Filmmaker Allen / SUN 6-26-11 / Locale for cattail / Game whose name derived Swahili / It landed Pacific Ocean 3/23/01 / Bygone hand weapon

Constructor: David Levinson Wilk

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "T Mobile" — Familiar phrases in which "T" switches places with letter next to it, creating wacky phrases, clued "?"-style


Word of the Day: GANEF (18D: Thief, in Yiddish) —

n US slang

an unscrupulous opportunist who stoops to sharp practice

[from Yiddish, from Hebrew gannābh thief, from gānnabh he stole]

• • •

I generally like David Levinson Wilk puzzles, and I like much of this. Well, some of it. The theme is Extraordinarily loose, though. I don't like themes with infinite possible answers—the bar is just too low. The only consistency is that a T moves. One space. In every theme answer that movement takes place in the last two letters of a word ... except in PRE-MARTIAL SEX. So no consistency there. T and *any* letter adjacent to it? Whether on its left or its right? Not the kind of theme I'd expect from the Nation's Premier Crossword. Too simplistic. The theme answers are cute in parts, but brief amusement couldn't overcome the overall bummer created by the looseness of the theme. That said, the grid is mostly decent, and it actually took me an above-average amount of time to finish, for reasons I don't quite understand—a nice Sunday challenge. There's a handful of entries I could do without (KLMN, EVENI, GANEF, ETRES), but most of the fill is bouncy, and many of the clues felt fresh and interesting. K.D. LANG will be playing here on July 4 (Q: why would she want to be in Binghamton (of all places) on the Fourth of July!? A: She's Canadian, what does she care?) (1A: 1988 Grammy winner for "Crying"). Nobody loves a FASCIST (pace Sylvia Plath), but I love FASCIST as a crossword entry (68D: Like Mussolini). And Bowie is Bowie is Bowie, and is always welcome:

[79A: 1983 #1 hit with the lyric "Put on your red shoes"]

Theme answers:

• 23A: Dance seen in a Lincoln Center performance of "Don Giovanni"? (NEW YORK MINUET) — "Dance" in clue, DANCE in "LET'S DANCE" ... but I doubt anyone noticed
  
• 33A: "None of the leading sales people came in today"? ("ALL BEST ARE OFF")
  
• 40A: Celebration after a 1964 heavyweight championship? (FETE OF CLAY) — maybe my favorite answer
  
• 55A: Stirrup? (COWBOY BOOST)
  
• 71A: Decide to sleep in the nude? (CAST PAJAMAS)
  
• 81A: What whitewashers apply? (IVORY COATS)
• 88A: Response to the query "Does Ms. Garbo fist-bump?" ("NO, GRETA SHAKES") — wow, that is one forced clue. I guess it beats a clue about Ms. Garbo's not having the dt's.
  
• 102A: Love before war? (PRE-MARTIAL SEX)
  

Most troublesome of the trouble spots, for me, was the area around the KATIE / IRWIN intersection (59A: Scarlett O'Hara's real first name + 42D: Filmmaker Allen). Had no clue about either name—never a great feeling to run into an unknown proper noun collision like that. Couldn't figure out ASCRIBE (had ACCLAIM at one point) (29D: Credit) and would never have gotten to TAE BO from the clue (35D: Judo-like exercises) without significant crosses. The plural "exercises" feels wrong. TAE BO is an exercise routine. Singular. I guess if you take each movement as a discrete exercise, then voila, but I don't like it. I had TOTES in there but took it out (forget why) (49D: Lugs). Had TRIB in there but then took it out and tried TROP ("The TROP" is the name of the Tampa Bay Rays ballpark) (49A: Tampa paper, briefly, with "the"). Throw in the fact that I REMEMBER is kind of an arbitrary phrase (42A: "You don't need to remind me") and OIL PALM is not high on my Familiar Tree list (14D: Tree whose two-word name, when switched around, identifies its product), and you (or rather I) have a pretty thorny section on your (my) hands.

Bullets:

• 20A: Cry from a balcony ("O ROMEO...") — Nice clue. Sounds general, ends up being (very) specific.

• 32A: Locale for a cattail (FEN) — Considering I have no first-hand experience with FENs or cattails, I got this remarkably quickly.
  
• 68A: Shriners' headwear: Var. (FEZES) — points off for "Var." Bonus points for a "Z."
  
• 95A: "Rock 'n' Roll is King" band, 1983 (ELO) — it's a 1983 music kind of day, I guess. First "LET'S DANCE," now this:

• 1D: Former German chancellor Adenauer (KONRAD) — started with "C," and then adjusted to accommodate K.D.
  
• 11D: Country star ___ Lynne (SHELBY) — she did a very fine album of Dusty Springfield covers called "Just a Little Lovin'":

• 16D: Plane over Yemen, maybe (DRONE) — Great clue. Very contemporary.
  
• 17D: College town just off Interstate 95 (ORONO) — the crosswordiest of college towns. Just as MIR is the crosswordiest of space stations (103D: It landed in the Pacific Ocean on 3/23/01).
  
• 45D: Bygone hand weapon (BROAD AX) — several years of D&D experience as a kid and I still couldn't come up with this (easily), even with AX in place.
  
• 59D: Director of the major film debuts of James Dean and Warren Beatty (KAZAN) — really want to read Schickel's bio of KAZAN. Of course I really want to read a LOT of things. It's overwhelming. I probably shouldn't let it stress me out. My wife and daughter just *read*. Me, I always want to be reading the *right* thing, in the *right* order, at the *right* time. I think I'd enjoy reading more if I just did it instead of thinking about it so much.
  
• 72D: Game whose name is derived from Swahili (JENGA!) — I have literally never played this game. It was created in the '80s, but became really popular (as I remember it) in the '90s, when I was not playing games of any kind at all. Not my favorite decade.
  
• 85D: Alex of "Webster" (KARRAS) — also [Alex of the Detroit Lions].
  
• 88D: Southwest Africa's ___ Desert (NAMIB) — just dawned on me that this is probably related somehow to NAMIBIA. Never heard of the desert before.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Central knob of shield / FRI 5-20-11 / Dont make plans for August / 1978 Daniel Patrick Moynihan memoir / Pioneering blues singer Smith / Brute 1970s

Constructor: David Levinson Wilk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: UMBO (10A: Central knob of a shield) —

n., pl., um·bo·nes, or um·bos.

1. The boss or knob at the center of a shield.
2. 1. Biology. A knoblike protuberance arising from a surface, as the prominence near the hinge of a bivalve shell or the projection at the scale tip of a seed-bearing cone.
   2. Anatomy. A small projection at the center of the outer surface of the eardrum.

[Latin umbō, umbōn-.]

• • •

Nine 15s. Impressive, but inevitably you pay for that kind of grid-spanning indulgence in the form of yucky short stuff. UMBO is paradigmatic yucky short stuff (10A: Central knob of a shield). SETT isn't far behind (40A: Rectangular paving stone). RENTE (60A: Pension, in Paris) and COMIN' hurt a little (45D: "___ Home Baby" (1962 Mel Tormé hit)), and there's other stuff here and there that's less than pleasant. There is some payoff here, namely GIANT SEA TURTLES (3D: Loggerheads, e.g.) next to "INDEPENDENCE DAY" (4D: 1996 blockbuster with the tagline "Don't make plans for August"), and OPEN PANDORA'S BOX (30A: Create a whole new set of problems). But the rest I felt like I was just getting through, and too many of the long answers clunked a little for me: SOCCER ANNOUNCER (which is a thing, but so is "[any sport that airs on TV or radio] ANNOUNCER") (5D: One who may comment on a beautiful head shot); INTERNAL AUDITOR (38A: Watchdog in the house?); the mysterious "A DANGEROUS PLACE" (Really? a 33-year old political memoir about being ambassador to the U.N.? OK) (9D: 1978 Daniel Patrick Moynihan memoir). The words and phrases involved here just felt a little limp. I did enjoy the solve, mainly because of the odd grid shape and the weird way that it forced me to solve (mostly burrowing into the little nooks and then blasting out of them with the long 15s). I enjoyed the GIGI / CARON cross-referenced clues (1A: 1958 title role for 21-Across), mostly because I took one look at the "GIGI" clue and guessed both answers straight off (guess that time I researched the difference between "GIGI" and "LILI" (1953) — both starring CARON — paid off). "A DANGEROUS PLACE" could've been cross-referenced with Idi AMIN (14A: Brute of the 1970s), since Moynihan was ambassador when AMIN was in power (Moynihan, not one to mince words, called AMIN a "racist murderer").


[OK, I changed my mind about COMIN'... Erudite!]
Highlight of the puzzle was (finally, well after the fact) deciphering the clue at 54A: Character in "I, Claudius" (COMMA). I wonder how many people are wandering around today (as I might have been if I didn't have to write this stuff up every day) thinking a. "I know Latin names can sound weird, but ... 'COMMA?' What kind of mom names her little boy 'COMMA?' (I guess if you can name a boy TRIG ... and you favor English more than math ...)" and b. "They couldn't have used a punctuation clue there!?" (turns out, they did—the "character" is the COMMA in "I, Claudius" (i.e. "I COMMA Claudius").

Weird start to the puzzle, with "INDEPENDENCE DAY" being the first thing I dropped in the grid. "So ... no plans for August ... which means something happens in July ... what happens in July?" Bang. Then straight into GIGI / CARON. I knew GARTH (from "Bevery Hills, 90210"), but do most solvers (judging by the volume of anti-pop-culture mail I get, I'm guessing 'no')? Ditto BLAKE Lewis (12D: 2007 "American Idol" runner-up ___ Lewis). "American Idol" fame is fleeting except for the very, very few (I say this as someone who watches "Idol" every year, owns not one but two BLAKE Lewis albums, and yet can barely remember the faces let alone the names of every moderately talented generic-looking white boy who's won the competition *since* 2007). OLIN is a better known pop culture figure (at least in crosswords), but her clue is Nuts today (58A: "Bang Bang Orangutang" actress, 2005). If your tastes run more high culture, maybe you enjoyed 42D: Thomas Mann's daughter who married W.H. Auden (ERIKA). I know who those men are, but that clue couldn't have been more useless to me. [A woman's name] would've sufficed. ONO's here again, attempting (and failing) to hide behind a strange clue (35D: Performer who's the descendant of a Japanese emperor). I once got hate mail from Peter NOONE (44D: Herman's Hermits frontman) because he thought I'd insulted him (it was a commenter, not me). I also once saw Peter NOONE in a local cafe here in Binghamton. Thus ends the Peter NOONE section of this program.



Bullets:

• 15A: Hunting attendant of Artemis (OREAD) — one of the many -AD ladies I have trouble keeping straight despite fairly extensive experience reading classical literature / mythology.
  
• 61A: Duma disavowal ("NYET!") — [Dumas disavowal] would be NON, and [Puma disavowal] would be ["grrrrrr"]. Not sure what [Yuma disavowal] would be. NOPE? SORRY, PARDNER?
  
• 7D: Photographer Cartier-Bresson (HENRI) — plunked down ANDRE. They're closer in sound than they are on paper.
  
• 10D: She performed admirably in the War of 1812 (USS CONSTITUTION) — another example of failed answer-hiding techniques. You go with "She" to make the solver think person, but then follow with "war," which pretty much negates any female name that might apply (in 1812, at any rate).
  
• 11D: Much-performed work set in Nagasaki ("MADAMA BUTTERFLY") — practically a gimme; only issue was that last "A" in "MADAMA," which I had as an "E" to start.
  
• 31D: Some folks are in it for life (PEN) — speaking of ... looks like I might sign on for another hitch teaching in prison next year. A lot of work for just a little money, but the experience is something close to invaluable. Certainly memorable.
  
• 41D: Pioneering blues singer Smith (MAMIE) — no idea, though I feel like I've said "no idea" about her before. I guess a Van Doren or Eisenhower clue would've been too easy.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

1937 Cole Porter tune / SUN 3-6-11 / Constant Gardener heroine / Portrayer in 2003's Elf / Hungarian city known for its thermal baths

Constructor: David Levinson Wilk

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "For Your Edification" — theme answers are phrases beginning with a past participle ending in "-ED"; those phrases are reimagined (in the clues) as verb phrases involving guys named "ED"


Word of the Day: EGER (65A: Hungarian city known for its thermal baths) —

Eger (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈɛɡɛr]; German: Erlau; Turkish: Eğri ) is a city in northern Hungary, the county seat of Heves, east of the Mátra Mountains. Eger is best known for its castle, thermal baths, historic buildings (including the northernmost Turkish minaret), and red and white wines.

• • •

Theme is interesting, but didn't thrill me, mainly because the reimagined phrases are essentially the same as the original phrases (in terms of the context, and the meaning of all the words)—it's just now a guy named ED is involved. This makes TOUCH ED IN THE HEAD the odd man out, as the meaning of "TOUCH" changes in the new phrase. Otherwise, this one felt right over the plate for a Sunday, the one exception being the vast swaths of whiteness at the top and bottom of the grid. Those really stand out visually, and were much harder to solve. The N and NW in particular were thorny for me—like a completely separate little puzzle containing just the one theme answer. Clues on all the longer Acrosses were nowhere close to obvious for me, and the short Downs, which should have helped me cut right through things, somehow weren't as helpful as I'd expected. COAGULATE had a vague clue (1A: Thicken). PNC PARK ... who even knows what ballparks are named any more? (more important question: who outside of Pittsburgh, can tell anyone anything about the Pirates except that they lose an awful lot?) (10A: Pirates' home) I know OBSESSION as a scent, not a biography title (20A: 1994 biography of Calvin Klein). And "ROSALIE" was a no-hoper for me. Sounds vaguely familiar, but I couldn't hum it for you (21A: 1937 Cole Porter tune). Never heard of Lee COWAN (1D: Lee of NBC News). Did not know OBAMA's mom's name was Stanley (2D: U.S. president whose mother's first name was Stanley). Never would have occurred to me that TOE could be an acceptable "part of Italy" in a crossword (8D: Part of Italy where Cape Spartivento is). Forgot who NORMA Shearer was (11D: "The Divorcee" actress Shearer). RIV!? I ended up doing this section last, and knowing the theme was a Huge help in getting WANT ED DEAD OR ALIVE, which then made the rest of that stretch of land much more tractable.


I finished up top because my first pass at that section was a total failure. In fact, I solved this in a highly unorthodox fashion (for me). Ran into 3D: 109-Down portrayer in 2003's "Elf" and knew (five letters) immediately that the answer was ASNER and that 109-Down must be SANTA. This sent me down to the opposite corner of the grid ... and I just decided to stay there, building off SANTA and working my way up (instead of my usual down). The fill down there, and a few other places, gets a bit xwordy. I'm not sure words like ETAPE and ENNA should be anywhere near each other, let alone crossing. But mostly the fill is decent and the clues are often entertaining and contemporary. Many will scoff at THA, for instance, but I loved it. I once wondered aloud to someone (probably Brendan E. Quigley), if THACARTERIII would make an acceptable themeless entry. Pretty sure the answer was something like "On my site, yes, in the NYT, no." But that might not be true. Lil Wayne (I can't believe his name's not even in the clue!) is a superstar, and that album sold in the gajillions (around 3.5 million, actually). It also won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2009.

[Warning: Profanity!]
Also loved the clues on TAN (35D: Noted John Boehner feature) and RED (94D: Buttons on the big screen).

Theme answers:

• 23A: Be willing to apprehend Mr. Bradley at any cost? (WANT ED DEAD OR ALIVE)
  
• 31A: Punish Mr. Harris in a medieval way? (BURN ED AT THE STAKE) — speaking of Mr. Harris in a medieval way ...

• 43A: Get Mr. Koch addicted to a modern reading method? (HOOK ED ON PHONICS)
  
• 66A: Preside over Mr. O'Neill's baptism? (BLESS ED EVENT)
  
• 75A: Do Mr. Sullivan's stand-up material? (CRACK ED JOKES)
  
• 93A: Prohibit Mr. McMahon from ever socializing again? (GROUND ED FOR LIFE)
  
• 103A: Perform brain surgery on Mr. Begley? (TOUCH ED IN THE HEAD)
  
• 116A: Put Mr. Meese in an Armani suit? (DRESS ED TO THE NINES) — first theme answer I got, which seems fitting, as Mr. Meese is the crosswordiest ED of all.
  

Bullets:

• 42A: Epitome of thinness (REED) — wanted RAIL, another such epitome
  
• 74A: Letters on Ozzie Smith's cap (STL) — Hall-of-Famer, and probably the most famous shortstop of my youth ('80s!)
  
• 129A: Brand name that used to be spelled out in commercials (NESTLE'S) — this ad is unintentionally hilarious for Several reasons, not least of which is the guy spells out NESTLE'S while repeatedly showing that the brand's actual name is the S-less NESTLE.

• 14D: Noted Cosell interviewee (ALI) — A gimme. A great sports relationship.

• 31D: Apiphobiac's fear (BEE) — APES = Latin for "BEES"
  
• 33D: Auto last made in 1936 (REO) — You could ride around in your REO listening to "ROSALIE," I guess, though cars back then probably didn't have stereos...
  
• 34A: "99 Luftballons" singer, 1984 (NENA) — You could hear German and English versions of this song on the radio in the mid-80s. A huge hit.
  
• 49D: "Mogambo" threat (TSETSE) — That movie's about malaria? (I'm told I mean "sleeping sickness")
  
• 56A: Retailer with a cat and dog in its logo (PETCO) — this is our pet store. I have a little PETCO card on my keychain. Recently earned my first free bag of dog food. Exciting, I know.
  
• 92D: Household pets that need ultraviolet light in their cages (IGUANAS) — speaking of pets ... I'm not sure if PETCO carries these. As far as I'm concerned, there are two legitimate pets: cats and dogs. Everything else should be wild or eaten.
  
• 110D: 1994 action flick with the tagline "Get ready for rush hour" ("SPEED") — This was a very good action movie. Also, I think it introduced the world to Sandra Bullock.
  
• 111D: "The Constant Gardener" heroine (TESSA) — didn't read it, but loved the movie. Had no recollection of the character name, however.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

1934 novel Maw'id / SUN 1-2-11 / German photographer Bing / 1968 hit song Nazad / 1985 hit song Neung Keun / 2003 film Érase una Vez

Constructor: David Levinson Wilk

Relative difficulty: Medium


THEME: "Works in Translation" — Easy to understand, but hard to describe. The theme answers are titles with the pattern "Something in Somewhere." The "Something" is translated into the language spoken in "Somewhere" to create the clues. Got it?

Word of the Day: AVEDA (79D: Skin care brand ) —

Aveda (pronounced ah-vay-da) was founded by Horst Rechelbacher in 1978. In 1970, Rechelbacher, on a trip to India, was introduced to the healing properties of Ayurveda (the Hindu science of longevity) and the vision for his company (and the name Aveda) was born. Horst had formulated the first product, a clove shampoo, in his kitchen sink. Today Aveda is part of Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. According to the company's website, "Aveda" is Sanskrit for "all knowledge," but in fact means "no knowledge." (Wikipedia)

• • •

Greetings, Rexites. This is Doug Peterson, in the house with PuzzleGirl, and ready to do some semi-serious crossword blogging. We're filling in for Rex today, but I can assure you that he is not drunk. However, there was a rumor going around that he's been hopped up on goofballs all weekend.

I'm very glad to be talking to you today. You wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to become an official Rex Parker contributor. There was a background check, blood test, retinal scan, and … a couple other things I don't want to talk about right now. But it looks like I've been approved and am good to go. If the RP security goons drag me out of here before we're done, PuzzleGirl can finish up by herself.

The reason we're doing team blogging today is that we usually solve the Sunday puzzle together. Personally, I just got tired of Sunday puzzles several months ago. They're just too big! For some reason I really feel like I'm just slogging my way through a 21x21. So Doug suggested we solve together on the New York Times “Solve with a Friend!” applet and we've done it that way ever since. To make it interesting, one of us solves only the acrosses and the other does only the downs. We try to stay in the same general area as we're making our way around the grid, but sometimes that doesn't work too well. If you look at the grid we posted, you'll see that some of the letters are green (those are the ones I entered) and some are blue (those are Doug's). Sometimes when we're all done, the whole grid is pretty much Doug's color and that's embarrassing. When that happens, I usually come up with some lame excuse about how my kids were bugging me or the smoke alarm went off or something. I'm pretty sure Doug knows I'm lying when I do that, but he's too nice to say anything.

Theme answers:

• 27A: 1934 novel "Maw'id" (APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA).
• 38A: 1968 hit song "Nazad" (BACK IN THE USSR).
• 47A: 1985 hit song "Neung Keun" (ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK).
• 68A: 2003 film "Érase una Vez" (ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO).
• 90A: 1951 film "Une Personne des États-Unis" (AN AMERICAN IN PARIS).
• 99A: 1912 novella "Morte" (DEATH IN VENICE).
• 114A: 1943 novel "Whaddya Tink? A Sapling Stays a Sapling Fuhevah?" (A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN).

(Note: The bulleted list above contains English-alphabet versions of the clues for 27A, 38A, and 47A. The original clues are shown in the image underneath. Thanks to the NY Times and its Wordplay blog for providing the image. We tried to insert those funky foreign letters into our write-up, but it wasn't working at all. Apparently English is the official language of the Rex Parker blog.)

If you're wondering who came up with that wonderfully lame theme explanation up top, it was me, Doug. Some of you may still be confused, so let's look at an example, say, 99 Across. "Morte" is the Italian word for "death," so the word "Morte" is literally "Death in Italian" or specifically "Death in Venice." The rest of them follow the same pattern. "Maw'id" is Arabic for "appointment," "Nazad" is Russian for "back," etc. Very clever! And the last one, written in Brooklynese, is the most awesome of all. I love when the constructor saves a killer punchline for the last theme entry. Well done!

Bullets:

• 31A: Harold's car in "Harold and Maude" (HEARSE). Herman's car in "The Munsters" would have been an easier reference for me. [Claire's car on "Six Feet Under" for me.]
• 64A: Electrophorus electricus, for one (EEL). Really? This reminds me of the pseudo-Latin names they used at the beginnings of Road Runner cartoons. Road Runner would be classified as "Acceleratii incredibus" or "Velocitus delectiblus" and Wile E. Coyote as "Famishus vulgarus" or "Apetitus giganticus."

• 76A: Constellation next to Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (DRACO).
• 85A: Brilliant display (RIOT). Tricky clue. I've heard the phrase a "riot of color," so it works.
• 113A: 90% off? (SENILE). My least favorite clue of the day. I don't need to see a "funny" clue for SENILE. People affected by senility are 90% off? That's just cruel.
• 123A: German photographer ___ Bing (ILSE). Ah, the great Ilse Bing! If you look at the grid, you'll see that this answer, even though it's an Across, is all in green. That means that PuzzleGirl filled in every letter for me.
• 127A: Classic brand of hair remover (NEET). I learned recently (from Orange's blog) that Neet is now known as Veet. Remember the ads for the hair removal product called Nads? Seriously, Nads? If I weren't so mature, I'd find that name hilarious. I could find out more, but there's no way I'm typing www.nads.com into my browser.
• 1D: Bike brand (YAMAHA). I wanted SCHWINN. Totally different kind of bike.
• 4D: It's often visited during a trip (MOTOR INN). Oh yeah ….
• 5D: Failure to communicate? (PHONE TAG). This is an awesome clue. PHONE TAG is one of those terms that used to be totally hilarious and now it's just like a normal thing to say. Isn't that funny how that happens?

• 8D: Daily or weekly (ADVERB). This one stumped me for quite a while. I thought it would have something to do with magazines or newspapers or some other type of publication.
• 11D: Author Steinhauer with the 2009 best seller "The Tourist" (OLEN). No idea. [We already have Robert Olen Butler for our OLEN clues, and that should be sufficient. Now we need to remember another author no one's ever heard of?]

• 41D: "And who ___?" (ISN'T). One of two relatively snippy colloquial phrases in this puzzle. See also, 81D: "Any day now" ("I'M WAITING").
• 52D: Area crossed by Marco Polo (GOBI). Wait, Marco Polo didn't travel across a body of water calling out to his crew members to guide him because he was, I don't know, blind-folded or something? I've really had that wrong all these years.
• 94D: Comic who said "A short summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat" (ALAN KING). Okay, that's funny.

• 101D: Gourd (NOGGIN). Here in the PuzzleHouse we prefer "melon," as in "Can you get this shirt over your big melon or is it time to send it to Goodwill?" (That's me talking to PuzzleSon. The first thing I said when he was born — and I'm not making this up — was "Oh my God, it's huge." The boy has a big head, is what I'm saying.)
• 104D: The Supreme Court, e.g. (ENNEAD). "ENNEA-" means "nine." There are nine Supreme Court justices. Quick — name them! No cheating!

When I found out I was going to be teaming up with PuzzleGirl on today's blog, I told her, "I hope we get a good one!" And today's puzzle was great, so no worries. I thought the theme was fun, clever, and consistent. You can't ask for much more. But I would like to make a request of Will Shortz and future Sunday constructors. Could you please try to make sure you have theme answers running in both the Across and the Down directions? It makes it more fun for those of us who only get to see half the clues every week. I don't have my own cool sign-off yet, so I'll borrow one from Ryan Seacrest: Peterson out!

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter] [or PuzzleGirl] [or DougP]