Polish border river / FRI 12-21-12 / Hans Christian pioneer of electromagnetism / Legendary creature similar to Sphinx / 500s in Dewey Decimal classification / Crabtree retailer of body products / Director Thomas H of silent era / Title girl in John Cougar #1 hit / Fitz old comic strip by Mort Walker

Constructor: Zoe Wheeler

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Hans Christian OERSTED (42A: Hans Christian ___, pioneer of electromagnetism) —

Hans Christian Ørsted (Danish: [hans kʰʁæsd̥jan ˈɶɐ̯sd̥ɛð]; often rendered Oersted in English; 14 August 1777 – 9 March 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, an important aspect of electromagnetism. He shaped post-Kantian philosophy and advances in science throughout the late 19th century.

In 1824, Ørsted founded Selskabet for Naturlærens Udbredelse (SNU), a society to disseminate knowledge of the natural sciences. He was also the founder of predecessor organizations which eventually became the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office. Ørsted was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name the thought experiment.

A leader of the so-called Danish Golden Age, Ørsted was a close friend of Hans Christian Andersen and the brother of politician and juristAnders Sandøe Ørsted, who eventually served as Danish prime minister (1853–54).

The oersted (Oe), the cgs unit of magnetic H-field strength, is named after him. (wikipedia)

• • •

So, let's start with the good, because there is some. "THE BOOK OF MORMON" is splashy (17A: Winner of nine 2011 Tonys), and I'm intrigued by the MANTICORE in the RICE PADDY (who wouldn't be?) (32D: Legendary creature similar to the Sphinx + 33D: Certain irrigated cropland). I've seen GO COMMANDO recently (14A: Not be underdressed?), but it's still got a high freshness factor, and I don't believe I've seen ANGRY BIRDS in a grid yet, so ... congrats on bagging that one (58A: Fad of 2010-11). The rest did not go down so well with me. A 72-word themeless should be Smooth As Butter—the kind that wholesome maidens churn by hand. This one was Not. ICAL ACTER INO INCE — it's like Ugly Suffixes on Parade, except *only one of them* is actually a suffix. Also, generally, if you've got ugly fill, do Not attract attention to it, and do Not put your difficulty there. Just don't. So, for instance, the ugly partial ON ONE should not get the absurd and arbitrary clue [Two-___], especially if elsewhere in the grid you have used the word "ONE" in yet another absurd, arbitrary clue (i.e. [39A: One-___]=>ACTER). Honestly, I hated the word "ONE" by the time I was done with this thing. Then there's the ugly partial OR SEA—and oh, look, there's SEA in a different clue for an almost-as-ugly answer: INO (55D: Sea goddess who saved Odysseus). OERSTED is, I'm sure, an important person, but there's nothing inferrable about his name if you don't know him (I sure didn't), and putting him under another not-terribly-famous proper noun (i.e. NANCE) (40A: "Twin Peaks" actor Jack) makes that area a bit unreasonable. Really wish everything underneath SKYPE and extending to the SW corner had been torn out and redone. If you've got a cluster&$^% like ACTER/SROS/AROLE, esp. in a should-be-fillable 72-worder, it's time to rethink things. (Beautiful clue on SKYPE, though—36A: Ring with a face attached?)

[29A: Title girl in a John Cougar #1 hit]

Difficulty level was also uneven. NW went down in a flash, despite my never having heard of "The ICE PALACE" (3D: F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, with "The'). But then the middle and NE refused to budge. NE was especially irksome, as ... well, ODRA was up there, and that's never good, but my bigger problem was reasonable wrong answers at 21A: Off (ERRING) (I had ERRANT; better!) and 24A: Corrodes (EATS INTO) (I had EATS AWAY; better!). SALMA Hayek is the only SALMA I know, and she's Mexican-American, so 30A: Female Arabic name meaning "peace" was a total surprise. I had J-LO for 20A: Figure in a celebrated 2004 breakup. Then I got the -EN and though "Oh, they want the *other* half of the break-up: BEN." Uh, no (KEN, as in "Barbie and...").

I think that's all. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Old AMC Car / SUN 10-7--12 / Belgian river / Writer Ernie / Director Jean- Goddard / Salsa ingredient / Gold units / Shallow Jack Black Film / He-man's nickname / Sackcloth material / Jump on the ice / Basketball shooting game / Runner's unit / Actor Claude of Lobo / Moundsman Dave / 1992 Liv Ullmann film / Striped safari sight / Illustrator's shortcut / Rodeo rope / Actress Mazar

Constructor: Zoe Wheeler

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Space Invasion — Familiar phrases with "ET" inserted to produce far less familiar phrases

Word of the Day: Hop-o' (__-my-thumb) —

"Hop-o'-My-Thumb", also known as "Little Thumbling" (French: Le Petit Poucet), was first published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697. It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B, the small boy defeats the ogre. This type of fairy tale, in the French oral tradition, is often combined with motifs from the type 327A, similar to Hansel and Gretel; one such tale is The Lost Children. (Wikipedia)

Errata: 15D: Good "Wheel" buy for WHERE'S THE BEEF (AN E) – After publishing today's post, the comments made it clear I wasn't the only one seeing weird characters in this clue. The above is what it should say. The punctuation didn't output correctly in the PUZ file, at least. (added 9:01am EDT)

• • •

Only a few sticking points in this otherwise straightforward Sunday puzzle. I've never heard of Hop'-o-My-Thumb, so I put SUCK, not knowing if that was a phrase, like "Well, bless my soul!" Maybe if you're really frightened of something, you could say, "Well, suck my thumb!"? Even having now looked up the answer, HOPO just looks weird. I want it to be HOBO.

Speaking of hobos, I'm Tyler Clark, camping overnight here on the blog, filling in while the master is away for the weekend. I'm honored to fill in on a Sunday, as I'm assuming it's this blog's most visited day of the week. Rest assured, I will do my best to provide a post replete with fresh, witty banter and amusing YouTube videos to help you waste a Sunday morning you wish you were spending more productively.

One thing I look for in guest bloggers is an admission that they came up against the same challenges that crossword mortals such as myself faced, helping me feel better about my solving skills when I still can't seem to consistently solve a Monday in under 5:30 or a Sunday in less than 30 minutes. So I'll try to lay myself open for as much ridicule as possible.

The theme is "Space Invaders," which are Extra Terrestrials, abbreviated as E.T. and then inserted into familiar phrases, as follows.
Theme answers:

• 23A: Old AMC car that came fully loaded? (HORNET OF PLENTY) I wanted this to be Gremlin.
• 30A: Good locale for adoptions? (BIRTH MARKET) Got off to a rough start here when I put down TONSUL as in CONSUL rather than TONSIL (1D: Lump in the throat)
• 39A: Ammo that's still on the store shelf? (SITTING BULLET) I wanted Raging Bullet. I don't know why, I just did.
• 53A: Some bleating? (RACKET OF LAMB) I knew this was going to include LAMB when I first read the clue, but I didn't know the theme at that point, so I had to come back to it later.
• 63A: Excitement over some presidential elections? (CABINET FEVER) This was the first theme answer I got, probably because I watched the debate Wednesday night and have been working on a website for the local county Board of Elections.
• 74A: Avoid a scalping? (ESCAPE HATCHET) I wanted HAIR or BALD or something like that.
• 87A: ID for a certain band member? (TRUMPET CARD) I fell for the trap and looked for GUITAR or BASS. In fact, I think I actually had DRUMMER CARD filled in before I knew the theme.
• 95A: Earth, in "Independence Day"? (PLANET OF ATTACK) Combined with CABINET FEVER, seeing PLANET helped me figure out the puzzle's theme.

I was certain that BOOTEE (101A: Infant's shoe) was spelled BOOTIE. It appears, from some Googling, that BOOTEE is the preferred spelling (Wikipedia lists BOOTIE as an alternate spelling). I don't have to like it or take it lying down, you know like having a NAP (91A: Go out for a while?) on a HAMMOCK (77D: Good place to 91-Across).

(Not for the faint of heart or small children.)

I'm also more used to seeing RIATA than REATA (88D: Rodeo rope), so TOE LOOP (93A: Jump on the ice) was one of the very last things I sorted out. Two other crosses didn't help: We've already discussed HOPO. SMOKES (81A: Lights up) should have been obvious, but SOLA (81A: Alone, as a female on stage) didn't want to go. Technically, having a B.A. in Musicology, I could have/should have sleuthed this one out. I know that SOLO is masculine, SOLI is plural, and therefore SOLA would be feminine, but have you ever seen this in print? I think I would have felt better about its inclusion if the clue had been as obscure as the word (see picture on right, and imagine if the clue had been "Japanese work originally conceived by Naoki Hisaya"). Annoying, yes, but at least you'd know it was going to be hard/esoteric.

Lots of names; let's take a look. We've got ADIA (80A: 1998 Sarah McLachlan hit) - relatively common to frequent solvers; Jackie GLEASON (26A: Minnesota Fats's player in "The Hustler") - I only knew Newman was in this & I've only seen clips from The Honeymooners and wanted to spell his name GLEESON; PYLE (28A: Writer Ernie) - not to be confused with Private Gomer; SHERE (43A: __ Khan [villain in "The Jungle Book"]) - which I also forgot how to spell; LUC (49A: Director Jean-__ Godard) - which I was sure couldn't be right because wasn't I getting confused with Captain Jean-Luc Picard?; HAL (71A: "Shallow __" [Jack Black film]) - otherwise known as "2001" villian; Britney SPEARS (104A "... Baby One More Time" singer) - whom we will not speak of; ROGERS (2D: Dancer Ginger) - she beat out Humorist Will for this; AKINS (32D: Actor Claude of "Lobo") - whose name I can now only associate with Rep. Todd Akin of questionable biological learning; STIEB (36D: Moundsman Dave) - of the Toronto Blue Jays; IONA (40D: College in New Rochelle, N.Y.) - which I apparently still don't have memorized despite having solved roughly 1,000 puzzles a year for the last 3-4 years; SOFIE (45D: 1992 Liv Ullmann film) - I've got nothing for this one; CASCA (63D: Brutus abettor) - he struck the first blow in Caesar's assassination, which leads us to ET TU (57A: Dying words, in Shakespeare); BALE (65D: Christian of "The Dark Knight Rises") - also in Shakespeare, see Kenneth Branagh's excellent Henry V; and DEBI (92D: Actress Mazar) - not a name I know well, but I recognize her from the classic "So I Married An Axe Murderer." Wow, I'm exhausted.

Bullets:

• 69A: Many-banded displays? (PARADES)  — Love this clue. Of course, I was thinking of kinds of striped snakes, as opposed to marching bands.
• 72A: He-man's nickname (MUSCLES) — Here I had the "CLES" at the end and thought it might be some lesser known alternate to HERCULES. So, I started running through options, such as PERICLES, even though that (a) doesn't fit and (b) doesn't make sense.
• 79A: "Grease" singer (VALLI) — This led me to John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, but it didn't take too long to remember that the title song is sung by Frankie Valli, of The Four Seasons fame (not to be confused with Rudy Vallée of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" fame)
• 78A: Sackcloth material (HEMP) — I did not know this.
• 86A: Feds (G-MEN) – Know your G-MEN (FBI) from your T-MEN (IRS).
• 98A: __ hours (OFFICE) – If TELEPORT (73D: Use a futuristic mode of transit) had come sooner, this might have been easier.
• 5D: Sticking point? (QUAGMIRE) – TRANQ (1A: Downer, for short) helped me get the Q, but this didn't fall for quite a while.
• 20A: Big break (SCHISM) – This is a weird word to look at in the abstract.
• 39D: Shrew (SCOLD) – Apparently this works as both verb and noun, but I just don't use the word Shrew very often.
• 42D: Accepted as true (BOUGHT) – Stared at the B and tried to Believe that Belief must work.
• 47D: Be constructive? (ERECT) – Wanted BUILD here until EWERS (47A: Pitchers) and TEC (67A: Gumshoe) set me straight.
• 59D: Bathroom fixture (BIDET) – Also the victim of many erasures. Started with S from errant SASH which should have been BATH (59A: It may be drawn at night).
• 66D: Providing of questions for answers on "Jeopardy!," e.g. (FORMAT) – This is just a weirdly worded clue, and it took forever to fall into place.
• 96D: Eastern drama (NOH) – If you haven't seen this one before, tuck it away. You'll see it again.

Did it bother you that ET TU (again, 57 across) was included in a puzzle with ET as the theme add-in? Discuss...

Signed, Tyler Clark, Fan of CrossWorld

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Kardashian matriarch / TUE 5-1-12 / Child prodigy of Heroes / It's stolen in Austin Powers movie / Pompom on skullcap

Constructor: Zoe Wheeler and Aimee Lucido

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ADDIE — familiar two-word phrases have -IE added to the end of the first word, creating wacky answers, clued "?"-style

Word of the Day: KRIS Jenner (21A: Kardashian matriarch) —

Kristen Mary "Kris" Jenner (née Houghton; formerly Kardashian; born November 5, 1955) is an American television personality, socialite and businesswoman. She also is the manager for all of her family members, including Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian. She is the current wife of 1976 Summer Olympic Games Decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner and was married previously to lawyer Robert Kardashian; they divorced in 1990. (wikipedia)

• • •

KRIS Jenner used to be married to Robert Kardashian. Robert Kardashian was a friend of O.J. SIMPSON. Just a few minutes before I did this Aimee Lucido puzzle, I did a different Aimee Lucido puzzle that had O.J. SIMPSON as an answer. So she's clearly celebrity-obsessed and needs help. Help her. Please. Somebody.

Kidding. I liked this puzzle. The only thing I didn't like was that it felt like it was trying maybe a little Too hard (TTH!) to be current by being hyper-pop-cultural. MICAH (1A: Child prodigy of "Heroes") and KRIS probably shouldn't be in the same puzzle, let alone that close to each other, because the former is already showing its non-staying power (I watched two seasons of "Heroes" and *I* couldn't remember his name), and the latter ... is famous for nothing. For being famous, I guess. Anyway, the point is, these two answers aren't just pop culture (which I love); they're the slightest, thinnest, weakest stuff that pop culture has to offer. At least the PARIS clue went in a non-Hilton direction (37D: "Midnight in ___" (2011 Woody Allen film). TREY Parker's also pop-culturey, but at least he has (co-)created something iconic, something of lasting cultural importance (64A: "South Park" writer Parker). Two things, if you count "The Book of Mormon." Three things, if you count "BASEketball."


Theme answers:

• 17A: Package full of syringes? (JUNKIE MAIL) 
• 23A: Thesis topic for sex ed? (QUICKIE STUDY) — Love this one. Actually, both these first two theme answers are pleasingly edgy.
• 36A: Cameras taking pictures of permanent markers? (SHARPIE SHOOTERS) — I like the word SHARPIE when used to describe a "shrewd, cunning person, esp. a cheat"

• 46A: Pompom on a skullcap? (BEANIE SPROUT) — I don't really get the "sprout" part here. Because the pompom ... sprouts? ... from the top of the beanie?
• 57A: Police investigation of a betting house? (BOOKIE CASE)

Puzzle really does have a nice, contemporary feel, even if it is a bit celeb-obsessed (celebsessed). I know there hasn't been a new Austin Powers movie in a while, but MOJO still feels reasonably current (1D: It's stolen in an Austin Powers movie), as does the ubiquitous AÇAI berry (30A: Berry for the health-conscious). PARIS gets the recent Woody Allen movie treatment. Even OREO gets an ultra-current clue (56A: Cookie celebrating its centennial in 2012). Plus, my daughter's name is in the puzzle, so it's a good day all around (yes, we named our daughter TSAR—don't judge). I'll leave you to contemplate the RING-wearing PROBE that's covered with LUBE. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Odysseus savior / WED 4-4-12 / Irish equivalent of Edward / Furbys yo-yos once / Romance/thriller novelist Hoag / 1982 sci-fi film with 2010 sequel

Constructor: Zoe Wheeler

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Z sounds — phrases with "Z" sounds in them have "Z"-containing words changed to homophones, creating wacky phrases, which are clued "?"-style

Word of the Day: John BONHAM (11D: John of Led Zeppelin) —

John Henry Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980) was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer of Led Zeppelin. Bonham was esteemed for his speed, power, fast right foot, distinctive sound, and "feel" for the groove. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock music by many drummers, other musicians, and commentators in the industry. Over 30 years after his death, Bonham continues to garner awards and praise, including a Rolling Stone readers' pick in 2011 placing him in first place of the magazine's "best drummers of all time". (wikipedia)

• • •

Couldn't find the handle on this one at all. Just floundered. Everywhere. [Frankenstein's monster had one on his forehead]? BOLT? No? Uh, OK, then ... I don't know. [Lumps] are BLOBS? No ... uh ... [Irish equivalent of Edward]? $^%& if I know. EAMONN? With two Ns? Alrighty. Flashing sign in a TV studio is ON AIR ... oh, guess not. So ... no idea. Many crosses later ... still no idea. Furbys and yo-yos were ... FADS ... or ... don't know. [Crop circle, some believe] is a SIGN? Of? ... pfft, don't know. Baseball Hall-of-Famer who ... damn it, that info is not revealing At All. Three letters, so probably OTT, but: not helpful. Moving on. BLUSH is a "bit" of makeup? "Bit???" That makes no sense. "Que sera sera" means "whatever will be will be," but ... not here. [Quick smells] are SNIFFS, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes ... no? Ugh. OK, [Less than social sorts]. Gotta be NERDS. No? GEEKS? Dang. I mean, the whole puzzle was like this. Theme was pretty loose (not in a bad way, just ... no vowel progression, no respelling consistency, etc.), so I didn't really get it for a while.

Only two real complaints about this puzzle. First, STAR. It's in here twice. And in intersecting answers, for *$&%'s sake. That's a Back-to-the-Drawing-Board problem. Stop. Refill the grid. Set standards to "Higher"! Second ... well, here, it's complicated. The most daring (yay) theme answer is also the one that makes me cringe a tiny bit. Not a big fan of "gays" as a noun. "He's a GAY!" Yuck. I have heard gay-friendly folks use it that way, but usually only ironically, i.e. semi-making fun of the way gay-uncomfortable or gay-unfriendly people talk. "He's a black." No. No. "The blacks are riled up about Trayvon." Yes, someone might say that, but not someone who likes "blacks" too much. So STAR GAYS, while undoubtedly well meaning and undeniably clever, just missed the mark with me, sensibility-wise. Also, by far the hardest theme answer to get. I couldn't accept it—mostly because of the STAR repeat, though, to be honest. That's certainly the worse offense. Also ... I mean really, is Ricky Martin a "STAR" any more?



That "A" in GAYS was the last letter I got (WIZARDRY! ... dear lord, that was hard) (39D: Spelling, e.g.?).

Theme answers:

• 18A: Acts the heckler at the Westminster dog show? (BOOS HOUNDS)
• 24A: Cheeses manufactured in the Mediterranean? (SEA BRIES)
• 37A: Entourages for Odysseus's faithful wife? (PENELOPE CREWS) — he only had one wife. You don't really need "faithful" here (though, yes, she is a paragon of fidelity)
• 53A: Ricky Martin and Neil Patrick Harris? (STAR GAYS)
• 59A: Expressions of regret from apartment building managers? (SUPER SIGHS)

Bullets:

• 65A: Romance/thriller novelist Hoag (TAMI) — useful to know for both her first and her last names. 
• 6D: Odysseus' savior (INO) — always forget her name. INU. Shiba INU? I think that's a dog.
• 68A: 1982 sci-fi film with a 2010 sequel ("TRON") — you can stop at "film." Got it. Nerdy old-skool props for getting "TRON" and "STAR WARS" into the same grid (though, again, "STAR Wars" probably shouldn't be here at all).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Marat/Sade playwright Peter / WED 9-15-10 / Munch Museum's locale / Peanuts boy with blanket / Helen Mirren's crowning role

Constructor: Zoe Wheeler

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BE QUIET (52A: "Shut up!" ... or a phonetic hint to this puzzle's theme) — theme answers have silent "B"s added, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style


Word of the Day: Weeb EWBANK (31D: Only coach to win both N.F.L. and A.F.L. championships) —

Wilbur "Weeb" Ewbank (May 6, 1907 – November 17, 1998) was an American professional football coach. [...] Ewbank is the only man ever to coach two different American pro football teams to victory in a championship game, and the only man to coach winners of NFL, AFL, and World Championships: (NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 with the Colts, an AFL championship in 1968 with the Jets, and a World Championship in Super Bowl III in 1969 with the Jets). Weeb's record in the AFL was 50-42-6 (71-77-6 all-time with the Jets) and his career regular season record in the NFL and AFL was 130-129-7 and his playoff record was 4-1. Ewbank was selected as the Head Coach of the AFL All-Time Team. // He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1978. (wikipedia)

• • •

3:48 says eeeeeasy, even with two answers that were complete mysteries to me: EWBANK (see above), and KIEL (65A: German port), the last thing in the grid and an entry that looked horribly wrong. I had to double-check the whole area to make sure it couldn't be anything else. Oh, and I didn't know this WEISS guy either, but I'm pretty sure I've said that before, and will say it again someday (67A: "Marat/Sade" playwright Peter). The theme is OK, though only SAM IAMB really does anything for me. I am really distracted, for some reason, by the non-quiet Bs, especially in ABBA (the only Bs in the whole puzzle outside of theme answers) (32A: "Take a Chance on Me" group). I also wish the ABBA clue had been "S.O.S" group, to tie in with the clue on PLEAS (38A: S O S's, essentially).

Theme answers:

• 17A: Where lead weights grow? (PLUMB TREE)
  
• 21A: Bit of a Coleridge poetry line? (SAM IAMB) — strange ... here, you don't just add the "B," but you mush two words together as well
  
• 39A: Ammo for idiots? (DUMB DUMB BULLETS)
  
• 61A: Toy house door support? (PAPER JAMB)
  

Did not like "I'M IT!" (58D: Cry during a recess game) (who is going to cry that? "YOU'RE IT!" or "NOT IT!," sure; the whole point is to Not be IT). Also, LLD (27A: Harvard degree earned by J.F.K. in 1956) over AAA (36A: Little battery) is ugly, and TEUT is much, much worse (3D: German: Abbr.). That said, the Downs in the N/NW, specifically KATMANDU (5D: Capital of Nepal) and BROCADE (18D: Wedding gown fabric), are lovely. I solved NW to SE, right through the fat center of the grid, and then just branched out from there to pick up the little pockets. Easy as pie.

Bullets:

• 1A: Org. known for drilling? (ROTC) — wanted ADA, and when that didn't fit, OPEC
  
• 9A: Soap operas, essentially (SAGAS) — soaps are dying. In this house, we kind of follow "As The World Turns," which ends, permanently ... this week or next, I forget.
  
• 19A: Horatio who wrote about down-and-out boys (ALGER) — I have a few of these in vintage paperback form. One has a picture of one boy knocking another boy on his ass. It's cool.
  
• 20A: How babies may be carried (TO TERM) — this one stopped me cold. Needed nearly every cross. It's not really a self-standing phrase. An odd adverbial phrase. Tricky.
  
• 48A: Gulager of "The Virginian" (CLU) — As I may have said before, I know him only for his role in "The Killers" (1963) with Lee Marvin (my hero).
  
• 69A: Singer Perry with the 2010 #1 hit "California Gurls" (KATY) — my interest in her is somewhere near zero. Her name is everywhere this summer, but I have somehow managed (I think) to avoid hearing any of her new music at all. Spelling alone on this one makes me gag. I'd rather listen to this:

• 2D: Munch Museum's locale (OSLO) — seen this clue before. Seems a suitably Wednesday way to clue OSLO.
  
• 38D: Bandage, across the pond (PLASTER) — yep, that's what it's called.
  
• 54D: Helen Mirren's crowning role, informally? (QEII) — without "crowning," this clue wouldn't need a "?" Mirren of course won the 2006 Best Actress Award for playing Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen." She is super hot. Even as the Queen. Can't act her way out of her own hotness. It's a curse, I guess.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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* Institute California retreat center for alternative education / TUE 1-29-10 / Crimson Tide familiarly / Young starlet's promoter maybe

Constructor: Zoe Wheeler

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: NAME OF THE GAME (35A: Essential part necessary for fulfilling a goal ... or what 17-, 25-, 48- and 57-Across all have?) — circled squares within theme answers spell out the names of GAME animals: BOAR, DEER, HARE, and QUAIL, respectively.

Word of the Day: ESALEN Institute (46D: ___ Institute, California retreat center for alternative education) —

Esalen Institute is a retreat center in Big Sur, California, United States, for humanistic alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavored by traditional academia "in subjects ranging from meditation to massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, spirituality, art, music, and much more." Esalen offers more than 500 public workshops a year in addition to invitational conferences, residential work-study programs, research initiatives, and internships. Part think-tank for the emerging world culture, part college and lab for transformative practices, and part restorative retreat, Esalen is dedicated to exploring work in the humanities and sciences that furthers the full realization of what Aldous Huxley called the "Human Potential". (wikipedia)

-----

[I think this video takes place at the ESALEN Institute]

I won't go on about how I don't care for this sort of theme (circled words made out of non-consecutive letters). You all know that. The play on words at the heart of it all is cute, and the big corners in the NE and SW are a nice Tuesday treat, but overall I found the puzzle slightly disappointing. Too much cheap short fill (incl. four plural abbreviations, ATA, AST, ESE, etc.), cluing that felt off (esp. on the theme-revealer ... torturous *and* redundant-sounding), and big, bad answers like BAHA MEN (39D: "Who Let the Dogs Out" group) and ESALEN (two answers no one on God's green earth would put in a grid unless she were desperate and stuck). I did the thing I appear to be doing now on Tuesdays, which is falling straight into a hole of my own making. Started by putting WINNER in at 2D: "Everyone's a ___" and followed that up filling the neighboring 3D: Procrastinator's response with "IN A SEC!" (instead of the apparently correct MAÑANA). There are two Spanish words not clued as Spanish words in this puzzle, which is at least one too many (see also 52A: "So long" -> ADIOS). This may be the first time that I was ever rescued from a hole by SCARABS (28A: Beetles sacred to ancient Egyptians), but that's what happened here. After getting out of the NW, the rest went down in relatively normal Tuesday fashion, with the big corners perhaps adding some time (if not outright difficulty) to the solving experience.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Bird watcher's accessory (BinOculARs)
• 25A: Tide or Cheer (DEtERgent)
  
• 48A: Symbol of life (HeARtbEat)
  
• 57A: Cheesy Mexican snack (QUesAdILla) — if I had to pick a favorite from this exceedingly common bunch, this would be it.

Four animals, but no sign of MAN ... The Most Dangerous Game



Bullets:

• 1A: #1 position (acme) — would never have matched this clue with this answer. I can see how it works, metaphorically, but I think of ACME is a pinnacle, the top of a peak, and not a ranked position relative to other (#2, #3, etc.) positions. I also think of ACME as a mail-order store from which Wile E. Coyote orders merchandise.

• 19A: The Crimson Tide, familiarly ('Bama) — National Champions, as of a couple weeks ago.
• 34A: ___ d'Ivoire (African land) (Côte) — what other answer could this be? Do you really need the "(African land)" part? You know this is a country or you don't know it at all; the parenthetical information does nothing to cue the answer. See also 60A: Knievel on a motorcycle (Evel). Oh, *that* Knievel ... Thanks for the clarification. Without it, it could've been *any* Knievel. Knievel in the kitchen, Knievel in Parliament, Knievel of Côte d'Ivoire, etc.
• 64A: Wuss (sissy) — had the -SSY and very nearly put in an entirely different answer.
• 11D: Young starlet's promoter, maybe (stage mom) — the third time I've seen this answer in the past two weeks. Weird.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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