Jazz vocalist Carmen / TUE 10-4-16 / Nintendo character who hatches from egg / Website that investigates urban legends / Dance move added to OED in 2015 / Is romancer old-style / Rebound on pool table / Oldest of three stooges

Constructor: Sam Buchbinder

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: LUNCH BOXES (60A: Backpack containers where you can find the ends of 17-, 23-, 38- and 47-Across) — last words of themers are things you'd find in LUNCH BOXES:

Theme answers:

• IN THE DRINK (17A: Overboard, to a sailor)
• MEMORY CHIPS (23A: Data storage devices)
• KNUCKLE SANDWICH (38A: Punch in the mouth, slangily)
• SMART COOKIE (47A: Bright sort)

Word of the Day: GENO Smith (26D: Jets quarterback Smith) —

Eugene Cyril Smith III (born October 10, 1990), better known as Geno Smith, is an American football quarterback for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Jets in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft. He played college football at West Virginia. (wikipedia)

• • •

See that MILK there at 23-Down? [Skim or 2%]—*that* shoulda been in the lunch box. DRINK is too generic and bland. HARVEY MILK—there's your non-beverage milk. You don't even have to change any of the other themers for symmetry. Just swap out HARVEY MILK for IN THE DRINK and your lunch is instantly improved, or at least more ... evocative of lunch. A kid's lunch, anyway. I wanted the "boxes" part of LUNCH BOXES to be important, to matter to the theme somehow, but no. A crossword revealer that contains "boxes" but doesn't exploit the boxiness in any way is a let-down. SIGH. Also, I'm not sure about the clue on LUNCH BOXES. What does "Backpack containers" mean. Containers that might be found in a backpack?? That is some awkward phrasing. You wouldn't call pencils "backpack writers." Not enough thought has gone into this puzzle at either the conceptual or the editorial level.


There are some nice moments, though. Love TACO TRUCKS (28D: Street vendors selling Mexican food) (wish the clue had exploited the recent "... on every corner" paranoia / fantasy that was all over social media lately). KACEY Musgraves is cool too, and SNOPES is timely in that I find myself using it all the time this election season (46A: Website that investigates urban legends). KNUCKLE SANDWICH is a worthy central grid-spanner, for sure. But too much of the fill is creaky, and the theme, besides being of a hyper-old-fashioned type, just isn't executed as cleanly, let alone dazzlingly, as it could've been.

Bullets:

• 59A: With 2-Down, star of 2003's "Hulk" (ERIC / BANA) — an important name in crosswords, but awkwardly cross-referenced here, with the last name appearing first. His name isn't exciting / interesting enough to justify subjecting us to this [See 59-Across] baloney. 
• 26D: Jets quarterback Smith (GENO) — true enough, though [Jets backup quarterback Smith] would be more accurate (at the moment)
• 57D: Do 10 crosswords in a row, say, with "out" (NERD) — a thousand times no. First, I wince at all insidery "aren't we a clever lot" self-referential clues of this type. Second, doing 10 crosswords in a row isn't "nerding out" (whatever that is). It's training. "Nerding out" is watching 10 "Deep Space Nine" episodes in a row, or making 10 edits to the "Tardis" wikipedia page. Or so I imagine.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Stefan influential Austrian writer of 1920s-30s / MON 10-3-16 / Alcohol per its effect at party / Server overseen informally / Little folk tale character with lazy friends / Twisted as wet towel

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Maybe slightly north of normal

THEME: London Bridge is FALLING DOWN (26D: Like the contents of this puzzle's circled squares, in a nursery rhyme) — circled squares in Down themers spell out LONDON BRIDGE, in three-letter segments, with each subsequent segment appearing lower in the grid:

Theme answers:

• LONgstemmed (3D: Like some wineglasses and roses)
• stanDONoneshead (5D: Perform an inverted feat)
• socialluBRIcant (7D: Alcohol, per its effect at a party)
• wentovertheeDGE (9D: Lost one's sanity)

Word of the Day: Stefan ZWEIG (49D: Stefan ___, influential Austrian writer of the 1920s-'30s) —

Stefan Zweig (/zwaɪɡ, swaɪɡ/; German: [tsvaɪk]; November 28, 1881 in Vienna – February 22, 1942 in Petrópolis) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular writers in the world. (wikipedia)

• • •

This felt so much tougher than the clock said it was. Usually, I plow through a Monday methodically, without a lot of jumping around, but on this one, I felt like I was all over the map, and it took me a while to see a couple of the longer answers (particularly WENT OVER THE EDGE, which, perhaps because of the verb tense, feels the weakest of the bunch). I whiffed at more answers than usual at first pass, including RED HEN (could think only of "Red Riding Hood" and "Red Rooster" (?)) and JEAN ("Jean" means denim, so the extra words in the clue made me thinking there would be some *kind* of jacket, not just ... another name for "denim") (33A: ___ jacket (denim top)). Also, ZWEIG?! Whoa ... who? That dude is Not Monday-familiar. And crossing SUZI Quatro!? Her, I knew, and even knowing neither, I think the "Z" is inferrable, but yipes. And yet and yet and yet: my time was 3:02, i.e. only 10 seconds or so over my Monday norm. Weird. I'm not sure what I think of this theme, but I like SOCIAL LUBRICANT as an answer so much that other problems don't seem to matter much.


It's a low-for-Monday 74 words, so there are more longer entries than usual, and thus more opportunities for the grid to be interesting. I like RVPARK a lot, if only for that odd combination of consonants at the opening (31A: Locale for mobile campers). Do not like DIPSY Doodles (couldn't even tell you what they are), especially crossing EENSY. Icky. Enough bad fill down there (incl. plural EWOKS and RAE) that it seems like it coulda / shoulda been redone. But as I say, mostly I liked this. The grid was lively, with few opportunities for wincing. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have my second hot toddy of the night, as I drown my baseball sorrows and try to keep this cold at its current mild level. See you later—oh, and those of you expecting Annabel today: she is Also sick, and so her appearance has been postponed for a week.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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