Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Ori Brian

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (7-something but with an error because I spelled it KAMIKAZ*I*)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: WES Matthews (36D: ___ Matthews, either of an N.B.A. father-and-son DUAD I mean duo) —

Wesley Joel Matthews Jr. (born October 14, 1986) is an American professional basketballplayer for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Marquette Golden Eagles. He is the son of former NBA player Wes Matthews.

• • •

Hello and welcome to Februrary. This grid is pretty nice, but the cluing was nowhere near my wavelength and felt too cutesy and clumsy much of the time. Also, this is (or feels like it is) a Very name-heavy grid, which makes for a very jerky solve, as difficulty toggles jarringly between easy ("BLACK MIRROR") and hard ("SO RARE" (!?!?!) or CECE ... I watched that show for a couple of seasons and still didn't remember her name). I don't mind proper nouns or brand names, but sometimes I think constructors who want to show how hip or current or fresh their grids are tend to lean a little heavily on them. I can't tell if UP THE WAZOO is fresh or quaintly retro, but either way it was a nice surprise. POLICE RAID, much much less nice of a surprise. My biggest struggles came in the NW, which was horrible for me. Horrible. Started there, got nowhere, then finished there, and really thought I was going to get stuck stuck. The two "?"-clue Acrosses at HOUSE RULE and ARMS DEAL just about did me in, as did REED (I got in to REED and still forgot it existed) and especially DUAD, which, honestly, you should turn in your constructor's card for letting that "word" anywhere, *any*where near your grid. The word is DYAD. Man ... DUAD is the kind of answer that risks completely and totally overshadowing your other grid accomplishments, so high is its revulsion factor. Origin of all trouble in the NW was 1A: Dentist's instruction (BITE), where I had OPEN, and only briefly considered that it might be something else, but that "something else" in my mind was SPIT. OVERALL, this is a decent grid with not great clues, and I had medium-level fun (this is kind of a negative review for a Friday, since Fridays are usually The Best).

Five things:

16A: Common type of TV news broadcast (LIVE REMOTE) — I keep reading this as LIVER EMOTE, which is fitting since the answer crosses WEEPS (14D: Is overcome with joy, say)
24D: Twosome (DUAD) — did I mention how bad DU- ... oh, I did? OK. OK, good.
47A: Fishing need, maybe (PERMIT) — inexplicably hard for me. I had it down to -ERMIT and was still wondering whether maybe HERMIT (crab?) was some kind of bait (??)
48D: Drink that can cause brain freeze (ICEE) — pretty bold move following up one crossword drink (HI-C) with another crosswordese drink That Rhymes With The First Crosswordese Drink
9D: Recurrent theme (TROPE) — here's how bad I wanted MOTIF—I literally just wrote in MOTIF as the correct answer in this bullet point and had to correct it. I finally got traction in this puzzle by blunt force, entering the first thing I could think of for every Down in the NE. Buncha mistakes (including MOTIF), but thankfully ROADIE and ATKINS were right, and that was enough.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Challenging (9:51)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: OERSTED (33A: Magnetic intensity unit named after a Danish physicist) —

Hans Christian Ørsted (/ˈɜːrstɛd/; Danish: [hans kʁæsdjan ˈɶɐ̯sdɛð]; often rendered Oersted in English; 14 August 1777 – 9 March 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity and magnetism. Oersted's law and the oersted (Oe) are named after him.
A leader of the Danish Golden Age, Ørsted was a close friend of Hans Christian Andersen and the brother of politician and jurist Anders Sandøe Ørsted, who served as Prime Minister of Denmark from 1853 to 1854. (wikipedia)

• • •

It remains unfathomable to me that the editors of this puzzle continue to troll their audience with racial provocation. I don't know what else to call it. Fine, you didn't know BEANER was a slur—except you did, you were told, explicitly, before it went to print, and you didn't care—there was a dust-up, the whole incident went through the media wringer, you issued a nominal apology, everyone still loves their crossword, life goes on. But apparently it goes on in quite the same fashion. It's hard not to see today's 4D: Raiding grp. (I.C.E.) as anything but a middle finger to every single person who dared complain about BEANER. There is no branch of law enforcement more despised in this country than I.C.E., none more specifically associated with the brutalization of immigrants and refugees, the tearing apart of families. You know what I.C.E. is, you know what it means to people, you know the anger and sadness its very existence provokes in people. And more importantly—and this is where "unfathomable" comes in—you have about, give or take, plus or minus, roughly 7000 JILLION DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN CLUE "ICE". It's ... a common word. Or, it's a name part. Here: [Vanilla ___].

You have to be impossibly tone-deaf or literally malicious to choose—choose!—the acronym here. Constructors don't usually opt for the acronym or initialism when they've got an ordinary word on their hands. I can think of exceptions, like N.O.W. But N.O.W. never boarded your Greyhound and demanded to see your papers, as far as I know. And so we have this pretty decent, very challenging puzzle, full of many things worth discussing, but all those things are overshadowed by I.C.E. And to use the clue to *emphasize* the trauma of "raiding," my god. And maybe you think, "it's an agency, it exists, it's a neutral term, fair game!" You can think that. You can take it that way. But the obvious point here is thousands and thousands and thousands of solvers won't take it that way. They won't take it that way at all. The presence of I.C.E. in this puzzle will seriously diminish or completely eliminate whatever pleasure people were experiencing while solving (if they bother finishing solving at all):

So, the other things in the puzzle—this was very hard, but in a mostly enjoyable way. I don't usually like puzzles that get their difficulty primarily from names, which this one sure did, but I did appreciate getting a real work-out on a Saturday, and some of the fill was entertaining ("OH, IT'S ON!"). Still, names, man. OERSTED was the one that really destroyed me, as somehow I have never heard of him (or forgot about him), and he's sitting right at the gateway between one quadrant and another. Brutal. Especially crossing MOSCATO, which, like SAMBUCA, is not exactly among your first tier of familiar alcoholic beverage names. ACMILAN, brutal (1A: Football franchise since 1899); NOXZEMA, probably rough for some (rough for me because Yet Again I spelled it NOCZEMA). APPLEID, ruthless (I had APP CODE) (37A: Requirement for some downloads). Got my first toehold, not surprisingly, in the least name-y part of the grid: the SW. I went PRIES PREPARE PENS APE and knew I finally had traction. But since three of those four gateway-Acrosses—the answers that seal off the quadrants, i.e. SAMBUCA OERSTED APPLEID TOWARDS—were opaque to me, I never got any kind of momentum or flow. Bottom half not too tough, but middle and top were a train wreck. Had SORT for HIRE (10D: Find a position for) and so had --S-UCK for 8A: Dummy ... you don't even wanna know some of the answers I was entertaining. Literally none of them were plausible or even printable here. Weirdly, the "R" from the wrong SORT was actually right, and helped me get PARABLE, which (eventually) really helped me get the rest of the top, so hurray for wrong answers sometimes. I hope you enjoyed the struggle, and I hope I never see I.C.E. in my puzzle, or anywhere, ever again, thank you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Natan Last

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (11:58)

THEME:"Ejection Letters" — sports stars (their names) are "ejected" from various phrases, creating gibberish phrases; also, reasons for being ejected from various sports are included in this grid, for no clear reason:

Theme answers:

BEANBALL [LOL] (21A: Reason for an ejection in the M.L.B.)
FLAGRANT FOUL (22A: Reason for an ejection in the N.B.A.)
ILLEGAL SLIDE TACKLE (33A: Reason for an ejection in FIFA)
HELMET HIT (58A: Reason for an ejection in the N.F.L.)

MESSI (86D: FIFA star ejected from 65-Across)
RUTH (64A: M.L.B. star ejected from 87-Across)
RICE (28A: N.F.L. star ejected from 102-Across)
ONEAL (48A: N.B.A. star ejected from 105-Across)

AH COMPLEX (65A: Belief in one's role as a savior) (from "messiah complex")
THE T WILL SET YOU FREE (87A: Seeming opposite of "Ignorance is bliss") (from "the truth will set you free"
P OF ADMISSION (102A: Entry fee) (from "price of admission")
ARM CHILI (105A: Stew that's decidedly not very spicy) (from "one-alarm chili," what the hell, who calls their chili that?

Word of the Day: OTOMI (93D: People of south-central Mexico) —

The Otomi (/ˌoʊtəˈmiː/; Spanish: Otomí [otoˈmi]) are an indigenous people of Mexico inhabiting the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region. [...] One of the early complex cultures of Mesoamerica, the Otomi were likely the original inhabitants of the central Mexican Altiplano before the arrival of Nahuatlspeakers around c. 1000 CE, who replaced and marginalized them however the Otomi and their nomadic lifestyle allowed them to easily adapt to different environments avoid enemies and defend traditional lands and villages. In the early colonial New Spain period, Yųhmų Otomi of Tlaxcala helped the Spanish conquistadors as mercenaries and allies, allowing them to extend into territories such as Querétaro and Guanajuato, previously inhabited by semi-nomadic Chichimecs.

• • •

There are definitely parts of this that I like, but unfortunately none of those have anything to do with the theme, which is a shambles. It's a cool idea—players "ejected" from answers—but the execution here is so confusing, and the resulting answer are just nonsense. The fact that the player names aren't anywhere close to symmetrical adds another level of inelegance. The main problem here, the one that stands out the most, is that the wacky phrases are so dreadful. They aren't even wacky, actually. They're just missing letters, so the result is ridiculous. No humor. Is ARM CHILI funny? ARM is actually in the grid, just above this answer, so ARM CHILI is both not really funny *and* seems like it's replicating a word. Normally with a wacky phrase-type theme, you'd give the theme answers wacky clues, but these just have straight clues, and those clues don't even indicate they're part of the theme, so you just get AH COMPLEX and wonder "what the...?" So much hunting around, cross-referencing, etc., to figure out what's going on, and since only the clues for the sports stars make any attempt to tie things together, and since the four reasons for ejections from the various sports have literally nothing to do with any of it—seriously, they don't relate directly to the gimmick at all, they're just examples of things that might get one ejected—you're left with a an asymmetrical goopy mess. The puzzle is trying to do way, way too much, and doing none of it very well. Also, is the title a pun? On "rejection letters"? 'Cause otherwise I don't really get it.

Puzzle felt a little harder than normal, but I think that was due almost entirely to the lower half of the grid, specifically the nonsense theme answers, which I did not understand were part of the theme at all until very late. I actually thought AH COMPLEX was a thing I had just never heard of. I knew something weird was going on when I got to THE T WILL SET YOU FREE. And then I absolutely could not get into the very very far SW section, so I knew something was up with whatever those three letters were preceding ADMISSION as well. I actually had to go searching around the grid to find out which sports star had been ejected there, because crosses just weren't helpful enough—never heard of OTOMI, and was never every gonna see ROSY with just -SY in place (I do not think of "Pollyannaish" as being ROSY—a Pollyanna naively believes that things will turn out ROSY. Also had no idea ARM CHILI was a themer for a time, so that was hard. I really liked some of the fill, like MALCOLMX and CAFFEINE FIX. But FIJIISLANDS seems ridiculous to me—how is that different from, uh, FIJI? I guess we call Hawaii the "Hawaiian islands," sometimes, but ... that answer felt off. Also, SHE BEAR??? Is that real? (18A: Den mother) Is that a thing? Yikes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Ali Gascoigne

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: INSIDE INFO — Theme answers contain the word "info," well, inside them.

Theme answers:

TINFOIL HAT (17A: Paranoiac's headgear)
OUT INFORCE (25A: Present en masse)
YOU'RE INFOR IT NOW (36A: "This means trouble, my friend")
BRAIN FOODS (48A: Blueberries and fatty fish, nutritionists say)
INSIDE INFO (56A: Dirt ... or what 17-, 25-, 36- and 48-Across all have?)

Word of the Day: BLINI (48D: Thin Russian pancakes) —

A blini (sometimes spelled bliny) (Russian: блины pl., diminutive: блинчики, blinchiki) or, sometimes, blin (more accurate as a single form of the noun), is a Russian pancake traditionally made from wheat or (more rarely) buckwheat flour and served with smetana, tvorog, butter, caviar and other garnishes. Its roots trace back to ancient Slavic rituals.^[1] They are also known as blintzes, crepes or palatschinke.

(Wikipedia)

• • •

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday, and today is Annabel Monday! I'm writing this right now while paying about zero attention to the game. The 20 minutes of the Puppy Bowl I watched were super cute though. Although I do feel like they're getting a little gimmicky with all the non-puppy animals (I'd be mad at the concept of "cheerleader kangaroos" if they weren't so cute), I have to forgive them. What's better for the winter blahs than watching a hundred puppies run around until they get tired?

...Anyway, I felt super (as in SUPERFOODS, something I had clued for BRAIN FOODS for a really long time, and I assume I'm not the only one who did so) embarrassed when I looked up blini and realized that I should totally have recognized them--I'm literally Ashkenazi Jewish, I'm supposed to know blintzes! But it's still a more traditional way of saying blintzes that I didn't recognize immediately so I'm leaving it in. Pastry aside, I actually felt like this one was kinda hard for a Monday? A lot of the crosses in the AT BAT region were clued kind of weirdly (AT BAT itself was fine though, and I'll freely admit it was my own fault for not getting SKI BUM), and there were several other places that had difficult crosses. Speaking of AT BAT, what was up with all the baseball clues on a big football night? I think Ali Gascoigne might be missing summer...I don't blame him, brrr. Also, TROD right above REINS reminded me of all the times I've been stepped on by a horse, which, ouch.

I don't have a whole lot to say about the theme. Inside info, the answers have info inside them, gotcha. It did help me solve YOU'RE IN FOR IT NOW, because there were so many spaces and there are so many variants of that saying that I wasn't sure which would fit best!

Image result for oh ariana we're really in it now

Had a distinct feeling it wasn't this one, though.

Bullets:

EASY (30A: Like a Monday crossword, typically) — Hey, this is the second time I've seen this clue, in, like...two months? Three months? I dunno, it just seems like it might be time to give it a rest for a little while.
GODOT (34D: Title character who never arrives in a Beckett play) — I recently found out this is the origin of the phrase "That's how it is on this bitch of an earth" and, for that, I have a ton of respect for Samuel Beckett. I mean...it really is how it is sometimes.
PODS (13D: Racing vehicles for Anakin Skywalker — I keep seeing people walking around with Air Pods (Airpods?) now, and personally, I just want to say that I could never. I lose my regular headphones all the time and those are literally attached to my ears with a cord. I'd have to get a big bag of those things and just go through 'em like popcorn.
THE (40D: First word of every "Friends" episode title) — So CrossWorld, what's your favorite "Friends" episode? I prefer "Seinfeld," but for me it's still a tie between "The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner" and "The One With The Baby On The Bus."

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

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Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy (2:59!)

THEME: SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN (58A: "Let's do it!" ... or comment on the last words of 16-, 26- and 47-Across)— those "last words""sound" like a word meaning "plan," namely: "arrangement" (ARE + AINGE + MINT)

Theme answers:

"READY WHEN YOU ARE" (16A: "I'm game —— just give me the signal")
DANNY AINGE (26A: Celtics player-turned-executive)
BREATH MINT (47A: Something to eat after a garlicky meal)

Word of the Day: FRYBREAD (8D: Naan-like Native American food) —

Frybread (also spelled fry bread) is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard. Made with simple ingredients, frybread can be eaten alone or with various toppings such as honey, jam, powdered sugar, venison, or beef. Frybread can also be made into tacos, like Navajo tacos. (wikipedia)

“Fry bread is a simple food but also a difficult symbol…connecting the present to the painful narrative of our history. It originated…when the U.S. government forced our ancestors from the homelands they farmed, foraged, and hunted, and the waters they fished. …They lost control of their food and were made to rely on government-issued commodities…. Fry bread represents perseverance and pain, ingenuity and resilience. … Yet, fry bread contributes to…a recipe for chronic illness and pain.” (Sean Sherman, "The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen")

• • •

Had trouble at 1A: Leg muscle, in sports slang and figured I was in for a tougher-than-usual experience, which is typically the case when I see Erik Agard's byline, but then I got HAMMY (!), which is great slang I know exclusively from sports injury reports, and all of a sudden I shot out of that NW corner and never stopped, breaking the 3-minute barrier on a Tuesday for only the second time since I've been keeping records. Speaking of sports-related answers ... yeah, knowing something about sports was a definite asset today. I can see a lot lot lot of people going "????" at DANNY AINGE, a name I've known well for over thirty years, since he played for the World Champion Boston Celtics of 1986 (I grew up a Celtics fan in Lakers country, so this was a formative moment in my sports-fan life). And he crosses WNBA, so basketball basketball! I think DANNY AINGE is gettable from crosses, but he likely slowed you down if you needed all the crosses (or, conversely, sped you up if he was a total gimme). I was so surprised at how quickly I was moving that I was braced for a horrible speed bump or other kind of comeuppance, but it never came. Had INSTINCTIVE for INSTINCTUAL, and didn't know an IMACPRO was a thing. Also, UP AGAINST IT isn't the most common slang. But I was able to piece all those together, and the grid overall is very very smooth, and (best of all), when I finished I read the revealer, looked at the themers, literally "sound"ed it out, and genuinely laughed at the ridiculousness of the whole premise. I mean "ridiculousness" in the best possible way. This theme is loopy and goofy and I Love It. The revealer is the perfect phrase to indicate what those "last words" do. Fast fun clean solve with a perfect reveal that ends with me cornily sounding out AREAINGEMINT—yes and yes. Best puzzle of the year for me, and best Tuesday of all time (I mean, probably—Tuesdays can be dire)

Five things:

8D: Naan-like Native American food (FRYBREAD) — this would've been much harder for me if I hadn't read the opening of Sean Sherman's "The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen," which has a section entitled "(No) Fry Bread," detailing the troubling and complicated history of that food among Native populations. It's definitely embraced as a cultural marker and emblem of survival, but it's also reviled by those who see it as a non-indigenous food that exists solely because of the straitened conditions imposed on Native Americans by forced migration. It's also a highly caloric and not-very-nutritive food that some (including Sherman) link to high rates of diabetes and other health issues among Native populations. Here are a couple of articles (one two) on the cultural ambivalence surrounding FRYBREAD.
14A: "If I Could Turn Back Time" singer, 1989 (CHER)— I approve this clue for CHER! Iconic video!

30D: Biles of the 2016 Olympics (SIMONE) — I was thinking just yesterday that we're going to be seeing her in grids for a long time to come, both as a clue for SIMONE but also as probably the only viable clue for BILES (pretty sure you can't pluralize "bile" omg please don't try, that was not a challenge)
4D: When the abolition of slavery is commemorated (MIDJUNE) — This is an interesting way to reference JUNETEENTH. Can we just put MID- before any month and call it a viable answer?! I guess we can!
56A: 1960s British P.M. ___ Douglas-Home (ALEC)— oh wow, there was something in this grid I didn't know—this guy. Throw him on the ALEC pile (ALEC was also Cary Grant's original middle name, which I just learned a couple of days ago while watching "North by Northwest" when I looked him up on wikipedia to see how old he was because he has a shirtless scene where he looks incredible and turns out he was in his damn 50s, that man, my god ... oh, and his name at birth was Archibald ALEC Leach, so now you know)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Queena Mewers and Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (not sure of my time 'cause I got suckered into reading the stupid Note, so the clock was running while I was trying to understand what the hell it meant) (actual solving time probably in the high 3s?)

THEME: English / Spanish— Downs and Acrosses that share a first letter have an English word in the Across and the same word in Spanish in the Down (apparently in the paper the clues are all printed in one giant list (???). I don't see the point, but OK)

Theme answers:

SUN / SOL
MOTHER / MADRE
FIRE / FUEGO
HELLO / HOLA
CITY / CIUDAD
NIGHT / NOCHE
EAST / ESTE
ENGLISH / ESPANOL :(

Word of the Day: DIP DYE (59A: Hair-coloring technique) —

Dip dye (also known as "tip dyeing") is a hair coloring style that involves dipping the ends of the hair into dye. The dye used can be either a naturally colored dye or a bright colored dye, the latter being the more popular choice.
The method has become increasingly popular as a result of social media and its usage by celebrities. Dip dye originates from the process of tie dyeing clothing (especially T-shirts). (wikipedia)

• • •

Lots of problems with this one, but the biggest problem is: Who cares? I don't understand the point. English in the Across, Spanish in the Down. So what? Random words, many of them actually just solid crosswordese (ESTE!? Why would anyone be glad to see that?). I sincerely don't understand how this puzzle could be pleasurable beyond the generally pleasurable feeling you have when you get the idea and the puzzle is doable. HALLOO? (11D: Call to the hounds) Terrible. I NEED A NAP!?!?! Yeah, well I ATE TWO COOKIES, but you don't see me putting that in a grid. Yikes. This puzzle's whole raison d'être is beyond me. You just do technically odd stuff ... just to do it? That's not constructing, that's noodling. ERIEPA, lol, no no no. I am not an ADORER of that answer. DIYER hurts my soul. And does a DIYER really "practice self-help"?? (52D: One practicing self-help, informally). Bizarre contention, or bizarre phrasing, at any rate. ALTE? ORI?!? The very existence of this puzzle is baffling. Perhaps the most irksome part of the puzzle, given how Spanish-centric it is, is its total middle-finger disregard for the importance of the tilde. ESPANOL? In a puzzle that is *about* Spanish, you're gonna go with non-tilde'd ESPANOL? ESPANOL? When I Google it, Google asks me "Did you mean ESPAÑOL"? I wish I did, Google. I wish I did. Again, I refer you to the aforementioned adjective "baffling." I also didn't appreciate the cheapness of the clue on NIGHT (54A: Prime-time time), which I initially had as EIGHT, of course. NIGHT is dreadfully non-specific and only there to trip you up. If you're gonna try to kneecap solvers, your actual answer (the correct answer) better be spot on. NIGHT ... is not.

My theme Downs all said [see notepad] so that was slightly confusing, but eventually I figured out that SUN was not crossed by SET or SON (?) but by the Spanish word for "SUN": SOL. After that, all themers were easy and boring, and since the fill was wobbly and weak in many places, there just wasn't much joy to be had. Had trouble with HALLOO (because what the *&$^?), and then later with NIGHT (as I said above), and then finally, in that SW corner, with a number of answers. Never heard of DIPDYE, and had TEACUP before TEAPOT (47D: It might be left holding the bag). DIYER also gave me some trouble (because dear lord look at it, it's a monstrosity). Still not over the un-tilde'd ESPANOL. Puzzles routinely disregard the tilde, but *this* one ... really shouldn't have. It's a glaring omission. Now *I* NEED A NAP. Good night.

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

PS With half a woman constructor today, the 2019 count of women constructors is up to .... 4! (out of 37)

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Constructor: Morton J. Mendelson

Relative difficulty: Challenging (a hilarious and arduous 8:03)

THEME: GO OVER THE EDGE (58A: Flip out ... or a hint to eight answers in this puzzle)— the letters "GO" can be found (or imagined, I guess) "over the edge" (i.e. outside the bounds) of this puzzle
Theme answers:

TAKES TWO TO TAN(GO) (20A: "No one can get in a fight by himself," informally) ("informally"? Is that clue phrase "formal"???)
"(GO)OD NIGHT, IRENE"(32A: Classic song with the lyric "I'll see you in my dreams")
CARMEN SAN DIE(GO) (42A: World traveler since 1985)
(GO)LD TEETH (5D: Some expensive dental work)
(GO)SLINGS (13D: Babies in a pond) (*in*!!!!!!!????)
"CHICA(GO)" (55D: Second-longest-running Broadway musical ever (after "Phantom of the Opera")
AGES A(GO) (57D: A very long time back)
(GO)LF GAME (47A: What's honed on the range?)

Word of the Day: Sir William OSLER (69A: Sir William ___, medical pioneer) —

Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, FRS FRCP (/ˈɒzlər/; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training.^[He has frequently been described as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope".Osler was a person of many interests, who in addition to being a physician, was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. One of his achievements was the founding of the History of Medicine Society (previously section) of the Royal Society of Medicine, London. (wikipedia)

• • •

I know I keep harping on "pleasure" and maybe it's the overexposure to Marie Kondo but I don't think it's too much to ask of a crossword puzzle that it spark joy! Spark it! Spark, you stupid puzzle! Seriously, though, what is going on here, and also what year is it? I felt like I was in the dungeon of some crossword sadist circa 1944. I guess CARMEN SAN DIE(GO) didn't exist back then, but "(GO)OD NIGHT, IRENE" sure did, and maybe that's when "kids" (??) drew LOTS (??) (5A: Things kids sometimes draw). I could not have been less on a puzzle's wavelength than I was on this one's. Every clue felt like pulling teeth. Well, not all. Good ol'ECO. But WIND is [Air condition?]?. By what alchemy? ATBAT is just *a* stat? And not even a stat, but a "datum" (come on, what are you doing with this lingo, man?) (61A: Diamond datum). And NTS? NTS? NTS? What ... what? What are those? I see they've appeared in the grid before. But not for four years. Let's commit to at least four more. And then there's the clue for AC/DC (14A: Band with a slash in its name), which ... OK, I guess when you type it out, you use a "slash," but ... it's not a slash:

[Otto kinda looks like the guitarist Slash, which really brings this whole AC/DC clue full circle]

But the real problem here, the thing that caused me the most pain and exhaustion, is the theme. Where to start? It seems like a not bad idea, in theory. I've definitely (many times) seen themes based on answers running over the edge of the grid—parts of answers, or letter strings that form words, or whatever, that you have to imagine. Fine, whatever. It's been done, but why not do it again, if you can do it well? And I guess that's kind of the ground-zero problem here. Is the revealer good enough to justify this? Gotta say No. I have never heard someone say "I'm going to GO OVER THE EDGE!" It's just ... in the Uncanny Valley of phrases. Like, it's phrase-like, but it's not current or on-the-money or good. Defensible, but it does not snap. So odd is it, to my ear, that I had GO OVER THE ... and still had no idea. OVER THE TOP? MOON? HEDGE? Oh my GOD was that movie title a pun!?!?!? I am laughing so hard right now. You are watching me discover a 13-year-old pun in real time. Wow. I took my daughter to see that in the theater in 2006. Wow. Wow. OK. Nice. Annnnnyway, the placement of the GOs was interesting, by which I mean ridiculous. You've got the nice symmetrical long Acrosses, good, good, and then ... bleeping chaos!? It's like someone's just throwing wet socks at you. No, I don't know why I chose that metaphor, it just came to me, and it feels right. Where are the other "GO"s? Who can say? They aren't symmetrical. They are all over the map. How do you even know? Discovering them was painful and dreary, and honestly at the end, I didn't even know if I'd found them all. I was going to make SLINGS the Word of the Day (seriously), because I figured it was some olde-timey term for baby frogs or something (?). (GO)SLINGS are not *in* ponds, they are *on* them. Unless they drowned and sank, which is terribly sad, like this puzzle.

Honestly, I thought "CHICA" was a musical and I thought SLINGS were young frogs and I thought maybe LD TEETH glowed in your mouth? Instead of "AHA!" I kept emitting more of a low groan of unsureness. Also, I kept having to endure stuff like ORDO (!?) and ECU. Ideas have to be executed well. The best ideas are useless—ruined—when the execution is poor. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: John Guzzetta and Michael Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:29, still half-asleep)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: John BONHAM (1D: Drummer John of Led Zeppelin) —

John Henry Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980) was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer for the British rock band Led Zeppelin. Esteemed for his speed, power, fast bass drumming, distinctive sound, and "feel" for the groove,^[1] he is regarded by many as the greatest and most influential rock drummer in history.^[2]^[3]^[4] Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number one in their list of the "100 Greatest Drummers of All Time". (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle was trying very hard to be current and now and fully of whimsy, and on occasion it succeeded. "FOR THE WIN" isn't terrible "modern" any more, though I guess if you're measuring time by centuries, then sure, it belongs to the "modern" era, insofar as it belongs largely to the Internet (33D: Modern cry of success). I liked seeing it, at any rate. I less liked seeing FUNEMPLOYED, which is one of those grating cutesy euphemisms for terrible things that Americans invent to mask their deep dark misery (2D: Between jobs and loving it). Thumbs-up for FLAT BROKE right next door, though (3D: Busted). Give me good ol' plain talk any day. Overall, I never really connected to this one, possibly because the puzzle was just too name-y with names I didn't care too much about, possibly because the clues kept trying awfully hard to be sort of half-tricksy, and that gets irksome after a while. "Ha ha, our clue is a verb! You thought it was a noun! Isn't that clever!?"—yeah, I guess (18A: Piques = WHETS). The longer answers didn't provide much of a thrill, and there was too much shorter stuff (the grid feels oddly choppy and full of short stuff for a late-week themeless). It's by no means a bad grid, but aesthetically it just wasn't for me. I think they lost me at EAR OF CORN (57A: Something to shuck), which is somewhere between PILE OF DIRT and HEART OF DARKNESS on the "___ OF ___ Acceptability Scale." It's a stand-alone phrase ... but barely.

Forgot what Pfizer was (thought they made faucets?) (note: that's Pfister, ugh) and since the clue was one of those horrible non-specific ones, I needed a bunch of crosses to get VIAGRA (42D: Pfizer product). Had AWAKE before AWARE and so took way to long to get CLAIM TO FAME and the whole SE. Don't care about "Dr. Who" or (more so) "Top Chef," and never heard of READY ROOM (14A: Military pilot's waiting area), so the puzzle was probably entertaining someone, but it wasn't me. I mean, [Big name in yo-yos]??? (DUNCAN). Yeah, extremely not-for-me. Oh, NOT COOL—I did like that (38D: "That was totally out of line"). That answer was cool and not totally out of line. I have to go to the gym now. Bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Medium (7:54)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TEA EGG (14D: Chinese snack with marblelike patterns on the outside) —

Tea egg is a typical Chinese savory food commonly sold as a snack, in which a boiled egg is cracked slightly and then boiled again in tea, and sauce or spices. It is also known as marble egg because cracks in the egg shell create darkened lines with marble-like patterns. Commonly sold by street vendors or in night markets in most Chinese communities throughout the world, it is also commonly served in Asian restaurants. Although it originated from China and is traditionally associated with Chinese cuisine, other similar recipes and variations have been developed throughout Asia. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one WHIFFS pretty bad, which makes this week's themelesses a complete disappointment for me. I rely on these days to be good. Great even. Yesterday's was more a matter of taste—the puzzle wasn't empirically bad, it just missed me. Today's puzzle, however, has real problems. Constructors have to stop convincing themselves that stuff like IBANKS and CSCALE are good. I have seen IBANKS precisely once before, and I complained about it then, and I'm doing it again, both because it's not a great abbr. and because I want to soak in the world of investment banking about as much as I want to bask in the presence of the white supremacist terrorist organization that is the NRA (19A: Its PAC is the Political Victory Fund). What the hell kind of "comeback" is the TWO-TONE CAR making?! Where?! Also, further, what the hell is a TWO-TONE CAR?! I mean, I can infer that it is a car whose surface is painted two different colors, but honestly, that answer, especially as one of only two very narrow ways out of the NW corner, can go beeeeeeeeeep itself. Who's up for a fun day out of BAYONETING!? (a ridiculous present participle). The ABS are SCULPTED? I'm squinting up my nose at that. WASHBOARD ABS is a tight phrase. SCULPTED ABS ... is just a phrase. DESSERT crossing DESERT? Make better choices!

But IBANKS and CSCALE are both *gold*, however, compared to the stuff that's waiting for us in the SW. DOAFAVOR teeters on the edge of stand-alone-worthiness and is definitely about to fall off. THE NILE is superdumb with the definite article. INAREA is the worst thing in this grid and possibly any grid. And "WHAT A LOSER!" is just mean. More: TORCH RELAYS are in no way "preparations." They "prepare" nothing. Antecedence is not "preparation."UDON NOODLE is redundant, and also hilarious in the singular. There's more, but I'm done. So grateful I know something about baseball, as INDIANS really helped me out. Same thing with Dickens / "Little DORRIT" (2D: Dickens's "Little ___"). But mostly I solved this from the corners in. Got NW, then nothing; NE, then nothing; SW got me TORCH and then BUSHLEAGUE, which then got me the SE corner. And finally "WHAT A LOSER!" gave me the "S" I needed to see CYPRESS, which finally give me real traction in the center (where I finished). Oh well at least I learned what a TEA EGG is. See you tomorrow.

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

PS speaking of MEN (20A: Some couples)—we are now up to 36 puzzles by MEN to just 4 by women for the year 2019. 90% MEN. Ninety. Percent.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Lee Taylor

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (10:31)

THEME:"That's a Mouthful" — themers are phrases that (allegedly) are hard to say FIVE TIMES FAST (58D: Hard way to say the answers to the starred clues in this puzzle (good luck!))

Theme answers:

THREE FREE THROWS (22A: *Result of a foul on a long basketball shot)
REAL RARE WHALE (38A: *Albino orca, e.g.)
SHE SEES CHEESE (4D: *What a dairymaid does all day long)
SHOE SECTION (67A: *Part of a department store where people sit)
UNIQUE NEW YORK (93A: *Home of the world's only 14-lane suspension bridge) (?????????? what is this clue ????????)
IRISH WRISTWATCH (114A: *Timekeeper on the Emerald Isle)

Word of the Day: The BARNES Foundation (90A: Philadelphia art museum, with "the") —

The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The arboretum of the Barnes Foundation remains in Merion, where it has been proposed to be maintained under a long-term educational affiliation agreement with Saint Joseph's University.

• • •

Great to see a female constructor (2019 update—M: 36, W: 5); too bad the theme is so disappointing. Aside from the fact that I can say all of these just fine five times, there's the fact that these are just lifted from tongue-twister lists, of which there are tons on the Internet. Constructor just has to find a bunch that line up symmetrically. This involves no real thought or creativity. You're arranging pre-existing phrases in a grid, not doing anything particularly clever or new or interesting. The wordplay is out of a can, is what I'm saying, so the whole thing is a non-starter for me. And it's bizarre that nonsense phrases like IRISH WRISTWATCH are clued as if they are just normal things. No "?" or nothin'. There are some real issues with fill as well, like BALTO x/w ILENE, yikes. And then just an over-reliance on crosswordese and partials and gunk. There's not a single answer outside the themers that has any kind of real interest or spark. "Frequent collaborator with Adam Sandler"? Since ... since when is that a thing? A crossworthy thing? Dear god. I mean, I didn't know BARNES either, but I am more than willing to conceded that the BARNES is a thing. HERLIHY, hoooooo no, not really. BES. COZ. OEN. ADAR. EMS. RES. ROHE. TAJ. There just wasn't anything here to get excited about.

Gah, I wish I had something to say about this. It's somewhat nice to see Mrs. MAISEL here, which is at least fresh, as crossword fill goes. I had no idea RUFOUS was a word (57A: Reddish). I had RUBOUS in there for a while, as rubies are red and rubicund means reddish and rubious maybe also means that, not sure ... yep, it does. RUFOUS is a name to me, though I guess that's RUFUS.

Had real trouble also with CHICHI and OWLISH and ATTICA, which I had never heard of as clued (15D: Ancient Greek state with Athens). I know the adjective "Attic," but ATTICA to me is a prison. A prison where there was an inmate uprising and a brutal police response. A prison whose name was famously chanted by Pacino.

[106A: Ham it up]

I should probably say that [Leading characters in "Mad Max"] = EMS because the letter "M" (i.e. "em") is "leading" both words in the title "Mad Max." I should probably say this because there are always a smattering of people befuddled by tricksy letter-oriented clues like this. I can hear them all now, collectively groaning. They are right to groan. Good day.

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

P.S. OK I want to uncast whatever aspersions I seemed to cast on Tim HERLIHY above. I want to uncast them because this exchange on Twitter dot com made me do a literal spit-take*:

*note Tim MEADOWS is in fact a "frequent collaborator with Adam Sandler," and the name I was trying to come up with until crosses made it impossible

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Howard Barkin

Relative difficulty: Easy (2:43, one second off my record, and on an *oversized* grid ... so that makes this a record by a looooongshot for a 16x15er)

THEME: NEAPOLITAN (56A: Kind of ice cream suggested by the starts of 21-, 27 and 47-Across) — themers start with VANILLA CHOCOLATE and STRAWBERRY:

Theme answers:

"VANILLA SKY" (21A: 2001 Tom Cruise thriller)
CHOCOLATE THUNDER (27A: Nickname for former N.B.A. star Darryl Dawkins)
STRAWBERRY BLONDE (47A: Amy Adams or Emma Stone, hairwise)

Word of the Day: Darryl Dawkins (see 27-Across) —

Darryl Dawkins (January 11, 1957 – August 27, 2015) was an American professional basketball player, most noted for his days with the National Basketball Association's Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, although he also played briefly for the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz late in his career. His nickname, "Chocolate Thunder", was bestowed upon him by Stevie Wonder. He was known for his powerful dunks, which led to the NBA adopting breakaway rims due to his shattering the backboard on two occasions in 1979.
Dawkins averaged double figures in scoring nine times in his 14 years in the NBA, often ranking among the league leaders in field-goal percentage. He also played in the NBA Finalsthree times as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dawkins set an NBA record for fouls in a season (386 in 1983–84). (wikipedia)

• • •

Fast as heck, man. When I finished one second off my record, I was like "Ohhhh, so close." Then noticed that it was oversized! So it's not a record, but it's definitely a record for an oversized grid. Always feels good to start the week by crushing a Monday puzzle into the rightfield bleachers. The actual puzzle was kind of a blur, but it felt pretty smooth, and CHOCOLATE THUNDER is worth the price of admission all on its own. Imagine having a nickname bestowed upon you by Stevie Wonder! You can take the Hall of Fame, I'll take that Stevie nickname, thank you very much. I could carp about -IAL (a terribly unappealing suffix, which may be redundant, but even as suffixes go, ugh) and OWER (by far the worst of today's -ER cavalcade), it really doesn't seem worth it. Those are two tiny answers, miles apart, and the theme is so simple, so elegant, so neat, with such solid themers, that I'd rather focus on the craftsmanship. The more puzzles I do, the more impressed I am by anyone who can turn out a M-W (i.e. easying) themed puzzle that just Works. Early-week puzzles are tough to do well (I typically don't like them, because there are so many ways that they can go wrong). I think too many constructors put too much emphasis on tricksiness, and fall too much in love with their own cleverness. Aspirational constructors (usually men) tend to give the easy themed puzzle short shrift, or botch it when they have a go at it because they Try Too Hard (forced themers, too many themers, etc.). A clean and sparkly easy puzzle, with a theme that just Snaps into place, is much harder to make than, say, your average themeless puzzle. I tend to like the latter more because they're harder to screw up. But I admire the well-made easy themed puzzle more than I admire all but the best themelesses. Building one is a underappreciated skill.

Five things:

1A: Closes (SHUTS)— first instinct: NEARS ... not an auspicious beginning. Glad I turned things around.
43A: Ready to assemble, as a home (PREFAB)— why do I love this word? It makes no sense. It just looks good and feels good to say, I think. Sometimes our responses to things aren't entirely logical.
46D: Nickname (MONIKER)— as I was writing this in (off the "M"), I thought "uh ... 'K' ... does this really have a 'K'? ... man, that looks wrong." So I immediately checked the "K" cross and the AKITA went "woof," which I took to mean, "you're good to go."
48D: Pacific weather phenomenon (EL NINO) — I'll let Nate handle this one:

19A: TILDE

23D: Maneuver upon missing a GPS instruction (U-TURN)— I'd filled in U-UR- before ever looking at the clue and started typing UHURA before ever looking at the clue. Note to self and all: look at the clue first, type (or write) second.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Tom Pepper

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:41)

THEME: state code + word = new word — words that begin with state codes are clued as if they had something to do with the state:

Theme answers:

WA (Washington) 'SHROOMS (17A: Psychedelic stuff from the Evergreen State?)
DE (Delaware) BRIEFS (26A: Underwear from the First State?) (this one feels cheap, as "DE-" is a common prefix that could come before sooooooo many words)
NE (Nebraska) WAGER (28A: Gambler's action in the Cornhusker State?)
VA (Virginia) MOOSE (40A: Forest animal in the state nicknamed Old Dominion?) (awkward that this clue doesn't follow the pattern...)
AR (Arkansas) BITER (49A: Mosquito from the state nicknamed Land of Opportunity?) (the cleverest of the lot)
CO (Colorado) MEDIAN (51A: Highway divider in the Centennial State?)
CA (California) NOODLES (64A: Pasta from the Golden State?)

Word of the Day: NEW-AGER (see 28A) —

[Sorry, does not exist; Google keeps asking me "Do you mean 'new age'?" Also, when the first page of hits for your search returns PDFs from the Christian Research Institute ... not a thing. We've all been conned into believing this is a thing. It is not. Never was. It was a dumb "new" way to clue the bad fill AGER and somehow it stuck, but only in the world of crosswords. Let's exile it.]

• • •

Here is a good example of a how dudes ruin (or at least mar) a simple theme by Trying Too Hard (TTH). The instinct to *cram* the grid with themers (to show ... what, exactly?) is always (always) a bad one. Why? Because doing so will always put increased pressure on the fill. Themers are set in place, and the grid is built around them. When you set a ton of themers in place, the possibilities for fill get quite restricted. Every additional themer brings with it more limitations on what the rest of the grid can do. I think here, the last one or even two themers were totally unnecessary. I know it's hard to imagine what *isn't* in the grid, but with five great themers instead of seven OK ones, you would be less likely to endure an endless string of crosswordese and junk like ACER and INI and S'IL and AHL and ELSE'S. I think the grid might also have been cleaner if the puzzle weren't trying to flex with those very-long, completely non-theme Downs in the NE and SW. I love long non-theme Downs for the sizzle they can provide, but at the end of this one I had ughed at fill far more than I had oohed at those long Downs. I get that you wanna show off, but cleanness matters in early-week puzzles. Trust me, you would not have missed that seventh themer, and you would have noticed the grid ensmoothening.

I'm also just a little irked that I couldn't grasp the theme at first because I couldn't understand how ROOMS were "Psychedelic" .... "WASH .... ROOMS ... I don't get it." That was me. Because of course WASH. is a perfectly acceptable and common abbr. for the state of Washington. And ROOMS is a complete word. Thus I ended up trying to do something like NEBAGER at 28A: Gambler's action in the Cornhusker State? and even after I wrote in the correct answer, I didn't really stop to figure out how it was right. Only picked up the theme gimmick, finally, at the "Colorado median."

Five things:

12D: "Whatever!" ("SEE IF I CARE")— had CARE and wanted "I DON'T CARE," which wouldn't fit. "I DO NOT CARE" seemed a bit too formal
35D: British throne? (LOO) — one of my least favorite things in crosswords is having to decide between LOO and LAV. My other least favorite thing is this specific, old clue (and most toilet metaphors, frankly)
8D: Reply to "Who's there?" ("IT'S ME") — could've been "IT IS I," I suppose, but thankfully clues usually indicate the hyperformality on that one
1D: Whimper (MEWL)— had the "M," wrote MOAN, perhaps because MEWL is a word I have only ever seen in crosswords
14A: Defense in a snowball fight (FORT) — well if you've got a lot of lead time, I guess, but most snowball fights are not (in my experience) planned such that you would have time to engage in massive infrastructure projects in advance

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: PLANETARY / ALIGNMENT (2D: With 36-Down, astronomical rarity ... or a hint to the circled letters)— the SUN and the names of four (?) planets can be found in circled squares in the grid; I guess the planets are "aligned," in that you can draw a straight line from the SUN through all the planet names to SATURN ... pretty ragged "alignment," but defensible, I guess:

Theme answers:

GESUNDHEIT (15A: Common blessing)
NO OVEN USE (19A: Safety warning for some kitchenware)
HEARTHS (39A: Warm and cozy spots)
MARSUPIUM (56A: Kangaroo's pouch)
TAKES A TURN (64A: Rolls the dice and moves one's token)

Word of the Day: SARA Ramirez (57D: Actress Ramirez of "Grey's Anatomy") —

Sara Elena Ramírez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsaɾa eˈlena raˈmiɾes]; born August 31, 1975) is a Mexican American actress, singer, and songwriter. Born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, she graduated with a fine arts degree from the Juilliard School. She began acting in Broadway productions, making her debut with Paul Simon's The Capeman, and later ventured into film and television roles. Ramirez is a recipient of a Tony Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Satellite Award, among other accolades.
Ramirez's portrayal of the original Lady of the Lake in the 2005 Broadway musical Spamalot won her acclaim and the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She gained wider recognition for her role as Dr. Callie Torres in Grey's Anatomy. She made her debut as a voice artist with the 1999 video game entitled UmJammer Lammy, and has voiced Queen Miranda in the animated series Sofia the First (2012–present).
Ramirez released her first single "Silent Night" in 2009. Her self titled extended play debuted at no. 37 at the Billboard 200 in 2011. Ramirez is also an activist and extensively campaigns for LGBT rights. She was awarded the Ally for Equality Award by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 2015. (wikipedia)

• • •

Kind of an inverted Tuesday puzzle—yesterday's puzzle was OK theme, rough grid. Today's: OK grid, rough theme. By "rough" I mean I don't get it. I don't get how these are "aligned" or why these planets or if this is some astrological phenomenon that's in the news or what (quick Google does not suggest a PLANETARY / ALIGNMENT is imminent). Some of the planetary bodies do the (good) thing where they run across the various words of the phrase they're embedded in, but then SUN and EARTH and MARS are just sitting inside words—not as interesting. Grid has a cool shape and the long answers (all over the place) give the grid real interest, though, so I actually liked solving this much better than I liked solving yesterday's. I solved this one even faster than I solved yesterday's, so that too was enjoyable. All I can say was that getting PLANETARY / ALIGNMENT left me shrugging, not OHO'ing.

Puzzle was easy to start because SPAN x SAN had that whole 3x4 area sorted in no time, and the long Downs followed. Parsing NO OVEN USE was very hard for me (the USE part, specifically), and IS OUT was a harsh speed bump as well, but after that I was just flying (until MARSUPIUM, that is, which caused forward momentum to come to a near HALT). Some issues with the latter part of SEA ROUTES, but other than that, everything seemed to go right in. The clue on BARISTA is wrong, as anyone who has had totally ordinary coffee at, say, Starbucks, can testify (45D: One who won't serve the average joe). No idea who SARA Ramirez is, but happy to learn. NICOLAS Maduro is a corrupt homophobic would-be dictator who is in a *bit* of trouble right now (see, for instance, here). Could've done without him, tbh. I.T. BANDS is a nice answer (they can get tight if you run, and are hard to stretch) ("I.T." stands for "iliotibial"). Always happy to see "MAUS," which is legendary (it's on my comics syllabus yet again this semester; daughter had to read it in high school) ("graphic novel" is a misnomer ... it's a biography / memoir, not a "novel" ... but I'll spare you the comics terminology lecture). Bouncy grid, shruggy theme. I've been happier, but I've definitely been madder.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Is NO OVEN USE really a common or known "warning"? Google is not taking kindly to my inquiries. Googling ["no oven use" warning] is giving me as a first hit the NYTXW's house blog :/

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Constructor: John E. Bennett and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:03 ... really thought I was gonna get my recent personal best, but I I forgot, it's early in the morning, when even my fastest solving is pretty putt-putt)

THEME: OUT OF ORDER SIGNS (36A: Some bathroom postings ... or what the clues to 16-, 21-, 46- and 59-Across are?)— themers are just common street-sign phrases, and clues are those same phrases, just OUT OF ORDER (i.e. anagrammed IN ALL CAPS):

Theme answers:

DO NOT ENTER (16A: NOTED TENOR)
SPEED LIMIT (21A: SIMPLE DIET)
STEEP GRADE (46A: GET SPEARED)
ROAD CLOSED (59A: DOOR DECALS)

Word of the Day:"I PAGLIACCI" (13A: Opera that famously ends witih the line "La commedia è finita!") —

Pagliacci (Italian pronunciation: [paʎˈʎattʃi]; literal translation, "Clowns") is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It is the only Leoncavallo opera that is still widely performed. Opera companies have frequently staged Pagliacci with Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni, a double bill known colloquially as 'Cav and Pag'. // Pagliacci premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on 21 May 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, with Adelina Stehle as Nedda, Fiorello Giraud as Canio, Victor Maurel as Tonio, and Mario Ancona as Silvio. Nellie Melba played Nedda in London in 1893, soon after the Italian premiere, and it was given in New York on 15 June 1893, with Agostino Montegriffo as Canio. (wikipedia)

A dramatic tale of love and betrayal, Pagliacci revolves around a commedia del arte troupe. Canio and Nedda are married, and the leads in the troupe along with Tonio and Beppe, however Nedda is secretly having an affair with Silvio. Fearing Canio’s anger, Nedda continues to hide the affair, and even goes as far to attempt to break it off with Silvio. Silvio and Nedda’s love is strong, however, and they plan to run away together. Tonio, also in love with Nedda, confesses his love for her, but she turns him away, shaming him. In an act of revenge, Tonio tells Canio that Nedda is having an affair like he suspected. During a performance, Canio confronts Nedda, and stabs her. Silvio attempts to save Nedda, running up on stage, but gets stabbed by Canio as well. The audience, not realizing it was real, claps until Canio screams at them, “the comedy is ended.” (stageagent.com)

• • •

Way too basic for a Thursday. Finished the NW and thought, "Oh ... we're just anagramming, then ... fun." The fact that there was a revealer that tied it all together didn't really matter much. Didn't help, as I didn't really process that the answers were sign phrases. I was just left to anagram, and that's it. The only difficulty in the puzzle was (unsurprisingly) in figuring out the anagrams; so those answers where a bunch of 5-letter Downs ran through *two* themers (up top, down below) ended up being the toughest sections. The one up top wasn't actually tough for me at all because I had the first letters of all the Downs from ASCOTS, whereas below, where I finished up, I really did stumble around a bit. But just a bit. Not much. There's just not much to this theme, or this grid. Also, why put your OUT OF ORDER SIGNS in the bathroom. There are so many other places you might have imagined them. There are better ways to start my day than thinking of broken toilets.

Gotta finish this write-up quickly today, so let's move straight to ...

Five things:

13A: Opera that famously ends with the line "La commedia è finita!" ("I PAGLIACCI" — the principal character, Canio, was originally played by NOTED TENOR Fiorello Giraud (the juxtaposition of this answer with the NOTED TENOR anagram is by far my favorite thing about this puzzle)
6D: "Can you ___?" (classic cologne catchphrase) ("CANOE") — these dumb-ass ads from my high-school years are "classic" now? Wow, you live long enough, man ...

54A: First car to offer seatbelts (1950) (NASH)— completely forgot this was a car name (once). Had NAS- and was still a little confused
11D: Pakistani restaurant owner on "Seinfeld" (BABU) — I imagine someone thought this was good fill, but it is terrible fill. Secondary ... tertiary ... what's below "tertiary"? ... anyway, such characters from your pet long-bygone shows are not welcome when something more widely known might've been used. I guess the crosses are fair, but I feel slightly bad for anyone who doesn't know who Jessica ALBA is
24D: When repeated, a classic of garage rock ("LOUIE") — easy enough ... except for which spelling of LOUIS (?) I'm supposed to go with ... LOOEY? ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Wyna Liu

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (mostly smooth, but with a few tricky patches)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Khaleda ZIA (50D: Khaleda ___, first female P.M. of Bangladesh (1991-96, 2001-06)) —

Khaleda Zia (IPA: kʰaled̪a dʒia; born Khaleda Khanam Putul ^[1]^[2] ^[3], in 1945) is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, and again from 2001 to 2006.^[4] She was the first woman in the country's history and second in the Muslim majority countries (after Benazir Bhutto) to head a democratic government as prime minister. She was the First Lady of Bangladesh during the presidency of her husband Ziaur Rahman. She is the current chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which was founded by Rahman in the late 1970s.

• • •

Oh wow. This is EXACTLY what I am looking for from a Friday. So clean! So crunchy! So made by a non-male constructor! (For those keeping score at home, this brings us to 15% of puzzles in 2019 with at least one woman constructor).

I'm not keeping track of what percent of posts on this blog are written by women, since this is Rex's blog and that would just be unfair, but if anyone IS keeping track, you can add one more to the tally. This is Rachel Fabi, back in the guest-blogger spot and delighted to be here for this puzzle.

I don't even know where to start with the things that made me happy while solving. Ok yes I do, I'm going to start at the beginning with CATFISHES (1A: Misrepresents oneself to on the internet, in a way). This use of the term has only been in the puzzle once before, and never with the -ES on the end, but as a person who has spent many nights watching MTV's Catfish, I was thrilled to see it in such a prominent spot. Here's an SNL sketch about Catfish that is so accurate that it's borderline plagiarism rather than parody.

Another debut in the puzzle is CRAZY RICH ASIANS, which (a) made me cry multiple times when I saw it in theaters and (b) is just a truly excellent film, and if you have not seen it yet, I recommend rectifying that situation. I will admit that I initially filled in CRAZY STUPID LOVE, which I have now verified DID come out in the 2010s, but which grossed about $100 million less than CRAZY RICH ASIANS.

Other things I loved: WIN AT LIFE, OOPS SORRY, MOSTEST, OWN IT. All are things I say in daily life, sometimes facetiously but also sometimes...*not* facetiously.

Gwen Ifill

I slowed down a bit in the southeast because, really, is MELODIZES a word? Google says yes, but my experience says "um, sure, I guess," so crossing MELODIZES with Khaleda ZIA (a name I did not know and am feeling conflicted about knowing now because wow, she was jailed for embezzling money intended for orphans!) was a struggle for me. I knew GWEN IFILL (54A: Late Peabody-winning journalist and newscaster), but couldn't remember how to spell IFILL, which contributed to the challenge. Once I decided that MELODIZES was, indeed, what we were going for there, I still wasn't sure if it would be spelled with a Z or a British S. Don't worry, I figured it out eventually, and the struggle was worth it.

One other observation, which is neither positive nor negative, is that the grid is highly segmented, so the northwest, southeast, and middle southwest-to-northeast strip all played like separate puzzles, with the only thing connecting them being CRAZY RICH ASIANS. It didn't bother me while I was solving, but I could see some people having trouble in one of those regions and getting frustrated by the lack of interconnections to give you a toehold.

Overall, this is a truly excellent puzzle (you might even say it's the MOSTEST in excellence), and I am excited to see more from debut constructor Wyna Liu.

Bullets:

31D: Bits of hardware that can fit inside 32-Downs (TNUT) / 32D: Opening for 31-Down (TSLOT) — having seen both TNUT and TSLOT individually in previous puzzles and always rolled my eyes at them, I just want to point out that THIS is how you use dreck fill. If you must have one of these words in your grid, cross-reference them and put them right next to each other! It's brilliant and doesn't make me cranky at all.

A real SPLINE

39D: Shots for dudes? (BROTOX)— I love this and think it's a hilarious neologism, but I can see some solvers finding this off-putting
21A: Thin strips used in building construction (SPLINES) — In my brief education in biostatistics I learned that a SPLINE is a piecewise function and you cannot convince me otherwise. Here's a picture of a SPLINE I drew in my actual biostats notes about a hundred years ago.

One last shameless plug, while I have you here: I'm going to be on Jeopardy on Monday (February 18), so tune in if that's your thing! You'll get to see me teach Alex Trebek what bioethics is and also get many things wrong on national tv.

Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of CrossWorld
[Follow Rachel on Twitter]

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Constructor: Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb

Relative difficulty: Easy (5:16)

THEME: kiss types and New Age musicians ... or, none

Word of the Day:"GOBOTS" (20A: Predecessors of Transformers) —

GoBots is a line of transforming robot toys produced by Tonka from 1983 to 1987, similar to Transformers. Although initially a separate and competing franchise, Tonka's Gobots became the intellectual property of Hasbro after their buyout of Tonka in 1991. Subsequently, the universe depicted in the animated series Challenge of the GoBots and follow-up film GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords was established as an alternate universewithin the Transformers franchise. While Hasbro now owns the fictional side of the property (character names, bios, storyline), the actual toys and their likenesses were only licensed from Bandai in the 1980s, were not covered by the Tonka acquisition, and are not available for Hasbro use. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well that was easy. Really easy. Even answers I didn't really know, like "GOBOTS," somehow came to me as if out of a forgotten dream, or perhaps from a GENIE, I don't know. Weirdly, the answers I struggled with most in this grid were both food items. First, CARPACCIO, which I know, but couldn't quite come up with at first. CARAVAGGIO? No, he's a painter. I blame Thursday's "I PAGLIACCI." And then, WORSE than CARPACCIO even, was (somehow!) PICKLE (39A: It may be made into spears). I had P- then PI- the PIC- then PIC--E and still couldn't see even a real word there, let alone a thing that could be spears. But then I got PANSEXUAL (connected to the DOMINATRIX by a PICKLE, interesting), and had a self-hatred-filled "aha" moment. But I'm being overdramatic. I probably spent time obsessing about PICKLE out of pure spite; I was deeply resentful that every other answer was just bowing to my will, and PICKLE was all "No!" and so instead of bypassing it and just killing it with crosses, I got all "Do as I say!" and thus lost precious time. Most of the rest of the time, I was quite enjoying myself. Very much in my wheelhouse, and very clean, this thing was. From HOTLANTA to the "Simpsons" reference to the MINOTAUR, I was all over this.

I have one major bone to pick, though: since when is BRIAN ENO a [New Age composer]. Here's the list of genres that wikipedia has listed for him:

Now here's the list of genres that wikipedia has for YANNI (34A: New Age keyboardist):

You hear that, NYT: disavowed! Even YANNI's like, "no, what, don't call me that!" Anyway, I have never in my ENO life heard ENO referred to as ENO-thing like "New Age." It's a terrible clue, ENO (En Ny Opinion). Didn't know investment banks had anything to do with IPOs (40A: Job for an investment bank, for short), but I don't know anything about finance, so there's that. Didn't know Walter LANG but figured Fritz LANG was a director, so why not Walter? Very proud of myself for seeing right through 35A: Third character to appear in "Macbeth" (CEE) (as in, the letter CEE is the "third character" in the word "Macbeth"). I kinda think CEE crossing C-NOTE is bad. Like, a stand-alone "C" in your puzzle should mean the written-out letter "CEE" should not also appear in your puzzle, and the C(EE)s definitely shouldn't cross.

Puzzle's with X's are easy to solve. Well, easier than puzzles without X's, all other things being equal. I just know that POLEAXE definitely got me PIXIE CUT and OXO definitely got me PANSEXUAL and FLEXTIME definitely got me DOMINATRIX, all much more quickly than I would have otherwise. X's are fun but they give a lot away. You gotta keep your eye on them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 2019 NYT crossword constructor count update:

M: 41
W: 6

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Constructor: David Kwong

Relative difficulty: Medium (12-something minutes)

THEME: GENUS (.... edition of Trivial Pursuit...) (107D: Original edition of this puzzle's theme) — color rebus where color squares represent wedges in original trivial pursuit game. Oh, also ... there's this whole trivia layer where clues + fill-in-the-blank answers lead you to the answers that contain the colors ... even though crosses also contain colors and they are somehow *not* part of the trivia game ... I don't know, it's all wayyyyy too fussy for me, man:

Theme answers:

22A: What kind of tree ALWAYS HAS FOLIAGE / EVER[GREEN] (33A)
66A: What 1986 HIGH SCHOOL romantic comedy got its title from a song by the Psychedelic Furs? / PRETTY IN [PINK] (85A)
68A: Who wrote a 2003 best seller about a SECRET CODE / DAN [BROWN] (82A)
113A: What DELAWARE NICKNAME comes from a farm bird? / [BLUE]HEN STATE (46A)
13D: Where were battleships sunk in an 1894 JAPANESE VICTORY (!?!?!?) / [YELLOW] SEA (48A)
39D: What annual game have the OKLAHOMA SOONERS won more than any other team? / [ORANGE] BOWL

Word of the Day: DEWITT Clinton (3D: Clinton who once ran for president) —

DeWitt Clinton (March 2, 1769 – February 11, 1828) was an American politician and naturalist who served as a United States Senator, Mayor of New York City and sixth Governor of New York. In this last capacity, he was largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal. Clinton was a major candidate for the American presidency in the election of 1812, challenging incumbent James Madison. (wikipedia)

• • •

It's hard to explain how much I disliked solving this. There were periods of time where I was stuck and didn't care. Didn't want to continue. Look here, look there, this answer is a clue, or part of a clue, now deal with allllllll this short (often painful) fill ... all for a visual surprise (?) that I had to construct for myself. Apparently if you solved on the app some fun colorful thing happened, but suck it, everyone who solves on paper and (like me) AcrossLite, I guess. The only revealer is ... GENUS? That's it? This is a textbook example of the Gimmick-At-All-Costs puzzle. All the cross-referencing was just exhausting, and I was pretty much done with this thing at the first themer (when I finally go it). I just keep looking at ALWAYSHASFOLIAGE ... that's an answer. In a crossword puzzle. I just ... HIGH SCHOOL, sure, SECRET CODE, fine, those can stand alone, but ... ALWAYSHASFOLIAGE!???!?!! I would've ragequit right there if I didn't have this thingie to write. David Kwong is a genius and a lovely man and you should Definitely go see his show, "The Enigmatist," at the High Line Hotel (through March). I feel terrible for really not liking this puzzle but I really did not.

EVAH is basically the same word as EVER, and yet somehow they cross (!???) in this grid (30A/30D). NO USE and USE TO are practically next door to each other (83D & 103D). The proper nouns are weirdly dated, including TOM [GREEN], whom I haven't thought of in ... 15 years? Does he still do things. The RONELY / BORAT / TIMON / TAYE section felt particularly densely dated to me. I get that if you like Trivial Pursuit (I liked it fine as a kid) and you did it on the app and got a zingy colorful effect, you might enjoy this, but for me it was all the things I don't want puzzles to be wrapped into one. I do recognize that the final design, with the colors all in their proper places, is a very nice touch. A great way to end—if you've got the computer doing the coloring for you. If not, not. Extremely not. *ON* RICE? (44D: How chicken teriyaki is usually served). YECCH. Phrasing (it's "over"). People know the song "I'M [BLUE]"??? Not me. Had to run the colors until I remembered to look back at what the HEN answer was an answer to (again, so much fussiness, working backward, etc.), and I actually knew [BLUE]HEN. I definitely had to run the colors for DAN [BROWN], whose work I have never and would never read. Totally forgot his name. The bread clue was oddly totally unhelpful, as virtually every bread I've ever eaten is some shade of brown and I honestly have never heard of the category [BROWN] BREADS. I was prepared to put [WHITE] BREADS in there, which *is* a category I've heard of. But then BROWN came to me.

INESSE NOLO AMAT ANIS SHH. The non-theme stuff provided no entertainment, and was barely keeping its head above water acceptability-wise. Solving pleasure just can can can can *not* be sacrificed for the Big Gimmick. I mean, it can, but I'm never gonna like it. ETAPE!?Sakes alive ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Leslie Rogers and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:01)

THEME: CAP AND GOWN (59A: Graduation garb ... or what the compound answers to 17-, 28- and 44-Across represent?) — first word can precede "CAP," second word can precede "GOWN," in familiar phrases:

Theme answers:

"NIGHT NIGHT!" (17A: "Sleep well!")
"WHITE WEDDING" (28A: Billy Idol hit that starts "Hey little sister, what have you done?"
MUSHROOM BALL (44A: Vegetarian spaghetti topper)

Word of the Day: ANNE Hathaway (19A: Actress Hathaway of "The Devil Wears Prada")—

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress and singer. One of the world's highest-paid actresses in 2015, she has received multiple awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a British Academy Film Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Her films have earned $6.4 billion worldwide, and she appeared in the Forbes Celebrity 100 in 2009. [...] In 2012, Hathaway starred as Selina Kyle in her highest-grossing film The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment in The Dark Knight trilogy. That year, she also played Fantine, a prostitute dying of tuberculosis, in the musical romantic drama Les Misérables, for which she earned multiple accolades, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She went on to play a scientist in the science fiction film Interstellar (2014), the owner of an online fashion site in the comedy film The Intern (2015), the White Queen—a role she first played in Alice in Wonderland (2010)—in Alice Through the Looking Glass(2016) and a haughty actress in the heist film Ocean's 8 (2018). Hathaway has also won an Emmy Award for providing her voice in The Simpsons, sung for soundtracks, appeared on stage, and hosted events. (wikipedia)

• • •

I made every mistake I could make in this one—OHO for OOH, EPSON for EPSOM, EVADE for ELUDE, ALOT for ATON, probably other stuff too—so was mildly annoyed by the end of it all, but then I got to the revealer and proceeded to check it against the theme answers, starting from the bottom of the grid and moving up. First one, MUSHROOM BALL: "Oh, nice, first is a cap, second is a gown ... never heard of a MUSHROOM BALL in my life, and I eat heaps of vegetarian food, but OK, I'm sure it's real, I'll allow it, moving on ... WHITE WEDDING! Oh, nice. Much tighter phrase, and ... yep, "white cap,""wedding ball," totally checks out. Nice ... OK, and last on the list ..." At this point I literally laughed out loud. "NIGHT NIGHT" ... is both an answer that has totally given up ("Screw this two-different-words stuff, let's just use the same word for both answers!"), and the best answer in the grid. Somehow finishing with the revealer, then reading backward through the themers, and ending up at the first themer, seen in this totally new light ... it was the perfect way to experience this puzzle. The rest of the grid ... I don't know, it seems fine. But the theme is where the party's at. Loopy and dead-on—a good combo.

[there's a "WHITE WEDDING Pt. 2???]

Well, it turns out I don't have much else to say about this one. So ... NIGHT NIGHT, I guess!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: David Alfred Bywaters

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:57)

THEME: TO BE / OR NOT / TO BE (38A: With 39- and 40-Across, classic Shakespearean question phonetically suggested by 17-, 23-, 47- and 59-Across) — first two themers have "two B"s (when they should have one), and second two themers have one "B" (when they should have two):

Theme answers:

17A: One who's taking a polar vortex pretty hard? (COLD SOBBER)
23A: One who cheats on a weight-reduction plan? (DIETARY FIBBER)
47A: Heyday of taxis in Beijing? (CHINESE CAB AGE)
59A: Defense against a charge of public nudity? ("WE WAS ROBED!") (if the base phrase here, "we was robbed!", is not familiar to you, it's a sports thing you say when your sports team lost because of a "bad" call by the ump / ref) (not sure what the origin of the bad-grammar construction is...)

Word of the Day: IMPECUNIOUS (24D: Lacking money) —

adjective
having little or no money.

"a titled but impecunious family"(google)

• • •

my nephew, playing Hamlet

To like or not to like, that is the question. I think I'm neutral on this puzzle. I didn't exactly enjoy it, but it's ... *trying* to do something that I think ... *kind* of holds up. *Kind* of withstands scrutiny. I think my main problem is that I have to do some gymnastics and lawyering, some gymnastic lawyering, in my head in order to justify the wording of the revealer. I'll give you the non-grammatical "two B" (instead of "two B's"), but something about the Shakespearean phrase doesn't really get at the deliberate wrongness of all the themers. Some part of me wants the "not two B" answers to lack a double-B. Like, say, BLUBBER to BLUER. FLABBY to FLAY.* But that's a much taller order, and is itself weird. In the end, I think this one comes in at Adequate, themewise. The non-theme fill was a chore, but an average chore, not an atrocity (except OLA, which feels inexcusable in a corner that untaxing, esp with that clue) (61D: Rock-___ (classic jukebox brand)).

Cluing on the short stuff was quite off for me today, in that the puzzle was asking me to think of words in ways I normally don't. To [Own up to] something is to ADMIT it; AVOW feels much more oath-y, like you're swearing something, not confessing it. It's the idea that you're saying something embarrassing or admitting guilt, implied by the clue, that did not compute for me. Then there's "OH, OK," which is one of those answer types where I don't have any good way of knowing what the first two letters are going to be (kinda wanted "UH" or "AH") (19A: "Ah, now I see") (Ah, now I see that "Ah" is actually in the clue ... ah). Put in "MOI?" for 30D: "Is that true about me?"and, as I was forced to change it by ADAPT, briefly wondered why, in my seven years of high school / college French, I'd never learned the word "DOI?" ("Dwah!?").** The clue [Cats' catches] just wasn't getting any traction in my brain. Something about the potential ambiguity of "cat" and the verb-to-nounness of "catches" had me needing every cross to get the simple RATS. Had ALONE for ALOOF (not that surprising) (64A: Socially disengaged). People go to REHAB, not houses (11D: Fix up, as a building). Lastly, I had IMPECUNIARY (it fits, and apparently means the same thing!) where IMPECUNIOUS belonged (24D: Lacking money). I use neither word, and no one would use either word these days except facetiously. It's a word, but it's a word the only proper response to which is a laugh or an eyeroll, depending on the seriousness of the user.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*hey you could do the trick twice in with chef Bobby Flay (BOY FLABBY), though that would "Not to be or to be?" I guess...

**yes I know it's "DO [space] I?" please no letters thank you

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Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Easy (like, really easy—oversized grid, and I still set a personal record for a Wednesday) (3:01)

THEME: EDU (7D: URL ending associated with the beginnings of the answers to the six starred clues)— "blank AND blank" phrases where the first word is also the name of a well-known university:

Theme answers:

BROWN AND SERVE (12A: *Instructions for premade dinner rolls)
DUKE AND DUCHESS (14A: *Noble couple)
RICE AND BEANS (31A: *Latin American side dish that combines two food staples)
"DRAKE AND JOSH" (34A: *Title pair in a 2004-07 Nickelodeon sitcom)
SMITH AND WESSON (53A: *Eponymous founders of a Massachusetts-based firearms manufacturer)
PENN AND TELLER (58A: *Duo of magicians who are the longest-running headliners in Las Vegas history)

Word of the Day:"DRAKE AND JOSH" (34A) —

Drake & Josh is an American sitcom created by Dan Schneider for Nickelodeon. The series follows stepbrothers Drake Parker (Drake Bell) and Josh Nichols (Josh Peck) as they live together despite having opposite personalities. The series also stars Miranda Cosgrove, Nancy Sullivan, and Jonathan Goldstein.
After actors Bell and Peck previously appeared in The Amanda Show, Schneider decided to create Drake & Josh with them in starring roles. The series ran from January 11, 2004, to September 16, 2007, totaling 56 episodes in 4 seasons. It also had two TV films: Drake & Josh Go Hollywood(2006), and Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh (2008). (wikipedia)

• • •

I hope you appreciate how loopy this theme is *and* how clean this (very thematically dense!) grid is. Just gorgeous work. I solved it so fast that I actually missed the university aspect of the theme. I thought it was just ___ AND ___ phrases ... for some reason. Some reason I would find out later. And actually I never found out. That is, why ... why the "AND ___" part?! Who knows? Honestly, who cares? Everything about this is so zippy and smooth that the just-because aspect of the theme answer structure doesn't bother me at all. Nor does the weirdness of having EDU (in such an inconspicuous position) as your revealer. When your craftsmanship is so tight, you can get away with all kinds of stuff. The only trouble I had with this grid was getting the front end of "DRAKE & JOSH," a show I am dimly aware of, but clearly not aware of enough to remember its damn name. 2004-07 Nickelodeon show falls smack between my pop culture heyday (which pretty much ends with the 20th century) and my daughter's (she'd have been a bit too young to care about this show). I think the last answer I wrote in was EERIE, which is a very weird location to finish up an easy puzzle. Usually easy puzzles follow a pretty regular top-to-bottom solving path, but my path today was oddly circular: across the top, down the east coast, around and up again. But I had the CAN-DO BANJO MOJO working for me today, and so the unconventional route didn't slow me down at all.

There were a few places I could've gotten held up. I am never quite sure about the second vowel in AMARETTO, and ENDO could've been ENTO (?), maybe, and I can see how GOODSON might've caused a struggle for some people, but I watched way way way way too many 70s-80s-era game shows not to know the phrase "a Mark GOODSON-Bill Todman production." I think the word BURGLE is silly and I probably would've changed it to BUNGLE, but that would give you PEN in the cross, and since PENN is already in the grid ... maybe BURGLE is the better choice. As opposed to the BETTOR choice, which Byron clearly made when he decided to put BETTOR ... into the grid. OK, it's late and 'SCOLD (my newfangled contraction for "it's cold"), so I'm off to bed.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

1957 Jimmy Dorsey standard / FRI 2-1-19 / Game-changing invention / Cocktail with vodka triple sec lime juice / Where Delaware Minnesota have farmers / College from which Steve Jobs dropped out / Matthews NBA father-and-son duo / Big-box store with slogan Never stop improving

Football franchise since 1899 / SAT 2-2-19 / Magnetic intensity unit named after Danish physicist / Island formed by two shield volcanoes / Main ingredient in lechazo / Longtime TV curmudgeon

_ Goldfinger (Bond villain) / MON 2-4-2019 / Photo of Marilyn Monroe, once / Christine of "The Blacklist" / Walled city WNW of Madrid / Martini & __ (brand of sparkling wine)

Celtics player-turned-executive / TUE 2-5-19 / Leg muscle in sports slang / 1960s British PM Douglas-Home / Naan-like Native American food / Beer lemonade drink

Call to the hounds / WED 2-6-19 / Port up the lake from Cleveland O / Bygone Pan Am rival / Contribution of Gilbert but not Sullivan

World traveler since 1985 / THU 2-7-19 / Progenitor of Edomites in Bible / Sir William medical pioneer / Latin word on dollar bill / Opposite of staccato

Military pilot's waiting area / FRI 2-8-19 / Big name in yo-yos / Bird symbolizing daybreak / 1935 Nobelist Joliot-Curie

Leading characters in "Mad Max" / SUN 2-10-19 / Start of Euripides signature / Sled dog with statue in Central Park / Source of deferment in 1960s draft / Ancient Greek state with Athens / 1984 Olympic gymnastics sensation

Nickname for former NBA star Darryl Dawkins / MON 2-11-19 / Amy Adams Emma Stone hairwise / French female friend / Road route for Marco Polo

Psychedelic stuff from Evergreen State / TUE 2-12-19 / Belgian river to North Sea / Navigate like whale / Magician's name suffix

Actress Ramirez Grey's Anatomy / WED 2-13-19 / Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-winning graphic novel / Onetime Volvo alternative / Rhyming description for IHOP's Fresh N Fruity pancakes

Pakistani restaurant owner on Seinfeld / THU 2-14-19 / Opera that famously ends with line La commedia e finita / Can you classic cologne catchprase / Pepper used in mole sauce

Sports Illustrated's "Olympian of the Century" / FRI 2-15-19 / Highest-grossing rom-com of the 2010s / Most popular U.S. baby name for boys, 1999-2012

Predecessors of Transformers / SAT 2-16-19 / Fifth-century scourge / Ovary's place botanically / Rebellious Downton Abbey daughter / Another moniker for Empire City of South

1962 hit for Ikettes / SUN 2-17-19 / 1966 Donovan hit with rhyming title / Longtime Steelers coach Chuck / Original edition of this puzzle's theme / Spanish ouzo flavoring / Princess seduced by Zeus / Living to Livy

Vegetarian spaghetti topper / MON 2-18-19 / Coastal county of England / Material for rock climber's harness

Painter of maja both desnuda vestida / TUE 2-19-19 / Heyday of taxis in Beijing / Producer of Jacksons

Trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus / WED 2-20-19 / Rigel Spica by spectral type / Mark longtime game show partner of Bill Todman / Ancient kingdom in modern day Jordan / PM who inspired 1960s jacket