Thick liquidy clump / WED 12-29-21 / Van Gogh's art dealer brother / 1980s fad items advertised as the gift that grows / Stereotypical lumberjack feature / Lettered awards show host / Lettered home on the range when no one's home

Constructor: Simon Marotte and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Lettered" answers — themers, when you say them out loud, sound like a bunch of letters ... I am pretty sure that is all there is to it—if there's some meta puzzle where the 17 letters can be arranged to spell something, well, that's more effort than I'm willing to expend right now:

Theme answers:

• EMMY EMCEE (17A: Lettered awards show host?) (M, E, M, C)
• CAGEY ENEMY (30A: Lettered adversary in a battle of wits?) (K, G, N, M, E)
• EMPTY TEPEE (49A: Lettered home on the range when no one's home?) (M, T, T, P)
• EASY ESSAY (65A: Lettered school paper that's a snap to write?) (E, Z, S, A)

Word of the Day: "Lohengrin" (11D: Lohengrin's love = ELSA) —

Lohengrin, WWV 75, is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and its sequel Lohengrin, itself inspired by the epic of Garin le Loherain. It is part of the Knight of the Swan legend.

The opera has inspired other works of art. King Ludwig II of Bavaria named his castle Neuschwanstein Castle after the Swan Knight. It was King Ludwig's patronage that later gave Wagner the means and opportunity to complete, build a theatre for, and stage his epic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. He had discontinued composing it at the end of Act II of Siegfried, the third of the Ring tetralogy, to create his radical chromatic masterpiece of the late 1850s, Tristan und Isolde, and his lyrical comic opera of the mid-1860s, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

The most popular and recognizable part of the opera is the Bridal Chorus, colloquially known as "Here Comes the Bride," usually played as a processional at weddings. The orchestral preludes to Acts I and III are also frequently performed separately as concert pieces. (wikipedia)

• • •

Jarringly dated and not up to contemporary standards at all. Both theme and fill feel like they're from another era, another century, and not in some cute nostalgic way, but in a way that makes you appreciate how far even average puzzles have come in the past couple of decades. First, I don't even know what the joke is supposed to be with this theme. That is, how is "lettered" being ... used? Punned on? Am I supposed to imagine that all the "lettered" things earned a "letter" in sports? In high school? Or is the idea that they have all been formally educated? Even the TEPEE? What? The use of "lettered" here is a painfully awkward and confusing way to signal the theme. The clues aren't even wacky—they're just straight clues with "lettered" attached to the beginning. There's nothing wordplay-ish about any of it, so why, why is this happening at all? If you can't get a good revealer to make all these answers make sense, to tie them all up in a neat package, then you need to not be doing this theme at all. Even if the cluing (or hypothetical revealer) had been letter (!) perfect, the premise is still of dubious merit, and the theme answer set does not exactly sparkle. How is anyone gonna get excited about an answer like EASYESSAY? What part of it, clue or answer, produces joy, or even a hint of a smile? These are imagined phrases that just lie there—this puzzle doesn't even have the decency to throw some genuine wackiness my way. It's a load of earnest Blah from start to finish. Also, that is an awkward spelling of TEPEE. Also, EMPTY has that "p" sound, which kind of undermines the theme's central premise. Also, ELLIE conspicuously fulfills the theme concept without being part of the actual theme—ideally you'd get rid of all such non-theme answers. There's really nothing to like about this theme. IT'S not OK. 

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw [Lohengrin's love] as a clue. Turns out it's only been about four years or so, but you used to see it all the time before "Frozen" came out and absolutely took over ELSA cluing duties. [Lohengrin's love] simply adds to the conspicuous bygone feel of this puzzle. This puzzle coulda run when LOU Bega was dominating the charts or even when Miss ELLIE was all over the TV airwaves. AMY ADAMS and SWOLE are about the only things connecting this thing to the 21st century. The fill is plain and bland and overfamiliar. I'm looking for highlights and not finding any. The only thing that stood out to me about this puzzle, besides its thematic inadequacy, is that western section, which for some reason was 10x more difficult than the rest of the puzzle (very easy). Most of the clues in there just didn't add up. I had LAY AN EGG, but even those "G"s didn't help. The SHOE clue was baffling (27A: It's a little longer than a foot), and I was imagining the "bit" in 36A: Bit of bar food as something much smaller than a WING. ONE UP is confusing when you make golf the context, since being ahead actually means having a stroke count *under* the other person's. Any other sports context would've worked fine for that clue, but ugh, golf, sure. I took "Shout-out" as something ORAL so "HI MOM" didn't occur to me for 28D: Shout-out from the stands (since it usually comes in sign and hot "shouted" form). And of course the one answer I knew in that section (LOU) led me straight into a sinkhole—having the "L" in place at 27D: Muscled, slangily (SWOLE), I wrote in BUILT. But my limited speed failings aren't the real problem here. The weak theme and tepid fill, that's the problem. GLOOP—that just about sums it up. Hoping for better results tomorrow. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. there are much better CESARs than this puzzle's misguided and harmful "celebrity dog trainer." Actor Romero, Labor leader Chavez, French film award, etc. So many. It's bad enough we hunt wolves nearly to extinction; to willfully misunderstand them in order to promote systems of human dominance is really too much, man (thanks to reader Thomas B. for this reference):

It concerns me that many mainstream trainers are still promoting ideas that have long been rejected by the very experts who study this topic most. Any training ideology that relies on your being a "pack leader" or an "alpha" instead of a loving parent to your dog is misguided. The fact that this myth has persisted for so long in the face of science that shows otherwise means that there is much work to do to enlighten the public. (Zak George, HuffPo, 2017)

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Jazz pianist Garner / FRI 5-12-17 / Order repeated before hike / Record producer Pettibone / Civic animal / First lady after Lou / Beloved army leader

Constructor: Bill Clinton and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: sort of 

Theme answers:

• DON'T STOP / THINKING / ABOUT TOMORROW (lyrics from Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop," the (unofficial?) theme song of the Clinton/Gore 1992 US Presidential campaign)
• "It's the ECONOMY, stupid!" (noted catchphrase of said campaign) 

NOTE:

Word of the Day: ERROLL Garner (44D: Jazz pianist Garner) —

Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1923 – January 2, 1977; some sources say 1921) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard. Scott Yanow of Allmusic calls him "one of the most distinctive of all pianists" and a "brilliant virtuoso". He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6363 Hollywood Blvd. (wikipedia)

• • •

Look, I voted for him twice, but this is not a very good puzzle and if I said it was I would get dragged from here to Natick and back because it's manifestly not. It's a vanity-theme puzzle masquerading as a Friday themeless. You wanna make a puzzle, make a *puzzle*—not whatever this winky, self-congratulatory thing is. It's not a satisfying themed puzzle, and it's really not a satisfying themeless. Neither fish nor fowl. Slightly inedible. I guess I briefly enjoyed noticing the Fleetwood Mac lyrics that are so closely associated with this puzzle's co-author's 1992 presidential campaign. Beyond that, there's not much to enjoy here, and deep in your heart (blue, red, purple, whatever color your heart is) you know it. This is a publicity stunt, as all these celeb co-authored puzzles are (though some have been better than others). Meanwhile, the quality of the puzzle on a day-to-day basis is way down, and (in a possibly related fact) constructor pay *languishes* at a dismal $300 (somewhat but not much more if you're a veteran constructor). I thought fair pay was an important issue for Democrats. Here's something from a recent WSJ article:

Last week, the New York Times reported a gain of 348,000 new subscribers—including 40,000 crossword-only subscribers—in the latest quarter.

And that's just since the 2016 election. To give you a sense of how badly constructors are paid, that bump *alone* (in crossword-*only* subscribers) would pay constructors fees for *all* constructors, *annually*, *many* *times* *over*.  It costs under $200K / year (!?!?!) to pay constructors right now. You don't wanna know what that represents as a slice of the NYT's overall crossword revenue, because that slice is nearly non-existent. At that level of inequity, I don't know why anyone even submits to the NYT any more, except for exposure or "prestige." So you see, Mr. President—it's the ECONOMY (I know better than to call you "stupid").

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Bond girl Adams / MON 9-12-16 / Crankcase attachments / Modest swimming garment / Remove as currency from fixed rate

Constructor: Victor Fleming and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Normal Monday, maybe slightly easier than normal (so ... Easy-Medium?)

THEME: homophonic verb phrases —

Theme answers:

• POLLS POLES (17A: Asks Warsaw residents their opinions?)
• HEALS HEELS (11D: Cures the backs of feet?)
• SELLS CELLS (27D: Finds buyers for smartphones?)
• ADDS ADS (39A: Increases the number of commercials?)
• PARES PEARS (62A: Peels some fruit?)

Word of the Day: MAUD Adams (24D: Bond girl Adams) —

Maud Solveig Christina Wikström (born 12 February 1945), known professionally as Maud Adams, is a Swedish actress, known for her roles as two different Bond girls: in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), and as the eponymous character in Octopussy (1983) as well as making a brief uncredited appearance in A View to a Kill (1985) . (wikipedia)

• • •

Sincerely, objectively, this is not good. This is far below the quality of puzzle the NYT should be putting out on a regular basis. Yes, even on Monday. Not only is the theme stale and corny, the fill is mediocre to bad in a way that shouldn't be acceptable any more, especially in an easy Monday puzzle. LOOIE RRS ASSN PEDI AND EMDASH ISDUE MAH AMIS ESAI UNPEG SACS ERTE ASIS SSGT ... for starters. It's an avalanche of the common, awkward, tedious. Virtually all clues are oriented toward some time roughly 30-50 years ago. I can't believe the NYT needs Mondays this badly. S.O.S.

[29D: Bette who won a Golden Globe Award for "Gypsy"]

But back to the theme—come on. If this is a theme ... you can make another just like it without much effort. SEARS SEERS, BARES BEARS, HAULS HALLS (Transports cough drops?) etc. And the themers we get today aren't even wacky. They do not even have the questionable virtue of Wackiness. I mean POLLS POLES, as clued, Does Not Require The "?" That Is Attached To It. It's literal. It's not even an unimaginable cuckoo kind of a thing. Just a thing. That rhymes. Homophones. Again, ugh. No real imagination here. As for solving problems, there were none except at the very end, when I had [Baby back ribs source] as PIT (as in "barbecue PIT"). I stood outside a barbecue joint while drinking a vanilla malt earlier today, so that may have had something to do with the error.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Faerie Queene woman whose name means peace / MON 10-19-15 / TV installation not requiring antenna / Electric Slide Cotton-Eyed Joe / Signature Muhammad Ali ploy / Smallish computer storage unit for short

Constructor: Bruce Venzke and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Medium Monday

THEME: TIES (69A: Binds ... or a hint to the starts of the answers to the six starred clues) —

Theme answers:

• CABLE OUTLET (17A: *TV installation not requiring an antenna)
• WIRE FRAUD (24A: *Crime involving a Nigerian prince, maybe)
• LINE DANCE (50A: *Electric Slide or Cotton-Eyed Joe)
• STRING BEANS (62A: *Tall, skinny sorts)
• ROPE-A-DOPE (11D: *Signature Muhammad Ali ploy)
• CHAIN MAIL (31D: *Protective medieval gear)

Word of the Day: TAYE Diggs (43A: Diggs of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back") —

Scott Leo "Taye" Diggs (born January 2, 1971) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Broadway musicals Rent and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back, the series Private Practice, and the film The Best Man and its sequel The Best Man Holiday. (wikipedia)

• • •

Old Ideas week continues. Today, a classic First Words-type theme with a massive Thud of a revealer. Usually, these days, old theme types are livened up by some revealer that at least gives some interesting, wordplay-type angle to the whole set-up. But this puzzle is livened up only by Density, and there just aren't enough strong longer answers to sustain interest. The two Down themers are probably my favorite, but they are it, as far as interesting fill goes today.  The fill is not great, but I've certainly seen worse. Can't believe you couldn't somehow eliminate the icky IRENA (51D: "The Faerie Queene" woman whose name means "peace"), and OLD BAG is gross and sexist (65A: Hag) (particularly in the hands of male constructors and male editors), but other stuff is solid enough. Just dull. Last week is really highlighting how dull Normal Ideas weeks have become.


I have no idea what a CABLE OUTLET is and do not understand what "Installation" means in the clue, despite having cable TV/Internet, and despite asking my wife if she understood (no, not really—she could guess, but she could not be certain). There is no "outlet" in my house. I mean, the cable comes "out" of a panel in the wall that vaguely resembles an electrical outlet, but I have never heard it called "CABLE OUTLET" and I've certainly never thought of it as an "Installation." That answer and WIRE FRAUD slowed me down a bit today (WIRE FRAUD's clue was just fine—maybe a little more T or W than M, but just fine).


SKYPE was in the Mini today, which was a weird experience. I solve the Mini as a kind of 20-second appetizer before heading into the real puzzle. Probably a good idea to coordinate those two puzzles, to avoid dupes. Also, probably, not that big a deal.

I got nothing else on this one. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Tasseled topper / FRI 3-13-15 / Japanese zithers / 2008 crossover hit for country duo Sugarland / Holiday cakes with swirls / Face reddener / Ninth-century invaders of Easy Anglia / Home to marine megapark Oceanopolis / Reuner in New Haven / River draining Lake Superior

Constructor: Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Tedium

THEME: no

Word of the Day: TARBOOSH (15A: Tasseled topper) —

noun

1. a man's cap similar to a fez, typically of red felt with a tassel at the top. (google)

• • •

As Charlie Brown would say, *sigh*. There's nothing here. I don't get how something this dull gets accepted. I'll give you OUT OF THE BLUE (27A: Unexpectedly) and LOOSE LIPS (12D: Tendency to be indiscreet), which are fine. Not dazzling, not fascinating, not eye-popping, but totally respectable. But then what? What else is there? REAR AREA? HAS A SHOT? IMAGED? This is sauce of an astonishingly weak vintage. It's more tedious than terrible. Nothing's gonna make you angry, but the cumulative mediocrity should make you angry. Or at least mildly disappointed. ITALO BREST DOD OST KOTOS ELI ARAG (!?) APSES IPO DEEDEE ASSAY ESA AMASS YLEM INASENSE ETRADE ONSALE AREOLA. I don't really hate any of that, but it's a serious onslaught of boring and/or undesirable fill. The cluing kept things reasonably tough, respectively Fridayish, difficulty-wise, but the content … I don't know whose idea of a good time this is, but it isn't mine.


What is a "Sugarland"? "ALL I WANT TO DO" was easy enough to get, but hardly seems famous enough to be a marquee Friday entry. In 2015. It hit #18. In 2008. You know what was big: "ALL I WANNA DO" by Sheryl Crow. That hit #1. In 1994. It's so much more popular than "ALL I WANT TO DO" that when you type in "ALL I WANT TO DO…" this is what google suggests:

That first suggestion isn't even how the Sheryl Crow song is spelled, and google *still* wants the Sheryl Crow song (that first result is the first line of the chorus of the Crow song, in case you didn't know). If you're gonna go with a pop culture blast across the bow of a Friday, make it singular, interesting, definitive … not some #18 song that sounds like a much more famous song. Hell, "OUT OF THE BLUE" is a more famous song than "ALL I [queen's English] WANT TO DO"

[#3 in 1988!]

The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Oktoberfest exclamation / TUE 10-7-14 / Klugman's co-star on Odd Couple / denied Supreme Court phrase / Lee who led Chrysler 1978-92

Constructor: Mark Skoczen and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TOASTs (66A: 9- 20-, 28-, 37-, 48- or 53-Across) —with each theme answer clued as [Oktoberfest exclamation]

Theme answers:

• "SALUD!"
• "DOWN THE HATCH!"
• "L'CHAIM!"
• "BOTTOMS UP!"
• "CHEERS!"
• "TO YOUR HEALTH!" (which is essentially what "SALUD!" means…)

Word of the Day: "CERT denied" (4D: ___ denied (Supreme Court phrase)) —

"Cert" is short for "certiorari," which refers to the appeal (petition for a writ of certiorari) a party files with the Supreme Court requesting the justices review the case. If the justices decide against hearing the case, they deny the petition. This is usually abbreviated and referred to as "cert denied." (answers.com)

• • •

I spent a lot of time today (Monday) in my crossword class (which I teach for the local Lyceum—a "lifelong learning association" for people of roughly retirement age) talking about easy puzzles and grid smoothness. It was very instructive to look at the fairly ambitious theme in the NYT, the somewhat less ambitious theme in the LAT, and the not-at-all ambitious theme in the Newsday, and to see what the fill was like in each puzzle. Newsday had just three theme answers, so the grid could breathe, and Stan Newman is ruthless when it comes to making sure his grids are free of crud. He's probably the most exacting editor in the business on that front. So though the Newsday theme was awfully basic, the fill was junk-free: this made the Newsday a good puzzle for the total novice. The LAT and NYT had a higher thematic bar, and their themes were more or less successful (really liked Monday's NYT theme, btw), but they also allowed so much more dubious short stuff: crosswordese and abbreviations and other less than ideal stuff. There's always going to be some kind of trade-off between themes and fill. As the complexity / density of the former goes up, the quality of the latter tends to go down.


The problem today is that while there are indeed a lot of theme answers, all that really does is extend a pretty dull theme while simultaneously taxing the grid—the denser the theme, the harder the grid is to fill cleanly. The north, with ILIE EELER and *especially* CERT, is just godawful. And since the theme is far from stellar, the bad fill is more intolerable than it might be otherwise. The phrase DOWN THE HATCH is great on its own, but there's really nothing to this theme as a whole. It's a bunch of TOASTs. The attempt to unite them all through the vaguely timely [Oktoberfest exclamation] clue seems forced. If I saw all these theme answers lined up, I would never in a million years think that the thing that unites them is Oktoberfest. Beer, drinking, sure. But "Oktoberfest" is overselling it. The theme is a list, and that list has only one interesting item ("DOWN THE HATCH!"). Without a clever theme, attention turns to the fill, and … that's bad news for this puzzle. To be fair, only the north is truly bad. But too much of the rest of it is truly blah. Yesterday's puzzle had its fill issues too, but the theme sparkled more, and those open corners in the NE / SW were truly wondrous to behold (esp. on a Monday, where one does not expect such things). This puzzle sputters by comparison.

There was nothing tough or tricky or particularly memorable about solving this puzzle. Had no idea about CERT (thought maybe WRIT, but I just waited for the crosses to help me out). Misread [Flight-related prefix] as [Fight-related prefix], which made a Very easy clue much, much harder. Someday someone will invent a better clue for TOFU than the horrendously stale and not terribly accurate [Vegetarian's protein source]. There are carnivores who eat tofu and vegetarians who won't touch the stuff. At least drop the apostrophe "s." Better yet, come up with a non-recycled clue of your own devising. That would be … something. Cluing is particularly stale today. Straightforward throughout. Not surprising for an early-week puzzle, but still, no reason "Easy" has to mean "unimaginative."


Thanks to Annabel Thompson for her lovely write-up yesterday. She'll be back the first Monday of every month until … well, until whenever she wants, frankly.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Guitarist Kottke / TUE 8-26-14 / Traveler on silk road / 50th state's state bird / Department store founder James Cash / Tuna type on menus

Constructor: Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: MPS (56D: AWOL chasers … or a hint to the answers to the six italicized clues) —all theme answers are two-word phrases where the first word starts with "M" and the second word starts with "P"

Theme answers:

• MAKE PEACE (5D: Sign a treaty, say)
• MILK PUNCH
• MARCO POLO
• MOOT POINT
• MISS PIGGY
• MENLO PARK (56A: Edison lab site)

Word of the Day: MILK PUNCH —

Milk punch is a milk-based brandy or bourbon beverage. It consists of milk, brandy (bourbon), sugar, and vanilla extract. It is served cold, and usually hasnutmeg sprinkled on top. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't much understand the point of a puzzle like this. Unless the theme answers really bring something new and interesting to the table, then you just have a perfunctory exercise on your hands. This theme type can be done a million and one ways—just pick your initials. DAS? TAS? MDS? RNS? Why limit yourself to people? LPS, CDS, MGS, DTS, all await your entheming. This puzzle is totally serviceable, but completely unimaginative—the kind of thing I'd expect to find in many other venues, where no one expects much beyond a 5-to-10-minute diversion, but not the kind of thing I expect in the (still repeatedly alleged) Gold Standard of crosswords. There's not much to fault here, but not much to praise, either. It's just … here. It does have MISS PIGGY, I'll give it that. And it did teach me that there is such a thing as MILK PUNCH—googles at about 1/10 the strength of "eggnog," but sure, "relatives," why not? I learned a new term. And hey, the NYT says there's a MILK PUNCH "revival" afoot. So maybe you'll want to get in on that.


The only difficulty in this puzzle came at MILK PUNCH, specifically at the part where that answer leads up into the north part of the grid via BERTHS (8D: Playoff spots). Didn't know the drink, and then couldn't make sense of the playoffs clue at first, and so transitioning from one part of the grid into the other … didn't go smoothly. But I just rebooted in the north with DAM and ERA and everything was on track again. Zero hiccups. Oh, I wrote in STEAMY for SULTRY (21D: Torrid). That probably cost me some time. And I needed a few passes at AFRESH before I saw it (36D: Over again). But really, these are all terribly minor snags. Mainly this puzzle came, and this puzzle went.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Wiener Frauen composer / FRI 7-11-14 / Like 1938 Andrew Jackson stamp / What Kramer often called Seinfeld / He had 1948 #1 hit with Nature Boy / Cops in slang / R.V. park hookup option / Ad masco in sunglasses

Constructor: Victor Fleming and Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BARÇA (49A: Spanish soccer club, for short) —

Futbol Club Barcelona (Catalan pronunciation: [fubˈbɔɫ ˈkɫub bərsəˈɫonə], also known as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça, is a professional football club, based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. (wikipedia)

• • •

I think I liked this. It's hard to tell since I blinked and it was over. Under five minutes—super fast for me on a Friday. I was faster than every currently posted time at the NYT, including people who normally Krush me, which leads me to wonder … why? Where was the difficulty? Was it in and around POPO (28A: Cops, in slang) and DEMI-JOHN (12D: Cousin of a carafe)?  I loved POPO but thought, as I was writing it in, "Is this something the average NYT solver knows?" I'm not exactly sure how I know it. Rap, probably, but now middle-class white folks trying to sound street use it quasi-ironically, so … who knows? I wanted to spell DEMI-JEAN thusly, but I think I was just confusing it with Sean Jean. Aw … nope. That's JOHN too.

But those 15s? Gimmes. Got them both at first glance, with just a few letters in place each time, and I doubt I'd've needed a single cross in either case. Those clues are transparent. I thought the same about 1A: Displeases one's buds? (TASTES BAD) and 1D: Scary little sucker (TSE-TSE), so I was off to a propulsive start right from the get-go. Let's see … I had a little struggle there for a few seconds when I thought it might be a SEWER PIPE instead of a SEWER LINE (15A: R.V. park hookup option). I wrote in ELGAR instead of LEHAR (due entirely to having only -AR in place when I saw the clue) (30A: "Wiener Frauen" composer"). Needed all the crosses to get FEAR (34D: What chickens have). Just didn't know BARÇA, so had to solve around it (thankfully, not hard at all). There were some other clues that held me up a little, but not such that the struggle is worth relating.


This puzzle won't be terribly memorable, but I thought it was quite solid.YEASTS are not things I'd normally think of as pluralizable—but that answer isn't bad/wrong, and there's nothing here to really gripe at. In sum: Fine work from this pair.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. article out today in online version of the Atlantic about the future of the crossword puzzle. I am quoted extensively. My words are twice misrepresented (I must have been unclear somehow: mea culpa): I am not "suspicious of making crosswords more accessible." I am suspicious of the claim that apps do that. Big difference. Also, I'm not a "print loyalist," in that I almost never solve on actual newsprint. Still, worth reading.

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1925 Percy Marmont film / SUN 2-23-14 / 1932 Clark Gable Jean Harlow film / Sitcom with 1974 wedding / Snow queen in Disney's Frozen / 1980s-90s series based on fictional firm mckenzie brackman chaney Kuzak / New Haven reuner

Constructor: Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Reel-life Anniversary" — tribute to constructor's namesake, director VICTOR FLEMING (119A: Director of the eight starred films in this puzzle, who was born on 2/23/1889). Grid has a bunch of his movies in it.

Theme answers:

• "RED DUST" (5D: *1932 Clark Gable/Jean Harlow film)
• "THE WIZARD OF OZ" (24A: *1939 Judy Garland film)
• "A GUY NAMED JOE" (54A: *1943 Spencer Tracy/Irene Dunne film)
• "BOMBSHELL" (37A: *1933 Jean Harlow film)
• "GONE WITH THE WIND" (68A: *1939 Vivien Leigh/Clark Gable film)
• "TORTILLA FLAT" (89A: *1942 Spencer Tracy/Hedy Lamarr film)
• "JOAN OF ARC" (103A: *1948 Ingrid Bergman film)
• "LORD JIM" (98D: *1925 Percy Marmont film)

Word of the Day: PETREL (8D: Migratory seabird) —

n.
Any of numerous black, gray, or white sea birds of the order Procellariiformes.

[Perhaps alteration of earlier pitteral (perhaps influenced by Saint PETER walking on the water, from the fact that the bird flies so close to the water as to appear to be walking on it).]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/petrel#ixzz2u6biP0vn

• • •

I have a hard time imagining this being accepted if the constructor weren't a longtime NYT crossword writer. No way a newbie gets a puzzle like this published ("Hi, my name's Milos Forman, and I want to write a puzzle about the director of the same name, with his name and a bunch of his movies in it, in honor of his upcoming 83rd birthday … hello? Hello?"). It's just too straightforward, too arbitrary. The only charm it has is the winky constructor credit ("A Namesake of 119-Across"). Otherwise, it's just a guy born 125 years ago (that's a thing we're commemorating now?), and a bunch of films he directed, and The End. No gimmick. No twist. No nothing. "Here are some movie titles … that's all." I don't get it. The one thing I am grateful to this puzzle for is teaching me who the hell this guy is. So weird that I've never even heard of the director of two of the most famous movies ever made, but there you go—I couldn't have named the director of "GONE WITH THE WIND" *or* "THE WIZARD OF OZ" before today. So, for the trivia, I am thankful. For the puzzle, much, much less so. To the constructor's credit, he at least seems aware that the whole endeavor is pretty SOLIPSISTic (60A: Self-absorbed sort).


The puzzle is by no means bad. It's incredibly adequate. I didn't wince much, if at all, that I can remember. So the fill is solid—maybe even better than average for the NYT. I did not know that a swashbuckler "strutted" (65D: Swashbuckles, say => STRUTS). That is interesting. I thought the only mandatory criterion was swordsmanship, but apparently there is a fancy, confident walk that goes with it. Awesome. Nice contemporary clue on ELSA, which is a sentence I don't think I've ever written (102A: Snow queen in Disney's "Frozen"). Thought clue on STUDENT ID was very clever (83D: Means of access to a cafeteria, maybe). STUDENT ID is much better than my initial answer: STUDY HALL (?). Really wish POP OUT had gotten a baseball clue. Other than that, I have no real strong feelings or remarkable things to say about the fill in this grid. It's fine.


Puzzle of the Week this week was pretty tough. I was all set to give it to last Sunday's Washington Post Puzzler, a lovely themeless by Trip Payne (2/16). But then Patrick Berry's Friday NYT themeless (2/21) came along and suddenly made this decision really hard. OMG, I haven't even done today's Newsday Stumper (2/22), and it's a Doug Peterson! Hang on … oh, man, that's good too. But looking at them all alongside one another, I just can't deny the Berry. Too smooth, too strong.

Reminder for upstate NY'ers / Northern PA'ers: This Saturday, Mar. 1, is the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition in Ithaca, NY (to benefit the literacy programs of Tompkins Learning Partners). Enter as an individual or bring a team of 4 (!). Registration form here. I'll be there in some semi-official capacity.  Registration info here.

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Outfielder Hunter with nine gold gloves / WED 1-8-14 / Manse occupant / Gee I think you're swell girl of 1960s song / She in Salerno / Stanford Binet figs

Constructor: Sam Ezersky and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Spongebob Squarepants — last words (or word parts) of theme answers are SPONGE, BOB, SQUARE and PANTS, respectively. Central answer reveals his channel, NICKELODEON (36A: Channel for the character named by the ends of 18-, 24-, 52- and 59-Across)

Theme answers:

• BATH SPONGE (18A: Tub accessory)
• THINGAMABOB (24A: Doohickey)
• TIMES SQUARE (52A: New Year's Eve hot spot)
• "BOSSYPANTS" (59A: 2011 Tina Fey autobiography)

Word of the Day: ILO (33D: U.N. workers' agcy.) —

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency dealing with labour issues, particularly international labour standards and decent work for all. 185 of the 193 UN member states are members of the ILO.

In 1969, the organization received the Nobel Peace Prize for improving peace among classes, pursuing justice for workers, and providing technical assistance to developing nations.

The ILO registers complaints against entities that are violating international rules; however, it does not impose sanctions on governments. (wikipedia)

• • •

THE PUZZLE: This should've been much more amusing than it was. The one thing I do like, theme-wise, is that the toon's name is broken into four discrete syllables, so when I read them, I am reminded of the way his name is chanted in the opening theme. Sponge! Bob! Square! Pants!


Beyond that, it's simply a "final words make a phrase" puzzle with a couple pretty good theme answers and a lot of unremarkable fill. Of course the fill looks Amazing compared to what we had yesterday, but that's a pretty low bar. What's more troublesome here is actually not fill quality, but clue lacklusterness. There are no interesting clues. My constructor friend said this about a puzzle from earlier this week as well. Just very unimaginative and blah. Or else just awkward—[Puck handler's surface]? Why go with such out-of-the-language phrasing? It's no less transparent, and no more interesting, than the more economical and mellifluous [Skater's surface]. But the main issue is dullness. Just read down the list of clues. 1-Across (Message indicating "adult beverages not supplied") is positively scintillating compared to most of the rest.


Didn't have much trouble. Only slow-ups happened at DBLS (39D: Some substantial hits: Abbr.), where I had RBIS and thus had trouble initially getting into the SE; and then again at NEW ISSUE (?), where I had NEW STOCK (36D: Initial public offering). Is "new issue" a tight phrase? I'll defer to someone w/ greater expertise in that area. Anyway, none of this provided too much of a problem. Couldn't spell ELENORE, but that's no surprise. TORII is not great fill, but I do like that someone finally bothered to give it the baseball clue it deserves (20A: Outfielder Hunter with nine gold gloves). So much better than the old [Shinto shrine gateway] clue. Speaking of baseball—only three months til opening day! I'm already semi-giddy w/ anticipation.

Stay warm!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Staunton of Harry Potter movies / WED 9-25-13 / Sayers portrayed in Brian's Song / Selena's music style / Early IBM PC standard / Puzzle inventor Rubik / Coastal backflows / directive repeated in aerobics class

Constructor: Victor Fleming and Bonnie L. Gentry

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: LINE (58D: Word that can follow each part of the answers to the six starred clues) — just what the clue says

Theme answers:

• 17A: *Deep trouble, informally (HOT WATER)
• 65A: *Felon's sentence, maybe (HARD TIME)
• 3D: *Low-lying acreage (BOTTOM LAND)
• 34D: *Fruity loaf (DATE BREAD)
• 9D: *Deep-sea diver's concern (AIR SUPPLY)
• 30D: *Campus transportation, maybe (BUS SERVICE)

Word of the Day: EREBUS (7D: God of darkness) —

In Greek mythology, Erebus /ˈɛrəbəs/, also Erebos (Greek: Ἔρεβος, "deep darkness, shadow"), was often conceived as aprimordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogony places him as one of the first five beings to come into existence, born from Chaos. Erebus features little in Greek mythological tradition and literature, but is said to have fathered several other deities with Nyx; depending on the source of the mythology, this union includesAether, Hemera, the Hesperides, Hypnos, the Moirai, Geras, Styx, Charon, and Thanatos.

In Greek literature the name Erebus is also used to refer to a region of the Greek underworld where the dead had to pass immediately after dying, and is sometimes used interchangeably with Tartarus. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, I found Tuesday's puzzle. Two minutes faster today than yesterday. That is, for me, a massive statistical anomaly. Despite a bunch of answers that struck me as potentially tough (e.g. IMELDA, EREBUS), this one came in well under my Wednesday average. Open corners (fed by interlocking theme answers) should've made this one tougher, but I guess the cluing was just too transparent. Having your first Down be a massive gimme like 1D: Frome and others (ETHANS) sets the solver up with the first letters of All the Acrosses in the NW, right off the bat. I had some trouble seeing EBB TIDES and I wanted THE COPS (too short) and THE POLICE (too long) before eventually hitting on TROOPERS (just right). There wasn't much else that slowed me down as I moved in a pretty regular clockwise motion right around the grid, finishing up with EXUDED in the SW (69A: Radiated, as charm).


As for the theme, I kind of wish constructors would stop making these. This is an ancient theme type that rarely yields very good / interesting results in the theme answers. Today's theme answers are mostly adequate; BOTTOM LAND is not a phrase I know at all, but the others are tight enough. Just not very ... interesting. A puzzle like this may as well be a themeless for all the thematic pleasure it gives. I got to LINE near the very end, having (at that point) no idea what was tying any of this together. LINE was jarring anticlimactic. Oh. LINE. OK. You can make puzzles with this type of theme using any number of different words (and many, many constructors have). BOY. You could probably do BOY. I don't know. All I know is that the theme-type has been Done To Death. Results are not terrible. But not inspired either. Another day another puzzle. This one at least has an interesting theme answer layout. I do appreciate that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Biblical name for Syria / MON 1-28-13 / Big name in art glass / Against property to judge / Countryside Sp / Deathtrap playwright Ira /

Constructor: Jaime Hutchison and Victor Fleming

Relative difficulty: Challenging (3:58)

THEME: "WHAT A TOOL!" — last words of two-word phrases are tools (used in non-tool contexts)

• FUEL LEVEL (17A: Info on a dashboard gauge)
• MIKE HAMMER (21A: "I, the Jury" detective)
• MODEL PLANE (53A: Flier made from a do-it-yourself kit)
• FIRE DRILL (58A: Safety exercise prompted by an alarm)

Word of the Day: ARAM (10D: Biblical name for Syria) —

Aram is a region mentioned in the Bible located in central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo (aka Halab) now stands. Aram stretched from the Lebanon mountains eastward across the Euphrates, including the Khabur River valley in northwestern Mesopotamia on the border of Assyria. (wikipedia)

• • •

72 words!? On a Monday?! That is ... unusual. That is a very low word count for an "Easy" puzzle. It's a low word count for *any* themed puzzle (it's the max number of clues for a themeless). Unsurprisingly, my time was a full minute higher than I'm used to on a Monday, which is to say 33% higher. Lots of white space, answers are harder to get ahold of. Fill is also not nearly as clean as it is usually is in early-week puzzles (terrible stuff like OB-LA and IN REM and ENTO- and EZEK. and REBOXES as well as unwelcome crosswordese like NOL. I can't remember the last time I saw anything like the ARAM / CAMPO crossing in an early-week puzzle. Nuts. I totally approve of the theme concept and the revealer, which is startling, actually. I think of "TOOL" as being, roughly, a synonym for DICK. It has anatomical implications, is what I'm saying. But FUEL LEVEL isn't exactly snappy (however legitimate it is) and "model airplane" is a far more familiar phrase than MODEL PLANE (however legitimate it is). So there's this great answer in the center, and mostly just adequate theme answers, all drowning in a grid that isn't really appropriate to this theme type. It's a Monday kind of theme in a Thursday / Friday-style grid. The net effect is just odd. Awkward. Weird. I actually didn't mind the added challenge (in fact, it didn't *feel* that hard—I was stunned when I looked at the clock and saw how long it took me). And big corners at least tend to get more interesting non-theme answers than one typically finds in an early-week puzzle. But despite my affection for stuff like LOU RAWLS and ROLL OVER and DUMMY UP (11D: Produce, as page layouts for a printer), this one felt clunky overall. Cute idea, inexpertly executed.


Bullets:

• 23A: Big name in art glass (STEUBEN) — the *only* reason this answer was easy for me was because I watch "Archer." Otherwise, I'd've had real trouble there. 
• 6D: "Deathtrap" playwright Ira (LEVIN) — I know that Ira LEVIN is a writer's name, but I'm far more familiar with MI Senator Carl. 
• 24D: Top 10 Kiss hit with backing by the New York Philharmonic ("BETH") — love this clue, but again, it is comical how un-Monday this is. Outlier city, this puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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