Traditional time to start work /.WED 7-17-19 / File box filler / Sped up part of contest commercial / Surname of national security advisers under both Bush 43 Obama / Green branch for short

Constructor: Adam Nicolle

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (??) (not sure, solved in leisurely fashion on paper, untimed) (looks like lots of people set personal Wednesday records, so ... let's say Easy, then)

THEME: verb appears inside object of said verb— clues are written with "[circled letters]" replacing one of the words; that word appears in the circled letters inside the answers:

Theme answers:

• CHOCOLATE (17A: Candy that the lovers [circled letters] on Valentine's Day)
• REPRESENTATIVE (24A: Politician that the voters [circled letters] to Congress)
• ERRANDS (35A: Quick trips that the busy person [circled letters] around town)
• PENNY DREADFULS (45A: Book that Victorians [circled letters] for cheap)
• LAND ROVER (54A: Luxury vehicle that the motorist [circled letters] on the highway)

Word of the Day: PENNY DREADFULS (45A) —

Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts, each costing one penny. The subject matter of these stories was typically sensational, focusing on the exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities. First published in the 1830s, penny dreadfuls featured characters such as Sweeney Todd, Dick Turpin and Varney the Vampire. The Guardian described penny dreadfuls as “Britain’s first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young.”

While the term "penny dreadful" was originally used in reference to a specific type of literature circulating in mid-Victorian Britain, it came to encompass a variety of publications that featured cheap sensational fiction, such as story papers and booklet "libraries". The penny dreadfuls were printed on cheap wood pulp paper and were aimed at young working class men. More than a million boys’ periodicals were sold a week, but the popularity of penny dreadfuls was challenged in the 1890s by the rise of competing literature, especially the half-penny periodicals published by Alfred Harmsworth. (wikipedia)

I weirdly don't have any strong opinions about this crossword. It's plain. The theme cluing is both clever and awkward. The fill is generic but clean. So the theme ... is there. And it works. And the fill is there. And it doesn't grate. So whatever this is, it's not a negative review. I do expect the NYT to be producing puzzles that move me more than the list of ingredients on a cereal box, buuuuuut how badly the NYT has missed the mark recently, I'll take this as a little Wednesday wake-up exercise. The theme cluing is only truly irksome on LAND ROVER ... I mean, what else does one do with a vehicle but drive it "on the highway"? The other theme clues had somewhat tighter, more specific contexts for their verbs. LAND ROVER is a 4-wheel drive vehicle, so the clue could've at least indulged the pretension that people who own them go on, like, expeditions or safaris or ... well, off-road at all. Yeah, most of them are just status symbols, but give me a little more color than a mere "motorist" driving "on the highway." The best thing about this puzzle, by far, was the answer PENNY DREADFULS. Like the reading material itself, this was eye-grabbing and exciting to see. It's also one of two themers that I no-looked toward the end of my solve. I had enough material from crosses that PENNY DREADFULS and LAND ROVER both went in without my having to move my eyes over to the clues. This also happened with EYE LEVEL and ALIBIS. I can see how, if I'd been timing myself, I might've flown through this one.


I did, however, have one semi-catastrophic error at the outset of my solve, as I sat there, pencil in hand, puzzle on clipboard, waiting for the tea water to boil.

actual finished puzzle, actual pencil

Five things:

• 46D: Sped-up part of a contest commercial (RULES) — Hurray for imaginative cluing!
• 35D: Slippery (EELY)— was just relistening to a podcast I did with my friend Lena a couple years back where we dove into the crossword's weird eel obsession and the eel vocabulary that it's helpful to know if you're a solver. EELY definitely came up.
• 1D: Org. that regulates I.S.P.s (FCC) — I am so bad w/ agencies. I got this one right, but honestly feel like I'm frantically rifling through my file box of initialisms every time. "FCC! FAA! HUD! OSHA! DNA! Uh... pass!"
• 28A: Occur, as complications (ARISE) — nothing particularly interesting here; I'm just fascinated by the stuff my brain gets instantly and the stuff it just can't computer. Today, I had AR- here, looked at the clue, and ... nothing. Speed-solving me would've moved on, quickly, but pencil-solving me just stared at the blank spaces in disbelief, wondering how I could have 40% of such a basic-seeming answer filled in and *not* know the answer. Sigh.
• 62A: "Buona ___" (Italian greeting) (SERA) — I know the following isn't Italian (it's ungrammatical Spanish), but ... I just miss Doris Day (1922-2019).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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