Foe of Mr. Fantastic in comics / SUN 2-15-15 / Colored like ink / Cartoonist who wrote caption well if i called wrong number why did you answer phone / Historic filer for bankruptcy in 2013 / Much-anthologized Frank R. Stockton short story / Miranda warning receiver / Question asked in classic 1970s ads

Constructor: Ellen Leuschner and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME:"Split Ends"— famous phrases that end "___ OR ___"; pre-"OR" slot filled by word that runs normally Across, post-"OR" slot filled by word running Down off the last letter of the preceding word in the phrase. Thus "BE THERE [OR] BE SQUARE" at 1A reads BE THERE and then SQUARE runs Down from the "E" in "BE"…

Theme answers:

• BE THERE [OR] BE SQUARE (1A: "Everyone who's anyone is attending!")
• GO BIG [OR] GO HOME (8A: Shoot of the moon)
• "THE LADY [OR] THE TIGER" (13A: Much-anthologized Frank R. Stockton short story)
• HALF FULL [OR] HALF EMPTY (54A: Proverbial matter of perspective)
• IS IT LIVE [OR] IS IT MEMOREX? (60A: Question asked in classic 1970s ads)
• YOUR MONEY [OR] YOUR LIFE (79A: Stickup line)
• "SHOULD I STAY [OR] SHOULD I GO" (115A: Song by the Clash on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list) 

Word of the Day: William HOWE (112A: William ___, British general in the Revolutionary War) —

William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, KB, PC (10 August 1729 – 12 July 1814) was a British army officer who rose to become Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the American War of Independence. Howe was one of three brothers who enjoyed distinguished military careers. […] He resigned his post as Commander in Chief, North America, in 1778, and returned to England, where he was at times active in the defence of the British Isles. He served for many years in Parliament, and was knighted after his successes in 1776. He inherited the Viscountcy of Howe upon the death of his brother Richard in 1799. He married, but had no children, and the viscountcy was extinguished with his death in 1814. (wikipedia)

Strangely, I have Valentine's Day plans (or, rather, plans that happen to fall on Valentine's Day), so this will briefer than usual. I said some time ago that the NYT had become very, very reliant on a small group of reliably good constructors, without whom the average quality of the puzzle would fall precipitously. We've seen nearly all said constructors over the past three days (Berry, Steinberg, now Chen). And, predictably, thankfully, mercifully, all three have been delights. I've definitely seen this theme type before (where a themer either heads Down or heads in two directions), but never executed quite this way. Grid symmetry is changed from rotational to mirror, presumably to better accommodate the theme, which is admirably dense but does not overwhelm the grid. The areas without theme material (far SW and SE) make up for it by having a bevy of interesting long Downs. YO LA TENGO! I know for a fact that IRA Kaplan of YO LA TENGO is a crossword solver and fan because he co-constructed a puzzle with ed. Ben Tausig for American Values Crosswords a little while back (if you aren't a subscriber, then you aren't doing one of the very best crosswords in the country—more info here).


The fill in this one has some weak spots, but I didn't notice them nearly as much as I noticed the sparkly medium- and longer-range stuff. Third day in a row with an EYE answer (today, DEADEYES) (89D: Straight shooters?). I don't know what that means. Probably nothing. Except that I noticed. What were the other two… SLEEPY-EYED was yesterday and … oh, right, EYE DOCTOR was the day before that. As you can see, I'm fresh out of interesting observations, so good night.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld