Title house owner in 2000 Martin Lawrence comedy / MON 5-25-20 / Sugar-free lemon-lime soda / Suffix with period class / Word after monkey handle / App introduced in 2010 to locate missing Apple product / Ancient land that lent its name to an order of architecture

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels and Victor Barocas

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (3:20) (the slight slowness is due primarily to the first themer, which I forgot existed, and to SPRITE ZERO, which I did not know existed until just now)

THEME: CHANGED ONE'S MIND (60A: Decided otherwise ... or a hint to the four sets of circled letters) — letters "MIND" appear in different orders in four themers:

Theme answers:

• "MIDNIGHT IN PARIS" (17A: 2011 film co-starring Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams)
• FIND MY IPHONE (26A: App introduced in 2010 to locate a missing Apple product)
• ADMIN (37A: Business operations, informally)
• LEONARD NIMOY (46A: Mr. Spock player)

Word of the Day: Acetic (which was somehow *not* the answer to 48D: Like vinegar (ACIDIC)) —

adjective

pertaining to, derived from, or producing vinegar or acetic acid. (dictionary.com) (my emph.)

Man they are shilling for Apple an awful lot these days. I mean, IMAC SIRI etc are always gonna pop up because of their favorable letter combos, but between yesterday's whole APPLE SWEATSHIRT (!?!?!) fiasco, and today's FIND MY IPHONE, the product placement has gone next-level. But to the puzzle ... the theme is pretty yesteryear, and is rather poorly executed. There's no method to the mind changes; these are just four possible combos (of 24, I think, though my math skills are poor). Why these four? Also, why move the "MIND" changes so herkily-jerkily across the grid. There's the superficial appearance of a neat progression (with "MIND" changes moving left-to-right as you descend the grid), but it's off / irregular. Then there's ADMIN, which is such a horrid disappointment as theme answers go. A five-letter nothing. Then there's the revealer with the always irksome ONE'S in it. Also, that phrase is weirdly in the past tense just so that the answer will come out to a clean fifteen. The whole thing feels hastily conceived and not entirely thought through. Certainly not carefully crafted. The fill, yeesh. I knew things were gonna be rough at ILEDE. Then there's that horrid suffix (-ICAL) and lots and lots of abbrs. and the awkwardness of MISMARK and on and on ANON. Antiquated and clunky. Theme needs some other level to feel special enough. Maybe break the "MIND" changes neatly across two words in two-word answers (the stray non-MIND-involved words in the themers (iPhone, "in Paris") are kind of annoying and sloppy-looking). I dunno. The theme just needs Something. Some level of elegance to elevate it from where it is now.


I think I saw "MIDNIGHT IN PARIS," but the clue did nothing for me so I needed "MIDNIGHT IN P-" to actually get it. Found clue on (again, awful) suffix -ICAL to be toughish, actually. Had to get most of SPRITE ZERO from crosses too, as its existence is news to me (11D: Sugar-free lemon-lime soda). The part that slowed me down the most by far, however, was having ACETIC at 48D: Like vinegar (ACIDIC). ACETIC isn't even a word I like knowing. It's just one of those words I acquired from doing crosswords. It is frequently clued as [Vinegary] or [Like vinegar]. Whereas this is only the second time ever (in the Shortz era) that ACIDIC has had a vinegar-related clue. It's not that the clue is wrong. I'm just trying to explain how easy it is for a constant solver to lose a chunk of time on that particular answer—not a particularly enjoyable kind of added difficulty, but added difficulty (for me) nonetheless.

 Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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