Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Natasha Lyonne and Deb Amlen

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday) (4:30)

THEME: BOB / FOSSE (65A: With 66-Across, choreographer whose life is depicted in the starts of 19-, 36- and 50-Across) — first words of the themers form the title "ALL THAT JAZZ":

Theme answers:

ALL FLASH, NO CASH (19A: Dressed like "a hundred-dollar millionaire")
THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT (36A: "I think I made a mistake here")
JAZZ UP THE PLACE (50A: "Add some throw pillows or a pop of color around here, why don't you!")

Word of the Day: BOB / FOSSE (65A) —

Robert Louis Fosse (June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) was an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, and film director.^[2]
He won eight Tony Awards for choreography, more than anyone else, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning for his direction of Cabaret. (wikipedia)

• • •

Having truly godawful crosswordese at 1A (CASCA) and then an opening themer I've never heard or seen, ever, in nearly half a century of life on this planet, made a pretty bad first impression on me, but then TZATZIKI, YOGA POSE, COPOUTS, and (ironically?) NOT FOR ME won back a lot of good will. And even though the theme concept is pretty thin (it's just a three-word first-words progression, and there are roughly a jillion phrases that begin wth "ALL" or "THAT"), it's hard to be mad when you're remembering BOB / FOSSE, and when the themers themselves are this, uh, jazzy. Congrats to Natasha Lyonne on her debut puzzle.

Five things:

20D: Actress Blair of "The Exorcist" (LINDA) — should've been a gimme, but a much more recent 5-letter "Actress Blair" was the only "Actress Blair" my brain would provide me. I seriously believed, for much longer than I should have, that SELMA Blair might've starred in a remake that I missed.
16A: Queen's domain (REALM) — again, should've been easy, but I must've gotten the middle letters from the crosses before ever looking at the clue, because my first answer in here was SEALY (!?).
6A: Poehler vortex of funniness? (AMY) — oof, this pun. Didn't care for it. Knope. Not one bit.
47D: Slow, in music (ADAGIO) — aargh, some day I will get all my tempi (?) straight. I had ADANTE in here. Is that a thing? [checks] No, no it is not. ANDANTE is a thing. And it means "moderately slow." But ADANTE is just an Italian poet and nothing else.
6A: 52D: Facebook founder's nickname (ZUCK) — not a fan of the guy, but am a fan of this nickname as fill. I would say they Scrabble-f***ed the hell out of this SW corner, but when you've got JAZZ down there to begin with, as part of your theme, then even just one "Q" in close proximity is gonna look like Scrabble-f***ing. And I gotta respect a puzzle that goes right up to the pangram but stops just one "X" short. They coulda forced an "X" into this grid (it's possible), but it woulda been ugly. Three cheers for restraint!

I'm still on the tail end of a head cold, so I need to get some sleep. Apologies for the short write-up. Also, a sincere thanks to everyone who sent me condolence messages last week after I announced the death of my good old dog, Dutchess. In the comments section, on social media, and even through the dang US postal service, you people were exceedingly kind, and I appreciate it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Medium (though I was quite slow) (oversized 16x15 grid) (5:31)

THEME: SEARCH RESULTS (55A: Google returns ... or the answers to the four starred clues)— uh, looks like themers are things that people were somewhat famously searching for (clues are the searchers and the year of the search ... result):

Theme answers:

RABIES VACCINE (19A: *Louis Pasteur, 1885)
NORTHWEST PASSAGE (25A: *Roald Amundsen, 1906)
URANUS (38A: *William Herschel, 1781)
TUTANKHAMEN'S TOMB (48A: *Howard Carter, 1922)

Word of the Day: AVIANS (67A: Old British biplanes with an apt name) —

The Avro Avian was a series of British light aircraft designed and built by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s. While the various versions of the Avian were sound aircraft, they were comprehensively outsold by the de Havilland Moth and its descendants. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is just dull. The revealer, SEARCH RESULTS, is sleep-inducing all on its own. And the other stuff ... I mean, who cares? People search for (and find) lots of stuff. All the time. Whoop dee doo. This is just trivia, with a listless revealer. And then there's these distracting non-theme 9 stacks in the NW and SE, which I kept thinking should have theme content. Four themer-length answers, all longer than the central theme answer, just ... taking up space. And they're not even that interesting, and the whole architecture of the grid that allows for those 9s also creates a buncha boring short stuff. I mean, just run your eye over any section: EXEC DESI ADIN? (crossing ICES IN??) EIRE TIARA EASEBY EENSY ... TSETSE next to TESTS ... it's not good. And the puzzle tries so hard to be hip and colloquial, but it mostly whiffs there, too. "OR WHAT" does not swap out easily with its clue, 23D: "... am I right?" The only way "OR WHAT" makes sense is if it is added on to a question, i.e. "Is that a great sunset OR WHAT?" But you would never say "Is that a great sunset am I right?!" because the only way "am I right?!" makes sense is if it is added on to a statement. God, that clue is so bad. And ON SCENE? Ugh. I assume the clue for that is supposed to be [Where it's happening], but this is what AcrossLite provided:

I'd much sooner believe that "it" is "happening" at an IN SPOT than ON SCENE. I can kinda hear that phrase as something someone might say in a news broadcast, e.g. "fire trucks are ON SCENE." I don't know. Didn't like it. Didn't like complete sentence ["I'll do that job"] cluing very much incomplete sentence "ON IT." And worst of all was "UM NO," which I had as "UH, NO," because who the hell can tell? (60d: "Let me think ... huh-uh"). All these colloquial missteps are sad. The puzzle wants to be hip and fresh, but it just comes across as clumsy.

Five things:

4D: The "C" of F.C. Barcelona (CLUB) — Wrote in CITY, quite confidently. I was thinking of Man City (an Premier League football CLUB) and ... I don't know, I just flubbed it. Really cost me.
5D: Others, in a Latin list (ALII)— few solving experiences are more disappointing than when you know it's *&^%$ crosswordese but you have to leave the final letter blank and check the cross because you don't know which version of *&^%$ crosswordese it is. ALII needs to retire.
61D: Helmut of fashion (LANG) — wanted KOHL, but KOHL'S was already in the puzzle. Also KOHL was just wrong (he was Chancellor of Germany). Also, I wanted KOHL'S to be KMART.
70A: Unwanted blanket (SMOG) — wrote in SNOW and thought "How do you know I don't want SNOW!?" But I guess no one really wantsSMOG, so OK.
17A: Commercial holiday mailing (GIFT GUIDE) — this is an OK answer, but "mailing?" I get catalogs in the mail. I am way way more familiar with a GIFT GUIDE as something I see inside of print media (magazines, newspapers) or online.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Lewis Rothlein

Relative difficulty: Easy (untimed, morning clipboard solve)

my actual annotated puzzle, shown in its natural clipboard habitat

THEME: BACK TO SQUARE ONE (58A: Where you go for a fresh start ... or a hint for four answers in this puzzle) — first square of every themer is a rebus square containing the word that both begins and ends the themer phrase; thus, every answer puts a word inside "square one" and then (implicitly) circles "back to" that same square at the end:

Theme answers:

[YOU] CAN'T TAKE IT WITH (16A: Saying suggesting that worldly possessions should be enjoyed)
"[BOND], JAMES" (25A: Iconic introduction in cinema)
["DO] AS I SAY, NOT AS I" (36A: Instructor's remark after making a mistake)
["NO] MEANS" (48A: Insistent refusal)

Word of the Day: TWYLA Tharp (29D: First name in dance) —

Twyla Tharp (/ˈtwaɪlə θɑːrp/; born July 1, 1941) is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966, she formed her own company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music.
From 1971 to 1988, Twyla Tharp Dance toured extensively around the world, performing original works. In 1973, Tharp choreographed Deuce Coupe to the music of The Beach Boys for the Joffrey Ballet. Deuce Coupe is considered to be the first crossover ballet. Later she choreographed Push Comes to Shove (1976), which featured Mikhail Baryshnikov and is now thought to be the best example of the crossover ballet.
In 1988, Twyla Tharp Dance merged with American Ballet Theatre, since which time ABT has held the world premieres of 16 of Tharp's works. [...]
Tharp attended Pomona College in California but later transferred to Barnard College in New York City, where she graduated with a degree in art history in 1963. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm going to start by saying I like this puzzle. The idea is clever and the execution neat. Got the first themer and wasn't really sure what I was dealing with. Got stuck on what turned out to be the second themer (25A: Iconic introduction in cinema), having no idea how "[blank] JAMES" could mean anything, or what could possibly go in that square, since the cross ("BAIL [blank]") seemed to be correct without the blank (I mean, BAIL is in fact [One way to get out of jail]). But eventually I had the "ohhhhhhh James BOND" moment, and then the central themer was easy and then I forgot there would be a fourth themer in that SW corner, so minor hangup there, but not really. Overall, the theme was not too troubling, difficulty-wise, and the solving experience was mostly delightful. Mostly.

OK so now that that overall evaluation is out of the way, let's talk about the own goal, the shooting self in foot, the colossal unfathomable embarrassing bad decision to clue PEN as 42D: French politico Marine Le ___. Actually, I'm not sure "bad" or even "negligent" quite captures the nature of this clue. At this point, the deliberate inclusion of a nationalist eurosceptic anti-immigration white politician who has waged an alarmingly successful ("de-demonization"!) campaign to clean up the image of her father's anti-semitic white supremacist party ... the deliberate inclusion of her name part (name part!) over the infinite other clues one might have come up with for the ordinary English word PEN ... it's unfathomable except as a strategy of trolling, an alarmingly amoral tone deafness, or an expression of fandom. Did none of the young puzzbros in the editor's employ flag this? Say "hey ... maybe not ... this?" I mean, as my friend Finn points out, PEN's counterpart PENCIL is right there in the grid, just waiting for a cross-reference. And PENcrossesCAGE. Surely you could've done something cute and puzzly with that. Some kind of same-clue thing ... or something. Literally anything.

This is so much more troubling than if the answer were somehow LEPEN, in which case ... I mean, constructors, please don't put this name in your grids, but if you do, well there's really no other way to clue it. But PEN? Yeah, you can go other ways with PEN. Putting that anti-Muslim French lady in here is just disgusting. Adds to the tenacious "conservative""older""for white folks only" vibe that the crossword too often gives off and has been struggling, especially of late, however awkwardly, to shake. Brutally stupid and shameful.

OK, back to the rest of the puzzle:

Bullets:

9D: The way (HOW)— The answer I had here at first rhymes with HOW ...
32A: What one gets after many years of work (OLD)— ??????? One gets this after many years of anything
40A: Like a sleeper cell? (ON SILENT)— Very nice. Thumbs up. Appreciative clapping.
53A: Part of some Hebrew men's names (BEN) — wanted BIN here but that is Arabic. Good thing I knew the crosswordesey golfer (O'MEARA). This corner was a little tough to get into because, as I said earlier, I forgot a themer was in here, and also SOFA had a tricky clue (37D: Sleeper that never dreams) and I am not confident about my German words (43A: Head: Ger. = KOPF).
13A: ___ Duncan, Obama education secretary (ARNE) — speaking of crosswordesey names, we got a bunch of them today: ARNE CATE GIA and O'MEARA are frequent repeaters. Learn 'em and love 'em. Or at least learn 'em.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. woke up to find roughly half of the #NYTXW response to this puzzle on Twitter was about that stupid PEN clue. Which was predictable. Which is what makes me think the provocation is quite intentional.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy in the corners, tougher in the middle)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: PIERCE-ARROW (32A: Luxury car of the early 20th century) —

The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company was an American motor vehicle manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, which was active from 1901 to 1938. Although best known for its expensive luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manufactured commercial trucks, fire trucks, camp trailers, motorcycles, and bicycles. (wikipedia)

• • •

No strong feelings here. Found the corners easy and boring / common. The center had a lot of interest, but it also had answers I found off-putting, like the brutality of KNEE-CAPPING and the brutality of Philip Morris (ALTRIA), the name of whose parent company is some bland corporate attempt-at-rebranding bullshit that I deliberately try not to remember. I recognize HIPSTER CRED as a phrase, vaguely, but I don't really get it, in that nobody calls themselves "hipster"—it's mainly used as a pejorative—so why would anyone want the CRED? Is HIPSTER CRED something you facetiously ascribe to others. "Fellow cool people." No cool person ever used that phrase. I have no idea how many levels of irony I'm dealing with here. Maybe that's a hipster thing? Dunno. No one asks "CAN'T I?" Wait, are we in a Dickens novel? Then maybe. Otherwise "Pretty please?" = "CAN I?" or (in this case), "CAN WE?" The one thing that really messed me up in the middle of this puzzle was a stupid, simple error, one I should've notice far earlier: I had SEALY instead of SERTA (30D: Alternative to Tempur-Pedic). Looks like SEALY and Tempur-Pedic are one thing now (?), or rather they have the same parent company (Tempur Sealy). More corporate names. How delightful :/

["I'm going to buy myself a PIERCE-ARROW / And wave to all my fans in the streets"]

SEALY led me to write in LESSON for 39A: Post on a wall, say (TAPE UP) and then having BETA VERSION instead of BETA RELEASE (16D: Early distribution of a piece of software) led me write in BOOS for 48A: Poor reception? (HISS). Later on, I had DISS before HISS. It seems at least moderately plausible that people could think DISS / DOGS (48D: Selfish sorts) was correct.

[31D: Snoop ___]

The corners were just placeholders, full of tired crossword stuff like OREOOS and AYESIR and EMOPOP and "SO RARE," etc. The SW was probably the hardest of the four with it's weird HEW TO (43D: Uphold) and weird "W"-containing SNO(W)-CONE and weird A-LINER (37D: Camper manufacturer) and weird "S"-less YIPE. But it wasn't that hard. What else? Oh, hey, look, they figured out a way to clue PEN today that didn't involve celebrating an anti-immigrant fascist (28A: Clink). Cool. Extraordinary work, fellas.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ned White

Relative difficulty: Medium (8:05)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: FLAM (56D: Deception, informally) —

: a drumbeat of two strokes of which the first is a very quick grace note (m-w)

but also?

[collinsdictionary.com]

• • •

I am befuddled by this one. When I look at the grid, it seems like something I should've enjoyed. But I found it kind of wearisome, and I don't know why. I mean, I have some ideas, but none of them really explain how little any of the clues or answers in this puzzle moved me. And maybe I'll start with the clues, because those answers up top, that stack, looks nice in the grid, but the clues ... they feel forced. Stilted. Awkward. "Any chance of success, though?" I know it's hard to approximate the exact zing of the answer phrase in your clue phrase, but all these clues sound like something A.I. would say, something aliens who had just learned our language would say. Just off. So I had trouble getting all those answers and then when I did, I was like "Oh ... I guess, yeah." Not the aha reaction I really long for. No one says ITSY. No one says FLAM. I learned it as FRA LIPPO LIPPI—stunned to see that "FI-" shoved in there (58A: Renaissance artist who's famous for his "Coronation of the Virgin"). Stupid Browning, teaching me wrong stuff...

NUNHOOD? I see that it is a word (1D: What one may be in the habit for?). I'm pretty sure SISTERHOOD is the more common word. BIG ONE really, Really needs "The" (either in the grid or in the clue) (12D: Earthquake that everyone's been waiting for). "I'm waiting for BIG ONE"? No. "IT'S A HIT" is just random (23D: Baseball announcer's cry). I watch a lot (a Lot) of baseball, and I wrote in "IT'S GONE!" which an announcer is far (Far) more likely to "cry" than "IT'S A HIT!" When the clues miss, the experience suffers. Again, I think the grid (despite a small spate of crosswordese) is very solid. It's not a HOT MESS; I'm just not NUTS ABOUT it.

Five things:

3D: Jeffersons (TWOS)— me: "Ooh, easy: TENS!"UGH.
40D: Quickly grab (SWOOP UP) — Wanted SNAP UP, but it wouldn't fit.
7D: 1979 platinum album with the hit "I'll Never Love This Way Again" (DIONNE) — 1979 pop hits!? Now you're in my wheelhouse. This is the first answer about which I was (mostly) certain.
57A: "___ Day Will Come" (1963 #1 hit) ("OUR")— Covered by DIONNE Warwick on her 1982 album Heartbreaker, just FYI

37D: Jim of 1960s TV (NABORS)— had the terminal "S"; wrote in BACKUS.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy (8:12)

THEME:"Help!"— the theme is three-word phrases that follow the first-letter pattern "S.O.S." (109A: Critical message that's a hint to the six longest entries in this puzzle)

Theme answers:

START OUT SLOWLY (3D:: Not exactly hit the ground running)
STRUTTED OUR STUFF (?!?!) (7D: Showed 'em what we've got)
SNAKE OIL SALESMAN (41D: Slippery vendor)
"SULTANS OF SWING" (56D: 1978 Dire Straits hit)
SAME OLD STORY (24A: Tired tale)
"SAIL ON, SAILOR" (1973 Beach Boys song)

Word of the Day: SNOOK (126A: Caribbean game fish) —

The common snook (Centropomus undecimalis) is a species of marine fish in the familyCentropomidae of the order Perciformes. The common snook is also known as the sergeant fish or robalo. It was originally assigned to the sciaenid genus Sciaena; Sciaena undecimradiatus and Centropomus undecimradiatus are obsolete synonyms for the species. [...] Considered an excellent food fish, the common snook is fished commercially and foreign-caught fish are sold in the US. When cooking snook, the skin must be removed, because it imparts an unpleasant taste, described as soapy, to the fish.
Snook are also prized as game fish, being known for their great fighting capabilities. The IGFA All Tackle World Record for Common snook stands at 53lb 10oz (24.32kg) caught by Gilbert Ponzi near Parismina Ranch, Costa Rica. Previous world records were caught in Fort Myers, Florida and Gatun Spillway Canal Zone, Panama. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this theme has been done. Repeatedly. How do I know. Because I did it, in my debut NYT puzzle back in 2010. Mine was a regular 15x15 grid (as the theme did not seem like it could support a Sunday puzzle...). After mine was published, Peter Gordon sent me a version of the theme that *he* had done years before me. So I'm not claiming ownership of the theme. And I'm not even claiming my puzzle was any good—it was my debut, and it had some horrible fill, and even a little Scrabble-f***ing going on in the SW corner. I am claiming, though, that in this era of easy access to massive crossword databases, and in this era of veteran constructors (like today's) being paid special higher rates for their work, a constructor should not be floating recycled themes, and the editor should not be okaying them. This one does have the "bonus" feature of black squares that seem to spell out "S.O.S." (a feature I noticed only after I saw my screenshot of the grid as a thumbnail). But still, this kind of rehashing should be embarrassing. Of course no one involved actually *will* be embarrassed. Not really their style. I actually have lots of sympathy for constructors who unknowingly replicate themes. Happens all the time. But your minimum due diligence is searching your revealer in the xwordinfo database. That is the barest of minimums. And either no one did that or no one cared. Best Puzzle In The World!!!!

This puzzle was very easy, so it had that going for it. I have never ever heard "SAIL ON, SAILOR." Wait, have I? Hang on [calls up Spotify...] Oof, no. Absolutely not. What in the world is this???

It peaked at No. 79 (!?) on the American singles chart. Very weak S.O.S. answer. I had this answer as "SAILOR, SAILOR"! and thus DAR for 106D: Skilled judoist (DAN), which seemed, and was, very wrong. I fixed it eventually. I know DAN only as a skill level? Like a belt, in karate?? Or that's what I thought, anyway. That whole SW corner was kind of a train wreck on many levels. It's got AVE crossing AVENUE, which, I see you trying to make AVE Latin there (117D: "___, Imperator!"), and nice try, but no. RSTLNE is pretty godawful as fill. If I'd heard of SNOOK before today, I forgot it. So yes, much roughness, of all kinds. But overall the puzzle was incredibly easy. My second fastest Sunday in the record-my-times era.

What else? I don't know. There are answers. Some good, some not. Nothing remarkable. MODISTE is a pretty odd word (52D: Dress seller). I would've thought that word meant something closer to "fashionista," not a mere dress vendor. I thought the best clue was 32A: Rock maybe (PUT TO SLEEP), though it's a bit on-the-nose for this puzzle, which might very well have put me to sleep had I not been in speed mode (I could tell I had a shot at a personal best, so I was pretty amped for most of the puzzle; I didn't even know the puzzle had a theme until I was finished). Going with the proper Greek plural on the robot spelling? Bold (20A: Robots => AUTOMATA). Domo AUTOMATA, Mr. Robota!

Hey, so, two things. The New Yorker expanded its crossword team to include Aimee Lucido and Erik Agard, and they're publishing two puzzles a week now: a Weekly and a Weekend. The first Weekend puzzle just came out on April 5, and it's by Erik. The puzzles at the New Yorker are always first rate. They have managed to secure an extraordinary pool of constructing talent. It's such a promising sign that they are expanding the crossword. I hope they keep building the puzzle and increasing its visibility. Now if they would just put the puzzle(s) in the damned paper magazine! Do the puzzles here, and be sure to watch this video of Anna Shechtman and Erik Agard talking about crosswords because they are brilliant, funny, and adorable (and young!).

Also, The Atlantic has a crossword now! It's called ... The Atlantic Crossword! (bold!). It's a daily mini puzzle that gets harder as the week goes on. The puzzles are made by Caleb Madison, and they are sweet little treats—very contemporary, packed with current, popular, colloquial, newsworthy stuff. Take a few minutes each weekday and solve them here!

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

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Constructor: Tracy Gray and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium ??? (verrrry slow for me, but I don't know why) (3:45)

THEME: DEER XING (43D: Road sign that hints at what can be found three times in this puzzle's grid) — circled squares contains kinds of deer (or, in one instance, just DEER), and those deer types "cross":

Theme answers:

KEVIN HART x/w STAG PARTY
FAWN OVER x/w HIND LEG
JANE DOE x/w DEER XING

Word of the Day: HOOHA (37A: Big to-do) —

a commotion; a fuss.
"the book was causing such a hoo-ha" (google)

also

• • •

Very slow on this. Not sure why. Well, I know that a big part of it was my complete inability to type efficiently. Just a disaster. And then somehow the whole dumb revealer placement—that whole SW corner—really threw me off. Not a huge fan of counting the revealer DEER as one of your DEER. There are other deer. Well, ROE is a deer, anyway, so there's at least one more. What about BUCK? I don't know why this took two people to make or why there's mirror and not rotational symmetry. I get that it's trying to be edgy and cute, but the theme felt fussy and awkward. Gangly. Was the KEVIN HART / GAY BAR juxtaposition intentional? Meant to be provocative? Interesting call, anyway. HOOHA may appear in the dictionary with the definition that you see in the clue, but I can tell you that is not how that "word" exists in most people's minds in 2019. I wanted HOOPLA and honestly considered the possibility that I'd have to cram two letters into one box somewhere in there.

The Scrabble-f***ing is ridiculous in this one. Well, it's ridiculous in the NE corner, for sure. ZXX in a 3x4 section? I guess it's clean enough fill, so no harm done, but that sort of low-rent razzle-dazzle always reeks of sadness, to me. Again, ESP doesn't exist so stop cluing it as if it does (20D: Mind-reading ability, for short). I had GRAFT before GRIFT, which was rough (58D: Obtain money illegally). I also had no idea about INTENSE (67A: Causing white knuckles, say) and went with VARIANT (?!) at 63A: Changing from time to time (VARYING) at first. Then changed it because 55D: Eight things on an octagon was obviously SIDES ... until it wasn't (it's EDGES). [Tom turkey or billy goat] is such a dumb childlike clue that I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to think. I thought maybe those were TOONS. The giant cross in the middle-bottom of the grid is oddly distracting and feels like some kind of religious propaganda. I might've liked this better on, say, a Wednesday. It is not a bad puzzle. But it's a little shaky, execution-wise, and it definitely did not scratch my Monday itch.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. There is literally no need for NRA to be in this puzzle. None. Zero. So why is it here? If you can make a puzzle without NRA, then you make it without NRA. Otherwise it's gratuitous promotion for the pro-gun-death lobby. These are the people who convinced all the Republicans to vote *against* the Violence Against Women Act last week. Those people. The ones who want men convicted of domestic violence to still be able to legally own firearms. Those people. You're promoting them. Respectfully, %$^& that. Good day.

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Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Challenging (absurd to run this on Tuesday) (5:55)

THEME: there's a "Note"! What fun ... :(

Theme answers:

all the Acrosses, I guess

Word of the Day: EPT (60D: Competent, jocularly) —

Oxford credits the New Yorker writer E. B. White with the first recorded use of “ept.” In a letter dated October 1938, he said, “I am much obliged … to you for your warm, courteous, and ept treatment of a rather weak, skinny subject.”
The dictionary says “ept” means adroit, appropriate, or effective. It describes the word as a back-formation and “deliberate antonym” of “inept.” A back-formation is a word formed by dropping part of an earlier word.
Although the OED doesn’t have entries for “ane” or “ert,” it does include them (as humorous antonyms for “inane” and “inert”) in its entry for “ept.”
Here’s the citation, from the Sept. 7, 1966, issue of Time magazine: “With the exception of one or two semantic twisters, I think it is a first-rate job—definitely ept, ane and ert.” (grammarphobia.com)

• • •

Pointless nonsense (a) that had no business appearing on a Tuesday (b). The NYT continues to cannibalize itself, ripping off older puzzle themes that it ran years ago. This one is a bad imitation of a puzzle that I also didn't enjoy, but that had a point—Joe Krozel did this play on a crossword's conventional rotational symmetry by having the Across answers in the grid actually be rotationally symmetrical as well. So, e.g. when LAMINA appeared in the E (which it did, memorably), ANIMAL appeared in the W. Instead of the solver's having to guess, with no clues and no rationale, which of each Across clue's two answers goes forward and which backward, Krozel's puzzle had internal logic for the "backward," and none of this split-clue stuff. Here's that grid:

See the rotational symmetry! Unlike today's, with its bone-stupid "Note," which ... kind of ruins the whole "gimmick." What kind of puzzle just tells you its premise right off the bat???

So the NYT plagiarizes itself, badly, producing a degraded, pointless version of a show-offy puzzle that was never that pleasant to solve in the first place. Amazing.

Let's see, anything worth talking about? ... Well, there's DIALLED, ugh (44D: Phoned, to Brits). And ACADIAN—fine word, not a Tuesday word, though (42D: Early settler of Nova Scotia). Most of the difficulty came from just flailing around with the Acrosses. I wrote in IDO for CIO (9D: Union letters), and had ATIME before ATIDE (2D: "There is ___ in the affairs of men ...": Shak.). Every other error involved writing in the backward forward or the forward backward. This is like one of Dr. Frankenstein's failed early attempts. It needs so much work. It needs a title / revealer, for one. And then it needs to run on Thursday, for two. There is No Rationale for the Across clues. Randomness is not a rationale! I have no idea how hard this was to make, but I know how horrible it was to solve. If you do not consider solver experience when constructing your look-at-me! puzzles, please start. Please. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty: Easy? Easy-Medium? (solved on clipboard, not really sure)

THEME: DOUBLE HEADERS (35A: Baseball rarities nowadays ... or a phonetic hint to the starts of 17-, 26-, 48- and 57-Across) — first words of themers are homonyms for a numbers; taken as a progression, the numbers "double" with each step:

Theme answers:

WON ON POINTS (1) (17A: Was barely victorious, as in boxing)
TOO DARN HOT (2) (26A: Cole Porter song from "Kiss Me, Kate")
FOR A CHANGE (4) (48A: As something different to do)
ATE LIKE A PIG (8) (57A: Opposite of "consumed daintily")

Word of the Day: FOCSLE (52A: Bo's'n's quarters)—

noun
noun: focsle
the forward part of a ship below the deck, traditionally used as the crew's living quarters.
HISTORICAL
a raised deck at the front of a ship. (google)

• • •

First the obvious, which is that this puzzle should've run yesterday and yesterday's puzzle today (if it was run at all, which it shouldn't have been, IMveryHO. I didn't time myself today but the only trouble I had (ironically? fittingly?) came right off the bat with REBUS (1A: A ewe for you, say). I wanted some equivalent of homonym, which I still can't tell apart from "homophone," tbh. Looks like "homophone" is a type of homonym, but where the words are spelled differently, not just pronounced differently or with different meanings. So you're always safe saying "homonym." But I digress. Besides REBUS, only the terrifically ugly FOCSLE caused me even a moment's pause. Had no idea what the theme was until I was finished. As soon as I had that AHA moment, I let out a sound like a tire deflating, which made my wife (in the next room) laugh, because she knew *exactly* what caused it (she'd solved last night, while I was asleep on the couch). There is very much a "that's it?" quality to this theme. Nothing disappoints me quite like a disappointing baseball-themed crossword. Even the clue on DOUBLE-HEADERS was disappointing. It's not wrong, it's just ... there's nothing in that clue that refers to what a double-header *is*. Who cares if it's a "baseball rarity nowadays"? Give me a baseball-specific clue, please. [Twin bills] would've worked. This puzzle was not bad so much as it was blah. Limp, listless, dull. Something that might've seemed interesting in the 20th century, of if you'd not done many puzzles before. Do some constructors get preferential treatment because they've been at it for so long? I can't believe that in all the rejected puzzles made by young people or women there wasn't something more interesting than this.

I guess there were a couple other answers that gave me slight pause. I know the term BITMAP, but I don't really know what it is, so I got it easily enough, but I wrote it in thinking "well I've heard of this thing ..." rather than "ooh, I know this!" Also, no idea who TESSA Thompson is. Which, now that I look her up, seems impossible. She's been in a lot of stuff. I really gotta start watching "Westworld"...

Bullets:

25D: Forest giants (SEQUOIAS) — wanted REDWOODS, which is accurate and fits. But that "Q" was easy to pick up from QUOTAS (31A: Target numbers)
7D: World capital at 9, 350 feet (QUITO) — speaking of "Q"s ... I always hesitate with this clue because I think it might be LAPAZ or SUCRE (both Bolivian capitals, both way way up there, elevationwise)
43D: Lonely place (THE TOP)— Had THE and filled the remaining spaces (mentally) with all kinds of stuff (THE BAR? THE HOP? THE MET?) before getting TOP from the crosses.
58D: ___ of Good Feelings (ERA) — LOL this reminds me olde-timey crosswords, when this ERA apparently meant something to someone, and also when this ERA would be used to clue the terrible partial ERAOF. To Will's credit, he's only had ERAOF in his puzzles three times in 25 years. Weirdly, pre-Shortz editors clued it "ERA of Good Feeling," singular. The plural "feelings" version appears to be more correcter.
49D: A Lion, but not a Tiger, informally (NFLER) — ban NFLER, NBAER, NHLER, NLER, ALER and all dumb sports -ERs. Also, go Tigers! (baseball!)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Easy (5 flat, at 5am)

THEME: added schwa-like syllable — schwa sound added to first word in themer, turning one-syllable into two-syllable word, creating much wackiness:

Theme answers:

BAROQUE BREAD (from "broke bread") (19A: Ornately decorated money?)
PARADE FOR RAIN (from "prayed for rain") (26A: March meant to end a drought?)
COLLIDE BARROW (from "Clyde Barrow"!) (41A: Bumper version of a cart?)
THOREAU SHADE (from "throw shade") (47A: What the trees by Walden Pond provided?)

Word of the Day: throw shade (see 47A) —

The expressions "throw shade, "throwing shade", or simply "shade", are slang terms used to describe insults. Merriam-Webster defines "shade" as "subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone—sometimes verbal, and sometimes not." OxfordDictionaries.com defines "throw shade" as a phrase used to "publicly criticize or express contempt for someone". // The slang version of "shade" originated from the black and Latino gay communities, and was initially strictly used by those communities. The first major use of "shade" that introduced the slang to the greater public was in the documentary film Paris Is Burning (1990), which is about the mid-1980s drag scene in Manhattan.^[2] In the documentary, one of the drag queens, Dorian Corey, explains what "shade" means. She says, "Shade is, I don't have to tell you you're ugly, because you know you're ugly."
The expression was popularized by the American reality television series RuPaul's Drag Race. (wikipedia)

• • •

Usually if I solve right upon waking at 5am, I don't bother to time myself because my brain is just molasses. Instead, I print the puzzle out, put it on my clipboard, get myself some tea (still Lent, still not drinking coffee), and solve with a pencil in the comfy chair downstairs. But I was so tired I actually didn't want to do all that prep work so I just plunked down in front of the computer in my home office, downloaded the puzzle, opened it up and had at it. Realized very quickly that this was going to be on the easy side, and that (finally!) I was going to be very much on the constructor's wavelength today. I just knew stuff, or guessed correctly on the first try. I didn't even understand the theme while I was solving, but my brain was able somehow to piece plausible answers together—except for that one time when my brain was like "BURROW! like "wheelburrow! Write it in!" Ugh. Very bad mistake because that gave me HUND- for 40D: Quarterback's option (HANDOFF), which would've been very easy *if* I'd spelled "BARROW" correctly. Still, though, as wake-up solves go, I had very few of those dumb missteps. This theme is very consistent and very inventive, and the wacky phrases are suitably wacky, and the fill is mostly clean (if a bit more crosswordesey than I'd expect from BEQ), so yeah, I enjoyed it.

Lots of 3- to 5-letter stuff meant that the fill ran toward the dull / familiar side. Crosswordesey generals (MEADE) and designers (DIOR) and places (OAHU) and characters (SHERE) and shoes (AVIA) and music (IRAE) and authors (DAHL) and brands (AMANA) and sounds (SHH) and generals again (LEIA) etc. None of it was that irksome, though, because some crosswordese is at least a real thing, and some is garbage, and today's was by and large real. HORSECAR, though, what the heck? Not real. I had HORSE- and was like "well, CART doesn't fit, and neither does CARRIAGE, so I'm out." I also really hate that definition of DIDO, which no one uses. Come on, man—never miss a chance to clue the greatest figure in classical literature. She did so much in so little space! She was so intriguing that for over a millennium people mostly knew "The Aeneid" as "that DIDO story with some epilogue about a war in Italy." BOOK IV IV LIFE! "Mischievous trick," my eye.

Five things:

21D: Sheep's cry (BLAT)— sheep say BAA. Or they BLEAT. What the hell is this?
2D: ___ milk (OAT) — wanted SOY. Then weirdly got SOY two answers over (4D: Vegan source of protein = SOY MILK)
40A: Commotion (HOOHA) — stop with this
59A: Member of an early 20th-century French art movement (FAUVE) — because of my "burrow" error and the stupid CAR part of HORSECAR, I couldn't get into the SE corner. Until this answer, which I just knew because I have a beautiful Taschen book about 20th-century art that I once read cover to cover. Yay art. Yay reading.

27D: Guy in a restaurant (FIERI)— "in a"? That phrasing is suspect. You probably should've put a "?" at the end of this clue. I believe I have the best wrong answer here. I had "blank IE blank blank" and wrote in SIEUR (as in ... monsieur??? which was, somehow, in my mind, in the ballpark of garçon????). Guy FIERI is a restaurateur. I haven't the time or will to explain him to you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Howard Barkin

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:12)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SHAYS Rebellion (32D: Rebellion leader of 1786) —

Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts in opposition to increased government coercion in taxing individuals and in their trades^[2]; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels (called Shaysites) in a protest against economic and civil rights injustices. Shays was a farmhand from Massachusetts at the beginning of the Revolutionary War; he joined the Continental Army, saw action at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battles of Saratoga, and was eventually wounded in action.
In 1787, Shays' rebels marched on the United States' Armory at Springfield in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion, and it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State militia and a privately funded local militia. The widely held view was that the Articles of Confederation needed to be reformed as the country's governing document, and the events of the rebellion served as a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention and the creation of the new government.
The shock of Shays' Rebellion drew retired General George Washington back into public life, leading to his two terms as the first president of the United States. (wikipedia)

• • •

Personal record for a Friday, and first thing in the morning, too. Such a delightful way to wake up. This is such a clean and bouncy and lovely grid. This grid wants you to rise and shine so it can make you pancakes. The number of "ick""no!" and "ugh"s it elicited was virtually zero. Possibly actually zero. I actually had very bad feelings right off the bat, as I wrote in BERG (which is a fine word) for 1D: Sight on an Alaskan cruise, but then had to change it because of ANT (19A: Aesop's "The ___ and the Grasshopper"), leaving me with "blank blank blank A" for the Alaskan cruise sight, and four letters ending "A" ....? Well, I disgruntledly wrote in ATKA, aka the Island Home of Crosswordese. It's where the infamous Oracle of OOXTEPLERNON is located (OOXTEPLERNON is the God of Bad Short Fill, and I don't say his name much because he's kinda like Voldemort that way). So I was like "Really, puzzle, right off the bat, we're goin' back to ATKA (ATKA ... ATKA), we're going back to ATKA?" Nah, I don't think so! Turns out the Alaskan cruise sight is just an ORCA (also crosswordese, but also a very real creature, so no one cares that it's crosswordese). I had a few tiny struggles getting out of the NW—SET AT and WASPS both eluded me for a little bit, and the last three letters of STEPMOM required crosses because -SON or -DAD were both viable. But I went down SHOWPIECE, over to the west with MESSI, back to the middle with AT THE MOMENT and CURAÇAO, and just exploded into the rest of the grid. Polished it off with barely any hesitation and much delight. No "SON OF A"s from me. Just OOH and some more OOHs and The End.

I honestly thought it was SHAY apostrophe S Rebellion, so I balked at writing in SHAYS, since the clue did not indicate a possessive. So much for my Letter of Commendation in AP US History from 1986! I also had a moment of head-cocked-in-slight-disbelief slow-typing when, after getting STREET FOOD, I looked at 50A: Led a parade, musically (--F--) and wrote in "F-I-F-E-D-? ... huh ... let's check these crosses, then ... FROM ... IOTA ... wow, yeah, it's FIFED. OK then!" Seems like a very specific kind of parade, but I got the answer quickly, so fifiing must be iconic enough as a parade-leading musical activity to work. Loved the clue on ROGET (49D: 19th-century author whose works are still read word for word) ("word for word"! 'Cause he wrote a thesaurus! Good one, dad!). The only answer I had no clue about was LORI (54D: Rick's wife on "The Walking Dead"), since I stopped watching that show when it became terminally boring (i.e. early in season 2). My lasting image from this puzzle will surely be of THE LORAX as a SEXTing SATANIST. Thanks, Howard.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 24A: Starbucks competitor (MCCAFE) = hard LOL. Take that, Howard Schultz!

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Constructor: Debbie Ellerin

Relative difficulty: Easy (5:11)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: UZO Aduba (22A: Actress Aduba of "Orange Is the New Black") —

Uzoamaka Nwanneka "Uzo" Aduba (/ˈuːzoʊ əˈduːbə/; born February 10, 1981) is a Nigerian-American actress. She is known for her role as Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren on the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black (2013–present), for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2014, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2015, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series in 2014 and 2015. She is one of only two actors to win an Emmy Award in both the comedy and drama categories for the same role, the other being Ed Asner for the character Lou Grant. (wikipedia)

• • •

Back-to-back very easy puzzles! Nice to head into the weekend feeling invincible. Found yesterday's puzzle somewhat more delightful and intriguing, but this one is smooth and solid and works quite well, overall. There's just not much sizzle here, for me. This could easily be because I do so many puzzles, but the marquee answers here, while just fine (NOTORIOUS RBG, GREEN GOBLIN) feel like things I've seen before. Like ... fresh a few years ago, maybe, but now, less so. "A STAR IS BORN" is a nice entry, but its clue is some pretty bland trivia (25D: 2018 Oscar-nominated picture whose soundtrack sold over one million copies). TRANSYLVANIA probably wins the day, especially in the clue department (23A: Where one might go out to get a bite?) (Get it? 'Cause Dracula?). But like I say, despite the lack of oohs and aahs, I admired the craftsmanship of this one. Crosswordese (like ERTES and LEO IV and AMAS) is spread out so as to be inconspicuous, and solid, familiar, in-the-language answers abound. And it's nice to see a woman constructor on Saturday. What'd we have last year, like, one? Let me check ... yep, one. Uno.

That's better than 2011, 2013, and 2015, when there were precisely zero puzzles by women on Saturday. Only 19 total this decade (since 2010). That's out of something close to 500 Saturday puzzles. So today ties last year's total! So things won't be worse this year! Baby steps!

Now I will walk through all the parts of this grid that gave me trouble. Minimal trouble in every case, but still, trouble. I had the "A" and wrote in AMNIO at 2D: Kind of test for a baby (APGAR). I learned APGAR from crosswords, and let's be honest about "learned," because even today, when I "remembered" it, I couldn't actually remember it. Needed "APG-" before I "remembered." I did get BADGE right away, though, so that's something! (1A: Evidence of merit). Not sure why I wrote in DRAB at first for 33D: Minute amount (DRIB), but I did. "Dribs and drabs" is a phrase, right? Anyway, easy to fix because the [Fairy tale villain] at 40A obviously had to be EVIL something. But this led to my next problem: EVIL what??? What fairy tale? I was looking for something generic. I feel like EVIL QUEEN is very specific, though now that I think about it, I guess there have been a number, though not all in "fairy tales." Anyway, not having QUEEN halted my progress, and also meant that I wrote in PHOTO IDS instead of QUORUMS for 41D: Requirements for voting. I know, I know, you don't need PHOTO IDS for voting (not in NY anyway). I was mad as I was writing the answer in, like "how dare you!?" But as we now know, it was wrong. Last hold-up came with RANTO, which I just couldn't parse as a past-tense verb phrase for a while (49D: Totaled). I also was thinking of the wrong kind of "totaled." Finished up in the name-heavy NE—not sure why you turn URBAN into a name there, when you've already crammed the corner with names, but no biggie (for me, anyway). Knocked out that corner no problem and ta da, finished. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Easy (9:16)

THEME:"Left/Right Symmetry" — puzzle has L/R symmetry generally, but also the L's in the grid have mirror (i.e. L/R) symmetry with the R's; also, the Down answers in which they appear are identical but for that one letter:

Theme answers:

MOLASSES / MORASSES
GO TOPLESS / GO TO PRESS
SPINDLY / SPIN DRY
BLACKISH / BRACKISH
INCLEMENT / INCREMENT

Word of the Day: KATANAS (73A: Samurai swords) —

Historically, katana (刀 or かたな) were one of the traditionally made Japanese swords (日本刀 nihontō) that were used by the samurai of ancient and feudal Japan.The katana is characterized by its distinctive appearance: a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. (wikipedia)

• • •

This played like a themeless because it was a themeless. The whole L/R trick never registered with me, and it's unlikely to register with anyone unless you're really struggling and stop to think about what those circled squares are doing. But since the puzzle is so (comparatively) easy, it's unlikely you're going to need to do that, so ... yeah. Who cares? There are no theme answers, really? I see how a lawyer might argue that the Downs with the L/R symmetry in them are theme answers, but they have nothing in common except that little letter tweak, and, again, who cares? It's an adequate themeless puzzle, but only adequate, and the choppy, highly segmented grid is kind of annoying and results in a lot of short fill (never great). And even in the longer answers (all of which are Downs), there's not much to write home about. CABOT COVE made me happy, as I am a huge "Murder, She Wrote" fan (16D: "Murder, She Wrote" setting), but that's hardly enough spark for a whole Sunday grid. So this was a fine way to pass some time, but not what a Sunday puzzle ought to be. Though, honestly, the Sunday puzzle is almost never what it ought to be. Just a fat lot of nothing, most weeks. Themed puzzles are hard to do well, and Sundays, being big, are Especially hard to do well. The NYT seems to have given up on "well" and adopted a "this'll do" or "at least it's unusual" policy.

I found this very easy, except for one section that stretched from SCUBA in the upper middle down to BENIGNI in the middle east. The clue on SCUBA is godawful (35D: Seaside rental). You'd rent SCUBA gear. "We rented SCUBA." Ugh, stop, no. Don't letter-of-the-law me here, it's a no. "Gear" or "equipment" or go home. So yeah, SCUBA was rough for me to get. Also PIN ON and PIN TO before PIN UP (47A: Affix with a thumbtack) (which, also, why would you give PIN-UP such a boring clue??). Really flummoxed by 52D: Part of a dark cloud (GNAT). No idea if ADIOS was gonna be right for 57D: "Ciao!" I though maybe ADIEU was possible. And then spelling BENIGNI proved very challenging. I had BENNINI or BENINNI. Blech. Also wrestled with KISSY-face and especially ARNICA, which I kind of know from, maybe, the alternative medicine aisle??? I feel like someone gave me someo ARNICA cream once for some kind of pain ... not sure. Anyway, ARNICA was hard. And the clue on "BLACK-ISH" was (like the PIN-UP clue) unnecessarily and unfortunately boring (86D: ABC sitcom about the Johnsons). Vague. "The Johnsons?? That doesn't really convey ... anything about that show. It's such a common name. Be More Interesting, You Stupid Puzzle!!! ME DAY is not a thing (5A: Time to treat yourself). It's ME TIME. That is the only ME-thing that is real. Unless Maine has ME DAY and I am unaware of it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Patrick Blindauer and Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty: Easy (2:43) (one second off personal record)

THEME: "I.R.S." reform (69A: Tax org. undergoing some "reform" in this puzzle's circled squares) — IRS has been "reformed" (scrambled) all five different ways inside of today's five long theme answers:

Theme answers:

GANGES RIVER (18A: It flows from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal)
TENNIS RACKET (20A: Piece of sports equipment with strings)
"AS I RECALL..." (36A: "If memory serves...")
EASTER ISLAND (55A: Where heads of the Pacific are found?)
DOLLAR SIGNS (60A: $ $ $)

Word of the Day: Cumberland GAP (19D: Cumberland ___) —

The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.
Famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians, it was an important part of the Wilderness Road and is now part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
Long used by Native Americans, the Cumberland Gap was brought to the attention of settlers in 1750 by Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician and explorer. The path was used by a team of frontiersmen led by Daniel Boone, making it accessible to pioneers who used it to journey into the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee. (wikipedia)

• • •

"Tax reform" is a thing (13.6 million hits). "IRS reform" is not (22.9 thousand hits). That pretty much kills this theme. I mean, I actually liked it fine as a themeless. The grid is fairly clean. The so-called "theme" answers are colorful enough. But when you have a theme like this (actually, with any theme) you have to stick the landing. The revealer here just tries to get cute, tries to apply a term ("reform") to a word ("I.R.S.") it doesn't properly go with. Also, o my god please let me renew my Hatred of "?" clues on themers when they are not all "?" clues. If your theme is one of those wacky themes, then yeah, bring on the "?" clues. But don't put a "?" on a lone theme clue with wackiness is absolutely not part of the theme. It's just confusing. I know you believe your clue is clever and needs to be heard, but save it for the proper time. In a stray "?" themer is not the proper time. Now, they get in literally every IRS permutation possible, which is nice. And, I mean, it's timely, as today is tax day. But this one whiffed on the revealer and leaned a Little heavy on the crosswordese (SSTS *and* SSR?? Not to mention the ostentatiously anagrammed crosswordese pair of SRTA and TSAR). So I give it a MIDDLE C. Neither rave nor pan. A do-over. Or LET, if you will (65A: Serve that nicks the net).

Came straight down the west coast on this one and didn't have a second's hesitation until ... well, actually, I don't know when. I can never remember which is EINE and which is EINS, so I left that last letter blank at first (54A: German article). I balked at "AS I RECALL..." and LAPEL at first pass. I hesitated slightly at MIDDLEC because I had the back end of it first (-LEC) and it just looked weird. Oh, and of course the "?" on EASTER ISLAND. 95% of this puzzle's difficulty (such as it was) lay in that one "?" clue (55A: Where heads of the Pacific are found?). One of the good things about this puzzle's being so easy was I actually never saw that NRA was in the puzzle. I missed it. Completely. Ignorance is bliss! But now I'm not ignorant, only angry that constructors are still using this answer when they don't have to, and the editor keeps on letting them. Boo, hiss, etc. Why shill for that murderous org. if you don't have to? Cut it out.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. re: 63A: PBS-funding org. (NEA)—the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) funds PBS. From the CPB's FAQ: "PBS is a private, nonprofit media enterprise owned by its member public television stations. PBS distributes programming to nearly 350 locally owned and operated public television stations across the country and is funded principally by these member stations and by CPB" (emph. mine)

P.P.S. If you like stories of editorial incompetence, please read this behind-the-scenes account of yesterday's crossword and how it came to be published. Truly inspiring stuff ...

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Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (4:00) (for a Tuesday) (entirely because of one answer)

THEME: ¿Qué? — themers all end with "kay" sound

Theme answers:

COMMUNIQUÉ (18A: Bulletin)
TOOTH DECAY (24A: Dental problem)
SOBRIQUET (36A: Nickname)
MURRAY THE K (52A: Noted 1950s-'70s D.J. dubbed a "fifth Beatle")
ARE YOU OKAY? (59A: "Is everything all right?")

Word of the Day: MURRAY THE K (52A) —

Murray Kaufman (February 14, 1922 – February 21, 1982), professionally known as Murray the K, was an influential rock and roll impresario and disc jockey of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. During the early days of Beatlemania, he frequently referred to himself [!??!?!] as the fifth Beatle. (wikipedia) (emph!?!?!? mine)

• • •

Late start, not much time today, sorry. Here's the tl;dr version: No. This is barely a theme, first of all. I'm guessing a bunch of you didn't even know there was a theme. I finished and looked for a revealer, thinking maybe it was ARE YOU OK? ... like, do those letters (R, U, O, K?) all appear in the answers? Maybe in order??? Or are an O and a K involved ... somehow? But no. There is no revealer, and theme is just the final sound. On top of that, the grid is stale, with a cultural center of gravity only a boomer could love. (Note: "RYAN'S HOPE" went off the air *thirty year ago*) (55D: "___ Hope" (classic soap opera)). And the crosswordese? Who would've thought to stack abbreviated directions (ENE over SSW)!?!? What bold anti-art! Actually, it's junk, and why you'd want to paint your junk (!) neon by giving both answers matching "Denver"-containing clues, I have no idea. Spreak your junk out (1) and mask it (2). These are the rules of junk. Ugh. DITS, blargh. I had DATS. Are DATS not a Morse Code thing? Is Morse Code still a thing? But the most baffling and absurd part of the puzzle is obviously MURRAY THE K, Whoever That Is. How is this person a theme answer *on a Tuesday*. I've literally never heard of him. Even after looking him up, I feel like you'd have to be a pretty hard-core early Rock & Roll guy (i.e. an older-than-me white dude) to have any hope at this. Proper nouns are always dangerous, and if you don't know how to handle them, or don't calibrate the difficulty right, they ruin puzzling experiences. Spent most of my time in the MURRAY THE K region of the grid, getting that answer cross by awful cross. The worst thing about it, of course, is the "K," both because it's a cheap way to get the "K" sound into your theme, and because of the cross. My god the cross. Grade "F" for that cross alone. This puzzle is a SAK of something, alright. (46D: Cinch ___ (commercial trash bag name))

Slowed down by ELECTORS, whose clue I just did not get until I was done (4D: Some "college" participants). COMMUNIQUÉ is an unusual enough word that I had a little trouble, needing to come at it from crosses in the NW, which were all too long to be gimmes, so that took some time. The TBS / CBS thing was obnoxious (both those stations air March Madness games) (5A). The weirdest struggle I had was with TV STUDIO, even after getting TV. I just couldn't think of the word that followed. STATION was the only thing coming to mind. Or SET. Ugh, that's on me. Just terrible brainwork. Oh, and RACEME, LOL, I kinda sorta know the word, so a few crosses was all I needed, but the latter part of that clue? (16A: Flower cluster whose name can also be read as a challenge). No help at all. I get it now: you can parse it "RACE ME!" But the clue is kind of a confession that the word doesn't belong in a Tuesday puzzle. Maybe you could've given one of those booster clues to MURRAY THE stupid "K"?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Alison Ohringer and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium (for me, but apparently skewing easy for many others) (4:36)

THEME: FIX BREAKFAST — themers are "breakfast" foods that have gone bad or been prepared poorly, so ... you have to reimagine the meaning of "fix" here, I guess

Theme answers:

STALE CEREAL (18A: Menu item #1: A bowlful of Cap'n Crunch that's been on top of the fridge for four years)
BURNT TOAST (26A: Menu item #2: The charred remains of a slice of whole wheat)
MEALY APPLE (53A: Menu item #3: A Red Delicious, assuming you find sawdust delicious)
SPOILED MILK (64A: Menu item #4: Something to pour in coffee for a sour surprise)

Word of the Day: Veronica ROTH (1A: Veronica ___, author of the best-selling "Divergent" series) —

Veronica Anne Roth (born August 19, 1988) is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her debut New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy, consisting of Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant; and Four: A Divergent Collection. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't fully understand the point of the theme here. I mean, maybe I do, but if so, I don't appreciate the wordplay enough. I get that "fix" is being repurposed here, reimagined, but ... you can't actually "fix" any of these food problems. Also, MILK and especially APPLE are not what I would call paradigmatic "breakfast" foods. I eat apples all the time, but I would never just eat an apple at breakfast. So the puzzle is oversized for a theme that feels somewhat off to me. Either pointless, or with a point that's not pointy enough. On the plus side, the fill is quite clean. I didn't struggle much, except with the theme (which, honestly, as I was solving, I didn't really understand—also, I got the revealer second, but it didn't help—only made things more confusing, as I assumed "fix" meant there was possibly some kind of anagram involved). I also struggled around three proper nouns, which is really irksome. My daughter read the entire "Divergent" series, as she did every teen-oriented dystopian trilogy blah blah blah of the '00s and early '10s, but I've never heard or seen the name Veronica ROTH before. Title, famous, name, nuh uh. Hard nuh uh. I wrote in MARS so fast and so confidently because that is the only Veronica I recognize besides Veronica Lodge (about whom my daughter also read, a lot).

["You're makin' yourself look like ghost, BURNT TOAST!"]

And then THAD??? Come on. I looked him up. He's never made a single All-Star team, so how do you think he's Wednesday-worthy? Maybe the puzzle tested superfast and the proper nouns were thrown up as speed bumps, I dunno. I complain when older folk play fast and loose with their pet generation-specific proper nouns, so I'm gonna bark at these two proper nouns a little today. I also didn't really know this GUNN character. There are better GUNNs. Truly, there are.

Best (and only) error of the day was my variant two-P spelling of UPPSY-Daisy! (28D: "___-daisy!") ("OOPSY"). Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Easy-Mediumish (5:19, first thing in the morning)

THEME: BUTTERFLY (23A: Image formed by connecting this puzzle's circled letters from A to N and then back to A)— also contains earlier stage of BUTTERFLY development (CATERPILLAR) (17D), and the place where the change to BUTTERFLY happens (CHRYSALIS) (51A)

Word of the Day: BONTON (3D: Fashionable society) —

1a: fashionable manner or style

b: the fashionable or proper thing

2: high society (m-w.com)

• • •

If you like doing child's-place-mat connect-the-dots after solving your puzzle, well it's a good day for you. If you're like me, and don't like that your puzzle's fill has been mediocritized to enable a child's-place-mat connect-the-dots drawing, then the day is not so bright. That little BUTTERFLY-drawing trip through the alphabet puts more stress on the grid that you probably think, and so we're left with lots of yawner fill and not much else, honestly. Without the drawing, this puzzle is nothing. I mean, CATERPILLAR / CHRYSALIS / BUTTERFLY? Those are your themers? No. That might pass muster in a child's crossword, or [redacted lesser crossword publication], but it's not nearly enough to carry a NYT Thursday. So the drawing is the thing. And I don't come here for drawing. Now there were individual clues along the way that I enjoyed cracking, so it was not a total loss. There's nothing dreadful about this. It's just a puzzle that seems designed to impress, well, children, and people who don't solve often. It's a cheap magic trick that guts the puzzle of it's true pleasures. For me. You are of course free to love it like crazy. I see that people are solving it very quickly, so that always engenders good will. And it is timely (spring!!).

Crashed out on 1A for the second day in a row, but I prefer crashing out to a wrong answer (today) than to a I-have-no-idea answer (yesterday). Faced with [Head on a plate?] I wrote in LETTUCE! Yes, it's absurd that there would be an entire head of LETTUCE on your plate, but that absurdity applies to CABBAGE too. I went through my entire rolodex of egg-shape answers and couldn't find a one that was long enough to fit in 14A: Egg-shaped. OVAL? OVATE? OVOID? OVOID already exists, you see, so why would I or anyone expect that the word OVOIDAL existed or was necessary?? Please "OVOID AL" uses of that "word" in the future, thanks. What the hell is PRE???? (31D: Air traveler's convenience, informally). Pre-what? Pre-boarding??? I know there is that shorter security line that you can either register for or get randomly chosen for. I think it's called TSA PreCheck? Is that PRE? I fly not infrequently, and "PRE" as a thing that anyone says "informally" is a mysssstery to me. It's truly terrible as a clue, because as fill it's already bad, and then you go and make it inscrutable? Bizarre. Clue on PINKOES is absurd, in that it seems to be endorsing the validity of a pejorative that rarely gets used in any credible way nowadays (if it ever did) (64A: People whose political views are "Communist lite"). Hilariously, I had no idea that "PINK" was part of that word because it was RED "lite"? And now I do. So I learned something. One more check in the Asset column for this thing. Still not enough checks.

Hey here's a cool thing that happened to me while I was solving yesterday, courtesy of the legendary Liz Gorski:

Thank you, Liz!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. RHYME is correct for 52D: Pay for play because "pay" and "play" .... RHYME :/
P.P.S. ARS is correct for 58D: Married couple? because there are two R's (ARS!?!!) in "married" :(

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Constructor: Caleb Madison

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:19)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Mac DRE (22A: Mac ___ (former Bay Area hip-hop great)) —

Andre Louis Hicks (July 5, 1970 – November 1, 2004), known professionally as Mac Dre, was an American rapper and record producer based in Oakland, CA. He was instrumental in the emergence of Hyphy, a cultural movement in the Bay Area hip-hop scene that emerged in the early 00s.Hicks is considered one of the movement's key pioneers that fueled its popularity into mainstream, releasing songs with fast-paced rhymes and baselines that inspired a new style of dance. As the founder of the independent record label, Thizz Entertainment, Hicks recorded dozens of albums and gave aspiring rappers an outlet to release albums locally.
In 2004, Hicks was killed by an unknown assailant after a performance in Kansas City, Missouri, a case that remains unsolved. (wikipedia)

• • •

An average experience, but average on Friday is pretty nice. A nice assortment of answers here, and very little junk. IDE rather not see IDE anywhere, but nothing else in the whole grid is really that wince-worthy. Smoothness, with an occasional little crispy or crunch treat. Is an amoeba really a BLOB? That seems somehow ... I dunno, unscientific? Had trouble with BLOB / BLIP, as well as SKAT (50D: Three-player game), which I wanted to be SPIT (which I think is also a card game ... maybe). Took a hilariously long time getting CLAUS (41A: Santa ___). My crossword reflexes are super sharp—perhaps too sharp; so sharp, in fact, that "Santa" makes me think instantly of ANA(S), and nothing else. Maybe ANITA, but this had "S" at the end. Just blanked. Also wrote in GEE for 5D: An end to smoking? (ASH) ('Cause, uh, "smoking""ends" with the letter "G"). Wrote in ALOT for 4D: Large number (HOST). Wrote in RIOT for 6D: Hilarious sort (HOOT). Hey, what do hilarious sorts race? HOOTRODS! Please use that inscrutably corny joke whenever you like. Anyway, as you can see, several of my errors came in succession in the NW, which was where I spent close to half my solving time. The rest of the puzzle was not nearly so rough to get through.

ALTERED is an anagram of ALERTED, and it's directly above ALERTED, and my brain keeps wanting to make these facts meaningful, but I'm pretty sure they're just coincidences. I am frequently against cross-referencing clues, but SNOOP and DRE really do cry out for each other. I've never heard of today's DRE, but some of my much hipper musical friends are impressed by his inclusion here, so I'm going to defer to them. Seemed like the MICHAELS clue was really tough; I mean, you didn't give me "Al" or nothin' ... people who know nothing about sports are going to be super-confused by that one. Maybe just as confused as if you'd handed them "Al," but at least "Al" would've given them some of hope jarring MICHAELS loose via in-the-air name association. Enjoyed the clues on TETRIS (20A: Game where you don't want to reach the top) and ANDREA (25D: Girl's name in the U.S. that's a boy's name in Italy). Briefly doubted the thingness of COLD ROOM (12D: Food storage spot), but my friend Lena set me straight.

Lena also shared my most cherished error of the day. I wrote in MOTE for 39D: Tiny bit (MITE) and so ended up with a whip-wielding LOON TAMER at 42A: Person who's whip-smart? (LION TAMER). Loon-taming's gotta be at least as hard as lion-taming. Next time you want to use "herding cats" as a metaphor for a leadership challenge, may I suggest you substitute "taming loons"? It's more colorful, and a hell of a lot less cliche.

So yeah. Overall, a good time was had by me. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. pretty sure "epistaxis" is just a "medical term"—not sure where "fancy" comes in (26A: What "epistaxis" is a fancy medical term for = NOSEBLEED). "Myocardial infarction" isn't "fancy." It's technical. Respect the Greek, man

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Constructor: Kevin Adamick

Relative difficulty: Challenging (14:47, most of that in free fall, just staring at a bunch of nothing in the NW)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Anna KARINA (48A: Anna who played Scheherazade in 1963's "Scheherazade") —

Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Bayer 22 September 1940) is a Danish-French film actress, director, writer, and singer. She rose to prominence as French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard's muse in the 1960s, performing in several of his films, including The Little Soldier (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961), Vivre sa vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964), and Pierrot le Fou and Alphaville (both 1965). For her performance in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hated this puzzle as soon as I opened it. It's a type. A type that men make. A type that you don't see so much anymore because it's boring and bad and leads to bad fill and is terrible. It's meant to cause pain. The grid structure is sadistic, not in a "ooh, fiendishly clever" kind of way, but in an "ugh, why are you making me do four separate puzzles" kind of way. That segmentation, with only tiny access lanes into each quadrant—it's hateful. There is no good fill in the grid. How can there be? It's all E's and R's and T's because it has to be because woo hoo, low word count! A feat only a constructor could love. I wish someone had UNLADEn (!!?!) this puzzle from the world before it ever saw print. Here's the entire story of this puzzle from my perspective: I wrote in BRANDO / TROUNCED. Then nothing happened. Then I left the NW and solved the other 3/4 of the puzzle at a pretty much regular Saturday pace. Then I returned to the NW and minutes went by before I got anything I was certain of. Looking over the NW now, I don't really remember how I got anything. I must've lucked into DERANGED as a decent guess (23A: Nuts), and then finally LIVING came to me, and that seemed indisputable, so I built things from there. In retrospect, SALIVA (4D: Slobber) and ROLLOVER (17A: What some investments and trained dogs do) feel like things I should've gotten. Whatever. Who cares? God bless all hard puzzles that are hard in clever ways. But anyone pulling this dusty, 20th-century, exclusively BOYS CLUB type of grid out as their way of achieving difficulty, your wares are unwelcome.

Let's see, maybe there are at least some funny wrong answers in here. Ooh, yeah, faced with -AGAN at 36A: Author of the 2011 political memoir "My Father at 100," I wrote in CARL SAGAN. My apple pie apples were SLICED. My Italian city or TORINO. My [Emphatic agreement] was something-SORRY (I read "emphatic" as "empathetic"). For [Split] I had IN HALF (courtesy of the "N" in TROUNCED, which was also wrong). El Alto was ANDORRAN for a little while before it became BOLIVIAN, so that's cute. Tried to make YESTERDAY fit at 39A: "When I was a kid..." ("YEARS AGO..."). SION (?) before BERN. IRIS before UVEA. OPINER (?!?!) before YELLER. TESTY and HASTY for TERSE (35A: Brusque). Oh, and I repressed one of the most tenacious wrong answers of all: BROTHERS at 1A: Fratty group (BOYS' CLUB). That NW ... getting the center of the grid does Nothing for you. Center gives me the MEG- in MEGASTORE, the YE- in "YEARS AGO...," the -GAN in REAGAN, but giving me the -ED in DERANGED is virtually no help. My gimmes today were awful and embarrassing. AD ASTRA. Like, I knew that. Just knew it. It's Not Good Fill. But I knew it. AERATED, same. TRICOLOR, gimme. ODEA, gimme. REALER, pretty much a gimme. A few other things were easy because I had letters in place. ARGENT off the A, GEEZER off the G. Gimmes didn't make me feel smart. Nor did taking this puzzle down, eventually. It all just felt like dental work. BOYS CLUB—that is the (marquee!) answer you should remember here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Grant Thackray

Relative difficulty: Medium (11:40)

THEME:"The Inside Story"— PICTURE-IN-PICTURE (70A: Small screen superimposed on a large screen ... or a hint to this puzles' shaded squares) [above, circled squares]—movie titles embedded in other movie titles, creating wacky phrases

Theme answers:

THE LITTLE METER MAID (24A: Who has trouble reaching a windshield to place a ticket?) [1989, 1982]
CRAYON TACT (17D: Good manners in kindergarten drawing?) [1997, 2004]
MINI-CARSONS (42A: Talk show host Johnny's children?) [2015, 2006]
BOTHERING RAT (52A: Traitor who gets on one's nerves?) [2006, 2002]
PETITER PAN (77D: Smaller piece of cookware?) [1953, 2017]
STARTED WARS (102A: Initiated global conflicts?) [1977, 2012]
GETS CREAM OUT (95A: Prepares for guests who don't like their coffee black?) [2017, 1996]
DOCTOR'S WALLET RANGE (123A: Selection of billfolds for medical professionals?) [2016, 2008]

Word of the Day: STRINE (120A: Broad Australian accent, informally) —

noun
1.
the English language as spoken by Australians; the Australian accent, especially when considered striking or uneducated.
adjective
1.
relating to Australians or Australian English.

"he spoke with a broad Strine accent" (google)

• • •

The revealer should've been the title. Mostly because the title is terrible and inaccurate (there's also an "outside" story so wtf?), and also because the fill could use a little breathing room. One less theme answer might've let some air in, let some actually interesting non-theme answers in. I think this is an ingenious play on the phrase PICTURE-IN-PICTURE, though the results are a real mixed bags. Too often, the resulting wacky phrases are painfully contrived, so much so that they can't even be clued very plausibly. CRAYON TACT makes sense on no lever. The clue doesn't help, but honestly, there isn't a good clue, because the phrase is nonsense. BOTHERING RAT, also awkward. Clue turns "bothering" into an adjective ... which, again, awkward, as no one uses "bothering" that way—to mean, essentially, annoying. Then there's STARTED WARS, which is so ordinary a phrase that it undermines the whole premise. We were promised wacky! Seems like something close to cheating to use so many very short movie titles as the inserts. "IT"? Really? That's a novel, and it (!) is not much of an accomplishment, inserting that into a film to get a wacky phrase. Watch: "PULPIT FICTION." Nailed "It"! Check please!?

Further: "IT" is a novel. I know, it was made into a movie. But if you put, say, "EMMA" in this puzzle, while you'd technically be correct (there are movie versions of the Austen novel), "EMMA" is really best known as a novel. See also "Doctor Strange," who is a comic book character. His self-titled movie ... man, who can keep track of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). I've seen every MCU movie thru "Black Panther" and I couldn't tell you a damn thing about "Doctor Strange," because he's not popular and no one cares. Hey, did you know there *is* a movie called "Doctor Strange ... love?" It's true! Really wish that could've been the movie involved here. Biggest theme no-no is having a stray "shaded square" (i.e. circled square in my grid) from a Down themer appear in the middle of an Across themer. Keep your shaded squares discrete. Only shaded squares in a themer should be ones involving the movie title. Stray shaded squares = sloppy. Also, re: "PETITER PAN"?—"Petiter"??? Use words that people actually use! Sounds like you don't know how to say "potato."

SAWS LOGS is no good because it's practically adjacent to RIPSAW. That's a SAW too far. I think the WET dupe might actually be worse, though, as WET WIPE (47A: Moist towelette) and WET ONE (133A: Slobbery kiss) are actually The Same Thing (though I see how you've tried to clue WET ONE as a kiss ... nice try):

SLOP. I struggled in two places. First, I had Beetle Bailey as a SGT (6D), so for the second day in a row, wrong answers cost me dearly. Since PBANDJ had a very tough clue (I guess it's "packed with juice" in a child's lunchbox?), and "boatercycle" is a stupid term I've never heard, and I thought the father on "black-ish" was maybe ABE (??), and I kept wanting to change BOLT DOWN to WOLF DOWN (7D: Eat quickly), that section was a nightmare. But it all started with SGT. The other tough part was STRINE. That is a word known only to Australians. My Kiwi wife hadn't even heard of it, though god bless her for saying it out loud, because until she did, I actually had no idea how to pronounce it or how it might signify a "broad Australian" accent. If you say STRINE (rhymes with "line"), then I believe you are modeling how someone with said broad Australian accent would, in fact, say the word "Australian." Anyway, this is the most obscure thing I've ever seen in the puzzle. This is someone trying very very hard to be oh-so-clever and get a "new" word into the grid, reasonableness be damned. Annoying.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. "I DIG" does not mean "sounds good!" At all. No. It means, "I understand."

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Greek sauce with yogurt and cucumbers / TUE 4-2-19 / Dressed like hundred dollar millionaire / Who says speak hands for me in Julius Caesar

One-named Latin signer / WED 4-3-19 / Old British biplanes / Mexican resort area for short / Magic creatures of Jewish lore

French politico Marine Le / THU 4-4-19 / Cognac age indicator / Feature of cajun country / Iconic introduction in cinema

1957 Jimmy Dorsey hit / FRI 4-5-19 / Luxury car of early 20th century / Bona fides from fellow cool people / 2015 crime film with Emily Blunt Benicio del Toro

Jim of 1960s TV / SAT 4-6-19 / Supermarket chain since 1926 / Woolly Sesame Street character whose first name is Aloysius

Skilled judoist / SUN 4-7-19 / Something frequently found in pink lipstick / 1973 Beach Boys song / Ernie Pulitzer winning journalist of WW II / 1978 Dire Straits hit

Gelatin substitute made from seaweed / MON 4-8-19 / Subculture wearing lot of black / Atkinson portrayer of Mr Bean / Words from Woodsy Owl before don't pollute / Geico spokeslizard

Early settler of Nova Scotia / TUE 4-9-19 / Ice dancing gold medalist Virtue

Bo's'n's quarters / WED 4-10-19 / Computer image file format / Baseball rarities nowadays / World capital at 9350 feet

Twits author / THU 4-11-19 / Tucson school informally / Four-time grammy-winning gospel singer Adams / Modern locale of ancient sumer / frequently cosplayed character / ornately decorated money

Rebellion leader of 1786 / FRI 4-12-19 / Sweet locale in T.S. Eliot's Wasteland / Utterly in modern slang / Jalapeño after smoking / Classic book that begins At far end of town where Grickle-grass grows

Country singer with cityish name / SAT 4-13-19 / Sparks can be seen at its edge / Piece of equipment in game cornhole

ABC sitcom about Johnsons / SUN 4-14-19 / Flower traditionally used to relieve inflammation / Dahlia Agatha in Jeeves novels by PG Wodehouse / hook's helper / Ermines in summer

Big outdoor gear retailer / MON 4-15-19 / Evergreens with fragrant wood / Tax org undergoing some reform in this puzzle's circled squares / Where heads of Pacific are found

Noted 1950s-70s DJ dubbed fifth beatle / TUE 4-16-19 / Flower cluster whose name can also be read as challenge / Hope classic soap opera / Cinch commercial trash bag name / Shurb that might cause rash / Some college participants

NBA's Young, familiarly / WED 4-17-19 / Veronica author divergent series / Movie with famous dun dun theme music

Forward in Florence / THU 4-18-19 / Anago at japanese restaurant / Hand-held console introduced in 1989 / People whose political views are Communist lite / Indian state whose largest city is Vasco da Gama

Mac former Bay Area hip hop great / FRI 4-19-19 / Sportscaster inducted into Television Hall of Fame in 2013 / Tayside turndown / Opera with Gypsy song

Sitcom set in Lanford Ill / SAT 4-20-19 / Shoes that are also water hazards / Anna who played Scheherazade 1963 / Second-most populous Swiss canton / Main slot on old PC

Broad Australian accent informally / SUN 4-21-19 / Boatercycle / 1958 #1 hit in foreign language / Let float as currency