German border river / SUN 3-4-18 / Title family name in old TV / Cossack weapon / Daschle's successor as Senate majority leader / Martial art with bamboo swords / Oxygen reliant organism / Metaphoric acknowledgment

Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME:"Character Building"— first words in theme answers go from IN to STARTLING, adding precisely one letter (i.e. "character") at each step along the way; theme answers are familiar base phrases + whatever the added letter is for that particular answer on the road from IN to STARTLING (i.e. the theme answers are wacky and get "?" clues)

Theme answers:

• IN THOUGHT AS MUCH (23A: Equally pensive?) ("N" added to "I thought as much")
• SIN SOME SMALL WAY (30A: Commit a peccadillo?) ("S" added to "In some small way")
• SING OF OMISSION (47A: Perform the hit "Things I Should Have Said"?) ("G" added etc.)
• STING IN THE SHOWER (55A: The Police frontman filming a shampoo commercial?)
• STRING OPERATIONS (66A: Tying packages, securing helium balloons, etc.?)
• STARING QUARTET (77A: The Beatles showing absolute amazement?)
• STARTING DAGGERS (93A: First weapons used in a knife fight?)
• STARTLING LINEUP (105A: Surprising group of suspects?)

Word of the Day: NOISETTE (110A: Lean fillet, as of lamb) —

noun

1. 1. 

   a small round piece of lean meat, especially lamb.
2. 2. 

   a chocolate made with hazelnuts.

Figured when I saw the constructor that the puzzle would be harder than normal, and that was true, mostly because there seemed to be so much open space, and the themers were often hard for me to come up with—this is what happens when you do not figure out what the hell is going on with the theme until after you are complete finished. I knew letters were being added, but I could not see why. Granted, I don't often stop to try to figure it all out when I'm mid-solve. In fact, I never do that unless I have to. But looking back, I really should've noticed, especially by the end. My feelings toward the theme are pretty neutral—which is to say, much warmer than my feelings toward most Sunday themes are. Maybe that's the secret on a Sunday (i.e. a puzzle where you have to sustain thematic interest over a too-large amount of space): keep the themers varied (and possibly wacky), keep it relative simple, make it somewhat challenging, and make the grid pretty clean / largely inoffensive. I will say that I was surprised at the amount of icky fill in this one (icky fill not being something I associate with Walden puzzles). But when I say I was surprised, I mean that my expectations were that it would be close to nil and instead it was > nil. It was still a sight better than most Sunday puzzles, especially Sunday puzzles with a relatively low word count (harder to fill cleanly). So this was perfectly acceptable, which is the highest praise I've had for a Sunday in what feels like ages.


Frowny faces to NEISSE ESIGN ENDE ANIMAS (plural?) and PSHAWS (plural!? LOL, c'mon). Smiley faces to HAT TIP, EBENEZER SCROOGE, TV MOM, and especially OH, MAMA! on top of YES, YES! That last one was, as the adjacent word suggests, STARTLING, in a good way. Do people really say VID? (35D: Snapchat posting, for short). By which I mean, do *Snapchat* users really say VID? I didn't not know MONTAG was German for "Monday" and I had no idea what a NOISETTE was. Then it turned out I have music in my iTunes by a group called the NOISETTEs ... from 2009 ... for some reason. I assume they're named after the chocolate made w/ hazelnuts and not the small round piece of lamb, but who knows? Only one part of the puzzle really made me fear I might not finish with a perfect grid, and that was when I wrote in IN AUTO instead of ON AUTO (91D: Out of control?) ... as if AUTO were a gear on a car ... which of course it isn't ... I mean, there's an AUTOmatic transmission of course, but ... annnnnyway, I was left wondering for too long how CIG could be the answer for 90A: Important but sometimes ignored piece (COG).


On Sundays I'm going to start recommending one good thing—something I read or watched or heard or used or whatever, that I really enjoyed. It might be crossword-related, but mostly it won't be. Today, it's The Prince & the Dressmaker (2018) by Jen Wang—a comic book fairy tale about a daring young dressmaker and the prince who hires her to make dresses ... for him. It's a very sweet story about non-conformity with a very original romance at its core, but the best thing about it is the cartooning. The art and design are exquisite, the colors confectionery. It's just a delightful book to hold in your hand. Really impressive.

See you ... Tuesday (tomorrow is Annabel...)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS HAT TIP (3D: Metahporic acknowledgment) can be a literal acknowledgment, obviously, but these days it's more commonly a metaphoric acknowledgment, often abbreviated online as "h/t"; for instance, if you post something that someone else turned you onto or otherwise told you about, you can acknowledge that person with an "h/t" at the end of your post.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]