Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor:David Woolf

Relative difficulty:Challenging

THEME:TWO-STATE SOLUTION (39A: Topic of international negotiations ... and a hint to every four-letter answer in this puzzle)—four-letter answer all made up of two two-letter US state postal codes

Word of the Day:CLAVE(64A: Hardwood percussion stick) —

n.
1. One of a pair of cylindricalhardwoodsticksbeatentogether as a percussioninstrument.
2. A syncopatedtwo-barmusicalpattern. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Well, first, this should've been a Thursday. I was two minutes over my normal Wednesday time, which is to say it took me 40-50% longer than normal. The grid *is* extra (16) wide, so that accounts for a little of the time, but not nearly all of it. But appearing on the wrong day of the week isn't this puzzle's main problem. It's not even top three. What a joyless, horrible, painful slog this was. The worst, most obnoxious kind of puzzle, in that it exists *solely* to satisfy the constructor's sense that he pulled off some architectural feat ("look at me, ma!"), and is in no way—not one—geared toward the enjoyment or pleasure of the solver. Tell me, please, how interesting / entertaining / enthralling it is to know that the four-letter answers (ooh, four letters, exciting!) are made up of two state codes. How on god's green can that be interesting? What's worse—much worse—is that not only is it horribly uninteresting, it *causes the fill in the puzzle to be terrible*. Laughably terrible. You can't have walls of hyper-restricted four-letter answers like this and expect *anything* good, fill-wise, to come of it. For instance, we call it SAINTHOOD, not SAINTDOM. A HOST, OK, fine, I can let that particular partial slide, but then, hot on its heels, A FARM!? A bleeping FARM? Also, something called TRIAMORY, of which I'm hearing for the first time today ("polyamory," sure, but this? gah). Something called a CLAVE. Someone named MAE (?). Someone named NOREEN (??). Dreaded short stuff like UDO and AAU. And ... OAKED? For real?? EST GAIA LETTS TWI TNUTS etc. make it stop stop stop. And for what? For what? Four-letter words. I've got some four-letter words for this puzzle, that's for sure.

The best (read: not best I'm being sarcastic) part was having to guess on the final square. Just ... guess. Now, it was an educated guess, and I guessed correctly, but ... AMGEN!? (18A: Biopharmaceutical company that makes Enbrel). I laughed out loud at the clue, because ... Enbrel?? What futuristic planet is all this happening on? I've literally never seen either of these ... names ... in my life before today. AMGEN, dear lord. I guessed that "M." That clunky clue for ROM (2D: It can't be written to, in a PC), yikes. I knew a CD-ROM was a thing, so I guessed ROM. Ill-conceived theme, terrible fill ... just astonishing. I got the revealer very very early and instantly ceased to care. "Oooh, look, an OR *and* a CA," I failed to imagine myself thinking. What kind of bored masochist is going to go back and check to make sure that, indeed, those four-letter answers are all made up of two-letter postal codes? Oy, HOI, no.

Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Joel Elkins and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: CHECKPOINTS (34A: Border stops ... or a hint to four squares in this puzzle)— a TSA rebus

Theme answers:

"THAT'S AMORE" (17A: Dean Martin classic) / SET SAIL (4D: Go to sea)
LIGHT SABERS (21A: Jedi defenses) / MORT SAHL (9D: Political comic who once had a one-man Broadway show)
WARTS AND ALL (54A: Everything, the good with the bad) / IT'S A BOY (50D: Delivery room announcement)
YOU DON'T SAY (58A: "Really?!") / TENT SALE (47D: Outside clearance event)

Word of the Day:SEA HARES(24A: Mollusks once known as lepus marinus) —

The cladeAplysiomorpha, commonly known as sea hares (Aplysia species and related genera), are medium-sized to very large Opisthobranchia with a soft internal shell made of protein. These are marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamilies Aplysioidea and Akeroidea. // The common name"sea hare" is direct translation from Latin lepus marinus, as the animal's existence was known in Roman times. The name derives from their rounded shape and from the two long rhinophores that project upwards from their heads and that somewhat resemble the ears of a hare. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've never encountered the TSA at a "border stop"—only in airports. But maybe they're at border stops too, I don't know. Or maybe that doesn't matter, and it's just that the TSA are a form of checkpoint. Good enough. This rebus was remarkably straightforward and easy to uncover. SET SAIL was obvious before too long, and after that ... just more TSAs. Some of the TSA-containing themers are quite good—actually, all of the Acrosses are, though I especially like "YOU DON'T SAY..." and "WARTS AND ALL." The fill is about average. Very serviceable, with only a few real rough spots. I don't know why I keep ending my puzzles at the very roughest part, but several times in the last few days my last square has been in the junkiest answer. Here, it was the "A" is TESSAS. So many TESSAS. Hardly anyone is named TESSA, and you want me to accept two. What's a "Romola"? As plural names go, that was rough. But the only other parts that really made me wince were the verb-to-noun monsters EVADER (bad) and TOTALER (worse). I think I'd accept those only if they were clued [Tax ___] and [Tee___] respectively (I'm not serious, esp. about that last one).

[TSA]

Clues are snappy and fun, for the most part. I enjoyed remembering "I'm With Stupid" t-shirts. Clue at 1A: "___ Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World" (2012 book) (IKE'S) is a valiant attempt to save us from having to endure a second plural name (after TESSAS). The clue in IDI is hilarious in its superfluity (26A: ___ Amin, Oscar-winning role for Forest Whitaker). 99% of solvers will get IDI from [___ Amin], and the other 1% are actually fictional because I can't imagine anyone having a go at a NYT Thursday puzzle who doesn't know IDI Amin. Anyway, the whole bit after "Amin" about Forest Whitaker is fantastically unnecessary. [Oscar-winning role for Forest] is a much (read: infinitely) better clue, one I'm sure has been used before. Why not here? Don't know. Current clue's not bad, just baffling. If you had told me my favorite clue was going to involve Miley Cyrus, I'd've told you "shut up," but as fill-in-the-blank quotation clues go, I loved 49A: "Pink isn't just a color, it's an ___": Miley Cyrus (ATTITUDE). I like the sentiment, as well as the sheer weirdness.

I don't know what SEAHARES are, but the crosses were all fair. I guess they ... kinda ... look like hares. I forgot that the "Vampire Diaries" girl was an ELENA (56A: ___ Gilbert, protagonist of "The Vampire Diaries"). The non-Kagan kind. EWEN Bremner was beyond me (65A: Actor Bremner of "Trainspotting" and "Black Hawk Down"), so that SE corner was probably the toughest, between those names and the tough-for-me partial 53D: "How can ___?" ("I LOSE"). I wanted only "IT BE?" but that obviously didn't work. OK, that'll do. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

P.S. "A Little Back-and-Forth" by Byron Walden is a great puzzle and you should do it (if you subscribed to the American Values Crossword Puzzle, you'd know this already)

Constructor:Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:none

Word of the Day:Kirmans(7D: Kirmans, e.g.) —

Kerman carpets (sometimes "Kirman") are one of the traditional classifications of Persian carpets. They are named after Kerman, which is both a city and a province located in south central Iran, though, as with other such designations the term describes a type which may have been manufactured somewhere else. Kerman has been a major center for the production of high quality carpets since at least the 15th century. In the 18th century, some authors considered the carpets from the province of Kerman, especially at Siftan, to be the finest of all Persian carpets, partly because of the high quality of the wool from the region, known as Carmania wool. (wikipedia)

• • •

Weirdly insulted by the inclusion of "on the calendar" in the clues at 1A: Preceder of 64-Across (BLACK FRIDAY) and 64A: Follower of 1-Across on the calendar (CYBER MONDAY). It's a Friday, no need to condescend with the additional information. My first impulse would've been a date anyway (I was thinking CHRISTMAS EVE / NEW YEAR'S DAY ... those didn't pan out). The puzzle was reasonably enjoyable overall, though the cross-references were a little out of control—two sets of cross-referenced pairs, and then two more clues that require you to look elsewhere in the grid for the information. Nuisance cluing. You can have one or two cross-references, but six? Come on. Also, duplicate clues? Not that exciting, and again, today we get an overdose (2xWord of Warcraft figure, 2xCivil War battle site). Overall, the grid was pretty smooth, if overly reliant on overly familiar stuff. Nothing about the grid really stands out, but it was pleasant to solve.

The only thing that was interesting from a personal solving standpoint was that in both the north and the south I could not parse one of the Acrosses until I got to its very last square, and the squares in question are perfectly symmetrical. I had TITANI_MORE ... then had an ultra-brief moment of "who's TITANIA MORE?" and then I figured it out. (This is where knowing what Kirmans are would've come in handy (7D)). Then on the other side of the grid, right at the end of the solve, I completely missed the twist on the meaning of "port" (59A: Port authority?) took "Port authority" literally, and wondered what kind of Native American word I was looking at that started WINE.. (which I was mentally pronouncing "win-uh"). So the "S" in what turned out to be STEWARD was my last letter in the grid. I didn't know a SAWYER was a lumber mill employee. Without that "Y" there I was thinking "Are there two ... "W"s ... in SAWWER? One who saws is a SAWWER?" I don't know any Sawyers except Tom and Diane. Turns out a sawyer *is* actually "one who saws," though not a "sawer" (or "sawwer," probably).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. woke up to find my wife had insomniacally solved the puzzle in the middle of the night. She, a kiwi, is none too happy about the TASMAN clue (20A: Discoverer of New Zealand). I'll let the first line of "The History of New Zealand" wikipedia page tell you why: "The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land." I hate it when facts are so PC! What's happening to this country!?

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Constructor:Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day:The Lost Battalion(38A: Where the Lost Battalion got lost (ARGONNE)) —

The Lost Battalion is the name given to nine companies of the United States 77th Division, roughly 554 men, isolated by German forces during World War I after an American attack in the Argonne Forest in October 1918. Roughly 197 were killed in action and approximately 150 missing or taken prisoner before 194 remaining men were rescued. They were led by Major Charles White Whittlesey. On 2 October, the division quickly advanced into the Argonne, under the belief that French forces were supporting the left flank and two American units including the 92nd Division were supporting the right flank. Unknown to Whittlesey's unit, the French advance had been stalled. Without this knowledge, the Americans had moved beyond the rest of the Allied line and found themselves completely cut off and surrounded by German forces. For the next six days, suffering heavy losses, the men of the division were forced to fight off several attacks by the Germans, who saw the small American units as a threat to their whole line. // The battalion suffered many hardships. Food was short, and water was available only by crawling under fire to a nearby stream. Ammunition ran low. Communications were also a problem, and at times they would be bombarded by shells from their own artillery. As every runner dispatched by Whittlesey either became lost or ran into German patrols, carrier pigeons became the only method of communicating with headquarters. In an infamous incident on 4 October, inaccurate coordinates were delivered by one of the pigeons and the unit was subjected to "friendly fire". The unit was saved by another pigeon, Cher Ami, delivering the following message:
WE ARE ALONG THE ROAD PARALELL 276.4. OUR ARTILLERY IS DROPPING A BARRAGE DIRECTLY ON US. FOR HEAVENS SAKE STOP IT.
Despite this, they held their ground and caused enough of a distraction for other Allied units to break through the German lines, which forced the Germans to retreat.

• • •

This is perfectly acceptable and completely forgettable. Familiar shape, familiar answers, smooth, fine. CHILLAXED is old hat by now, and everything else seems tame. Not bold. Again, it's technically proficient. Just somewhat flavorless. I like more daring from my themelesses. I will admit that my slightly negative feelings are undoubtedly, at least partially, the result of a NYT puzzle website screw-up, which resulted in an ERRONEOUS puzzle download. To wit, I tried to download the puzzle in .puz (AcrossLite) format, as I always do, but even though the file had the correct name, it was actually the Mini puzzle... that's at least two kinds of disappointing right there. So I whined audibly (i.e. on Twitter) for a few minutes, but I don't have all night so I had to go in and solve on-site, and yuck ugh boo I don't like the interface. I have a system and a time frame and when that gets thrown off, blargh. NYT got the file problem fixed pretty quickly, but not quickly enough for me. This is all to say that I wasn't in the Greatest mood when I started in on this puzzle. Still, even now, having taken the time to breathe and look at the puzzle objectively ... it seems a bit tepid.

Issues:

14D: Heaps (LOTS)— few things are more annoying, solving-wise, than being confronted with the familiar LOTS v. TONS dilemma. Since neither IDOL (11A: Treasure hunter's loot, maybe) nor SYST (18A: Way: Abbr.) was very clear, that little NE corner took me somewhat longer than it should have.
26D: Sphere of control (FIEF)— I keep looking at this and it keeps looking like not-a-word. Somebody call a dom.
27D: Org. in "Patriot Games" (IRA)— never saw it. Thought the International Olympic Committee might be involved. Also, as far as I knew, the Last Battalion were something from the Star Wars universe, so ARGONNE took some doing.
52D: Land on the Gulf of Guinea (TOGO)— forgot this place existed. Adjacent clue 53D: Project with a lot of momentum (HURL) also very tough (needed 3/4 before I got it). Since these two answers provided the first two letters in all the long Acrosses in the SE, that section took a little longer than it should have, but, again, I'm gonna blame the dumb / unfamiliar-to-me interface and my mild annoyance. The crossword was, objectively, easy. And solid.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:"Double Quote"— double letters throughout grid: when you read them in order (top down, left to right) you get a quote from YOGI BERRA (114A: Speaker of this puzzle's "double quote"): "A NICKEL AIN'T WORTH A DIME ANYMORE"; since the quote is doubled ... the nickel *is* ... worth a dime ... then? Honestly, at the moment I don't understand. Maybe something having to do with the idea of not having "two nickels to rub together"? And the adjacent (doubled) letters represent that ... rubbing? I'm tryin' real hard here...

Word of the Day:ASTON Villa(59D: ___ Villa (English football club)) —

Aston Villa Football Club (/ˈæstənˈvɪlə/; nicknamed Villa, The Villa, The Villans, The Lions) is a professional association football club based in Aston, Birmingham, that plays in the Championship, the second level of English football. Founded in 1874, they have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were the originators and founding members of the Football League in 1888. They were also founding members of the Premier League in 1992. In June 2016, the club was sold by American businessman Randy Lerner to Recon Group, owned by Chinese businessman Dr Tony Jiantong Xia. (wikipedia) (they were in the Premier League, but they *just* got relegated, wah WAH...)

• • •

I've been sitting here waiting, hoping someone on Twitter or Facebook will confirm the theme for me. I really don't get it. I get that two nickels make a dime ... but I don't see how doubling the quote is funny / cute / anything. You're just saying it twice. You're saying the "dime" part again too. Why is doubling it funny? This seems an aaaaaawfully long (and dull) way to go for some kind of simple math joke. You need two ... nickels ... to make a dime? Between being cornball and being confusing, this puzzle strikes me as quite poor, *especially* for Patrick Berry. I expect the joke to Make Sense and I expect it to Land. Neither thing happens. It's all baffling to me right now. Add to that a highly segmented grid that offers very little mid-solve pleasure—with no theme answers to carry you through the puzzle or anchor you to the theme in any way—and you get a really disappointing Sunday.

What is there even to say? The double-letter thing occasionally leads to some interesting fill, like "I INSIST" (27A: "No, no, it's my treat") and CHUKKERS (which, in a weird coincidence, I just encountered accidentally in the dictionary the other day) (36A: Time periods in a polo match). I would've said SAW LOGS, not SAW WOOD, so that was strange. I did like that brief moment where I had no idea what *four* circled squares in a row could signify (i.e. that moment before I realized it wasn't four, but two and then two more). Had trouble with the final vowel in HIASSEN and they hyper-formality of BY YOUR LEAVE. Also had trouble with the seeming avalanche of "?" clues, esp. 62A: Tank tops? (GAS CAPS) right on top of 66A: Corresponding expense? (POSTAGE), which was crossed by something called a FLAT CAR, which I had as a FLAT BED for a while. Clue on SCAPEGOAT was also oddly misleading, so that whole ENE section was probably the roughest for me. But in the end, it wasn't hard to solve at all. Just thematically bewildering.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. please stop emailing me explaining who Yogi Berra was (I know) and that he was famous for his muddled / nonsensical quotes (I know). The "humor" of the quote is not the question here. The nonsensical "doubling" theme is the problem. Two nickels make a dime. Two quotes *about* nickels and dimes make ... two quotes about nickels and dimes.

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Constructor:Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty:Medium (normal Monday)

THEME:WOW FACTOR (36D: Pizazz ... or what 18-, 23-, 46- and 56-Across each has?)— theme answers are three-letter phrases where first letters of the words involved are W, O, and W, respectively:

Theme answers:

WAR OF WORDS (18A: Heated argument)
WALTZ OFF WITH (23A: Take while no one's looking, say)
WALKS ON WATER (46A: Exhibits a superhuman ability)
"WAY OUT WEST" (56A: 1937 Laurel and Hardy romp in the frontier)

Word of the Day:MATCHWOOD(34A: Material in fire starter set) —

noun
noun: matchwood
very small pieces or splinters of wood.

"their boat was shattered into matchwood against the rocks"
light wood suitable for making matches. (google)

• • •

This is a variation on a theme type that I once used, possibly in my first published NYT puzzle, with S.O.S. as the premise (which, it turns out, Peter Gordon had also done, in a Sunday-sized version, many years earlier). Like today's constructor, I made sure that all my "O"s were different. His revealer gives this one an added, uh, WOW FACTOR, I guess (my revealer was probably just S.O.S.). "WAY OUT WEST" seems at least mildly obscure for a Monday puzzle, but with WAY OUT in place, if I'd had to guess (and I did), I'd've guessed WEST (and I did). I'm surprised I finished this in normal (i.e. just sub-3) time today, because I felt thwarted at many turns. Got WALTZ (well, after I got ALGAL, ugh gag etc.), but couldn't immediately come up with OFF WITH. Brain wanted ON PATROL, so ON WATCH took a lot of hammering (9D: Doing sentry duty). Wanted EGAD for 32D: "By Jove!" ("I SAY!"), which slowed things down in the west.

The biggest issue for me, though, was MATCHWOOD. I just stared at the clue [Material in a fire starter set] wondering what any of it meant. What is a "fire starter set?" I googled it in quotation marks and all I got were Lego sets involving firemen. Also, what is MATCHWOOD? (I wondered). I had MATCH and no idea what to do next. As you can see, that WOOD is *the* gateway to the SE corner, so I had the door slammed in my face there. As you can see in the Word of the Day definition of MATCHWOOD, there's nothing about building a fire (assuming that's what a "fire starter set" does; tbh I'm still not really sure).

Fill was subpar a bit too often, with the gangrenous ALGAL leading the way (3D: Like some pond growths). ASSN over SNEE crossing ASWOON is crusty as well. Most of the rest is OK. Oh, plural NOONS? Come on. That's two times in recent memory that the puzzle has tried to pass this off as a word. OOF. Stop. Do better. So the theme seems fine for a Monday, even if the fill seems a little wobbly and bygone. Not bad.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. here is the problem that you can cause when you dabble in obscure junk like SNEE (15A: Bygone dagger)—since it has an entirely uninferrable spelling, if all those crosses aren't obvious, solvers who don't know what word are doomed:

He's right about SNARF v. SCARF—both are fair answers for 6D: Wolf (down). Now, you and I may think "SCEE ... why would you think SCEE was a word?" But honestly, why would anyone think SNEE was a word? It's not like it pops up in conversation, or print, or ... anywhere. It's crosswordese, therefore I know it. That is the Only reason I know it.

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Constructor:Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:BROKEN BONES (55A: Injuries illustrated four times in this puzzle) — circled squares (or, probably, shaded squares in the dead-tree version) spell out a bone in way that is "broken" across two answers that are on different but adjacent levels. Presumably the first long Across (17A: Take a tumble) is also a theme answer (SLIP AND FALL):

Theme answers:

RESTFUL/NATTERED
HAS AC/RUMBA
GOTTI/BIAS
"TRUE LIFE"/MURKIER

Word of the Day:GUNNER(44D: Overly ambitious student, in slang) —

Gunner (student), a slang term in medical or law school for a hyper-competitive student (wikipedia)

• • •

This didn't work, on at least a couple of levels. It's a cute if predictable kind of idea (constructors are always looking to break and/or anagram things—typical gimmick basis). But there is one problem with the theme generally, and and one big (massive, puzzle-killing) problem with a specific theme-related answers. Let's start with the general. The "break" here doesn't register that well. You could argue that keeping the bone letters contiguous better represents most bone breaks, which aren't clean. But I'm not sure the current set-up represents a bone break any better. The step down says, well, "step" to me, not "break." And the way the "step"-for-break concept is executed here is particularly problematic, as the break-like adjacency of NA and TI creates a muddled visual effect in the middle of the grid ("Ow! My NATI!"). There's just a slightly off, slightly sloppy feel to the execution of the theme.

But there is a much bigger problem with one specific theme-related answer—a problem that is both manifestly lethal and seemingly avoidable. That problem, of course, is the answer HASAC (31A: Is ready for the summer weather, for short). HASAC is not an answer. It's not a phrase, any more than DRINKSOJ or SKIPSPE. It is a random snippet of conversation masquerading as a stand-alone phrase. It's ... ridiculous. Why (o lord, why) not design this with a word ending in "-SA" (So Many More Options) and then another word beginning with CRUM- (like, say CRUMB (or CRUMBLE or CRUMPET or something ... with CRUMB you wouldn't even have to change your grid shape. BALSA / CRUMB. SAMSA / CRUMB. TULSA / CRUMB. Take your pick! But HASAC... I'm dumbfounded by that one. It's like someone was typing HAS A COW but died before finishing.

This one wasn't too difficult, though I got weirdly stymied at ETAS (29D: Itinerary data, for short). Pluralizing E.T.A. is just yuck. When does anyone do that? So after getting the "T" from STU (35A: Disco ___ ("The Simpsons" character)), I wrote in STOP. Seemed possible. But no. Even after getting to ETA-, I didn't get it. The "S" was the very last letter I filled in, after I finally get the "D" I needed to see DANSK (41A: Language of Copenhagen, to locals). I also had SAMBA for RUMBA at first (37A: Cousin of the mambo), but that was both very predictable and very fixable.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:from words to initals— familiar phrases are clued as if the last word (three letters in every case) were an initialism, i.e. clued wackily!

Theme answers:

COMMON E.R.A. (17A: Stat shared by many pitchers?)
"LET 'ER R.I.P.!" (26A: "Leave that lady's tomb alone!")
DISAPPEARING A.C.T. (40A: Exam that's losing popularity in high schools?)
MAMMA M.I.A. (52A: Example of bad parenting?)
PICK ME, U.P.S. (66A: Cry from an eager applicant for a delivery job?)

Word of the Day:ETSY(72A: Crafts website) —

Etsy is a peer-to-peer (P2P) e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and supplies, as well as unique factory-manufactured items. These items cover a wide range, including art, photography, clothing, jewelry, food, bath and beauty products, quilts, knick-knacks, and toys. Many sellers also sell craft supplies such as beads, wire and jewelry-making tools. All vintage items must be at least 20 years old. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee of US$0.20 per item. (wikipedia)

• • •

The wackiness is borderline out of control here (contrasting heavily with the acceptable but vanilla fill), but I thought it all worked pretty well. The joy (and the difficulty) is definitely all in the themers. The clues are the key to whether a themer flies or not, and while the first one out of the gate ([Stat shared by many pitchers?]) is a clunker, they pick up from there, with the last two being genuinely funny. I wish the last one ([Cry from an eager applicant for a delivery job?]) had been imagined as an actual quotation, the way ["Leave that lady's tomb alone!"?] was, but it's tough to find a good one that doesn't use "ME". ["Ooh, ooh, I want to drive one of your giant brown trucks!"?]—doesn't really get at the idea of selection, though. ["Hey, Brown! I'm the one you should hire!"]. Something like that. Themers were difficult to pick up because how the hell do you know what three-letter abbr. is coming your way. Clues don't always give you much info. "Delivery job" is supposed to lead me to U.P.S. "Bad" is the only direct clue to M.I.A. "Exam" is all you get for A.C.T. (an exam I never took and don't really understand). So you had to work for the themers. You didn't have to work for much else. But it all evened out, difficulty-wise.

Very tough getting started, as the clues in the NW were often ambiguous. I had the rider using a ROPE with her "Giddy-up!" Maybe a CROP. Probably not a WHIP. Singular SPUR (!) would not have occurred to me. Plural, sure, perhaps. I don't ride. Maybe you just need the one. UNMAN is not a word I ever think of, so that was hard. [Some puppets] are, indeed, SOCKS, but that is a tough clue for SOCKS. [Bent] for KNACK, also tough in its ambiguity. OH NO are [Words of dawning realization], sure, but nothing in that clue suggests you are realizing something bad. I had I SEE, as I'm sure many others did at first. Oddly, the first answer of which I was certain up in that quadrant was ROMCOM (4D: "Sleepless in Seattle," for one). Even 2D: Give a buzz (PHONE) wasn't clear to me.

Had a question about one of the themers—namely, why would a "tomb" say R.I.P.? Shouldn't that be "grave"? But then I immediately answered my "why not 'grave'" question by looking at the answer that runs through that particular themer, namely GRAVE PERIL (8D: Serious danger). So "grave" was never an option. Still, I'd probably have said "Leave that lady's headstone alone?" I'm not that familiar with tombs. Maybe they do say R.I.P. But headstones are so much more common, seems like you'd want to go that direction. Only other clue complaint was the horrendous x 2 clue [Order for a "D, E, A, N, S" list?]. First of all, it makes no sense and is in no way clever. May as well just say [Anagram of "deans"]. "Order for..."??? You make the Dean's List or you don't. The wordplay doesn't even land. Further, neither clue has content, which is a terrible, wasted opportunity for interesting cluing (again, x 2). Nothing about cars in SEDAN clue, nothing about mountains in ANDES clue. Just a cornball pun, and a failed one at that. Sorry: two, at that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: PHONETIC (60A: Like the alphabet that includes the answers to the starred clues ... and an anagram of the eight circled letters)— grid contains the phonetic alphabet words that represent the letters in PHONETIC:

Theme answers:

PAPA
HOTEL
OSCAR
NOVEMBER
ECHO
TANGO
INDIA
CHARLIE

Word of the Day:RENZO Piano, designer of the New York Times building(36A) —

Renzo Piano, OMRI, OMCA (Italian: [ˈrɛntso ˈpjaːno]; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect and engineer, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1998. Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff said of Piano's works that the "...serenity of his best buildings can almost make you believe that we live in a civilized world.^"// In 2006, Piano was selected by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.^[4] He was selected as the 10th most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment" category of the 2006 Time 100. // In August 2013 he was appointed Senator for Life in the Italian Senate by President Giorgio Napolitano. (wikipedia)

• • •

Don't have much to say because there's really not much here. This theme seems astonishingly slight. I keep looking at it waiting for some secret, special, AHA feature to make itself known, but so far, no dice. The grid contains the eight words that represent the letters P, H, O, N, E, T, I, and C in the PHONETIC alphabet. That is all. What am I supposed to do with that? There is literally nothing interesting about it. The grid is just an ordinary grid. All I can do at this one is shrug.

There were some sticking points, but then the rest was quite easy. Had trouble getting APPEAR from 17A: Surface, and really had trouble getting the part after OVER in OVERTIP (4D: Be generous to a fault, in a way). OVER- ... something. Also had ETA for 37A: Forecasting figure (EST.), which really gummed up the west. Other than that, the only real problem I had was not knowing who RENZO Piano was (cool name, though I do hate the horribly self-indulgent / self-referencing clue) (36A: ___ Piano, designer of The New York Times Building). But again, all I can do is describe my solving path and point out a few unremarkable features. This puzzle gives you nothing. It's the definition of filler. A placeholder. Thursdays are supposed to be cool, twisty, baffling ... even the failures are usually ambitious. This just sits here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Matt Ginsberg

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:two pronunciations of UNIONIZED (36A: See 19- and 57-Across)—

Theme answers:

19A: One for whom 36-Across has four syllables (CHEMIST)
57A: One for whom 36-Across has three syllables (PLUMBER)

Word of the Day:Harold STASSEN(14D: Nine-time presidential contender of the 1940s-'90s) —

Harold Edward Stassen (April 13, 1907 – March 4, 2001) was the 25th Governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. After service in World War II, he was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1948 to 1953. He was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, considered for a time to be the front-runner. He thereafter regularly continued to run for that and other offices, such that his name became most identified with his status as a perennial candidate. [...] Stassen was later best known for being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, seeking it nine times between 1944 and 1992 (1944, 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992). He never won the Republican nomination, much less the presidency; in fact, after 1952, he never even came close, but continued to campaign actively and seriously for President until just a year before his death. (wikipedia)

• • •

When I saw the constructor's name, I knew it wasn't going to be a straight themeless. A feeling of dread set in, as I enjoy my Friday themelesses. In fact, Friday is probably the puzzle day most likely to make me happy. So I braced for a theme, and I guess there is one—but at three words, it's one of those half-assed themes you see occasionally, where you have a themeless built around an idea too slight for a regular, themed puzzle. I mean, sure, it's a cute little bit of wordplay. PLUMBER feels pretty arbitrary as an example of a unionized worker (TEACHER fits, for instance), but it's fine. It's just fine. And then there's the rest of the puzzle. And that is also fine. Two days in a row now where I feel like the ambition level has been pretty low. This grid is fairly smooth, overall, but not very remarkable except in its weirder answers (like ALL-INDIA) and its mystery names (EUGENIE and STASSEN, for me). The SW corner is nice, if name-heavy. And I do enjoy DEVO (54A: Musical group known for wearing red hats called "energy domes").

I don't know from "Lyricists." Whenever a clue starts [Lyricist...] I panic and start hitting the R, L and S keys. I'm probably thinking of LOESSER. Is that a lyricist? Yes! "Guys & Dolls"! Good for me. Anyway, LERNER (38A: Lyricist who adapted "Pygmalion") ... I think he goes with LOEWE the composer, not to be confused with LOEWS the theater chain, or LOWE'S the home improvement store, or Derek LOWE the pitcher, or the otherDerek LOWE who is a medicinal [...wait for it...] CHEMIST! [takes bow, draws curtain, goes home]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. wasn't til just now that I noticed that 40-Down did not read [Word repeatedly spelled out by Frankenstein] (RESPECT). Actual clue makes so much more sense.

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Constructor:Byron Walden

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:none

Word of the Day:ADRIAN II(2D: Ninth-century pope who was married with a daughter) —

Pope Adrian II (Latin: Adrianus PP. II, Italian: Adriano II; 792 – 14 December 872) was Pope from 14 December 867 to his death in 872. He was a member of a noble Roman family who became pope at an advanced age. [...] Like his predecessor Nicholas I, Adrian was forced to submit in temporal affairs to the interference of the emperor Louis II, who placed him under the surveillance of Arsenius, bishop of Orte, his confidential adviser, and Arsenius' nephew Anastasius, the librarian. // Adrian had in his youth married a woman named Stephania, by whom he had a daughter, and both were still living at his election, following which they lived with him in the Lateran Palace. They were carried off and assassinated by Anastasius' brother Eleutherius in 868. // Adrian died in 872 after exactly five years as pope. (wikipedia)

• • •

Oh my goodness I love this puzzle so much. So much. Yes, ADRIAN II is about as random as Pope + Roman numerals get, and a "Swan Lake" heroine crossing a French pronoun is both non-scintillating and potentially lethal, but but But ... everything else. I enjoyed the heck out of this, and even stopped at about the 1/4 point to tweet about how much I loved it. The great clue on YOGA MATS (1D: Balance sheets?), the hard-to-parse but ultimately satisfying EEG TESTS (4D: A migraine sufferer might have one), and then the ultimate quadrant closer—I got to ride off on a wave of Chaka Khan and Rufus. It was as if, as I left that section behind, I flipped a light in the roller rink, and the soundtrack to my own personal roller-skating movie started, and off I went.

And the hits just kept coming. So fun to struggle with and then figure out stuff like U.S. PASSPORT (5A: Item that became trilingual in the late '90s) andTV WIFE (28A: Cast mate?). Even the short stuff was made interesting by sly or toughish clues. Even though the puzzle played on the easy side fore me, there was at least some resistance and some entertainment value virtually everywhere I turned. And, with a few exceptions, all the fill familiar, reasonable, and not forced / arcane / stupid. I don't really know what "The WAR AT HOME" is, but the name is at least familiar (29D: 2005-07 sitcom about the Gold family, with "The"). I definitely don't know SATURNISM (45A: Medical term for lead poisoning)—that second "S" was my last letter in, and without the cross I'd probably have guessed SATURNIUM—but its parts were inferrable or gettable from crosses. ART SALON is the one answer that *does* seem archaic, but those were definitely things back in the day (RENOIR's day, for instance), so I have no problem there (34D: Exhibition locale). A smooth, cheery experience, all around. Which I needed, as the news this week has been a &%$* show.

I had a couple of weird missteps. I wanted ACE before AXE (24D: Kill), and, improbably but oddly confidently, TIVO before TINT (27A: Auto option patented by 3M). I justified that last one by reading "Auto" as meaning "automatic," as in "you can set TIVO to automatically record your favorite programs." I was looking for some kind of brand name at 39D: Zipcar alternative (RENTAL), so that wasn't easy, but the surrounding material sure was. With a little more bite, this would've been an ideal themeless puzzle for me. As it is, it's pretty darned close.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. please note the YO next to ADRIAN

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Constructor:Jerry Miccolis

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:"Double Features"— imagined double features, which are really imagined single features in which two movie titles have been fused together:

Theme answers:

FROZEN WATERWORLD (22A: Double feature about the Arctic Ocean?)
ALIEN CONTACT (38A: ... about the search for extraterrestrial life?)
TITANIC SKYFALL (49A: ... about baseball-sized hail?)
BIG CONSPIRACY THEORY (67A: ... about Lee Harvey Oswald not being the lone gunman?)
SAW THE DEPARTED (87A: ... about attending a funeral?)
ROCKY SLEEPER (96A: ... about an insomniac?)
NOTORIOUS KINGPIN (116A: ... about Pablo Escobar?)

Word of the Day:BORIS Johnson(67D: ___ Johnson, former mayor of London) —

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, popular historian, author, and journalist. He has been Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs since 13 July 2016 and has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015. He had previously served as MP for Henley from 2001 until 2008 and as Mayor of London from 2008 until 2016. A member of the Conservative Party, Johnson identifies as a One-Nation Conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies. [...] Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics and journalism. Supporters have praised him as an entertaining, humorous, and popular figure with appeal beyond traditional Conservative voters. Conversely, he has been criticised by figures on both the left and right, accused of elitism and cronyism, laziness and dishonesty, and using xenophobic, racist, and homophobic language. Johnson is the subject of several biographies and a number of fictionalised portrayals. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ugh. This shoulda been called "Wordplay Trainwreck." Two major, deal-breaking flaws with this theme. PART A (ugh, I say): it is infinitely replicable. Just plunk two movie names next to each other. You could probably do a Sunday-sized puzzle from post -2010 movies alone. Getting symmetrical theme answers is really your only challenge. "The Martian Room"! "Brooklyn Bridge of Spies"! I haven't even left 2015 yet. There is nothing here. Not only that, I guarantee you that this theme has been done, and been done better, and been done more cleverly. Even the title is just a [shrug]. A bored "how's this?" And then Part B, the execution. These answers ... it's like the creators weren't really sure what "funny" was. Like they looked up "humor" on the internet at the last minute. How else to explain the singularly weak BIG CONSPIRACY THEORY? You Can Plunk "Big" In Front Of Anything, why why why would you do that??? Nothing Clever Is Happening Here! And ALIEN CONTACT!?!?! You know that CONTACT was actually about ... alien ... contact ... so ... literally nothing clever is happening here. It is negative clever. Also, SAW THE DEPARTED would just never work ever on any level. I can imagine the other pairings as coherent phrases, but not that one. Titles so rarely begin with the perfect tense and no clear subject. Everything about this puzzle, including how it got approved for publication, is utterly baffling. Also, the fill isn't great.

[NOTORIOUS ... BIG]

MITRAL x/w CARRÉ = rough (7D: Kind of heart valve + 26A: French for "square"). Very rough. I'm actively relearning French as we speak and couldn't come up with CARRÉ, probably because there are no accents aigus in crosswords. PART A (not I!?) and GNMA (blargh) were also dire and made ALIEN hard to see (because, again, who would've expected so banal a pairing as ALIEN and CONTACT!). MEIS! ASYE! TER! I have to stop now. This appears to be a debut, and it's one a discriminating editor should've sent back, with notes on how to make it NYT-worthy. Only Merl Reagle could pull off something like this—could give it the ridiculous, clever, ingenious humor it *needs* to come off. He would've added some twist that made it all seem worthwhile. I miss him.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. this tweet

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Constructor:Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (*for a Monday*: 20+ seconds over normal time)

THEME:OPED COLUMN (29D: Place for airing an opinion ... or what five of the his puzzle's Down answers contain?)— "OPED" can be found inside three down-running themers:

Theme answers:

PIANO PEDAL (3D: One of three at the base of a Steinway)
SLOPE DOWN (33D: Decline, as a ramp)
EUROPE DAY (9D: Annual celebration when a 12-star flag may be flown)

Word of the Day:EUROPE DAY—

In Europe, Europe Day is an annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe. There are two separate designations of Europe Day: 5 May for the Council of Europe, and 9 May for the European Union (EU). The latter is the EU's flag day and has a greater visibility.
The Council of Europe's day reflects its own establishment in 1949, while the European Union's day is also known as Schuman Day and celebrates the historical declaration by French foreign minister Robert Schuman in 1950. Europe Day is one of a number of European symbols designed to foster unity among Europeans. (wikipedia)

• • •

Pretty straightforward, with "OPED" inside of "columns" (i.e. Down answers). The "columns" in question were uniformly tough for me to figure out, first because I could think only of PIANO LEG ... then because SLOPE DOWN is such a Green Paintish-type answer that I had SLANT DOWN at first, and lastly because I've never heard of EUROPE DAY. Not at all. Thus, my Monday solving time spiked up. Which is fine. Cluing / fill seemed on the slightly tougher side overall for a Monday. STEW POT sounded right. STEW PAN still sounds weird, even now. The more I look at it, the more I disbelieve its thingness. STEWPOT definitely googles better, though not by as much as I expected. Between that and EUROPE DAY, the NE played slow. Then there was 19A: Bond girl Shirley (EATON). No clue. Zero, none. There have been roughly ten thousand Bond girls. Come on.

Then there was --MME- at 45A: Pound repeatedly (PUMMEL), which of course sent me to HAMMER. Then there was ROADWAY (62A: Surface to drive on). Had the ROAD, and then ... nothing. ROADWAY is a word I recognize but would never use, ROAD being normally sufficient. Finally, the clue on REVUE told me virtually zero (30D: "Side by Side by Sondheim," e.g.). Could've been OPERA for all I knew. Maybe since Sondheim is a notorious puzzle-lover, that was supposed to be a little wink / nod to him. Fine. Not a Monday clue, but fine. It's all fine. Just fine.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:James Mulhern

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:FULL COUNT (63A: 3-2 ... or what's represented by the answers to this puzzle's starred clues) — DESCRIPTION

Theme answers:

BALL JOINT (17A: *Car part that works in a similar manner to the human hip)
BALL IN CUP (11D: *Children's toy that tests dexterity)
CANNON BALL (29D: *Cry just before hitting the pool)
STRIKE BACK (37A: *Retaliate)
RENT STRIKE (42A: *Tenants' protest)

Word of the Day:BODACIOUS(38D: Attractive, informally) —

Some of our readers may know "bodacious" as a word that figured prominently in the lingo of the 1989 film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Others may recall the term's frequent use in the long-running "Snuffy Smith" comic strip. Neither the creators of the comic strip nor the movie can claim to have coined "bodacious," which actually first appeared in print in 1832, but both likely contributed to its popularity. The exact origin of the word is uncertain, but it was most likely influenced by "bold" and "audacious," and it may be linked to "boldacious," a term from British dialect. (M-W)

• • •

This puzzle really needed ... something else. Something more. What we have here feels like a first idea, a rough draft version. "Hey, what can I do with FULL COUNT ... well, I could put BALL in the grid three times and STRIKE in it twice ... nah, too straightforward, too many repeating words ... what's the fun in that?" That is how the brainstorming session ought to have gone. Then maybe you'd've considered making 3 *clues* [BALL] and 2 clues [STRIKE], or various rebus options, etc., eventually alighting on the best expression of the FULL COUNT concept. This here is remedial. No one answer in the puzzle is offensive or bad. It's just blah, stem to stern. BODACIOUS is almost good, but it feels pretty dated. And the fill: inoffensive and bland. The one thing that the grid has going for it, which no one is going to notice because the puzzle has no way of indicating it very directly, is that the strikes are (like many strikes in baseball) right down the middle, whereas the balls are high and inside, high and outside, low and outside. The word PLATE might've helped here, not sure.

I was faster on this puzzle than on yesterday's. Fastest Tuesday in a long time. It's astonishing how a. familiar and b. easily clued all these answers are. Besides the themers, the only place I had any hesitation was 22D: Ruth, for one (YANKEE), because I was thinking Bible, then pity. Oh, and I somehow had either TIDDLE or TITTLE in there for a while at 32D: Amuse (TICKLE). That was weird. Everything else was read clue / write answer, bam bam, fast as I could go (pretty much). So fast that, until a friend pointed it out just now, I didn't even see 55D: Spherical locks. Let's all just be grateful for that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Gordon Johnson

Relative difficulty:Medium (no idea ... tweeted about it while I was solving, so my time was obviously through the roof; it felt normalish)

THEME: STAR-CROSSED LOVE (34A: Relationship doomed from the start ... or asomething found in this puzzle four times?) —currently or former acting couples, who also appeared in at least one movie together, appear four different times, as crossing answers:

Theme answers:

BURTON / TAYLOR
BOGART / BACALL
JOLIE / PITT
BENING / BEATTY

Word of the Day:ENSOUL(27A: Fill with a spirit) —

To sell a Kia Soul to someone (me)

• • •

We had it all ... just like ERIC Bana (10D) and BACALL...

This seems like it will play pretty easy if you know all the Hollywood couple involved, and if not, not. They're all pretty dang famous, so I doubt there will be many who won't know them, but maybe the movies used to clue them aren't so familiar. Actually, they're pretty seminal. "Bugsy" might've gotten by some people, and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" most certainly did, but the couples involved are all iconic, so there shouldn't have been too many proper noun wipe-outs. My main problem with this theme is the revealer. STAR-CROSSED LOVERS is the needed phrase. It's what's in the puzzle, and it's The Actual Famous Phrase. The phrase from "Romeo & Juliet." Google knows this:

"Love" alone is not an option. Also, stupid me, I always thought "star-crossed" meant "fated to be together," despite knowing full well how "Romeo & Juliet" ends (spoiler alert: badly). Not sure how that happened. What else? Well, ENSOUL is flat-out ridiculous, I had no idea the dwarves had known ages (?), and OPEN FIRE next to VENGEFUL *and* ISLAM was very, very grim. Very. Grim. Speaking of grim, gonna go check in on the convention now, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. ADD-INS are for froyo.

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Constructor:Jason Flinn

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:BAD LUCK (62A: Supposed consequence of any of the three no-nos in this puzzle)— things that are bad luck, represented literally in the puzzle. Thus:

Theme answers:

14A: With 1-Across, no-no #1 (WALKING [under] A LADDER)
19D: With 41-Across, no-no #2 (BLACK CAT [crossing] ONE'S PATH)
38D: With 57-Down, no-no #3 (MIR / ROR [i.e. a "broken" mirror])

Word of the Day:KARYN White(20A: ___ White, singer of the 1991 #1 hit "Romantic") —

Karyn Layvonne White (born October 14, 1965) is an American singer who was popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She is best known for her R&B singles; "Superwoman" (1989), "Secret Rendezvous" (1989), "The Way You Love Me" (1988), and the Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Romantic" (1991). (wikipedia)

• • •

I lit this thing on fire, so it was hard to get a clear picture of this thing while I was solving. I think my minimal groaning indicates that it's pretty strong. The theme is definitely clever—I've seen this kind of literal representation of answers a lot before, but the tightness of the theme here is impressive. The "broken"MIR/ROR is not like the others, in that describing the two answer parts in relation to one another does not result in your literally saying the bad luck phrase (i.e. it's not "MIR [over] ROR" or "MIR [crack] ROR"), but it's still fits the broad parameters of the theme. The puzzle's only real problem is how weak it gets in the short fill. It's a bit of an old-school crosswordese cavalcade, with ILO, TAL, OLLA, SSRS, IDEM, and ENA all making appearances, and NAANS trying to convince us that it's a plural (at least it's the correct two-A spelling).

I lucked out by guessing 1D: Have an eye-opening experience (AWAKEN) right off the bat, which meant the first letters of all NW Acrosses were locked in place. Still took some work to see WALKING under A LADDER, but I just kept filling in crosses without much hesitation until that answer became clear. Blanked on ED O'NEILL (33A: "Modern Family" actor) at first despite knowing his work well. Had no idea Baba Mustafa was a TAILOR in "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," but, again, crosses. Had IBID before IDEM (44A: As above, in citations), and (my favorite mistake) CORN DOGS before CORN MAZE (thanks, IBID!) (29D: Autumn attraction). Nothing else too remarkable here. Solid work overall.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Martin Ashwood-Smith and George Barany

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:none

Word of the Day:DANAIDES(36D: Eternal water-pourers in Hades) —

In Greek mythology, the Daughters of Danaus (/dəˈneɪɪdiːz/; Greek: Δαναΐδες), also Danaids, Danaides or Danaïdes, were the fifty daughters of Danaus. They were to marry the fifty sons of Danaus's twin brother Aegyptus, a mythical king of Egypt. In the most common version of the myth, all but one of them killed their husbands on their wedding night, and are condemned to spend eternity carrying water in a sieve or perforated device. In the classical tradition, they come to represent the futility of a repetitive task that can never be completed (see also Sisyphus). (wikipedia)

• • •

The 15s / 16s hold up pretty well; the rest ... doesn't. The top and the bottom are full of gunk that made this puzzle icky to move through. Improbably, the quadstack felt like the smoothest part of the grid. Sure, it has a few predictably less-than-ideal crosses (I see you, ECASH), but there's not nearly as much bad short stuff in the middle as there is everywhere else. This makes almost no sense, as one would expect the reverse to be true. Quadstacks put strain on a grid, so that should be where the strain should show. Instead, ADM REA ELENI (!?) DENTE chunk is up top, in the place where the puzzle should be cleanest. And the bottom is even rougher, with PAREE MERLE AAS AREOLA NO FEES AERO being a cavalcade of blah, and ERY APEAR EAPOE (all up against the very tough DANAIDES) is a flat-out disaster. It's as if two different people made this puzzle. Oh ... look at that. I wonder if that had anything to do with this. I won't speculate. Martin's not usually so careless with the tops and bottoms of his centered quadstacks, is all I'm saying. The three 16-letter Downs do add perhaps somewhat more strain to the grid than one might otherwise see in a quadstack. Still...

JAPAN was wickedly clued (1D: Follower of a diet system), especially crossing JAGS, which for some reason I don't think of as [Sharp projections]. They're cats, for short, or they're crying spells, or maybe some kind of generically handsome TV military lawyers, I'm not sure. What "Gear" does OIL protect? Oh, the actual gear of a car? One of many gears? OK. I had many different answers where AHASH (blargh) is supposed to go. Started with A MESS, then went to A MASH, which worked swimmingly ... for a while. I've read a lot of classical literature, but the DANAIDES somehow got by me. Virtually no part of that answer (except the terminal "S") was inferrable to me—this made the (ugly) southern section by far the hardest. Oh, except for the [___ College] / [Cannery row?] crossing. I wrote in COE College, which is a place, and it worked, except ... CARS? Are there rows of CARS at a cannery? Turns out, there are not. JOE College, 20x ugh, who says that anymore? That's some '50s-era stuff. And again down there with the EGRET and ESTE and ORES—really weak fill where it shouldn't be. I did enjoy the longer stuff. I just don't get the quality discrepancy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Debbie Ellerin

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day:KIT CAR(37A: Do-it-yourself wheels)—

Not to be confused with KITT.
For other uses, see Kit (disambiguation).A kit car, also known as a "component car", is an automobile that is available as a set of parts that a manufacturer sells and the buyer himself then assembles into a functioning car. Usually, many of the major mechanical systems such as the engine and transmission are sourced from donor vehicles or purchased new from other vendors. Kits vary in completeness, including as little as a book of plans, or as much as a complete set with all components included. // There is a sub-set of the kit car, commonly referred to as a "re-body", in which a commercially manufactured vehicle has a new (often fiberglass) body put on the running chassis. Most times, the existing drive gear and interior are retained. These kits require less technical knowledge from the builder, and because the chassis and mechanical systems were designed, built, and tested by a major automotive manufacturer, a re-body can also lead to a much higher degree of safety and reliability. // The definition of a kit car usually indicates that a manufacturer constructs multiple kits of the same vehicle, each of which it then sells to a third party to build. A kit car should not be confused with a 'hand built' car or 'special' car, which is typically built from scratch by an individual. (wikipedia)

• • •

I told you. Literally, I told you. The last time this constructor published a puzzle in the NYT, I thought that the theme was perhaps a little trite, but that the *execution* was virtually flawless. I then went on to write: "This puzzle doesn't excite me, but it does give me sincere hope for decent future work." Well keep hope alive, yes we can, etc., because here is the "decent future work" I was talking about. And a *Saturday* puzzle, too–way on the other end of the puzzle week from that last puzzle (a Monday). I just Enjoyed this puzzle. It had that nice mix of hard and doable, pop culture and vocabulary, and cleverly tough (or toughly clever) clues that make for a good Saturday work out. I had the feeling of struggling in many places, but I never got truly bogged down. Those corners are all pretty sequestered, and things can get a little frightening when you are in blind alleys, with no way out. But in the end it was like a delicious small-plate meal—I'm still kind of hungry, but what I ate was really satisfying. Maybe if I just have another drink, I'll be good. I might've lost the metaphor there. Now I'm thirsty. It's Really hot and we have AC in only room and that is not the room I am in. I'm gonna run and get water and then start another paragraph.

This one leans a little heavily on proper nouns, for sure, and while this mostly didn't feel excessive, I can see something like ELLIE (16A: Pop singer Goulding) over LIANE(18A: Actress Balaban of "Supernatural") being a real trouble spot for folks (I knew the former, but definitely not the latter—though I think the crosses are gettable enough that I could've blanked on both and still been OK). Names *definitely* helped me get started, as SEURATS was the first thing I plunked in (after inferring the terminal "S" at 1A: Those falling head over heels?). I then followed that up with AMY (Poehler) and "FAMILY GUY," and while that corner still put up a fight, I had enough of a toe hold to get moving. I had TRIMMED for SLIMMED at 33A: Reduced and then *wrongly* inferred the terminal "S" at 33D: Things that one is good at (SKILL SET), so the SW corner was probably the toughest for me. At first, all I had was IVS. But then 46D: Something to carve out seemed to be screaming NICHE, so I went with it, and things panned out. After that, I misspelled FAGAN (thusly) (41D: Charley Bates's mentor, in literature) and mostly guessed and fumbled at the letters in 38A: W.W. II landing site in Italy (ANZIO) (EZIO and PINZA and ANZAC were all shouting at me in my mind). But everything else went pretty smoothly.

I am outta here til August 2. My replacement knows more about crosswords than I do, so you're in good hands. He'll be taking over from Sunday to Sunday. Then it's an Annabel Monday. Then I'm back. See you back here in 10 days.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:David Steinberg

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: SPACE INVADERS— grid is a representation of a screenshot from the video game

Word of the Day: BIG DIG (Boston megaproject completed in 2007, informally) —

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), known unofficially as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery (Interstate 93)—the chief highway through the heart of the city—into the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Tunnel...The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the US, and was plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests,^[2]^[3] and one death.^[4] The project was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998^[5] at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006).^[6] However, the project was completed only in December 2007, at a cost of over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars, meaning a cost overrun of about 190%)^[6] as of 2006.^[7]The Boston Globe estimated that the project will ultimately cost $22 billion, including interest, and that it will not be paid off until 2038. -- Wikipedia

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Matt Gaffney here, filling in for Rex for the next eight days, which he'll spend at the baccarat tables in Monte Carlo (I'm guessing). I write a daily crossword here and a weekly crossword contest every Friday here. My latest crossword book is this.

Crossword wunderkind David Steinberg is our constructor today; I think he's the only teenager who's won my Crossword of the Month award (September 2015).

His puzzle is a SPACE INVADERS(91A: 1970s-'80s craze that's the theme of this puzzle ) screenshot in cruciverbal form, and there's a lot going on: a MOTHERSHIP in circled letters up top; nine entries invaded by ETs; SAFE spelled by four unchecked letters in the bottom section of the grid, indicating those boulder-like things you could hide under in the game; a LASER pointing upward in the upper left of the grid, hidden in the downward PRESALE(6D: Event for select customers) indicating the lasers you'd fire; and a cannon-shaped CANNON in the lower-left.

Phew...that's a lot of different ideas tossed into the mix, but I'm afraid this comes off as more of a big, confusing mess than a coherent and pleasant return to childhood. Lots of "well, not quites" as I looked over the grid later: the Space Invaders shot downward at the player, which isn't represented; using ET as your "Space Invaders" conflates two very different early '80s things (E.T. was sweet and ate candy, Space Invaders were trying to destroy your civilization); SAFE seems like an arbitrary word for those shelters down below, since the Space Invaders' missiles ate away at them, and they disappeared altogether when the Invaders got low enough; that thing was called a MOTHERSHIP? And why is it in that loop shape? Part of the problem is that Space Invaders was one of those games that was more popular in its Atari 2600 version than its arcade version, and the two were stylistically not identical. David used the arcade version here, so this didn't hit my nostalgia radar correctly. Are ROCKET FUEL(112A: Mission requirement) and AIRPORT BAR (116A: Place to get drunk before getting high?) supposed to be theme? I don't think so.

With all that going on, the fill took some hits: SSE / OSS / SSR / SSN / EEE / HET / RET / ORO isn't a great worst-of list for 3-letter entries. But the constructor also managed to sneak a lot of nice entries in as well, such as ETHEL MERTZ(41D: Friend of Lucy Ricardo), CHEAP DATE (49A: One not looking for an expensive night on the town), and ELDERBERRY(45D: Fruit used in wines and syrups).

The best part of the theme is the nine "Space Invading" ET's. PREEN, DOH, MINUS, DIED, TAKEN, GAME, DUO, MARKING and ABS became PRETEEN, DOETH, MINUETS, DIETED, TAKE TEN, GAMETE, DUE TO, MARKETING, and ABETS. Maybe this could've been a decent theme by itself, without all the other stuff, and then that "E.T." does not equal "Space Invaders" wouldn't have bothered me since you're just using "Space Invaders" to mean "E.T. was from space, and he's invading these entries". That might've been the way to take this. But with all the other elements in there it becomes a disharmonious mishmash.

It's schoolmarmish, but I assign grades to puzzles when I fill in for Rex, and I'll give this one a C-. When David Steinberg's Greatest Hits is released someday it will be a very nice volume, but I don't think this puzzle will make the cut. No worries, he has plenty of others to choose from.

Signed, Matt Gaffney, Regent of CrossWorld for 7 more days

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kevin Christian

Relative difficulty:Easy like Monday Morning

THEME: HEY JOE— each theme entry begins with a familiar Joe

Word of the Day: CAMELCASE (28A: Style of "iPhone" or "eBay," typographically)—

camelCase (also camel caps or medial capitals) is the practice of writing compound words or phrases such that each word or abbreviation begins with a capital letter (and omits hyphens). Camel case may start with a capital letter (called PascalCase or UpperCamelCase) or, especially in programming languages, with a lowercase letter. Common examples include: "PowerPoint" or "MySpace" and "iPhone" or "eCommerce" or in online usernames such as "JohnSmith" -- Wikipedia

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Theme answers:

(20A: 1899-1901 uprising in China) BOXER REBELLION
(28A: Style of "iPhone" or "eBay," typographically) CAMELCASE
(45A: "Great!") COOL BEANS
(50A: Vacillate) BLOW HOT AND COLD
(1D/63D: With 61-Down, Jimi Hendrix's first single ... or a hint to the starts of 20-, 28-, 45- and 50-Across) HEY/JOE

If you're like me, you filled HAHA in at 1-A, looked at the clue for 1-D, filled in HEY and then JOE at 63-D, and then once you had BOXER REBELLION you knew the puzzle's theme. This is why the revealer should go as low in the grid as possible. No credit for half of it going in the bottom-right, since "Hey Joe" isn't exactly an obscure song so a lot of people are going to have the reveal as their second and third answers in the grid. So a pretty big ding for solving experience there, like telling everyone who the murderer is on page 4 of the mystery. Only to be done with a good reason, which there isn't here. Granted, HEY JOE isn't an easy entry to fit as the last Across in a puzzle grid, but 1-D can't be the right solution.

The chosen Joes are good: none is a specific, real person, so that's interesting. No actual Joes. Tightens it up in a quirky way. The grid has some nice stuff (BAD LUCK, DUE NORTH, ASEXUAL, STEELERS) but also some unnecessary dreck, like ETUI, APER, and CANER, all of which could've been easily cleaned up. CAMELCASE is undoubtedly a cool entry; because those capital letters resemble a camel's hump(s), get it? And sneaking those two J's into the lower-right was some fancy footwork as well.

There are 42 black squares in the grid, which is a lot. Normally 38 is considered the upper limit, with 40 only permitted in special circumstances, and anything over that should be rare and with good reason. This grid isn't really challenging enough (52 theme letters) to necessitate that; the two "cheater squares" on either end of the central entry D-PLUS should've at least been worked out, getting us down to 40.

Clues are dryasdust: EMILY is (Poet Dickinson), AIDAN is (Actor Quinn), ALLAN is (Writer Edgar ___ Poe), STEELERS is (Pittsburgh N.F.L. team), and so on. Perhaps I'm being harsh; let's find the three best clues. (Ride to an awards show) for LIMO, (One of 22 for Jon Stewart) is EMMY, and (Handled tunes at a dance, say) is DJED. Not sabotaging here, I really think those are the three best clues.

I'm grading the puzzles this week, and my first two grids have each had D-PLUS as an entry. Somebody trying to tell me something? This one had an OK but misplaced revealer, an unexciting theme per se but with a good set of theme entries, a reasonable grid, and clues that were rather stale. Sounds like a C+ effort in my book.

Not exactly off to a roaring start this week, but we'll see if the NYT squad can get us out of C-ville tomorrow.

Signed, Matt Gaffney, Regent of CrossWorld for 6 more days

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Japanese salad herb / Hardwoord percussion stick / WED 7-6-16 / Corcoran of Bachelor Father / Nonpro sports org / Biophramaceutical company that makes Enbrel / Cudgel made from knotty stick

Characters in Romola Gondoliers / THU 7-7-16 / Gilbert protagonist of Vampire Diaries / Onetime Caribbean native / Spherical symbol of authority / Political comic who once had a one-man Broadway show

Duck lookalike / FRI 7-8-16 / Oz salutation / Ilmenite is chief one / Discoverer of New Zealand / 1995 Emmy winner Sofer / European city whose name means eat

Tin Drum boy / SAT 7-9-16 / Jazz great Montgomery / Unconventional and hippielike informally / Hockey sticks in cards

Bygone dagger / MON 7-11-16 / Material in fire starter set / Like some pond growths / ha ha elicitor

Jazz composer with Egyptian-inspired name / TUE 7-12-16 / Lenovo alternative / Language of Copenhagen to locals / MTV documentary series about everyday people / Overly ambitious student in slang / Winter hazard on autobahn /

Politico who said buck up or stay in truck / WED 7-13-16 / Shoe brand that sounds like letter number / Rhyme for Israel in carol / Rendezvoused near

Mandela player in 2013 biopic / THU 7-14-16 / 1940s film critic James / Dance craze of 1910s / Piano designer of New York Times building / County seat on Arkansas River

Thrice in Rxs / SUN 7-17-16 / Heraldic border / Cathedral music maker / Bandleader who popularized conga line / Longtime all my children role / Hall of fame slugger Johnny / Stephen King novel with pyrokinetic character

Bond Girl Shirley / MON 7-18-16 / Ancient Greek theaters / Succulent flowering plants / Seinfeld neighbor whose name is spoken as epithet / Bad record for motoristVessel for slow cooking /

Spherical locks / TUE 7-19-16 / Mythical abductee / McDonald's slogan that replaced Put Smile On / Mind-blowing in modern lingo

Markka spender / WED 7-20-16 / Creators of artificial lakes / Sushi bar condiment

First of minor prophets / THU 7-21-16 / Bitter component of tea / Prominent feature of Bert / 1960s chess champ Mikhail / Advantage for hockey team / Tandoori products

Eternal water-pourers in Hades / FRI 7-22-16 / Shakespearean duel overeseer / Enfantines composer / Book film title character surnamed Gatzoyiannis / Abstract expressionist who married Jackson Pollock / Big name in Renaissance patronage / Follower of diet system / Much-photographed mausoleum site

Palindromic elemento / SUN 7-24-16 / Common Coke go-with / Friend of Lucy Ricardo

Like amoeba reproduction / MON 7-25-16 / Bart Simpson's siter / Harvard rival