Ian who won 1991 Masters / WED 1-25-12 / City of Kyrgyzstan / Palm smartphone / Sweet filling in commercial names

Constructor: Gareth Bain

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: TREE RINGS (38A: Indicators of age ... and a hint to this puzzle's theme) — CIRCLES in the grid hold three-letter TREE names

Word of the Day: Ian WOOSNAM (2D: Ian who won the 1991 Masters) —

Ian Harold Woosnam OBE (born 2 March 1958) is a Welsh professional golfer.
Nicknamed 'Woosie', 'Woosers', or the 'Wee Welshman', Woosnam was one of the "Big Five" generation of European golfers, all born within 12 months of one another, all of whom have won majors, and made Europe competitive in the Ryder Cup. His peers in  this group were Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, and Sandy Lyle (wikipedia)

• • •

Four sad, sparse circles in the grid don't make for a very strong visual statement. The theme is a cute repurposing of the phrase "TREE RINGS," but I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have since a. there weren't very many trees, and b. I've done a much more difficult and more satisfying tree rebus before. I know it was by Byron Walden, and I'm almost certain it was in the NY Sun several years back. Plus, this grid has some fill I'd try *really* hard to keep out of my grids, including BAI—I'd have gone HAMAS / SALTS / BAT or something like that; my guess is Gareth wanted to get "original" answers in there with MILLARD and HAMID, but being first with an answer just isn't good enough reason to make a corner rougher than it has to be. BAI is too high a price to pay for virtually anything. I mean, good god, even BAE is better than BAI. Other less-than-great stuff: OSH, INNO, KREME, ANGE, TREO, SSGT, OTIC, SIG, TROU, "ADIA," and (singular) BEE GEE (coincidence: I listened to Side A of "Spirits Having Flown" on vinyl today. Several times. While cooking. Good stuff). To the puzzle's credit, it has KAN[YEW]EST and COLD[ASH]ELL (an oath! EGAD!). I just tested a puzzle with KANYEWEST in it yesterday. That constructor is not going to be happy ... but I guess KANYE still hasn't appeared in full-name, unrebused form, so it'll still seem like an original answer.



Theme answers:

• GOSPELMUSIC / ELMER
• WABASH / COLDASHELL
• EYEWITNESS / KANYEWEST
• MISFIRES / FIRST-AID KIT
  

Had a pretty easy time with this one. Always easy to solve rebuses when the relevant squares are marked for you. First indication of the rebus came with the short answers up top, actually—the bull name and the river both looked ridiculous, so something had to be up. Once I figured it out, the rest of the puzzle was a cinch. Had no recollection of WOOSNAM at all—needed every cross there. Briefly blanked on SNERT. Needed a nudge to get TAY. Otherwise, no trouble.

Bullets:

• 5A: Classic sci-fi terror, with "the" ("BLOB") — is "terror" the creature itself? Or is the movie the "terror?"
• 26A: Followers of lambdas (MUS) — better than short for "music," I guess.
• 32A: Phyllis's never-seen TV husband (LARS) — from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." How long will it be before this sitcom reference (very gettable to people over 40) is seen as unfairly obscure?
• 47A: Pursuers of the Sopranos, for short (GMEN) — I wrote in GATS at first ... 
• 40A: Sweet filling, in commercial names (KREME) — I think you mean "commercial name." Singular.
• 28A: Song title for both Fleetwood Mac and Starship (SARA) — only one of these is listen-to-able. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Old name of San Jose Sharks arena / THU 1-12-12 / Pet rat in 1972 #1 song / Popular Italian scooter / Veld flower

Constructor: Gareth Bain

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: CANADIAN PROVINCE (39A: What each of the 10 abbreviations in this puzzle's answer stands for) — rebus puzzle with 10 province abbrevs. arranged symmetrically around the grid

SK = Saskatchewan
MB = Manitoba
ON = Ontario
NB = New Brunswick
AB = Alberta
BC = British Columbia
QC = Québec
PE = Prince Edward Island
NL = Newfoundland and Labrador
NS = Nova Scotia

Word of the Day: La PLATA (1A: La ___ (Argentine city)) —

La Plata (English: The Silver) is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the 2001 census [INDEC], the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants. // La Plata was planned and developed to serve as the provincial capital after the city of Buenos Aires was federalized in 1880, and it was officially founded by Governor Dardo Rocha on 19 November 1882. Its construction is fully documented in photographs by Tomás Bradley Sutton. La Plata was renamed Eva Perón City (Ciudad Eva Perón) between 1952 and 1955. (wikipedia)

• • •

16 wide, heavily segmented, a jillion (give or take) black squares—these are the things I noticed first. I also knew very quickly (while still in that NW corner) that I was dealing with a rebus. Something just didn't smell right. Sure enough, ON fell into place, but then SK showed up and I had no idea what kind of rebus I was dealing with. It's not clear—are these postal abbrevs.? What kind of abbrevs.? Because I've seen most of these provinces abbreviated differently before (ONT, PEI, etc.). Even with the extra column in the grid, the 9 rebus squares is pretty impressive. I'd say the symmetry of those squares is also impressive (it is), but here's my feeling about symmetry and rebuses—unnecessary. In fact, unwanted. What fun is a rebus if you aren't going to be surprised by where the squares turn up (for half the grid, anyway)? The grid is good, but I can't help wondering if it would've been better if the rebuses hadn't been locked into place. The placement of the rebus square in both MARLO[N B]RANDO and COMPA[Q C]ENTER is gorgeous—right at the place where the first word ends and the second word begins. But ON and PE are just hugging the wall. Rebus square symmetry is nice for people who really struggle with rebuses, but for me it halfway defeats the fun. So I applaud the architecture, but .... give me scattershot rebus squares placed in interesting ways over strict symmetry any day.


The constructor really, really wants you to know he's from South Africa. So, in case you didn't gather that fact from the (at least) three different South Africa-oriented clues—[Windhoek-to-Pretoria dir.], [Andries Pretorius, e.g., who gave his name to a national capital], [Veld flower]—now I'm telling you directly. He's from South Africa. Nice guy.

Bullets:

• 27D: They're flicked (BICS) — I remember this from an old ad campaign, but I have not heard the expression "flick my BIC" in decades. 

• 65A: American Shakers founder (AN[NL]EE) — SW corner was threatening to be one of the toughest until I hit this answer. A very crossword-friendly name (in fact, I definitely  learned this bit of trivia from crosswords).
• 48A: Pet rat in a 1972 #1 song (BEN) — Michael Jackson. I think BEN was also a pet bear from a '60s TV series. He was "Gentle," by which I assume they mean "heavily drugged so as not to kill the actors."
• 67A: Popular Italian scooter (VESPA) — the epitome of mod-cool when I was in high school. Maybe at other times as well.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Classical guitarist with four Grammys / TUE 11-15-11 / Explorer of Rockies / TV heroine in leather skirt / Bygone Hollywood star known for tough-guy roles

Constructor: Gareth Bain

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: FISHERMEN (58A: What the answers to the four starred clues are?) — "famous" (I'm using this term very loosely) people whose last names are also kinds of fish

Word of the Day: David Allan COE (21D: Country music's David Allan ___) —

David Allan Coe (born September 6, 1939) is an American outlaw country music singer who achieved popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He has written and performed over 280 original songs throughout his career. As a singer, his biggest hits were "Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile," "The Ride," "You Never Even Called Me by My Name," "She Used to Love Me a Lot," and "Longhaired Redneck." His best-known compositions are the #1 successes "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)," which was covered by Tanya Tucker; and "Take This Job and Shove It," which was later covered by Johnny Paycheck that was later a hit movie (both Coe and Paycheck had minor parts in the film). (wikipedia)

• • •

I didn't know who half these people are, so this was dreadful for me. Needed every cross for: ZEBULON PIKE, ALDO RAY (who I thought, at first, was AL DORAY ...), and JULIAN BREAM (!?!?!?!). I barely know that a BREAM is a fish—this "guitarist" does not pass my Sherman Alexie test. You must be more famous than Sherman Alexie to be a theme answer in the NYT. This rule exists because of a puzzle I once had rejected by Will because (in part) he didn't know who Sherman Alexie was, and thus didn't think him fitting as a theme answer (he didn't know who Sherman Potter was either, but that's another story). Apparently this BREAM guy is also lutenist—so, you know, if you're into that ...




Total guess at the COE / CESARIO crossing (21A: Olivia's love in "Twelfth Night"). No idea about former, clearly forgot the latter (all those damned characters with Italiany, terminal-vowely last names, ugh). So, yeah, I didn't like this at all and have nothing more to say about it.

Theme answers:

• 3D: *Explorer of the Rockies (ZEBULON PIKE)
• 18A: *Former 'N Sync member (LANCE BASS)
• 37A: *Bygone Hollywood star known for tough-guy roles (ALDO RAY)
• 25D: *Classical guitarist with four Grammys (JULIAN BREAM)

Bullets:

• 52D: One-named New Age musician (YANNI) — I once had a girlfriend who owned some of his CDs. We didn't date long.
• 33D: Sharon's predecessor as Israeli P.M. (BARAK) — Ehud. There's also an Ehud Olmert. I couldn't tell one Ehud from the other if my life depended on it.
• 54D: Mrs. 55-Down on "The Avengers" (EMMA) (PEEL) — By far (and I mean faaaaaar) my favorite thing about this puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Summer Triangle star / WED 4-6-11 / Stereotypical glass fillers / Yellowstone foragers / Carrier renamed in 1997

Constructor: Gareth Bain

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: DOUBLE HEADERS (34A: Once-common baseball events and a hint to 16-, 24-, 46- and 57-Across) — theme answers are two-word phrases where both words can precede "HEAD" in familiar phrases.


Word of the Day: ALMA, MI (18A: Michigan college town) —

Alma is the largest city in Gratiot County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 9,275 at the 2000 census. It was incorporated as the Village of Alma in 1872 and became a city in 1905. // Alma's claims to fame include the annual Highland Festival which brings members of Scottish clans and interested onlookers together for a weekend of Highland dancing, bagpipes, kilts, and camaraderie. The Highland Festival is held each year over Memorial Day weekend. Alma College, a small liberal-arts institution of approximately 1,300 students, is located in town and focuses on multidisciplinary learning in a residential setting. (wikipedia)

• • •

A familiar theme type. There are approximately one billion words that can precede HEAD in familiar phrases, so options here were probably plentiful, allowing for two-word theme answers that are completely natural and unforced. Not a very exciting or interesting or funny theme. Just ... a theme. Fine. OK. Sadly, there's not a lot of interesting fill outside the theme, so the whole thing ends up feeling a little flat. Very choppy grid with lots of short fill and a bit more crosswordese than I normally want to see. Check out xwordese xorner down there in the SW, with AROD over REUP over ASTI ... and ELIOT and USAIR (49D: Carrier renamed in 1997) and SSRS just across the way. Not sure why four cheater squares were needed to make the grid work, but there they are (see FAQ for def. of "cheater squares"). There's really not a lot to say about this one. The theme is what it is. The fill is ordinary at best. The end.



Found the cluing off in a couple of places. DENTURES are [Stereotypical glass fillers]? "Stereotypical?" "Oh, you know how DENTURES are, always ... being in glasses..." They're often found in glasses, or often depicted in glasses, but "stereotypical" just feels like the wrong word. I get that you were going for misdirection on this clue, but "stereotypical" is taking it a bit far. And "Beat it!" for "GO HOME!"? If I tell you to beat it, I am not telling you where to go, I'm just telling you to get away from here. There is nothing, zero, in "beat it" that suggests "home." I have a giant "NO" written next to that clue.



Puzzle went down pretty easily, though I certainly screwed up in a number of places, starting with (shocker!) GO HOME, which I had as GO AWAY. I then had EVADED for ELUDED (3D: Got away from), and, later, SEEP IN for SOAK IN (39A: Absorb thoroughly).

Theme answers:

• 16A: Thor, for one (THUNDER GOD)
  
• 24A: Ones often marrying in a hurry (WAR BRIDES) — why? I didn't know haste was involved. Is it because the men are being shipped back home? The wikipedia page on war brides doesn't mention haste as a factor.
  
• 46A: Calypso instrument (STEEL DRUM)
  
• 57A: It's undeliverable (DEAD LETTER) — I had never heard this term until R.E.M. released an album in the late '80s called "Dead Letter Office.

Bullets:

• 14A: Language that gave us "kiwi" (MAORI) — my non-war bride is a "kiwi," so no problem here.
  
• 4D: Summer Triangle star (DENEB) — Never heard of "Summer Triangle," but learned DENEB from crosswords a few years back, so at least the answer was familiar once I saw it. If you've never heard of DENEB, it really looks nuts.
  
• 10D: Yellowstone forager (MULE DEER) — do they look like mules? Hmm, wiki says they get their name from their large, mule-like ears. Huh. Interesting.
  
• 48A: Walks like a tosspot (REELS) — "Walks like a tosspot" being the far less successful SIDE B of "Walk Like an Egyptian"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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