One-named Latin signer / WED 4-3-19 / Old British biplanes / Mexican resort area for short / Magic creatures of Jewish lore

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Medium (though I was quite slow) (oversized 16x15 grid) (5:31)

THEME: SEARCH RESULTS (55A: Google returns ... or the answers to the four starred clues)— uh, looks like themers are things that people were somewhat famously searching for (clues are the searchers and the year of the search ... result):

Theme answers:

• RABIES VACCINE (19A: *Louis Pasteur, 1885)
• NORTHWEST PASSAGE (25A: *Roald Amundsen, 1906)
• URANUS (38A: *William Herschel, 1781)
• TUTANKHAMEN'S TOMB (48A: *Howard Carter, 1922)

Word of the Day: AVIANS (67A: Old British biplanes with an apt name) —

The Avro Avian was a series of British light aircraft designed and built by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s. While the various versions of the Avian were sound aircraft, they were comprehensively outsold by the de Havilland Moth and its descendants. (wikipedia)

This is just dull. The revealer, SEARCH RESULTS, is sleep-inducing all on its own. And the other stuff ... I mean, who cares? People search for (and find) lots of stuff. All the time. Whoop dee doo. This is just trivia, with a listless revealer. And then there's these distracting non-theme 9 stacks in the NW and SE, which I kept thinking should have theme content. Four themer-length answers, all longer than the central theme answer, just ... taking up space. And they're not even that interesting, and the whole architecture of the grid that allows for those 9s also creates a buncha boring short stuff. I mean, just run your eye over any section: EXEC DESI ADIN? (crossing ICES IN??) EIRE TIARA EASEBY EENSY ... TSETSE next to TESTS ... it's not good. And the puzzle tries so hard to be hip and colloquial, but it mostly whiffs there, too. "OR WHAT" does not swap out easily with its clue, 23D: "... am I right?" The only way "OR WHAT" makes sense is if it is added on to a question, i.e. "Is that a great sunset OR WHAT?" But you would never say "Is that a great sunset am I right?!" because the only way "am I right?!" makes sense is if it is added on to a statement. God, that clue is so bad. And ON SCENE? Ugh. I assume the clue for that is supposed to be [Where it's happening], but this is what AcrossLite provided:

I'd much sooner believe that "it" is "happening" at an IN SPOT than ON SCENE. I can kinda hear that phrase as something someone might say in a news broadcast, e.g. "fire trucks are ON SCENE." I don't know. Didn't like it. Didn't like complete sentence ["I'll do that job"] cluing very much incomplete sentence "ON IT." And worst of all was "UM NO," which I had as "UH, NO," because who the hell can tell? (60d: "Let me think ... huh-uh"). All these colloquial missteps are sad. The puzzle wants to be hip and fresh, but it just comes across as clumsy.


Five things:

• 4D: The "C" of F.C. Barcelona (CLUB) — Wrote in CITY, quite confidently. I was thinking of Man City (an Premier League football CLUB) and ... I don't know, I just flubbed it. Really cost me. 
• 5D: Others, in a Latin list (ALII)— few solving experiences are more disappointing than when you know it's *&^%$ crosswordese but you have to leave the final letter blank and check the cross because you don't know which version of *&^%$ crosswordese it is. ALII needs to retire.
• 61D: Helmut of fashion (LANG) — wanted KOHL, but KOHL'S was already in the puzzle. Also KOHL was just wrong (he was Chancellor of Germany). Also, I wanted KOHL'S to be KMART.
• 70A: Unwanted blanket (SMOG) — wrote in SNOW and thought "How do you know I don't want SNOW!?" But I guess no one really wantsSMOG, so OK.
• 17A: Commercial holiday mailing (GIFT GUIDE) — this is an OK answer, but "mailing?" I get catalogs in the mail. I am way way more familiar with a GIFT GUIDE as something I see inside of print media (magazines, newspapers) or online.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]