Albanian coin / WED 9-21-16 / Flying furry friend from Frostbite Falls formally / Uhura portrayer zoe / Unit for lorry / French quencher / Pony Express's Missouri terminus informally / Jewelry worn by Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity

Constructor:Matthew Sewell

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging

THEME: SCRAMBLE THE JETS (57A: Spring into action ... or an apt directive for 17-, 23-, 36- and 49-Across)— letters "JETS" are "SCRAMBLEd" across two words in different two-word phrases:

Theme answers:

• ROCKET J. SQUIRREL (17A: Flying furry friend from Frostbite Falls, formally)
• METS JERSEY (23A: New York sports fan's purchase)
• COURT JESTER (36A: Rigoletto, for one)
• "JULES ET JIM" (49A: 1962 François Truffaut film classique)

Word of the Day:PERORATE(10D: Give a long, grandiloquent speech) —

verb

formal

verb: perorate; 3rd person present: perorates; past tense: perorated; past participle: perorated; gerund or present participle: perorating

1. speak at length.

   
   

   "he reportedly would perorate against his colleague"

   • archaic

     sum up and conclude a speech.

     
     

     "the following innocent conclusion with which she perorates"

(google)

This theme type is old. I've never ever heard of the revealer. The fill is frequently godawful. Not sure if this is just another (in a series?) of puzzles that just live on a different planet from me, or if it's empirically bad. Scratch that. It's *definitely* not from my planet. And it's *definitely*, at the fill level, bad. Subpar is the most generous way you could describe that would have either ASIM (!?!) *or* LEK (my most hated crosswordese currency). Having both is *&%^ing ridiculous. Careless. There is absolutely no reason for LEK. You can de-LEK the grid in 10 seconds if you're a halfway decent constructor. Garbage. Honestly, though, even if I had heard of the revealer, the theme is stale, and the theme answers at best OK. METS JERSEY is total b.s. Green paint, for sure. It opens the floodgate of [Any Team's] JERSEY. I actually really like "JULES ET JIM" and its adorable Frenchness. And sure, ROCKET J. SQUIRREL is a nice answer. They are nice answers on their own. But the other answers are less impressive and again, conceptually, this thing is kind of tired.


PERORATE I barely know and LARKSPUR (11D: Buttercup family member with irregularly shaped blossoms) I don't know At All. This had something to do with my slowish time today. Having TDS instead of YDS also hurt, considering that gave me the wrong final letter in the already-stupid-and-messed-up METS JERSEY. METS JACKET!? Seems about as "good."ROOMIE is slang and clue should reflect it, but doesn't (2D: One sharing a Wi-Fi password, maybe). There's an IRENE Curie now? (32D: Nobel Prize-winning daughter of the Curies). Wow. A TONNE (TUNS?) of things in this puzzle that were just A DRAG. But the LEK decision is the one that's beyond belief. I mean ... you have to really believe in "OK, SO," which ... is bad judgment. "OK, SO" is not worth LEK. Nothing is worth LEK. LEK, be a lady ... somewhere else. I guess we can be grateful it wasn't LEU, which is Also Somehow A Currency Unit— "the basic monetary unit of Romania, equal to 100 bani." If I ever see BANI in a puzzle, I quit.

I will give a standing ovation to the ANKLET clue, though. "That's a honey of an ANKLET you're wearing, Mrs. Dietrichson..."


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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