French shipyard city / FRI 6-19-15 / Cosmetician Adrien / Seasons lithographer / Fictional Sicilian town of literature / Former Toyota model for 36 years / Jazz saxophonist Buddy / Chantilly's department / Nixon Brezhnev signed it 1972

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: none

Word of the Day: BREST (51D: French shipyard city) —

Brest (French pronunciation: ​[bʁɛst]; Breton: [bʀest]) is a city in the Finistèredépartement in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental Europe. With 142,722 inhabitants in a 2007 census, Brest is at the centre of Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area (with a population of 300,300 in total), ranking third behind only Nantes and Rennes in the whole of historic Brittany, and the 22nd most populous city in France; moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the préfecture (regional capital) of the department is the much smaller Quimper. (wikipedia)

A summer cold has made its way through our entire house. I am its ultimate victim. Because I would not stop for the cold, it kindly stopped for me. I'm awkwardly alluding to Dickinson, so you know something's wrong. Anyway, summer colds suck (Yeah, I know it's not "summer" yet, but give it a minute). So I did this puzzle after waking from a three-hour nap—gotta love those naps you have *right* before bedtime; exquisite timing. Still, I walked right through this thing, even with foggy post-nap summer cold head, so it must've been easy. What are my thoughts? Well, there's weirdly a lot of crosswordese, and not only where you'd expect it (i.e. crossing that quad stack). OISE ADANO ARPEL REPOS ERTE KNAR. All quite familiar, none hard to get. Just felt throwbacky, and not in a great way. But the marquee event up top is the double-author stack, which is pretty sweet. I also love the repackaging of vintage crosswordese ARLENE Dahl as full-named ARLENEDAHL. Somehow that uncrosswordeses (™) her name.  Eventually it came time to do the stack at the bottom and it wasn't hard. Also, that's an excellent stack. The crosses, predictably, hurt a little, but there aren't any howlers. So, mixed feelings.


Things got off to a fast start—CHOCOHOLIC off a single letter (and I'm not sure I even needed that)—the clue was transparent to me) (4D: One who might steal a kiss).

From here I pounded into the center of the grid pretty easily, but had weird bit of trouble trying to get JOHN STEINBECK, even after I had JOHN STE- … I think JON (no "H") Stewart was running interference in my head. But I dropped OPALESCENT like it was hot.

ANGELINA was a total gimme (8D: Brad's partner in 2005's "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"), so JOHN STEINBECK and then the rest of the top of the grid fell into place pretty easily. I emerged from the top via ARLENE DAHL and then set to work on the quadstack.

I got the back ends of the quad first, but they didn't do much for me, so I went after other Downs, and found RAMIS AREI and COWGIRL just waiting for me. Made the stack very easy to see and take down.

About five seconds after this, I was done. I ended in the iffiest part of the grid (i.e. the no-"UE"MONOLOG MISADAPTed INAPEN), which often happens, actually—you end up at the place that you've been consciously or unconsciously avoiding, often for good reason. And so to bed. Or, rather, to Jon Stewart, which is apparently remarkable tonight—or so Twitter tells me. It's been a pretty terrible day, nationally, historically … I STILL DON'T GET IT seems apt, somehow.

Take care,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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