Vegas casino named for African locale / MON 9-23-19 / Some hippie neckwear / African nation whose name consists of three US state postal abbreviations / Culture medium in lab

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy (2:48)

THEME: yak yak yak— terms for people who talk a lot:

Theme answers:

• TALKAHOLIC (17A: One who yaks, yaks, yaks ...)
• BLABBERMOUTH (27A:  ... yaks, yaks, yaks ...)
• BLATHERSKITE (44A: ... yaks, yaks, yaks ...)
• CHATTERBOX (59A: ... yaks, yak, yaks)

Word of the Day: BLATHERSKITE (44A) —

n.

1. A babbling, foolish person.

2. Blather.

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[blather + dialectal skite, a contemptible person (from Middle English skite, diarrhea, from OldNorse skītr, excrement, from skīta, to defecate; see skei- in Indo-European roots).] (thefreedictionary)

Super-excited to record a legit fast (for me) time in what feels like forever (not actually forever), and super-excited to see puzzles constructed by solo women on back to back days in what also feels like forever (and is probably fairly close to forever), but not very excited by this theme, or the fill. Let's start with the theme. The first themer is not a thing. Chocoholic: thing. TALKAHOLIC: extreme non-thing. And BLATHERSKITE!? Whoa. I mean, it's a cool word, but two things: a. it is not a Monday word in the slightest, and b. it doesn't mean someone who yak yak yaks. Not merely talkative. It's someone who talks nonsense. And BLABBERMOUTH? That too simply does not mean someone who yak yak yaks. A BLABBERMOUTH is someone who talks when they shouldn't, who reveals too much, exposes secrets, etc. The dictionary sometimes has someone who talks indiscreetly *or* incessantly, but common usage (and certainly the only usage I've ever heard) relates primarily to indiscretion of the speech, not the mere volume. Basically, CHATTERBOX is the only themer that I fully and whole-heartedly accept.


The fill, yeesh. "Retro" would be a very, very polite way of describing it. Why is there a plural CIAOS in ... well, any puzzle, but especially in an easy-to-fill Monday. Mainly the fill is just stale. AGAR SIAM IBET ... overwhelmingly 5-letter or shorter. The bottom of the grid is particularly substandard. HEH is never not bad, ATIE, same, and SHLEP is a var. spelling, isn't it? Really feels like it. I'd tear that whole section out and rebuild it with real words. I'm surprised I was as fast as I was today, given that I'd never heard of TALKAHOLIC, I'd barely heard of and certainly couldn't retrieve BLATHERSKITE, and I wrote in I'M OUT for I FOLD at 50D: "Too rich for my blood."Took me a bit to get TRASHY, too, and MUSE was clued like a thing, not a person, so slow there as well (52D: Creative inspiration). Also, ugh, casino clues. The worst. The worst. What a horrible waste of SAHARA (5D: Vegas casino named for an African locale). Oh well. Off to watch the Emmys so I can root for all the crossword solvers among the nominees (I know of at least four). See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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