Flattish sea creatures / SUN 1-7-18 / Caninelike animal more closely related to cat than dog / Jerusalem's onetime kingdom / Crime-fighting mom of 1980s TV / Often-oval floor decor

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (the "Challenging" part is more due to the fussiness of dealing with the two-letters-per-square thing, not actual difficulty)

THEME:"Vowel Play"— themers have anywhere from 2 to 5 squares that contain two letters; in the themers themselves, the clues are doubled, so the 2 letters function in an either/or kind of way, whereas in the crosses, both letters are required to complete the answer.

Theme answers:

• DEAL-A-MEAL / DAILY MAIL (22A: Richard Simmons diet regimen / London tabloid)
• SPICY FOOD / SPECIFIED (29A: What a red pepper on a menu may signal / Made clear)
• FOUL CALL / FUEL CELL (43A: Preceder of free throws / Juice container?)
• TRICKSTER / TRACK STAR (69A: Fooler / Summer Olympics standout)
• CHO CHANG / CHA-CHING (94A: Harry Potter's ex-girlfriend / Register sound)
• WHAT A TOOL! / WHITE TAIL (110A: "He's so lame!" / Deer variety)
• STRING TIE / STRONG TEA  (118A: Thin neckwear / Assam or Earl Grey)
• MINT OREOS / MANTA RAYS (42D: Cookies filled with green creme / Flattish sea creatures)
• DANGEROUS / DUNGAREES (47D: Risky / Denim attire)

Word of the Day: SUBGUM (65A: Chow mein relative) —

Subgum or sub gum (traditional: 什錦; simplified: 什锦; Cantonese: sap⁶ gam²; pinyin: shí jǐn; literally "numerous and varied") is a type of American Chinese dish in which one or more meats or seafood are mixed with vegetables, and sometimes also noodles, rice, or soup. It originates from Cantonese cuisine and is a commonly encountered dish on the menus of Chinese restaurants in North America. (wikipedia)

Hello, solvers. It's early January, which means it's time for my once-a-year, week-long 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. To be clear—there are no major expenses involved in writing a blog. There's just my time. A lot of it. Every day (well, usually night), solving, writing, hunting down pictures and videos of various degrees of relevance and usefulness, chatting with folks and answering puzzle questions via email and social media, gathering and disseminating crossword-related information of various kinds, etc. It's a second job. My making this pitch means I'm all in for another calendar year of puzzle revelry with all y'all. I'm excited about the year. I've got my own crossword construction project I want to get off the ground, and I'm hoping to take a more active role (along with some crossword friends) in recruiting and mentoring new and aspiring constructors. But the bulk of my work will be the same as ever: I'll be here with a new post every single day. Solve, write, repeat. Despite my occasional (or, OK, maybe frequent) consternation with the State of The Puzzle, the crossword community continues to give me great joy, and I'm proud to run an independent, ad-free blog where people can find someone to commiserate with, someone to yell at, or, you know, someone who'll just give them the damn answers. 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 "Women In Science"—Rachel Ignotofsky's beautiful cartoon portraits of women scientists from antiquity to the present. I've heard of a few of these women (mostly crossword names like ADA Lovelace, Marie CURIE, MAE Jemison) but most of these names are entirely new to me, so I'm excited to learn about them as I write my thank-you notes. 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 ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!


So, some warnings / notifications up front. First, the L(IO)NS clue (114D: Only N.F.L. team ever to go 0-16 for a season) is incorrect as of 12/31—the Cleveland Browns just completed their own 0-16 season, and so two NFL teams now hold the dubious distinction of Worst Regular Season Record Ever. I am not pointing this out to be spiteful. It was pointed out to me, days ago, by the NYT's own Deb Amlen. So, it was a known issue, but just not "known" early enough to change the clue in print. Not sure why it couldn't have been changed in the .puz version, but whatever. I hear it got changed on the app. Next, if you solved digitally, the grid looks different than it does in print. Here is the print grid:

Divided squares would've made things visually clearer, but whaddyagonnado? I managed fine with the circled squares, though, like I said—fussy. Lastly, if you solve in the app, you may have encountered a mild-to-extremely infuriating glitch—with two of the squares, the vowels must be entered *in reverse* in order for your grid to be accepted as "correct."

Perhaps that glitch has been fixed by now. Perhaps not. Anyway, now you know.


I'm not sure I enjoyed this puzzle, but I definitely enjoyed it more than I've been enjoying Sundays of late. It was more of a grind than a joy, but at least it was inventive and had some teeth. Weird coincidence: the Newsday Friday crossword had this same title ("Vowel Play"). I remember this a. because I just did it this morning, completing my week-long (M-F) streak of solving both the Newsday and the LA Times Downs-only (#bragbrag), and b. I spent a few seconds wondering what the hell the pun was (it's "Foul Play," of course). Needless to say, this puzzle is far more elaborate than the Newsday (which was fine, but just involved a simple sound change from one theme answer to the next (PROUST, PRESSED, PRIEST)). Why am I blogging the Newsday puzzle? Not my job.


I think maybe this puzzle went to the Latinate-plural well once too often. LAMINAE *and* TOGAE? WHO AM I, Caesar? The CAR FIRES clue was cute (13D: Flare-ups in the hood?), but briefly confusing / disturbing, as I thought the clue was trying to tell me that CAR FIRES are mostly associated with "the 'hood," i.e. black neighborhoods. Then I realized the "hood" was a car hood. OK. My favorite mistake, By Far, involved my repeatedly misreading [Risky / Denim attire] as [Risky denim attire], which resulted in my trying to make MOM JEANS work. I also still can't spell ICHOR (ICHER!) (88D: Olympian blood), and, despite wikipedia's claim that it's a "commonly encountered dish on Chinese restaurant menus in North America," I have somehow made it perilously close to age 50 without ever having seen SUBGUM on any menu ever in my life. So that was weird. 


Bullets:

• 1D: Jerusalem's onetime kingdom (JUDAH)— slow start up top there, as I tried SEP for 1A: Start of the third qtr. (JUL), and then SYRIA for this clue. That is so much Wrong in so little time. 
• 98D: Actress Ronan of "Lady Bird" (SAOIRSE)— I've finally learned how to say this. I went from "????" to "SORE-shuh" to the correct "SER- (or SEER-) shuh." Here she is, trying to pronounce other celebrity names:

• 74D: Crime-fighting mom of 1980s TV (LACEY)— Aw, I miss this show. So much so that I can't remember which one was Cagney and which one was LACEY (I do know which one was Sharon Gless and which one was Tyne Daly, so that's something)
• 89D: Like some German wines (RHENISH)— so "of the Rhine and the regions adjoining it" is RHENISH? Not RHINISH? Or RHEINISH? This is almost as confusing as spelling "The Rhinegold" was the other day. Too many spelling variables, Germania. Work on it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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