A lot of them can be found on a lot / MON 8-7-17 / Something that might be picked up at the beach / Character on a collectible card / Inn, informally / Pretentious

Hiii! It's the last Annabel Monday before my internship at ThinkProgress ends, so I'll be slightly less tired next time. ...Maybe. (Seriously, though, my summer has been awesome.)

Constructor: KEVIN CHRISTIAN

Relative difficulty: EASY



THEME: FILM DIRECTOR— The second words of the first, second and third words of the theme clues are, respectively, "LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!"


Theme answers:

• BRIGHT LIGHTS (20A: Feature of the big city)
• CANDID CAMERA (28A: Practical joke show first aired in 1948)
• COVERT ACTION (44A: Secret military operation)
• FILM DIRECTOR (53A: Speaker of the last words of 20-, 28- and 44-Across)

Word of the Day: MOTET (61A: Sacred choral work) —

In western music, a motet is a mainly vocal musical composition, of highly varied form and style, from the late medieval era to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond.^[1]The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts".^[2]

OK, I'll be honest, I listed this one as easy because most of it was, but I got stuck in the bottom forever. Who thinks TAN when they hear "something that gets picked up at the beach?" I assumed it would be something like a shell or a rock.  And does ARTSY always mean pretentious? Maybe I'm mistaken in assuming this was hard for anyone else, but to ERR is human, I guess. If so, MY BAD.

Loved having FLOTSAM and JETSAM next to each other - did you know those were the names of Ursula's eels in The Little Mermaid? Man, she's easily the best Disney villain in my book.


The theme was simple. The same could be said for the whole puzzle, actually (other than the bottom where I got stuck!). It wasn't drowning in movie star names or obscure novelists, the clues were almost too straightforward (again, with a few exceptions), it was basically the ideal Monday. I'm sure Rex was bored out of his mind for the two minutes or so it took him to do it, though.

Bullets:

They frolic in streams and they love each other

• KEVIN (26D: Actor Costner or Spacey) — I cannot believe they forgot Bacon. Come on.
• OTTER (19A: Animal that frolics in streams) — I love whenever this word comes up especially with such a cute clue because did you know otters hold hands when they sleep
• POKEMON (43D: Character on a collectible card) — Possibly the only Pokémon reference this year that wasn't a snarky comment about Pokémon Go, so, props for that. 
• SIRI (7D: iPhone assistant) — One of Siri's lesser-known capabilities: musical collaboration.

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired high school student.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]