Scoundrel's deeds / MON 6-8-26 / Email winnower / Popular board game adapted from India [1] / Watercraft for an Inuit / Accessibility law inits

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only)

THEME: PARAMOUNT (50A: Of the highest importance ... or, when parsed differently, what each bracketed number in the clues indicates?) — the word "PAR" appears at the front of every word in the theme answers (first once, then twice, then three times)—so the bracketed number at the end of every theme clue indicates that answer's "PAR amount":

Theme answers:

• PARCHEESI (18A: Popular board game adapted from India [1])
• PARALLEL PARKING (23A: Challenge for student drivers [2])
• PARTY PARTY PARTY! (41A: Never stop having fun [3])

Word of the Day: HUGO Boss (12A: Designer Boss) —

Hugo Ferdinand Boss (8 July 1885 – 9 August 1948) was a German businessman who founded the fashion house Hugo Boss. He was an active member of the Nazi Party from 1931, and remained so until Nazi Germany's capitulation. His clothing company also utilized forced labour drawn from German-occupied territories and prisoner-of-war camps to manufacture military uniforms for the Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't really know what to do with this. I don't get it. I feel like I should get it. It's Monday. Monday themes should be clear. And this one appears clear. There are brackets telling you the amount (number) of "PAR"s in each theme answer. But ... why? What does Par have to do with anything? Is it golf? It doesn't feel very golfy, this puzzle. And nothing about PAR AMOUNT gets at the fact that "PAR" is in every word of every theme answer, and at the front of every word. Like, the PARs don't just appear, they appear in a very specific fashion ... but the revealer is only concerned with the "amount"? I feel like there's something clever here that I'm missing. Sadly, all I see are 1, 2, 3 "PAR"s ... for some reason. Or no reason. Just 'cause. Doesn't seem like a particularly inspiring idea for a theme. The parsing of PARAMOUNT as PAR [space] AMOUNT is kind of cute, but the end result is just ... counting "PAR"s, and that doesn't seem like much. Also, "PARTY PARTY PARTY" feels like a very weak and contrived way to get your three "PAR"s in. Is that a phrase people say? When they want to ... party (all the time) (party all the time) (party all the time)? I dunno. But I did enjoy the Downs-only solve, which felt constantly PARilous (just imagine that that is a good pun). I really thought I was going to fail to finish, multiple times, right up to the very end, when, finally, I managed to see GOTCHAS (4D: Hidden snags). With only the "C" and the "A" in place, I was Not seeing it. Earlier, I wanted CATCHES, which seemed to fit the clue really nicely, but the crosses just wouldn't work. So I was happy to get that last big 'aha' with GOTCHAS, although I can't say that's a term I've seen in the plural very often, if ever. Strange theme, challenging Downs-only solve. Some interesting / unusual answers (SPAM FILTER / REPORT BACK / KNAVERY). I didn't have a bad time, that's about all I can say by way of an overall assessment.

So GOTCHAS was my main struggle point. I got SPAM FILTER with absolutely no help from crosses (9D: Email winnower), so that made the whole NE very pliable, but once I got into the center, and all around that third themer, things got real gunked up. KNAVERY is not an answer that's easy to parse, as you almost never see it and so don't expect it. At least I didn't. Plus I had EEO or EOE at 36D: Accessibility law inits. at first (Equal Employment Opportunity / Equal Opportunity Employer). But it's a very specific law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that the clue was after. Not having that "A" made KNAVERY impossible to see (34A: Scoundrel's deeds). Also, I know a little too much about Inuit watercraft, I think, as I wrote in UMIAK for 34D: Watercraft for an Inuit (KAYAK). "Like the kayak, the traditional umiak was made from a driftwood or whalebone frame pegged and lashed together, sometimes with antlers or ivory, over which walrus or bearded seal skins are stretched" (wikipedia). If you solved crosswords in the olden days, you may not have made the same mistake I did here, but perhaps you're nodding your head understandingly. So my first pass at KNAVERY  came out UNEVERY, which almost looks wordlike (something less than every?), but isn't. I also had NEW TO before NEW AT (28D: Starting to learn) and I had trouble figuring out THRIFT (43D: What misers take to an extreme), which is not a word that screams "miser," for me. REPORT BACK was a bear (25D: Give a debriefing (to)), but the K from KAYAK (er, UMIAK), got me RUBIK, which got me the "B" I (really) needed to see the BACK part of REPORT BACK, and then I was able to infer the rest.

Bullets:

• 12A: Designer ___ Boss (HUGO) — pretty notorious Nazi. Made uniforms for Nazis. Used prisoner-of-war labor. Surely there are other HUGOs. Why not Victor? Or Weaving? 

• 38A: Card game whose name is something players cry (UNO) — also GIN. Gotta be careful.
• 59A: Up in the air (ALOFT) — was able to parse this Across fairly easily because I'd been thinking about this word recently, as it's a word that is potentially lethal when playing Quordle (or Octordle). You can have all the letters but still screw up and play FLOAT if you're not careful. And FLOAT and ALOFT don't just share the same letters—three of those letters are in the same place. Tricky. Dangerous. 
• 26D: Prime use for a crowbar (LEVER) — I think the "use" thing threw me. A crowbar simply *is* a LEVER. Like, [Crowbar, e.g.] would've been a fine clue for LEVER. The clue isn't wrong, but its phrasing made me think the answer would be something like "PRYING" or "SMASHING WINDOWS" (only, you know, shorter).

That's all for today. See you next time. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I set the "Number of Days Without a Star Wars Reference" counter back to zero yesterday, late in the day, because, as someone in the Comments pointed out, the clue for RTE (46D: This is the way: Abbr.) is an expression frequently used on and popularized by The Mandalorian. 

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Color of the Owl and the Pussy-cat's boat / SUN 7-3-22 / Last name of the Boxcar Children in children's literature / Rathskeller decoration / Demeter's mother in myth / Anthropologist's adjective / Cocktail made with ginger beer / Brand that comes in short sleeves

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Expansion Pack" — theme answers don't appear to fit the clue; they're all two-word answers, where you have to read the first letter of the first word as *its own word*, and then take the second word normally (e.g. BOTTOM LINE = "B" LINE = BEELINE for 23A: Direct path) (there were "Puzzle Notes" that offered standard clues for the actual answers that appeared in the grid ...

... but those were an annoying distraction so I ignored them):

Theme answers:

• BOTTOM LINE = "B" LINE = "beeline" for 23A: Direct path
• OLDER BROTHER = "O" BROTHER = "Oh, brother!" for 29A: "Sheesh!"
• PUTTING GREEN = "P" GREEN = "pea green" for 41A: Color of the Owl and Pussy-cat's boat
• IN CONTACT = "I" CONTACT = "eye contact" for 63A: Something avoided during awkward situations
• CHARLEY HORSE = "C" HORSE = "seahorse" for 84A: Fish with a prehensile tail
• GIVING THANKS = "G" THANKS = "Gee, thanks" for 97A: "Oh, that's so nice of you to say!"
• THIRD PARTY = "T" PARTY = "tea party" for 105A: Mad Hatter's social event

Word of the Day: CLANGOR (84D: Cacophony) —

: a resounding clang or medley of clangsthe clangor of hammers (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

There's gotta be a better way to execute this concept. I kind of enjoyed figuring out what the hell was going on with the theme, but being confronted with the horrible "Puzzle Notes" ahead of time really mucked everything up. Just put a lot of wordy and dull and unnecessary blather between me and the puzzle experience. It's not That unusual for tricky puzzles to contain what are essentially unclued answers, so I don't know what the Notes were necessary. The first part of the "Notes" is actually fine—the part that says, essentially, "yo, a bunch of these answers aren't gonna match their clues, you gotta figure out why." That seems like plenty of help for any solver who might wonder what the hell they've stumbled into here. But the part where "standard clues" are offered up, in no particular order (???) as if they were somehow a feature and not a bug ... I don't get. The unclued answers remain a bug. You can embrace the bug-ness and just let them be, or you can try to eliminate the bug but end up smushing the bug and making an awful mess, which is essentially what happens here. Without the "Puzzle Notes" ... I think I like this concept fine. I definitely enjoyed not having any idea what was going on for a little bit. I like tricky themes that don't reveal themselves so easily, and this one definitely delivered on that count. Didn't put the trick together until right ... here:

Before that, I was under the impression that the first word of the themers was simply ballast, and its existence would be explained at some later point in the solve. That is, I assumed the literal answer to 23A: Direct path was LINE, that the color of the Owl / Pussy-cat boat was GREEN. Both answers seemed to work fine, so the whole first-letter concept didn't register. Then, as you can see (in the incomplete grid I just posted above), I had no idea how to spell GALL-VANTS, and while the only phrase that made sense at 63A was IN CONTACT, I wasn't about to commit to that answer until I had a grasp of what the hell was going on. Then I got to OLDER BROTHER, and saw the "Oh, brother!" connection immediately. Then I looked back on those earlier three themers and they all suddenly and clearly came into focus: beeline, pea green, and eye contact. True aha moment there. That was definitely where the puzzle peaked. The rest was easier and less exciting because the mystery was gone, but conceptually I think this one holds up pretty well. The unclued answers were always going to be a problem, and I just didn't like the clumsy attempt at handling them. Otherwise, thematically, thumbs up.

I also enjoyed the long Downs, particularly the fact that 3/4 of them were bouncy colloquial phrases. "LET'S GET ON WITH IT!" "WHAT'S YOUR SECRET?" and especially "ON THAT NOTE ..." were all winners. There were a few times when the fill felt a little anemic or downright ugly. That ATARUN (?) / TERCE corner (SW) is very unpretty (except for PRINCE, who is very pretty), and the "WAH!" "AH, ME" AMIGO cluster in the mideast was no looker either. "AH, ME" is always awful, and ... well, AMIGO is fine as an answer, but man do I hate that clue (46D: Broseph). Do people really talk that way? It's like a caricature of a caricature of how a "bro" talks. AMIGO is such a decent, all-purpose word, so why go and muck it up with fauxbrospeak, why? Sigh, ah me, etc. But beyond those two little sections, the weak spots appear only sporadically. My ALECTO (the one in every translation of the Aeneid I've ever read) has two "L"s, so that was weird (88A: One of the Furies of Greek myth). But I guess Virgil's spelling is anomalous. Or just a Latin variation. Dunno. No idea re: "A TO Z Mysteries" or ALDEN. I assumed the Boxcar Children were strictly a recent phenomenon, but it looks like they date back to the 1920s. Ah, I see the book series died out in the mid-70s but then got rebooted in the '90s. I missed both incarnations. The "A TO Z Mysteries" started in '97, way way past my time (they somehow missed my born-in-2000 daughter as well—weird). 

Mistakes? Sure, some. I had UNAPT at 5A: Not suited (for) (UNFIT) and that was oddly consequential for a while, since that answer contained the first letters of two Downs I didn't know (7D: The yolk's on them and 8D: ___ Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum's role in "Jurassic Park"). How is the yolk "on" FRIED EGGS any more than it's "on" any eggs? I get the pun, but it's UNAPT for the FRIED part of FRIED EGGS. I had BLAST before BEAST at 14A: Wild thing. I like that mistake. LOATHE before SCATHE at 94A: Excoriate. I like that mistake less. And CLANGOR, yeeeeesh. I wanted to write in CLAMOUR (British spelling?) and now the more I look at CLANGOR the less wordlike it looks (84D: Cacophony). It's like ... it wants to be CLAMOR, but also wants to be from BANGOR. It also sounds like an obscure "Star Trek" race, maybe one that got mentioned once, in a single episode of "TNG" in 1992, and then was never spoken of again. "Klingon" + "Borg" = CLANGOR! 

Taking a week off from Letters to the Editor this week. More next week. Any crossword or blog-related questions can be sent to me at rexparker at icloud dot com. Have a lovely rest of your 4th o' July weekend.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. RITZ crackers come in "sleeves" (something like OREOs) (33D: Brand that comes in short sleeves) and I guess STARs "heat" ... outer "space"? (113A: Space heater?). Oh and the [Big Bird?] is LARRY Bird because he was a big basketball star and also just big (6'9").

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Protein shell of virus / SUN 9-2-18 / Showdown in classic video games / Obie-winning playwright Will / Stefanik who is youngest woman ever elected to Congress / Brother of Dori Nori in Hobbit / Territory name until 1889

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium (10:50)

THEME: "Going Head to Head" — famous antagonists are written out "head to head" (i.e. with first name backward, so its first letter touches first letter of the second name):

Theme answers:

• SUESEHTMINOTAUR (22A: Showdown in Greek mythology)
• OIRAMBOWSER (28A: Showdown in classic video games)
• NOTLIMAHBURR (39A: Showdown in American history)
• EKULDARTHVADER (61A: Showdown in cinema)
• YPOONSREDBARON (69A: Showdown in the funnies)
• DIVADGOLIATH (92A: Showdown in the Bible)
• NAMTABJOKER (107A: Showdown in comic books)
• ETOXIUQWINDMILL (115A: Showdown in literature)

Word of the Day: CAPSID (95A: Protein shell of a virus) —

noun

1. A capsid is the protein shell of a virus [you don't say!!!]. It consists of several oligomeric structural subunits made of protein called protomers. The observable 3-dimensional morphological subunits, which may or may not correspond to individual proteins, are called capsomeres. The capsid encloses the genetic material of the virus. (emph mine) (wikipedia)

• • •

All this is—Literally All This Is—is famous antagonists pairs presented in the grid with their heads (i.e. first letters) touching, i.e. first name backward, second name forward. There's no gimmick, no trick. Just ... half-backward pairs. This isn't a thing. The pairs aren't even iconic much of the time. David & Goliath, well obviously, but Mario and Bowser???? What? I honestly don't even know what Bowser is. I know that Bowser is neither Hamilton- nor Burr-famous. Darth Vader is Luke's father (spoiler alert!), so ... that's not exactly a great example. Batman has many, many villains that he battles, though I guess Joker is probably the greatest of them all, so maybe that example is OK. I don't know. I think the basic premise just seems very, very weak to me, in that, again, it's just some kind of foes with one name turned the wrong way. [Extreme shrug]!!! Seems kinda UNIDEAL (just like the word UNIDEAL, coincidentally).


This one felt very fussy to me, throughout. Like someone was trying to toughen it up by simply making it more annoying. I finished with a typo/error at 38D: Defeat (WORST), mostly because omg who uses the word that way and How In The World does WORST mean the same as BEST!??!? That is insane. I must've seen R-D in the cross (43A: Hot ___) and instead of filling in the obvious ROD, wrote in the answer that would've been obvious if the blank had *preceded* the "Hot" (RED). And then I just didn't check the down in the end. Ugh, WORST. "I WORSTed you!" ... said Don Quixote to the Windmill, maybe? Why is it just LUKE but the full DARTH VADER. His name is LUKE SKYWALKER, man, come on. Be consistent. The fill on this one is not great, largely because there is a KILOTON of very short fill (not a lot of longer answers) and so you just get bombarded by NSA and SCHS and AAA (those are all abutting and crossing one another) and ORI and the dreaded AHME etc. ATTA OCTA ALII OSTEO make it stop. CAPSID, yikes! I was really worried that that answer was gonna kill me, as I had no idea about it or (for a while) KILOTON. There are some nice longer Downs, particularly NO-CALL LIST, "NOW WHERE WAS I...?" and "AMEN TO THAT!" But overall it felt like I was dealing with a subpar / unambitious theme, and like I was spending most of my time swatting at gnat-like short fill. I did not enjoy it NOWISE.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Ogden Nash's two-l beast / MON 9-18-17 / Start end of Greek spelling of Athena / ex of marla ivana informally

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: color-bodyparted — themers follow that basic pattern:

Theme answers:

• WHITE-KNUCKLED (20A: Visibly tense)
• GREEN-EYED (32A: Extremely jealous)
• RED-HANDED (44A: In the very act)
• YELLOW-BELLIED (56A: Deplorably cowardly)

Word of the Day: EUROPA (25A: Figure in Greek myth after whom a continent is named) —

Europa, in Greek mythology, the daughter either of Phoenix or of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. The beauty of Europa inspired the love of Zeus, who approached her in the form of a white bull and carried her away from Phoenicia to Crete. There she bore Zeus three sons: Minos, ruler of Crete; Rhadamanthys, ruler of the Cyclades Islands; and, according to some legends, Sarpedon, ruler of Lycia. She later married Asterius, the king of Crete, who adopted her sons, and she was worshipped under the name of Hellotis in Crete, where the festival Hellotia was held in her honour. (britannica)

• • •

If you like gated communities and grinding your teeth and modern Republican politics, welcome. Here is your puzzle. I wrote yesterday that the editor had a little love affair with the current White House. Then I briefly felt bad about that joke. I no longer feel bad about that joke. And RUBIO to boot? Gross. I'm all for the puzzle's reflecting the world at large, but when the world at large is this ****ing dystopic, I think it's reasonable not to feed the Publicity Obsessed White Supremacist in the White House With Yet More Publicity. I can barely even look at 11-Down. It's disgusting that anyone ever thought "let's give it a nickname, it'll be cute."

This seems like a theme that's been done, but not with these words, or in this exact way, I guess. YELLOW-BELLIED is the only one I really like. The only one that stands strong alone. RED-HANDED needs somebody who's been "caught," WHITE-KNUCKLED needs to ditch the "D" and then put itself before "RIDE," and GREEN-EYED needs "MONSTER" to be anything close to plausible. I never got a good solving rhythm going—felt like I was all over the place, and also solving my way through mud. But then the clock said 2:39 which is a well-below-average time for me. Weird. 

Wife is annoyed at how frequently KNEEL is clued in relation to knighthood (21D: Prepare to be knighted). "Where's the Kaepernick clue!?" Good question.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Rod-shaped bacterium / MON 7-17-17 / Brand of sheepskin boots / Annoying feature of online stream

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ODDS AND ENDS (55A: Miscellany ... or a description of the final words in 15-, 23-, 30-, 38- and 43-Across) — final words of themers are both odds (i.e. odd numbers) and ends (ends of their respective answers)

Theme answers:

• AIR FORCE ONE (15A: President's plane)
• STRIKE THREE (23A: Cry before "You're out!")
• GIMME FIVE (30A: "Up top!")
• GAME SEVEN (38A: Conclusion of a close World Series)
• ON CLOUD NINE (43A: Ecstatic)

Word of the Day: SAO TOMÉ (39D: Príncipe's sister island) —

São Tomé and Príncipe (/ˌsaʊ təˈmeɪ ən ˈprɪnsᵻpə/ SOW-tə-MAY-ən PRIN-si-pə or /ˈprɪnsᵻpeɪ/ PRIN-si-pay;^[7] Portuguese: [sɐ̃w tuˈmɛ i ˈpɾĩsɨpɨ]), officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two archipelagos around the two main islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about 140 kilometres (87 miles) apart and about 250 and 225 kilometres (155 and 140 miles), respectively, off the northwestern coast of Gabon. // The islands were uninhabited until their discovery by Portuguese explorers in the 15th century. Gradually colonized and settled by the Portuguese throughout the 16th century, they collectively served as a vital commercial and trade center for the Atlantic slave trade. The rich volcanic soil and close proximity to the equator made São Tomé and Príncipe ideal for sugar cultivation, followed later by cash crops such as coffee and cocoa; the lucrative plantation economy was heavily dependent upon imported African slaves. Cycles of social unrest and economic instability throughout the 19th and 20th centuries culminated in peaceful independence in 1975. São Tomé and Príncipe has since remained one of Africa's most stable and democratic countries. // With a population of 192,993 (2013 Census), São Tomé and Príncipe is the second-smallest African country after Seychelles, as well as the smallest Portuguese-speaking country. Its people are predominantly of African and mestiço descent, with most practising Roman Catholicism. The legacy of Portuguese rule is also visible in the country's culture, customs, and music, which fuse European and African influences.

 • • •

This is an exemplary little Monday. Full of mainstream, gettable, common answers. Not overly reliant on crosswordese or abbrs. or partials or other nonsense. And the theme—makes sense! The revealer reveals! Wordplay! Accurate wordplay! Hurrah. The numbers go in order, of course; I want to call that "elegant," but I think it's actually necessary ... although some variant with answers like "HEY NINETEEN" and "FRESHMAN FIFTEEN" (15!) could've been interesting. Anyway, this puzzle will not blow your mind, but it is a very fine example of what a Monday should be: easy, accessible, smooth, quirky, fun. Tom! Nice work, Tom.


I really gotta remember not to look at Twitter until I've finished the puzzle because even though people don't usually spoil it outright, I don't like seeing people's posted times. Gets in my head. Sets up expectations. Ruins the experience. This is a bit like how I feel about books I read or movies I see—the less I know going in, the happier I am. Clean slate! Anyway, I looked at Twitter and saw someone posted a personal record time, so I thought "crap, that means I'm gonna trip all over myself solving this thing." But I didn't. Solve felt choppy, for sure, but I came in a good 10-15 seconds under my Monday average (so ... in the low 2:40s). And that's despite confidently filling in a completely wrong second half of the answer at 29D: Means of tracking workers' hours. Went with TIME CLOCK, perhaps because they are a part of local business history here in Binghamton, NY: "1889: Harlow E. Bundy and Willard L. Bundy incorporate the Bundy Manufacturing Company in Binghamton, New York, the first time recording company in the world, to produce time clocks" (wikipedia). UNSNAG was the only iffy part of the puzzle for me (42D: Release from being caught on a nail, say), but I *guess* it's a word, so OK. Overall, a nice treat to tide us over until Wednesday (since Tuesday will inevitably be a disaster).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Ackbar's rank in Star Wars / SUN 6-4-17 / Cylinder-shaped pasta / It knits up the ravell'd sleave of care per macbeth

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Dunno—group-solved it as Doug Peterson read clues to us in the restaurant earlier this evening... Medium?

See, here's the screenshot of Doug's phone:

THEME: "Advice to Writers" — themers are ironic "rules"—ironic because they violate themselves

Word of the Day: John NANCE Garner (28D: Vice President John ___ Garner) —

John Nance Garner IV (November 22, 1868 – November 7, 1967), known among his contemporaries as "Cactus Jack", was an American Democratic politician and lawyer from Texas. He was a Texas state representative from 1898 to 1902, and U.S. Representative from 1903 to 1933. He was the 39th Speaker of the House from 1931 to 1933. In 1932 and 1936 he was elected the 32nd Vice President of the United States, serving from 1933 to 1941. A conservative Southerner, Garner opposed the sit-down strikes of the labor unions and the New Deal's deficit spending. He broke with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in early 1937 over the issue of enlarging the Supreme Court, and helped defeat it on the grounds that it centralized too much power in the President's hands. (wikipedia)

• • •

I have serious qualms about this theme, mainly because nearly every themer is lifted (with small changes for the purposes of answer-length/grid symmetry) from this list of "The Fumblerules" by William Safire. (Here's the direct link to the "On Language" column in question, from 1979). There are a couple of changes that are original and cute—most notably the repeated final themer (AVOID REDUNDANCY)—but even POOFREAD CARFULY, which is original in its misspelling conceit, plays off a base phrase that was lifted verbatim from Safire's list. I'm trying really hard to understand how this kind of appropriation without attribution is *not* a form of plagiarism. When you take someone else's ideas, their original work, and pass it off as your own ... yeah, that's what plagiarism is. I'm just ... trying to find a way around this. "It's just a crossword" is the only defense I can imagine, and as you can imagine, I find that defense fantastically pathetic. NEVER GENERALIZE is the only one here that seems entirely original, and (perhaps not surprisingly) it's also the weakest. I've seen puzzles that were obviously just "stuff from a list I found on the web" before, but I've never seen anything that seemed to be taking the work of one specific person before. It's disturbing.

Theme answers (Writing tips #1-7):

• NEVER GENERALIZE
• POOFREAD CARFULY (Safire: “Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.”)
• NO SENTENCE FRAGMENTS (Safire: “No sentence fragments.”)
• PASSIVES MUST BE SHUNNED (Safire: “The passive voice should never be used.”)
• DON'T USE CONTRACTIONS (Safire: “Don't use contractions in formal writing.”)
• AVOID REDUNDANCIES (Safire: “Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.”)
• AVOID REDUNDANCIES

I don't really care to comment more on this puzzle. Except OVERGO, which is hilarious in its non-wordness.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Old-fashioned wine holder / MON 3-27-17 / What Google's Ngram program tracks for word usage / Labourite's opponent in British politics / Group of books that educated person is supposed to be familiar with

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (slowish for Monday, though maybe that's 'cause the grid is extra-wide today)

THEME: STAKE OUT (39A: Police operation ... or, when read another way, what a grammarian would like to do to 18-, 24-, 52- and 65-Across) — ungrammatical expressions involving extra esses...

Theme answers:

• ALL'S I KNOW... (18A: "The one thing that's clear to me ...")
• A LONG WAYS OFF (24A: Distant)
• AND THEN I SAYS ... (52A: Narrative conncector) [that is One Hell of a vague clue]
  
• HOW'S ABOUT ...? (65A: "What do you think of ...?")

Word of the Day: TROIKA (30D: Group of three) —

noun

noun: troika; plural noun: troikas

1. 1.

   a Russian vehicle pulled by a team of three horses abreast.

   • a team of three horses for a troika.
2. 2.

   a group of three people working together, especially in an administrative or managerial capacity. (google)

• • •

Can't tell if this was slightly harder than the average Monday, or just took slightly longer because of the extra-wide (16) grid. All's I know is I was about 15-20 seconds slower than normal (significant on a Monday). At first, I wasn't sure why the 16-square width was necessary, but if you're gonna put an even-number-lettered revealer in the center, then yeah, your grid has to be an even number of squares wide. I didn't think the revealer worked very well as clued; that is, "a grammarian would like to 'S' take out" sounds totally ridiculous, but that's the formulation the clue specifically asks for. S TAKE-OUT is better as a noun—something a grammarian would like to perform on the relevant theme entries. Clued as a verb phrase, it's nonsense. Further, A LONG WAYS OFF seems like an outlier here in at least a couple way(s). It's the only truly stand-alone phrase, all the other being sentence lead-ins. It's the only one that is not definitively colloquial, i.e. a commonly if not exclusively *spoken* formulation. It's also the least grammar-violating, ALL'S and HOW'S being grammatically nonsensical, and I SAYS being a matter of overt subj/verb disagreement. Changing WAY to WAYS (or vice versa) just doesn't seem in the same universe as the other grammarian-offending phrases.


The non-theme stuff, on the other hand, is quite nice, with six Downs of 7+ letters in length giving the grid a lot more character than you typically see on a Monday. Plus, there's very little in the way of junk. This has all been nicely polished, with only AAHED and maybe GLO getting me even the slightest bit RILEd. I love the words FLAGON (27D: Old-fashioned wine holder) and TROIKA, for purely aesthetic reasons.

[sorry this song was in the background of the trailer for the movie "STAKEOUT" and so I looked it up and it is pretty evocative of a pretty terrible time in pop music videos so I thought 'sure, throw it in...']

Congrats to Dan Feyer, who won his 7th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament championship yesterday, beating out fellow killer-solvers Tyler Hinman and Joon Pahk. I HOPE to see you tomorrow. Au revoir.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS NOT SO'S YOU'D NOTICE woulda made a nice central 15 in a normal-sized grid ... maybe change the revealer to SLOP and shove it in a corner ... I'm just spitballin' here ...

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Coins that pay for passage over River Styx / SUN 12-11-16 / Skimobile informally / Purported rural shenanigan / Quaff in Middle-Earth / Nickname Game of thrones dwarf

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Retronyms" — theme answers are ... retronyms (you'd think you could've tried a little harder with the title, there...)

Theme answers:

• BRITISH ENGLISH (21A: Dialect that was called 22-Across before the age of colonialism)
• SNAIL MAIL (33A: System that was called 34-Across before the Internet)
• REAL NUMBER (35A: Concept that was called 36-Across before research into the square root of negatives)
• BLACK LICORICE (52A: Food that was called 53-Across before Twizzlers and the like)
• FLATHEAD SCREW (78A: Fastener that was called 80-Across before a rounded design was implemented)
• SILENT FILM (96A: Entertainment category that was called 97-Across before talkies)
• PAPER COPY (98A: Object that was called 100-Across before electronic documents)
• ORGANIC FARMING (109A: Activity that was called 111-Across before pesticides)

Word of the Day: AREPAS (29D: South American corn cakes) —

Arepa (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈɾepa]) is a type of food made of ground maize dough or cooked flour prominent in the cuisines of Colombia and Venezuela. [...] The arepa is a flat, round, unleavened patty of soaked, ground kernels of maize, or—more frequently nowadays—maize meal or maize flour that can be grilled, baked, fried, boiled or steamed. The characteristics vary by color, flavor, size, and the food with which it may be stuffed, depending on the region. It can be topped or filled with meat, eggs, tomatoes, salad, cheese, shrimp, or fish depending on the meal. (wikipedia)

• • •

Easiest Sunday puzzle I've ever done. Nearly broke 8 minutes, which I have only ever done on like a Newsday or Globe Sunday (i.e. much less thornier brands). I don't really understand why this puzzle exists. The title tells you what the theme answers will be, and then there you are. The one tricky thing, from a construction standpoint, is you've gotta make sure you have a Down answers beginning at the front of the second word in every themer, so that the theme clues make sense when they refer to an "Across" answer where the number is not in its usual flush-left position. But that's the only thing separating this puzzle from one that is titled, say, "Big Cats," where the answers are JAGUAR, PUMA, etc. That is ... there's nothing to it. In fact, I started solving without looking at the title, and about midway I thought, "So these are just ... what's that word ... oh, yeah, retronyms." And then I looked at the title: "Retronyms." And I thought "you must be joking..."


There are four "IT"s in this puzzle, as well as one 'TIS—in a puzzle that already contains ITIS. So ... that happened. AREPAS are tasty, so I enjoyed thinking about them. Surprised they don't appear in crosswords more often, what with their savory taste and appealing letter combinations. Today's great crosswordese-retrieval triumph was reading 40A: Coins that pay for passage over the River Styx and, off the "O," putting OBOLS right in. Today's snags—such as they were—came in the NE, where TOA (not TOE?) (28A: ___ point) crossed ALGAL (17D: ___ bloom (result of fertilizer pollution)), and then again at NO ONE'S down below—came at that answer from the back end and needed every cross to understand what the hell was going on (116A: Not belonging to anybody). Oh, rounding the corner out of the N and into the NE was also mildly rough (!) because I had the UN- but not the HANDS of UNHANDS (12D: Releases, dramatically). That clue is vaguely phrased, both pre- and post-comma, so ... I circled back around and approached from underneath. There really isn't anything to say about this puzzle. The title tells you the theme. The theme answers are as promised. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. [They go about two feet] is a great clue for SOCKS (42D)

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Novelist Pierre / SUN 10-16-16 / Principia Discordia figure / Unleavened cornbread / Title for Palpatine Amidala Star Wars / Malicious fictional computer

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Emotion" — the letter "e" moves (i.e. is in "motion") in one word in each of the themers:

Theme answers:

• TRICKS OF THE TREAD (23A: Goodyear's carefully guarded secrets?)
• BALANCED EDIT (33A: Revision that satisfies both author and publisher?)
• MINUET HAND (48A: What a pianist uses for triple-time pieces?)
• GREAT SALT LEAK (63A: Result of a Morton's factory explosion?)
• MALES ON WHEELS (70A: Skater boys?)
• MATE MARKET (84A: Dating site?)
• THE CHOSEN EON (99A: Privileged time period?)
• A TEAL OF TWO CITIES (112A: Color used by teams from both San Jose and Jacksonville?) 

Word of the Day: CUESTA (34D: Ridge with a gentle slope on one side and a steep slope on the other) —

A cuesta is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope on one side, and a steep slope on the other. In geology the term is more specifically applied to a ridge where a harder sedimentary rock overlies a softer layer, the whole being tilted somewhat from the horizontal. This results in a long and gentle backslope called a dip slope that conforms with the dip of resistant strata, called caprock. Where erosion has exposed the frontslope of this, a steep slope or escarpment occurs. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle is bafflingly dull and old-fashioned, which is startling, as its talented constructor is neither of these things. Simple gimmicks can work if they are executed to perfect, with surprising, clever theme-answer results. But these themers are just workmanlike, at best. I kinda like MALES ON WHEELS, but the rest feel like first-draft ideas that shouldn't been rejected. This is like a theme that hasn't been allowed to simmer long enough. Very undercooked, both at the level of concept (really, you just move .... one "e"?) and at the level of execution (really, these are the best themers you could come up with?). I would expect to see a puzzle like this (that is, competent but boring) in another, putatively sub-NYT venue. Not as the marquee puzzle of the self-described "Best Puzzle in the World." Beyond the theme, even, there's little that is fresh or current. ICE BUCKET, I guess, but that a. seems like a partial and b. already feels dated (52D: Kind of challenge). SANTA'S LAP, I really liked, both clue and answer (37D: You might wish upon it). But the rest, no. Eno.


The fill was clunky and musty. I literally shouted at the grid at one point after it not only crossed UPs (ADD UP / GOES UP) but then (like 20 seconds later) gave me Yet Another UP (SOPS UP). Up yours, puzzle! Also, AHH and AWW in the same grid? Ugh. LOTI? (28A: Novelist Pierre). No ... tee. Multiple OCTS and RDAS? The ridiculous not-a-thing prescription abbr. TER (this one drives my pediatrician friend Erin krazy!). I wonder if anyone is going to be tripped up by the CUESTA / ERIS crossing. I have never heard of CUESTA—I am happy to learn the word (which I will soon forget, no doubt) but the "S" involves some inference, i.e. knowing that ERIS (50A: "Principia Discordia" figure) is oft clued as [Goddess of discord]. I can see dropping an "N" in there, no problem. If you have to rely on the relatively obscure CUESTA to make your grid work, you should make sure the crosses are clued fairly. That is all.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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