Barksdale drug dealer on Wire / SUN 6-11-17 / One of pair of best friends in greek legend / When repeated Polynesian getaway / Dead Sea Scrolls sect

Constructor: Charles M. Deber

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"Think Twice"— words that can be part of one group of things and also another group of things because language is funny that way...

Theme answers:

• Honestly, there's no way I'm typing all these dumb clues out

Word of the Day: Len CARIOU (41D: Len of stage and screen) —

Leonard Joseph "Len" Cariou (born September 30, 1939) is a Canadianactor, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which earned him a Tony award. He currently plays the patriarch, Henry Reagan, NYPD Police Commissioner (retired), in the multi-generational television series Blue Bloods on CBS. (wikipedia)

This is LOL bad. Delete your puzzle bad. We're-functionally-a-monopoly-so-our-product-sucks-whaddya-gonna-do bad. Whose ides of a good time is this? "Think Twice" is a dumb title. It should be called, "Look all over the grid for *&%^ you don't care about that isn't clever or funny or entertaining in the slightest." Cross-reference after cross-reference after cross-reference, and for what? Words that can have (gasp!) TWO different meanings!? Yeah, it's the *&%^ing English language—it does that. Tedium doesn't begin to get at this solving experience. I mean ... one of the actual answers in this grid is WEATHER WORDS. Just let it sink in. Let that answer pour all over you. Let it bathe your skin in its glory. Sorry, GLORIES. Sincerely, did no one think of what it would be like to solve this. To encounter themers that simply made you stop solving and have to look all over hell and gone for two answers and then figure out how they're alike and then etc.? In a way that had absolutely Zero humor, Zero entertainment value? It's astonishing. BRIDAL THINGS IS AN ANSWER IN THIS PUZZLE. Unless you write letters, this is what you get, from now until eternity—Sunday puzzles as joyous as stubbing your toe and tripping and falling hard on your elbow and then trying to get up but your head hits the counter and when you finally do get up your dogs are looking at you like "???" and you forgot why you came in the kitchen in the first place. That joyous.


Also, the fill does Nothing to mitigate the thematic horrors. The west in particular is pretty rich. REARER!? Oh, sure, that came right to mind (?) (50A: Silver, for example, in the opening to TV's "The Lone Ranger"). And FLEETED!? Sorry I'm late. I FLEETED here, but apparently not flast enough. Florgive me. The AGEES is the band you get when the Bee-Gees aren't available. AURI is abysmal. A professional designer absolutely does not "need"TASTE, which is massively subjective and also have you seen some "professionally designed" hotel lobbies? No. My favorite part of this puzzle is the most out-of-place, ridiculous, "why-am-I-here?" answer in the whole puzzle: HORNY (95D: "Me So ___" (1989 rap chart-topper)).  "Uh ... is this the right address? ... they said y'all needed a stripper, but ... this ...this appears to be an Old Country Buffet ... I've done some weird gigs, but ... I'm gonna call the home office, make sure I got the right address ..." Bah. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. In case you missed it, here's the Jun. 6 article by Adrianne Jeffries entitled "The NYT Crossword Is Old and Kind of Racist," for which I was interviewed (there's audio of the interview). 

P.P.S. Looks like they told the HORNY clue to go home after all (in the online version):


[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]