Tycho Brahe contemporary / THU 11-1-18 / River past Orsk Orenburg / Idiom meaning guaranteed / Bond Girl in 2006's Casino Royale

Constructor: Matt Ginsberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (5:10)

THEME: flim-flam — theme answers are two-word phrases where the two words are only one letter apart; instead of appearing as two words, the answer appears as one word, and where the one letter is different, both the letter from the first word and the letter from the second word technically work as answers in the down. Thus:

Theme answers:

• 17A: *Sound of little feet = P(I/A)TTER ("pitter patter") w/ SLIT or SLAT(2D: Louver feature) 
• 22A: *Tycho Brahe contemporary = GALILE(O/I) ("Galileo Galilei") w/ LET ON or LET IN (13D: Admitted)
• 33A: *Mr. Moneybags = (F/C)AT ("fat cat") w/ FLAW or CLAW (33D: Scratch, say)
• 37A: *Branded candy with multicolored beans = (J/B)ELLY ("Jelly Belly") w/ JET or BET (37D: Take a flier) 
• 40A: *Woman's young lover, in slang (B/T)OY ("boy toy") w/ BLOB or BLOT (26D: Ink stain, e.g.)
• CH(I/A)TTER ("chitter chatter") w/ MICRO or MACRO (48D: Prefix with economics)
• AS GO(O/L)D ("as good as gold") w/ GOOP or GLOP (55D: Sticky stuff)

Word of the Day: MARE (60A: Sea of Tranquility, e.g.) —

The lunar maria /ˈmɑːriə/ (singular: mare /ˈmɑːreɪ/) are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were dubbed maria, Latin for "seas", by early astronomers who mistook them for actual seas.  They are less reflective than the "highlands" as a result of their iron-rich composition, and hence appear dark to the naked eye. The maria cover about 16% of the lunar surface, mostly on the side visible from Earth. The few maria on the far side are much smaller, residing mostly in very large craters. The traditional nomenclature for the Moon also includes one oceanus (ocean), as well as features with the names lacus (lake), palus (marsh), and sinus (bay). The last three are smaller than maria, but have the same nature and characteristics. (wikipedia)

At first this looked like a kind of puzzle I've seen before. I mean, it *is* the kind of puzzle I've seen before—the "either letter works" or "Schrödinger"-type puzzle—but I'm not sure I've seen the Acrosses work in quite this way before. Weird that it's both letters in the Across (one in first word of the answer, the other in the second) but either/or in the Down. This was what kept me from seeing the theme *at all* at first. I could see there were asterisked clues, but I didn't know why they were asterisked, and in the (several) cases where one word alone worked perfectly well in the Across (PATTER, GALILEO, CHATTER), that was the letter I went with in the Down, so the whole idea of there being *two* letters that worked ... escaped me. Now I could see that it needed to be JELLY BELLY and BOY TOY, but for those, I just thought the first word was being left off for some reason, and a later revealer (where is the revealer?) would tell me what was going on. I finished with SLAT, LET ON, CLAW, BET, BLOT, MACRO and GLOP and no clear idea of what had happened. I just knew that the software didn't give me a Happy Pencil. Which seems unfair, as none of my answers were wrong. Anyway, I went poking. It was only MICRO / MACRO that was bugging me. Then I thought, "oh, CHITTER CHATTER..." Then I saw the whole gimmick. It's a fine gimmick, it's just that PATTER GALILEO and CHATTER worked fine on their own as answers to their clues, so seeing continuity among the asterisked clues (esp. without a title / revealer) wasn't easy. The aha moment came very very late (post-puzzle) and was muted for that reason.


Not much of genuine difficulty today, though there were some slow spots. Speaking of spots: ADS. That clue is so corny, I kind of like it (7A: Them's the breaks!). I had a hard time getting the D-cross, DOGGEREL, because I wasn't sure if the "writing" on the "greeting card" came in the card, or if the sender wrote it herself. I guess DOGGEREL works either way (it's just ragged-ass, often comic, verse). I wrote in OREL for URAL because I don't know ... four-letter Russian things? ... (10A: River past Orsk and Orenburg). What even is OREL besides a Hershiser. Ah, a Russian city on the Oka River. Good to know, even though I've already forgotten it. I don't know Britishisms that well, but ROTTER somehow came to me ... only it came as RUTTER, which, you know ... it felt apt. I don't know Bond Girls because no one should know Bond Girls (except maybe Ursula Andress) and I would be Thrilled if there were no more damned Bond Girls in crosswords ever again. The very phrase is gross. Also, EVA GREEN has been in a lot of stuff, including "Penny Dreadful," for which she got a Golden Globe nomination, so ... come on. Only other place I struggled was with POLO, and that's just because I read the clue as [Explorer whose name is a *port*]. Me: "POL-...???! Is POLE a port? Did he explore the ... North ... POLE?"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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