Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: 3 steps back — "L" is moved back three spaces in familiar phrases, creating wacky phrases, clued wackily
Word of the Day: LOESS (25D: Windblown soil) —
Loess (pronounced /ˈloʊ.əs/, /ˈlʌs/, or /ˈlɛs/) is an aeolian sediment formed by the accumulation of wind-blown silt and lesser and variable amounts of sand and clay that are loosely cemented by calcium carbonate. It is usually homogeneous and highly porous and is traversed by vertical capillaries that permit the sediment to fracture and form vertical bluffs. // The word loess, with connotations of origin by wind-deposited accumulation, is of German origin and means “loose.” It was first applied to Rhine River valley loess about 1821 (wikipedia)
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Very strange theme. Not sure there is any rhyme or reason to the movement of the "L"—some turn of phrase that is being visually illustrated, for instance—but if there is, I can't see it. Just looks like a "move-the-L" puzzle to me, and that seems as good an excuse for a Tuesday theme as any. Can't say I'm that fond of any of the resulting theme answers, except possibly CHRISTMAS CLAROS (37A: Holiday smokes?). PLANE BOARDS is dull (17A: F.A.A. supervisors?), MIND BLOGGING comes out awkward as a verb phrase (24A: Object to online commentary?), BLOTTED WATER is not much less dull than PLANE BOARDS (48A: Cleaned up after a spill?), and 
ADAM SLANDER ... that's pretty good, I guess (58A: Defamation in the Garden of Eden?). Luckily, there are other answers to spice up this grid, like THE KINKS (!) (5D: "Lola" band) and LACERATE (39D: Cut jaggedly) and CARRY-ON BAG (29D: Allotment of one, usually, for an airline passenger). All of those are lovely, and go a long way to making up for ODIC (26D: Keatsian or Pindaric) and LOESS (25D: Windblown soil) and AMIR (40D: Mideast potentate: Var.) and LLANO (15A: Gaucho's plain) and ISM (19A: Belief suffix) (all less-than-desirable crosswordese), as well as the EREIMANIASET Partial Experience.I think I would have liked MIND BLOGGING better if it had been clued as MIND-BLOGGING ... maybe something like [Psychokinetic online commentary].
Really wish I had more to say about this one, but I don't. So, rather than blather to fill space—straight to Bullets.
Bullets:
- 3D: Shepard in space (ALAN) — constructor signature. Nice.
- 15A: Gaucho's plain (LLANO) — Are there LLAMA on the LLANO? Or are they just in the Andes?
30A: "Waiting for Lefty" playwright (ODETS) — What are we up to now: ALBEE, INGE, ... ODETS. Oh, and IBSEN (12D: "The Wild Duck" playwright Henrik). Weird: I'd consider IBSEN the more famous playwright, and yet the clue provides IBSEN's first name, but doesn't provide ODETS' (Clifford).- 64A: Playing pieces in Rummikub (TILES) — No idea what "Rummikub" is. Sounds Finnish. Is it Finnish? ... nope, Israeli. No matter: "playing pieces" was enough to make this easy.
- 11A: Composition of Jack Haley's Oz character (TIN) — no idea what to make of this at first because I was thinking of "Oz" the TV show ... ERST on HBO (56D: Once, old-style + 16A: "Six Feet Under" network)
Happy Winter Solstice.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
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