Marshy habitat / MON 6-20-11 / 7's retail partner / Employee-abetted crime / Show for early to bed crowd / Zionist's homeland

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: adjective-bodyparted — hyphenated adjectives where the second part is in the form [body part + -ED]


Word of the Day: Dorothy HAMILL (47D: Champion figure skater Dorothy) —

Dorothy Stuart Hamill (born July 26, 1956) is an American figure skater. She is the 1976 Olympic champion in Ladies' Singles and 1976 World Champion. // In 1993, the Associated Press released results of a national sports study. Hamill was statistically tied for first place with fellow Olympian, Mary Lou Retton as the most popular athlete in America ranking far ahead of other major sports stars such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Troy Aikman, Dan Marino, Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana, Nolan Ryan and 800 other athletes. [!?] (wikipedia)

• • •

I did this in 3:20, so don't freak out about the "Medium-Challenging" rating. That just means I was demonstrably slower than my avg. Monday time. In many ways this is a typically easy Monday puzzle, but I ran into brief but discernible trouble for two reasons: a dumb mistake, and a dumb clue. I got seduced by the alliterative quality of a couple of the theme answers I had in place and so when I saw -HEARTED, I plugged in "HARD" up front. Nevermind that it didn't really fit the clue, or the amount of space provided (!?). So that screwed me up. The dumb clue that screwed me up was 28D: Show for the early-to-bed crowd (MATINEE). I guess this is a Broadway thing, because the MATINEEs I know are movies, and they are morning and early afternoon, such that there is no way in the world I would associate them with when one does or does not go to bed. Also, even if I saw a Broadway MATINEE, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to bed early. I could be doing any number of things. You don't know. I doubt the "crowd" at a MATINEE would consider itself "early-to-bed" as a rule. And what does "early" mean, anyway? Seems a very relative term. So: I went looking for an actual "show," like, say, the 10 o'clock news or something. Something, anything relevant to "bed" time. But no. Dumb me + dumb clue = very choppy western portion of the grid (and way too long uncovering INSIDE JOB (34D: Employee-abetted crime). Other parts that slightly held me up: couldn't spell HAMILL right on the first try, and found clue on CHEF very late-week (i.e. tricky, toughish) (32D: Food processor?).


I liked the WONK (22A: Policy expert) in the WETLAND (22D: Marshy habitat).

Theme answers:

• 17A: Easily offended (THIN-SKINNED)
  
• 28A: Inclined to mince words (MEALY-MOUTHED)
  
• 46A: Lacking courage (FAINT-HEARTED)
  
• 62A: Cowardly (LILY-LIVERED)
  

I didn't like that three of the body parts in these answer are organs, and one isn't. Two are alliterative, and two aren't. BIRD-BRAINED? HEAVY-HANDED? I don't know. There's gotta be a way to tighten this baby up.


Bullets:

• 32A: ___ Pet (sprouting figurine) (CHIA) — "sprouting figurine" is a phrase at once fancy and revolting.
  
• 52A: Respectful Turkish title (AGA) — I thought an "AGA" was an official. Didn't know it had anything to do with "respect."
  
• 5D: Timmy's TV dog (LASSIE) — I wonder what age you have to be (i.e. how young) before this becomes a mystery/non-gimme. I knew it even though I never saw the TV show, so it must be (or have been) "in the air," as they say. The joke about Timmy's being able to understand LASSIE's barking as if it were speech is still current, I think.
  
• 49D: 7's retail partner? (ELEVEN) — we don't have those convenience stores here where I live, but they're all over California (where I grew up) and presumably much of the rest of the country.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]