Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: I DO— Theme answers ended in some variant of the word "do."

Theme answers:

SCOOBY DOO (17A: Great Dane of animated cartoons)
MORNING DEW (24A: Result of overnight condensation)
NO CAN DO (38A: Impossible for me)
POSTAGE DUE (50A: Words on returned mail)
PAS DE DEUX (62D: Couple's ballet dance)

Word of the Day: LE CID (11D: French play about a storied Spanish soldier) —

Le Cid is a five-act French tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille, first performed in December 1636 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris and published the same year. It is based on Guillén de Castro's play Las Mocedades del Cid.^[1] Castro's play in turn is based on the legend of El Cid.
An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic practice known as the Querelle du Cid (Quarrel of The Cid.) Cardinal Richelieu's Académie française acknowledged the play's success, but determined that it was defective, in part because it did not respect the classical unities.
Today, Le Cid is widely regarded as Corneille's finest work, and is considered one of the greatest plays of the seventeenth century.

(Wikipedia)

• • •

It's Annabel Monday! And it's also almost finals! I'm dying, send ramen and Monster Energy. Now that I think about it, I bet Rex is worn-out too. And so is my dad, the computer science teacher. I think we all deserve some pretty sleepy winter breaks.

I think I tend to like easier puzzles more. Maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe because they're less, haha, tiring? But today's achieved that rare feat of being basic and easy without having the clues be so boring I fell asleep doing them (with a few exceptions, like "Vegetarian's no-no" for MEAT and "From alpha to ___" for OMEGA). None of the clues blew me away with their cleverness, to be sure, but the point is I had fun. That's what crossword puzzles are supposed to be about, right? Fun? Oh, by the way, did anyone else have MARMADUKE in for SCOOBYDOO and leave it there for EONS? It's not like there are that many cartoon Great Danes, it's just an unfortunate coincidence that their names have the same number of letters. Oh, and I couldn't remember whether it was Mary-Kate and Ashley OLSON or OLSEN, so I had to wait until filling in AZURE before I got it.

This theme was really refreshing for a Monday! I had to double-check to make sure there even was one, it was so subtle, but what a welcome change from Monday's usual "this is the theme, and these are the theme answers" clue. That could have made things more challenging if this was a more challenging puzzle but it wasn't. In Lynn Lempel's notes, she says she wishes she could have used "derring-do"; I agree wholeheartedly, but I liked the fill that was here. PAS DE DEUX is definitely the one of these answers that's not like the others, but nothing wrong with being a bit of a misfit.

Bullets:

EVENT (16A: Notable happening)— Hey, you know what notable happening started last night? Chanukah!!!! (Or Hannukah or Hanukkah or even Hanuka I guess.) I celebrated by lighting candles and promising my mom I'll go to Mail Services tomorrow to pick up the package containing all my gifts. I hope I get some nice warm socks!!!!!

SCOOBYDOO (17A: Great Dane of animated cartoons)— I dressed up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween!!!! Here I am with Velma. We actually ended up being the only people that actually dressed up for the costume party we went to, but we looked great so who cares. Also doesn't it feel like Halloween just happened? Instead of having been more than a month ago? Oy.

PROSPER (4D: Thrive)— It honestly felt so weird to see this without "Live long and ____" as the clue. Or is that just because I'm a nerd? I dunno.
ONE (65A: Number replaced by "hup" by a drill sergeant— I was trying to remember what movie scene this clue made me think of and then this hit me like a ton of bricks.

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

[Follow Annabel Thompson on Twitter]

Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Easy for all of you, Medium for me

THEME: S- S- — two-word phrases where both words start with "S" and the second letter of each word moves from "A" (in the first themer) through all the vowels to "Y" (in the last themer):

Theme answers:

SAMPLE SALE (17A: Clothing store event to get rid of excess merchandise)
SECRET SERVICE (22A: Government agency charged with protecting the first family)
SIMPLE SIMON (28A: Nursery rhyme character who met a pieman)
SOMEDAY SOON (40A: In the near future)
"SUDDENLY SUSAN" (47A: Brooke Shields sitcom set at a trendy magazine)
SYLVIA SYMS (57A: Nightclub singer who was given the nickname "Buddha" by Frank Sinatra)

Word of the Day: SYLVIA SYMS (57A) —

Sylvia Syms (December 2, 1917 – May 10, 1992) was an American jazz singer and actress.
She was born Sylvia Blagman in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, she had polio. As a teenager, she went to jazz nightclubs on New York's 52nd Street and received informal training from Billie Holiday. She made her debut in 1941 at Kelly's Stable.
In 1948, performing at the Cinderella Club in Greenwich Village, she was seen by Mae West, who gave her a part in a show she was doing. Among others who observed her in nightclubs was Frank Sinatra who considered her the "world's greatest saloon singer." Sinatra conducted her 1982 album, Syms by Sinatra.
She was signed to a contract by Decca Records, having her major success with a recording of "I Could Have Danced All Night" in 1956, which sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc.^[2] Syms made regular appearances at the Carlyle in Manhattan. At times, impromptu, while enjoying a cocktail in the bar of the Carlyle, she would walk on stage and perform with the cabaret's other regular, Bobby Short. (wikipedia)

• • •

I could tell this was mostly Really easy as I was doing it, but I made initial errors in two different places, and then just didn't know who SYLVIA SYMS was, so my solving time was quite normal. If I hadn't face-planted twice with dumb bad first guesses, I might be singing a different tune, but with B- at 25D: Nincompoop I went with BOOB and then that first "O" turned out to be right so I was like "woo hoo!" but then [Old Russian autocrat] had me thinking TSAR, which didn't work, so ... I went back to the "B" [Nincompoop] word and changed BOOB to BORE ... BOAR ... nope, it's spelled BOOR, and it's wrong anyway. Great. Cleaned up that mess, but lost many valuable seconds. Then fell into a worse mess at 37D: Blushed or flushed. Had RED-, wrote in -FACED. That pretty much killed any chance I had at a faster-than-normal time. I could survive having to hack my way through SYLVIA SYMS (who I think I've at least heard of), but misguessing twice, that was fatal. Hyperbolically speaking.

The theme ... was a theme. Here it is. Theming all over the place. I don't know. Seems like a placeholder. It works, but it doesn't exactly produce exciting results, and doesn't have any particularly entertaining elements. Theme is consistent, grid is clean, but it's pretty dull overall. Even the fill is a little subpar, now that I look it over. Not terrible by any means, but pretty heavily reliant on repeaters like APOP ATARI ORES PPS ERLE ASSN LTYRS NOELS SSE UHURA ENERO etc. The only truly remarkable thing about this puzzle is the clue on NRA (2D: Org. opposed by Everytown for Gun Safety). I still think constructors should delete NRA from their wordlists completely, but if you're gonna use it, yes, clue it as the ****ing villain. Because it is. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS oh yeah I also floundered a bit trying to understand 64A: Hot Chocolate or Vanilla Fudge (BAND). These were, in fact, BANDs. They were popular 40 and 50 years ago, respectively. Older than "SUDDENLY SUSAN," not as old as Eva PERON. You are forgiven for not knowing them.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty: I don't know, I just sort of gave up ... probably on the Challenging side because of the gibberish

THEME: UNITED NATIONS (35A: Organization honored on October 24 ... and the theme of this puzzle) — "nations" all shoved together ("united"), and then reimagined as a wacky phrase:

Theme answers:

"IRA, NO MANIC ELAND!" (17A: "You can't bring in a crazed antelope, Mr. Glass!")
CUB ALE BAN ON (23A: Wrigley Field's beer boycott goes into effect?)
MA LIES TO NIA (50A: Mother isn't straight with actress Vardalos?)
PERUSER BIAS PAIN (57A: Suffering caused by reader prejudice?)

Word of the Day: ALAN KING (37D: Comic who said "If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books") —

Alan King (born Irwin Alan Kniberg; December 26, 1927 – May 9, 2004) was an American actor and comedian known for his biting wit and often angry humorous rants. King became well known as a Jewish comedian and satirist. He was also a serious actor who appeared in a number of movies and television shows. King wrote several books, produced films, and appeared in plays. In later years, he helped many philanthropic causes. (wikipedia)

• • •

Don't think I'll write much about this one. There are so many obvious problems that it just seems cruel. But a few words before I go. First, when you're dealing with a holiday, or a commemorative day of any kind, it's best to run the puzzle on that day. Barring that, then *near* that day. This is especially true of a day no one knows or cares about. I'm now realizing the whole irksome thing of running an October 24 puzzle on December 5 could've been avoided simply by choosing One Of Probably Infinite Other UNITED NATIONS Clues Available To You. Or, you know, by running this puzzle on the actual date of October 24 ... which was ... Also A Wednesday (!) OMF#@$#$@. Wow. OK. Then there's the theme itself, which is so gibberishy and involved so much repronunciation that it felt more like torture than pleasure. I finished with a typo at ISM (I had IST ... you can guess how thrilled I was to make a typo on that delightful bit of fill) (5D: Suffix with ideal), because my brain was parsing it as "IRA, NOT A NICE ELAND!", which admittedly seems ridiculous, but really ... I mean look at this puzzle. Who is it to tell me what's "ridiculous"? Anyway, figuring out those themers was a chore—one made infinitely more tedious by the dodgy fill that runs through the veins of this entire thing. All I have to do is direct you to column 6 (the ISM column). Just read down. ISM ULEE ESME. There should be some alarm that goes off on your puzzle any time you get a crosswordese bingo in your grid like that. Red lights. Sirens. Sirens that scream "ISM-ULEE-ESME! ISM-ULEE-ESME!" The works.

Someone I know got so annoyed at this grid that they made a whole new one:

This is the extremes to which some solvers will go to find amusement when the crossword lets them down so badly. I like the new grid. Its main problem is that it still contains all the dumb theme stuff. Thank god for crossword Twitter and the #NYTXW hashtag—they are a solace on days like this. Pain is easier to bear when it's shared:

(note: @AVCXWord is the American Values Crossword and @bewildering_ly is the Twitter handle of Will Nediger, whose (free) indie puzzle site is here. OK, back to the tweets...)

OK, then, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

PS what the hell is up with the clue on STARVE??? (45D: Eschew rather than chew?) Presumably if you're "starving" you just don't have *&^#ing food; you're not "eschewing" anything. This is a clue from someone who has plenty of food and never thinks about, I don't know, the 85K children (to date) who have starved to death in Yemen. "Eschewed"!? And all for a stupid pun?! Amazing. You could've saved this clue for FAST, where it would've been, you know, appropriate.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Sophia Maymudes

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:58)

THEME: KITTY CORNER (44A: Diagonally ... or a hint to four of this puzzle's squares) — "CAT" rebus, where "CAT" appears in each of the four corner boxes; there's this other theme answer, too: 34A: Places where some house pets "go," in both this puzzle and real life (LITTER BOXES) ... the implications of *that* answer ... well, let's just discuss it below ...

Theme answers:

CATTLE / CATALOG (NW)
FAT CAT / CATCHY (NE)
SNO-CAT / CATERS (SW)
MUSCAT / COPYCAT (SE)

Word of the Day: Frank CAPRA (5A: Three-time Best Director of the 1930s) —

Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Freer to consider him the "American Dream personified."
Capra became one of America's most influential directors during the 1930s, winning three Academy Awards for Best Director from six nominations, along with three other Oscar wins from nine nominations in other categories. Among his leading films were It Happened One Night(1934), You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); Capra was nominated as Best Director and as producer for Academy Award for Best Picture on all three films, winning both awards on the first two. During World War II, Capra served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and produced propaganda films, such as the Why We Fight series.
After World War II, Capra's career declined as his later films, such as It's a Wonderful Life(1946), performed poorly when they were first released. In ensuing decades, however, It's a Wonderful Life and other Capra films were revisited favorably by critics. Outside of directing, Capra was active in the film industry, engaging in various political and social issues. He served as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, worked alongside the Writers Guild of America, and was head of the Directors Guild of America. (wikipedia)

• • •

So... yeah, where to start? KITTY CORNER is a good revealer. LITTER BOXES ... is less ... good. It's ... what is it? A "litter" of cats? Those are called "kittens." If those are LITTER BOXES then either the cats all pooped in their corners, or the other meaning of "litter" must be what's being playfully suggested by the clue. But ... again, "litters" contain kittens, not cats. Also, the whole little cutesy play on "go" made me throw up in my mouth a little. If you could keep cat defecation gags (!) out of the revealer, that would be Great, thanks. As for the rebus itself: it was way way way too easy to get. Too basic. It's weird—the concept / KITTY CORNER revealer works, but it's so rudimentary that there's not a lot of challenge or fun. People are setting personal records left and right today because the whole concept here is about as close to a gimme as you're gonna get with a rebus puzzle. I finished quickly, but I'm kind of startled I didn't finish much more quickly. Once you realize that CATs are going to go in *every* corner, then you can just put them there and work your way back out of those corners—huge leg up, given that corners are often hard to get into. If you've got three letters deep in each corner ... well, that's just too much to hand the solver. I mean, people will be thrilled to shred a Thursday, probably, but there's not as much challenge here as the average Thursday solver is probably expecting, or looking forward to.

The trouble for me was that I filled the grid very ILLY right around ILLY. ILLY / LAID / DYE was a very, very rough patch. DYE was the real culprit, as I wanted about a thousand other three-letter things, including RYE, before I finally gave into DYE. Super strange to call DYE just an "Ingredient." Also, "many a breakfast cereal" is not nearly specific enough. None of the breakfast cereals that have ever been in my house have had DYEs (that I know of). [Ingredient in Trix], sure. But there you'd want DYES, plural. Maybe just avoid the breakfast cereal aisle entirely for this clue. Did you know other things are DYEd? It's true.

I also had trouble with the adjacent SW corner, as TAKEN OVER was somehow tough even with TAKE in there (36D: No longer independent), and then SHOVEL was bizarrely / awkwardly clued (57A: Eat quickly, with "in"), and EVANS, despite my having read all the HP books (some of theme twice), was just impossible for me (50D: Lily Potter's maiden name in the Harry Potter books). How prominent is her maiden name in the books? Do they make a big deal about it? When? No, don't tell me—I don't actually care. It's just a weird bit of minutiae to pull from a 7-novel universe. Nothing much else to talk about in this puzzle. Oh, I don't buy that a BEACH TOWEL is an "accessory" (30D: Sunbather's accessory). It's not a bracelet or a belt. It's not primarily about fashion. It's functional. Boo.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

P.S.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Sam Trabucco

Relative difficulty: Challenging (8:50 w/ an error)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ASHCAKE (45A: Southern corn bread) —

(n.) A bread (cake), usually specifically of cornmeal (thus, a cornbread), baked in hot ashes. (wiktionary)

• • •

Much more a Saturday than a Friday for me, in every way. Saturdays tend to be more punishing, less joyful Fridays, and this one was definitely more punishing and less joyful than last Friday. There's something wholly self-absorbed about this puzzle ... something ... it's like ... two "Transformers" clues? Crossing each other? Who even likes or cares about that? And then two more video game clues? On top of each other? In the same section? Of course "Transformers" and video games have their place in the world, and puzzles, but when you just cram a bunch of answers from your *particular* hobbies or obsessions into a corner, this means that people who don't share your demographic or definition of fun just get locked out. You have to take into consideration the solver, including solvers who aren't like you. In short, any field of interest is fair game. But when computergeekboydom getsOVERZEALOUS and has no sense of measure or balance ... ALAS. Just Look Up From Your Wordlist And Consider Solver Experience. SEED OYSTERS? Yeah, it's in your wordlist, congrats, but it's really just a bunch of Es and Ss and it's a technical term no one cares about. There is much to like, fill-wise, in this grid. But it's got that show-offy, "?"-y, look-at-my-wordlist, difficulty-porn vibe that makes me so depressed with puzzbro output these days.

Most of my difficulty was in that NE corner. Worst part was that for all the glitzy answers in this puzzle, I was ultimately undone by ... REOS, the cheapest, dumbest, oldest bit of crosswordese in this thing. That clue, 22D: Some antique buses (???? "buses" ????) meant zero to me. Nothing. None. "Buses." I keep thinking about "buses." I don't even know what image is supposed to be evoked there. I had R--S and no idea. The WII answer I just couldn't come up with (28A: Hand-held game devices). "Oh, it's WII-something ... sigh, I think it's a pun ... ugh, to people even play WII any more?" Had WIIM-TES and *still* didn't get it. WIIMATES? Also, I spelled it SHEOPLE (24A: Mindless followers, in slang). So though I ultimately got WIIMOTES, I had ROOS as the answer to the "buses" clue. Because SHEOPLE. Look, y'all can spell that dumb word (that I've only heard and not seen) however you want, I'm sticking with SHEOPLE. Oh, yeah, that corner also had REGALEMENT ... ... ... ... [sound of wind blowing] [a tumbleweed rolls by] [somewhere in the distance, a coyote howls] ... Interesting.

For once in my life, I spelled UZO ADUBA correctly, straight out of the gate ... but then continued to erase parts of it because the crosses seemed wonky. Hated cutesiness of [You might make one in your lap]. If you're going to torture English like that, at least give me a "?". Huge trouble with 29A: Trinity test subject because I thought it was some religious thing. Also, I very confidently had ISH for 23D: Real close? which made A-BOMB end -HB ... which is one of the reasons I kept doubting ADUBA. When it comes to proper nouns from pop culture with odd spellings (WIIMOTE, UZO ADUBA, DECEPTICON) you really should be careful with your adjacent fill. Less aren't-I-clever sadism, please! LOL, I just noticed BATE. "Come the weekend, I shall party, forsooth! Nay, I shall ne'er BATE my REGALEMENT!" Come on, BATE. How do you not go TATE there??? Enough.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:David Steinberg and Trenton Charston

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: OONA CHAPLIN (19A: Talisa Maegyr's portrayer on "Game of Thrones") —

Oona Castilla Chaplin [ˈuna kasˈtija ˈt͡ʃaplin] (born 4 June 1986) is a Spanish actress. Her roles include Talisa Maegyr in the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, The Crimson Field and the series Taboo.
A member of the Chaplin family, she is the daughter of actress Geraldine Chaplin, the granddaughter of English filmmaker and actor Charlie Chaplin, and the great-granddaughter of American playwright Eugene O'Neill.^[1] She was named after her maternal grandmother Oona O'Neill, Charlie's wife.

• • •

Hi there, Rachel Fabi in for Rex today. First of all, I want to congratulate OONA CHAPLIN for her first full-name NYT crossword appearance, not counting her grandmother's appearance in 1972 under the clue "O'Neill's daughter." You know you've made it when constructors start using the non-OONA parts of your name in puzzles!

This puzzle and I got off on the right foot; I threw down COMIC SANS, OPENLY GAY, MEAN GIRLS, and PEACE SIGN in my first four moves. And then I immediately crashed into a brick wall made of SYSOPS (???). I googled the term after finishing the puzzle, and I honestly still don't understand what it means. I even considered making it the word of the day, but the wikipedia definition is so vague and jargony ("an administrator of a multi-user computer system") that I can only guess it means 6D: Post masters? if SYSOPS are the people who... administer... internet posts?? Commenters, please send help.

SYSOPSaside, however, I don't have much to criticize about this puzzle. The cluing was tough but fair, and occasionally quite funny (see 29D: Really clicks with a partner, say? for TAP DANCES). The fill was also very clean, with the exception of maybe PHU (56D: Vietnam's Dien Bien ___), although the term does make an appearance in a very catchy Billy Joel song, so maybe it is fair game.

I do vehemently disagree with the spelling of SYNCH (does anyone spell it with an H in 2018?), but my delight at seeing THANKS OBAMA in the grid more than made up for it.

I also found the clue for PG THIRTEEN to be exceptionally misleading. After all, when you think of the characteristics of things that are 23A: Like "Wonder Woman," the MPAA rating of the 2017 live action film is probably not high on that list. That said, I don't think it was unfair-- just very, very Saturday.

And I think that may be my final verdict: overall, it was a clean, moderately challenging, Very Saturday™puzzle (let's make that a thing).

BULLETS

36A: Access to the slopes (SKI PASS) -- did anyone else fill this from the downs and then do a double take because your brain parsed it wrong? No? Just me?
52A: 2012 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, informally (THE EU) -- I just looked to see what they won for, and turns out they got it pretty much just for existing for 60 years and keeping France and Germany from going to war again? Cool!
10A: Rock climber's challenge (CRAG) -- I recently started indoor rock climbing, so I confidently threw down WALL and did not revisit it, making the NE corner the last place I filled. Oops.
12D: Half of a 1980s sitcom duo (ALLIE) -- I do not know who Allie is, nor do I know who the other half of this duo is.

Thanks to Rex for the opportunity to fill in -- hope to puzzle critique at you all again sometime soon.

Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of CrossWorld

[Follow Rachel on Twitter, where she mostly tweets about public health, ethics, and immigration]

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy (8:24)

THEME: FANTASTIC BEASTS / AND / WHERE TO FIND THEM (62A: With 68- and 74-Across, J.K. Rowling's first screenplay, with a hint to three pairs of answers in this puzzle) — three fantastic beasts and also ... where to find them

Theme answers:

ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, cryptid of the HIMALAYAS (91A: Creation after the Indian and Eurasian plates collided)
LOCH NESS MONSTER, cryptid of the SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS (115A: Gaelic's home)
THE KRAKEN, cryptid of THE NORWEGIAN SEA (105A: It borders Iceland's eastern coast)

Word of the Day: NEROLI (84A: Perfumery oil) —

noun
an essential oil distilled from the flowers of the Seville orange, used in perfumery. (google)

• • •

The story of this crossword is: the revealer was an enormous gimme. So many people will be able to fill it right in, even without any crosses. On top of that, the rest of the puzzle is not very challenging at all. My orange trouble marker (the felt-tip pen I use to mark the trouble spots on my printed-out grid) is not getting much action. Some symmetricalish trouble in the DRCLAW / ASTANA areas, and then holy hell what is NEROLI (?) ... but the lone real trouble spot, for me, took the form of a kind of fault line located (aptly) in the California section of the puzzle, running from SHALE OIL down through CARLOTTO (??!?!?!?!?!) (86D: Massimo who wrote "The Goodbye Kiss"). Where those two plates meet (i.e. OZS and STACIE ?!), there was some shaking, rumbling, and mild property damage. Else, smooth sailing. Grid seemed pretty clean and interesting. The themers play pretty fast and loose with definite articles (including THE here, excluding it there), but conceptually it was consistent. I liked solving this one just fine. I think the gimme revealer is a bit of a problem, but no one but me is going to complain about getting that much help. Many personal speed records will be set today. I was only 40 seconds off my own.

Half of constructing is noticing when words or phrases can be arranged symmetrically or broken down into symmetrical segments, so good catch on the Rowling screenplay title. Honestly, that title seems built for crosswords—fits symmetrically and seems to be dictating the theme concept straight to you. "Yeah, it's not a complicated concept," it seems to be saying, "but it's sturdy and straightforward, not to mention whimsical, and people love whimsy, mate." It's like finding a recipe for a crossword. But ... you can't find it if you're not paying attention, so all credit to the constructor.

Five things:

112D: Angle (FISH)— oy that was hard. Had the FI- and still nothing. So many possible meanings for "angle," but this one really Really didn't occur to me.
123A: Capital of Kazakhstan (ASTANA)— why do I want this to be ASHTANA? It's very much not, not even by pronunciation, but ... I wish I could think of why I want that "SH" sound in there... I did a puzzle recently that contained QAZAQSTAN. That was fun.
127A: What old army buddies might discuss (THE WAR) — uh ... no. Let's just pretend this non-phrase is not even here, shall we? I'd actually like THE BAR better here. Maybe with a clue about raising or lowering or draining

106D: Value system (ETHIC) — one of my least favorite solving issues is ETHIC v. ETHOS. I don't know the difference and even if the difference were explained to me, I would promptly forget it and end up writing this same comment again on a later puzzle. I'm not convinced I haven't written this same comment before. The infinite recursion of ETHICOS!
4A: "Inspector Gadget" antagonist (DR. CLAW) — just realized, just this second, that I had this guy confused in my mind with the antagonist from "The Smurfs" ... argh, what's his name ... had a cat ... wore some kind of ankle-length black dress ... Megulore ... Melmadar ... aargh, GARGAMEL! His cat was AZRAEL! I'm not sure I can even picture DR. CLAW. So here's a picture of DR. CLAW (who also has a cat!):

NOTE: They Might Be Giants have a song called "Mr. Klaw" *and* a song called "Dr. Worm"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alex Eylar

Relative difficulty: Challenging (by the clock ... 3:38, my third-slowest Monday of the timed era)

THEME: THE PLOT THICKENS (37A: "Now things are getting interesting" ... or a hint to the first words of 17-, 24-, 45- and 57-Across) — first words are DIRT ... and then foliage starts growing, leading to GRASS, then BUSH, and finally JUNGLE:

Theme answers:

DIRT CHEAP (17A: Extremely inexpensive)
GRASS ROOTS (24A: Bottom-up, as a political movement)
BUSH LEAGUE (45A: Amateurish)
JUNGLE GYM (57A: Bars that kids go to?)

Word of the Day: MT. IDA (31D: Sacred peak in Greek myth: Abbr.) —

Mount Ida, known variously as Idha, Ídhi, Idi, Ita and now Psiloritis (Greek: Ψηλορείτης, "high mountain"), at 2,456 m (8,057 feet), is the highest mountain on Crete. Located in the Rethymno regional unit, it was sacred to the Greek TitanessRhea, and on its slopes lies one of the caves, Idaion Antron, in which, according to legend, Zeus was born. Its summit (Timios Stavros) has the highest topographic prominence in Greece. A natural park which includes Mt. Ida is a member of UNESCO's Global Geoparks Network. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, the concept is pretty original, I think. It's clever, anyway, though I don't think the progression is terribly logical. I'm not sure in what sense BUSH is being used. Like, shrubbery, or the Australian BUSH, i.e. just ... the wilderness. Actually, Australian BUSH has no vegetation specifications, so that can't be right here. But shrubbery ... doesn't seem like a step between GRASS and JUNGLE. And JUNGLE .... would that ever, ever grow on a "plot," which implies property ownership, development, etc.? It's all pretty loose and wonky, conceptually. I can see how you'd want to make THE PLOT THICKENS into a revealer, seeing as how it's a tidy 15 letters and all. But this progression feels off. Also off was the forms of the long Downs. CARPOOLER. WENT ROGUE. Both fine, acceptable answers, but with -ERing and past-tensing, just tweaked enough to be trouble, especially CARPOOLER, which weirdly vexed me. I had trouble all over the east and (especially) south, where GLUEY (???) (49D: Sticky) was GOOEY (an actual word one might use) and UANDI (50D: We, on a candy heart) was ... well, nothing, really, because what kind of stupid clue is that. The whole point of writing on a candy heart is that you're using cutesy abbrevs., which, admittedly, "U" is, but ... "We" is a mere two letter, whereas UANDI is five, why on god's increasingly green earth would you use UANDI where u could use WE?!!??! This makes no sense. Also making no sense. TEATS / TAO. I'll give you five seconds to get rid of TEATS: go. Seriously, go! (I just hate the word TEATS (22D: Milk dispensers) ... all other words referring to nipples or breasts, I have no problem with; bring 'em on. But TEATS ... TEATS is my "moist"; it just makes me wince a little; totally OK if you have to use it, but if you don't have to ... I would prefer not) (I think I especially hate the clue here ... conflating a beverage dispenser at a buffet with the mammary glands of animals just seems ugh)

Five things:

53A: Texas city seen in many westerns (LAREDO) — Not very iconic for me. Also, this answer went through GLUEY and UANDI, so oof
44A: Bub (BUSTER)— ??? [Boxer Douglas] or [Silent film star Keaton] woulda been helpfuler
33D: Equipment often transported on a car's roof (SKIS) — literally *anything* more specific than "equipment" woulda been nice here
8D: Informal affirmative (YEP)— Is it YEP. YUP, it's YEP. [Affirmative in 53-Across] might've worked here
33A: Pop a fly? (SWAT) — really thought the "?" here meant that "fly" was going to refer to the pants part. I was imagining busting zippers or buttons or whatever.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I had LANAI before KAUAI, which is what happens when you get a generic [One of the Hawaiian islands] clue and the letters you already have in place are just the -AI :(

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (3:45)

THEME: COMPOST BIN (50A: Place for kitchen scraps, such as those starting 16-, 24-, 32- and 44-Across)— pretty self-explanatory

Theme answers:

SHELL SHOCK (16A: Combat trauma)
PEEL OUT (24A: Leave quickly, as from a parking spot)
GROUNDS CREW (32A: Baseball field maintainers)
PIT BOSS (44A: Casino V.I.P.)

Word of the Day: NEGAWATTS (31D: Units of power saved, in modern lingo) —

Negawatt power is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of electrical power (measured in watts) saved. The energy saved is a direct result of energy conservation or increased energy efficiency. The term was coined by the chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute and environmentalist Amory Lovins in 1985, within the article, "Saving Gigabucks with Negawatts," where he argued that utility customers don’t want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services such as hot showers, cold beer, lit rooms, and spinning shafts, which can come more cheaply if electricity is used more efficiently. Lovins felt an international behavioral change was necessary in order to decrease countries' dependence on excessive amounts of energy. The concept of a negawatt could influence a behavioral change in consumers by encouraging them to think about the energy that they spend. (wikipedia)

• • •

What kind of SHELL? Like ... a crab shell? Clam? Taco? I don't put those in the compost. Pits either. I don't know why. I just don't. Coffee grounds, sure. Peel, yeah. I don't know. First-words themes have kind of a high bar because they're so basic, and I don't know if this one cleared said bar. Nothing very bin-y about it. Word play is pretty rudimentary. The grid is also segmented in this really annoying way, where you can't get out of the north except by going waaaaay over to the west. Otherwise, I think the grid is really pretty clean and shiny. I don't know that I think it's a Tuesday grid (felt slightly more Wednesdayish, somehow), but except for a couple of very short answers, nothing was jarringly icky. We need to talk about 31-Down, though, because ... that is some nonsense. It's some nonsense for a number of reasons. First of all, I've never heard of it. Fine, I've never heard of lots of things, but really ... never. And I'm not alone. By a long shot.

[these are just from the first half hour after the puzzle was posted]

So someone—maybe the constructors, maybe an aspirationally hip subeditor—thought they'd get cute with their "original" fill and ... wipeout. New for new's sake is dumb and self-indulgent. It's all made so much worse by the fact that a simple one-letter change turns it into a familiar word.

I was slowed down by FILE CLERK, because having FI- in place I wrote in FIRST-YEAR (4D: Low-level law firm employee). Also really struggled with POP BY, even after I got the -BY. And the -PBY. And the -OPBY. Me: "HOP BY????" (5A: Visit on a whim) Oof. PASS ON, also weirdly hard to parse (5D: Forgo). So, yeah, all the difficulty in this one, besides NEGAWATTS, and AMAL (whose name I just plum forgot) (49A: ___ Clooney, lawyer often seen in tabloids) was in the NW. I wrote in ACRE for AREA (18A: Real estate measurement), and that messed things up for a few seconds in the NE. My favorite moment in this puzzle didn't actually happen to me. It happened to a friend who sent me this screenshot with the subject heading: "Uh oh..."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. who PEELs OUT from a *parking spot*. I'm just imagining the parking lot at Wegmans and thinking ... this is not possible, or at least not advised. Try "intersection" next time.

P.P.S. oh hey watch this, it features my friend David Kwong, talking crosswords and magic and stuff (also, he's on The "Today" Show this morning at 9am EST, doing magic, I assume)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty: Medium (v. easy theme to pick up, but the rest, er ...)

THEME: QUEEN's performance at LIVE-AID — some trivia related to this event

Theme answers:

FREDDIE / MERCURY (20A: With 58-Across, iconic frontman of 39-Across)
QUEEN (39A: British rock band that gave an iconic performance at 25-Down)
LIVEAID (25D: 1985 fund-raising event watched by 1.5+ billion people)
CONCERT (22A: 25-Down, notably)
BENEFIT (55A: 25-Down, notably)

Word of the Day: NUNCIO (10D: Vatican diplomat) —

noun
(in the Roman Catholic Church) a papal ambassador to a foreign court or government. (google)

• • •

The only thing worse than Scrabble-f***ing your way to a pangram is Scrabble-f***ing your way to a pangram with the help of a f***ing NAZI.. That is the most gratuitous NAZI I have ever seen. Ever. Do you know how easy it is to make this a NAZI-free puzzle. The theme is putting Absolutely No Pressure on that part of the grid. Further, if you are the kind of person who oohs and aahs at the miracle that is a pangram, and you just have to have Every Single Letter of the alphabet in your grid because whooppee!, then guess what, it is also easy to get the "Z" into that section WITHOUT THE HELP OF A NAZI. Oh, but look ... oh, no. He didn't have to just cram the "Z" in there: he had to cram the "Z" *and* the "W" in there as well. I'm staring at this grid in disbelief. I am a real-life version of crosswordese, namely AGAZE and AGAPE. Possibly also AGOG. Is AGLARE a thing? Well then, that too. Imagine. Imagine torturing your grid so that you could Put A "W" In Your Grid. So he shoves a "Z" and a "W" into this tiny, insignificant section of the grid so that ... so that ... so that he could have his pangram (which most people won't notice), and you, you lucky solver, you could have your NAZI. Enjoy. Soak it up. Bask in the gratuitous NAZI. It's really something. If your precious pangram is so important, so important that a "Z" and a "W" both have to fit in this 3x4 section, there's this:

Or there's this

Or there's finding literally anywhere else in the grid to put the "W." Or, you know, there's just not giving a good god**** about pangrams and making the grid the best it can be, or, if nothing else, at least NAZI-free.

The theme is one of those trivia themes where you just heap trivia in there. It's not timely, as the FREDDIE / MERCURY movie came out ages ago. Why the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" is in circles at the top and bottom of the grid, I have no idea. It's a QUEEN song. But you knew that. The fill in thing this is atrocious. AGENORM (?) next to NUNCIO (!?) is DIRE indeed. LEROI on its own? APSO on its own? INICE!??! ENRY :( I was just telling my wife the other day that QUEEN's"The Game" was one of the first albums I ever owned that was *my* music, not my parents'. A really important record for me. So I'm primed to love a QUEEN-based puzzle. But I guess I'm also primed to hate a really bad one. Tell him about it, Freddie:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: John Westwig

Relative difficulty: Medium, tending towards Hard

THEME:X Marks the Spot— A giant X in black squares on the grid substitutes for different words in the beginnings and ends of the theme answers.

Theme answers:

MALCOLM X
KISS (X) GOODBYE
NEW YORK TIMES (X) I see what you did there
CROSS (X) SECTION

Word of the Day:DAGMAR (45D: One-named 1950's TV Sex Symbol) —

Dagmar (born Virginia Ruth Egnor, November 29, 1921 – October 9, 2001) was an American actress, model, and television personality. In the 1950s, the statuesque, busty blonde became one of the first major female stars of television, receiving much press coverage.
Dagmar became one of the leading personalities of early 1950s live television, doing sketch comedy on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater, the Bob Hope Show, and other shows. On June 17, 1951, she appeared on the Colgate Comedy Hour with host Eddie Cantor and guests Milton Berle, Phil Foster,
and Jack Leonard. In 1951, she made a TV guest appearance with Frank Sinatra,[4] which prompted Columbia Records producer Mitch Miller to record a novelty duet with Frank and Dagmar, "Mama Will Bark". That same year, she was featured in a Life cover story with Alfred Eisenstaedt's photo of her on the July 16, 1951, issue. For the interior photo essay, Life photographers followed her to rehearsals and accompanied her on a vacation back to her home town in West Virginia.(Wikipedia)

• • •

Hello everyone out there in Rexland, I'm Dan Felsenheld, longtime reader, first time blogger, filling in for Rex while he is on assignment. No really, I volunteered for this. Now to the puzzle! First off, the grid - it's a bit weird because it has "unchecked squares", so right away when I saw it I suspected that something funky was going on. First I thought it was a rebus, especially when I got 8D and I briefly thought it might be NEW YOR(KER) but I quickly abandoned that idea. Overall I had a hard time with this one, initially put OOLONG for MATCHA, hadBEHINDSfor BOTTOMS, had ETHER for EMBER, and for the longest time I had MANDELA instead of MALCOLM. In fact the last M in MALCOLM was the final letter in the grid. Once I finally got the grid correct (I "finished" but had some errors which I figured out fairly quickly), I had no idea what the them was! After staring for what seemed like an eternity, it finally struck me, the X in the middle stood for different words, duh! Malcolm was the giveaway. I could have used a revealer in there somewhere though 9Dwas sort of a clue. I thought the fill was pretty clean, not a lot of crosswordese - sure there is our old friend NACRE at 49A, and hi Brian ENO! I raised my eyebrows a bit at SAUTE PAN, it seems a little bit, as Rex would say, GREEN PAINT-ish. 20A:ARMY MEN, this one eluded me for quite a while. When I think of ARMY MEN, I think of these guys that I played with as a kid:

Overall, I liked the concept, it was well hidden (at least from me!) and well executed, since the X stands for four different words. Well done Mr. Westwig. I don't know if this is your debut or if you are even reading this, but if it is (and you are), congrats!

Bullets:

NERDCRED— Love this term, and hoping that blogging for Rex increases mine!
JJWATT— Truly one of the coolest NFL Players out there and from all accounts a genuinely nice guy
I'M BATMAN — I always hear this in a Michael Keaton voice.
HOMEBREW - Once made a case of my own beer at a local brewery

Here's one of my favorite bands with the theme from "Malcolm in the Middle":

Signed, Dan Felsenheld, Viceroy of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Andrew J. Ries

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: None

Word of the Day: TUPPERWARE PARTY (37A: Gathering where burping is encouraged) —

Tupperware is still sold mostly through a party plan, with rewards for hosts. A Tupperware party is run by a Tupperware "consultant" for a host who invites friends and neighbors into his or her home to see the product line. Tupperware hosts are rewarded with free products based on the level of sales made at their party. Parties also take place in workplaces, schools, and other community groups. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hi-diddly-ho CrossWorld! Aimee Lucido here, filling in for Rex. When I told him I wanted to do a guest post, I was hoping he'd start me off with a nice Monday puzzle, or maybe a Tuesday... you know, something I could for-sure finish. I mean, I *just* started consistently solving Fridays back in July. But this one solved pretty easy for me.

I finished the bulk of this puzzle in just over 15 minutes (which is fast for me, I swear), but I spent five whole minutes trying to figure out what the heck NASARSTRITS were. Turns out I had misread the word "Ziegfeld" in 27A as "Ziegfried" and put in ROY. Not that that's even how you spell "Siegfried" but when you have ?OY,LOYis just about the last guess you'd make there. On top of that I had RETRO for REPRO and all that combined with the fact that it took me far too long to realize the clue on 10D had absolutely nothing to do with traffic, added up to me wasting five whole minutes scanning my grid for my mistake.

The puzzle overall was hit or miss for me. I loved the center downs, I surprisingly got ATLANTAN very quickly, and by the time I hit SOCIAL IQ in the bottom right I found myself thinking SO FAR SO GOOD.

But moving into the west half of the grid began to get painful. I have a hard time remembering SDS, and the clue on 51A felt icky enough that I was reluctant to put in EXCON. And, since it was crossing OXLIP, I found myself rooting for STT and EUCON to be real, since then my original answer of TULIP would be right, and my icky EXCON answer would be wrong.

But what I really want to talk about is this TUPPERWARE PARTYthing. First of all, I didn't know that Tupperware parties even existed. Is it just me, or does the idea of a party where the guest of honor is a bunch of empty leftover containers sound boring AF? Also, maybe it's because I'm a Millennial™, but I have no clue what "burping" has to do with Tupperware. Does one drink carbonated beverages at a Tupperware Party? Or eat foods with a lot of OIL? Or does "burping" just refer to the sound it makes when you pull the lid off a Tupperware container? I've been staring at this clue for EONS and I just don't get it!

Bullets:

39D: Writer of satirical works (PARODIST) — My brain really wanted this to be a specific writer of satirical works.
49D: Reduces to small bits (RICES) — This is one of those Friday-esque clues that I actually really like. I've never heard "rice" used as a verb before, but it's inferable from the "small bits" part of the clue, and the crosses are all gettable.
25A: Part of a cable network? (GONDOLA) — Gondola *lifts* not gondola *boats*
8D: Gamer's likeness (AVATAR) — I will never again hear this word without picturing this:

Signed, Aimee Lucido, Scribe of CrossWorld

[Follow Aimee Lucido on Twitter and Facebook]

P.S. Any other Bachelor fans out there hear SOCIAL IQand picture this?

via GIPHY

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging for me (9:15, w/ an error) but I've seen other times, and it's apparently more Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day:"RENO 9-1-1" (30D: Setting of a 2000s Comedy Central police show) —

Reno 911! is an American comedy television series on Comedy Central that ran from 2003 to 2009. It is a mockumentary-style parody of law enforcement documentary shows, specifically Cops, with comic actors playing the police officers. Most of the material is improvised, using a broad outline with minimal scripted material. The series spawned a film, Reno 911!: Miami, featuring the same cast. Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney-Silver all starred in and are billed as creators of the series. (wikipedia)

• • •

Parts of this were very easy. I came right down the west coast like it was no problem at all, or not much of one. But after dropping ELGRECO into the SW, and then SONAR and HINES into the middle, things started to go very wrong. I just couldn't push up into the NE and couldn't really push down into the SW. Cape ____, I don't know. CIGAR ... what? ROOM? Seemed like a lot of possible four-letter answers (32D: Locale for Cubans). And then ... I just had a problem of not looking at long gimmes soon enough. I was in the SW a while, struggling with Downs, before I looked at 56A: #1 hit for the Jackson 5 and Mariah Carey ("I'LL BE THERE"), a total gimme. Before that, though, I had ELGRECO SELA CERES and a whole lotta nothing. I had COOLER but didn't believe BEER COOLER was a thing. You can put anything in a COOLER, right? Is there one they make *just* for beer? Also, side note: PBRS is an atrocious plural. Whatever, I was slow down there, and very slow getting out because I kept putting SLEDDERS in and taking it out because it was resulting in an impossible cross at 46A: CDD-. Ugh, how is a CD DRIVE a *program* opening. I get that you might put a disc into the drive. But the disc is not the program. There are programs on discs, presumably, but the disc isn't the program. The cluing on this one was irking me all over, from BEER COOLER to CDDRIVE to IRAQI (what's w/ the gratuitous militarism here?) (47D: Operation Red Dawn defender) to HESITATION (I mean, I guess that's a pre-jump thing, but so is vomiting or fainting or shouting 'Cowabunga!'—also it is not an *ideal* pre-jump thing, as I understand it), to CHUTZPAH (5D: Arguing with God, for example) (why are you bringing God into this? that word is used for ordinary stuff). But the worst clues, for me, were in a bunch, in the east. Let's start with GOOSE (33A: Stimulate).

I think it's really "Stimulate" that is the problem here. That word has positive connotations where physical touching is concerned, and the verb GOOSE, as I've most commonly heard it, involves pinching, often men pinching women, often men pinching women's asses. Wow, actually, the M-W definition is much more graphic:

"Upward thrust"!? I did not know that was required, or definitive. So, yeah, the clue is technically correct, for def. 2, but making the clue a positive-touch word when the answer's primary meaning is such a negative-touch word ... not great. Editing! Also, hey, am I the only one who says the "L" (sort of) in POLK? (27D: Apt surname for an acupuncturist?) POKE and POLK sound different to me. Or feel different coming out of my mouth. I hated this version of the "apt name" clue for this reason. I also didn't like the clue on CLAW (37A: Cardinal point?). If I had to name all the parts of the bird, I would never say CLAW, ever. Bears have CLAWs. Birds have talons. Therefore, I wrote in CRAW. This left me with an acupuncturist named PORK, but I didn't really stop to think about that. PORK / CRAW, very real words! Done!

Here's the thing—if I had looked at 5A: Folklore monster whose name means "goat-sucker" (CHUPACABRA) early on, this solve would've gone very differently. Because that long answer was a Gimme. If I'd gone *there* after the NW, instead of struggling in the south and east, I would've gotten PIED PIPER and SIT 'N' SPIN (two answers I could Not get trying to come at them from the puzzle's middle). Also would've come at SOCCER TEAM from the *top* (so much easier than the bottom) (26D: United, e.g.). I was coming at a bunch of answers from the wrong side. CHUPACABRA, a top-row gift, would've changed all of that. Once I (finally) looked at it, the puzzle sped up again. I still would've finished with PORK / CRAW, but I would've finished *quickly*!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS also had a triple-wrong answer fiasco in the SE at one point with NEHI NESS TEAL (instead of TRIX EARP AQUA). Good times.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Challenging (14:02)

THEME:"Top Gear"— a hat ("gear" on "top" of your head???) drops down in the middle of long Across themers; once the name of the hat ends, the answer resumes on the original line; the revealer, of course, is AT THE DROP OF A HAT (108A: Immediately ... or where this puzzzle's five circled squares appear?)

Theme answers:

CALLINGINTOQUESTION (27A: Casting doubt on)
CYBERETHICS (40A: Topic concerned with hacking and software rights)
WHATAMI? (65A: Riddle-ending query)
SNAKEPIT (83A: Dangerous environment)
BOOKOFEZRA (89A: It comes after II Chronicles)

Word of the Day:"Miss SLOANE" (53D: "Miss ___" (2016 political thriller)) —

Miss Sloane is a 2016 political thriller film, directed by John Madden and written by Jonathan Perera. The film stars Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alison Pill, Jake Lacy, John Lithgow, and Sam Waterston.
The film had its world premiere on November 11, 2016, at the AFI Fest, and began a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 25, 2016, by EuropaCorp, before expanding wide on December 9, 2016. It was released in France on March 8, 2017. It received generally positive reviews, and Chastain's performance was acclaimed by critics. [...] Miss Sloane is ranked number 75 by per-theater average on Box Office Mojo’s list of Worst Opening Weekend films released since 1982. (emph mine) (wikipedia)

• • •

TFW you know juuuuuuust enough about Willa Cather's writing to get yourself into terrible trouble.

I like the theme idea here, and the execution is OK, but ... there's just five elements, and the rest of the puzzle is mostly unremarkable, or remarkable only when the obviously beefy constructing software wordlist rears its head with junk like ICANGO INACOMA or INCAPS. Not sure why this one played hard, but it did (for me). Real trouble getting started, largely because of the Willa Cather fiasco. But I just found the fill and cluing to be forced and irksome all over. "IT'S IN!"? ... I mean, I guess. OK. Shrug. VEALER? I'm sure you're right. I'm sure it's valid. It's just ... there's just too much making me go "I guess..." and not enough making me go "ooh, cool." As for the thinness of the theme, there's not much to be done there. Not many hat types are going to work as letter strings inside of longer words or phrases. Maybe you could get TURBAN or MITRE to work out, but, like, FEDORA seems impossible (CHAFED ORANGE? FED ORANGUTANS?), as do most of the hats on the long list of hat types I just looked at. I'm just not sure there's enough action here for a Sunday. The whole thing just feels like a 15x15 idea that got inflated to 21x21, with ... mixed results. Seems kind of sad to have CAP in the grid but not let it go Down like all the other hats (84A: Easy-to-swallow pill => GELCAP)

ABAFT ATEMPO IRENIC AGLET LOM ENCE SABE UPCS KOI-EMS-NAH ... I mean, some of this kind of crud you just have to abide. But do I also have to abide PIUSIIIIIIIIIIII? (45A: Pope who supported the House of Borgia) And I suppose the "red-and-white striped box" is iconic where POPCORN is concerned, but not where I see movies. Not ever. Weird to not even have a "maybe" on that clue. LTGEN (44A: Three-star mil. rank) was blargh city, made blarghier by the fact that I forgot the Mets played at Citi Field and so wrote in NYM for 34D: MetLife Staudium team, on scoreboards (NYG). Were there any LTGENs in "M*A*S*H"? Because honestly if it's a mil. rank that wasn't in "M*A*S*H," I probably don't know it. I'm exaggerating, but only barely. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the giganto-Holiday-crossword in the paper today. I think it's print-only, so run out and get one for yourself. I have no hopes that it will be a great puzzle, but I do have hopes that it will be a Big puzzle. Have a lovely day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Brian Thomas and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:05)

THEME: HI, JACKS! (39A: Commandeers .. or a friendly hello to the people starting 18-, 24-, 51- and 62-Across) — starts of all indicated answers are words that are also the last names of famous Jacks (real and fictional):

Theme answers:

SPARROW HAWK (18A: Small bird of prey)
LONDON BRIDGE (24A: Something falling down, in a children's song)
RUBY SLIPPERS (51A: Dorothy's footwear in "The Wizard of Oz")
BLACK FRIDAY (62A: What follows Thanksgiving)

Word of the Day: SCOTCH (33A: Put the kibosh on)—

verb
1.
decisively put an end to.

"a spokesman has scotched the rumors"

synonyms: put an end to, put a stop to, nip in the bud, put the lid on
2.
wedge (someone or something) somewhere.

"he soon scotched himself against a wall"
noun
ARCHAIC
1.
a wedge placed under a wheel or other rolling object to prevent its moving or slipping. (google)

• • •

This works fine, I think, though why I would want to say hi to any of these creeps, I don't know. Actually, maybe Jack Black is a nice guy, I don't know. But you can keep Jack Sparrow and Jack Ruby, and Jack London was a straight-up racist, so ... pass. The grid is a tad (or A BIT) crosswordesey, but it's mostly clean, and the re-parsing of HIJACKS is a solid enough wordplay gimmick for a Monday revealer. No real complaints here. I have more complaints about my own stupid brain, actually, as I have not been able to crack three minutes on a Monday for six weeks now. Before that, I'd never had more than two consecutive solves without dipping into the 2s, but man, I am in a rut. Four of the last six solving times are in the 3:01-3:09 range, so I'm close, I just ... keep missing. Today, I would've had it except for a spectacular face-plant right at the end. I made a very dumb mistake that I would never have made if I could just have come up with SPICE. [Pizazz] to me = ELAN or BRIO. SPICE is something I taste. Something I add to food. I'm not disputing the accuracy of the clue, just saying the association for me was weak. Had the SP- and couldn't think of a damn thing. This led directly to my epic stupid mistake, which was: having BLACK ---DAY in place and writing in BLACK SUNDAY (!?). In my defense, though admittedly it's not much of one, "BLACK SUNDAY" is definitely a thing. It's just not *this* thing. When I noticed I had only a few squares left, but SPN- at 52D: Pizazz, I knew I was screwed. Sure enough, after scrambling to clean up my mess: 3:05. Wah WAH.

Five things:

44D: "I'm up for doing the job!" ("SURE CAN!") — ugh, god save me from these "quote unquote" clues. I inevitably mess them up. The English prof in me is super annoyed that a fragment is being asked to stand in for a complete sentence. Bah!

36A: Actor Efron of "High School Musical" (ZAC) — middle of grid is super choppy, with lots of black squares and short answers, and we got a little Scrabble-f***ing here with the "Z" and the "J" from JUG. But it doesn't result in forced fill and let's all be grateful they didn't torture the grid in order to turn it into a pangram.
58D: Czech or Croat (SLAV) — look, no matter how many times you explain the difference to me, I'm going to confuse SLAV and SERB, I just am. See also, especially, the Baltic and the Balkans. If I think about it, sure. But under pressure? Botched.
33A: Put the kibosh on (SCOTCH) — this clue and answer would both like you to get off of their lawns.
47D: Like thumped watermelons making a deep sound (RIPE) — the phrasing on this clue is Ugly, and ugh spare me your loooooong and vague and somewhat folkloric clues. "Deep sound"? That is pretty imprecise. Also, "thump" *is* the sound. Don't Get Cute!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (for a Tuesday) (3:46)

THEME: FASHION POLICE (35A: Wearers of 17-, 24-, 50- and 59-Across)— ordinary phrases where the last word can be an article of clothing, clued as if they related to the sartorial habits of law enforcement:

Theme answers:

DUST JACKET (17A: Proper attire for taking fingerprints?)
TRAIL BLAZER (24A: Proper attire for picking up a series of clues?)
HOLDING TANK (50A: Proper attire for detaining a perp?)
FOLLOW SUIT (59A: Proper attire for shadowing a suspect?)

Word of the Day: RARITAN (25D: New Jersey river or bay) —

The Raritan were bands of the Lenape people living around the Raritan Riverand its bay, in what is now northeastern New Jersey and Staten Island, New York. (wikipedia)

• • •

Yeah, so, I actually thought this was an OK theme with an OK revealer. There's some inconsistency in the theme execution (someone in law enforcement might DUST or TRAIL or FOLLOW (uh, those are the same words, but whatever ...) but they probably wouldn't HOLDING—they would HOLD), but the revealer is snappy and ties the themers together in two ways: at the level of fashion and at the level of police. So it's a step way up from a simple "last words"-type of puzzle, where the last words all have something in common but, really, who cares? Weirdly, I think HOLDING TANK is the outlier for being the *most correct* of the bunch. The most parallel. Clues all start [Proper attire for verb-ING something], so the -ING in the clue is actually very appropriate-seeming. You could probably get a Sunday-sized puzzle out of this if you go to the -INGs and then add, you know, an ARRESTING phrase and maybe a GRILLING phrase, I dunno. Anyway, I thought this was fine, at least at the theme level.

The "?" nature of the themers and the highly segmented grid and some awkward / odd fill made this one play slightly tough for me. TRUE SELF and PAYABLES and EMERSION and especially THE (the!) NBA all required tons of crosses. Cluing THENBA as simply a [Sports org. ...], w/ absolutely no indication of what sport, when you've also gone and put the stupid definite article in there, is just weird and cruel. RARITAN is of local interest, I guess, because I don't know that at all. Or, rather, I know it as a ... literary journal? Is that right? Ah yes, a quarterly review from (geographically appropriately, I see) Rutgers. I sort of learned something!

Five things:

29A: Hicks and Judge of Major League Baseball (AARONS) — pretty long name to pluralize, but nice attempt at trying to legitimize it by making both the AARONS baseball players. I was lucky to know these guys, as well as the nearby baseball answer FUNGO (22A: Bat for hitting practice fly balls), as I was not able to slide smoothly from NW to NE via TRAILBLAZER and so needed to reboot completely in the NE. Baseball!
43D: Wino, e.g. (SOT) — laughing and sneering at alcoholics is one of my least favorite things the crossword regularly does. These are essentially slurs. Also, not great fill. I would avoid SOT if I could. You couldn't just made it YET. (Please don't tell me EEE is worse than EEO because that is manifestly untrue, as EEO is among the worst things a puzzle could ever have to offer)
51D: Put into categories (GROUP) — ugh, this clue. I had GR- and wrote in GRADE.
31D: 1D: Cousin of a pollock (COD) — I thought this clue word was a slur as well. But it's a fish. Gotta love COD x/w OREO. Enjoy your breakfast!
12D: Model Chrissy who wrote the best seller "Cravings" (TEIGEN) — glad they went with "who wrote the best seller..." as opposed to "married to John Legend," which she is, famously, but ... nice for women to stand on their own in crosswords (see also clues for AMAL Clooney). Actually, I think she may be more famous in her own right than he is (despite his EGOT). I'm surprised I haven't seen TEIGEN in a grid before.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Seth A. Abel

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:24)

THEME: ANAGRAM (lol, seriously, that's the revealer) (38A: Each asterisked clue vis-à-vis its answer) — just what it says

Theme answers:

SYCOPHANT (20A: *Acts phony)
NATURALIST (11D: *A trails nut)
GARBAGEMAN (28D: *Bag manager)
THEHILTON (52A: *Hint: hotel)

Word of the Day: TOPSY (31D: Young slave girl in "Uncle Tom's Cabin") —

Topsy – A young slave girl. When asked if she knows who made her, she professes ignorance of both God and a mother, saying "I s'pect I growed. Don't think nobody never made me." She is transformed by Eva's love. During the early-to-mid 20th century, several doll manufacturers created Topsy and Topsy-type dolls. The phrase "growed like Topsy" (later "grew like Topsy") passed into the English language, originally with the specific meaning of unplanned growth, later sometimes just meaning enormous growth. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow this is not good. The theme has no cohesion. At all. The revealer is just ANAGRAM. So the clues are the anagrams of the answers? Well whoop-dee-do! Also, no. If you're going to do this, the clues Have To Function As Real Clues Do (even if they are somewhat odd and wacky-ish). This is to say you canNot have a verb phrase (i.e. [Acts phony]) cluing a noun (SYCOPHANT). A million billion times, no. The others are at least all match, clue to answer, in terms of part of speech. But that SYCOPHANT clue is absolute GARBAGE, MAN. Also garbage: THE HILTON. First because of the THE, and second because jeez come on give the theme *some* kind of unifying principle; at least let all the answers be *people*. Types of people. That's a very, very loose category, but at least it's Something. But no. No. THE HILTON. I'm just surprised this theme is as badly executed and as poorly thought through as it is. I'm surprised it was accepted at all. And the fill is so puzzlingly bad. I started rewriting corners out of boredom. Try it. It's fun.

But seriously, OENO- UNPC TVPG all in one 4x4 corner??? You gotta try to be that bad. And throw in Yet Another jokey SOTS clue (1D: Ones always tossing things back?). This puzzle's really ticking all the regrettable boxes. ITAT ALETAP SCOOB TOPSY THEOC TERR TAI. It's too rough in too many places. But can we go back for a second to the fact that the revealer is ANAGRAM. I'm just ... that is the answer. Sitting in the middle of the grid. That's the total extent of this puzzle's logic. That's all it's got. The answer set needs to be much tighter and the revealer needs to be ... something. Some kind of phrase with wordplay. Something infinitely better than the simple description, ANAGRAM. Amazing.

Hey, the NYT is raising their pay rates for constructors. I tweeted about it as soon as I found out:

They're still doing the stupid two-tiered pay system, where cronies (sorry, people who have had 10 or more puzzles published) get paid Considerably more. But the big bump up is a very welcome and long overdue development. Pay's still too low, but it's a big improvement. Base pay: $500 for M-Sat, $1500 Sun. After a constructor's 10th NYT puzzle publication, it goes to $750/$2250. Note, however: today's puzzle was the constructor's .... 12th. Just to give you some idea of what that sweet veteran pay scale is gonna buy you. . . .

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: NO NO — Themers become common sayings when the word "NO" is added in front

Theme answers:

(NO) TWO WAYS ABOUT IT (20A: Choice of routes?)
(NO) SKIN OFF MY BACK (24A: Result of some sunburn I had?)
(NO) MAN IS AN ISLAND (44A: Declaration concerning British geography?)
(NO) LAUGHING MATTER (51A: Nitrous oxide?)

Word of the Day: SKI BIB (9D: Certain attire when hitting the slopes) —

... snowveralls?

• • •

Happy December, CrossWorld! Matthew the radio nerd back in for Rex today. This puzzle felt all over the place for me (hence the slower-than-average time), and I'll start with a bit of good. For starters, I think the theme works pretty nicely, even as the second Thursday in a row to break the "three-words-or-longer-only" rule. I ~love~ the bottom two themers, especiallyMAN IS AN ISLAND— I really can't explain why I found it so funny. TWO WAYS ABOUT IT is nice, too. Which brings us to ... the middle of the grid ... where it feels like everything is — somewhat flippantly — about pain and suffering?

You have SKIN OFF MY BACK (which I have never heard before) crossing the rosily-clued FLAYS (was expecting something more Ramsay Bolton-esque here) crossing the somewhat-aloofly-clued MYANMAR (see also: Myanmar) crossing the painfully-ignorantly-clued YEMEN (see also: Yemen) ... but hey, at least there's the ever-ugly YSER ever-more-ugly Comic SANS to cheer you up!

This whole stretch left a really sour taste in my mouth. While I do believe that crosswords can and shouldserve as a leisurely escape from the drudgery of our lives, I also believe that puzzlers have the obligation to educate when the situation presents itself. Cluing MYANMAR — the country that has denied citizenship to Rohingya and persecuted Rohingya to egregious extremes for over 30 years — as "Home to the Rohingya" feels a bit disingenuous. And cluing YEMEN as anything other than a reference to what's going on in 2018 feels wrong as well.

As an aspiring constructor, I sincerely admire the amount of work that goes into these puzzles. But this felt like it could have been better. Happy holidays, y'all.

Bullets:

PARTAKE (11D: Not teetotal, say) — Let's please get teetotal as a crossword answer!
RACEDAY (43D: Time for a mint julep in Louisville) — One of my former roommates is a Louisville native, and I couldn't be more excited to visit and check the Kentucky Derby off my sports bucket list someday.
LARGEST (41D: Like the outer matryoshka doll) — Gold star for this clue for making a very commonplace word into an interesting piece of a puzzle.
SKI BIB (9D: Certain attire when hitting the slopes) — I'm from Texas ... this is a thing?!

Signed, Matthew Stock, CrossWorld Elf in for Rex
[Follow me on Twitter here!]
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Challenging (though I got unreasonably stuck in NW, so maybe more Medium-Challenging) (8:24)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Harold UREY (50D: Manhattan Project scientist) —

Harold Clayton Urey (April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the development of the atom bomb, as well as contributing to theories on the development of organic life from non-living matter. [...] He was one of the founding members of UCSD's school of chemistry, which was created in 1960. He became increasingly interested in space science, and when Apollo 11 returned moon rock samples from the moon, Urey examined them at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. Lunar astronaut Harrison Schmitt said that Urey approached him as a volunteer for a one-way mission to the Moon, stating "I will go, and I don't care if I don't come back." (wikipedia)

• • •

This was made unpleasant by a few things. The fill is OK—well, the longer fill is, at any rate. Some of that shorter stuff, though: ECK! The fill wasn't the really annoying thing; the cluing was. Hiding the plural BOOKS ON TAPE with a non-plural-looking clue (17A: Entertainment for a long ride, perhaps) did not produce an ultimate AHA, but an ugh. I had the TAPE part first, so the singularity of the answer really seemed solid, and I wanted something like a MIXTAPE (which is what I would listen to on a long ride, BOOKS ON TAPE being likely to put me to sleep) (oh, also, I don't have a tape deck anymore, what the hell? Even my car's CD player now seems quaint—failure to indicate "bygone"-itude gives this clue that special out-of-touch flavor solvers love so much). And then the dumb short ambiguous clues like 15A: Shot and 3D: Stock. In a corner where a girl's name (girl???) is SLOOPY and INONE is awkwardly severed from its lead-in (ALL), which is clear across the grid ... again, I say ECK to that whole corner. Took me forever despite my getting TIGER SHARKS right off the bat (1A: Striped sea predators).

Cluing again irksome in NE, especially the supremely awkward and not funny/clever 13D: Labor party member's holding? (UNION CARD). What is the wordplay here, beyond "labor"—I mean, "holding" is bizarre. It doesn't misdirect, it just muddles and muddies. Why would I expect someone in the (British) Labor Party to have a "holding"? That is the attempted misdirect there, right? "Labor party" ... ends up meaning simply a person who works (for a unionized group)? Awkward. Also, we "honor"MIAs? Did not know that. The SW was another struggle for me, with GEORG being a ??? and UREY really really being a ??? and then I had POLAND before POLSKA and BODYBAG took me forever because who watches "CSI"? The only thing I know about that show is DNALAB or something like that, right? That's what I think of when I think of that show. That, and the fact that I have never watched it or any of its spin-offs, or, come to think of it, anything at all that has aired on CBS since "Murder, She Wrote." Oh, and "OH MY DARLING" is super duper dumb as a stand-alone answer (59A: Repeated phrase in the chorus of a classic folk ballad).

Definitely had DEER SKINS before I had BEAR SKINS (14D: Hides in a cabin, perhaps), which made 12A: Whirlpool site (TUB) and 18A: Honoree on the third Friday of Sept. (MIA) really rough. Very happy I know baseball pretty well and grew up when TOM SEAVER was still in the league because that clue is (again) really non-specific and boring (12D: Hall-of-Fame pitcher who once struck out 10 consecutive batters). I have his autograph. I have his HOF t-shirt. He's from Fresno, same as me, so ... I got lucky there: a few crosses and I saw him quite clearly (though the only thing from the clue that "helped" was "Hall-of-Fame pitcher"). I should point out the worst cross: HULLO / UREY. Just horrendous. Just how is HULLO British? 'ELLO! I'd buy! 'ALLO, maybe! (or is that a French accent?) But HULLO just sounds odd. Adele sang "Hello," so ... I don't know what this clue's on about. As for UREY, yeesh. I just plain guessed that "U."

The more I think on it, the more TOM SEAVER seems problematic. Not in and of itself—he's great, and fine for a crossword—but crossing him with ENSOR and VAI presents real Natick possibilities, esp. at the "V." I just don't think this one was very thoughtfully constructed / clued, despite its containing some very decent longer fill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Joon Pahk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (felt like I was gonna be in record territory, but then I got stupidly stuck and refused to look at other clues, which a smart person would've done, and which would've sped things up tremendously ... anyway, 7:16)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TACONIC State Parkway (20A: New York's ___ State Parkway) —

The Taconic State Parkway (often called the Taconic or the TSP and known administratively as New York State Route 987G or NY 987G) is a 104.12-mile (167.56 km) divided highway between Kensico Dam and Chatham, the longest parkway in the U.S. state of New York. It follows a generally northward route midway between the Hudson River and the Connecticut and Massachusetts state lines, along the Taconic Mountains. Its southernmost three miles (4.8 km) are a surface road; from the junction with the Sprain Brook Parkway northward it is a limited-access highway. It has grade-separated interchanges from that point to its northern terminus; in the three northern counties, there are also at-grade intersections, many with closed medians, allowing only right-in/right-out turns. It is open only to passenger vehicles, as with other parkways in New York, and maintained by the state Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), the fourth agency to have that responsibility.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had long envisioned a scenic road through the eastern Hudson Valley, was instrumental in making it a reality as a way to provide access to existing and planned state parks in the region. Its winding, hilly route was designed by landscape architect Gilmore Clarke to offer scenic vistas of the Hudson Highlands, Catskills, and Taconic regions. The bridges and now-closed service areas were designed to be aesthetically pleasing. It has been praised for the beauty of not only the surrounding landscape and views it offers, but the way the road itself integrates with and presents them. (wikipedia)

• • •

So easy to start (in the NW), and then I went right through the middle of the grid with GOING STEADY and finished off the SE with no problems either. From there, things went much more slowly. The middle was an annoying stack where 2/3 were "?" clues, and the top answer in the stack ... is just a gross concept in general. I'm sure that in theory the term isn't specifically gendered, but my experience is that dudes this term when trying to explain why they hooked up with an "unattractive" woman. It's objectifying and stupid and evokes a whole repulsive male culture that I've spent my whole life avoiding. So that's fun. Far worse, though, for me, is the completely asinine term ADULTING, one of my most hated of all 21st-century refuse-to-grow-up millennial-speak bullshit term (16A: Taking care of responsibilities like an actual grown-up). Yeah, being a grown-up sucks, but stop acting like it's cosplay. You're a grown-up. Shut up and grow up. It's so self-consciously infantilizing. Makes my skin crawl.

LOL to PERRY, in that ... she is absolutely unrecognizable (to me) without her first name (28D: First female artist with five Billboard #1's from the same album). She is first and last name. I had P-R-Y and zero idea what I was dealing with. Ended up getting it all from crosses, and then being like "Oh, right ... her."MILEY is at least known as MILEY (43D: 2000s female teen idol, to fans). On a related note: when was this puzzle made? Feels like 2005, but it would have to be after 2016, which is when "ZOOTOPIA" came out (never seen it, no idea what it's about). Proper nouns, man. Speaking of: TACONIC is some provincial nonsense. Lotsa letters strung together, none of them meaningful to me. Further: PEIRCE. I very vaguely know the name, but a. that is obscure, and b. that really looks like a typo. I didn't get too much joy from this. Lots of proper names I didn't know or (more likely) didn't care about, and a couple of answers I actively dislike. It's a well-made enough puzzle (despite your ARNESS and your EVONNE and your YSER), but not really for me.

Five things:

24D: Induces to commit a crime (SUBORNS) — Had SU- and wrote in SUCKERS at first. Then ... just had nothing.
36D: Receive as a member (INCEPT) — uhrerufewhrhfghgherrrrrr ... I guess? No one uses that word. I wrote in INDUCT, forgetting that the clue to 24D (see above) exists. PS also no one says ESPIAL(50A: Act of noticing)
26A: Growth medium (SOIL) — wanted AGAR.
26D: Ostentatious (SPLASHY) — wanted FLASHY. Really wanted FLASHY. Wrote in FLASHY, not even noticing that it came out FLASSHY.
32D: Want ad abbr. (EOE) — sorry, make that *three* answers I actively dislike. EEO, EOE, EIEIO, let's call the whole thing off

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Actual PS: Who, just noticed that 9D: SOB stands for "son of a bitch," which ... was totally unnecessary, considering SOB is a real word, but OK ... (9D: So-and-so)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Words on returned mail / MON 12-3-2018 / "Bus Stop" dramatist William / Bring home, as a runner / Ricelike pasta

Nightclub singer who was given nickname Buddha by Frank Sinatra / TUE 12-4-18 / Brooke Shields sitcom set at trendy magazine

You can't bring in crazed antelope Mr Glass / WED 12-5-18 / Organization honored on October 24 / Suffering caused by reader prejudice / Beekeeper of filmdom

Lily Potter's maiden name / THU 6-6-18 / Alternative to guillotine / Places where some house pets go / Father of Deimos Phobos / Bad role model for Oliver Twist / When doubled dance of 2010s / 1990s commerce pact / High point of To Kill a Mockingbird

Mindless followers in slang / FRI 12-7-18 / Transformers technology for short / Roth of cinematic gore / Quipster's delivery / Event for enumerator / Base of some aqualculture farms / Viral fear of 2010s / Mythical shooter / Eight english kings

Talisa Maegyr's portrayer on Game of Thrones / SAT 12-8-18 / Symbol created in 1958 as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament / 2016 WNBA champs, informally

Inspector Gadget antagonist / SUN 12-9-18 / Barbie's strawberry blond sister / Asian territory in Risk / Kids tv character who speaks in falsetto / Weather-controlling Xmen character / Certain product of pyrolysis / Massimo who wrote Goodbye Kiss

Highly successful in theaterspeak / MON 12-10-18 / Texas city seen in many westerns / We on candy heart / Old Russian royals / Sacred peak in Greek myth

Units of power saved in modern lingo / TUE 12-11-18 / Clooney lawyer often seen in tabloids / Comedian who said in america anyone can become president that's the problem

Wilcox daughter in Howards End / WED 12-12-18 / Benchmark figure given how old person is / Vatican diplomat / Lyft alternative / Hit musical set in 1990s New York

Classic Declaration in Gotham City/THUR 12-13-18/Acceptances from fellow brainiacs, in slang/One-named 1950's TV Sex Symbol/Some West Point grads

Gathering where burping is encouraged / FRI 12-14-18 / Gamer's likeness

Jazzman Earl / SAT 12-15-18 / 1988 security guard comedy / Folklore monster whose name means goat-sucker / Nickname for Ulysses / Setting of 2000s comedy central police show

Herbert of old Pink Panther movies / SUN 12-16-18 / Ancient capital of Laconia / Pope who supported house of Borgia / Notable schemer / Tennis commentator's cry / All-star Mets catcher of 1990s-2000s / Colorful treat that resembles rocket

Put the kibosh on / MON 12-17-18 / Commandeers or a friendly hello to people / Something falling down in children's song

Cousin of pollock / TUE 12-18-18 / New Jersey river bay / Model Chrissy who wrote best seller Cravings / Sports org since 1946 / Hicks Judge Major League Baseball

2000s teen drama set in California / WED 12-19-18 / 2002 animated film with woolly mammoth / Relative of discotheque / Cartoon uncle of Scrappy doo informally

Sporty Spiders, informally / THU 12-20-2018 / Declaration concerning British geography? / Mr. Potato Head part / E-tail icons

Title girl in 1965 #1 hit / FRI 12-21-18 / Steve of rock guitar fame / 1987 children's best seller / Johann 16th century defender of Catholicism / Manhattan Project scientist Harold / Captain von Trapp's given name / Person depicted on Alabama state quarter / Denizen of Fangorn Forest

Ahura Mazda worshiper / SAT 12-22-18 / Court great Goolagong / Pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders / Giant brain of 1940s headlines / Title city of film whose mayor is Leodore Lionheart