Surfin 2008 rap song / MON 7-16-18 / Approach respectfully in modern parlance / Place to see town while painting town red / Hit 2017 computer-animated film

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Monday) (3:36)

THEME:"COCO" (60D: Hit 2017 computer-animated film ... or a hint to 20-, 27-, 49- and 58-Across) — Theme answers are all two-word phrases where both words start "CO-":

Theme answers:

• COUNTRY CODE (20A: Start of an overseas telephone number)
• COUNTERFEIT COIN (27A: Faux money)
• COMPLETE CONTROL (49A: What a micromanager would like to have)
• COME CORRECT (58A: Approach respectfully, in modern parlance)

Word of the Day: CORONET (47D: Princess' headwear) —

noun

1. 1. 

   a small or relatively simple crown, especially as worn by lesser royalty and peers or peeresses.
2. 2. 

   the band of tissue on the lowest part of a horse's pastern, containing the horn-producing cells from which the hoof grows. (google)

Didn't care much for this one. Cool to see "COCO" clued this way for the first time, but the themers (with the notable exception of COME CORRECT) were kind of blah, and the revealer in a weird position, and ideally there would've been no other "CO-" words in the grid at all besides the ones in the themers (but we've got COO, COARSE, and CORONET). The theme type is pretty old-fashioned. I mean, it's fine, I just expected much better. Bizarre to me that you'd go back to the "SWAG Surfin'" well so soon (5A: "___ Surfin'" (2008 rap song))—and again on a Monday. Most of the fill was pretty dull, though there the grid has its moments. SELF-CARE is nice, and pretty current/modern (at least I hear the term much, much more now than I did, say, 5+ years ago) (38D: Tending nto one's own well-being). Enjoyed MUMBAI and RAITA. As I suggested above, COME CORRECT is very original, though I don't know about "modern parlance"—I know it almost exclusively from '80s-'90s hip-hop (and a quick google shows it still has musical currency). Whatever, cool concept. Would've enjoyed ROOFTOP BAR maybe on a different day of the week, or with a non-"?" clue. Here, nothing said "BAR" to me, or even "TOP," so I had to hack it with crosses. Lots of crosswordese (EERIE, ETON, ETAL, et al.). Never like POOP in my grid, no matter what the clue. By no means a bad puzzle, but not for me.


The clue on TALE was completely baffling to me. Now, I can see it—the whole idea that fishermen (always men?) tell lies about the one that got away or whatever. "Fish story" is even a general term for a far-fetched story. But the way it's clue, I really thought the dude was bringing something home ... and mere TALE didn't really cut it for me. I had -ALE and still nothing. Also really wanted the term PILE ON, which very much fits the clue (9D: Add even more criticism) ... just not the number of boxes in the answer. I also just couldn't remember CORONET. I had the COR- and could think only of CORONAS, CORONAE ... maybe COROLLA? ... I dunno. I feel like CORONET was a brand of dishware when I was growing up. Or disposable dishware, or something, is that right? Whoops, nope, that's Chinet. Sigh. Anyway, CORONET, it's just a crown, sans any fancy jewels I guess. Hmm. OK, I'M OUT.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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