Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:"Going Off Script"— four lines from movies are clued simply by their movie title, and then corresponding answers are ordinary two-word phrases ending in LINE where the first word is also the name of the actor who said the LINE from the movie. Thus:

Theme answers:

"HAKUNA MATATA!" (22A: "The Lion King") is a LANE LINE (24A: Pool divider, or a further hint to 22-Across) because Nathan *Lane* is the "Lion King" actor who says it
"SHOW ME THE MONEY!" (42A: "Jerry Maguire") is a (Tom) CRUISE LINE
"WHY SO SERIOUS?" (101A: "The Dark Knight") is a (Heath) LEDGER LINE
"CHEWIE, WE'RE HOME" (76A: "The Force Awakens") is a (Harrison) FORD LINE

Word of the Day: Ad VALOREM tax (10D: Ad ___ tax) —

An ad valorem tax (Latin for "according to value") is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax (VAT). An ad valorem tax may also be imposed annually, as in the case of a real or personal property tax, or in connection with another significant event (e.g. inheritance tax, expatriation tax, or tariff). In some countries a stamp duty is imposed as an ad valorem tax. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did you know Harrison Ford was Joan Didion's carpenter? That Didion documentary on Netflix is wild...

This is one of those themes that probably sounded good in the constructor's head (probably originated with noting the possible dual meaning of CRUISE LINE), but then ... oof. Where to start? How about with the fact that "SHOW ME THE MONEY!?" isn't really a Cruise line. I mean, he says it, sure, but he's just repeating the line that Cuba Gooding, Jr. already said (and made famous). Then there's the unbelievable inclusion of "CHEWIE, WE'RE HOME," which ... what? Since when is that a famous line? The others are very, very famous. Iconic, even. "CHEWIE, WE'RE HOME?" OK, I saw "Force Awakens" only once, so maybe the importance of that line got by me somehow, but ... no. Not even close. You can't throw that dumb, utterly non-iconic line out there as the fourth in a set where the other three are classics. Absurd. If you want to pull off a theme like this, wait til you have collected a suitable set of themers. That is the Merl Reagle rule of themes: don't take it out of the damned oven before it's done. Don't force it. Just because you can work up *a* list of themers that fit doesn't mean you're there yet. Stunned that this passed muster. "CHEWIE, WE'RE HOME," dear lord. "Laugh it up, Fuzzball" is a more famous FORD LINE by far than "CHEWIE, WE'RE HOME," and even that line isn't that famous. I feel like the whole word of ____ LINE options has not been fully explored / exploited, and so we get ... this—this tepid expression of what might've been a reasonably interesting theme.

[a looping online animation]
(see 6A)
The fill in this one is more forgettable than bad, but it's definitely got more than enough KER ESE ADA ADES to go around. I winced dramatically when I threw down SENESCE ... and then immediately crossed it with BANC. It was a SENESCE/BANC kind of puzzle. Couple of names that were new(ish) to me; McCoy TYNER and UZI GAL, the latter of which sounds more like an arms-loving woman's Twitter handle than a human name. I knew GOTYE, but there's really no reason why most of humanity should (6D: Singer with the 2012 #1 hit "Somebody That I Used to Know"). I'm guessing he gave many people more than a little trouble. Luckily, the crosses seem fair. Also, luckily, this puzzle was Super-Easy, so there wasn't a lot of time to build up a good head of grumpy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I enjoyed remembering "Friday I'm in Love" and THE CURE (106A) is easily the best answer in this grid

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Constructor: Jay Kaskel

Relative difficulty: Medium* (actually, no idea ... see below)

THEME: witches' brew— ordinary phrases are clued as if they related to witches, because it's October 30, which is of course Hallo ... wait a minute ..

Theme answers:

SPELLCHECK (18A: Computer help for a witch?)
CHARM SCHOOL (26A: Educational institution for witches?)
WARTS AND ALL (41A: How one might be forced to accept a witch?)
CURSE WORDS (53A: Utterances from witches?)

Word of the Day: INCUS (12D: Ear bone) —

noun
Anatomy
noun: incus; plural noun: incudes
a small anvil-shaped bone in the middle ear, transmitting vibrations between the malleus and stapes. (google)

• • •

The plural of INCUS is "incudes"!? WHERE DID THE "D" COME FROM!!?!?!?! Now *that* is EERIE.

[SCHELL game]

This is actually fine. It's a cute-ish little pun puzzle about witches, and though it's not actually Halloween, it is Halloween-adjacent, so ... fine. The fill is very very very very average (i.e. not great), but it wasn't dreadful. This one is a "C"—average, OK, fine, you pass. You shouldn't have to go to either SCHELL (!) or INCUS on a Monday, but you pass. I thought SCHNELL, as so tried all Kinds of spellings. My main gripe today is not with the puzzle itself, but with the NYT crossword website, which would not not not cough up a .puz version of the puzzle for me to solve on my desktop with AcrossLite software; that is, it wouldn't give me the damned puzzle in my preferred format. Instead it gave me this stupid error message:

And so I had to solve on the NYT website itself. The "applet," I think it's called. And that was dreadful, because I'm used to how the keyboard behaves with AcrossLite, which is slightly, eerily, but significantly different from how it behaves on the applet. At high speeds, that difference is amplified, i.e. I move through the grid like a drunk person moves through an obstacle course, i.e. humorously badly. My time was slow, but I can't lay that all on the puzzle. Hence my default (i.e. "I don't know") "Medium" difficulty rating.

Had CLOT for CLOD (26D: Dirt clump). Both seem right, and OTS looks OK in the cross ... this is why you check your damned crosses. Now that I look at CLOT and CLOD, CLOD is obviously the better choice. CLOT = blood, CLOD = dirt, or some dumbass, I suppose. Can we all agree that [U.K. award]s are among the lowest forms of crossword answers. A notch below [Schoolyard taunt]s. I had the most trouble with WURSTS, because I wanted only BRATS and then no other words would form in my head. It was very frustrating. I like the little bonus themers of HAGS and EERIE, and also CRIES and PAINS crossing in the center. Very Halloweeny. All in all, a tolerable amuse-bouche of a Halloweenesque puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:Reformation Day 2017—500th anniversary of the "Ninety-Five Theses"

Theme answers:

PROTESTANT (17A: With 24-Across, movement resulting from the "Ninety-Five Theses")
REFORMATION (24A: See 17-Across)
ALL SAINTS CHURCH (36A: Building where the "Ninety-Five Theses" were posted)
INDULGENCES (47A: Practice condemned in the "Ninety-Five Theses")
WITTENBERG (58A: City where the "Ninety-Five Theses" were written)

Word of the Day: Madame NHU (59D: Madame ___ of 1960s Vietnam) —

Trần Lệ Xuân (22 August 1924 – 24 April 2011), more popularly known as Madame Nhu, was the de factoFirst Lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. She was the wife of Ngô Đình Nhu, who was the brother and chief-advisor to President Ngô Đình Diệm. As Diệm was a lifelong bachelor and because she and her family lived in Independence Palace together with him, she was considered to be the first lady. // Known for her harsh and incendiary comments that attacked and severely denounced the Buddhist community of South Vietnam and the strong American influence and presence in the country, she had to live in exile in France after her husband and her brother-in-law, Diệm, were assassinated in 1963.

• • •

I waited 500 years for *this*? The world's most boring tribute puzzle? Man, I'm gonna go work up my own 95 crossword theses and nail them to the door of the NYT.

A bunch of related words arranged symmetrically. No playfulness, no cleverness, no thoughtfulness. Just a cynical attempt to exploit an anniversary. I am currently teaching English literature of Renaissance / Reformation, so the themers were all pretty dang easy (except for ALL SAINTS CHURCH, which I blanked on). The rest of the grid seemed easy, too. I have no idea how my time ended up perfectly average. I'm guessing the slowdown had something to do with the only answer in the grid I had to pay any attention to (not coincidentally, the ugliest thing in the grid): NHU (59D: Madame ___ of 1960s Vietnam). Wow, NHU? Who NHU!? Between that and the adjacent CEREAL, with its jaunty / befuddling "Post" clue (46D: Post production?), I kept putting in and tearing out the first two letters of 62A: "It's all clear to me now!"). NHU even had me unsure about the [City where the "Ninety-Five Theses" were written]. Who the hell is Madame NHU? Please don't tell me I should be "happy to learn something." No, you should be sad that your constructor had to resort to such junk fill, because I assure you, he didn't put NHU in here so he could teach the world about her. Desperation, man. That's the only reason you're ever gonna see NHU. I thought "I've never seen that before," but apparently she appeared in a puzzle during the first month of my blog's existence (Oct. 2006). I'd like to thank the NYT for giving me 11 NHU-free years. I will always remember those years fondly.

Gotta run. Happy Halloween.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. it occurs to me that many solvers may not know what INDULGENCES are, so here:

In the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, an indulgence is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins". It may reduce the "temporal punishment for sin" after death (as opposed to the eternal punishment merited by mortal sin), in the state or process of purification called Purgatory. [...] By the late Middle Ages, the abuse of indulgences, mainly through commercialization, had become a serious problem which the Church recognized but was unable to restrain effectively. Indulgences were from the beginning of the Protestant Reformation a target of attacks by Martin Luther and all other Protestant theologians. Eventually the Catholic Counter-Reformation curbed the excesses, but indulgences continue to play a role in modern Catholic religious life. Reforms in the 20th century largely abolished the quantification of indulgences, which had been expressed in terms of days or years. These days or years were meant to represent the equivalent of time spent in penance, although it was widely taken to mean time spent in Purgatory. The reforms also greatly reduced the number of indulgences granted for visiting particular churches and other locations. (wikipedia)

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Constructor: Herre Schouwerwou

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ANIMAL / CRACKERS (54A: With 56-Across, lunchbox snacks ... or a hint to the black squares before 18-, 29-, 35- and 45-Across)— those black squares "crack" (?) (as in "break into two pieces) the names of different animals. So:

Theme answers:

MCGREGOR ILL ASK
PERSIMMON KEYED
IN A DAZE BRANAGH
STELE PHANTASMS

Word of the Day: STELE (42A: Engraved pillar) —

A stele (/ˈstiːli/, STEE-lee) is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. Grave steles were often used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. // The surface of the stele usually has text, ornamentation, or both. The ornamentation may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. (wikipedia)

• • •

Weird. I was taking my time with this one, waiting for the gimmick to present itself, but it never did, and meanwhile I was writing in answers as soon as I looked at clues, zip zing. Couldn't figure out what the hell was going on? Why is my Thursday puzzle so weirdly easy?, I wondered. I finished in the high 3s—very fast for a Thursday ... and then remembered that tomorrow is Wednesday, not Thursday. Thaaaaaat ... actually makes sense now. This theme is essentially invisible, and having the revealer reference the "black squares" actually makes the whole endeavor kind of awkward. Further, those black squares don't "crack" the animals—they *break* them in two. If I crack a plate, it isn't in two pieces. I finished never having seen the damned animals, and then when the revealer told me, "Hey, look!", I looked and didn't care. Those sure are animals. *Broken* animals. Thanks for putting STELE in my grid. Hope you're satisfied.

Weird to have rows 2 and 14 not be themed when their adjacent rows (with identical white/black square patterns) are. AJOKE is a pretty bad partial. I don't really believe SMAZE exists in real life—I have only ever seen it in crosswords (and I spent a good chunk of my young adulthood in southern California). I had NO-GO ZONE instead of AREA at first, despite the fact that the clue has "zone" in it (that's how much better NO-GO ZONE is as an answer) (3D: Forbidden zone). Just watched "Clueless" last week, so STACEY Dash was cake (would've been cake even without the rewatching, to be honest; I know that movie really well). PALSY-walsy is an absurdity, both because people rarely say it in the 21st century, and because the clue word has 80% of the same letters (in the same places) as the answer word. "I HOPE NOT" and "OH COME ON!" are pretty lively answers. But they weren't enough. From a real-time solving standpoint, this was essentially a dull themeless.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. about those successive [Cars are "parked" in it] [Cars are parked in it] clues (49A, 50A). That is very cute, except, *again* from a real-time solving standpoint, the cuteness is not visible—unless you are either a neophyte or a psychopath and solve your crosswords by reading the Across clues in order (?). Successive *Down* clues have a much higher chance of actually being read successively, because successive *Down* clues will often be in the same general section, whereas successive Acrosses *never* are.

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Constructor: Peter Sagal and Mike Selinker

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: NEW YORK MARATHON (37A: Event held on the first Sunday in November, and whose path is recreated in this puzzle)— each BOROUGH is represented by a word that can follow that BOROUGH's name in a familiar phrase (45A: What each step in this puzzle lacks, in proper order). Clues for the BOROUGHs indicate the "Steps" (i.e. route) of the marathon:

Theme answers:

[BRONX] CHEER (9A: Step 5: A show of contempt)
[MANHATTAN] PROJECT (23A: Steps 4 and 6: A 1940s program)
[QUEEN['?]S] ENGLISH (28A: Step 3: Ann upper-class accent)
[BROOKLYN] DODGERS (51A: Step 2: An old baseball team)
[STATEN ISLAND] FERRY (67A: Step 1: A passenger ship since 1817)

Word of the Day: Issa Rae (47A: Actress Issa and others = RAES) —

Jo-Issa "Issa" Rae Diop (born January 12, 1985) is an American actress, writer, director, producer and web series creator. She is best known as the creator of the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl. Since the premiere of Awkward Black Girl, Rae has developed her own YouTube platform where she features various content created by people of color. Rae's shows have garnered over 20 million views and over 260,000 subscribers on YouTube. // As of October 2016, Rae is the creator, co-writer and star of the HBO series Insecure, which is partially based on Awkward Black Girl. (WIKIPEDIA)

• • •

Timely and interesting, though there are some issues in the execution. There's something awkward about calling the boroughs "steps" and also having them not in order and also having one of the boroughs (MANHATTAN) be two steps and then also having one of the boroughs (QUEENS) be a differently punctuated word in the clue (QUEEN'S). Further, I cannot figure out the syntax on the revealer, specifically how you can "lack" something "in proper order." I get that the steps all lack their boroughs, and that if you follow the steps, through the various (missing) boroughs, you trace the route of the marathon, but the wording on that revealer clue is still jacked. Write a fuller, clearer revealer. It wasn't hard to figure out, but it wasn't pleasant to read either. Oh, and there's another way QUEEN'S is an outlier, besides the punctuation—all the other boroughs have clues related specifically to their boroughs. DODGERS are from Brooklyn, FERRY goes to/from Staten Island, etc. But QUEEN(')S ... no. Still, withholding the boroughs like this is a pretty interesting variation on the "Word That Can Precede" type of puzzle, and the grid holds up very well considering the theme density. We even get a couple blocks of longer Acrosses in the NW / SE to liven things up. I DON'T MIND that at all.

Issa Rae is great, but RAES (plural) is a shambles. Plural names are never great, but plural uncommon names look ****ing ridiculous. I resent this puzzle for making me think about the president* (27A: Trump is often involved in these) and PAPA ****ing John (43A: Pizza maker John Schnatter's nickname). But putting Stevie in the grid very nearly makes up for it. "DO I DO" looks insane as an answer (I wonder how many people are wondering "What the hell is a DOIDO and why would anyone sing about it?"). But it's got a great beat and groove and ... yeah, let's just listen to Stevie now.

I had trouble only in the SE section, where ATKINS messed me up (48D: Country singer Trace => ADKINS), and ROCK ON (which no one actually says) took forever to come together (47D: Comment with the pinkie and forefinger extended upward). I did not know Café NOIR was a thing. Is that just a pretentious way of saying "black coffee"? Not sure why you'd throw away your NOIR clue like that, especially during Noirvember, but to each his own.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins and Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SAND DAB (1D: Pacific flatfish) —

The Pacific sanddab (Citharichthys sordidus) is a species of flatfish. It is by far the most common sanddab, and it shares its habitat with the longfin sanddab (C. xanthostigma) and the speckled sanddab (C. stigmaeus). It is a medium-sized flatfish, with a light brown color mottled brown or black, occasionally with white or orange spots. // The Pacific sanddab is endemic to the northern Pacific Ocean, from the Sea of Japan to the coast of California. They are most commonly found at depths of 50 to 150 m (160 to 490 ft), though the young inhabit shallower waters, occasionally moving into tide pools. [...] It is a popular game fish in northern California, found on menus in the Monterey Bay and San Francisco area, though more difficult to find in southern California restaurants and markets. (wikipedia)

• • •

I believe this is the most total names ever credited with the construction of a crossword puzzle. Most total *words* is probably one of them JASA-constructed puzzles, but for human name elements, I have a feeling six (two constructors with first, middle, and last names credited) is the winner. I also believe this was a very good puzzle. I say "believe" because I only caught a glimpse of it—I ran through this thing in 3:53, which ... I honestly don't know what my record Friday time is, but this is close. I can identify every single place I hesitated while solving this thing, because there are so few. My brain took a few beats to remember ENTEBBE, though it should've come to me instantly off the initial "E" (7D: Ugandan city on Lake Victoria). NUT MEAT is so ... unpleasant and seldom-heard ... that I mostly allowed crosses to take care of it (17A: Edible kernel). Never heard of "ABIE the Agent" but off the "AB-" I took a guess. I somehow remembered RIAA for the first time in my solving career (21D: Gold-certifying org.), which confirmed ABIE. I wrote KAHN instead of KHAN at first (30D: Sadiq ___, London mayor elected in 2016). I had LTD before YTD (54A: Abbr. in a financial report) but UGLY CRY (41D: Intense sobbing with a contorted face, in modern lingo) took care of that. Neither AGUA (51D: Tequila chaser) nor LARD (52D: It's used in preparing tamales) wanted to fall into place on the first go, but I just went up and in to that SW corner via ROB REINER (44A: Filmmaker whose directorial debut was "This Is Spinal Tap"), and bam, done, right at the central "E" in ENNEADS (61A: The Muses and others).

I think I might've struggled with SAND DAB if my parents hadn't moved, in their retirement, to the Monterey Bay area. They like to go to a little fish restaurant on a pier there, where you can see otters and sometimes Reggie Jackson (true story), and anyway, I think their menu was the first place I ever saw the term SAND DAB. I have a feeling I ordered it and it was tasty. But I have a feeling there will be plenty of people who've never heard of it before. I'm teaching MARLOWE this week and next week, so his name: no problem (26D: "Hero and Leander" poet). We're not reading "Hero and Leander," though. Just "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and then Dr. Faustus. TMI? Fine. I liked this puzzle, overall. I *loved* UGLY CRY. I recognize that GOOGLE HANGOUTS is original, but I can't say I enjoyed seeing it (36A: Platform for chatting). Corporate properties, esp. those I don't use, tend not to light my fire. But I'll take originality wherever I can find it, I guess. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Michael Shteyman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: STRETCH THE TRUTH (54A: Exaggerate ... or a hint to five nonconsecutive letters in 20-Across, 36-Across and 7-Down)— T R U T and H appear in (non-consecutive) order in each of the three themers

Theme answers:

THROUGH THE YEARS (20A: Over time)
BUTTERNUT SQUASH (36A: Garden fruit that tastes pumpkin-y)
"DON'T ARGUE WITH ME!" (7D: "Because I said so!")

Word of the Day: AHMAD TEA (11D: Alternative to Twinings) —

Ahmad Tea is a tea company based in London, England. The company produces a range of tea bags, loose teas and gifts including: black tea, green tea, flavoured teas, and herbal teas. They opened a new eco-friendly office in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire in 2010. // Ahmad Tea distributes to over 80 countries on six continents, where it can be found in selected restaurants, hotels, specialty shops as well as some chains.Ahmad Tea’s headquarters also contains a tea museum, which attracts local guests. In 2015, it was awarded with three Great Taste Awards for various blends. In 2012, in partnership with U Support charity, Ahmad Tea donated its range of teas to Chariteas, a branded tea room in Hampshire, whose proceeds go to supporting disabled children. In 2013, Ahmad Tea was awarded the ethical investor of the year award for its charitable initiatives in the UK and support of orphanages in Mali, Russia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. (wikipedia)

• • •

Why would you do this? And by "this" I mean a couple of things—why would you think this was a good theme (non-consecutive letters?!) and also why would you put this on one of the only reliably Good days of the week? Why would you take away the joy of a true Saturday themeless, only to replace it with this!? Run this thing on Wednesday (with different / easier clues) if you really must publish it. Ugh, non-consecutive letters that allegedly spell things = non. events. NONEVENTS. Watch: TRUST THE PROCESS! Boom! 15, non-consecutive "truth," check please! Do you see how this "theme" is an objectionable nuisance?! "DON'T ARGUE WITH ME" is both the only good answer in this grid and the thing I will say to you if you object to my claim that it is the only good answer in this grid. What on god's green earth is AHMAD TEA. Thank god those AHMAD crosses were fair, because yikes. I have never heard of this alleged tea until Just This Second. Does it even exist in the States? Rough. MAOTAI, also rough (1D: Strong Chinese liquor). At least I remembered TENERIFE exists (38D: Largest of the Canaries).

[When AMAHL Met POLA]

AHMAD AMAHL AMOUR is the new amo amas amat. Speaking of AMAHL, I have done so many damned puzzles that I just take it for granted that that was a gimme for everyone else too, only ... there's no reason it should be. Both AMAHL and its silent movie crossing POLA are names I learned from crosswords. I have since seen POLA's name in other places, as I've become more of a movies fan over (not through) the years, but crossing those two seems dicey. I know OLIN because daughter is in full-on college application mode, and they were definitely on her radar. I think she determined that they were just too small, but ... I mean, she's applying to Harvey Mudd, and their entire student body could barely fill a movie theater, so I don't really get her objection to OLIN, but it's her life, her business. We have been told quite emphatically to stop talking about all of it, so I guess she'll just tell us sometime in April where she's gonna be next year. Could very well be UCLA. Or not. We'll see.

[the only acceptable clue for THROUGH THE YEARS]

OK bye now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Natan Last

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Lane Changes— theme answers are clued two ways, one that goes the normal way (straight Across) and one that "diverges" off at an angle (signified by circled squares):

Theme answers:

WAYNE'S WORLD / WAY OF LIFE (22A: 1992 movie based on an "A.H.L." sketch ... or, diverged: Modus vivendi)
DRAG AND DROP / DRAG SHOW (39A: Computer mouse action ... or, diverged: Event for RuPaul)
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN / THE ROAD TO HELL (67A: 1916 Frost verse ... or, diverged: Start of a saying about meaning well)
DRIVE IN A RUN / DRIVER'S ED (97A: Bring someone home ... or, diverged: Common high school offering)
PATHFINDERS / PATHOS (117A: Nissan S.U.V.s ... or, diverged: Emotional appeal)

Word of the Day:"I AM LEGEND"(120A: Hit 2007 Will Smith film) —

I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film based on the novel I Am Legend, directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith, who plays US Army virologist Robert Neville. The story is set in New York City after a virus, which was originally created to cure cancer, has wiped out most of mankind, leaving Neville as the last human in New York, other than nocturnal mutants. Neville is immune to the virus and he works to develop a cure while defending himself against the hostile mutants. (wikipedia)

• • •

The concept is somewhat interesting, but half of this thing just missed me because those "diverged" parts are totally irrelevant. The first parts of the theme clues are sufficient to get the Across parts, and you can get those circled letters from all the other answers in the puzzle, so ... there were five "who cares so what didn't see 'em" roads, the diverging of which meant nil to me. I can look back now and go "Huh, OK, neat." But they were totally inessential. When the main concept of your puzzle is one that the solver can safely ignore—that seems like a problem. I guess the central answer, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, was meant to be not just another themer, but a kind of second title. An apt title, it turns out, as half the roads were not taken, by me, during this solve. Anyway, this played like a giant themeless. It was fine, but not nearly as exciting as an actual themeless would be, so overall I'd say this was disappointing. The grid is well made, for sure, but themes should make their presence felt, and this one didn't.

DRIVE IN A RUN is like a notch above EAT A SANDWICH. It's definitely a phrase you hear in baseball, but it just doesn't feel strong enough to stand alone, especially not as a themer. LAWD took me so long. I just sat there staring at it even after I had LAW-. Not wild about crossing JAFAR and AFAR. Or about crossing NONOS with NO SPIN. Or UPSELL and UP AHEAD. Would you really use FRISKS to mean [Gambols]? Lambs ... frisk? ... in the leas? I wanted FROLICS, but of course there were space issues. I misspelled RAINN Wilson's name twice before I got it right (RAYNE, RAYNN). The whole NE was the hardest part for me. None of the longer Acrosses wanted to come into view, and TABARDS and KARA were both unknown to me. I'd also never heard of ELSA Morante (63A) and I didn't know [Freudian "will to live"] was EROS, so the center region was a little dicey. I thought I was pretty slick when I took one look at 36D: Monumental support with a "P" at the front of it and dropped in PLINTH. And in fact a plinth is a "heavy base supporting a statue or vase." It just wasn't the right answer *here* (PILLAR). Finished up in the SW, with a movie I've never seen and a singer I've never (to my knowledge) heard. Wait, did BRENDA LEE sing "Fever"? Whoops, nope, that's Peggy Lee. So no, BRENDA LEE I've never heard. But I have heard *of* her, and that was enough.

STUBHUB is a good answer. My favorite thing in the grid by far. GOD HELP US was pretty good too. And ATTACK ADS. See, it really is a decent themeless in parts. Just wish the theme had been, you know, *there*.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. you should watch "GILDA" if you haven't already. It is Great. Though you would never, ever call a movie a "femme fatale film" (!?) (34D: 1946 film fatale film)

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BOO! It's Annabel Monday again!

Constructor: BENJAMIN LAURING AND MAX LAURING

Relative difficulty: EASY

THEME: PART ANIMAL — Theme answers consisted of an animal and a body part.

Theme answers:

RAT TAIL (15A: *Out-of-vogue hairstyle akin to a mullet)
HARE BRAIN (17D: *Foolish sort)
BEES KNEES (22D: *Really something, with "the")
PIGEON TOES (27A: *Condition with feet turned inward)
PIGGY BACK (32A: *How a tot rides on someone's shoulders)
SNAKE EYES (37A: *Two ones, in dice)
PART ANIMAL (48A: Like a centaur or faun...or a hint to each of this puzzle's starred clues)
DOG EARS (60A: *Signs of a much-used book)

Word of the Day: OLIO (55D: Miscellany) —

1:olla podrida

The Spanish restaurant offered an olio containing a variety of ingredients.

2a :a miscellaneous mixture :hodgepodge

… an incredible bourgeois olio of fancy stonework, stained glass, and light-opera staircases …

—R. H. Rovere

b :a miscellaneous collection (as of literary or musical selections)

This olio of broadsides, speeches, letters, poems, and other documents …
—S. R. Slaton

(Merriam-Webster)

• • •

I do still look cool right?

I hope everyone had a great and spoOoOoOoOoOoOoOky Halloween! I know it was like a week ago, but it's a really big deal at my college so it feels like it's still here. I went as Danny Zuko from Grease, except I forgot to make the T-Birds sign for the back of my leather jacket so I kinda just looked like a random person in a leather jacket with greasy hair. Oh well, I still looked cool. (Before my mom has a heart attack, that's a lollipop stick in the picture, not a cigarette - it's part of the costume!)

Anyway, enough talking about stuff that happened an entire week ago! This puzzle was pretty good. The fill was actually some of the best I've seen in a while - EKG, ELOI, PLAT and some fun stuff with suffixes. And the constructors were pretty light on pop culture references for once! Having to make a million guesses about which obscure soap opera star a given clue refers to is always one of my least favorite parts of the puzzle, honestly, so getting a break from that is refreshing. I didn't really get stuck anywhere, except for having PIGEON FOOT for PIGEON TOES for an embarrassing amount of time.

I literally just got that the theme is PART ANIMAL because it contains both a body part and an animal. I had HALF ANIMAL there for a long time and I didn't quite get the double meaning. I guess that's pretty clever? Also, there sure were a ton of theme clues this time! Anyway, fauns are cool. I haven't read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for about a million years but Mr. Tumnus is definitely the best part of that book. I like his umbrella.

Bullets:

DOG EARS (60A: Signs of a much-used book) — Not to be a nerd or anything but, nooooooo! Don't do this to books! It's better than leaving them face down but it's not good to leave creases in the pages forever! I usually just use a random discarded clothing tag or something as a bookmark because I'm too lazy to find my bajillion actual bookmarks. ...Actually, I guess I get dog-earing a book if you know it's something you're going to read a lot of times and you want to save your favorite parts. I dunno. Different strokes for different folks?
ENGAGE (64A: Have the attention of)— Speaking of being a nerd, I personally would have clued this very differently...

YANKEES (40D: Team with the most World Series Victories (27)) — Argh! I'm in Boston! We don't talk about that here!!!! Even the "(27)" in the clue seems like it just rubs it in. Rude!
REEBOK (54A: Nike competitor) — "Are those Reebok or Nike?"

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

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Constructor: Greg Poulos

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)

THEME: WORD OF THE YEAR (56A: Annual American Dialect Society award given to seven answers in this puzzle)— it is what it says it is:

Theme answers:

MILLENNIUM BUG (20A: Rollover problem? [1997])
DUMPSTER FIRE (28A: Spectacular disaster [2016])
BAIL OUT (36A: Rescue from insolvency [2008])
PLUTOED (39A: Demoted [2006])
SINGULAR THEY (46A: Gender-neutral pronoun [2015])
WMD (13D: Iraq war worry, for short [2002])
APP (61D: Snapchat or Dropbox [2010])

Word of the Day: MILLENNIUM BUG—

The Year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, the Millennium bug, the Y2K bug, or Y2K, is a class of computer bugs related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates beginning in the year 2000. Problems were anticipated, and arose, because twentieth-century software often represented the four-digit year with only the final two digits—making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. The assumption of a twentieth-century date in such programs caused various errors, such as the incorrect display of dates and the inaccurate ordering of automated dated records or real-time events. (wikipedia entry for "Year 2000 Problem")

• • •

This is an "I found a list and I'm going to arrange words from this list symmetrically in a grid" theme. Whoop dee doo. There's nothing clever happening here. Answers may as well be dog breeds with a revealer of DOG BREEDS—that's how exciting this is. Yes, you get some wackadoodle words like PLUTOED (which no one says at all) and historical curiosities like MILLENNIUM BUG (?), but the rest are just ... words. Oooh, APP, how fun! APP is crosswordese now. See also WMD. No theme credit for you! Ugh, and that first themer. I had MILLENNIUM BU- and still had No Idea what [Rollover problem? [1997]] wanted me to write in. Again, keep your stupid "?" clues out of an essentially non-"?" theme. They are irritating. "Y2K" is something I remember. MILLENNIUM BUG, not at all. And I was very much an adult for that whole "rollover" event. PLUTOED also flummoxed me, as I stared at PL--OED going, ".... no." On top of this mere-list theme, the fill is not good. Except PIANO WIRE, which is highly unusual. And KING MINOS too, I'll take him. But the big NW / SE corners are dull and UIEISM INO RSTU ESE ANDLO (!?!?!) LOL no. I mean, ANDLO + RSTU = delete your grid. Hey, what did Santa say when he finally found a means of descending the chimney safely? ANDLO, AROPE! HOHOHO!

["If you're ever ____, / Here I am!"]

Further, isn't the clue for BAILOUT wrong (36A: Rescue from insolvency [2008])? That clue wants a verb, BAIL space OUT. But the Word of the Year was a noun—BAILOUT (n.): "bailout, the rescue by the government of companies on the brink of failure, including large players in the banking industry." Unless you are going to try to convince me that "Rescue" is being used as a noun there, which ... I mean, I guess you could lawyer it that way, but you and I know you wrote that clue and the world will interpret that clue as having "Rescue" as a verb. In the end, the themers themselves have some inherent charm, but the theme concept is just blah, and the grid as well.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I left one answer off the "Good" list: GAY BAR (10D: New York's Stonewall Inn, e.g.)

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Constructor: Joel Fagliano and Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Challenging (over 5!?)

THEME: phffffff .... OK, so regular words are clued by lists of three things, and you take the first letters of those things (in order) and then the type of thing those things are and then you get the answer ta da!—

Theme answers:

M, A, R KINGS (19A: Midas, Agamemnon, Richard)
P, A, S SPORTS (32A: Polo, archery, soccer)
H, U, S BANDS (51A: Heart, U2, Slayer)
A, P, O STATES (15D: Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio)
D, I, A TRIBES (27D: Dakota, Iroquois, Arapaho)

Word of the Day: GROSZ (7D: 1/100 of a Polish zloty) —

noun
noun: grosz; plural noun: grosze; plural noun: groszy
a monetary unit of Poland, equal to one hundredth of a zloty.
Origin

Polish; compare with groschen. (google)

• • •

This was super-rough for me. I mean, really hard. NW a disaster, as both the themer and DAD ROCK totally eluded me (perhaps because the biggest Steely Dan fan I know is a woman in her 30s) (3D: Genre for Dire Straits and Steely Dan, facetiously). Eventually, finally, picked up theme at APOSTATES, but even knowing the theme, it was a slog. ARCADIA, hard (2D: Domain of Pan, in Greek myth). ARS NOVA, nuts (29D: Classical music style whose name means "new art"). Zloty, I know, but GROSZ? No. And then soooo much ugsome cross-referencing. Had GOOD DAY before NICE DAY (26A: Something much-wished-for for people), and so CLEAR SKY (31A: Feature of a 26-Across, maybe) was not at all, uh, clear. And then [Heavy 39-Down]? And then [In this puzzle it starts B-E-L]??! So fussy. Kind of a drag to solve. And what the hell is NON-GAY about? (6D: Hetero, say). When are you using that? I see some pretty innocuous uses of it around the internet. For instance, an article entitled, "What's It Like Being Gay and NON-GAY Identical Twins?" (Vice). So, you know, it's defensible. Just ... I dunno. I'm eyeing it warily.

As for the theme, it's pretty clever, and definitely unusual. Once you grasp the concept, the themers fall pretty easily (maybe that's why the rest of the grid has been toughened up so much). The constructors are both Shortz employees, so I expect their work to be tighter than average—and I think this puzzle is. I like that they are *trying*, you know, with NON-GAY and DAD ROCK, to be all colloquial and contemporary or whatever. But that stuff can get dicey, esp if it brings stuff like LCD and AMENRA and ODON in its wake.And DAD ROCK is suuuuch an imprecise term. Also slightly snide and ageist, but whatever. They're trying and largely succeeding here, so if the options are YES OR NO, then OK, fine, yes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty: Challenging (though once you grasp the theme, it's not hard at all)

THEME: BACK— phrases ending in "BACK" have, instead of the word "BACK," the penultimate word in the phrase turned "BACK" around (i.e. reversed)

Theme answers:

"WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK" --> "WE'LL BE THGIR"
"I TAKE THAT BACK" --> "I TAKE TAHT"
"THERE'S NO TURNING BACK" --> "THERE'S NO GNINRUT"
"GUESS WHO'S BACK" --> "GUESS SOHW"
"... AND DON'T COME BACK" --> "... AND DON'T EMOC"

Word of the Day: UBS (36A: Credit Suisse rival) —

UBS AG is a Swiss global financial services company, incorporated in the Canton of Zurich, and co-headquartered in Zürich and Basel. The company provides wealth management, asset management, and investment banking services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, and is generally considered to be a bulge bracket bank. In Switzerland, these services are also offered to retail clients. The name UBS was originally an abbreviation for the Union Bank of Switzerland, but it ceased to be a representational abbreviation after the bank's merger with the Swiss Bank Corporation in 1998. The company traces its origins to 1856, when the earliest of its predecessor banks was founded. UBS has over CHF 2.8 trillion in invested assets, and remains a leading provider of retail banking and commercial banking services in Switzerland. It is the biggest bank in Switzerland, operating in more than 50 countries with 59,387 employees around the world, as of 2016. (wikipedia)

• • •

This managed to combine being very hard with being very stale (theme-wise). Me, after spending a long time trying to figure out the theme: "Oh ... you just turn the answers ... back ... great." I've actually seen variations on this reversal sort of thing before, though maybe not quite in this way. The whole thing is deadly, until you "get" it, and then it's just a boring sprint to the end. Took me about 8 minutes (ridiculously high for a Thursday), of which 5 or 6 were probably spent just trying to understand the theme. After I got it, the rest was no sweat. I knew something was off, so I went looking for a rebus. I kept thinking of the phrase "We'll be back after this" and kept trying to see how that concept might fit into the space for the first theme answer. Then wanted "I take it back" for the next theme answer, but couldn't make that do anything either. I could see "back" was involved, but didn't know how. Then ... honestly, I don't know the exact moment the concept snapped into focus. It was probably after having finally worked out most of the end of the third themer, checking All the crosses, realizing they were all unimpeachable, and then ... there it was. Turning, back. It was a legit "aha" moment, which is nice to get, but it was less "wow" and more "ugh, jeezus, how did I not see that hack idea earlier!?" Shame on me.

I think INGRAM (5A: James or Luther of R&B) might create problems for some; crosses ultimately seem fair, but if you don't know that name, that part UP TOP could get very, very rough. So many things I didn't know. MORDECAI? Big whiff. Needed tons of crosses. I just stared at 8D: Agcy. issuance wondering a. if an uglier clue had ever been written, and b. what the hell it meant. I had RE- and *still* no idea what letter was supposed to round it out. Had SPORT instead of SHIRT for 23A: Polo, for one (as the clue writer clearly intended). Didn't know who wrote "The Black Tulip." Barely know UBS (Are there a lot of three-letter banks? It seems like there are). Getting to DECAL from [Transfer] took me forever. Things were just rough all over. But all that struggle came before I got the theme. Afterward, no sweat. There's still too much junk in this grid (PSY, ONAT, REG, HOOHA (!), ICER, NIA, NOL, OER... YARNED?!!?), but overall it's at least NYT average. All the longer Downs are just fine. I just wish the payoff on this theme had been more ... rewarding.

The only thing really amusing me is the crazy menu in the center/east, where a BANANA EGGO is being served with a side of BUGLEs and a shot of STOLI. I am not sure those things GO WELL together. If anyone wants to try that combo out, please report back.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:none

Word of the Day: MESS JACKET (10D: Bit of attire for a bellhop) —

The mess jacket is a type of formal jacket that ends at the waist. It features either a non-fastening double breast cut or a single-breasted version that fastens. The jackets have shawl or peak lapels. Used in military mess dress, during the 1930s it became a popular alternative to the white dinner jacket in hot and tropical weather for black tie occasions. It also was prominently used, in single-breasted form, as part of the uniform for underclassmen at Eton College, leading to the alternate name Eton jacket. A female version of it, called a spencer, was popular during the Regency period. (wikipedia)

• • •

Vintage Berry. Extremely careful, clean, smooth. There's virtually nothing to CARP about here. The answers weren't what you'd call scintillating, but man is it nice to see an exquisitely crafted grid. I found it mostly phenomenally easy, but the metric ton of "?" clues and the fact that I know nothing about sailing (HALF-MAST) or, apparently, bellhop attire (MESS JACKET) meant that I wasn't going to break any records today. Still, absolutely no significant trouble spots. In retrospect, DE LA RENTA ended up being a Huge giveaway at 15A: Dominican fashion designer's last name ... because of the way the clue was tied to 16A: ... and first name (OSCAR). I started (naturally) in the NW, so when I saw [... and first name], I had to look at the previous Across, which took me to another section entirely. At that moment, I had enough info to write in his full name. Again, normal (i.e. efficient) solvers Do Not read the Acrosses in order, so the little [... ...] effect in the sequential Acrosses just doesn't land the way it's supposed to, ugh. But today at least I got a free pass into the NE corner, so that was nice. That corner still ended up being the hardest part of the puzzle for me, but I appreciated the assist that the ellipse-linked clues provided.

I think I knew Jason ALDEAN's name before the Las Vegas shooting, but I *definitely* know it now (7D: Jason with the #1 country hit "Dirt Road Anthem"). Terrible way to have your name cross over. Took me a while to get HELLBOY because despite being very familiar with it as a title (I've spent my fair share of time in comic book stores...), I've never read it. Or seen the movie. So "superhero"?—I don't think I knew that he fit into that category (6D: Superhero with hooves and a tail). Had HAD A FIT before HAD A COW, and spelled JIBE wrong, ugh (23A: Match up, as accounts). I resent that both JIBE and GIBE are real words. We should look into fixing that. Confusing. This (from Merriam-Webster) isn't helping!

Lastly, the capital of CROATIA is Zagreb, in case you were wondering (35D: U.N. member whose capital comes last alphabetically).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: George Barany and Michael Shteyman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:ELEVEN / ELEVEN (i.e. VETERANS DAY)— today is 11/11. There are 11 11-letter answers in this grid

Theme answers:

VETERANS DAY (34A: Time for remembrance)
ELEVEN (60A: How many letters are in the longest answers in this puzzle - or how many of these answers there are)

Word of the Day: RIN (35D: 1/1,000 of a yen) —

1.
amoneyofaccountofJapan,thethousandthpartofayenorthetenthpartofasen. (dictionary.com)

• • •

I need people to understand that this is not a theme. Having eleven 11-letter answers, none of which bear any relation to each other, is called being a "themeless" puzzle. I can't begin to say what a fraud this puzzle is. It is not a thing, not a feat, not hard, to fill a puzzle like this. It is 70 words. It's just a themeless grid, with two answers that are pretending real hard that they are a theme, but no. I see you, and no. So you gunk up yet another lovely themeless day with a fake-ass "theme," a., and then b. it's not even about VETERANS DAY. How does this celebrate, honor, or even vaguely refer to veterans. Please don't point to ARES, because that is bull. IKE? Come on. He's in like half of all puzzles in some form. GUADALCANAL? OK, that is a war thing, but still, there is nothing here cohesive enough to qualify as a theme, and what *is* here does nothing to actually honor veterans. You wanna do a VETERANS DAY theme, do a real VETERANS DAY theme. You wanna do an ELEVEN theme, well, unless it's based on "Stranger Things," I'm not interested.

While some of the longer fill is pretty sweet, the amount of garbage is kind of startling. SEPTAL? RIN? And the pièce de réstistance, AWS!? (41A: Comments like "Yer joshin'!") What the af? I'll give the 11s this: they are solid. NETIZEN will never not be crud, but QUEEN BEY and ROBERT STACK liven up any party. I didn't have any trouble with this at all. I guess I forgot the NOSTRUM part of MARE NOSTRUM, and that ate up some time. Oh, and I couldn't come up with the DRAFT part of DRAFT ANIMAL. Had MOVIE in there before FLICK. But these were all minor bumps. I should probably rate this one Easy, but I feel like I need to beat 6 minutes for a Saturday to qualify as truly Easy, and I was mid-6s, I think, so ... just easyish. AWS!? Sorry, I'm still smh over that one. Oh well, that's all for today.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME:""S-Q's Me!""— phrases that start "W" are changed to wacky phrases starting "SQ" dear lord take me now...

Theme answers:

SQUANDERLUST (23A: Prodigality?)
SQUEALER DEALER (33A: Hog seller?)
SQUINTER'S TALE (57A: Mr. Magoo biopic?)
SQUIRRELY BIRD (80A: Cuckoo or dodo?)
SQUARES THE BEEF (102A: Prepares cube steak?)
SQUAWKATHONS (114A: All-day gripe sessions?)
SQUIRM HOLES (32D: Ways out of embarrassing situations?)
SQUISH LISTS (49D: Enumerations of things to be sat on?)

Word of the Day: EDILE (58D: Early title for Julius Caesar) —

n.
a magistrate in ancientRome in charge of publicbuildings,streets,services,markets,games,andthedistribution of grain. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

How are Sundays still allowed to be this sickening combo of moth- and cornball? It's "*The* Winter's Tale," by the way, jeez louise, everything about this is wince-inducing. GISINQFEU, you guys, GISINQFEU! That is what I say to this puzzle. The answers were so ridiculous that even though the theme was transparent, I still had not idea what most of the themers were until I had 75+% of the answer in place. The themer clues are torturous. I had to think about the clue on SQUISH LISTS forever before I (sort of) "got" it (49D: Enumerations of things to be sat on?). Me: "You sit on ... a squish?" I guess they are lists of things that you want to squish ... by sitting on them? It's all so, so bad. Theme had me in such a bad mood that I couldn't even joy a wicked clue like 43A: Trouble maker (HASBRO). Took me forever, and when I got it, though I knew it deserved applause, I just gave it the finger for making me have to linger in this putridly-themed puzzle any longer than I had to.

Answers that I labored over:

54A: A part of Life? (OAT)— was thinking only board game. Devastating.
76D: Vacuum tube component? (DYNODE)— I ... don't know what that is. I kept thinking DYSON...
93A: Resembling down (FLOSSY)— I ... also don't know what this is. I know this word as slang for "high-class"
12D: Gilbert who wrote "Love and Death on Long Island" (ADAIR)— I ... ??? If the ADAIR's not Red, I don't know it.

There's not much more to say about this. Sunday is currently my most hated day of the week (objectively), and today didn't change anything.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (slowish for a Monday) (3:18)

[I seem to have leaned on the keyboard at 39-Down... it's Monday, I'm sure you can figure out the right letters]

THEME:"COOL / HAND / LUKE" (65A: With 66- and 67-Across, source of this puzzle theme's quote) — a quote theme to commemorate the 50th anniversary of this movie's release (Nov. 1967): "WHAT WE'VE GOT / HERE IS FAILURE TO / COMMUNICATE" (20A: With 37- and 52-Across, #11 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes" list)

Word of the Day: Susan ISAACS (39D: Susan with the 1978 best seller "Compromising Positions") —

Her first novel (and first attempt at fiction), Compromising Positions, was published in 1978. It was chosen as a main selection of the Book of the Month Club and, like all of her subsequent novels, was a New York Times bestseller. Her fiction has been translated into thirty different languages all over the world. She has also written a work of cultural criticism, Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women are Really Doing on Page and Screen. // In addition to writing books and screenplays, Isaacs has reviewed fiction and nonfiction for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Newsday. She belongs to the National Book Critics Circle. Isaacs has written about politics, including a series of essays on the 2000 presidential campaign for Newsday. She has also authored op-eds and articles on feminism, film, and First Amendment issues. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't know how the constructor or editor or someone couldn't see what a bad idea this quote puzzle was right away. Most people (esp. those who haven't seen the film, i.e. most people today) think that the quote is "WHAT WE'VE GOT HERE IS ***A*** FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE" (or, if you're a spelling hero like me, "WHAT WE'VE GOT HERE'S A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE." I get that the quote here is technically accurate, but honestly I don't care if it came from a ****ing shooting script with Donn Pearson's own damn signature on it—it's Monday, and most people the quote only one way. Now I have listened to the quote in question, and there is no doubt that the puzzle quotes it precisely and accurately. And Yet. The quote is famously "misquoted"for a reason—because it is *requoted* in the movie itself with the damned *A* in there. Here. Here. Lisssssten.

So the accuracy of the original quotation doesn't matter, for Monday puzzle purposes. Most solvers—or ... let me dial that back and say "a good number of solvers" (like every one I've spoken to so far tonight) are going to flail around in that "A" / no "A" portion of the quotation, and that will be all they remember about the puzzle. Or it will take up most of their attention. Not the effect you want to have, esp. on a Monday. And I mean, for what—a basic quote puzzle? Gotta be a better way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of this movie's release.

Puzzle was definitely on the slow side for me, both because I had to work out the quote thingie, and because originally I didn't see that the theme clue was asking for a quote. I thought it was asking for a movie, because my solving software broke the loooong clue just after "Movie" and so the word "Quotes" went totally out of my sight line (clue appears at top of grid in Across Lite, and when it's really long the font gets really tiny). So for something like 20 seconds I was wondering how in the world there was a movie with a title that long that I'd never heard of that was somehow also the 11th greatest movie of all time (!?!?). Fill on this one is pretty blah, but that's what happens with you have a lot of short Downs. Only the SW corner is really icky. The rest holds up OK. And actually the longer Acrosses are pretty nice. Lots and lots and lots of names in this grid, but only ISAACS gave me any trouble (no idea who that is) (39D: Susan with the 1978 best seller "Compromising Positions"). I also don't really know MITA, but I also never saw that clue for MITA, so that was convenient. I thought [Alternative to mums] might be DADS but it wouldn't fit :(

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jerry Miccolis and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Challenging (a minute off my average, which on a Tuesday is a ton)

THEME: TRIPLE / DOUBLE (37A: With 39-Across, impressive basketball feat ... or a feature shared by the answers to the six starred clues)— themers all have three sets of successive double letters:

Theme answers:

SWEET TOOTH (17A: *Sugar craving)
WOOD DEER (21A: *Carved figurine popular around Christmas)
GOOD DEED (23A: *What never goes unpunished, it's said)
HEEL LOOP (53A: *Wheelchair foot strap)
FEED DOOR (56A: *Pet cage feature)
BOOKKEEPER (60A: *Figurehead?) (again with the dumb "?" in a non-"?" theme)

Word of the Day: SPOT AD (33D: Expense item for a political campaign) —

informal
a brief advertisement broadcast in a programme break (Collins)

• • •

I've never heard of half the themers, so yeah, this didn't go well. I can kind of sort of imagine what a FEED DOOR is (I imagine it's for ... gerbils or something?) and I can kind of sort of imagine what a HEEL LOOP is (does it keep the leg elevated?) but a WOOD DEER, no, that I cannot imagine, unless it is some kind of Rudolph figurine, in which case, a. it's a "wooden" deer, and b. those are not and have never been "popular." You've got three solid themers—much better to find an equally solid fourth, and then make a clean grid. No need to crowd the damn thing so much, especially when you're crowding it with weakness. Those mystery themers kept me far more stuck than I normally ever get on a Tuesday. Oh, I should probably mention, for you non-basketball fans, that a TRIPLE / DOUBLE is when a player hits double-digits in three of the five main statistical categories: points, assists, rebounds, blocks, and steals (usually points, assists, rebounds).

I was over my *Wednesday* average. I mean, WOOD DEER, come on. And SPOT AD was another disaster for me. That crossing FEED DOOR, with a very vague INCIDENT clue (38D: Episode) and a clue for CRETIN that I did not know was the meaning of CRETIN (47D: Dimwit) all combined to make that SW corner hellish. Even that ACCT clue had me going "???" (46A: Website subscriber's creation: Abbr.) Considering how dense the theme is, the fill is actually fairly decent. I have of course seen ELI plenty, but OLD ELI—that's one I wasn't ready for. Since the SPOT AD clue mentioned political campaigns and I had "S" in place, I kept wanting something like SMEARS. Clue on HIDEF, also hard (70A: Far from fuzzy, for short) (I had HAIRY at first). Honestly, things basically went south right away, at 1-Across, where I wrote in OFAGE instead of GROWN (1A: No longer a minor).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Steven A. Atwood

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BRITISHISMS (11D: Words found in the answers to this puzzle's starred clues)— familiar phrases are reimagined (via "?" clues) as phrases related to specifically British terms:

Theme answers:

FLAT RATE (17A: *Monthly charge for a London apartment?)
POKER CHIPS (26A: *French fries on a London card table?)
MACBOOK (40A: *Catalog from a London raincoat designer?)
BOBBY SOCKS (51A: *Part of a London police officer's uniform?)
SHOPLIFT (62A: *Conveyance in a multilevel London store?)

Word of the Day: PYRITE (48D: Fool's gold) —

The mineralpyrite, or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S₂. Pyrite is considered the most common of the sulfide minerals. // Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue give it a superficial resemblance to gold, hence the well-known nickname of fool's gold. The color has also led to the nicknames brass, brazzle, and Brazil, primarily used to refer to pyrite found in coal. (wikipedia)

• • •

Today is a day when I really wish the NYT crossword puzzles had titles. I have no idea why Sunday gets one, but none of the other days do. Actually, I can guess why—it likely has something to do with the amount of space the paper is willing to devote to the daily puzzle. But a title does not take up much space, and it would benefit the puzzle tremendously. One, if done right, a title is a great opportunity for clever, suggestive wordplay. Further (and this is where today's puzzle comes in), a title would eliminate the need for dull, descriptive revealers like the one we get today. I can *see* that the words involved in these themers are all BRITISH—you've got "London" in every clue, for ****'s sake. Plunking the unwitty and grid-warping BRITISHISMS down there does nothing but gum up the works. Look at this lopsided grid. You can see how those NW / SE corners are all wee, and cut off from the rest of the grid, whereas their counterparts in the NE / SW are these much larger, unwieldy things (you can see that the constructor struggled with filling them cleanly—hence the black squares in the corners). If you ditched the revealer, you could build a nicer, cleaner grid, and still have a couple of jazzy longer Downs, one of which is not just a dull signpost.

The fill on this one is reasonably solid, though things get a bit rough in the south with COSEC, EPOS, TOATEE, and ELMO (esp. as clued—an obscure "Blondie" clue? In 2017?) (67A: Dagwood's bratty neighbor). That was the only area of the puzzle where I got much resistance—starting at PYRITE (the name of which I just forgot) and headed through the SOCKS part of BOBBY SOCKS (I am more familiar with the term "bobby-soxer"—as in the Cary Grant film, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" (1947)—so the full spelling of SOCKS was oddly, if only briefly, confusing) and then down to ELMO (which was a huge "?"). Oh, and that area also contains KAHLO (54D: Frida who was portrayed in film by Salma Hayek), who is famous enough, but whose name I still struggle to spell correctly (got it right today, but am somehow always willing to entertain KHALO). So, my main takeaway today is: I wish there were titles. But like my wish that constructors were paid anywhere near their actual worth, I expect this wish to go unheeded for the foreseeable future.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. about that COPS clue (70A: Beat people?) ... yeesh.

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Constructor: Alex Eylar

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Now "See" this!— clues with answers describe the clues themselves:

Theme answers:

TAUTOLOGY (17A: See 58-Across) (58A: See 17-Across)
RECURSION (25A: See 25-Across)
A WILD GOOSE CHASE (36A: See 66-Across)
AMBIGUITY (46A: See ??-Across)

Word of the Day: Mike ROWE (28D: Host Mike of "Dirty Jobs" and "Somebody's Gotta Do It") —

Michael Gregory Rowe (born March 18, 1962) is an American actor primarily known as a television host and narrator. He is known for his work on the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs and the CNN series Somebody's Gotta Do It. He also hosts a podcast, The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, which he describes as "short stories designed specifically for the curious mind plagued with a short attention span". Rowe hosts a series produced for Facebook called Returning the Favor, Rowe finds people doing good deeds and does something for them in return. Rowe has narrated programs on the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel and National Geographic Channel such as Deadliest Catch, How the Universe Works, and Shark Week. He has appeared on commercials for firms such as the Ford Motor Company. He has served as a social activist on the causes of economic growth and job expansion as well. Past efforts include being an opera singer and a salesman. (wikipedia)

• • •

The concept here is clever, and I'd say 60% of these themers land (that is, if you count both TAUTOLOGY entries—if not, then half, I guess). A WILD GOOSE CHASE is the obvious winner of the bunch: a perfect 15, right down the center of the grid, delivering a genuinely amusing aha moment. TAUTOLOGY x 2, also cute. Clue on AMBIGUITY just seems wrong. Putting "??" in there doesn't make things AMBIGUOUS; it makes them downright indeterminable. Unknown. AMBIGUITY implies that you have some basis for understanding, but things remain unclear. "??" gives us nothing. Nothing is not AMBIGUITY. Nothing is nothing. And RECURSION ... I'm sure that's an accurate use of that word, and I understand the basic concept at play, but RECURSION was a rough word to come up with. I had the adjective RECURSIVE in there at first, because that's a word I've actually seen. I think I know the noun as "recursiveness."RECURSION is maybe a math thing (?). Anyway, that whole corner was rough for me because I just couldn't come up with the right word. Plus the SAFARI clue had forced ambiguity with the inclusion of that "the"(9D: What you might see the big game on), so of course I wanted some kind of TV ... and then my quartet had a VIOLA at first (12D: Quartet member). So no joy in RECURSION-ville. But TAUT TAUT GOOSE was good. Ditch the others, and you're in business.

["COUNT ... ON ... IT?"]

Let's stay in that corner for a little longer. I feel like I've been having train-wreck corners lately, where the rest of the puzzle goes fine, and then there's one corner where one little thing goes wrong and the wheels just come off. I wrote in BUM DEAL (22D: Short end of the stick) and OMIT (30A: Strike out), but OMIT gave me a terminal "I" for that damned "the big game" clue, so I doubted it and pulled it. Then went to RAW DEAL. Ugh. What's more humiliating—the thing that bailed me out up there: crosswordese! All hail OOXTEPLERNON (the god of short bad fill)! I was saved by ESSEN and ARLES! Lord help me.

How many damned HAMS are you eating at Christmas? Jesus! Seriously, Jesus! I have never had a ham at Christmas (which I treat as Thanksgiving II), so that answer eluded me. As did NIBLET (43D: Corn kernel, e.g.), because it is probably the grossest word since "moist." Its proximity to EGESTS is apt. Barf. OK, that's all, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Robert LOWELL (46D: Pulitzer-winning poet of 1947 and 1974) —

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (/ˈloʊəl/; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the Mayflower. His family, past and present, were important subjects in his poetry. Growing up in Boston also informed his poems, which were frequently set in Boston and the New England region. The literary scholar Paula Hayes believes that Lowell mythologized New England, particularly in his early work. [...] He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, where he served from 1947 until 1948. In addition to winning the National Book Award, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947 and 1974, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, and a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1947. He is "widely considered one of the most important American poets of the postwar era." His biographer Paul Mariani called him "the poet-historian of our time" and "the last of [America's] influential public poets."

• • •

Not a sufficiently scintillating Friday. Longer answers weren't spiffy enough, and the short fill got pretty wonky in places. Not bad, just not good enough. I like "I" phrases just fine but I weirdly got tired by the third one (I FORGOT, I CAN WAIT, I NEED A RIDE). I, MAN—it grates on you after a while. FRET AT feels super-awkward. Don't you fret *over* something? Well, at least it's not as awkward as TESLA CARS (!?!?!?). Is that to distinguish them from TESLA DETERGENT or TESLA HAND PUPPETS. Teslas are cars. TESLA CARS ... are redundant. I found this whole puzzle very hard to move through, in general, and yet I ended up with a time in the mid-5s, which is actually (I think) slightly below normal. I lucked out, though, in that I knew Robert LOWELL and Chase UTLEY. Good luck to those who didn't, yikes.

CITIBIKES is a nice, fresh answer at 1A: Wheels for rent in the Big Apple, but nothing after that was nearly as appealing. I don't quite get the clue on CADS (1D: Bad catches?). Are you dating the CADS? I don't think of CADS as having anything (necessarily) to do with "catches"? Now that I look at it, I'm not even sure I understand how "catches" is being used here, or what the phrase "bad catches" is even punning on. When would you use the phrase "bad catch," in any context? I think "catches" here means, like, "dates" or "boyfriends" or something (as in "he's a good catch"), but ... CADS mostly describe guys you're *not* dating ... right? My biggest problems today were, first, in the SW, where hard clues onSCAN (52D: Emailable picture) and CANES (?) (59A: They may go on long walks) and NEWLY (65 ___ revised) (?!!) made the corner hard despite the sweet SMEW gimme (52A: Duck variety). And then I couldn't come up with ANALGESI*A* (61A: One effect of marijuana). Wanted ANALGESI*C*. That corner was particularly rough where short fill was concerned: ANNO, GRO, ISAO. I also wanted OH OH OH instead of OOH OOH, which is one hell of a silly trap to fall into (11D: Eager student's cry). I'm just glad I can move on now. Fridays are my favorite days, so it's always disappointing when they fall short.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Eponymous Israeli gun designer / SUN 10-29-17 / Defib locales / Some looping online animations / Where Samson slew Philistines / Daring thing to wear with polka dots / Harry's wizarding foe

Vanzetti's partner in 1920s crime / MON 10-30-17 / Chickens for roasting

Madame of 1960s Vietnam / TUE 10-31-17 / Practice condemned in Ninety-Five ThesesSelf-title #1 pop album of 2001

Cabbage with crinkly leaves / WED 11-1-17 / Pollutant that's portmanteau / Polynesian finger food / That's son Foghorn Leghorn catchphrase / Lode analysts

1982 Stevie Wonder title query / THU 11-2-17 / Istanbul commander / SHIELD's enemy in Marvel comics / Pizza maker John Schnatter's nickname / Trounces slangily / Interstellar sitcom star / Where Mumtaz Mahal is entombed

English headwear with short visor / FRI 11-3-17 / Intense sobbing with contorted face in modern lingo

Strong Chinese liqour / SAT 11-4-17 / automaker with slogan wir leben autos / island on which mount obama is highest point / Annual music film festival founded in 1987 briefly

Blue-roofed eatery / SUN 11-5-17 / Erstwhile Fords / Destroys in game-speak / 1916 Frost verse / Star Wars nomad / WW II org whose insignia featured Athena / Gratiano's love in Merchant of Venice / 1946 femme fatale film / Bygone Apple app

"Star Wars" queen / MON 11-6-2017 / Polite plea to a parent / Race of people in "The Time Machine" / Washington's ____ Sound / Unit of work

Jazz pianist Jamal / TUE 11-7-17 / Foreign exchange student in "American Pie" / Q-V connection / Lentil dish at Indian restaurant

1/100th of Polish zloty / WED 11-8-17 / Domain of Pan in Greek myth / Actor George with over 10 million Facebook followers / Classical music style whose name means new art

General Mills corn snack bit / THU 11-9-17 / James Luther of R&B / Orator who declared laws are silent in times of war / Battle of 1797 Napoleon victory

Retired hoopster Odom / FRI 11-10-17 / Human member of old TV trio / Bit of attire for bellhop

Mediterranean to ancient Romans / SAT 11-11-17 / Polymathic Isaac / 1964 role for Honor Blackman / Whose tears create morning dew in myth / Eponymous weapon designer

Spinny pool shot / SUN 11-12-17 / Alter ego on SImpsons / Buccaneer's quaff / Flower colored by Aphrodite's blood / Fast-paced two-player card game / Alleged psychic exposed by Amazing Randi / Fictional creature made from heat slime / Philbin's onetime morning cohost

City with piers / MON 11-13-17 / Alternatives to mums

Video game lover of Princess Peach / TUE 11-14-17 / Carved figurine popular around Christmas / Yale affectionately / UN agcy headquartered in Geneva

Dagwood's bratty neighbor / WED 11-15-17 / familiar voice since 2011 / Mushroom used in sukiyaki / Learjet competitor

Pioneering 1990s computer game / THU 11-16-17 / Frequent vag gogh setting / 22+ pages of the Oxford English dictionary / German steel city / Some yacht assitants / Brand trusted by cooks who know / celeb chef Batali

Pulitzer winning poet of 1947 1974 / FRI 11-17-17 / Wrong Way Corrigan's wrong way / Wheels for rent in Big Apple / Model with Global Chic fashion line / Drum go-with