Gertrude of 1926 news / THU 11-3-16 / Self-titled debut album of 1982 / Utter old-style / Triage criterion / Rapper's headwear / Rink star Phil to fans

Constructor:Mel Rosen

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME:Silver Silver ... I honestly don't know—themers contain two "AG" squares apiece. Maybe ORE is supposed to be the revealer? (28D: Silver ___)

Theme answers:

• BAGGAGE CLAIM (17A: Carousel locale)
• ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN (27A: Sporadic)
• AGREE TO DISAGREE (43A: Leave a dispute unsettled)
• STAGE MANAGER (58A: Role in "Our Town")

Word of the Day:"Vissi D'ARTE"(32A: "Vissi ___" (Puccini aria)) —

"Vissi d'arte" is a soprano aria from act 2 of the operaTosca by Giacomo Puccini. It is sung by Floria Tosca as she thinks of her fate, how the life of her beloved, Mario Cavaradossi, is at the mercy of Baron Scarpia and why God has seemingly abandoned her. The vocal range is E♭₄ to B♭₅. (wikipedia)

I'm worried about the puzzle. It's not ... doing ... well. It's not even really trying. This is creaky and not very coherent work. Two "AG" squares ... why? Because silver ... silver? Silvers! Is the meta "Phil SILVERS!?" What is happening? Mothball fill. Sad Scrabble-f*cking in the SW corner. A cultural frame of reference that excludes almost entirely the last 30 years (except HASHTAG—the best answer in this thing by far). Oh, right, there's crowd favorite clue [Rapper's headwear]. I think you can kinda sorta *feel* from this grid's overall vibe that "rappers" aren't really its thing. Are there other "silver" things besides the damn (terrible) ORE clue at 28D: Silver ___? There's an Olympics clue—did someone get a "silver" in the LUGE (3D: Olympics racer)?


ENTRAIN is in the middle of this puzzle (25D: Board, in a way). I love the "in a way" on that clue. It's like the clue itself isn't fully convinced and is kinda bailing out. "shrug idk." Oy, ENTRAIN. You ... must take the ENTRAIN ... but only if you're a FARER (more kwality fill). ABYSM!? D'ARTE? This puzzle lost me at 1A: ___-foot jelly (CALF'S), which remains totally inscrutable to me. I assume it belongs to another era somehow. Oh God, It's Food!?!?! I want to post a picture but ... I think I should tag it NSFW.


Somehow the English boil an actual CALF'S foot and the result is a dessert!? Or ... it can be if you add sugar? Wow. If you google it, you mainly get sites focusing on weird-ass foods. "Foods you've read about but never had ...""What on earth is ...?" Etc. AG AG. AGAG, is AGAG a word? As in "This puzzle had me feeling all AGAG?" I'll stop now.


In case you're wondering what my grid looked like at the exact moment I "got" the rebus, here you go:

Oh and hey, check out the NYT earnings report, which actually separates out income from digital crossword subscriptions. Turns out it's ~$7 million / year ($6.3 in 2015, with subscriptions way up in the current year so far). Of that $7 million, about $146K goes to constructors. That's 2%. And that's just digital alone. That's not counting value of the crossword to home delivery subscriptions, and definitely not counting merch. Puzzle's overall value is really substantial, and constructor pay remains ABYSMal. The puzzles are increasingly sad/bad for a reason—no investment is being made in the product. None. Best constructors now frequently give their work to other venues or keep it for their own sites / puzzle ventures. Now, they do that for a host of reasons, but insulting pay is definitely one of them.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]