Constructor: Richard D. Allen
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Tuesday)
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THEME: SPELLBOUND (63A: Entranced ... or what one can do by reading the starts of 17-, 24-, 34-, 44- and 50-Across) — the starts of the answers in questions "spell" out the word "B-O-U-N-D" when said aloud:
Theme answers:
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The theme is clever, even if the puzzle ITSELF wasn't too fun to solve. All the joy here is in the revealer, which, thankfully, pays off pretty well. Got a genuine "Oh!" out of me, if not the full "Aha!" (I think the "Oh!" is more curious, interested, whereas the "Aha!" is more wowed, or at least more shook). My only quibble with the theme is that the "dee" answer is pretty weak. Not the answer, exactly, which is fine, but the answer *as an expression of the letter 'D'*. You could've put any De-prefixed answer there. Feels like the "D" part should be more standalone, the way all the other letter sounds in this puzzle are. DEE GORDON or DEEE-LITE or DEE SNIDER or something like that. Whoa, looks like DEE GORDON DEE GORDON (baseball player) is now "Dee Strange-Gordon," when did that happen? [checks internet] ... ah, looks like he just wanted to go back to his legal last name as a way of honoring his mother (last name Strange). That's nice. Anyway, stand-alone "D" here would've been nicer. DEE WALLACE, she fits. She's an actress—the mom in "E.T." and something of a horror icon, having appeared in a string of '70s and '80s scare flicks including "The Hills Have Eyes,""The Howling,""Cujo,""Critters," and the possibly unforgettable "Alligator II: The Mutation" (direct-to-video). If your response to my DEE WALLACE suggestion is "that's too obscure for a Tuesday!" I would politely direct your attention to OTTAVA rima and ask you to say that again with a straight face.
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Tuesday)
Theme answers:
- BEEKEEPERS (17A: Hive minders)
- "O HOLY NIGHT" (24A: Words before "the stars are brightly shining," in a carol)
- YOUTUBE (34A: Second-most visited website worldwide, after Google)
- EN FUEGO (44A: Literally, "on fire" ... or, metaphorically, excellent)
- DECAF LATTE (50A: Drink that comes with a buzz cut?) (no caffeine = no "buzz"; the "buzz" has been "cut"!; puns!)
Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio.
The ottava rima stanza in English consists of eight iambic lines, usually iambic pentameters. Each stanza consists of three alternate rhymes and one double rhyme, following the ABABABCC rhyme scheme. The form is similar to the older Sicilian octave, but evolved separately and is unrelated. The Sicilian octave is derived from the medieval strambotto and was a crucial step in the development of the sonnet, whereas the ottava rima is related to the canzone, a stanza form. (wikipedia)
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As for the non-theme stuff, my main feeling is that the grid structure really choked off the flow there in the middle. There are only these two teeny tiny outlets connecting (roughly) the top and bottom halves of the grid (at the "E" in HOE and the "E" in EMT). Never been a fan of super-segmented grids. Always been a fan of flow. That flow deficit definitely put this into the somewhat-tougher-than-usual category for me. OTTAVA wasn't as hard for me as it probably was for the average solver, but that's only because I teach Dante every year and therefore talk about terza rima every year and therefore have some familiarity with the whole rima scene, as it were. I know Lute OLSON's name, but only if I'm actually watching a college basketball game in the '90s and some announcer says it. Lute OLSON seemed pretty dang un-Tuesday-ish, despite his "longtime"-ness. I guess we should just be glad he wasn't providing the clue for LUTE—OLSON was at least inferrable. I also got a bit slowed down by cutesy misdirective cluing (see GOATS (1A: Kids and their parents)) and vagueness (see "BYENOW!" which I had as "BYEBYE!"(7D: "Ta-ta!"). Ta follows ta, as bye follows bye, thus my answer is better, QED. I think I wouldn't put ENROLLS *and* ENGULFS in a grid where the theme relies on the "EN"-ness of EN FUEGO. Hard enough to make "EN" pop without crowding the field. OPRAHS and ALOHAS are not exactly wonderfuls. SOW is kind of duped in SOWING, even if the SOW does come to us in hog form (41D: Female hog)—easily fixable (STREW/SOW to STREP/SOP). I think that's it. OK, bye bye (or BYE NOW, your call).