Jazz trumpeter Sandoval / THU 5-17-12 / Mr Ellington in 1977 song / 1960s teaching focus / First satellite to transmit phone call through space 1962 / Peter Annette of film / Nog flavorer

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: spelled songs — three 7-letters songs are spelled out in the grid as a succession of unchecked letters:

• DIVORCE (It's spelled out in a Tammy Wynette hit)
• RESPECT (It's spelled out in an Aretha Franklin hit)
• TROUBLE (It's spelled out in a Travis Tritt hit)

Word of the Day: IASI (50D: Former capital of Romania) —

Iași (Romanian pronunciation: [jaʃʲ]; also historically referred to as Jassy or Iassy) is one of the largest cities and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1564 to 1859, then of the United Principalities from 1859 to 1862, and the capital of Romania from 1916 to 1918.

Known as The Cultural Capital of Romania, Iași is a symbol in Romanian history. The historianNicolae Iorga said "There should be no Romanian who does not know of it". Still referred to as The Moldavian Capital, Iași is the seat of Iași County and the main economic centre of the Romanian region of Moldavia. (wikipedia)

• • •

I actually liked this theme a lot, but that doesn't mean I didn't feel the sting of dreck like ITOS (11D: Midor and Lance), ARTUROS (17A: Jazz trumpeter Sandoval and others), O'TOOLES (18A: Peter and Annette of film) (three plural names?!), ATONERS, SETTS, ENTWIST, ASSISTON (!?), ST. ELMO'S (too long for a partial) and especially IASI, which looks like something someone pulled out of the crosswordese machine when they were cleaning it. But there were several nice answer to compensate a little (i.e. NEW MATH (19A: 1960s teaching focus), SIR DUKE (34D: Mr. Ellington, in a 1977 song), EGO SURFS), and, as I say, the theme is nifty. Lots of write-overs today because of ambiguity (or bad clue reading on my part)—WENT APE for GONE APE; BEAR CUB for LION CUB; ONE IRON for TWO IRON (8D: Club not seen much nowadays); SETES for SETTS (forgot how to spell this word, which I know only from crosswords) (28D: Small paving stones); and RESHOD for RESHOE (there's the bad clue reading) (7D Do some farrier's work on). All of these mistakes were pretty easily fixed. No major hold-ups today. The SE threatened to be tough at one point, but folded after "ESO BESO" showed its hoary mane (54A: Paul Anka hit with a rhyming title). Never heard of MERIDEN (!?) (43A: Connecticut city on the Quinnipiac River) but didn't need it, as I knew all the crosses. Even the NE, with two significant write-overs, didn't put up too much fight—ONE didn't work, I switched to TWO; BEAR didn't work, I switched to LION. Easy enough. Probably the toughest part was getting started. Somehow got Lake Victoria confused with Victoria island and wanted CANADIAN at 1D: Like part of Lake Victoria (UGANDAN). Ended up having to back into that corner via RESHOE (luckily the wrong RESHOD was right in all the right places, NW corner-wise).



Bullets:

• 8A: Afghan power (TALIBAN) — the reason I changed BEAR to LION. Thanks, TALIBAN!
• 9D: Class for budding painters (ART I) — Thought answer might have something to do with flowers. It didn't. 
• 37D: Asian land where French is widely spoken (LEBANON) — always a deliberate mind%&^$ when Middle Eastern countries are clued (correctly, but no-one-would-say-that-ly) as "Asian."
• 32A: First satellite to transmit a phone call through space, 1962 (TELSTAR) — learned it from crosswords. Still sounds like a cheesy corporate name, possibly for a telecommunications giant in some dystopic future.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. For anyone with an interest in solving the puzzles from this year's Crosswords LA tournament, they're now available online at http://alexboisvert.com/xwla/. They are certified Fantastic—I test-solved all of them.

For $5, you get six tournament crosswords (by Donna Levin, Aimee Lucido & Zoe Wheeler, Todd McClary, Trip Payne, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Byron Walden), two bonus crosswords (by Andrea Carla Michaels and Doug Peterson), and a clever team game (by John Schiff). As always, proceeds from puzzle pack sales are donated to charity.

1991 Jackie Chan film / FRI 3-30-12 / Actress Watson / First name in 1970s tyranny / Tell Me More broadcaster / Pirates hangout

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EMMA Watson (13D: Actress Watson) —

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson (born 15 April 1990) is an English actress and model.

Watson rose to prominence playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series. Watson was cast as Hermione at the age of nine, having previously acted only in school plays.^[2] From 2001 to 2011, she starred in all eight Harry Potter films alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint.^[3] Watson's work on the Harry Potterseries has earned her several awards and more than £10 million.^[4] She made her modelling debut for Burberry's Autumn/Winter campaign in 2009. (wikipedia)

• • •

If I never saw another quad stack again in my life, that would be fine. Ideal. It's been done many times, and the whole set-up usually doesn't allow for very interesting fill—though this stack is not bad, by any means. In fact, this is as much as I've enjoyed a Krozel puzzle in a Long time (amazing what you can do when you're not stunting or going for a super low word-count). I think the puzzle might actually be Easy—I was somewhat faster than my average, but I see now that this puzzle is super-sized (15x16), so that makes my fast time even faster (relatively speaking). Took many of the small crosses to bring down a lot of those 15s, but in the end there were only a couple points of any significant struggle:

• Couldn't figure out 30D: Formed another congress. Had RESAT, and then REWED (stupid ETHS can be spelled EDHS, as well, hence the D/T confusion) (40A: Old English letters). Got to REMET only after I somehow figured out IMITATION BUTTER (38A: Promise, e.g.). To do that, I had to change SEWN ON to SEWN IN (22D: Like many monograms on clothing).
• My John Paul II was a POPE before he was a POLE. I can't be the only one who made that mistake. I also wrote in EPIC instead of EPOS at first (53D: "Beowulf" or "Gilgamesh").

Every other part of the grid, I moved through steadily. Stuff like DOMES and ISTH. and ARRESTEE took some pondering, but not too much. My favorite part of the grid, by far, is TRIPLE WORD SCORE (29A: Great red spot?). Great answer, even greater clue—and I despise Scrabble.



Bullets:

• 17A: Dubious claim after crying wolf ("I MEAN IT THIS TIME") — took a lot of work, esp. since I came at it backwards.
• 56A: 1991 Jackie Chan film ("OPERATION CONDOR") — Wow. Talk about your wayback machine. This is several years before Chan became a star in America.
• 61A: Megillah book (ESTHER) — "Megillah" is a new word for me. I'm guessing it's not meant to be followed by the word "Gerillah." 

• 6D: First name in 1970s tyranny (IDI) — first thing in the grid.
• 31D: N.B.A. great Thomas (ISIAH) — another significant gimme.
• 32D: Pirates' hangout (PITTSBURGH) — "Hangout"'s a bit of a stretch, but PITTSBURGH's a good-looking answer.
• 46D: Starbucks has one (AROMA) — virtually everywhere has one. :(
• 57D: "Tell Me More" broadcaster (NPR) — they really like shows with "Tell Me" in the title, apparently.
• 58D: Runner with a hood (CAR) — another semi-strained clue, but very gettable, nonetheless.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Here's a birthday / tribute puzzle for you. Warning: it revolves around the lyrics to a song. If you don't know the song, the puzzle will be doable, but at least partially mystifying. The song was very popular, so I'm hoping it resonates with at least some of you. You can get the .pdf or .puz file here (at Amy's place). And here's the SOLUTION. And (spoiler alert) here's the song it's based on.
UCanSolveThis