Dog on TV's Topper / TUE 8-27-13 / 1982 Fleetwood Mac hit whose title is sung three times after Come on / Children's game in which players knuckle down / Happening with lots of laughs

Constructor: Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: TWO-DOOR (41A: Coupe, e.g. ... or a hint to 17- and 64-Across and 11- and 34-Down) — two word phrases in which both words can precede "DOOR" to describe ... a type of door (or a state of doorness, in the case of OPEN).

Word of the Day: "HOLD ME" (35A: 1982 Fleetwood Mac hit whose title is sun three times after "Come on and") —

"Hold Me" is a single by British-American rock group Fleetwood Mac. The song was the first track to be released from the 1982 album Mirage, the fourth album by the band with Lindsey Buckingham acting as main producer with Richard Dashutand Ken Caillat. [...] The music video for Hold Me features the band in a surreal scenario set in a desert based on several René Magrittepaintings. In the video, Christine is in a room with many paintings, searching for Lindsey in the desert with a telescope. Lindsey discovers Stevie lying on a chaise longue and paints her, while in other scenes John and Mick are archaeologists. The desert itself is littered with broken mirrors, which serve as a motif in the video, and with violins and the electric guitars and other instruments. [...] Due to the band members' strained relationships at the time, the video shoot in the Mojave Desert was "a fucking nightmare" according to producer Simon Fields. "[They] were, um, not easy to work with" agrees Steve Barron, who directed the clip. "It was so hot, and we weren't getting along" recalls Stevie Nicks. Lindsey Buckingham was still not over their breakup six years earlier, nor her subsequent affair with Mick Fleetwood. Further, she elaborates, the rest of the band was angry with Fleetwood because he had then begun an affair with Nicks's best friend, who left her husband as a result, causing serious issues for Nicks.

This is a nice little puzzle—about as good as this type of puzzle ("Both words can precede...") is ever gonna get. Usually, at least one of the theme answers feels forced or strained with this theme type, but all of these are rock solid (and at least moderately interesting to boot). Fill is very clean and surprisingly unboring, considering how much short fill there is. I mean, yes there's IRAE and ARA and ENT and typical stuff like that, but not in such numbers that it becomes numbing. "Numbers" ... "numbing" ... I should probably rewrite that sentence, but no time. Speaking of time, I made very good time on this one. 3:08, if I remember correctly (already reset the clock in order to print my wife out a clean copy). It felt very easy, and yet at least twice I came to dead stops and had to move and regroup because things just weren't computing. Surprisingly (for me—perhaps unsurprisingly for you), I didn't blow through the middle of this. Got frustrated when I couldn't figure out the apparently simple H--- answer at 28D: Happening with lots of laughs (HOOT). Perhaps this is because I would never describe a HOOT as a happening, but let's not dwell on the past. I also couldn't grok DOUR at first pass (37D: Forbidding, as an expression). But what makes my failure to sail through here really surprising is that I had the "H" and the "E" and still didn't get "HOLD ME," despite that Fleetwood Mac album being on super-heavy rotation during a very formative summer in my early adolescence (summer of '82, long family road trip, where different siblings had different albums that they wore out—my sister's was Fleetwood Mac's "Mirage." Mine was The Motels' "All Four One." Consequently, I know both albums like the back of my hand). "HOLD ME" used to make us laugh because of the little dog yip that appears to coincide with the third "HOLD ME" in the chorus. Listen (above).


Other trouble spots didn't provide much trouble at all. BATH OIL, for whatever reason, failed to come right into view (45D: Aromatherapy purchase). There was a brief moment there where I was like "... BAT GIRL???" But no. Big mystery of the day (for me) was NEIL (59D: Dog on TV's "Topper"). First of all, NEIL? Who names a dog NEIL? Second of all, "Topper?" Who names a TV show "Topper?" Lastly, I came at the tennis tourney answer (64A) from the back end and actually tried to make it BRITISH OPEN, despite the fact that a. that's not a tennis tourney and b. it didn't fit. All that, and still: 3:08. A lot can happen in three minutes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld