Filler for une pipe / THU 5-31-18 / Broad-leaved endive / Rum-drinking buddy / First sub-saharan country to obtain independence from colonial rule / One millionth of meter along spiritual path / null number of natural numbers

Constructor: Dominick Talvacchio

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:25) (morning solve)

THEME: IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME (39A: What you might say upon seeing 17-, 23-, 51- and 62-Across) — Wacky clues ask for wacky phrases that also happen to be (when parsed differently) a series of Greek letters:

Theme answers:

• BET A PIÉTA (17A: Wager one's sculpture of the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Jesus?) [beta, pi, eta]
• CHIP-SIZE TAXI (23A: Hired vehicle that's only as big as a potato crisp?) [chi, psi, zeta, xi]
• THE TAO MICRON (51A: One-millionth of a meter along a spiritual path?) [theta, omicron]
• LAMB DATA U. (62A: Inst. of higher learning dedicated to the statistical analysis of young sheep?) [lambda, tau]

Word of the Day: Ally SHEEDY (47D: Ally of the Brat Pack) —

Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American actress and author. Following her film debut in 1983's Bad Boys, she became known as one of the Brat Pack group of actors in the films The Breakfast Club (1985) and St. Elmo's Fire (1985). She also acted in WarGames (1983) and Short Circuit (1986). For her performance in Lisa Cholodenko's High Art(1998), Sheedy won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. According to IMDB, High Art was nominated for a number of awards, and won the GLAAD Media Awards 1999 Outstanding Film (Limited Release). (wikipedia)

Wow, very mixed feelings about this one. They were not mixed at the outset, when I entered the first few answers and thought, "o, lord, it's gonna be one of *these* days..."TABAC ALEPH APTS ASPS ... I wanted to issue a slew of fill violations right off the bat. Excessive Crud, with a penalty for Excessive Crud In The NW (i.e. Right Off The Bat Crud). If you can't get out of the NW corner without making a face, it's usually gonna be a long day. Or a long 5-ish minutes, as was the case today. I mean, TABAC? That is some "Break Only In Case of Emergency"-type fill, but the only emergency was "you didn't figure out a way to handle the crosses of your themers and so you ended up with very unfavorable letter patterns like --B-C (see also Z--G- at 26D). I got BET A PIÉTA pretty easily (because the clue was pretty literal) but had no idea why it was interesting, and so kept moving. Mostly I was wincing my way through this. I went from TABAC (!) to ICAL (!??!) pretty early on, so every answer felt like stepping in a minefield after that. What fresh hell was coming next. But mostly what was coming was bland old stuff. ESTEE ARNO SECY etc. So all I could think as "this better be in the service of ... something." I.e. the theme better be good. Because the non-theme stuff was not. Not good.


And then I hit the revealer and didn't really process it. Something about Greek letters, great, I'll figure it out when I'm done. But then I hit THE TAO MICRON and had the OMICRON bit and couldn't figure out the rest. I could see OMICRON was a Greek letter, but ... huh, nothing. It was then I looked back and saw that all the wacky themers were built entirely out of greek letter strings. This knowledge actually helped me get the remaining themers quicker (hurray). It also was a very nice and genuine aha moment. And credit to the puzzle for going nuts with the themers. If you're going to go loopy, go very loopy, I always say. And LAMB DATA U. is truly, extraordinarly loopy. That's like some sub-sub-sub-set of 538.com's research department. "You're doing great with the sheep data, kid, but we need you to get more specialized. We're sending you to ... the EWE" ('cause that is definitely what they would call it). Anyway, I like that the puzzle is all in for wackiness. And so I'm left admiring the theme, but sad that the overall experience of solving the puzzle was mostly dreary. This "the theme is Everything, fill schmill" approach is NYT standard, and awfully depressing. Treat the *whole* grid like it matters. Beause it does.


Bullets:

• 5D: Cher, e.g. (AMI)— I know "cher" as an adj. and AMI as a noun so this was a little odd. But I guess "cher" can be a substantive adj., as in "mon cher(i)." But it still felt awkward; see also DDS clued as a "One" (?) instead of a degree (65D: One whose office has an opening to fill?: Abbr.), and NOEL clued as a "time" (?) (12D: Time of good cheer). It's a song. I'm sure it's technically a *time* by someone's definition, but not by anyone's current usage. Why make your forgettable fill more intolerable by giving them awk clues. I don't get it.
• 28A: "So long" ("BYE NOW")— Wrote in BYE BYE, and then YIPE! at 30D: "Goodness sakes!" ("OH MY!"). But bad fill (which was also, for me, local fill) helped get me out of the jam: 45A: Locale of Rome and Syracuse: Abbr. (NYS). New York State. Total gimme. There should be a word for this feeling when fill you really don't like really helps you out. "Ugh, you again ... well, thanks, I guess."
• 1A: Kitchen drawer? (TAP)— one of many ordinary answers where the clues forced me to get everything or nearly everything from crosses. Saw right through this one, I thought, because I have seen this clue before. For AROMA. So my brain just butted its head against AROMA and its synonyms until I freed it by moving on to crosses. Interesting move: using a common "tricky" crossword to play a new and different "trick."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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