1957 Jimmy Dorsey hit / FRI 4-5-19 / Luxury car of early 20th century / Bona fides from fellow cool people / 2015 crime film with Emily Blunt Benicio del Toro

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy in the corners, tougher in the middle)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: PIERCE-ARROW (32A: Luxury car of the early 20th century) —

The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company was an American motor vehicle manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, which was active from 1901 to 1938. Although best known for its expensive luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manufactured commercial trucks, fire trucks, camp trailers, motorcycles, and bicycles. (wikipedia)

No strong feelings here. Found the corners easy and boring / common. The center had a lot of interest, but it also had answers I found off-putting, like the brutality of KNEE-CAPPING and the brutality of Philip Morris (ALTRIA), the name of whose parent company is some bland corporate attempt-at-rebranding bullshit that I deliberately try not to remember. I recognize HIPSTER CRED as a phrase, vaguely, but I don't really get it, in that nobody calls themselves "hipster"—it's mainly used as a pejorative—so why would anyone want the CRED? Is HIPSTER CRED something you facetiously ascribe to others. "Fellow cool people." No cool person ever used that phrase. I have no idea how many levels of irony I'm dealing with here. Maybe that's a hipster thing? Dunno. No one asks "CAN'T I?" Wait, are we in a Dickens novel? Then maybe. Otherwise "Pretty please?" = "CAN I?" or (in this case), "CAN WE?" The one thing that really messed me up in the middle of this puzzle was a stupid, simple error, one I should've notice far earlier: I had SEALY instead of SERTA (30D: Alternative to Tempur-Pedic). Looks like SEALY and Tempur-Pedic are one thing now (?), or rather they have the same parent company (Tempur Sealy). More corporate names. How delightful :/


SEALY led me to write in LESSON for 39A: Post on a wall, say (TAPE UP) and then having BETA VERSION instead of BETA RELEASE (16D: Early distribution of a piece of software) led me write in BOOS for 48A: Poor reception? (HISS). Later on, I had DISS before HISS. It seems at least moderately plausible that people could think DISS / DOGS (48D: Selfish sorts) was correct.

The corners were just placeholders, full of tired crossword stuff like OREOOS and AYESIR and EMOPOP and "SO RARE," etc. The SW was probably the hardest of the four with it's weird HEW TO (43D: Uphold) and weird "W"-containing SNO(W)-CONE and weird A-LINER (37D: Camper manufacturer) and weird "S"-less YIPE. But it wasn't that hard. What else? Oh, hey, look, they figured out a way to clue PEN today that didn't involve celebrating an anti-immigrant fascist (28A: Clink). Cool. Extraordinary work, fellas.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]