Operatic baritone Pasquale / SUN 8/19/18 / Humphries of the N.B.A. / Peak NW of Athens / "Sonnets to Orpheus" poet / "Birds in an Aquarium" artist

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Medium (Medium-easy except for the NE and SW; 19:51, which is probably a hair above my Sunday average these days)


THEME:PASSIVE RESISTANCE — The constructor is resisting the use of passive voice by turning five phrases that would typically be in passive voice into active voice. Or maybe it means the speakers/creators of these statements are the ones resisting the passive voice. Either way, there's no passive voice in the theme answers. 

Theme answers:

• HOW THEY WON THE WEST (23A: Classic film narrated by Spencer Tracy), The active voice version of "How the West Was Won."
• THAT DOES NOT AMUSE US (36A: Remark commonly attributed to Queen Victoria), The active voice version of "We are not amused."
• NO ONE HAS RATED THIS FILM (54A: Statement at the end of some trailers), The active voice version of "This film is not [yet] rated." 
• WE INCLUDED NO BATTERIES (77A: Toy manufacturer's disclaimer), The active voice version of "Batteries not included."
• PEOPLE MADE MISTAKES (91A: Non-apology associated with several U.S. presidents), The active voice version of "Mistakes were made."
• PASSIVE RESISTANCE (111A: Protest tactic ... as suggested by 23-, 36-, 54-, 77-, and 91-across)

Word of the Day:PIT SAW (62A: Tool that it takes two to operate) —

A whipsaw or pitsaw was originally a type of saw used in a saw pit, and consisted of a narrow blade held rigid by a frame and called a frame saw or sash saw (see illustrations). This evolved into a straight, stiff blade without a frame, up to 14 feet long and with a handle at each end, the upper called the tiller and the lower one being the box

I rarely enjoy Sunday puzzles, and this is no exception. The gimmick is kind of blah (editor's note: my husband enjoyed it, being somewhat of a grammarian), and once you realize it (the revealer fell for me before any of the other themers), the whole thing is a slog. I especially object to NO ONE HAS RATED THIS FILM, because the phrase is "This film is not yet rated." Where'd the "yet" go? Plus, the grid really groans under the weight of those six long answers slashing through the heart of the puzzle. There is a lot of junky fill and some really tricky-verging-on-Natick crosses that I'm sure will trip people up (especially MT OSSAcrossingESA).


I felt very slow throughout this puzzle, never really getting more than a couple clues at a time. I sort of meandered my way from the top to the bottom, where PASSIVE RESISTANCEfell pretty easily once I had some of the shorter downs in place (I believe at that time I had just AME, LSAT, ASTO, PANTS, and EPCOT). Once I figured that out, I was able to move back up by filling in the themers with relative ease.

In the end, I was stuck for a while on both the NE and SW. In the NE, I originally had "me" instead of "us" for the last word in the Queen Victoria themer, so that messed me up. And because I didn't know what channel "Madam Secretary" was on, I tried each of the three possibilities before recognizing my mistake, plunking in SABERSand the other two downs, and that was that. In the SW I originally had GDP(as I suspect many people will), leaving me DONU?LE. I sat there and stared for a long while before figuring it all out.
There is a lot of questionable fill in here. A partial list: EST, AEC, RECS, ISO, ESA, GNP, AST, ILOST, ESL, ENT, AMO, NES, ETD, OHS, ETS, DOR, INE, SST, AME. I mean, just the ones starting with E there are a lot. And some of these were clued in especially painful ways (EST is 45A: Third-person form of "être"; GNPis 85A: Measure of econ. health). It just wasn't very enjoyable for me.

There's not much I can say that I did like, probably because there not a single non-theme answer over seven-letters long. But the stuff I did like is here in the bullets. Thanks to Rex for letting me blog this weekend! I hope y'all enjoyed it, and I look forward to coming back and doing it again sometime.
Bullets:

• STEPMOM (11D: Carole Brady, to three of her kids) — The Brady Bunch house just sold for like a zillion dollars. Sadly, Lance Bass was not the winning bidder. 
• GATEAU (15D: Bistro dessert) — Sounds like the sort of thing they make on the "Great British Baking Show," which is the best show currently on television.
• CRAVAT (68D: Fancy neckwear)— I'd like to have an opportunity to wear a cravat. Any ideas? 
• NONUPLE (86D: Word hitting two Triple Word Scores in Scrabble)— I don't actually like this word so much, but it's the most interesting answer in the entire grid. *shrug emoji*
• BAYLOR (35A: The Bears of the Big 12 Conference) — Notable to me only because my mother-in-law went there.
• GOUDA(104A: City known for its cheese)  — Perhaps my favorite vacation story. Joel and I went for a Gouda tasting in Amsterdam. We had this very stern hostess who we called the Cheese Wench. We went through the goudas from newest (3 months) to oldest (3 years or so), and at the end she asked which was our favorite. I like young, creamy cheeses, so I said the youngest. She was absolutely aghast--if she could have thrown me out on my can, she probably would have. 

Signed, Morgan Polikoff for Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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