Ljubljana dweller / MON 2-20-12 / Some reddish-orange caviar / Big supermarket chain / White-feathered wader / Dish marinated in sweetened soy sauce

Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

 THEME: PRESIDENTS DAY (52A: February occasion, some of whose honorees can be found in the answers to the five starred clues) — theme answers hide five president names

• 18A: *Some reddish-orange caviar (SALMON ROE)
• 23A: *Major road (TRAFFIC ARTERY)
• 31A: *Nancy Pelosi was the first person ever to have this title in Congress (MADAM SPEAKER)
• 40A: *Parliamentary procedure (RULES OF ORDER)
• 60A: *Really hunger for (LUST AFTER)
  

Word of the Day: ARIAL (15A: Sans-serif typeface) —

Arial, sometimes marketed or displayed in software as Arial MT, is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts. Fonts from the Arial family are packaged with Microsoft Windows, some other Microsoft software applications,^[1] Apple Mac OS X^[2] and many PostScript 3 computer printers.^[3] The typeface was designed in 1982 by a 10-person team, led by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, for Monotype Typography. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm stunned that there has never been a Presidents Day puzzle—or at least not one with the answer PRESIDENTS DAY in it (according to cruciverb's database).  Hide some president names in some answers—seems about as basic as "hide some country names in some answers" (see yesterday's puzzle). Despite the slightly awkward placement of PRESIDENTS DAY in the penultimate theme answer position, and the awkward/redundant TRAFFIC ARTERY (a major road is simply called an "artery"), the puzzle worked fine. MADAM SPEAKER is a nice, original answer, and combining TAFT with lust is a stroke of genius. I like imagining him as a heavyweight lothario. I had two weird sticking points. The first was in the SE, where 69A: Show of overwhelming love just Did Not Mesh with my idea of SWOON. "Show" implies some kind of intent, and no one has ever set out to "show" love by swooning for someone. Plus, I've been reading Dante, and that dude swoons a lot in the beginning of Inferno—mostly from terror or pity, which, I guess, is a kind of love ... anyway, that threw me. So did MONDO—I had MUNDO (66A: World, in Italian). Later, I got weirdly hung up on SEE PAST (42D: Purposely ignore), which I couldn't SEE at all. SEEPS AT? Something AT? I just couldn't read it right. Similar problem with RULES OF ORDER. The "FOR" in there kept causing me to misread it as RULE ... FOR ... something. Also imagined ORS was ERS (because I kept thinking it had the 30D: Hesitant sounds clue that I'd actually seen earlier). All of that was, of course, self-imposed nonsense.

Bullets:

• 1A: Patriot Allen with the Green Mountain Boys (ETHAN) — that *really* sounds like a bluegrass band. 

• 47A: Big supermarket chain (KROGER) — I know this chain well, as there are KROGERs all over Michigan, but I didn't know it was widely known outside the midwest.
• 10D: Ljubljana dweller (SLOVENE) — I always want to pronounce this place "Jub-Jub," because I sure as hell can't pronounce it like it's supposed to be pronounced. 
• 11D: Dish marinated in sweetened soy sauce (TERIYAKI) — before I started eating sushi, I'd always order chicken TERIYAKI any time we went to a Japanese restaurant. Tasty.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Baseball general manager Billy / THU 9-15-11 / Emmy-nominated sitcom of early 1970s / Org employing Ethan Hunt / Sailing enthusiast informally

Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: CORNER LOT (35A: Prominent location to build on (as suggested by this puzzle?)) — rebus puzzle where every corner square contains the word HOUSE


Word of the Day: ARECIBO Observatory (2D: ___ Observatory, home of the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope) —

The Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope near the city of Arecibo in Puerto Rico. It is operated by Cornell University under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The observatory is also called the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, although "NAIC" refers to both the observatory and the staff that operate it. // The observatory's 305 m (1,000 ft) radio telescope is the largest single-aperture telescope (cf. multiple aperture telescope) ever constructed. It carries out three major areas of research: radio astronomy, aeronomy (using both the 305 m telescope and the observatory's lidar facility), and radar astronomy observations of solar system objects. Scientists who want to use the telescope submit proposals, which are evaluated by an independent board. (wikipedia)

• • •

Dang. This felt easy, and yet my time was actually a little slower than normal. I guess the few well-placed, insane answers were real time-eaters. ARECIBO is gibberish to me, so that took some doing—and it intersects E-BOAT (28A: W.W. II attacker), which was a total prayer (had to be some kind of BOAT, right?). I have never, ever heard of "ARNIE" (31A: Emmy-nominated sitcom of the early 1970s). Never. Ever. Emmy-nominated, you say? Was ARNIE a YACHTIE? (61A: Sailing enthusiast, informally) Does anyone, anywhere, openly call himself a "YACHTIE?" And if so, how does he keep from getting punched in the face all the time? Theme was OK, but not terribly exciting as rebuses go. Part of the reason this one felt easy was that once I got the theme, the other theme answers were very easy to pick up. No mystery, no challenge, no layers. Just HOUSEs. CORNER LOT is an interesting revealer, I suppose. A very solid puzzle, but one that didn't excite me much.


[Wow. Co-starring Sue ANE Langdon!]
Theme answers:

• 1A: It's better than prison (HOUSE ARREST)
  
• 8A: #1 on Bravo's all-time "100 Funniest Movies" list ("ANIMAL HOUSE")
  
• 1D: Always going outside? (HOUSEBROKEN)
  
• 14D: Vacationer's help (HOUSE-SITTER)
  
• 62A: Help (HOUSEKEEPER)
• 63A: Place of learning (SCHOOLHOUSE)
  
• 37D: Gets rid of everybody, say (CLEANS HOUSE)
  
• 43D: Place where people work for beans? (COFFEE HOUSE) — that clue doesn't work even with the "?" They work *with* beans. Too cute.
  

Got the theme early, in the NE, after realizing that there's no way a movie called "ANIMALS" could be the funniest movie ever without my having even heard of it. Whole corner went down easily and then "ARNIE" stopped me cold. Went back to NW and knocked it off easily except for the aforementioned ARECIBO, which required every cross. SW was a piece of cake. Had minor trouble winding my way back up to the center because I opted for PASTOR instead of CANTOR (45D: Hymn leader) and couldn't figure out how CES could be right for 52A: 1900s, e.g.: Abbr. (CEN.). Fixed that, then took down the SE (with the only question being "is YACHTIE really a word and how does one spell it?"). Worked my way up til I had "ARNIE" surrounded, and that was that. "R" in "WRITE-IN" was the last letter I wrote in, I think (27D: Kind of candidate who's rarely successful).


Bullets:

• 27A: Good call letters for Radio Disney? (WALT) — another clue that feels weird. I get that radio stations often start with "W," but Radio Disney isn't that kind of radio station. It doesn't have call letters. So there are no "good call letters" for Radio Disney, as the term has no relevance to them. Thus you are asking the "?" to do a lot. Again, too cute.
  
• 51A: One on either side of the St. Gotthard Pass (ALP) — That is an interesting name for a saint.
  
• 55A: Org. employing Ethan Hunt in film (IMF) — "Mission: Impossible" involved the International Monetary Fund? Wow, I really wasn't paying very close attention.
  
• 60A: Seven-time major-league All-Star Alfonso (SORIANO) — one of those answers that's going to be a gimme for baseball fans and gibberish for others.
  
• 7D: Publication with a 1997 headline "Drug Use Down Among Uncool Kids" ("THE ONION") — I forgot they've been around so long.
  
• 24D: Big eyes, metaphorically (SAUCERS) — Cute. Not too cute. Just cute. Thumbs up.
  
• 48D: Baseball general manager Billy (BEANE) — pretty timely, since he's basically the protagonist of the book "Moneyball," the movie version of which comes out next week.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Heroine in Bizet's Pearl Fishers / WED 11-10-10 / L' d'amore Donizetti opera / Fountain of Youth site it's said / Manassas fighters / Jezebel's god

Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: First two initials the same — eight theme answers are people whose official names start with two identical initials


Word of the Day: W.W. JACOBS (46A: "The Monkey's Paw" author) —

William Wymark Jacobs (8 September 1863 – 1 September 1943), was an English author of short stories and novels. // Jacobs is now best remembered for his macabre tales "The Monkey's Paw" (published 1902 in the collection of short stories The Lady of the Barge) and "The Toll House" (published 1909 in the collection of short stories Sailors' Knots). However, the majority of his output was humorous in tone. His favourite subjects were marine life: "men who go down to the sea in ships of moderate tonnage" said Punch, reviewing his first collection of stories, Many Cargoes, which achieved great popular success on its publication in 1896. (wikipedia)

• • •

Cute idea, but for several reasons, I didn't care for this one. First, W.W. JACOBS just isn't anywhere close to as big a name as the other folks. Most people will have heard of "The Monkey's Paw," but I doubt most people could tell you who wrote it. I sure couldn't. I'm far more familiar with publisher W.W. NORTON than I am with this JACOBS guy, who feels forced in here to make the theme denser / to achieve symmetry. The thing that irked me most about the puzzle, though, was that SW corner. It's a Disaster, mostly because of the abomination that is ELISIR (!?!?) (45D: "L'___ d'Amore" (Donizetti opera)), which I'm guessing is Italian for "elixir." Six letters is Long for an unusual foreign word from a not terribly famous opera title. That answer wouldn't have been as galling if it hadn't crossed Another Opera Clue. Heroine in Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers" (LEILA), are you kidding me? I completely guessed the "L" at that crossing, because it was the only letter than made any sense, but that is not a great way to end a puzzle: with a shrug and an "I guess" rather than an "aha" or the like. Wasn't too crazy about BIMINI (44D: Fountain of Youth site, it's said) down there to begin with, and then the Italian opera mess sealed the deal. Long odd plurals ESCROWS (25D: Third-party accounts) and (esp.) RICOTTAS (36D: Ravioli fillings) didn't do much for me either.

Theme answers:

• 17A: "anyone lived in a pretty how town" poet (E.E. CUMMINGS)
  
• 21A: Author better known as Saki (H.H. MUNRO)
  
• 27A: "Star Trek" director, 2009 (J.J. ABRAMS)
  
• 30A: "The Thrill is Gone" bluesman (B.B. KING)
  
• 42A: Big name in mail order (L.L. BEAN)
  
• 46A: "The Monkey's Paw" author (W.W. JACOBS)
  
• 50A: Creator of Eeyore (A.A. MILNE)
  
• 57A: 2007 A.L. Cy Young winner (C.C. SABATHIA) — always want his name to have a double-B in it...
  

My favorite answers of the day were SNUFF BOX (4D: Ornamental tobacco holder) — it's just pretty — and STRUNK, co-writer of one of the greatest books ever (and one of the most misguidedly, stupidly maligned) (10D: "The Elements of Style" co-author). Concise, elegant, dryly funny — good luck finding a style guide that's Any of those things, let alone all of them. I've looked at the clue 19A: Manassas fighters three times now, and each time I forget what the answer is supposed to be (REBS). My Civil War knowledge is poor. When everyone was going crazy over the Ken Burns documentary, I was ... not.

Bullets:

• 14A: "Thirteen" actress ___ Rachel Wood (EVAN) — no idea what "Thirteen" is or who this actress is, but the name was familiar enough that I got it instantly.
  
• 9D: Brit's "Baloney!" ("TOSH!") — If I'm cluing this, I'm going with Peter. (If I were younger and liked unfunny things, I might go with "TOSH.0")
  

• 11D: Subtitle of 1978's "Damien" (OMEN II) — "OMEN" part was easy, and then ... well I figured they didn't make IV of them (did they?)
  
• 12D: Former Cavalier James (LEBRON) — not a fan.
  

• 24D: Hurdles for M.B.A. hopefuls (GMATS) — never met anyone who took these (to my knowledge).
  
• 27D: "Selena" star, familiarly (J-LO) / 28D: Aniston, in tabloids (JEN) — nice 1-2 tabloid punch.
  
• 30D: "Incidentally," to texters (BTW) — "By the way..."
  
• 40D: Jezebel's god (BA'AL) — there's an apostrophe in there right. Somehow seems more unGodly that way...
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]