Popular beige work boots colloquially / THU 9-28-17 / Org with millions of members HQd in Fairfax va / Hale House majority leader of 1970s / Widely played sport developed at Amherst College in 1960s

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:PIÑATA (44D: Party item depicted in the middle of this puzzle's grid)—isolated bit inside the (alleged) PIÑATA is CANDY (35A: Likely contents of a 44-Down), which, a note tells me, is "C and Y"—two letters that appear nowhere in the rest of the grid ...

Word of the Day: Hale BOGGS (10A: Hale ___, House majority leader of the 1970s) —

Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. (February 15, 1914 – presumably October 16, 1972 but not declared dead until January 3, 1973) was an American Democraticpolitician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the House majority leader and a member of the Warren Commission. // In 1972, while he was still Majority Leader, the twin engine airplane in which Boggs was traveling disappeared over a remote section of Alaska. The airplane presumably crashed and was never found. Congressman Nick Begich, of Alaska, was also presumed killed in the same accident. [...] Hale and Lindy Boggs had four children: U.S. TV and public radio journalist Cokie Roberts, born December 27, 1943, and the wife of journalist Steven V. Roberts; Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., a prominent Washington, D.C.,-based attorney and lobbyist; Barbara Boggs Sigmund, who served as mayor of Princeton, New Jersey; and William Robertson Boggs, who died as an infant on December 28, 1946. In 1982 Mrs. Sigmund lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to Frank Lautenberg. (wikipedia)

This is so poorly conceived. It's like one concept, with an entirely unrelated concept tacked on to it for no apparent reason. Who cares that there is no C or Y in the non-CANDY part of the grid? Those letters are not not not not not hard to do without. The puzzle wants you to think that a non-accomplishment is an accomplishment. Then there's the (alleged) PIÑATA, which I thought was a dog on some kind of weird leash (not sure if that was before or after I thought that it was some kind of desk or workbench). I do not read notes, ever, before solving. Unless your puzzle is a meta-puzzle, it should be solvable without reference to any "note." The PIÑATA would not hang properly if that's where the string met the horse's torso. Further, those legs are ridiculously long and skinny. Also, I'm told that on the website, the PIÑATA answer is yellow (!?), which, visually, is ... interesting.

So the theme, in all its parts, is just a mess. It's like a bar bet puzzle. "I bet I can do this?""Who cares?""BET ME!""OK, jeez, take it easy." I think the stack in the NW corner is nicely done, and GO JUMP IN THE LAKE is not bad, though I thought it was *A* lake. It's supposed to be a metaphor, not a recommendation regarding a nearby body of water. But I see THE is well attested, so some of my fondness for that answer remains.


There's not a single woman in this grid. There is only one woman mentioned in all of the clues, and she is mentioned only in relation to a man—and What a man! It's this editor's favorite man, the man he can't help working into the puzzle seemingly every day. Another day, another gratuitous Trump reference (57A: Melania Trump ___ Knauss) (NÉE). The guy really, really doesn't know (or respect) his solving base. But this sad NÉE clue is fitting for this puzzle, with its G.I. JOE and the NRA and all that fake manly crap and no girls allowed. A tiresome sausagefest of a party (with the world's dumbest-looking PIÑATA). I mean, the puzzle even manages to shit on the lone female *animal* in the puzzle (39A: No Triple Crown winner ever = MARE). That's some high-end chauvinism right there.

Bullets:

• 10A: Hale ___, House majority leader of the 1970s (BOGGS)— there's only one BOGGS. He played 3B for the Red Sox and then the Yankees and then I think maybe the (D)-Rays, but that last part I tend to block out.
• 16A: "Get ___, you two!" ("A ROOM")— since this is up there in the NE corner, I assume "you two" refers to G.I. JOE and ELMER Fudd.
• 34A: Well-planed (EVEN)— yes, I too read this as "well-planned." I'm guessing that was the plane.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]