1986 Keith Haring antidrug mural / MON 11-25-19 / Batter's grip-enhancing goo / Distinctively shelled bivalves

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe slightly north of Medium) (3:16)

THEME: ACK ACK — Ack Ack (February 24, 1966 – November 7, 1990) was an American Thoroughbred Hall of Fameracehorse. (wikipedia)

Theme answers:

• SNACK ATTACK (17A: Reason to raid the fridge)
• BACK ON TRACK (29A: No longer astray)
• CRACK IS WACK (45A: 1986 Keith Haring antidrug mural)
• YACKETY YACK (60A: Gab) (is this really how it's spelled? Not "yakkity yak!"? The song spells it "Yakety Yak" ... not sure where this variant comes from) 

Word of the Day: NASHUA (10D: New Hampshire's second-largest city) —

Nashua is a city in southern New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2010 census, Nashua had a population of 86,494, making it the second-largest city in the state and in northern New England after nearby Manchester. As of 2018 the population had risen to an estimated 89,246. Nashua is, along with Manchester, one of two seats of New Hampshire's most populous county, Hillsborough County.

Built around the now-departed textile industry, in recent decades it has been swept up in southern New Hampshire's economic expansion as part of the Boston region. Nashua was twice named "Best Place to Live in America" in annual surveys by Money magazine. It is the only city to get the No. 1 ranking on two occasions—in 1987 and 1998. (wikipedia)

Would've quit this about 10 seconds in if I weren't faux-contractually obligated to write about it. Whatever you think about the theme (and I'm pretty neutral toward it), the fill in this is atrocious. There is no reason a Monday puzzle that is relatively light on, or at least not jammed with, theme material should have fill this rough and yesteryear. Seriously, ONENO is one of those answers that makes me want to shut the computer and walk away, immediately. It was never good, and it's especially terrible now, when constructing software can help constructors find at least passable fill in these run-of-the-mill corners. There's literally no excuse for ONENO. I guarantee you that if you pull out the NW and W, even leaving DEALMEIN in place, you (yes you, probably) can get rid of ONENO and probably IDINA and INCAN and NOS in the bargain. Why stop there, though? Keep going. Get rid of RIAL and AGRA, the NEATO BIS, DYAN and her ALGAE, the ASIS KOI the hissing SSS MRI, ANI, WINED, all of it. Or most of it. The best thing in the grid was also the hardest thing for me to recall: CRACK IS WACK! You can dump the rest in the KOI pond. (a friend of mine tells me, per the "constructor's notes," that ONENO was put in *during the editing process*, which ... wow. Wow. I mean, if ONENO was edited *in* to this thing, I don't know which is up or down or left or right (and I don't even want to imagine what the grid looked like originally).


I forgot NASHUA existed, wow. I'm trying not to actually look at that corner because again, the fill is So bad (NES ATA!), but yeah, that slowed me down a bit. I know NASHUA exists only because I interviewed for a job w/ a school in NASHUA 20+ years ago. I have literally never been to New Hampshire. Ever. But then I've only been to Vermont once, and then only just a few years ago. And they're only a few hours from me. Weird. Anyway, NASHUA slowed me a tad. So did WINED (ugh) because of course I had WOOED, which is an infinitely better answer (42A: Romanced, in a way). Wrote in SSA instead of SSS (confusing my terrible and my Very terrible SS_ words). How in the world does this grid require cheater squares?!?!?!  (black squares after GASP / before ASIS—they make grid easier to fill but don't add to the word count; such squares are usually only used if filling the grid cleanly is demanding, which ... why today?? Maybe I should be grateful that this thing isn't filled worse, but I'm not feeling that charitable right now, now that I've found out that this puzzle actually *was* edited and we *still* ended up with this swill. I dumbly wrote in SADAT when I had -ADAT at 57A: Tore into (HAD AT), without even looking at the clue. Bad assumption. I have a feeling this will play somewhat on the harder side for people, but not too hard. Gotta run. Cheers.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Apparently "YACKETY YACK" is indeed something—a 1974 Australian film (thanks for the reference, Brian!). Oh, and also this:


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