One-named queen of Tejano music / MON 8-26-19 / Pork dish of southern cuisine / Bow-tie wearing cub in Jellystone park / NBA phenom Jayson

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy (2:49 on oversized 16x15 grid)


THEME: B- B-— themers start with repeated syllables starting w/ "B":

Theme answers:

• BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP (18A: Start of a nursery rhyme on a farm)
• BOO-BOO BEAR (29A: Bow-tie-wearing cub in Jellystone Park)
• BYE BYE, BIRDIE (54A: 1963 musical that was Dick Van Dyke's film debut)

Word of the Day: TESSA Thompson (71A: Actress Thompson of "Sorry to Bother You")—

Tessa Lynn Thompson (born October 3, 1983) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. Her breakthrough role was in Tina Mabry's independent filmMississippi Damned (2009). She gained further recognition for her starring roles as Nyla Adrose in the drama film For Colored Girls (2010), civil rights activist Diane Nash in the historical drama film Selma (2014), Bianca Taylor in the sports drama film Creed (2015) and its sequel Creed II (2018), Valkyrie in the superhero films Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), Josie Radek in the science-fiction horror film Annihilation (2018), and Detroit in the science-fiction comedy film Sorry to Bother You (2018).

On television, Thompson has starred as Jackie Cook in the mystery drama Veronica Mars (2005–2006), Sara Freeman in the period crime drama Copper(2012–2013), and Charlotte Hale in the HBO science-fiction thriller Westworld(2016–present). (wikipedia)

This puzzle was fun. The theme is just riffing on sounds, and doesn't really care about set completion, or vowel progression, which is fine. On Monday, give me a loose, silly theme with three lively themers and (consequently) a grid not burdened by junk, and I am a very happy solver. I will admit that my happiness today was probably augmented by the fact that I solved this in under 2:50, which would be a fast time for me even on a normal 15x15 grid. On a 16x15, that time, for me, is smoking. Predictably, the moments where I teetered the most came with the contemporary proper nouns: had the -TUM, so Jayson TATUM was a reasonable guess (and rang a bell, despite my not being a big NBA fan) (67A: N.B.A. phenom Jayson), and TESSA also rang a bell, sorta kinda, but in both cases my speed slowed way down as I carefully checked crosses, or built the answers from crosses. It would probably be a good idea to store this TESSA away in your brain—that is a very favorable letter combination, and there just aren't that many famous TESSAs, so even marginally famous ones are likely to recur. I think there's an actress, TESSA Hadley (I can picture her, but can't remember what she's been in ... hang on ... LOL, whoops, she does exist, but on my bookshelf, not on TV—I've got "Late in the Day" on my bookshelf just waiting for me to read it. Now I want to know who this actress is that I thought was TESSA Hadley ... Oh *&$%#, it's Glenne Headley. Nevermind.).


I spelled NICKI right on the first pass! (38A: Singer Minaj). Part of me always thinks it's gonna be NIKKI (like NIKKI Sixx or, I just found out, NIKKI Haley). I screwed up the term of endearment, though, and wrote in BABY when the crossword just wanted BABE (6D: Term of endearment). I like that YOGI(S) is in here to support BOO-BOO BEAR. And look, he's even DROOLing (over a pick-a-nick basket, no doubt), and there's RANGEr Smith right there in the same section, hot on his trail. Man, I miss being 6 years old sometimes.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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