VOTE VOTE VOTE! / TUE 11-6-18 / Batman's water springs / Indian yogurt drink / Colorful image in weather report

Constructor: Alan Southworth and Yacob Yonas

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium if you knew FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE, probably harder if you didn't (3:32 on an oversized 16x15 grid)

THEME: ALTER EGO (9D: Secondary identity ... or what can be found in 18-, 27-, 40-, 54- and 66-Across) — familiar phrases clued as if they related to comic-book hero ALTER EGOs:

Theme answers:

• DUKE OF KENT (18A: Superman's fist?)
• STARK NAKED (27A: Iron Man without any clothes?)
• FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE (40A: Batman's water springs?)
• NOSY PARKER (54A: Spider-Man not minding his own business?)
• BANNER YEAR (66A: When the Hulk was born?)

Word of the Day: FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE (40A) —

Fountains of Wayne was an American rock band that formed in New York City in 1995. The band consisted of Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter, and Brian Young. The band was best known for its 2003 Grammy-nominated single "Stacy's Mom". (wikipedia)

I'm laughing this morning (in a friendly manner—more chuckling, really) at all the solvers out there looking at FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE and wondering "what, the, hell?" I know the band name well, as do millions of other people, but I Guar-An-Tee you a bajillion folks, mostly older (probably), will never have seen it before. Pretty big name in music... if you're under 50. Not a top 40 band, though, so whole chunks of the population just won't have any familiarity. I really feel like at least one of the members of the band is into crosswords—like I have a vague memory of having seen something on Twitter one time—but my brain could be making this up [updated: well, one of the members follows me on Twitter, so congrats to my brain for correctly, if fuzzily, remembering that]. This whole puzzle was pretty much up my alley, so even though it *felt* kinda harder-than-normal, I came in with a very normal time, and then was surprised to (finally) notice that the grid was oversized, which meant my time was actually a little on the fast side. I had one main problem solving this puzzle, which was that I totally misread the first theme clue (as [Superman's *first*?] instead of [Superman's fist?], which meant when I got the answer (finally), I didn't understand it fully, which meant all I was doing for the rest of the themers was getting crosses and looking for comic-book ALTER EGOs and trying to make phrases out of them—not really paying attention to the exact wording of the clues. I got FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE off just the -YNE, without ever looking at the clue. I'd just see the hero in the clue, and then I'd think of the ALTER EGO, look at whatever I had in the grid, and rolodex through phrases that might contain the name and fit in the grid. Worked fine.


Fill was hit and miss, with one of the misses being really awfully big—the kind of big that sticks with you and ruins an otherwise pleasant memory of your solve. I'm talking about INARABIC. A thousand times no. No. No. 998 more Nos. INARABIC is the GREENPAINT of language-related phrases. If you let in INARABIC, then you let in every single IN-[a language] phrase imaginable. I mean, INDUTCH, come on. Even INFRENCH or INENGLISH is patently stupid. Nothing else in the grid was this glaringly off. There was a buncha crosswordese, and I don't think PASEOS is really Tuesday-level fill (51D: Leisurely strolls), but I think the grid mostly held up just fine. Loved HEAT MAP, my favorite non-theme answer (34D: Colorful image in a weather report).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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