Young ferret / THU 2-15-18 / Jung's inner self / Cold medicine brand for kids / Old-fashioned cry of disgust

Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: And the Osprey goes to ... — themers are all Oscar-nominated roles where the character's last name is a type of bird

Theme answers:

• SCOUT FINCH (3D: Mary Badham's Oscar-nominated role in "To Kill a Mockingbird")
• MARION CRANE (30D: Janet Leigh's Oscar-nominated role in "Psycho")
• JACK SPARROW (31D: Johnny Depp's Oscar-nominated role in "Pirates of the Caribbean")
• LUKE MARTIN (11D: Jon Voigt's Oscar-winning role in "Coming Home")
• CLARICE STARLING (53A: Jodie Foster's Oscar-winning role in "The Silence of the Lambs") 

Word of the Day: NERTS (57D: Old-fashioned cry of disgust)—

[My favorite part of this is the picture—thanks for the visual aid, Google]

I guess Lesley Manville's nomination for playing Cyril WOODCOCK came too late to make the grid. She doesn't look happy, Peter:


Also, you could've done this one with all women and then had the revealer be Saoirse Ronan's Oscar-nominated role: LADY BIRD. The 2017 nominations opened up all kinds of possibilities! But what we've got is just fine.

Easy because easy, Medium because proper-noun minefields can be unexpectedly brutal, depending on your knowledge/ignorance. I flew (!) through this one, except for Every Letter of LUKE MARTIN (I finished the puzzle at 32A: RASP), and the tail end of ABIDJAN, which I have heard of but did not trust myself to remember, mostly because I wasn't sure that my brain wasn't just misremembering the name of the country AZERBAIJAN. Otherwise, pretty easy and loads of fun. I have no problem with a non-tricksy Thursday where the theme is just some oddly-related set of answers and the grid looks a little nuts (here, 16 tall and mirror-symmetrical). Really impressive that Peter could get this very narrowly-defined set of themers to be symmetrical while also having CLARICE STARLING slicing across the grid straight through two other themers. But why isn't the grid shaped like a bird, Peter!? Where are the wings!? You need to step up your game, man. Until then, this will do. Oh, but one question: What the hell is going on with TOM KITE? (67A: Golfer who you might think plays best on windy days?). Like yesterday's non-symmetry, today's TOM KITE is scratching the blackboard in my brain a little. Is it or isn't it a themer? Against: the fact that TOM KITE was never, to my knowledge, nominated for an Oscar; and he's not in a theme position (no symmetrical partner); and he's got a "?" clue instead of straight clues like all the other themers. For: well, there's only one "For," and that's the fact that KITE is sure enough a last name that is also a bird. You'd think that in a last name = bird puzzle, you could *somehow* avoid other complete names where the last name was a bird. But apparently not. Rex BEMOANS TOM KITE. Everything else is fine.


Trouble spots:

• BAMBI (4D: Symbol of gentle innocence) — had the B then the MB, then the AMB, and each time could think only of LAMB(S)
• ENAMELS (22A: Canine coats) — not hard, I just mistyped it as ENANELS, which only made my LUKE MARTIN struggles worse
• MINAJ (30A: Rapper with the double-platinum album "The Pinkprint") — I am not used to seeing MINAJ on its own. My brain treats NICKIMINAJ like one word
• 63D: Tear (JAG)— brutal, both because of the (at least) dual meaning of the word "tear," and because of the "J" cross from ABIDJAN, which, as we've already established, I just couldn't get a handle on

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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