W.W. I French biplane / SUN 1-19-20 / Olden Tokyo / Romanian-born writer once in the French Academy / Wildflower with spiky purplish blooms / Home of Latino Walk of Fame informally / Gag item floating in Halloween punch / John Wilkes Booth's actor brother / Apostle called The Zealot

Constructor: Victor Barocas

Relative difficulty: Challenging (12:20)

THEME:"Biotechnology"— it's basically GENE-SPLICING (71A: Biological manipulation suggested four times by this puzzle): circled letters on a diagonal—G, E, N, E—have two different long words feeding into it and emerging out of it ... it's like chutes and ladders, but just the chute, and both words enter the GENE chute at the same place and ride it to its end and then continue in the same direction they were headed before they entered:

Theme answers:

• HEDGE NETTLE (??!) (24A: Wildflower with spiky, purplish blooms) / IN GENERAL (4D: As a rule)
• PLANTAGENETS (26A: Ruling family of Edward I) / EUGENE IONESCO (14D: Romanian-born writer once in the French Academy)
• REGENERATION (98A: Remarkable ability of a starfish) / FRONT PAGE NEWS (57D: Big story)
• HOMOGENEITY (101A: Lack of variation) / DODGE NEON (84D: 1990s-2000s compact car)

Word of the Day: Phillipa SOO (127A: "Hamilton" Tony nominee Phillipa ___) —

Phillipa Soo (/ˈfɪlɪpə/; born May 31, 1990) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for originating the role of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, a performance for which she was nominated for the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Her additional stage credits include the role of Natasha Rostova, which Soo originated in a number of New York productions of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812in 2012 and 2013, and the title role in Amélie, which Soo originated on Broadway in 2017. Most recently, Soo appeared on Broadway in The Parisian Woman, which ran from November 2017 to March 2018. (wikipedia)

OK so let's start with the fact that the theme concept is actually cool, if too obvious. Things got obviously untenable in the NW real quick, which made it clear that the two theme answers that start up there had to have something to do with the circled squares; once I got those squares filled in from crosses, I could pretty easily see the answers going into and out of GENE, which suggested GENE-SPLICING, which made the revealer totally unnecessary. Kind of a let-down. Yes, I can see, very clearly, that GENE-SPLICING is what is going on. But other than that let-down / over-explanation, the theme was good. The answers were unusual and cool, and the whole "two words go in, become one word for a while, then split back to two" thing was fun. Hard for me to navigate quickly in my software, but fun. But ... virtually everything else about this puzzle was decidedly unfun. Painful. Repeatedly wince-inducing. Overloaded with names *and* crosswordese *and* ... just ... stuff that should never, ever be in a grid, like ENCYSTS (my god, whyyy!?) (93A: Closes in a thin membrane) and ... SPAD!? (59A: W.W. I French biplane) Is that right? SPAD!? Under STELES? Crossing SEPAL. Honestly, that entire middle section, from STELES down to ENCYSTS, should've been excised and thrown away. All of it. It's horrid. How do you not see that when you're making this?? How does the editor not go, "You know, this is very cool theme, we'd love to run this, but ... I have some notes about the fill"!? It's baffling. I mean, SANKAS, plural? LARC? That section is So Broken. So Obviously Broken. You can't let puzzles go out into the world looking like that. Especially not when you have a theme that is actually kind of nice. What a horrible thing to do to your own work. What a horrible way to treat your theme. Build a clean grid. Doesn't have to be dazzling. Just has to be clean. Just has to not make your solvers go, "ew, what?" And trust me, from early reviews I'm seeing on social media, that is *exactly* what they're doing.


"ONER ENO EDO OTT, EIEIO!" Sing it, it's fun! OATGRASS is, I'm sure, a thing, but pretty weak, as thingness goes. Wheatgrass ... is more of a thing, in that it's juiced in healthfood juiceaterias or whatever they're called. It's truly horrendous, but supposed to be good for you. Supergrass ... is a band.


The spelling of TIRANË is so bad that I honestly don't think it should appear in puzzles ever again. Conventional English spelling is TIRANA. It just is. No, seriously, it is. This is like that ENESCU / ENESCO composer guy. Like ... he has a name. Let's agree on what it is and just spell it one way. CAF is just not a thing. You order a latte. If you want it decaf, great, you say that. But the default is caffeinated. The only time you'd ever say CAF is, I guess, "half-caf" but honestly, what are you doing??? Just pick a team. Oh, and as side note, I just want to say that the worst recent development in mainstream coffeedom is the thing where I order coffee and the cashier asks me "hot?" Uh, did I say "Iced?" No? Then yes, hot. Coffee is hot. The default is hot. If some dumbass orders "coffee" and then gets MAD AT you when it comes hot, he does not deserve the coffee and you should throw him out of your establishment. This isn't hard.


On the Clipboard!!:

Gonna use Sunday to highlight some of the week's best (or most interesting, or noteworthy) puzzles and clues from around the (non-NYTXW) crossword world. Only just had this idea, so this week's a little light, but here are three puzzles I quite enjoyed:

• Will Nediger's "The Internet Has Something For Everyone" (bewilderingly.com, Mon., Jan. 13) — from his independent puzzle site, bewilderingly.com. Very internetty in a way that was not exactly in my wheelhouse, but that was cool and well executed all the same. Get it here.
• Rachel Fabi's "She She" (USA Today, Jan. 14) — a really interesting set of pop culture themers. I guarantee you that a many of you (like me) will not know at least one, if not several of the names involved, but ... you know, branch out! Learn some things! The theme concept is a winner, and the set of answers is truly remarkable in ways I'll let you discover. Available at the USA Today's puzzle site (https://puzzles.usatoday.com/crossword/ ... you'll go to the current day's puzzle, but you can find older puzzles if you click the little puzzle grid icon at the top of the interface)
• Erik Agard's Weekend Crossword (themeless) (The New Yorker, Friday, Jan. 17) — the best themeless I've done this year. So much current, winning material. The central Across made me beam. Such beautiful work. All the New Yorker puzzles are really nice, as a rule, but this one was exceptional. It's here.

• [Cow-feteria?]— answer: LEA (from the WSJ, Sat., Jan. 18)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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