Royal attendant in Gilbert and Sullivan operetta / MON 10-18-10 / Wild-riding squire of Wind in Willows / Nintendo product for gym-averse maybe

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Famous Lady Abodes — two-word phrases describing a type of dwelling, where the first word also happens to be a famous woman's name...


Word of the Day: "The YEOMAN of the Guard" (11D: Royal attendant in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta) —

The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances. This was the eleventh collaboration of fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan. // The opera is set in the Tower of London, during the 16th century, and is the darkest, and perhaps most emotionally engaging, of the Savoy Operas, ending with a broken-hearted main character and two very reluctant engagements, rather than the usual numerous marriages. The libretto does contain considerable humour, including a lot of pun-laden one-liners, but Gilbert's trademark satire and topsy-turvy plot complications are subdued in comparison with the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The dialogue, though in prose, is quasi-Shakespearian, or early modern English, in style. (wikipedia)

• • •

Three actresses ... and a singer. O ... K. I guess that works, somehow. Don't like any of the theme answers except FOSTER HOME. Do like the biggish NW and SE corners, and (especially) WII FIT (46D: Nintendo product for the gym-averse, maybe). Might be weird to call a puzzle I finished in 3:10 "Medium-Challenging," but between the "?"-style cluing and the not-at-all-Monday cluing on YEOMAN, this puzzle seems at least slightly more difficult than your average Monday fare.

Super-busy this week (more busy than I've been in a long, long time), so write-ups will be brief for the near future (unless I get someone to cover for me this weekend, which is likely, given that I'll be out of town for a speaking engagement). November is looking for very good for me, but until then, yeesh. It's as if I work for a living, all of a sudden.

Theme answers:

• 18A: Where Jodie lives? (FOSTER HOME)
  
• 24A: With 53-Across, where Victoria lives? (PRINCIPAL RESIDENCE) — since "Dallas" isn't on the air any more, allow me to say, for all the young people out there, that Victoria PRINCIPAL used to be somebody. I swear. You may know her nowadays from some kind of skin care thing she sells on infomercials. Is that right? I feel like I've seen her on one of those. . . or maybe I just imagined that I did because she has a series of beauty / health / skin care books that (like this puzzle) pun on her last name.
  
• 37A: Where Donna lives? (SUMMER PLACE)
  
• 59A: Where Sally lives? (FIELD HOUSE)
  

[one of the many paperbacks I'll be talking about at Hofstra this Friday]

Donna Summer played here at the university earlier this semester. I enjoy her music a lot, but do not believe I would enjoy seeing her in concert now. I would enjoy seeing Gladys Knight, though, so if anyone wants to be my sugardaddy/momma and take me to Vegas to see her, I'm available (pending wife's approval).



Bullets:

• 49D: Wild-riding squire of "The Wind in the Willows" (MR. TOAD) — I do appreciate the imaginative cluing on this one, and throughout the puzzle in general.
  
• 58A: Multigenerational stories (SAGAS) — Weird. SAGA was clued via "Twilight" yesterday, and ... that series is not (from my limited knowledge) really "multigenerational." Although there are parents and their children in it, but if that's the only criterion, then virtually everything ever written in a "SAGA." I think "Dallas" was a SAGA, for sure. Also, Dallas lost to Minnesota yesterday. Good times (which, like "Dallas," was a '70s TV show).
  
• 44D: Former Web reference from Microsoft (ENCARTA) — I don't think I knew it was "former." It appears still to exist in some form.
  
• 10A: Dame Hess at a piano (MYRA) — know her only from xwords; for some reason, "Dame so-and-so" always makes me imagine the wealthy dowager from Marx Bros. movies or "Simpsons" parodies thereof. Unless I know the "Dame" in question — like Edna or Judi Dench.
  

Off to bed. 8 hours of yoga this weekend has left me a little ... sore. But happy. If you live in the Denver area and are at all interested in yoga, I can now Highly recommend that you seek out Julieta Claire as a yoga instructor, as she is Fantastic. OK, back to crosswords.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]