Early TV star with biography title Schnozzola / TUE 5-8-12 / Fearsome dino / Tree with namesake ski destination / Edvard Munch depiction

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Short of interesting — S- turned to SH- in familiar phrases, wackiness, etc.

Word of the Day: MARRYIN' SAM  —

MARRYIN' SAM is one of the few gainfully employed men in Dogpatch. A preacher who specializes in $2 weddings (but anything is negotiable) he cleans up only once a year--- during the annualSadie Hawkins Day Race, when slow-footed bachelors are dragged kicking and screaming to the alter by their respective brides-to-be. Generally, the only other time Marryin' Sam gets a gig is when a bachelor accidentally violates (or is tricked into violating) "th' code o' th' hills," whereby any man who merely kisses an unmarried woman automatically has to marry her. Marryin' Sam was prominently featured on the cover of Life magazine in 1952 when he presided over the unexpected wedding ofLi'l Abner and Daisy Mae. In the 1956 Broadway musical and 1959 Li'l Abner film adaptation the rotund Marryin' Sam was perfectly played by 5' 7" 250 pound actor Stubby Kaye. (deniskitchen)

• • •

I have a theory: fewer solvers have heard of MARRYIN' SAM than have heard of GHOSTFACE KILLAH. My other theory—a Venn diagram of people who know one name and people who know the other will show very little overlap. Some. But not a lot. This is all to say that the only trouble I had with this grid (besides picking up the theme, which I didn't even try to do at first) occurred in the SE, where MARRYIN' SHAM runs into ACCUSES (47D: Charges in court). I had ALLEGES. This necessitated some erasing. Otherwise, pretty straightforward stuff. Obviously I've never heard of Marryin' Sam. Thankfully, all the crosses were highly gettable, so ... here we are. Another Tuesday done. I've seen better. I've seen worse.



Theme answers:

• 17A: Winner of a pea-preparing contest? (BEST SHELLER)
• 28A: Lotharios' lines in a singles bar? (PICK-UP SHTICKS) — Best in Sow
• 48A: One preparing corn for long hours? (ALL-DAY SHUCKER) — odd that two of these SH- words mean "one who removes the outer layer from" something.
• 62A: Phony wedding? (MARRYIN' SHAM)

This puzzle skews slightly older, much older than yesterday's puzzle (see DURANTE and MACY'S (as clued)) (39A: Early TV star with a biography titles "Schnozzola" + 46A: Store featured in "Miracle on 34th Street"). But everything here (except the olde-timey MARRYIN' S*AM) is well within general crossword solver knowledge. In fact, "general" is the best word I can use to describe the fill. "Basic" is another. "Familiar." I like the clue on ASPEN (71A: Tree with namesake ski destination), and the SCREAM clue is timely (the 1895 pastel sold for almost $120 million just the other day) (31D: Edvard Munch depiction), and HEROIC (10D: Valiant) and CHIVALROUS (30D: Gallant) MAKE (23D: Fabricate) a nice pair, and TREX are for kids (2D: Fearsome dino) ... Beyond that, there's not a lot to say.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Spelling clarification that Aziz might use twice / MON 4-16-12 / Common marmalade ingredient / Cartoondom's Deputy / Biblical kingdom east of Dead Sea

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Foodies — two-word idiomatic expressions for types of people, where the second word is a kind of food

Word of the Day: MATZOH (29A: Bread eaten during Passover) —

n., pl., -zos, also -zohs (müt'səz, -sōs') or -zot or -zoth (mät-sôt').
A brittle, flat piece of unleavened bread, eaten especially during Passover.

[Yiddish matse, from Hebrew maṣṣâ.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/matzo#ixzz1s9MJxvKj

• • •

This grid is great. I don't think the theme is as tight as it could be, but I also don't care. Interesting theme answers, cool long Downs, no real groaners—all the makings of a decent Monday. I object slightly to HUMAN PRETZEL, since a. it applies to very few people (primarily contortionists; b. it applies to a person only when he/she is *doing* a very particular thing (unlike all the others); c. answer relies on a *literal* connection between food and person in a way that none of the others do; d. it's got HUMAN in it, thus forcing food-human connection in a way that none of the others do. Also the clue on SWEETIE PIE is terrible. The phrase [Precious sort] implies a *kind* of person who is "precious" in the sense of having affected mannerisms. Something about "sort" just feels wrong. That phrase calls more for [Lovable person]; or else ["Sugar"] or ["Hon"] or ["Darlin'"]. I see now that "sort" is in every theme clue (ugh), so I guess if I really wanted to keep that theme link in the clues (I wouldn't), I'd've gone with [Lovable sort].


Theme answers:

• 17A: Sexy sort (STUD MUFFIN)
• 23A: Influential sort (BIG ENCHILADA)
• 39A: Amiable sort (GOOD EGG)
• 50A: Supple sort (HUMAN PRETZEL)
• 59A: Precious sort (SWEETIE PIE)

This took me slightly longer than my average Monday, but only slightly, and that slowness was largely self-inflicted. I hedged at MATZOH, thinking there might be a billion ways to spell it (there are only a couple), and then I wrote in WIPED at 37A: Tired (WEARY), mostly because that is the phrase my wife uses—so much so that it's kind of a household joke. Then (less surprisingly) I wrote in ACHE for PINE (45A: Yearn (for)). I knew that area was a wreck, so rather than try to fix it immediately, I relied on the middle and ends of the long Downs to bail me out—once I had ZEBRA and -GE RIND, the front ends were very gettable and the mistakes I'd made ironed themselves out.


Bullets:

• 1A: Yankee's crosstown rival (MET) — balked at this one. Instinctively wanted BOS or SOX because, honestly, when was the last time you could consider the METs a real "rival" to the Yankees? 2000?
• 1D: Reader's notes alongside the text (MARGINALIA) — great word. I love finding MARGINALIA in my old books. Weird to see what people think is important.
• 30D: Spelling clarification that Aziz might use twice (Z AS IN ZEBRA) — insane, and easily the best thing about the grid. Coincidentally, I had just been looking at a picture of Aziz Ansari at Coachella on Buzzfeed's Facebook page (That is a sentence that just five years ago would have made absolutely no sense to me, and probably makes only partial sense to millions of people still).
• 13D: Biblical kingdom east of the Dead Sea (MOAB) — never saw the clue. Always thought it was weird this place didn't rhyme with "lobe."
• 31D: Common marmalade ingredient (ORANGE RIND) — we've eaten our way through the chocolate chip cookies this weekend, so I might have to make do with marmalade on toast for dessert tonight. Worse things have happened.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Tiny hollow cylinder / MON 4-2-12 / Virginia site of two Civil War battles / 2009 British singing sensation Susan / Big series name in auto racing

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: PLAY / BALL (25D: With 35-Down, much-anticipated cry every April) — last words of theme answers relate to baseball

• PORCH SWING (16A: Relaxing spot on a veranda)
• SMASH HIT (23A: Huge success at the box office)
• BULL RUN (37A: Virginia site of two Civil War battles)
• MUDSLIDE (46A: Hillside threat after a heavy rain)
• PIANO SCORE (56A: Sheet music for Van Cliburn, say)

Word of the Day: TUBULE (31A: Tiny hollow cylinder) —

n.
A very small tube or tubular structure.

[Latin tubulus, diminutive of tubus, tube.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/tubule#ixzz1qq4MlsXa

• • •

TUBULE or not TUBULE? If that is the question, I'm voting not.

The MLB season officially started in March. In Japan.

It is true that my daughter started middle school this year, and she is in SIXTH GRADE (10D: Traditional start of middle school), but I don't know about this "traditional" stuff. My middle school started in seventh.

This theme feels like something from a long time ago. Can't believe a ends-of-these-phrases-relate-to-baseball theme hasn't been done a billion times before. Felt harder than normal, but my time fell almost exactly between my times for the last two Mondays, so, though it's a very small sample size, we're going with an average difficulty rating. Feelings lie. Numbers don't. The middle of this puzzle was more T/W than M. Big white space with the super-odd TUBULE and the slightly toughish BULL RUN (37A: Virginia site of two Civil War battles) and the "could-be-lotsa-things" SUBLIME (23D: Glorious). I had trouble with ANY OLD TIME (though it's now my favorite answer in the grid) (27D: "Whenever you feel like it"), and even more trouble with INDYCAR (41D: Big series name in auto racing). My brain was like "NASCAR? .... try NASCAR? ... is it NASCAR yet? ... how about iNASCAR, like ... from Apple?" Stupid brain.



Bullets:

• 6A: Girls with coming-out parties (DEBS) — because "confident and proud lesbians" was way, way too long.
• 37D: 2009 British singing sensation Susan (BOYLE) — so not my thing. I'll take AMY Winehouse (36A: Late singer Winehouse) over Susan BOYLE any day. 

• 58D: State north of La. (ARK.) — why in the world would you clue this as a state abbrev. (that nobody uses)???
• 34D: Bassoon relative (OBOE) — I'm listening to an OBOE version of Bach's "Partita in A Minor, BWV 1013" right now. Seriously. It was originally composed for flute:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld