Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor:Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty:An averagely challenging themeless to finish out the week

THEME: Themeless

Word of the Day:DEVO(15A: Jumpsuit-wearing music group) —

Devo (/ˈdiːvoʊ/, originally /diːˈvoʊ/)^[8] is an American rock band that formed in 1973, consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a No. 14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It" and has maintained a cult following throughout its existence.
Devo's music and stage shows mingle kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor and mordantly satirical social commentary. Their often discordant pop songs feature unusual synthetic instrumentation and time signatures that have proven influential on subsequent popular music, particularly new wave, industrial, and alternative rock artists. Devo was also a pioneer of the music video, creating many memorable clips for the LaserDisc format, with "Whip It" getting heavy airplay in the early days of MTV. (Wikipedia)

• • •

Rex is still sick, so you get Laura again. Hi! This was a nice themeless from Patrick Berry (if you are at all interested in how puzzles are constructed, I highly recommend his Crossword Constructor's Handbook). Word of the Day DEVO is, like ASTEROID BELTS, one my favorite 33A: Rock groups that are far out. Lots to like in this grid, including my neighbor BERNIE (3D: First name in 2016 presidential politics), my 90s role model ELAINE (2D: Jerry's ex on TV [and for the record I would like Julia Louis-Dreyfus to play me in a movie]), and the song that will be going through my head for the next week, SUMMERTIME BLUES (7D: 1958 hit song that begins "I'm a-gonna raise a fuss, I'm a-gonna raise a holler").

As with many themelesses (themelessi? themelesstrixes? themelesstropodes?), the solved grid looks way easier than the solving experience was. All three of the middle stack just fell into place right away: the aforementioned ASTEROID BELTS, the MAD TEA PARTY (31A: Where Alice is asked "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" -- you might recall that Andrew Kingsley used this as the seed for a riddle puzzle last fall), and QUEEN OF MEAN (36A: Sobriquet for the woman who said "Only the little people pay taxes"). In the early 90s I used to walk to work in Manhattan, taking a shortcut through the Midcentury Modern masterpiece PanAm Building (I refuse to call it the MetLife Building), which led into the Beaux-Arts masterpiece Helmsley Building (née New York Central Building), where there was a huge (yuge!) portrait in the lobby of Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean herself (in those pre-9/11 days when you could just stroll through office buildings with impunity). She and that era (and tax evasion) are forever linked in my mind with our current president. The north and south of the grid presented a few stumbling blocks -- I had NOAH for ESAU (8D: Biblical polygamist [though weren't they all?]), and could not recall the idiom IN STIR (59A: Doing time).

Bullets:

ABASES (4A: Brings down) and ABATE (32D: Lose intensity) — As my solving buddy Austin pointed out, having both in the same puzzle seems like an editorial oversight.
UNICYCLE (22A: Take the wheel?)— Loved the clue for this; very clever misdirection to clue it as a verb instead of a noun.
AMITY (4D: ___ Island ("Jaws" locale)) — Had trouble remembering this; I blame the dominance of the Sharknado oeuvre in the current crop of shark movies.
EEL (48A: Ocean floor burrower) — What's a grid without an EEL?

And let's wind up the evening with ...

CHARO (23D: Her albums include "Cuchi-Cuchi" and "Olé, Olé")

Signed, Laura Braunstein, Sorceress of CrossWorld

[Follow Laura on Twitter]

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Constructor:Mary Lou Guizzo

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day:Manuel NEUER(57A: Manuel ___, German soccer star called a "sweeper-keeper") —

Manuel Peter Neuer (German pronunciation:[ˈmaːnu̯ɛl ˈnɔʏ.ɐ]; born 27 March 1986) is a German professional footballer who plays for Bayern Munich and the Germany national team. He is a goalkeeper and serves as vice-captain for Bayern Munich and captain of Germany. Neuer has been described as a "sweeper-keeper" because of his unique playing style and speed when rushing off his line to anticipate opponents; he is also known for his quick reflexes, excellent shot-stopping abilities, strength, long throwing range, command of his area and accurate control and distribution of the ball. [...] In 2014, Neuer finished third in the voting, behind Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, for the FIFA Ballon d'Or award. The same year, he was ranked the third-best player in the world by The Guardian. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello. I am back from a brief but terrible (or terrible but brief) illness. I hear I missed two good puzzles. My bad luck apparently knows no bounds. Well, at least I got a pretty good puzzle to return to. There were some clunkers in the short fill (which caused me to reverse-TEHEE), but the six 15s more than held their own, and kept this thing more good than POOR. It was a weird solve, in that it put up no resistance *except* in the proper nouns, many of which were just outer space-ian to me. I refuse to watch any "Orange is the New Black" because any time a show has that much hype, I just dig in and refuse. Re, Fuse. Sadly (for me), crossword constructors have decided that every cast member (it seems) should appear in crosswords, even people with non-grid-friendly names like TAYLOR SCHILLING, whoever that is (3D: Actress on "Orange Is the New Black"). The German soccer star (57A: Manuel ___, German soccer star called a "sweeper-keeper") reeks of bought word list. Even the clue (straight outta wikipedia) suggests that constructor and editor didn't even really know who he was. I know a *little* about football, and I sure never heard of him (despite watching Germany in international competition several times). He's clearly football-famous, but it's hard to call NEUER good fill. And then VOS!? Yipes. I have a wonderful colleague with that last name. As the middle part of an Eliot poetry volume, though—not good (8D: "Ara ___ Prec" (T.S. Eliot poetry volume)). And what in the world is a LEIGH Mercer? I like my LEIGHs to come in Brackett and only Brackett form. Since when are palindrome creators crossworthy? (25D: ___ Mercer, originator of the palindrome "A man, a plan, a canal—Panama!") Blargh. So I tripped over allllll of those names ... and yet finished in a sub-Friday time. (Not surprising, really—so much short stuff makes getting toeholds very easy)

Started with the gimmes PIAF and YUL, and it was pretty easy to get going from there. Once the "L" from RELEE (ugh) gave me the LISTENING in "ANYONE LISTENING?," I got BIG D (13D: Longtime Cotton Bowl home, informally) and the whole NE corner, then slammed TRIPLE WORD SCORE down the east side (11D: Red square). After working the SW, I threw SHIRLEY CHISHOLM across the grid with an appreciative whoop (53A: First black woman elected to Congress, 1968). Nice answer. I grew up in California and went to Yosemite a few times and always thought it was in the Sierra Nevadas (39A: Yosemite's range). Had SIERRA and wanted WEST (or EAST?). How did "HIGH SIERRA" not get a Bogart movie clue?? The more I look at this grid, the more I'm noticing gunk in the nooks and crannies, so I'll just stop looking and say, I mostly enjoyed it.

Many, many thanks to Laura Librarian for filling in for me these past two days.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Peter Gordon is offering a new season (2017-18) of Fireball Newsflash Crosswords—20 very up-to-date puzzles with (very) current events-heavy fill. Get in on the action here (in the next two days!)

P.P.S. Harvard's radio station (WHRB 95.3) interviewed me several months ago re: crosswords as part of a larger segment on the NYT crossword's 75th anniversary. Here it hear. Just kidding, hear it here.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:"It's Elementary"— themers have circled letters representing "elements" that also appear in the clue (as "circled letters" ... so you kind of sort of have to get the circled letters to understand the clue):

Theme answers:

WEATHER BALLOON (22A: [circled letters]-filled contraption)
EIFFEL TOWER (30A: World landmark built with [circled letters])
MOOD STABILIZERS (45A: [circled letters]-based drugs)
ROADSIDE DINER (60A: [circled letters]-advertised establishment)
DAGUERREOTYPE (73A: Picture displayed on a [circled letters] surface)
AEROBIC EXERCISE (88A: [circled letters]-consuming activity)
BASEBALL BAT (99A: Sports implement often made from [circled letters])
NUCLEAR REACTOR (113A: [circled letters]-fueled device)
TOOTH DECAY(15D: Condition contributed to by a lack of [circled letters]
LEPRECHAUN (71D: Fabled [circled letters]-hiding trickster)

Word of the Day:BETHEL(21D: Seaman's chapel) —

noun
noun: bethel; plural noun: bethels
1.
a holy place.
2.
a chapel for seamen. (google)

• • •

This was a nuisance puzzle. Tolerable, but something one endures rather than enjoys. After I waded through the crosswordesey garbage in the NW and figured out the theme ... well, I figured out the theme. And that was that. There were no great revelations or particularly interesting moments. There were more Periodic Table-driven answers, occasionally interesting in and of themselves (I learned I can't spell DAGUERREOTYPE—who put that middle "E" in there?), but mostly about as impressive as "hiding" the letter "O" in a very long answer (i.e. not). I halfway liked the LEPRECHAUN answer but mostly just because today is Parade Day here in Binghamton, a day to celebrate St. Patrick's Day ridiculously early and (I hear) drink yourself into a stupor before dinner. It's fun! But otherwise, it was a Sunday, and it happened, and now it's over.

[Hydrogen?]

Cluing seemed dated / stuffy. SONNY BOY, indeed (61D: Lad). Not too UP-TO-DATE (122A: [Gold] courant). Even the cartoon sea serpents are "of old" (54A: CECIL). The biggest problem was how badly choked the grid was with tired old fill. From everything but WHARF in the NW to the W, where you can OGLE UGLI EGGOs. It goes on. And then the "humor" is stuff like that damned BEIRUT clue, which doesn't even work from a sound perspective, but OK (52D: Foreign capital whose name sounds like a water passage to San Francisco). My biggest errors involved The Wrong Ape (a movie featuring me and my BABOON GAL PAL, "EDSEL," driving around EDINA and comically botching crosswords) (I went with GIBBON there ... boy did that make "EDSEL" angry ...) (yes, I know, BABOONs aren't "apes" ... but GIBBONs are ... so somehow it all works out ... in the end)—and then there was BETHEL, an answer so far over my head I couldn't see it. Never heard of this definition (21D: Seaman's chapel). I seriously considered BOATEL for a non-negligible amount of time. Had WOODSY for WOODED (32D: Sylvan), PIZZA (!?) for MATZO (13A: Flat bread), and PANIC for HAVOC (53A: Great confusion). No idea what KPMG is, but I'm guessing it's to do with accounting—not rap, as the name (to me) suggests.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Peter Gordon is offering a new season (2017-18) of Fireball Newsflash Crosswords—20 very up-to-date puzzles with (very) current events-heavy fill. Get in on the action here (in the next 24 hours!)

P.P.S. Harvard's radio station (WHRB 95.3) interviewed me several months ago re: crosswords as part of a larger segment on the NYT crossword's 75th anniversary. Here it hear. Just kidding, hear it here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Did you know that March is National Celery Month? And today is the first Monday in it? And that celery is kind of gross but it has a good texture? Anyway, it's me, Annabel!

Constructor: SUSAN GELFAND

Relative difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM

THEME: OUTERWEAR— Theme clues were puns on professions and outerwear.

Word of the Day: ASP (55A: Nile viper) —

Vipera aspis is a venomous viper species found in southwestern Europe. Its common names include asp, asp viper,^[5]European asp,^[6] and aspic viper,^[7] among others. Bites from this species can be more severe than from the European adder, V. berus; not only can they be very painful, but also about 4% of all untreated bites are fatal.^[7] The specific epithet, aspis, is a Greek word that means "viper."^[8] Five subspecies are currently recognized, including the nominate subspecies described here.^[9]

(Wikipedia)
• • •

Theme answers:

CITY SLICKER (17A: Article of outerwear for an urbanite?)
BUBBLE WRAP (23A: Article of outerwear for a champagne drinker?)
SUGAR COAT (33A: Article of outerwear for a candy lover?)
DUST JACKET (48A: Article of outerwear for a housekeeper?)
CHEVY BLAZER (53A: Article of outerwear for a General Motors employee?)

This puzzle didn't give me too much difficulty...except for the lower left corner, which I'm pretty sure I spent at least five minutes on. ("Panache" is such a vague clue, and I've never seen "Top Gun", and what the heck is a CHEVY BLAZER? Is that a sports car or something?) The fill was OK; I wish LAB had been clued with something about dogs, though, and I swear I have seen SRA with that exact same clue every single time I have done a puzzle!! Also, I had SLOP instead of GLOP and PARES for PEELS, but "pares" is a better word anyways so it's whatevs. And I didn't realize that the "middle of Arizona" clue was supposed to be taken so literally! But again, whatevs.

Not a whole lot to say about the theme. It was cute and fun and that's about all you need for a Monday. And, again, what's a CHEVY BLAZER?

OK, I just looked it up and apparently they stopped making them in 2005. How was I supposed to know what they were?!?!

Bullets:

RIBS (40A: Entree that may be slathered in BBQ sauce) — The one thing I've missed the most since going vegetarian. I had broccoli casserole for dinner last night. Siiiiigh...
COOKS (19A: Too many of them spoil the broth)— Ohhhhh boy. Anyone remember this sketch? I wasn't going to post it, but come on, the clue... (Don't watch if you're squeamish!)

DABS (48D: Painters' touches) — Heh, this word has a very different meaning for my generation. A dab is, like, a dance move where you bend down and make your arms go diagonally in front of your face. I'd look up a good definition on Urban Dictionary but I'm a little scared of Urban Dictionary.
HOP (21A: Bunny's movement)— Reminds me of "dance's new creation"...

Well, that's all. I've got nothing left to say.

Except Happy Birthday to Rex's BFFs, Jennifer and my mom!!!

can you tell they're identical

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (not sure why, played harder than normal)

THEME:STALE and its anagrams

Theme answers:

"CANTERBURY TALES" (17A: Famously unfinished 14th-century literary work, with "The")
"THAT'S A STEAL" (24A: "How cheap!")
CLEAN SLATE (30A: What one might start over with)
GOING STALE (43A: Losing crunchiness, as chips)
NIKOLA TESLA (48A: Historical figure played by David Bowie in "The Prestige")
"LAST BUT NOT LEAST" (60A: "Finally ...")

Word of the Day:MICRA(1D: Millionths of a meter) —

MICRON (n.pl.mi·crons or mi·cra(-krə)alsomi·krons or mi·kra(-krə))
A unit of lengthequal to onethousandth(10^-3) of a millimeter or onemillionth(10^-6) of a meter.Alsocalledmicrometer. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

This is one of those anagrams I run through in my head from time to time, and no I'm not kidding. My brain needs something to keep it from being irate and how terribly everybody else is driving. Anyway, I am stunned it hasn't been the basis of a crossword before—and I mean, A Long Time Ago. It's about as thin as theme premises come. The phrases are all fine (I'm being generous to GOING STALE, I know), but there's no entertainment value here. It's just not clever or interesting. Meanwhile, the fill, [deep sigh]. It's particularly bad today. Like, *all* the STALE All-Stars have come out to play. Look at it all. It's pretty stunning, actually. I don't want to do the thing where I lay it all out for you end to end, because that would likely earn me multiple TSKS (again, [deep sigh]); I think you can see for yourself, if you can bear to stare it all in the face. I predict that if you count all the terrible things about the fill today, you would count to somewhere between TEN and LII. Closer to the latter, I'm guessing.

AHS are not [Sighs of relief]. You're thinking of AAHS. AHS are the sounds people make at the dentist (side note: had a cleaning today, and my mouth is apparently falling apart at a somewhat slower rate now, yay!). How is a KEY CASE"just for openers"? I get how a *key* is, but you can't open anything with a case. Bizarre. That answer, and AMUST, and ACK-not-EEK, made the north pretty rough for me. I also got stymied by stupid small stuff in the west. What time zone is Texas in? Which letter goes with "winter"? These are not the questions my brain enjoys answering ... ever. And I figured that since I'd never heard of either one, [The Stones'"12 x 5" and "Flowers"] were EPS. Put "Exile on Main Street" and "Some Girls" in that clue, and I get LPS easy.

I wrote part of my Ph.D. dissertation on "THE CANTERBURY TALES" and I don't think of its unfinishedness as "famous." In fact, I rarely ever think about it. It's "famous" for so many other reasons (which I'm happy to talk about on request!). And it is, technically, unfinished, but that is not what I would call its most distinctive or remarkable feature. "The Aeneid" is more famously unfinished. "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" even more so. So, famous yes, unfinished yes, famously unfinished ... I dunno. I guess. Weak connection, though, I'd say. There are two things I like about this puzzle. One is that the longer Downs are both in the imperative mood—twin pillars of imperative power. DON'T SPEAK! STAND BACK! I like a puzzle that takes charge. I also like the final theme answer, to the extent that it comes last and is thus apt. APT!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Paula Gamache

Relative difficulty:Medium, maybe slightly north (I had software issues)

THEME: TREASURE M.P.— Familiar phrases ending in a three-letter word where that word's central letter has been removed, creating abbreviated wackiness:

Theme answers:

"WHAT'S UP, DOC?" (17A: "How's it goin', Washington?") (shouldn't there be yet another "?" at the end of this clue? You know, Wackiness Rules?)
HOPPING M.D. (26A: E.R. worker who sprained an ankle?) (probably not a great idea putting a two-letter initialism in your clue, thus highlighting a perfectly viable theme answer option you didn't use)
TYRANNOSAURUS RX (37A: Prescription for a prehistoric carnivore?)
ZIP YOUR LP (48A: "Keep that record in its case!"?)
CHEW THE CD (57A: Mistake a shiny disc for a cookie?)

Word of the Day:COLOMBO(30A: Sri Lanka's capital) —

Colombo (Sinhala: කොළඹKolamba, pronounced [ˈkəlɐmbɞ]; Tamil: கொழும்பு) is the commercial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo metropolitan area has a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 in the city proper. It is the financial centre of the island and a popular tourist destination. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the legislative capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital since Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is within the urban area of, and a satellite city of, Colombo. It is also the administrative capital of Western Province, Sri Lanka and the district capital of Colombo District. Colombo is a busy and vibrant place with a mixture of modern life and colonial buildings and ruins. It was the legislative capital of Sri Lanka until 1982. // Due to its large harbour and its strategic position along the East-West sea trade routes, Colombo was known to ancient traders 2,000 years ago. It was made the capital of the island when Sri Lanka was ceded to the British Empire in 1815, and its status as capital was retained when the nation became independent in 1948. In 1978, when administrative functions were moved to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, Colombo was designated as the commercial capital of Sri Lanka. (wikipedia)

• • •

Weird coincidence: I was thinking about TYRANNOSAURUS RX as a form of wordplay literally just yesterday, for reasons now lost to time. I mean, it's got my "name" in it, so it's not *that* surprising, but I have no idea what occasioned the thought. It certainly didn't seem that theme-worthy, but here we are. There's a certain cleverness to this, but also a certain thinness. You could keep going. MISS AMERICAN P.E. is a perfect 15. DON'T TASE ME, B.O. works less well, but you get the idea. BELOW P.R., CHEWING G.M., COUSIN I.T.? KEYSTONE K.P.? BOBBY O.R.? YOU'RE THE T.P.? A little brainstorming could take you all kinds of places.

[You're Mickey Mouse]

A really good constructor would've seen this theme as a great opportunity to make a meta puzzle. Instead of having an arbitrary set of answers, why not have a set where the "missing" letters in each answer end up spelling out ... something. I mean, this set isn't even a straight vowel progression (where the missing letter is first A, then E, then I...) (though, to its minor credit, the "missing" letter is a different vowel every time). Also, "chew the cud" is not a thing. You chew the fat. A cow chews *its* cud. Anyway, bad form to clunk your final themer. I did appreciate INDOOR CAT and AS WE SPEAK, though. Those are nice answers.

This was challenging in two respects. First, the themers were often tough to come up up with from those clues. The first one, in particular, seems to refer to George Washington, not the place Washington. You greet people that way, not places. So even though "What's up, Doc?" is a classic phrase, I had "WHAT'S UP..." and no idea what came next. That took me right into the one section that was challenging in a second respect: odd / arcane. DA CAPO into COLOMBO into NOBU and through MILLIBARS and OLD SOUL. That last one is clued in a way that is totally unfamiliar to me. [One who leads a quiet, measured life]? That sounds like a hermit. I think of "wise beyond one's years" as being the definition, whether one parties hard or not. Ugh. Bad. COLOMBO crossing NOBU was just an example of proper nouns I totally forgot. I know NOBU only from xwords, and even though I've seen it for years ... doesn't stick. Also, HOPPING M.D. (in this same section) was really hard to come up with. I had HELPING ... something at one point, because neither "E.R. worker" nor "sprained an ankle" was telling me much of anything. I think it's a fine clue—it's just a tough clue in the middle of the puzzle's roughest patch.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Jeremy Newton

Relative difficulty:Medium

[in the above rendering, the first "WORK" square is represented by a file folder, while the first "LIFE" square is represented by a house]

THEME: WORK/LIFE BALANCE (55A: Challenge in a demanding job ... or a feature of this puzzle?)— I think the two sides of the puzzle, the little U-shaped black-square formations, are supposed to be SCALES (47D: What someo black squares in this grid represent), on which one WEIGHS the words WORK (rebused into each of four squares 36A: One half of a 55-Across) and LIFE (rebused into each of four squares in 38A: The other half of 55-Across)

WORK side:

PIECE OF WORK
SAFE FOR WORK
REWORK
NETWORK

LIFE side:

LOW LIFE
"TO LIFE!"
MATE FOR LIFE
SLICE OF LIFE

Word of the Day:Edward BROOKE(41D: Edward ___, first popularly elected African-American U.S. senator (Massachusetts, 1967-79)) —

Edward William Brooke III (October 26, 1919 – January 3, 2015) was an American Republican politician. In 1966, he became the first African American popularly elected to the United States Senate. He was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts, defeating former Massachusetts governor Democrat Endicott Peabody in a landslide. He served for two terms, and was defeated by Paul Tsongas in 1978. // Upon the death of Harry F. Byrd Jr. on July 30, 2013, he became the oldest living former Senator, and remained so until his death on January 3, 2015. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very short write-up today. Busy morning of doing things I should've done yesterday morning. I'll start by saying I liked this—it's thorny and weird in that way that Thursdays ought to be but so often aren't. My only complaint is that the visual is pretty rough. I could Rorschach those black squares all day long and not see SCALES. But since the puzzle tells me they are, then sure, I can play along. The gimmick took a little time to hit me—failed to pick it up in the NW, where I started out strong with PSAS ARTY SAY and CIARA, but things quickly broke down from there. Finally sussed it out on the other side of the SCALES. Knowing WORF was *very* helpful, as that "W" made me realize 26D: Good-for-nothing was not LOUT but LOW-something. I threw LIFE across, then soon realized "LIFE" needed to be compressed (i.e. "rebused") into each square to work with the Downs. Had a little trouble figuring out what was being balanced (didn't have revealer yet), but then it dawned on me and the NW got easy fast. After that, the only trouble was BROOKE, whom I'd never heard of. I got SCALES from WEIGHS (45D: Puts on the 47-Down) and never even saw it was part of the theme until I was done.

[Crossword's own MCRAE!]

So, nice work. Decent concept, interestingly executed, and—above all—the fill is fantastic. PIECE OF WORK! VEGAN PIZZA! AS YOU DO! Really nice, especially up top. An overall pleasing experience. Navigating the puzzle was a little dicey, given how ^&$%ing narrow the passageways are from section to section in the grid (the bottom half may as well be an entirely separate puzzle). But there are enough pure gimmes thrown into each section to get you going again if you can't quite make the turn. Is it a coincidence that there's both SLICE OF and PIECE OF in the grid ... and also PIZZA in the grid? Mmm. Hungry now. See ya.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Pawel Fludzinski

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day:LABEOUF(11D: Shia who's not a Muslim) —

Shia Saide LaBeouf (ⁱ/ˈʃaɪ.ələˈbʌf/; born June 11, 1986) is an American actor, performance artist, and filmmaker. He became known among younger audiences as Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, a role for which LaBeouf received a Young Artist Award nomination in 2001 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003. He made his film debut in Holes (2003), based on the novel of the same name by Louis Sachar. In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate and later directed a short film titled Maniac (2011), starring American rappers Cage and Kid Cudi. // In 2007, LaBeouf starred in the commercially successful films Disturbia and Surf's Up. The same year he was cast in Michael Bay's science fiction film Transformers as Sam Witwicky, the main protagonist of the series. Despite mixed reviews, Transformers was a box office success and one of the highest-grossing films of 2007. LaBeouf later appeared in its sequels Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), both also box office successes. In 2008, he played Henry "Mutt Williams" Jones III in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth film in the Indiana Jones franchise. His other films include Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Lawless (2012), The Company You Keep (2012), Nymphomaniac (2013) and Fury (2014). Since 2014, LaBeouf has pursued a variety of public performance art projects with LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner. (wikipedia)

• • •

A mix of wonderful and godawful. On the one hand, DUMPSTER FIRE—nice (32A: Unmitigated disaster, in slang). On the other hand, no one wants to see ETERNE and OID and KIP and AT IT and ECU and ACAN and EEE. Like, ever. I solved this upon waking *and* it was out of my wheelhouse (in several places); neither one of those facts was conducive to smooth solving. Every trick clue got me. I actually finished the puzzle thinking that LABEOUF was a word for some strange type of Muslim, and *baffled* they hadn't used the actor in the clue. Yes. It was *that* kind of solve. And then, later, the SE was a total, let's say, DUMPSTER FIRE for me. Couldn't get into it at all. Blanked on Nash's field of mathematics (GEEE-OMETRY!?); couldn't remember which one "cosmology" was, the universe one or the beauty school one; couldn't make sense of 67A: Went door to door? (SIDE-SWIPED) until the bitter, bitter end because it crossed LUTES (???) DO LOOP (???) and ELI (??????). I like the SIDE-SWIPED clue, but I've never heard of ELI (as clued—63D: "My God!," as cried by Jesus), never heard of "Theorobos" (thought he might be a LUTER) and never ever heard of DO LOOP (47D: Bit of computer programming executed repeatedly), which was the one answer that was the biggest problem because of its prime, corner-rounding position. I dropped ETERNE and STAYED easy, but without DO LOOP, the SE was unenterable. I should've gotten ARI for the Cardinal home when STL didn't fit. I just wasn't firing on all cylinders.

Anyway, I forget the rest of the puzzle, but it seemed fine. Oh, and the big big problem, beyond DO LOOP, for me, was that I couldn't get MALL (51A: D.C. tourist destination). Two issues. One, thought it would be abbr., like "D.C."; and two, I think of destinations as actual places (museums, monuments, etc.), not just a giant strip of land. "Does D.C. have a MOMA?" was an actual question I asked myself.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Natan Last

Relative difficulty:Easy (beyond easy—I set a new personal Saturday record: 4:36)

THEME: none

Word of the Day:"ADVENTURE TIME"(53A: Award-winning Cartoon Network series with Finn the Human and Jake the Dog) —

Adventure Time is an American animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network. It follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada) and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio)—a dog with the magical power to change shape and size at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they interact with other major characters, including: Princess Bubblegum (voiced by Hynden Walch), the Ice King (voiced by Tom Kenny), Marceline the Vampire Queen (voiced by Olivia Olson), and BMO (voiced by Niki Yang). The series is based on a 2007 short produced for Nicktoons and Frederator Studios' animation incubator series Random! Cartoons. After the short became a viral hit on the Internet, Cartoon Network commissioned a full-length series, which previewed on March 11, 2010, and officially premiered on April 5, 2010. [...] Since its debut, Adventure Time has been a ratings success for Cartoon Network, with the highest-rated episodes having attracted over 3 million viewers. The show has received positive reviews from critics and—despite being aimed primarily at children—has developed a following among teenagers and adults. Adventure Time has won awards including: six Primetime Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, three Annie Awards, two British Academy Children's Awards, a Motion Picture Sound Editors Award, a Pixel Award, and a Kerrang! Award. The series has also been nominated for three Critics' Choice Television Awards, two Annecy Festival Awards, a TCA Award, and a Sundance Film Festival Award, among others. A comic book spin-off based on the series won an Eisner Award and two Harvey Awards. The series has also inspired various clothing items and related merchandise, video games, comic books, and DVD compilations. (wikipedia)

• • •

Oh my god I torched this thing. Just set it on fire. I'm not sure I've solved a *Friday* puzzle in 4:36 before, so to hit that on a Saturday is unreal. I tend to be on the same wavelength as Natan, but this was ridiculous. It's a nice, *very* modern grid, with only a small handful of infelicities (EME, LOTI, BEINS). This has Friday written all over it—lots of connectivity in the grid structure, stacks that are easy to crosscut with lots of short answers, pretty easy cluing. I'm looking at the clues and only just noticing that weird streak in the Down clues from 38 to 41 where clues are all one word, all start with "R", and are really two pairs of related clues. If 36D: "Apologies" had been (easily) changed to [Regretful expression], those Downs could've started Regret Regretful Rushed Rush Red Red, respectively. Not that I care about such things. Just noticing. I would like it to be known that I was (to my knowledge) the first person to put WHITE PRIVILEGE in a crossword grid (a couple years back, in the now-defunct Buzzfeed Crossword: see here). Eerily, mine was in the same place in the grid, at precisely 14-Across. That little connection probably helped accelerate my solving speed, but I'm guessing lots and lots and lots of people set personal Saturday records today.

["ONE TO ONE"]

Here's what I remember: first thing in the grid was AS ONE at 1D: Uniform—a ludicrous wrong answer that got me two correct letters. I still don't know what GHOST is (as clued: 12D: Popular word game), but I managed to guess WEE EFT WOLF, in that order, quickly, and the WOOKIEES became undeniable (15A: Sci-fi natives of the planet Kashyyyk). After that, ALIKE and then the long Acrosses and I was off! Not sure about ALT-POP as a thing (the POP was one of the harder things in the grid to suss out; 1A: Genre akin to indie rock), but I got through it without too much chagrin. Next hiccup was whether MARC ended in a "C" or "K." Then whether it was HADJ or HAJJ or what (HAJI). Then, after nailing "ADVENTURE TIME" with no crosses (53A: Award-winning Cartoon Network series with Finn the Human and Jake the Dog), I put in LEED at 46D: Paragraph in the newspaper, say—again, ridiculously wrong. But I wriggled out of that bind quickly and finished up somewhere over near the wonderfully-clued OLD FLAME (47A: Lover of history?). I'm guessing solving experience on this one is going to come down to knowing v. not knowing "ADVENTURE TIME." Fat gimme if you know it, likely baffling if you don't. Still, even if you'd never heard of it, looks like crosses were easy enough to help you infer the answer without too much trouble. Wish this puzzle had lasted longer. But I'll take my personal record and happily move along.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Alan Arbesfeld

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:"Taking the Fifth"— the sound of the *fifth* letter ("E") is added to the end of familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases

Theme answers:

"TABLE TENNESSEE" (23A: "Put that Southern state on next month's agenda"?)
NANNY GOATEE (32A: What a male babysitter may sport?)
OFF THE MARQUEE (56A: Like a fired Broadway star?)
HOT CROSS BUNNY (78A: Sweaty, irritable rabbit?)
THE BIG CHILI (101A: What'll feed everyone at a tailgate party?)
ATTILA THE HONEY (114A: Reformed barbarian?)
IRRESISTIBLE UIE (17D: Turnaround too tempting to pass up?)
"LOOK AT THAT MESSI" (44D: "Check out the Argentine soccer star!"?)

Word of the Day:HEGIRA(57D: Exodus) —

noun
singular proper noun: Hegira; singular proper noun: Hejira
Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in AD 622, prompted by the opposition of the merchants of Mecca and marking the consolidation of the first Muslim community.
the Muslim era reckoned from the Hegira.
noun: Hegira; noun: Hejira; noun: Hijra
"the second century of the Hegira"
an exodus or migration.
noun: hegira; plural noun: hegiras (google)

• • •

This puzzle doesn't merit a write-up. It doesn't merit anyone's close attention because it is entirely phoned-in ... from a phone booth in 1987. It is the most basic add-a-sound imaginable, with tedious, unfunny, not-even-smirkworthy theme answer results. "Look at that mess" is a terrible base phrase, only slightly less terrible than the utterly unimaginable (even in Wacky Land) "LOOK AT THAT MESSI." How Many Messis Are There? This is garbage, stem to stern. The NYT should be embarrassed to run this piece of uninspired dreck on Sunday—the marquee day, the most popular solving day, the showcase! Ugh. I would add that the fill is, like the theme, remarkably poor, but you can see that, and what's the point? POTHERS? I mean, really. This is a semi-competent first effort from a novice Sunday constructor, if it were the '80s, maybe the '90s. But it's not, and the constructor is faaaaar from a novice, and I can't believe this type of puzzle is still seeing the light of day. I can almost guarantee you that the LAT puzzle will be better than this. Even the Newsday is likely to be better than this. MENTHE ABATER! Now I'm just typing random entries to keep myself amused. Total fail. Writer the editor and complain. Good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. as if this puzzle wasn't bad enough, it also contains Hitler (33D: Unpopular baby name). Let's all ritually burn our puzzles now. Evil spirits, be gone!

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Constructor:Alan DeLoriea

Relative difficulty:Medium (avg Monday)

THEME:POINT OF NO RETURN (60A: Punny description for 17-, 26- or 48-Across)— three themers are ... points of no return ... punnily ... I guess ...

Theme answers:

BERMUDA TRIANGLE (17A: Atlantic site of strange disappearances) (so ... boats and planes don't return from here ... sometimes ...)
FINAL SALE (26A: "As is" transaction) (here, you can't return whatever you bought...)
TENNIS ACE (48A: Excellent service) (and finally, you can't return your opponent's serve...)

Word of the Day:JoséREYES(47A: Four-time M.L.B. All-Star José) —

José Bernabé Reyes (born June 11, 1983) is a Dominican professional baseball infielder for the New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played, most notably at shortstop, for the Miami Marlins, Toronto Blue Jays and Colorado Rockies.
Reyes is a four-time MLB All-Star. He led MLB in triples in 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2011. Reyes also led the National League (NL) in stolen bases in 2005, 2006, and 2007. He was the NL batting champion in 2011. He is also the New York Mets' all-time leader in triples and stolen bases. (wikipedia)

• • •

I guess these fall under the broad definition of "pun(ny)," but they aren't particularly fun(ny), and don't have the really zany wordplay, or the groan-producing capacity, that I associate with real puns. Also, FINAL SALE and TENNIS ACE strike me as pretty weak answers, generally. So the theme feels pretty tepid. The grid is halfway decent for a Monday. I mean, DIALER is ridiculous, but most of the rest of it holds up, and though there's nothing wonderful here, there's a lot of very solid, varied, interesting answers. I think of "denim" as the fabric, and JEAN as ... I don't know what. Half a pair of pants? It's really only ever used adjectivally, predominantly before jacket, or, less appealingly, shorts (although those are just called JORTS now ... I think).

I had the most trouble with YO MAMA (the phrase "playground joke" really gave me very little idea of where the answer was heading) and ASIATIC (which is just a fancy way of saying "Asian"??). Otherwise, at 2:52, my time was dead-normal for a Monday. It's a place-filler puzzle, but I've certainly done worse. And hey, nice clue on NERDY.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: SALAD DAYS (58A: Youthful time in one's life ... which this puzzle might harken solvers back to?)— theme answers are actors whose last names are also salad types:

Theme answers:

SID CAESAR (20A: *"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" actor, 1963)
LEE J. COBB (24A: *"12 Angry Men" actor, 1957)
ORSON BEAN (36A: *"Anatomy of a Murder" actor, 1959)
TOM GREEN (53A: *"Road Trip" actor, 2000)

Word of the Day:NGAIO Marsh(18A: Mystery writer Marsh) —

Dame Ngaio MarshDBE (/ˈnaɪ.oʊ/; 23 April 1895 – 18 February 1982), born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. // Internationally Marsh is known primarily for her creation Inspector Roderick Alleyn, a gentleman detective who works for the Metropolitan Police (London). She is known as one of the "Queens of Crime" alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't dislike this theme, but I also don't fully get it. Like, why are they all actors? What does SALAD DAYShave to do with acting? Also, what does DAYS have to do with ... anything, where the theme answers are concerned. I see that the last names of the actors are all types of salads, but what how do the actors relate to SALAD DAYS, or "days" at all? Is it because they are all old (sorry, Tom Green)? And so when we see their names, we're like "ah, yesteryear!" I don't quite follow. Beyond that, it seemed fine. Had trouble with the first three letters of AW, GEEZ! (5D: "What a bummer!"). Was not alone (apparently NGAIO = not on everyone's cultural radar):

Misread 9D: Monastic realm as [Monarchic realm] and so needed every cross. Might've needed every cross anyway, because ABBACY? ... not a word that comes readily to mind. Or, to put it less kindly:

That whole NE corner is pretty rough, tbh. I mean: AEROBAT?? (11D: Stunt pilot)

A couple of not-terribly-iconic older names means a lot of opportunities for younger solvers to get totally stymied:

I have done enough crosswords not to be terribly troubled by any of the names. My trouble was CAWED for COOED (32A: Made bird noises), ESOS forESAS (54D: Those, to José), blanking on COMPORT (not a terribly common term) (42D: Behave), and stumbling on HOLY ARK (mostly because I just think of the ARK part—is the phrase HOLY ARK a rock solid thing? Why *wouldn't* the ark be holy? Seems like a given...) (46D: It stores a synagogue's Torah scrolls). In the end, I guess you can roll with the puzzle's humor ...

Or you can just diplomatically move on:

Happy snow day!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: pffft, do I really have to type this out?— Note: The five rows of circled squares reveal an unusual* feature of this puzzle.

*your definition of "unusual" may vary

CIRCLED SQUARES:

EVERY / STARRED ENTRY / IS IN / ALPHABETICAL / ORDER

THE AMAZING"UNUSUAL" MYSTERY ANSWERS:

CHIMPS
BEGINS
CHINTZ
ALMOST
ABHORS
BIJOUX

Word of the Day:VERN Yip(29D: HGTV personality ___ Yip) —

Vern Yip (born June 27, 1968, in Hong Kong) is an American interior designer based in Atlanta, Georgia. He periodically appeared on TLC's Trading Spaces through its fourth season, and was known for frequently including silk, candles and flowers in the rooms he designed. He is one of the panel of judges on HGTV's Design Star. Yip hosted four seasons of HGTV's show Deserving Design.^[3]^[4] Yip just hosted an HGTV special called Urban Oasis, in which he designed a Chicago loft in the Trump International Hotel, to be given away to a winner. (wikipedia)

• • •

I continue to be amazed that the NYT runs puzzles this joyless and tedious. So much constructing talent out there, but not nearly enough of it is coming to the NYT (any more). Where to begin here ... Let me get this straight: you start your puzzle (1-Across) with a [See blurb] (off to a roaring start!); then the blurb is actually not a "blurb" but a "Note" (Wife: "See blurb ... is the note the blurb? Why isn't it called "blurb"? FAIR QUESTION); then the "Note" tells you ... basically nothing—I mean, *presumably* the circled squares are important For Some Reason. But OK, "unusual feature," tell me more. Then the circled squares are just More Instructions (basically). And finally, what we're left with are ... six short answers that have this actually Completely Unremarkable and not-at-all "unusual" feature. Is anyone looking at ALMOST and going "Oooh, look at that the unusual feature of that word!" No. No. No. So, to recap: [See blurb] leads to instructions leads to more instructions leads to the saddest assortment of theme answers known to humankind. More (far more) real estate given over to Stupid Instructions than to the alleged "features" of interest. Only someone actively committed to joylessness could've produced this.

The fill is blah and old-skewing, but that hardly matters after the theme disaster. I would, however, like to say that BZZT is decidedly not a thing. Not cute, not clever, not a thing. I think Ben here had the right idea:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS I mean, come on. These "unusual" theme answers are straight out of some dumb Buzzfeed listicle (actually, most of them are, in fact, in this Buzzfeed listicle)

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Constructor:Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:REDACTED (66A: Used a black marker on ... or a hint to three chunks of black squares in this puzzle)— three 15-letter answers are each interrupted by three black squares, which you have to interpret as blacked-out (or "redacted") squares. In each case, the blacked-out squares are initials of agencies that might engage in redacting themselves:

Theme answers:

LOOSE-LEAF BINDER (19A: Student's note-taking aid)
DOLPHIN-SAFE TUNA (36A: Eco-friendly seafood designation)
ASSOCIATED PRESS (52A: Large wire)

Word of the Day:J. COLE(27D: Rapper with the 2013 #1 album "Born Sinner") —

Jermaine Lamarr Cole (born January 28, 1985), better known by his stage name J. Cole, is an American hip hop recording artist and record producer. Raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his debut mixtape, The Come Up, in early 2007. Intent on further pursuing a solo career as a rapper, he went on to release two additional mixtapes after signing to Jay Z's Roc Nation imprint in 2009. // Cole released his debut studio album, Cole World: The Sideline Story, in 2011. It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, and was soon certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).^[3] His next two releases, 2013's Born Sinner and 2014's 2014 Forest Hills Drive, received mostly positive reviews from critics,^[4]^[5]^[6] while being both certified platinum in the US. The latter earned him his first Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album. 2014 Forest Hills Drive was also the first rap album in over 25 years to gain platinum certification without any guest appearances or features. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is pretty cute. The revealer is what makes pop—it provides a nice visual, a nice explanation for what has happened to those letters (as I was solving, I was thinking I was headed for something like "UNDERCOVER" or the like). I once made a puzzle for the program of an off-Broadway play about Jack Ruby (true story) that had the FBI and the CIA hidden in it, but they were "hidden" in circles. I like the theme answers themselves too, just as answers in their own right. Well, OK, I don't *love* ASSOCIATED PRESS, but the other two are pretty original. I don't think a LOOSE-LEAF BINDER is a "note-taking aid," though. You don't take notes with a binder. You might keep your notes in one, although you're more likely to see spiral-bound or composition notebooks. Actually, you're increasingly likely to see some electronic device or other (though not in my classroom—sorry, kids). Loose-leaf binders are pretty chunky. Clue on ASSOCIATED PRESS is a little cheap, with its ambiguous and not-at-all in-the-language use of "wire" (i.e. you would call the AP a "large wire service"; you would not call it a "large wire"). But maybe the difficulty needed to be amped up some. In any case, this theme works fine.

["Private EYES"] (48A: Hawks have sharp ones)

Not too much trouble with the solve. REST____ could've been STOP, so I had to wait a bit there (18A: Place with picnic tables, often). Never can spell ROGEN's name right; went with ROGAN initially. Did a double-take at STRIAE but decided it was probably right and moved on. Had most trouble at DJED / J. COLE. It's a fair cross, in that "J" is really the only letter that works there for 26A: Played at a party, say, but it's always super-dicey to cross an initial in a proper noun that you *know* not everyone's going to have heard of (J. COLE is huge, but likely not so much with your crossword-solving crowd). The term NATICK (meaning an unfair crossing, usu. involving at least one non-iconic proper noun) came from crossing NATICK at the "N" with "N. C. WYETH," i.e. from crossing a not-exactly-famous-or-even-inferrable place name with an *initial*. But again, here, even though solvers may have to run the alphabet, that alphabet should (last I checked) lead you to "J." I don't think any other letter makes sense there. I should add that this section was made slightly harder by the highly ambiguous clue on SENSATION (46A: Hit).

Fill in this one is not strong (e.g. ITI III), but it's not weak either. Not a fount of fun, but not exactly an ODE TO SSNS, either. Somewhere in between. Kind of heavy on the improvised, silly-sounding adjectives (GLUEY! STATICKY! SILTY!) but I found those more colorful than irksome.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: IN AN "E" (49D: Foolish ... or, when read as three words, how this puzzle's other four "foolish" answers are arranged)— three other answers are each clued [Foolish]; they form a large "E" in the middle of the grid

S I L L Y
E
N
S
E M P T Y
L
E
S
S A P P Y

Word of the Day:Thomas KEAN(54A: Thomas who headed the 9/11 Commission) —

Thomas Howard "Tom" Kean Sr. (/ˈkeɪn/; born April 21, 1935) is an American Republican Party politician, who served as the 48th Governor of New Jersey from 1982 to 1990. Kean is best known globally, however, for his 2002 appointment as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the 9/11 Commission, which was responsible for investigating the causes of the September 11, 2001 attacks and providing recommendations to prevent future terrorist attacks. He was appointed to this post by U.S. President George W. Bush. Upon the completion of his second term as governor, he served as the president of Drew University for 15 years, until his retirement in 2005. (wikipedia)

• • •

It has its charm, but I really wish it had run on a Thursday. Not really a fan of these half-themes, these coy themes, these "can I be a themeless and a themed puzzle too, please?" themes. In-betweeners. This one feels too thin for a themed puzzle and not wide-open and daring enough to be a themeless. Gets caught in a kind of no man's land. And yet I admire the "E" trick, if only because it somehow works—that is a perfect "E," and the [Foolish] clue works well enough for all of those answers. It's like a mini-theme stuck in between two slices of themeless bread (specifically, the two pairs of 15s in the E and the W). Somehow the 15s all seem both original and boring. Not sure why that is. At least ATTENDANCE SHEET got a somewhat clever clue (2D: Skipping record?).

[man, that 8-note piano loop is, in fact, INANE]

Never heard of Fort MCALLISTER (37A: Fort ___ (Civil War landmark near Savannah)) or Thomas KEAN (54A: Thomas who headed the 9/11 Commission) or GLEN Rock, N.J. (60A: ___ Rock, N.J.), which meant that at times I really felt like I was struggling. But I came in under 6, which is on the fast side for me, for a Friday ... but then this isn't really a *Friday*, as we've established, so I don't know how to rate its difficulty accurately ... except to say it took me 5-something minutes. That's fastish for both Thursday and Friday. Beyond the proper noun problems, I had trouble coming up with "HELL-O!" (needed almost every cross) (1D: When its second syllable is drawn out, "Are you out of your mind?!"), as well as the SLY part of ON THE SLY (wanted D.L. or Q.T., which obviously didn't fit) (23A: Sub rosa). No other high- or lowlights. Gonna go back to watching my NCAA brackets getting blown up. Pretty boring day so far. Mostly chalk. (*This* meaning of chalk, which I don't think I've ever seen as a CHALK clue ... but then, how often do you see CHALK in the grid?)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day, from snowy Binghamton...

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Constructor:Roland Huget

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day:Antonio ROSETTI(36D: Mozart contemporary Antonio ___) —

Francesco Antonio Rosetti (c. 1750 – June 30, 1792, born Franz Anton Rösler, changed to Italianate form by 1773) was a classical era composer and double bass player, and was a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart.[...] Rosetti wrote a great deal of instrumental music, including many symphonies and concertos. Rosetti also composed a significant number of vocal and choral works, particularly in the last few years of his life. Among these are German oratorios including Der sterbende Jesu and Jesus in Gethsemane (1790) and a German Hallelujah.^[3] He is perhaps best known today for his horn concertos, which Mozart scholar H. C. Robbins Landon suggests (in The Mozart Companion) may have been a model for Mozart's four horn concerti. Rosetti is also known for writing the Requiem (1776) which was played at a memorial for Mozart in December 1791. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hmmm, not great. Simply not entertaining, and way too dependent on proper nouns of dubious distinction (many of which cross, which will spell "disaster" for many solvers). [1991 Daytona 500 winner Ernie]?!? That is the epitome of name obscurity. I had IRVAN (correct!) and was certain I had something wrong. And crossing TRIBS? That's just terrible. TRIBS is not not not a thing. I'm solving the puzzle here with three other people in the room and TRIBS elicited nothing but jeers and groans from everyone. Wife had never heard of Bret HARTE and so had DARTE / DAZE. I'm guessing she won't be alone. I briefly had DAMIEN / MOSETTI because I misremembered the minor CT town name. Also, ROSETTI seems not at all important, historically.

I teach Comics so E.C. SEGAR was a gimme (8A: Creator of Bluto and Wimpy), but that is going to be serious N.C. WYETH / NATICK territory for people when it comes to the "E" cross. An initial crossing ... a single letter ("E" CLASS)? Brutal.

There are just too many occasions her for people to trip over uninferrable proper nouns. I guess OUSE / ROSETTI might be another. The bigger problem—bigger than obscurity—is sheer boringness. It's a trivia test, and the only entertaining thing about it, that I can see, is the clue on JIVE TALK (33D: Cat's tongue). Most everything else was a slog and a chore.

EX ANIMO ... I coulda sworn it was ANIMA (15A: From the heart, in Latin). I fixed it early, but that was rough. I know who ALDO RAY is, but only barely. Thank god for AXL ROSE, who was the sole reason I was able to take down the NW without much trouble. What the heck is "Death and the MISER"? I had -ISER and still wasn't sure. Nothing about that clue even *suggests* MISER (45A: "Death and the ___" (Bosch painting in the National Gallery of Art)). Between me and the others in this room, we had at least three different kind of FISH before we got ZEBRA FISH. I had TETRA. Brayden and Lena (my houseguests) had both ANGEL and CLOWN. That's not the puzzle's fault—just a fluke (!) that so many answers seemed plausible. Still, there *is* much to fault here. Honestly, I don't know what else to say. There's nowhere good to go from here. I look one way: E-NOTE. I look another way: PAN IN (49A: Prepare for a close-up), which is not a thing—you zoom in, you pan across. Here, I'll let this screenwriter / director explain it to you:

I get that ROSETTI was a kind of trap, in that many many many people will want SALIERI there. But the thing about traps is that you have to have that moment of "oh, wait it's not right" (check) but also "oh, whoa, it's this other thing I know" (no dice). So today, people get the experience of having been tricked, but (because no one knows ROSETTI) never ever get the experience of "aha!" Which makes the puzzle seem dickish. Which isn't fun.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Grant Thackray

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:"111-Across!"— 111A: Warning for solvers of this puzzle (SPOILER ALERT!)—theme answers are plot twists in famous movies, revealed via crossreferenced clues:

Theme answers:

SOYLENT GREEN (22A: It's actually made of PEOPLE)
LUKE'S FATHER (30A: Who VADER was all along)
PLANET OF THE APES (45A: It turns out to be EARTH)
ROSEBUD (66A: It really is a SLED)
KILLS DUMBLEDORE (83A: What SNAPE does, shockingly)
NORMAN BATES (100A: To whom the title "PSYCHO" refers)

Word of the Day:HOYDEN(2D: Tomboy) —

a girl or woman of saucy, boisterous, or carefree behavior (m-w)

• • •

Hey there. My friends Lena and Brayden are in town to record another "On the Grid" crossword podcast, and we spent all day at the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition, so ... I'm pretty beat *and* I have podcast work to do. Thus, this write-up will be shortish. I do want to tell you all, however, that the tourney in Ithaca was a ton of fun: I met lots of readers (and the children of readers, and the friends of children of readers...) and got to give a little talk about solving under tournament conditions and I ran into my friend (and co-organizer of the Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament) Brian Cimmet *but* ... the best thing by far about the tourney was finding out that one of the solving teams had given themselves the team name "Annabel Thompson Fans"! [note: Annabel Thompson has been doing the first-Monday-of-the-month write-up for me for a couple years now, in case you somehow didn't know]. During my talk, I made the group identify themselves, and they were three college students who were somewhat embarrassed at being pointed out, but who were lovely people and sincere fans of Annabel and also *excellent* solvers—their team won 1st place in the Easy team division. Here they are:

This team also ended up winning a ping-pong ball signed by Will Shortz ... long story. More coverage of the Finger Lakes tourney tomorrow—and much more coverage in our upcoming "On the Grid" podcast (Episode 003). But now to this puzzle...

["... from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z!"]

As a matter of purely personal taste, I *hate* crosswords that are laden with cross-references. My general feeling when told by a crossword clue to [See 88-Across] (or the like) is "No. I will not see that. I refuse." I tend to just plow on and get such answers from crosses. When the theme is sooooo cross-reference dependent, however, you can't really do that. So my feelings toward this weren't great from the jump—too much "see this""see that." But then I got to solving and ... there's something decent here, theme-wise. I don't associate all these movie twists with "spoilers," as so many of them are well known / iconic. But SPOILER ALERT is a good revealer and most of the time, the cross-referenced shorter answer (the Down) is indeed the spoiler.

["Hey! / Remember when / You took me to the movies / To see "SOYLENT GREEN"!]

The one answer that really throws everything off quite a bit is KILLS DUMBLEDORE. First ... awkward verb-phrase answer. Second ... well, verb-phrase period. That is, none of the other themers are connected by verbs. There are implied linking verbs, e.g. SOYLENT GREEN (is) PEOPLE, LUKE'S FATHER (is) VADER (or vice versa, I guess). If it had been, say, DUMBLEDORE'S KILLER or THE DEATH OF DUMBLEDORE and then SNAPE in the cross-reference, it would've been more consistent with the other answers. Above all, though, I don't think of that plot point as a spoiler. You wonder for the whole movie what ROSEBUD is, and then bam! SLED! You think you're on some weird planet for the whole movie and then bam! EARTH! But SNAPE ... just KILLS DUMBLEDORE. There's a lot of wondering "is SNAPE good or bad?" in those books, but his killing Dumbledore doesn't feel like it rises to *spoiler* the way all the other answers do. We don't spend the whole series wondering who killed DUMBLEDORE. It's not a mystery; it's a plot point. The "PSYCHO" one is also a little weak, in that you learn that NORMAN BATES is his *mother* (or has been dressing up like her and murdering people). *That's* the whoa! No one watching is thinking "I wonder who the PSYCHO is." I don't think that term is used anywhere in the film.

[the 1998 remake of "PSYCHO" was pointless, but this song ... amazing]

I had major trouble right underneath KILLS DUMBLEDORE. HELIACAL is nutso and DAD (as a treehouse-builder) was totally unguessable to me, and I think of limn as something having to do with outlines and shadows, not LAKEs, so that was rough rough rough for me. Everything else played pretty normal.

Gotta run. Talk to you tomorrow.

[Taping "On the Grid" at the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition—L to R: Brian Cimmet, me, tournament puzzle constructor Adam Perl, Lena Webb; also pictured, our YETI microphone w/ jaunty new blue hat] [Note: the gentleman in the background watching us (whose name I have shamefully forgotten) won the individual Challenging division and is headed to his first-ever ACPT next week]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. [State quarters?] = DORM because "State" is short for [any] State University. "I go to State."

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Neil deGrasse Tyson and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium (on the easy side for a Monday, slightly)

THEME:astronowordplay— familiar astronomical terms clued as if they were not astronomical terms, i.e. clued wackily, i.e. "?"-style:

Theme answers:

LITTLE DIPPER (20A: Toe testing the waters?)
GAS GIANT (24A: ExxonMobil?)
STAR CLUSTER (37A: Oscar nominees' gathering?)
RED DWARF (52A: Bashful?)
HEAVENLY BODY (57A: Total hottie?)

Word of the Day:RED DWARF—

A red dwarf is a small and relatively cool star on the main sequence, of either K or M spectral type. Red dwarfs range in mass from a low of 0.075 to about 0.50 solar mass and have a surface temperature of less than 4,000 K. // Red dwarfs are by far the most common type of star in the Milky Way, at least in the neighborhood of the Sun, but because of their low luminosity, individual red dwarfs cannot be easily observed. From Earth, not one is visible to the naked eye. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, is a red dwarf (Type M5, apparent magnitude 11.05), as are fifty of the sixty nearest stars. According to some estimates, red dwarfs make up three-quarters of the stars in the Milky Way. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a solid Monday puzzle—simple concept, nicely executed. True, you can do it with any field with a specialized language: politics, baseball, spelunking (I mean ... probably). But so what? If you can find a set of (symmetrical!) terms that can be plausibly wackily reclued, more power to you. Bring on the wacky spelunking puzzles! As I was solving this, I was expecting to come in in slower-than-normal time because of the nature of the theme: "?"-clue themes add a layer (however small) of difficulty to themers. And I certainly didn't nail LITTLE DIPPER right off the bat; even with LITTLE in place, I wasn't sure what was going on, and ended up spilling down into the middle part of the grid and then circling back up to get DIPPER. But despite the tricksiness of the themers and the awkward solving path, I finished in 2:46, which is actually a good 10 seconds or so *under* my Monday average. The non-theme answers were *very* straightforward, and much of the fill was quite short, which tends to make a grid easy to blow through. It's a black-square-heavy grid, too (44 squares), so there were simply fewer squares to fill in than normal. Overall, a breezy, pleasing experience. Classic Monday fare.

My only issue with the theme involved the last answer: HEAVENLY BODY. It's too general, I think. All the others are very specific phenomenon, and then you get this general term for ... what? *Any* planet or star or other celestial body? Not the greatest way to end the theme answer sequence. Also, the clue was kind of icky in its slangy ogliness (57A: Total hottie?). To give you a sense of how cheesy the clue struck me, here: please watch this trailer for the 1985 movie "Heavenly Bodies." All will be clear.

Today's constructors, Dr. Tyson and Ms. Michaels, went to college together back in the day (HAH-vard, I believe, circa the 20th century). My knowing Andrea and Andrea's knowing Neil led to one of the greatest moments of my science-loving daughter's young life 5 years ago, when she got to meet Dr. Tyson following a lecture he gave in Binghamton. Hard to overestimate how important "NOVA ScienceNow" was to her early education. She brought her autographed copy of "The Pluto Files" in to show her 6th-grade science teacher the next day and kind of blew his mind.

[April, 2012—my daughter is the one on the left]

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:George Barany and John D. Child

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (felt easy enough, but my time was on the high side)

THEME:TASTE (54D: It's often unaccounted for ... or a hint to this puzzle's circled letters)— circled letters spell out each of the five basic tastes detectable by the human tongue

Theme answers:

STATUE OF LIBERTY (SALTY)
DESKTOP COMPUTER (SOUR)
CABINET MINISTER (BITTER)
SLIPPERY WHEN WET (SWEET)
PURE MATHETMATICS (UMAMI)*

*apparently when the puzzle came out online last night, the circled squares in the last themer spelled out not UMAMI but UMMAI

Word of the Day:ITT(12D: Onetime telecommunications conglomerate, for short) —

ITT Corporation (ITT) is an American worldwide manufacturing company based in White Plains, New York, producing specialty components for the aerospace, transportation, energy and industrial markets. // The company was founded in 1920 as International Telephone & Telegraph. During the 1960s and 1970s, under the leadership of CEO Harold Geneen, the company rose to prominence as the archetypal conglomerate, deriving its growth from hundreds of acquisitions in diversified industries. ITT divested its telecommunications assets in 1986, and in 1995 spun off its non-manufacturing divisions, later to be purchased by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. // In 1996, the current company was founded as a spinoff of ITT as ITT Industries, Inc. and changed its name to ITT Corporation in 2006. // In 2011, ITT spun off its defense businesses into a company named Exelis, and its water technology business into a company named Xylem Inc. (wikipedia)

• • •

Puzzle has one thing going for it, and that is five solid 15s as themers. Beyond that, though, there's not much here to enjoy. Nonconsecutive squares spelling things out is the opposite of delightful, 100% of the time (plus or minus a percent). There's nothing particularly clever or amazing about answers that have words "hidden" in them in this way. The themers have nothing to do with the theme itself, so it plays like a very easy themeless. Further, the revealer just lies there. There is no twist, no word play, no nothing that makes this theme snap into place. The tastes *are*, in fact, accounted for, as they are clearly marked by the circled squares. If you're going to go the "no accounting for..." angle, then that should have something to do with how the theme expresses itself. That doesn't happen here.

["I got kicked off Noah's Ark. / I turn my cheek to unkind remarks. / There was TWO (61D: Noah count?) of everything, / But one of meeeeeeeeee..."]

The grid is super choppy and segmented, which means it's overwhelmed by short (3- to 5-letter) stuff, which means a lot of stale fill. That said, stale does not mean particularly terrible. It's crossword-normal; it's just unalleviated by longer, more interesting fill. The one unusual answer it does have ("I'M MEAN!") is completely preposterous (19D: Bully's boast). In what universe does a bully boast "I'M MEAN!"? Seriously. I can't imagine *any* plausible context in which a bully might boast that, and here we're asked to believe it's somehow iconic—a common thing associated with the verbal repertoire of bullies. Ridiculous. It's very, very clear that the constructors had real problems managing their themers there. They designed the grid in such a way that "I'M MEAN!" has to cut through *three* themers—that means this was one of the *first* answers they put in the grid (you gotta lock down those multiple theme crosses before you proceed, because very often there simply aren't very many answers that work). Not sure why they greenlighted "I'M MEAN!" I'd've moved my themers around like crazy to find different letter pattern options before I went with a phrase that for all intents and purposes doesn't actually exist.

[Washington Post Sunday crossword writer/editor, on "I'M MEAN!"]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Jeffrey Wechsler

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (theme easy, fill ... ?)

THEME:"literal" depictions of TRI- QUAD- and PENTA- words

Theme answers:

CYCLECYCLECYCLE (3x cycle = tricycle)
RANTRANTRANTRANT (4x rant = quadrant)
GONGONGONGONGON (5x gon =pentagon)

Word of the Day:CUTCO(4D: Big brand of kitchen knives) —

Cutco Corporation, formerly Alcas Corporation, is a multi-level marketing company that sells knives. It is the parent company of CUTCO Cutlery Corp., Vector Marketing, KA-BAR Knives and Schilling Forge. Its primary brand is the name Cutco. // The company was founded in 1949 by Alcoa and Case Cutlery (hence "Al-cas") to manufacture knives. The management purchased the company from Alcoa in 1982, and the company acquired Vector Marketing Corporation in 1985. (wikipedia)

• • •

Joyless. Almost literally painful. The theme concept is not clever—I've seen it before. Also, it was transparent. So, nothing fun in figuring out the themers (note that the grid has been made larger to accommodate the central 16-letter answer). So all there is here really is the fill—and extra fill because of the wide grid. And there was not one place on this grid where I was enjoying myself. It's as if the puzzle knew its theme was thin-to-nonexistent, and so it tried to make the clues harder to compensate, but since the fill itself was mostly tiresome, the "hard" (often just awkward) clues just made the whole experience a chore. The offness and vagueness of the clues was what made the solve so unpleasant. [Cold War threat] for RED CHINA, for instance. A. that's incredibly vague, B. that sounds like a slang term and I see no slang indication in the clue, C. I don't remember this being a "threat." Soooo many more "threats" more closely associated with the Cold War. Further, what is CUTCO? I can tell you it's never been in the NYT before. So ... introduce a marginal knife brand on a Wednesday? Sigh. You should be able to handle your not-hard-to-fill grid better than that.

Hardest part for me was OUT HERE (!??!) (36A: Present location, when visiting the boondocks). Seems much more likely that a *resident* of the "boondocks" would use that phrase when explaining something about the "boondocks" to a condescending asshole visitor she heard using the term "boondocks.""OUT HERE, we value politeness, jerkface." I had NOWHERE in there for a while. Stupid "British" clue on RUMP (28A: ___ steak (British term for a sirloin cut)) meant I could do nothing with RU__ (I know "RUMP steak," but had No idea it was "British"—and there are so many non-British ways to clue RUMP, ugh), so that middle got bogged down. Mainly this thing was just a drag. Just an avalanche of stale fill, AVER SETTO ANO ALI REA ITRY OVA ESL UNIS APACE ADO etc.

Finally, I think there is a really bad editing error at the 10A/10D crossing (10A: Figure of the underground economy? (MINER) / 10D: Brief period in nuclear physics: Abbr. (MSEC). If I get a "brief period" in a science clue, that answer is going to be NSEC. Always. I accept that there are other SECs, but you're gonna have to prove it to me in the crosses. Only here ... NINER works perfectly (esp. in a "?" clue). I figured a NINER was slang for a Forty-Niner (because, in football, *it is*). And the Forty-Niners were ... miners, so ... NSEC / NINER. I do not accept that that's wrong. So the editing here is ugh. Just ugh. Not as bad as the horrible editing involved in the E-CLASS / E.C. SEGAR crossing a few days ago, but bad. Bad. Negligent.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Heady stuff / FRI 3-3-17 / Mortal sister of the immortal Stheno and Euryale / Jumpsuit-wearing music group / Champagne grape / "Jaws" locale / "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" / "Only little people pay taxes" / Dachshund, colloquially

Noted Civil War signature / SAT 3-4-17 / Longtime Cotton Bowl home informally / Website offering mentally stimulating diversions / Manuel German soccer star called sweeper keeper / Mercer originator of palindrome

Seaman's chapel / SUN 3-5-17 / Sea serpent of old cartoons / Yogurt-based Indian drink / Modern acronym for Seize day / KPMG hiree / Rider of horse tornado / Chocolate banana liqueur cocktail

Awards in the ad biz / MON 3-6-17 / Panache / __ Harbour, Fla. / Inlets / Lee who directed "Life of Pi"

Millionths of meter / TUE 3-7-17 / Foreign Legion hat / Agave fiber used in rugs / Chess champ Mikhail / Historical figure played by David Bowie in Prestige / Famously unfinished 14th century literary work

Celebrity chef Matsuhisa / WED 3-8-17 / Sin City forensic drama / Roman counterpart to Helios

Naturally in Britspeak / THU 3-9-17 / Challenge in demanding job / Office-friendly to Youtubers / R&B artist with 2004 hit 1, 2 Step

Theorbos eg / FRI 3-10-17 / Covent Garden architect Jones / Shia who's not muslim / Pioneer in heliocentric theory / Euro forerunner

Sci-fi natives of planet Kashyyyk / SAT 3-11-17 / Genre akin to indie rock / Piece of glib journalism often written under tight deadline / Repeated lyric in Who's Tommy / Wave function denotre in quantum mechanics

1943 conference site / SUN 3-12-17 / Turnaround too tempting to pass up / French ice cream flavorer / Popular landscaping plants

Azalea of rap / MON 3-13-17 / Fashion house founded in Milan / Start of playground joke / punny description / Four-time MLB All-Star Jose

Monastic realm / TUE 3-14-17 / Mystery writer Marsh / Anatomy of Murder actor 1959 / online money transfer facilitator / Journalist Nellie / Gesture to punctuate great performance / Asian gambling mecca / Rice-based Spanish dish

Newswoman Bakhtiar / WED 3-15-17 / HGTV personality Yip / Long-snouted fish / Elegantly designed trinkets / Angsty music genre / Lowland poetically

Counterpart of JavaScript / THU 3-16-17 / Pipe with tube / Eco-frienly seafood designation / Bacchus Ariadne painter circa 1523

Robe-wearing trainer of cinema / FRI 3-17-17 / Command for turning sharply right / Supermarket chain until 2015 / Recreational soccer to Brits / Fort Civil War landmark near Savannah / Thomas who headed 9/11 commission

1991 Daytona 500 winner Ernie / SAT 3-18-17 / Longtime Cunard flagship for short / Aquarium denizen / Polymer add-on

Metal band around pencil eraser / SUN 3-19-17 / Interest for limnologist / Basil who designed England's Coventry Cathedral / Computer controlled players in gaming lingo / Plant that's source of caffeine-free tea / Major John Benedict Arnold's co-conspirator / Brightest star in Aquila

New Mexican pueblo dwellers / MON 3-20-17 / Computer program glitch / Jurassic Park insect casing

Dude Jamaica style / TUE 3-21-17 / Onetimei telecommunications conglomerate for short / Native of southern India or norther Sri Lanka /

Early historian of ancient Rome / WED 3-22-17 / Fresh air's opposite / Kid's transport literally / Present location when visiting boondocks / Figure of underground economy / like n r phonetics / brief period in nuclear physics / big brand of kitchen knives