Greek war goddess, Puccini piece, Adriatic resort, Actress Eleniak

Constructor: Finn Vigeland

Relative difficulty: easy-medium-to-impossible, or, how quick do you catch on to rebuses?


THEME: "Condensation"— Seven pairs of crossing entries share a square that uses a dual interpretation of "WATER." In one direction, the word WATER is condensed into the square. In the other direction, the chemical notation for water is used (HHO, or, as it more commonly gets expressed, H₂O).

Word of the Day: TARTINE (89D Open-faced sandwich topped with a fancy spread) — An open sandwich, also known as an open face/faced sandwich, Ulrich Sandwich, bread baser, or tartine, consists of a single slice of bread with one or more food items on top. (per wiki)
The ACPT is through the first day of preliminary puzzles. This is treedweller, filling in while our regular host vies for all the glory. After six puzzles, Rex Parker is in 41st place overall, 16th in the B division. He is separated from the B Finals by 325 points. That's kind of a lot, but this morning's round is traditionally a Sunday-sized puzzle with more points available, so maybe a comeback is still possible. You can do it, Rex!
I first got an inkling of the rebus at MOUTH HOLE, but no combination of letters seemed to belong together as a subset. I knew there was a HO here and HO there, but still couldn't make my guesses match the required number of letters/boxes. I finally caught the twist at BATTLE OF WATERLOO and filled things in pretty steadily after that. Final letter was the N of TARTINE/ENYO. I couldn't see a better guess, but got the "All squares filled" message instead of "Successful completion." I finally decided to admit defeat, asked for the solution, and saw that I'd only missed the rebus squares. Feel free to click on the link for the Wordplay blog's instructions on entering these answers properly, and if you found the magic combo of letters that gives Across Lite or the standalone ipad app satisfaction, please let us know in the comments.

Theme answers:

• 1D Refuse to hand over WITHHOLD
• 27A Subject of big 1970s headlines WATERGATE SCANDAL
• 16D Ski mask feature MOUTHHOLE
• 35A The second African-American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Oscar ETHEL WATERS
• 14D Last possible moment ELEVENTH HOUR
• 50A Seltzer CARBONATED WATER
• 67A Best Picture inspired by a Pulitzer-winning series of newspaper articles ON THE WATERFRONT
• 68D What an optimist has HIGH HOPES
  Sinatra's classic song High hopesby tb139
  
• 85A Necklace decoration that's not from the sea FRESHWATER PEARL
• 80D "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" song HEIGH HO
•  102A Coastal structures countering erosion BREAKWATERS
• 84D Prominent features of the theme from "StarWars" FRENCH HORNS ---Not sure I like this. I don't really hear FRENCH HORNS as much as trumpets and synthesizers.
  
• 109A Historic event on June 18, 1815 BATTLE OF WATERLOO  

 Occasionally, someone new will find out I solve the NYT puzzle and ask why I like it. I get the biggest reactions when I talk about how I enjoy rebuses. To the uninitiated, it is appalling and unthinkable that sometimes you might need to enter more than one letter in a single square. But for me, and I think a lot of us, these are the days to look forward to. Having the double representation of water is a nice bonus. But, if tradition holds, the times people record on the applet will skew longer than usual. In fact, I just noticed the "puzzle info" in the ipad app calls it "nearly impossible." As a fan of the genre, I thought there were plenty of very gettable theme answers to alert us to the trick and allow the breakthrough for a fairly easy solve. This may just be the luckiest weekend of my life and all my first guesses turned out to be right. Anyway, my difficulty meter seems to be out of calibration recently. Go with what feels good to you.

I often find Sundays exhaust my interest before I get to the end, but this one came alive once I saw the rebus and I was a little surprised when I finished.

Bullets:

• 4D Software for touch-up artists PHOTOSHOP— I was trying to get off the whole product placement thing, but this is two Adobe products in two days. It did get us WATERGATE, a currently impossible-in-the-real-world HOLY SEE and somewhat related TRIPTYCHS. You call this one.
• 1A Direct descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims, e.g. WASP — As in, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Not necessarily the 80s' metal band, W.A.S.P.
• 49D N.Y.U. athlete VIOLET— My worldly wisdom does not extend this far. I was highly skeptical that a school's mascot would be the girl who turned into a giant blueberry in Willie Wonka's factory. Turns out, it's just the color. The mascot is a bobcat.
• 97A Unilever soap brand LUX— [sigh.] I give up.

As always, I have been honored to take the reins here for a while, but I gotta tell ya, it's exhausting. Every day another freaking puzzle! If you enjoy reading Rex's commentary day in and day out, consider clicking the Donate button to the right of your screen. Believe me, he earns it.

I leave you with what is still my favorite ACPT video:


Signed, treedweller, on behalf of
Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld