Anchovy sand eel / SAT 1-14-17 / Topper for Chaplin's Tramp / Obviously Catholic person in snarky rhetorical question / Bond seen in Wayne's World / Tools descended from alpenstocks / Game with official called stickman / Mock wedding setting in Shakespeare

Constructor:Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day:SPRAT(19A: Anchovy or sand eel) —

noun

noun: sprat; plural noun: sprats

1. a small marine fish of the herring family, widely caught for food and fish products.

   • any of a number of small fishes that resemble the true sprats, e.g., the sand eel. (google)

SPECIAL MESSAGEfor the week of January 8-January 15, 2017

Hello, solvers. A new year has begun, and that means it's time for my week-long, once-a-year pitch for financial contributions to the blog. The idea is very simple: if you read the blog regularly (or even semi-regularly), please consider what it's worth to you on an annual basis and give accordingly. In making this pitch, I'm pledging that the blog will continue to be here for you to read / enjoy / grimace at for at least another calendar year, with a new post up by 9:00am (usually by 12:01am) every day, as usual. Despite my regular grumbling about puzzle quality, constructor pay, and other things that should be better in the world of crosswords, I still love solving, I still love writing about puzzles, and I love love love the people I meet and interact with because of this blog. Well, most of them. Some I mute on Twitter, but mostly: there is love. The blog turned 10 in September, and despite the day-in, day-out nature of the job, I can't foresee stopping any time soon. The community of friends and fellow enthusiasts are all just too dear to me. You can expect me to be here every day, praising / yelling at the puzzle—independent and ad-free. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address:

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are "Cookery Postcards from Penguin"—beautifully designed covers of vintage cookbooks, with provocative titles like "Cookery For Men Only " (!) or "Good Meals from Tinned Foods" (!?). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As I say in every thank-you card (and email), I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

---------------------------
Like yesterday, this was phenomenally easy. Unlike yesterday, this wasn't terribly interesting. It just has manifestly lower overall fill quality—the highs aren't very high, and the lows (CERT OPCIT TOATEE) are lower than yesterday's lows. RETROCHIC is probably the nicest thing in the grid (nicely positioned at 1-Across—where marquee long answers belong on Fri and Sat) (1A: Back in). HARE-BRAINED also has charm (22D: Cockamamie). The rest is quite bland—not terrible, just bland. Longer answers like WEED-EATER (?) and WEEKENDER and GRASS STAINS are largely there to provide lots of convenient letters. OPEN SINCE is terrible as a stand-alone answer. And everything else is ... everything else. Adequate, but not sizzling, not funny, not entertaining. I've seen BROMANCE too many times now to credit it with novelty (38D: Bond seen in "Wayne's World"). It's had its moment, and should probably be shelved for a few years, at least. Except for the thrill that comes from crushing a Saturday, I can't imagine this puzzle providing solvers much in the way of enjoyment. It will do ... but "it will do" should not be NYT-standard.


The only difficulty today came in just getting off the ground, i.e. in the NW (where I start every puzzle). RED (4D: Like the lower half of Haiti's flag) and ONES were gimmes (how many three-letter flag colors are there? And [Georges] seems very clearly a plural and very clearly related to money, a la Benjamins and occasionally, though suspectly, Abes). But SPRAT (19A: Anchovy or sand eel) and CERT. (9D: Warrant, e.g.: Abbr.) and especially CRAPS (as clued) (6D: Game with an official called a stickman) were beyond me, so I had to hack around to get those Acrosses in the NW to come into view. But after the NW was sorted, nothing else in the puzzle put up a fight. Having HARE made BRAINED obvious. Having STAINS made GRASS obvious. THE POPE off the TH-, TOATEE off the TO-, and then all the SE Acrosses from there. TORRID pace, without even speeding. Just over 6 min. without trying. Not all easy puzzles bring joy, unfortunately. There's just not enough that's original or bold or risky or ambitious or artful here. It's not that it STANK, it's that more brio or elan or one of those words was NEEDED. How does a puzzle with TORRID SEX and RAW MEAT manage to be tepid? Weird.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]