Heraldic wreath / FRI 12-2-16 / Ceremonial basin / best or nothing sloganeer informally / Emulate popinjay / athletic wear named for anagram of what it does

Constructor:Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty:Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day:Paul DANO(29A: Paul of "There Will Be Blood") —

Paul Franklin Dano (/ˈdeɪnoʊ/) (born June 19, 1984) is an American actor, producer, singer, and musician. // Dano started his career on Broadway before making his film debut in The Newcomers (2000). He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in L.I.E. (2002) and received accolades for his role as Dwayne Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). For his dual roles as Paul & Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood (2007), he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. // Dano has also received accolades for roles such as John Tibeats in 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Alex Jones in Prisoners (2013). His acting portrayal of musician Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy (2014), earned him a Golden Globe nomination in the category of Best Supporting Actor. (wikipedia)

Too much grinding fill here. There are definitely some nice moments, but it was so bad out of the gate that I stopped to take a picture (at first audible 'ugh'):

And as you can see, that was *before* I uncovered LAVABO (1A: Ceremonial basin) crossing ORLE (6D: Heraldic wreath).  I mean ORLE? ORLE? Please take that answer out back and bury it. Then, if you must, dig it up once a year but ONLY in otherwise brilliant puzzles that need it desperately, not in an ordinary, fairly high word-count Friday. The puzzle just couldn't recover from this early mess. CIAOS? Plural? Stop no stop no. No. Start over. Later fill (outside of the broad N / NW) wasn't quite so disturbing, but the few nice longer answers couldn't make up for the unpleasantness of too much of the rest of it.


Favorite clue/answer today, by far, was 28D: Front ends? (CEASE FIRES). That's exactly what a "?" clue should be. Nothing forced about it, very clever. "Front ends" is an ordinary phrase with its own distinct, everyday meaning, and then the "?" comes along and reorients in a way that makes perfect sense ... if you think of both "front" and "ends" having meanings different from those they have in the ordinary phrase. Often clue writers torture "?" clues, using clue phrases that aren't on the money, phrasing-wise, or forcing words to have meanings they barely have. This one: bullseye.


SW corner was the hardest for me by far. Could not get 27D: Presumptive (A PRIORI) from its front end (APR- ... APROPOS? No...) and then couldn't get 49A: Bound (DELIMIT) from its back end (too many possible meanings for "bound"). I know the story of Phaëthon well, but I kept thinking "his dad is ... PHOEBUS? APOLLO? What the hell are they calling him here!?!?!" But even though Apollo is, in fact, the sun god, it's HELIOS who drives the sun chariot across the sky (Phaëthon steals it and wrecks it—kids these days...—creating the Sahara Desert in the process, if I'm remembering my mythology correctly) (37A: Phaëthon's father, in myth). Anyway, with no way in there (Some sloganeer? Some Pixar dinosaur??), I had to dive into the short stuff. First results:

I love ice cream, but Jerry's partner will always be TOM to me. At this point I was pretty stuck, but I knew enough to know TOM was the weakest length there, so I let it go and HAS DIBS slid in and I was done not long after.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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