Sed quencher / THU 6-21-12 / Dawson's Creek girl / Mongolian dwellings / Weird Al specialty / 1956 million-selling album / Fish whose name comes from Old English for spear

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Constructor: Caleb Emmons

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Clue numbers are part of six answers — Note: "Parts of six answers have been entered in the grid for you."

Word of the Day: TESSERAE (44A: Mosaic squares) —

n., pl., tes·ser·ae (tĕs'ə-rē').
One of the small squares of stone or glass used in making mosaic patterns.


[Latin, from Greek, neuter of tesseres, variant of tessares, four.]

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/tessera#ixzz1yOLZAUII

• • •
Bad luck today. I just did this puzzle—a much tougher and more entertaining version of it, anyway. If you do Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest (and why don't you?), then you did it too (see here). This coincidence is no one's fault. Gaffney tells me BEQ did the same theme back in 2009, but you have to give constructors a little slack. It's sometimes hard to find out if your idea has been done before, especially if it hasn't been in a major publication (something in the cruciverb database). As I say, this is just bad luck. Mainly for me. I like this theme idea. If I'd never seen it before, I'd think it was clever. I don't think the puzzle needed a note. It's Thursday—if I can sniff out a rebus (and I can), then I can figure out what's going on with the clue numbers. Because the gimmick was transparent, and the cluing Tuesday-easy, I finished with my fastest Thursday time in several months. The only problem I had was in the SE. Jack Benny!?!? Wow, there's a bone for ... someone. Not me. Even if I'd realized it was part of the theme (I didn't), I still would have had trouble. Waaaaaaaaay before my time. "21 JUMP STREET"—now *that*'s my time (a movie version of the show came out earlier this year). Only other hiccup, besides that SE corner, was understanding what the hell 11D: Sed quencher meant. I'm guess "Sed" = "thirst" in Spanish (?). Like Jack Benny, Sed was beyond my ken. But none of this mattered much. Clever idea, so-so execution. Now go join the throng of Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest (MGWCC) solvers already.

Theme answers:

• 4D: Apocalyptic figures (4 HORSEMEN)
• 19D: A dystopian novel (19 EIGHTY-FOUR) — slightly awkward numbers-to-letters shift
• 21D: 1980s-'90s police drama (21 JUMP STREET)
• 39D: Like Jack Benny, as he always said (39 YEARS OLD)
• 18A: Standard golf outing (18 HOLE ROUND) — "HOLE ROUND" was not at all intuitive to me. I got HOLE easily, but then ... ? 
• 57A: Heinz offering (57 VARIETIES)

Bullets:

• 21A: "Dawson's Creek" girl (JEN) — played by 3-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams
• 52A: Fish whose name comes from the Old English for "spear" (GAR) — One of my sweet spots is the intersection of Old English and crosswordese, so this was no trouble.
• 59A: Weird All Yankovic specialty (POLKA) — wanted SPOOF at first.

• 62A: 1956 million-selling album ("ELVIS") — ALVA got me "ELVIS," which is how I dug myself out of the SE corner.
• 28D: Mongolian dwellings (YURTS) — as I'm sure I've said before, my sister's super-crunchy college had a central meeting space called "The Yurt." I don't think it resembled a Mongolian dwelling in the slightest, but I could be wrong.
• 52D: Many a Comicon attendee (GEEK) — this puzzle speaks truth. In case you somehow don't know, there are tons of "Comicons" all over the country—comic book conventions that draw the whole world of scifi / superhero / supernatural / comic art geekery into their orbit. Daughter and I keep talking about going to one, but haven't yet got there. I am a very half-assed comic book geek.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld