THURSDAY, Jan. 11, 2007 - Lee Glickstein and Nancy Salomon

Solving time: 11:08

THEME: "ADD-ICT" - Common expressions have ICT added to them to make odd expressions, which are then clued. 62A tells you the theme: Fiend ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme (addict)

I feel very good this morning, despite an only slightly better-than-average Thursday time (I give myself a B+). After yesterday's debacle, and after doing Several Puzzles in a Row in my Shortz "Greatest Hits" puzzle book wherein I had 1-3 squares wrong in Wednesday and Thursday puzzles, it was nice to complete a puzzle, with no extended struggle, and to have the applet accept my first grid submission. The other reason I'm happy - uh, this puzzle was hard. There were multiple times when I managed to get past a really difficult part and immediately thought "man, that was rough - that's gonna trip someone up" (usually that someone is me). Examples below.

I am still waiting for confirmation from someone that yesterday's Homer quotation was in fact genuine and not an internet myth grown to stellar proportions. I wouldn't want the paper to have print another retraction - as they had to do recently when SARA LEE got clued [Company that owns the brands Playtex, Kiwi and Hillshire Farm] - doesn't own Playtex anymore, apparently - but facts are facts and I want facts. Not factiness. Speaking of "The Colbert Report" (which I just did, whether you knew it or not), I was terrifically happy yesterday when I was flipping through the latest issue of Previews - massive catalogue of upcoming comics releases .... [cough] ... ["Nerd!"] ... -
and I noticed a number of high-profile ads for the upcoming comic book adaptation of Mr. Colbert's unpublished "Tek Jansen" novel. Here is the promotional blurb:

Solar plexus! Bursting out from the hit Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report — it’s Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen! In this stunning continuation of Stephen Colbert’s critically acclaimed, yet unpublished prose novel, everyone’s favorite sci-fi hero must stand against the enemies of freedom, no matter what dark planet they crawl from!

I ordered the series - which won't be in stores for three months. I'll let you know how it is.

THE THORNS

31D: Glimpse (aperçu)

This clue/answer pairing is an ass-pain on many levels. First, APERÇU implies "insight" or "special understanding," where [Glimpse] just suggests "sight." Second, the clue skews more verb-ward than noun-ward, likely causing many mental forays into Useless-ville. Third, holy cow, what the hell ends in -CU??? Without the cedille on that C, that C really really wants to be hard (!). But the U comes from EMU (48A: Noted Australian sprinter), and how could EMU be wrong when it gave me the M that allowed me to get the great and manifestly correct 30D: "Rah!" (Go team!) (where formerly I had HUZZAH, which is making me laugh even as I type it)? In the end, APERÇU was about as palpably physical an "aha" moment as I've had in a while. Exhilarating.

36A (THEME): Order to act one's age? (maturity d-ICT-ate)

Was working on this before I had the theme, and the only thing that second word wanted to be was some form of DIRECT ... DIRECTIVE ... DIRECTION ... ? I had even written in DIRECT, which left me one letter shy of the end of the answer. I figured if I just let DIRECT hang out there for a while, something would happen. Strangely, though it was wrong, its "T" helped me confirm the correct GO TEAM (30D, see above). Now that I look at this whole mid-Atlantic region of the puzzle, it's very very France-circa-WWII. Two French military answers: 35D: 1944 battle site (St. Lo) and 44A: Encamp (bivouac) (the latter apparently comes from the French, via probably Swiss-German). Then APERÇU and Albert Camus, too (that's a rhyme!): 29D: Camus subject (plague). ST. LO is pure crosswordese - a very handy four-letter combo I know only from doing crosswords. I was happy to traipse through this mid-Atlantic region relatively unscathed. I had to work for it, but I could easily have fallen flat on my face, and didn't.

60A: Required (need be)

I can't tell you how befuddled I was by this. Time-wise, I didn't get chewed up too badly, but I ran into an apparent Unstoppable Force / Immovable Object problem when this answer, which I had understandably entered as NEEDED, rammed its final "D" right into the "E" of 58D: Firmed up (set), which, true to its name, would not budge. "NEEDLE? How is a NEEDLE 'Required?'" It was left for me to pick up the "B," which I did only by finally (duh) getting the gist of 57D: "The Office" address? - I had N_C, and I figured the answer was something web-related, or something having to do with business-speak or somebody's title in an office. Of course, if I'd bothered to notice the quotation marks around "The Office," it might have dawned on me sooner that the Office in question was the TV show of that name (which, semi-ironically, is one of only 4 or so shows that I actually watch). So NBC. That's the "address" of the show. OK. NEED BE. Wow. Another thorn that impeded but did not halt my forward progress.

49A: "The Odd Couple," for one (Simon P-ICT-ure)

As of right now, I have no idea what SIMON PURE is. Once you add the ICT, then I get the clue, but what is this expression that is being modified??? OK, I am calling in my resident Restoration and 18th century expert on this one. So, Shaun, when you read this, please respond. Apparently the phrase "The (real) SIMON PURE" dates from the early 18th century and comes from "The name of a Quaker in Mrs. Centlivre's comedy A bold stroke for a wife (1717), who is impersonated by another character during part of the play." So "the real SIMON PURE" is the genuine article, not a fake. At least one on-line dictionary suggests that the phrase might also be used derisively, to mean "superficially or hypocritically virtuous." Do people use this expression nowadays, or even know it? Yes, I'm talking to you.

Speaking of "Odd Couple," Christina ROSSETTI (9D: "Goblin Market" poet Christina), meet Horatio ALGER (41A: Author of "Jed, the Poor House Boy"). She writes wistful sonnets, and he exhorts boys to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

The SW was where I made my last stand, and after my first pass through the Across clues, it was still wide open. But 49D: Chesterfield, e.g. (sofa) - everything I know about furniture I learned from the NYT Crossword - gave me the first letters of all the longish answers down there, 51D: Bleu parts of French maps (mers) [sacré bleu, more French] gave me their third letters, and everything fell from there. Really liked Jackie Robinson's number getting the fully written-out treatment: 59A: Jackie Robinson wore it (forty-two) (which also marks the strange, strange return to the puzzle of the number "42" (see Tuesday's puzzle)).

Wrong Fill

• CALVIN for ARMANI -1A: Big name in menswear and cologne
• REVELLED (?) and then CAVILLED (!?!?!) for CAVORTED - 38D: Made merry

(More) Stuff I Didn't Know

• 12D: Son of Ramses I (Seti) - sure, OK, whatever you say
• 8D: It's to the left of # (Oper.) - this is on a telephone keypad, right? Did not know that. Kept looking at my own computer keyboard and seeing only "@" and "2"
• 37D: Group whose 1946 song "The Gypsy" was #1 for 13 weeks (Ink Spots) - not THE INK SPOTS? Worst band name ever.
• 20D: Harvard's motto (veritas) - I pieced this together easily enough, but didn't know it, exactly. Pretty pompous motto.

Hot Fill

• 16A: Fit of rage (apoplexy) - one of the greatest words to grace the grid in a while
• 5D: Not very potent potable (Near Beer) - great, Jeopardy-esque clue with super-fresh answer

Given that 7A: Sticking points (morasses) crossed with 7D: Kind of nest (mare's) in the NE, I'm really surprised I didn't have trouble there. APOPLEXY is up there too. That corner is all bark and no bite ... and 99 44/00 Awesome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Note on Today's NY SUN puzzle

Solving time: 14:06

This puzzle warrants mentioning for some fabulous fill, including 1A: Lila Crane portrayer in "Psycho" (Vera Miles), 32D: Alternative to Golden Crinkles (Tater Tots), 38D: She played Prue on "Charmed" (Shannen), and the very very best answer of 'em all, 14: Simpsonian institution (Kwik-E-Mart). Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart!? I dooooooooooooo. This puzzle is also awesome because I got to use my knowledge of the fabulous but rarely seen word "ecdysiast" (41D: Is an ecdysiast (strips)) and because I got to use recently acquired obscure TV knowledge in answering 45D: Ralph of "The Waltons" (Waite). I'm also a big fan of the DIME NOVEL (17A: Early paperback) if not, at all, a big fan of REBA (20A: Sitcom title character with the last name Hart).

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FRIDAY, Dec. 22, 2006 - Mike Nothnagel

Solving time: untimed, but fast

THEME: none

I am very sorry that of all the puzzles I've done in the past three months, this is the first one that gets the abbreviated commentary treatment, because it truly deserves my full attention. This is one of the best Friday puzzles I've done since I began the blog - it's got that sizzling, surprising, Quarfootian quality that I Luhhhhve in a puzzle. There is Nothing dull or old-fashioned or painful about the puzzle at all. It's super-clever in its cluing and fresh and inventive in its fill. Really first rate.

The whole NE is some kind of miracle quadrant. 8D: Lecture follow-up (Q and A) has been done before, sure, but its "Q" and (first) "A" crosses are phenomenal: 8A: Special delivery? (quints) made me very happy, and 16A: When some hands join (at noon) really blew me away - but I'm a sucker for longer entries that include short words normally left out of answers - indefinite articles, definite articles, and (in this case) prepositions. 11D: Rarely (not often) is fairly unremarkable, but it sparkles here because, as a negative, it contrasts beautifully with its much more positive (and deliciously dated) neighbor to the east, 12D: 100% (to the max).


I had FOUR gimmes in this puzzle, which is a ton for me, for a Friday. The first thing I filled in was 53A: Met who won the 1985 Cy Young Award (Gooden) - that's right at the tail end of my dorky-teen / baseball-card-collecting phase (I'm being told the "dorky-teen" part was not a phase, just a state of being). Gooden was a force of nature. Then he won a World Series. THE World Series. Then he coked out, right? Or was that Strawberry? Anyhoo, speaking of THE World Series, another baseball gimme lies just across the grid: 41D: Winner of the first World Series (as the "Americans") [Red Sox]. RED SOX were of course the infamous losers of THE World Series (1986). I wasn't sure if the answer was BOSTON or REDSOX, but I knew it. BOSTON seems more accurate - how can a team that doesn't exist yet win anything? That's like saying Ali beat Liston. Clay beat Liston. Still, I don't care, 'cause I knew this one cold.

I like the two other gimmes because they are so colorful, and from opposite ends of the pop culture spectrum (high and low brow). 30A: Wonderland directive made me think EAT ME before I'd even looked to see how many letters it was. EAT ME is just a great phrase, and I'm glad someone found a way to get around its apparent profanity to work it into a puzzle. I grew up listening to INXS (Aussies), and I really liked them, so it's mildly depressing to see them clued here at the nadir of their career as 10D: Band featured on the reality show "Rock Star". Should have been called "Who Wants To Replace Our Singer, Who Died From Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation?"

My proudest correct guess of the puzzle: with only the final "T," I got 57A: Stumblebum (galoot). The very long crossing fill in this puzzle - 15D: Clinical trial phenomenon (placebo effect) and 34A: Superstition that a rookie's second season will fail (sophomore season) were remarkably easy to get. That latter clue needs to be re-written, though. The rookie must have had a good first season ("rookie phenom"?) - and a rookie can't have a second season ... "a player's second season"? Superstition usually comes into play, or up for discussion, when rookie is no longer one.

Loved how this puzzle forced me to stick with answers that just seemed Wrong when partially filled in, e.g. 32A: Relaxed (Type B) - "What ends in "-EB???" - and that mysterious "X" floating out in the middle of 55A: Doesn't let differences cause conflict, what could that be? Answer: COEXISTS. Loved also the clever cluing in 29D: It can help you carry a tune (iPod) - mine will be helping me carry thousands of tunes tomorrow on a flight to Denver (fingers crossed). Thought that 28D: Rescuee's cry (My hero!) should have had "in cartoons" or "in melodrama" appended to the clue. Again, as I did recently with "TGIF," I take issue with the idea that anyone, anywhere, actually "cried" this phrase.

NW was the last to fall, mainly because of perhaps the most insidious clue of the bunch - never has a three-letter answer stymied me for so long. I wanted 7D: It helps in passing to be DEE or CEE. Then, when I totally nailed 17A: "Sold!" (It's a deal!), I knew that the final letter was A, so I thought "wow, how cute: AN A. That sure does help in passing. But that meant that a word would have to end in -NP, which I was willing to believe for a while, given other odd letter combos in the puzzle. But then 14A: Shop steward, briefly (union rep) became undeniable, giving me _EA, and then the full weight of the clue's sinisterness hit me. "Passing" as in "passing a (@#$#-ing) law." YEA (as opposed to NAY). Genius. Seriously. If only I had known my non-baseball-related 80s questions - 1A: Seminal computer game of 1989 (Sim City) and 19A: 1982 Richard Pryor flick (The Toy), the whole NW might have been much easier, and the YEA issue might never have come up.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS Damn, this commentary wasn't "abbreviated" at all. I gotta work on this "writing less" thing.

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TUESDAY, Oct. 31, 2006 - Patrick Blindauer

Solving time: 7:03

THEME: Dracula's least favorite ...

Happy Halloween! Today's puzzle was ... well, it was a little scary, although all the theme clues involved things that would repel Dracula, so the puzzle seemed to be trying to diminish rather than augment the fear (factor). Still, there were some scary words. EVIL-EYED (34D) is pretty spooky, and both SLITS (49D) and EXCISE (10D) can be horrific in the proper context. A SATYR (46A) isn't very scary ... unless he is an excited mood, and looking at you. An OCTOPUS will scare you if he's giant and attacking your submarine. I don't remember Disneyland's Enchanted TIKI Room (47D) as being very scary. The word SCAR is pretty scary (one letter away, actually) but it lies embedded over there in the not-so-fearsome ESCARGOT (39D). And then there's always ASPS (56D), but, alas, not On A Plane. ASPS are such frequent haunters of the crossword grid that they're about as scary as non-black cats. They should take some time off to plan their Next Big Thing, because their capacity to frighten (or even hold interest) died with Cleopatra. Give me VIPERS, COBRAS, SERPENTS, even BOAS, for god's sake. There are a TON of viable anagrams in ASPS, so I challenge constructors to use those, and give ASPS a rest. Then bring them back for Halloween 2026 and / or the Apocalypse, when we will be truly happy / horrified to see them. In defense of ASPS, however, this painting is Hot:
In honor of Halloween (my favorite time of year, if not necessarily my favorite day - the trick-or-treaters get ruder every year!), I will make all of today's pictures very scary.

1A: Clear of stale odors, maybe (aerate)

I would have liked AIR OUT here better. Don't you AERATE crops or fields or something? YES, you AERATE lawns, dammit, and presumably not to "clear" them of "stale odors" (from the body you buried there?). Want to AERATE your lawn? Find out how.

13A: Catastrophic (ruinous)

I had HEINOUS here, having come at the answer backwards (had the -NOUS first), which ended up being, yes, RUINOUS for me, time-wise (note the seven squares that I inked all to hell in the NW). This answer sat just underneath AERATE and atop 16A (THEME): Dracula's least favorite citations? (cross references), and I initially had Wrong answers for all three (with 16A I had the same solving backwards problem, so with -FERENCES in place, I prefixed DIF-). All this was compounded by my ridiculous entry of CHILLY for 1D: Frigid (Arctic) based solely on the "H," which I had from the (wrong) HEINOUS. So the puzzle was a little scary.

7A: Early Ford (Model A)

Knowing nothing about cars, I had MODEL T here. So, for my edification, and possibly yours, here are (Scary!) pictures of the (counterintuitively) earlier MODEL T (circa 1919):
And the more car-like MODEL A (circa 1928)
They're scary because they are from out of the past. Ghost cars! (OK, not as scary as The Ghost Whisperer or Ghost Dad, but I gotta work with what's in front of me)

23A: Cozy inn, briefly (B-and-B)

This little jerk is showing up far more often than he ought to. Twice in the past week. I'm sure a B-AND-B has been the site of more than a few horror movies, but I can't think of any to quote or grab pics from off hand. Imagine your own script.

26A: Historian Thomas who wrote "The French Revolution" (Carlyle)

I was thrown here by the slightly misleading "Historian." I was picturing some slightly portly, bespectacled, possibly combed-over, short-sleeve-button-down-wearing dork of a modern professor, or one of the more tweeded and pipe-smoking early 20th-century variety. Thomas CARLYLE was a Scottish essayist, satirist, and (yes) historian of the Victorian period. Unlike many things about this puzzle, Carlyle's writing was scary, in that his firm belief in Heroic Leadership gave philosophical underpinning to later fascist movements. Once he was a pal of liberals like John Stuart Mill, but towards the end of his life he was suggesting slavery never should have been abolished. Nice (and scary). The best, best, best fact about The French Revolution, if Wikipedia can be said to contain facts, is this:

After the completed manuscript of the book was accidentally burned by the philosopher John Stuart Mill's maid, Carlyle had to begin again from scratch.

What the hell? Did she use it for kindling? "Blimey, this neatly-stacked pile of paper with ink scribbles all over it will make for a loverly fire. I could use a spot of tea just now, I could .... gov'nuh." I just want to know what happened immediately after Carlyle found out. I'm sure that was scary. For the maid. Here's a scary portrait of Carlyle by Whistler:

22D: Robert of Broadway's "Guys and Dolls" (Alda)

I think I knew that Alan Alda grew up in a stage-acting family, but lately I don't tend to pay close attention to what Alan Alda says unless I'm rewatching a 1990s Woody Allen movie or I happen across one of those PBS specials on how the brain works, which Alda hosts. Very cool. Anyway, Robert is Alan's dad. He has a very, very, very long list of movie and TV credits, to say nothing of the stage. For today, however, I choose to remember him thusly:
29D: "Miracle" team of 1969 (Mets)
52D: Home to the 29-Down (Shea)

See, this would have all worked out so much better, timing-wise, if the Mets had at least been in the World Series this year, as they were supposed to be. But instead, we get the Cardinals. And thus FOX gets an early Halloween scare when it sees its TV ratings plummet:

The Cardinals' five-game victory over the Detroit Tigers averaged a record-low 10.1 television rating and 17 share, Fox said Sunday. This year's rating dropped nine per cent from the previous bottom, an 11.1 for a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox over the Houston Astros last year.

(thanks to Andrew for foisting that quotation on me, though I'm not sure of its source)

55A: Director Kurosawa (Akira)

This amazing director's career spans several decades (six of them, actually) and includes an astonishing variety of films, from adaptations of Shakespeare in Ran and Throne of Blood to the hugely influential samurai films Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, which provided the imaginative spark for so many American Westerns of the 1960s (and thus Clint Eastwood's early career). One of Kurosawa's greatest films, which is one of my, let's say, TEN favorite films of all time, is a little noir crime drama he made just after the end of WWII, during the American occupation. It's called Stray Dog and it is an astonishingly gripping story, as well as a melancholy assessment of all that Japan had lost and would continue to lose, culturally, in the grip of Americanization. It also features a very young and very sexy Toshiro Mifune, the Legendary Japanese actor, before anyone knew who he was. Please see this movie.

57A (THEME): Dracula's least favorite time? (Daylight savings)

[late addendum: reader "Andrew" claims that Daylight Savings (plural) Time is technically incorrect. It's in common parlance, however, and puzzles make use of colloquialisms all the time. It seems also that "Daylight Savings" - as a shortened way of saying "Daylight Saving Time" - is not uncommon. See this FOX News "article" (first and last time you'll hear me say that), which has "Daylight Savings" in the title, but "daylight-saving [hyphen!] time" in the body of the article. NPR slips up and uses both the "S" and non-"S" version in its discussion of Daylight Saving(s) Time. Curious.]

Now this is the best theme answer of the lot, because, since Daylight Saving Time just ended this past weekend, the clue suggests that we now have reason to fear a resurgence in Dracula's power. While there have been many powerful Draculas over the years, my B-movie predilections prevent me from honoring any one but the camp-tacular Christopher Lee.
Pleasant dreams!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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SUNDAY, Oct. 29, 2006 - Elizabeth C. Gorski

Solving time: 42:00

Theme: "Sandwich Man": Theme answers are familiar two-word phrases with "MR" sandwiched in between the two words, e.g. 16D: Putting up a guy in the bath? (Housing Mr. Bubble)

Considering how (relatively) easy today's theme was, I was surprised by how challenging it ended up being overall. Lots and lots of opportunities for writing in the plausible but Wrong answers (as evidenced by how inky my grid is in places). Actually, I say that the theme was easy - what I mean was, once I figured it out, it was easy to solve the theme answers. The figuring out part, however, took some time, primarily because I, I took a road less traveled, and that road, while hilarious in retrospect, was a dead end. See, I got seriously misdirected by the first theme clue, 23A: Cheery fellow in the neighborhood? (Jolly Mr. Rogers). Now, I had the "MR" and the penultimate "R," and so I was nearly certain that the answer would have to have something to do with the Beatles song "Mean Mr. Mustard." I mean, come on. Surely the "cheery" part of the clue would involve a reversal of "Mean" - and then there's the damn puzzle title, "Sandwich Man," which solidified my belief in "Mean Mr. Mustard"'s rightness. Sandwich ... Mustard ... the way I saw it, I had this theme / answer in my sights and it was going down. Only MUSTARD wouldn't fit in the spaces allotted to it. I tried to force it for a while, then just abandoned the NW part of the puzzle entirely. Oh, and my Certainty that the theme involved sandwiches was perpetuated by what my brain thought was the Gary Cooper movie in question at 36A: Excellent portrayal of a Gary Cooper role (Good Mr. Deeds). My mind went immediately to GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS. Why? Well, there's the #$%#$-ing GOOD at the beginning of the answer, which ended up being Correct. And then CHIPS. CHIPS go with SANDWICHES, don't they? I had MUSTARD, and CHIPS... I was thinking there'd be a whole lunch menu theme (I'm not saying this to try to be cute; I honestly believed that the lunch counter was the key to puzzle victory). If I hadn't been so excited at the thrill of the theme chase, I might have remembered what I knew at the time but chose to forget: that Sidney Poitier, not Gary Cooper, was in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (and now I am laughing because I just Googled "Mr. Chips" and it's not Poitier at all - Poitier was Mr. Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night and its sequel, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! - whereas Goodbye, Mr. Chips was a 1939 movie about a beloved boys' school teacher starring Robert Donat, who won the Best Actor Oscar that year ... for the record). This is all to say that I was way off in sandwich-land at the beginning, but once I did crack the theme (way down in the SE corner), the puzzle fell quickly (well, quickly if you're me). The theme is quite cleverly revealed, by the way, at 61A: Something to "call me" per an old song ... or a hit to this puzzle's theme (Mr. In-Between). I quite enjoyed this Sunday puzzle, and was grateful for the opportunity to recall many campy advertising icons, including Mr. Clean and Mr. Peanut.

["Closing Time" by Semisonic just came on my iTunes. Why do I own this song? Is it just to remind me how horrible 1998 was? God, I don't even like the look of that year, "1998." I'm not convinced it really happened.]

Let's start in the "Montana" portion of the puzzle, since it's rare that anything of consequence happens there.

9A: Kind of case in grammar: Abbr. (Obj.)
21A: Shetland turndown (Nae!)
11D: Bach's "_____, Joy of Man's Desiring" (Jesu)

In retrospect, the answers in this little nook of the puzzle should have fallen before me like so many adoring subjects. I mean, it's got two of my favorite things (grammar and Scotland) shoved into the side of Another of my favorite things (Bach). Oooh, I like that "shoved into the side" metaphor, as it recalls the piercing of Jesus's side while he was on the cross. In certain awesomely gruesome versions of the story, blood shoots from Christ's side into the eyes of the spear-wielder, Longinus, who is instantly and miraculously cured of his blindness. Holy Gore! Anyway, as I've said, this looks easy, looking back. But my Latin-loving mind saw the "B" in 9A and wanted not OBJ. but ABL. (for ABLATIVE, my favorite grammatical case, particularly when it's ABSOLUTE). So that gave me an "L" for the beginning of the Bach answer, which led me (for reasons unfathomable) to enter LEDA for 11D. "LEDA, Joy of Man's Desiring?" From Bach? Maybe "LEDA, Joy of Zeus's Desiring." As with ELIHU a few puzzles back, I ultimately got JESU when the ultimate "U" became indisputable. JESU is great Middle English, another thing I'm supposed to know something about. O well. For your edification, here is Longinus's official trading card, courtesy of the Catholic Church:
PS if you do a Google Image search of "Longinus," you get a curious mix of religious imagery and (homo-)erotic anime.

47A: Social breakdown (anomie)

Twice this week now I have pulled an answer from thin air, knowing it without knowing why. Actually - I know precisely where this answer comes from. Not from my knowledge of the term firsthand, that's for sure. I was 18 and sitting in my American Government class during freshman year, surrounded by kids from prep schools who made me and my public school education in Fresno look retarded by comparison. I remember Professor ... oh, what's his name. Big, black man ... Smart, humorless, old skool ... Come on ... nope, not there. Anyway, he asked if any of us knew what some concept was called (I was too intimidated and / or tired to be paying proper attention to what he was saying, apparently), and I remember this young woman confidently raising her hand, saying the concept was called "anomie," and then defining it, as if she'd been training for that moment all her life. I was like "O come on! Who knows shit like that at 18!?" I went back to my dorm room and looked her up in the Look Book and her name was Elizabeth Sargent and she came from ... I want to say Georgetown. D.C. Anyway, that's when I knew I was in way over my head at my overpriced little college. Later on in my college career, I would think of Ms. Sargent as something of a superficial ditz (which I'm pretty sure she's not), but at that moment, I wanted to go back to the school where I was the smart kid. And that's what ANOMIE means to me. The End.

57A: Charlotte _____ (Russe)

What is this? Whoa, it's a horribly tacky clothing store! Who knew? You have no idea how badly I wanted the answer to be RAE:
73A (THEME): "The A-Team" actor on the cover of GQ (Model Mr. T)
By far my favorite "MR." in the whole puzzle. I pity the fool who didn't get this one instantly! To make this clue a bit tougher, I would have clued it by reference to Rocky III, or, better yet, D.C. Cab:
17D: Among other things (inter alia)

Rex used this phrase in his initial applications to graduate school just so he could seem super-smart (hmm... plausible) and Latin-literate (absolutely false at the time). I believe I used it when listing the various areas I wanted to study, thereby unwittingly suggesting that I was unfocused and hadn't really thought things through. Another "fun" fact about the phrase INTER ALIA: I learned it from the NYT Crossword Puzzle. God Bless Eugene T. Maleska. INTER ALIA is up there with ADIT and RE-UP as one of the most iconic answers in my crossword-solving career. (I'll explain the importance of the latter two some other time)

53D: Natural bristles (awn)

What is this? Oh, plant anatomy. I see. And now you can see too:
90D: Aptly named author Charles (Reade)

Very cute. I'm going to have to dispute the aptness of his name, however. I mean, I see what the cluer is getting at: his name is READE, and one READ(E)S books by authors. Fine. Only, it doesn't seem that anyone is actually READING Mr. READE - the first of the "Charles Reade Websites" listed here is entitled "Charles Reade: A Neglected 19th Century British Author." Add to that the fact that I can't even get Firefox to READ said website, and ... well you can see that clearly the gods don't want anybody actually READing the (it turns out) ironically named Charles READE - though I will say, if this illustration from one of his books is any indication, his writing was pretty hot:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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