Pompous pronoun / MON 10-3-11 / So-called white magic / Vacation resort policy perhaps / Two-front as Coast Guard rescue

Constructor: Stanley Newman

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Monday)

THEME: DUBYA (66A: 43rd president's nickname) — theme answers all end in one-syllable "W" words; vowel sound in the "W" word changes (from "A" through to "U") with each successive theme answer

Word of the Day: HGTV (40D: "House Hunters" cable channel) —

HGTV (also referred to as Home & Garden Television), is a cable-television network operating in the United States and Canada, broadcasting a variety of home and garden improvement, maintenance, renovation, craft and remodeling shows. It is also a popular Home & Garden website (HGTV.com). (wikipedia)

• • •

Monday theme idea, Tuesday hard. Which is to say, not hard. Just semi-slow in patches. The connection between "Vacation resort" an NO TIPS is so tenuous as to be non-existent, to me (30D: Vacation resort policy, perhaps). I honestly thought it was NO TOPS at some point. Seemed plausible. Nudist beach resort, maybe? I don't know. Seemed as plausible as NO TIPS. TRIOXIDE is not a word I've ever seen, as far as I can remember (38D: Compound containing O3), though the "O3" part seems like a giveaway, in retrospect. I've never FITted anything UP. I've fixed things up. HGTV is not a network I think of often (40D: "House Hunters" cable channel). USAGE is something I think of only in relation to words—Practical application is vague. I had no idea WICCA was (so-called) "white magic." None. Never heard that. AIRSEA? (42A: Two-front, as a Coast Guard rescue) You know something is weird about your clue when it contains the phrase "as a Coast Guard rescue." That's a pretty specific example. Anyhoo, theme answers are lively—I really like THE ROYAL WE—and the fill is at least not boring. "I CAN'T TELL YOU WHY" should've been clued as an Eagles song, 'cause it's a little weird as just a random phrase someone might say. The main thing I learned today is that my wife has never heard the phrase "PITCHING WOO" in her life. She's from NZ, so maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe the fact that it's not the 1910s anymore also has something to do with it.




Theme answers:

• 17A: Wins a dispute (GETS ONE'S WAY)
• 26A: Pompous pronoun (THE ROYAL WE)
• 37A: "It's a mystery to me" ("I CAN'T TELL YOU WHY")
• 50A: Sob stories (TALES OF WOE)
• 59A: In romantic pursuit (PITCHING WOO)
  

I say the "WH" in "WHY" like the "WH" in "whether" (with a slight outrush of air ... as opposed to the way I say the "W" in "weather") making the pronunciation just *slightly* different than the "W" sounds in the other theme answers. Not different enough to matter, but different enough for me to mention the fact here. I thought 41D: Thumbs-up votes were AYES. They were YEAS. The equivalence of those bugs me no end. Surprisingly, I have no memory of ever having seen JESUS in a puzzle before, which is strange, since it's a perfectly good man's name, Hispanically speaking. NINJA JESUS is a particularly appealing image. I would totally watch that cartoon.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. for a strange flashback, check out my puzzle write-up from 5 years ago today...

Pittsburgh Pirates hero 1960 World Series / MON 8-15-11 / Music source on many old fairground / Perry with 1956 #1 hit Hot Diggity

Constructor: Stan Newman



Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Monday*)





THEME: ZIP (56D: Nothing ... or a hint to what's hidden in 20-, 35- and 52-Across) — ZERO is embedded in three theme answers

• APPETIZER ORDER (20A: Buffalo wings or bruschetta, e.g.)
• BILL MAZEROSKI (35A: Pittsburgh Pirates hero of the 1960 World Series)
• WURLITZER ORGAN (52A: Music source on many an old fairground)

Word of the Day: Jeff BEZOS (30D: Jeff who founded Amazon.com) —

Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is the founder, president, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and chairman of the board of Amazon.com. Bezos, a Tau Beta Pi graduate of Princeton University, worked as a financial analyst for D. E. Shaw & Co. before founding Amazon in 1994. (wikipedia)

• • •

I love the vast majority of this grid — really interesting answers (esp. for a Monday) and very little in the way of junk (we'll just pretend OOO and III didn't happen). [sidenote: "Centerfield" by John Fogerty just came on (I'm listening to his 1985 album, also called "Centerfield," on Spotify) ... I know BILL MAZEROSKI was a second baseman, but still, it seems appropriate]





I had to struggle a bit more than I normally do on Mondays, due largely to the proper nouns: got SAM RAIMI pretty easily, but needed help with BOTSWANA and BEZOS and even BILL MAZEROSKI—blanked on his name, then remembered but misspelled it. Nice to have a bunch of long, none-theme answers in a Monday puzzle. Really livens it up. The one thing I really didn't like about the grid is APPETIZER ORDER. Buffalo wings and bruschetta are APPETIZERS. The "ORDER" part feels horribly tacked-on and non-idiomatic. Theme answers need to be tight, solid, indisputably right. "ORDER" just derails this one. "Mmm, mozzarella stix ... that's my favorite kind of APPETIZER ... ORDER." No no no. That said, I still think this puzzle is good.





Stan Newman is an old pro — a former ACPT champion and editor of the Newsday puzzle, he knows what he's doing with this crossword stuff. Never surprised when his NYT puzzles are top-notch. They aren't frequent, but they're good.



Bullets:

• 39A: Perry with the 1956 #1 hit "Hot Diggity" (COMO) — another proper noun that slowed me down. Way way before my time, and I've never heard this song. I know Perry COMO only by name. He was probably mentioned frequently in '70s-era TV (the only way I can imagine his name sinking into my consciousness).

• 23A: Kid's "shooter" projectile (PEA) — my guess is that a kid has not actually shot a pea since Perry COMO was big. And yet PEA-shooter is a familiar term, and this was easy to get.
  
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

1970s first mother / SAT 12-25-10 / Twentieth century producer / Perfection under fire product / Corrosion-resistant plating

Constructor: Stanley Newman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: Santa ___ — names of famous places that start with SANTA

• 19A: Santa ___ (CATALINA ISLAND) — never heard anyone call it anything except CATALINA ISLAND ...
• 36A: Santa ___ (MONICA MOUNTAINS) — ... whereas I've never heard anyone call these MONICA MOUNTAINS, and furthermore I never think about SANTA MONICA as anything but the city (where Best Friend 1 lives), or maybe the BOULEVARD (it fits!) so ... weird and weird so far.
• 48A: Santa ___ (ANITA RACETRACK) — And weirder, as this one is not (like the others) a geographical feature ...

Word of the Day: LILLIAN Carter (18A: 1970s "first mother") —

Lillian Gordy Carter (August 15, 1898 – October 30, 1983) was the mother of former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. She is also known for contribution to nursing in her home state of Georgia and as a Peace Corps volunteer in India as well as writing two books during the Carter presidency. (wikipedia)

• • •

Kind of an odd fake Christmas puzzle. Theme answers don't produce much joy. Fill is fine but unremarkable. Cluing is interestingly much more like Stan Newman's "Newsday" cluing than it is like the typical NYT puzzle. That is, it relies more on short (often one-word) and vague cluing for its toughness than the typical Shortzian creation. I'm thinking of [Point] and [Point] and [Tap] and [Zip] and [Spring] and such. [Go around] isn't ORBIT, it's AVOID. [Stir up] isn't AGITATE (as it should be), it's ANIMATE and the cross, [Imply], isn't GET AT (as it should be), it's AIM AT. That said, it wasn't all that hard, and there's hardly an obscurity in sight, so what toughness there was was welcome. [Put away] — is that about eating, or stowing, or ... nope. It's killing (DO IN). In the end, I liked this puzzle fine, though the theme left me cold.

Some interesting moments:

We've got STENO (7D: Old office worker) and STERNO (44D: "Perfection under fire" product), so lucky us.

I invented two words today: MAZING for 23A: Stunning (DAZING) and ADORATES for 37D: Fawns over (ADULATES).

I could remember the villain himself from 2009's "Star Trek," but not the actor who played the villain in 2009's "Star Trek" (xword-friendly Eric BANA).

Other wrong answers:

• ORDINAL for 8A: Point (DECIMAL)
• SPICE for 30D: Oomph (JUICE)
• ASTI for 34A: Sight from the top of the Leaning Tower (ARNO)

Also, could not get ANDROMICA out of my head at 20D: Wife of Perseus, probably through conflation of the actual answer (ANDROMEDA) with Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus."

Bullets:

• 1A: "The Twentieth Century" producer (CBS NEWS) — probably the hardest answer of all for me, as I don't know what "The Twentieth Century" is and I was looking for a person, not a news organization. This was especially weird when I thought the actor who played Nero in "Star Trek" was Billy ZANE. "CZ-NE-S?!?! Who is that?"
  
• 44A: Happy cohort? (SNEEZY) — transparent, but I still liked the clue. That's the playfulness I like / expect in my late-weekers. (and it's a "Snow White" reference, in case somehow that's not yet abundantly clear)
  
• 45A: Company with an I.P.O. in both 1992 and 2009 (AOL) — 1992. Wow. Seems early, but I guess I got my first email address in 1991, so maybe not so early after all.
  
• 14D: Wiseman who directed "Live Free or Die Hard" (LEN) — wanted LES, which was good enough to get the ball rolling up there. No idea how I (2/3) know the name. Interesting fact: the first "Die Hard" was a Christmas movie. This "Die Hard" ... I don't know.
  

• 38D: Corrosion-resistant plating (TIN) — "Tin roof! Rusted!"

Merry Christmas to all relevant parties. If you frequently read the comments section, you might enjoy this blog-based holiday puzzle by my friend Dave Eckert (whose dad is the eponym of a local theater here where I live, but that's another story...). Get it here. Enjoy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]