Columnist graphic novelist Jonathan / SAT 8-7-10 / GIF JPEG alternative / Longtime Column One printer / * Column concrete filled steel cylinder

Constructor: Joe Krozel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: None

Word of the Day: TRANSMIGRATIONS (12D: Souls' post-death passages) —

Reincarnation is believed to occur when the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, comes back to Earth in a newborn body. This phenomenon is also known as transmigration of the soul.

• • •

The very first answer Rex filled in was SERAPES (7D: Ranchero dressing?) I know this because, after checking in with me by email to see if I was all set to fill the Saturday slot, he told me. Then he listed the rest of his gimmes (AMES, KID IS, ENYA), and would no doubt have gone on to further dissect the puzzle had I not told him to stop the backseat blogging and get some rest. (He has a cold.)

I do agree with him, though, that the puzzle was a relatively easy one. It would have been easier still if I hadn't jumped straight in with "macho" where I should have put MANLY (28D: Oozing testosterone). But even with the middle all messed up, I was able to blow through the right half of the puzzle just working from BITMAP (26A: GIF or JPEG alternative, which seems like it might not be entirely fairly clued) and KASEM (23A: Big name in top 40 countdowns.) The left side was another story.

I felt certain that AGE MATES (24A: Contemporaries) could not be a real word; according to Google, it's really only academic journals that think it is. It didn't help that it crossed with EREMITES (6D: Many ascetics), which is, by contrast, a beautiful word--only I'd never heard it before. I didn't know who Veronica HAMEL (22D: Five-time "Hill Street Blues" Emmy nominee) was, either, and my Aramaic must be getting rusty, because TEKEL (31A: Bit of Biblical "writing on the wall") also escaped me. In a dramatic reversal of the way I usually get through these things, it was defeating the 15-letter words that helped me through the shorter crosses.

From a technical perspective, I was tremendously impressed by this grid. But the thing about packing eight 15-letter words into a single puzzle--I say this like I do it all the time, which is a dirty lie--is that there are bound to be some compromises. (The answer ACCUSAL [1D: Charge] springs to mind.) And while all of the compromises were, strictly speaking, above board, some of the answers felt a little tenuous: ONE REEL (34D: Length of some shorts), for example, is perfectly good English, but it's not exactly a phrase.

Still, what the fill lacked in verve, it made up for in sabor Latino. (In case you don't speak Spanish, which you would really have had to if you were going to come up with ESTAMPA [14D: Imprint: Sp.], that means "Latin flavor.") We're talking Mario Vargas LLOSA sipping on MADEIRA on a MARTES (37D: Tuesday in Tijuana), watching the ladies swish by in their aforementioned SERAPES.

Bullets:

• 15A: Some literati ( CULTURE VULTURES ) — Nice, meaty answer.
• 36A: They're often screened ( CALLS ) — While I still thought MANLY was "macho," I managed to convince myself that the answer to this clue was "baths." Wishful crossword thinking is a powerful force.
• 37A: Jazz flutist Herbie ( MANN ) — Makes a change from Thomas, Horace and Aimee.
• 39A: ___ column (concrete-filled steel cylinder) ( LALLY ) — Had anybody heard of this? I certainly hadn't.
• 41A: "This one's incredible!" ( IT'S A LULU ) — A strangely imprecise clue for an already obscure answer.

• 44A: Aid in understanding some old pictures ( THE ROSETTA STONE ) — There's something unintentionally hilarious about this clue; it sounds like something a jaded archaeologist might say. The definite article is a bit naughty, though.
• 2D: One making a special delivery? ( SURROGATE MOTHER ) — Cute and easy. This was my lifeline in the left half of the puzzle.
• 3D: Host's invitation ( PLEASE TAKE A SEAT ) — The phrasing of this clue all but guaranteed that the first word of the answer would be "please."
• 13D: It's better than life ( TEN YEAR SENTENCE ) — It's better than death by GAROTTE, too--Spain's official method of execution until 1978, and a morbidly amusing cross.
• 31D: "Bewitched" Spinoff ( TABITHA ) — Began airing the same year the garotte was abolished, and didn't last long. Spinoffs never seem to survive past the first season, and yet TV producers keep making them.

And now for the obligatory Billie Jean video, but not as you know it.

Signed, Michele Humes, One-Night Monarch of Crossworld

[Follow Michele on Twitter]