Bob

@D You mean "jibe," In fact, you did "jive" the constructor. Delicious puzzle. Perfect for Monday.

@Barry Ancona No point, really. I just like these little redundancies that the evolution of the language has coughed up. Three of the classics in the same puzzle is kind of cool. I guy I know once told me he had just recovered from the avian bird flu.

@john ezra Since I first read that Kooser poem, it has always reminded me of Billy Collins' "A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal."

@Francis In any case, Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear was looking on.

@Anita In one of the great Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episodes, Jerry Seinfeld asks Carvey how he responds when people walk up to him on the street and beg him to reprise HW. "Not gonna do it," says Carvey.

@Nick So what does this mean apropos of your screed? I'm as not a Jew as you could find on the planet, and my first two fills were bnai (without the apostrophe, allowable according to the odd conventions of xwordworld, as opposed to "maam" in the Spelling Bee) and Eli. And do you think Francophones are over-represented, or Trekkies, perhaps? And you want to beef about product placement in the NYT? Check out the frequency of a certain salt brand in the food and cooking section recipes. I mean, salt! Maybe next it'll be a brand of air.

@Becca, v cute! BTW, the problem was that I DIDN'T go to the column. I try to avoid hints, and go to the column after I've finished the puzzle. The picture was on the puzzle page itself, where they have teasers for columns. I saw the picture and thought, "uh oh," and, sure enough, ran almost immediately into the clue for the long lower-right entry.

@Stephanie Of course. But for the elderly, a charmingly evocative 1971 movie full of wonderful now-dead actors resonates a bit more than a semi-passe 80s boy band. Try the movie if you haven't seen it.

@Steve I do indeed.

@Michael B. It's a beaut. My favorite is still "exercising" demons. This continues to get by copy editors at respectable periodicals. One of life's little pleasures.

Barry, you probably were at Three Crabs, now defunct (actually now reclaimed as a center for salmon habitat restoration). From me youth o'er the span of years to emerging old age, I ate at the Three Crabs dozens of times, more often than not the louis/louie. What's not to like about ice-cold picked crab with olives, eggs, tomatoes and greens with any kind of red dressing? Throw in a decent baguette and a good white Pinot and you've got something. From my front window, I can see the dock from which you took your Orcas ferry. If you're going to be in the neighborhood again, look me up. Sounds like you've been here more than once.

@Andrzej When charcuterie (in your sense of the word) is served with cheese, farinaceous tidbits, and condiments, it's traditionally called a charcuterie board. Using the word to mean the board has come into usage over time. Try Mount Saint Michael in Cornwall for a less hyped experience. It's a virtual duplicate. And while you're there, check out the Tate Modern in St. Ives. Altogether, Cornwall is one of my favorite places on the planet.

@CalGal Simplified Employee Pension [Plan]

@Ιασων I'm having an old friend for dinner.

@Tricia109 No offense intended. I was replying originally with a little irony because, as far down the pike as I am, I know the difference between old (!) movies and 80s bands with adaptive staying power. And there is no truer Latin motto than "de gustibus non est disputandum." (Plus I'll take the pro-Wiki side of the debate any day.)

@CRTH If "deposed" means "had her head cut off."

@Steven M. Ask the lawyers about moot court.

@sotto voce I usually start in the lower-right corner for just this reason. And I solve on a desktop. As a dyed-in-the-wool newsprint-and-pen guy for decades, I still feel old-school even online because I have a cord-attached QWERTY keyboard in front of me. It helped this time, for sure. Plus fewer typing errors in general. And I can see the puzzle.

@Heidi Fiedler I'm not sure I understand your comment. "Harrow" is a noun and a verb, as is "torment." Harrowing someone is the same as tormenting someone. Doesn't the clue "[to] Torment" mean "[to] harrow"?

@Mike You keep this up, somebody be inclined to beat the crepe out of you.

@Marshall Walthew My favorite of his is About Grace, which seldom gets attention. If you haven't read it, give it a try.

@Cindy NOAA describes Puget Sound as the Pacific waters south of the southern entrance to the Swinomish Channel (Slough), east of the western end of Deception Pass, and south of the northern entrance of Admiralty Inlet. "Salish Sea" is informal nomenclature. It would be more accurate, from a cartographer's point of view, to say that Orcas (which doesn't refer to the whales) Island is in the Strait of Georgia. I don't think the The Strait of Juan de Fuca is in Puget Sound in anyone's mind, so Puget Sound would have to be discontinuous for Orcas Island to be in it. However, we now have "Gulf of America," so who cares what the cartographers think, I guess. Here, north of both Seattle and Puget Sound, Anacortesans look out the window and see the Pacific Ocean, which makes most of us up here very happy.

@Mean Old Lady Thumbs up. Smiley face.

@Anita

@Bob T. Much of the time, they don't simply say "kosher salt," they say "kosher salt, such as Diamond Crystal."

@SP So now I have another late-in-life regret, like not finding suspenders sooner, or just getting around to making bagels. Why have I not heard this joke before? Where has it been all my life? Well, it's going to get a workout now! And it's the only clean British royal family joke I know.