Sunday: 44:12 (1 Google, 2 checks)

I liked this puzzle. Rex Parker HATED it. Hated it so much, he actually cheated with a "check wrong answers" 15 minutes in. I try to not do that before Thursday, but even when you know something is wrong, it can be hard to figure out exactly what so I lean on it when needed. Even my brother, who won't use Google, accepted personal wrong answer checks when he would print the puzzle at work and bring it home.

The theme of this puzzle was Magritte's "The Treachery of Images." Wait, wasn't I just raving about a puzzle like this? Yeah, it was a diagramless earlier this year. This one had circled letters that spelled "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" and when connected in that order, trace the shape of a pipe. Yeah, it had a gnarly confluence of proper names in one area, but I was able to parse it fairly (after a check) and shouldn't be that hard for a "professional" like RP. Rex also hates "notes" for a puzzle and automatically downgrades them, believing a puzzle should stand on its own merits without instructions. Well, you can't go without when you're doing something like connect the dots. And this sort of thing is HARD to construct. Building around a few long answers is not too tough, but to have that AND all these other letters that have to spell something specific and make a shape? Come on, some credit where it's due.

I will complain about this:

27-Across: N.F.L.'s Kaepernick.

RP printed a letter from an angry former xword editor "at a major publication" who thought cluing CK without mentioning Nike or his protest was inexcusable. Well, you don't have to bring Nike into it--some people really hate corporate clues, but the unfortunate fact is that Kaepernick is NOT in the N.F.L. at the moment. In fact, he's suing them for collusion blacklisting him. You don't HAVE to clue him about his protest (you don't even have to use Kaepernick, You could use Colin Powell, Colin Jost, Colin Firth), but this clue is supremely lazy and inaccurate to boot. You could clue him as GQ's Citizen of the Year 2017, or winner of Sports Illustrated's Muhammad Ali Legacy Award in 2017, or winner of Amnesty International's 2018 Ambassador of Conscience Award.