Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Matthew Lees

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: PARADOX (34A: What 3- and 9-Down are an example of) —

3D: Statement #1 (NINE-DOWN IS FALSE)
9D: Statement #2 (THREE-DOWN IS TRUE)

Word of the Day: Jason ISAACS (48A: Jason of the Harry Potter movies) —

Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is an English actor. He is known for his performance as the Death Eater Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot and as lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the American television series Brotherhood. Though most of his work has been in film and television, it also includes stage performances; most notably as Louis Ironson in Declan Donnellan's 1992 and 1993 Royal National Theatre London premières of Parts One (Millennium Approaches) and Two (Perestroika) of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and as Ben, one of two hitmen, playing opposite Lee Evans as Gus, in Harry Burton's 2007 critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary revival of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter's 1957 two-hander The Dumb Waiter at Trafalgar Studios He starred in the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) drama Awake as DetectiveMichael Britten from March to May 2012. (wikipedia)

• • •

I feel like I'm watching the NYT's long, slow slide into mediocrity and irrelevance. No, scratch the latter. It has such name recognition, such history, and its competitors remain so little known by comparison, that it will be nominally relevant for a long time to come, even at this rate of apparent decline. But any longtime solver of the NYT can see in this puzzle that the bar is no longer very high. There's not nearly enough theme material, not nearly enough pizzazz, not nearly … I mean, what is this? A weird content-free grid-making exercise? Who. Cares that it's a PARADOX? The statements aren't even statements about anything. It's an entirely self-contained, self-referential system. There's nothing to pull this puzzle out of the category of "minor curiosity." The worst American Values Crosswords and Fireball Crosswords absolutely crush this puzzle in terms of inventiveness, humor and cultural relevance. And that's an apples-to-apples comparison, because this is NYT's big day for sparkly, creative, even rule-breaking puzzles. Thursday! It's supposed to be a treat. But this is adequate at best. It's like a practice crossword—a good early effort that maybe gets published somewhere minor if you're lucky, and then you go on to do better stuff. But—especially when you consider the completely ordinary quality of the fill (which should be sizzling given how undemanding the theme is)—it has no business being in the Big Leagues. What in the world is going on?

The only fill that grabbed my attention was COWGIRL, a cute, lively, interesting term (8D: Lassoing lass). The rest is average to below average. There are only 37 squares of theme material here. I just don't get it. Or, rather, assuming the constructor is relatively inexperienced (he's not in my database of NYT puzzles from the past 8 years), I do get it. I get it. The grid has been filled by someone without a lot of experience. If I were seeing this is in a different, less (allegedly) prestigious context, I'd think this was quite promising work. Fill's not great, but at least there's nothing terrible here. It's COHOE-free, for instance. That is something. And in fact, the fill is probably average by current NYT standards. So, again, the puzzle is not abysmal. It's just Not up to what a NYT Thursday should be, which is to say it's not scintillating. You want to call yourself the best, give me scintillating. Please. I beg you.

And here's the best part, the coup de resistance and the pied-à-terre and the je ne sais quoi all rolled into one—This Theme Has Been Done. In 2005. IN THE NYT. Here ya go:

Bafflement.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: James Mulhern

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: KEY TAGS (59A: Accessories purchased just for openers?) —

[I can't find a proper definition anywhere, but they appear to be what I would've called a "key chain," only slighter, and serving more of a labeling than a decorative function]

• • •

I should solve all my puzzles at 4:30 a.m.! I shredded this thing. Fell asleep last night before the puzzle even came out, woke up at a ridiculously early hour, rolled out of bed, came in here to my home office, and took care of this puzzle in under 5 minutes. I kept waiting for it to tighten up, and it did, a bit, in a couple of places. But 1A: Toast often given with Manischewitz (L'CHAIM!) was a gimme, and I got most of the crosses right away, which meant I was out of that NW section with both MOT JUSTE and MUMBO JUMBO under my belt in well under a minutes. Needed only the "K" from KIBBLE to get KRUGMAN (7A: Nobel-winning economist who wrote "Fuzzy Math"), and then filled in Every Single Cross, in order, from RENOIR to NELL, without hesitation. 15D: Horror film antagonist surnamed Thorn might've been very hard, except by the time I looked at it, I had the DAMI- part already filled in. Only issue was how to spell DAMIEN (from "The Omen"). I went with "A" at first, but that was easily corrected.

Eastern section went down just like the NE, 1-2-3 from the crosses on the longer answers, starting with ZAIRE (23D: 1971-97 nation name) and ending with YOST (28D: Royals manager Ned) (helps to be a baseball fan there, but Ned's name has appeared several times now, so probably best to try to commit it to memory now if you haven't already). First real resistance came on the other side of the grid, where I couldn't throw either long Across answer down. Ended up guessing KAYAKER at 35A: Olympian in a shell (SCULLER). But all I had to do was look at 29D: Devil dog's outfit: Abbr. to know that wouldn't work. Wrote in USMC, then NCAA, and then that section was done too. Hardest part for me was coming down out of there and into the SE. TOW ROPE was very hard to pick up from its "?" clue (43A: Line of tugboats?), and 41D: Shop shelter was too vague for me to be able to see AWNING immediately. But AL PACINO was a ridiculous gimme (53A: Actor with the line "Say hello to my little friend!"), so even that section didn't take that long to piece together. Never heard of KEY TAGS. Thought the clue (59A: Accessories purchased just for openers?) referred to key chains with bottle openers on them, so I wrote in KEY TABS … not that that makes any sense, really, but that's what my brain wanted, so there. Error didn't remain in place long. And then there was the least scintillating, final part of the grid, the SE, and once I figured out that NASSER (60A: Big player in the Suez Crisis) was spelled with an "E" and not an "A," I was all done.

I think I enjoyed this. It was all over so fast, I don't really know. Must've been smooth, else how would I have moved through it so quickly? Feels very choppy, with lots of short answers. Hard to believe a grid with so few long / marquee answers is only 68 words. I think the grid was solid and playful enough to make this a good Friday puzzle. Some problems in the NW (CETUS crossing ASYE) and SE (buncha crosswordese), but overall, this was enjoyable.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Ruy LOPEZ (46D: Ruy ___ (chess opening)) —

The Ruy Lopez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈrwi ˈlopeθ/ˈlopes]), also called the Spanish Opening orSpanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5
The Ruy Lopez is named after 16th-century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura. It is one of the most popular openings, with such a vast number of variations that in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (ECO) all codes from C60 to C99 are assigned to them. (wikipedia)

• • •

Another lightning-fast themeless solve for me (I rated it "Easy-Medium" only because others' times — posted at the puzzle website — seemed not quite as faster-than-usual as mine was). No idea what's going on, but the last two puzzles have hardly put up fight at all. I liked this one fine. I think I would like it more if I knew what a CRAZY BONE was. Is that the same as FUNNY BONE? If not … just how many of these wacky-type bones do I have?? Longer answers are just moderately interesting to me today, except MCMANSION and DREAMLAND, both of which are lovely colloquialisms. Fill is somewhat weaker and duller in the W/SW than in most of the rest of the grid. DSO / ETES / ALLES / MIES are all a little crosswordesey, and SALLIE MAE and DES MOINES aren't exactly scintillating as longer answer go. But most of the rest of the grid is solid and bouncy. Very nice job handling the fill in the triple-Z SE section. Normally against cramming Scrabbly letters into a corner just 'cause, but here the fill is strong despite/because of the three Zs, so hurray.

Once again, 1A was a gimme for me (1A: Prop for Kermit the Frog). There is only one thing I can picture Kermit holding, and it's a BANJO. With those letters in place, that NW section goes down almost instantly. This leads directly to the easy SEQUEL, and then up into the NE via the "K" in SHAK, which gave me AZTEK (Walter White's car for most of "Breaking Bad," btw). That "Z" made me think CRAZY- even though, as I said, I've never heard of a CRAZY BONE. My dissertation was in part on Chaucer, so MCD was a gimme and that essentially meant that the whole NE, across the top and around the corner, went down fast. Things got a little dicey in the SE section, where I briefly thought I might get stuck for a good long while. But I guessed AROMA correctly at 48D: Something from the oven. I had forgotten LOPEZ (despite knowing it from, I think, Chandler novels), but once it popped into my mind, I iced that section pretty quickly. That left the SW, where I had gotten stalled coming out of the NW (wanted NEON GAS instead of RARE GAS, didn't trust ELATED…). WEBSITE to HERS to HYPO put me in decent position. DES MOINES was easy from there. NAME PLATE was harder. AMARYLLIS was hardest of all, since I'm not the best with floral names, but to my credit, I did eventually get it off the -YLLIS. From there, mad dash to the end. Last letter was the "S" in MERGES (I'd had an "R" there before seeing Über ALLES).

OK then. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME:"For Mother"— black squares spell MOM. Three unchecked squares in NW (and again in SE) spell MOM. Eight clues read [Mother ___]:

Theme answers:

14A: JONES
49A: TERESA
68A: LODE
70A: SHIP
91A: TONGUE
124A: GOOSE
9D: HUBBARD
95D: COUNTRY

Word of the Day: LEUMI (74A: Bank of Israel) —

Bank Leumi (Hebrew: בנק לאומי‎, lit. National Bank) is an Israeli bank. It was founded in London as the Anglo Palestine Company on February 27, 1902, by members of the Zionist movement to promote the industry, construction, agriculture, and infrastructure of the land hoped to ultimately become Eretz Yisrael. Today Bank Leumi is Israel's largest bank (by total assets), with 13,500 employees and subsidiaries in 20 countries. (wikipedia)

• • •

Interesting and strange. Lots of thematic layers (well, three, which is a lot), but the part that involves putting actual letters in actual squares is pretty damned thin. I'm counting only 44 squares of theme material, 50 when you count those MOM squares. For a Sunday puzzle, that is not just low—I want to say it's the lowest I've ever seen. Lots of long, interesting answers, but they have nothing to do with the theme, which is OK, but if they whole point is MOM, it's weird to have your eight theme answers feel like they barely matter. OH, maybe you want to count DAY too? I don't, but let's throw that in. We're still light. Very light. This is the strange part. But as a kind of oversized themeless, with a dusting of "Mother" stuff, it was actually an entertaining challenge. Difficulty level was definitely amped up today—maybe it had something to do with the unchecked squares, but I think it was just the wide-open structure of the grid. Lots of white space + unchoppy grid = harder to get toeholds. It wasn't back-breaking, just slower going than normal. I appreciate that on a Sunday.

Some of the longer answers are quite colorful. I loved the super-80s "I'M SO SURE!" Did *not* see the "SO" part coming and was pleasantly surprised when I got it—in a nostalgic kind of way. DON'T START IN ON ME is an oddly specific phrase (48D: Words to one who's about to go off). The first three words I buy as a stand-alone phrase. The rest: arbitrary. Colorful and dramatic, but arbitrary. There is quite a bit of google attestation for the phrase, though the first page of results gets a crossword blog reviewing this puzzle, and then a bunch of random Google Books results and a Grand Theft Auto fan forum. I liked it fine, just took me a long time to figure out the IN ON ME part. There's some iffy / odd fill like OVOLO (???) (22A: Quarter-rounded molding) and POLE BARN (double ???) (55A: Simple storage unit on a farm). I liked all the full names, particular the part where JOE BIDEN met DREW BREES. No idea there was any famous Disraelis besides Benjamin, so that ISAAC guy came as a surprise. As for the two-letter words … eh, I didn't mind. They were easy to get, and they were necessary for the black-squares gimmick, so, fine.

Puzzle of the Week this week … and it's Lynn Lempel again, her second win of the year, both for fantastic NYT Monday puzzles. This one, you'll recall, was the puzzle about nothing. It's a testament to how good a puzzle it is that I'm giving it POTW honors despite the obvious, totally Not coincidental tie-in with adjacent paper content. That juxtaposition was surely not the reason the puzzle was accepted, but some editor somewhere knew exactly what s/he was doing. Aaaaanyway, the puzzle ruled, so I put my consternation aside. Glad Ms. Lempel is still turning out the occasional easy puzzle, if only so we can see by contrast how far off the mark so many others are. She's the bar. If you're not jumping her, you should at least be trying.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. a normal Monday difficulty level)

THEME: intelligent— theme answers begin with words that can mean "intelligent"

Theme answers:

SMART PHONE
QUICK BUCK
SHARP TURN
BRIGHT SIDE

Word of the Day: AIMEE Mann (2D: 'Til Tuesday singer Mann) —

Aimee Mann (born September 8, 1960) is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist andbassist. In the 1980s, Mann sang in the Boston new wave band 'Til Tuesday until she left to begin a solo career in the early 1990s.^[1] In 1999, Mann recorded original songs for the soundtrack to thePaul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia, for which she received Academy Award and Grammy Awardnominations. She has released seven solo albums. (wikipedia)

• • •

Aimee MANN is a very successful solo artist and has been for 20+ years. Til Tuesday broke up in 1990. She was on The Tonight Show just the other day as one half of The Both (the other half is TED Leo, who was also in the NYT crossword recently). My point is that I loved "Voices Carry" but maybe standard cluing for MANN should be, I don't know, updated.

This puzzle is decent, though I find the theme kind of dull. FAST ONE's not a theme answer, is it? I really hope not. I don't think "Fast" is a synonym of "intelligent" (though "slow" is certainly a synonym for "stupid"… hmmm).

The fill seems kind of lazy—out of a box; prefab; stale. The one exception is (ironically) the most old-fashioned-sounding word in the grid: BRETHREN. I liked that. I also like RAREBIT, not so much for the word itself, but more for the way it reminds me of Winsor McKay's comic strip "Dream of the RAREBIT Fiend," which I love. The word that gave me the most trouble was DONE. I was clearly misinterpreting the meaning of [All over]. I was thinking "Aw, hon, you got Arby's all over me," when the clue wanted "the party's all over." I also had HOP TO IT at 25D: Hurry, with "it" (HOTFOOT), which is wrong for at least one obvious reason. When I got the ATT- part of 54A: "Sic 'em!" (ATTACK), I sincerely entertained the possibility of "AT THEM," as in, I don't know, "AT THEM, Fido! Have AT THEM!" How I managed to get in under 3 with all that nonsense, I don't know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Tracy Gray

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

THEME: WEATHER FORECAST (37A: Local news feature suggested by the answers to 17-, 23-, 48- and 60-Across) — theme answers are songs that have words related to weather phenomena:

Theme answers:

"HOT HOT HOT" (17A: 1987 Buster Poindexter hit)
"AGAINST THE WIND" (23A: 1980 Bob Seger hit)
"AIN'T NO SUNSHINE" (48A: 1971 Bill Withers hit)
"COLD AS ICE" (60A: 1977 Foreigner hit)

Word of the Day: ARHAT (6D: Enlightened Buddhist) —

In Theravada Buddhism, an Arhat (Sanskrit: अर्हत् arhat; Pali: arahant; "one who is worthy") is a "perfected person" who has attained nirvana. In other Buddhist traditions the term has also been used for people far advanced along the path of Enlightenment, but who may not have reached full Buddhahood. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle was dead in the water inside of five seconds. If you are making an easyish (in this case Tuesday) puzzle, you cannot (not not) have short fill That Terrible anywhere, let alone all crammed into a tiny section. There is no reason on earth for you to have BAHIA and AMIR and HRH and SITKA occupying the same area. They are individually less-than-great, with BAHIA (1D: Brazilian state northeast of Sao Paulo) being not-at-all well known in the U.S., thus bad for a Tuesday puzzle; AMIR being an abomination that should never be seen ever, *especially* in easy puzzles; HRH being a harmless abbreviation but why are we suffering through abbreviations if you've already made us suffer through AMIR; and SITKA being (once again) not-at-all well known (3D: Alaskan panhandle city). The geographical places … the main issue is not one of these answers individually (except AMIR), but their density. High-density sub-optimal fill in an easy puzzle makes me want to quit. The rest of the grid doesn't get much better. ARHAT!? Jeez louise. I learned that from crosswords, have only seen it in crosswords, and don't like seeing it in anything but perhaps a very dense and otherwise beautiful themeless grid. AFTS? INST? DURST? What year is it? DURST? (27D: Limp Bizkit vocalist) HELOT? (25D: Spartan serf) When I got to HELOT I was like "Oh of course HELOT's here. He has to be. ARHAT would be lonely otherwise."ORIG over ETTE. ATTA crossing TATA. It's like the world's original Autofill program filled this thing.

Further, the theme doesn't really hold together. The answers aren't very representative or truly parallel or … exhibiting anything but the most general coherence. It's cold and windy … except in one answer. There are weather-related nouns at the ends … except in one answer. Only three of them are plausible "forecasts."AGAINST THE WIND is not a forecast. Further tons of other songs would fit the (very general) bill. I deeply enjoyed remembering these songs, though. I'm going to listen to some of them now to offset the unpleasantness of the puzzle.

[Don't touch me I'm a real LIVE WIRE…]

ERINS... ERUCT!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Victor Barocas

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: TURNING A PROPHET (64A: Punny description of the circled letters in 17-, 27- and 48-Across) — names of prophets appear backwards (in circled squares) inside long theme answers:

Theme answers:

WIN SOME, LOSE SOME (17A: Words of resignation)
ESPRESSO MAKERS (27A: Barista-operated gadgets)
SCHWARZENEGGER (48A: Governor elected in a 2003 recall vote)

Word of the Day:"Pumping IRON" (67A: "Pumping ___" (1977 docudrama featuring 48-Across)) —

Pumping Iron is a 1977 docudrama about the world of bodybuilding, focusing on the 1975 IFBB Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions. Inspired by a book of the same name by Charles Gainesand George Butler, the film nominally focuses on the competition between Arnold Schwarzeneggerand one of his primary competitors for the title of Mr. Olympia, Lou Ferrigno. The film also features brief segments focusing on bodybuilders Franco Columbu and Mike Katz, in addition to appearances by Ken Waller, Ed Corney, Serge Nubret, and other famous bodybuilders of the era.
Shot during the 100 days leading up to the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions and during the competitions themselves, the filmmakers ran out of funds to finish production, and it stalled for two years. Ultimately, Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders featured in the film helped to raise funds to complete production, and it was released in 1977. The film became a box office success, making Schwarzenegger a household name. The film also served to popularize the then somewhat niche culture of bodybuilding, helping to inspire the fitness craze of the 1980s; following the film's release, there was a marked increase in the number of commercial gyms in the United States. (wikipedia)

[To hear Arnold talk about the orgasmic feeling of "the pump," press "Play," though you should anticipate mental scarring.]

• • •

Corny, one-note puzzle with fill that is good by comparison to yesterday's fill but bad by comparison to actual good. Also, this puzzle features some of the most blatant, borderline hilarious Scrabble-F***ing I've seen in a good long while. JAS!? You wanted that "J" so bad you went with JAS? Where was the person in the background shouting "Nooooooooooo!" in slow motion? (or, you know, an editor) Simple switch to "M" gives you an instant upgrade, in that it gives you an actual word in the Down (in English *and* in Spanish). Ugh. Similar nonsense happening in the SW. No attempt to make fill interesting. Just a ridiculous, pointless attempt to cram in the rarer letters. Again, look around; it's all SSTS and AMIE and I BEG and EPODE and OTO OHMS REPO ETON ADES and just blah. SLO? Try Harder! I wouldn't notice all this gunk if there was enough decent stuff off-setting it, but there just isn't. The revealer is punny, I'll give it that (though I like that Autocorrect wants it to be "puny"; that's fair). But the circled square don't a. touch every word in ever theme answer and b. bridge words in every theme answer. So there's no elegance. Just a pun. A pun around which a rather ungainly and forgettable grid has been built.

Nothing to enumerate, really. Found the puzzle startlingly easy. Not sure where any hold-ups might be located. I probably thought more about whether 1A: Does damage to would be HARMS or MAIMS than I did about any other answer in the grid. Finished a shade over 3, a good deal faster than my normal Wednesday solve. So at least it was over quickly, I guess.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: John Lieb

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"AN I FOR AN EYE" (62A: Misinterpretation of a biblical code … or the key to answering 18-, 24-, 40- and 51-Across) — theme answers are phrases where "EYE" has been replaced by the letter "I"

Theme answers:

WANDERING IS (18A: What ladies' men tend to have)
ALL IS AND EARS (24A: Very alert)
LAY IS ON (40A: Espy)
"BETTE DAVIS IS" (51A: 1981 #1 Kim Carnes hit)

Word of the Day: EVA Green (5D: Actress Green of "300: Rise of an Empire") —

Eva Gaëlle Green (usual French pronunciation: [ɡʁin] as if it was an English word; Swedish pronunciation: [ˈɡʁeːn]; born 5 July 1980) is a French actress. Green started her career in theatre before making her film debut in 2003 in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial film The Dreamers. Green achieved international recognition when she appeared in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven(2005), and portrayed Vesper Lynd in the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006). In 2006, Green was awarded the BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Since 2006, Green has starred in independent films Womb (2010), Perfect Sense (2011), and Cracks(2011). She has also appeared in the television series Camelot (2011), and played Angelique Bouchard in Tim Burton's big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows (2012). In 2014, she playedArtemisia in 300 sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, and will star as Ava Lord in Frank Miller's andRobert Rodriguez's Sin City sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a somewhat fancier and more competent version of yesterday's one-note puzzle. Revealer is the joke. Yesterday, pun on "prophet." Today, pun on "i." I definitely liked today's better, but the theme execution is equally strange and weak. How many billion phrases in the English language are there with the word "eye" in them? What links these particular phrases? Anything? The only one that seems at all inventive or interesting is "BETTE DAVIS [EYE]S." Why are the [EYE]s always plural? Just curious. This isn't a fault of the puzzle, but nothing in the revealer seems to require that. Seems slightly odd to have all the theme answers feature the pun word in the plural. I guess it's consistent, but to what end? I gotta believe there are better, more interesting [EYE] phrases out there. But the main point is that there just isn't enough coherence to the theme to make it provocative, snappy, elegant. It's a corny pun, again.

To this puzzle's credit, the grid is pretty nicely put together. A bit gratuitously peppered with Zs, but not in a way that really compromises fill quality. If you want to see how bad the fill was from a couple days ago, just hold it up to this grid, which isn't scintillating, by any means, but which contains what I think should be industry standard quality for a themed / high word-count grid. No ugly variants, no glut of hoary, antiquated short fill, just a nice variety of words and phrases, most of them very much in-the-language. This puzzle was oddly out of my wheelhouse, with many proper nouns meaning nothing to me. Have never read Le Carré *or* Clancy, so neither KARLA (16A: Soviet spymaster in a John le Carré trilogy) nor RYAN (19D: Role played by Baldwin, Ford, Affleck and Pine) (what is "Pine"?) meant anything to me (though if you'd asked me "who created the character Jack RYAN?" I'm pretty sure I would've answered correctly). EVA somebody? Shrug. I watched Season One of "House of Cards" but had no idea KATE Mara was the young actress's name (34A: Actress Mara of "House of Cards"). I still don't get why RITZ is the answer to 21D: Alternative to Premium. Is Premium a cracker? Because RITZ and Premium sound like synonyms. Oh, it looks like Premium is what normal humans call "Saltines." OK then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: NATE Grey, alter ego of Marvel's X-Man —

Nathaniel "Nate" Grey (X-Man) is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in books published by Marvel Comics, in particular those related to the X-Men franchise. Created by writerJeph Loeb and artist Steve Skroce, he first appeared in X-Man #1 (March 1995).
X-Man is an alternate version of the regular Marvel Universe hero Cable, hailing from the "Age of Apocalypse" (Earth-295) reality. He is the biological son of his dimension’s Scott Summers andJean Grey, born of genetic tampering by Mr. Sinister. His first name is derived from his creator; Mr Sinister's real name: Nathaniel Essex, and his last name from his genetic mother Jean Grey.^[1] Due to not being infected by a techno-organic virus as Cable was, X-Man achieved vasttelepathic and telekinetic powers and was one of the most powerful mutants in existence during his lifetime.
X-Man was originally a four-issue mini-series replacing Cable during 1995’s “Age of Apocalypse”alternate reality storyline. However, Marvel transported Nate Grey to its regular shared universe after the storyline ended. Although derided by some for a concept perplexing to anyone not a diehard X-Men fan, the series ran until 2001, during which Nate struggled with being the most powerful person in a strange world. The series ended with his seemingly sacrificial death.
Despite his name, X-Man was only briefly a member of the X-Men, both in the Age of Apocalypse reality and in the regular reality. Initially, the character was referred to only by his real name, both in the Age of Apocalypse and the primary Marvel universe. Shortly before the Onslaught crossover event, Nate began to be sporadically referred to as X-Man, without explanation for the in-universe origin of the code name. (wikipedia)

• • •

Quad puzzle. Probably better than your average quad puzzle. But honestly, once you've seen (and written about) a million of them, there ends up not being much more to say about any one of them. This one seems to have been crafted somewhat more carefully than ones I've seen in the past. Despite HAWG, there's nothing really dire here (and even HAWG has its weird charm) (30D: Big bass, in fishing lingo). NCAAS is borderline, but it's definitely in-the-language for college basketball fans (47A: March Madness, with "the"). None of the long answers are terribly interesting, but three of the longer answers (up top, down below) are pretty nice. Especially liked LAST HURRAH and"LET IT BLEED" (18A: 1969 Rolling Stones album). Cluing seemed tougher than usual. Lots of ambiguity, trickiness, and "?"-ery. Is ZACH a character in "A Chorus Line"? (1A: Director in "A Chorus Line") That answer meant nothing to me. Ditto NATE, who appears to be a pretty damned obscure character from the Marvel universe. I have a fair familiarity with the major Marvel characters, and he might've been big in the late '90s, but I don't think NATE's so well known now (to non-fanboys).

Also obscure: "Ibis" (15A: Writer of the 644-line poem "Ibis"). I thought I could name virtually the entire Ovidian corpus. Apparently not! ZOEs Kazan and Kravitz? Couldn't pick 'em out of a line-up (but guessed ZOE off the easy Z). TERI Jon fashion label? Nope. No idea. The "O" in F.A.O. is OTTO? Whoops. Went with OTIS there for a bit. Why make all the short proper nouns so obscure? Besides simply to add difficulty? Had "Who IS IT?" instead of "Who ISN'T?" for a bit, so that created some weirdness in the SE. Otherwise, my biggest hang-up was probably the tail end of KITTEN CHOW, a phrase I never hear (though I'm sure it's quote-unquote real). With OTIS as my "O" and WHIR as my [Sound heard during a heat wave], the end of KITTEN CHOW remained invisible to me right up to the very end. Honestly stared at KITTEN CH- and then KITTEN CHO- wondering what was up. Briefly pondered what a "KITTEN CHOP" might be. It's a good clue (36D: Product for young string players?). Just not a familiar answer.

Off to brave my own heat wave. It's an oddly rainy heat wave, but also an oddly sweaty rain. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: LAFITTE (18A: Infamous settler on Galveston Island, 1817) —

Jean Lafitte (c. 1776 – c. 1823) was a French pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his elder brother, Pierre, spelled their last name Laffite, but English-language documents of the time used "Lafitte". The latter has become the common spelling in the United States, including for places named for him.
Lafitte is believed to have been born either in France or the French colony of Saint-Domingue. By 1805, he operated a warehouse in New Orleans to help disperse the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. After the United States government passed the Embargo Act of 1807, the Lafittes moved their operations to an island in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. By 1810, their new port was very successful; the Lafittes pursued a successful smuggling operation and also started to engage in piracy.
Though Lafitte tried to warn Barataria of a British attack, the American authorities successfully invaded in 1814 and captured most of Lafitte's fleet. In return for a pardon, Lafitte helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans against the British in 1815. The Lafittes became spies for the Spanish during the Mexican War of Independence and moved to Galveston Island, Texas, where they developed a pirate colony called Campeche.
Lafitte continued attacking merchant ships as a pirate around Central American ports until he died around 1823 trying to capture Spanish vessels. Speculation about his life and death continues among historians. (wikipedia)

• • •

Anyone who thinks a themeless is a themeless is a themeless should really hold this one up to … well, most other themelesses, but let's take yesterday's puzzle, since it just happened. Yesterday's was about as good a quad stack puzzle as I've seen, but you simply can't achieve this kind of grace, splash, and elegance in a quad stack. The demands of that damned stack are just too severe—so, in yesterday's case, the top and bottom of the puzzle let you know what a wonderful themeless might look like, while the middle (quad area) was … something you sort of had to endure. Here: wow. There are a small handful of what I'd consider weak answers, but they are short and spread out and not (much) worth noting. The long answers just dance and sing across the middle of this thing, while the corners offer a smooth refreshment of their own (those roughly 6x8 NW/SE corners are deceptively hard to pull off—doesn't look like a ton of white space, but good luck getting those things to come out this nicely). Even the stuff I didn't know—most notably CAMEL CAVALRY (7D: Once-common desert fighting force)—was stuff I instantly felt I *wanted* to know. I had to look up LAFITTE when I was done—fascinating. PAOLO VERONESE rings only a small bell, but "the largest painting in Louvre" is a clue-fact that makes me want to learn more. Brad is one of my favorite themeless constructors, in part because while we have similar tastes in puzzles/cluing, we have very different knowledge sets. No, let me refine that—he has many, many more knowledge sets than I do, so his puzzles often force me out of my comfort zones, but almost always in ways I enjoy.

Without much confidence, I threw down TONITE PLAT and AORTA, and they all ended up being right. Fortuitous. Got some of that corner, then got stuck, then finally got FAULT out of FA- and flew out of that corner. No hope in hell with FTLBS (one of those few "weak answers" I was talking about), but ALMAY swung me over into the NE. SPRY CRY WARY, 1 2 3. Had real trouble with SNEER AT, largely because the clue seemed like it could've meant a million things. I wasn't even sure it was a verb. [Cousin of a zombie] got me good. Made me pull DAIS because I was like "there are no equivalent monsters ending in 'I'." Gah! That's 'cause the zombie here is a drink, and its cousin is a MAI TAI. Had ACRIDITY for ACERBITY, but otherwise, that corner was not a problem. The SE, however, featured many problems. It didn't take me long, but it made me fall down a lot. GOT … ANGRY! IMP … ULSE! Gah and gah! Thank goodness I knew "Ferry Cross the MERSEY" (even if I did spell it with a "U" at first). Nice place to end it. This was just a joy. Brad's puzzles seem to appear in Newsday (as the Saturday Stumper) more than anywhere else. His name on any puzzle is always a welcome sight.

Here, I'll say one semi-negative thing about this puzzle: CAMERA TRIPOD feels a little redundant. Sorry, but between that and SNEERing AT FTLBS… that's all the criticism I got.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS speaking of the Newsday Saturday Stumper, today's is by Doug Peterson and it's great so you should do it. Thanks.

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"Oh, Who?"— words with long "O" sound in the middle are reimagined as some Irish person's name:

Theme answers:

ANGIE O'GRAM
WILL O'TREES
JEAN O'TYPING
COREY O'GRAPH
PATTY O'FURNITURE
NATE O'SUMMIT
JUNE O'ALASKA
MAE O'CLINIC
MEL O'YELLOW

Word of the Day: TOPEE (37D: Pith helmet) —

The pith helmet (also known as the safari helmet, sun helmet, TOPEE, sola topee,salacot or topi) is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of cork or pith, typically pith from the sola, Aeschynomene aspera, an Indian swamp plant, or A. paludosa, or a similar plant. Designed to shade the wearer's head and face from the sun, pith helmets were often worn by people of European origin in the tropics, but have also been used in other contexts. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gonna keep this short because my reaction to this puzzle is wholly negative and I don't really want to dwell on it that much. The theme is corny and feels like it has been done a million times. It's one-note, in a way that made me dread each next answer. There was never any great word play, any great revelation. Just a grueling word/name torture-fest. Further, the theme was remarkably inconsistent, with about half of the clues/answers reorienting the meaning away from the base answer, and half not bothering to do this at all. WILL O'TREES, MAE O'CLINIC, JUNE O'ALASKA, PATTY O'FURNITURE—none of their clues yank you away from the milieu of the base answer, whereas the clues on answers like ANGIE O'GRAM and NATE O'SUMMIT at least try (however awkwardly). Further further, this is airing 2 months and 1 day late why? Why? No, seriously, why? Few puzzles scream "St. Patrick's Day" more than this one, and while I doubt the Irish would've been "honored" by this rather clunky offering, at least it would've made Some kind of sense. Odd editorial decision. I'd say "glaring editorial error," but I'm reserving that phrase for when I point out that ALAI is in the grid *and* (head-shakingly, dumbfoundingly) in the clue for CESTA (19D: Jai alai basket). Did you know Chou EN-LAI played Jai ALAI professionally? He didn't. I'm just making up facts to entertain myself now.

Oh, the fill. It was supercalifragilisticexpial-atrocious. Actually, I've probably seen worse, but not much worse. Just stunning that we're enduring Var. spellings of a word that's Already crosswordese (SAREEEEEE), and then apparently discovering vast new stores of crosswordese under Mt. Pith Helmet (TOPEE, which can also be spelled TOPI, or perhaps you want the full SOLA TOPEE; I hear pith helmets are making a comeback, so all these answers may prove useful). CARNAP!? I'm literally laughing at that answer. Are you holding the car for ransom??? [Steal, as a vehicle]. That clues is amazing. "Oh … as a vehicle. They must mean CARNAP," said no one. I just learned that Rudolf CARNAP was a person who lived once. A 20th-century German-born philosopher. Read about him here. My favorite answer in the grid was BIG IN JAPAN, but only because it reminded me of college.

Puzzle of the Week contenders included dueling gorgeous themelesses from sometime collaborators Brad Wilber (yesterday's NYT) and Doug Peterson (yesterday's Newsday Stumper). They are probably my favorite themeless constructors at the moment, so having two of their puzzles come out on the same day was like Cruciverbial Christmas for me. Friday's WSJ puzzle (by Pancho Harrison) was as good as it's been in a good long while—it featured a nifty little "Schrödinger"-type gimmick with PRO and CON occupying the same square (PROs for the Acrosses, CONs for the Downs) (read about it here). But the honors this week go to a truly clever, multi-layered theme puzzle by Ben Tausig called "Click Language." Won't give away the gimmick so you can solve it yourself (get it here) (or click here for .puz file) (read about it here). It's a wonderful theme with snazzy fill to boot. Go do it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Michael Hawkins

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

THEME: PHONE IT IN (61A: Do a job with minimal effort) — all theme answers have words or phrases in them that relate to phones:

Theme answers:

RING A BELL (18A: Sound familiar)
DIAL IT DOWN (24A: "Stop being such a pompous jerk!")
"WHAT IS THE HANG UP?!" (40A: "Will you please hurry?")
OFF THE HOOK (52A: Extremely cool, in slang)

Words of the Day: ORSK (29A: Russian city on the Ural) and OMSK (not pictured)—

Orsk (Russian: Орск) is the second largest city in Orenburg Oblast, Russia, located on the steppe about 100 kilometers (62 mi) southeast of the southern tip of the Ural Mountains. The city straddles the Ural River. Since this river is considered a boundary between Europe and Asia, Orsk can be said to lie in two continents. Population: 239,800 (2010 Census); 250,963 (2002 Census);270,711 (1989 Census). (wikipedia)

Omsk (Russian: Омск, IPA: [omsk]) is a city and the administrative center of Omsk Oblast, Russia, located in southwestern Siberia 2,236 kilometers (1,389 mi)^[8] from Moscow. With a population of 1,154,116, it is Russia's second-largest city east of the Ural Mountains after Novosibirsk, and seventh by size nationally.

• • •

Entertaining and bouncy, though wildly misplaced on a Monday. This was a fast Wednesday for me. A slow-side-of-Medium Tuesday. At nearly 4 minutes, it took me longer than any Monday this year, and the times being posted at the NYT site show I'm not alone—all the people I measure my time against, are Way high as well. Not the constructor's fault, and not a huge problem. But this should've been a Tuesday. I mostly enjoyed myself here. The phrasing on a couple of the themers was … not the phrase I would've used (part of my slowness), but it's defensible. I had DIAL IT BACK (I would turn it down, but I would dial it back). I didn't have WHAT IS THE HOLD UP because I came at the answer from the back end, but WHAT IS THE HOLD UP is definitely the phrasing I would use as a rough equivalent of "Will you please hurry?" Moreover, I think DIAL IT DOWN has more to do with overreaction / loudness than it does with pomposity or jerkery, so that clue felt quite off. And I don't know why PHONE IT IN wasn't clued as a true revealer, since it's clearly different from (and encompasses) all the other answers. But the answers themselves were fresh and interesting (esp. the pseudo-revealer), so I'm fine with the theme.

Fill is definitely above average. Hardly any dreck beyond your occasional UNES or TZU or NYAH. Couple of major problems, first with geography. ORSK? That's a place? I had OMSK (a very Big place) and then ended up with ICEBM- in the Down and had no idea what to do. Had to get all the crosses to realize the answer had to be ICE BRIDGE—and thus the cross was ORSK. They're easy to tell apart—one is medium-sized and borders Kazakhstan, whereas the other is large and *almost* borders Kazakhstan. Oh, and they're both in oblasts, but Orsk is in Orenburg Oblast whereas Omsk is in Omsk Oblast and OMG do all oblasts start with "O"?! Anyway, there's your Russian geography lesson for the day: you're welcome.

Then there was the clue on GIL, which is hilarious because I watched "The Simpsons" regularly for the better part of two decades and I know GIL well, but I can't ever recall his surname being used. Only a non-"Simpsons" fan could use that clue on an easy puzzle and think it meant something. Once again, to repeat, Not A Monday, this thing. But look at the fun long answers! Six of 'em! And very serviceable small corners—no easy feat, as we've seen time and again. Often with a grid this choppy the small stuff is both pervasive and dire. Not today. Verdict: enjoyable.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: HIDDEN COST (59A: Unexpected expense … or a feature of 17-, 23-, 35- and 49-Across) — "COST" is "HIDDEN" inside theme answers:

Theme answers:

TACO STANDS (17A: Informal eateries with Mexican fare)
BRONCO STADIUM (23A: Blue-turfed home for Boise State football)
DELMONICO STEAKS (35A: Beef cuts named for a New York restaurateur)
TEXACO STATION (49A: Service site with a star)

Word of the Day: DELMONICO STEAKS —

Definition: Delmonico steak is a steak cut from the beef short loin and named for Delmonico's, a steak house in New York where it is said to originate.

Delmonico steak is a triangular steak with an L-shaped bone. The Delmonico steak somewhat resembles a T-bone steak, but it comes from the front part of the short loin, the part nearest therib. In contrast to the Delmonico steak, the T-bone steak comes from the center section of the short loin.

The Delmonico steak is also different from the T-bone in that the Delmonico steak doesn't have any of the tenderloin muscle.

Because it is a tender cut of meat, the Delmonico steak is good for dry-heat cooking methods such as grilling and broiling. (about.com)

• • •

This is about what I expect an average NYT Tuesday puzzle to be. Simple theme, apt revealer, interesting (if not scintillating) theme answers, mostly solid fill with at least a little zing in the longer Downs. As it stands, I think this is probably a little better than most of the easy themed fare we've been getting in recent days, if only because a. there's nothing terribly groan-inducing in the fill, and b. there is absolutely nothing to quibble about in the theme (except, I suppose, whether either BRONCO STADIUM or DELMONICO STEAKS is sufficiently well known to be in a Tuesday—I'd say "probably" and "it's beside the point; both are easily gettable/inferable via crosses). HIDDEN COST is not what I'd call a sparkly revealer. It is a phrase that one might use, but it has all the pizazz of a corporate newsletter. But it works. This puzzle does what it says it's going to do, and dammit, some days, that's good enough.

I, like many others, I'm sure, was thrown for a loop by "thrown for A LOSS" (50D: Thrown for ___). I think the "loss" version is supposed to be a term from American football. I can't imagine another scenario where I'd use the phrase. Anyway, my initial mistake was easily fixed. I had Schrödinger as an EDWIN at first. Need every single cross to get TINNED, and still am only somewhat sure I understand it (48D: Plated, in a way). If something is tin-plated, it's TINNED? Is that right? I like the tabloidy sequence of Downs in the NE: "SHANIA—DUST-UP AT HOME!" I'm not sure having a grid with both NOLA and NOLO is ideal, but there are no rules against it. My geography got aaaaalllll messed up, because my brain had INDiana farther west than Illinois as I was solving, so having IND. as the answer to 27D: Oh./Ill. separator just didn't compute. Yikes. I always forget INDiana's there. I used to live in Michigan, and I knew Ohio was underneath me, and Illinois was on the other side of the lake, but INDiana … most I ever did was clip the top of it heading to Chicago. Why my brain wants to put it out in Iowaland, I don't know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I wonder if non-hockey fans know HAB (59D: Montreal Canadien, familiarly). I didn't until I got slammed by it a while back in a crossword. Now I see it all the time—for instance, the HABs are in the NHL Eastern Conference finals right now against the Rangers.

Constructor: Mike Buckley

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: wacky homophones, I guess — two-word phrases are reimagined with homophones in place of the original words

Theme answers:

PLANE RAPPER (17A: Freestyling pilot?) (plain wrapper??? like "plain brown wrapper" only not "brown"?)
BANNED LIEDER (28A: Music forbidden in Germany?) (bandleader)
WHIRLED PIECE (44A: Top?) (world peace)
HOARSE SHOOS (59A: Throaty dismissals?) (horseshoes)

Word of the Day: ARMCO (43A: Steel giant founded in 1899) —

AK Steel Holding Corporation is an American steel company whose predecessor, Armco, was founded in 1899 in Middletown, Ohio, United States. In 2007, the company moved its corporate headquarters from Middletown to West Chester, Ohio.
The company derives its name from the first letters of "Armco" and "Kawasaki Steel Corporation," which entered into a limited partnership with Armco in 1989. The company was formally renamed AK Steel in 1993 when it became a publicly traded company. (wikipedia)

• • •

Not going to write much about this because I didn't like it and I don't really get it and (consequently?) I don't have much to say. Are two-word homophone shifts like this really that hard to find? Are there none better than PLANE RAPPER? I honestly had no idea what was going on for most of the solve? The phrases are odd and decidedly Not funny. Fill wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, either. ARMCO just seems awful, frankly. Can't remember ever seeing it. Also it doesn't exist anymore. Hasn't existed for over 20 years. Ugh. I just guessed that "A" because I've never ever heard of Friedrich brand air conditioners, so [Friedrich units] sounded like something sciencey. I thus really doubted ACS, but any other vowel there seemed preposterous. Just a ridiculous crossing. NW was absolutely disastrous for me too, mostly because I have not heard the phrase GIRLS DORM in a long time. I didn't go to a prep school, and when I went to college, No One would've said "girls." So I just stared at -SDORM for a bit. Also what on god's green earth is "Land o' Goshen!"???? I wrote in EIRE and ERIN … "MY, MY!" For &%^#'s sake, who says that? Tepid theme, tepid fill, weird / dated frame of reference. Not a great experience. The end.

No, not the end. BEWIG!? OK, now the end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Adam G. Perl

Relative difficulty: Easy (for me … looks like Medium-ish for others)

THEME: After all... — phrases with "after" in them are represented in the grid literally, with the pre-"after" part following the post-"after" part:

Theme answers:

PILL MORNING (for "morning after pill") (24A: Plan B, e.g.)
ANOTHER ONE THING (for "one thing after another") (31A: A seemingly endless series)
C I BEFORE E EXCEPT (for "I before E except after C) (41A: Rule contradicted by science?) (my favorite because of how insane it looks) (also, good clue)
READING BURN (for "burn after reading") (50A: Note to a spy, say)

Word of the Day: BÊTE / NOIRE (13D: With 62-Across, dreaded one) —

(bĕt nwär')
n.
One that is particularly disliked or that is to be avoided: "Tax shelters had long been the bête noire of reformers" (Irwin Ross).

[French : bête, beast + noire, black.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/b-te-noire#ixzz32PJ7MFwS

• • •

I worked with Adam Perl briefly early this year at a crossword tournament in Ithaca to benefit Tompkins Learning Partners. Very nice guy. Made all the tournament puzzle himself, the toughest of which was a brutal tour de force. He should publish it. But anyway, about this puzzle—I liked it. Played very easy for me. Not sure exactly when I picked up the theme, but once I did, all those themers went down quickly. For sheer loopiness, I love CIBEFOREEEXCEPT the best of them all. I know I have said in the past that I don't like nonsense in my grids, but I don't take this as nonsense—it's just a different manner of representing the answer-phrase. And not only do I like PILL MORNING as an answer, I like that it appears in the grid at all. The NYT xword has a history of being squeamish about both bodily functions as well as matters controversial, and this answer is a twofer. Nice to see this normally conservative medium being both current and (however moderately) bold.

Fill here is conservative but clean. Completely inoffensive, with some snazzy bits here and there. ACE HIGH, CON GAME, and DOWN PAT all have a nice, GRIFTery snap to them. I think OTE (33D: Taxonomic suffix) is the only answer that really gets my gote. With that exception, the grid has been nicely crafted to remove all real junk. Very surprised to see the times at the NYT site coming in normal or even slightly higher-than-normal, as this presented virtually no resistance to me. Where is the difficulty? What am I missing? What did I manage to luckily avoid?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: DEGAUSS (23A: Make less attractive?) —

Degaussing is the process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is possibly named after the Gauss unit of magnetism, which in turn is named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis it is generally not possible to reduce a magnetic field completely to zero, so degaussing typically induces a very small "known" field referred to as bias. Degaussing was originally applied to reduce ships' magnetic signatures during WWII. Degaussing is also used to reduce magnetic fields in CRT monitors and to destroy data held on magnetic data storage. (wikipedia)

• • •

Several feelings.

Not sure what's so hard about getting day-of-the-week placement right. Twice this week we've had wildly misplaced puzzles. Monday's should've been T or W. Today's is clearly a Saturday.

When I hit the Zs, I felt such massive disappointment. Puzzle went from tough-but-fair and somewhat interesting to gimmicky, on a dime. Weirdly, knowing there was a Z-block there made the puzzle *easier* than it would've been, but that didn't make me happy. It just made me frustrated at having to deal with off-cluing (like [Flusters] for TIZZIES) and words I've barely or never heard of like FOOZLER (35A: Bungler).

The fill on this is very solid. Impressively so. Hard to get fill to consistently acceptable levels when you're dealing with so much white space. Nothing here to really make you go "wow" (unless you have a Z fetish), but give it up for the relative smoothness. This bodes well for David's future pursuit of the Patrick Berry Themeless Ideal (PBTI).

Let's look at some hot and not-so-hot spots. First a side note: I solved this *immediately* upon waking. Well, no, I let the dogs out and fed them first, but then straight upstairs to the office to solve. I thought this was the reason my time was so slow, but then I checked the times posted online and realized I wasn't alone. Still, I feel like having coffee in me might've helped me get out of that NW corner a little faster, as, for a while, NLEAST was about the only thing I was sure of. USA USA! and EATS and STU followed, and then LATE AUTUMN, but after that, I just got stuck. None of the Downs made sense. You'd think "publicity" would've led me to STUNT at 6D: Means of attracting publicity, but no. Wrote in AIR GUNS then took it out because … it didn't sound that Olympian to me. Had ORION for the [Mythical hunter] at one point, and, worst of all, FISSURES for 1A: Tears (yeah, I know, it's perfect—perfectly wrong, but perfect).

Never heard of DEGAUSS and thought [Bell the cat] had to do with putting a bell on a cat so you could hear it so you would have forewarning of its approach so it wouldn't kill you because you're a mouse. I sort of forgot the part where actually putting the bell on was a treacherous, difficult task, i.e. something you DARED to do. So DEG-USS and D-RED … well, the choice there was easy, though the feeling it left me with wasn't.

Hardest part for me was the SE. And I *knew* MONTERO (39A: Mitsubishi model whose name means "huntsman" in Spanish). This is where the cluing on TIZZIES and the strangeness of FOOZLER really kept me held up. Put in and took out DIONE several times. Wanted HENNAED, then thought it looked dumb. In, out, in. Took me forever to see TONTINE, a word I know from "The Simpsons" but would never have thought of as a synonym for [Life insurance plan]. Forgot FENNEL was a "bulb"—kept looking for onion-type plants there. OMNI? Sorry, my Book of Mormon book knowledge is rusty. ERLE C. Kenton. Come on. When you have to put ERLE in your puzzle, admit to yourself that you have used crosswordese, accept it, and give us a Stanley Gardner clue. Make it a good one. Make it a tough one. But don't try to con me into believing other ERLEs qualify. They don't.

See you tomorrow, when I will be stunned if I don't solve the puzzle faster than I did this one.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Peter Wentz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: NEKO Case (8D: Indie rocker Case) —

Neko Case (/ˈniːkoʊ ˈkeɪs/;^[2] born September 8, 1970)^[3] is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers (wikipedia)

• • •

As I predicted, I finished this well under the time it took me to finish yesterday's. An average Friday time for me, whereas Friday's was an above-average Saturday time. Crazy. I'm always so happy to see a Wentz byline. I mentioned yesterday the Patrick Berry Themeless Ideal (PBTI™), which is kind of like the Zipless Fuck, in Jongian terms (keep in mind I have very little idea what I'm talking about, as I have never read Erica Jong, or Karl Jung for that matter).

The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one.

Yes. That sounds like an apt comparison to me. PBTI™ is kind of a Platonic ideal of themelesses, with the difference being that Platonic ideals don't actually exist, whereas Patrick Berry, I'm told, does, as do his puzzles. My point is that this puzzle is amazing. Clean. Close to flawless. Crammed with great fill, and not just the lovely central StaggerStack™. EYES FRONT, RECKON SO, LOW COMEDY, TAX FRAUD, all nice. Even THE WOMB and ON TOAST, which kind of look like partials, somehow work with their given clues (note: do *not* order THE WOMB ON TOAST. You will be very disappointed).

Stutter-stepped a bit in the beginning because I couldn't accept ISAAC Singer without the intervening Bashevis. Never seen a Bashevis-less ISAAC Singer. But once I gave in, MACAW and ANISE got me going, and that NW corner was over pretty quickly (though not before I convinced myself that there was some Olde Englishe tradition of giving a child a (fig?) NEWTON for Christmas. I think the clue on BUMS is kind of mean. I mean the very category is kind of mean. [Asks for and receives, as a cigarette], maybe, might've felt better. But I'll get over it. I learned ERGOT (32D: Field fungus) from crosswords and don't really like it as fill but it's hard to argue against crossing JIMMY SWAGGART with a destructive fungus. Which reminds me, I had completely forgotten JIMMY SWAGGART existed before this puzzle. Had the -AGGART part and at first wanted nothing except possibly TED HAGGART (which is not how you spell his name, but you get the idea). I have never seen the name TOM HOOPER before, and that could've killed me, except (as with all well-made puzzles) the crosses made that answer ultimately gettable.

This was just a hugely enjoyable puzzle. That is all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: Dan Schoenholz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"Change of Program"— homophones turn TV show titles wacky:

Theme answers:

DAZE OF OUR LIVES (23A: Stoners' memoirs?)
THE EX FILES (28A: Leverage in divorce negotiations?)
TWIN PEEKS (15D: Double takes?)
THE AWED COUPLE (46A: Dumbstruck duo?)
SECTS AND THE CITY (62A: Tale of metropolitan religious diversity?)
AMERICAN IDYLL (85A: Grant Wood portrayal?)
BRAKING BAD (99A: Having trouble slowing down?)
AWL IN THE FAMILY (110A: Cobbler's heirloom?)
MIAMI VISE (76D: Tight spot in South Florida?)

Word of the Day:"The BELLS" (30D: Poe poem, with "The") —

"The Bells" is a heavily onomatopoeic poem by Edgar Allan Poe which was not published until after his death in 1849. It is perhaps best known for the diacopic use of the word "bells." The poem has four parts to it; each part becomes darker and darker as the poem progresses from "the jingling and the tinkling" of the bells in part 1 to the "moaning and the groaning" of the bells in part 4. (wikipedia) [Diacope is a rhetorical term meaning repetition of a word or phrase with one or two intervening words. It derives from a Greek word meaning "cut in two" (wikipedia)]

• • •

Solid but somewhat bland. These "program changes" all involve perfect homophones, so the answers aren't That funny. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of groany puns, but if you're going to pun, for god's sake, the groanier the better. Go nuts. These all hit the mark, but I don't really care about the mark, so it was overall a "Just OK" experience for me. Grid is solid and forgettable. I do feel that I should give a certain amount of praise for the solidity, though, as Sundays have a tendency to get pretty dicey in places. This one does have some iffy bits like ASYE, HAPS, ENS, OUTA, GELEE, and assorted short gunk, but it's spread out, and none of it is that jarring. Weirdly, I didn't even notice that all the theme answers were puns on television shows until I was done. The whole time I was thinking "So … they're respellings … why?" Now I see why. Everything works fine—it just didn't interest me much.

Turns out I have been pronouncing both IDYLL and VISE wrong all my life. Well, the former I've been pronouncing British, I guess (short "i"), and the latter I've been pronouncing "vize." But I looked them both up and technically they are, in fact, homophones of the original TV title words. This is the kind of puzzle where even the errors are boring. I mean, who wants to get bogged down in the T-BILLS T-BONDS T-NOTES thing. I may have invented T-BONDS … nope, they're real. Anyway, yawn. Is it ALIA or ALII! I'm on the edge of my seat. Oh, I had SEAT before SLIP. Also not exciting. Had SMALE instead of SWALE, lord knows why. What's a SMALE? Wordnik says:

A dialectal form of small. Chaucer.
n. The form of a hare.

Well that explains it. Eight years of constant Chaucer exposure has apparently left me susceptible to some kind of archaic word syndrome.

I did enjoy remembering LL Cool J. But that's about all I really enjoyed.

Puzzle of the Week this week could easily have gone to Peter Wentz for his fantastic themeless yesterday, but I have been somewhat under-hyping Matt Gaffney's Crossword Contest all year long, and it's about time I rectified that. See, it's a metapuzzle, and it comes out on Friday, but the answer to the meta isn't revealed until Tuesday, and it's in that intervening time that I decide Puzzle of the Week. If I haven't yet figured out the meta (it sometimes takes days), I don't feel like I have enough info to say "This Is The Puzzle Of The Week." So this week I'm gonna pick a puzzle from *last* Friday, just because the meta is so freaking fantastic it demands recognition. I did not figure out the meta. To be fair, I did not spend much time trying to figure it out. Still, it was hard. But really amazing once you figure it out / see it. And scores of people did figure it out, so it's not impossible. Anyway, the puzzle is called "We Built This City" (don't worry, the horrendous Starship song is in no way involved), and the answer to the meta is a world capital. It's up to you to figure out the answer based on elements in the grid and/or clues. Brutal test of pattern recognition. Often takes days to suss these things out. I figured the previous puzzle's meta out while I was walking in the woods. Literally shouted it out after it finally came to me. His puzzles are great fun, and if you can handle frequent frustration, you should be doing them regularly. Here's the puzzle (just scroll down to the end of the post). And here's discussion of "We Built This City" over at Crossword Fiend.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. nice article in Tablet Magazine this week profiling Ben Tausig and the American Values Crossword Puzzle (which he edits)

Constructor: Dan Margolis

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday level)

THEME:"Genre"— songs are clued wackily, via a "genre" that they belong to only in the most literal of senses:

Theme answers:

17A: "Hip-hop" song of 1967 ("WHITE RABBIT")
29A: "Rap" song of 1966 ("KNOCK ON WOOD")
45A: "Country" song of 1971 ("AMERICAN PIE")
60A: "Metal" song of 1950 ("SILVER BELLS")

Word of the Day: John NANCE Garner (31D: F.D.R. veep John ___ Garner) —

John Nance Garner IV, known among his contemporaries as "Cactus Jack" (November 22, 1868 – November 7, 1967), was an American Democratic politician and lawyer from Texas. He was a state representative from 1898 to 1902, and U.S. Representative from 1903 to 1933. He was the 44th Speaker of the House in 1931–1933. In 1932, he was elected the 32nd Vice President of the United States, serving from 1933 to 1941. A conservative Southerner, Garner opposed the sit-down strikes of the labor unions and theNew Deal's deficit spending. He broke with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in early 1937 over the issue of enlarging the Supreme Court, and helped defeat it on the grounds that it centralized too much power in the President's hands. (wikipedia)

• • •

I did this and then made dinner (a kind of pizza / salad hybrid that actually came out great) and then watched the latest "Orphan Black" (I would watch a spin-off just about Helena and her wacky, ultra-violent misadventures), and then came back up here to write and had completely forgotten what the puzzle was about. Even now, I'm not sure (I'm deliberately not looking down and to my left, where the puzzle sits … I'm just going to try to remember … I know I liked it pretty well … something … nope, gotta look). Oh, right, the "genre in quotation marks" clues. Yes. It's a very cute concept. Execution feels wildly arbitrary. OK, I don't know any other famous songs about things that hop [looks up "WALTZING MATILDA" to find out if it's about a kangaroo — discovers it isn't —moves on]. But (drum roll) "KNOCK THREE TIMES" is a gorgeous 15 (bingo!) letters long. And there must be a bunch of song titles with a country name in them. There are certainly a bunch of songs with "America" in their titles. "AMERICAN PIE" is the worst of the themers, in that "American" is an adjective, not a country. And hey, "TURNING JAPANESE" works if you like adjectives, and (drum roll) 15! Pardon me while I completely redo your grid for you.

Again, love the concept. And where is the "rock" song? ("Turn to Stone"?). The "pop" song? ("Father Figure"?). You've got yourself a Sunday theme here—it's semi-squandered on these four measly answers. Fill is average, but decent. Fine. I don't like NANCE on a Monday (an old veep's middle name? no). Also, two UPs and two TOs really close to each other, and then AT ME and IT NO, also really close to each other. It's a little messy. But largely inoffensive. So thumbs up for the concept, thumbs somewhere in the middle for everything else.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Constructor: James Tuttle

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: BOOKEND (37A: Shelf prop … or a hint to both parts of the answers to the sic starred clues) — two-part phrases (or compound words) where both parts can precede "book" in a familiar phrase.

Theme answers:

OPEN SOURCE (18A: *Like software that can be freely used and altered)
FLIP PHONE (26A: *Samsung or LG product)
MATCH PLAY (47A: *Tournament competition)
SCHOOLWORK (55A: *Class assignments)
BABY BLUE (3D: *Like many a heartthrob's eyes)
GOODYEAR (38D: *Company whose logo includes the winged foot of Mercury)

Word of the Day: Buck O'NEIL (7D: Baseball great Buck) —

John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil (November 13, 1911 – October 6, 2006) was a first baseman andmanager in the Negro American League, mostly with the Kansas City Monarchs. After his playing days, he worked as a scout, and became the first African American coach in Major League Baseball. In his later years he became a popular and renowned speaker and interview subject, helping to renew widespread interest in the Negro leagues, and played a major role in establishing the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
O'Neil's life was documented in Joe Posnanski's award-winning 2007 book The Soul of Baseball. (wikipedia)

• • •

One of those after-the-facters that never interest me that much. Also, revealer should really be BOOKENDS. That would've been much more elegant. Wouldn't've fit in the center of a 15x15 grid, but still: better is better. Top three theme answers are reasonably interesting in their own right, the others, less so, and the overall fill quality is probably a shade below average (INRE OON ATTA ANOSE etc.). At 78 words (the max) your fill should be Squeaky clean, though with this kind of theme density, I guess some allowances have to be made. Grid has a strange feel to it, where it's crammed with unattractive short stuff but also has these interesting somewhat open patches of long answers (parallel Downs in the NW and SE, and the nifty little StaggerStack™ in the middle). Those patches, especially the center, were the only places I met any resistance in this thing. First pass at the middle Acrosses didn't yield much, so I had to pepper them with crosses before they came to heel. Mostly I just flew through this without any clear sense of what was going on. I probably puzzled most over MYOB, an expression I haven't heard / seen in ages (not complaining—I actually like it; it's like proto-textspeak. Textspeak before there was textspeak. Unlike OMG, which had no life that I'm aware of before texts).

I always forget who Buck O'NEIL is, and always want instead either Buck OWENS (uh, not a baseball player) or Buck … the guy who manages the Orioles. Buck … Showalter! Yeah, he doesn't fit. So if this puzzle does nothing else, maybe it ETCHES Buck O'NEIL into my memory forever. One can hope.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Jason of Harry Potter movies / THU 5-8-14 / Stratego piece with monocle / Fourth-largest city in Deutschland / Its first capital was Chillicothe 1803-10 / Heyward Stone Nelson Declaration of Independence

Whale constellation / FRI 5-9-14 / Big player in Suez Crisis / Longtime Tab competitor / 1971-97 nation name / Horror film antagonist surnamed Thorn / Dickens protagonist surnamed Trent / Toast often given with Manischewitz / Nobel-winning economist who wrote Fuzzy Math /

Kentucky county in 1976 Oscar-winning documentary / SAT 5-10-14 / Prop for Kermit Frog / Profession of Clementine's father / Girl in Music Man with floral name / 2001-05 Pontiac made in Mexico / Org in 1950s-60s TVs Naked City / Melvin King of Torts

Quarter-rounded molding / SUN 5-11-14 / Seven-time NBA rebounding champ 1992-98 / Rodent that burrows near streams / Subject of Pittsburgh art museum

1953 Leslie Caron musical / MON 5-12-14 / Some German/Swiss artworks in MoMA / Hybrid citrus fruit /

Limp Bizkit vocalist Fred / TUE 5-13-14 / Brazilian state northeast of Sao Paulo / Alaskan panhandle city / Enlightened Buddhist / Cousin of culottes / Spartan serf / 1971 Bill Withers hit / 1987 Buster Poindexter hit / Italian monk's title

Governor elected in 2003 recall vote / 5-14-14 / Historic resigned of 2013 / Country with gorilla on its 5000-franc note / Drug smuggler's courier

Soviet spymaster in John le Carré trilogy / THU 5-15-14 / Actress Green of 300 Rise of Empire / Role played by Baldwin Ford Affleck Pine / US slalom great Phil / Inscribed pillar

Big bass in fishing lingo / FRI 5-16-14 / Admiral who bombarded Tahiti in 1914 / Writer of 644-line poem Ibis / Pistol packer in 1943 #1 hit / Grey alter ego Marvel's X Man / Actress Kazan Kravitz

Infamous settler on Galveston Island 1817 / SAT 5-17-14 / Once common desert fighting force / Ballistic test units Abbr / Tommy of 1960s pop / Parlor with simulcasts / River crossed by ferry in 1965 Top Ten hit

Band with 1974 #1 hit Night Chicago Died / SUN 5-18-14 / Jai alai basket / Orphic hymn charmer / Tony-winningn actress Judith / Like some bands with only modest Western popularity / Canadian blockhead / She married Bobby on Sopranos

Gunderson on Simpsons / MON 5-19-14 / Frozen structure that facilitates animal migration / Former Senate minority whip Jon / Cylindrical alternative to French fries / Extremely cool in slang

Short player wise as in hockey / TUE 5-20-14 / Montreal Canadien familiarly / Blue-turfed home for Boise State football / Former fort on Monterey Bay / Beef cuts named for New York restaurateur / Illinois home of Caterpillar

Steel giant founded in 1899 / WED 5-21-14 / Friedrich units for short / Google co-founder Sergey

Ray Charles hit of 1963 / THU 5-22-14 / Taxonomic suffix / Whence word robot / Starbuck's orderer / 2008 TARP recipient / Leopold's partner in crime /

Indie rocker Case / SAT 5-24-14 / Merrie Melodies sheepdog / Certain beach phony / Surrealist known for self-portraits / Field fungus

Freud disciple Alfred / SUN 5-25-14 / Rapture of Canaan author Reynolds / Ferrell's cheerleading partner on SNL / Stylist's goop / Cobbler's heirloom

Rap song of 1966 / MON 5-26-14 / Hip-hop song of 1967 / Suffix with pay or schnozz / Easily tamed tropical birds / Metal song of 1950

Shelf prop / TUE 5-27-14 / Language that gave us guru pundit / Shot for those who have mastered English / Rebuke to eavesdropper for short