Holly tree / WED 6-17-15 / Modern prefix with aggression / Bygone component in luminous paint / 1921 play that introduced word robot / Hot Japanese bowlful

Constructor: Molly Young and David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: famous people who refused honors

Theme answers:

• GEORGE C. SCOTT (3D: Actor who refused a 26-Down in 1971)
• DAVID BOWIE (5D: Rock star who refused a 37-Down in 2003)
• JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (15D: Playwright who refused an 8-/57-Down in 1964)

Word of the Day: ILEX (7D: Holly tree) —

noun

1. 1. 

   another term for holm oak.
2. 2. 

   a tree or shrub of a genus that includes holly and its relatives. (google)

Kind of interesting concept, and I always love remembering DAVID BOWIE, but the nature of the theme made this play *way* too easy / obvious, and the fill was really substandard. Dull, tired, yesteryear. Here is my solving experience in a little grid-photo essay. Let's just say that things did not get off to an auspicious start. I can often tell how painful / glorious a solve is going to be by the first handful of answers I get. Could such an early indicator be wrong? Of course. But it rarely ever is. One bad corner usually heralds many bad corners. Here's my first first few answers in the grid:

"R.U.R." used to be much more common. It's one of those answers that modern constructing techniques (and modern standards) have been able to drive to near (and deserved) extinction. But clearly it's not dead. It's a real play and I wouldn't care much about it if, again, it weren't the canary in the coal mine. After the initial ugliness, though, things just got weirdly, disturbingly easy. Finished up that NW corner, and then immediately plunked down not only GEORGE C. SCOTT, but ACADEMY AWARD, in its entirety, clear on the other side of the grid. What the hell else kind of honor is GEORGE C. SCOTT going to refuse. His silver medal in EPEE at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal? (great clue on EPEE, though—50D: Poker game?). So now I'm a few seconds into this thing and already…

Soon I get DAVID BOWIE and while I don't immediately get KNIGHTHOOD, I'm honestly not thinking that hard about it, as the grid is easy to fill and I'm sure I'll pick up the other half of that themer on crosses eventually (which I do). The delay in getting the second half of the BOWIE answer gives me time to really "enjoy" the grid. When my travels take me to the dreaded abbr. isl. of ICEL. I am compelled to stop, sigh, and take a picture.

As you can see here, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE isn't exactly hiding, and since the second part of his answer (the NOBEL / PRIZE, that is) will give me entree to not only the NE but the SW, the whole puzzle starts to seem like a dull exercise of fill-in-the-blank, paint by numbers, connect-the-dots, or choose your own 1st-grader diversionary activity metaphor. First part of themers just Handed you the second part, for the most part, leading to a dangerous spike in ho-hummitude. Even MEL / OTT was getting on the give-away-answers-in-other-parts-of-the-grid act.

So now the only thing left was to discover unfortunate stuff like the intersection of SOUR ON and RAT ON.


The whole thing ended IN A TIE, which was about as exciting as that answer sounds. The end. Lesson: a good concept is one thing, but without clever, interesting, or even serviceable execution, it's not worth much.

Congrats to the Golden State Warriors on their NBA Championship. Even though I was born in S.F., I was rooting for Cleveland to make a go of it, because they were Such underdogs, and, you know … Cleveland. It's Cleveland. It needs a sports hug. I look forward to rooting for the Cubs in the fall (though Chicago doesn't need a sports hug at all—congrats also to the Blackhawks on their 3rd Stanley Cup of this decade).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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