Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Matt Ginsberg

Relative difficulty: 0:33 faster than average, says the iPad app, so...about average

THEME: Literally speaking—the circled squares follow the internal directions.

Word of the Day:SKOSH(6A: Tiny bit) —

From Japanese少し‎(sukoshi, “a little bit”). // Noun, plural skoshes. // A tiny amount; a little bit; tad; smidgen; jot. He added just a skosh of vinegar, to give the recipe some zip. (Wiktionary)

• • •

[NOTE FROM REX: Comments section is now moderated. It will take between minutes and hours for your comment to appear, depending on my (and a few others') access to a computer. This policy is not up for debate and not likely to change any time soon. Complaints about bad actors just piled up and so I had to do something. This is it. The last two days' worth of comments have been moderated and the Comments section is much, much nicer—thanks for all the kind notes, btw. OK, now on to today's featured Rex stand-in: the wonderful Melissa!]

Hello! I'm Melissa, and I'm pinch-hitting for Rex today. I, too, live in New York State, but that might be about all I have in common with our illustrious absent host. Rex, I hope you're enjoying your vacation!

I found this puzzle on the meh side: I feel like I've seen this sort of theme somewhere in the not-too-distant past, but I can't dredge up exactly where it was. I also felt like the puzzle was overloaded with proper names. But the puzzle does contain a whopping 11 theme answers, ranging in length from 8 to 13 characters and nicely positioned symmetrically in the grid.

Theme answers:

CALLBACK (20A: Result of a successful audition)
SPLIT SECOND (25A: Instant)
TORN TO SHREDS (37A: In bits)
MINCEMEAT (46A: Kind of pie)
DRIFT APART (54A: Lose that loving feeling)
SCRAMBLED EGGS (62A: Diner offering)
MIXED MEDIA (72A: Art type)
HASH MARKS (83A: # # #)
INTERMINGLED (90A: Like 0's and 1's in binary)
FAST SHUFFLE (105A: Card sharp's deception)
UNBROKEN (112A: Whole)

If you're keeping score, that's one reversal, five slices, and five anagrams. I'm a little bothered that of the sliced answers, one has the cut between two words (TO/SHREDS) whereas the others are all cut in the middle of a word (S/ECOND, M/E/AT, DRIF/T, U/N). I also would have liked to see more than one reversal, or no reversals at all, since it's the odd one out here.

I typically solve on my iPad, which means that I generally am working sequentially through the clues. On my first pass through, I also tend to enter only the things I'm absolutely certain of, because I always forget about the pencil tool. (Then again, even when I solve on paper, I prefer to use a pen, preferably a Pilot G-2 Extra Fine or Ultra Fine blue: I'm a southpaw, and for me, this pen's ink is relatively quick-drying and therefore relatively smear-proof.) One advantage of solving electronically is that when I'm done, there's no evidence of any mistakes I may have made along the way!
Here's what I had after my first pass through today's puzzle:

Not so much, eh? This was a bit sparser than usual, for my first pass through. And so much for certainty, especially with respect to 73D, 76D, 28A, and 60A. (Uncertainty? Paging Schrödinger's buddy Heisenberg, who was stopped for speeding. When the officer asked him if he knew how fast he was going, he said, "No, but I know exactly where I am!" Ba-dum-bump.)

Speaking of 60A (Puffed ___), puffed rice is fairly common, especially among those health food nuts who prefer their breakfast to resemble styrofoam packing peanuts. (There's also puffed wheat, of course, which becomes almost edible if it's coated with sugar, or these days more likely 7D, but that doesn't fit here.) I don't think I've ever seen puffed OATS. When I googled "puffed rice" (with the quotation marks) I got about 491,000 results, compared to about 6,400 results for "puffed oats." But those numbers don't tell the whole story. When I looked through the first couple of pages of puffed oats results, all but one of the hits were for UK links. The only United States-based link went to Amazon—but the box of cereal was fulfilled by a UK company, it's definitely not an American brand because the picture of the box shows that it's "high fibre," and one box would set you back $8.35. Thus, I question this particular cluing decision.

Once I started to make a few successive passes through the puzzle, my errors became obvious. By about the third pass through, I had both SPLIT SECOND and MINCEMEAT and the theme clicked, so I could make some educated guesses at the other theme answers. The NE was the last part of the grid I filled in, largely because (as you can see) I had a taxi instead of a large body of water. Once I erased that, I goofed again by putting Apex instead of ACME (16D: Zenith), which didn't help matters any.

Bullets:

RATSO (1D: ___ Rizzo of film)— I hesitated here because Betty also has five letters, and that's the first name of Rizzo in Grease. After my first pass, I was able to fill this one in and the rest of the corner fell fairly easily. But it took me a little while to properly parse 1A (Move, as a plant) and fill in REPOT, even with that initial R in place.
SOD (52A: Green topper) and ELF (59D: Figure often dressed in green)— I might know Matt Ginsberg's favorite color now.
LOTION (93D: Bottle in a beach bag) and FRY (109D: Linger in the hot sun)— I had to bring this up because it gives me a chance to put in this, from the great Ella Fitzgerald singing the great Cole Porter.

I could have done without the crosswordese of STG ESAI OTOE AMAT OTTOII ASTA DIGHT (11A 14A 45A 97A 110A 47D 64D).
START A FIRE (71D: Rub some sticks together, as at camp)— I initially had light A FIRE. Do people still rub sticks together for this purpose? Even back in the dark ages of my Girl Scout days, we had matches.
ANODES (80A: Battery ends)— Those poor neglected cathodes never get any attention in CrossWorld! (What did the anode say to the cathode? "You're always so negative!")
SHE-CAT (6D: Tom's partner)— I've never heard anyone refer to a queen by this name! (My own neutered tom answers to Leo.)
SAYS (15D: "___ You!")— Says You is one of my favorite public radio shows. I was sad to hear that the creator and original host, Richard Sher, passed away earlier this year, but I look forward to hearing the new shows with new host (and long-time panelist) Barry Nolan, once they're taped.
ORCA (31D: Boat in "Jaws")— Has anyone else who solves on a platform that includes the Mini Puzzle noticed that there's often duplication, or near-duplication, of answers between the little and big puzzles? Today's Mini includes ORCAS (1D: Animals in the acclaimed documentary "Blackfish"). This particular example doesn't bother me so much because it isn't an exact duplication, but there have been multiple instances where the same answer will be clued identically in both puzzles for a single day. Since I use the Mini as a warm-up exercise for the big puzzle, it's always really obvious to me when it happens. I wish I could access previous Minis so I could give you a specific example, but it seems that if you miss the window for a particular Mini, it's closed forever.
ME LIKE (92D: Informal approval)— The few times I've heard something along these lines, it's always been "Me likey." That said, I haven't heard even that for a few years.
SKID ROWS (9D: Lush locales)— I like this clue. My favorite Skid Row is the one that's home to Seymore and Audrey II.

MALI (72D: Country once known as French Sudan)—This is my chance to publicly thank Mrs. Smith, my sixth-grade social studies teacher. In her class, we studied the geography of Africa and Asia, and which enabled me to confidently fill in this answer when I first saw it. So, Mrs. Smith, for this and much more, domo arigato!

Thanks for reading. I'm not Rex, but I hope this has been up to his standard.

Signed, Melissa, off the bench in CrossWorld

MADAM,I'mADAM. Nah, just kidding...I'm Annabel! Which doesn't really have a palindrome with anything.

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Hard (to be fair, maybe it would be easier if I had actually been alive in 1975)

THEME: HERCULE POIROT — This theme can be summed up by "I need to read more Agatha Christie." Seriously though, all theme clues are related to her fictional detective Hercule Poirot, who was so beloved that he was the only fictional character ever to have an obituary in the New York Times.

Theme answers:

MOUSTACHE (18A: Notable 23-Across feature)
HERCULE POIROT (23A: Fictional character who "died" in 1975)
LITTLE GREY CELLS (39A: What 23-Across thinks with [as illustrated by this grid?])
EGG-SHAPED HEAD (50A: Notable 23-Across feature)
DETECTIVE (62A: 23-Across' occupation)

Word of the Day: LITTLE GREY CELLS (39A: What 23-Across thinks with [as illustrated by this grid?]) —

Grey matter or gray matter is a major component of the central nervous system, consisting of neuronal cell bodies, neuropil (dendrites and myelinated as well as unmyelinated axons), glial cells (astroglia and oligodendrocytes), synapses, and capillaries. Grey matter is distinguished from white matter, in that grey matter contains numerous cell bodies and relatively few myelinated axons, while white matter is composed chiefly of long-range myelinated axon tracts and contains relatively very few cell bodies.^[1] The color difference arises mainly from the whiteness of myelin. In living tissue, grey matter actually has a very light grey color with yellowish or pinkish hues, which come from capillary blood vessels and neuronal cell bodies.^[2]

• • •

Wait, wrong French detective. Here:

Ah, there we go! So anyway, as I mentioned above, the Poirot theme that I knew nothing about made this puzzle very challenging. Too challenging, perhaps, for a Monday? It might have been a LOT easier if all the theme clues helped us figure out Poirot, rather than expecting us to know Poirot to figure out the rest of the theme clues. But hey, Steinberg wrote this when he was 14 (!!!!), cut him some slack.

The rest of the puzzle was pretty rad. Loved the identical clues for SET and LOTas well as for ACHE and LONG. BTW, Davide Steinberg, did you take French in 9th grade? Because with MASSE, ILS, MLLE, and APERCU - for that matter, HERCULE POIROT- it sure seems like it. Pretty decent fill overall. ALSO, I had no idea that NEAP was such a staple of the crossword world (the crossworld?). I had HIGH in that spot for the longest time, you know, because high tide is actually a normal concept that normal people know.

Bullets:

KEY (22A: Item on a custodian's ring) — That's the name of the school I just graduated from!!!!! The good old Key School, home of the Fighting Obezags. "Obezag" is...just the word "gazebo" spelled backwards because we didn't have a mascot in the 70s and had to make one up so sportswriters could write about us. We even won a contest for Top Mascot. *PTA mom Rex's BFF Liz Glass voice* If you live in Annapolis you should send your kids there!! www.keyschool.org

PLUTO (8A: Former planet) — I LOVE THAT WE TOOK PICTURES OF PLUTO I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT'S SO EXCITING AND PRETTY!!!!!!

EGO (35A: Big feature for Donald Trump or Kanye West)— Cue outraged commentors.

MOUSTACHE (18A: Notable 23-Across feature) — Speaking of French...

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired rising college student

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Tuesday ... actually, it was just that SW corner that slowed me down ... 3:48 solving time)

THEME: LIQUOR STORE (52A: Where to purchase the starts of 21-, 26- and 45-Across) — starts of said answers are units of booze:

Theme answers:

FIFTH AVENUE (21A: Fashionable shopping area in New York City)
SIX-PACK ABS (26A: Goal of one doing crunches)
CASE CLOSED ("End of discussion")

Word of the Day: SPACEX (3D: Private-sector rocket launcher) —

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company with its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, USA. It was founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk with the goal of creating the technologies that will enable humanity to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars (fully and rapidly reusable rockets) It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both of which were designed from conception to eventually become reusable, and the Dragon spacecraft which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with cargo. A manned version of Dragon is in development. (wikipedia)

• • •

I was probably supposed to trip on LISTICLE (35D: "21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity," e.g.), which is probably the most modern / least well-known entry in the grid, but that didn't trip me at all, and yet I still managed to fall on my face in that section because of a bummer of a cross-ref (the boring CAR / ACURA) and then TIOGA (living in NY helped some, but not much there), and then GOATS (50D: Their hair makes cashmere). My mind was sending only pictures of ... I think those are llamas. Or alpacas. Not GOATS, for sure. So I flailed around down there some, so my LISTICLE knowledge was for naught. Actually, I don't think I really know what a LISTICLE is. A list that is an article? As I typed that last question out, I became surer and surer that that is correct. But LISTICLE really seems like a brand name. There's probably a listicle.com. Let's see ... hmm, it's actually a dot "co."What the hell is dot "co"? This is too much new info for me to take in in one day. It was enough to learn cashmere = GOATS. Let's just leave today's learning at that.

["The stars are gonna spell out the answers to tomorrow's crossword ..."]

The theme! It was fine. Absolutely respectable for a Tuesday puzzle. In fact, for a *Tuesday* puzzle, it's bleepin' golden. Most Tuesdays end up Trying Too Hard and falling on their faces. This one just steps to the plate and hits a solid single to left, easily driving in the runner on third. This is all to say that the theme is fine, but not the highlight. The contemporary and/or bouncy fill is the highlight. SPACE X! COMIC CON! HOTH isn't contemporary, exactly, but since it's always 1980 in my soul, HOTH! I'd throw AAA and ISTS and maybe ANS. in the trash, but I'll take the rest as is. Nicely done.

Bullets:

27D: Great Plains tribe (KIOWA)— a tribe I learned from crosswords, one that I now know of as "that K one in five letters how does it go again?" My first stab at spelling was pathetically close to KOALA.
61A: What indicates everything that's left? (WILL)— first answer: ET AL. This answer is blatant sucking up to the editor. [and now here's the part where I say "I'm kidding" just in case ...]
47D: Part of E = mc^2 (ENERGY)— I for real had EQUALS.

Thanks to everyone who filled in for me during my time at middle-aged summer camp (one week) and Giant Yearly Family Vacation (another week): Matt, Neville, Eli, Adrianne, Andy, Ben, Lena, Evan, Melissa, and the always lovely and reliable Annabel. It's very (very!) nice to know I can leave for a bit and all the trains will run on time (with fewer Mussolini-esque implications). You might get another pinch-hitter this weekend, as I head to Lollapuzzoola 8 in NYC this weekend (8/8!). Or else I will blog live from the tourney (or just post-tourney), which guarantees certain blog post features, none of which is complete coherence, but you'll live. Oh, and it goes without saying that you should head to Lollapuzzoola 8 this weekend if you are anywhere in or near the northeastern U.S. and also enjoy crosswords (presumably if you are reading this, you fall into the latter category; although if you do not, in fact, enjoy crosswords, please write me and let me know why you are reading my blog, as I am now dead curious).

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS if you somehow can't make it to Lollapuzzoola 8 this weekend, there's an At-Home version of the tourney you can play. Go here for details.

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Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: hoosegow— fill in the blank clues that treat literally some figurative terms for being in prison. All clues begin "I merely..." and end "... and now I'm ___!," the idea being that the speaker is talking as if he's been put in prison for doing something, when the prison term is actually just a literal description of what the speaker was doing. Here:

Theme answers:

17A: "I merely agreed to serve beer at some pubs, and now I'm ___!" (BEHIND BARS) (Get it? He's literally behind bars, only they're bars that serve alcohol, not the bars of a prison cage.... yeah, you get it)
25A: "I merely bought mysefl a McMansion, and now I'm ___!" (IN THE BIG HOUSE)
42A: "I merely went to my yoga class, and now I'm ___!") (DOING A STRETCH)
55A: "I merely paddled my canoe against a current, and now I'm ___!" (UP THE RIVER)

Word of the Day: Neil LABUTE (6D: Film director Neil) —

Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright. (wikipedia) // In the Company of Men is a 1997 Canadian/American black comedy written and directed by Neil LaBute and starring Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy, and Stacy Edwards. The film, which was adapted from a play written by LaBute, and served as his feature film debut, won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. // The film revolves around two male coworkers, Chad (Eckhart), and Howard (Malloy), who, angry and frustrated with women in general, plot to toy maliciously with the emotions of a deaf female subordinate.

• • •

I missed solving puzzles and I missed writing about them every day but I did not miss Planet Cornball. This elbow-elbow nudge-nudge kind of cutesy word play does nothing for me, and to go from the HIGH of seeing Patrick Berry's name to the LOW of the "comedy" form here was jarring. I want to say that the concept is clever, or cute, because it kind of is, but the whole thing, ugh. It's even hard to describe exactly what is going on. So ... the speaker is suggesting he's going to jail (the whole "I merely ... and now I'm ..." conceit), but he's also just literally explaining what he is doing, so ... the whole utterance context is lost on me. I get the pun, I just don't get why the speaker is such an idiot that he doesn't know the difference between literal and figurative language. The fill is pretty sub-Berry on this one, too. Better than most, but still a little heavy on the EPEE- and POL- and ETTU-type stuff. OSSIE OTTER ESTERS ASTA UTNE—and those are all within one inch of each other in the grid. Sometimes literalizing figurative speech can pay dividends, but something about the clues was just irksome today. Off. Weird. Not NEATO.

I did enjoy seeing Neil LABUTE, though. Haven't thought about his films in years. I'm realizing now that I saw his first three films (up to and including "Nurse Betty" (2000)) and then nothing else. I think that's less a reflection on him and more a reflection of my (mostly) having stopped going to the movies once the 21st century started, i.e. once I finally got a full-time job, started a family, etc. I'm also realizing that I thought he was the guy who directed "Welcome to the Dollhouse" (1995). But no. That's Todd SOLONDZ (a crossworthy name in its own right).

["DUH!"]
In terms of thorniness, I had a lot of trouble getting out of the SW, where both UNPAVED (38D: Just dirt, say) and GPS (43D: Savior of lost souls, for short?) eluded me for a very long time (well, many seconds ... a very long time *for a Wednesday*). I had S.O.S. for the [Savior of lost souls] clue, and I can't have been the only one. No idea about the aunt in the "Judy Moody" books. I went with OPIE at first ("Wow ... a new OPIE," I thought. "Cool."). After that, I can't remember anything interesting happening. I just finished.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Thanks to Evan Birnholz, who, even though he didn't fill in for me today, agreed to do so last night after it looked like my internet service would Never return (full-day outage courtesy of my friends at Time Warner). Weirdly, my service came back online just minutes before Evan blew a fuse (literally) in his apartment. So, bad karma transfer completed, I was able to resume my normal duties here.

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Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (except for that one cross ... yeah, you know the one ...)

THEME: By the by— a "literally" puzzle, where phrases structured "___ by ___" are, literally, place "by" (as in "alongside") one another. So the "by" is supplied / inferred by the adjacency of the two phrase parts:

Theme answers:

BAPTISM (by) FIRE (3D: With 14-Down, literally, grueling initiation)
TRIAL (by) JURY (22D: With 27-Down, literally, a Sixth Amendment right)
AS IF (by) MAGIC (35D: With 36-Down, literally, beyond rational explanation)
LEAD (by) THE NOSE (52D: With 42-Down, literally, control completely)

Word of the Day: EFT (47A: Direct-deposit payment, for short) —

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a form of counseling intervention that draws on various theories of alternative medicine including acupuncture, neuro-linguistic programming, energy medicine, and Thought Field Therapy (TFT). It is best known through Gary Craig's EFT Handbook, published in the late 1990s, and related books and workshops by a variety of teachers. EFT and similar techniques are often discussed under the umbrella term "energy psychology". // In physics, an effective field theory is a type of approximation to (or effective theory for) an underlying physical theory, such as a quantum field theory or a statistical mechanics model. An effective field theory includes the appropriate degrees of freedom to describe physical phenomena occurring at a chosen length scale or energy scale, while ignoring substructure and degrees of freedom at shorter distances (or, equivalently, at higher energies). Intuitively, one averages over the behavior of the underlying theory at shorter length scales to derive a hopefully simplified model at longer length scales. Effective field theories typically work best when there is a large separation between length scale of interest and the length scale of the underlying dynamics. Effective field theories have found use in particle physics, statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, general relativity, and hydrodynamics. They simplify calculations, and allow treatment of Dissipation and Radiation effects . //
n. A newt in itsjuvenileterrestrialstage,especiallythereddish-orangeform of theNorthAmericanspeciesNotophthalmusviridescens. // (actually...) Electronic funds transfer (EFT) is the electronic transfer of money from one bank account to another, either within a single financial institution or across multiple institutions, through computer-based systems and without the direct intervention of bank staff. EFTs are known by a number of names. In the United States, they may be referred to as electronic checks or e-checks.

• • •

If thousands of solvers don't crash on the rocky shores of EFT / TAEL today, I will eat my virtual hat. This is a truly terrible cross for a number of reasons. First, it involves terrible fill. Both parts. No good. EFT you want to avoid if possible, and TAEL you really really really want to avoid, as it is pretty much textbook crosswordese (foreign 4-letter unit of whatever that most US solvers don't know and that no one would ever put n their crossword if they weren't desperate / tired—As a good friend of mine just said: "I knew 48D because I've seen the Crossword Compiler default word list. Thumbs down."). Then there's the fact that EFT has a much more common clue. If you're gonna cross crosswordese (i.e. junk) for god's sake don't get cute. I had no idea what EFT was until I looked it up. Never heard of it. How in the world is that clue better than the salamander clue? It is unusual, which *can* be a plus, and it's harder, which *can* be a plus, but when you are dealing in abbrevs. that not everyone knows—and I can't say this strongly enough—Every Cross Must Be Rock-Solid Fair. And TAEL just isn't. Lastly, there's another fix: just go letter string EFG and GAEL. Or, you know, you could tear out *everything* that isn't theme material and start over, which is probably what should've happened here today, as the fill is weak all over. The lesson: avoidable death crosses will ensure that people don't remember any other damn thing about your puzzle. Why would you shoot yourself in the foot like that?

This theme type is common enough on Thursdays. A "literally" theme, where some word (e.g. "over""under""in""through") in a common phrase is supplied / inferred by the way the phrase's component parts are arranged. Seen it a lot. There are only four examples here. That's not a lot. None of them are scintillating or the good kind of surprising. I waned my trial to be by fire, so BAPTISM took me some time, and AS IF was unexpected in its two-partedness, so that one made me work too. It's a cute enough idea. Not a DOOZIE (25D: Humdinger), but OK. And yet I don't think it really rises to what a Thursday NYT should be. Certainly not as executed here. And the fill pretty much ruins whatever good stuff the theme brought to the table.

["... with their sharpies and their guns"]

Bullets:

1A: Part of a harvest festival decoration (COB)— this took some doing. It's accurate enough, but since normal humans only ever use the phrase "corn cob," it didn't leap to mind.
45A: Orbital low point (PERIGEE)— to my credit, I remembered this instantly. To my humiliation, I spelled it like nine different ways before I got it right.
5D: Common Halloween costume (HAG)— Again, I think normal humans call them "witches," but I guess HAG is acceptable. I had BAT.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Peter Wentz

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: TORIC (5D: Like bagels) —

adj. of or resembling JOE TORRE, which seems kind of mean, but hey, I didn't write the dictionary.

• • •

OK, so between having dinner guests, and the first GOP debates, plural! (yes, I watched them both), and then also the final "Daily Show" (an hour long!), I, uh, don't really have a lot of time/energy for this write-up. Also, write-ups for the next few days could get a little dicey, as I am heading tomorrow to Lollapuzzoola 8 in Ye Olde Manhattane (you should go), and am not getting back til Monday. There will be drinks and puzzles and more drinks and foods and Yankee Stadium and drinks and, randomly, a Minnesota friend who just happens to be in NYC unrelated to crossword stuff, and probably some other stuff in there. So, yeah, the write-ups might suffer. Or they might improve. This is all a matter of perspective. At any rate, this puzzle ruled even though it was way too easy. Please give Peter Wentz all the Friday puzzles. Or half. Other half to Patrick Berry. Then other people when those guys need a day off. That would be nice.

["Circus life / Under the BIG TOP world / We all need the clowns / To make us cry"]
My favorite clue of the day was [Food channel] for GULLET. My least favorite answer was AOKS because honestly when is that Ever plural. RLESS can also suck it. But otherwise, mwah, big kiss for this thing. I knew things were gonna fly when I zinged a couple of longish answers right off the bat:

Usually I use short answers to build to the long ones, which is kind of what happened here, except I needed just one short answer (CLUB) to get things going. From here I finished the NW quickly and then circled the central black squares quickly, in a counterclockwise ovalish shape like so:

... leaving just some filling in in the SE, and then the NE and SW corners, which I solved, easily, in that order. I got a tiny bit worried about getting into the SW corner, 'cause you gotta come into it from the back ends of just a few answers, which can be tricky, but then this happened:

[What are DES KLAMPS? Is that some Belgian thing?]

I think my last answer was LCDS. I don't really get the clue on RON PAUL, which is to say I don't really get the significance of the anagram, and I don't generally like clues that use anagrams (he's famous, why are you doing that?). I enjoyed seeing ZIPLINES as I was just on some in the mountains of British Columbia last week. I learned from one of the women in our party (a Minnesotan) that they have a ZIPLINE in the Mall of America (true fact!). My stepbrother (along with the rest of my family) was in the mountains with me. I mention him here only because he had that FARRAH poster on his wall when he was a teenager. 1979. I remember it well.

See you tomorrow and throughout my crossword weekend. Again, there's still time to register for Lollapuzzoola 8, the funnest and now only NYC crossword tournament. See you there, or here, or both.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS [Texan's rival] is COLT because of football. It's a football thing.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: AMICE (29D: Garment worn partly under an alb) —

The amice is a liturgical vestment used mainly in the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, in some Anglican churches, and Armenian and Polish National Catholic churches. It consists of a white cloth connected to two long ribbon-like attachments, by which it is fastened around the shoulders of the priest. Before the liturgical reforms of 1972, its use was mandatory for all Roman Catholic Masses, but it is only required today if the alb does not cover the priest's ordinary clothing. Many priests choose to wear the amice for reasons of tradition or to prevent damage to their other vestments due to perspiration. (wikipedia)

• • •

I am in a Madison Avenue Starbucks that my companion Lena called "the saddest Starbucks ever" but I think that's a mild exaggeration. It's almost clean, so there's that. We were out late—or I was out late and she was out later—drinking at a place in the Bowery. Hence the tardiness of this post. I solved part of it this morning and then the rest of it sitting here with Lena and her boyfriend Brayden and my wife. "What was the stupid novel, again?" was a question that was just asked as we were trying to remember this puzzle we just did. What do we have to say about it? I don't know. They're playing half-crappy music real loud in here. I think this is Usher I'm listening to. Here's what I remember about this puzzle. AMICE / ETAMINE. Brayden sews and he has never heard of ETAMINE. None of the rest of us has either. I had to run the alphabet to get the "M" because "alb" is the extent of my priestly garment vocabulary, and that word was in the clue for AMICE. Also, I figured (prayed) that no one would go for so obscure a clue for ALICE. So when I ran the alphabet and hit "M" it felt right. It rang some bell located in some horrible crosswordese experience in times of yore. And it was right. Hurray.

Lena thought NOHO was BORO. Then hypothesized that BO RO might stand for something. Boston Rosewater. Lena says it sounds like a sex act. Or when you use Guinness as perfume. "Splash a little rosewater on your neck." Me: "Why would you put Guinness on your neck?" Brayden: "Have you *been* to Boston?" Lena: "Shhh. Boston can hear you?" Now she's calling John Mellencamp "John Menstrual Cramp." Also Lena is an ex-bartender and is distressed never to have had a Brompton cocktail, even after finding out what's in it (it's not something you'd consume for pleasure ... probably). Last night we had Pimm's Cup and a whiskey smash and a 50/50 w/ "good" vermouth and pink gin and other stuff. And sherry. Lena will go *off* on the history of sherry and the sherry-making process. Brayden thought [Spread on a table] was OLEO and Lena is mocking his failure but I told him it was a reasonable guess. I did a "spread"-themed puzzle recently, so after I guessed OLEO and it was clearly wrong, PATÉ slid right in.

The stacks are OK. The fill isn't very good. NONU is paradigmatically bad. Easy for me, because it's so bad I remembered it. ORLE and ISTH, also pretty yuck. But pure "yuck" was actually not very abundant. Mostly this is adequate and forgettable. My favorite moment was imagining that [Woods in a pit] was TIGER. It's OBOES. I think I got sand trap confused with sand ... pit. I guess. We've got Brayden deep into belovedlinens.net trying to figure out what the hell is up with ETAMINE. Wearable KETAMINE? Brayden says 'no.' Lena has gone to find a restroom and Brayden is talking about his job with my wife. I don't have much more to say, so I'll wrap. I have a tournament to attend in like 90 minutes about 30 blocks from here. Oooh, the O'Jays is on now. "She Used to Be My Girl." Thanks for taking me out on a high note, Madison Avenue Starbucks!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Melanie Miller

Relative difficulty: Easyish

THEME:"Help Wanted"— Familiar phrases (following the structure "[VERB] the [NOUN]") are re-imagined as goals of various "Help Wanted" ads, with the familiar phrases punning on the occupations mentioned in the theme clues (all of which are written as "Help Wanted ads, following the structure "Need [OCCUPATION] to ..." . Thus:

Theme answers:

23A: Need rural real estate investor to ... (BUY THE FARM)
25A: Need retail marketer to ... (FILL THE GAP)
45A: Need cocktail waitress to ... (CALL THE SHOTS)
17D: Need stunt pilot to ... (FLIP THE BIRD)
41D: Need control tower operator to ... (CLEAR THE AIR)
56A: Need bakery assistant to ... (TAKE THE CAKE)
80A: Need cruise ship band to ... (ROCK THE BOAT)
89A: Need orchestra conductor to ... (FACE THE MUSIC)
114A: Need blackjack dealer to ... (HIT THE DECK)
116A: Need magician to ... (DO THE TRICK)

Word of the Day: BLATS (39D: Calf cries) —

verb
verb: blat; 3rd person present: blats; past tense: blatted; past participle: blatted; gerund or present participle: blatting
1.
make a bleating sound.
noun
noun: blat; plural noun: blats
1.
a bleat or similar noise.

"the blat of Jack's horn"

• • •

Hi there. Still in NYC, still totally off my normal blogging schedule (which is See Puzzle, Get Puzzle, Do Puzzle, Blog Puzzle, right as it comes out). I had a long, amazing day of crossword tournamenting at Lollapuzzoola 8, and then walked 40+ blocks back to the hotel because I really needed it, and then somehow managed to do the puzzle, and then promptly collapsed, and my phone alarm was set for 6am, and I know it went off, but I also know that the next thing I remember was my wife saying "It's 8:20" and me mumbling some kind of expletive. It is currently 8:43. I will write about the tournament and post pictures and such some time in the coming week. But briefly—it was the biggest crossword tournament I've been to outside the ACPT (200+ competitors!) but still small enough to have a relaxed, fun, intimate feel that only a smaller, independent tournament can have. Lollapuzzoola is designed with the entertainment of All contestants in mind. Puzzles are top-notch, but mostly doable in the time allotted, and you can use "Google tickets" after a certain amount of time has passed, which means you can hand in a little ticket in exchange for one non-theme answer. This means that there is no reason for anyone to be permanently stuck on the harder puzzles. The vibe of the tournament is really relaxed, even though the puzzles are as good as those you'll find anywhere on the planet (Anna Shechtman's and Joon Pahk's were particularly brilliant) and the solving talent in that room, dear lord: first-rate. Congrats to Francis Heaney, by the way, for pulling out a genuinely thrilling, genuinely last-second victory over Trip Payne and Erik Agard in the finals. Again, more later. Just try to keep the first Saturday in August (or thereabouts) free next year if you have Any interest in trying out a tournament. Lots of people came up to me and said this was their first tournament and they were so glad they came. That could be you!

[Adesina Koiki, working it out. If you come to Lollapuzzoola, you will look like this ... and LOVE it!]

This puzzle! Was a Sunday puzzle! That I did! On a Saturday in August! It is fine—kind of a throwback puzzle in the straightforwardness of the theme and the wordplay involved. The phrases didn't always work for me. FILL THE GAP refers to the specific retail establishment The Gap? That specificity is odd, especially compared to the other, much much more general answers. Also, cocktail waitresses take orders for shots. Nurses and basketball announcers are more people who CALL THE SHOTS. TAKE THE CAKE is way way too vague to be something a "bakery assistant" does. Take it where? And why would a dealer HIT THE DECK. What did the deck ever do to her? I did love (love!) the clue for ROCK THE BOAT. Image of the cruise ship band jamming away was spot-on and vivid.

Fill is probably on the wrong side of average, but not too far on that side. ABRA should be deleted from all word lists and all people's memories. It is simply not an acceptable answer, no matter how many times it keeps showing up. Most of the rest of the fill is inoffensive but often bland and overly familiar, or just mildly icky. ETAPE, you know? You know? Yeah. OK, it's almost 9am, so I'm gonna let you have at it. See you all tomorrow. I'm off to Yankee Stadium today to see Tanaka pitch against the ragtag, ad hoc, makeshift, and probably now very very good Toronto Blue Jays today. Should be fun.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: C.W. Stewart

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:"SAY CHEESE!"(58A: "Smile!" ... or a hint to the ends of the answers to the five starred clues)— last words of theme answers are denominations of cheese

Theme answers:

17A: *Club used in a bunker (SAND WEDGE)
32A: *1980s hand-held puzzle craze (RUBIK'S CUBE)
41A: *Many a countertop) (MARBLE SLAB)
3D: *Inability to recall something (MENTAL BLOCK)
26D: *Riverboat propeller (PADDLE WHEEL)

Word of the Day: ALB (30A: Priest's robe) —

noun
noun: alb; plural noun: albs
a white vestment worn by clergy and servers in some Christian Churches. (google)

• • •

I solved this puzzle in the lobby of the Carlton Hotel on Madison Avenue with Doug Peterson, Brad Wilber, Angela Halsted (aka "PuzzleGirl") and my wife, Penelope. I sat here and read the Across clues out in order (not a way I would ever solve the puzzle on my own). There was only one answer we got wrong—FACES (which we had, predictably, as SIDES) (55A: What 32-Across has six of). I don't think I would've opted for the cross-reference there. But nevermind that. I predicted what the revealer of this puzzle would be after just two theme answers were completed. We were none of us sure that a SLAB was a valid unit of cheese, but then Brad remembered the lyrics of this song, which validated SLAB (as well as "hunk,""slice," and "chunk," none of which appear in this puzzle).

[What is Timer? He's like this mincing ... cheese ... thing ... in the wild west???]

[Doug and Brad and I can sing this jingle verbatim]

So one good thing we have to say about this puzzle is the theme density is pretty impressive, and running two valid theme answers Down through two others is no mean feat. Doug just asked me if we're calling C.W. Stewart (the constructor) "C-Dubs." I said sure, why not. C-Dubs it is. Anyway, C-Dubs really themes it up. There's some cool little colloquial phrases here and there, but most of the fill is quite ordinary and (more distressingly) clued in a painfully straightforward way. It's possible to write easy clues that also have a certain degree of freshness. These clues don't. Mostly. Having spent the weekend with exquisite puzzles of all difficulty levels, I'm a little spoiled. But still, it's an important point—there's no reason a Monday-easy puzzle can't have interesting, clever, vibrant, or otherwise unstale clues. Our favorite clue was probably 16A: Like some screws and translations (LOOSE) (Brad especially likes this clue best because he was the first / only person to get it). Also, there's nothing in this puzzle you couldn't have seen in a puzzle 30 years ago. The Alan ALDA clue is the only thing that places this puzzle in the 21st century.

Brad says that the only Oscar nomination received by Alan ALDA was for "The Aviator," so there's some trivia for you. Brad also gave side-eye to the BEEB clue (31D: British network, with "the") that made no mention of "familiarly" or "slang" or anything like that. There's not much else to say here. It took everyone a while to guess what the first part of the "WHEEL" answer was because they all wanted FERRIS (keep in mind they couldn't see the grid when I was asking what they thought it was). Doug is now trying to convince us that he would call cheese cubes "cheese dice." I'm not sure where to go from there. So good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. here's a nice little write-up of this past Saturday's Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament by Oliver Roeder, a writer for FiveThirtyEight.com.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jay Kaskel and Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Dunno. I had to stop several times to let the rage subside.

THEME: PULLED PORK (59A: Messy sandwich filler ... or a hint to this puzzle's circled letters) — the letters P and O and R and K appear in order, but separated from one another, in four theme answers that start with P and end with K:

Theme answers:

PHONE PRANK (17A: Frequent Bart Simpson antic)
PUSH YOUR LUCK (23A: Ask the boss for more vacation time after getting a raise, perhaps)
PIN ONE'S EARS BACK (34A: Scold a person)
PLYMOUTH ROCK (50A: Landmark with the year 1620 inscribed on it)

Word of the Day: MINOT (51D: North Dakota city with a nearby Air Force base) —

Minot (ⁱ/ˈmaɪnɒt/MY-not) is a city located in north central North Dakota, United States. It is most widely known for the Air Force base located approximately 15 miles (24 km) north of the city. With a population of 40,888 at the 2010 census, Minot is the fourth largest city in the state. In 2012, the Minot Area Development Corporation estimated that there were between 46,000 and 47,000 permanent residents within city limits. The city is the county seat of Ward County and is a trading center for a large portion of northern North Dakota, southwestern Manitoba, and southeastern Saskatchewan. Founded in 1886 during the construction of the Great Northern Railway, Minot is also known as "Magic City", commemorating its remarkable growth in size over a short time. // Minot is the principal city of the Minot Micropolitan Statistical Area, a micropolitan area that covers McHenry, Renville, and Ward counties and had a combined population of 69,540 at the 2010 census. In 2012, it was estimated that the population of the Minot Micropolitan Area was 73,146 (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle is unacceptable. No constructor I know, not a one, would've let a grid this unpolished get to print (to say nothing of the generally lackluster clues). I am genuinely tired of pointing this stuff out, but since most puzzle professionals won't say a damned thing publicly about how poorly conceived and edited the NYT puzzles can be of late, I'm kind of on my own here (although privately any constructor or editor worth his/her salt will tell you exactly what's wrong with this puzzle, exactly what could be easily changed, exactly where the wincing happens, etc.—you can probably do same). So ... the theme has promise (not the OLEO kind of Promise, but promise nonetheless). It's based on a common constructing gimmick: take a common/familiar phrase and literalize it in some way. Here, PORK is being PULLED apart in the various answers. If ever there was a reason for non-consecutive circles in a puzzle (which I normally don't care for), this is it. But there's one big problem: I know the gimmick from the jump. Once you get PHONE PRANK, all the circles and the revealer can be filled in immediately. So whatever cleverness is involved in the concept is offset by what happens at the actual solving level. Same letters are pulled over and over and over. Theme is way too transparent. But this is merely unfortunate. It saps the puzzle of its power to please and entertain, but it is not unprofessional.

["Hey guys, I'm looking for a Jacques Strap!"]

What *is* unprofessional, again (and again and again), is the outright sloppiness and laziness of the fill and the cluing. I literally stopped at SMIT (6A: Goo-goo-eyed, old-style) and took a time out because I couldn't believe the "Best Puzzle in the World" couldn't be bothered to remove such an obvious, horrible, easily fixable stupid archaic ye olde wart of an answer. We get NABOB for the Second Day In A Row, which says Everything about what's wrong here, and in general. Everything is so OLD HAT, so out-of-a-dusty-drawer or mothbally closet. I can't believe anyone put any care at all into making the grid, cluing the grid, editing the grid ... puzzles, even very easy puzzles, can be So much better than this. There's really no excuse for OHTO or SMIT or even (in the case of an easily fillable 78-worder like this) SKEE, MINOT, UELE, CEE, ECRU, ONEA, OLEO, LAPP, OSHA, MANO and probably many others. The grid is devoid of interesting or contemporary fill. The cluing is stale (with notable exception of [Ones steeped in tradition in England?] for TEAS, which is a winner). After the theme, the rest of the puzzle is just phoned in. A promising theme concept doesn't get the crafting and love it needs to become an overall Good 2015 puzzle, and so we get this—an echo of a memory of a puzzle from earlier times, decades ago, when fill standards were simply lower, when cluing was more straightforward and less artful. This is the kind of puzzle that gives crossword puzzles their reputation as a moribund pastime for the moribund.

The NYT is about to get serious, daily competition from two new outlets: the WSJ (which has published a Friday 21x21 for a long time) starts a daily 15x15 puzzle in the near future, as does BuzzFeed, which just posted specs and a sample puzzle yesterday. BuzzFeed is matching NYT's pay right off the bat, which is a great sign, as is the joyful enthusiasm of BuzzFeed's crossword editor, Caleb Madison. The BuzzFeed puzzle might end up playing a little poppy and youthful for some of you, but that's OK. Different kinds of solvers like different kinds of puzzles. What's not OK is slop. I have very high hopes for the future of crosswords in general. My hopes for the future of the NYT crossword in particular aren't as high. Great constructors will continue to submit, so the high points will still be high, but I have no reason to believe that the average quality level won't continue to slowly and quietly sink (or, perhaps, hover, while other outlets shine). Rigorous polishing and up-to-date, clever cluing don't appear to be a high priority at the NYT right now. Maybe the new competition will raise all boats. But I won't hold my breath.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Here's Oliver Roeder's write-up of Lollapuzzoola 8 for the NYT. I'll have my own write-up soon enough.

P.P.S. A friend of mine just wrote me, re: PIN ONE'S EARS BACK: "Using "one's" this way means you're pinning your own ears back. Why would you be scolding yourself??? As if there isn't enough wrong with this puzzle ...."

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Challenging ... for a Wednesday

THEME: SELF-REFLECTION (11D: Activity on Lent or Yom Kippur ... or a quality of every letter in the answer to each starred clue) —theme answers have mirror symmetry within themselves, i.e. bilateral symmetry, i.e. every letter's right half is a mirror image of its left half (or, better, every answer will look exactly the same if you hold the puzzle up to a mirror—try it!)

Theme answers:

TOMAYTO, TOMAHTO (3D: *"Same difference")
"MAMMA MIA" (4D: *Musical that includes the song "Take a Chance on Me")
"OUT WITH IT!" (31D: *"Stop hemming and hawing!")
"WHAT A HOOT!" (8D: *"That sure was funny!")
THATAWAY (38D: *Where "they went," in old westerns)

Word of the Day: PANGOLIN (20A: Scaly anteater) —

noun
noun: pangolin; plural noun: pangolins
an African and Asian mammal that has a body covered with horny overlapping scales, a small head with elongated snout, a long sticky tongue for catching ants and termites, and a thick, tapering tail. (google)

• • •

So I guess the trick here is to a. make theme answers out of only the letters A H I M O T U V W X and Y, and then b. have no other Down answers that do the same (b. is probably not strictly necessary, but it allows for a more elegant expression of the theme, I think). Some of the Across answers (i.e. MAHI MAHI) technically have mirror symmetry on the individual letter level, which is all the revealer clue requires, but I think the point is that if you hold the puzzle up to a mirror, you can still read the whole entry just fine (or, if you fold the answer lengthwise back upon itself, the two halves of each letter will match up perfectly). What do I think of this theme? I don't know. It's OK, I guess. You get some interesting theme answers, that's for sure. Mostly I think this is a just-OK super-sized (16-wide) puzzle with an overabundance of very short fill (3s and 4s) that makes it occasionally a mild nuisance to fill. But, as I say, there's some interesting stuff in here, and it was challenging (for a Wednesday, for me), and compared to yesterday's puzzle, this is Caravaggio-level artistry, so I'm reasonably content. I'll take back-to-back TOPEKAs over back-to-back NABOBs *any day*!

[Gershwin! "Shall We Dance"! I just watched this movie for the first time last week!]
This played quite hard for me. Wicked hard clue on the 3-letter 1-Across, and many things thereafter were far from straightforward. TOMAYTO TOMAHTO, for instance. Yikes. Creative, but took me many crosses to pick up. GLORIOUS is an [Adjective for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un] only if you are forced to call him that. Nothing in the clue about the literal inaptness of the adjective, so I needed many crosses there too. GOLF was cross-referenced, so more work there. I've never ever Ever heard of a PANGOLIN (looks like the name of some "Lord of the Rings" creature), so that was bananas. Thank god I didn't see 63A: Roman equivalent of Rhea (OPS), 'cause I have no idea what that means. When I google "OPS" my first hit is the should-be-most-common OPS definition: the baseball statistic "on-base plus slugging." Everything else is "Call of Duty"-related. Nothing about this alleged Roman being. So she's the wife of Saturn. Fertility goddess. Alrighty then. ANYWAY, the upshot is, this puzzle was both bigger and harder than your average Wednesday.

Loved several of the themers, most notably "OUT WITH IT!" and "WHAT A HOOT!" I am also pleased with the high-currency colloquialism that is 'STACHE. Someone (I forget who) was just telling me a story that involved his family recalling his uncle's having had a "porn 'STACHE" in the '80s. This discussion resulted in the uncle's getting very embarrassed and defensive, as he was hearing "stash," not 'STACHE. Easy mistake to make. "Uncle Bob, remember that porn stash you had in the '80s!?""What the ... I did not .. how did you ...?" Etc.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jim Hilger

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: breaks— word "break" is supplied by actual break in answer (i.e. a blank square); four such squares appear in the grid

Theme answers:

SHORT LUNCH (BREAK) / JAIL (BREAK)
BAD (BREAK) / STATION (BREAK)
SPRING (BREAK) VACATION / SERVICE (BREAK)
COMMERCIAL (BREAK) / HEART (BREAK)

Word of the Day: SHAVETEAILS (11D: Rookie officers, in slang) —

noun
USmilitary slangderogatory
plural noun: shavetails
a newly commissioned officer, especially a second lieutenant.
informal
an inexperienced person.

"the shavetail Assistant District Attorney"
Origin
figuratively, from the early sense ‘untrained pack animal’ (identified by a shaved tail). (google)

• • •

Probably maybe gonna try to see this meteor shower thingie, so I'm going to keep this short. Maybe just bullet points. Or ... nah, I'll just do bulletish paragraphs.

Didn't take me too long to check out. Here's where:

[ANTHER the question!]

ASHE crossing ASHEN is pretty bad. FER, yuck. [some letter]-HINGE, ARUN, no and no. I mean, I've down-voted half the fill and this thing just started. The point at which I checked out came roughly 10 seconds before I figured out the theme. My reaction to figuring it out was, "Oh." (Imagine a vocal inflection tinged more with ENNUI than elation ... speaking of ENNUI, I think it goes deeper and is more existential than the mere boredom suggested by yawning.) So there are problems aplenty the theme answers, for starters. The SHORT in SHORT LUNCH (break) turns the answer to total "green paint," i.e. you now have a made-up phrase—a phrase one might say, but that is not a tight, stand-alone phrase. "LUNCH (break)," sure,; SHORT LUNCH (break), absurd (from a crossword themer standpoint). More absurd is SPRING (break) VACATION, a phrase that is cumbersome and without much colloquial validity. "We went to Florida for SPRING (break)"—the phrase itself implies "vacation." Yes, one might say "SPRING (break) VACATION," but again, as with SHORT LUNCH (break), an added word has made the whole answer dumb and wrong-sounding. (Also, who gets "A couple weeks" for SPRING (break)??? Lucky people, that's who.).

OLD BAT (and [Biddy]) = sexist. ORVIS = ??? AARE = UUGH. DOST ILSA NAS? Who knows? The fill here is standard-issue NYT substandard. DAH? DAH. OK bedtime for me now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Natan Last and the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: OMRI (18A: King of Israel who founded Samaria) —

Omri (Hebrew: עמרי, Modern Omri, Tiberian ʻOmrî) (fl. 9th century BC) was the sixth king of Israel after Jeroboam, a successful military campaigner, and the founder of the House of Omri, an Israelite royal house which included other monarchs such as Ahab, Ahaziah, Joram, and Athaliah. Along with his predecessor king Zimri who ruled for only seven days, Omri is the first king mentioned in the Bible without a statement of his tribal origin: although some scholars speculate that Omri was from the tribe of Issachar, this is not confirmed by any biblical account (wikipedia)

• • •

The appearance of a JASA Crossword Class crossword (co-constructed with the class's teacher—always a well-established constructor) seems to be an annual event. Or maybe biannual. Anyway, I've seen a number of these, and they're always at least Good. This is probably a function of a. *lots* of time and care and craft and oversight and wisdom and input, and b. the whole "well-established constructor" thing. Whatever the cause, these puzzles have always been pretty polished, and today's is no exception. They went with the max word count for a Friday (72), which is a very, very good place for novice themeless constructors to start (and while Natan is no novice, the class most certainly is). Higher word counts => easier-to-fill grids. This grid is distinguished for its near total lack of crud. Substandard stuff is minimal and spread out, so that the longer, fancier answers can shine through. Cheater squares probably helped here as well. These are black squares that don't increase the word count but make the grid easier to fill (today, there are four: left of 21A/right of 48A, left of 10A/right of 64A). Only wonks like me are gonna notice cheaters, and today they are understandable (since they are helping keep the fill clean around longer, marquee answers, which are the core of the puzzle's entertainment value).

I thought I was going to break my Friday time record there for a bit when I threw down AFFLUENZA instantly (1A: Woe that's the result of extreme materialism), and proceeded to get most of the crosses in quick succession. But then I moved over to the NE and came to a dead stop—a series of knowledge gaps and mistakes and misunderstandings took me completely off the rails. Main problem was a total failure to parse OMA- at the beginning of 19A: Hearst publication since 2000 (O MAGAZINE). I wanted it to be some newspaper set in OMAHA. The STAR, maybe? Beats me, but OMAHA was the only thing I could imagine starting OMA-. Sigh. Then there's my complete bafflement at SWAZI. Is that a resident of Swaziland? Not sure I could find Swaziland on a map, to be honest, and I've certainly never seen SWAZI before. It looks like an unfortunate mash-up of "swastika" and "Nazi." It's a legit answer, but I needed every cross to get it. I also put in RATSO instead of RIZZO, PAIN instead of PINE, and ISN'T instead of ISSO. So my sad grid looked like this:

But I rebooted with ODEA (as you can see) and things picked up again from there. Randall FLAGG was the only real obstacle thereafter, and he was totally pick-uppable from crosses.

Grid is full of solid and occasionally zippy answers. Nice slangy colloquial stuff with AFFLUENZA, "I'M ON TO YOU," SNOCKERED, "SEE YA SOON," and TAKE A BATH. There were a couple of wonderful clues, too: 52A: What might make you a big fan? for JUMBOTRON, and 52D: Ring exchange for JABS. Here's PuzzleGirl's pic of the JUMBOTRON at Yankee Stadium (taken during Sunday's Blue Jays/Yankees game):

[She labeled this one "Hyphen abuse"...]

And here's a nice picture she took of today's co-constructor, Natan Last (left), at Lollapuzzoola 8 this past Saturday:

[That's crossword constructor and Columbia University enthusiast Finn Vigeland there on the right ... oh, and eventual Lollapuzzoola champion Francis Heaney in the background, with the shorts and the noise-canceling headphones]

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Lola FALANA (35A: Singer/actress once called the "Black Venus") —

Loletha Elayne "Lola" Falana (born September 11, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey) is an American singer, dancer, and actress. [...] While dancing in a nightclub, Falana was discovered by Sammy Davis Jr., who gave her a featured role in his 1964 Broadway musical Golden Boy. Her first single, "My Baby", was recorded for Mercury Records in 1965. Later in her career she recorded under Frank Sinatra's record label. In the late 1960s Falana was mentored by Davis. In 1966 Davis cast her, along with himself, Ossie Davis, and Cicely Tyson, in her first film role in the film, A Man Called Adam. // Falana became a major star of Italian cinema beginning in 1967. In Italy she learned to speak fluent Italian while starring in three movies, the first of which was considered a spaghetti western. She was known as the "Black Venus". During this time she was busy touring with Davis as a singer and dancer, making films in Italy, and reprising her role in Golden Boy during its revival in London. // In 1969 Falana ended her close working relationship with Sammy Davis Jr., though the two remained friends. "If I didn't break away," Lola told TV Guide, "I would always be known as the little dancer with Sammy Davis Jr. ... I wanted to be known as something more." The previous year, Sammy Davis Jr. was divorced by his second wife, May Britt, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with Falana. // In 1970, Falana made her American film debut in The Liberation of L.B. Jones and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress for her performance. That same year she posed for Playboy magazine. She was the first black woman to model for a line of cosmetics that was not targeted solely at blacks, in the successful FabergeTigress perfume ads. In those early years, she also starred in a few movies considered to be of the blaxploitation genre. She appeared at the Val Air Ballroom sponsored by Black Pride, Inc., in 1978. // American TV audiences became familiar with Falana during the early 1970s. She often appeared on The Joey Bishop Show and The Hollywood Palace, displaying her talent for music, dance, and light comedy. These appearances led to more opportunities. // She was the first supporting player hired by Bill Cosby for his much-anticipated variety hour, The New Bill Cosby Show, which made its debut on September 11, 1972 (her 30th birthday) on CBS. Cosby had met Falana in his college days, when he was a struggling comic and she was a 14-year-old dancing for $10 a show in Philadelphia nightclubs.^{[citation needed]} Throughout the mid-1970s Falana made guest appearances on many popular TV shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Muppet Show, Laugh-In and The Flip Wilson Show. She also starred in her own television specials. // In 1975 her disco record "There's A Man Out There Somewhere" reached #67 on the Billboard R&B chart. That same year, she returned to Broadway as the lead in the musical Doctor Jazz. Although the production closed after just five performances, Lola was nominated for a Tony Award and won the 1975 Theater World Award. // With help from Sammy Davis, Falana brought her act to Las Vegas and became a top draw there. By the late 1970s, she was considered the Queen of Las Vegas. She played to sold-out crowds at The Sands, The Riviera, and the MGM Grand hotels. Finally The Aladdin offered her $100,000 a week to perform. At the time, Falana was the highest paid female performer in Las Vegas. Her show ran twenty weeks a year and became a major tourist attraction. // While still playing to sell-out crowds in Las Vegas, Falana joined the cast of a short-lived CBS soap opera, Capitol, as Charity Blake, a wealthy entertainment mogul. In 1983, Falana was appearing at Bally's hotel and casino in Atlantic City and, while playing baccarat, won a minority stake in the New York Mets, a stake she held until she sold it in 1988 for 14 million dollars to Frank Cashen.[emph. mine wtf!?] // [...] From 1971 to 1975, Lola Falana was married to Feliciano “Butch” Tavares, one of five brothers of the popular R&B band Tavares. (wikipedia)

• • •

Tough without being much fun. Low word-count puzzles can get dicey, and while this one holds up pretty well for a 62-worder, it shows the strain and lack of sparkliness that most sub-68s show. THOUGHT POLICE is the only real winning entry (37A: Iconoclast stiflers). The rest just ... work. Reasonably well. Without too much grid trauma. But they don't entertain. They do, however, give a workout, and for some, that's what Saturdays are all about. The clues were highly vague and/or misdirectional, so I struggled quite a bit—in every quadrant but one (the SE, which mostly just filled itself in). In fact, at first, things looked bleak. Very bleak.

No, I don't know what I was thinking with TRAE, and I'll thank you not to ask. I think I had RETORT where TOUCHÉ was supposed to go, so I had maybe TREY as the 19A: Jazz trumpeter Jones (?). And I figured John Wayne something-ED UP to the bar. MOSEYED or the like. It was really the "with 'to'" in the 5-Down John Wayne clue that gave me the terminal "UP," which in turn gave me PEACOCK (which I probably would've gotten anyway, as my Greek mythology game is reasonably tight). I then proceeded to make some more mistakes, like CUT-UPS for PUT-ONS at 24A: Pranks and PASS ... OVER? PASS ... something I forget. Definitely *not* PASSER-BY, that's for sure. But I got GOAFTER FALANA CAL KNIFE-something pretty quickly, and then the SE fell with not much sweat.

Sweat came first, a little, in the NE, where I had to get DORIA piece by piece (14A: Italian admiral for whom several ships were named zzzzzz), and where I had to struggle to figure out that it was the MEAL that was HOT. And also the whole PASSER-BY stuff. So minor struggles there. More major struggles in the SW, where, despite getting a nice in with THOUGHT POLICE ...

... I had issues. Got CARTIER and OVOIDS but still got nowhere. So much so that I pulled OVOIDS. The ELKS clue was meaningless to me (52A: Group started as the Jolly Corks). I had that as ELIS for a bit. PUTTIES was baffling (34D: Glaziers' supplies). The "Apollo" in 28D: Apollo collection could've gone a lot of ways. God ways. Theater ways. "Rocky" ways. Or space ways. Having 27D: Sturm und Drang be a singular answer, that was rough. And lots of stuff is considered for college admission, so SAT SCORE, shrug, sure. Yes. True. Connection between sigma as SUM not known to me. Thought APOP could be EACH ('cause technically, it could) (33A: Per). Really loved (tough) clue on SENTRIES (41A: Ones with halting speech?). Somehow (from PUTTIES, I think, ironically), I finally got a head of steam in there.

That left the NW, which brutalized me. THAD? IN CLOSE? TAUCROSS? (15A: Symbol of the Franciscan order). All shrugs. Thought ASTI could be MOET (because, again, it could) (1D: Bubbly option). Thought OTOS might be UTES. Parsing ACTASONE, hoo boy. Rough (1A: Not diverge). Once I solved the oddness that was IN CLOSE, I pretty much had this one by the horns. But that "U" at TAUCROSS / TOUCHÉ was the last thing to fall. Big "D'oh!" on TOUCHÉ. Still, rough stuff. Puzzle was a worthy, if somewhat tedious, adversary.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Don Gagliardo and Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"As It Were"—words that can also be past tense forms of verbs, or IN THE PAST (124A: Back then ... or a hint to the ends of the answers to the starred clues)

Theme answers:

MINK STOLE (22A*Pricey wrap)
SEATTLE SLEW (23A: *Triple Crown winner who himself sired a Kentucky Derby winner)
POWER SAW (51A: *Carpenter's tool with a cord) ["with a cord"—how odd/awkward/random]
MARK FELT (94A: *Deep Throat's identity)
BREAK GROUND (122A: *Start a construction project)
NEW YORK MET (36D: *Tom Seaver, e.g.)
TOKYO ROSE (83D: *W.W. II propagandist)
KIDDIE LIT (45D: *Dr. Seuss' genre)
LITTLE BIT (13D: *Smidgen)
DOGLEG LEFT (48D: *Challenge for a right-handed golfer)

Word of the Day: MARK FELT (94A: *Deep Throat's identity) —

William Mark Felt, Sr. (August 17, 1913 – December 18, 2008) was a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)special agent who retired as the Bureau's Deputy Director in 1973. After keeping secret for 30 years his involvement with reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Felt admitted to being the Watergate scandal's whistleblower, "Deep Throat," on May 31, 2005. // Felt worked in several FBI field offices prior to his promotion to the Bureau's headquarters in Washington, D.C. During the early investigation of the Watergate scandal (1972–1974), and shortly after the death of longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on May 2, 1972, Felt was the Bureau's Associate Director, the second-ranking post in the FBI. While serving as Associate Director, Felt provided the Washington Post with critical information that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. In 1980, Felt was convicted of violating the civil rights of people thought to be associated with members of the Weather Underground Organization, by ordering FBI agents to search their homes as part of an attempt to prevent bombings. He was ordered to pay a fine, but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal. In 2006, he published an update of his 1979 autobiography, The FBI Pyramid. His last book, written with John O'Connor, is titled A G-Man's Life. On June 14, 2012, the FBI released Felt's personnel file at the agency, covering the period from 1941 to 1978. It also released files pertaining to an extortion threat made against Felt in 1956. (wikipedia)

• • •

Quaint. That's probably the best word I have to describe this. It's the kind of theme that you don't notice at all until the revealer. Or maybe you paid more attention as you were solving, I don't know. I got to the end and was like "Oh ... yes. I see." It's the kind of theme that could've run decades ago, and with the exception of APPLEPAY (66D: Google Wallet alternative), virtually every other thing about the puzzle would've been at home then too. The fill simply isn't polished to modern standards. It's competently arranged according to archaic standards, so you end up with more of the stuff that you used to expect to see all the time (your odd phrase parts and grid-friendly poem titles and foreign names and places and whatever you want to call that ASES/STRS thing down in the SE corner). People sometimes wonder why I criticize grids like this, when That's The Way It Always Been (and certainly was, largely, the way things were in the good old Maleskan / Weng days) (actually, to be fair, things were much worse then, crosswordese and arcana-wise). I mean, HAROLD is a British P.M. from 50 years ago? Jacques BREL and Mario LANZA are hanging around together? Tom Seaver is a NEW YORK MET? And so much of the fill is wince-y and throwback-y and just the kind of off-putting stuff that gives crosswords their stuffy rep. I just tweeted this: "Side-eye list for Sunday: 1A, 60A, 65A, 39D, 60A (x2, ugh), 49D (?), 113D, 115D, 120D, 121D, 99D (??), 105A, 84D, 110D, 77D, 15D. Minimally." It's possible to do so much better these days, not just in terms of fill, but in terms of cluing—thoughtful, funny, relevant: these types of clues are all possible. They are only occasionally on display here. Mostly the clues are grimly straightforward. Short and grimly straightforward.

[I've had this song in my head since writing in MARK FELT ... it makes little sense, I'll admit]

Here's what I like: I always admire dense themes and (especially) intersecting theme answers, and this puzzle has both. I also respect (though I don't always love) ambitious attempts to Make Things Work, and the whole DOG LEG LEFT / MARK FELT business radiates a kind of loopy creative confidence that I find charming. I kind of know what a DOG LEG LEFT is, and had no idea who this FELT guy was. But it was all gettable and even though under normal circumstances neither of those feels like the solidest of answers, they work here, and that is enough. Otherwise, though, this was a slog, though much easier than the word "slog" implies.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. honestly why is SERENADER / STRS not SERENADED / STDS??! Both answers are improved with the change to "D." This may seem tiny, and it is tiny, but it is indicative of bigger things. (Shout-out to the constructing maestro who pointed out this little issue)

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Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: tiny bit tougher than your average Monday, but I've been drinking, so...

THEME: HARDY HAR HAR— first parts of the first three themers represent someone LAUGHING OUT LOUD (65A: Bit of textspeak, unshortened ... or a hint to the starts of 17-, 27- and 49-Across)

Theme answers:

HARDY BOYS SERIES (17A: Mysteries starting with "The Tower Treasure" and "The House on the Cliff")
"HARPER VALLEY PTA" (27A: 1968 hit song that spawned a 1978 movie and a 1981 TV show)
HARVARD GRADUATE (49A: Crimson alumnus) — pretty sure she meant "Crimson alumna"; she is one, after all

Word of the Day: XCI (21A: 91, to Nero) —

Roman numerals, the numeric system used in ancient Rome, employs combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as follows:
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X.
The Roman numeral system is a cousin of Etruscan numerals. Use of Roman numerals continued after the decline of the Roman Empire. From the 14th century on, Roman numerals began to be replaced in most contexts by more convenient Hindu-Arabic numerals; however, this process was gradual, and the use of Roman numerals in some minor applications continues to this day. (wikipedia)

• • •

I can't really believe that "HARDY BOYS SERIES" (?!?!?) is a thing—by which I mean "a decent stand-alone answer"; the SERIES part feels forced—but it's Monday, so why not be a little loopy, if only to liven things up a bit? "Unshortening" LOL is kind of interesting, and the fact that all themers are 15s adds another unexpected (i.e. unMondaylike) dimension to the puzzle, so that's OK. The fill is living in the past, once again. Mostly short and old and boring. But I've seen much worse, for sure.

["And he can see no reasons 'cause there are no reasons..."]

Not much else to say about this, so see you tomorrow, I guess. Oh no, wait. Maybe I can talk about the awesomeness that was Lollapuzzoola 8, the crossword tourney I attended last weekend (Aug. 8). Sure, why not? So it's probably easiest to do as a kind of photo essay. I will keep it as short as possible (ed.: it's not short, iamsorrythatiamnotsorry). First we drove to our friends who live up the Hudson, and then took the train down into the city, only we started on the west side of the Hudson and then changed in NJ, which I would not recommend despite the early part of the trip which involved taking one of those awesome superhigh train bridges that get blown up in westerns. That was cool. But the ride over to NYC from Jersey was dire, in that it was all underground and eventually I was like "Why is everyone getting off?" because we'd never really picked up speed but that's apparently how one gets to Penn Station by train from NJ. Then we walked across town (we brought only backpacks) to the Hotel Chandler, which we stayed at 'cause we got a good deal and it was near where PuzzleGirl and Doug were staying and also I love Raymond Chandler, so all the stars were aligned.

[I like being in New York *this* much...]

Our good friend Linda was in the city for some annual college reunion thingie she has with Carleton people, so we saw her for a drink, and then another drink and food, before heading out to meet up with crossword people. Angela (PuzzleGirl) likes Irish pubs so we went to one for dinner, and most people liked it but I thought it was meh. I left at some point to go drinking with my friend and future co-constructor Lena Webb at this place in the Bowery where her friend was bartending, a place called something "+" something ... gotta look it up. I want to say "Pork + Poutine," but that's not right ... aha, it's Saxon + Parole. Anyway, it was a lot of fun drinking whatever Lena put in my hand and talking crosswords with her and a few other people there (including Andrew Ries of Aries Puzzles).

[Brayden, me, Lena, in the opening credits of our new TV show, probably about lawyers]

The next day was the tourney. It was a gorgeous sunny Saturday and we got up early to blog the Saturday in a crappy little Starbucks with Lena and her boyfriend Brayden (which, if you read last Saturday's write-up, you already know). Then we headed up to All Souls Church (home of the tourney), but not before dropping in on Oren's Daily Roast coffee shop, because ... well, Starbucks didn't cut it, and also, OREN! It's just so crossword-ish, I couldn't not go there on tourney day. The basement of All Souls was jammed—biggest attendance Lollapuzzoola has ever had at something over 200 competitors (!?). It's always overwhelming trying to say hi to all my friends and acquaintances and blog readers. Never enough time. But a great joy nonetheless. This year I decided to compete in the Pairs division (w/ my wife), which was fun even though we didn't win. I thought we just had to beat Karen von Haam and her mom, but there was this other couple that we didn't know about who had won the Pairs division the previous two years (Julian Ochrymowych & Marcia Hearst), and so even though my wife and I blew past Karen and her mom on the wicked hard Puzzle 4 and stayed ahead of them through the 5th and final puzzle, we still only came in 2nd, and (much to my chagrin) there is No Hardware for 2nd place in the Pairs division. Not even steak knives. Boooo! I want my trophy, Brian Cimmet!

[Adesina Koiki (of "A Lot of Sports Talk") strikes a quintessential solver pose]

The puzzles were great. I mean, great. The easy ones, the brutal ones, all so thoughtful, so polished, so funny. Renewed my faith that crosswords can be awesome. Constructors were Patrick Blindauer, Anna Schechtman, Mike Nothnagel, joon pahk, Doug Peterson, and (for the final puzzle) Kevin Der. Final puzzle was back-breaking. Three of the very fastest solvers in the country solved it on stage, and only one of them actually finished—with less than 10 seconds to go, Francis Heaney pulled it out. Very exciting (moreso in the room than on video, but here's a taste anyway):

Then I had a lovely dinner out at Candle Cafe where I'm 73% sure Jonathan Franzen was at a nearby table, although it could've been just another bespectacled guy in his '50s. Then a long walk home because after a day of sitting and crossword-stressing and stress-eating, we needed it. Next day was the Blue Jays/Yankees game at Yankee Stadium after a nice morning walking around the Madison/30th area. Coffee at Birch Coffee where a nice man brought the his dog ("it's not mine, I'm dogsitting") in and chatted us up and when he found out where we were from cried, "Oh, BingHAMton ... with the balloons!" This was technically correct, as the annual SpiedieFest & Balloon Rally (a Binghamton summer staple) had just happened. "I read about it in 'Time Out New York.'" ANYway, went to the game with a bunch of folks and the Jays beat the Yankees, who couldn't score to save their lives and who were shut out at home two days in a row for the first time in like a billion years. Group of raucous, drunken Jays fans were the most entertaining part of the game. Still, there was beer, and a bright green field, and my friends, so the day was not a waste.

[Superfriends! Also dorks.]

After the game we ended up going down to the Union Square area for reasons I don't quite remember, and eating Brazilian food, and then wandering over to the Flatiron Building area in search of ice cream. We "settled" for gelato at Eataly (a terrible pun, but Great gelato and espresso). That was the most magical part of the weekend, sitting outside near the Flatiron Building, drinking coffee and eating gelato as the sun set. Who was there? PuzzleGirl, Brad Wilber, tourney co-organizer Brian Cimmet, Doug Peterson, Penelope, Erik Agard, and Mike Nothnagel. I think that's everyone. (Finn Vigeland ditched us after the game to be with people of his own hip, young demographic, and Sam Ezersky ditched us before the game even ended, in order to catch a bus back to VA.).

[Penelope and Erik in the classic back-to-back defensive gelato-eating posture]

And that was my weekend. Nice leisurely Monday morning walk up to Grand Central, where I saw the fabulous Rachel Dratch (and tried not to stare/squeal in admiration) and also saw a yoga / athletic-wear commercial of some kind being filmed. Lots of different kinds of lean, muscular people standing around waiting for their turn on camera while an assistant kept adjusting and readjusting and rereadjusting the yoga mat in the middle of the station as the sunlight shifted. Nice leisurely train ride up the Hudson. Nice lunch with friend in Beacon (where I weirdly saw a member of my department walking along the sidewalk), then back across the river to Cornwall to retrieve our car and drive home. So, the upshot is, the tourney rules, NYC rules, people are nice, puzzles can be great if you treat them right, the Flatiron Building is beautiful at sunset, train rides along the Hudson are oddly soothing, and if you don't go to Lollapuzzoola next year (or Indie 500 in DC next May/June—a similarly entertaining and professionally-run tourney), then I don't know what to say. You better have a good excuse.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Bill Thompson

Relative difficulty: took me longer than a typical Tuesday

THEME: MIDDLE EAST—letter string "EAST" appears in the dead middle of five answers:

Theme answers:

GONE ASTRAY (17A: *Left the flock)
STAGE A STRIKE (23A: *Walk out)
YEASTY (37A: *Like baking dough)
FEASTS (39A: *Sumptuous spreads)
ADELE ASTAIRE (48A: *Half of a brother/sister dance duo)

Word of the Day: YAWP (1A: Complain loudly) —

noun
noun: yawp; plural noun: yawps
1.
a harsh or hoarse cry or yelp.
North American
foolish or noisy talk.
verb
verb: yawp; 3rd person present: yawps; past tense: yawped; past participle: yawped; gerund or present participle: yawping
1.
shout or exclaim hoarsely.
North American
talk foolishly or noisily.
(google)

• • •

The quaintness continues. I feel like this onslaught of bygone-ish-style crosswords must be meant to enure you, to steel you, to make you resigned to The Way Puzzles Are, by gum! You are getting sleepy, Sleepy! ESPNSTATPATESTEREESE! Harrumph. Again, there was much sighing-while-solving. The theme has in its favor a certain literalness. EAST really is right in the damn MIDDLE of those phrases and words. I also have to give props to the truly high-end Scrabble-f*$%ing there in the west. Squeezed the "J" and "Z" in there near the "K" and got out with no bad fill to speak of (I don't consider OREO bad—common, but not bad). Also, I think I said "that's pretty good" at PERSEUS and ... that might be it, actually. ISEEDEESETASIKEA! PAPASALETA! I'll stop doing that now. After PERSEUS and FOUL TIP, it's mostly just archaisms and foreignisms and over-over-familiar short fill, except when it's not over-over-familiar and instead is straining only half-successfully for some kind of zing (see the NW corner). YAWP WANG APGAR sounds like a supervillain.

I know SUGARPEAs as "sugar snap peas" (10D: Legume with an edible pod). I think. Here's a scene that just took place in my house. Dialogue is recorded here verbatim.

Me, to my wife, who it turns out was almost asleep until I shouted at her from my home office. "Honey, are you asleep?"

"What? ... yes."

"Oh."

"What is it?"

"I have a vegetable*-related question."

"Go ahead."

"Is a sugar snap pea a thing?"

"Yes."

"Then what's a SUGAR PEA?"

".......... never heard of it."

End scene. Some of the rest of this fill also felt wonky, like SAYEST (which I wanted to be SAYETH) and ATAHALT (which I wanted to be AT AN END). [Everything one can do] seems overly broad for SKILL SET, which always (to me) implies skills *in a specific arena* [looks at puzzle to see if ARENA is in there ... let's see ... ATARI ... ALETA ... nope, surprisingly, this grid is ARENA-free!]. STAGE A STRIKE feels pretty forced. The other themers are fine. Still, this is yet another in a string of puzzles that would put any novice and/or under-60 solver right off. Where is the balance? The quality control? All the progress that the NYT crossword made in the '90s—breaking with a fuddy-duddy, stuck-in-the-past tradition—feels like it's slowly being walked back. A retreat into past standards as opposed to a bold adaptation to the world as it is. Things are in danger of getting cozy, is what I'm saying. Staid and cozy.

This Slate article with the unsubtle title "The New York Times'Mini' Crossword Is an Utter Disgrace to the NYT Crossword Brand" came out yesterday, and while I don't agree with the basic premise (and never even solved a "Mini" until today), I was happy to be quoted at length, from last Tuesday's blog, discussing the very real rut that the non-'Mini' / grown-up / actual NYT crossword is in.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*[I know, it's really "legume," but I said "vegetable" and I'm nothing if not faithful to the historical record ...]

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Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium but with two hard bits (for me)

THEME: WATER / FALLS (5A: With 68-Across, what the groups of circled letters are famous examples of) — circled squares (or however they appear in your paper) form the names of five waterfalls. Circles also mimic waterfalls, in a way, by running level then falling (i.e. going down)

Word of the Day: KENDO (26D: Japanese sword sport) —

noun
noun: kendo
a Japanese form of fencing with two-handed bamboo swords, originally developed as a safe form of sword training for samurai. (google)

• • •

Somewhat strange solve. Blew through the middle of this thing, running from NW to SE (with a little hiccup there as I tried to figure out how to spell the end of RIBBIT (31D: Croaking sound)). I waved as I went right past YOSEMITE—a familiar national park that I grew up not too far away from. I didn't stop to think about what it was doing in those circles, and even if I had, I wouldn't have gotten it. I know there are waterfalls in YOSEMITE National Park, but when I think of the park I think of Half Dome ... I don't think I could've told you there was such a thing as YOSEMITE Falls. See also (eventually) RHINE and ... no, just those two. I knew there was an ANGEL Falls, but I couldn't have told you where (until just now, when I looked it up—Venezuela. It's the highest waterfall in the world at 3000+ feet, which make its relative tininess and very short "fall" in this grid adorably ironic).

So no trouble, until trouble. A little, at first: I am sure I've seen this ENGEL guy before, but I never ever remember him. I completely blanked on KENDO. As you can see, KENDO and ENGEL are next to each other, so that was problematic, but the KRAKEN was friendly today and got me out of trouble (25A: Sea monster of Norse myth). But then the NE: no. Just stopped cold because OVIPARA = not in my vocabulary (10D: Egg-laying animals), so no way into that little section, and then both BAR and OIL had (to me) unobvious clues. Also I forgot what a cor anglais was and tried LUTE as the answer there. VAIN was clued "?"-ishly. So that tiny section cost me probably 1/4 of my total solving time. I think of vaulters vaulting vaults. That's a gymnastics event, right? The vault. A *pole* vaulter vaults a BAR. Anyway, I remembered eventually that there was not a Suez or a hostage crisis in 1973, but an OIL crisis (12D: Subject of a 1973 crisis), and then that area resolved itself. OVIPARA is probably something I should know, but from a constructor's point of view, that is not great fill, or even good. That is "lord help me get out of this section" fill. Things get understandably iffy in and around the waterfalls. From TIAMO to ENGEL. But as iffiness goes, that section wasn't bad. OTOH OMRI TABU, also around a waterfall, also not great. You can just look around the grid and see this happening with all the falls.

When you build your grid in a way where you are forced into a terminal-V situation, well, you really Really limit what you can do, which may be why the last section I finished, over there in RAJIV land (33D: Indira Gandhi's ill-fated son), played so rough for me. I forgot Indira Gandhi's son's name I wanted RAJ...AH? But I also wanted the "30 Rock" actor to be JONAH Friedlander. [Sad trombone sound!] Wanted I LOSE to be the much-more-likely-to-be-said I GIVE. And then there's the manifestly not-great OCULI (34D: Eye-shaped openings) and then ... MEDOC. "And then there's MEDOC!" (35D: French red wine)

Fill remains bland, and these falls are at least partially arbitrary, and WATER/FALLS is *not* two words, but still, this beats Monday and Tuesday, I'll give it that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Caleb Emmons

Relative difficulty: EASY

THEME: Secret theme! A-E-I-O-U—each row includes only one vowel, in that order: rows 1, 6, and 11 contain only A, rows 2, 7, and 12 contain only E, and so on.

Word of the Day: "Poltroon" (20A: "Utter coward") —

"An utter coward" (Google) [ಠ_ಠ -Ed.]

"A spiritless coward: craven" (Merriam Webster)

• • •

Hello, I'm Adrianne Jeffries, live from New York. I'm sorry I'm not Rex! I'd be disappointed if I were you, too.

Speaking of disappointment, boy what a not-fun puzzle this was for me! The A-E-I-O-U ploy is super clever, but 1) it doesn't present itself until the end of the downs, and 2) at what cost?

The puzzle starts off Tuesday-ily enough, as we CHAT and AT BAT and TBA, all normal normal, until we hit POLTROON, which, if anyone organically got this answer, I'll eat my hat.

But okay, while recovering from POLTROON, we hit a run of mediocrity with SISS ("to make a hissing sound"), FRAS (this will be good for Scrabble), and SSTS ("supersonic transport), plus ELL and RRR and ICI. We have the "Peter, Paul & Mary" clue, which we also had yesterday, except today they're a TRIO.

RUFUS as in Wainright felt like the freshest clue in the puzzle:

Speaking of freshness, FRESHETS is a word I learned ("a great rise or overflowing of a stream caused by heavy rains or melted snow," says Merriam Webster).

I don't think I need to say which answer felt the mustiest:

Oh look, it's making a comeback! Source: Google's Ngram Viewer, which searches for phrases in books.

I'm scanning the puzzle for answers I liked and keep spotting more duds, like TKT. I did like THE CREEPS and SNOOT, because they are words for humans.

The thing with the rows and the vowels was really nifty. My crossword partner and I basically gasped when we realized what that clue was saying. For that kind of acrobatics, Caleb, I'll forgive you PHILIP III, OOO, and AAA MAP. The rest of the fill here looks ham-handed, though—especially when compared to the deftness of the theme trick.

Signed,

Adrianne Jeffries, just some blogger, basically (special thanks Sam Thonis)

Constructor: David J. Lieb

Relative difficulty: Smooth sailing

THEME: "DOUBLE DOUBLE" — Each of the theme answers is a two-word phrase (or compound word) where both words (or parts of the word) can be preceded by the word "double" to make a new phrase

Word of the Day: SPOOKY (34D: Like a haunted house) —

Not to be confused with "spoopy" or "Shipoopi."

• • •

Andy Kravis here, filling in for Rex. Today, David J. Lieb messed* around and got a DOUBLE DOUBLE (65A: Statistical achievement in basketball ... or what the answer to each starred clue is).

There are some naughty words in this video. You have been warned.

In basketball, a double-double is achieving a double-digit number in two positive statistical categories (two of, in order of frequency: points, rebounds, assists, steals, or blocked shots). You can't get a double-double in turnovers and number of terrible teammates, but if you could, James Harden would've been NBA MVP last year.

In this puzzle, though, a DOUBLE DOUBLE is a phrase where both words can be preceded by the word DOUBLE to make two entirely different phrases.

Theme answers:

STANDARD TIME (18A: *It's divided into four zones in the contiguous U.S. states). DOUBLE STANDARD and DOUBLE TIME. Is it just me, or is "U.S. states" a weird construction? Maybe this was just a typo in the online version, and the print edition says something different.
TAKEOVER (27A: *Coup d'état, e.g.). DOUBLE TAKE and DOUBLE OVER.
CROSSTALK (33A: *Incidental chatter). DOUBLE CROSS and DOUBLE-TALK (which according to whatever dictionary Google uses, is "deliberately unintelligible speech combining nonsense syllables and actual words." You might know it better as doublespeak.)
PLAYBILLS (47A: *Handouts to theatergoers). DOUBLE PLAY and DOUBLE BILLS (I had no idea what "double bills" were. It turns out to be a synonym for "double features." Maybe it's a regional/generational thing, but I've never heard the phrase "double bill" before.)
BACKDATE (53A: *Make retroactive). DOUBLE BACK and DOUBLE DATE.

Including the revealer at 65A, there's an impressive amount of theme (6 entries, 58 theme squares)! The base phrases are all very much in-the-language, even if a couple of the "double ___" phrases were beyond my ken. This kind of theme (i.e., this word can precede theme answers X, Y, and Z) has been played out quite a bit, but I really appreciate that (a) the revealer word can precede both parts of every theme entry, (b) that there were five two-part theme entries besides the revealer, and (c) that the revealer does double duty in not only telling you the preceding word but also telling you that both parts of every themer can take the preceding word. Really nice stuff IMHO.

Given how densely packed this grid was with theme content, the surrounding fill wasn't bad. As in most puzzles, there was some stuff I didn't love: 'UNS, AN OUT, ESTAB., ELLS crossing ESSES. But mostly the fill was reasonable for a Wednesday, and there were a few nice long answers (notably COATROOMS and GOLDEN BOY, but also NOOGIE, SPOOKY, CAJUN, STIGMA, CAR WASH, and"I'M SOLD"). Also, ALTOID singular!

Bullets:

42A: HOYT (Knuckleballer Wilhelm)— Hoyt Wilhelm (not the order you thought those names were gonna go, huh?) was an MLB pitcher in the 1950s and 1960s, most notably with the World Series-winning 1954 New York Baseball Giants. In 1985, Wilhelm became the first relief pitcher to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
57A: THERESA (Russell of "Black Widow") — "Black Widow" is one of these late '80s/early '90s films with a femme fatale (see also "Fatal Attraction,""Basic Instinct,""Damage,""The Last Seduction," etc.). In this one, Theresa Russell plays a woman who kills a bunch of wealthy middle-aged white dudes for who-knows-what-reason, and Debra Winger's character has to try to bring her to justice.
12D: NEGEV (More than half of Israel) — The Negev is a desert that covers most of southern Israel. Now you know.
56D: EUBIE (Ragtime pianist) — A true master.

In conclusion: nice puzzle, good job.

Now, I'd like to bring your attention to a couple of excellent crossword-related items:

1) If you're here, you love crosswords. And if you love crosswords, you will love Lollapuzzoola 8: Lollapuzzocho, an upcoming crossword tournament in NYC. It's on August 8th (that's a Saturday in August), and it is absolutely not too late to sign up! It is always the most fun, and the lineup of constructors is terrific (Do the names Anna Shechtman, Mike Nothnagel, Doug Peterson, joon pahk, Patrick Blindauer, and Kevin G. Der do anything for you? Of course they do). Feel free to bring a friend. If you can't make it to the live tournament, you can still sign up for the At-Home Division to get the puzzles by PDF shortly after the tournament ends.

2) Friend and frequent collaborator Victor Barocas has just launched an awesome project on Kickstarter!

Ada Cross, Crossword Detective will be a series of murder mysteries featuring a detective (Ada) and her colleagues. You'll solve a series of meta-crosswords along with Ada to solve murders. In addition to the text and the puzzles, the stories will have illustrations by Hayley Gold, who writes the Across and Down webcomic.

You can read more about (and back) the project on this Kickstarter page. If you like crosswords (and especially if you like metas), you will like this.

Signed, Andy Kravis, (H/T)ipster of CrossWorld

*If you're reading this, Ice Cube, I'm sorry I messed around with your artistic integrity. In spite of the fact that it's a modern classic, "Today Was A Good Day" falls a little below the breakfast Mendoza line.

Green topper / SUN 8-2-15 / False god / Part of a dealership

Fictional character who "died" in 1975 / MON 8-3-15 / News service inits. / Singer K. T. / No-sweat shot / Capital of Senegal

Private-sector rocket launcher / TUE 8-4-15 / Lee with 2011 #1 album Mission Bell / Yearly gathering for superhero fans / One shopping for old curios / New York county bordering Pennsylvania / Low-growing tree often in dense thickets / Missing part of Great Sphinx of Giza

Film director Neil / WED 8-5-15 / Where biennial Vinexpo is held / Former CBS News chief Friendly / Aunt in Judy Moody book series / Sport played on piste

Far East unit of weight / THU 8-6-15 / Direct-deposit payment for short / Night Tripper of music / Worshiper of Jah / Beach abutter

Neanderthal accompanier in cartoons / FRI 8-7-15 / Like inopportune months to eat oysters / Best-selling 1970s poster subject familiarly / Its English offshoot launched in 2006 / Old/new food regimen

Light cotton fabric / SAT 8-8-15 / Heraldic border / Garment worn partly under alb / Ingredient in Brompton cocktail

Highly emotional in dated lingo / SUN 8-9-15 / Chrome alternative / Port of Puerto Rico / Stage of Tour de France / Homage with humor / Coal-mining waste / Indian tourist mecca / D'Artagnan mentor / When doubled, Ramone

Golf ball propper-upper / MON 8-10-15 / Many countertop / 1980s hand-held puzzle craze

Goo goo eyed old style / TUE 8-11-15 / Ones steeped in tradition in England / Biblical kingdom its Utah namesake / Messy sandwich filler / Sweatship regulator / Nattering sort in Spiro Agnew speech / Classic beer once brewed in Detroit

Scaly anteater / WED 8-12-15 / Roman equivalent of Rhea / 19th century Midwest railway hub / Word after which parent might interrupt child / Monster encountered by Aeneas

Big purveyor of fishing gear / THU 8-13-15 / Dutch city where Charles II lived in exile / Like Potala Palace of Tibet / World of Suzie 1957 novel / Israeli city on slopes of Mount Carmel / Bit of letter-shaped hardware on door / Queens stadium eponym / Transmission-related units

Neighbor of Mozambican / FRI 8-14-15 / Randall recurring character in Stephen King novels / King of Israel who founded Samaria / Woe that's result of extreme materialism / Girl's name derived from name of ancient Anatolian kingdom

1968 hit song spawned 1978 movie 1981 TV show / MON 8-17-15 / Gucci alternative / Bit of textspeak unshortened / Mysteries starting with Tower Treasure House on Cliff / Pueblo brick /

Tenor Carreras / TUE 8-17-15 / Kyle Terminator hero / Slave woman in Uncle Tom's Cabin / Rapper born Shawn Corey Carter / First computer company to run ad during Super Bowl

Japanese sword sport / WED 8-19-15 / Oregon city named for furrier / Egg-laying animals / Indira Gandhi's ill-fated son / Vaulter's hurdle / Instrument similar to cor anglais

Schmooze / TUE 7-28-15 / Berliner's exclamation / Mork's planet / Hand ball?

Knuckleballer Wilhelm / WED 7-29-15 / Russell of "Black Widow" / More than half of Israel / Breath mint in a tin / It lacks depth