Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "That Girl"— Phrases with first word ending "-ER" are reimagined as wacky phrases where first word is broken into two words, "[blank] HER"; thus,

Theme answers:

23A: Confiscate a chef's appetizer? (SEIZE HER SALAD)
37A: Conk a coach's team member? (SOCK HER PLAYER)
55A: Close a VW Beetle owner's car door? (SHUT HER BUG)
66A: Put a spice mix on a cook's piece of poultry? (RUB HER CHICKEN)
77A: Keep a bad comedian on stage? (LET HER BOMB)
98A: Find out what a baby's milk tastes like? (LICK HER BOTTLE)
114A: Hop over an electrician's wires? (JUMP HER CABLES)
15D: Ensure a surfer's safety? (CHECK HER BOARD)
52D: Take a mechanic's inventory? (COUNT HER PARTS)

Word of the Day: Charles Nelson REILLY (27A: Charles Nelson ___, old game show staple) —

Charles Nelson Reilly (January 13, 1931 – May 25, 2007) was an American actor, comedian, director, and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in stages, films, children's television, cartoons, and game showpanelist. [...] Reilly was perhaps best known as a fixture of game shows, primarily due to his appearances as a regular panelist on the television game show Match Game. Reilly was one of the longest-running guests, and often engaged in petty, hilarious arguments with fellow regular Brett Somers (the two generally sat next to each other on the show, Somers in the upper middle seat and Reilly in the upper right-hand seat). Reilly typically offered sardonic commentary and peppered his answers with homosexually themed double entendres that pushed the boundaries of 1970s television standards. (wikipedia)

• • •

The NYT seems to be backsliding a bit where Sundays are concerned. We got a string of ambitious, interesting, and tough puzzles there in late summer, and for the last little bit we've been getting much more old-fashioned and standard fare. Cute idea, perhaps, but played out over nine theme answers, it wears a bit. Theme ended up being mostly beside the point. Easy to pick up, and easy to handle at every turn. COUNT HER PARTS took me a bit of thinking, but the rest sort of filled themselves in. All of these answers sound like ham-fisted euphemisms (COUNT HER PARTS most of all), but mostly their problem is they're just repetitive. One-trick puzzle. There is some great fill in here, though. Love the symmetrical pillars of THE SMITHS and SLUSH PILE (32D: Group of unsolicited manuscripts). Almost but does not quite make up for EATABLE, which is among the worst longish answers I've ever seen in a puzzle. HOLLER AT and "I'M THERE" and The BIEB (91A: "Baby" singer's nickname, with "the") also give this grid some much-needed sass. So there are bits of joy to be found here and there. But mostly what we have is [Off-white shade]—an OPAL's bland color, but none of its preciousness or luster.

If "RADIX" just means "root" in Latin (which it does), then why not just use "root" when talking about [10, for the base 10 number system]? Is it 'cause "root" is already taken by other concepts? Anyhoo, Had to fight for that "X"; I think of APEXES (or "apices") in terms of height, not end-pointedness (or [Tips]). Just got through telling students on Thursday that no one knows much of anything factual about Homer's life (esp. as compared to Virgil's), and today's puzzle highlights this issue with 73A: Island where Homer is buried, by tradition (IOS). Homer was also blind, by tradition, and he could shoot lasers out of his eyes, by my imagination. I thought most fish was FLAKY (not SCALY), so I got hung up a bit in the west, but AL GREEN came to the rescue, as he so often does (47D: "Love and Happiness" singer, 1972). "OLEANNA" is one of the crosswordesier 7-letter answers out there, so if you don't know it yet, it's worth socking away (2D: 1992 David Mamet play). Speaking of crosswordese: IRED. That "word" makes me laugh (ironically?). It is used by precisely no one except desperate crossword constructors.

I wanted [Part of Obi-Wan Kenobi's costume] to be ROBE, but there was already a ROBE in the puzzle, so I flailed around there slightly until HOOD came into view. It's a nice HOOD clue. I just clued a puzzle today. Sometimes, it can get boring, and you gotta go to some weird places just to keep yourself from nodding off. I watched "Plan 9 From Outer Space" the other night (highly recommended), and I don't know if the word EARTHMEN is in that movie, but that answer *sure* came easily, so I feel there must be some connection. The EARTHMEN in that movie were uniformly stupid and implausible as sentient human beings. Still, as I say, Highly Recommended.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Monday*)

THEME: "M'M, M'M, GOOD" (65A: Classic advertising slogan ... and a hint to 17-, 25-, 40- and 52-Across) — theme answers all have four "M"s in them.

Theme answers:

17A: Abba-inspired hit musical ("MAMMA MIA")
25A: Movie starring Lon Chaney Jr., with "The" ("MUMMY'S TOMB")
40A: Washington rally of 5/14/00 (MILLION MOM MARCH)
52A: Dogpatch matriarch (MAMMY YOKUM)

Word of the Day: OMB (35D: White House financial advisory grp.) —

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). The Director of the OMB is a member of the President's Cabinet. The main job of the OMB is to assist the President to prepare the budget.^[2] The OMB also measures the quality of agency programs, policies, and procedures and to see if they comply with the President's policies. (wikipedia)

• • •

I had some warning about, well, quality issues in this puzzle. Bay Area crossword tournament this past weekend used the upcoming week's NYT puzzles as tournament puzzles, and while no one leaked anything specific (not to me, anyway), I did get a "brace yourself for Monday" warning from a friend of mine. So I was braced. And despite some struggle and much wincing, I finished very much in my normal Monday time range. I don't mind the theme, though I don't like it much either. Seems a very thin concept. Also, MAMMY YOKUM seems ... not a Mondayish kind of theme answer. I've never heard of her and needed every cross—not a big time suck, but very, very weird as Monday theme material. MILLION MOM MARCH is an interesting answer (had MAN instead of MOM at first, before I had any idea what the theme was). I'd forgotten about that march. It's a good stand-out today, where MAMMY YOKUM was a strange stand-out and "MAMMA MIA" was a dull stand-out. Theme is not that exciting, but very typical for a Monday. Choice of theme answers was odd, but in a way that's good—better unexpected than utterly predictable.

My main problem, though (and I suspect my "brace yourself" friend's main problem as well) was the fill, which is quite terrible for a Monday. Quite. There's just too much short junk. Tired and ugly stuff all over the place. ENORM? You use that when you get in a tight scrape in a tough grid not in an already over-the-limit 80-worder (!?!?!). There are word count limits. Of all the puzzles to get a pass, why this one? It's not like the theme was inordinately taxing. And if you go to 80, there is No Way we should be dealing with stuff like AROO / OMB / BAAL or ATIE or MXI or the aforementioned ENORM. Or plural UNSERS. Or dear god RETAB, my eyes! Come on. SCH!? Are we really going back to the "fill doesn't matter" / "theme is everything" philosophy. Because it's what was making the NYT pale in quality next to several other puzzles out there right now. Seemed like the ship was getting righted there for a bit. Not so sure now. We'll see.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DATE MOVIES (34A: 18-, 23-, 51- and 56-Across?) — movie titles which contain the letters D, A, T, and E, in that order (not strictly consecutively)

Theme answers:

18A: 1990 Kevin Costner film ("DANCES WITH WOLVES")
23A: 1990 Nicolas Cage film ("WILD AT HEART")
51A: 1967 Dustin Hoffman film ("THE GRADUATE")
56A: 1989 Robin Williams film ("DEAD POETS SOCIETY")

Word of the Day: PEWIT (10D: Lapwing) —

n.
See lapwing.
[Imitative of its call.]

• • •

"DANTE'S PEAK"!

"THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE"!

"50 FIRST DATES"!

The virtues of this puzzle are that the theme answers are all very well-known movies ("WILD AT HEART" is a bit of an outlier, though I know it well so didn't balk). Also, there's a bunch of mid-sized fill that adds a good deal of interest to the grid. I particularly love the pairing of MOLIÈRE and LEONARD there in the SW. Overall, the fill is around average. Mostly OK, a wobbler here and there. EEW indeed. Serious Scrabble-f*cking with the "J" in the 31 square. How is WSJ / IWO / JOS worth it? Not sure. The "X" Makes sense where it is because it's the best letter that can go there. That "J" ... less clear. But overall, I'd say the fill comes in at somewhat more interesting than your average Tuesday. The theme seems like it was designed in a lab dedicated to "Theme Types REX Does Not Like"—I recognize this is a personal aversion that perhaps not everyone shares. It's just that the "non-contiguous squares spelling things" idea doesn't strike me as interesting. You can cherry-pick letters in long phrases and find all kinds of "hidden" words. DATE just isn't intrinsic enough to these movies. They are not DATE movies except in the most attenuated way—which is the point of a theme like this. So I'm pointing out the obvious. Obviously, it's not my thing. So depending on who you are, it's clever or it's thin or it's something else entirely that I haven't thought of. From where I stand, it is done, which is what matters, as I have to get to sleep.

PEWIT has only ever appeared in the NYT once before. I'll admit to being ignorant of bird names at times, but this seems less than common. Odd for a Tuesday. PAVLOVA is a dessert popular in NZ. Apparently it is also the name of a ballerina who danced in "The Dying Swan" (whatever that is ... I see it's a ballet written to accompany a Saint-Saëns cello solo). I thought the clue was referring to a character somehow. Not that it would've mattered. I kind of like NOISE LAW, in that it's different, but it doesn't google *that* well (for instance, ["noise ordinance"] googles about 5x better). But different is good. Usually. This one gets a pass. Liked the clue on HAVE (25D: Privileged one), and on TEA (59D: What a caddy may hold—tricksy!). You can take back your ALPEs and SILs, though. Best mistake—CATNIP for CATNAP (8D: Quick refresher). I was confusing CATNIP with NIGHTCAP. There's a perfectly good rational in there, but I'm not gonna tease it out.

This puzzle is a super-sized 16 letters wide and yet still has a lower word-count than yesterday's.

And so to bed.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Paul Hunsberger

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: TENT rebus— Five "TENT" squares can be found throughout the grid

Word of the Day: E-CAR (42D: Green vehicle, briefly) —

n
(Engineering / Automotive Engineering) a car powered by electricity
[electric car] (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Love the crossing 15s. Rest of it is just average. Buncha tents. If there were a revealer (or if the puzzles had titles, as they really should—as all the old (and great) New York Sun puzzles did), maybe something with involving "camp," this would've had a little more vroom, a little more coherence. But as an "arbitrary letter string" rebus, this one is fine. Even though I picked up the gimmick early, I still found the puzzle much harder than usual. Knowing the TENTs were out there didn't make them that much easier to find—the two towards the east were particularly tough for me to see, since once is in a German phrase / plant I don't know (11D: Plant with fluffy flower spikes = KITTENTAILS) crossing, and the other ... I don't know, I just had a hard time finding it. That SE corner was the hardest for me by far, though I really should've grokked TENTACLE much earlier. Had "MISTER!" for "LISTEN" (!?!!) (68A: "Hey"), wasn't entirely sure about BENITO (50D: Mexican hero Juárez), had no idea about ABCD, and E-CAR? Forget about it. Never seen it in a puzzle (it's not in the cruciverb database, so I guess it's never been in a mainstream puzzle). E CAR looks like an abbr. for East Carolina, which is a university, I think. Yes. It is.

[7A: 1970s-'80s sketch comedy show]

My only real objection today is to 70A: The "cetera" of "et cetera" (SO ON). I know Latin, a bit, and that is, how you say, not ... accurate. "Cetera" is a neuter plural noun, meaning "the rest" or "the remaining." I know that the abbr. "etc." can be translated as "an SO ON," but ... no. If you want to break it down into its constituent parts, then you need to be precise about what they mean. I was so baffled by that clue that when I'd finished, and had SOON, I thought "... how in the World!?" My outrage was slightly mitigated when I realized I hadn't parsed it correctly. Two words. SO [space] ON. Still not right, but at least it's ballparky, I guess.

I'll leave you with this whimsical image of slavery. I think it depicts when the first sudoku came over on the ships from Africa. Not sure. But isn't it adorable? Also, classy.

I look forward to the sequels, "Waterboarded By Sudoku" and "Genocide-oku."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: C AND Y COATED (58A: Like M&M's ... or four words to describe 17-, 24-, 35- and 50-Across) — familiar phrases have C affixed to beginning AND Y affixed to the end, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style

Word of the Day: "OGDENS' Nut Gone Flake" (4D: "___ Nut Gone Flake," celebrated 1968 Small Faces album) —

Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is a successful concept album by the English rock band Small Faces. Released on 24 May 1968 the LP became a number one hit in the UK Album Charts on 29 June where it remained for a total of six weeks. [...] Side One is a mix of early heavy rock with "Song of a Baker"; psychedelic cockney knees-up songs "Lazy Sunday" and "Rene", the opening instrumental title track (which resembles their second single "I've Got Mine", which was a flop in 1965), and the soul influenced ballad "Afterglow", as it is called on the LP, but is titled "Afterglow of Your Love" on the subsequent single and some compilations. // Side Two is based on an original fairy tale about a boy called Happiness Stan, narrated in his unique ‘Unwinese’ gobbledegook by Stanley Unwin, who picked up modern slang from the band and incorporated it into the surreal narrative. (wikipedia)

• • •

An interesting idea, technically well executed, not terribly enjoyable. The wacky answers just aren't funny. They don't land. They're dull. They do exactly what the theme answer says they will. They are spot-on from a technical standpoint. But CHOSE DOWNY? Snore. COLD MASTERY? Just ... odd. CLOCK PICKY? Awkward. CART FAIRY, I like. That one works. But the rest are just workmanlike. The revealer is nice, and I want to like the results of the whole thing, but I don't. Not much. Don't hate it, by any means. But in terms of enjoyability, it was somewhat wide of the mark for me.

Theme answers:

17A: Ability to survive freezing temperatures? (COLD MASTERY)
24A: Selected a certain fabric softener? (CHOSE DOWNY)
35A: Sprite who helps you find a shopping vehicle? (CART FAIRY)
50A: Super-choosy about time pieces? (CLOCK PICKY)

Somewhat slower than normal time, largely because I failed so terribly in my initial stab at the NW. I had nothing. ESS. I had ESS. Ugh. If I'd been a bit more systematic, I'd've gotten ULAN and possibly ELLE, but I ran all the Downs first—nothing. Two long Acrosses—nothing. I knew PORSCHE (27A: 911 maker), so rode that into the center, where I promptly put CFO where CPA was supposed to go and so had to do quite a bit of hacking about to sort out PEACH and the central theme answer. Floated rather easily from there down to the SE, where AIR BILL was totally unknown to me (64A: FedEx form), but the rest of the corner was pretty pliable. I can't imagine TWEEDLE connoting something enticing, but I'll take the clue at its word (44D: Entice with music). So I got the revealer and understood immediately the whole C/Y bit, but didn't really register that they were "coating" real phrases. Anyway, SW was the easiest section by far. Downs went down 1, 2, 3. Returned to the top where the NE proved a slight problem because I couldn't find the right test to put into 34A: Tests that consist of five subjects, for short (GEDS). Plural, eh? OK. Also, I had "GIT!" for "OUT!" (22A: "Shoo!"). NW was where I finished, with that pesky Roman numeral on the APOLLO mission being my last letter (2D: Ill-fated mission of 1967); [Family pet name] = SIS = strangely baffling.

My main take-away from today was that I really have to commit IRMA to memory (55A: ___ Pince, librarian at Hogwarts). Not that many viable crossword IRMAs. Good to know them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Mangesh Ghogre and Doug Peterson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: OSKAR Werner (4D: Werner of "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold") —

Oskar Werner (13 November 1922 – 23 October 1984) was an Austrian actor.
He is known for his film performances in Jules and Jim (1962), Ship of Fools (1965), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). Werner received anAcademy Award nomination in 1966, two BAFTA award nominations in 1966 and 1967, and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture in 1966. (wikipedia)

• • •

Overate. Didn't feel like I was overeating. Felt measured and sensible, my eating. But I was out at a restaurant, and I'd had a drink, and I kept trying stuff, and by dessert, ugh. And now several hours later. Ugh. 43-year-old me simply canNot stuff his face without consequences, the way 23-year-old me (or even 33-year-old me) could. Maybe that's a good thing, but it does Not feel so good right now. I tell you all this mainly to explain how little I trust myself judging the puzzle's difficulty level tonight. I psyched myself out early on, then realized it wasn't that hard, then got ridiculously stalled in the bottom half of the grid. Came out with a higher-than-avg time, but it just can't be trusted. I'm not myself. Looking at it right now, I can tell it's a pretty normal Friday. My problem was that I couldn't bust into those long Acrosses down below, even after I totally busted into their middles via PEALE BEIGES MUSKET PASTORAL. Couldn't get SNIT from [Pet] — obvious now, but that meaning of "pet" is something I see exclusively in crosswords, and it just wouldn't come. Had DDE for IKE (47D: '50s politico). HONOR for VALOR and, off of that, HEMI for V-TEN. Got LEERERS early, but it didn't really help. Tried to get into the SW of the grid from above, but after I wrote in BIZET (27D: "L'Arlésienne" composer), I hit a wall. Nothing west of BIZET. Just, nothing. Many minutes later, after striking out in the SE, I returned to BIZET crosses and instantly got AMAZED (32A: Staggered) and AT IT (39A: Going ___). Where were you the first time, guys!? After that it was ARAPAHO and then (32D: Fox relative), with their front ends in place, the long Acrosses down there fell quickly. Done and done.

Thought the grid was OK, but deeply and obviously reliant on -ER and -S and -ERS words (esp. there in the SE—HEAVER crossing LEERERS kind of hurt). The 15s are very nice up top and just OK down below. The rest of it is solid but not impressive. Doug's stuff usually amazes me more than this puzzle did.

Off to stare at the TV, or the wall, until stomach pain subsides and I can sleep. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Tim Croce

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ALENÇON (43A: Delicate needlepoint lace) —

Alençon lace or point d'Alençon is a needle lace that originated in Alençon, France. It is sometimes called the "Queen of lace." Lace making began in Alençon during the 16th century and the local industry was rapidly expanded during the reign of Louis XIV by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who established a Royal Workshop in the town to produce lace in the Venetian style in 1665. The purpose of establishing this workshop was to reduce the French court's dependence on expensive foreign imports. The local lacemakers soon modified the Venetian technique and Alençon emerged as a unique style around 1675. // Though the demand for lace went into sharp decline following the French Revolution, it recovered some of its popularity during the Second French Empire before entering terminal decline at the end of the 19th century with changes in fashion and the development of cheaper, machine-made lace. // Lace making survived on a small scale and the technique was preserved by Carmelite nuns in Alençon. In 1976 a National Lace Workshop was established in the town to ensure that this lace-making technique survives. There is a permanent exhibition of lace and a display showing how it is made in the Musée des Beaux Arts et de la Dentelle, located in the town centre and adjoining the Workshop. The workshops themselves are open to the public only on certain days of the year. // UNESCO recognised the unusual craftsmanship of this lace and added it to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in November 2010. (wikipedia)

• • •

Unless your name is Patrick Berry, 58 words is probably out of your depth. There is not a lot here to like (well, maybe to like, but not to love). Always impressive when anyone can fill a grid like this with legit material, but the material here is mostly dull and weird and often awkward. Lots of "Wheel of Fortune" letters (RLSTNE). There's nothing terrible (except perhaps RESEE and SONDE), but nothing particularly memorable or dazzling, either. I was headed toward a very normal time when I hit the last two squares, --ENÇON. Figured 37D: Shop keeper? was CLAMP (that's a Horribly forced clue, btw), and I wanted an "L" to make ALENÇON, but that left me with ROOLER, which made no sense. Only after I checked all the letters in ROOLER did I realize ROUGH ROAD could be TOUGH ROAD, and then TOOLER (not a winning answer, btw) fell into place, and Mr. Happy Pencil was achieved. Particularly galling to have to struggle with junky stuff like a foreign-named lace and whatever TOOLER is. Liked LOUGANIS (30D: 1980s Olympic star with the autobiography "Breaking the Surface") and SOLO HOMER (38A: Round trip for one?). The rest was OK at times, but mostly a chore to get through.

[LETTERMEN]
Forgot PIA MATERS was a thing (not sure I've ever seen it in the plural—see also AMNESTIES). Had KNEE and wanted BRACE. Totally guessed INNERS and was startled to find it right. Not pretty. I guess 39D: ___ Lucy" (old sitcom) is supposed to make you want "I LOVE," but if you bit on that one, you haven't been doing puzzles long. No way the puzzle would serve up that big a gimme on a Saturday. Never heard of "HERE'S Lucy," so that answer came entirely from crosses. Except the "S"—never heard of SONDE, so had to infer that "S" in "HERE'S" (not hard). Got an easy start in the NW with SASSONS (16A: "Oo la la!" jeans, informally), URBS, ADSORBS, and SPLITTERS, but then stalled trying to move out of there. Rebooted easily in the NE section with BCS (biggest gimme in the puzzle, probably—that, and ALMODOVAR). Not much else to say. How is a BENGAL CAT a hybrid? (29D: Spotted hybrid house pet) According to wikipedia, "Bengals result from crossing a domestic feline with an Asian leopard cat (ALC), Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis."So there you go.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Mike Selinker

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME:"Letterboxes" — "Crosswords Contest! In this special contest crossword, the completed grid conceals a familiar three-word phrase related to the puzzle's theme. 70-Across provides a hint as to where to find it, and you will need to print out the PDF to see some heavy lines that cannot be reproduced here (http://select.nytimes.com/premium/xword/2013/09/22/Sep2213.pdf). When you have the answer, e-mail it to crossword@nytimes.com. Twenty-five correct solvers, chosen at random, whose entries are received by 6 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Sept. 24, will receive copies of The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles 2014 Day-to-Day Calendar, courtesy of Andrews McMeel. Only one entry per person, please. The answer will appear here on Wednesday, Sept. 25. The winners' names will be announced on Friday, Sept. 27."

• • •

I'm going to respect the contest. That is, I'm not going to reveal any information here. I don't know why, really. I mean, the stakes are soooooo low that I have a hard time imagining anyone even taking the time to enter. A day-to-day calendar?!? Really?

But I'm going to respect the contest anyway. Call it professional courtesy. Call it laziness. Call it whatever. You're gonna have to come up with your own answers today.

I will say one thing: the reveal, i.e. the meta-puzzle, i.e. the "three-word phrase" mentioned in the contest description (above), is Great. A genuinely fantastic punch line. The fill in this puzzle is not great. Painful and cringe-worthy at times. But there's a reason. Is it a good reason? Well ... I've probably already said too much. Just know that the phrase at the end of the rainbow is not a dud. It may not excuse all the ouchy stuff you had to fill in to get there, but it's not a dud.

OK, that's all. Good night. I would say "don't spoil the puzzle in the comments," but you're grown people (mostly) and you can do whatever the hell you want.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Susan Gelfand

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "IT'S TIME TO ROLL" (34A: "Let's go!" ... or a hint for the ends of 20-, 28-, 41- and 52-Across) — last word in theme answer is something you might roll

Theme answers:

20A: Food preparation cutting technique (SLICE AND DICE)
28A: School basics (THE THREE R'S)
41A: Look of infatuation (GOOGOO EYES)
52A: Fancy dress affairs (COSTUME BALLS)

[I didn't think the central theme answer was a real phrase that a human being might actually use, but then I found this video. If any human being is real, it's Dale Peterson.]

Word of the Day: IMARET (44D: Turkish inn) —

An imaret is one of a few names used to identify the public soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th centuries.These public kitchens were often part of a larger complex known as a Waqf, which could include hospices, mosques, caravanserais and colleges. The imarets gave out food that was free of charge to specific types of people and fortunate individuals. Imarets were not invented by the Ottomans but developed under them as highly structured groups of buildings. Nonetheless, imarets indicate an appreciation of Muslim religious teachings aboutcharity found in the Qur'an. (wikipedia)

• • •

A little on the tough side for a Monday, probably because 74 is a pretty low word count for a Monday. You get a couple biggish corners (NW, SE) and some odd words (MEWL, IMARET), and then something like GOOGOO EYES (I wanted GOOGLE and then GOOGIE ???), and there are enough road bumps to keep your time somewhat north of normal. I made a bunch of dumb mistakes along the way. Somehow *really* botched THE THREE RS by typing too fast and thinking there were *three* letters after THREE instead of just the two, so I thought "how do you spell out 'Rs'? ... 'ARS'?!?!" So that is what I wrote in, only it looked like this: THE THRE ARS. I actually Did check the cross and my brain totally accepted MAWL as an answer for 24D: Whine (MEWL). My problems with GOOGOO EYES made STOOD OVER hard to see for a bit, so that slowed me down. Wrote in ADO for DIN and then ODER (?!) for 42D: French river (OISE). Then I misread the clue on COSTUME BALLS as a singular and so wrote in COSTUME PARTY. So I just got tripped up on my own laces a lot.

The theme is OK, but not great. You want to change the meaning of those end words in the theme answer, and three of them are changed (i.e. the DICE and Rs and BALLS in the theme answers are not the kind you "roll"), but EYES is not. You make GOOGOO EYES with your actual EYES, which are also the ones you "roll." It's a minor flaw, but it's an easy Monday theme, and it should be tight. Also, the grid is weirdly made (big white corners, totally choppy middle), so there's a Lot of short junk. On the plus side, though, the puzzle did inadvertently create a really terrible but (to me) hilarious pejorative phrase—next time you're really angry with someone, try calling her (or him, I guess) the bottom two Acrosses in the SE corner. Then let me know how it goes. My money's on "not well."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Kevin Christian

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)

THEME: "E.T."— several clues relate to the [circled letters], i.e. "E.T."

Theme answers:

13A: With 59-Across, where [circled letters] came from (OUTER / SPACE)
14D: With 41-Down, composition of a trail followed by [circled letters] (REESE'S / PIECES)
23D: Best Original ___ (award for the film with [circled letters]) (SCORE)
35D: Costume for [circled letters] (GHOST)
20A: Child actress who appeared with [circled letters] (DREW BARRYMORE)
25A: Creator of [circled letters] (SPIELBERG)
45A: What [circled letters] wanted to do (PHONE HOME)
49A: Means of escape for [circled letters] (FLYING BICYCLE)

Word of the Day: MOBILE BAY (33D: Locale of an 1864 Civil War blockade) —

Mobile Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in theUnited States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the bay, making it an estuary. Several smaller rivers also empty into the bay: Dog River, Deer River, and Fowl River on the western side of the bay, and Fish River on the eastern side. Mobile Bay is the fourth largest estuary in the United States with a discharge of 62,000 cubic feet (1,800 m³) of water per second. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, there's a lot of theme material, I'll give the puzzle that. It's all pretty iconic stuff, so that's nice. But it's just trivia. I don't really understand this. Or, I would have understood it, had it come out a year ago in June, on the 30th anniversary of the film's release date. Here, it's just "a bunch of stuff related to a 31-year-old movie." I guess I enjoy remembering the film, but as a puzzle, this didn't really work for me, largely because OMG the fill was (in many places) terrible. Please just stare at the NE corner for ... well, as long as your eyes will allow. Acrosses, uniformly terrible. And isn't it "The Missus"? THE MRS just looks strange. Then there's the AGIO/TOGAE/AGIRL/STAD nexus. Yikes. I've never heard of MOBILE BAY. In my haste, I wrote in MANILA BAY, which, sadly for me, shares many, many letters. Circled letters are particularly useless today since there are just two. I actually couldn't even see one of them when I scanned the grid for them. Harder to pick up when there are so few. ATE DINNER feels about as natural as DID LAUNDRY. Again, this is all very predictable—theme density goes up, fill cruddiness goes up. Generally. EER/EYER! STLEO! Gah. I FELL? Arbitrary. Odd. The clue on LUPE was Laughable. What the hell? (51D: "Little Latin ___ Lu" (1966 hit)).

[I spent soooo much time listening to "oldies" in high school and yet can safely say I've Never Heard This Song. Ever]
Lastly, this is hilariously un-Tuesday in its theme and difficulty level. My time was more like a Wednesday, and not a fast Wednesday either. CALL for YELL. DINGDONG for DOORBELL. COMET for COMER. EAR DOCTOR? What am I, eight? Thumbs up for the movie (shout-out to EBERT), but thumbs kinda ... sideways for this puzzle. Fill is just too rough and weird.

Best wrong answer of the day—wanted SPLAT! for 10D: Free-fall effect, briefly (ZERO G).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Victor Fleming and Bonnie L. Gentry

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: LINE (58D: Word that can follow each part of the answers to the six starred clues) — just what the clue says

Theme answers:

17A: *Deep trouble, informally (HOT WATER)
65A: *Felon's sentence, maybe (HARD TIME)
3D: *Low-lying acreage (BOTTOM LAND)
34D: *Fruity loaf (DATE BREAD)
9D: *Deep-sea diver's concern (AIR SUPPLY)
30D: *Campus transportation, maybe (BUS SERVICE)

Word of the Day: EREBUS (7D: God of darkness) —

In Greek mythology, Erebus /ˈɛrəbəs/, also Erebos (Greek: Ἔρεβος, "deep darkness, shadow"), was often conceived as aprimordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogony places him as one of the first five beings to come into existence, born from Chaos. Erebus features little in Greek mythological tradition and literature, but is said to have fathered several other deities with Nyx; depending on the source of the mythology, this union includesAether, Hemera, the Hesperides, Hypnos, the Moirai, Geras, Styx, Charon, and Thanatos.
In Greek literature the name Erebus is also used to refer to a region of the Greek underworld where the dead had to pass immediately after dying, and is sometimes used interchangeably with Tartarus. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, I found Tuesday's puzzle. Two minutes faster today than yesterday. That is, for me, a massive statistical anomaly. Despite a bunch of answers that struck me as potentially tough (e.g. IMELDA, EREBUS), this one came in well under my Wednesday average. Open corners (fed by interlocking theme answers) should've made this one tougher, but I guess the cluing was just too transparent. Having your first Down be a massive gimme like 1D: Frome and others (ETHANS) sets the solver up with the first letters of All the Acrosses in the NW, right off the bat. I had some trouble seeing EBB TIDES and I wanted THE COPS (too short) and THE POLICE (too long) before eventually hitting on TROOPERS (just right). There wasn't much else that slowed me down as I moved in a pretty regular clockwise motion right around the grid, finishing up with EXUDED in the SW (69A: Radiated, as charm).

As for the theme, I kind of wish constructors would stop making these. This is an ancient theme type that rarely yields very good / interesting results in the theme answers. Today's theme answers are mostly adequate; BOTTOM LAND is not a phrase I know at all, but the others are tight enough. Just not very ... interesting. A puzzle like this may as well be a themeless for all the thematic pleasure it gives. I got to LINE near the very end, having (at that point) no idea what was tying any of this together. LINE was jarring anticlimactic. Oh. LINE. OK. You can make puzzles with this type of theme using any number of different words (and many, many constructors have). BOY. You could probably do BOY. I don't know. All I know is that the theme-type has been Done To Death. Results are not terrible. But not inspired either. Another day another puzzle. This one at least has an interesting theme answer layout. I do appreciate that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

This is the answer grid for Sunday's "Letterboxes" puzzle

The dark-bordered rectangles are braille letters.

The "O"s are the bumps.

They spell out: FEEL THE LOVE

Constructor: Tom Pepper and Victor Barocas

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: CLOCK (41A: Instrument that hints at the missing parts of certain answers in this puzzle) — border answers must all be preceded by the numbers they would represent were the grid a CLOCK face

Theme answers:

10A: 50% (1 HALF)
13D: Acid-burned Bat-villain (2 FACE)
38D: Like some circuses (3 RING)
63D: Like barbershop harmony (4 PART)
72A: Fin (5 SPOT)
71A: Like a die (6-SIDED)
70A: Sailors' domain (7 SEAS)
58D: Length of a Beatles "week" (8 DAYS)
26D: Popular women's shoe seller (9 WEST)
1D: Annual Car & Driver list (10 BEST)
1A: It has a red striped (11 BALL)
5A: A gross (12 DOZEN)

Word of the Day: "I AM A CAMERA" (65A: Play that was the basis for "Cabaret") —

I Am a Camera is a 1951 Broadway play inspired by Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin which is part of The Berlin Stories. The title is a quote taken from the novel's first page ("I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."). (wikipedia)

• • •

This is very nicely done. I didn't sense precisely what was going on til near the end—I knew the answers around the edges needed numbers, but I honestly wasn't that sure about ___ BALL or ___ BEST and I kept having trouble shaking the phrase HALF DOZEN from my head because of the proximity of those answers, so I just plowed ahead thinking "OK ... think numbers somehow!" But then I finally got into the center with CLOCK. And then I was done, and *then* could look at how elegantly the theme was executed. It's very simple, especially insofar as it appropriates what is essentially a generic 78-word crossword grid shape. Nothing physical about this puzzle lets you know what's coming. Most of the fill is 3- to 5-letters. Very unprepossessing. And yet there are still some nice longer answers in there—the grid is especially lively for a 78-worder—and the payoff is nice. Icky fill is minimal. Good job.

I was surprised at how quickly I blew through this thing (well under 5) considering the whole HALF DOZEN confusion and the fact that I botched / didn't know / couldn't get *both* cross-references. If I knew the Bilbo Baggins riddle, I forgot it. And ENTER / INTO was just ... not forthcoming. If "a contract" had been in parentheses after [Sign], I might have grasped it more easily. But the whole "as..." thing threw me. That "as..." kind of implies that you're providing simply one example, where in this case you are providing really the only example. No one would consider [Sign] and "ENTER / INTO" synonyms except in the case where "contract" was the object. Clue is fair, in that there is precedent for it, but my brain just couldn't process it. Also had LEER for PEER, which really gunked things up for a bit. MILS was not coming easily, and so I was in real danger there (for a few moments) of getting totally bogged down in the SE. But then I thought about it, and LAMPS had to be right, so everything worked out. I'm vaguely ashamed that ODIC a. was a gimme, and b. helped me out Considerably in the ENTER / INTO region.

Bullets:

43A: ___ Fayed, last romantic partner of Princess Diana (DODI) — this clue creeped me out. I know it's accurate, but the phrase "romantic partner" feels almost prurient. Euphemistically prurient.
61A: Dance reminiscent of a horse's gait (GALOP) — I once put the plural of this word at 1A. Oh, 2009 me. So young, so stupid.
54D: Head nurse on "Scrubs" (CARLA) — I had something else here at first. I forget what. I thought I didn't know this answer, and apparently I didn't. But then I did.
68A: "30 Rock" character, or the first name of his portrayer (TRACY) — one of the more reliably funny actors/characters on network TV.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: BACK-TO-BACK GAMES (62A: Doubleheader ... or what 17-, 29- and 48-Across are?)— theme answers are the names of two games, imagined as a wacky phrase (clued "?"-style)

Theme answers:

17A: Tornado monitors? (TWISTER CHECKERS)
29A: What the only detective on a case has? (CLUE MONOPOLY)
48A: What a remorseful Iago might have said? (SORRY, OTHELLO)

Word of the Day: Jean-LUC Godard (7D: Director Jean-___ Godard) —

Jean-Luc Godard (French: [ʒɑ̃lyk ɡɔdaʁ]; born 3 December 1930) is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement La Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave". (wikipedia)

• • •

My fastest Wednesday in the last two months, but other people's times seem to be running somewhat closer to normal. I just don't see anything tough here. Maybe if you don't know the names of common games, this would play offer some resistance, but otherwise, all terms and phrases are right over the plate. The fill is solid to the point of boring, though some of the mid-range stuff is colorful ("I GOT IT!", FAKE ID, GOOD COP). The theme works fine, but the wacky phrases involved don't yield much humor. Also, so many game names were left on the table. Seems like there should've been wackier / wilder possibilities out there. LIFE? OPERATION? BATTLESHIP? Those are just off the top of my head. There must be tons of viable game names. And we get just three theme answers. Six games. Kind of underwhelming. But still, as I say, the theme's core logic is sound and the fill is sturdy. Hard to fault it for anything other than a vague kind of dullness.

I keep looking at HOS and forgetting what the clue is (4D: Yuletide interjections). Really think ARCS / SOS was the way to go there. Actually, there are probably a ton of other ways to go in that little corner of the grid. HOS bugs me. It's so a. not a thing and b. unnecessary. I find myself without much of an opinion about any of the rest of this, so I'll just stop.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BOOMERANG EFFECT (36A: Unwelcome reversal ... or a title for this puzzle?) — four theme answers run Down and then boomerang back up (in the adjacent Down space); all said answers are things that, in some way, come back:

Theme answers:

5D: With 6-Down, mutual relationship (TWO-WAY / STREET)
9D: With 10-Down, critical comments (NEGATIVE / FEEDBACK)
37D: With 38-Down one who may give you a lift (ELEVATOR / OPERATOR)
46D: With 47-Down means of getting home, maybe (RETURN / TICKET)

Word of the Day: ANNA Karina (3D: Karina in may a Jean-Luc Godard film) —

Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Bayer; 22 September 1940) is a Danish, now French citizen, film actress, director, andscreenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. She is known as a muse of the director Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. Her notable collaborations with Godard include The Little Soldier (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961), Vivre sa vie (1962), and Alphaville (1965). With A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival. (wikipedia)

• • •

Seems very solid. I've seen many different puzzles that involve some kind of reverse-entry of answers, but this one is remarkably tight, especially considering that two of the theme answers symmetrically cross the central revealer. Nice construction / dumb luck. Puzzle played pretty easily for me, with the only significant resistance coming in the largish rectangle of answers in the center-east. PAGE-A was a mystery to me. Had -AGE- and couldn't think of anything. WORD-A-day calendars are things that sound familiar to me. But the 365-page calendar is not something I'd call a PAGE-A-day calendar (though I don't doubt it's a calendar type). Anyway, that answer, and PIEHOLE for [Trap] and ARTICLE for [45A: What the Beatles had but Wings didn't?] and ONE B.C. for [End of an era?] (!?) and LOCAL for [What pulls out all the stops?] all gave me fits. Three of those are "?" clues, so no surprise there, I guess. The LOCAL stops at all the stops ... so I'm not sure how "pulls out" is being imagined in that clue. "Pulls out" as in "produces"? As in "watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat"? ("Again?").

No time for extensive commentary tonight. The World Series calls. My first [Paella ingredient] was CORN. Had Square ONE before Square PEG, and LORD beforeDEAR (2D: Prayer starter, often), and LIE before FIB (57D: Small story). No trouble with TITI (54D: New World monkey). You know you do a lot of crossword puzzles when *that* clue is a gimme. My Google News search turned up many instances of FLOUTER, but they were all from French articles. Don't suppose that word actually gets used a lot in English. Oh, well, they can't all be gold. There really aren't that many clunkers today.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day:"LAKMÉ" (39A: Title priestess of opera)—

Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. The score, written in 1881–1882, was first performed on 14 April 1883 by the Opéra Comique at the Salle Favart in Paris. Set in British India in the mid-19th century, Lakmé is based on Theodore Pavie's novel (including "les babouches du Brahamane") and novel Le Mariage de Loti by Pierre Loti. (wikipedia)

• • •

Quad stacks. Saw the grid and knew who made it without even looking. It's officially a shtick.

As quad stack grids go, it's pretty clean, which means there is of course a bunch of gunk (most of it in the quad crossers), but most of the 15s appear to be real things, with nary a ONE'S in sight (e.g. A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE, etc.). I thought the puzzle was going to play quite hard, as my first pass across the top, through all the Downs, yielded almost nothing. I had WKRP instead of MEL'S at 1D: 1970s-'80s sitcom setting, and then Nothing except CCLI and a tentative ERTES and a so-tentative-I-didn't-write-it-in ORES. Went to work on the little pockets in the middle. Failed in the east, but then finally struck oil with FFF at 22A: Blasting, musically, followed quickly by FEDEX, FEES, and BEEFS. Still, that was not enough to blast me out of there. Had to restart in the west, with OJS, TOJO, URSA and the rest, which finally gave me the center 15 (weakest 15 of the bunch), MORSE CODE SIGNAL, and from there I got going in earnest.

MASTIFFS took me up. Gave in to AFIRST and then got -WARFARE, then all its crosses, and then backed into all those 15s up top. The one nice thing about stacks of 15s is that once you make a little headway with the Downs, esp. adjacent Downs, you can do some real damage very quickly. It's getting in that's the tough part. Bottom half proved much much easier than the top. The crosses were just so much more gettable. Only hiccup down there was PUTS rather than SETS ON A PEDESTAL. Oh, and I somehow thought SILVER ERA instead ofSILVER AGE (32D: Second-greatest period in the history of something). The comic book fan in me was so proud to have thrown that one down off just the SI-, but ... ERA? Dumb mistake.

Back to baseball.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ERICAS (46A: Bell heather and tree heath) —

n.
(Bot.) A genus of shrubby plants, including the heaths, many of them producing beautiful flowers.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/erica-1#ixzz2in5m7xqW

• • •

Hello ANEMONE, my old friend. I had to clue that in a puzzle I made a long time ago, and for soooommmmme reason, despite my knowing little about botany and not having thought about that word for years, my first thought upon seeing 5D: Buttercup family member was "... wait ... is that ... it can't be ... is that you, ANEMONE?" And it was. Also, I nailed ERICAS, so I feel pretty safe calling myself a botanist now.

This puzzle was easy. Yes, I had ANEMONE to help me out up top, but I also had IRIS and USED / CAR and SIX A.M., which made CRUST easy to see, and I'd already been thinking PIZZA at 1A: Domino's bottom?, so bam bam. That corner was fried quickly. Middle was also a cinch; tore right through it all the way down to the OTTOMAN. Weirdly had trouble moving from middle to west because I couldn't remember which MOM Sarah Palin said she was. I remember GRIZZLY MOM and LIPSTICK ON A PIG and not a lot else. Eventually the phrase "soccer mom" came to me and then I thought Alaska, and so ... HOCKEY MOM (34A: Sarah Palin called herself an average one).

Might've been screwed in the SW had it not been for my brilliant guess of HYDE (as in Dr. Jekyll and Mr.) at 68A: Bad side of literature? That "H" made PHONE BOOTH pop into view clear as day, and that was all the handle I needed. SOLAR ARRAY was really hard to see—needed most crosses to bring it down. And OLEN? Shrug. But crosses took care of me. I don't really get how ITALIAN ART is an "ideal" (67A: Pre-Raphaelite ideal). All of it? From all time periods? There must be some kind of parameters for this ideal. Otherwise I thought the cluing was pretty good. PHONE BOOTH clue was especially great (28D: DC transformation location)—I thought the misdirection was toward power, away from our nation's capital. But instead those were both misdirections, and what was meant by "DC" was DC Comics. Nice. I am not a hockey fan but I've certainly listened to a lot of hockey highlight coverage and have never heard SIN BIN (47D: Penalty box, to sports fans). Guessed it pretty easily though, with BIN in place. NOAM Pitlik won an Emmy!? Wow, really should file that away, as the only NOAM I know is Chomsky (56D: "Barney Miller" Emmy winner Pitlik). I assume a hailstorm is a PELTER because ... it pelts you? With hail? Mmmmmokay.

The worst thing here is -IERE, but you knew that.

Fun, easy puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"Who's Left?"— five men's and five women's names run backwards (i.e. to the 'left') inside theme answers

Theme answers:

2A: McMansion's storage (THREE-CAR GARAGE)
37A: Attack on sacred custom (LÈSE-MAJESTÈ)
39A: Dotty? (PIXELATED)
50A: Piece of road construction equipment (CONCRETE PUMP)
67A: Lot (FAIR AMOUNT)
69A: Badgering (HARASSMENT)
80A: What the Red Baron engaged in (AERIAL COMBAT)
91A: Generally speaking (ON AVERAGE)
96A: Famous (WIDELY KNOWN)
113: They may keep you on your toes (BALLET SLIPPERS)

Word of the Day: COHERER (2D: Primitive radio receiver) —

The coherer is a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the first radio receivers during the wireless telegraphy era at the beginning of the 20th century. Invented around 1890 by French scientist Édouard Branly, it consists of a tube or capsule containing two electrodes spaced a small distance apart, with metal filings in the space between them. When a radio frequency signal is applied to the device, the initial high resistance of the filings reduces, allowing an electric current to flow through it. The coherer was a key enabling technology for radio, and was the first device used to detect radio signals in practical spark gap transmitter wireless telegraphy. It became the basis for radio reception around 1900, and remained in widespread use for about ten years. It was superseded by more sensitive electrolytic and crystal detectors and became obsolete, although in the 1950s a coherer was briefly used in at least one radio-controlled toy. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well made but strange. I thought there must be something more to the names than just ... names. But no. Makes the whole enterprise feel very void of context. The title doesn't really mean much on its own, as a self-standing phrase, so I'm not really sure what to think. The grid is solid, occasionally entertaining, but this doesn't have the usual zing I've come to associate with BEQ's puzzles. His NYT stuff, when it appears, always feels a bit ... on leash. I know that a lot of these clues were changed. Tamed. Neutered. Sometimes you can see something Quigleyesque sneak through, but otherwise his puzzles have to be, let's say, mainstreamed (in case you didn't already know, BEQ has his own site where he publishes a couple of independent puzzles every week—well worth checking out). He also has a band:

I have never heard of either PC BOARD (1A: Etched computer component) or COHERER, so that NW was, uh, interesting. Never heard of CONCRETE PUMP, either, and briefly imagined that the piece of road construction equipment was a CONCRETE BUMP. Seemed plausible-ish. Only other never-heard-of was AFTRA, and to be fair, I've probably *heard* of it, somewhere, some time, but it doesn't mean I could define it (I can't) (American Federation of Television and Radio Arts—sometimes I can be bothered to look things up!) (62D: SAG's partner). My favorite answer, in that it is the loopiest, most roll-your-own, most desperately creative thing in the grid, is PREWWI (13D: Like the time of Franz Ferdinand's reign). The more you stare at it, the awesomer it looks. See also ISAOAOKI, which is not in any way made-up; it's just that you rarely see it (in xwords) all complete and laid out like that, with the insane double-consecutive "AO." Nothing else in the grid really catches my fancy, except MIAOWS, which is by far the fancier spelling of that "word."

I thought LANNY was a LONNY (72A: Lawyer Davis who served in the Cinton and Bush administrations). Had trouble picking up IMMORTAL for a while (ironically, that word can be parsed "I'M MORTAL") (31D: Any Mount Olympus dweller). Not much else here to gawk at.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: dog names— iconic dog names can be found at the end of four theme answers

Theme answers:

30A: *It's a happening place (IN SPOT)
34A: *Sophocles tragedy ("OEDIPUS REX")
43A: *British luxury S.U.V. (RANGE ROVER)
45A: *Star-making title role for Mel Gibson (MAD MAX)

Theme is tied together by the two-answer song lyric "WHERE OH WHERE HAS / MY LITTLE DOG GONE" (17A: With 62-Across, question in a children's song)

Word of the Day: MAD MAX—

Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller, written by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland, starring Mel Gibson.
It became a top-grossing Australian film, holding the Guinness record for most profitable film for decades and has been credited for further opening up the global market to Australian New Wave films. It was also the first Australian film to be shot with a widescreen anamorphic lens.^[3] The first film in the series, Mad Max spawned sequels Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior) in 1981 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. A fourth installment, Mad Max: Fury Road starring actor Tom Hardy as Max, is currently in production. (wikipedia)

• • •

First, the question is "OH WHERE OH WHERE etc." There is an initial "OH." You can't just leave it out. Or, rather, apparently, you can, but that's just stupid.

[Stupid wrong answer was almost worth it just to get to see this LOL-bad animation]
Second, OH ME is not a thing. Leaving aside the replication of OH from the stupid wrong / incomplete song lyric, OH ME is just not a thing. It's part of a thing, maybe. "OH ME OH MY" is a part of some song lyrics, somewhere. But OH ME? No. No me. Look, if you have to have ridiculous "quaint" expressions no one actually says in your puzzles, I'll give you (barely) "AH, ME" (which you do see from time to time, sadly). Otherwise, you'll have to go with the more normal "OH MY!" or you'll have to tear out your easily refilled corner and do something less lazy. IMHO.

[Yes, this is permissible]

Third, MAX is not an iconic dog name. No. No. Yes, there are surely dogs named MAX in the world; MAX is probably a reasonably common dog name. But it is no REX. It is no SPOT. It is no ROVER. It is no, let's say, FIDO. That is, it doesn't even come close, in its iconic quality, to those other names. LADY is a. a more iconic dog name, and b. a name that might work as the last word in a reasonably common phrase, i.e. there are surely theme answers ending in LADY out there. Maybe not six-letter ones, but why not go HOT SPOT (waaaaaaaaay better than IN SPOT) and FAT LADY ([It's not over until she sings, in a famous expression]). 7 and 7. Rebuild your grid around those. But in the NYT's current low-bar environment, I guess easy suggestions for improving a puzzle aren't seen as worth making. Too time-consuming? Too much of a hassle to polish a Monday? Probably. I mean, it's "just a puzzle."

There are some nice answers in here (I'm a fan of PRESAGES, and MAD MAX, despite its utter inaptness as a theme answer, is great fill), but this thing's dead in the water. A non-starter. A possible starter, but as it stands, in its current state, a wholly inadequate offering.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Robert Cirillo

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: HOUSE (37A: Word that can follow both halves of 18-, 20-, 32-, 40-, 54- and 57-Across) — just what it says

Theme answers:

18A: Military muscle (FIREPOWER)
20A: Sign of change at the Vatican (WHITE SMOKE)
32A: Functional lawn adornment (BIRD BATH)
40A: Take every last cent of (CLEAN OUT)
54A: "Go" signal (GREEN LIGHT)
57A: Using all of a gym, as in basketball (FULL COURT)

Word of the Day: ALB (33D: Priest's garment) —

The alb (from the Latin Albus, meaning white), one of the liturgical vestments of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and many Methodist churches, is an ample white garment coming down to the ankles and is usually girdled with a cincture. It is simply the long linen tunic used by the Romans. In early Medieval Europe it was also normally worn by secular clergy in non-liturgical contexts. (wikipedia)

• • •

Seen it. Sort of. Here's a 2008 version of this same theme (with fewer answers and a longer but more absurd reveal).

I have advocated that this theme type ("both halves of phrase can precede X") be retired, and this puzzle only strengthens my opinion. Theme answers are in the service of a concept that a. is not appreciable while solving and b. is not really "aha"-worthy after solving. If you just look at the grid, it looks like the world's dullest puzzle. Maybe not dullest, but up there in dullness, for sure. As I've said before, the bar seems to have been raised in terms of theme density required for this theme type, but why is theme density good when the theme answers aren't entertaining and don't add any real value? Also, HOUSE? You could go on for an eternity with ___ HOUSE phrases. That 2008 puzzle shares only one theme answer with this one, and this one has several non-theme words that can precede house. DREAM. OPEN. ICE. Without a sensational revealer and very interesting theme answers, this theme type is just an exercise. A ho-hum curiosity. Doesn't help that the fill in this one is PRETTY AWFUL. Five mediocre to bad answers before I even get out of the NW. Seriously. Come on, man. ASPERSE? Don't blow your longer answers on junk like that.

Clue on FULL COURT is phenomenally tone deaf, sports-wise. [Using all of a gym]? I can't even conceive of a context in which that phrase has meaning. Does your gym have only the one court? No other parts? Like stands or sidelines or a locker room or something? "Gym" is, in no universe, synonymous with "court."FULL-COURT press is a type of basketball defense. But as far as I know, the defense uses the court, not The Whole Gym (also, if the game is going on, you are technically "using" the whole court at all times). Gym is the building, court is in the building. Here, I'll let Homer explain it to you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

1992 David Mamet play / SUN 9-15-13 / Band with 1985 UK #1 album titled Meat Is Murder / Island where Homer is buried by tradition / Baby singer's nickname / Charles Nelson old game show staple

Dogpatch matriarch / MON 9-16-13 / Man-goat of myth / Washington rally of 5/14/00 / Huge in poetry / Barnum's circus partner / White House financial advisory grp

1990 Nicolas Cage film / TUE 9-17-13 / Paper with Marketplace and Money Investing sects / Kampala resident / One of two used facetiously in Motley Crue

Mexican hero Juraez / WED 9-18-13 / Second-highest pinochle card / Adage regarding skittishness / Plant with fluffy flower spikes / That inverted bowl per Edward FitzGerald / Green vehicle briefly

Ill-fated mission of 1967 / THU 9-19-13 / Pince librarian at Hogwarts / Nut Gone Flake celebrated 1968 Small Faces album / Posthumous inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame 1979 / Entice with music / Modified as software for different platform

Flag carried on knight's lance / FRI 9-20-13 / Fox relative / Relatives of spoonbills / Blake's burning bright cat / Positive thinking pioneer / 1959 #5 hit with the B-side I've Cried Before / Watch brand once worn by 007 / 50s politico

Susan's family on Seinfeld / SAT 9-21-13 / Oo la la jeans informally / Areas next to bull's eyes / Spotted hybrid house pet / They adhere to brains / 1980s Olympic star with autobiography Breaking Surface / Preceder of John Sebastian at Woodstock

Turkish inn / MON 9-23-13 / Short-legged hound / African land whose name consists of three state postal abbreviations / John who succeeded William Henry Harrison

Jazz's Blake / TUE 9-24-13 / What gyroscope may provide / Dodge models until 1990 / Locale of 1864 Civil War blockade / Free-fall effect, briefly / Fifth-century pope with epithet Great / Late thumb-turning critic

Staunton of Harry Potter movies / WED 9-25-13 / Sayers portrayed in Brian's Song / Selena's music style / Early IBM PC standard / Puzzle inventor Rubik / Coastal backflows / directive repeated in aerobics class

"Letterboxes" — SUNDAY (9/22) CONTEST PUZZLE: ANSWERS

Head nurse on Scrubs / THU 9-26-13 / Dance reminiscent of horse's gait / Golden treasure in Bilbo Baggins riddle / Thickness measures / Darth Vader locale / Acid-burned Bat-villain / 30 Rock character or first name of his portrayer

High-pitched group with 1958 #1 hit / WED 10-23-13 / Rush-hour subway rider metaphorically / Band with 1987 hit Need You Tonight / New British Royal of 2013 / Carnaby Street's locale / Spanish province its capital / Tito King of Latin music

New World monkeys / THU 10-24-13 / Singer/actress Lenya / Asgard ruler / Like women in famous Rubens painting / Danced to Julio Sosa music / Chenoweth of Broadway's Wicked / Karina in many Jean-Luc Godard film

Title priestess of opera / FRI 10-25-13 / Gershwin biographer David / Allure alternative / Tempest to Theodor / 1931 Best Picture / Old French epics / Painter della Francesca

SAG's partner / SUN 10-27-13 / One White of rock's White Stripes / Etched computer component / Primitive radio receiver / British novelist Anthony

British luxury SUV / MON 10-28-13 / Star-making title role for Mel Gibson / Gulager of Last Picture Show / Thinker's counterpart / Full political assemblies

Haile Selassie disciple / TUE 10-29-13 / Regulatory inits since 1934 / Priest's garment / Yule libation / Sharer's opposite