Tiered Eastern temple / TUE 8-15-17 / Rousing audience response informally / Pageant title since 1983 / Multiple jobs metahporically

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Collection agency — All theme clues follow pattern [___ collector?], where the clue phrase is a familiar one, but the answer reimagines the meaning of "___":

Theme answers:

• 18A: Stamp collector? (PASSPORT)
• 28A: Record collector? (GUINNESS BOOK)
• 45A: Bill collector? (CASH REGISTER)
• 57A: Shell collector? (PASTA BAR) 

Word of the Day: TOOTLE (43A: Play a fife) —

verb

verb: tootle; 3rd person present: tootles; past tense: tootled; past participle: tootled; gerund or present participle: tootling

1. 1.

   casually make a series of sounds on a horn, trumpet, or similar instrument.

   
   

   "he tootled on the horn"
2. 2.

   informal

   go or travel in a leisurely way.

   
   

   "they were tootling along the coast" (google)

• • •

I think this works, at least at the most basic level. All the clues take familiar phrases and reorient the meaning of the thing being "collected"—so, not postage stamps but ink stamps in a PASSPORT; not vinyl records but record-setting accomplishments; etc. So it's passable. That said, GUINNESS BOOK really really really doesn't stand alone well at all. It's kind of meaningless without "of World Records" after it. Looks like the official title of the organization is just Guinness World Records (no book needed). So I'm highly dubious that GUINNESS BOOK, on its own, is a thing. The other themers are things, though there was a wide variety of negative responses to PASTA BAR on Crossword Twitter last night, ranging from "What is a PASTA BAR?" to "How many kinds of 'shells' are there, really?" (The clue was pretty forced)

Yesterday felt slowish but was pretty fast. Today felt fast but was just normal. Wrote in MISS AMERICA before MISS TEEN USA (date in the clue means MISS AMERICA was clearly wrong, but I saw "Pageant" and I had MISS and my brain just reacted). I read "happy" instead of "unhappy" at 34D: Final and unhappy outcome, so despite my having END, BITTER didn't fly right in there. Had an odd lot of trouble getting / understanding 19D: Word after mountain or before season (PEAK). I am notoriously bad at the before / after stuff. Just terrible. I had the PEA- and still no idea. That's how bad I am.


Theme is pretty light today, so there's room for some nice longer answers, and the overall quality of the fill isn't too bad. Not good, but not irksome. Happy to give this one a highly-qualified thumbs-up.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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