Ziegfeld Follies costumer / THU 4-14-16 / He gave Odysseus bag of winds / One-named singer born Christa Paffgen / Site where cuneiform tablets were discovered / Societal instability resulting from breakdown in societal values / Gesture made with thumb nose / TRUS 2016 political slogan / Radio listener grp

Constructor:Jason Flinn

Relative difficulty:Medium (leaning toward Medium-Challenging)

THEME: WATER SLIDES (37A: Summer amusements ... or a literal description of three answers in this puzzle)— circled squares "slide" down on a diagonal, completing their Across answers while also spelling out forms of running "water":

Theme answers:

• CHICKEN RUN
• LAMESTREAM
• DONNYBROOK 

Word of the Day:MR. YUK(53D: Iconic green poison symbol) —

Mr. Yuk is a trademarked graphic image, created by the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and widely employed in the United States in labeling of substances that are poisonous if ingested. (wikipedia)

Pretty ambivalent about this one. It has some very nice moments, like the vibrant and contemporary LAMESTREAM and the colloquial WANNA BET!? But it's really proper noun heavy, in this trivial way that I find grating (clues on ERIC and ADA were especially ugh) (8D: ___ Blair, George Orwell's real name + 46A: ___ Clare, ward in Dickens's "Bleak House"). The puzzle tries to get clever, or innovative, I think, in the south, but it came off like a wreck for me, largely because MR. YUK is new to me. Unless he appeared in a crossword years back and I've forgotten him, this is the first I'm seeing him. He is "iconic" in that he is literally an icon, i.e. a visual symbol. But between him and SNOOK (?) and BOY-O, all spiced with some nicely aged OMOO ... I dunno. Felt a mess. Also, there's some unfortunate arcana in this thing. I've read the Aeneid (not to be confused with the ENNEAD) a million times, so AEOLUS is like an old friend, but I feel like he's not the greatest crossword answer. The bigger problem, though was the AMARNA / ANOMIE crossing, which I think is gonna Natick some people. I blanked hard on AMARNA. I wanted AMEN (AMON?) RA, then SMYRNA ... man, AMARNA. Rough. Thank god I'd heard of the concept of ANOMIE ... but I don't think everyone has. In fact, just now, reader Ben V. wrote me that he was put off by "5D-9D, 20A, 43A, 46A, 66A, 67A, but really just sadangry about getting naticked at 2D/23A." So my intuition about that crossing seems like it might not be too far off.


I like that all the sliding waters are actually moving waters, i.e. no non-moving forms of water, i.e. OCEAN, LAKE ... but I don't know what a "RUN" is, honestly. I've never used that word to describe a brook, stream, small river, rill, creek, etc. I see that Google has this def. as its 11th def. of "run (n.)." I wish RIVER or RILL or CREEK had made it in, as RUN seems small and cheap. I also wish CHICKEN RUN had gotten a movie clue. Cluing overall felt fussy and tough and odd. Many wrong answers at first: XED for DID (35D: Checked off the bucket list, say). WAR for VIE (59D: Battle). Two different answers were plurals that didn't end in "S," so those were tough (4D: Transient things => EPHEMERA; 31D: Lashes => CILIA). I've seen that damned [Take the wrong way?] clue so many times now that it feels less clever, more plagiarized. Usually, it's STEAL. Here, BOOST (another word that required crosses to see). So the theme is nice-ish, but the overall VIBE was kinda crummy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]