Darkish European thrush / TUE 11-1-22 / Large identify in water purification / On-demand digital video model / Russian waterway famed for its sturgeon fishery / Sixties movie villain with prosthetic steel fingers / Candy sweetheart in a barbershop quartet commonplace

Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative problem: Medium-Difficult (***for a Tuesday***)

THEME: LINKING VERB (59A: Grammatical connector like “is” or “appear” … or a connector discovered actually in 16-, 24-, 35- and 49-Throughout) — the letter string “VERB” may be discovered contained in the theme solutions, “linking” the primary phrase within the reply to the second phrase within the reply:

Theme solutions:

NEVER BETTER (16A: Upbeat response to “How are you?”)
RIVER BASIN (24A: Central Brazil, for the Amazon)
COVER BAND (35A: Musical group that does not play unique songs)
OVER BUDGET (49A: Costlier than projected)

Phrase of the Day: ECOLAB (28D: Large identify in water purification) —

Ecolab Inc. is an American company that’s headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It develops and provides providers, know-how and methods focusing on remedy, purification, cleansing and hygiene of water in vast number of purposes. It helps organizations, each in non-public in addition to public market deal with their water, not just for consuming straight, but in addition to be used in meals, healthcare, hospitality associated security and business. Based as Economics Laboratory in 1923 by Merritt J. Osborn, it was ultimately renamed “Ecolab” in 1986. (wikipedia)

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Hey, it is a fairly good theme. Now take actually each single reply that’s not a theme reply out of this puzzle and begin over. Please. I am begging you. The fill on this one was so tough, so old school and off, so head-shakingly unsmooth, that I do not know why …. I do not know the way … I do not … know. The purple lights and alarms went off very, very early once I realized (with a begin) that I used to be seeing MERL on a Monday. Just like the canary within the coal mine, the MERL is a harbinger of doom, particularly the type of doom that befalls you if you wander innocently right into a Monday puzzle and get buried beneath a mountain of crosswordese and previous world fill. I could have actually stated “uh oh” once I hit MERL. Then ADELE … crossed the “barbershop quartet” ADELINE … which looks as if numerous ADEL-action, particularly for crossing solutions, however OK, you make it out of the NW alive, high-quality. Perhaps issues enhance. However they don’t. ACTIV TRE OER … and on a regular basis, you are getting what looks like a heightened variety of cutesy “?” thrown at you (17D: Frequent flier? 7D: Espresso within the milky manner? 27A: Slept soundly?). You actually ought to earn that cutesiness. In a clean grid, high-quality. In a mirthless, olden grid, the “?” are much less welcome. As for the fill … it will get worse. O’ER / ORE pair is unwelcome however appears to be like innocent and quaint subsequent to the *crossing* EERIE / ERIE pair. How in … why … why does nobody balk at that, at any stage of the puzzle-making? Baffling. “IT” is right here, twice. The right noun “I” is right here, twice. Even the appropriate stuff within the grid is fairly commonplace and off (TEL OGLED (ugh) IRE DRNO EEO SAN ODE, these final three all stacked collectively). I do not know why better polish isn’t required of the early-week themed grids.

Then there are the solutions from outer house. First, VUDU, lol, I feel possibly I kinda heard of that? Perhaps? (36D: On-demand digital video model). I had HULU in there, as individuals use HULU, and HULU appears the extra Tuesday reply. However high-quality, positive, VUDU, no matter that’s. Transferring on, ECOLAB (28D: Large identify in water purification) “Large identify”? My dumb ass has been fixing crosswords for 30 years and usually listening to the world for chunk of that point, and but right here it’s, a Tuesday, and I get VUDU (faint bell) subsequent to ECOLAB (actually no bell in any respect), again to again, facet by facet. And it is not like ECOLAB appears to be like nice. It would not appear to be cool, imaginative fill. It appears to be like like product placement for a model with an unloveable identify. It appears to be like like But One other ECO phrase. So it is each unfamiliar (to me) and unexciting. Final and presumably least within the “what?” division was MOVIE AD (39D: Trailer in a theater), a solution that’s beautiful in its failure to acknowledge that it’s a clue, not a solution. That’s, [Movie ad] is ideal for TRAILER. The reverse, a lot a lot much less so. They’re referred to as TRAILERS. I noticed about six of them earlier than “TÁR” on Sunday. I may need accepted TEASER and even TEASER AD. Perhaps. However MOVIE AD feels so utterly tin-eared that I … am out of phrases to explain how out of tune with the editorial course of I’m at the moment. You have obtained theme. Significantly, easy idea, proper on the cash. Themers are all strong. All you have gotta do is fill a 76-word grid cleanly (and you could possibly’ve made it 78 if 76 was too onerous—nobody would’ve blinked). However as an alternative we get this. I’ve adored early-week puzzles in latest weeks, so should you wanna imagine that I am simply “being a grump” or no matter, have at it. Or you could possibly return and take a look at *these* grids and acknowledge the general high quality distinction. There’s weak stuff in each grid; I solely spend time enumerating it at size when the puzzle’s probably not giving me a lot else to do. This (intelligent) theme deserved (a lot) higher fill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I did (very a lot) like seeing [“Rumor has it…”] in a puzzle that additionally comprises ADELE. Do not know if that was an intentional little wink, or an accident, however both manner: good:

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