Deceitful doings / TUES 2-4-19 / Jerry's partner in ice cream / 007, for one / Minotaur's island

Hi, everyone, it's Clare — this time for the first Tuesday of the month! Now that the football season is over (nice win, Chiefs), it's time for some baseball! Just 50 days until Opening Day. And even fewer days until the preseason, when a guy in one of my law school classes will almost certainly pull up every Mets game again, full screen on his laptop right in front of me. I do worry that my Giants will suck again this year, especially without MadBum, but at least no one can accuse them of cheating! Anyway... on to the puzzle...

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners and Queena Mewers

Relative difficulty:Medium
THEME: MUSIC (65A: What the ends of 17-, 23-, 36-, 47 and 57-Across make) — Each theme answer ends in a type of instrument that can be used to make music.

Theme answers:

• SHOEHORNS (17A: Crams (in))
• LOVE TRIANGLES (23A: Some romantic entanglements)
• CHAMPAGNE FLUTES (36A: Things clinked on New Year's Eve)
• TAPE RECORDERS (47A: Interviewing aids)
• SEX ORGANS (57A: Subjects of health class diagrams)

Word of the Day: NEVIS(51A: St Kitt's island partner)

Nevisis a small island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies. Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute one country: the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Nevis is located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. Its area is 93 square kilometres (36 sq mi) and the capital is Charlestown. (Wiki)


I found this to be a middle-of-the-road Tuesday puzzle — nothing particularly objectionable but not a ton to love. The theme was rather straightforward, and the revealer itself was pretty obvious. That being said, I did like some of the words that were used as the theme answers. I've watched many TV shows/movies and read many books with a LOVE TRIANGLE (though they're only really fun when the couple you're rooting for makes it; #MerDer for life). I also recently adopted SHOEHORNS into my vocabulary when my professor used the word about 12 times in one class, and I've enjoyed using the word since then. I did try to put CHAMPAGNE"glasses" instead of FLUTES before realizing that: a) it had too many letters; b) the puzzle was apparently fancier than I was expecting; and, well, c) it didn't fit the theme! I did think cluing SEX ORGANS as "subjects of health class diagrams" was odd. And, looking back on the theme answers, it feels a bit disjointed to have all of the theme answers be two words (with the second word being the one that "makes music") but have a one-word answer, SHOEHORNS, in there.

I may have just run out of steam by the end, but I tripped up some in the SE corner. I had trouble with SEX ORGANS because of the weird clue. I tried putting "NSA" in at first, instead of CIA, for 53A: Org. with code-named programs. It took me a bit to get INRI (54D: Letters on a crucifix), and RAM and GNU didn't jump out to me as the most obvious answers for, respectively, 58D: Animal in a flock and 59D: Animal in a herd. I did like the repetition in those back-to-back clues, though.

The repetition I didn't like happened in two other instances. One was with 9D: So many and 50D: So many. There just isn't anything clever about that repetition. And, 007 is used twice in the puzzle — at 10D and also at 57D. Again, this repetition just seemed half-baked.

I liked some of the longer downs — a couple favorites were CHICANERY (32D: Deceitful doings) and OK I'LL BITE (11D: "Sure, try me"). My liking those words was somewhat balanced out, though, with my strong dislike for IDNO (48D: Fig. on a driver's license or passport) and then CUBER (35D: Expert solver of a Rubik's toy). I've certainly never heard of a Rubik's CUBER before.

I found a little theme of my own within the puzzle: "bests." We've got the best male tennis player of all time — Roger Federer (27D) as the clue for SWISS; the best James Bond of all time — Daniel CRAIG (10D); and the best First Lady of all time — Michelle OBAMA (24D).

Bullets:

• Do yourself a favor and go down the Internet rabbit hole of looking at pictures of BANFF National Park. It's legitimately stunning.

• I definitely think of 14A: Olympics symbol as being the rings (not a TORCH).
• Is it just me, or do we get way more UBERs than "Lyfts" in crossword puzzles?
• Speaking of James Bond and Daniel CRAIG... that Superbowl teaser ad for the new movie looks incredible! I cannot wait.
• I can't see the word ITSY (1D: Teeny-weeny) without automatically singing, "The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout..." in my head.
• CITI(35A: Bank with M.L.B. naming rights, for short) may be false advertising. Are the Mets still in the MLB? They sure looked like a minor league team to me on the laptop screen of that guy in front of me:)

Signed, Clare Carroll, a hopeful Giants fan

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