1941 siege target / SUN 1-21-18 / Old Parlophone parent / Fan publications informally / Trickster of Navajo mythology / Chemical source of fruit flavor / Colorful toys with symbols on their bellies / Make out at Hogwarts / Pagtron of Archdiocese of New York briefly / Shoulderless sleeveless garment

Constructor: Victor Barocas and Andy Kravis

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Substitutes" — theme answers up top are ordinary phrases following the pattern [___ FOR ___]; in the bottom half, theme clues ask you to "remember" one of the theme answers from the top half, and then you're supposed to make a substitution in the bottom-half theme clue by taking the "remembered" theme answers literally, i.e. swapping out the first word for the second. Thus:

Theme answers:

• PLAY FOR TIME (23A: Stall) // ELIZABETHAN ERA (95A: Play Time of Shakespeare (remember 23-Across)) {when you "remember 23-Across," you "remember" to substitute the word PLAY for the word TIME in this clue}
• NOT SAFE FOR WORK (33A: At risk of being offensive) // TELECOMMUTE (111A: Not safe Work at home (remember 33-Across))
• CRY FOR HELP (43A: Subtle sign from the distressed) // TEMPORARY EMPLOYEE (73A: Seasonal cry help (remember 43-Across)) 
• RECIPE FOR DISASTER (56A: Very bad plan) // EARTHQUAKE (87A: Recipe Disaster that entails a lot of shaking (remember 56-Across)) 

Word of the Day: ELIS (45D: Ancient land where the Olympics began) —

Elis /ˈɛlɪs/ or Eleia /ɛˈlaɪ.ə/ (Greek, Modern: Ήλιδα Ilida, Ancient: Ἦλις Ēlis; Doric: ἎλιςAlis; Elean: Ϝαλις Walis, ethnonym: Ϝαλειοι) is an ancient district that corresponds to the modern Elis regional unit. Elis is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea. Over the course of the archaic and classical periods, the polis of Elis controlled much of the region of Elis, most probably through unequal treaties with other cities, which acquired perioikic status. Thus the city-state of Elis was formed.(wikipedia)

• • •

This grid is lovely, but this theme didn't work for me at all. Any theme that is tough to explain clearly and succinctly has a good likelihood of being problematic. It's not that this one was tough to figure out, it's just that it only really affected four theme answer (i.e. the first four are just straightforward answers to straightforward clues), so it was barely there—so much so that I never bothered to "remember" anything. And who "remembers" clues? That's a weird word choice. There are something like 140 answers in this grid. Asking me to "remember" some number clue is absurd. I just ended up getting those answers from crosses / by inference. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't be bothered to figure out what. Only after I was done did I go back and try to find out what all this "remembering" was about. So it's a half-theme that doesn't even need figuring out. Even the title of the puzzle feels like it's not really trying. "Substitutes"? That's it? As I said, the grid itself is clean and lively, which is always nice. But the theme was super-off to me, and theme is kind of important on a Sunday.


GAYBORHOODS! I knew those were gay areas or districts or ... some word, but I did not see this particular neologism (!) coming. SHEDFUL made me laugh because come on, that is not a meaningful quantity (65D: Quantity of garden tools). Probably the hardest answer for me to get in this puzzle was 1A: Enjoy some rays? (SCUBA). Couldn't decide if the dog was going GRR or ARF (5D: Terrier's warning), so I needed most of the other crosses to see SCUBA (a "?" clue which, it turns out, we are getting only for the "joy" of encountering the repeat clue at 61A: Enjoys some rays (BASKS)). How is a CRY FOR HELP "subtle"? If it's a cry, it's ... by definition ... not subtle. Baffling. I had just a couple of initial mistakes today: TBONDS for TNOTES (man, that's a boring mistake) (93D: They take 2-10 yrs. to mature) and POOH BEARS / SHE-GOAT for CARE BEARS (21A: Colorful toys with symbols on their bellies) / PET (?) GOAT (14D: Nanny around the house?). I wish I had more to say about this puzzle, but I don't. Hope you enjoyed the theme more than I did.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Pomerrigio follower / SAT 1-20-18 / Hop hop icon born Lisa Williamson / Blondie's maiden name / Nocturnal predators of fiction / Tony official character voice of Donald Duck / Setup for Netflix film say

Constructor: Alex Vratsanos

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: pomeriggio (21A: Pomeriggio follower => SERA) —

SERA = evening (Italian)

• • •

Another hard puzzle today, though today was far more in line with expectations—a proper themeless puzzle that was properly tough. Finished in less time than yesterday's abomination took me, predictably. Thought the clues on this one were trying too hard to be hard/clever in many places, and some of the fill (especially proper nouns) got weird and obscure, but the big-ticket stuff looks very good, and overall I think it's a nice example of what a typical Saturday puzzle should be like: hard and occasionally humiliating but ultimately satisfying. Some of the clues were completely unintelligible to me, even after I'd solved them (see 21A: Pomeriggio follower, for example). Also, "Blondie" knowledge that goes *that* deep. That's insane. "Blondie" is super-old. Super. Old. I teach a course on Comics and this answer was a mystery to me. Got it by inference (from Betty Boop), as I'm sure most people did. With Howdy Doody also in the comic, well, you can feel this thing skewing pretty retro. Even the hip-hop reference was retro: I haven't heard of SISTER SOULJAH since the '90s (10D: Hip-hop icon born Lisa Williamson). Also, SIST*ER*!?!?! That bit stunned me. I got the answer quickly because I started with the last -AH in place, but I spelled it SISTAH SOULJAH because ... in hip-hop ... -ER to -A(H) sound / spelling change is pretty standard. See, uh, SOULJAH, for one.


Felt like there were a Ton of "?" clues, but there were just six. Three of them are quite close together in the NW, though, so I felt like I was being bombarded. I think the puzzle gets a *little* careless with proper nouns at PELLA / AMATO. The window name I've seen (25D: Big name in windows), but couldn't recall specifically (kept wanting PEALE or PEELE), and AMATO is gibberish to me (35A: Pasquale ___, baritone at the Metropolitan Opera). I thought maybe this was a new clue for ERATO. Totally feasible that neither name will be known to a solver, and only AMATO is (fairly) inferrable with that one letter missing (-MATO). Also, ANSELMO, LOL what? The only reason I got this was that my aunt lives in San ANSELMO, and Van Morrison sings a beautiful song called "Snow in San ANSELMO." "Official character voice of Donald Duck" is like a parody of an obscure clue. Like, today? Now? Is Donald Duck being voiced anywhere? Or is this in the past? You can see I'm not looking it up. It's so weird that this is a thing the puzzle thinks I might know. (Yes, he's currently Donald's voice, and apparently "Duck Tales" is on the air somewhere, I don't know). Anyway, hope you are familiar with PACHINKO (I botched the spelling there at first) (4D: Its player may have a yen for gambling) and CMA (27D: Nashville awards org.) and POLIS (23D: Sparta, e.g.) and SISTER SOULJAH or the California city San ANSELMO. Mind your names, constructors. Mind your names.


RELEASE WAIVER felt redundant (11D: Paper signed before filming begins). Heard of signing releases and signing waivers but not RELEASE WAIVERs.  SYNODAL is a word I'd be happy never to see again (see also yesterday's "appurtenance") (41A: Like certain ecclesiastical councils). I like BIG TICKET ITEM best, and I like it's clue best (12A: One taking a lot of credit, maybe?), and I like that the constructor knew enough to put the "Best" stuff right across the top of the dang grid. I was super-proud of myself that I remembered SARAI today straight away (38D: Name changed in Genesis 17:15). Less proud that I went with HAIRCUTS at 30D: Changers of locks (HAIR DYES) and thus fell in a hole that added probably a solid minute to my solving time. Pfffflert. Nothing will get you stucker longer than a wrong answer. "There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself"—Philip Marlowe, in The Long Goodbye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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