Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor:Mel Rosen

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:Silver Silver ... I honestly don't know—themers contain two "AG" squares apiece. Maybe ORE is supposed to be the revealer? (28D: Silver ___)

Theme answers:

BAGGAGE CLAIM (17A: Carousel locale)
ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN (27A: Sporadic)
AGREE TO DISAGREE (43A: Leave a dispute unsettled)
STAGE MANAGER (58A: Role in "Our Town")

Word of the Day:"Vissi D'ARTE"(32A: "Vissi ___" (Puccini aria)) —

"Vissi d'arte" is a soprano aria from act 2 of the operaTosca by Giacomo Puccini. It is sung by Floria Tosca as she thinks of her fate, how the life of her beloved, Mario Cavaradossi, is at the mercy of Baron Scarpia and why God has seemingly abandoned her. The vocal range is E♭₄ to B♭₅. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm worried about the puzzle. It's not ... doing ... well. It's not even really trying. This is creaky and not very coherent work. Two "AG" squares ... why? Because silver ... silver? Silvers! Is the meta "Phil SILVERS!?" What is happening? Mothball fill. Sad Scrabble-f*cking in the SW corner. A cultural frame of reference that excludes almost entirely the last 30 years (except HASHTAG—the best answer in this thing by far). Oh, right, there's crowd favorite clue [Rapper's headwear]. I think you can kinda sorta *feel* from this grid's overall vibe that "rappers" aren't really its thing. Are there other "silver" things besides the damn (terrible) ORE clue at 28D: Silver ___? There's an Olympics clue—did someone get a "silver" in the LUGE (3D: Olympics racer)?

ENTRAIN is in the middle of this puzzle (25D: Board, in a way). I love the "in a way" on that clue. It's like the clue itself isn't fully convinced and is kinda bailing out. "shrug idk." Oy, ENTRAIN. You ... must take the ENTRAIN ... but only if you're a FARER (more kwality fill). ABYSM!? D'ARTE? This puzzle lost me at 1A: ___-foot jelly (CALF'S), which remains totally inscrutable to me. I assume it belongs to another era somehow. Oh God, It's Food!?!?! I want to post a picture but ... I think I should tag it NSFW.

Somehow the English boil an actual CALF'S foot and the result is a dessert!? Or ... it can be if you add sugar? Wow. If you google it, you mainly get sites focusing on weird-ass foods. "Foods you've read about but never had ...""What on earth is ...?" Etc. AG AG. AGAG, is AGAG a word? As in "This puzzle had me feeling all AGAG?" I'll stop now.

In case you're wondering what my grid looked like at the exact moment I "got" the rebus, here you go:

Oh and hey, check out the NYT earnings report, which actually separates out income from digital crossword subscriptions. Turns out it's ~$7 million / year ($6.3 in 2015, with subscriptions way up in the current year so far). Of that $7 million, about $146K goes to constructors. That's 2%. And that's just digital alone. That's not counting value of the crossword to home delivery subscriptions, and definitely not counting merch. Puzzle's overall value is really substantial, and constructor pay remains ABYSMal. The puzzles are increasingly sad/bad for a reason—no investment is being made in the product. None. Best constructors now frequently give their work to other venues or keep it for their own sites / puzzle ventures. Now, they do that for a host of reasons, but insulting pay is definitely one of them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:David Steinberg

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging for me, probably Medium in general

THEME: none

Word of the Day:EILAT(9D: Israeli seaport) —

Eilat (/eɪˈlɑːt/; Hebrew: אֵילַת[eiˈlat]; Arabic: ايلات‎‎) is Israel's southernmost city, a busy port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aqaba. The city's beaches, coral reef, nightlife and desert landscapes make it a popular destination for domestic and international tourism. // Home to 49,734 people, Eilat is part of the Southern Negev Desert, at the southern end of the Arava, adjacent to the Egyptian village of Taba to the south, the Jordanian port city of Aqaba to the east, and within sight of Saudi Arabia to the south-east, across the gulf. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a nice grid. I frequently couldn't get a grip on the cluing—and I found all the "pot" nonsense up top juvenile and annoying—but the grid is pretty impressive. Solid stacks in the NE and SW, and lots of current, interesting answers. I can normally kill a Friday in like 6-7 minutes, but this took me 9, due almost entirely to the center grid, which I couldn't make any sense of until the very end. In fact, I ended up staring at SOU_UP and _EC and having to run the alphabet. Should've gotten SOUP UP without even needing a clue, but my brain was locked in on the _EC clue and for some reason "trunk" was making me think only of trees—both literal and diagrammatic (like, uh, a family tree or something). So DEC? Is the calendar a "tree"? Why would December be the "Top part"? Only DEC and REC were coming to mind. Sometimes your brain just gets stuck and you have to return to first principles, which in this case meant a. checking and rechecking all surrounding answers to make sure they were indisputable, and b. running the alphabet, methodically, from A to Z (well, in this case, A to P).

Here's where I came to a dead-stop (not a common occurrence for me on any day that is not Saturday):

Never heard of the BLACK WIDOW (in cocktail form) (25D: "Deadly" vodka cocktail). STOWAWAY? (36D: Nautical nuisance). No (a)way. I thought 37D: Bright orange seafood delicacy was asking for something sushi-esque, so SNOW CRAB wasn't on my radar at all. PAINT is not a program I've thought of in 30 years, and even then it was Mac. MacPaint. I didn't even know PAINT was a PC program, basic or otherwise. That answer was another reason the middle was rough for me. Fiscal CLIFF strikes me as (already) suuuuper dated. Like ... I can't even remember exactly when that was. Two years ago? Four? Has anyone used that phrase since we were allegedly about to fall off of it? I'm sure it'll come back, since Congress is terrible at everything, but today, Fiscal CLIFF seems like something from a million years ago. Aside from EILAT, everything else was familiar to me. So: nice grid, adequate cluing, fine time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:David Phillips

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day:COHERER(36D: Device used to detect radio waves) —

The coherer is a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the first radio receivers during the wireless telegraphy era at the beginning of the 20th century. Its use in radio was based on the 1890 findings of French physicist Edouard Branly and adapted by other physicists and inventors over the next ten years. The device consists of a tube or capsule containing two electrodes spaced a small distance apart with loose metal filings in the space between. When a radio frequency signal is applied to the device, the metal particles would cling together or "cohere", reducing the initial high resistance of the device, thereby allowing a much greater direct current to flow through it. In a receiver, the current would activate a bell, or a Morse paper tape recorder to make a record of the received signal. The metal filings in the coherer remained conductive after the signal (pulse) ended so that the coherer had to be "decohered" by tapping it with a clapper, such as a doorbell ringer, each time a signal was received, thereby restoring the coherer to its original state. Coherers remained in widespread use until about 1907, when they were replaced by more sensitive electrolytic and crystal detectors. (wikipedia)

• • •

With the exception of COHERER (!?) and TIRO (??) and ANTA (%&*!) I thought this was pretty good. It was on the easy side, but giant corners provided enough toehold difficulty that I felt sufficiently challenged. Would I like more challenge on a Saturday? Sure. But this was fine. A good Saturday solve, for me—the one that feels best—is the one where I can make pretty steady progress, but am routinely taking wrong turns, or having to work hard to get crosses on pesky longer answers. Clever traps, always welcome. Anyway, this puzzle had enough bite to satisfy, despite providing (now that I look the grid over) a decent number of gimmes. Went to short answer first at 8D: Northumberland river. Four-Letter River Power—activate! Form of ... AVON! No, that gives me a terminal "V", probably wrong. Shape of ... TYRE! (yes, really, I confused the English river, TYNE, with the ancient Phoenician city and birthplace of Dido, TYRE. It happens!). Luckily CASSETTE was a gimme (18A: Walkman insert), so I didn't get bogged down too bad. I was actually tricked by 14A: By hand (MANUALLY) because of how deathly straightforward it is. Who thinks "straightforward" on a Saturday!? Devious.

I got FLAT RATE but took a while to come up with BOX so I decided to swing over and attack the NE before moving down the grid. SMITE, MENAGE, and OMENS were all easy. Then I inferred the STEP part of STEPSONS, which gave me SPINET (15A: Small parlor piece) and that was pretty much that up there, despite the best efforts of TIRO (25A: Cicero's longtime servant and scribe) to mess me up. Finally got the BOX part at the end of the USPS clue, and that "X" made BRER FOX a cinch. Guessed SMUSH up top in that SW corner, (28A: Flatten) and again, no real problems, despite ANTA's best efforts (37A: Nonprofit Broadway production grp.). ANTA and TIRO—not the greatest offensive line (side note: O LINE is a definite thing in football-speak and I'm surprised I don't see it at least occasionally). Or are they the defensive line? Is the puzzle the end zone, or the quarterback? I'm going with quarterback. Solve = sack, not TD. Somehow, more satisfying.

Had the STREET but couldn't come up with the SMART (telling!). Then I misread the clue at 45A: Comment often preceding "Let's" (SHALL WE) to mean "Let's" was the preceding word, so my brain raced through "Let's ___" possibilities. DANCE! SEE! NOT! Ugh. But this corner ended up being pretty easy too because of ANISE (46D: Black jellybean flavorer) and especially MARINERS (50A: Other than the Nationals, only current Major League Baseball team never to have played in a World Series), which I got off the "M" in AMPS, though I wouldn't even have needed that. Baseball fandom made that clue a flat-out gimme. And so I finished on one of those "S"s in STRESSED. The end.

Other screw-ups:

1A: Take stock? (SHOPLIFT)— Had the "-FT" and wanted ... COWTHEFT (?)
35A: Slow-burning firewood (BEECH)— Had first "E" and wanted ... CEDAR
27A: English county whose seat is Exeter (DEVON)— Had "D", wanted DOVER
27D: "Why did I do that?!" ("D'OH!")— Had "H", wanted "HUH?" Why did I do that?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty:Challenging

THEME:"It's All an Elision"— familiar phrases beginning "It's" have the "It's" changed to just "S," creating wackiness etc.

Theme answers:

STUFF OUT THERE (23A: "Do your taxidermy on the patio instead"?)
SNOW SURPRISE (40A: A foot on the ground in Phoenix?)
SOUR LITTLE SECRET (17D: Mystery ingredient in SweeTarts?)
STEW DAMN HOT (68A: Comfort food causing oral discomfort?)
STAKING ME FOREVER (37D: Always putting up my entry fees?)
SIOUX YOU KNOW (92A: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and that's probably it?) (my favorite)
SIP TO BE SQUARE (113A: Slogan for wine geeks?)

Word of the Day:YORK(14D: Pennsylvania city) —

York (Deitsch: Yarrick), known as the White Rose City (after the symbol of the House of York), is the city serving as the county seat of York County, Pennsylvania, United States, both being located in the south-central region of the state. The population within York's city limits was 43,718 at the 2010 census, a 7.0% increase from the 2000 count of 40,862. When combined with the adjacent boroughs of West York and North York and surrounding Spring Garden, West Manchester, and Springettsbury townships, the population of Greater York was 108,386. York is the county seat of York County and is located at 39°58′00″N76°45′00″W. York is currently the 11th largest city in Pennsylvania. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is an adequate cornball theme. Wack wack wacky, more groanery than legit funny, but fine, whatever, it's acceptable. Theme itself, not a problem, pretty easy to pick up. In fact, the only real problem I had with the theme was that the themers weren't really relevant to my solve. I never saw half of them. Wacky clues meant nothing to me. I just put "S" at the beginning of the themers and then imagined phrases beginning "It's"—usually by the time I got around to thinking about the themer, I could tell from the letters I already had what the answer was going to be. So this puzzle should've been easy. But holy crud, the opposite. I never got up any speed. Every clue fought me. So much "?" cluing and off-cluing and slant-cluing ... very, very rough to solve. Twice I hit patches were I wasn't sure I was going to be able to complete the puzzle. First in the NW, where everything above DITKA and west of SOUR was blank for what felt like ever, and then again around what ended up being the IRON part of EIGHT IRON (?). WHEY instead of WORT (90A: Extract used in brewing) really, really blew me up down there. Kept wanting 52D: Rough choice? to be EIGHT-ISH (with "rough" suggesting an estimate?) but then there was the extra letter... just a mess. But even beyond those two dead spots, the puzzle fought me everywhere. Applause for added difficulty, even if the experience wasn't exactly pleasurable.

[dead zones]

So many things I didn't know. ROQUE? No-que (102D: Game with mallets played on a hard-surfaced court). TRITIUM? (13D: Radioactive form of hydrogen) Oy, no. There's a YORK, PA now? David IVES? (44A: "Venus in Fur" playwright David) ETHEL Muggs? My daughter is an "Archie" fanatic and there are Archies aplenty in my house and I read three current Archie titles and nope nope nope. No recollection of ETHEL Muggs. The western section, with its astonishing pair of non-theme Downs alongside the long themer, was emblematic of my trouble. Need crosses to work a section like that, but:

35A: Thrown (CAST)—I had LOST
56A: Skinflints (PIKERS)—I had MISERS
71A: Harpies (NAGS)—I had HAGS
75A: Common New England street name (ELM)—???
79A: Many, after "a" (SLEW OF)—I don't know, HEAP OF, MESS OF, etc.?

Also, the Cole Porter song is TOO DARN HOT, so STEW DAMN HOT made no sense to me as a phrase. I don't know why "too damn hot" is a good base phrase. Just sounds like something someone might say, but not something coherent enough to be a stand-alone phrase. Oh, and the far north was a bear too. TENURES, ouch (6A: Terms of service). That clue suggests something very, very different. NITRO for 8D: It blows things up, in brief, again, tough. Wasn't sure what "blows up" meant there. Was thinking enlargement, not explosion. REEDING?? (10D: Small semicircular grooves on a column) LOL what is that? 9D: Some wedding figures is insanely vague for USHERS. The whole puzzle was like this.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:I SEE (67A: "Aha!" ... or a hint to 18-, 23-, 37-, 48- and 58-Across) — two-word phrases, first word starts with "I", second word starts with "C":

Theme answers:

INNER CHILD (18A: What might make an adult jump in a pile of leaves)
INK CARTRIDGE (23A: Home office item that's surprisingly expensive to replace)
ISLAMIC CALENDAR (37A: What Ramadan is an annual feature of)
INTERNET CAFE (48A: Obsolescent place to go online)
IVORY COAST (58A: West African country whose name is usually rendered in French)

Word of the Day:FESTAL(47D: Celebratory) —

adjective
adjective: festal
of, like, or relating to a celebration or festival.

"he appeared in festal array" (google)

• • •

We remain in the well-worn, hoary, ultra-basic theme-type universe, with loads of dull short fill to boot. There are some nice moments—the longer Downs are fine, I'M GAY is at least interesting, and at least a couple of themers are lively and fresh, particularly ISLAMIC CALENDAR. There's even an ironic freshness to INTERNET CAFE—an "obsolescent" place that feels novel as a crossword answer. But the theme is a bore and most of the grid a chore. Lots of word parts today (MAHI, GILA), or singulars that really wish they were plurals. A single, lonely MANDM.* [Half of a fireplace tool] says it all. This puzzle is half a fireplace tool short of a pair of TONGs.

Not sure about the clue onIVORY COAST (58A: West African country whose name is usually rendered in French). "Usually rendered in French." Where? That's a rhetorical question. My point is: Certainly not in English-speaking countries (i.e. where this puzzle circulates). Google returns more hits (when names are in quotation marks) for IVORY COAST than for CÔTE D'IVOIRE. I see what the clue is trying to do, but "Usually rendered in French" is meaningless without context, and inaccurate for the vast majority of the public solving this puzzle. Great to bring up the Frenchness of the country's name, but make sure the clue phrasing is accurate. "Usually" ... for whom? Everyone? No.

FESTAL is not good on any day, and super-not good on a Monday. Major sore thumb territory. You don't say it, I don't say it, we all don't say it, and it's only here because of constructor desperation. No one willingly puts FESTAL in their puzzle—certainly not their early-week puzzle. Maybe in a tough spot on Th, F, or Sat you can get away with it. But you can see that it doesn't belong here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*On Saturday I bought a pack of peanut butter MANDMs. They were entirely forgettable. I will bring you periodic candy news as it becomes available.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Michael J. Doran

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: OPEN HOUSE (61A: Realtor's big day ... or what each word in the answers to the starred clues can do)— both parts of two-part themers are words that can precede (i.e. "open") "house" to make a familiar word/phrase:

Theme answers:

STATE BIRD (17A: *Carolina wren, for South Carolina)
TOLL ROAD (20A: *Turnpike)
GREEN LIGHT (27D: *Approve)
WHITE TEA (9D: *Highly antioxidant beverage)
TREE ANIMAL (11D: *Sloth, for one)
ART STORE (38D: *Place to buy paint)
SMOKE OUT (55A: *Force from a hiding place)

Word of the Day:Conrad AIKEN(10D: Pulitzer-winning poet Conrad) —

Conrad Potter Aiken (August 5, 1889 – August 17, 1973) was an American writer, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play, and an autobiography. [...] Named poetry consultant of the Library of Congress from 1950–1952, Conrad Aiken earned numerous prestigious national writing awards, including a National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal and the National Medal for Literature. Honored by his native state in 1973 with the title of Poet Laureate, Aiken is remembered there as the first Georgia-born author to win a Pulitzer Prize (in 1930, for his Selected Poems). (wikipedia)

• • •

Ah, the both-words-can-follow/precede theme. The jello mold of themes. Timeless. Strange. Not what anyone really wants. The revealer is clever (which deserves praise) and the theme is very, very dense (which deserves ... well, noting, anyway). There is nothing much else good to say about this. The fill is terrible. Couldn't even get out of the NW without getting hammered by crosswordese, including and ERMA / UMA crossing (?). Move east and it gets worse, with Italian SETTE and French CONTE and abbr. ATT all huddled up, and then Conrad-not-Clay AIKEN shopping at multiple IKEAS (?) ... plus SESS. *Then* I'm asked to accept that TREE ANIMAL is a thing. The wheels are off at that point. And yet more wheels somehow come off later, specifically at the bewildering non-word ROILY (39D: Turbulent), the ridiculous elision 'OME (37A: Kipling's "Follow Me ___"), and the idiotic plural IAMBI. IAMBI ... I mean, IAMBI? The only way I would accept this answer is if it were clued [Coming-out phrase]. I lectured on IAMBS last week. See how I spelled that there. Yeah, you see. What pretentious $^%& is calling them IAMBUSES, let alone IAMBI? Stop the madness. Also, stop EELER. Lastly GAEL LITRE NSEC ETDS TECS ONT TSAR NYSE ESPYS IVE NAIF MAE [passes out]

Puzzle was easy enough. Trouble at 1A: First instrument heard in the Beatles'"She's Leaving Home" (HARP)—doesn't leap to mind somehow. But after I got that sussed out, no real troubles. Spelling HANSON (E or O?), always an issue (24D: "MMMBop" band). But I actually knew Conrad AIKEN (not everyone will, that's for sure), and with the exception of ROILY, which I actually guessed early but Refused to believe, this one didn't have many tough spots. That's all for today. See you on the other side ... tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:John Lieb

Relative difficulty:Easy, I think, I don't know (3:28)

THEME: common verb phrases clued as if someone is talking to a pro sports"coach" and telling him to do something to his team—

Theme answers:

COUNT THE STARS (20A: "Coach, make sure everyone's here" [N.H.L.])
BRING THE HEAT (25A: "Coach, get 'em to today's game" [N.B.A.])
COOL YOUR JETS (46A: "Coach, get thsoe guys a little ice water" [N.F.L.])
CATCH SOME RAYS (53A: "Coach, nab a few of those curfew violators" [M.L.B.])

Word of the Day:ISLIP(5A: Long Island airport site) —

Islip (/ˈaɪslɪp/EYE-slip) is one of ten towns in Suffolk County, New York (USA). Located on the South Shore of Long Island, the town population was 335,543 at the 2010 census. Within the Town of Islip is a smaller, unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place also named Islip. [...] Long Island MacArthur Airport and the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, located in the Town of Islip, are both in the hamlet of Ronkonkoma. A smaller rural airport known as Bayport Aerodrome also exists within the town used for antique aircraft. (wikipedia)

• • •

You'll pardon me if I just don't have it in me to write much tonight. It's very late, and it feels like the world is falling apart, and badly. I need to get some sleep. Rejuvenate. Maybe you understand. The puzzle was about average for the NYT of late. Fine. I don't really get who's speaking in the clues. Someone is coaching the "Coach?" It's odd. But you get one team from each major U.S. sports league, so that's something, I guess. What does COUNT THE STARS mean? When I google it in quotation marks, I get a wikipedia page: "Count the Stars was a four-piece pop punk band from Albany, New York that formed in 1995." I know BRING THE PAIN and BRING THE NOISE better than BRING THE HEAT, but I guess that's a phrase. The other two seems fine. Cultural frame of reference, decidedly old (though "OH, SNAP" is currentish), fill is creaky (though perhaps slightly less so than that of M and T this week). UIES STET CEE HST is really, truly, inexcusably dire for such a small corner. I remain baffled by the lack of care / craft. ASTR? Come on. That should be last-ditch. But like I said, no energy for this fight tonight.

I hope to be back tomorrow at something close to full strength. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Jonathan M. Kaye and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:Jworm— the word "HOOK" represented by the letter "J" (for I hope obvious reasons)

Theme answers:

RINGING OFF THE J (18A: Getting tons of calls)
BY J OR BY CROOK (29A: No matter how)
BE ON TENETERJS (42A: Wait anxiously)
J, LINE AND SINKER (53A: 100%)

Word of the Day:RIGEL(30D: Star in Orion) —

Rigel, also designated Beta Orionis (β Orionis, abbreviated Beta Ori, β Ori), is generally the seventh-brightest star in the night sky and the brightest star in the constellation of Orion—though there are times where it is outshone in the constellation by the variable Betelgeuse. With a visual magnitude of 0.13, it is a remote and luminous star some 863 light-years distant from Earth. // The star as seen from Earth is actually a triple or quadruple star system, with the primary star (Rigel A) a blue-white supergiant that is estimated to be anywhere from 120,000 to 279,000 times as luminous as the Sun, depending on method used to calculate its properties. It has exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen out to between 79 and 115 times the Sun's radius. It pulsates quasi-periodically and is classified as an Alpha Cygni variable. A companion, Rigel B, is 500 times fainter than the supergiant Rigel A and visible only with a telescope. Rigel B is itself a spectroscopic binary system, consisting of two main sequence blue-white stars of spectral type B9V that are estimated to be respectively 3.9 and 2.9 times as massive as the Sun. Rigel B also appears to have a very close visual companion Rigel C of almost identical appearance. (wikipedia)

• • •

I think I needed this. Simple. Straightforward. Competent. Like some nice toast and chamomile after you've been violently ill for 24 hours. "J" is HOOK. HOOK is "J." Yes. Yes, I can handle this. Is it going to get harder? Uglier? Thornier? No ... no, it's just the HOOK. Phew. OK. Can deal.

[Aw yeah. Alright.]

This puzzle was super-easy. I finished in just over 5, which was higher than I thought. Then I realized the puzzle is 16 rows high, not the usual 15, and the over-5 time made sense. 48 black squares is a Lot of black squares, even for a super-sized grid. Very segmented and choppy, but (mercifully) the 3- and 4-letter fill doesn't get into brutally bad or banal territory too much. Scrabble-f*cking in the SE corner totally not worth it (ATOZ, never worth it), but otherwise, grid is polished to a more-than-tolerable degree. I think SLOW LEAK is the most interesting / original non-theme thing in the grid (50A: Start of a flat, maybe). Definitely held me up the most, required the most thinking. Only flats in my mind upon seeing the clue were apartments and musical notes. Other slight hold-ups occurred in the east, where I plunked down RANI off the R- at 35D: Eastern V.I.P. (RAJA). And then with symmetrical abbrevs. in the NE (17A: It may require gloves, for short) and SW (59A: Plan to leave shortly?). Both good clues, both, briefly, stumpers.

OK, then. Onward. Upward. Crossword.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Thanks for being such a great community of people. I have rarely needed community more.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty:Easy (for me, slightly harder for others, I hear)

THEME: none

Word of the Day:REGIS University(59A: Denver's ___ University) —

Regis University, formerly known as Regis College, is a private, co-educational Roman Catholic, Jesuit university in the United States. Regis College was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1877. It is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. Based in Denver, Colorado, Regis University is divided into five colleges: Regis College, The Rueckert-Hartman College for Health Professions, the College for Professional Studies, the College of Computer and Information Sciences, and the College of Business and Economics. The university is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 2013, the Regis University web site stated that it had obtained a top tier ranking as one of the best colleges and universities in the United States in the western region for 19 consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report. (wikipedia)

• • •

Lucky this guy still consents to submit his stuff, because it's quite nice. I destroyed this puzzle, but Crossword Twitter is telling me it played rough, at least for some. Maybe because people don't know the word "baleful," or SCLERA, or were mistaken about the spelling of JUST DESERTS (25D: Comeuppance). OTHO (that is, On the Hand, Other), maybe I just lucked out with a couple of the answers I knew and had a statistically aberrant good day. Going over the puzzle, I see lots of places where I had trouble, but none of that trouble lasted very long. Plus, the long Downs provide incredible toe-holds, if you're able to infer them from just a small grouping of letters (which I was). After letting WELL WHADDYA KNOW? go, getting WELL SHUT MY MOUTH broke open that otherwise pesky SW corner (OTHO! Not NERO!?) (65A: Emperor after Galba). Got JUST DESERTS off just the first few letters, I think, which opened up the south. Solved SE corner and then rode YOU LOOK FAMILIAR easily up to the NE. See also the CHEESE in CHEESE PIZZA. With those pillars so easy to put into place, the rest of the puzzle's occasional impertinence didn't really matter much. Done in a little over 5.

I did not know JESSE JAMES from that clue. Ended up guessing it from _E_SE_____. Something about that letter pattern just said "JESSE!" and sure enough, success. Got REGIS off the "R" but don't really know why. Crossword memory reflex, probably. Most of my trouble came at the very end, in the north, where the ACETEN (?) LATE crossing refused to come together. Got it down to that exact square, and (failing to understand what sort of "blackjack" was meant) wrote in an "M"—so, ACEMEN and LAME. Is LAME a [Bad way to run]? Seems plausible. But ACEMEN just looked all kinds of wrong, so I pulled it and then the "T" became obvious. Done.

Best clue in the puzzle was 29A: Noted bomb in a longtime war (NEW COKE). Nice misdirection with the bomb/war thing. I'm now amusing myself by reading the central Across as THAT'S A BI GIF, so I should probably log off now and get some sleep.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: comma— in center square: as punctuation mark going Across, spelled out going Down (not actually a theme—more a feature)

"NEW YORK [,] NEW YORK" (33A: Sinatra/Bennett duet on the 1993 album "Duets")
SECOND [COMMA]NDMENT (15D: Precept about idol worship)

Word of the Day:OSH(46A: Old city in Kyrgyzstan) —

Osh (Kyrgyz: Ош) is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan, located in the Fergana Valley in the south of the country and often referred to as the "capital of the south". It is the oldest city in the country (estimated to be more than 3000 years old), and has served as the administrative center of Osh Region since 1939. The city has an ethnically mixed population of about 255,800 in 2012, comprising Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Russians, Tajiks, and other smaller ethnic groups. (wikipedia)

• • •

Saw the constructor name and knew it wouldn't be a straight themeless. Turns out it's also not themed, really. It's just got the comma thing going on there, in the center. I don't mind that kind of throwaway, decorative trick, I guess. Wasn't too hard to uncover. It's a bit sad, though, to see an idea that clever but to have it expressed only once. Half-hearted. Weak. Seems like you might've saved it for some puzzle where you could built a coherent theme around it, instead of just dumping it in a Saturday puzzle. But no matter. It's cute for what it is. The rest of the grid, though, is pretty dull overall, and the fill way too creaky. Also, this puzzle should've been D.O.A. with a grid that has both ESTATE and TESTATE in it. That's ridiculous. It's one thing to replicate letter strings (you usually don't do it for strings longer than four letters). But that's practically the same *longish* word. Just put a "T" on the front. It's like ESTATE is wearing a really bad fake mustache and going, "What do you mean this is my second time in the grid? Why, that's preposterous, sir. How dare you!" Really, really bad form. The rest of the bad fill is just bad fill (OSH ASLOPE HET RIDA ROOS ASRED (ugh) REGNAL ORONO EXE ... and then ENE *and* ENES? Oy).

I stumbled into this grid, moving from one answer to the next via crosses, but somehow not staying put in one part of the grid. This is my opening gambit:

Normally I don't meander this much. Stay put. Work crosses. Make steady progress. That's my m.o. But sometimes you just gotta let the flow take it where it takes you. You can see here that I thought DARN (like a sane person) and figured out the REG- part of 27A: Monarch-related but really didn't know what to do when REGAL wouldn't fit.

I'M GLAD there are some good parts, notably the hilariously incongruous TEAR GAS / SEX SCENE stack in the NE. That's like the answer to the question: What is the least sexy kind of SEX SCENE? Didn't really have any trouble with this puzzle at all, except with the DERN clue, which ... ugh. Come back to the present, little Sheba! I've seen "Dad-blamed" soooo many times in crossword clues. And. Only. In. Crossword. Clues. DERN is an actress. And an actor. It is not a hick form of "darn." That is insane. A gaggle of AMYS shopping for RCAS coulda told you that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:"Clothes That Fit"— theme answers are clothes, which are clued as apt for certain job types based on reimagining the definitions of the words:

Theme answers:

PANTS AND SWEATER (21A: The aerobics instructor wore ...)
SUIT AND BRIEFS (29A: The lawyer wore a ...)
BLOOMERS AND HOSE (46A: The gardener wore ...)
TURTLENECK, BOA, AND CROCS (62A: The reptile expert wore a ...)
TUBE TOP AND CLOGS (74A: The plumber wore a ...)
SOCKS AND A BELT (93A: The boxer wore ...)
SLACKS AND LOAFERS (103A: The happily unemployed wore ...)

Word of the Day:PISTES(82D: Downhill ski runs) —

n.
1. A skitrailwith an artificiallypreparedsurface of packedsnow.
2. An unpavedroad or beatentrack. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

This is what an *average* NYT Sunday should be. Solid. Clever. Well-crafted. The clothing combinations are quite ridiculous at times, but that is, I think, the theme's charm. That center answer is like a fashion dare. That's the one I most want to see. Whereas PANTS AND A SWEATER, I mean, I can see that in the mirror on many different days, Nov. to Apr. SOCKS AND A BELT, possibly more often. Would you wear BLOOMERS AND HOSE, together? Does it matter? Probably not. Anyway, cute enough theme, with a nice, well-crafted grid. The NW corner, for example, is exemplary in its effortless smoothness, with longer answers cascading into longer answers, and with all joists in solid working order. Very acceptable work.

Resistance points were few. Got very held up at first trying to get the back ends of the first two themers because I decided 22D: Religious branch sometimes spelled with an apostrophe (SHI'ISM) was BAHAISM. BAHA'ISM? Dunno. Something more specific than "Religious branch" might've helped. Anyway, that answer was positioned in such a way that my error formed a roadblock, preventing me from completing those themers. Had to squeeze around it and fill in surrounding material in order to bring the roadblock down. Had ELAN for BRIO, but who hasn't made that error? (31D: Pizazz). I am not often a fan of the repeated clue gag, but I enjoyed its use with ON RAMP / EXIT LANE (19 & 27A: Interstate highway feature), perhaps because of those answers' proximity and parallelitude.

I've never heard of Jonathan NOLAN and have yet to see a second of "Westworld," though I imagine that will change soon. I have heard of PISTES but only barely. Thought the clue on CONSENT was inventive (113A: Sex ed topic). SANDM is one of my favorite ampersandwiches (58A: "Fifty Shades of Grey" topic, for short). I am teaching John DONNE this week, and have taught that specific poem for like 20 years, so that was cake (71A: "Death be not proud" poet). DONNE is perhaps my favorite poet, but that particular Holy Sonnet is one of my least favorite of his poems. I'll leave the poetry lecture for another time. À LUI will always be terrible fill, but it is virtually alone in its terribleness today, so absolution: granted. I wonder if anyone went CRONOS / CLINE instead of KRONOS / KLINE. Seems a very plausible mistake. OK, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: ZHOUQIN BURNIKEL

Relative difficulty: MEDIUM except for the left middle which was HARD

THEME: Animalistic (or [ANIMAL]ING [VERB] for the more serious) — Theme answers are sayings that take the form of [ANIMAL]ing [VERB].

Theme answers:

MONKEYING AROUND (17A: Goofing off)
MOUSING OVER (31A: Getting ready to click on, as in a link)
WOLFING DOWN (47A: Eating quickly)
SQUIRRELING AWAY (63A:

Word of the Day: SHAMAN (9D: Tribal healer) —

Shamanism (/ˈʃɑːmən/ shah-mən or /ˈʃeɪmən/ shay-mən) is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world.^[1]
The anthropologist Alice Kehoe criticizes the term "shaman" in her book Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Part of this criticism involves the notion of cultural appropriation.^[7] This includes criticism of New Age and modern Western forms of shamanism, which, according to Kehoe, misrepresent or dilute indigenous practices. Alice Kehoe also believes that the term reinforces racist ideas such as the Noble Savage.
(Wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, what a week, huh? Yeah. That sure was a week that happened! Well, it's been a whole month and a week, actually. What did you guys go as for Halloween? I went as a zombie prom queen, or "the death of enforced femininity" as I introduced myself at a Halloween party. Majoring in women's and gender studies (and being a little bit pretentious anyways) will do that to a gal. I did win an honorable mention in a costume contest for it though!

my artist friend did the fx makeup, but trying to dance in the heels I was wearing was the scariest part, trust me

Anyways, the puzzle! Like I said, the left middle was super hard for me - an '80s legal drama, the author of a 1931 novel that I for some reason have not yet read despite my other major being English, and two Across clues as vague as they are short all bunched together? *shudder* The rest of the puzzle wasn't bad though. TORAH/ORATE has a nice slant-rhyme-y RING to it, and there's something cool going on with IGOR/BIGOT/SEGO! I also appreciated the nerd nod in DC UNIVERSE.

The theme was okay, can't complain. I was a little disappointed MONKEYING AROUND wasn't HORSING AROUND, because I've been on a huge Bojack Horseman kick recently (and you should be too omg it's so good). I had CHOWING DOWN for 47A for the longest time - isn't Chow the name of a dog breed or something? I think? Related question: who knew SQUIRRELING was spelled with one L, not two?

Bullets:

BIGOT (71A: Archie Bunker, notably) — A bit on the nose for this week, eh?
IGOR (48D: Dr. Frankenstein's assistant)— It's pronounced EYE-gor!

ERS (50A: Spot for getting stitches, in brief) — I JUST realized this is supposed to be an abbreviation for emergency rooms, d'oh! I was going to say I only ever knew ERS as Egyptian Rat Screw, that card game everyone used to play at camp. I can't read the abbreviation as anything else at this point. Man, those were some good times.
KENNY G (42D: Saxophonist with the #42 album "Miracles") — And now, some smooth tunes for your Monday.

With love, Annabel Thompson, exceptionally tired college student.

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Constructor:David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: Chicago Cubs— a tribute puzzle, of sorts, in honor of the Cubs' having just won their first WORLD SERIES (RING) in 108 years:

Theme answers:

ERNIE BANKS (20A: Hall-of-Famer known as Mr. Cub)
NIGHT GAMES (54A: Wrigley Field events since only 1988)
CARAY (30D: Hall-of-Fame sportscaster Harry who regularly led Wrigley Field crowd in singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game")
NATIONAL LEAGUER (4D: Cub, e.g.)
IVY-COVERED WALLS (10D: Unique feature of Wrigley Field)
and the rest... (bunch of little answers tie in)

Word of the Day:Tinker to EVERS to Chance(16A: Tinker to ___ to Chance (Cubs double play combo)) —

"Baseball's Sad Lexicon," also known as "Tinker to Evers to Chance" after its refrain, is a 1910 baseball poem by Franklin Pierce Adams. The poem is presented as a single, rueful stanza from the point of view of a New York Giants fan watching the Chicago Cubs infield of shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance complete a double play. // Tinker, Evers, and Chance began playing together with the Cubs in 1902, and formed a double play combination that lasted through April 1912. The Cubs won the National League pennant four times from 1906 and 1910 (and the 1908 World Series), often defeating the Giants en route to the World Series. // The poem was first published in the New York Evening Mail on July 12, 1910. Popular among sportswriters, numerous additional verses were written. The poem gave Tinker, Evers, and Chance increased popularity. It has been credited with their elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. (wikipedia)

These are the saddest of possible words:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinker and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

Making a Giant hit into a double—

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

• • •

This is the kind of quickly-concocted tribute puzzle you tend to get from the NYT after a major event, more often than not after the unexpected death of a famous person. I remember a Michael Jackson tribute puzzle very much like this. The idea: cram the grid with trivia. Just ... theme-related words. Shove 'em in. How many can you get in? Get in more. Puzzle! It's the art of cramming, not the art of constructing. There is no hook, no trick, no cleverness. Just put-a-bunch-of-Cubs-stuff-in-there. And not even current Cubs stuff. I don't see anything at all having to do with this year's team *except* the WORLD SERIES RING. Nothing wrong with shouting out Cubs legends, but the closest you get here to the 2016 Cubs is the clue forE.R.A. (21D: Stat for Jon Lester). Maybe the oldness is fitting given the grid's reliance on old, tried and true fill like CALE Yarborough and TIGE and INGE. Very, very backwards-looking in every way. Good for the Cubs, but this could've been a lot more current, and a lot more ... something besides simply crammed with trivia. It's an incredibly historic event. It deserves at least a semi-remarkable puzzle.

After the longer answers, the Cubs-related stuff is just strewn in the grid willy-nilly. TOWN gets a forced Chicago clue (1A: "My Kind of ___ (Chicago is)") to go with symmetrical SOSA (69A: Cubs slugger with 609 home runs), but EVERS doesn't get anyone. A few clues get interestingly, unexpectedly baseballed—e.g. the ones on DOG (48D: Ballpark frank) and MOP UP (60A: Finish pitching in a lopsided game). We also have the strange occurrence of the horrible crosswordese NLER being spelled out fully in NATIONAL LEAGUER, which is ... I don't know if it's better or worse. It's something. It just would've been nice to have something besides a trivia-laden rush job. It's like the Olive Garden never-ending pasta bowl (I imagine): sure, you get a lot of pasta, and it is edible, but why not seek out something tastier, more authentic, more carefully crafted?

UP appears twice. STUBBLES is weird in the plural. CCLIV is CCLIV (Roman numerals should be a. very rare b. four letters max c. whenever possible, related to ... something, anything). I am a baseball fan so the baseball stuff was easy. Trouble spots were troubling due to non-baseball short fill like SAWS / ALTA, which I just bobbled, and LYON / SANA, which I nearly dropped, actually, and then ELOAN, which I forgot existed (50D: Internet finance firm).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:BATMAN (71A: 1960s TV icon whose name follows a pair of letters found, appropriately, 16 times in this puzzle's Across answers)— themers begin with comic book sounds and then, I guess "NA" appears 16 times? because ... of the TV theme?:

Theme answers:

BANGALORE (21A: City called the "Silicon Valley of India")
BAMBINAS (34A: Little Italian girls)
POWER NAP (45A: Post-lunch pick-me-up)
WHAMMY BAR (55A: Hendrix famously used one in his Woodstock rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner")

Word of the Day:"BLACK MASS"(35D: 2015 Whitey Bulger biopic) —

Black Mass is a 2015 American biographical crime drama film directed by Scott Cooper and written by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, based on the 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill. The film has an ensemble cast including Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Jesse Plemons, Peter Sarsgaard, Rory Cochrane, Adam Scott, Dakota Johnson, and Corey Stoll. // The film follows the criminal career of infamous American mobster Whitey Bulger (Depp). Principal photography of the film began on May 19, 2014 in Boston, and wrapped on August 1, 2014. It had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. The film was released by Warner Bros. worldwide on September 18, 2015. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow. The "NA" x 16 thing probably sounded interesting in your head, but on paper all it does is create a weak-fill train wreck. Oy. Talk about stressing out the grid for No Good Reason. Actually theme material is really thin, and then remaining answers are blah to bad much of the time (N, NE, S, ABEAR, ANEG, etc.). I love BATMAN, but this did nothing for me. Counting NAs? Nah. Also, as you can see, those comic books noises that open the themers aren't the ones that appear over the actual nananananananana opening theme. Where is my ZOK! answer?:

Exceedingly easy to solve: more Tuesday than Wednesday. Every single bit of resistance in this puzzle, for me, came from "BLACK MASS," of which I have never, ever heard. I also had trouble with the WHAMMY BAR cross (don't really know what that is), and so I was sitting on BLACK _ASS for a bit, and you could've convinced me that many different letters went there. On reading the summary of "BLACK MASS," I see that I definitely remember hearing about the basic subject matter of this movie, but the title? No. Did it win anything? Nominated for anything? Do huge box office? Bueller? Bueller? ANYONE? ANYONE? (48D: Question repeatedly posed by Ferris Bueller's teacher).

Nothing much interesting to comment on. I flagged the clue on ANYONE? (which is good), and ... that's it. This is a puzzle! The end!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Timothy Polin and Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

[.puz version of this puzzle had the following note:]

THEME:King TUT's tomb, I think (28A: King of the 18th dynasty) — you've got his name there in the center and then his MUMMY there entombed in that black-square pyramid structure at the bottom, and then you've also got a handful of theme-word-containing answers (one Across, two Down):

Theme answers:

PYRAMID SCHEME (17A: Common scam)
TOMB RAIDER (21D: Video game featuring an archaeologist heroine)
PHARAOH ANT (23D: Insect with multi-queen colonies)

Word of the Day:PHARAOH ANT—

The pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis) is a small (2 mm) yellow or light brown, almost transparent ant notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals. The pharaoh ant, whose origins are unknown, has now been introduced to virtually every area of the world, including Europe, the Americas, Australasia and Southeast Asia. This species is polygynous, meaning each colony contains many queens, leading to unique caste interactions and colony dynamics. This also allows the colony to fragment into bud colonies quickly. Colonies do not display aggression toward each other; this is known as unicoloniality. Monomorium pharaonis is also notable for its complex foraging system, involving intricate trail routes maintained with several pheromones. It was the first ant species discovered to use a negative (repellant) pheromone. These chemicals are integral for communication in this species. Pharaoh ants are a tropical species, but they thrive in buildings almost anywhere, even in temperate regions provided central heating is present. (wikipedia)

• • •

I admire the ambition here. Was just talking with a constructor about the strengths and weaknesses of crossword conventions—particularly having to do with grid size, shape, symmetry—and how newspapers are limited (in practice, anyway) by physical space. The grid has to occupy just so much space in the paper, and has to be a certain shape (square or close to square) in order to fill that space neatly. Digital delivery (with the puzzle freed from the tyranny of newsprint) has made it possible to be far more creative; and yet, because of the strong force of habit, even indie, non-newspaper crosswords distributed solely in digital formats tend to conform pretty strictly to print-bound conventions when it comes to size and shape. Conventions give an art its form, its contours—they make it visible and understandable as a Thing—but they set limits, the usefulness of which be, well, limited. Which brings me back to this puzzle, and the fact that I wish it were shaped like a pyramid instead of a moth.

The pyramid effect is expressed neatly enough in those lower black squares, but nothing about the rest of the grid really screams or even whispers "pyramid" (feel free to walk up to random people today and whisper "pyramid" in their ear, spookily—call it "the pyramid challenge," film it, it'll be great). Full-blown pyramid woulda been cool—semi-pyramid with antennae, less ... evocative. But the concept, I still dig. And it played like a pretty clean and interesting Friday, and who doesn't like that? I will say that the meta was a little too easy to get. Would've been cool if figuring out MUMMY involved something more complicated / clever than just plugging in letters that correspond with numbers in the grid. But I'm spoiled by my regular solving of killer metas by the likes of Matt Gaffney, Erik Agard, Francis Heaney, so my standards are perhaps unreasonably high on that count. Enjoyment was had. By me. Passive voice!

Had trouble raiding this tomb, at the outset, because I briefly blanked on ALBOM and briefly blanked on when Passover is (I wrote AUG—?!), and then PEEPER (11A: Tree frog with a distinctive call) I wanted to be PEWPEW (*much* more "distinctive call,"PEEPER—you might wanna look into it), and once LIFT got into my brain for 2D: Get off the ground? (LEAP), it didn't want to leave. Not sure why that clue has a "?"—it's pretty literal, although, OK, I guess when your clue is a phrase commonly used as a metaphor and you want us to take it literally, sure, "?" No problem. After I got the NW sorted, I tore through the rest with no issues. Briefly couldn't remember if it was LSATS or PSATS, briefly didn't believe RASTAMAN was serious (27D: Dreaded guy?). Nothing else provided much resistance. Ominous to have LITHUANIA (26D: Eurozone member beginning n 2015) next to LAST-GASP (32D: Done in desperation), considering the current political climate, but as crossword answers, that juxtaposition is very pleasing. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Peter Wentz

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (proper noun gauntlet!)

THEME: none

Word of the Day:TYRESE(34A: Rapper/actor in several "Fast & Furious" movies) —

Tyrese Darnell Gibson (born December 30, 1978), also known mononymously as Tyrese, is an American Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, actor, author, television producer, former fashion model and MTV VJ. He is best known for his roles as Joseph "Jody" Summers in Baby Boy and as Roman Pearce in the Fast and the Furious series. After releasing several albums, he transitioned into films, with lead roles in several major Hollywood releases. (wikipedia)

• • •

This fall, I have somehow almost fully switched over to old people time. That is, I fall asleep ridiculously early and get up before 5. This is partly my schedule (start early *every* weekday), possibly the fact that I started going to the gym 4x/week (my appetite for both food and sleep, way up), and partly the general malaise of the country (can't deal ... must sleep). The puzzle implications of this new sleep schedule are that I am solving in the strange wee hours. 3:45. 4:15. And I am still a crap morning solver. So I think I might have to adjust my difficulty ratings accordingly. Felt like I really struggled with this one—second time in a row that's happened to me with a Wentz puzzle, which I normally crush. Clock said difficulty was just a tick more than average, so I might have been judging myself again my Wentzpectations as opposed to my Friday expectations. Anyway, this grid is bright and lively and current (and, it's worth noting, remarkably, anomalously, black—the fact that I would say that about a puzzle with four black people in it tells you something about the norm), but So Many Names. So many proper noun rocky shores to crash your ship on. NW is probably the rockiest, with COLMES KULIK crossing ABOUT A BOY BILLY ZANE, with "BABALU" and STYX thrown in for good measure. I personally slipped on ORTHO / ZENO (shakes fist at ORKIN!) and then fell right down at the very end, where I tripped on J COLE. Because of LOADS at 46A: A lot, I had him as JOOLE. "Who the hell is JOOLE? No, not Jewel. JOOLE! Damn it, I ask for more black representation in the grid and it bites me in the ass!" But it was J COLE, whom I have heard of. Much more familiar to me than SHAD, actually (46D: Source of valuable eggs).

I do think my 1-Across Theory of Speedsolving applies here, as 1A: Go over again, as one's writing? was a no-hoper for me (without crosses). Not only that, it seemed to beg for the RE- prefix, which I tried for a bit. If 1-Across is a gimme, I'm gonna crush the puzzle. If it takes a few crosses, I'll be OK. If it's really intractable, I'm in trouble. The most dispiriting moment for me came when I read the clue at 8D: One of Augusta National's first two female members and thought, "That's Condi Rice! Let's see CONDOLEEZA ... wait, it doesn't fit. Damn it!" Two Zs, Condi!? Come on! It's just not fair that there should exist in the world both a one-Z LEEZA Gibbons and a Two-Z CONDOLEEZZA Rice. No justice, no peace!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Mary Lou Guizzo and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day:Trent LOTT(32A: Former minority whip in both the House and Senate) —

Chester Trent Lott, Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is an American politician. A former United States Senator from Mississippi, Lott served in numerous leadership positions in both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate. He entered Congress as one of the first of a wave of Republicans winning seats in Southern states that had been solidly Democratic. He became Senate Majority Leader, then fell from power after praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat presidential bid. (wikipedia)

• • •

This feels pretty half-hearted. OK, you've got the latticed 15s, fine, but they are an uneven collection at best—ULTRA-FASTIDIOUS?—and there's really nothing else of interest. Glut of short fill means glut of tired stuff (PSST ISON IBN IPO IHOP ERGO TTOP UHOH UFW SUI SRTA SETI SETTO and on and on and on). And then there's the smarmy self-regard of the answer THE NEW YORK TIMES (11D: It sold for a penny at its 1851 launch). Blargh. Also, NO DAY AT THE BEACH ... is a phrase (I googled it), but NO WALK IN THE PARK is so much better. Doesn't fit, but it's so so so much more the answer to that clue (3D: Hardly a piece of cake). I don't really get NO DAY AT THE BEACH. At least walking in the park is an act, so it makes sense as an easy thing. But a day at the beach isn't an act. It's just ... nice, I guess, if you like beaches (a day at the beach would be NO DAY AT THE BEACH for me, frankly). Dunno. Just don't like it. It's like NO PICNIC. More "unpleasant" than "not easy." More legitimately unlikable is that SE corner. Crossing NOBLESSE with ESSE is grosse. Bad form. ESSE is terrible enough fill on its own. Here, it's got that terrible going for it as well as the added terrible of being a dupe of the last four letters of an answer it crosses. You gotta do better than that. (See also TINGE / INGE)

Here's how I got in:

Tried a bunch of wrong things at 1D: Inclination, like TILT and LEAN. Also tried TETON for 4D: Name on a range, I'm not even joking. But by running all the short Downs up top (and toggling from TETON to AMANA), I was able to see ANOMALIES (14A: Blips). It wasn't too long after that that I got the answer that broke the whole grid open:

Now I've got it spelled wrong here (it's KERRY, not KERRI), but that hardly matters (8D: Lead actress on TV's "Scandal"). Getting a central grid-spanner very early is a huge solving boost. The grid's structure was such that the grid-spanner allowed me to make short work of all the short fill in the middle and bottom, and from there, expanding out into the rest of the grid was a walk on the day at the park beach picnic, for real.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:"Cross References"— bodies of water crossing the famous people who literally crossed them:

Theme answers:

MAGELLAN / PACIFIC
LINDBERGH / ATLANTIC
MOSES / RED SEA
MAO / YANGTZE
WASHINGTON / DELAWARE
NAPOLEON / BEREZINA

Word of the Day:BEREZINA River—

The Berezina or Biarezina (Belarusian: Бярэ́зіна; pronounced [bʲaˈrɛzʲinɐ]) is a river in Belarus and a tributary of the Dnieper River. [...] Napoleon Bonaparte's army suffered heavy losses (about 36,000) when crossing the Berezina in November 1812 during his retreat from Russia (see Battle of Berezina). Since then "Berezina" is used in French as a synonym of catastrophe. (wikipedia)

• • •

My friend Craig compared solving this to doing homework, and I have to agree. The crossing gimmick is OK, but it wears thin quickly. What you're left with is just trivia, and trivia of very uneven familiarity. WASHINGTON / DELAWARE came without my having to think at all, whereas the YANGTZE does not leap readily to mind when I think of MAO, and the BEREZINA? Well, I've never heard of that. Ever. I am certain I'm not alone in that. There's also the minor but pretty hilarious problem, caused by theme crowding, of LINDBERGH's crossing not only the ATLANTIC, but the RED SEA as well. Just him and MOSES ... leading the Israelites ... (if you know anything about LINDBERGH's, uh, political leanings, then this imagined team-up is especially funny). There are some interesting longer non-theme answers in the grid—I particularly like the DIET SODA / SEXOLOGY juxtaposition, for some reason—but overall, filling this in felt more like drudgery than fun.

The shorter fill is once again particularly noxious. A GIBER (AGE TEN!) who REPENs his XOUTS? Man, XOUTS really truly hurts. Can't fathom anyone's using or saying that ever. Lots and lots of other over-familiar repeaters, and not a lot of payoff. I have no problem with some low-rent junk if it's holding up something lovely, but not much is truly lovely here today. Today's difficulty was mostly in the vague cluing. [Entice] for BAIT, for instance. I needed 3/4 of that before I could tell what was going on. And occasionally there was (for me) difficult trivia, like ANZIO, NANNIE, and (as I've already said) BEREZINA. [7-up, e.g.] is a pretty good misdirect, though the uncapitalized "U" should've clued me in that it wasn't referring to the soda brand. See also the very next Down, 6D: Partridge family member (HEN), which I thought was referring to the musical TV show of the '70s. But there were no tenacious trouble spots. I had MACK at 10D: ___ truck instead of TACO. That probably caused the most problems.

So, hey, this week I'm launching "On The Grid," a (probably) monthly crossword podcast with my friend Lena Webb. We taped the first installment last month in Somerville, MA, and now it's edited and done, so if you have 24 minutes, give or take, check out Episode 001: "MAI / TAI". Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:John Lieb

Relative difficulty:Easy (though I solved the online / AcrossLite version, which just had regular old cluing...)

THEME: AGAINST ALL ODDS (60A: How an extreme underdog wins ... or this puzzle?)— in newspaper version of the puzzle, there are *only* even-numbered clues; then there are the theme answers, which begin with non-odd numbers, and the grid shape, which is 14x16 instead of the usual 15x15—so even the dimensions aren't "odd":

Theme answers:

ZERO VISIBILITY (16A: Driving condition in a blizzard)
TWO THUMBS UP (22A: Approval from Siskel and Ebert)
FOUR TOPS (29A: R&B group with the #1 hit "Reach Out I'll Be There")
SIX FLAGS (45A: Amusement park with the Nitro roller coaster)
EIGHT MEN OUT (50A: 1988 film about the Black Sox scandal)

Word of the Day:Nitro roller coaster(at SIX FLAGS Great Adventure) —

Nitro is a steel roller coaster designed by Bolliger & Mabillard at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, United States. It opened on April 7, 2001, as the fastest roller coaster in New Jersey and the tallest on the East Coast of the United States. It has been ranked number three in the Golden Ticket Awards Best Steel Roller Coaster every year from 2007 to 2012. It was ranked number four in 2013.

• • •

This is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink type of puzzle. Just throw all non-odd-numbered stuff you can think of in there. Theme answers are not really "against" anything. They're just a basic sequence from ZERO (not an even number, so weird here) going up two at each increment until EIGHT. Grid shaped different. And then (in a move that weirdly can't be replicated online or in the AcrossLite version), cluing is evens only. I don't know if this would've added any difficulty to the puzzle at all. I doubt it—principle of solving is still the same; nothing weird to figure out. Just different numbers. None of this anti-odd stuff really adds anything to the solve. I finished in near-record time (2:31) with no clear sense of theme at all. I guess this puzzle has unusualness going for it, and that's ... something. Fill is pretty boring / cruddy, except for a few of the theme answers, which are quite nice (esp. TWO THUMBS UP).

There are many SIX FLAGS theme parks, so 45A: Amusement park with the Nitro roller coaster seems ... let's say, overclued. That roller coaster is at SIX FLAGSGreat Adventure in Jackson, NJ. But there are SIX FLAGS all over the place. Per USA Today, "SIX FLAGS operates parks in 19 locations."SIX FLAGS is a fine stand-alone answer. Just not as (so specifically) clued. Speaking of weak clues: 57D: The Bible's Garden of ___ (EDEN). That is a clue that has given up on life. That is a clue that doesn't want to be a clue. That clue suffers from ennui. That clue phoned Phoning It In and told it to phone it in. That clue is the FLAT SODA of clues. That clue exists solely to make the clue [Cosmetician Lauder] look good.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. ADES is the worst please everybody stop stop stop using it. Thanks.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Andrew Zhou

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

THEME: NON KOSHER (57A: Like the four things named in the circled squares)— just what it says:

Theme answers:

AHA MOMENT (18A: When you get it)
POPULAR DEMAND (23A: Something might be brought back by this)
SPORK (37A: Versatile eating implement)
NBA CONFERENCE (47A: Eastern or Western, for hoopsters)

Word of the Day:MAJESTIC Theater(21D: ___ Theater, venue of "The Phantom of the Opera," the longest-running production in Broadway history) —

The Majestic Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 245 West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan. It is one of the largest Broadway theatres with 1,645 seats, and traditionally has been used as a venue for major musical theatre productions. Among the notable shows that have premiered at the Majestic are Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The Music Man (1957), Camelot (1960), A Little Night Music (1973), and The Wiz (1975). It was also the second home of 42nd Street and the third home of 1776. The theatre has housed The Phantom of the Opera since it opened on January 26, 1988. With a record-breaking 11,335 performances to date, it is currently the longest-running production in Broadway history. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was a mess for me. I mean, a mess to solve. The theme is OK, if a bit wobbly and uneven, but the clues, in parts, felt Not Tuesday. Fine, but tougher than I expected. Let's start with the theme, which was awkwardly expressed, from my vantage point, for several reasons. First, I didn't really notice it until HALAL (65A: Opposite of 57-Across, to Muslims), which is in the *position* of a potential revealer (final Across answer) but is ultimately not directly related to the theme *at all*. Symmetrical with HALAL is ... CHOPS ... which ... was that clued as somehow PORK-related, in an earlier draft? Seems like an odd coincidence to have CHOPS at 1-A in a clue about NON-KOSHER foods and have it *not* relate to pork. Weird. Further, LARD is not a meat, when the other NON-KOSHER things ... are. BACON and PORK are ... the same meat. PORK is not embedded across two words the way the other themers are, so style points off there. NBA CONFERENCE is a pretty weak stand-alone answer, though I appreciate how hard it must've been to embed "bacon" in any two-word phrase, let alone one of a particular length. The whole thing works, in that it is a functional, defensible puzzle, but as I said, wobble wobble.

The roughness of my solve came largely from the NW (where I always start), which had a passel of late-week, unexpected clues. Accurate, fine, but not Tuesday—not in a bunch like that. 1A: Musical talent, informally I wanted something like ... EAR, not CHOPS. ONE UP is not obvious as a verb (3D: Outdo). CRISP is not not not obvious as a noun (1D: Cousin of a cobbler). And RAN IT? Forget it. No idea what was going on there. I mean, I can see, now, how you might say it in a theater-related sentence, but that is just bad fill. Acceptable to hold something together in a late-week puzzle, maybe, but there's nothing even particularly *theater* about it. The past tense adds another level of ugh-ery. Stumbled over yet another theater clue at MAJESTIC—I had the -AJ- and quickly wrote in TAJ MAHAL. It fit. Lucky me. 56A: Meeting point for tailors? (SEAM) crossing 52D: Kind of client (E-MAIL), also super-Tuesday tricky for me. Throw in my inability to spell PINOCHLE, and my going for GAPED over the icky OOHED at 7D: Expressed amazement, and you get the full effect of my inelegant progress through this grid. I mean, look at this:

I solved this at runtpuz.org, where you can upload any puzzle in .puz format and solve in their applet and then get a bunch of stats afterward. The interface needs a lot of work, and I don't fully understand all the stats, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. The above grid represent first 1/3 (green) second 1/3 (white) and last 1/3 (red) of my solve. If I'm killing a puzzle, those colors are self-contained blocks, usually with green in the N/NW, white in the center/E/S, and red in the S/SW. Not a lot of jumping around when I find a puzzle easy. But the above grid, yikes. That is some flailing. I mean, the green and red hold together OK, but the white shows you how badly I was jumping around. SO many answers have three different colored squares in them. Such inefficiency. Sigh. Anyway, try runtpuz.org for yourself sometimes. Here's all the data for my solve today.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. "There's so many ways to clue BOYS, and you have to go with this stupid [turns on hair dryer so I can no longer hear her totally justifiable complaints]"—my wife. (63A: Word before and after "will be")

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Gertrude of 1926 news / THU 11-3-16 / Self-titled debut album of 1982 / Utter old-style / Triage criterion / Rapper's headwear / Rink star Phil to fans

Magnetic flux unit / FRI 11-4-16 / Deadly vodka cockatil / Word from Greek for feigned ignorance / Bright orange seafood delicacy

Cicero's longtime servant scribe / SAT 11-5-16 / Nonprofit Broadway production grp / Archenemy of Optimus Prime in Transformers movies / Blade holder / Pollen repositories

Radioactive form of hydrogen / SUN 11-6-16 / Small semicircular grooves on column / Game with mallets played on hard-surfaced court / Opposite of outflux

Symbol like prayer hands heart eyes / MON 11-7-16 / Obsolescent place to go online / Player most likely to shoot a three-pointer / West African country whose name is usually rendered in French / Home office item that's surprisingly expensive to replace

Pulitzer-winning poet Conrad / TUE 11-8-16 / Queen of jungle in comics / Number of hills in Roma / Conger catcher / First instrument heard in Beatles' she's leaving home / Ribbed pants informally

Tailored wear imparting confidence / WED 11-9-16 / Playful response to zinger / Old French coin / Walk like tosspot

Record label whose name derives from Greek myth / THU 11-10-16 / Grandpa Walton portrayer / Colorul corn balls / Old ship constellation / Fish whose name is calculator number turned upside-down / Chances left after Slim left town / Compound under control by Kyoto Protocol

Emperor after Galba / FRI 11-11-16 / Film title role for Tyrone Power Brad Pitt / Sketches by 1830s work / Fast-food debut of 1981 / Hook remover perhaps

Old city in Kyrgyzstan / SAT 11-12-16 / Lachrymatory agent / Precept about idol worship / Dirty snowballs to some astronomers / 6 11 Kanter of NBA / End of match in rugby / Common database system program

Famed claim from Louis XIV / SUN 11-13-16 / Senator Vinick's portrayer on West Wing / Religious branch sometimes spelled with apostrophe / Dread Zeppelin Wholigans / Jonathan who co-created Westworld

"The Good Earth" author / MON 11-14-2016 / Hack (off) / Target competitor / Have because of

Home to French silk makers / TUE 11-15-16 / Mideast capital supposedly founded by son of Noah / Blog annoyances / Trash-toting transport / Wrigley events since only 1988 / Finish pitching in lopsided game

Popeye villain who sailed black barnacle / THU 11-17-16 / Work not of buffa style / Longtime home of Tappet Brothers / Video game featuring archaeologist heroine / Tree frog with distinctive call / One of eggs used in this 1986 film is now exhibited in Smithsonian / Insect with multi-queen colonies

2002 Hugh Grant dramedy / FRI 11-18-16 / Site of Dostoevsky's exile / Category for un Premio Nobel / Close relative of elephant garlic / Noted 1983 graduate of Columbia / Blue symbol of Delaware

Hindi for palace / Arabic patronymic part / SAT 11-19-16 / juris of legal age / His gravestone says simply PLAYWRIGHT

Hearts minds military maneuver briefly / MON 11-21-16 / Alley shopping area for Harry Potter / Pop with no fizz / Amusement park with Nitro roller coaster / Qs Hostess brand

Old radio show set in Harlem / TUE 11-22-16 / Rehearsed piece from start to finish in theater lingo / Cousin of cobbler / Dark brown rodents with long tails large eyes / Carolers repertoire / Trick-taking game with 48-card deck