Gossip spreader / MON 2-23-15 / Pilgrim to Mecca / Sidling sea creature / Groundbreaking admission from Ellen in 1997 sitcom / Facility with treadmills yoga mats

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: LEAVE A BAD TASTE (53A: Not sit well … or what eating 20-, 32- or 41-Across might do) — stuff that's rotten, sour, and bitter:

Theme answers:

• ROTTEN TOMATOES (20A: Online aggregator of movie reviews)
• SOUR GRAPES (32A: Fox's feeling in an Aesop fable)
• BITTER PILL (41A: Hard-to-accept consequence)

Word of the Day: MEGAN Fox (17A: Actress Fox of the "Transformers" movies) —

Megan Denise Fox (born May 16, 1986) is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001, with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on the Hope & Faith television sitcom. In 2004, she made her film debut with a role in the teen comedy Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. In 2007, she co-starred as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character, in the blockbuster action film Transformers, which became her breakout role. Fox reprised her role in the 2009 sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Later in 2009, she starred as the eponymous lead in the black comedy horror film Jennifer's Body. Fox is also considered one of the modern female sex symbols and has appeared in magazines such as Maxim, Rolling Stone and FHM. (wikipedia)

Well you don't "eat" pills, you take them, so [sad video game death noise] Game Over. Thanks for playing. Also, presumably ROTTEN TOMATOES and SOUR GRAPES just taste bad. Like, up front. "Leaving" is irrelevant. The themers do have a few interesting things about them. They are all metaphors … well, not ROTTEN TOMATOES … so maybe I take back the "interesting" part. Actually, one interesting thing = 14s. You don't see 14s very often. They're notoriously annoying to handle, grid-construction wise. You pretty much have to do what Joel's done here: run black squares under/over the short end of the answer and/or run multiple long Downs through that same short end. That lone black square on the end of a 14 really is more of a nuisance than it seems. But, of course, as "interesting" things go, 14s qualify only if you are a constructor. It's a wonky thing to notice. Most people won't. They'll probably notice the anomalousness of BITTER PILL, or the anomalousness of ROTTEN TOMATOES, or the overall decent fill quality, or the sad semi-redundancy of ART MUSEUM, or the boringness and tenuous legitimacy of STATE DEBT, or the unexpected zippiness of short stuff like "OH, YOU" and "I'M GAY!" But 14s—unlikely.


I did this puzzle in under 2:30 while under the considerably influence of whiskey, so … it really Really must've been easy. I have to go pretend to care about the Oscars until I fall asleep well before they're over. Enjoy your February 23rd.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld