Italian brewery since 1846 / SAT 1-28-17 / Gesture of razzle-dazzlement / Its logo consists of pair of calipers in oval / Classic novel written under nom de plume of Currer Bell

Constructor:Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty:Easy (6:40-something)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day:PERONI(23A: Italian brewery since 1846) —

Peroni Brewery is a brewing company, founded in Vigevano in Lombardy, Italy, in 1846. It has been based in Rome since 1864. The company's main brand in Italy is Peroni (4.7 ABV), a pale lager sometimes known as Peroni Red in export markets. However, it is probably best known worldwide for its premium lager, Nastro Azzurro (5.1% ABV), which was the 13th best-selling beer in the United Kingdom in 2010. (wikipedia)

Too many long giveaways made this more Friday- than Saturday-ish. With no crosses crosses, I got "JANE EYRE""HE GOT GAME" ACHILLES, JOHN HENRY, and BON JOVI. That's handing me A FEW too many. I mean, thanks—I always feel quite amazing when I crush a Saturday—but my success today felt tainted a bit by the gimmes. The best solves involve succeeding by unlocking the tricky clues. That "JANE EYRE" clue made getting that answer (and the whole corner) into the equivalent of dunking the basketball ... by climbing a ladder on sitting on someone's shoulders. I do got game, but I didn't get to show it here. Too much just handed to me. Speaking of not feeling great about my success—let's look at another way that that happens, i.e. when I avail myself of my deep store of crosswordese to crack open a puzzle. I guess that is "game" (i.e. talent) of a sort, or at least the product of experience, but it still feels slightly cheap. For instance, first word in today: DEBAR. Who's gonna feel good about that? Then KIR over ECO—the former I'd never heard of before crosswords (today, instant gimme) and the latter I see clued this way ("Friendly" prefix) so often that I had no doubt about it. KIR over ECO + DEBAR got me BAD JOKE (1D: Something a bomber delivers?), and I was off. I wonder if you could've left the "?" off the BAD JOKE clue. It's pretty literal. And that would've made things a lot harder, probably. Anyway, gimmes + heavy reliance on crosswordese make me less than exultant today about my good time.

Only thing in the grid I had no clue about was PERONI, which I'm sure I've seen before once or twice. I think it might even have been the Word of the Day before. But it didn't take. I'm not sure it'll take now. I'm writing about it in the hopes that it'll take. PERONI was part of my mild solving problem in the middle. No initial "P" meant that for a while PLEDGING was hard to see (23D: Activity in a drive). Also, several of those Across clues didn't compute at first, namely 30A: " (INCHES) and 37A: Opposite of slow (FLYING) and 43A: A cry of relief (TGIF). The last one, I really should've gotten more quickly, as I had the "T," but no dice. Corners of this thing mostly went lightning fast, though SW was probably the toughest. Front end of 41A: "Gotcha" (SO I SEE) was a mystery. I wanted "OH, I SEE" or some such. And then there was AIR ... PIPE? Not HOSE? I knew ESPN was 100% correct (49A: "Outside the Lines" airer) so I discarded HOSE quickly, but PIPE? This was the one clue that provoked reaction on Twitter from a reader last night:

He then sent me a link to some SCUBA forum where this very "mistake" (I think it's a real mistake, I'm just being careful) had come up before. Good luck getting WS to change his mind on something like this. But even non-SCUBA me gave that answer side-eye. I also wasn't sure about the back end of SPIDER EGG (wanted SAC) or RED ROBIN (wanted ROSES, though in retrospect, that was a terrible want). Last minor (very minor) stumble was wanting IN A STIR for IN A SNIT (47A: Agitated). Second "T" in TRIOLET was my last letter (39D: Eight-line verse form). I liked the puzzle fine, but it was light-weight, and without a lot of sparkle. Maybe if I hadn't seen JAZZ HANDS before, that would've added something. BANG-UP JOB is nice. Otherwise, you know, fine.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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