Vexations composer / SAT 1-14-12 / Yellow fever carrier / Roman count / Pfizer brand since 1997 / Coastal setting of The Birds / Provider of relief for finger / Thornburgh's predecessor as attorney general

Constructor: Mark Diehl

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ESTRAY (8D: Animal that has escaped from its owner) —

Estray, in law, is any domestic animal found wandering at large or lost, particularly if the owner is unknown. (wikipedia) [so ... a stray, then]

• • •

This one kicked me around pretty bad. On the other hand, if I'd simply been able to recall CONROY as readily as I should have (big Duh moment when I got that one), and if I'd taken LUNATIC out sooner (34A: Nutty as can be => IDIOTIC), and if I'd simply been able to see the very obvious CREWMATES (I had CREWMA---S and couldn't think of word that would fit...) (1A: Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins), I might have had this done in half the time. Cluing and content was hard all around, though I started off very quickly. ADIT (crosswordese, wheeee!) and MEESE (5D: Thornburgh's predecessor as attorney general) and WISHI went in 1, 2, 3 (or UNO DUE TRE, I guess — that answer was brutal; 12D: Roman count?). But then the CREWMA- blank happened, and I wrote in UTAH STATE (not having read the clue very well, obviously), and then I was just stuck (19A: A.B.A. team that signed Moses Malone out of high school => UTAH STARS). Then for a while all I had in the NE was RELO, EMORY, and SPY STORY (14D: Le Carré specialty). NO MAS was easy, and that got me into the SE, where, after much fumbling around (including ESSES for MASTS (42A: The U.S.S. Constitution has three) and ETHOS for MORES), I got everything sorted out down there. NW and SE done, other corners, patchy and empty, respectively.



I worked on patchy (NE). And worked. All The Long Downs (the 9s) are "?" clues. That's torture. I've never seen anything like it, that kind of "?" density. What the hell is a CAMEO RING? I mean, I can guess, but come on (11D: Provider of relief for a finger?). Took me forever to get LIPITOR (30A: Pfizer brand since 1997) because I had TRACES for TRICES. Eventually my crosswordese skillz kicked in and I got AEDES (20A: Yellow fever carrier). Honestly, I can't even reconstruct the exact order of things in the NE. It was just ugly. Once I dared to put in CONOID and took out LUNATIC, the previously impossible SW opened right up. CIGAR ASH went right in (32D: Cuban remnant). How do I "know" BODEGA BAY?? I thought I was making it up, but then all the crosses worked (26D: Coastal setting of "The Birds"). "AGNES GREY"?? Wow, there's a Saturday answer. My Ph.D. in English did not prepare me for that one—maybe I've heard of it, but the bell it's ringing, if it's ringing one, is pretty faint (40A: Anne Brontë's first novel).


I'd say this grid looks pretty good overall (with the notable exception of the stupid word ESTRAY). Hard to fill a low word-count puzzle like this in such a smooth way. Commendable. Cluing was brutal, but it's Saturday. I can't expect to down them all in 10 minutes.

Bullets:

• 47A: Grounation Day celebrant (RASTA) — April 21 – The anniversary of Haile Selassie's visit to Jamaica. Needless to say, I did not know this.
• 37A: Storms on the road (GEOS) — I take issue with the "on the road" part of this clue, in that I haven't seen one ... lately. 
• 31D: Locust tree feature (POD) — no idea what kind of tree this is, so I was clueless for a long time here. 
• 45D: Post-marathon posts (TIMES) — Vexations! "Posts" can mean lots of things.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Soul's 1970s TV co-star / SAT 4-2-11 / Start of dogwatch / New York find 10/16/1869 / 1980s TV private eye / Pee-wee's Playhouse mail lady

Constructor: Mark Diehl

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: RAKEHELL (16A: Libertine) —

A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womaniser. Often a rake was a man who wasted his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process. The rake was also frequently a man who seduced a young woman and impregnated her before leaving, often to her social or financial ruin. // The Restoration rake was a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat whose heyday was during the English Restoration period (1660–1688), at the court of Charles II. They were typified by the "Merry gang" of courtiers, who included as prominent members the Earl of Rochester, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. At this time the rake featured as a stock character in Restoration comedy. // After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the cultural perception of the rake took a dive into squalor. The rake became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, venereal disease, or, in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, insanity in Bedlam.

• • •

Felt mostly quite easy, but not knowing THE CARDIFF GIANT (or, rather, forgetting it until I had the THE CARDIFF part) slowed me down enough that my time was just average (34A: New York "find" of 10/16/1869). Strangely, the most befuddling part was the COURSE part of COURSE FEES (28A: Tuition portion). Had FEES and just couldn't think what kind of FEES could be involved. Also, I had a ridiculous fit of second-guessing after I dropped down ARE YOU KIDDING ME (off just the A--Y!) (7D: "Really?!"). I read the clue at 33A: Animal whose tongue is long enough to clean its eyelids and ears and thought "sounds like a GECKO" (actually, OKAPI). Then was *sure* it was a GECKO after that "K" got me "AKA" for 30D: Cover letters? I mean ... that's a genius clue for AKA. It's a pretty good clue for SPF, I guess, but it's *really* good for AKA. Anyway, this made me doubt ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Ugh. So tripping in the middle took me from what would probably have been a Thu/Fri time right back to a Saturday time.

No trouble at all in any of the corners. Little bit of mucking around in the SW when I put in ENGIRD (!) for ENCASE (42D: Surround). Proudest / most embarrassing moment (I can't decide)—knowing instantly that 19A: Soul's 1970s TV co-star was going for the brown-haired guy from "Starsky & Hutch." I knew that if I just got a cross or two, his name would come to me. And it did (GLASER). Also, in the same TV-of-my-youth vein, I nailed STEELE with hardly any effort at all (44D: 1980s TV private eye). And though I never played it, "Legend of ZELDA" feels like a gimme handed to me from my youth (or maybe young adulthood) as well (40A: "The Legend of ___").


[How did I remember this? How? I must have had some pretty profound encounter with Mr. Soul earlier in my life. He clearly left an impression ... of some sort]

VHS forced me to change NOONIONS to NOCHEESE (38D: Whopper request). TEENER came far too easily for being such a dated / weird word (45D: "American Bandstand" viewer). My crossword instincts / memory must be getting pretty well developed, because NITER came eerily easily too, despite my not really knowing what it is (48: Atacama Desert export). I had to look up Atacama very recently (what, two days ago?), so at least I knew what part of the world we were dealing with—not that that helped with NITER. Had to run the alphabet at DI-O to remember DIDO (23A: "Thank You" singer, 2001). DI-D'OH! Should've been easier, as she was a major pop star when I was in grad school.



First answer in the grid: "ADAM'S RIB" (7A: 1949 comedy about husband-and-wife lawyers on opposing sides of a murder case). As with Mr. Soul, I don't really know how I know this. I just do. I must have watched, or tried to watch, the movie at one point. My aunt lives in San RAFAEL, which didn't help until I had the "AE" part (lots of SANs in CA). Despite knowing about the "CHE" biopic of 1969 (from crosswords, naturally), I didn't pick up SHARIF until the "F" (11D: Guevara portrayer). It's just so weird what your brain will and won't do for you when you're in the middle of solving. The brain giveth, the brain taketh away, the brain getteth distracted by thoughts like "a TWO-SPEED bike? Really?" (39D: Like some Schwinns)

Bullets:

• 31A: Voice of Fredricksen in "Up" (ASNER) — big fat gimme. ASNER is super common in crosswords, and he's also the most famous voice actor in that movie.
  
• 49A: Wallis and Futuna (ILES) — whoa. This one was hard. Gibberish hard. Turns out they are (combined) a French territory in French Polynesia
  
• 55A: "Doubt" co-star, 2008 (STREEP) — knew it ended in "P" before I ever saw the clue, so no problem (never saw the movie, but seem to remember that STREEP plays a nun, along with the Lovely Amy Adams)
  
• 9D: Sharing common alleles (AKIN) — "alleles" is yet another word I learned from crosswords. Pretty shmancy way of getting to AKIN.
  
• 56D: "Pee-wee's Playhouse" mail lady (REBA) — what a great REBA clue. Wish I'd seen it. Got REBA entirely from crosses before I ever had a chance to see the clue; figured it must be about the country / sitcom star.
  
• 54D: Destructive 1966 hurricane (INEZ) — "Destructive" is weird. Redundant, I'd think. I mean, if it's a hurricane we might be expected to remember, then I'm guessing it was probably pretty "destructive."
• 1A: Start of a dogwatch (FOUR PM) — is this related to "bells," i.e. metaphors for telling time in the Navy? Turns out, yes, sort of. "Dogwatch" = work shift, half the length of a regular watch (2 as opp. to 4 hours). Interesting info about etymology (related to Sirius? evolved from "dodging the watch?") here.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Red wear for Speedy Gonzales / SAT 2-5-11 / Sack starter / Ohio town where there's happiness/ Band self-titled 1982 album #1 nine weeks

Constructor: Mark Diehl

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none


Word of the Day: Allan DWAN (29A: Allan who directed "Sands of Iwo Jima") —

Allan Dwan (April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter. [...] After making a series of westerns and comedies, Dwan directed fellow Canadian Mary Pickford in several very successful movies as well as her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, notably in the acclaimed 1922 Robin Hood. // Following the introduction of the talkies, in 1937 he directed child-star Shirley Temple in Heidi and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm the following year. // Over his long and successful career spanning over 50 years, he directed over 400 motion pictures, many of them highly acclaimed, such as the 1949 box office smash, Sands of Iwo Jima. He directed his last movie in 1961. (wikipedia)

• • •

Pretty much an exemplar of Saturday puzzleness. Right over the plate. Saturday in every way. A very typical and pretty good Saturday puzzle. What to say, what to say? I realized today that I think in Saturday—I mean, my crossword brain is most comfortable in Saturday mode. It's not that I think Saturdays are easier than other days. The vast majority of the time, they aren't. It's that my solver brain assumes every clue is a Saturday clue, that around every bend will be some off-kilter, punning, misdirective godknowswhatkindof clue waiting to knock me on my ass. I'm a fast solver, but pure speed — short sprints in open (Monday/Tuesday) space — will never be my strong suit. Give me some resistance, and I feel like I'm at my best. If you look back over the past, I don't know, year, maybe more, I think you'll see that the puzzles I found most vexatious (!) were not Saturdays. They were probably Thursdays and Fridays, more often than not. Puzzles that try to find a middle-ground, difficulty-wise, are horribly unpredictable, and while I might take one apart quickly, it's just as likely I'll get on the wrong side of its few tough parts and end up flailing. But on Saturday, I know I'm getting a tiger, and I'm ready. And happy. It might take me longer than any other day of the week, but it rarely rattles my confidence.

No Wow Factor with today's grid, though a couple strong answers do stand out: DREAMSVILLE (24D: Ohio town where "there's a happiness" in an old Glenn Miller song), which I love despite never having heard of it, and CEMENT SHOES (9D: Things that may be word by someone sleeping with the fishes), which is today's crown jewel, as far as I'm concerned. Biggest WTF moment for me was DWAN—a moment made even WTFier when I found out he *wasn't* Japanese [I realize there's nothing particularly Japanese about DWAN, but between the "Iwo Jima" in the clue and that never-seen-it-in-English-before amalgamation of letters, my brain jumped the Pacific ... I realize that the closest name analogue I have, Michelle KWAN, is Chinese, not Japanese, but, well, KWAN is also the name of hip-hop band from Finland so who can say, really?]. I have frowny faces next to YER (6D: Saw attachment) and KNAP (63A: Sack starter), half-words I don't care for. Then there's the ugly safety net in the far SE where ESSES crosses ASSES (52D: Zebra kin). Makes it a bit easier to fill those open corners when you put in that kind of padding. But everything else looks pretty good.



I had a Very bad start on this one. Went STEADED to ELSE to EL SOL (!?) — wrong wrong wrong. Should've been SPELLED to EENY to YACHT. Speedy Gonzales's ASCOT (28D: Red wear for Speedy Gonzales) got me headed in the right direction, as did my sense that 31A: Corn-filled state probably had to end with -NESS (HOKEYNESS). Knowing Agnes MOOREHEAD helped a lot (42A: Actress who played Endora on TV's "Bewitched"), as did knowing SHAQ was an L.S.U. alum (41D: Nickname for a noted L.S.U. grad). Got GLISSANDOS off just the "L." What!? It's true (58A: Dramatic piano effects). Surreal to see me flex some musical muscle, but whoomp there it is. Ended up in the NW, which I found toughest, though looking at it now, I'm not exactly sure why.

Bullets:

• 34A: Mineral in the form of quartz or flint (SILEX) — barely know this word, and then only from xwords. Just needed that terminal "X" to knock SILEX off.
  
• 36A: South-central U.S. city named for a woman in English Literature (ENID) — I thought ENID was named for the first postmaster's daughter or something like that. Man, what city was that? Someone out there must have done the crossword with the clue I'm talking about ... help me out.
  
• 57A: Band whose self-titled 1982 album was #1 for nine weeks (ASIA) — I'm just the right age for this one. 1982 is probably the most important year in the history of my musical consciousness, in that it's the first year I had one (of my own — before that, my tastes derived almost completely from my parents, who thankfully didn't have terrible taste)

• 33D: Korean-made sedan since 2001 (KIA OPTIMA) — not many answers are going to give you the letter string "IAO" (OK, there's CIAO, but not much else).
• 55D: Alcopop brand (ZIMA) — do people really drink that? I'd sooner eat at Applebee's.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

"Pret-a-Porter" actress / SAT 1-1-11 / Where the biblical lost tribes were held captive / Area where blood vessels enter an organ / Drawn-out chemical

Constructor: Mark Diehl

Relative difficulty: Medium


THEME: None

Word of the Day: SALADIN (41D: Sultan who captured Jerusalem in 1187) —

Saladin was a Kurdish Muslim who became the first Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt and Syria and led Islamic opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant. At the height of his power, he ruled over Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz, and Yemen. He led the Muslims against the Crusaders and eventually recaptured Palestine from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem after his victory in the Battle of Hattin. His chivalrous behavior was noted by Christian chroniclers, and despite being the nemesis of the Crusaders he won the respect of many of them, including Richard the Lionheart. Rather than becoming a hated figure in Europe, he became a celebrated example of the principles of chivalry. (Wikipedia)

• • •

Well hi there! And Happy New Year! Bet you didn't think you'd be seeing PuzzleGirl again so soon, did you? Neither did I. It's a long story and it's not very interesting so I won't bore you with it. I'll just say that it involves Rex becoming unsure about which day it was yesterday. It actually sounded a little like some kind of alcohol-induced confusion but I don't really have anything to base that on. Total speculation. Absolutely no facts. Nothing at all to indicate that Rex was actually drunk yesterday when he forgot what day it was. I mean I'm sure there are many other reasons a person would be confused about what day it is. Even a person who's drinking! I mean, just because a person is drinking doesn't mean that's the reason they can't remember stuff. Ya know what? Again, this is a completely unfounded rumor — the one about how Rex was drunk and couldn't blog today — so we really shouldn't even be talking about it. Just forget I said anything.

This is going to be a quick write-up because, well, you know, it's New Year's Eve and all. Plus I figure you all are hungover today and probably can't solve the puzzle, much less read some crazy lady running her mouth about it. This New Year's Eve is actually kind of interesting. PuzzleSon, our 6th grader, is at a New Year's Eve party put on by the county at a community rec center. PuzzleHusband dropped him off there at 8:00 and will pick him up at 1:00. That's right. 1:00 A.M. My baby is out there doing God only knows what and we won't see him until practically the middle of the night. It's a little unnerving. Sure, the people running the party were all wearing bright green "STAFF" shirts, and there were two cops at the door, and parents will be required to show I.D. to pick up their kids, but just because the people putting on the party have done every single thing they can do to calm the fears of the overprotective high-strung North Arlington parents doesn't mean that something TERRIBLE WON'T HAPPEN TO MY BABY! I mean they CAN'T ANTICIPATE EVERY POSSIBLE PROBLEM! ::deep cleansing breaths:: Oh man, teenage years are gonna be rough on the Mommy in this house. ::in with the good air, out with the bad air:: Tell ya what — let's talk about the puzzle.

I really enjoyed this one. I plunked in MR. ROBOTO with no crosses whatsoever and felt like I was off to the races. That southwest corner fell pretty easily and that's probably why I have an overall positive feeling about the puzzle. It was so nice and Scrabbly down there! I did run into a little trouble when I plopped in BALE OF HAY where BANJO PICK was supposed to go (55A: Barn dance accessory), but that didn't take long to straighten out. I knew LOKI was right for 59A: Mythological trickster who was punished by being held to a rock, so even though I wasn't entirely sure what 52D would be, I was pretty sure it wouldn't be *FL**. Obviously, you can never be too sure, especially on a Saturday, but it felt like a wrong-wrong start, not just a not-really-wrong-but-tricky start. So I erased BALE OF HAY, caught on to JOEY right away from its clue (56D: Bouncing baby) and was excited to add that J to the U, Y, Z, X, and V already in that part of the grid. Love it!

The rest of the grid was a little tougher. I'm sure I've seen the name ANOUK AIMÉE before (16A: "Prêt-à-Porter" actress), but I have no idea who she is and it took me a lot of crosses before her name actually came into view. Once I got her in there, I thought 7D: Dingbats looked like it should be LOONEYS (which I think is actually a better answer than the correct GOONEYS), so that made LIGHT SHOWS (5A: Concert spectacles) hard to see.

Let's do a few bullets and then you can all get back to nursing your hangovers. My suggestion? Peanut butter toast and 7-Up. Or next time maybe don't drink so much.

Bullets:

• 1A: Star of India, once (SABU). I do not know what this means.

• 30A: N.Y.P.D. descriptor (FINEST).
• 32A: Cry to get 40-Across (SEND HELP). I tried NEED HELP first, which is a crappy answer. Especially cuz it's, ya know, wrong.
• 42A: "Rock Me ___" (1984 hit) (TONITE). I don't remember this song. At first I was thinking "Rock Me Amadeus," and actually the year isn't that far off (1986). "Rock Me TONITE," though, is a Billy Squier song and its Wikipedia page explains that "The video for the track …, which shows Squier dancing around a room in a pink tank top, frequently appears on 'worst music video ever' lists." Well that's something, I guess.
• 45A: Simon & Schuster's parent (CBS). I did not know that.
• 51A: Leaving lines (TA-TAS). Heh heh. You said TATAS.

• 57A: Onetime Chevy Blazer competitor (ISUZU RODEO). Have any of your ever heard Rosie Pérez say "Isuzu Trooper"? It's the funniest thing. I'm pretty sure it was on Letterman when I saw it, and it was like a real thing. Like Letterman said, "Okay, I've heard you do this before, so now, if you would, please say 'Isuzu Trooper' for this audience." And then she said it and everybody cracked up laughing. I wish I could find a clip of it. (SethG?)
• 8D: Dug in, with "down" (HUNKERED). This is an awesome, awesome word and we all should use it more often.
• 11D: Area where blood vessels enter an organ (HILUM). This was my WTF answer of the day. I'm not real good at the science-y stuff.
• 38D: Hit from the 1983 platinum album "Kilroy Was Here" (MR. ROBOTO). Don't try to act like you didn't know this was coming.




• 47D: Yanks' foes (BOSOX). I started a new job a couple weeks ago and the guy I work for is a huge baseball fan. He has season tickets to the Nats and that's his main team (he grew up in this area, so he was a Senators fan back in the day). So I cornered him one day and said, "Okay, I know you're a Nats fan, but if you had to pick: Yankees or Red Sox?" He was all, "Ohhhhh, this is a trick question. I really don't want to screw this up." Don't worry, I let him off the hook.

I'll be here tomorrow with a special guest, so come on back and check us out. It's sure to be entertaining. Oh and here's a tip for tomorrow. At the very bottom of the New York Times crossword blog, there's a note: "The Sunday crossword will be available on the Premium Crosswords page in both Across Lite and PDF format …. Three clues in the PDF and print version use foreign alphabets; the Across Lite version uses English-letter transliterations." So make sure you don't let that trip you up. See you tomorrow.

Love, PuzzleGirl

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter] [or PuzzleGirl]

Widows allowances / SAT 11-13-10 / European neolithic monument / Kitschy stuffed toys / Red cocktail for short

Constructor: Mark Diehl

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none


Word of the Day: Ehud BARAK (46D: P.M. before Sharon) —

Ehud Barak (Hebrew:, born Ehud Brog on 12 February 1942) is an Israeli politician who served as Prime Minister from 1999 until 2001. He is currently leader of the Labor Party and holds the posts of Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government. (wikipedia)

• • •

There's not a single answer in this grid that I haven't heard of (including, I think, IAN — 53A: Actor Somerhalder of "Lost"), and yet it was still pretty damned hard. That NW corner should've been easier than it was, what with COSMO (1D: Red cocktail, for short), ODES, and ATONE going straight in. But STONEHENGE wouldn't stretch far enough at 17A: European neolithic monument (STONE CIRCLE), and then I really screwed myself by seeing straight through the clue at 6D: Supermarket lines, for short but entering not UPC but ... CPU! Ugh. Had to abandon the NW and reboot in the NE via STERE and ENSUE. Had trouble over there as well, where I wanted HOSTELIER (a word I apparently made up) or HOSTESSES instead of HOSTELERS for 14D: They may take you in at night, and FIRESTONE instead of WIRESPOKE for 12D: Kind of wheel. Would've gone with JUMP ROPE at 32A: Play at recess (SKIP ROPE) were it not for the resulting terminal "J" it created at 8D: Five Norwegian kings (HARALDS). Even after I got the NE corner, I couldn't follow it down to the SE and had to reboot yet again. Somehow sussed out DEMOS at 44D: Shows at an expo — probably by just inferring the past tense suffixes on ERRED and YARDED — and then threw OPINIONATED across off just the "O" (my only real coup of the night) (57A: Like critics). Managed to fight my way through the underbrush down there, and then moved into the SW (via HIBACHI, which was obvious from its terminal "I" — 34A: Coal holder). At this point, things sped up considerably, and I (finally) blew into the NW, discovered my CPU-for-UPC error, and finished things up. Last letter was the "L" in LUTED (2D: Played some dulcet tones).

Liked the puzzle, in case that wasn't clear. SOCK MONKEYS (59A: Kitschy stuffed toys) and CLAP PUSH-UPS (1A: Calisthenics for show-offs) are (symmetrical!) winners, and everything else is very smooth. Biggest surprise—how Didi CONN spells her last name (52D: Didi of "Grease" and "Grease 2"). I wanted KAHN. Or CAHN. EYE WINK feels slightly redundant (I mean, really, what other kind of WINK am I going to give you? HAND WINK? EAR WINK?) (38D: Sign meaning "Let this be our little secret"). YARDED is probably the iffiest looking thing in the grid, and it's not so bad (31D: Penned in). Crossing an "ERR" word (ABERRANCY) with an "ERR" word (ERRED) at the "ERR" ... well, that's not great, but otherwise, a very nicely constructed puzzle.

Bullets:

• 25A: Bit of centurion gear (SANDAL) — For a while, just had the "L," and couldn't think of a thing.
  
• 36A: British form of 33-Down (SNOOKER) / 33D: See 36-Across (POOL) — One of the funniest parts of the new IFC show "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" involved a back-and-forth between Todd (David Cross) and a professional SNOOKER player over the proper pronunciation of SNOOKER. Pro ends up getting angry and beating Todd severely with a SNOOKER cue.
  
• 39A: Widows' allowances (DOWERS) — no idea why I knew this. Feels medieval.
  
• 40A: Many a character on "The Big Bang Theory" (NERD) — really enjoyed Conan's interview with actress Charlyne Yi the other night, wherein she told a hilarious story about getting hired and fired from this sitcom before it ever aired.
  
• 41A: Web site with the subheading "Merchant Services" (PAYPAL) — took me far too long, considering I'm a regular user.
  
• 52A: Air traveling over snow? (CAROL) — Oh. "Air." I see.
  
• 54A: Rental for many an apartment dweller (MINI-STORAGE) — good answer. Went looking for an actual object, not ... space.
  
• 26D: Hamilton and Hunt (LINDAS) — Two H-actresses. Nice touch.
  
• 55D: Word accompanying "Much," "Little" and "Late" in a 1978 #1 hit (TOO) — whoa, serious childhood flashback. Very memorable song ... from the summer my parents got divorced; coincidentally, that's the summer I really started listening to the radio. In earnest. Kind of obsessively. I know Top 40 songs from the late '70s very, very, scarily well.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. Happy Birthday to my mom! (and, coincidentally, crossword constructor Natan Last)