Bash some tobacco holders / MON 9-30-19 / Strikebreaking worker / John who arrived on Mayflower / Action accompanied by MWAH

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:02)

THEME: Bash Brothers! — famililar phrases are clued as if they were verb phrases where the first word means "Bash" (as in "criticize")

Theme answers:

• PAN PIPES (16A: Bash some tobacco holders?)
• TRASH PICK-UPS (19A: Bash some small trucks?)
• RIP TIDE (39A: Bash a luandry room brand?)
• PUT DOWN ROOTS (57A: Bash an Alex Haley classic?)
• BLAST OFF (61A: Bash a bug repellent brand?)

Word of the Day: John ALDEN (23D: John who arrived on the Mayflower) —

Capt. John Alden Sr. (c. 1598–1687) was a crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower. Rather than return to England with the ship, he stayed at what became Plymouth Colony. He was hired in Southampton, England, as the ship's cooper, responsible for maintaining the ship's barrels. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact. He married fellow Mayflower passenger Priscilla Mullins, whose entire family perished in the first winter.

He served in a number of important government positions such as Assistant Governor, Duxbury Deputy to the General Court of Plymouth, Captain Myles Standish's Duxburymilitia company, a member of the Council of War, Treasurer of Plymouth Colony, and Commissioner to Dartmouth. (wikipedia)

I was finished before I figured out / realized that the answers had something in common besides puns. This seems impossible, in retrospect, since every clue begins [Bash...] but I bounce around so much, and "?" are always an extra layer of difficulty for me, so I was distracted and didn't see the coherence (not that it would've helped me solve faster). The theme is just fine, and it's pretty dense ... which may be why the grid overall feels a bit stale. I won't list all the dull repeaters, the common short stuff that's gunking up this grid, because I don't have to. Just plunk your finger down in the grid, you'll hit something. ROO? DST? Yeah, you see it. None of it bad, but ... just, a Lot of it. A lot of old stuff. Old vibe. MORTON SALT old. The 6+-letter Downs give the grid some solidity as well as some crunch, but for Ms. Lempel, whose work is regularly stellar, this feels somewhat below average.


My time was normal, which was weird because I felt very slow. Also, my fat fingers were typo'ing all over the place. Felt like half my time was spent trying to undo typing mistakes. Some of the cluing seemed off today. Not sure "AHA!" is a very good equivalent of 14A: "Like I told you!" I mean, I can hear someone saying "Like I told you!" immediately after saying AHA! but I don't like it as a swap-out. I also really hate the clue on IRMA (17D: Woman whose name is an anagram of MIRA). Give a girl a clue, would you? Yeesh. Non-clues are not fun. There are cluable IRMAs, pick one! I always forget ALDEN, so luckily today I got him mostly from crosses before I ever saw his clue. "NOT SO!" feels very formal compared to 37D: "That's just wrong!"Oof, the worst moment for me was writing in UPTICK for UPTURN (32D: Improvement, as in the economy). What was worst about it was it gave me a terminal "I" at 46A: Diamond Head's island (OAHU), so naturally (?) I wrote in MAUI. Blargh. Entirely my own fault. HEWED screwed me up because I only wanted HEWN, which of course didn't fit (47D: Chopped). See also SAWN (weird that both of these -WN past participles are essentially synonymous ... omg MOWN too ... it's all chopping and cutting, what the hell?)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]