Looks like … artists with famous works with the word "dream" in them? I tried to figure out what else connected everything ... but there isn't anything else. Huh. I did like that Ross chose a wide assortment of fields — poetry, writing, painting, and singing. But the theme seems awfully loose.
Really nice gridwork, with a ton of bonuses to keep up my interest. RED ALERTS, TUNA ROLL, APPLE PIE / PARADIGM, TAMARIND / FLEW SOLO, ARISTOTLE … such a wealth of great entries!
ARISTOTLE did make me pause, wondering what "dream" work he produced. (None.) Perhaps it would have been better to replace that entry with a non-person.
ROTFL = rolling on the floor laughing, BTW. I like that one a lot, but I can see how some solvers might be confused by the strange string of letters. I think solvers ought to at least be familiar with it by now, though.
The only hesitation I had was the MSDOS / MOS crossing. It came easily to me, since MSDOS was groundbreaking in operating systems, and I like MOS Def. But I've definitely heard enough complaints about MOS that I'd want all the crossings to be easy.
Overlooking that hiccup, I think Ross did a fantastic job executing on a 72-word grid. Very tough to do well, especially when your themers are awkward lengths — 12 and 14 letters (along with 13) are so frustratingly inflexible, causing all sorts of problem in grid design.
During my solve, I wanted something to better tie the themers together with a great a-ha moment. Didn't seem like there could be one … but as I was writing up this post, the company DREAMWORKS came to mind! That would have elevated this to POW! consideration!
Then I read Ross's note. D'oh!
I get that you couldn't clue the works by their full names, since you'd duplicate "dream" in the clues and in DREAMWORKS. But maybe the clues could have omitted the word "dream," replacing it with a blank? DREAMWORKS = [Movie company ... and a hint to the word missing in each of the four blanks]?
Huh. Inelegant, to say the least. I see Will's point.
But overall, I'd have gone with the inelegance, as without DREAMWORKS, the theme is too loose. Much too easy to pick some word and find four famous works of art with it in the title.