Martin star of 1960s TV's Route 66 / SUN 7-26-20 / Site of Bocca Nuova crater / Hairy hunter of Genesis / Nickname of 2010s pop idol / Bird in Liberty Mutual commercials / Role in 2005 hit musical Jersey Boys / What Winthrop speaks with in Music Man / Nine-symbol message / Rule that ended in 1947 / Shrub that produces crimson-colored spice

Constructor: Trenton Charlson

Relative difficulty: Medium (11:27) (the cocktail I had with dinner probably slowed me some...) 

THEME:"MADE-TO-ORDER" — random words in familiar phrases are anagrammed to create wacky phrases ... turns out that in each case, the anagram involves putting the letters in alphabetical order (47D: Kind of order for the circled letters in this puzzle => ABC):

Theme answers:

• SQUARE CHIN (22A: Facial feature of a Lego man?) (from "square inch")
• HOST IN THE DARK (33A: Emcee during a power outage?) (from "shot in the dark")
• ACES DISMISSED (48A: "The elite fighter pilots may skip the rest of the lecture"?) (from "case dismissed!")
• ABET AROUND THE BUSH (67A: Drive a getaway care through Australia's outback?) (from "beat around the bush")
• BEGIN WATCHING (89A: What you might do after the movie previews are finally over?) (but ... weren't you ... "watching" ... the previews?) (from "binge-watching")
• BELOW MACARONI (106A: Where spaghetti and orzo rank in terms of their suitability for making necklaces?) (from "elbow macaroni")
• OCEAN DEIST (120A: One who believes exclusively in a sea god?) (from "ocean tides")

Word of the Day: PASTORALE (83D: Piece of music that evokes the countryside) —

n. pl. pas·to·ra·li (-rä′lē) or pas·to·rales

1. An instrumental or vocal composition with a tender melody in a moderately slow rhythm, suggestive of traditional shepherds' music and idyllic rural life.

2. A dramatic performance or opera, popular in the 1500s and 1600s, that was based on a rural theme or subject. (thefreedictionary.com)

I don't think you understand. The entire time I'm solving, I'm honestly thinking, "Come on, puzzle! Show me something! Wow me! Surprise me! Entertain me! You can do it!" I. Want. To. Like. Puzzles. I acknowledge that Sunday is very hard to do well, because themes are just hard to do well in general, and then on Sunday your theme has to be so good that it doesn't become taxing over the course of a large 21x21 grid. But this is why Sundays pay the most. It's the most-solved day of the week. I get my most traffic (by far) on this day of the week. Like ... yeah, it's hard, but this is the Big Time, so shine, already! Today is a good example of why I find the NYTXW Sunday so exasperating. There's just nothing here. There's a thing that *feels* like a theme. I mean, there is a concept. And that concept extends across the longer Across answers. There is wackiness, of a sort. But there is nothing in the way of genuine cleverness or joy. The "alphabetical order" thing ... honestly, I didn't notice. Not while solving, not after. Someone had to tell me. I never saw the revealer, or it didn't register (look at where it is). I just didn't see a clue / answer anywhere indicating that the anagrams involve arranging the letters in alphabetical order, but more importantly, I truly, genuinely, with all my heart, don't understand why a solver is supposed to care? Solvers are going to anagram, based on information in the clue (familiar phrase where one word is clearly re-ordered). And the anagrams are just words. You can *tell* me they're words that have letters that appear in alphabetical order. But ABET is just ABET. It's not hard. For instance, LOST is a word where all the letters are in alphabetical order. And so what? I don't look at any of the anagrammed words and think "wow, the letters in that word are in alphabetical order." BELOW is just a word; I have never cared, and do not now care, that those letters are in alphabetical order. The puzzle is deeply concerned about a thing that I, as a solver, not only am not concerned about, but never even saw. How is that good? And the resulting phrases aren't even funny, my god, you can make up for So Much if you can just hit the "Funny" mark on occasion. But no. And the fill isn't even good, so there's nothing to make up for the sadness of the theme. If you want to see how a simple concept can be enjoyable, look at last Sunday's puzzle. This ... I don't know what this is. I truly don't understand how this passes muster.


There's not much to comment on here. NW corner was where I started and was probably the hardest for me, as I don't remember Winthrop from "The Music Man" (was that ... Ron Howard??), so LISP, hard (1D: What Winthrop speaks with in "The Music Man"). LASS, with that clue, hard (1A: Miss). I still only barely get the clue for ICON (18A: Where a phone might be tapped). I guess I do tap icons on my phone ... seems like more of a "what" than a "where," but OK. No idea about BOBCAT (53A: New Cub Scout). That's not even ... the right ... species? ... or is that not important? Also, I don't care. Cluing seemed maybe harder than usual, overall, but I am drunker than usual, overall, so it's probably just average (note: I've had exactly one drink so don't Worry, I'm just a lightweight—it's a good thing). Only a couple real mistakes today. Thought Winthrop spoke with a TUBA (LOL) and thought LOTT succeeded Frist even though I sorta knew that was chronologically messed up (23D: Frist's successor as Senate majority leader = REID).


Anyway, as for the theme. it's totally possible that I'm just an idiot and missed the "alphabetical order" thing when every other solver could see exactly what was going on ... but somehow I doubt it. The title doesn't tell us enough. "MADE-TO-ORDER" just has "order" in it, and I took it to mean "we've put the letters in a new order" (i.e. anagrammed them), not "we've put these letters in alphabetical order." I went with anagram, not alphabetizing. Seeing what I missed changes my feelings about the puzzle not one bit; if anything, it makes me more disappointed—I just can't believe no one thought about whether this particular twist would add pleasure to the solving experience. Because clearly no one did. I wish the news were better. I'm sorry. Have a nice day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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