Poet Cassady who was friend of Jack Kerouac / MON 3-9-15 / Hockey fake-out / Black Power symbol / Warning from Scottie / Pop group with backward B in its name

Constructor: Debbie Ellerin

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BOARD GAME (62A: Entertainment found at the start of the answer to 17-, 21-, 27-, 45- or 54-Across) — first words of familiar phrases are also the names of BOARD GAMEs:

Theme answers:

• RISK TAKER 17A: One living on the edge)
• LIFE RAFT (21A: Need on a sinking ship)
• TROUBLE AHEAD (27A: Ominous outlook)
• "SORRY CHARLIE" (45A: "'Fraid not")
• "CLUE ME IN" (54A: "So what's the story?")

Word of the Day: NEAL Cassady (36A: Poet Cassady who was a friend of Jackk Kerouac) —

Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. He was prominently featured as himself in the original "scroll" (first draft) version of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. He also served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in the 1957 version of the novel. In many of Kerouac's later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray. (wikipedia)

This is a very, very tired theme executed very, very nicely. There is nothing exciting about this grid, but there is nothing terrible about this grid, either. This puzzle doesn't excite me, but it does give me sincere hope for decent future work. You know how rare it is for me to go through a theme-dense easy puzzle with this much short fill and *not* have a "yuck" moment?! Very. Very rare. Some interesting cluing kept it from being a total bore (I particularly liked 69A: Black Power symbol for FIST and 11D: Pop group with a backward "B" in its name for ABBA).

I honestly have no idea who NEAL Cassady is, so that was an odd Monday encounter. Got slowed down a number of times by little mental hiccups and hesitations. HUZZAH? HOORAY? No, HOORAH (10D: Old-fashioned "Yay!"). I didn't know that exclamation had passed into "old-fashioned." HUZZAH, sure. Maybe it's "old-fashioned" in relation to HURRAH? Or maybe both are legitimately "old-fashioned." Now I want an old-fashioned. . .  Nearby SCHEMA made me hesitate too, because SCHEME seemed good (9D: Conceptual framework). ARF clue completely fooled me (63D: Warning from a Scottie)—I had ACH! Now that I look at the clue in the cold light of not-solving, "Scottie" is clearly a dog, not some Scottish dude. Ah, well.


See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld