Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Larry KERT (47A: Larry of the original "West Side Story") —

Larry Kert (December 5, 1930 - June 5, 1991) was an American actor, singer, and dancer. He is best known for creating the role of Tony in the original Broadway version of West Side Story. (wikipedia)

• • •

THE PITCH — [You can scroll down if you've already read it]

So … it's January, the time when I make my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to this blog. Actually, I didn't make the pitch last year. I used last January to raise money for other causes instead (and it was my pleasure to do so). But this year I once again ask you (especially you regular readers) to consider what the blog is worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. As I've said before, as much as I love writing this blog, I treat it like a job— answers and commentary go up every day, without fail, usually at 12:01 am, but certainly by 9am at the very latest. This has been true for seven straight years. I know that some people are opposed to paying for what they can get for free, and still others really don't have money to spare. Both kinds of people are welcome to continue reading my blog, with my compliments. It will always be free. I have no interest in cordoning it off, nor do I have any interest in taking advertising. I value my independence too much. Anyway, if you are so moved, there is a Paypal button in the sidebar, and a mailing address here:

Rex Parker
℅ Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton NY 13905

Maybe I'll stick a PayPal button in here for the mobile users. Let's see...
I think that worked. Cool.

For people who send me actual honest-to-god (i.e. "snail") mail, I have this great new set of thank-you postcards that I'm hoping to burn through: "the iconic Pantone color chip design in 100 brilliant colors." Who will be the lucky person who gets … let's see … Pantone 19-2025: Red Plum? Ooooh, elegant. It could be you. Or give via PayPal and get a thank-you email. That's cool too. Anyway, whatever you choose to do, I remain most grateful for your readership. Now on to the puzzle …

Update: I got my first snail-mail donation on Tuesday—look at the cuteness:

• • •

THE SATURDAY PUZZLE: It's a quad stack. Two, actually. Two quad stacks. I knew that's what I'd be dealing with before I even opened the puzzle. OK, fine. And it's much like all the others I've encountered. Looks the same. Has the same combination of dull / forced long stuff and awkward short stuff—although today I will say the short stuff is better than usual, possibly because the long stuff is so full of RSTLNE. Phrases with super-common letters abound: DENTALASSISTANT, STEMLESSGLASSES. Lots and lots of easy-to-work-with letters.There are a few interesting answers—most notably OBSCENE GESTURES (great) (51A: They're usually pixelated on TV) and PALESTRINA (27D: Renaissance composer of "Missa Papae Marcelli"), which only dimly rings a bell, but is lovely, and was pretty fairly crossed (unless NEALE got you, I guess (34A: Grid great Greasy)). But this issue of fair crossings brings me to the puzzle's one truly terrible element—the WAUKESHA / KERT crossing. Here is the one thing in its favor: I guessed correctly, so that "K" must have some tenuous claim to inferability. I have no idea what/where WAUKESHA is, but that missing letter *felt* like it had to be a "K" (my friend Amy says this was probably the influence of "MilWAUKee"…). But I had zero confidence in the "K." Was considering "B." Never heard of KERT, which is one of the dumbest-looking names I've ever seen, no offense (47A: Larry of the original "West Side Story"). He's been in the puzzle (per the cruciverb database) … twice. WAUKESHA, once. All three instance of these words had very fair crosses. You just can't cross one oddly spelled and not fantastically familiar proper noun with another at a letter than can't readily be inferred. We have a name for that: NATICK. (For a definition of "the Natick Principle," go here and scroll down)

Now, the last thing I care about, the Last thing, is whether any individual knew one or both of these. That is not the issue. Of course there are people in the world who know both things. Saying you knew WAUKE$HA so the crossing must be fair is like saying your aunt smoked and lived to 93 so smoking must not be harmful to your health. From a construction standpoint, you never, ever, ever want to have a solver end with one square where it's a know-it-or-you-don't situation (which is almost always proper noun x/w proper noun). It's god-awful form. If I knew neither answer and had to guess, it's a good bet others will be in same boat. And taking a random stab is not "solving." It's not fun. It's a drag. And it's especially Not the way you want solvers concluding their experience with your puzzle.

And that's the thing—these are answers generated by a database. They are deemed OK because someone already deemed them OK for an earlier puzzle so they must be OK. Only a computer thinks this way. A human being has to be able to say "yes, they were in other puzzles, but they're kind of obscure and, look—when the *other* puzzles used them, the crosses were ordinary words. So maybe these two shouldn't cross." No, Computer Say, 'Work Fine Boss.' There is a difference between constructing and database management. Subtle, sometimes, but very real.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Andrew Chaikin

Relative difficulty: Easy (except for one cross where, once again, I kind of had to guess)

THEME: "It's Only 'A' Game" — theme answers (and their clues) have "A" as their only vowel

Theme answers:

"CASABLANCA" (22A: Grand-slam drama that stars Bacall's man)
"FA LA LA LA LA" (24A: Half an Xmas "Halls" chant)
"STAR WARS" (38A: Astral saga that has a Darth part)
A MAN A PLAN A CANAL PANAMA (63A: Fab "backward-gram" a la "Sam, aha! Bahamas!")
RASTAMAN (87A: Black cat that packs grass and chants 'Jah')
MAGNA CARTA (106A: Landmark vassal law act)
BALACLAVAS (108A: Warm mask/cap amalgams)
ALAN ALDA (4D: "M*A*S*H" star)
CATCH AS CATCH CAN (28D: Haphazard)
BAFTA AWARDS (36D: Gala that saw "Black Swan,""Avatar" and "Ab Fab" attract claps)
BLACK AND TAN (37D: Bar glass that's half Bass, half dark malt)
SAND MANDALA (38D: Lama's art that can't last)
ABRACADABRA (39D: "Shazam!")
ANAGRAMS (81D: Flashbacks and halfbacks)

Word of the Day: SAND MANDALA (38D: *Lama's art that can't last) —

The Sand Mandala (Tibetan: དཀྱིལ་འཁོར།, Wylie: dkyil 'khor; Chinese: 沙坛城; pinyin: Shā Tánchéng) is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from colored sand. A sand mandala is ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed and its accompanying ceremonies and viewing are finished to symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life. (wikipedia)

• • •

Before I get to the puzzle: thank you for enduring my annual week-long fund-raising efforts. The best part of the week has been all the messages I've been getting—thoughtful, heartfelt, critical, snarky, hilarious messages. It's been a real treat to have a window into the lives and minds of my readership. I've spent most of the week responding to emails, writing thank-you postcards, and generally being grateful that I've somehow tapped into this weird world of lovely opinionated addicts. My coffee mug runneth over.

Here's one of my favorite reader notes so far—I think you'll appreciate it:

Thank you so much for your blog. I look forward to it. Since my M.A. is in geography and I taught geography, I notice you have quite a void in that discipline. It reinforces my belief that geog. hasn't been a priority in h.s. or coll. :( [Yes, she actually drew the frowny face]

So, in essence: "Dear sir, I love your blog. I notice you are ignorant. This saddens me." I like people who tell it like it is. Fantastic. Seriously, this note is currently hanging on the bulletin board next to my desk.

People who contributed early (last Sun. and Mon.) via Paypal are still waiting on thank-yous (they're coming!). All others should have them by now. And snail mail folks—I"m turning those Pantone postcard thank-yous out as fast as my pen can write them up. Many are already in the mail. So, yeah, thanks a billion for your support. I hope you continue to enjoy the blog for … well, as long as I care to write it, I guess. At this point, I've got no plans to stop.

• • •

The SUNDAY PUZZLE:

I finished the puzzle quickly, without really understanding what was going on. I figured it had something to do with "A"s, but honestly, the puzzle was so easy that I didn't have to take much time to think about it. Some part of my brain thought there was a trick … or that there would be some spectacular revealer somewhere that would explain the fantastically tortured cluing on the "*" clues (no explanation of the "*" anywhere, which is unusual—usually there's a revealer that mentions "the starred clues"). Seeing the famous palindrome across the center had me wondering if the clues were tortured for palindromic reasons … but no. Eventually, I realized that the "A-TEAM" clue (89D: TV/movie group associated with this puzzle's theme?) was simply referring to the fact of vowel exclusivity. The clues are a bonus, I guess. I found them partly humorous, partly painful. The thing is, this theme doesn't really work. Many, many answers in this puzzle have only "A" as their vowel. And the fact that "STAR WARS" is a theme answers is *especially* absurd, as AMAS, RAJA, SATAN, CARATS, etc. all have as many "A"s as "STAR WARS."

Some of the answers themselves are fabulous. Love the grid-spanner and its central cross, CATCH AS CATCH CAN. SAND MANDALA is a beautiful answer even though I had no idea that's what it was called (I knew of the concept, but that MANDALA / KAMEN crossing was just an educated guess) (68A: Segway inventor Dean ___). There are colorful answers here and there, and, with very few exceptions, the overall fill is decent. But conceptually, it's a bit of a train wreck. The cluing is especially weird. "Grand-slam" has nothing to do with "CASABLANCA.""Fab" has no place in a clue for a palindrome. I did smile at the clue on RASTAMAN, though. It's daring, if nothing else.

Proper noun round-up (not all of them, just some … notables):

NEALS (32A: Beat poet Cassady and others)— don't know this guy, but I've never been big on beats
CLU Gulager (43A: Gulager of TV's "The Virginian") — essential crosswordese. Know him from '64's "The Killers"
Susan ISAACS (93A: Best-selling novelist Susan) — no idea. Seems very successful, just not on my radar
PALOMA Picasso (13D: Picasso's designer daughter) — handbags, maybe? Nope, looks like jewelry design, primarily. How do I know her name? I just do. Probably because of crosswords.
LALO Schifrin (16D: Score creator Schifrin) — more essential crosswordese. The list of films and TV shows he has scored is staggering. Everything from "Rush Hour" to "Rush Hour 2" (seriously, though, his resumé is eternal)

Now it's time for the PUZZLE OF THE WEEK: this week, despite my deep affection for Patrick Berry's Friday themeless (NYT), the distinction this week goes to Peter A. Collins for the first Fireball Crossword of the new year: "Call It In The Air" (1/9/14). I can't say enough about Fireball Crosswords, a weekly puzzle edited by Peter Gordon. Peter is a fantastic, meticulous editor, and his puzzles are good-to-amazing, week in and week out. The new year of puzzles just started, so please do yourself a favor and go subscribe. Anyway, Peter Collins's "Call It In The Air" is tough and playful and complex and has some fantastic theme answers. I won't spoil it for potential subscribers. If you don't mind its being spoiled, you can read about it here (at crosswordfiend.com).

Fun fact about Fireball—when word got out that the NYT would (finally) be raising its rates from $200 to $300 per 15x15 puzzle (still well below what the NYT should be paying, but an improvement for sure), Peter Gordon immediately raised Fireball's rates to $301. He's completely independent, produces a superior product, and continues to pay the best. Hard not to be a fan.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ONE AND ALL (58A: Everybody … or part of the contents of 18-, 25-, 36- and 50-Across) — letter strings "ONE" and "ALL" both appear in each theme answer

Theme answers:

PHONE CALL (18A: An operator may help place one)
RHONE VALLEY (25A: Wine-producing area of SE France)
GONE BALLISTIC (36A: Flown into a rage)
STONEWALLED (50A: Refused to cooperate)

Word of the Day: SAMBA (33D: Rio carnival dance) —

Samba is a lively, rhythmical dance of Brazilian origin in 2/4 time danced under the Samba music. However, there are three steps to every bar, making the Samba feel like a 3/4 timed dance. Its origins include the Maxixe. (wikipedia)

• • •

Textbook Monday. I mean that in the best possible sense. This was easy and the theme was cute and tight. The only real wobble in this thing was the central theme answer—the tense of it, I mean. Bit forced to use the past participle (i.e. GONE). But the base phrase is colorful enough to redeem the awkwardness. I like that there are biggish, interesting corners in an easy Monday puzzle. Monday puzzles should have solid, playful themes and be easy, interesting, and fun—not just easy. I love that the NW Downs are all phrases (two of them three-worders). Then there's the sassiness of GOOSES (28A: Pokes in the rear). I just *liked* this one. I don't know if I'd call the fill sparkly, but it is smooth as all get out. This is a first-rate, professional Monday puzzle, by a constructor who knows what the hell she's doing when it comes to early-week puzzles.

The weirdest moment, for me, was having BLO- at 38D: Hard hit (BLOW) and having no idea what that last letter could be. Brain: "BLOP? BLOP? No, BLOP is not a thing. Does not compute. Abort, Abort." My brain is a 1950s robot sometimes. I thought my time would be a tad slower than usual, as the open NW was not as easy to get into as your typical Monday corner. This may seem an odd thing to say about that corner, which is, of course, pretty easy in the end, but 3s and 4s are far, far easier to take down quickly than 5s. So there's just a little bit of added resistance, even in an easy puzzle, every time a corner opens up even a little. Anyway, I still came in with a normal, fast Monday time. Surprised to see this is just 74 words. Not sure I've ever done a 74-worder this easy (most easy/Monday puzzles are 78, maybe 76—typically, in general, as a rule, but by no means always, the lower the word count, the tougher the grid is to fill, and difference between 78 ad 74 is actually considerable). I guess the cheaters in the far NE / SW corners helped mellow out the fill, allowing for actual, in-the-language, non-forced, non-crosswordese words. If that's what it takes, then (and pretty much only then) I'm all for cheater squares.

Did I ever teach you the trick for quickly establishing a crossword's word count? I learned this from my friend Amy, who, I think, learned from her friend Byron. Anyway, you take the number of the last Across clue (today, 68) and then add the total number of boxes that start both an Across and Down answer (today, the boxes containing the numbers 1, 6, 10, 33, 44 and 48—a total of 6 boxes). 68 + 6 = 74 words. Much easier than actually counting them all.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Tim Croce

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: [Nonsense] — that's the clue for all the theme answers:

JIVE
JAZZ
HOKUM
PRATTLE
TWADDLE
HOTAIR
BILGE
BALONEY
ROT
TRIPE
BUSHWA
BLATHER
HOGWASH
HOOEY
TOSH
BUNK

Word of the Day: Jimmy WEBB (62D: Jimmy who wrote "Galveston" and "MacArthur Park") —

James Layne "Jimmy" Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He has written numerous platinum-selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "The Worst That Could Happen", "All I Know", and "MacArthur Park". His songs have been performed by many popular contemporary artists, including The 5th Dimension, Glen Campbell, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Thelma Houston, The Temptations, Barbra Streisand, Art Garfunkel, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Donna Summer, Linda Ronstadt, America, Amy Grant, John Denver, Michael Feinstein, Rosemary Clooney, R.E.M., and Carly Simon.
According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 and 1990. Webb is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. (wikipedia)

• • •

No thanks. I'll admit that a list of these [Nonsense] words is fun to say, when you line them all up in a row, and yes, there sure are a lot of them in this grid. But this grid needed serious DERATting. That ANIGH PAPAW STELA section is dire, and I don't even understand the clue on the unfortunate ROWB. I'm pretty sure ROW B *is* prime-seating. What, is only one row "prime"? ROW A? Baffling. A huge lot of words ≠ theme. Not if it's gonna result in gunky fill all over the place. Please compare the fill in yesterday's puzzle to the fill in today's puzzle for a nice night/day contrast. OH SAY OCEDAR ODILE, oh no. What's the good of putting a whole herd of theme answers in your puzzle if they're just going to trample on your fill? I''m sure the avalanche of quaintness will be enough for some. Perhaps it will provide, let's say, a chuckle. A guffaw. A slapping of knees. I don't know. I just know this theme is not to my taste, especially given all the IBAR-UBER JIVE.

Til next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Bernice Gordon

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: End of the Q— each theme answer is a phrase whose final word is represented by the letter of which it is a homophone:

Theme answers:

GEOGRAPHY B (17A: It's all about location, location, location)
"ONLY U" (39A: 1955 hit for the Platters)
CARIBBEAN C (62A: Environs for Blackbeard)
AFTERNOON T (11D: Occasion for sandwiches and scones)
WELL, G (30D: "Hmm, imagine that!"
BLACK-EYED P (28D: Soul food ingredient)

Word of the Day: Carol ALT (18D: Cover girl Carol) —

Carol Ann Alt (born December 1, 1960) is an American model and actress.
Alt's first big break in modeling was in 1986, when she was featured on the cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine, but garnered publicity in 1982 when she was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. During the 1980s she appeared on over 500 magazine covers, becoming one the most famous models of her era. She was referred to as "The Face" by Life Magazine. During the height of her popularity, she was the face of ad campaigns for Diet Pepsi, General Motors, Cover Girl Cosmetics, Noxzema, Hanes and numerous others. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've seen themes use this letter-for-word conceit before, so no great shakes there, but this is actually reasonably well executed—lots of different letters, all at the end, all in legitimate, unforced phrases. Plus the fill is remarkably clean. Has a familiar, old-school feel to it. Solid, clean and easy—about as easy as "trick" puzzles come. I love the added touch of the short theme answers in the middle. I wasn't exactly expecting those, and (thus) that area was responsible for almost all the resistance I encountered with this puzzle. I also muffed up the east a bit, as wrote in NSA instead of NSC (31A: White House advisory grp.), and also tested SO- as the opening of 32D: Inasmuch as (SINCE). I think I was thinking SO FAR … but that would've needed the "as." Anyhoo, there was a bit of scrambling over in that region.

It didn't take me long to get the theme, but filling in the first answer didn't do it for me. GEOGRAPHY is all about location, location, location—so what's this "B" doing at the end (I wondered). I thought there was going to be some trick where the tacked-on letters … did something? Spelled something? Had to be connected with a Sharpie and then folded and hung from the ceiling at dusk while incantations are sung and smoke burns, finally to reveal a map to the lost pyramids of Jackson Hole? But no. After I got AFTERNOON T, the theme became clear. No incense needed. No pyramids. Just a solid, clever theme.

I don't normally do this, but … the constructor's birthday was just a couple days ago, so: Happy Birthday, Bernice. And nice work.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Elizabeth A. Long

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: DOTTED I (36A: Lowercase letter illustrated six times in this puzzle?)— all "I"s have the letter string "DOT" directly above them.

Word of the Day: JAYNE Meadows (48D: Old-time actress Meadows) —

Jayne Meadows (born September 27, 1919 in Wuchang, China) is an American stage, film and television actress, as well as an author and lecturer. // Meadows' most famous movies include: Undercurrent (with Katharine Hepburn), Song of the Thin Man (with William Powell and Myrna Loy), David and Bathsheba (with Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Raymond Massey), Lady in the Lake (with Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter), Enchantment (with David Niven and Teresa Wright), andCity Slickers (as the voice of Billy Crystal's oversolicitous mother). Among her earliest television appearances, Meadows played reporter Helen Brady in a 1953 episode of Suspense opposite Walter Matthau entitled, "F.O.B. Vienna."
She was a regular panelist on the original version of I've Got a Secret and an occasional panelist on What's My Line?, the latter alongside husband Steve Allen. She also appeared on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood. During the early days of the burgeoning live entertainment scene in Las Vegas, the Allens occasionally worked together as an act. Prior to Allen's death in 2000, the couple made several TV appearances together - in 1998 they played an argumentative elderly couple in an episode of the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (based on the hypothetical Ronald Opus case) in which Allen's character accidentally shoots a suiciding man as he is plunging from the roof of their building. In 1999 they made their last joint TV appearance (again playing a couple) in the all-star episode of the Dick Van Dyke series Diagnosis: Murder, entitled "The Roast", which marked Allen's final screen appearance during his lifetime. Meadows has also been active in Republican affairs although Steve Allen was a Democrat. She is the recipient of several Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from various universities. (wikipedia)

• • •

Had no idea what was going on—none—until I was finished, and I didn't get the "revealer" until very late in the game. I can see, in retrospect, that this theme is clever, conceptually, but it was not pleasant to solve at all, in large part because of the revealer. DOTTED I… I have to say that it's not a thing. You dot your "i"s, sure, but you say "lowercase i" not DOTTED I. It's just not tight, as a phrase, and when I saw [Lowercase letter…] in the clue, all I could think of was, "What?" A letter is a letter. A lowercase letter is a lowercase letter. What the hell answer could it be? Is DOTTED J a thing? It follows the same logic. What exactly is an "undotted i"? It doesn't exist. So, a DOTTED I is … an I. A lowercase "i." If it is lowercase, then it is dotted—so you would never call it "dotted" because its lowercaseness makes that a given. There's just something about the phrase DOTTED I, and the way it was clued, that sat very poorly with me.

Also, the cluing. It was what I would call Newsday cluing. Now, I love the Newsday"Saturday Stumper," but too often difficulty is achieved in that puzzle via ambiguous one- or two-word phrases. Not imaginative; just vague. There just wasn't much cleverness or playfulness in the cluing here. It was all [Turn], [Lead], [Grasped], [Coll. units], so the puzzle ended up being kind of a drag to work through. ANECDOTE is [Speaker's aid]? That is so forced, it hurts. An ANECDOTE *is* speech. The speaker is speaking when telling an ANECDOTE. I get that it somehow "aids" you in getting your point across, maybe, but that clue seems tenuous. [First of all] should have a question mark for sure. SCH., however, *doesn't* need "Abbr." because the "Tech" in the clue is already an abbreviation (27D: Tech, e.g.). Other difficulties came from stuff I just didn't know, or stuff that looked weird. AMANDA? (16A: "The Glass Menagerie" woman). No. CANOEIST? (17A: Paddle pusher). I'm sure that's right, but spelling-wise, I was having trouble buying it. UNBELT? (42A: Start to take off one's pants, say). I got that easily enough, actually, but until *all* the crosses checked out, I wasn't sure (credit to the clue, though, which is by far the most interesting of the day). DOT over I is a cute concept, but I think it needed a different revealer, and the cluing overall just needed to be more interesting/better/tighter. Good idea, wobbly execution.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

WARNING—

The NYT appears to have printed the WRONG puzzle in the paper, or some versions of the paper. As you can see here (http://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/index.html), today's puzzle is supposed to be the one by Kevin Der (discussed below). If you have one by Ian Livengood, I can't help you. Maybe that's supposed to be tomorrow's? Someone screwed up. Anyway, I blog the one I got, the one the NYT site *says* is today's: Kevin Der's. Please send your complaints to the NYT, not me. Thank you.

[UPDATE UPDATE: It's not clear what puzzle will be running tomorrow in your newspaper. The Livengood that dead-tree solvers got today was definitely *not* supposed to run today. It was from down the pipeline (not sure where). Just got off the phone with Kevin Der, whose puzzle (see below) was run today on the website and was *supposed* to run in the paper today; he doesn't even know if, following this printing error, his puzzle will ever run in the print edition. At this point, all I hope is that tomorrow we are all doing the same damn puzzle.]

Constructor: Kevin G. Der

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: JOANNA Gleason (43A: ___ Gleason, Tony winner for "Into the Woods") —

Joanna Gleason (born June 2, 1950) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is a Tony Award-winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles. […]
Joanne Hall was born in Toronto, Ontario, the eldest of three siblings born to television producer, and game show personality Monty Hall (né Monte Halparin), and his wife, Marilyn (née Plottel). […] Gleason appeared in several films in the 1990s, including F/X2, Mr. Holland's Opus, Boogie Nights, The Boys and Road Ends. More recently she has appeared in The Good Wife, Fathers and Sons, and The Wedding Planner. On television, she played the role of Nadine Berkus on the show Love & War (1992–95), several episodes of which she also directed. She played Joan Silver on Temporarily Yours (1997). Gleason starred in the Lifetime series Oh Baby as Charlotte from 1998–2000, also directing episodes of this show. Shortly following the end of this series, she starred opposite Bette Midler and Lindsay Lohan on Bette as agent Connie Randolph. She appeared in several made-for-TV movies, including If These Walls Could Talk, For the Love of Aaron, Born Too Soon, and For Richer, for Poorer. Her numerous guest starring TV credits include episodes of The West Wing, The Practice, King of the Hill, Friends, Tracey Takes On...,Murphy Brown, ER, Outer Limits, and Diff'rent Strokes. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey look, it's KIEL (23A: German port on the Baltic). It's (almost) good to see you again, buddy.

Very smooth grid, very professionally done. So smooth, actually, that it felt a bit lifeless. Actually, that's not fair—but it did lack some spark, some personality, some Something to make it snappy and memorable. For a puzzle with a word count this low (66), the overall quality of the fill is remarkable. It's just that the only answer that really pops for me, the only one that seems plausible as a seed entry, is "EYES ON ME!" (35D: "Now, look here!"). Maybe BLACK OPS, too, I don't know (11D: Some C.I.A. doings). However good the rest of the grid is (and it is), there's nothing else that really has a marquee quality to it. So I recognize that it is really well crafted. I just wish it had a little more zing, a little more, let's say, freshness. But it's good. You know when you *know* that something is good but you don't really *love* it, personally? That's how I feel about this puzzle.

The difficulty level on this one was really strange. Played very easy for me until the SW, and then it played like Saturday. A tough Saturday. This has Everything to do with the cluing on DIME STORES, and I am quite certain I won't be alone here (45A: Bowling splits in which the 5 and 10 pins remain). That is a real outlier, general knowledge-wise. I've bowled before. I've even watched a little bowling. But DIME STORES? Never heard it. It's cute—the connection between 5 pin and 10 pin, on the one hand, and (presumably) "5 and 10" stores, or DIME STORES, on the other. But I had STORES and Nothing in front of it. Also had RUNS at 37A: Operates, as a booth (MANS), which meant complete stuckness at that end of the SW corner. On the other end, same deal. Didn't even know SAABS existed in the '50s, let alone that they came only in "bottle green," so no hope there, and no hope also on NO BOTHER (31D: "Don't worry about it"). Had the NO-, but that did nothing. And so that entire corner sat wide open for a bit as I futzed around with different answers. Finally I realized there was *no* "Herb" that started LU- (I ran the alphabet), so ditched RUNS. Then remembered Latin, thought of the "LAV-" / "wash" connection, and boom, LAVENDER (32D: Herb whose name is derived from the Latin for "to wash"). Still needed to push a little harder to get MEMENTO and LEVI, and then finally ON THE MEND snapped into view, and the corner fell from there. Puzzle appears to be playing quite hard (based on the times at the NYT applet). I wonder where other people are struggling. I gotta believe it's this SW corner, if not other places as well.

AGE TWO (41D: Terrible time?) is indeed terrible and should be banned outright from all puzzles, along with all other AGE [insert number here]. If you're not going to accept AGE THIRTY-ONE (and you're not), then goodbye AGE TWO.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TERZETTO (34A: Vocal trio) —

n, pl -tos or -ti (-tɪ)
1. (Classical Music) music a trio, esp a vocal one
[C18: Italian: trio; see tercet] (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Well I thought this was just fantastic. Personality and color and spark as far as the eye can see. Very little junk. Really first-rate stuff. IVAR's kinda icky, but it was entirely gettable from crosses. I didn't know several of these answers, actually—Katharine Lee BATES, TERZETTO, TIJUANA TAXI—but I battled through them with the aid of fair crosses. Happy to learn colorful stuff like TERZETTO and TIJUANA TAXI. Not sure what a cop car has to do with Tijuana. Definitions I'm seeing involve any vehicle with "flashing lights and bright markings." Are the taxis in Tijuana garish? I don't remember. Anyway, that's a cool bit of slang. My favorite thing about this puzzle is how Now it is. Feels like it was actually made in this century: UGG BOOTS, SASHA FIERCE, FACE PALM, ADOBE READER—even the horrific "IF I DID IT" (36D: 2007 book subtitled "Confessions of the Killer")—all give the puzzle a feeling of contemporary relevance. Puzzles are always going to have room for older stuff—both very old stuff like POUF (31A: High style of the 1700s) and modern older stuff like, I don't know, "NO JIVE" or CLARA Bow (33D: Bow no longer shot—great clue). The point is that answers from *all* different times are valuable and contribute to the interestingness of the crossword. But too often it's the current stuff that gets neglected, making the puzzle feel like an exercise in nostalgia and arcana retrieval. This one doesn't have that problem. You can tell how good the good stuff is by the fact that I haven't complained once about ARNEL, a "fabric" that I've never encountered and sounds made up and appears to exist now only as a crossword answer with lots of convenient letters (6D: Vintage fabric). Not once have I complained. OK once.

Would've blown through this thing pretty dang fast were it not for … well, most of the NW. Had CRUNCH for CLUTCH at 24A: Do-or-die situation. That is one hell of a trap. I completely bought CRUNCH and would still buy CRUNCH. Anyway, that wrong answer kept me from seeing both ARNEL and RAT-A-TAT, so my ways into that section were limited. I wanted BANANAGRAMS (1A: Fast-paced alternative to Scrabble) from the beginning even though I couldn't remember the game well at all. Just *felt* right. But even with that in place I had a bit of trouble bringing that section down. Eventually decided to go for ADIDAS (which had originally been SKORTS) (2D: Court wear, maybe), and then EDIT went in, and the whole thing quickly fell.

This was tons of fun. Wish every weekend had a puzzle like this. Nice work, David. This may be my favorite thing you've done to date, but you've already done so many, who can remember?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Dan Schoenholz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"Olden Goldies"— two words in classic song titles get spoonerized, with wacky results

Theme answers:

"I CITE THE WRONGS" (23A: Traffic copy's answer upon being asked "Describe your job"? [1975]) [Problem: "Describe your job" is not a question, so you can't "ask" it]
"RAFTER IN THE LANE" (32A: Post-tornado highway detritus, perhaps? [1974])
"SHE'S SO HIGH" (50A: Remark about a female stoner? [1980])

"DOWNED HOG" (72A: Roast pig after a pig roast? [1956])
"FUN WINE DAY" (89A: Napa Valley excursion, maybe? [1963])
"YOUR HEATIN' CHART" (108A: Data request from a good ol' furnace repairman? [1953])
"MAD BOONE RISING" (122A: Frontiersman awakening in a foul mood? [1969])

Word of the Day: TABORET (41D: Backless seat, for one) —

A taboret (also spelled tabouret) refers to two different pieces of furniture: a cabinet or a stool.
The popular sense refers to a small portable stand or cabinet, with drawers and shelves for storage. It is used as a method to bring organization to a work area. This name for a portable cabinet is common to artists. In the context of a the Arts and Crafts Movement, a taboret is a stand for a plant or a beverage.
As a stool, it refers to a short stool without a back or arms. The name is derived from its resemblance to a drum (diminutive of Old French tabour). (wikipedia)

• • •

This is cute, though it has some consistency issues. These theme answers are snappiest and tightest when all words (excluding prepositions, articles and pronouns) are involved. But I found the non-spoonerized DAY (in 89A) and RISING (in 122A) to be distracting and inelegant. Still, it's a nice light amusement, as themes go. Fill is just so-so—very clean, but pretty blah as well. TABORET is a ridiculous outlier—about a thousand times more arcane than anything else in the grid. It was also the only answer that caused much resistance at all today. At the TABOR-T / S-ERED crossing I just stopped. Couldn't see it. Wanted "E" but SEERED is not a thing. Rookie Mistake. Hang-My-Head, Slap-Myself Mistake. That's Parsing 101 right there. Not SEERED, of course, but SEE [space] RED. SEE RED. This was my bad, but did nothing to endure stupid TABORET to me. It's the worst answer in the grid, right? Right? You agree, right? I'm sorry, I mean, you're all AGREERS, right!? Right? OK, wait. I change my mind. There's a worse answer.

Mildly disturbed that half these so-called "oldies" are from my lifetime. But only mildly. Interesting attempt at 9D to put some lipstick on the crosswordese pigs that is ORR / OAR / ORE / O'ER (9D: Hockey great whose name is a homophone of 88-Across and 123- and 124-Down). Had a few missteps. Wanted OSIRIS at 1A: Egyptian resurrection symbol (SCARAB), even though I knew it was a stretch to call a god a "symbol." Wasn't until just now that I understood what BATH meant as the answer to 6D: Setting for David's "The Death of Marat." I was like "BATH? In England? The death of Marat took place in England? That … makes no sense." Indeed. Wrong kind of BATH. Not the city BATH. The splash splash BATH. Terrible clue on LENIN (37D: Name that starts a well-known "ism"). A. there are so many clues and go with one that involves a crosswordese suffix? and B. LENINism is a lot less "well known" (and oft-said) than many, many other "ism"s. Just a lifeless clue, that one. I like the part where LOLITA is likened to a puzzle (126A: About whom Nabokov said "She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle—its composition and its solution at the same time")—nothing like having the activity you're currently engaged in be compared to pedophilia, amirite? Not Tone Deaf At All, I'm sure you're all AGREERS.

On to other business. Two other puzzles you might be interested in checking out. First is Fireball Newsweekly Crosswords, a biweekly puzzle focused on current events, ed. by Peter Gordon. These crosswords are super-timely, and tend to be easier than regular Fireball Crosswords (which, again, you really should be subscribed to by now). Today is his Kickstarter's last day, so get over there and support it if that sounds good to you. Also, you might check out Andrew Ries's "Aries Puzzles"—he makes wonderful Rows Garden puzzles (a variation on crosswords that involves rows of answers and circular "blooms" that cut through them (full explanation on his site, in the sidebar). He's offering subscriptions on a name-your-own price model. How can you go wrong. The new season just started, so jump on board.

Hardcore puzzle solvers should be sure to bookmark "Today's Puzzles" over at Amy Reynaldo's "Diary of a Crossword Fiend." It's got links to ALL THE PUZZLES, including the independents, and it's updated daily. It's my one-stop puzzle destination every morning. I go there, I print puzzles, I load up my clipboard, I head downstairs and solve over coffee. Seriously, this one page pretty much eliminates the problem of trying to track down all the different puzzles, trying to remember which one comes out when, etc. You just click, find the puzzle you want, and bam. Done.

OK, and now time for my PUZZLE OF THE WEEK: this week was competitive, with several themelesses making strong claims for my attention, but in the end, it was a puzzle that started the week that stood out the most. Lynn Lempel's NYT Monday puzzle (ONE AND ALL) was a model of the form. Crisp, clean, lively, simple. Looks easy / is not. Early-week themed puzzles are so often forgettable (in large part because they go by so quickly), but they have to be carefully crafted like every other puzzle. Well I guess they don't have to be. But they should be. Lynn is a master craftsperson when it comes to easy themed puzzles, and her Monday puzzle this week was truly exceptional.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Elizabeth C. Gorski

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: MLK, JR. (38A: Annual Jan. honoree) — a tribute puzzle in honor of MLK Day (i.e. today)

LINCOLN MEMORIAL (17A: Site of a 1963 speech by 38-Across)
CIVIL RIGHTS (30A: Cause associated with 38-Across)
"I HAVE A DREAM" (49A: Repeated phrase in 38-Across's speech at the 17-Across)
"WE ARE FREE AT LAST" (65A: Famous closing words of the 49-Across speech)

Word of the Day: MIKA Brzezinski (36A: "Morning Joe" co-host Brzezinski) —

Mika Emilie Leonia Brzezinski (/ˈmiːkə brəˈzɪnski/; born May 2, 1967) is an American television host and journalist. Brzezinski co-hosts MSNBC's weekday morning broadcast Morning Joe with former Republican representative Joe Scarborough. // Brzezinski was born in New York City, the daughter of Polish-born foreign policy expert and former National Security AdvisorZbigniew Brzezinski and Swiss-born sculptor Emilie Anna Benešová. Her mother, of Czech descent, is a grandniece ofCzechoslovakia's former president Edvard Beneš. Her father was then teaching at Columbia University, but the family moved to McLean, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., in late 1976, when Zbigniew was named National Security Advisor by newly elected President Jimmy Carter. Her brother, Mark Brzezinski, is an American diplomat and the current United States Ambassador to Sweden since 2011. (wikipedia)

• • •

Pretty lackluster, as tributes go. Liz is one of the best constructors on the planet, but this theme just lies there. Bunch of "I HAVE A DREAM"-related speech stuff. Kind of ho-hum. My favorite thing about this puzzle is ATTACK AD (58A: Aggressive campaign TV spot) — a modern reality that represents the reality of our current political system. Great, modern answer that cuts against the obligatory pieties of today like an indictment. Fill is a bit subpar in places, too—standard for the NYT, but a bit less than I expect from a constructor of this caliber.

[Any way we can get "AMERICA HAS GIVEN THE NEGRO PEOPLE A BAD CHECK" into the puzzle? How come no one ever quotes *other* parts of this (great) speech???]

I found this a bit harder than normal (though by no means "hard" in any absolute sense) because of PARI- (which I didn't know how to spell: went with PARA) and ONE ALL (which I had as ONE ONE). That made 21A: Matchmaker's match-ups look like this: POIRANGS. I am quite fond of this terribly wrong non-word, POIRANGS. Sounds like an exotic ape … or fruit. But alas, the answer was PAIRINGS. I also stumbled by entering the in-the-language EPIC instead of the crosswordese / technical term no one uses, EPOS at 46A: Long narrative poem. This meant that my Niagara Falls (40D: Niagara Falls sound = ROAR) was making all kinds of weird sounds, most notably FIAR (I typoed the "F" somehow, perhaps instinctively following MLK with JF … K? Who knows? Anyway, slowed down there as well. Time was still quite normalish.

Enjoy your day, especially if you're lucky enough to have it off.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Todd Gross

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: WORD / LOOP (1A: With 72-Across, what the answers on this puzzle's perimeter form) — words on perimeter form a loop, where (moving clockwise from 1A), each successive answer represents a one-letter change from the previous one, until you end up back where you started: at WORD. [I'm told that the "O" is also part of the theme, in that it is the only vowel in the themers, and appears exclusively in themers; I can't imagine most people will notice this, or care, but in case it is thematic, I'm telling you about it]

Theme answers:

WORD, WOOD, WOOT, TOOT, HOOT, HOOP, LOOP, LOOK, KOOK (I went for LOON here at first…), COOK, CORK, CORD

Word of the Day: RUPIAH (54A: Indonesian currency) —

n., pl., rupiah.
A basic unit of currency in Indonesia.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/rupiah#ixzz2r04mVEha

• • •

Yesterday's puzzle was gunky, but it looks squeaky clean next to this thing. First, this theme is kind of a pointless and dull trick, but let's just say it's a cute variation on the (tired) word ladder, give it some credit for its loopiness, and move on. What about the rest of the puzzle? The majority of the puzzle? The Answers You Have To Fill In To Complete The Puzzle? Well, those … yikes. At this point, I don't understand how a constructor can make a grid like this and *not* say to himself, "man, this really could be better." There is so much junk here, it's astonishing. Very few interesting, longer answers—but tons of 4- and 5-letter answers, and so many of them mediocre-to-outright-bad. The constructors whose work I (generally) love, these people would (mostly) be ashamed to have corners like that SE corner: ADRIP, ATRIP, and RUPIAH (!?!?!)? In the same tight space? And that's hardly out of the ordinary for this grid. AWEE!? UPAS? OBER? Everywhere you look, the grid's marked by an "eh, whatever, good enough" attitude. No craft. No care for the fill. Database says the answer has been used before, so, sure, go with it. No matter if it's icky or rarely used or whatever. Computer Say Good So Good. This drives me nuts. As you can see. LETA WILEE ORNE ISE. There is no good reason for fill to be this poor. And it IS poor, and even those of you who think I'm "too harsh" know that this is poor. You've been at this too long. Come on, now. This theme may require a compromise here or there (esp. in the corners), but a gajillion compromises? No.

I will give the puzzle this—it has one nice patch: the KEYWEST NEWSEEK SEXUAL CARWAX nexus. Side note: I think something marketing itself as SEXUAL CARWAX might sell very well.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Jared Banta

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: HANSEL AND GRETEL (35A: Story mapped out in this grid, from lower left to upper right) — circles spell out BREAD CRUMBS and form a winding path leading from SW corner (where one square represents "HOME") to the NW corner (where another square represents "WITCH"). The fairy tale's publisher (BROTHERS GRIMM) (52A: Publishers of 35-Across, with "the") and … some guy who wrote fairy tales But Not This Fairy Tale (?!) (HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN) (20A: With 23-Across, giant in fairy tales) are also in the grid

Word of the Day: CÉSAR RITZ (34D: Swiss "king of hoteliers") —

César Ritz (23 February 1850 – 24 October 1918) was a Swiss hotelier and founder of several hotels, most famously theHôtel Ritz, in Paris and The Ritz Hotel in London. His nickname was "king of hoteliers, and hotelier to kings," and it is from his name and that of his hotels that the term ritzy derives. (wikipedia)

• • •

This feels like a good core idea that did not get the execution it needed. The puzzle doesn't quite … come off, for a variety of reasons. Grid can't really capture the there-and-back-again quality of the story, so we just have the voyage to the WITCH. If the kids had died there, that would be great, but of course they didn't. Next, the "HOME" and "WITCH" squares (great idea to have those rebus squares) are poorly "hidden." Ideally, you would clue the rebus answers in such a way that the core meaning of the rebus square is masked (a la "THE S[witch]"—"witch" meaning is totally lost within the answer). But here we have [witch]ES, which is just sad, and then AT [home] / [home] BREW, both essentially preserving the meaning of [home], and therefore, not great as rebus squares. Very, very hard to disguise them, I'll grant you. If you move them off the corners you've got a better shot. But let's move on.

Circles are not just arbitrary, they are the very definition of arbitrary. The arbitrariest. Completely randomly placed. But they capture the winningness of the route effectively, so I actually don't hate them. They make sense. But here's what doesn't *quite* make sense to me: I'm not fairy tale expert, but … what is HANS CHRISTIAN / ANDERSEN doing here (we'll leave the fact that ANDERSEN has no corresponding symmetrical theme answer for now)? I am looking through his oeuvre (cursorily, I'll grant you), and I can't find a version of "Hansel & Gretel." Actually, scratch that. I can find a *version*, but it's not actually called "HANSEL AND GRETEL"—it's called "The Pancake House"! Here it is. The characters are named Hans and Grethe. So … yes, it's a version. But, problem: that version has No Bread Crumbs. So this huge, two-tiered theme answer is here, but it has no direct relationship to the theme. It's just vaguely "fairy tale"-related. My fellow blogger thinks the clue probably originally referred directly to the theme, but was fact-checked late in the game, after the puzzle had been accepted and edited. So clue gets changed and you get this looong "theme" answer that just … hangs there. Sadly. Inaptly.

Oh, also, TNS. Never seen it. A 3-letter answer I've never seen. Huh. Interesting. Rest of the fill is pretty average. I mean, RELOG is horrid, as is HIST., and TWO-ROW is from outer space (42D: Like some farm cultivators), but the rest seems mostly fine. Love CÉSAR RITZ because who knew his name was CÉSAR!? Interesting trivia.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. here's something kind of cool—one of my readers sent me a photo of himself when he was a child, in the late '40s, in a cool cowboy outfit, standing in front of a house just a few doors down from where I currently live in Binghamton, NY. So naturally my wife and I went over and took a photo of me holding the old photo in front of that same house. Results here, at my wife's blog.

Constructor: Michael Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BLOCKs — solvers have to supply 3 BLOCKs as well as the missing numbers for the post-BLOCK Acrosses and Downs, which don't actually appear in the grid.

NEWKIDONTHEBLOCK
BLOCKADE
SUNBLOCK
BLOCKSOUT
BUTCHERBLOCK
BLOCKPARTIES
CINDERBLOCK
BLOCKQUOTES
ICEBLOCK
BLOCKBUSTERMOVIE
CELLBLOCK
BLOCKAGE

Word of the Day: IDAS (53D: One of the Argonauts) —

In Greek mythology, Idas (Ancient Greek: Ἴδας Ídas) was a son of Aphareus and Arene and brother of Lynceus. He and Lynceus loved Hilaeira and Phoebe and fought with their rival suitors, Castor and Polydeuces, killing the mortal brother Castor. He was also one of the Argonauts and a participant in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. He kidnapped Marpessa. Apollo also desired her andZeus made the girl choose. She chose the mortal Idas, fearing that Apollo could abandon her when she grew old. With Marpessa, Idas had one daughter named Cleopatra. (wikipedia)

• • •

When you have an elaborate concept like this, it's really, Really important for the execution to come off with a hitch. While this puzzle represents an interesting variation on the rebus puzzle, the bit where the solver also has to supply missing numbers in the grid and figure out those unnumbered (in the grid) Acrosses and Downs—that was far from enjoyable. I finished the puzzle and had no idea that those post-BLOCK answers (i.e. BLOCKade, BLOCKs out, BLOCK parties, etc.) were even clued. At all. This is because I, like many constant solvers, do not read the clues like a book, from beginning to end. We look at the grid and let the grid tell us what clues to look at. So there was no way I was ever going to see 23-Across (in the clue) because there is no "23" in the grid. It's a pretty simple problem. And, the thing is, I didn't even need the clues (23A/D, 39A/D, 56A/D). I realized that the answers would simply be "words/phrases starting with BLOCKS" and figured them out from crosses. The awkwardness of the numbering, combined with the inessentialness of the numbering, proved a huge distraction. Mainly, it made the solve more puzzling (not good-puzzling, more WTF-puzzling), and less enjoyable than it might have been had the core concept just *snapped* into view. As I was solving, I was thinking "OK, something's coming, some revealer, something that will explain the unclued stuff and tie all this BLOCK stuff together." But the shoe never dropped. Later, someone pointed out that the missing clues are actually there—they're just not numbered in the grid. Oh. OK. That seems more a design flaw than a design feature.

Fill is not good, but it's a pretty dense theme, so I can let it slide (though every part of me wants to rag on "TSU," Whatever That Is) (Holy Crap, it's Texas Southern University, not Texas State, as I'd imagined) (TSU hasn't been clued this way in 20 years, BTW). OK, no, I do have to perp-walk IDAS, ELOI/ELEA, TSU, ENOW, LUNE, OXI, and INO. OK, that is all.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

NOTE to PRINT SOLVERS— your puzzle will be different due to last week's NYT screw-up. Go here if you are looking for the puzzle by Kevin Der (which was supposed to run last week, and which online solvers, including me, *got* last week).

Constructor: Ian Livengood

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: WAHINE (15A: Miss out on a board) —

n.
Hawaii. A Polynesian woman.
Sports. A woman surfer.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/vahin#ixzz2rHcXO6VL

• • •

I liked this one, though more for its cluing than its fill, I think. I just found it entertaining to solve. Turns out I don't mind a bunch of "?" clues if they are clever *and* the puzzle is relatively easy. Some of them were transparent (e.g. [Civic leader?] = CEE), but others required more thought (e.g. [One who's trustworthy?] = HEIR). I think I'd've given the puzzle a thumbs-up for the clue on MILE HIGH CLUB alone (26A: Group that no one on earth has ever joined). A great entry deserves a great clue, and this one got one. There's a slangy feeling to the grid, which I enjoy. I think you'd have to be pretty rude/paranoid to answer the door with "WHO'S THAT?!" but I guess if you let the person in with a warm "HOW ARE YA!?" then all would be forgiven. There is some fill here that is a bit frown-worthy. HEPS? Weirdly, I had HUTS there (see 25D: Humble dwellings)—but maybe "HUTS" are the sounds a quarterback makes and HEPS are the sounds drill sergeants make? Or are those HUPS? Whatever, I'm still not a fan of HEPS. Anyway, HUTS was already in the grid, in residence form, so that answer was never gonna be right. Eventually ESPOUSED forced me to fix it. Also, never liked IRES and never will. Cannot take that word seriously a. as a verb or b. in the plural.

Weird coincidence: not twenty minutes ago, I opened mail from a Rex Parker reader who railed against 44A: "___ magnifique" (TRÈS), claiming it was either awkward or redundant or roughly as bad as saying "very unique." Anyway, the point is He Criticized the Clue Before the Puzzle Came Out. I guess it's a recycled clue, but still, it was Very eerie to come across that clue tonight [OK, now that I see that this puzzle actually appeared in newspapers *last* Friday, this coincidence is not so weird]. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about written-out numbers in crossword answers—the kind of numbers you *never* see written out in real life. Like, today, I-TEN and (I think) L SEVEN. See also BTWO, VSIX, etc. Allowing written numbers like that certainly makes for some interesting, unexpected fill, but it also always feels a bit … cheap, somehow. The Dudley Moore movie is "10," not "TEN.""EIGHT MILE" would just seem wrong. But it's a convention I've learned to live with, and maybe it does more good than harm in the long run—allowing for more interesting fill possibilities and solving challenges.

Overall, this was enjoyable. I wasn't awed, but I wasn't ired, either.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: James Mulhern

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Park TAE-hwan (63D: Swimming gold medalist Park ___-hwan) —

Park Tae-hwan (born September 27, 1989) is a South Korean swimmer. He is a member of the South Korean national swimming team, based in Taereung, Seoul. He won a gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle and a silver in the 200 meter freestyle events at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He is the first Asian swimmer to claim a gold medal in men's 400 m freestyle, and the first Korean to win an Olympic medal in swimming. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is solid. Workmanlike, but solid. It's a *little* too heavy on the icky / tired short stuff (see esp. the NERTS / ELIA / ANS collusion in the SE). But it's certainly not bad, and it gave me a good workout, especially in the SW corner, where I stalled quite badly. At first all I had was NUMBSKULL. Then I guessed ECOLI and UNLOCK and thought "I got this." But no. Put in URNS. Still no. Tried LANK and LEAN where I needed LITE. Tried NATL where I needed NAUT. As for TAE—forget about it. That was never gonna happen (though I will say that my flat-out guess of RAE probably helped me see NUTELLA, finally) (66A: "Spread the Happy" sloganeer). Clue on RAIN OUT is quite poor, as a RAIN OUT is not a "game." By definition. Clue says that it can't be played, but a RAIN OUT is only ever in the past, so it should say "couldn't" be played. Clue is trying to be cutesy, but it needs a "?" if it wants to play this fast and lose with reality/grammar.

So the [Bible] is the WORD OF GOD now? Just … is? Not "to some," or "allegedly"? OK then. I will take a stance of MUTISM on this issue, I guess. (me, mid-solve: "Mutes have an -ism now?"). I think the bigger corners are better than the smaller corners. NW is probably the best, with a nice "Z" intersection to start things off. Clue on ZOMBIE is very good and had me puzzled for a long time (1A: Body that doesn't remain at rest?). I like the [Johns of Britain] [John of Britain] sequence, mostly because I wrote in LOOS and MAJOR. Not so helpful. I have ordered many an Americano in my time, and … SODA? We're not talking about the coffee drink, then? Oh, no, I see it's a Campari-based cocktail. Weird coincidence—I bought my first ever bottle of Campari yesterday so that I could make a Negroni (easy, colorful, enjoyable). I felt compelled to branch out into non-G&T gin drinks because the good people at St. George Spirits (who apparently read my blog) sent me a bunch of gins as part of a thank-you gift, and, well, they're not going to drink themselves. They also sent me bourbon. Anyway, where was I? Eh, who cares. Now I'm thirsty.

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you're wondering how I could refrain from talking about the crosswordese ZOMBIE that is ULU (38A: Inuit knife) … my strategy was "just ignore it and it will go away." We'll see …

P.P.S. I review Ben Tausig's book "The Curious History of the Crossword" in today's Wall Street Journal. Here's a PDF.

Constructor: Daniel A. Finan

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME:"It's All Relative"— Cross-referenced clues (stacked one atop the other) make sense only in reference to each other, i.e. based on their position relative to one another, you (the solver) have to supply the word [under] or [over] to make sense of one part of each answer pair.

THUS … :

51D: 3-Down, relatively (BEWITCHED) … which is (literally) [under] A SPELL (3D)
6D: 73-Down, relatively (NO WAY, JOSÉ) … which is (literally) [over] MY DEAD BODY (73D)
52D: 8-Down, relatively (FEELING THE HEAT) … which is (literally) [under] THE GUN (8D)
12D: 93-Down, relatively ("TALK TO YOU LATER") … which is (literally) [over] AND OUT (93D)
82D: 14-Down, relatively (SHELTERED) … which is (literally) [under] LOCK AND KEY (14D)
42D: 95-Down, relatively (EXCESSIVE) … which is (literally) [over] THE TOP (95D)

Word of the Day: ELOGE (99D: Funeral delivery of old) —

n. a virtual theater seat (I assume)

• • •

Wow. I'm not sure there's a puzzle that better exemplifies the discrepancy between concern for theme and concern for fill than this one. Essentially, if your theme passes muster, you can put virtually anything you want in your grid and no one is going to say 'boo.' This is a clever and ambitious theme, but the fill is hilariously bad in many, many places. I say "hilariously" not figuratively (with some kind of dismissive sneer in my voice), but literally, as in "I literally laughed out loud at how bad this fill was—multiple times, LOL, for real." I knew things were Not going to go well in the NW (this is often the case, i.e. I can tell from the NW corner alone how good/bad the entire puzzle is going to be, fill-wise). LAICAL just hurts (more than LAIC, even), as did PIS, ONAN, and esp. KAS. But that's not exactly unusual in its mediocrity. Certainly not sub-NYT at this point. But then I hit TREELET and the wheels came off (55A: Sapling). That answer made me laugh so hard I almost didn't see ODI (!?). TREELET appeared once in a puzzle 13 years ago. Lord knows what *that* guy's excuse was. Hee hee. TREELET. Rich.

And here's the thing—it's a shame. Because as Annoying as I find extensive use of cross-referencing in clues (esp. theme clues), in the end, this theme was imaginative, and air tight. Nice symmetrical alteration between "under" and "over" phrases. Good. But this should've been sent back for refilling. The south is probably the worst part—the part that best exemplifies how shoddy the fill is. EWEN is bad, in that it's an obscure proper noun, but let's say any given section can have a clunker like that. But Right Next to ELOGE? What kind of antiquated nonsense is that. Again, database says some guy used it once (7 years ago), so … fair game! Better care and craft could minimize this arcane / bygone / anything-goes nonsense. But somebody, Somebody, has got to overrule the computer. SLIGO? SEHR? Again, it's not that any one of these answers shouldn't be permissible. It's the constant onslaught of foreign or antiquated or partial stuff that significantly detracts from the pleasure one should be having piecing together this more-than-decent theme. My friend recently made the following chart, and it is crude and unfair, but it gets at a certain general truth:

There is no polishing going on. There is accepting and rejecting based on whether a theme "tickles," but there is nothing between us and IRED, ERSE, etc. A smattering of that stuff is tolerable. A spate, however, is just too much.

The Puzzle of the Week this week was a tough call, with a cute "Monster Under the BED" puzzle by Matt Jones (Jonesin' Crosswords) and a genuinely astonishing, NSFW themeless by independent constructor Peter Broda (The Cross Nerd). But the winner by a nose was Doug Peterson for his Newsday "Saturday Stumper" (themeless). Sunday through Friday, Newsday produces a solid, easy themed puzzle, but on Saturday, woooo look out! Fill gets much more ambitious and the clue difficulty goes to 11. The great thing about Doug's puzzle was how *clever* the hard clues were. [It might cover your elbows] is PASTA SAUCE, [Something found around a tree] is SHOE, [Grades above 86, typically] is OCTANES. Over and over again, the clues fake right and go left. The fill is smooth as hell. I mean "Put Most Themelesses To Shame" smooth, while sacrificing nothing in the way of interesting longer answers (HAD KITTENS, "MARIO PARTY," VOODOO DOLL, etc.). I just love solving Doug's puzzles generally. Always smart, funny, clever—*enjoyable*. No cheapness anywhere. Pick up his book of Easy puzzles here ("Easy as ABC Crosswords"), and check out the Newsday "Saturday Stumper" every Saturday (available, like so many puzzles, via Amy's "Today's Puzzles" page).

In case you missed it, here's my review of Ben Tausig's recent book "The Curious History of the Crossword," which appeared in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Read it here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: James Tuttle
Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:It's about TIME! Theme entries are comprised of two words that can precede or follow "time" in a phrase.

Word of the Day: FIBONACCI — [Eponym of a number series that begins 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, ...]

Leonardo Fibonacci – was an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages." (wikipedia)

• • •

Matt Gaffney here, filling in for Rex this week while he's doing who-knows-what in historic Binghamton (probably just grading papers, but let's pretend he's parasailing days and drinking absinthe evenings).

Quick graf to establish my sterling bona fides: I've been a professional crossword puzzle writer for the past 15 years. I write a daily mini-puzzle here (easy), a weekly current events puzzle for The Weekhere (medium), and a weekly crossword contest here (difficult) . I also write a crossword blog here. And I do other crossword stuff which is easily Googleable. Or Bingable, since Rex lives in Binghamton.

On to the Monday NYX:

Theme answers:

17-A [*Flying] = AIR TRAVEL
24-A [*One placed between warring parties] = PEACEKEEPER
32-A [*Contestant's help on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"] = LIFELINE
45-A [*King, queen or jack] = FACE CARD
52-A [*Piece of furniture that might be under a chandelier] = DINNER TABLE
63-A [Vacation lodging purchase ... or an arrangement between the two halves of the answer to each starred clue?] = TIME SHARE

It's OK to do a crossword theme that's been done before, but if you're going to do it, do it with a new wrinkle. And that's what James Tuttle does today: each of the five theme entries (besides the revealer) consists of a two-word phrase, the first of which precedes the word "time" in a phrase, and the second of which follows it. So we have "airtime" and "time travel," then "peacetime" and "timekeeper," and then three more that you've probably already deduced.

This kind of "word that follows ...." theme is well-known, but I applaud the wrinkle here that the two phrases "share" the word TIME, as given in the TIME SHARE revealer. I'm told that real-life timeshares can be a huge pain in the ass, but this one was quite pleasant. So thumbs-up on the theme.

Bullets:

Star fill: the aforementioned FIBONACCI, plus CLEOPATRA, I DUNNO, BLEND IN, and a FACE CARD which is always welcome in my beloved weekly Texas HOLD 'EM game. You want all of these in your crossword.
But: Rex and other smart critics have repeatedly highlighted the Achilles' heel of the New York Times puzzle, which is early-week suboptimal fill, and as a crossword demon I can't let it pass without comment. OLEIC [Kind of acid in soapmaking], EMEER [Mideast bigwig: Var.], and OATEN [Like some cereals] don't belong in crossword puzzles period, and on a Monday I'll ding those three a full .75 on the 5-star scale used at the blog Diary of a Crossword Fiend. The "Var." tag should be used about three times a year in a daily crossword, and never on Mondays. Ne[Var.]. There's some other less-than-Monday stuff in here, too (EWERS, NICAD, IRANI) that you don't see in other top-level crosswords.
I dig the amusing linked clues at 2-Down and 14-Across, TRIED and TRUE. Good decision to go unconventional on the cluing there.
General un-dig: this crossword doesn't have a single clue that couldn't have been written ten years ago. How about a "Book of Mormon" reference for LDS, or a "Blue Jasmine" reference for ALLEN for Woody instead of Ethan, or a David SPADE reference instead of [Digging tool]? Would that've killed anyone? I'm not saying the NYX has to become one of the hipster crosswords, but every single clue in this puzzle could've been from pre-2004. [First number dialed when calling long distance] for ONE doesn't help the musty overall vibe, either.
Not that there's anything wrong with classical: AENEID, DOLCE, AHAB and PENN are all solid items in the Western canon.

On the Fiend scale I'd give the theme here a 4.30 out of 5.00, but the fill and overall stale cluing vibe a 3.50. We'll average that out to a 3.80, and I will say that I enjoyed the solve and look forward to the rest of the week, and congratulate Mr. Tuttle on what I see is his 4th Times puzzle. Bravo to him, and over and out until tomorrow.

Signed, Matt Gaffney, Regent for one week of CrossWorld

Constructor: Jeff Stillman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:"You don't know -BO" -- base phrases take a -BO ending (with spelling changes) to make wacky new phrases.

Word of the Day: PARAKEET. Parakeet is a name for any one of a large number of unrelated small to medium sized species of parrot, that generally have long tail feathers. Older spellings still sometimes encountered are paroquet or paraquet. [Wikipedia]

• • •

Matt Gaffney here again, filling in for Rex all week. Theme answers take a -BO sound:

Theme answers:

20-Across [Celebration dance after a goal?] = SOCCER MAMBO
57-Across [Punched out a Disney elephant?] = STRUCK DUMBO
11-Down [Aerobics done to Chubby Checker music?] = TWIST TAE-BO
29-Down [Give a hobbit a ring?] = PHONE BILBO

I saw the -BO entries emerge and kept trying to guess what the revealer would be. And then...there's just no revealer. We're just adding -BO to phrases for no reason. Sort of a downer, since a solver at this point in the evolution of the add-a-letter/letters/sound idea is going to be looking for a revealer, which would ideally add a unifying and humorous flourish, but here -- we got nothin'. Not optimal.

I was also unable to find any of the four theme entries very humorous. Punching an elephant isn't funny, and neither is dancing after a soccer goal or doing aerobics to music, which are very common activities. I guess phoning a character from The Hobbit is slightly wacky, but if that's the go-to theme entry then we're probably not bringing down the house.

The fill had 78 entries in it, normally the max in a daily puzzle, and the grid is not at all taxing with just four 10/11-letter themers. But there's little sizzle in it; the best entries are PARAKEET, DUBAI...what else? SPLIT UP? Maybe INFRA-RED? There's not a single marquee piece of fill, and a grid with just four medium-size themers (and no revealer) should have been full of them. If Brendan Quigley had filled this thing there'd be six or eight pieces of stellar longish fill that no reviewer could fail to mention; here there's not really a single one. None of the four rare letters make an appearance, either.

On the positive side we can say that the fill is clean: there aren't any awful entries, though I think the abbreviation for Baptist wants to be BAPT instead of BAP, and URGER and OBI are a little less than good. But not a big deal. Overall, the fill is clean but unexciting.

The clues have more of the same musty vibe I noted in yesterday's puzzle, where not a single clue couldn't have been written 10 years ago. In today's puzzle we have exactly one clue less than a decade old, [Home of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building] for DUBAI. But that's your daily dose of modernity; check out the SE corner, where BART is [Former baseball commissioner Giamatti], HART is [Politico Gary], and OTTO is [Comics canine]. If I were Rex I would write "1987 called and it wants its corner back," but I'm not so I won't. But it did and it does.

Any one of these clues is OK in a vacuum, but when you have zero or one clues per day referencing anything that happened in the previous decade? I hope we've just hit a musty patch and that clues later in the week will have more zip. Again, the NYX doesn't need to become a hipster puzzle, but an occasional reminder that we're solving a puzzle in the 21st century would help enormously.

Signed, Matt Gaffney, Regent for six more days of CrossWorld

Constructor: Michael Black

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"Organization Men"— Four guys with an apt initialism/acronym ensconced in their names

Word of the Day: SABO [1988 N.L. Rookie of the Year Chris] —

Christopher Andrew (Chris) Sabo (born January 19, 1962, in Detroit, Michigan) is a former third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the Cincinnati Reds (1988–93, 1996), Baltimore Orioles (1994), Chicago White Sox (1995) and St. Louis Cardinals (1995). At 6'0" and 180 lb (82 kg), he batted and threw right-handed. He attended Detroit Catholic Central High School. [Wikipedia]

• • •

Theme answers:

20-Across [A general and his country] = ULYSSES S GRANT
37-Across [A hoops great and his league] = ELGIN BAYLOR
44-Across [A comic and his former show] = ADAM SANDLER
59-Across [A president and his conflict] = WOODROW WILSON

This is a good theme that could've been an excellent theme. Notice how cool it is that Elgin Baylor (on the NBA's All-Time 50 Best Players list, if you didn't recognize his name) hides NBA and that Woodrow Wilson hides WWI. Those are perfect. If the constructor had found two more that hide their acronym intact like those two do, I'd be giving this theme a 10. But scattering them amid the whole name in Ulysses S. Grant and Adam Sandler robs the theme of a big chunk of its tightness. For example, of the 139 cast members in SNL history, three others also contain SNL in their names (Christine Ebersole, Siobhan Fallon, Chris Parnell). Sandler is the most famous, of course, but I'm making the point that the constraints are seriously loosened if you don't require the three letters to be consecutive.

I don't have suggestions off the top of my head -- a famous athlete from a three-letter college would be a good start, for instance -- but if the constructor had found two more this would've been a beautiful theme. As it is, I'll give it a mild thumbs-up. (Put suggestions in comments -- two winners get a set of crossword stationery from me. Surprise contest!) Note to budding constructors: tighten those themes up as much as possible, especially when you've got a very nice core idea.

I've been whining for the past two days about the musty vibe of the the week's first two puzzles, but the windows have been opened and a tide of fresh clues has cleared my sinuses. We get a Jennifer LOPEZ shout-out, a RAZR phone, even a JPEG and a SKORT. Combined with the usual (and welcome) classical references (RODIN, NIOBE, AQUA / VITAE) I'd say this is a nice mix that won't leave younger solvers feeling, like, totally alienated, you know?


JPEG of a SKORT

The fill, though -- oof. This really needed some TLC from the editor. SALA, AMOLE, OAST, ENOL crossing ENA, ISOLA, AGIN, OME (ugh), A-TESTS, WEIR clued as [Small dam] instead of Bob of the Grateful Dead or Peter who's been nominated for Best Director four times. That's some harsh wordage. Again, unnecessary suboptimal fill seems to be an unsolvable problem for NY Times puzzles; you just don't see this level of dreck in other top-level crosswords. Like a golfer who's good from the tee and the fairway but loses tournaments because his putting is shaky -- that's what we've got here. The NYX needs to up its short game. (But the constructor did do well from the fairway: SHADOWBOX and PAY-TO-PLAY are excellent).

In the NE and SE corners we have examples of what foul-mouthed crossword constructors call "Scrabble-f!@#king." You heard me complain yesterday that Tuesday's puzzle didn't have any of the rare letters in it (X, Q, Z or J). That's not a crime, but you do like to work those into the mix when you can lest your grid fall into a torrent of RSTNLE and not much else. But the key is to work them into the mix elegantly, without paying a price in fill. That Q at the corner of ESQ and AQUA isn't so bad, for example.

But in the NE the price for the nice JPEG is the awful OAST, and in the SE the price for the nice LOPEZ/RAZR crossing is the icky ISOLA. This -- going too far for your expensive Scrabble letters -- is Scrabble-f!@#king. Constructors, avoid this! Go for the lay-up if you're not sure about the slam dunk. If you've got the dunk, though, by all means, go for it. While wearing a skort.

Signed, Matt Gaffney, Regent for five more days of CrossWorld

Constructor: Dan Schoenholz

Relative difficulty: Medium-difficult

THEME:— "The Riddler" -- an old riddle gets a Schroedinger twist

Word of the Day: ANKARA — [Site of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations]

Turkey's 'other' city may not have any showy Ottoman palaces or regal facades but Ankara thrums to a vivacious, youthful beat unmarred by the tug of history. Drawing comparisons with İstanbul is pointless – the flat, modest surroundings are hardly the stuff of national poetry – but the civic success of this dynamic and intellectual city is assured thanks to student panache and foreign-embassy intrigue. The country's capital has made remarkable progress from a dusty Anatolian backwater to today's sophisticated arena for international affairs.

[Lonely Planet Guide to Turkey]

Kocatepe Mosque, Ankara

• • •

Theme answers:

17-Across [With 27-Across, an old riddle] = WHAT'S BLACK WHITE
27-Across [See 17-Across] = AND RE(A)D ALL OVER
49-Across [Answer to one spelling of the riddle] = THIS NEWSPAPER
63-Across [Answer to another spelling of the riddle] = A SUNBURNED PANDA

Just one curiously circled square in the grid, intriguing. Turns out you can put either E or EA in that circle to get "red" or "read," which answer different versions of that old riddle: "read" for "this newspaper" and "red" for "a sunburned panda." The versions of the second one I heard as a kid had a skunk, panda, penguin or zebra in a blender, which shows you what awful people I had as childhood friends. Note that either the E or EA works on the down entry too, with either SET or SEAT working for [Box ___].

So that's an OK theme, not thrilling but if you hadn't heard the "sunburned panda" one I guess it's good for a laugh. Minor dings for rephrasing the original joke and punchline to fit the grid -- it's really "What's black and white and red all over" and "a newspaper," not "What's black, white and red all over" and "this newspaper." But the idea of a one-letter Schroedinger puzzle (those puzzles where certain squares work with either of two letters in them) is novel to my knowledge, as is the idea of a Schroedinger square where you can use either one or two letters. So points for that.

I also liked the cluing style of this one. I enjoy solving (and writing) clues that reveal just enough history/geography/politics to make getting the answer a challenge, like [U.S. city known to some locals as Siqnazuaq] for NOME -- looks like an Inuit placename, but you've got to puzzle that out -- or [Capital in 2004-05's Orange Revolution] for KIEV, or [Site of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations] for ANKARA. Clues like that are like solving a mini-Sporcle quiz.

The fill is fine. Four long theme entries are pretty constraining, plus the Schroedinger square, so it'd probably be tough to knock the fill out of the park. I liked EPHEMERA, JOHANNES, METEOR, IMHO and NO LOSS. On the downside, I've never head a baseball field/stadium called a BALLYARD as it is at 6-Down [Home is one corner in it].

My favorite puzzle of the week so far.

*****

Check out yesterday's comments section for a contest (with prizes)! There are lots of entries there already, but we'll give one more day in case anyone missed it. Leave your entries in comments there (not under today's comments, under yesterday's) and I'll announce the winners tomorrow.

Signed, Matt Gaffney, Regent for four more days of CrossWorld

Larry of original West Side Story / SAT 1-11-14 / Grid great Greasy / Native of Caprica on Battlestar Galactica / Renaissance composer of Missa Papae Marcelli / Larry of original West Side Story / Fundacio Joan Miro designer / Does Ludacris impersonation

Segway inventor Dean / SUN 1-12-14 / Beat poet Cassady / Lama's art that can't last / Warm mask/cap amalgams / Bygone Bombay bigwig / Black cat that packs grass chants Jah / Landmark vassal law act / Flashback halfbacks

Anise-flavored liquid / MON 1-13-14 / Britain's last King Henry / Rio carnival dance / Wine-producing area of SE France

Thin Russian pancake / TUE 1-14-14 / Inscribed stone slab / Car with stylized caliper in its logo / Jimmy who wrote Galveston MacArthur Park

1955 hit for Platters / WED 1-15-14 / City near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base / Building unit with flanges / Philosopher who wrote It is difficulty to free fools from chains they revere

Old-time actress Meadows / THU 1-16-14 / For whom Alfred Pennyworth is butler / Glass Menagerie woman / Wheel with sloped teeth / Roman rebuke / Cartoonist who said I don't read watch TV to get ideas My work is basically sitting down at drawing table getting silly

German port on Baltic / FRI 1-17-14 / Bowling splits in which 5 10 pins remain / 1969 role for Dustin Hoffman / Cars whose only color until 1952 was bottle green / Bygone station name / Herb whose name is derived from Latin for to wash /

Vocal trio / SAT 1-18-14 / Severed Head novelist 1961 / Cop car to CBer / Beyonce's alter ego / Cornerback Law others / Wear that was one of Oprah's favorite things four times / 1983 song with lyric Let's leave Chicago to Eskimos

1997 Demi Moore title role / SUN 1-19-14 / Scarlett's sister-in-law best friend in Gone With Wind / Old from one beer lover to another sloganeer / Supposed ancestor of Dracula / Egyptian resurrection symbol / Pulitzer-winning novelist Jennifer / Warren baseball's winningest lefty

Morning Joe co-host Brzezinski / MON 1-20-13 / Dunes transport briefly / Former owner of Capitol Records / Actress Saldana of Avatar / Matchmaker's match-ups

Indonesian currency / TUE 1-21-14 / High in German names / Magazine launch of 1933 with hyphen in its name / Times Square booth sign / Fictional Flanders Plimpton / Ski resort in Salt Lake county / 2007 documentary about health care system

2010 Jennifer Aniston movie / WED 1-22-14 / Swiss king of hoteliers / Quimby of children's lit / Music genre that influenced No Doubt / Like some farm cultivators

Sea goddess who rescued Odysseus / THU 1-23-14 / Actress/model Kravitz / Snack brand represented by Sterling Cooper on Mad Men / Carlissian of Star Wars films / Member of boy band with nine top 10 hits / Poet who wrote If you want to be loved be lovable

Square in old slang as indicated by forming a square with one's hands / FRI 1-24-14 / Instruments played with mizraabs / Ambush locale in episode 1 of Lone Ranger / Sun disc wearer in myth

Inuit knife / SAT 1-25-14 / Modern Gallantry pen name / Spread the Happy sloganeer / 2012 Pro Bowl player Chris / Valley of Amazement novelist 2013 / Megadyne fractions

Gershwin biographer David / SUN 1-26-14 / Merry Drinker painter / Back to Future villains / Li'l Abner's surname / Funeral delivery of old / Movie director who was himself subject of 1994 movie / Title girl Chuck Berry hit / Pop singer Del Rey / Cynic Bierce

Kind of acid in soapmaking / MON 1-27-14 / 1963 Elizabeth Taylor role / Mideast bigwig Var

Stuff in a muffin / TUE 1-28-14 / It's just one thing after another / Farm sound

A general and his country / WED 1-29-14 / "The Kiss" sculptor / Smile like Snidely Whiplash

Totally stoked / THU 1-30-14 / Like a rat's eyes / Sch. near Albany, N.Y.