Rugby scuffle / MON 5-16-11 / Greece/Turkey separator / Kitschy gift with green fur / Skin-transferring operations / Former California NFLer St Louis

Constructor: Ian Livengood

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: HORSE PLAY (63A: Roughhousing ... or a hint to the ends of 17-, 21-, 26-, 33-, 40, 43-, 47- and 56-Across) — HORSE can follow the endings of every theme answer to make familiar phrases


Word of the Day: MARAT Safin (16A: Tennis's ___ Safin) —

Marat Mikhailovich Safin; (Russian: Марат Михайлович Сафин) (born January 27, 1980) is a former Russian tennis player. Safin won two majors and reached the world number 1 ranking during his career. He was also famous for his emotional outbursts and sometimes fiery temper on court. Safin also holds the record for most broken racquets in a year with 87. Safin is the older brother of former World No. 1 WTA player Dinara Safina (Dinara Mikhailovna Safina) (Russian: Динара Михайловна Сафина), born April 27, 1986 in Moscow. They are the first brother-sister tandem in tennis history to both achieve No. 1 rankings. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is pretty close to an ideal Monday puzzle—it's super-easy, with lively theme answers, and the fill is astonishingly smooth, especially consider the theme is Nine Answers Deep. Nine theme answers of 7+ length. That's sick. Now, the theme concept is no great shakes. Typical "words-that-can-follow" theme, at its core. But it hardly matters when the grid looks this great. On a Monday, you can't ask for much more than this. Interesting grid feature: both RATE and TADA cross four theme answers and are made up entirely of letters from those crossing theme answers. I can't recall ever seeing answers that did either of those things.

Of course my feelings about this puzzle may be slightly affected by the fact that it was my fastest solving time of any (15x15) puzzle I've ever done ever in the history of me. Ever.

Theme answers:

• 17A: Greece/Turkey separator (AEGEAN SEA)
  
• 21A: Lumberjack's tool (CHAIN SAW)
  
• 26A: Advocating "Bring the troops home now!," say (ANTI-WAR)
  
• 33A: In the evening (AFTER DARK)
  
• 40A: Daily nine-to-five struggle (RAT RACE)
  
• 43A: Really dimwitted (BRAIN DEAD)
  
• 47A: Like the best straight in poker (ACE HIGH)
  
• 56A: Lift weights (PUMP IRON) — could've been tied to GYM (25A: Place for barbells and treadmills)
  

I slowed down only once during this solve—trying to get from the AZTEC RAIN GOD down into the middle part of the grid. Couldn't see AFTER DARK on my first approach, so jumped *immediately* to the far west and rode ANTI-WAR down to BRAIN DEAD and then right back to the place that had given me trouble. After that, it seemed like all my first thoughts were the correct ones.

Bullets:

• 1A: Rugby scuffle (SCRUM) — saw this first and then instead of writing it down I went to Downs and just kept it in my head, dropping the S-word, C-word, R-word, U-word, and M-word, in order.
  
• 58A: Skin-transferring operations (GRAFTS) — I realize that this is a basic, literal, medical clue, but it has a creepy, horror-movie vibe to me.

• 12D: Former California N.F.L.'er now located in St. Louis (L.A. RAM) — old L.A. team is getting a lot of xword action lately. I will be located in St. Louis this September for a certain superstar crossword constructor's wedding.
  
• 45D: Kitschy gift with green "fur" (CHIA PET) — only answers I can think of that *might* have slowed folks down are this and MARAT.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]