Activist who'd make a good valet? / TUE 10-22-19 / Muppet with a smartphone friend named Smartie / Rapper who'd make good barber / Supermodel who'd make good broker

Constructor: Saul Pink

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:24)

THEME: last name, verb — celebrities reimagined as verb phrases

Theme answers:

• GEORGE BURNS (17A: Comedian who'd make a good pyrotechnician?) (wait, you said *good* pyrotechnician, right???)
• TYRA BANKS (24A: Supermodel who'd make a good broker?)
• ROSA PARKS (35A: Activist who'd make a good valet?)
• SEAN COMBS (53A: Rapper who'd make a good barber?)
• JEREMY IRONS (61A: Actor who'd make a good dry cleaner?)

Word of the Day: SEAN COMBS (53A) —

Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969), also known by the stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, record executive, actor, and entrepreneur. Combs was born in New York City but was raised in Mount Vernon, New York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his own record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, in 1993.

Combs' debut album, No Way Out (1997), has been certified seven times platinum. No Way Out was followed by successful albums such as Forever (1999), The Saga Continues... (2001), and Press Play(2006). In 2009, Combs formed the musical group (Dirty Money (duo)) and released the critically well-reviewed and commercially successful album Last Train to Paris (2010).

Combs has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards, and is the producer of MTV's Making the Band. In 2018, Forbes estimated his net worth at $825 million, making him the second-richest hip-hop recording artist, after Jay-Z. (wikipedia)

This feels like the oldest theme in the book, though I can't find any specific examples of its having been done before. It's not terribly exciting and could've been made 20+ years ago. It's a good example of what a perfectly adequate puzzle might've looked like at the end of the last century—tight (if not exactly thrilling) theme concept, passable (if not exactly fresh) fill. Lots of short answers, which means a lot of unremarkable to slightly irksome fill (TAI, EHS, IDED, FTC, LES, etc.). And the longer answers (ten different 7-letter Downs!) somehow do very little to bring up the interest level. It's passable. It's just OK. It's about NYT-average right now (with the theme concept being slightly more basic / old-fashioned than usual). But the big negative today, the thing that made me wince mid-solve (exactly mid-solve) was the clue on ROSA PARKS. When I say the editor has a tin ear when it comes to social issues, particularly when it comes to race, *this* is what I mean. Clue writer sees only the whimsy of wordplay, not the idea that maybe you shouldn't ask the civil rights icon whose Whole Thing was defying racial hierarchy in the area of *transportation* to go fetch your Audi. ROSA PARKS ... as a valet ... this sounded ... good? I mean ... wow, OK. OK.



I had some trouble interpreting the clues. Had HOORAY for 15A: Howl of happiness and then thought "EYS??? That's a weird way to write [Responses to mumbles], but .... I guess so!" Not the greatest crossing, is what I'm saying. I still don't quite get what the clue on TADA is going for (24D: "I'm do-o-one!"). Like, I can't find quite the right pitch or intonation or cadence to make the clue mean anything like the answer. I read the clue as expressing something like "I am *through* with this stupid situation" or "I am exceedingly tired." Somehow "do-o-one" conveys precisely nothing to me. Looks like it's pronounced "due oh one." Otherwise, nothing here gave me much trouble. Weirdly took a longish time to see both FOMENTS (11D: Instigates) and ATTAIN (?) (65A: Reach). Also, thought a U.F.O. was DISC-shaped. Oh well. And why in the world is the clue on SHORTIE so weirdly specific. "Someone under five feet?" Totally arbitrary. Bizarrely stigmatizing. SHORTIE (or "shorty" or, in the South, "shawty") is a pretty common term of affection for a young woman. You hear it a bunch in rap lyrics. That's certainly how I most often encounter this term—not as a way to insult the untall.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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