Lee known for his cameos / THU 6-18-20 / Cosmic force / Rocky Mountain city once home to Anaconda Copper Mining Company / One of McMahons of WWE / Offering at pier restaurant

Constructor: Ricky Cruz

Relative difficulty: Challenging (7:21)

THEME: CAR / VAN / SEMI / TRUCK / BUS (39A: [Ugh, we've been stuck here for an hour...]) — a TRAFFIC JAM (61A: Situation depicted at 39-Across) and three arbitrary, vaguely related other themers:

Theme answers:

• BOTTLENECK (17A: Possible cause of a 61-Across) 
• INTERSTATE (11D: Bad place for a 61-Across) (there are *good* places for them?)
• LATE TO WORK (28D: What a 61-Across might make you)

Word of the Day:"KUBO and the Two Strings" (2016 animated film) (1D) —

Kubo and the Two Strings is a 2016 American stop-motion animated action fantasy film directed by Travis Knight (in his directorial debut). It is produced by Laika. It stars the voices of Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, Rooney Mara, and Matthew McConaughey. The film revolves around Kubo, a young boy who wields a magical shamisen (a Japanese stringed instrument) and whose left eye was stolen during infancy. Accompanied by an anthropomorphic snow monkey and beetle, he must subdue his mother's corrupted Sisters and his power-hungry grandfather Raiden the Moon King, who is responsible for stealing his left eye. (wikipedia)

This is a mess, and a rehash of a concept I've seen elsewhere. The center answer feels vaguely unfair, in the sense that it's not a word, or a phrase. It's just a series of vehicle types ... when you're trying to pick vehicle types out of thin air, with no way of knowing what they might be *except* via the *one* Down answer, yeeeesh. Kinda violates the law of US crosswords that all squares must be checked. I see how knowing there's a vehicle type in there acts as a kind of check, but oof. Unpleasant. The idea that that center answer "depicts" a TRAFFIC JAM seems preposterous, in that ... it only does so because the TRAFFIC JAM clue says it does so. Absent that clue, 61-Across looks like ... maybe a parking lot, or a line of cars at a light, or a drive-thru window, I dunno. There Are Only Five Of Them. Nothing particularly "jam"-y about it. I get that you are "jamming" (??) the answers into little squares, but if that's your big punchline ... I think it's gonna miss a lot of people. Further, the three other themers are all arbitrary and not terribly "jam"-y either. I think of BOTTLENECK as more of a synonym of TRAFFIC JAM than a "cause"; INTERSTATE is just a random road ... no reason a TRAFFIC JAM there is any "bad"-er than a TRAFFIC JAM anywhere else; and LATE TO WORK ... sigh, it's adjectival where the others aren't, and again, totally arbitrary, but it gives you symmetry with INTERSTATE I guess so put it in there, sure, why not? The whole thing was made more grueling and tedious by the cluing, which was way harder than normal. The NW corner alone was an astonishing chore. First pass yielded absolutely nothing. Thank god I got the BOTTLE part of BOTTLENECK, because I desperately needed all those letters. Thought the answer might be RUBBERNECK at first ... it seemed vaguely plausible. Anyway, ugh to most all of this.


So many problems, even outside the TRAFFIC JAM. Misspelled ERIK ("C"). Misspelled RAMSAY. ("E"). No idea about this MALL (54D: The world's largest one is in Chengdu, China (covering 18 million square feet)). You couldn't invent a worse SHANE clue for me if you tried. Just ???? (65A: One of the McMahons of WWE). Wow KANS is bad. The attempt to untie ALEXA and AMS via "alarms" was painful (27D: One setting an alarm, maybe + 29D: Alarm clock settings, for short). Impossible for me to get from clue to MUTT (I had OLIO) (4D: A little of this, a little of that). Had HOOPS before HORSE (68A: Basketball game). Thought the anchor was on a *SWIM*TEAM (50A: Group working with an anchor) (NEWSTEAM). I'm looking this grid over and seeing no answers I truly liked. Zero. I like that RE(BUS) actually contains a rebus square, that's kinda cute. But DETS no EEKS no ... so much generic fill, and nothing exciting or even semi-splashy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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