Jokey 1978 Steve Martin song / TUE 4-23-19 / Shrek's wife / Charge for some goods bought out of state / RVer's stopver for short / Futuristic movie of 1982

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (probably more Medium) (3:31)


THEME:"PET SOUNDS" (64A: Beach Boys album with the hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice" ... or things hidden in 17-, 31-, 37- and 49-Across) — MEOW, WOOF, OINK (!), and HISS (!?) can be found embedded in the theme answers:

Theme answers:

• HOMEOWNER (17A: One who may have a mortgage)
• TWO OF A KIND (31A: Twins)
• TATTOO INK (37A: Liquid supply for body art)
• THIS SIDE UP (49A: Message between two arrows on a shipping container)

Word of the Day: MUFTI (22D: Civilian clothes for a soldier) —

noun

1. a Muslim legal expert who is empowered to give rulings on religious matters. (google)

1.  also:

1. : ordinary dress as distinguished from that denoting an occupation or station 

   a priest in muftiespecially : civilian clothes when worn by a person in the armed forces (m-w)

This was just goofy enough for me to like it. Given the cover of the album in question, I really would've liked to have seen a goat sound somewhere in the puzzle, but I can live with the sound assortment I've been given. This theme was pleasantly light-hearted, and even though the latter two "pets" aren't exactly as common as the first two, I liked that the "pets" got more improbable as you worked down the grid. Guessing that was just coincidence, but whatever. It works. I also liked that the theme actually meant something to me *while I was solving*. I sort of spilled down the grid from the NW to the SE. Hmm, maybe I took a brief trip north to pick up the NE corner, but otherwise, I just fell diagonally down the grid and got "PET SOUNDS" before I really noticed what was going on (at that point, hadn't even noticed the MEOW or the WOOF). So the sounds were on my mind when it came to parsing the second two themers. Always nice when I can enjoy (and use) the theme while solving. With early-week puzzles, that doesn't always happen. I have some issues with some of the fill, but overall, I think this holds up, especially for a Tuesday, which, after Sunday, is the day most likely to bomb.


The most eventful thing to happen during this solve was the horrible decision I made to yank CORONET. I put it in off just the "C," and immediately wrinkled my nose and worried I had the word wrong. "Is it CORNET? CORONET? Which one is the horn and which one the crown?" I went to confirm the answer off the first short cross I could find, and that was 35A: Indian flatbread. Knowing ("knowing") that [Indian flatbread] = NAAN, I pulled CORONET. Ugh. NAAN is leavened, ROTI not (paratha and chapati, also unleavened, in case that ever comes up, which in crosswords, it probably won't). Mistakes are Killing me lately. It's one thing not to know an answer, but it's kinda worse to plunk down a wrong word with confidence. Somehow TRIED TO and HOLDS ON, with their twin two-letter endings, were slightly hard to parse coming at them from the top. SASSINESS felt wrong, in that SASS all on its own seemed like the correct answer for 34D: Cheek.SASSINESS feels different from backtalk. Somehow I relate it more to swagger or style in general. Mainly I think people just say SASS if they mean lip (or cheek) (weird how two different facial parts are slang for sass). So I had SASS and then had no idea where to go. Luckily SW was very easy.


Five things:

• 3D: One with a squeaky wheel? (HAMSTER) — tough clue for a Tuesday. Also, can't decide if it's wonderfully apt or annoyingly superfluous, given that it involves around a pet ... sound.
• 11D: Send beyond the green, say (OVERHIT) — Maybe this is a valid golf term, but I don't like golf and this answer feels like it should be OVERSHOT so I have only side eye for this answer
• 60A: Digitally endorsed (E-SIGNED) — woof. No. Put an "R" or a "D" at the front of that thing or lose its dumb E-ass entirely.
• 43D: Jokey 1978 Steve Martin song ("KING TUT") — sincerely read this as [Jockey in a 1978 Steve Martin song] and thought "yeah that sounds like a thing that might be in those lyrics." I was likely confusing "jockey" with "donkey" and "honky." Luckily for me, [Steve Martin song] alone would've done the trick.
• 63D: Big D.C. lobby (NRA)— because nuns' rights are very important*

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*I figured that today instead of yelling about the NYTXW's continuing to boost white supremacist terrorist organizations, I'd just pretend NRA meant something else

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