Percussive dance style / MON 12-18-23 / Colorful symbols of hope and happiness / Woman temporarily serving as monarch

Theme answers:

• QUALIFYING ROUND (17A: Preliminary tournament stage)
• QUACK REMEDY (30A: Snake oil salesman's offering)
• QUEEN REGENT (45A: Woman temporarily serving as monarch)
• QUARTERLY REPORT (57A: Financial statement issued every three months)

Word of the Day: QUEEN REGENT (45A) —

In a monarchy, a regent (from Latin regens 'ruling, governing') is a person appointed to govern a state pro tempore (Latin for 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy, or the throne is vacant and the new monarch has not yet been determined. One variation is in the Monarchy of Liechtenstein, where a competent monarch may choose to assign regency to their of-age heir, handing over the majority of their responsibilities to prepare the heir for future succession. The rule of a regent or regents is called a regency. A regent or regency council may be formed ad hoc or in accordance with a constitutional rule. Regent is sometimes a formal title granted to a monarch's most trusted advisor or personal assistant. If the regent is holding their position due to their position in the line of succession, the compound term prince regent is often used; if the regent of a minor is their mother, and she is wife or widow of the king, she would be referred to as queen regent. (wikipedia)

Hello! Today I saw It's a Wonderful Life, for the first time, on the big screen, in Ithaca, NY. It was schlocky as hell, but I still teared up when George realizes he still exists, when he touches Ward Bond and says "Do you know me?" and then realizes his lip's bleeding (again) and he's Ecstatic. The pure ****ing joy on Jimmy Stewart's face at realizing that he gets to resume his (completely messed up) life is the kind of Capra magic that makes you forgive Capra all his Corny Capra-ness. The movie really earns that moment of elation, and there's no one who could've done it better than Jimmy Stewart (though Cary Grant was cast in the role originally, did you know that? Nice to be able to replace one of the two best actors on the planet with the other!—both actors, incidentally, starred opposite Jean Arthur in multiple movies, lucky them, she's The Best). Anyway, why am I telling you this? Well, I bought my tickets online and when I went into the theater (Cinemapolis, Ithaca, NY) all I had to do was scan ... the QR CODE on the ticket! Quite Right! Anyway, as far as this puzzle goes, there's nothing very "CODE"-y about either the theme or the revealer clue. Yes, I guess QR CODE is "a hint" to the themers, but "a hint" is pretty weak sauce. The revealer clue could've at least tried to offer something vaguely CODE-related. "... or what you might use to 'crack' the answers at 17-, 30-, 45- and 57-Across?," something like that. But no, just "a hint." Shrug. OK. 

These answers are all QR phrases. You can't deny that. That is what they are. Are they exciting? Not really, but it's a pretty tight set, quite frankly. There just aren't that many viable QR phrases. You can tell how limiting the set parameters are by the fact that we get QUEEN REGENT, a term I've never seen. In fact, it was the Across answer that was hardest for me (by far) to parse while solving Downs-only today. In fact, I really needed the theme to help me make sense of both QUEEN REGENT and QUARTERLY REPORT. It was useful to know that there would be two words and the second would start with "R"—helped a lot in parsing those answers. This was a hard set of Across themers to get ahold of. Wanted QUALITY to be the first word in the first themer (QUALIFYING ROUND). No trouble with QUACK REMEDY—in fact REMEDY helped me get the MOVE part of WRONG MOVE, which also seemed like it might be WRONG TURN (10D: Ill-advised maneuver). The big stumbling blocks, though, were BLUEBIRDS and ICE BAGS. That first "B" in BLUEBIRDS was not at all clear, as -UDGE really seemed like it wanted to be FUDGE, and the clue on BLUEBIRDS made me think there were *lots* of colors involved, not just one (33D: Colorful symbols of hope and happiness). -UDGE, SHR-NK, MO-,all of them remained ambiguous until I decided to commit to a *single* color for "colorful"—then BLUE immediately sprang to mind and I was in the clear.

I also had trouble with OTOE, since I had UTES there at first (54D: Great Plains tribe). UTES are more Great Basin than Great Plains, but those regions are adjacent, so I don't feel too bad about the screw-up. I also had AYE before YEA (61D: Vote of support). And then for some reason the BAGS part of ICE BAGS was giving me fits (25D: Swelling reducers for sprains). I wanted only ICE PACKS, which wouldn't fit. ICEPAKS? ICESACS? Shrug. Very rough. Only solved it all by finally getting QUEEN REGENT down to QUEEN RE-ENT and running the alphabet. QUEEN RECENT? No. QUEEN REGENT. Oh, yeah, that seems possible. And then the "G" gave me ICE BAGS and that was that. I got BANDO from crosses and assumed the clue would be referencing Brewers great Sal BANDO, but no, it's B AND O, i.e. B & O (62A: Railroad property in Monopoly). You don't see ampersandwiches much any more. This is a classic example (see also RANDB, BANDB, RANDD, RANDR, PBANDJ, etc. etc.). 

As for the fill quality, it was fine, but WEAR IT is an abomination. WEAR IT? WEAR IT. WEAR IT? Surely the constructor looked at that and thought "uh ... I'd better not." If that thought occurs to you, even once, you better listen. Every other thought is rationalization. There is no reason for something as bad as WEAR IT to be in a puzzle with this little thematic pressure. I am guessing WEAR IT is yet another in a series of unfortunate "debuts" this week (see yesterday's ASAGUIDE, for example). Just checked, and yup, a debut. Ugh. Not a claim to fame, that one. If you're gonna debut an answer, make it a good one. Please? Thanks. OK, more Holiday Pet Pics now. Please note: I cannot accept any more. I have more than enough to last me the rest of the year. I'll do this again next year, I promise. All cats today, let's see who we're dealing with! We got two under-the-tree kitties...

[Bandit! (thanks, Beth)]

[Fiona! (thanks, Amy)]

[Chloe! (thanks, John)]

[Rocket! (thanks, Tawny)]

And two Hanukkitties from the same household! (thanks, Nell!) 

[Lou! You are not seltzer! You know this!]

[Misha! Don't burn your tail, sweetheart!]

See you next time!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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