Vegetarian spaghetti topper / MON 2-18-19 / Coastal county of England / Material for rock climber's harness

Constructor: Leslie Rogers and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:01)

THEME: CAP AND GOWN (59A: Graduation garb ... or what the compound answers to 17-, 28- and 44-Across represent?) — first word can precede "CAP," second word can precede "GOWN," in familiar phrases:

Theme answers:

• "NIGHT NIGHT!" (17A: "Sleep well!")
• "WHITE WEDDING" (28A: Billy Idol hit that starts "Hey little sister, what have you done?"
• MUSHROOM BALL (44A: Vegetarian spaghetti topper)

Word of the Day: ANNE Hathaway (19A: Actress Hathaway of "The Devil Wears Prada")—

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress and singer. One of the world's highest-paid actresses in 2015, she has received multiple awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a British Academy Film Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Her films have earned $6.4 billion worldwide, and she appeared in the Forbes Celebrity 100 in 2009. [...] In 2012, Hathaway starred as Selina Kyle in her highest-grossing film The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment in The Dark Knight trilogy. That year, she also played Fantine, a prostitute dying of tuberculosis, in the musical romantic drama Les Misérables, for which she earned multiple accolades, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She went on to play a scientist in the science fiction film Interstellar (2014), the owner of an online fashion site in the comedy film The Intern (2015), the White Queen—a role she first played in Alice in Wonderland (2010)—in Alice Through the Looking Glass(2016) and a haughty actress in the heist film Ocean's 8 (2018). Hathaway has also won an Emmy Award for providing her voice in The Simpsons, sung for soundtracks, appeared on stage, and hosted events. (wikipedia)

I made every mistake I could make in this one—OHO for OOH, EPSON for EPSOM, EVADE for ELUDE, ALOT for ATON, probably other stuff too—so was mildly annoyed by the end of it all, but then I got to the revealer and proceeded to check it against the theme answers, starting from the bottom of the grid and moving up. First one, MUSHROOM BALL: "Oh, nice, first is a cap, second is a gown ... never heard of a MUSHROOM BALL in my life, and I eat heaps of vegetarian food, but OK, I'm sure it's real, I'll allow it, moving on ... WHITE WEDDING! Oh, nice. Much tighter phrase, and ... yep, "white cap,""wedding ball," totally checks out. Nice ... OK, and last on the list ..." At this point I literally laughed out loud. "NIGHT NIGHT" ... is both an answer that has totally given up ("Screw this two-different-words stuff, let's just use the same word for both answers!"), and the best answer in the grid. Somehow finishing with the revealer, then reading backward through the themers, and ending up at the first themer, seen in this totally new light ... it was the perfect way to experience this puzzle. The rest of the grid ... I don't know, it seems fine. But the theme is where the party's at. Loopy and dead-on—a good combo.

Well, it turns out I don't have much else to say about this one. So ... NIGHT NIGHT, I guess!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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