many of them. And then two "old" or "classic" gas brands in the same corner!? (AMOCO / ESSO). To say nothing of the ordinary crosswordese that abounds (SRTA, DER, ONCD, two kinds of ELY/I, ORI (?), ADO, RADII, ETA, RATA, DYS, HIE). This might've been interesting and doable as a Sunday puzzle concept, with more sections to bind, more binders, etc., and then much more room for the grid to breathe.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Longtime first name in gossip / SAT 12-9-17 / Doctor of 1960s TV / Whence many paintings of Pueblo Indians / Gladly old style / Old-time worker

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Tony ARMAS (48A: Former Red Sox slugger Tony) —

Antonio Rafael Armas Machado (born July 2, 1953) is a Venezuelan former professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball. He is the father of pitcher Tony Armas, Jr. and the older brother of outfielder Marcos Armas. // Armas Sr. was one of the top sluggers in the American League in the early 1980s. Twice he led the American League in home runs, and topped all of Major League Baseball in runs batted in during the 1984 season. He was, however, prone to injuries that affected his career. In his major league career, Armas went to the disabled list twelve times, missing 302 games. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was pleasantly surprising, for a few reasons. First, I expected it to be not great, possibly bad, because that's a lot of white space and most people can't fill that much empty space cleanly. And yet it was actually pretty good. Remarkably clean, especially given how many longer (7+) answers have to run through other long answers. The fill buckles a bit on the margins, in the short stuff, but that's where it's supposed to buckle (a little) when you're doing showy themelesses. In fact, 1-Across was probably the worst thing in the grid (not a great place to put your Worst Thing In The Grid, btw). Took one look at it, thought, "uh oh, here we go..." But no. I hardly winced at all after that, and honestly, all the longer answers are solid as heck. Not sure I'd call the grid FREAKING AWESOME (7D: Fantabulous), but it's definitely where a NYT Saturday should be, quality-wise.


The other surprise was the easiness. Big corners, a middle without any short toeholds ... I was pretty sure I'd be clawing my way through this slowly, but I hardly broke stride after I got the NW sorted out. Got FREAKING AWESOME off the FREA- and then proceeded immediately to go after the SE corner—via the "M" trifecta of MEESE / MANSE / MAXINE (there are three *more* "M" words down there, but they didn't work in concert to propel me through the puzzle, so screw them). Ironically, the answer I struggled with most down there was Tony ARMAS (48A). I say "ironic" because he was a big deal during my prime baseball card-collecting days, so I should've known him. He's got one of those names that ... rings a bell, but also sounds like a lot of other baseball names. Actually, I think it's a five-letter baseball Tony thing. Tony OLIVA. Tony PEREZ. I think those (more famous) names were blocking my way. But I worked out all the Downs, eventually.


Then back up the grid via PIED-À-TERRE (26D: Home away from home), then easily down into the SW corner (though ON A PLATE was rough—40A: Without putting in any effort), and then finally up into the NE corner, where I thought I might get very badly stuck. None of the Downs were clear to me from their clues. Is "ping resistance" a real thing? When I google it in quotation marks, I get a crossword site first thing. And dear lord just how "old" is the "old catchphrase" for ANACIN!? (11D: Product with the old catchphrase "Mother, please, I'd rather do it myself!"). Before my time, for sure. Nothing about that phrase says "aspirin." (Also, there are at least three answers flagged as "old" in this puzzle, which is two too many, I'm afraid) But I guessed SEEN AS and the short Acrosses came pretty easily. Last letter in was the "R" in TOREROS / RATE. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I finished a new off-season baseball crossword. Enjoy:

Rex Parker's Off-Season Baseball Crossword #2: 

"Angel ... in the Outfield?" (PDF) (.PUZ) 

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Von Rothbart's daughter in ballet / SAT 6-24-17 / Running gold medalist Steve / Combination undergarment / Old competitor of bikini bare / One-named singer with 2013 top 5 hit Gentleman / Jazz Fest setting informally / Company with striking footwear

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALAN Bean (19A: Bean in a pod?) —

Alan LaVern Bean (born March 15, 1932), (CAPT, USN, Ret.), is an American former naval officer and Naval Aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3. He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second manned mission to land on the Moon, at the age of thirty-seven years in November 1969. He made his second and final flight into space on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, the second manned mission to the Skylab space station. After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981, he pursued his interest in painting, depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as that of his fellow Apollo program astronauts. (wikipedia) (I guess Bean is in a "pod" because ... space pod? I searched "pod" on the wikipedia page and turned up nothing)

• • •

Fairly clean for a lowish-word-count puzzle, but fairly dull as well. HOPE TO GOD and MALIA OBAMA are sharp, and DEMOLITION DERBY is OK (but not original—this clue is basically recycled from 2001). But the rest just sits there. It was a fine workout, but more routine and lackluster than I expect from a Saturday. The over-reliance on proper nouns is a bit of a drag here. The NE gets particularly bad, with LAALAA next to ERNEST crossing ALAN, right in the same section with the worst cross in the whole puzzle: ODILE / OVETT. That's dire. That's a one-way ticket to Natick for some people, especially considering the relative popularity of the AVETT Brothers. Yikes. Anyway, that section is yuckily name-dense. Rest of the grid doesn't have this same issue, though ESALEN will be rough for youngSTERs (just as ODELAY will be rough for oldSTERs).  LAALAA and LALA in the same grid? With YAYAS? Nah, nah. Make better choices.


I had a rougher-than-usual time with this one, due almost entirely to the wheels coming off in the SE. Looking back, my stuckness doesn't make sense. It's stupid. I should've been much faster. I just Could Not see (or, later, spell) NOXZEMA (35D: Brand once advertised with "Take it off. Take it all off"). I had BELOW ZERO and PARALLELED and FOWL and (tentatively) BOLES, and (more tentatively) NOLA, but ... nope. Stuck. N--ZE-- was staring at me and all I could think of was NETZERO, which seemed unlikely to have had a slogan about "taking it all off." Kept plugging in *correct* answers (MEGA, FORTY, e.g.) but still not seeing things. Turns out I did that thing where I don't look at all the damned clues before behaving as if I'm stuck. Once I looked at 52A: "Love is not ___" ("Tears on My Pillow" lyric), I found I could sing the song (is it in "Grease" somewhere? Not sure how I know it), and so my brain started to sing it ("Love is not a gadget...") and bam, A TOY went in. Then DAY at the end of DAY-TO-DAY; then MEGA. Finally "got it," but "it" was ... NOCZEMA. Which left me with BOCSET for 41A: It might contain a discography). Oy. Another minute or so of befuddlement followed. Then completion.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Bluesman Willie / Talker-upper maybe / THU 10-8-15 / Old court org / Old company whose logo featured torch / Carrots lettuce humorously / 1980s social policy / Alchemist's quest

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Longest common word in the English language ... that does stuff" — [sigh] some kind of word trivia thing, I guess...

Theme answers:

• SPOONFEED (17A: ... that has its letters in reverse alphabetical order)
• DESSERTS (21A: ... that forms another word when read backward)
• UNCOPYRIGHTABLE (39A: ... that has no repeated letters)
• QUEUEING (54A: ... that has five consecutive vowels)
• TORTUROUS (62A: ... that is spelled entirely from the last dozen letters of the alphabet) [dozen??? that is ... arbitrary]

Word of the Day: ROSE TOPAZ (10D: Pink gem) —

1.

a rose-pink form of topaz produced by heating yellow-brown topaz

  (???) (dictionary.com)

• • •

TORTUROUS pretty much says it all. This was a dismal, joy-killing puzzle. "Who ****ing cares?" was the only thing running through my head as I tried to put this thing together. This isn't wordplay. This isn't knowledge. This is trivia from some word website, and it's a very, very poor excuse for a crossword puzzle theme. As if the theme weren't depressing enough, the fill was laugh-and/or-cry-out-loud terrible in places. So, here's an unwritten cross-referencing rule: don't cross-reference crap answers that no one but no one is going to be happy to see under normal, non-cross-referenced circumstances. Cross-referencing foreign crosswordese ... that's the work of someone who hates fun, or cares not at all what a solver's solving experience is like. You should be ashamed that you had to resort to both OTROS and ESOS in your grid, but the fact that you're highlighting this colossal failure suggests you don't know that it is, in fact, a colossal failure. Yipes.  And someone needs to lose their job over that SW corner, specifically over USLTA, the single worst crossword answer I've seen in months, if not all year. Was there a Lesbian Tennis Association? What did I miss? When your (5-letter!) abbr. is a. *bygone*, b. hasn't been seen in *any* puzzle in 6 years, c. is in the cruciverb database only four times *total*, and d. isn't even holding anything good together (you've still got USMA and ELHI in there!) ... man. Man oh man OMOO. "Tin ear" is a generous term for what's happening here.


I gotta get back to the baseball game. The sooner we all forget this thing, the better. . . dammit! The baseball game's over. Oh well, I still gotta go. I just ... can't ... with this puzzle. Good day/night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Leakes of reality TV / WED 12-17-14 / Litotes for beauty / Hairy son of Isaac / Ebenezer's ghostly ex-partner / Ancestor of Gaelic Manx / Reporter's question collectively

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging 

THEME: some rhetorical devices — I don't even know, really...

Theme answers:

• IT'LL TAKE FOREVER (17A: Hyperbole for an arduous task)
• MAKE HASTE SLOWLY (22A: Oxymoron for cautious travel)
• NOT UNATTRACTIVE (45A: Litotes for beauty)
• AS THICK AS A BRICK (50A: Simile for denseness)

Word of the Day: NENE Leakes (56A: Leakes of reality TV) —

Linnethia Monique "NeNe" Leakes (/ˈniːniː/; née Johnson; born December 13, 1967) is an American actress, television personality, producer, author and fashion designer. She is best known for being on the reality television series The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which documents the lives of several women residing in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2013, she was commissioned to star in the spin-off series I Dream of NeNe: The Wedding, which focused on the preparations for her remarriage to husband Gregg Leakes.

Leakes portrayed the recurring character Roz Washington on the sitcom Glee since its third season in 2012, and has also played Rocky Rhoades on the award-winning sitcom The New Normal until its cancellation in 2013. Leakes appeared as a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice 4, where she finished in seventh place in 2011, and the eighteenth season of Dancing with the Stars. It was also announced that Leakes would be joining the cast of Cinderella on Broadway from November 25th, 2014. (wikipedia)

• • •

A MESSAGE TO MY BELOVED READERS IN SYNDICATION (JAN. 21, 2015)

Hi all. It's time for my week-long, just-once-a-year-I-swear pitch for financial contributions to the blog. If you enjoy (or some other verb) this blog on a regular or fairly regular basis, please consider what the blog is 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 your enjoyment (or some other noun) for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. I'm in my ninth (!) year of writing about the puzzle every single day, and while there are occasions when the daily grind gets a little wearisome, for the most part I've been surprised by how resilient my passion for solving and talking about crosswords has been. It's energizing to be part of such an enthusiastic and diverse community of solvers, and I'm excited about the coming year (I have reason to be hopeful … mysterious reasons …). Anyway, I appreciate your generosity more than I can say. This year, said generosity allowed me to hire a regular guest blogger, Annabel Thompson, who now brings a fresh, youthful voice to my blog on the first Monday of every month. So thanks for that. As I said last year, I know that some people are opposed to paying for what they can get for free, and still others really don't have money to spare. Both kinds of people are welcome to continue reading my blog, with my compliments. It will always be free. I have no interest in cordoning it off, nor do I have any interest in taking advertising. I value my independence too much. Anyway, if you are so moved, there is a Paypal button in the sidebar, and a mailing address here:

Rex Parker
℅ Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton NY 13905

And here: I'll stick a PayPal button in here for the mobile users.

I assume that worked.

For people who send me actual, honest-to-god (i.e. "snail") mail (I love snail mail!), this year my thank-you cards are "Postcards from Penguin"—each card a different vintage Penguin paperback book cover. Who will be the lucky person who gets … let's see … "Kiss, Kiss" by Roald DAHL? Or "The Case of the Careless Kitten" by ERLE Stanley Gardner? Or the Selected Verse of Heinrich HEINE? It could be you. Or give via PayPal and get a thank-you email. That's cool too. 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 so. No problem. Anyway, whatever you choose to do, I remain most grateful for your readership. Now on to the puzzle …

• • •

The best thing about this puzzle is the new, fresh (though totally unknown to me) clue for NENE. I was like "who the what?" but that's pretty legit screen cred she's got there. Nothing I've seen, but the clues can't all be "Broad City" and "Rockford Files."

[PKW is fill I can get behind…]

The rest of this puzzle is a disaster. Ill-conceived and weakly executed. We seem to have yet another non-theme. Just a very, very loose assortment of rhetorical devices that have nothing in common with each other, content-wise. They're just rhetorical devices. Oh, and they're all 15 letters long. Which brings us to this puzzle's bigger problem—72 words??? It's hard enough to make a good themeless at 72 words. Why in the world would you torture a themed grid like this if you don't have to. I mean, if you can pull it off cleanly, more power to you, but hoo boy. No. From the DPI / ALT / WELL KNIT (!?!?!) opener to the KEW / KUE (!) / AMI / AH ME (!!) closer, this thing has "No" / "Do Over" / "Refresh!!!" written all over it. EELER?! ADELA! So creaky … ISMANIS! RITTATEE! Boo. Delete. Escape. Reboot.


HYPER in the grid when "Hyperbole" is one of your rhetorical devices? No.

I'm done. I hear tomorrow's puzzle is good. So let's hope my intel's solid.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Principal port of Syria / SAT 4-19-14 / Mezzo-soprano Regina / Big Chicago-based franchiser / Either of two holy emperors

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: HAME (51A: Part of a plowing harness) —

n.

One of the two curved wooden or metal pieces of a harness that fits around the neck of a draft animal and to which the traces are attached.

---

[Middle English, from Middle Dutch; see tkei- in Indo-European roots.] (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

I guess the way you make these things more palatable is by making them easy. This is a perfectly ordinary, perfectly forgettable 15-stack puzzle. None of the 15s, except perhaps THE GOBLET OF FIRE, holds any real interest, and even that one is at least technically inaccurate, since ever installment of both the book and movie "series" begins "Harry Potter and …" But since it's the only thing I really enjoyed today, I'll let that slide. There is pretty heavy reliance on unusual / obscure words / names. RESNIK is new to me (last letter in the grid was that "S") (46D: Mezzo-soprano Regina). What the hell is a HAME?!?! (51A: Part of a plowing harness) Yeesh. Greta SCACCHI I managed to dredge up from somewhere, but lord knows where (35D: Greta of "The Red Violin") (What is "The Red Violin"? Nevermind; I'll google it) . Then there's the truly terrible crossing of LATAKIA and KENAI (26A: Alaska's ___ Fjords National Park). I just guessed. Must've seen KENAI somewhere before, 'cause I guessed right, but I know I've never seen or heard of LATAKIA. Once Again, cluing here involves all the creativity of reading the first line of a wikipedia entry (very first words of that entry: "Latakia […] is the principal port city of Syria […]"). And of course it's misleading, as "principal" makes you think "I should've heard of this," while in reality, LATAKIA is just Syria's 5th largest city, behind Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Hama (only three of which you've heard of, and only two of which you'd heard of before the atrocities started there). As for KENAI (26A: Alaska's ___ Fjords National Park)  … I think my reasoning was "DENALI ends in 'I', so try that." because otherwise I honestly don't know.


Finished in under 8, and that's *with* taking a break to see if I guessed LATAKIA correctly. Also, I would've been faster if I'd been able to recall MIA SARA's name (40D: Actress in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off")—that should've been a gimme; I know damn well who she is. That movie is a Gen-X sweet spot, and I'm ashamed to have failed to ace this clue. I blame, in part, MIA HAMM. Also couldn't call up SNCC (35A: March on Washington grp.)—hmmm, I think I was confusing it with something else, something with "Christian" and "Southern" in the name, because I don't recall ever hearing of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (despite having written SNCC into grids before). Aha! Southern Christian Leadership Conference. That's what I was thinking of. Phew. I feel mildly better now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Moroccan city known as Athens of Africa / THU 8-22-13 / Singer known as La Divina / Ford last produced in 1986 / German wine made from fully ripe grapes / Site of WW II's first amphibious landing / O'Hara's choice novelist / Owner of Moviefone / Commercial figure holding six beer mugs / Suspended avian home

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: CALL BOX — one CALL in each corner, two non-symmetrically placed CALLs in central Across answer

Word of the Day: SPATLESE (24D: German wine made from fully ripe grapes) —

Spätlese (literal meaning: "late harvest"; plural form is Spätlesen) is a German wine term for a wine from fully ripe grapes, the lightest of the late harvest wines. Spätlese is a riper category than Kabinett in the Prädikatswein category of the German wine classification and is the lowest level of Prädikatswein in Austria, where Kabinett is classified in another way. In both cases, Spätlese is below Auslese in terms of ripeness. The grapes are picked at least 7 days after normal harvest, so they are riper and have a higher must weight. Because of the weather, waiting to pick the grapes later carries a risk of the crop being ruined by rain. However, in warm years and from good sites much of the harvest will reach Spätlese level.

The wines may be either sweet or dry (trocken); it is a level of ripeness that particularly suits rich dry wines from Riesling,Weißer Burgunder and Grauer Burgunder grapes for example, as at Auslese levels the alcohol levels may become very high in a dry wine leaving the wine unbalanced, making wines with at least some residual sweetness preferable to most palates. However, most German wines are traditionally dry, and the amount of sugar is not the only factor balancing a wine. Dry German wines can be very balanced and usually get higher rates from German wine journalists than a comparable wine with more sugar.

Many Spätlese wines will age well, especially those made from the Riesling grape. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one was OK. Here's the thing—it's just a bunch of CALLs. Not sure what's clever about that. I guess the central answer, "DON'T [CALL] US, WE'LL [CALL] YOU," functions as some kind of marquee or banner answer, but ... there's just four more CALLs. I mean, that's all there is to this. Fact that they are in the corners made the last couple corners (for me, the bottom two), sooooooooo much easier to get than the top two. I'm generally opposed to symmetrical rebus squares for this reason. Big corners are kind of cool, though the fill in the Downs gets very dicey in places. Actually, fill gets very dicey all over. APSOS, MONGST, HADAC (!!!!) (if this were a "COW" rebus, maybe), AMARO (54D: Ruben ___, Phillies Gold Glove-winning shortstop), HAILE (3D: Two-time Olympic running gold medalist ___ Gebrselassie), UTO-, FES (!?!?!) (10D: Moroccan city known as the Athens of Africa). Too much collateral damage for an only so-so theme. Also, 14D [CALL] BOX should've been a revealer. That's clearly the hook. Why it's just buried in a random answer in the NE, I don't know.


Theme answers:

• CALL THE DOGS OFF / CALLIOPE
• BACALL / CALLBOX
• DON'T CALL US WE'LL CALL YOU / RECALL / RAPSCALLION (that last one is the Very Best of the "CALL"-containing words)
• CATCALL / CALLAS (66A: Singer known as La Divina)
• TOO CLOSE TO CALL / ROLL CALL

Thought Homer's muse was ERATO, so that slowed things up considerably. Had big missing chunks in the NW and so abandoned it. More trouble getting into the NE (when two corners put up bad resistance, on a Thursday, it's a rebus, for sure). Picked up the theme by piecing together the central answer. I really should have two difficulty levels: the level before you pick up the theme (hard) and after (mostly easy). Maybe that's true with most theme, but it's *especially* true today. Predictably cornered CALLs heighten this effect. There's a repeated CAT in the grid, which I thought was a no-no, but apparently not. Both answers are sharp, but I wouldn't dupe CAT. Not good form. If either of the answers were totally unrelated to the feline cat, then no problem. But that's not the case.


Bullets:

• 39D: "O'Hara's Choice" novelist (URIS) — really wanted O'HARA here.
• 65A: Commercial figure holding six beer mugs (ST. PAUL GIRL) — I approve this clue and answer. Lovely.
• 15A: One's initial response to this clue, perhaps ("I HAVE NO IDEA") — I want to hate this, but can't. It's pretty clever.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Film resident of Crab Key Island / THU 4-18-13 / Taxi worker / Long writers blocks / Senorita's silver / TV neigh-sayer / Actor who made his film debut in Breakin 1984 / Big-eared Star Wars character

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: ALPS (68A: High points of which five are found going up in this puzzle) — five Across answers exceed their allotted space, climbing the letters A, L, P on a diagonal, and continuing at other Acrosses (which, in the AcrossLite version, are clued [---])

• TID ALP OOL (22A: Where seawater remains after an ebb + 5A: ---)
• RACI ALP ROFILING (38A: Unethical law enforcement practice + 20A: ---)
• NATION ALP ASTIME (44A: Baseball, in America + 28A: ---)
• MECHANIC ALP OWER (54A: Engine's output + 40A: ---)
• LEG ALP ADS (67A: Long writers' blocks? + 51A: ---)

Word of the Day: ALDOL (51D: Perfume ingredient) —

n.

1. A thick, colorless to pale yellow liquid, C₄H₈O₂, obtained from acetaldehyde and used in perfumery and as a solvent.

2. A similar aldehyde. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Some pretty meager ALPS. More like short staircases. Took me forever to see the gimmick here, and while it's ambitious and out-of-the-ordinary (both good), it felt kind of broken. I just don't think ALP is in any way a good indicator of the use of physical space in this puzzle. It's imagistically imperfect. I like the idea of theme answers doing what the theme answers do in this grid, but ALPS does not represent that action well. Strange. Whole set-up felt pretty perverse, esp. the [---] clues. If you're solving on the right side of the grid, you're just getting nonsense, and there's no clear point to the [---] clues. Even when I went looking for the revealer and found it, ALPS does not come to mind for the generic [High points], and the clues / answers down there made it very hard to get in there. No idea what an ALDOL is. Clue on TOUT was too vague to be useful (65A: Push). I put in TOP LIT but couldn't get much to work and ended up taking it out. Grid was 80% filled in before I had any idea what was happening. Whole thing felt like a slog. Ambition without graceful execution. Better than ho-hum routine fare, I guess, but dissatisfying nonetheless. Nothing about three steps up says ALPS to me.

Not that many four-letter titled fictional characters out there, and we get two of them today: DR. NO (13A: Film resident of Crab Key Island) and MR. ED (30D: TV neigh-sayer?). Odd. What exactly is 1A quoting ("This bag is not A TOY")????? Your mom? It's odd, in that I don't know what the source is, and morbid, in that it calls to mind children asphyxiated by bags. Interesting bit of trivia about an ancient bit of crosswordese today in the AMATI clue (15A: Instrument bearing the coat of arms of France's Charles IX). Less interesting trivia about ancient crosswordese TRINI Lopez (2D: Lopez with the 1965 hit "Lemon Tree"). 7A: Jay LENO'S Garage (popular automotive Web site) had me wondering about the meaning of the word "popular." Not sure what is "historical" about PAPUA—I guess it used to be called that (?)—but it's an obvious answer considering the country that makes up the island's eastern half is called PAPUA New Guinea. There was an odd assortment of '80s/'90s pop culture today with ERIKA Eleniak, LATKA (47D: "Taxi" worker), and ICE-T in his movie debut (34D: Actor who made his film debut in "Breakin'," 1984). Major mistakes on my part included EWOK for YODA (4D: Big-eared "Star Wars" character), KLEE for DALI (10D: "Swans Reflecting Elephants" artist), and PLAYA for PLATA (36D: Señorita's silver). Excellent clue of the day (a tough one) goes to 53D: Doesn't strike out in the end (STETS). Terrible fill redeemed by outstanding clue.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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