Arcade hoops game / SUN 5-13-18 / 1940s vice president wallace / shroud of secrecy idiomatically / Southernmost of lesser antilles / Napa Valley vintner Robert / Instrument plucked with mesrab / Model page known as queen of pinups / Command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Constructor: Neville Fogarty and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium (11:51)

THEME:"Love at First Site"— familiar names and phrases clue ("?"-style) as if they were fake dating websites:

Theme answers:

• 22A: Good name for a deep kissers' dating site? (FRENCH CONNECTION)
• 51A: Good name for a dating site full of hot dudes? (STUD FINDER)
• 57A: Good name for a dating site of massage therapists? (RUBBER MATCH)
• 76A: Good name for an extreme sports dating site? (ACTION ITEMS)
• 83A: Good name for a non-monogamist dating site? (OPEN FLAMES)
• 115A: Good name for a dating site for lovers of natural foods? (ORGANIC CHEMISTRY)
• 15D: Good name for a carpentry dating site? (BOARD MEETING)
• 60D: Good name for a "High Noon"-themed dating site? (WESTERN UNION)

Word of the Day: action items —

In management, an action item is a documented event, task, activity, or action that needs to take place. Action items are discrete units that can be handled by a single person. (wikipedia)

I like the theme concept here a lot. As usual, I wish the clues were even more outlandish. Wacky it all the way to 11. For instance, I was very, very disappointed in the clue for RUBBER MATCH. I mean ... a fake "dating site" theme and you've got "rubber" in your hand (?) and you go "massage therapist"? Come on, man. I had the RUBBER part and a few letters in the second word and was like "RUBBER RANCH!? What the hell is that? That sounds ... insane!" Who is SEAN BEAN? Oh, looks like he was in GOT, which explains my not knowing him. There was a time in the mid-2000s when it seemed like the puzzle was asking me to know a lot about "Ally McBeal," and I refused. I somehow continue to refuse to know anything about GOT, possibly because I didn't like the first book and so stopped reading and don't care. I hear the TV show stands up well on its own. Someday, I may find out. Someday. Anyway,  SEAN BEAN! (pronounced "Seen Bon"). Cool. Once again I have seen ridiculously fast times posted on Twitter (well, two, anyway) and so I don't know ... my time was average. I had a bunch of trouble parsing, or even seeing, a bunch of the themers, and the cluing was sufficiently tricky in parts that I never felt like I got good traction. Enjoyed it, but definitely had to work for it.
I just stared at ACTION ITEMS for a bit there. No idea what ... those ... are. I was like "cool, ACTION COMICS ... nope, doesn't fit. OK I'm out of ACTION phrases." Also had ORGANIC CHEMICALS (?) at first. I hadn't really absorbed the whole theme thing very well, apparently. First themer I got was WESTERN UNION and I somehow assumed the answers would all be businesses. But no. I had such terrible trouble right off the bat, in the NW, that I thought something terribly tricky was going on. Turns out I had just one answer wrong (SITCOM for SATIRE at 18A: "The Simpsons" or "Futurama") and that alone destroyed my chances up there. I suspected both ARCS and MEH and should've guessed NBA JAM up there at 1A: Arcade hoops game, but I dunno, the SITCOM thing just got me mired. Totally blanked on JINPING (4D: Chinese leader Xi). More name trouble: no idea who PAIGE Davis or TESSA Thompson is. Figured them out from crosses. Names! Especially current pop culture names! Soooooo exclusionary. Or inclusionary, I guess, if you want those specific things and also really pay attention to cast lists. Other name I didn't know: HENRY (38D: 1940s vice president Wallace). Also TRISH ... is that a Nixon clue? (67A: Patty alternative?). So weird. I don't think I understand how the daughter is an "alternative" to the wife (???) (LOL my wife just explained to me that "Patty" and "TRISH" are both shortened forms of the same name, "Patricia"; I miss my Nixon reading already). I had 102D: Certain computer whiz as TECHY (var.? ) because I had the "Y" and ... that's all I could come up with. [Male computer whiz] might've been a little clearer as a clue for IT GUY. Still, overall, a very decent puzzle. I never hit speeds so fast I felt like I was drunk, but I did, finally, have a feeling I could be someone, be someone.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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