Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor:Sandy Ganzell

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:straitened circumstances— three Down columns are less wide than the others; words meaning "the opposite of wide" must precede all the answers in those columns in order for them to make sense (i.e. you have to mentally supply the initial word)

Theme answers:

[Thin] MINTS (14D: Girl Scout cookie offering)
[Slim] CHANCE (42D: What a long shot has) (ironically, "Fat" also works as the initial word here)
[Lean] CUISINE (22D: Brand for weight-watchers)
[Narrow] ESCAPE (16D: Barely successful avoidance of calamity)
[Skinny] JEANS (49D: Form-fitting casual wear)

Word of the Day:CARIOLE(17A: One-horse carriage) —

noun
noun: cariole
1.
historical
a small open horse-drawn carriage for one person.
a light covered cart.
2.
(in Canada) a kind of sled pulled by a horse or dogs and with space for one or more passengers. (google)

• • •

It's annoying when I have to read a "Note" to understand the theme because AcrossLite can't display it (apparently the "app" can't either), but tech problems aside, I think this is a wonderful little theme. Really uses *all* the viable synonyms for "the opposite of wide. I want to say the theme is thin ... because it is ... I mean it is, and it is ... sparse, I mean. You know what I mean—there aren't many theme squares. That kind of thin. Just 29 squares involved. Even a lightly themed puzzle will have a minimum of 40 or so. And yet this one feels complete as is. Seems possible that one could have added some THIN-related elements somewhere else in the grid, but it seems just as likely that that would've bogged the grid down and resulted in less clean fill. As it is, this grid is mostly very cleanly filled. CARIOLE, though (ugggggh) nearly destroyed me (17A: One-horse carriage). How on god's green am I supposed to keep all the carriage terminology straight, crossword gods! We've been on to the automobile for a century now, come on. Brougham, landau, phaeton, surrey, stanhope, sulky, fiacre ... I've seen most if not all of those in crosswords before. Well, landau for sure. Maybe I dreamed the others. My point is that CARIOLE was one where I needed every cross and because it crossed a quotation word (TACT) and a vaguely clued clothing item (SARI), and *those* crossed a [random TV station], I was staring down the barrel of Fail for a bit. Had CAMI for 3D: Article of apparel that often leaves one arm bare, and that gave me _BC for 1A: Cable channel owned by Time Warner, which seemed *very* plausible. Ended up figuring out that it had to be TACT at 1D, which gave me TBS, and then SARI. But none of that trouble would've been real trouble without nutso time-traveling archaic CARIOLE. Blargh.

["Should I bring the brougham around, Dad?""No! CARIOLE, my wayward son!"]

But as I say, nothing else rankled in the slightest. This appears to be a debut from this constructor, and it's a promising one. I like this better than the entire oeuvre of at least a couple oft-published NYT regulars. I mean, that bar's not terribly high, because those guys' puzzles are super-ugh, but still—nice to have a solid hit your first time out. Oh, wait. COSM is terrible. Very terrible. My general good feeling, though, is undiminished.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Michael Hawkins and John Guzzetta

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day:Hammond INNES(61A: Novelist Hammond ___) —

Ralph Hammond Innes (15 July 1913 – 10 June 1998) was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books. He was married to fellow author and actress Dorothy Mary Lang in 1937 who died before him, in 1989. He was awarded a C.B.E. (Commander, Order of the British Empire) in 1978. [...] The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. In WWII he served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During the war, a number of his books were published, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack Alarm (1941), the last of which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain at RAF Kenley. After being demobilized in 1946, he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. His novels are notable for a fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of places, such as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after its closure and RAF Wunstorf during the Berlin Airlift. // Innes went on to produce books in a regular sequence, with six months of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His output decreased in the 1960s, but was still substantial. He became interested in ecological themes. He continued writing until just before his death. His last novel was Delta Connection (1996).

• • •

Hey, solver solver. I have to be brief this morning because of early appointments, so I'll just say yes, I liked this. I've seen both constructor names before, but neither has left a very strong impression (ETCH!), so I had to go back to check out their earlier work, just to remind myself. I think it's fair to say that this is my favorite work from either of them. Solid grid, not much weak fill, and question-mark clues (which can be grating when off) really land. Often I just want to slap those punny little things ("Ooh, look at me, I'm a question-mark clue, aren't I just so coy and naughty?" [slap]). But if they land, then OK, question-mark clues, we're good. OK [Metal finish?] for WARE isn't much, but [Indications of one's qualifications?] for ASTERISKS is head-scratchingly wonderful (needed tons of crosses), as is [What'll give someone a bleeping chance?] for TAPE DELAY (same). For the latter, it came down to that last letter—my brain wanted it to be TAPED LAG (?). And then [Clip art?] for BONSAI? That's just good. Common phrase, completely (and validly) repurposed by the "?". This is definitely a puzzle where the fill, while good, isn't where the main entertainment value lies. Clue writing is crucial, and I'm told (... glares through the computer at someone ...) I don't talk about it enough. So I'm talking about it!

Daryl ISSA is gross, but his name is so crossword-friendly that I'll overrule my own objection and allow it (24D: California congressman Darrell). HEY, BATTER BATTER is glorious because it is baseball, and baseball is right around the corner, and I need something more than just TCM to take my mind off The World. The names might throw people a bit today, in that they all seem a bit old / obscure. I remembered there was a Judith besides Light somehow (IVEY), but I had no idea who this ROY was (5D: Jazz trumpeter Hargrove with two Grammys) (he's really good!), and while I know Sam RAIMI (I swear I just saw something about "Evil Dead" floating around Twitter in the last couple days), Hammond INNES seems like specialized knowledge. He was a mid-century thriller writer, and I know his name only because I have a massive vintage paperback collection in which his books appear a number of times. RAIMI over INNES might rough some people up, I don't know. Otherwise, while I thought the cluing kind of tricky, this played like a Friday. And look at that, it *is* Friday.

Good luck to all competing in this weekend's ACPT. I won't be there :( but I think I'm gonna "play from home," so ... we'll see how that goes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Sam Ezersky and David Steinberg

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day:COHAN(51D: Subject of the 1942 film musical "Yankee Doodle Dandy") —

George Michael Cohan (July 3, 1878 – November 5, 1942), known professionally as George M. Cohan, was an American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and producer. // Cohan began his career as a child, performing with his parents and sister in a vaudeville act known as "The Four Cohans." Beginning with Little Johnny Jones in 1904, he wrote, composed, produced, and appeared in more than three dozen Broadway musicals. Cohan published more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including the standards "Over There", "Give My Regards to Broadway", "The Yankee Doodle Boy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag". As a composer, he was one of the early members of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He displayed remarkable theatrical longevity, appearing in films until the 1930s, and continuing to perform as a headline artist until 1940. // Known in the decade before World War I as "the man who owned Broadway", he is considered the father of American musical comedy. His life and music were depicted in the Academy Award-winning film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and the 1968 musical George M!. A statue of Cohan in Times Square in New York City commemorates his contributions to American musical theatre. (wikipedia)

• • •

I had FATHOMS for FETCHES (3D: Gets), and then didn't know two proper nouns that were placed like sentries right at the western entryways to the SE corner (COHAN, ENID). Other than that, there was literally nothing in this puzzle that presented a problem, nothing that took more than a little bit of puzzling, a little bit of cross-working. This was a very nook-and-crannyed 72-worder, so getting footholds was never ever a problem. The whole thing is footholds. Once again, a 1-Across gimme signaled smooth sailing ahead. I filled in "LIFE OF PABLO" without hesitation—it was one of the most talked-about albums of last year (1A: 2016 #1 Kanye West album, with "The"). There was this whole controversy involving some lyrics about Taylor Swift (to which she publicly took offense), and whether Swift did or did not know about them, and even OK them, ahead of time. I know you all are pop junkies ... read about it here and here if you like. Anyway, regardless of the Swift nonsense, the album was critically successful and I knew it. From there, I put down *seven* Downs in the NW corner, six of which were right (just that aforementioned FATHOMS error...). Grid opened right up.

Somewhat weird that I blanked on COHAN—I could see Cagney in my head very clearly, but I just couldn't for the life of me remember who he was playing. I don't remember who ENID is waiting for (47A: Literary waiter). Geraint? I think it's the Arthurian ENID, but I didn't know she was famous for waiting. That clue was hard. YEA (54A: ___ big) and GILT (30A: Finished elegantly) both slowed me down a bit, but whatever time they cost me was more than made up for when I no-looked *all* the short Acrosses in the NE corner. Just threw all the Downs up—and they all worked. With the exception of SEEPY :( I really liked this grid. Cluing was just OK—more trivia-ish, less clever than yesterday's—but it was good enough. Not sure I woulda gone with the cutesy "?" clue on an abortion-related answer (33A: Classic case of making life choices?). Struck me as slightly yucky and tone deaf. Plus you've got LIFE in the grid (1A) and in another clue besides (16A: Time of one's life, maybe), so maybe ... do something different here. But the ROE V. WADE clue is a minor ding on an otherwise appealing puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Tracy Gray and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:"Mixed Results"— colors replaced by crossing colors (in circled letters) that, when combined, create the original color:

Theme answers:

WHITE PANTHER SHOW / RED CADILLAC
BAD, BAD LEROY RED / HASH GREENS
RED PEOPLE EATER / BLUE HEARTS
"A CLOCKWORK YELLOW" / MANDARIN RED

Word of the Day:KOHLRABI(8D: Cabbage variety) —

Kohlrabi (German turnip or turnip cabbage; Brassica oleracea Gongylodes Group) is an Biennial vegetable, and is a low, stout cultivar of cabbage. Kohlrabi can be eaten raw as well as cooked. Edible preparations are made with both the stem and the leaves. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was oddly joyless. Not terrible, but without any moments of genuine pleasure, either in the fill or in the clues. Concept is blah, and oddly executed—YELLOW + BLUE = GREEN is a far far far far far (etc.) more iconic color equation than the utterly-new-to-me RED + GREEN = BROWN (???). And then there are really only four colors, and once you know the color gimmick, the themers are way too easy to pick up. Plus the fill has few highlights and the clues just sit there. Nothing clever or interesting. RAZOR WIT has a kind of charm, but otherwise, there's nothing much here of interest.

1A: Martin Van Buren was the first president who wasn't one (WASP) completely killed the puzzle for me, right off the bat. What a no-good, terrible, confusing, stupid clue for a perfectly good insect. Does WASP mean "white Anglo-Saxon Protestant" here? If so ... WTF? No one used that term in the 19th century, so ... I mean, "inapt" doesn't even begin to cut it. I can only guess that this is the information at play in the non-WASP designation here:

Martin Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782, in the village of Kinderhook, New York about 20 miles (32 km) south of Albany on the Hudson River. Van Buren was the first President not born a British subject, or even of British ancestry. He was a descendant of Cornelis Maessen of the village of Buurmalsen, near the town of Buren in the Netherlands, who had come to North America in 1631 and purchased a plot of land on Manhattan Island; his son Martin Cornelisen took the surname Van Buren. (wikipedia)

Who the hell knows or cares about this? No, wait, forget who knows or cares—even if you knew and cared, in what universe do you take your knowing and caring and turn it into a clue for, of all things, WASP, which is a pretty generic, and in my experience, at least mildly pejorative, term? Baffling. That was at 1-Across ... and the sourness never went away. A good puzzle might've made me forget that WASP nonsense, but this puzzle did not make me forget. Instead it gave me SATNAV crossing KEV and TANK UP instead of PACK UP (5A: Get ready for a long drive)—in short, a handful of nuisance moments strewn about a field of blandness. Is this the second ABBACY of the month? That can't be a good sign. Better luck next time; this thing clunked.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (slowish for Monday, though maybe that's 'cause the grid is extra-wide today)

THEME: STAKE OUT (39A: Police operation ... or, when read another way, what a grammarian would like to do to 18-, 24-, 52- and 65-Across)— ungrammatical expressions involving extra esses...

Theme answers:

ALL'S I KNOW... (18A: "The one thing that's clear to me ...")
A LONG WAYS OFF (24A: Distant)
AND THEN I SAYS ... (52A: Narrative conncector) [that is One Hell of a vague clue]
HOW'S ABOUT ...? (65A: "What do you think of ...?")

Word of the Day:TROIKA(30D: Group of three) —

noun
noun: troika; plural noun: troikas
1.
a Russian vehicle pulled by a team of three horses abreast.
a team of three horses for a troika.
2.
a group of three people working together, especially in an administrative or managerial capacity. (google)

• • •

Can't tell if this was slightly harder than the average Monday, or just took slightly longer because of the extra-wide (16) grid. All's I know is I was about 15-20 seconds slower than normal (significant on a Monday). At first, I wasn't sure why the 16-square width was necessary, but if you're gonna put an even-number-lettered revealer in the center, then yeah, your grid has to be an even number of squares wide. I didn't think the revealer worked very well as clued; that is, "a grammarian would like to 'S' take out" sounds totally ridiculous, but that's the formulation the clue specifically asks for. S TAKE-OUT is better as a noun—something a grammarian would like to perform on the relevant theme entries. Clued as a verb phrase, it's nonsense. Further, A LONG WAYS OFF seems like an outlier here in at least a couple way(s). It's the only truly stand-alone phrase, all the other being sentence lead-ins. It's the only one that is not definitively colloquial, i.e. a commonly if not exclusively *spoken* formulation. It's also the least grammar-violating, ALL'S and HOW'S being grammatically nonsensical, and I SAYS being a matter of overt subj/verb disagreement. Changing WAY to WAYS (or vice versa) just doesn't seem in the same universe as the other grammarian-offending phrases.

The non-theme stuff, on the other hand, is quite nice, with six Downs of 7+ letters in length giving the grid a lot more character than you typically see on a Monday. Plus, there's very little in the way of junk. This has all been nicely polished, with only AAHED and maybe GLO getting me even the slightest bit RILEd. I love the words FLAGON (27D: Old-fashioned wine holder) and TROIKA, for purely aesthetic reasons.

[sorry this song was in the background of the trailer for the movie "STAKEOUT" and so I looked it up and it is pretty evocative of a pretty terrible time in pop music videos so I thought 'sure, throw it in...']

Congrats to Dan Feyer, who won his 7th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament championship yesterday, beating out fellow killer-solvers Tyler Hinman and Joon Pahk. I HOPE to see you tomorrow. Au revoir.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS NOT SO'S YOU'D NOTICE woulda made a nice central 15 in a normal-sized grid ... maybe change the revealer to SLOP and shove it in a corner ... I'm just spitballin' here ...

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Constructor:Ryan Milligan

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:adjective --> adverb: relatively famous people have their adjective last names turned into adverbs, as they are imagined saying things in a manner befitting their last names—

Theme answers:

20A: "Sorry I'm in your space, it's a n actress thing," said GLENN CLOSELY
28A: "Don't interrupt me on my radio show," said HOWARD STERNLY
46A: "Gotta run, pop concert calls," said TAYLOR SWIFTLY
54A: "Right to the point: You're beautiful, it's true," said JAMES BLUNTLY

Word of the Day:ALDO Gucci(17A: Designer Gucci) —

Aldo Gucci (26 May 1905 – 19 January 1990) was the chairman of Gucci Shops Inc. from 1953 to 1986. He was the eldest son of Guccio Gucci, who founded the company bearing his name in 1921. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is out of a can. The Tom Swifty, one of the oldest and lowest forms of wordplay, has been used A Lot as the basis for crossword themes, both NYT and otherwise. I rarely like such puzzles at all, but I have seen them done with a certain degree of thoughtfulness and polish—where all the theme answers are thematically linked somehow, for instance (here's a WSJ one that Sam Donaldson did where all the answers are imagined as things a tailor might say). But this one just seems lazy—find (relatively) famous people with adjectives as last names; turn last names into adverbs; write wacky clue. You could do a lot of these. Judith Lightly, Martin Shortly, Jean Smartly, Barney Frankly, Christopher Crossly, Michael Sharply (wink), etc. Today's themers have nothing in common and the clues aren't that funny and The End. Also, the fill is middling to less-than-middling. It's a bust all around. In short, it's a Tuesday.

I saw people (well, person) on Twitter saying the puzzle was extremely easy. My time was totally normal. Theme felt mostly easy, but I had a bunch of little things slow me down slightly. DNA for RNA (31D: Material in strands), for one. Then somehow cluing DRAMA as a "class" made no sense to me and I needed every cross (9A: Class with masks?). Then I rediscovered that I can't spell SPORADIC (I used a "T" !?) (38D: Occasional). Do people really remember who James Blunt is? He strikes me as a one-hit wonder who is not at all on the level of the other theme answers, fame-wise. Also, his one hit is nothing I care to remember—like nails on the chalkboard of my soul. Wincingly cloying. It was massive, for sure. But that clue did not clearly point to a person when I first looked at it (54A: Right to the point: You're beautiful, it's true," said ___), and I imagine it will be the least familiar themer of the day for most folks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Jules P. Markey

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: MIDDLE AGE (34A: Crisis time, for some ... or a hint to each of the circled words)— circled letters in the "middle" of four answers are all words that can precede "age" ...

Theme answers:

ELECTRIC ENGINES (ICE)
LOST ONE'S MARBLES (STONE)
ADIRONDACK CHAIR (IRON)
MACHINE WASHABLE (NEW)

Word of the Day:ODORANT(38D: Aromatic additive to natural gas) —

noun
noun: odorant; plural noun: odorants
a substance giving off a smell, especially one used to give a particular scent or odor to a product. (google)

• • •

This is poor on several levels. The basic theme conceit isn't stunning (circled squares in the middle of theme answers spell a bunch of things that have something in common, revealer does something hamfistedly punny, tada!—) but it's the kind of familiar, been-done-before, salvageable concept that should be able to get you to Average if you work at it—that is, if your themers are great and your hidden words make a tight set and are properly "hidden." And while you could argue that the themers themselves are perfectly fine answers (all 15s), beyond that, things fall apart. As I've said more, good craftsmanship standards in a "hidden words" puzzle like this dictate that the "hidden" word should touch all elements in the theme answers, i.e. normally, stretch across two words (the way ICE stretches across ELECTRIC and ENGINES in the first themer). But here, not one but *two* of these damned things fail here, and one fails terribly. At least STONE is "hidden" somewhere (between LOST and ONE'S), even if it does have MARBLES just hanging out there in the wind; IRON isn't even trying. It just sits inside ADIRONDACK, cleverness nil, CHAIR just waving from the sidelines. Further, and worse, the set of "hidden" words goes yes yes yes *clunk*, i.e. three actual "ages" and then stupid figurative crystal-wearing bad-music-suffused NEW. No. No to NEW.

The fill is the repulsively rich icing on this lopsided cake. I circled all the tired-to-bad fill and my puzzle printout has a nearly unbroken swath of ink all the way from the SW to the NE corner. Grid is very choppy, esp. toward the middle, and the three- and four-word onslaught gets pretty dire. Once again, I could tell before exiting the NW that things were going to be bad. It was slightly sad how easily I was able to put in the dreadful IREFUL / RELEE crossing. Puzzle's can't even sneak up on me with its blecchness any more. You can just say some of the lines straight across to get a feel for how bad the fill is. OBE EOS MCML!! POS POO RAS CEO! POO on top of "ERES TU," indeed. So, to sum up, workable concept, poorly worked, filled like a landfill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Lewis Rothlein

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: MIC DROP (42D: Dramatic ending to a performance ... or a hint to answering the six starred clues)—answers are real words but don't fit ... until you drop the "MIC":

Theme answers:

BALSA(MIC) (19A: *What may keep a model's weight down?)
(MIC)RON (15A: *Onetime White House nickname)
POLE(MIC) (11D: *Word after North or South)
CO(MIC)AL (36D: *Shade of black)
(MIC)KEY (51A: *Anthem writer)
FOR(MIC)A (39D:*Discussion venues)

Word of the Day:Frances Moore LAPPÉ(8A: Frances Moore ___, author of the best-selling "Diet for a Small Planet") —

Frances Moore Lappé (born February 10, 1944) is the author of 18 books including the three-million copy, 1971 Diet for a Small Planet that The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History describes as “one of the most influential political tracts of the times." She is the co-founder of three national organizations that explore the roots of hunger, poverty and environmental crises, as well as solutions now emerging worldwide through what she calls Living Democracy. Her most recent books include EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want^[1] and World Hunger: 10 Myths.

• • •

I've seen this concept executed better elsewhere, and honestly I've been subjected to that MIC DROP twit on the Verizon commercial so many times now that the whole concept of mic dropping feels as old as "phat" and "bling" to me already. The NYT is just ... belated. Here's a BEQ version of this theme from two years ago. And here's a David Kwong version from last year (from the best daily you're not doing, and possibly the best daily puzzle period, at the moment: the WSJ). This wasn't terrible fun to solve. I am not (at all) a big fan of randomly question-marked themers? I mean, if they're all "?"'d, great, but 19A: *What may keep a model's weight down? (BALSA(MIC)) was just awful, esp. as the first themer anyone's likely to encounter (in the NW). I was like "is this a fad diet? Is the vinegar making the model barf?" But then I saw the "balsa" in there and thought "pffft, I guess something's happening... I'll just keep going." Theme became obvious at POLE(MIC), and after that, there wasn't much more to do but slog through clues and enjoy/endure the fill (more the latter, though "GONE GIRL" was alright) (27D: 2014 psychological thriller based on a Gillian Flynn novel).

Do people know MBABANE? (1D: Capital of Swaziland). It's a world capital, so it's fair game, but I'll confess it was just a string of letters to me. Another string of letters (more familiar, far less pleasant) was OBLA, the kind of answer that makes me want to quit crosswords and take up, I don't know, whittling or something.

The LAPPÉ (who?) / ACHS crossing is truly atrocious, a. because LAPPÉ is the kind of name you should only use if your grid is literally on fire (i.e. in an emergency), and b. because the ACHS crossing is one of those terrible "ugh, which one is the Scottish exclamation and which one is the German?""words" that makes the vowel a kind of a guess. I guessed right, but still: bad. KOED is also, even more, bad. Like, bad. Like, I keep looking at it, expecting it to suddenly look like a word to me, but so far no dice. Strangest moment of the solve for me was nailing MULEDEER with just -LED- in place (15D: Rocky Mountain forager). Ugh, INDC. I fought with my podcast cohost about this horrible answer recently. She's strangely enamored of it, whereas I wish it would (OBLA) die. It is absolutely ridiculous that ALKALINE was not clued as AL KALINE, especially with Opening Day of the baseball season just days away. As a Tigers fan, I reject this puzzle on the basis of that snub alone (though I also stand by everything else I said).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:David C. Duncan Dekker

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day:John CENA(23A: John of pro wrestling) —

John Felix Anthony Cena Jr. (/ˈsiːnə/; born April 23, 1977) is an American professional wrestler, rapper, actor, and reality television show host. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand. Cena started his professional wrestling career in 1999 with Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW) and won the UPW Heavyweight Championship the following year.^[8] Cena signed a developmental contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment, or simply WWE) in 2001, debuting on the WWE main roster in 2002. [...] Outside of wrestling, Cena has released the rap album You Can't See Me, which debuted at No. 15 on the US Billboard 200 chart, and starred in the feature films The Marine (2006), 12 Rounds (2009), Legendary (2010), The Reunion (2011), Trainwreck (2015), and Sisters (2015). Cena has also made appearances on television shows including Manhunt, Deal or No Deal, MADtv, Saturday Night Live, Punk'd, Psych, and Parks and Recreation. He was also a contestant on Fast Cars and Superstars: The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race, where he made it to the final round before being eliminated, placing third in the overall competition. Cena is also the host of American Grit on Fox. Cena is involved in numerous philanthropic causes; most notably with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He has granted the most wishes in Make-A-Wish history (wikipedia).

• • •

The virtues of a 72-word themeless are *supposed* to be clean, fresh, interesting fill (72 is the highest word count allowed for themelesses, and a high word count means the grid is easier to fill well). But this grid is constructed in the way least likely to make the clean, fresh, interesting stuff happen. You still have these giant corners, which will only ever top out at OK, even if you are a pretty good constructor. The result is a grid that is mostly dull, with some ugly (short fill) patches, which is then bedecked with Qs and Zs in a rather cynical attempt to distract the solver with shininess. ODETS CENA and EDKOCH start us with a glut of names and then PEEDEE gets a hyper-dumb (and to me, indecipherable) clue (2D: Alphabetically rhyming river name). Not even a geographic location. And "alphabetically" means "in alphabetical order" to me, so I just had to rely on crosses and knowing the PEEDEE river exists. A trivial sum is TWO *PENCE*? Cor Blimey! Here in America, I give my two cents, not my two pence. How did that not have a "to Brits" tag like ENQUIRY? GUIDE crossing GUIDO? Ouch. There was not a lot of joy here. Is a BSC a Bachelor of ... SCience? How "common" is a BSC? Is it different from a B.S.? I teach in a degree-granting place and I have no idea. I google BSC and the first hit that comes up is "Boston Sports Clubs." That was the last answer I got.

Two major errors held me up today. First BUTT OUT for BUZZ OFF (24D: "Go away!"). And then, much worse, OKRAS for ORCAS (11D: Things in a pod). I thought the clue on SWIMMEET was pretty decent (13D: What has different strokes for different folks?). But there wasn't much else that was entertaining. I mean, PIZZA (amazing, delicious!) and the best clue you can come up with is [___ topping]?? That's criminal. Overall, this is not terrible, but it's highly blah, and makes me miss the days when killer themeless constructors roamed the Friday and Saturday puzzles. [Redacted nostalgic passage] [Redacted remark about talent depletion] [Decision to go drink BOOZE].

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Howard Barkin

Relative difficulty:N/A (not comparable to other Saturdays)

THEME: TWO BY FOURS (55A: Construction staples ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)— themers consist of four squares with two letters apiece:

Theme answers:

MI/CH/IG/AN (1A: One of the Great Lakes)
TH/IN/MI/NT (29A: Popular cookie)
CO/NT/RA/RY (45A: In opposition)
HE/LS/IN/KI (64A: Scandinavian capital)

Word of the Day:ANASAZI(4D: Ancient New Mexican) —

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado.^[1] The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture. [...] In contemporary times, the people and their archaeological culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term. Reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean "ancient enemies". Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term used. (emph. mine) (wikipedia)

• • •

The world is rife with fraud, now more than ever. The president* is a constant, pathological liar, and the near total saturation of the public sphere by advertising culture ensures that we're soaking in fraud close to 24/7. In short, it is a daily struggle to separate truth from bullshit. This makes April Fools Day redundant garbage. As for this puzzle—it would've been fine if a. it had been published on a Thursday, where it clearly belongs; b. it hadn't tried to get cute with me re: its difficulty—that coy little "GUESS AGAIN" (17A: "Don't give up") and "NO-NOS" (31A: Taking things for granted on April Fools' Day and others) made me, indeed, want to give up; c. it had had the normal 78 words instead of a ridiculous 80, WTF? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 80 times, why do fools fall in love, fools in love, what a fool believes ... won't get fooled again.

It was hard not to resent this puzzle right off the bat, with its obvious ERIE fake at 1A: One of the Great Lakes. I say "obvious" because it's Saturday, and no Saturday ever handed you a 1-Across that easy in your life. If you're a constant solver like me, you immediately made a squinty / side-eye face at the puzzle, and then tentatively put ERIE in the grid while Fully Expecting it to be Wrong. Soon afterward, that corner was a total bust and I moved on, surprised to find that other parts of the grid had answers that appeared to be "normal" (I weirdly got started at SETTLE / SOL (34A: Not wait for Mr. Right, say / 26D: Fifth in a group of eight), and that's when I saw NONOS and realized what horrible day it was). I first suspected a two-letter-per-square gimmick when I worked my way over to RAIME_, which had just the one square left despite clearly needing an "NT" for completion. Later, back in the NW, IGLESIAS seemed like it had to be right (3D: Noted father-or-son singer). And then finally the [Vase style] dropped and I could see what was going on. Once you get the gimmick, the puzzle isn't hard at all. Wednesday, maybe easy Thursday-level. I don't understand why GINORMOUS is in the middle of this grid (35A: Huuuuuuuuge). Theme position, non-theme answer. Just another wobbly thing about this baby. Again, I like the 2x4 concept fine. Just ... well, see the first paragraph; I explained it all there.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Whoa, here's a recent, *really* good version of this theme by Matt Gaffney.

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Constructor:Jerry Miccolis

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:"Initial Description"— theme answers are APRONYMS:

Theme answers:

SWAN = SWIMMER WITH ARCHED NECK
MARS = MOSTLY ARID RED SPHERE
ATLAS = AID TO LOCATE A STREET
TRIO = THREE ROLLED INTO ONE
OKAY = OTHERWISE KNOWN AS YES
WASP = WINGED AND STINGING PEST

Word of the Day:ABOLLA(20A: Togalike Roman cloak) —

An abolla was a cloak-like garment worn by Ancient Greeks and Romans. Nonius Marcellus quotes a passage of Varro to show that it was a garment worn by soldiers (vestis militaris), and thus opposed to the toga. // The abolla was, however, not confined to military occasions, but was also worn in the city. It was especially used by the Stoic philosophers at Rome as the pallium philosophicum, just as the Greek philosophers were accustomed to distinguish themselves by a particular dress.Hence the expression of Juvenal facinus majoris abollae merely signifies, "a crime committed by a very deep philosopher." // The word abolla is actually a Latinization of the Greek ambolla (ἀμβόλλα) or anabole (ἀναβολή), for a loose woolen cloak. (wikipedia)

• • •

There are lists of these out there. On website. Whole databases of them. I can't take a theme seriously that involved no originality on the part of the constructor. FREE AIR, RELEASE TENSION! See! Not original! I just typed FART into the database and bam! Here, watch: LESBIAN ... "Lady Enjoys Sexual Behaviour Involving Another Non-male"; LEWINSKY ... "Licking Elite Willy Is Nearly Sex! Kenneth Yells." These are no doubt entertaining, but constructors should be coming up with their *own* gimmicks, not lifting others'. Most of the apronyms in this puzzle are either straight out of the database I'm using, or are slightly modifications of the database versions. It's not that hard to make these things yourself. You could even narrow your "clues" to, say movie stars (STELLAR THESPIAN REALLY EARNS EVERY PLAUDIT!), or baseball players (BEEFY OUTFIELDER NEVER DID STEROIDS) or presidents (TWITTER RANTS UNDERSCORE MORONIC PRESIDENCY), or whatever. Now, keeping them under 21 letters in length would be a challenge, but ... I think it's probably doable. And then you might have something. Something tight, contemporary, genuinely wacky, and (above all) *original*.

[TRIO]

There were only two trouble spots in this thing—the word ABOLLA (!?!?!) (20A: Togalike Roman cloak), which I think I'd rather have than EBOLA, but only barely, and then the whole SW corner. The latter problem is Entirely Foreseeable wehn you look at the Downs. After the dumb partial AS WAS (?), there's name name name name. CHANG has the same number of letters as STICH (102D: 1991 Wimbledon champ Michael). ORWELL has the same number of letters as O. HENRY (97D: Writer who coined the term "banana republic" (1904)) (I knew the date was wrong for Orwell, but still...). I blanked on the Ghostbuster name (106D: Ghostbuster Spengler) (wanted OTTO ... I think because OTTO Dix <=> EGON Schiele; at least that's the artsy, high-culture excuse I'm gonna use). And I never knew the Préval guy was a RENÉ (107D: ___ Préval, two-time president of Haiti). So that was very rough. Nothing else about the grid was rough.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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I thought about doing an April Fools thing and saying that I was quitting Rex's blog, but then I decided that that would be too sad and also April Fools was two days ago. So instead I'm just gonna say happy first Monday of the month, it's an Annabel guest blog day again!!

Constructors: AGNES DAVIDSON and ZHOUQIN BURNIKEL

Relative difficulty: HARD

THEME: BALLPARK FIGURES— Theme answers are two words; the second word is a person that can be found at a baseball game.

Theme answers:

BEER BATTER (17A: Coating for fish that you might think would make you tipsy)
PUMPKIN COACH (24A: Cinderella's carriage)
BALLPARK FIGURES (39A: Rough estimates...or, what the ends of 17-, 24-, 52- and 65-Across are?)
WATER PITCHER (52A: Waiter's refilling aid)
CEILING FAN (65A: Overhead cooler)

Word of the Day: AFL (___-CIO) —

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is a national trade union center and the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of fifty-six national and international unions,^[3]together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers.^[1] The AFL–CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism.^[3]

The AFL–CIO was formed in 1955 when the AFL and the CIO merged after a long estrangement. Membership in the union peaked in 1979, when the AFL–CIO had nearly twenty million members.^[4] From 1955 until 2005, the AFL–CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL–CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated. The largest union currently in the AFL–CIO is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members.^[5]

(Wikipedia)

• • •

Man, I don't know what it was about this puzzle, but I got stuck for ages! There wasn't even a particular corner that did it, there were just rough spots all over the puzzle. I'd never heard of RHEAS before, I had HON for BAE, and I even forgot Superman's first name. (I had CLARK instead of KAL-EL! I'm such a fake nerd.) Even SAP gave me a hard time, maybe because it was right on top of YAP so I kept thinking of that. Nothing to SOB about though; it's nice to be a little challenged on a Monday :)

The theme was cute, if a little predictable - I figured it was something to do with baseball as soon as I saw BEER BATTER. Do you ever think about how weird it is that we're so obsessed with baseball in the US but everyone else is obsessed with soccer? Or maybe it's weird that we're obsessed with football but everyone else is obsessed with soccer. I dunno. The point is, baseball and football are weird sports, but they're fun to have watch parties for.

Bullets:

ALEVE (47A: Popular pain reliever) — Anyone else find this namedrop a little out of place? I dunno, maybe I'm just bitter because I guessed ADVIL and probably messed up that whole corner for a while.
AFLAC (37D: Quacky insurance giant) — I was about to post a video of the Aflac commercial, but I feel like I JUST did a few months ago. Deja vu or overused clue? *shrugs*
PEARS (26D: Fruits that are a little grittier than apples) — Ex-CUSE me??? First of all, there are plenty of pears that are fresh and crisp, golden pears in particular. Second of all, there are plenty of apples that are gritty as heck and really gross. I think the duo of constructors owes pears an apology, because they're my favorite fruit. (Well, second favorite; the best one is kiwi.)
SLOTHS (13D: Tree huggers?)— This one tripped me up, but it was worth it in the end because sloths are cute.

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

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Constructor:Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME: PINOCCHIO (58A: Disney character hinted at by the circled letters)— circled squares contain letters N, O, S, E, which stretch farther, as a sequence, with each subsequent theme answers:

Theme answers:

NO SERVICE (17A: What zero bars on a cellphone indicates)
NORSE LITERATURE (23A: Viking tales, e.g.)
NEUROSCIENTISTS (37A: Experts on the brain)
NATIONAL PASTIME (46A: Baseball, in America)

Word of the Day:"On the Beach"(51D: "On the Beach" heroine) —

On the Beach is a 1959 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film from United Artists, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, that stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins. This black-and-white film is based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no blame is placed on whoever started the war; it is hinted in the film that the threat of annihilation may have arisen from an accident or misjudgment. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello darkness, my old friend. Sorry, did I say 'darkness'? I meant 'non-consecutive circled-square themes.' The NOSE stretches, OK, cute, but there should've been some added level of elegance to the construction where the NOSE-expansion was concerned, by which I think minimally the expansions should all have involved keeping the letters in NOSE symmetrical. That third iteration, the one in NEUROSCIENTISTS, is GRATE-ing because of the loppedness of NOSE. Push the "E" one more square out and you have something, but as is, it's wonky, and anomalously so. The fill is mostly dull NYT-standard with not much of interest unless you follow the school of thought that jamming some Xs and Js into your grid makes it inherently more interesting than it would be otherwise.

The NOSE concept made getting the theme answers *very* easy (after the first two themers were set, I just entered NOSE in the remaining two themers), but this easiness was somewhat compensated for by a few tough moments:

Tough moments:

34D: Recreational device that holds 35-Down / 35D: See 34-Down (SCUBA / AIR)— Cross-referenced clues side-by-side in a very narrow space. Tough to suss out quickly, especially since "Recreational device" is not a term I'd use for SCUBA and has nothing specifically SCUBA-y about it.
38D: Reads carefully (SCANS)— for the millionth time, most people use this word to mean the *opposite* of what the clue indicates.
24D: Modern prefix with skeptic (EURO-) — nice and modern, but very hard to come up with without several crosses.
36D: Imitating (MIMETIC)— Had the first few letters and wanted some version of MIMIC ... which I guess this answers is, on some level, but MIMETIC is terribly uncommon (and in my mind, specifically literary).
51D: "On the Beach" heroine (MOIRA)— this is the most preposterous clue of the day. What is "On the Beach" and since when is it famous enough for me to know the name of its "heroine"??? I see that it is an old novel and a not-that-famous movie (though one that stars famous people), but really, "heroine"? Come back to earth.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: SPANISH (43D: Language that utilizes the letter "ñ")— DESCRIPTION

Theme answers:

MAÑANA / PIÑATAS
PEÑA NIETO / BAÑOS
PIÑA COLADAS / AÑO
JALAPEÑOS / SEÑOR
EL NIÑO / ESPAÑOL

Word of the Day:ERINNA(49D: Greek poet who wrote "The Distaff") —

Erinna (/ᵻˈrɪnə/; Greek: Ἤριννα) was an ancient Greek poet. Biographical details about her life are uncertain: she is generally thought to have lived in the first half of the fourth century BC, though some ancient traditions have her as a contemporary of Sappho; Telos is generally considered to be her most likely birthplace, but Tenos, Teos, Rhodes, and Lesbos are all also mentioned by ancient sources as her home. Erinna is best known for her long poem, the Distaff, a three-hundred line hexameter lament for her childhood friend Baucis, who had died shortly after marriage. A large fragment of this poem was discovered in 1928 at Behnasa in Egypt. Along with the Distaff, three epigrams ascribed to Erinna are known, preserved in the Greek Anthology. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is one of those "Hey I've Got a Great Idea" ideas that probably sounded a lot better in your head than it looks on paper. There's a cute crosswordy premise here—we all know, and many have complained, that ANO and AÑO are *totally* different words, but the NYT crossword happily crosses "N" with "Ñ" like there is no difference, which means that Spanish anuses have been overrunning our puzzles for decades now. So today we have true "Ñ"s in the grid, working in both directions, five times. So first of all, it turns out this is pretty boring. PEÑA NIETO (18A: Mexican president Enrique) is the only interesting themer here (and the only one I totally blanked on). The rest are, like, you know, words. The fill suffers terribly, because (who'dathunk?!) that when you cram *crossing* themers into your corners, those corners don't like it so much. I knew things were gonna be rough at INANET (frowny-face). I did not know, however, that they would get so bad that I would miss INANET. The SE corner is the poster child for Bad Decisions. It's hard enough to fill a corner like that with two themers in there. But three? Three gets you ERINNA (!?!?!??!?!?!) and ERINNA should make *any* constructor worth their salt smash their grid with a sledgehammer and start over. The only one happy with ERINNA (again, I say, !?!?!?!?!?!?!??!) is poor little INAT, who's like "Yay! No one's looking at me!" This concept is much better when you spread the diacritical love around (so, a Ñ cross, a Ø cross, a É cross, etc.—I've seen it done that way, I'm pretty sure). So, to sum up: NONONO.

I knew BASSOS was BASSOS from the "B" but my wife didn't know that you pluralized it that way and went with BASSES and since the vowel cross there is Dikembe MUTOMBO (and since '90s big men are not exactly her specialty), she had BASSES / MUTOMBE. Seems a plausible mistake. I had trouble with MUTOMBO's *second* vowel. Other than that, I had no trouble, except when it came to remembering PEÑA NIETO's name. I still think of Vincente Fox as the president even though that hasn't been true for 11 (?!) years. Finished in a fast time, which means it was Really easy, since the 16-wide grid should've made even an average-difficulty puzzle run long.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:XS AND OS (38A: Playbook symbols ... or letters treated symbolically in this puzzle's Down answers)— Xs treated symbolically three times on left half of grid, Os thrice on right:

Theme answers:

"X MY GRITS" (5D: Sitcom catchphrase of the '70s and '80s)
"THREE X A LADY" (3D: 1978 #1 hit for the Commodores)
X SPEED (38D: Certain bicycle)
TURNED FULL O (26D: Went back to where it all began)
BEAR OS (18D: Big, tight embraces)
O SUM GAME (39D: Situation in which, on the whole, nothing can be gained or lost)

Word of the Day:TWEE pop(34A: ___ pop (music genre featuring simple, catchy melodies)) —

Twee pop is a subgenre of indie pop that originates from the 1986 NME compilation C86. Characterised by its simplicity and perceived innocence, some of its defining features are boy-girl harmonies, catchy melodies, and lyrics about love. For many years, most bands were distributed by the independent record labels Sarah Records (in the UK) and K Records (in the US). (wikipedia)

• • •

Enjoyed this one. Thought it was going to be a Kisses theme (got "[KISS] MY GRITS" first) or maybe a Kisses and Hugs theme, which I would also have enjoyed, probably, if the themers were good enough, but this more diversified version works well. I like how the Xs and Os were as letters in one direction and symbols in the other, i.e. I like that the rebus wasn't forced in both direction. First, it means you can get six rebus squares in this thing comfortably (bi-direction would likely limit you to four max, just because of the strain on the grid from limited options (i.e. if you're filling the grid, there are a lot more O---- options than there are [HUG]---- options). Second, there's a nice "wonder what's coming next?" feeling, instead of a "where's the KISS?" feeling (although, again, the latter wouldn't have been terrible). My brain weirdly balked at a couple of theme issues. First, the "O" as circle and as zero doesn't feel like it's functioning "symbolically" in the same way all the other theme squares are. X *represents* a kiss, the concept of multiplication, and (as Roman numeral) the number ten. And O *represents* a hug ... but it just *is* a circle, and it *is* a zero. Yeah, yeah, I can lawyer up a defense of "symbolically" here too, but that difference between represents and is still grates a bit. Also grating: TURNED FULL [CIRCLE]. It's definitely a real idiom, but the (much) more common idiom is CAME FULL CIRCLE (google it in quot. marks, you'll see). So I had the FULL [CIRCLE], wanted CAME, and needed lots of crosses to figure out TURNED, which I never hear.

So I had trouble in the TURNED area and, coincidentally, in the same area on the other side of the grid. 32D: World capital whose motto is "Fluctuat nec mergitur" (Latin for "It is tossed but does not sink")) (PARIS) and 33D: Vessel opener (STENT) both stumped me, even with the first two letters of each answer in place, as did 41: Raises (REARS) and 45A: Thoroughly (IN DEPTH) (had the "D" and "H" in place ... which looked impossible). And since I also couldn't figure out that X was "ten" in [TEN] SPEED, that SW corner was blocked. Eventually just rebooted from the far corner with VIP and worked my way back in. The fill gets a little wonky in places, but not unbearably so, especially in a puzzle with a theme this dense, and with theme answers this colorful. I was lucky to know AGEE (21A: 1969 World Series hero Tommie) (baseball!) and (sort of) PATTIE (25A: ___ Boyd, first wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton), or else that NE could've been a bear (and not the huggy kind).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS that [Alarm clock toggle] clue of AMPM is ridiculously dated, please kill it
PPS the concept / term / answer UNPC is ridiculously stupid, please kill it
PPPS Happy birthday to my sister, Amy, who is in San Diego for "work" this week (I've seen the view out her hotel window—that's not work).

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor:Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty:Challenging

THEME:none

Word of the Day:LARRUP(2D: Beat soundly) —

verb
informal
verb: larrup; 3rd person present: larrups; past tense: larruped; past participle: larruped; gerund or present participle: larruping
thrash or whip (someone). (google)

• • •

About the most unpleasant Berry experience I've had in a while, for multiple reasons. The first is not his fault—this is a Saturday puzzle. Saturday plus. My time was north of my usual Saturday by a good amount. It wasn't just the NW corner—where I was dead-stopped for minutes at the end. It was all over. Just hard / weird cluing and (often) odd answers. Terribly horribly impossibly misplaced on a Friday. Then there's the fill, which has a frame of reference so dated and a general palette so ecru that solving felt like slogging through a very old person's dusty attic. Everything's old and there's no air. No, change that—it's *possible* I'd find some joy in a dusty attic. There was no feeling of aha or breakthrough or anything today. Answers like FIRESCREENS (do those go in front of fires? Seriously these answers are So Plain I barely know what they do) and HOUSECLEANS and CRADLE SONGS (What Are Those??? I have a child, and yet ... this is not a phrase I know. Do. You. Mean. Lullabies!?!?!). Runnin' ___ was never gonna be anything but Runnin' REBS (I went to lots of Fresno State / UNLV games as a kid). So discovering UTES was ... pffft. Not fun. Just "Oh, right, they also are "Runnin'" somehow." Lots of impressively long answers flowing through the middle, but ... didn't matter. Solving this was highly unpleasant. TELNET? BADEN? BORGE!?!? What year is it?

Worst was the NW, where CRADLE songs was unknown to me, and LARRUP was unknown to me, and FOOD had its dumb clue (4D: It's picked up in a mess) that could've been / should've been ODOR or TRAY (both better ... jeez, that clue for FOOD? Not funny). FURL without the UN-, always godawful (5D: Roll up). Worst was LARRUP's ending in -UP, which makes 2D: Beat soundly really really really want to be a two-word phrase ending in UP. But jeez, CRADLE SONGS? And with a stupid jokey "?" clue at that. Honestly, the only time during the whole solve where I went "Oh, good one" was at 26D: Fortune reader, maybe (EXEC). I had SEER. Nice. Everything else—root canal. To be clear, expertly made ... but an expertly made root canal (I just had a root canal, so I know whereof).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I sincerely had to look up just now how "ROLLER" and "brush" are in the same universe? (35D: Brush alternative). It's painting. Right. OK. Man, I'm glad this thing is over. Bet the farm that the *actual* Saturday is easier than this thing.

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Constructor:Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:none

Word of the Day:NETIZEN(30A: YouTuber or eBayer) —

noun
noun: netizen; plural noun: netizens
a user of the Internet, especially a habitual or avid one. (google)

• • •

Ugh. Another day, another 62-worder, another whiff. Why do people still do these low-word-count affairs? I mean, Patrick Berry, OK, I can see him giving it a go, but honestly, your best-case scenario is usually something like this—adequate, dull, gunked up in places with crappy fill, and lacking in anything you'd call a stand-out / marquee / original answer. Or, I don't know, maybe WWIIVET is original in the strictest sense of the word, but it's not good. And there's so much bad fill, and then a few sad attempts to dress up the bad fill in a frilly frock and pass it off as something besides bad fill. ABRA will never, ever, ever be good, no matter who you say she (?) is (46D: "East of Eden" girlfriend). Nope, still a fragment of a magician's incantation. And DEADHEAD means what now? [Ineffective pill]? I know *two* meanings of DEADHEAD, and that ain't one. NE-O 1 and NE-O 2 are here, as well as ANIL and DONEE and other over-familiar faces (and whatever AERI- is). There is much here that is sturdy, that holds up, that does the job, but only if you consider the "job" to be "appearing crossword puzzle-like" and "not being a total face-planting disaster." It's mainly a snooze.

"XKCD" is here solely to get internet nerds talking on the internet about this puzzle (first thing I thought when I got it, and not fifteen minutes later, the internet nerds had already come out with whatever the equivalent of "First!" is these days, happily spoiling the puzzle for their handful (or tens of thousands) of Followers). But that's also a crowd that probably thinks "spoilers" are for olds or luddites or something. Anyway, it's a fine comic, but the blatant bid for internet attention here seems sad ... although I would hope that same crowd that reads "XKCD" would *jeer* the stupid, dated NETIZEN. Somebody should jeer it. It's jeer-worthy. It's '90s chic, i.e. not chic at all.

So this was much easier than yesterday's (finished in just over 1/2 the time yesterday's took me) (told ya so), largely because OPED NERO ETA, all side-by-side, were all gimmes. I had OH HI and PSST at 1D: "Hello ... I'm right here" (AHEM), but once I got the triad of gimmes, one little wrong answer didn't hang around long. Had a little trouble in the SE in and around ABRA (bec. WTF?) and EAT A SANDWICH I mean ROB A BANK (?). SW was the hardest for me, as I wrote in FILLMORE off the -ORE (instead of THEODORE) (40A: President between two Williams). NEMO was the gimme that got me out of a jam down there. FOLK ART and LEST helped as well. Make themelesses Enjoyable again! That is all.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Sorry, back to NETIZEN again. That clue—eBayer, really? For your eHeadache? eNo.

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Constructor:Byron Walden

Relative difficulty:Easy-Medium

THEME:"Having Nothing On"— Nothing (O) + ON are added to phrases, making funny new phrases ending with -OON.

Word of the Day:CRONUTS(7D: Hybrid bakery treats) —

Cronut is a croissant-doughnut pastry invented by New York City pastry chef Dominique Ansel and trademarkedby Dominique Ansel Bakery.The pastry resembles a doughnut and is made from croissant-like dough which is filled with flavored cream and fried in oil. The flavor of the pastry differs every month. Official Cronut pastries are currently offered only at the Dominique Ansel bakeries in New York City, Tokyo, and London. [Wikipedia]

• • •

Theme answers:

28A: The ladies-only Western-themed bar I own? -- MY GAL SALOON
30A: Inspector Clouseau or Borat? -- MOVIE BUFFOON
39A: Decoration in a deli case? -- SAUSAGE FESTOON
57A: Product of a stable of comic strip artists? -- HORSEDRAWN CARTOON
65A: Scaled-down woodwind? -- SMALLMOUTH BASSOON
85A: Audibly upset Belgian francophone? -- WAILING WALLOON
97A: Satirical depiction of the story of Noah? -- FLOOD LAMPOON
100A: Most important mounted cavalryman? -- MAIN DRAGOON
28D: Something seen at Frankenstein's birthday party? -- MONSTER'S BALLOON

Laura here, guest-hosting for Rex; the Joan Rivers to his Johnny Carson, if you will. (Rex isn't sick or having computer problems tonight, but he does deserve an occasional break.) This was a fine Sunday to be the designated hitter for -- a simple theme, cleanly executed. I took my time starting out, then got a foothold with MY GAL SALOON right off the bat, and then pretty much cruised through the rest of grid by putting OON in the last three squares of every theme entry. The only Down theme entry, MONSTER'S BALLOON (28D: Something seen at Frankenstein's birthday party?) elegantly crosses all eight of the Across themers right through the center of the grid. One quibble with the clue, however: with the typical tired pedantry of CrossWorld, I'll point out that Frankenstein is the name of the monster's creator, not of the creature himself. I doubt that Dr. Frankenstein would have been pleased to have a MONSTER'S BALLOON at his birthday party, given that in pretty much every version of the story (with the noted exceptions of Young Frankenstein, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Franken-Berry cereal), Dr. F's relationship with his creation doesn't work out so well.

Some nice longer fill inhabits the grid as well; I had thought at first that HOBBIT HOLE (22A: Home for Bilbo Baggins) was a themer, and that there would be something to do with synonyms for zero (HOLE?). Almost tried to make BLUE LAGOON fit instead of BLUE LEANING (62D: Apt to go Democratic). And I'm always thrown a little when longer fill entries (i.e. 14D and 62D) are the same length (11 letters) as some of the themers (i.e. 28A and 100A). There was plenty of your standard fill with OTB AIDE OCHO OREO AGAR PSAT ESAU ACNE LEI ANTI ERTE but it held things together well enough.

Bullets -- three proper names for whom I needed all the crosses:

45A: Tony who managed two World Series championships for the Cardinals(LARUSSA)— I would be one of the last (and by "last" I mean in the sense of "most recent" not "unlikely") people to comment on the SAUSAGE FEST-ness of crossword constructing, but this is the sort of thing that makes me go, yeah, this is not the sort of thing I am likely to know. (Have at me, commenters.)
105A: Jean who played Aunt Martha in "Arsenic and Old Lace" (ADAIR)— I just watched this a few weeks ago. It has Cary Grant in it. Still couldn't remember.
93D: Frances who played TV's Aunt Bee (BAVIER)— She's from The Andy Griffith Show, right? And she's crossing 111A: OPIE, clued as Big name among radio shock jocks (i.e. Opie and Anthony) rather than as "93D's TV nephew" or something. Missed opportunity. I've always thought that Aunt Bee should've been a character in some animated kids' movie, like A Bug's Life or Antz or Bee Movie. Missed opportunity!

Signed, Laura Braunstein, Sorceress of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Lonnie Burton

Relative difficulty:Medium (normal Monday) (2:56)

THEME: BOND (007D: What the answers to the starred clues share, in two ways)— the BOND linking all the theme answers is that they all played James BOND on screen:

Theme answers:

SEAN CONNERY (17A: *1962-67, 1971)
TIMOTHY DALTON (27A: *1987-89)
ROGER / MOORE (35A: With 39-Across, *1973-85)
PIERCE BROSNAN (48A: *1995-2002)
DANIEL CRAIG (63A: *2006-)

NOTE (on .puz / e-version):

Word of the Day:Henry L. STIMSON(26D: Henry L. ___, secretary of war during W.W. II) —

Henry Lewis Stimson (September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950) was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican Party politician and spokesman on foreign policy. He served as Secretary of War (1911–1913) under Republican William Howard Taft, and as Governor-General of the Philippines (1927–1929). As Secretary of State (1929–1933) under Republican President Herbert Hoover, he articulated the Stimson Doctrine which announced American opposition to Japanese expansion in Asia. He again served as Secretary of War (1940–1945) under Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, and was a leading hawk calling for war against Germany. During World War II he took charge of raising and training 13 million soldiers and airmen, supervised the spending of a third of the nation's GDP on the Army and the Air Forces, helped formulate military strategy, and oversaw the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bombs, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, if you like remembering James Bonds and / or like having the theme answers be very very very easy to get, then here you go. This is a straight trivia puzzle with nothing interesting going on at all *except* the cute idea of having the revealer come at (00)7-Down. Also, the grid is crammed with theme material, which means the fill suffers quite a bit. I kept wanting to tear out and rewrite everything east (and inclusive) of STIMSON—STETSON is so much better—but then I realized that MOORE *has* to be there ... and so we endure everything that that entails. Here's the thing, though ... OK, full disclosure re: this puzzle. I never read the "constructor's notes" at the NYT puzzle site. Ever. Like, ever. I find them ridiculous and self-serving. But, today, this one time, I'm gonna link to them, because you really should read them. If you don't want to click through and read them, the short version is: the constructor is in prison in the state of Washington, and has been for 26 years. Having taught in a maximum security prison in New York, I know how hard it is for prisoners to get access to even basic resources, so the fact that today's constructor was able to make a puzzle this competent, entirely by hand, under those conditions, is remarkable. I think that's all I have to say on the matter today.

See you back here tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor:Zachary Spitz and Diane Roseman

Relative difficulty:Medium (I was slow, but my mistakes were dumb and likely atypical)

THEME: UNITED NATIONS (49A: Organization founded in 1945 ... or a literal description of 20-, 24- and 44-Across)— two country names, fused into one, three times:

Theme answers:

PAKISTANZANIA (20A: Indian Ocean bloc?)
NICARAGUATEMALA (24A: Central American bloc?)
SWITZERLANDORRA (44A: Western European bloc?)

Word of the Day:LENTANDO(38D: Gradually slowing, in music) —

becoming slower —used as a direction in music (m-w)

• • •

Like yesterday's theme, today's is rudimentary. Seems decades old and not terribly clever. These are the combinations you can get into symmetrical positions, fine. But there are tons of -LAND countries and tons of -STAN countries, so getting ones to work out can't have been that hard. I only wish we could've gotten some of the more outlandish combinations in there, like NEPALAU, JAPANAMA, SWEDENMARK, NIGERMANY, VIETNAMIBIA, and, my favorite, UNITEDKINGDOMINICANREPUBLIC. I see that there is an attempt to give the theme an extra coherence by way of "blocs," but ... that seems pretty forced, especially when it comes to linking Pakistan and Tanzania. Anyway, I'm already being told the theme has been done before, multiple times, and at least once with very similar theme clues (with the revealer used as the puzzle's title). Fill isn't terrible, but longer answers never really get up to the level of genuinely interesting.

I was ridiculously slow today, for reasons I don't quite understand. Slowed first at SICK (3D: "Awesome!"). I use the term myself, but couldn't imagine the puzzle doing so, and thus at SI- I just ... stared for a few seconds, I think. Also HOLIDAY didn't compute At All, even with many crosses in place (4D: Office-closing time). I kept wanting a time of day. Answer was way more generic that I imagined. I then badly misread 15A: ___ vera and wrote in VICE (...). Still never seen "Frozen" so ANNA = ??? (so many great ANNAs in the world, and we get this one, blargh). I also wrote in SPAM instead of SENT at 64A: Email folder. None of this was hard; I just didn't slice through it the way I usually slice through Tuesdays. Now I'm amusing myself by doing country/state mash-ups, like GUATEMALABAMA and DENMARKANSAS ... so I should probably go now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld\

P.S. here's a somewhat more spectacular version of this theme:

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One-horse carriage / THU 3-23-17 / Distinctive filmmakers / Old typesetting machine informally / Certain bourdeaux informally

Jazz Trumpeter Hargrove with two Grammys / FRI 3-24-17 / Novelist Hammond / Bronx Zoo has 265 of them / Bad occasion for anchor to drag / Hybrid business entity / In Luxury Beware painter 1663

Literary waiter / SAT 3-25-17 / Coffee in miltary slang / Locale in two James Bond films / Media inits since 1922 / Subject of 1942 film musical Yankee Doodle Dandy / Joey of children's literature

Bandleader Eubanks familiarly / SUN 3-26-17 / Monastery head's jurisdiction / Title creature in 1958 #1 Sheb Wooley hit / Onetime acquisition of G.E. / Lyre-plucking muse / zen master's query / Biggest employer in Moline Ill / Dystopian film of 1971

Old-fashioned wine holder / MON 3-27-17 / What Google's Ngram program tracks for word usage / Labourite's opponent in British politics / Group of books that educated person is supposed to be familiar with

Illegal pitching motion / TUE 3-28-17 / 18th-century mathetmatician who introduced function / Inspiring 1993 movie about Notre Dame football team / Tom who coached Dallas Cowboys for 29 years

Camera named for goddess / WED 3-29-17 / Crisis time / 1974 hit with Spanish lyrics / Leather often treated to look like Morocco / Aromatic additive to natural gas

Disrobing of Christ painter 1579 / Most-nominated woman ever in Grammys / Famed deli seen in Woody Allen's Manhattan / Green Hornet's masked driver / Dramatic ending to performance

John of pro wrestling / FRI 3-31-17 / Alphabetically rhyming river name / Mammasl using echolocation / 1980s big city mayor / Ff Sumter battler / Good practice for show it's academic

Ancient New Mexican / SAT 4-1-17 / Milieu of FX series Americans / Noted father or son singer / Construction staples

Ghostbuster Spengler / SUN 4-2-17 / King who spoke at Kennedy's inaugural ball / Writer who coined term banana republic 1904 / French region now part of Grand Est / Pride parade letters / Fifth-century pope dubbed Great / Stop in sailor's lingo

Superman's birth name / MON 4-3-17 / Philippe (Swiss watchmaker) / -CIO / "That sounds good - NOT!" / Cheri formerly of S.N.L.

On Beach heroine / TUE 4-4-17 / Defunct gridiron org / Old fashioned theaters / Stiller's longtime wife comedy partner / Old airline with slogan We have to earn our wings every day / Fifth member in noble line

Greek poet who wrote distaff / WED 4-5-17 / 1987-94 Star Trek series briefly / Crypto City at Ft Meade / Devices that prevent fumes from escaping / Pothook shape / Drink made from frozen grapes

Edible part of litchi / THU 4-6-17 / Sitcom catchphrase of 70s 80s / Many embedded animation / Last word of many improv skit

Sister brand of Ortho / FRI 4-7-17 / Bread spread whose tagline is Love it hate it / Brush alternative / Onetime Chicago Outfi establishment / Druidic monument / American candy company since 1904 / Clown Prince of Denmark

East of Eden girlfriend / SAT 4-8-17 / Bonehead to Brits / Fictional mariner also known as Prince Dakkar / Gordon Gekko Rooster Cogburn / First century megalomaniac / Component of pigment maya blue

French director Clement / SUN 4-9-17 / Tim Robbins mockumentary / Martial art sword way / Bilbo Baggins home / Peevish / Tony World Series Cardinals / Hairy hunter Genesis / Kentucky college / Communication system Thomas Gallaudet / BFG author / Scarlett Johansson Lady Windemere's Fan

Long-term inmate / MON 4-10-17 / King topper / Like some processed apples / Henry L secretary of war during WW II / Designer letters on handbag / Alliance that keeps wary eye on Russia

Elsa's younger sister in Frozen / TUE 4-11-17 / Motto for modern risk taker for short / Gradually slowing in music / Bill who popularizes science