Gelatin substitute made from seaweed / MON 4-8-19 / Subculture wearing lot of black / Atkinson portrayer of Mr Bean / Words from Woodsy Owl before don't pollute / Geico spokeslizard

Constructor: Tracy Gray and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium ??? (verrrry slow for me, but I don't know why) (3:45)

THEME: DEER XING (43D: Road sign that hints at what can be found three times in this puzzle's grid) — circled squares contains kinds of deer (or, in one instance, just DEER), and those deer types "cross":

Theme answers:

• KEVIN HART x/w STAG PARTY
• FAWN OVER x/w HIND LEG
• JANE DOE x/w DEER XING

Word of the Day: HOOHA (37A: Big to-do) —

1. a commotion; a fuss.

   "the book was causing such a hoo-ha" (google)

also


Very slow on this. Not sure why. Well, I know that a big part of it was my complete inability to type efficiently. Just a disaster. And then somehow the whole dumb revealer placement—that whole SW corner—really threw me off. Not a huge fan of counting the revealer DEER as one of your DEER. There are other deer. Well, ROE is a deer, anyway, so there's at least one more. What about BUCK? I don't know why this took two people to make or why there's mirror and not rotational symmetry. I get that it's trying to be edgy and cute, but the theme felt fussy and awkward. Gangly. Was the KEVIN HART / GAY BAR juxtaposition intentional? Meant to be provocative? Interesting call, anyway. HOOHA may appear in the dictionary with the definition that you see in the clue, but I can tell you that is not how that "word" exists in most people's minds in 2019. I wanted HOOPLA and honestly considered the possibility that I'd have to cram two letters into one box somewhere in there.


The Scrabble-f***ing is ridiculous in this one. Well, it's ridiculous in the NE corner, for sure. ZXX in a 3x4 section? I guess it's clean enough fill, so no harm done, but that sort of low-rent razzle-dazzle always reeks of sadness, to me. Again, ESP doesn't exist so stop cluing it as if it does (20D: Mind-reading ability, for short). I had GRAFT before GRIFT, which was rough (58D: Obtain money illegally). I also had no idea about INTENSE (67A: Causing white knuckles, say) and went with VARIANT (?!) at 63A: Changing from time to time (VARYING) at first. Then changed it because 55D: Eight things on an octagon was obviously SIDES ... until it wasn't (it's EDGES). [Tom turkey or billy goat] is such a dumb childlike clue that I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to think. I thought maybe those were TOONS. The giant cross in the middle-bottom of the grid is oddly distracting and feels like some kind of religious propaganda. I might've liked this better on, say, a Wednesday. It is not a bad puzzle. But it's a little shaky, execution-wise, and it definitely did not scratch my Monday itch.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. There is literally no need for NRA to be in this puzzle. None. Zero. So why is it here?  If you can make a puzzle without NRA, then you make it without NRA. Otherwise it's gratuitous promotion for the pro-gun-death lobby. These are the people who convinced all the Republicans to vote *against* the Violence Against Women Act last week. Those people. The ones who want men convicted of domestic violence to still be able to legally own firearms. Those people. You're promoting them. Respectfully, %$^& that. Good day.

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