Eternal water-pourers in Hades / FRI 7-22-16 / Shakespearean duel overeseer / Enfantines composer / Book film title character surnamed Gatzoyiannis / Abstract expressionist who married Jackson Pollock / Big name in Renaissance patronage / Follower of diet system / Much-photographed mausoleum site

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith and George Barany

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DANAIDES (36D: Eternal water-pourers in Hades) —

In Greek mythology, the Daughters of Danaus (/dəˈneɪɪdiːz/; Greek: Δαναΐδες), also Danaids, Danaides or Danaïdes, were the fifty daughters of Danaus. They were to marry the fifty sons of Danaus's twin brother Aegyptus, a mythical king of Egypt. In the most common version of the myth, all but one of them killed their husbands on their wedding night, and are condemned to spend eternity carrying water in a sieve or perforated device. In the classical tradition, they come to represent the futility of a repetitive task that can never be completed (see also Sisyphus). (wikipedia)

• • •

The 15s / 16s hold up pretty well; the rest ... doesn't. The top and the bottom are full of gunk that made this puzzle icky to move through. Improbably, the quadstack felt like the smoothest part of the grid. Sure, it has a few predictably less-than-ideal crosses (I see you, ECASH), but there's not nearly as much bad short stuff in the middle as there is everywhere else. This makes almost no sense, as one would expect the reverse to be true. Quadstacks put strain on a grid, so that should be where the strain should show. Instead, ADM REA ELENI (!?) DENTE chunk is up top, in the place where the puzzle should be cleanest. And the bottom is even rougher, with PAREE MERLE AAS AREOLA NO FEES AERO being a cavalcade of blah, and ERY APEAR EAPOE (all up against the very tough DANAIDES) is a flat-out disaster. It's as if two different people made this puzzle. Oh ... look at that. I wonder if that had anything to do with this. I won't speculate. Martin's not usually so careless with the tops and bottoms of his centered quadstacks, is all I'm saying. The three 16-letter Downs do add perhaps somewhat more strain to the grid than one might otherwise see in a quadstack. Still...


JAPAN was wickedly clued (1D: Follower of a diet system), especially crossing JAGS, which for some reason I don't think of as [Sharp projections]. They're cats, for short, or they're crying spells, or maybe some kind of generically handsome TV military lawyers, I'm not sure. What "Gear" does OIL protect? Oh, the actual gear of a car? One of many gears? OK. I had many different answers where AHASH (blargh) is supposed to go. Started with A MESS, then went to A MASH, which worked swimmingly ... for a while. I've read a lot of classical literature, but the DANAIDES somehow got by me. Virtually no part of that answer (except the terminal "S") was inferrable to me—this made the (ugly) southern section by far the hardest. Oh, except for the [___ College] / [Cannery row?] crossing. I wrote in COE College, which is a place, and it worked, except ... CARS? Are there rows of CARS at a cannery? Turns out, there are not. JOE College, 20x ugh, who says that anymore? That's some '50s-era stuff. And again down there with the EGRET and ESTE and ORES—really weak fill where it shouldn't be. I did enjoy the longer stuff. I just don't get the quality discrepancy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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First of minor prophets / THU 7-21-16 / Bitter component of tea / Prominent feature of Bert / 1960s chess champ Mikhail / Advantage for hockey team / Tandoori products

Constructor: Jason Flinn

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BAD LUCK (62A: Supposed consequence of any of the three no-nos in this puzzle) — things that are bad luck, represented literally in the puzzle. Thus:

Theme answers:

• 14A: With 1-Across, no-no #1 (WALKING [under] A LADDER)
• 19D: With 41-Across, no-no #2 (BLACK CAT [crossing] ONE'S PATH)
• 38D: With 57-Down, no-no #3 (MIR / ROR [i.e. a "broken" mirror]) 

Word of the Day: KARYN White (20A: ___ White, singer of the 1991 #1 hit "Romantic") —

Karyn Layvonne White (born October 14, 1965) is an American singer who was popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She is best known for her R&B singles; "Superwoman" (1989), "Secret Rendezvous" (1989), "The Way You Love Me" (1988), and the Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Romantic" (1991). (wikipedia)

• • •

I lit this thing on fire, so it was hard to get a clear picture of this thing while I was solving. I think my minimal groaning indicates that it's pretty strong. The theme is definitely clever—I've seen this kind of literal representation of answers a lot before, but the tightness of the theme here is impressive. The "broken" MIR/ROR is not like the others, in that describing the two answer parts in relation to one another does not result in your literally saying the bad luck phrase (i.e. it's not "MIR [over] ROR" or "MIR [crack] ROR"), but it's still fits the broad parameters of the theme. The puzzle's only real problem is how weak it gets in the short fill. It's a bit of an old-school crosswordese cavalcade, with ILO, TAL, OLLA, SSRS, IDEM, and ENA all making appearances, and NAANS trying to convince us that it's a plural (at least it's the correct two-A spelling).


I lucked out by guessing 1D: Have an eye-opening experience (AWAKEN) right off the bat, which meant the first letters of all NW Acrosses were locked in place. Still took some work to see WALKING under A LADDER, but I just kept filling in crosses without much hesitation until that answer became clear. Blanked on ED O'NEILL (33A: "Modern Family" actor) at first despite knowing his work well. Had no idea Baba Mustafa was a TAILOR in "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," but, again, crosses. Had IBID before IDEM (44A: As above, in citations), and (my favorite mistake) CORN DOGS before CORN MAZE (thanks, IBID!) (29D: Autumn attraction). Nothing else too remarkable here. Solid work overall.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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