Menotti title character / WED 5-9-12 / Phoenician port / Townsman in Fiddler on Roof

Constructor: Eshan Mitra

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Get off my quays! — terminal -ACE sounds are turned into terminal -AZE sounds in familiar phrases. Wackiness ensues.

Word of the Day: JAFAR (10D: "Aladdin" villain) —

Jafar (Arabic: جعفر‎ Ǧaʿfar, Ja'far) is the main antagonist of the first two films. He is voiced byJonathan Freeman in both films and in the Kingdom Hearts series of video games. An inspiration to the character is the villain Jaffar, played by Conrad Veidt in The Thief of Bagdad, from whichAladdin borrows several character ideas and plot elements. (wikipedia)

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This is quite solid. Theme is consistent and theme answers are cute. Seems like the theme could've been extended to a Sunday-sized puzzle, but then the theme might have begun to grate at the 7th or 8th theme answer. Again I find myself without much to say. The fill is all familiar, and there is nothing particularly sparkly or dreadful. The only potential pitfalls I can see today are proper nouns, most notably JAFAR (which I forgot, never having seen the film in question) and AMAHL (which I remembered because of that one time long ago when it sunk me). The "title" of [Menotti title character] is "AMAHL and the NIGHT Visitors," only the clue couldn't tell you that because NIGHT is in the grid (with a great clue, btw—24D: Comment to one who's retiring). Besides those names, though, everything feels very common-knowledge. And if not common, crossword-common at least.


Theme answers:

• 17A: What company bosses do for employees? (SET THE PAYS)
• 23A: Best meal of a cow's life? (AMAZING GRAZE)
• 37A: Having a successful theater career? (IN THE RIGHT PLAYS)
• 45A: Guantánamo and others? (MILITARY BAYS)
• 57A: The second round of betting, for one? (POKER PHASE)

I forgot GOMEZ (12D: Mr. Addams of "The Addams Family") and JAFAR and couldn't pick up FEMA (19A: What comes as a relief?: Abbr.) at first, so that corner was the most trying (left it and came back to it at the end). Had a bit of trouble getting started since SETT-E---- and its clue (17A: What company bosses do for employees?) looked like it would be SETTLE something. Took a bit of thinking to parse that one and thus get INHUMANE coming down (5D: Barbaric). I wrote in a terminal "S" at 31A: Star followers and then later wondered what the heck GRST was at 25D: Sandpaper surface. Thought the D&D enemy at 60A: Common enemy in Dungeons & Dragons (OGRE) was ORCS, though crosses got me out of that one pretty quickly. Otherwise, besides Briticizing MITER (31D: Kind of saw), I didn't have any trouble at all. Well below my Wednesday average time.


Oh, maybe TYRE (35D: Phoenician port) was a bit thorny for some people. Probably less well known than JAFAR. I know the story of Apollonius of TYRE from ... I don't know, being a medievalist, I guess. It was just in the air. Shakespeare wrote Pericles, Prince of TYRE, and wikipedia tells me Apollonius of Tyre was a source for both Twelfth Night and Comedy of Errors as well. TYRE is also the British spelling of "tire."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld