Like oak leaves brains / MON 9-8-14 / 2011 Tony-winning religious satire / Hyperlocal way to campaign / Boingo service at airports / Skater Sonja

Constructor: Dan Schoenholz

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: THE BIG FIVE-OH (53A: Milestone birthday, informally … with a hint to 20-, 31- and 41-Across) — theme answers have five "O"s in them:

Theme answers:

• BOOK OF MORMON (20A: 2011 Tony-winning religious satire, with "The")
• DOOR-TO-DOOR (31A: Hyperlocal way to campaign)
• VOODOO DOLL (41A: Black magic item)

Word of the Day: VALE (55D: Hollow between hills) —

n.

A valley, often coursed by a stream; a dale.

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[Middle English, from Old French val, from Latin valls; see wel-² in Indo-European roots.] (thefreedictionary.com)

Easy. Very easy. So easy that even after I stumbled toward the end—right around the tail-end of the revealer—I still ended up with a well-below-average time. It's not normal that I have to think at all in order to discover what the theme is on a Monday, but today there was definitely some thinking. Probably wasn't more than a few seconds, but it was not immediately clear to me what the connection was, largely because I was wondering what the number "50" had to do with the theme answers. The answer is, of course, nothing. Perhaps one of the reasons I didn't see the theme right away is the revealer itself. I don't understand why there's an "H" on the end. I see that "THE BIG FIVE-OH" is the name of some "humor" books, perhaps playing on the surprise(!) one feels upon turning "50," like "Holy $%&% I can't believe I'm 50 already." I don't know. I just know that I would never have spelled it with an "H." And with an "H," the whole point of the theme is kind of messed up. There are five "O"s. There are not five "OH"s. So without a question mark on the revealer … d'oh!


OOO is a terrible answer on any day, but especially terrible today, when we are drowning in "O"s. I should say that I think the core concept here is cute, and the fill is mostly good. The parts I stumbled on were all surrounding the end part of the revealer, namely:

• OLAF (42D: Scandinavian saint) — left final letter off, fearing it might be OLAV.
• VALE (55D: Hollow between hills) — as you can see from the "Word of the Day" definition, DALE works just fine there, and that's what I had.
• LOBED (51D: Like oak leaves and brains) — hit this clue and had No idea what was going on. I like LOBED about as much as I like the far more common EARED, i.e. not very much.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld