Folkie Phil / TUE 5-31-16 / Sheepskin boot name / Offensive football lineup / Gourd-shaped rattles / Frodo's best friend / Red Balloon painter Paul

Constructor:Sarah Keller

Relative difficulty:Easy


THEME:EIEIO (69A: Children's song refrain found at the starts of 17-, 26-, 35-, 50- and 57-Across)—

Theme answers:

• E STREET BAND (17A: Bruce Springsteen's group)
• I FORMATION (26A: Offensive football lineup)
• E PLURIBUS UNUM (35A: Phrase on the back of a buck)
• I LOVE PARIS (50A: Cole Porter classic from "Can-Can")
• O HENRY TWIST (57A: Surprise ending, as in "The Gift of the Magi")

Word of the Day:A.O. SCOTT(32A: Longtime New York Times film critic) —

Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and film critic. Along with Manohla Dargis, he serves as chief film critic for The New York Times. (wikipedia)

This is a sturdy, solid, old-fashioned puzzle. Again, as with yesterday's TOSSED SALAD (another old-fashioned concoction), I'm stunned this exact theme hasn't been done before. The reveal is somewhat nice. Not quite an aha moment, but definitely an 'oh, huh, neat' one. But the themers themselves aren't inherently interesting, and ... well, EIEIO is EIEIO, which is to say, one of those things you'd rather not see again in any crossword ever if you didn't have to. Here it's repurposed as a revealer, so that elevates its worth, some, maybe. There's really nothing wrong with this puzzle. Theme-wise, it was just a bit of a shrug for me.


Oh, no, wait. Sorry. One thing wrong. O HENRY TWIST? I believe that to be an entirely made-up phrase. OK, not entirely, but mostly. Everyone knows that O Henry stories are associated with a twist at the end—his name is practically synonymous with literary irony. So "twist,""irony,""ironic twist," these are all things I buy as phrases relating to O. Henry. But O. HENRY TWIST I do not buy. The very fact that you had to put an O. Henry story in the clue tells me that it is not a real thing. If it can stand alone as a [Surprise ending], then you don't need the story title, but you do, because it can't. It googles poorly and many of the hits you get add the word "ending" or are otherwise inexact. I see one google books result that says "many critics refer to the sudden, unexpected turn of events at the very end of a story as “the O. Henry twist." There's no footnote on this assertion, however, so I call baloney. It's just not a stand-alone phrase. Not. Veto. I would support OH HENRY TWIST as some kind of modernized version of the candy bar. Like Reese's Sticks. Only Oh Henry. And ... in some kind of twist ... shape.


Bullets:

• 22D: Globe shape: Abbr. (SPH.)— one of the few clunkers in this grid, which is really very nice overall. Gets a little rough in the SE, and there's an ILSA here and a LBO there, but lots of solid, vivid, interesting answers throughout kept the short stuff from hurting too much.
• 44A: Gourd-shaped rattles (MARACAS)— had the -AS and wrote in ... CASABAS!
• 31D: Reporter's contact (SOURCE)— the most elusive answer in the grid for me, for reasons unknown. I had SOUR- and ... no idea.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. my friend Mike Dockins asks "MISERS / SAM??? That gives you SAM and SAME in the same corner. Why not MISERY / YAM"? I have to agree. Why *not* MISERY / YAM. . . MISERY / YAM 2016!

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