Activist who'd make a good valet? / TUE 10-22-19 / Muppet with a smartphone friend named Smartie / Rapper who'd make good barber / Supermodel who'd make good broker

Constructor: Saul Pink

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:24)

THEME: last name, verb — celebrities reimagined as verb phrases

Theme answers:

• GEORGE BURNS (17A: Comedian who'd make a good pyrotechnician?) (wait, you said *good* pyrotechnician, right???)
• TYRA BANKS (24A: Supermodel who'd make a good broker?)
• ROSA PARKS (35A: Activist who'd make a good valet?)
• SEAN COMBS (53A: Rapper who'd make a good barber?)
• JEREMY IRONS (61A: Actor who'd make a good dry cleaner?)

Word of the Day: SEAN COMBS (53A) —

Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969), also known by the stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, record executive, actor, and entrepreneur. Combs was born in New York City but was raised in Mount Vernon, New York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his own record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, in 1993.

Combs' debut album, No Way Out (1997), has been certified seven times platinum. No Way Out was followed by successful albums such as Forever (1999), The Saga Continues... (2001), and Press Play(2006). In 2009, Combs formed the musical group (Dirty Money (duo)) and released the critically well-reviewed and commercially successful album Last Train to Paris (2010).

Combs has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards, and is the producer of MTV's Making the Band. In 2018, Forbes estimated his net worth at $825 million, making him the second-richest hip-hop recording artist, after Jay-Z. (wikipedia)

• • •

This feels like the oldest theme in the book, though I can't find any specific examples of its having been done before. It's not terribly exciting and could've been made 20+ years ago. It's a good example of what a perfectly adequate puzzle might've looked like at the end of the last century—tight (if not exactly thrilling) theme concept, passable (if not exactly fresh) fill. Lots of short answers, which means a lot of unremarkable to slightly irksome fill (TAI, EHS, IDED, FTC, LES, etc.). And the longer answers (ten different 7-letter Downs!) somehow do very little to bring up the interest level. It's passable. It's just OK. It's about NYT-average right now (with the theme concept being slightly more basic / old-fashioned than usual). But the big negative today, the thing that made me wince mid-solve (exactly mid-solve) was the clue on ROSA PARKS. When I say the editor has a tin ear when it comes to social issues, particularly when it comes to race, *this* is what I mean. Clue writer sees only the whimsy of wordplay, not the idea that maybe you shouldn't ask the civil rights icon whose Whole Thing was defying racial hierarchy in the area of *transportation* to go fetch your Audi. ROSA PARKS ... as a valet ... this sounded ... good? I mean ... wow, OK. OK.

I had some trouble interpreting the clues. Had HOORAY for 15A: Howl of happiness and then thought "EYS??? That's a weird way to write [Responses to mumbles], but .... I guess so!" Not the greatest crossing, is what I'm saying. I still don't quite get what the clue on TADA is going for (24D: "I'm do-o-one!"). Like, I can't find quite the right pitch or intonation or cadence to make the clue mean anything like the answer. I read the clue as expressing something like "I am *through* with this stupid situation" or "I am exceedingly tired." Somehow "do-o-one" conveys precisely nothing to me. Looks like it's pronounced "due oh one." Otherwise, nothing here gave me much trouble. Weirdly took a longish time to see both FOMENTS (11D: Instigates) and ATTAIN (?) (65A: Reach). Also, thought a U.F.O. was DISC-shaped. Oh well. And why in the world is the clue on SHORTIE so weirdly specific. "Someone under five feet?" Totally arbitrary. Bizarrely stigmatizing. SHORTIE (or "shorty" or, in the South, "shawty") is a pretty common term of affection for a young woman. You hear it a bunch in rap lyrics. That's certainly how I most often encounter this term—not as a way to insult the untall.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Financial services corp with orange lion logo / MON 10-21-19 / Major athletic event along Thames / Positions one's toes off the surfboard

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:12)

THEME: THREE ON (36A: Bases loaded ... or a hint to the contents of 17-, 26-, 44- and 56-Across) — "ON" appears three times in each themer:

Theme answers:

• KNOWS ONE'S ONIONS (17A: Is highly versed about something)
• LONDON MARATHON (26A: Major athletic event along the Thames)
• "BLONDE ON BLONDE" (44A: Bob Dylan album that he called "the closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind")
• SECOND HONEYMOON (56A: Romantic getaway for a married couple)

Word of the Day: KNOW ONE'S ONIONS (17A) —

know (one's) onions

To be very knowledgeable or skilled in some area. Primarily heard in UK, Australia. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

I just don't understand why this cuts the mustard (sorry, needed an idiom to go with my *$&%^ing onions). There are so many levels on which this is ill-conceived and mal-executed. First, the basic expression at the heart of the puzzle, the revealer: THREE ON. It's just ... not. Not a thing anyone says with any regularity. The clue phrase, "Bases loaded," *that* is the snappiest, most in-the-baseball-lingo expression for when three men are on base. "Three *men* on" is actually somehow better than THREE ON. Not saying THREE ON is never said, or is unintelligible. It's just ... limp. Sad to have limp baseball revealer just before the World Series gets underway. So the revealer is disappointing on its face. Then there is the concept. Just ... three ONs. OK, I mean, maybe you can do something with that. Or, maybe you can't, as KNOWS ONE'S ONIONS is grotesque. It's chiefly the ONE'S that makes it truly rank. ONE'S is the paradigmatic garbage possessive in a 15-letter answer. See, classically, A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE (15). You would normally say YOUR if you were actually using it, but since you're just staring at the phrase out of context, your possessive is ONE'S and nobody's happy, and the unhappiness is compounded by the fact that ONE'S was used to pick up one of the three "ON"s. Cheap. Not as cheap as just repeating an "ON"-containing word and also just putting the word "ON" in your themer, but cheap nonetheless—seriously, what is going on with "BLONDE ON BLONDE"? You hide all your other "ON"s but just give up here!? What's most puzzling to me is how a constructor doesn't *agONize* over this type of crap. It should keep you up nights, honestly. Hide all your "ON"s! Jeez. How is that not obvious?

["... two men out and THREE men ON ..."]

The fill in here is stale and bland. Even potentially cool stuff like HANGS TEN is made kinda off by the verb tense, i.e. HANG TEN! = great, HANGS TEN = ... yeah, OK (9D: Positions one's toes off the surfboard) (LOL one's toes). The whole thing feels off-brand, like an ersatz crossword puzzle. Let's see what else. Well, once again, a NO CARB diet is absolutely positively not a thing (22D: Like a diet that prohibits bread and pasta). Carbohydrates are necessary for life and are everywhere, so shut the hell up, please. LOW CARB, sure, NO CARB, bullshirt. I don't really want to go on. Everything else I have to say about this puzzle is either boring or redundantly negative, so I'm gonna sign off. Peace.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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