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Channel: Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Small vehicle on a railroad track / MON 3-4-24 / "You both swiped right!," on Tinder / Streaming service that dropped th first three letters of its name when it rebranded in 2023 / Film franchise that includes "The Avengers,""Thor" and "Iron Man," in brief

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Constructor: Samantha Podos Nowak

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)


THEME: BANANA SPLITS (35A: With 37-Across, some ice cream confections ... or a hint ot the second, fifth, eleventh and fourteenth rows of this puzzle) — the word "BANANA" is "split" across black squares four times:

Theme answers:
  • SCUBA / NANAS
  • CABANA / NAYSAYER
  • SUBURBAN / ANALOG
  • CUBAN / ANAIS 
Word of the Day: gimlet (38D: Gimlet or screwdriver = TOOL) —
a small tool with a screw point, grooved shank, and cross handle for boring holes (merriam-webster.com)
• • •

Now that I see the BANANA gag, I like the theme OK. It's a cute idea. The problem is that there's no real theme material—no theme answer, nothing holding the puzzle together but letters shared between two puzzles. The only wordplay is in the revealer. It's a virtually non-existent theme until you get the revealer. And the long answers *aren't* involved as theme answers, which makes it awkward. As I was solving, I assumed that the last Across was going to finally tell me what the theme was all about, but when I got "IT'S A MATCH," I still had no idea. Turns out, "IT'S A MATCH" isn't even theme material. It's just ... a long Across. Same with AISLE SEAT. So the puzzle is structurally interesting, but it feels oddly put together, and kind of themeless, without any of the upsides of a themeless (namely, lots of longer, sparkly fill). I concede that the concept is clever, but solving it wasn't terribly fun or satisfying. The grid is laden with overfamiliar stuff (ESL CCS AHAB YER ABA GAEL ALA NAGANO UTERO UHNO), and some of the longer fill just left me cold. Bygone names of streaming services should be scrubbed from your wordlists; I've lost count of how many HBO streaming incarnations there have been: HBOGO, HBONOW, HBOMAX (4D: Streaming service that dropped the first three letters of its name when it rebranded in 2023), and now it's just MAX. Why not throw all of them in the garbage? The first three, anyway. And never having used Tinder, "IT'S A MATCH" felt like a dead-weight phrase to me (56A: "You both swiped right!," on Tinder). I inferred it from crosses, but couldn't think of a context that would make it a worthy standalone answer. I guess that context is Tinder. OK. As I say, the puzzle just didn't resonate with me. If it meant something to you, fantastic.


The Downs-only solve was very easy up top and very hard down below. Whole banks of Downs in the bottom half of the grid were blank after my first pass. ASSIST / QUOTED / ABUSES? Nothing. HANDCAR (?) / "CAN'T BE" / BEAUT? Nothing. I stumble my way to BEAUT in a most improbable way. By guessing "UH (or UM) NO" at 55D: "Well ... I'll pass" and then guessing that a five-letter word beginning "U" and ending "O" must be UTERO, which put a "T" at the end of 50D: Real gem, and *somehow* BEAUT leapt to mind. From there I could suss out SUBURBAN and the CAR part of HAND CAR and those pesky parts finally fell, but for a bit there it looked my Downs-only efforts were gonna be a bust.


The big surprise of the day, for me, was realizing that I had no idea that "gimlet" was a TOOL. I assumed, as the clue probably assumed I'd assume, that the "gimlet" and "screwdriver" in 38D: Gimlet or screwdriver were cocktails. Bizarrely, I'd just looked up "gimlet" (the cocktail) earlier in the day, during cocktail hour with my wife (every day, five o'clock, like civilized people). I was remembering that Marlowe drank them with Terry at Victor's in Chandler's The Long Goodbye, but Marlowe insisted they had to be half Rose's and half gin, but if you've ever tried that (specifically on Marlowe's recommendation), you know it's way, way too cloying. Those proportions are horrendous. So anyway I looked up the "classic" recipe for a gimlet. I was even reading about the history of the drink and its name, and I think the damn explanation even *mentioned* that the drink might've gotten its name from some tool! Hang on, I'm going to find it. Ah, here it is—this passage from Liquor.com:
As for who first combined Rose's cordial with navy rations of gin, the story gets murkier. Many like to credit Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Desmond Gimlette, a British naval doctor, for popularizing the cocktail. Others say it was named after a tool used to bore holes on ships. Like most pre-20th-century cocktails, particularly one that comes from such a simple template—spirit, sugar, and citrus—it's hard to pin down a single point of origin. (my emph.)
Which is more improbable? That I was reading this just hours before solving today's gimlet-containing puzzle, or that my reading it helped me Absolutely Not At All? I sat there with --OL at 38D: Gimlet or screwdriver and had no idea what to do. Began suspecting I had something wrong, until the SPLITS part of BANANA SPLITS became obvious, and TOOL became inevitable. 


Big shout-out to Will Shortz, who announced yesterday (on the NPR Weekend Edition puzzler segment) that he is recovering from a stroke he suffered last month. Hopefully he's back in action soon, and next month's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament continues as scheduled, with him running the show, as usual. He's gonna get such an ovation ... :)

Take care, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Cattle-catching weapon / TUE 3-5-24 / Spring-loaded office device / Weightlifting item for a biceps routine / Flo Rida hit with the lyric "Champagne buckets still got two tears in it" / Fellow bringing a dozen roses, maybe

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Constructor: Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Easy (an undersized 14x15, so times should be fast)


THEME: THREE-HOLE PUNCH (54A: Spring-loaded office device ... or a collective hint to 16-, 26-, 34- and 41-Across)— the four theme answers could be described (respectively) as "Hole,""Hole,""Hole," and "Punch":

Theme answers:
  • LOGICAL FALLACY (16A: Flaw in an argument) ("Hole" 1)
  • EMPTY SPACE (26A: Void) ("Hole" 2)
  • PIG STY (34A: Messy living area) ("Hole" 3)
  • FRUIT DRINK (41A: Many a beverage ending in "-ade") (... and the Punch)
Word of the Day:"my b" (5D: Like "b-boy" and "my b") —
A phrase used as an abbreviation for "my bad"; utilized by a person claiming that the fault is his own, that he screwed up; commonly used in a casual environment such as when playing games with family and friends. (slang.net)
• • •

Saved by the revealer, for sure. This one was lackluster as hell until I got south of the equator and finally BARN DANCE and GO LIMP and DWEEBY gave me something to live for, and then THREE-HOLE PUNCH swooped in like "ta da!" and honestly I just like the way that answer looked, right off the bat. Had no idea what it had to do with the theme at first—ran right through it and finished up the puzzle—but I did think "now that's a proper long answer! Can't wait to see how the hell it relates to the boring answers above!" And then, once I'd finished, I went back to read the revealer clue all the way through and yes, yes, this is the stuff. This goes past corny into straight-up loopy. Most early-week themes are content to stop at corny—insipid puns and what not. But this one is like "I Have Given Your Three Holes And I Have Given You A Punch! Are You Not Pleased!? I Do Not Care, For I Am THREE-HOLE PUNCH, King Of Themes! Look On My Holes, Ye Mighty, And Despair!" Just some borderline dadaesque ridiculousness, and I am here for it. Really wish the grid had more life to it, especially up top, but themewise, THREE-HOLE PUNCH is what you call "sticking the landing." Great phrase on its own, even better revealer. Missed opportunity, though, with EMPTY SPACE: could've gone with BLANK SPACE and then tied it to TayTay / TSwizzle / Her Swiftness there at 42D: Swift to fill a concert hall? (TAYLOR):


Puzzle started inauspiciously with a small corner choked with overfamiliar short stuff, with BOLA and ANI being decidedly subpar. I should not be feeling "oof" *twice* in so small a space. Also, I just resent BOLA (1D: Cattle-catching weapon) because I always confuse it with BOLO, a mistake I made again today, which left me wondering if Inventor David Aguilar had maybe built a fully prosthetic and functional ORE out of Legos. That would've been ... something. The middle of the grid gets particularly cruddy, with three (3!) "I"s to go with the "I" we'd already seen in the aforementioned bad answer "AN I" (4D: What "their" is spelled with, but not "there" or "they're") So ... four "I"s! "I CRY,""I'M UP," and "There but for the grace of God GO I," which sounds like a particularly depressing morning litany. I'm just gonna leave to the side the fact that the puzzle also contains the Spanish word for "I" ("YO TE AMO") and the objective form of "I" ("ON ME") and would've had a fifth "I" if an alert editor hadn't finally said "enough is enough" at AMI (37A: French friend).


There weren't too many potential pitfalls today. I use a CURL BAR at the gym all the time, but have never heard anyone refer to it by name and so it took me a weird lot of crosses to finally pick up (29A: Weightlifting item for a biceps routine). I kept reading [Void] as a verb, which meant that even after I got EMPTY, the SPACE part was not obvious and took some (small amount of) time to fill in. No idea about the Flo Rida song. He is ... never going away, because of his name parts (FLO and RIDA will haunt crossword grids for some time to come), and now I see that he has at least one "hit" that is probably never going to go away either. At least I got to "hear" the colorful lyric, "Champagne buckets still got two tears in it." It's a cute way to signal that "CRY" is in the title, in case you had any trouble with the crosses, which you shouldn't have. If nothing else, the Flo Rida song led me to this line, from Melissa Maerz's review of the Flo Rida album Wild Ones, on which the song "I CRY" appears:
"Most bizarre is "I Cry", which speeds up Brenda Russell's 1988 smooth-jazz cheesefest "Piano in the Dark" until it has all the emotional heft of an LMFAO track. You couldn't program a robot to cry to it." (EW, June 29, 2012)
"All the emotional heft of an LMFAO track," LMFAO. Nice.


Guessed the KABOB spelling correctly at first pass, which is always a nice feeling (59A: Meat skewer). Spelling on that one is always slippery: aside from the relative common "KEBAB" spelling, there was also a KEBOB back in 2020, and even a KABAB back in 1988, so, you know, probably not gonna be KEBOB or KABAB, but once you know those precedents are out there, they can haunt you. Feels like a dangerous spelling trap, every time.


My daughter (Ella) was assistant production manager on Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola's dark comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln—which I'm told is fantastic (playing through May 5 at the Lortel Theater in NYC!)—and she texted us after opening night to tell us that "famous people" had been at the premiere, as well as at the opening night party. We wondered who? "Do you know AMY Sedaris?" LOL, yes, yes I do, kid (28D: Comedian Sedaris). 

[photo credit: Rebecca J. Michelson, from playbill.com]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Berth place / WED 3-6-2024 / Snack whose name comes from the Quechua for "dried meat" / Rathskeller offerings, informally

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Constructor: Brad Wiegmann

Relative difficulty: Hard :( 11:46


THEME: Famous men / numbers / letters... — The entries describe the men literally, including their letters, and the descriptions go from 1-4

Theme answers:
  • [Nicholson and Nicklaus, e.g.?] for ONE-EYED JACKS (They're both Jacks that only have one "i" in their names.)
  • [Soren Kierkegaard and Chris Isaak, e.g.?] for DOUBLE AGENTS (They're both gents that have double "a"s in their names.)
  • [Percy Bysshe Shelley and Billy Ray Cyrus, e.g.?] for THREE WISE MEN (They're both men that have three "y"s in their names.)
  • [Henry the Eighth and Hubert H. Humphrey, e.g.?] for FOUR-H LEADERS (They're both leaders that have four "h"s in their names.)

Word of the Day: ADONIS (Persephone's lover) —
The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip and died in Aphrodite's arms as she wept. His blood mingled with her tears and became the anemone flower. Aphrodite declared the Adonia festival to commemorate his tragic death, which was celebrated by women every year in midsummer. During this festival, Greek women would plant "gardens of Adonis", small pots containing fast-growing plants, which they would set on top of their houses in the hot sun. The plants would sprout, but soon wither and die. Then the women would mourn the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief. [Wiki]
• • •

Hey there, faithful solvers! Today's a Malaika MWednesday, and as always I am excited to share my thoughts and see what y'all have to say. If you'd like to get in the mood (the Malaika Mood, if you will), you can put on the same music I was listening to while I solved, which was "Bridge Over Troubled Water." More on that in the P.S. Onwards!

I really struggled with this puzzle. In retrospect, I have heard of both of the men in the first clue, but when presented with just their last names, I didn't get what I was looking for. At the next clue, I didn't know either of the men and literally sighed in a "Oh no, it's one of these puzzles," fashion. With the men in the third clue, there seemed to be more hope, but the men in the fourth clue threw me again-- I briefly got Hubert H. Humphrey confused with Hugh Hefner (yikes) and then Humbert Humbert (double yikes).



On top of that, I didn't know two of the theme entries themselves-- ONE-EYED JACKS and FOUR-H LEADERS were both new to me. The latter was incredibly hard to parse. The bottom left, where there was a pile-up of short multi-word entries (I FOLD, NO LIE, SUE ME) also caused me some problems. (I liked the food-filled corner opposite, though-- with PAPAWS, JERKY, and SALSA.)

In college sometimes I would eat jerky for dinner :)

I don't consider myself a huge stickler for parallelism in themes but here it leapt out at me-- you simply do not count by going One, Double, Three, Four! If it were entries that started with various mismatched numerical terms, like one, double, trio, quarter, I'd have less of a problem with it, although that would obviously be harder to work into the clues. The more I reflect on the cleverness of the parsing, the more this grows on me, but while solving I found it a bit of a slog, and even afterwards I wouldn't say I'm dazzled. Curious to see how you all feel!

Bullets:
  • [Rathskeller offerings, informally] for BREWSKIS— I've heard of "brewski" for beer, but always figured the plural would be "brewskies." I think this entry is supposed to be the actual German word though, not the American slang, which is hinted at by using (apparently) the German word for "bar" in the clue.
  • [Frog transformer] for KISS — I thought this was very cute :)
  • [Convex navel] for OUTIE — I cracked up laughing at using the mathematical term "convex" to describe a belly button. But, they're not wrong!!
  • [Gooey sandwiches, informally] for PBJS — Idk why but this grossed me out!! A sandwich should not be "gooey!!" Do not describe a sandwich to me as gooey!!!! 
  • [Lighthearted refrain] for TRALA — This is one of those entries that I would like to see totally phased out, along with "tec." I'd be more sympathetic if it were Captain Underpants'"tra la la" but with just two syllables it sounds so lacking.
xoxo Malaika

P.S. On Twitter, people have been discussing the prompt "thirteen albums to know me." The idea is that it's un-ordered, and off the top of your head-- don't agonize over the decision!! Here were mine, if you're interested in knowing me: 
  • Pure Heroine (Lorde)
  • Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette)
  • Let Go (Avril Lavigne)
  • Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)
  • Lemonade (Beyonce)
  • Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
  • ANTI (Rihanna)
  • SOUR (Olivia Rodrigo)
  • Speak Now (Taylor Swift)
  • Rumours (Fleetwood Mac)
  • Tapestry (Carol King)
  • Wildheart (Miguel)
  • 19 (Adele)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Modern reimagining of a Robert Frost classic / THU 3-7-24 / Culture setters? / Rapper ___ Gravy / Actor J.B. of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" / Word shortened to its last letter by texters

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Constructor: Joe O'Neill

Relative difficulty: well this is going to vary


THEME: a "modern reimagining" of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (17A: Modern reimagining of a Robert Frost classic, part 1 [followed by parts 2 through 4])—

Theme answers:
  • I KNOW WHOSE WOODS
  • THESE ARE. MY HORSE
  • IS RESTLESS. I HAVE
  • A LOT TO DO. GIDDYUP!
Here's the original poem:
Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep. (poetryfoundation.org) 
Word of the Day:
YUNG Gravy (66A: Rapper ___ Gravy) —
 

Matthew Raymond Hauri (born March 19, 1996), known professionally as Yung Gravy, is an American rapper, singer-songwriter and actor from Rochester, Minnesota. He first gained recognition for his 2017 songs "Mr. Clean" and "1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot", both of which gained traction on SoundCloudand received platinum certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). His 2022 single, "Betty (Get Money)" marked his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 30 and likewise received platinum certification.

His discography consists of one mixtape, four albums, and seven extended plays. Yung Gravy is often associated with the SoundCloud rap era as well as Canadian rapper bbno$, with whom he has released two collaborative albums. He has collaborated with artists including Lil BabyJuicy JT-Pain and Lil Wayne, as well as television personality Martha Stewart. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, this puzzle *is* exceptional, in that it's easily the worst puzzle I've done this year. Imagine writing a puzzle that a. assumes the vast majority of solvers will know this damn poem well enough to paraphrase the whole thing, b. has such a terrible, off-the-mark sense of what "modern" means (or what paraphrase entails), and c. makes zero reference to "sleep" in a poem where the speaker, famously, repeats the need for sleep at the poem's conclusion. There are four stanzas to the poem, but we get three ... sentences? Or four lines, I guess, if this is supposed to be "modern" poetry, with each line a "line," and rhyme and meter not a factor. Anyway, two whole stanzas about the horse condensed to "MY HORSE / IS RESTLESS." Brilliant. If this is "modern," why are you even on a horse in the first place?! Use the GPS on your ATV, you idiot. This puzzle manages to be an insult both to poetry and to puzzles. Guessing at the phrasing of the "modern" version was torture, in the sense of (occasionally) "hard," but primarily in the sense of "actually physically painful to accomplish because the 'poem' was so completely tin-eared." 


I liked one thing about this ... or at least respected one thing, and that's the final GIDDYUP! It's so stupid, so Not a part of the original poem, so unexpected and goofy, that I have to give it at least a golf clap. The rest of the poem was so punishing that the GIDDYUP! at the end actually managed to alleviate a bit of the pain. But then that GIDDYUP! corner was filled with YUNG (oof, kinda sorta heard the name, but still, yikes) and the dumbest clue ever on PEG, brought to you by (drumroll) the ultrastupid twin-cluing convention that I'm always saying results in at least one of the clues being bad. This is the bad clue. The clue on PEG. [Throw]? Just ... [Throw]? You can peg someone with a ball—throw it at them and hit them with it. (You can peg someone in other ways, but we'll save that discussion for ... maybe never). But just ... [Throw]? I'm sure there's a 4b. or lower dictionary definition that will support this, but when your theme already consists of you just making *&$% up, why not keep your cluing in the realm of normal human discourse? Also, is it POSH or BOSH, who can say!? (64A: "Codswallop!"). Oh, it's TOSH!? Oh ... fan *tas* tic. Total winner. Well, at least that other [Throw] clue actually worked for CAST (which provides the "T" cross on "TOSH!").


Last line of the "modern" poem was definitely the hardest to parse. A LOT TO DOGID- was making me think I had an error. "A lot to dog? A lot to do gid- ... but nothing starts with 'gid'!" Turns out I was wrong there. One thing starts with 'gid." The other trouble spot, for me, was the northern section. Just brutal clues on OCEAN (15A: "___ of wisdom" ("Dalai Lama," in translation)), CEOS (7D: Org. chart figures), RAS (!?!?!?) (8D: ___ Tafari), and MOWS (5D: Makes shorter, in a way). I wanted MACRO (5A: 14-Across subfield) but it kept "not working" (i.e. I couldn't get the crosses to work). I also had the stupid poem as reading, "I KNOW THOSE WOODS!" That didn't help. And please don't tell me "I KNOW THOSE WOODS!" is any worse than anything else in this godawful non-poem. Now I'm mad because in the original poem he only thinks he knows them. If the goal here was to get me to appreciate Robert Frost, mission f***ing accomplished. I'm now desperate for poetry. Real poetry. Anything with more grace and musicality than the "poem" in this puzzle. I'll take whatever you got. A 1984 Right Guard commercial? Sure, why not?


That's better. Faith in verse, restored! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. In addition to YUNG, I'm guessing SMOOVE is going to throw a lot of people today (30D: Actor J.B. of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"). I know the guy's name and it still took me many crosses to remember it. If you've never heard of him ... that would make the puzzle considerably harder.

P.P.S. [Culture setters?] is so bad as a clue for LABS. It's not even a pun. [Culture setters?]? Is that supposed to sound like "trendsetters"? It doesn't. And as far as the connection to LABS—"setters" is not a plausible stand-in for "settings" (which I think is what you mean? LABS are where you might find "cultures," in the bacterial sense?). Or do LABS"set" cultures? Is that the verb you use when cultivating cells? It's like this puzzle has a vendetta against language.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Hunger hyperbole / FRI 3-8-24 / World leader associated with the justicialism movement / Manette woman in A Tale of Two Cities / Needle on a thread? / Balanced, as some molecules / Flotsam once in Boston Harbor / Bread with charred brown spots / Hot rods popular in the '60s / "Herb" ... or a lead-in to herb

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Constructor: Jackson Matz

Relative difficulty: Easy Medium (started Medium, then really sped up)


THEME: none 

Word of the Day: justicialism (42D: World leader associated with the justicialism movement = PERÓN) —
Peronism
, also known as justicialism, is a labour and left-leaning Argentine political movement based on the ideas and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Peronists have won 10 out of the 14 presidential elections in which they have been allowed to run. // Ideologically populist, Peronism is widely considered to be a variant of left-wing populism, although some have described it as a Latin American form of fascism instead. Others have criticized these descriptions as too one-dimensional, as Peronism also includes many variants, including Kirchnerism and revolutionary Peronism on the left, and Federal Peronism and Orthodox Peronism on the right. Peronism is described as socialist by some political scientists, while other scholars evaluate Peronism as a paternalistic conservative ideology, with a mixture of militant labourism and traditional conservatism. However, proponents of Peronism see it as socially progressive. The main Peronist party is the Justicialist Party, whose policies have significantly varied over time and across government administrations, but have generally been described as "a vague blend of nationalism and labourism", or populism. [...] The pillars of the Peronist ideal, known as the "three flags", are social justice, economic independence, and political sovereignty. Peronism can be described as a third position ideology as it rejects both capitalism and communism. Peronism espouses corporatism and thus aims to mediate tensions between the classes of society, with the state responsible for negotiating compromise in conflicts between managers and workers.
• • •


Loved this one, except for SELF-DRIVING CARS (31A: Things going beyond your control?), which are a menace and yet another step toward humankind's complete acquiescence to, let's see, the automotive industry, big tech, A.I.—all the things entities that have made life on this planet such a glorious, non-soul-crushing experience. The Great Utopian Vision of "Convenience!" (dubious) and "Safety!" (elusive) all so we can't have basic, nice things like functional public transit (because that would be Communist and anyway I hear the subways are full of crime and we need to send in the military—all my white neighbors who don't actually live in the city are saying so!). OK, anyway, loved this puzzle, and actually, as an answer, as a term that exists and is fairly modern, SELF-DRIVING CARS is not bad. Just ... when I see the term, my brain makes a WHOOPEE CUSHION noise (13D: Butt of a joke?).


Lots of whoosh-whoosh today ... or ... more like two big Whooshes, first down the west coast, and later down the east coast, with a connecting whoosh in those damned SELF-DRIVING CARS. Love the feeling of getting a grid-spanning entry off the first few letters, and that happened ... well, every time I encountered such an entry today. "CARE TO ELABORATE?" off the CAR-, WHOOPEE CUSHION off the WHOO- (though I spelled it WHOOPIE CUSHION at first, which still looks more right to me, even though my blogging software is underlining it in "red" like "nope, buddy, it's wrong"). With the long answers in the east, I actually worked out their middles first using the crosses, everything from DEB down to HEP, but didn't even bother looking at the clues on the long answers at that point (I don't like to look until I think I've got enough crosses to give me a good chance of getting it). Oh, actually, I must've looked at 11D: Jewelry gift for a 25th anniversary because I remember writing BRACELET in and then figuring I'd just head north and fill in the NE corner to figure out what metal was involved. Anyway, I held back on the whoosh feeling until I went up and worked out that NE corner, and then wheeeeee ... down I went via "I COULD EAT A HORSE" (fun ... grim, if you think about the answer too much, but fun if you don't!). The momentum from that blasted me right through the SE corner, and that was that. Done at NAAN, wishing I could get on the ride and do it again.


The difficulty today was all in the short stuff. That LESS LAND LIFT trio made for a thorny little passage from North to West (21A: What some consume on a diet / 21D: Secure / 24D: Steal). Speaking of "trios" ... that is the word you want when speaking of the Jonas Brothers: trio. They're a trio. They're a trio far more than they are a THREESOME (15A: The Jonas Brothers, e.g.). I know, technically, trio means THREESOME, but I was disappointed that the puzzle passed up the spicier clue there, both because ... spice, who doesn't like spice!? ... and because the clue they went with is dull and inapt. I was happy today to remember things I didn't think I was going to remember. Like that a STEM is a small part of a watch (the part on the side that you pull out and twist when you want to change the time or date or whatever), and that MONACO was a very small place, and that BARN could go before "door" or "dance" (I'm usually so bad at the "word that can go before/after"-type clues, so it's stunning to me that I got one this easily, especially one so RURAL). I had a nice experience with BALLER, in that I thought "huh, B-BALLER doesn't fit ... oh wait, I think it's just ... is it? ... yes, BALLER!" Stumbling into correct answers! What a feeling!

[they're laughing at the Jonas Brothers clue]

Bullets:
  • 16A: Needle on a thread? (TROLL)— a very hard "?" clue. A TROLL is a person who tries to "needle" people in an internet thread (or, say, a comments section). Nothing makes me happier than deleting TROLLs. Every day. Pew pew! Buh-bye! Trying to stir up shit? Don't know the difference between disagreement and being a dick? See ya. Go cry "freedom of speech" to your mama, sad boy.
  • 26A: Practice squad? Abbr. (DRS.)— another hard "?" clue. Doctors often work together in orgs. called "practices," so there you go. At least I hope that's the logic. 
  • 36A: Student enrolled in courses like Contracts and Civil Procedures (ONE L) — slang for a first-year law student. Ancient Crosswordese. Stunned to see that from 1997 to 1999 (when crosswordese would've been much more rampant), ONE L made just one appearance a year. It's made two already this year (though in the last case, it was the actual theme of the puzzle, so no penalties for crosswordese were incurred). 
  • 28D: "That's what I just said!" ("JINX!") — these do not feel equivalent. You don't say "JINX!" when someone repeats what you said (which is what "just said" implies). You shout it when you say something at the same time that someone else says it. I feel like this exclamation, in some regional variants, also involves various rituals, like punching the other person in the arm, or possibly adding "you owe me a Coke!" Where am I getting that last bit from? Did we just make that up as kids? OMG there's a whole reddit thread about this, of course there's a whole reddit thread about this... The following is from user "Kelpie-Cat"
According to the OED, the first documented use of jinxing as a children's game is in 1973. An article called "The Jinx Game: A Ritualized Expression of Separation-Individuation" by Jerome D. Oremland was published that year in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Oremland describes the jinx game as "a sophisticated, stereotyped ritual". The version of the game he analyzes uses only the cry of "Jinx!" without any reference to soda or another reward. That the game may be much older is suggested by its equivalents in other linguistic environments: "Though the Game is played in a remarkably identical manner in various geographical areas, the word used to induce the spell varies widely, e.g., Israeli children shout, Ain, the Arabic word for ghost or evil eye". There is also a French variant called Chips, although it's unclear whether this is derivative of the English "jinx".
  • 29D: Good name for a last-minute planner? (EVE) — yet another "?" clue that I had no clue about. I'm not sure this is a good name for a last-minute planner. RUSH might be a better name for such a person (though why anyone would name a human being RUSH, for reasons other than spite or malice, is beyond me).
  • 34D: Pre-algebra class calculations (SLOPES)— I got this easy enough but didn't really get the "class" part. Why isn't this just [Pre-algebra calculations]? "Pre-algebra"is the class that you would be in when making such calculations, so "class" seems redundant.
  • 25A: A mover ... but not a shaker, one hopes (VAN) — does one hope that, though? Seems like some people enjoy a shaking van. Or so I read.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Widespread rumors, in a portmanteau / SAT 3-9-24 / MacGyvering / "Thanks a lot!," in intentionally butchered French / Remington of 1980s TV / Ananda Mahidol became its king at the age of 9, while living in Switzerland / Branch of causality that comes from the Greek for "study of the end" / Gem used in intaglio / They are felt every April

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Constructor: John Guzzetta

Relative difficulty: Medium (potentially skewing harder)


THEME: none 

Word of the Day: intaglio (64A: Gem used in intaglio = ONYX) —
1
a
an engraving or incised figure in stone or other hard material depressed below the surface so that an impression from the design yields an image in relief
b
the art or process of executing intaglios
c
printing (as in die stamping and gravure) done from a plate in which the image is sunk below the surface
2
something (such as a gem) carved in intaglio (merriam-webster.com)
• • •

This on has a lot of ... trying to think of a neutral term here ... energy? It's very lively. It's trying very hard to be lively. I think I half-enjoyed the liveliness. In fact, I might've more-than-half-enjoyed it, but I didn't more-than-half-enjoy the solve as a whole because some of the non-liveliness really brought me down. The proper nouns in this thing were obscure (to me), so that over and over (that is, three times, for sure) I got clues that were essentially "man's name" or "woman's name." Some TV actor, OK, once per puzzle, maybe, but today, twice!? (45A: Actor Fitch of "This Is Us" / 56D: Actress Kirke of "Mozart in the Jungle"), and then a Mr. Olympia to BOOT (!?!?). Do people really keep track of the Mr. Olympias? I mean, besides participants in the contest itself, and (presumably) avid bodybuilders? RONNIE? (4D: ___ Coleman, eight-time Mr. Olympia). Really could've used a "presidential nickname" there or something. Anyway, name, name, name, from TV show I don't watch, TV show I don't watch, competition I know nothing about. Again, I expect to get hit with one or two of these in a puzzle, but by the third I was weary. Thank god I knew AUGIE March cold, and my condolences to those who didn't. If that name may seem obscure to you, I get it, and I sympathize, but at least Saul Bellow won the dang Nobel Prize—that alone makes him far more crossworthy than non-Arnold Mr. Olympias and TV actors of probably considerable talent, but no great fame (TO DATE). OK I just discovered that NILES Fitch is a. adorable b. younger than my daughter, so I'm pro-NILES Fitch now. But while I was solving—not so much.

[NILES Fitch]

But back to the puzzle's weird high energy. Really felt like the puzzle was out here just shouting random made-up terms, or slang terms, or whatever popped into its head. "INFODEMIC!" (13A: Widespread rumors, in a portmanteau) Uh, that's ... not a thing. "NEW NORMAL!" (16A: Post-crisis baseline) Ooh, yeah, I like that, but maybe go back to normal words now? "STRIPY!" What!? I said "normal." Do you even spell STRIPY like th-? "MERCY BUCKETS!" (6D: "Thanks a lot!," in intentionally butchered French) OMG slow down ... Not sure how I feel about dopey fake Fr- "LIGHTEN UP!"You lighten up. "DIGITAL DETOX!" Yeah OK, good, now you're back on the right tr- "TAX BITES!" Huh. So not SEX BITES, then? Good to know, I thought April Fools' was getting a little kinky there. Don't love this in the plural, but- "TELEOLOGY!" (33D: Branch of causality that comes from the Greek for "study of the end") Alright, now you're speaking my language, but I don't know if it's gonna be everyone's lang- "AUGIE!" Well, yes, see my TELEOLOGY comment, above. {End scene}.


I think [MacGyvering] was my favorite part of the puzzle. I use that term all the time. Sometimes when I'm teaching. Then I have to explain the '80s to kids who have no memories of anything before the Obama Era. It's awkward. But actually "MacGyvering" seems to be a concept that has transcended its TV origins. And since I had the "JU-" in place when I looked at the clue, whoooosh, JURY-RIGGING! The puzzle had its other colorful, whooshy moment. "MERCY BUCKETS" is godawful as a phrase, please don't say it, ever ... but as a crossword answer, I have to give it points for originality. And DIGITAL DETOX is very good, very current, even if I could not for the life of me remember the word that was supposed to follow DIGITAL ("Diet? ... Fasting? ... Time out? ...") I kinda sort knew it alliterated, and that still didn't help. But when I got DETOX, I recognized its validity right away. Speaking of validity—you may be wondering how FIT is a valid answer for 33A: Meet. Yeah, I thought they were verbs too. But they're not. They're adjectives, and both mean (roughly) "proper" or "appropriate." Merriam-webster.com defines "meet" (in this sense) as "precisely adapted to a particular situation, need, or circumstance very proper." So the answer is FIT as in "fitting." That meaning of "Meet" is borderline archaic. In fact, Merriam-Webster has it as "archaic & dialectical British," so if you didn't know it, don't feel too bad


Really hate the pithy-saying-type clue, since they never compute for me until I've got nearly every cross, and today... we get two! Descartes on DOUBT (50D: "The origin of wisdom," per René Descartes) and Denis Leary on COMEDY (19A: "The ultimate form of free speech," to Denis Leary). I don't know why it's "per" René Descartes but "to" Denis Leary. Is Leary not fancy enough for a "per?" Also, why are we being told it's René Descartes? Is there some other Descartes? Jimmy Descartes? Typically, Descartes is a one-name dude. If you don't know him as Descartes, then how the hell is "René" gonna help you? 


Bullet points:
  • 52D: Asparagus, essentially (STEMS)— went with SPEAR here at first, which I'm just gonna assume was a common error
  • 27D: Concupiscent one (EROS)— I didn't know EROS himself was "concupiscent" (he's often depicted as a mischievous child or adolescent boy). I thought he just made ... you ... that way (i.e. horny) ("concupiscence" is strong desire, esp. sexual desire)
  • 2D: Reluctant to join? (INERT)— ah, chemistry jokes, who doesn't love those!? (besides me). Per wikipedia: "The noble gases (heliumneonargonkryptonxenon and radon) were previously known as 'inert gases' because of their perceived lack of participation in any chemical reactions. "
  • 10D: Pay for a crime, say (SERVE TIME) — an ordinary phrase, but for some reason I could not come up with the first word. Had TIME and after "DO TIME" I was out of ideas. SERVE TIME is rather formal. But it's not wrong.
OK, I GOTTA RUN. Coffee and cats are calling. This one was more good than bad. Irksome in parts, but enjoyable overall. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Cyrillic letter pronounced like the "zz" of "pizza" / SUN 3-10-24 / TikTok star Gray / Syrupy covering for ham / Negative Boolean operator / Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of war, takes the form of one / Letter that rhymes with the letters before and after it / Birds with deep booming calls / ___ Olution 2002 rap album

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0
Constructor: Enrique Henestroza Anguiano and Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME:"Rack 'Em Up" — Scrabble-themed puzzle where blue squares represent TRIPLE LETTER SCOREs (65A: Scrabble bonus seen six times in this puzzle), i.e. in the Across answers, you have to count that letter three times). The blue squares spell out POINTS, which is ... a Scrabble-related term (of no particular relevance to how the theme actually works): 

Theme answers:
  • IN-APP PURCHASE (22A: Extra lives or additional gems, for a freemium game)
  • "I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS NOW" (31A: "The kids these days have gotten way better than me")
  • HAWAII ISLANDERS (48A: Former minor-league team that played at Aloha Stadium)
  • CNN NEWS HEADLINE (84A: Something delivered by Jake Tapper or Anderson Cooper)
  • KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS (98A: "The English Patient" actress)
  • BUSINESS SENSE (115A: Executive's acumen)
Word of the Day: EVE (29A: "___-Olution" (2002 rap album)) —

Eve Jihan Cooper (née Jeffers; born November 10, 1978) is an American rapper, singer, and actress. Her debut studio album, Let There Be Eve...Ruff Ryders' First Lady (1999) reached number one on the Billboard 200—making her the third female rapper to accomplish this feat—and received double platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album spawned the hit singles "What Ya Want" (featuring Nokio), "Love Is Blind," and "Gotta Man." That same year, she guest featured on The RootsGrammy Award-winning single "You Got Me" as well as Missy Elliott's single "Hot Boyz," which peaked within the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100.

Eve's second studio album, Scorpion (2001) was released to similar success. Its lead single, "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" (featuring Gwen Stefani) won her and Stefani the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and an MTV Video Music Award, while peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Her third album, Eve-Olution (2002) found continued success and yielded the single "Gangsta Lovin'" (featuring Alicia Keys), which likewise peaked at number two on the chart. The album also spawned the Dr. Dre-produced single "Satisfaction," which, along with her 2007 single "Tambourine" and guest performance on City High's 2001 single "Caramel," peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. She also guest featured on Gwen Stefani's Grammy Award-nominated 2004 single "Rich Girl," which received double platinum certification by the RIAA. After parting ways with Interscope Records, Eve released her fourth studio album, Lip Lock (2013) as her first independent project.

As an actress, she starred as Terri Jones in the comedy drama films BarbershopBarbershop 2: Back in Business, and Barbershop: The Next Cut, and played the lead role of Shelley Williams on the UPNtelevision sitcom Eve. Eve also had supporting roles in the drama film The Woodsman (2004), the comedy film The Cookout (2004) and the horror film Animal (2014). From 2017 to 2020, she co-hosted the CBS Daytime talk show The Talk, where she was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Award. (wikipedia)

• • •

Scrabble themes. They ... won't go away, apparently. I don't enjoy Scrabble, but still I'm vaguely aware of how it works, and I don't quite get what "SCORE" (or "POINTS") has to do with the theme. You have to triple the blue letters in order to make sense of the Across answers in which they appear, but there's no "SCORE" involved. No scoring. Are the values of the letters involved relevant? If you triple the point values of the actual Scrabble tiles involved, do you ... get something? Do you unlock the secret of the universe? Is the total 42? The revealer clue says that TRIPLE LETTER SCORE is a "bonus seen six times in this puzzle" but I don't see the SCORE part. Seems like the clue should have a "?" on it. You mean (I think) that there's a "triple letter" involved. Maybe "SCORE" is being used very very loosely here. Like, you have to "score" the letter (i.e. "interpret" it?) as three letters. I dunno. The whole thing felt very basic, and the blue-letter revealer (POINTS) felt extremely anticlimactic. Again, maybe there is some numerological stuff going on and I'm just not seeing it because I don't play Scrabble and don't care. If that's so, I'll add something to the write-up later about how there's math I didn't get. Wouldn't be the first time I'd missed some aspect of the theme. 


I started the puzzle in Black Ink (my solving software of choice) but the notes said something about "blue squares" and I could see no blue squares in my grid, so I dutifully switched over to the NYTXW website in order to solve the puzzle. I didn't really need those blue squares—that is, the puzzle seems like it would've been easily solvable without them, but with them, it was a cinch, especially once you picked up on the gimmick. My main issue with the theme execution is how made-up some of the themers seem. HAWAII ISLANDERS? Does anyone know what that is? Who the hell knows former minor league teams that well. It was easy enough to piece together, but generally I think that if the answer wouldn't fly in a non-thematic context (and HAWAII ISLANDERS definitely wouldn't), it doesn't have much business in the puzzle as a themer either. I gave serious sideeye to "I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS NOW" as well. The "NOW" part is ... struggling. Very forced. "I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS" works great on its own. Add the "NOW" and you've got an obvious case of "I had to make this answer match the length of corresponding theme answer, for symmetry's sake." What I really wanted to write in was "I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS S***!" (mostly because that was how I was feeling as I solved yet another Scrabble-themed puzzle—live long enough, and they just keep coming at you). CNN NEWS HEADLINE also feels entirely made-up. Like, yes, that is a thing, but it's not nearly enough of a thing to be a standalone answer. I mean, by definition, the thing they say is a CNN NEWS HEADLINE because they are CNN NEWS anchors (???). Bizarre. 


Had BUSINESSSAVVY before BUSINESSSENSE and was much happier that way. SENSE was yet another anticlimactic moment. Why couldn't you make SAVVY work there. It's a much snappier word than mere SENSE. Sigh. There were some answers I did enjoy. I think KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS is the best of the themers. I enjoy her in anything I see her in, the latest thing being the Apple TV series "Slow Horses." I also like SWEET CORN and BRUSCHETTA and MAPLE GLAZE, yum. And overall, I thought the quality of the fill was pretty strong, or at least solid. I don't recall wincing very much, if at all. Oh, that clue on TSE, yipes (97A: Cyrillic letter pronounced like the "zz" of "pizza"). I might've winced at that. The most obscure clue, and you put it on the absolute worst bit of fill you've got? Why? Why would you do that? Don't put a flashing neon sign on the bad stuff. Just let people get it with the most ordinary of clues and Move Along. Cyrillic letter!? LOL, no. You've already got another foreign (Greek) letter in the grid (ETA), you don't need more.


Not many trouble spots today. Struggled with both DNA (35A: Two-million-year-old discovery in 2022 in the frozen soil of Greenland) and MOP (41A: Shaggy hairstyle), but thankfully DMITIRI Mendeleev came to the rescue. Had LEASH at 1A: New dog owner's purchase (CRATE), but discarded it as soon as I realized I couldn't get any of the crosses to work. After that, no wrong guesses that I can recall. Oh, nope, spoke too soon. I definitely had "NOT SO!" before "BUT NO!" at 11D: "Au contraire!" but BTS came to the rescue (weird how I can know virtually nothing about a band and it will still come to my rescue—solve crosswords long enough and you get very friendly with answers you actually know nothing about!) (11A: Pop group with an "army"). This puzzle added to my store of EMU lore, which is nice. They're tall, they run fast, they're from Australia, they lay big green eggs ... and they have "deep booming calls." I'm curious, now, about what that means. Let's see if we can find out ... ah, cool, here we go. And this video contains even more lore—two sets of eyelids, what!?


Speaking of birds ... check out this Sri Lankan money someone sent me earlier this year, during my annual $$$-raising week! 


I can't really spend it, but I can admire it. I wish we had birds on our money. Besides the eagle, I mean. Wait, is the eagle even on our money, or is that just the quarter? Oh yeah, there it is, right across from the loopy one-eyed pyramid on the $1 bill. 


Still, though, we can do better than an oddly splayed eagle. Realistic portraits of different birds are so much nicer than portraits of dour old white guys. And why do we still have monochrome money!? So boring. Now that no one uses cash anymore, I say it's time to mix it up. I want orange crows, blue owls, purple condors! We've had this off-green crap long enough. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Washington's official state sport since 2022 / MON 3-11-24 / Sturdy shoe, or an Irish accent / Spiral-shelled mollusk / Guide to navigating an internet resource / Beanbag-tossing sport / App craze of the early 2010s, familiarly / Mattel offering with cards for making "hilarious comparisons"

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0
Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Rachel Fabi

Relative difficulty: Easy (Easy-Medium to Medium if you were solving Downs-only, as I was)


THEME: THE HUNGER GAMES (55A: Dystopian novel/film series ... or what the answers to the starred clues are?) — games with foods in their titles:

Theme answers:
  • APPLES TO APPLES (16A: *Mattel offering with cards for making "hilarious comparisons")
  • PICKLEBALL (23A: *Washington's official state sport since 2022)
  • CORNHOLE (35A: *Beanbag-tossing sport)
  • CANDY CRUSH (46A: *App craze of the early 2010s, familiarly)
Word of the Day: APPLES TO APPLES (16A) —

Apples to Apples is a party game originally published by Out of the Box Publishing Inc., and now by Mattel. Players start with a hand of seven "red apple" cards, which feature nouns. A player is selected to be the first judge, and that judge plays a "green apple" card, which features an adjective. The round is won by playing the "red apple" card that the judge determines to be the best match for the "green apple" card. The role of the judge rotates, and the number of rounds is determined by the number of players. The game is designed for four to ten players and played for 30–75 minutes.

Apples to Apples was chosen by Mensa International in 1999 as a "Mensa Select" prizewinner, an award given to five games each year. It was also named "Party Game of the Year" in the December 1999 issue of Games magazine and received the National Parenting Center's seal of approval in May 1999. The popularity of the game led to an increased interest in similar card-matching/answer-judging party games. On September 8, 2007, Out of the Box Publishing sold the rights for Apples to Apples to Mattel. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, I know these two people. Rachel is my good friend and neighbor to the north (Syracuse!), and Rebecca is a prolific constructor Whose Puzzle (co-constructed with Adam Wagner) I Just Finished Guest-Editing for the the soon-to-be-released These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 collection! (More on that collection in this coming Sunday's blog). Nobody I know ever tells me when they have puzzles coming out, so it's always a delightful surprise. Is this the debut of PICKLEBALL!? No. That credit goes to David Steinberg, who debuted the word almost a year ago now. My primary care physician (whom I adore) is ... I wanna say state PICKLEBALL champion in her age group? I may have that wrong, but I do know that she competes For Real, and it always cheers up hypochondriacal me to hear her talk about her PICKLEBALL adventures. She's such a calm, reassuring, optimistic person, but you can tell she would kill you on the PICKLEBALL court. I just know she has a ruthless streak in her somewhere, underneath that kindly exterior. Anyway, whenever I see PICKLEBALL, I think of Dr. Yu, my doctor for 20+ years, just The Best. I've never played APPLES TO APPLES or CANDY CRUSH, but I'm aware that they exist. CORNHOLE is kind of a standard family get-together game around these parts. I haven't played in like a decade, since my kid was much much younger, and before our friends and neighbors Dave & Diane moved away (I'm sure I played it elsewhere, but my only specific memories of playing it involved playing it at their house, just around the block from us). It's fun. You throw beanbags. At a hole. Not sure where corn comes into it, but ... good times. I like that all these games are so different from one another. Digital, tabletop, court-based, backyard-based. It's kind of a leap from food to HUNGER (I kept thinking "huh, food games, wonder how they're gonna tie this all together..."), but not too big a leap. Cute theme. Thumbs up.


Downs-only would've been easier if I could've just remembered Megan RAPINOE's name. I could see her face, but then ... blank. Should've been a gimme. Wasn't. When I (finally) got it, I had a big "D'oh!" / headslap moment. But for a while there, the NW looked dicey; I had GLADES and MALT, but neither of the 7s in between. Had to wait for APPLES TO APPLES and EPIPEN to (eventually) give me the letters I needed to make sense of those longer Downs. I also struggled a bit to get the 7s in the NE. And the 6! LASTLY was oddly hard (12D: "In conclusion..."). I had ELL- in the cross at 30A and was considering only "E" or "A" as a last letter there, not "Y." Not sure I would've ever gotten ALL TALK if I hadn't had DOR-Y at 33A and reasoned (reasonably) that it had to be DORKY. That "K" made all the difference in that NE corner. Elsewhere, the only other issue I had was with 37D: Apt rhyme of "caches" (STASHES). I was hearing it as "cachets" ("cachés"?) and so wrote in SACHETS!!! But the themers eventually came along and helped me correct that error. 


OK, I gotta run along now. This Daylight Saving baloney (abolish it! Standard Time Forever!) has me behind schedule. I've got a (virtual) meeting in 25 minutes, so ... bye!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Pancakes sometimes served with caviar / TUE 3-12-24 / Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself / Fictional land ruled by Aslan / Not playing any songs, as a radio station

0
0
Constructor: Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Tuesday)


THEME: READ MUSIC (33D: Follow a composer's notation ... or a hint to interpreting four clues in this puzzle)— clues contain musical notation, specifically what appear to be notes (i.e. single letters) followed by ♭or ♯ symbols, that must be read as the [letter + "flat" (or "sharp")] in order to be understood:

Theme answers:
  • APARTMENT (17A: A♭) (i.e. a flat)
  • LIE DOWN (38A: B♭) (i.e. be flat)
  • LOOK ALIVE (63A: B♯) (i.e. be sharp)
  • TECH SAVVY (11D: E♯) (i.e. E- (electronic???) sharp)
Word of the Day: AVRIL Lavigne (31A: Rocker Lavigne) —

Avril Ramona Lavigne (/ˈævrɪl ləˈvn/ AV-ril lə-VEENFrench: [avʁil ʁamɔna laviɲ]; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop-punk music, as she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. Her accolades include eight Grammy Award nominations, among others.

At age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. It yielded the successful singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop-Punk Queen" from music publications. Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.

Lavigne's third studio album, The Best Damn Thing (2007), reached number one in seven countries worldwide and saw the international success of its lead single "Girlfriend", which became her first single to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. Her next two studio albums, Goodbye Lullaby(2011) and Avril Lavigne (2013), saw continued commercial success and were both certified gold in Canada, the United States, and other territories. After releasing her sixth studio album, Head Above Water (2019), she returned to her punk roots with her seventh studio album, Love Sux (2022). (wikipedia)

• • •

I can see why this idea would be tempting, but in practice, the results are rough. Uneven. Which I guess is what "rough" means, now that I think about it. The smallest issue I have is that Band E aren't commonly known that way. That is, a B♯ is just a C and an E♯ an F. Yes, yes, it's "more complicated than that," but tonally, they're the same. In isolation like this, they seem strange. If you wanted a specific note, you'd ask someone to play an F, not an E♯. But this isn't a problem with the theme per se, just an odd (and, to my ear, slightly annoying) little feature. The problem is ... well, there are several. First, [A♭] wants me to read the "A" as ... what, an indefinite article? But you never use indefinite articles in crossword clues. [Flat] = APARTMENT all on its own. That "A" is completely redundant. Unless ... we are supposed to (somehow?) understand the "A" as the first letter of the word, and are supposed to interpret the clue as [Word meaning "flat" that starts with "A"], which seems implausible, to say the least. If the other clues had worked that way (not a bad idea, frankly), then OK. But that is not how the other clues work. Having LOOK ALIVE as the answer for [B♯] was odd because the most common phrase anyone can make out of any of those words is LOOK SHARP. I actually wrote in LOOK SHARP, but then remembered that "flat" wasn't in any of the earlier theme answers, so "sharp" probably wasn't in this one. LOOK ALIVE! is a fine phrase, but ["Be sharp!"] doesn't sound right as an equivalent. The worst thing about the theme, though, was [E♯] = TECH SAVVY. I don't get it. That is, I guess if you really lean upon the "?" nature of the clue, you can say "E-" is like the "E-" prefix in "EMAIL" or "EBOOK," that it just refers to All Things Electronic, and so a person might who is TECH SAVVY might be said (by some overambitious quipster) to be E-SHARP. But none of the other clues have that bent quality to them—once you change the musical notation to the word "sharp" or "flat," the other theme clues are quite literal and ordinary. Whereas "E-sharp" is (afaict) a totally made-up thing. As I say, rough.


The fill is less than sterling today as well. Lots of repeaters. AÇAI AGHA ATEAT IWIN etc., the (very) worst of which is ABRA (49A: Start of a spell), a ... partial incantation (?) that absolutely positively does not want to stand on its own and always give me a nails/chalkboard feeling when I see it (which, thankfully, is rarely) (oof, not rarely enough—56 times in the Shortz Era???). Looks like ABRA is sometimes an ["East of Eden" girl] or a Pokémon. Can't say that helps. Maybe the grid really needed ABRA in order to pull off BANKSY, which is easily the most interesting thing in the grid today (50D: Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself). That whole SE corner is nice actually, from BANKSY into the old-fashioned but somehow endearing "AND HOW!" into the equally exclamatory "OY, VEY!," which slots in alongside the cleverly clued HAIKU (53D: A kind of poem / Found within this crossword clue / Serendipity) (the only problem with this clue is ... that not exactly what "Serendipity" means—there's an element of chance to "Serendipity," whereas this clue is a HAIKU by design). 


Notes:
  • 22A: "Hello," in Mandarin (NIHAO) — I was driving past a bubble tea cafe this weekend called NIHAO and actually thought to myself (possibly even said out loud to myself), "it's weird that you don't see NIHAO in the puzzle more often ..." and then Bam, here it is. That's serendipity (I think).
  • 51A: Liquid-ate? (MELT) — hmmm. I see what this clue is trying to do (emphasize the "liquid" part by breaking off the "-ate"), but the clue, as written, looks like you want an answer meaning [Ate liquid] ... so, DRANK? Something like that ...
  • 28A: Not playing any songs, as a radio station (ALL TALK) – what a dull way to clue this otherwise colorful colloquial phrase. ALL TALK is the counterpart of "no action," if it's anything. [Like someone who brags about what they're gonna do but never does it]. But this clue ... I wanted DEAD AIR.
  • 1A: Discontinue (DROP) — welcome to 1-Across, the hardest part of the puzzle for me. Why? Because I went with STOP ... And then crossed it with STAGE (1D: Field of play?). Man, did that feel right on both counts. STOP / STAGE before DROP / DRAMA absolutely gummed up the works (for fifteen seconds or so, probably, but on Tuesday, that's an eternity).
That's it. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Famed art patron Henry / WED 3-13-24 / Listing near a museum door, perhaps / N.B.A. great nicknamed "Diesel" / "O" in W.W. II radio lingo / Jeff Bridges's "Big Lebowski" stoner role, familiarly / Overhead features on sports cars / Literary character who cries "You're glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed!" / Manhattan hoops venue, in brief

0
0
Constructor: Drew Schmenner

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: FINAL FOUR (61A: March Madness component that's a phonetic hint to 18-, 23-, 38- and 50-Across)— four answers end with the sound of "-FOR" (spelled four different ways):

Theme answers:
  • SEMAPHORE (18A: Flag-waver's specialty)
  • MIXED METAPHOR (23A: "When the going gets tough, the early bird gets the worm?," e.g.)
  • CHIWETEL EJIOFOR (38A: Best Actor nominee for "12 Years a Slave")
  • AS NEVER BEFORE (50A: In an unprecedented manner)
Word of the Day: CHIWETEL EJIOFOR (38A: Best Actor nominee for "12 Years a Slave") —

Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor [...] (born 10 July 1977) is a British actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award, with nominations for an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.

After enrolling at the National Youth Theatre in 1995 and attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, at age 19 and three months into his course, Ejiofor was cast by Steven Spielberg to play a supporting role in the film Amistad (1997) as James Covey. [...] 

For 12 Years a Slave, Ejiofor received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, along with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for a 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance on Dancing on the Edge. In 2022, he played the lead role in the Showtime science fiction television series The Man Who Fell to Earth. (wikipedia)
• • •

Checked out of this one early. Very early. Right about here.


And then AGAPE in that same small corner? Nah. I don't have patience for a simple grid that is not filled more cleanly than that. Archaic song title partial + oldschool crosswordese + archaic quaint adjective ... you gotta try harder. A lot harder. This feels almost autofilled. The theme concept is fine, but it's Monday-level and ultimately kind of dull. I guess it's timely, in that March Madness starts later this month, but March Madness is frequently exciting and this ... was never that. The most "exciting" part was probably the (for me) never-not-an-adventure experience of trying to spell CHIWETEL EJIOFOR correctly. In fact, that's probably the one answer that definitively turns this would-be Monday puzzle into a Wednesday. I still think the cluing should've been eased up a little and this should've run on a Tuesday, at the latest, but shrug, it is what it is, and what it is is mainly a shrug. Disappointingly flat, for sure.


The puzzle appears to be "toughened" up, made Wednesday-worthy, but some truly awkward and occasionally inscrutable cluing. The DUO clue was bizarre (26A: What's needed for a "Who's on First?" routine), in that I just assume that the people doing the routine need something, not that ... the people themselves are needed. Also, I think one person could probably do both sides of that routine if they really wanted to, in which case you wouldn't really need a DUO at all. I also did not get the DONOR clue at all (33A: Listing near a museum door, perhaps), since "listing" made me think of a list (of multiple names?), and "museum door" evoked absolutely nothing for me. Like ... the front door? The door to a specific exhibit? The bathroom door? "Near a museum door" couldn't be more No Place if it tried. The whole museum feels like it's theoretically "near a museum door." The clue on SEA also doesn't work (44A: Whatever floats your boat!). It's trying for cute wordplay, but the clue says "Whatever" floats my boat, and the SEA is not "Whatever." It's a specific thing. Other bodies of water float boats, so the clue is invalid on its face. "Whatever," my eye. I didn't love [Web attachments?] for INSECTS, either—seemed a grim way to be wacky—but at least that one works on its surface (INSECTS do become "attached" to spiders'"webs"). ["Why are you in such a rush?"] completely fails to capture the tone and tenor of "SO SOON?" first by being a complete sentence (when "SO SOON?" is not), and then by being so painfully literal-minded and prying. There's no demand for an explanation in "SO SOON?" Also, "What are you in such a rush?" has no conversational bounce to it. Sounds like the interrogator is annoyed. Also, just because someone has to leave doesn't mean they're in a "rush." There's a reason "SO SOON?" (19 Shortz-Era appearances!) is overwhelmingly clued as ["Already?"] or ["Leaving already?"]. Those are spot-on. This clue, in trying to be "original" (I guess), just gums things up.


RARED? (53D: Stood on hind legs, with "up"RARED!? I refer you back to the first sentences of this write-up. I just can't believe the fill is so weak throughout. And isn't "RARED" just a folksy term for "reared"? Here's me searching [define rared]


I don't know what I mean, Google. I'm sorry. As clued, RARED is definitely a form of "reared," which gives you a pretty significant dupe down there at the bottom of the grid, with REARS just a few columns over (55D: Derrières). ACH ADE ODE ETH ESTEE ENSLER ONEAL OLE INRE ETUDE SERTA ... this one was really struggling to keep its head above the crosswordese water, all grid long. For a theme this simple, you need a much more polished and lively grid than what you've got here. 


Despite some sloggy cluing, there weren't any significant trouble spots today. Wrote in MIXED MESSAGES for that first themer (23A: "When the going gets tough, the early bird gets the worm?," e.g.) (a terrible example of MIXED METAPHOR, btw—the metaphor is supposed to be merely "mixed," not "intentionally and implausibly butchered for extremely low-level comedic effect"). I had some trouble getting G-FORCE (49D: Sensation on a roller coaster). Had the "G" and wanted a word that started with "G," as one might. Never considered the "G" might be a standalone letter. But none of these struggles were true struggles. Merely snags that I hit (32D), and then got past relatively quickly. Really hoping for a saucy Thursday puzzle tomorrow. Something with a little life in it, even if it ends up driving me nuts. Fingers crossed. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

Additional notes:

  • MSG = Madison Square Garden
  • Henry TATE = sugar magnate and eponym of a network of four London museums (including the TATE Modern

  • [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Origin story in Genesis 11:1-9 / THU 3-14-24 / An irrational reason to celebrate? / Geocaching necessity, in brief / Something read by a chiromancer / Carolina NHL'ers, informally / System that ended in 1917 / It may be thrown by a vaquero

    0
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    Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic

    Relative difficulty: Easy


    THEME: PI DAY (33D: An irrational reason to celebrate?) — I guess it's PI DAY? Black squares at center of grid form (roughly) the "π" symbol. There are a couple of mathematicians in here (born and died on PI DAY, respectively) and then it's all tied together by ... the dimensions of the crossword grid (?!?) (7D: First digit of this puzzle's subject whose next four digits are the number of rows and then columns of the grid) (THREE [point] "14""15") 

    Some scientists [🤷🏼‍♀️]:
    • ALBERT EINSTEIN (11D: Scientist who was notably born on 33-Down (1879)
    • STEPHEN HAWKING (3D: Scientist who notably passed away on 33-Down (2018)
    • EULER (is he part of this???) (29D: Mathematician known for the constant "e" (2.71828))
    Word of the Day: WPA (18D: New Deal org.) —

    The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.

    The WPA's first appropriation in 1935 was $4.9 billion (about $15 per person in the U.S., around 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP). Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA supplied paid jobs to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while building up the public infrastructure of the US, such as parks, schools, and roads. Most of the jobs were in construction, building more than 620,000 miles (1,000,000 km) of streets and over 10,000 bridges, in addition to many airports and much housing. In 1942, the WPA played a key role in both building and staffing internment camps to incarcerate Japanese Americans. [...] 

    In one of its most famous projects, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The five projects dedicated to these were the Federal Writers' Project (FWP), the Historical Records Survey (HRS), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Music Project (FMP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of immense importance to American history. Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States and gave more than 225,000 performances. Archaeological investigations under the WPA were influential in the rediscovery of pre-Columbian Native American cultures, and the development of professional archaeology in the US. (wikipedia)
    • • •

    [2023, co-starring ALIA Shawkat] 
    "... oh, we're doing this again?" That was my first and only reaction to this puzzle. Not sure how many PI DAY puzzles I've seen in my life. I've definitely seen two in the NYTXW alone (here, here). It's weird how many puzzlemakers like this day and think it's funny to make crossword themes about it, when it's not a day at all, nothing happens, no one cares, it's Thursday. But have fun enduring the "pie" puns! This puzzle has nothing to show us at all. A black-square picture? So what? Two scientists whose names happen to be the same length, and who (coincidentally) were born or died on this day? That's trivia. So what? What do they have to do with pi, exactly? Make "π" do something, anything! Justify this concept, please. There's no *puzzle* reason to do this, except to show us a rudimentary picture of "π." The revealer is ... THREE (!?!?!). And then you want me to be impressed by the fact that the grid is 14x15!? It's 15x15 most days. You just took a row away and you want me to, what, clap? No dice. On top of this anemic "theme," you want to give me jocular American fake-Spanish ("No BUENO") and the *&%^ing NRA? Absolutely not. What a waste of a Thursday puzzle.


    The one day the puzzle decides *not* to do the double-clue thing and it's the one day they really could've used it—you know that, in addition to the WPA, the NRA is *also* a [New Deal org.] (National Recovery Administration). No idea why constructors (editors) are still going with this garbage gun org. It's an unforced error, tonally. There's no reason to use the gun org. That corner that it's in isn't even strong. OPEN ERA? TSARISM? APSE? URSA? Try harder! Why am I having to tell the NYTXW two days in a row now to just do its job and fill grids professionally, in a reasonably pleasing way. I like THE TOWER OF BABEL (17A: Origin story in Genesis 11:1-9) and PURPLE PROSE (20A: Colorful language?) fine. If this were a themeless, and the rest of the grid were similarly bright, I would be happy. But instead I get random famous scientists and a picture of one of those plastic doohickies that keeps the pizza box from collapsing onto your pizza and then I get to count rows and columns, which are almost the same in number as they are any other day of the week. And what is with EULER? Is he thematic? The clue says he's known for a "constant" (29D: Mathematician known for the constant "e" (2.71828)) and "π" is a "constant," so I thought maybe EULER was being roped into this clown show. But then he has no symmetrical counterpart (except the great Dr. SOAMI) (28D: "Same here"). Dr. SOAMI keeps insisting that he, too, is a mathematician, but I'm not inclined to believe him.


    No trouble with this one at all except the trouble I made for myself, most notably botching the [New Deal org.]. My brain got stuck somewhere between NRA and TVA and I ended up writing in NEA, which is a teachers union, not part of the New Deal alphabet soup of orgs. That NEA kept the two long answers up top from coming into view as quickly as they should've. Stupid of me to write the org. in at all, as there are roughly 4,033 three-letter New Deal orgs. (give/take). I didn't know SWAY BAR right away (47A: Component in a car's suspension system), but that's about the only other answer I had any trouble with. Oh, except "No BUENO," which ... again, why would you do that to BUENO? (35A: "No ___" ("Unacceptable")). Unacceptable, indeed.


    Additional notes:
    • 9D: Apply, as sunscreen (RUB ON) — had PUT ON. Then DAB ON.
    • 25D: Carolina N.H.L.'ers, informally ('CANES)— as in HURRI-...
    • 32D: Starting point for a slippery slope argument (GRAY AREA)— I don't think of GRAY AREA as having any necessary, or even tight, connection with "slippery slope arguments." People just extrapolate in implausible or logically untenable or extreme ways. Don't need an area to be particularly gray in order to do this. 
    I liked how the clues leaned into cinema today (ETHAN Hawke and ALIA Shawkat and "ALIEN" and the horror film character who is home ALONE (or is she!?)). But that's small consolation today. Can we have a moratorium on PI DAY puzzles now. This one's clever revealer clue (33D: An irrational reason to celebrate?) wasn't even original (it was first used in a 2021 Robyn Weintraub puzzle). I can handle all the corny mathiness you've got if I just get something properly *puzzle*-y to work through on Thursdays. This one had zero puzzle juice. Very disappointing.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Swing-era bandleader ___ Cates / FRI 3-15-24 / Dom maker / Region of Italy that lends its name to a pepper / Words from a paper pusher? / Bill originating in Texas / Vegetable whose name comes from Igbo / Bacteriologist Walter who conducted Yellow Fever research / Fish named for a weapon / Opposite of rubicund

    0
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    Constructor: Daniel Grinberg

    Relative difficulty: Medium if you knew PHILLIS WHEATLEY, Challenging if (like me) you didn't


    THEME: none 

    Word of the Day: PHILLIS WHEATLEY (17A: "On Being Brought From Africa to America" writer, 1768) —

    Phillis Wheatley Peters, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) was an American author who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa, she was kidnapped and subsequently sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and transported to North America, where she was bought by the Wheatley family of Boston. After she learned to read and write, they encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent.

    On a 1773 trip to London with the Wheatleys' son, seeking publication of her work, Wheatley met prominent people who became her patrons. The publication in London of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on September 1, 1773, brought her fame both in England and the American colonies. Prominent figures, such as George Washington, praised her work. A few years later, African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in a poem of his own. (wikipedia)

    • • •

    [Where my brain went when asked
    for an Italian pepper]
    This is a solid grid, but the editing felt off. The biggest issue for me (in fact the only answer I really remember now) was the way the puzzle handled PHILLIS WHEATLEY. She's a worthy answer, but when you have a name that a lot of people are simply not going to know, you have to be careful how you cross it. My main gripe with crossword editors, across the board, is that they aren't careful enough with their proper nouns. No matter what sphere or time period they come from, names that are not universally famous can be dangerous—they're gimmes for some and total blanks for others, and so already have the potential to create a very divided solving experience. So it's crucial that the less famous, and the more unconventionally spelled, the name is, the more you have to ensure that every cross is fair. To be clear, I think it's great to put names in puzzles that have never been there before, names that maybe aren't household, but that are of clear historical and artistic significance, which definitely applies to PHILLIS WHEATLEY. And I have no way of knowing exactly how many people know her name, but if I, who have spent my whole life around teachers of poetry, have only a dim recollection of her name, then it seems reasonable to think that some significant number of solvers won't know her at all, and so ... crossing her with a "Swing-era bandleader" who's even *more* obscure than she is? I do not understand that decision (5D: Swing-era bandleader ___ Cates). I also don't understand putting PHILLIS WHEATLEYright next to the answer describing what she is, but giving us nothing but a crossreference clue for help (15A: 17-Across, for one). If I don't know PHILLIS WHEATLEY, then I sure as hell don't know she's a POET (I can tell she's a writer from her clue, but POET, no). Her name also crosses a region of Italy / pepper I've barely heard of (11D: Region of Italy that lends its name to a pepper), an absolutely brutal clue for AT HOME (8D: Familiar (with)), and a flat-out incorrect clue for ESP (19D: Unlikely gift)—that "gift" is not "unlikely," it's nonexistent, please stop cluing ESP like it's real. There's also the OLE / RAH dilemma up there (12D: Scream for a team), and then a clue on ROSTRA (ugly word) that had me writing in RISERS (21A: Campaign platforms, perhaps). That whole area from OPIE to CALABRIA was a Saturday+-level hornet's nest. The rest of the puzzle was pretty standard, difficulty-wise.  So you can add "unevenness" to the problems created by not handling PHILLIS WHEATLEY crosses skillfully. 


    The worst editorial decision was the absolute lie of a clue on CARELESS MISTAKE (32A: Forgetting to finish this clue, for examp). The attempted cuteness is absolutely murdered by the dishonesty. Nobody "Forgot" To Finish This Clue, It Is Unfinished By Design, There Is No Mistake At All, Let Alone A Careless One. Honestly, if you'd just changed "this" to "a," or went with something like [Forgetting to proofread a crossword clue, for exmpale?], you'd have something. But because you said "this" clue, boo, no. There are no CARELESS MISTAKEs in "this" clue. "This" clue knows exactly what it's doing, which makes the clue disingenuous, which makes it cutesy, as opposed to cute.


    The grid itself has a lot of sparkle. Not big on three EXTRAs in a row (two is the gold standard, three seems excessive) (10D: Words from a paper pusher?), and ESPRESSO MARTINIs are an abomination, but REWRITES HISTORY, HALFTIME REPORTS, those have some pop. As usual, bizspeak and commercial stuff don't do for me what they apparently do for other people, so HITRATE (27A: Proportion of customers that make a purchase, in business-speak) and UBERED (36A: Got taken for a ride, in a way) were more EWW! than OLE! for me. The clue on TAX TIP has kind of grown on me, though, in the past half hour or however long it's been since I finished solving (47A: Bit of deductive reasoning?). And I'd totally forgotten about LIV TYLER's existence, so even though I think the "LOTR" franchise is a bloated self-important mess, I enjoyed seeing her name pop up (18D: "The Lord of the Rings" actress). 


    Non-PHILLIS WHEATLEY-related trouble spots:
    • 47D: Common additive to white rice (TALC) — wow, you got me there. I had SALT. Why is there TALC in the rice? To make it whiter? Hang on ... huh. I guess it was (and in some places still is) used in processing the rice, as a preservative, though a 1981 NYT article on the subject says that "While processors say that talc helps preserve rice, consumer groups argue that the coating is merely cosmetic" (TALC + glucose somehow makes the rice look shiny). Looks like TALC is no longer a "common" additive in US rice, but some imported rices still contain it. There were health concerns about TALC as a possible risk factor for stomach cancer, but studies don't seem to have borne that out.
    • 56A: iPhone command (SYNC)— totally legit, but because of the TALC fiasco ... I wanted SEND, but then I had SALT instead of TALC, so I went with SENT (!?!), which is not a "command," so I just had holes down there for a while: S-N- for SYNC and -AL- for TALC.
    • 49D: *grimaces, sticks out tongue* ("EWW!")— tried recreating this face as I was solving, in hopes that it would lead me to some kind of feeling, but it didn't help. Also, I had MELTS instead of WILTS (52A: Can't stand the heat, say), so my first thought for this "grimace" was OMG, which seemed (and WAS) wrong.
    • 22A: Ground rule? (NO TV)JEEZ, that is a stttrreettcchh, and absurdly hard to boot (I guess the idea is that when you are "grounded" you might be subject to the "rule""NO TV!"). If you want to put a "?" clue on otherwise bad short fill, it's really gotta land.
    • 29A: More trifling (MERER)— how would you even use this "word"? A comparative adjective? No. I got a bunch of crosses and then considered this "word" but then laughed at the idea because of how much of a non-word MERER is. Then it ended up being correct. MERER MERER on the wall, what's the dumbest answer of all? MERER ERSE is not a place I'd willingly revisit.
    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. another editing issue


    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    First part of an ancient Greek ode / SAT 3-16-24 / Fluffy toy, familiarly / Flag carrier of Panama / Go for it, slangily / Ren Faire rides / Small bit of mint? / Accessories that sound like a snack brand

    0
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    Constructor: Carly Schuna

    Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


    THEME: none 

    Word of the Day: flag carrier (49A: Flag carrier of Panama = COPA) —
    flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by the government for international operations. (wikipedia)  
    Compañía Panameña de Aviación, S.A., (commonly referred to as Copa and branded simply as "Copa Airlines") is the flag carrier of Panama. It is headquartered in Panama City, Panama, with its main hub at Tocumen International Airport. Copa is a subsidiary of Copa Holdings and a member of the Star Alliance. The airline is also the main operator and owner of Colombian airline AeroRepública, currently known as Wingo, previously known as Copa Airlines Colombia. // Copa was founded in 1947 and it began domestic operations to three cities in Panama shortly afterwards. The airline then abandoned its domestic flight in 1980, in favor of international flights. In 1998, Copa formed a partnership with Continental Airlines, adopting a similar brand image and using the airline's OnePass frequent flyer program. (wikipedia)
    • • •

    [Buddy!]
    A much smoother experience today, with far fewer grimaces. This one has the kind of sparkle and whooshiness that I associate with the better Friday puzzles. The longer answers really shine, all over the grid, and the grid itself is built for zooming around—lots of access points for every section. The whole experience started out pretty crummy, with a twin-cluing scheme that I didn't particularly care for: 1A: Word of elaboration (ALSO) x/w 1D: Elaborate (ADD). I guess the clues there work OK, but when my first dip into an empty Saturday grid feels like a cutesy ambiguity trap, I get put off. You ever get stuck on an inscrutable "?" clue, check that answer's first cross, only to find yourself staring at yet another "?" clue, and you're like "Why lord why!? Make it stop!?" That's how I felt. "[Word of elaboration]? That's kind of vague, let me check the cross ... aw, [Elaborate]!? Really? Come on ..." And then my first answer in the grid was the always-unloved SESH, so as I say, takeoff was pretty bumpy, but I managed to go from SESH to SHOOT (no idea what followed) PASTE POM MELODIC CAGE EGAD ... and then I wanted DEBUNK (42A: Prove false) but wasn't too sure about that "K" and so held off and went down the grid with EYE TESTS instead. That's top of the grid to bottom of the grid, SESH to EYE TESTS, with hardly a pause. From there I had traction. I worked from EGAD back to the top of the grid, and from there, the long answers started to pop, colorfully, into view: SHOOT YOUR SHOT! DEEP FAKE! BRIOCHE BUN, mmmm. Good stuff.


    After that initial struggle in the NW, the NE ended up being Monday-easy. OK, maybe Tuesday-easy, but easy. Set a match to it and whoosh, up in flames and then to ashes, as fast as I could blink (give or take). So like yesterday's puzzle, this one had some difficulty unevenness, but overall, since there weren't any real "WTF?" sticking points for me, I made consistent progress and so didn't feel the unevenness so much. Couple of names I didn't know (the writer, the airline), but the surrounding fill took care of those answers, no problem. The cluing felt pretty properly Saturday today, if a little on the easy side. Vagueness and ambiguity made for a few puzzling moments. I had O--YED in place and *still* had to think about what the answer was supposed to be at 6D: Let through (OKAYED). I asked my brain for help but it was like "Look, we've got OBEYED, and that's all we got.""But that doesn't make sense.""Man, we've got what we got, don't blame me. You want OBEYED or not? Oh hey wait ... [pushes some boxes out of the way in the warehouse of my mind] ... looks like there's this OKAYED sitting here. It's dusty and the box is kinda dented, but ... you want it?""Yeah, I guess so. Thanks, brain." Also wanted BAE before BOO (38A: Sweetie), ATLAS before US MAP (19D: Geography classroom staple), DEAD before REAL (30D: Very, informally), and ACUTE before ASKEW (22D: Word that, when searched, causes Google to display all results at an angle). Initially thought the [Metalworker's union] had something to do with WELDING, but neither WELDER or WELDED made sense. Then I remembered (vaguely) that a SOLDER was a thing. My daughter occasionally builds stage sets and knows how to weld. I don't know if she knows how to ... sold? Is that a thing? A verb? No. A SOLDER is an alloy used to join metal, or (as a verb) the act of doing said joining.


    Loved the clue on FOOTREST (14D: Dog park?). You park (rest) your dogs (feet) on a FOOTREST. Nice. Didn't love the clue on COPA, partly because it felt like niche trivia, but mostly because ... I just think you shouldn't pass up any chance to Manilow your grid. Missed Manilopportunities make me sad. This puzzle RAN LOW on Manilow. You don't have to go straight at the song, if that seems to obvious for a Saturday. Why not, [Cabana entrance?], something like that. Speaking of "entrance" clues, 59D: Entrance or exit of Target? is a "letteral" clue—the clue points not to something else but to itself, specifically a letter in one of the words in the clue. In this case, the TEE at both the beginning ("entrance") and ending ("exit") of the word "Target." Just want to reiterate one last time how good this grid looks. BEDHEAD PLATELET HOTSAUCE! The friendliness of "GLAD TO DO IT!" alongside the surliness of "NO ONE CARES." That's some peanut butter and chocolate magic right there. All that and Nic CAGE to boot!? Yes. I'll take it. 


    See you next time.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Voicer of Olaf in "Frozen" / SUN 3-17-24 / Colonized, as bees might / Music genre that emphasizes the offbeat / Comedian Jimmy with a self-described "schnozzola" / Literary friend of Sam, Merry and Pippin / Insurance company whose name contains a diphthong / Seller of over a billion Huggable Hangers on TV / Fictional archaeologist with a whip, familiarly

    0
    0
    Constructor: Simeon Seigel

    Relative difficulty: Medium (never saw the gimmick, so I don't know what was supposed to happen)


    THEME:"All Over the Map"— different U.S. attractions that you can find in ... all parts of the U.S. The revealer is THE -O-TH --ST (69A: Locale of this puzzle's attractions (really, all eight of them!)), where the blanks can be filled to make NORTHEAST or NORTHWEST or SOUTHEAST or SOUTHWEST (I ended up with SOUTHEAST—what did you end up with?):

    Theme answers:
    • OLD FAITHFUL (2D: Attraction in 69-Across that's part of America's first national park)
    • NIAGARA FALLS (28A: Attraction in 69-Across that once froze over for 30 hours in 1848)
    • LADY LIBERTY (37A: Attraction in 69-Across that withstands dozens of lightning strikes a year, familiarly)
    • CRATER LAKE (4D: Attraction in 69-Across that's almost 2,000 feet deep)
    • FOUR CORNERS (104A: Attraction in 69-Across overseen by the Navajo Nation)
    • EVERGLADES (80D: Attraction in 69-Across where crocodiles and alligators uniquely coexist)
    • EPCOT CENTER (73D: Attraction in 69-Across designed to be a "city of the future")
    • AREA FIFTY-ONE (116A: Attraction in 69-Across on the Extraterrestrial Highway)
    Theme answers:
    • 70D: Division for a tennis match (NET or SET)
    • 56D: Word before fly (HORSE or HOUSE)
    • 59D: "No," in a certain dialect (NAE or NAW)
    • 66D: Touch gently (PAT or PET)
    Word of the Day: OFFERTORY (20D: Collection during a church service) —
    noun,plural of·fer·to·ries.
    1. (sometimes initial capital letter) the offering of the unconsecrated elements that is made to God by the celebrant in a Eucharistic service.

    2. Ecclesiastical

      • the verses, anthem, or music said, sung, or played while the offerings of the people are received at a religious service.

      • that part of a service at which offerings are made.

      • the offerings themselves. (dictionary.com)

    • • •

    I don't know what this puzzle was trying to do, exactly. That is, I don't know what it thought the solver (i.e. me) was gonna do. I have no idea what you were supposed to do in order to get the puzzle accepted as "correct." I guess I was supposed to somehow see all the variable squares and know they were variable ... yeah, no hope of that. I had the center answer filled in as SOUTHEAST. All the crosses worked. I looked in the SOUTHEAST corner of the grid for some help, but nope, nothing there. Well ... EPCOT CENTERwas in the SOUTHEAST corner of the grid. "That's got the whole world in it, right? So maybe all these 'attractions' are also there ... somehow?" I've never been to EPCOT CENTER, so my understanding of what it entails is shaky, obviously. Anyway, had no idea how SOUTHEAST was supposed to work (because it wasn't, it seems). I finished the puzzle and didn't get a "Congratulations" message, so I checked Every Single Cross. But nothing. No errors. And yet, no "Congratulations" message. So I hit "reveal -> all" and saw the "trick." There is no shrug I could possibly shrug that could embody how much shrugginess I felt about this revelation. All my answers were correct. I know, I know, the title is "All Over the Map" and the "Attractions" in question obviously aren't (all) in the SOUTHEAST, but there was nothing to indicate where I was supposed to look for the answer. I have no idea how this "played" for all of you, or where you ended up, or whatever. But for me it felt like a waste of time, esp. the time I spent trying to find my mistakes (when there weren't any). There has *got* to be a better way to do this theme, if you really feel you need to do it—some way that lets the solver (i.e. me) in on the gimmick in a friendlier way. But I gotta say, even knowing the gimmick, seeing it now: I just don't care. It's a stunt puzzle with no solver payoff. Totally self-indulgent. There's one neat trick, which is that the "attractions" all appear in the parts of the grid that correspond to their position on a U.S. map (roughly). That is, NIAGARA FALLS and LADY LIBERTY are in the NE, FOUR CORNERS and AREA FIFTY-ONE are in the SW, etc. But none of this had anything to do with solving. It's a flourish for you to ooh and aah over, post-solve (assuming you notice it). But as for the 4x dual-letter "gimmick"—no hope. Admittedly, I didn't think about it for very long because I didn't care. Also, I had slightly more than one drink tonight (very atypical), which may be affecting my processing power. But if I hadn't hit "reveal all," I don't know how long it would have taken me to see the "gimmick." In the end, aside from as an architectural feat, I just don't see how the theme is all that impressive, even if you *did* "get" it. Eight random U.S. "attractions" with trivia clues. I dunno. Seems underwhelming.


    The fill was awkward and gangly, starting with that MADEA / BAATH cross and extending out from there. TEENER!? (85A: Typical sock hopper). Come on. Please, please, come on. How in the world do you use this? Also, how in the world do you use "sock hopper"? What even are you doing? Further: HIVED?! (126A: Colonized, as bees might). LOL, what? Esoteric apicultural terminology? Wow. IRAIL (!?!?!). Is that Apple's railway system? Did you know IRAIL didn't appear for fourteen years between 1997 and 2011? We call those "The Good Years." But back to the puzzle. We've got O'LEARYS as ... a couple?? It's Mrs. O'LEARY'S cow. Since when did we start giving Mr. O'Leary a credit? Is "short hedge" a business term? I've heard of "hedge funds" and "hedging bets" and "short-selling," but not "short hedge," so I didn't get the wordplay, and it took some time to figure out that, answerwise, the "short" meant "abbr." and the "hedge" meant "qualification" (OTOH, "on the other hand"). There's something superawkward about the parenthetical "on" in 91A: Deliberated (on) (TOOK TIME). I don't know that I'd use "on" with either phrase. Anyway, they don't seem exactly equivalent, or rather TOOK TIME seems very general, whereas [Deliberated] feels specific (i.e. "Deliberated" = TOOK TIME ... doing a very specific thing). OXO is a kitchenware brand (or a short-lived pop act from the '80s who I saw open for Hall & Oates in '83). [Tic-tac-toe loser] is never, I repeat never, ever a welcome clue, but it's especially unwelcome when the answer could've been clued as something real. The idea that you would steer *into* the [Tic-tac-toe loser] clue ... baffling.


    Notes:
    • 114D: Insurance company whose name contains a diphthong (AETNA) — wow, this is *not* the meaning of diphthong that I know. Primary diphthong is a "a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves toward another (as in coinloud, and side )" (google / Oxford Languages). Obviously AETNA does not fit that definition. But definition 3. is "a compound vowel character; a ligature (such as æ )." So there you go. And yet ... since you don't / can't enter Æ in the grid as a "compound vowel character," I dunno, man ... Hmmm, looks like definition 2. is "a digraph representing the sound of a diphthong or single vowel (as in feat)," and since a "digraph" is a "combination of two letters representing one sound, as in ph and ey," maybe *that* is how this clue "works." Seems like the clue could've gone a clearer / more interesting route.
    • 102D: Seller of over a billion Huggable Hangers on TV (HSN) — Home Shopping Network. I categorically refuse to look up what "Huggable Hangers" are.
    • 46A: Either end of America? (SCHWA) — a "letteral" clue, where the answer is a letter in the clue itself, in this case, the "a" on either end of "America." Was surprised, the last time SCHWA appeared in the grid, how many people seemed never to have heard of it. I learned it in elementary school. It's basically an unstressed "uh" sound, represented by an upside-down "e" (that is, "ə").
    • 11D: Person living in London (ONTARIAN) — I once drove from Ann Arbor to Hamilton, Ontario to speak at a conference at McMaster University. I remember driving past London, Ontario on the way. That is my London, Ontario story.
    • 111A: Noted name in 2005 news (KATRINA) — yeah, maybe don't get cutesy with a disaster of this magnitude. Everyone goes looking for the name of a person, but ha ha, joke's on you, it's a lethal hurricane, sucker! There are other KATRINAs, is what I'm saying.
    • 105D: Profitability metric, for short (ROI)— "Return on investment." Give me the French king any day. Vive le ROI!
    • 60A: General meeting place (WAR ROOM)— i.e. a meeting place for (military) generals
    • 98A: Caribbean music genre (SOCA) — neither my wife nor I had heard of this. Her: "They already have SKA? (50A: Music genre that emphasizes the offbeat). Did they really need another Caribbean music genre in this puzzle?" Me: "Oh my god ... are SOCA and SKA related? They sound the same. I mean, take out the 'O' and you've basically got SKA and ... SCA..." Relatedly, we've both been drinking (Mezcalettis! So good!). Turns out SOCA has nothing to do with SKA. SOCA seems to be a kind of portmanteau, from "the Soul of Calypso," and it originated in Trinidad and Tobago.
    • 53D: Small role for Paul Rudd (ANT MAN) — Rudd has the starring role, but "Small" here refers to the fact that ANT MAN is ant-sized, i.e. literally tiny.

    Hey, you wanna do some good puzzles? A lot of good puzzles? One of which I guest-edited? And support abortion rights in the bargain? Yes, yes you do. Or you should. The point is: These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty! I think I'll do a separate short post about my guest-editing experience later this week, and link to it next week, so look for that as well. That's all. Take care, everyone. See you next time.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Clothing ensembles, slangily / MON 3-18-24 / "Star Wars" droid, familiarly / Hotly contested area in a U.S. election / Unruly '60s hairdo / In Europe, it's known as a "twin town"

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    Constructor: Trent H. Evans

    Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday)


    THEME: moving to a bigger place ... — theme answers end with geographical areas of increasing size:

    Theme answers:
    • SISTER CITY (17A: In Europe, it's known as a "twin town")
    • PURPLE STATE (29A: Hotly contested area in a U.S. election)
    • HOST COUNTRY (45A: France, for the 2024 Olympics)
    • ALIEN WORLD (60A: Extraterrestrial's home, to us)
    Word of the Day: ABBIE Hoffman (1A: 1960s activist Hoffman) —

    Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.

    As a member of the Chicago Seven, Hoffman was charged with and tried―for activities during the 1968 Democratic National Convention―for conspiring to use interstate commerce with intent to incite a riot and crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot under the anti-riot provisions of Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Five of the Chicago Seven defendants, including Hoffman, were convicted of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot;  all of the convictions were vacated after an appeal and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to pursue another trial. Hoffman, along with all of the defendants and their attorneys were also convicted and sentenced for contempt of court by the judge; these convictions were also vacated after an appeal.

    Hoffman continued his activism into the 1970s and remains an icon of the anti-Vietnam war movement and the counterculture era. He died by suicide with a phenobarbital overdose in 1989 at age 52. (wikipedia)

    • • •
    Well this is about as plain as it gets. Even says so, right in the middle of the grid: PLAIN. Totally rudimentary progression here. Might've been more interesting if the geographical areas had been more metaphorical, less on-the-nose. "FIST CITY," ALTERED STATE, COW COUNTRY, WALLEY WORLD, that sort of thing. But these are just literal cities, states, etc. Ho + hum. It'll do, but it doesn't do much. Not bad, just straightforward to the point of dullness. Basic. Could be better, but also could be worse. The thing that's actively annoying about today's puzzle is the fill, which is lazy and stale, especially in the east and southeast. Just cruddy from KRONA through ATT ASAP BAA down to ARTOO. Overfamiliar STYES, overfamiliar ALOE. It's a glut. Just no attempt at all to clean or spice things up. It's all gettable, no one's really gonna balk at anything down there, but the overall quality of the fill could and should be better. Constructors just don't put in the time to get it from "acceptable" to "good," and if the theme "works," the editors clearly only care that the fill reach "acceptable." So people come to accept mediocrity. If you cared about making the grid actively good, you'd tear out ALOHA PARTY (the weakest of the long answers, and the long answer to which the most weak short stuff is attached or adjacent) and rebuild. The "H" and "P" from ALOHA PARTY are kinda forcing you into ETHEL and ASAP, respectively, and the rest of the gunk pretty much falls into place from there. Therefore, aloha, ALOHA PARTY (which seems to be more of a welcome party than a farewell party, but ... I guess, like "aloha" itself, it can go both ways?) (32D: Farewell celebration for those leaving the Hawaiian Islands). 


    This was on the easy side where Downs-only solving was concerned, but I got pretty significantly held up by a colorful long answer that, sadly, turned out to be a long wrong answer. I say "sadly" because I really liked my long answer, which was BUTTINSKIS (for BUSYBODIES) (3D: Meddling sorts). It's perfect for the clue, and like BUSYBODIES (as you can see) starts with a "BU-"! So once I inferred ABBIE from AB-IE and then ran the vowels at DRINK / DRANK / DRUNK, I caught sight of that "BU-" combo and though "aha, BUTTINSKIS! Good one!" But no. They were phantom BUTTINSKIS, alas. Those BUTTINSKIS kept me from seeing SISTER CITY for far too long. I was staring down SITTER-something, which seemed impossible. I thought maybe these were gonna be wacky wordplay theme answers, but once I got PURPLE STATE, I knew the theme answers were gonna be regular answers, which means I had an error. Really resisted pulling BUTTINSKIS because ... I mean, BUTTINSKIS, you can see how I'd be attached! But finally I pulled it, and that made all the difference. Rest of the puzzle was a comparative breeze.


    I also had trouble with STYMIES (9D: Hinders), in part because I'd gone with POPTOP over MOPTOP. I knew that it *could* have been MOPTOP, but I figured it's Monday, the can opener answer is probably more likely than the vintage Beatles-esque answer. But no (22A: Unruly '60s hairdo). Also, in a Downs-only situation, ABE- could be either ABET or ABEL (theoretically it could also be ABED, or even ABES, but not when the last letter is preceded in the Down by an "S"). And FITS could've been FATS, so I ended up having to juggle what seemed like a lot of possibilities. But once "Y" was solidly set, and I reconsidered MOPTOP, STYMIES leapt into view. 


    That clue on FITS is likely to be slightly baffling for some older solvers (26A: Clothing ensembles, slangily). I feel like "fit"'s currency (short for "outfit") is relatively recent. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Nobody said "fit" when I was young, is what I'm saying. "Fit check" is used on social media when someone wants to show off their outfit (or call attention to someone else's). Anyway, solving Downs-only, I never had to deal with that clue. Not much else to say about this one except ... I have questions about the "In Europe" part of 17A: In Europe, it's known as a "twin town" (SISTER CITY). First of all, "In Europe," they don't speak English, so on its face "twin town" seems dubious. Also, "In Europe" they speak A Lot Of Languages—does every country "In Europe" really call it a "twin town"? Google is telling me that Spain uses "ciudad hermanada," which is essentially "SISTER CITY," and since Spain is "In Europe," again, I dispute this clue. It seems generally true that "twin(ned) town" is the most common translation of the equivalent phrase in France and Germany, and possibly elsewhere, so there's no big foul here. I just like clue phrasing to be precise and accurate. Also, this puzzle is so PLAIN that there's not much to focus on, so I'm focusing on this. In the interest of not going further into the weeds, I bid you good day.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):
    These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!
    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Milk curdler in cheesemaking / TUE 3-19-24 / Parent dressed up at a pride parade, perhaps? / Oklahoma city named for a Tennyson character / Musical based on a comic strip / Starchy tropical root / Lentils, on an Indian menu / Capital wheeler-dealer, informally

    0
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    Constructor: Lynn Lempel

    Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easyish but extra-wide (16x))


    THEME: HALFTIME (63A: Game break ... or a hint to interpreting the first parts of 17-, 26-, 36-, and 52-Across)— four-letter words at beginning of theme answers must be cut in "half" in order for the answers to makes sense for their wacky clues:

    Theme answers:
    • MAIN DRAG => Ma in drag (17A: Parent dressed up at a pride parade, perhaps?)
    • DOOR NAILS => Do or nails (26A: Choice between a haircut and manicure?)
    • BEAT THE CLOCK => "Be at the clock" (36A: "Meet me under Big Ben"?)
    • GOON  SQUAD! => "Go on, squad!" (52A: "Continue with your routine, cheerleaders"?)
    Word of the Day: ENID (32A: Oklahoma city named for a Tennyson character) —
     
    Enid (/ˈnɪd/ EE-nid) is the ninth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the county seat of Garfield County. As of the 2020 census, the population was 51,308. Enid was founded during the opening of the Cherokee Outlet in the Land Run of 1893, and is named after Enid, a character in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. In 1991, the Oklahoma state legislature designated Enid the "purple martin capital of Oklahoma." Enid holds the nickname of "Queen Wheat City" and "Wheat Capital" of Oklahoma and the United States for its immense grain storage capacity, and has the third-largest grain storage capacity in the world. (wikipedia)
    • • •

    Nice to see Lynn Lempel's name back on the byline. Decades of experience making clever, solid, primarily early-week puzzles. When I wrote "decades" just now I thought "I'm pretty sure I've been seeing her name for two decades, at least, but I better confirm that."Two decades? Ha. I was off by over two decades! This is her 100th NYTXW puzzle in the Shortz Era* and her 102nd overall—her debut was a Sunday puzzle in 1979! I had no idea she'd been constructing so long, probably because even though she has aged (as we're all wont to do), her puzzles never seemed to get old. Anyway, congrats to her on yet another worthy effort. My only disappointment today was that the revealer wasn't snappier, or more apt, somehow. Specifically, the "time" part of HALFTIME doesn't appear to be doing anything. I guess that when it comes "time" for you to make sense of the answer, you have to break that first answer in "half," but that seems pretty tenuous. I was looking for something ... timier to be going on. For instance, BEAT THE CLOCK, which sits dead center, seems to be begging you to think about time. In music, you keep time by following the BEAT. And, well, CLOCK's connection to time is obvious on its ... face. So I thought maybe there was going to be some "time" concept built in, but I can't see it. If the TIME in HALFTIME is doing something I can't see, I apologize. The fact that those four-letter words break perfectly in half to create wackiness, that's plenty of pizzazz for a Tuesday theme. I'm just not sure that HALFTIME, as a revealer, sticks the landing.


    Took me a half-beat to figure out the concept today. I was like "oh, she's punning on DRAG, OK, cool ... how is a parent 'MAIN'? One of the 'MAIN' ... people ... in your house?? That seems wr- ... ohhhhh, it's MA! MA IN DRAG! Ah, cool. Good for Ma." I don't think of DOORNAILS as real things—I think of them existing solely as a metaphorical point of comparison, something for people to be as dead as. But I suppose doors must once have had nails, and anyway, "dead as a doornail" makes it a familiar enough term. BEAT THE CLOCK is a general expression for making a deadline, but it's also the name of a long-running game show that has had many incarnations since the early days of television (1949!), the most recent being a kids show in 2018-19, but it's heyday was the '50s.


    The fill ran a little on the stale side, but nothing made me cringe except SPOOR (8D: Wild animal's trail), and that's just because I'd rather not have animal droppings in my puzzle. You know, if it can be avoided. Huh, looks like SPOOR is any evidence left behind, anything that leaves a track, trail, or scent. Not just droppings. It's just that SPOOR ... I mean, it's got "poo" built in, so it feels like dropping. The word just has a mild ick factor for me. What "moist" is to some, "spoor" is to me. Then there's AGLARE, which is one of those "a-" words I never quite believe exist anywhere outside of antiquated poetry (46D: Shining brightly). I had AGLEAM in there at first—that's one hell of a kealoa**. If AGLOW had fit, I might've considered that as well. Or AGLIMMER. Is AGLAZE a word? My software is not red-underlining it, which troubles me. Phew, looks like it's a proprietary wax of some sort, and not an actual word, so do not add that to your list of potential six-letter AGL- adjectives. That list holds steady at 2. ABLAZE and AFLAME remain words. Lots and lots of luminescence in the "a"-prefixed adjective category, who knew? See you tomorrow.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    *Joel Fagliano is the interim editor, but it's still Shortz's Era until I hear differently

    **kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc. 


    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Site of a Herculean feat / WED 3-20-24 / Marx brother with a curly wig / Subjects of a "Twist on it" ad campaign / Norwegian name that gained global prominence in 2010

    0
    0
    Constructor: E. M. Capassakis

    Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


    THEME: 3-digit numbers (?) — theme clues are all 3-digit numbers that stand for or are associated with their answers:

    Theme answers:
    • INTRO CLASS (17A: 101)
    • BOND (19A: 007)
    • CANNABIS (31A: 420)
    • THE BEAST (47A: 666)
    • INFO (62A: 411)
    • FULL CIRCLE (64A: 360)
    Word of the Day: mullion (2D: One in a mullion? = PANE) —

    mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid support to the glazing of the window. Its secondary purpose is to provide structural support to an arch or lintel above the window opening. Horizontal elements separating the head of a door from a window above are called transoms. (wikipedia)
    • • •

    This is the third day in a row where I have not been entirely confident that I understood the theme completely, even after successfully filling in the grid. I keep thinking there has to be more ... these theme clues are all 3-digit numbers that stand for things. There are at least a couple such numbers left on the table (e.g. 747, 911), but that's not the problem. The problem is the concept itself seems too loose, not to mention too dull. As I was solving I kept looking for the hook, but the hook was just 3-digit numbers. That's it. That's ... it? If there's something more, "I DON'T SEE IT" (11D: "Where?"). And the theme answers are things like ... INFO? If I'm not missing something, then I have to say that this theme does not feel like it's up to NYTXW standards. And the answers themselves don't even have anything to recommend them, really? They're all so short: 10, 10, 8, 8, and then two "bonus" 4s. That is not a lot of real estate, and none of those answers are what you'd call "sparklers." I guess FULL CIRCLE is not bad as a standalone answer, but the theme answers are all so straightforward that I am left wondering what, exactly, is puzzle-y about this, beyond the superficial similarities of all the theme clues. In addition to the theme answers being generally lackluster, THE BEAST is borderline unforgivable in its incompleteness. "666" is the mark ofTHE BEAST, or the number ofTHE BEAST. That is always how that number would be described. THE BEAST on its own is laughable. I mean, I'm not literally laughing, so maybe "laughable" is too generous. Also, technically, if I asked you what 411 stood for, you'd say "Information," not INFO. So that one missed too. 101 is an INTRO CLASS, 360 is FULL CIRCLE, 007 is BOND, 420 is marijuana (or CANNABIS, if you need you answer to fit in eight squares)—no problems there. But INFO and especially THE BEAST—they miss the mark.


    As usual, I had the greatest amount of trouble right out of the gate. No idea how to make sense of 1D: Arizona in Hawaii, e.g. (SHIP), completely forgot what a "mullion" was (2D: One in a mullion? => PANE), and thought 1A: Twitch, e.g. (SPASM) was for sure going to have something to do with the live-streaming service. Further, I thought 5D: Be a sponge (MOOCH) was gonna be SOP UP. So I was striking out like crazy up there. I don't know where I went from there. I feel like I started getting traction somewhere in the west, with BANJO or ALAS, somewhere in there. I know the first themer I encountered was [666], but I didn't know it was a themer. Also, when I got THE, I wanted BEAST but didn't write it in because it seemed incomplete (see above). Then I thought "Oh, maybe all the theme answers are going to be missing their initial 'MARK OF' or 'NUMBER OF' ... I wonder how they're going to tie that together?" But still, I abandoned that answer and moved on. The first themer I completely *got* was FULL CIRCLE (64A: 360), and I thought that since it was last, maybe there were a bunch of early clues that went through the other segments of a circle: you know, 180, 90 ... 45? I don't know. I must've forgotten I'd already seen [666]. I was just desperate to make any of it cohere. Eventually I worked up to CANNABIS and realized none of it was going to cohere, the theme was just 3-digit numbers, that's that. Again, I'm genuinely surprised that this was deemed sufficient, and I'm genuinely sorry if I'm missing what makes the whole thing special.


    Had to think for a bit about the [Eponym of a neighborhood in Queens] but then remembered My Daughter Lives There (ASTORia). Still not totally used to the fact that she lives in NYC now. Outside of the NW, I don't see any real troublemaker clues today. Is "a noodle" a brainstorming session or something like that? I inferred IDEA from the expression "using one's noodle (i.e. brain)," but something about the phrasing on 16A: End of a noodle? struck my ears as awkward. CTRL-C is certainly the ugliest thing in the grid, but it's accurate enough, I suppose (45D: Copy command on a PC). Funniest thing that happened to me was confusing the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges (14A: Marx brother with a curly wig => HARPO). I had the "R" from ARTS and wrote in LARRY. Wish I had more zaniness like that to relate, but this was a pretty plodding experience overall. Hope you found it more delightful than I did. See you next time.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):
    These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!
    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    TV surname at 742 Evergreen Terrace / THU 3-21-24 / Apt key for a musical prodigy? / Radius of a unit circle / Repeated sound that can be "cured" / Opera that premiered in Cairo / Longtime Los Angeles sports venue / Iconic painting housed at Oslo's Nasjonalmuseet

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    Constructor: Joe Marquez

    Relative difficulty: Easy


    THEME: ESCAPE ROOM (54A: Puzzling activity, as seen four times in this puzzle?) — a rebus puzzle with "ESC" (from the "escape" key) found inside four different boxes ("rooms") in the grid:

    Theme answers:
    • MIDDLE SCHOOL (17A: Awkward period, for many) 
      • "TRÈS CHIC!" (6D: "Ooh-la-la!")
    • CHASE SCENE (28A: Action movie highlight)
      • STAPLES CENTER (10D: Longtime Los Angeles sports venue)
    • "WE'RE SCREWED!" (38A: "It's so over for us!")
      • "THREE'S COMPANY" (25D: 1970s-'80s sitcom about a trio of zany roommates)
    • PRESCRIBE (44A: Allow to take, perhaps)
      • THE SCREAM (40D: Iconic painting housed at Oslo's Nasjonalmuseet)
    Word of the Day: STAPLES CENTER (10D) —

    Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Downtown Los Angeles. Opened on October 17, 1999, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street, and has since been considered a part of L.A. Live. Owned and operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), it is currently the home venue of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL)—which are both owned in part by AEG's founder Philip Anschutz, as well as the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

    It is the only arena in the NBA shared by two teams, as well as one of only three North American professional sports venues (alongside SoFi Stadium in nearby Inglewood, and New Jersey's MetLife Stadium) to currently host two teams from the same league. The venue is also frequently used for major concerts, and has been the most frequent host of the Grammy Awards ceremony since its opening.

    Crypto.com Arena will host the basketball competition during the 2028 Summer Olympics. In 2024, the Clippers are scheduled to leave Crypto.com Arena for their own arena, Intuit Dome. (wikipedia)

    • • •

    I knew the STAPLES CENTER was called something stupid now, but I had no idea how stupid. Crypto.com Arena!? LOL. Congrats, you win Most Embarrassing Arena or Stadium Rebrand. Yikes. If nothing else, this puzzle made me laugh by teaching me about the existence of Crypto Dot Com Arena. Actually, this puzzle had other pleasures, though in general it was way too straightforward. It's about as basic as rebuses get and the revealer isn't exactly a revelation. I mean, you've got all those ESCs staring at you, so ESCAPE's being in the revealer is kind of a given. And then ROOM ... OK, you wanna call the boxes "rooms," that's fine, that works. But the concept is a bit ho-hum. You've got a four-square rebus, where all rebus squares are the same (and very easy to pick up). The puzzle's not doing anything particularly interesting with the rebus form, but it does what it does in a solid, workmanlike way. "WE'RE SCREWED!" at least gives us some attitude and energy—always nice when, in addition to fulfilling the requirements of the theme, the theme answers have personality. That "WE'RE SCREWED!" / "THREE'S COMPANY" crossing was the thematic highlight, for me. The other "ESC" answers were somewhat more ordinary, but they're solid. Two anomalies in the theme today. First, PRESCRIBE, which is the only answer that fails to break "ESC" across two words, which is the optimal way to "hide" an embedded word (you can tell it's optimal because this puzzle does it with the other 7 answers). That PRESCRIBE rebus square is anomalous in another way as well, which is that it has no symmetrical equivalent. It's just shoehorned in here to give us a fourth (bonus?) rebus. The other "ESC" square all appear in the longest answers, which are symmetrical—well, STAPLES CENTER and "THREE'S COMPANY" are symmetrical, and then MIDDLE SCHOOL is symmetrical with the revealer, ESCAPE ROOM, leaving no room for the fourth "ESC" within the established symmetrical pattern. So it's in a kind of no man's land. I wouldn't mind if the four "ESC" squares were randomly strewn about, but to establish symmetry and then shove another square in just ... because? ... that seems inelegant.


    The fill today is notably bad, especially toward the bottom, so once again I'm asking everyone involved in the making of these puzzles to Try Harder. EENY EIRE GRAN SSN TSKS (plural?) TYR TTOP EWS (plural?) EMMAS (plural?), NEAP ... it's a lot to take. ARTE Johnson! Wow, haven't seen him in a while. No, I take that back. I did see him recently, but not in the puzzle. I've been watching old Love Boat episodes, and he shows up on that show a lot. The segment I saw him in was from Season 1, Episode 12. It was called "The Painters" ("Inept painters (Arte JohnsonPat Morita) make a shambles of the Captain's cabin"). But back to the puzzle. Crossing AMINO with AMINOR would generally be a no-no. Letter strings that long usually don't repeat *anywhere* in the grid, let alone *cross* one another. I enjoyed the PELICANS and the AIR JORDANs, but the short stuff was way worse than it ought to be in a modern puzzle. 


    As for difficulty: bizarrely, HUED was probably the hardest thing in the grid for me to get. Had the "HU-" and still no idea. It fits the clue [Tinged], but only as the back end of a hyphenated term with a color at the front end. "Purple-HUED," say. You'd never just say HUED (unless you were writing bad poetry). Whereas you would just say [Tinged]. Hence my confusion. I also spelled CHE wrong, opting for the more familiar (to me) Spanish spelling, QUE. But obviously we're not dealing with Spanish. The clues says that explicitly. Anyway, it wasn't too hard to fix. I also had NOSE-something before figuring out NOSTRIL (24A: Part of your body that smells the most?). I know TYR from crosswords Of Extreme Yore (and from an embedded-word puzzle I once made using Norse gods—I hid TYR inside BETTYRUBBLE). If you didn't know TYR, don't feel bad. Aesir aficionados and old-timers like me have the advantage there. Maybe you didn't know BOOLE, but you could probably infer BOOLE from "Boolean" (as I did), and anyway his crosses are all fair.


    I know there are some people who hate rebuses. I'm not sure why, but they do. As rebuses go, this one should have been pretty easy to pick up and work through, so I hope that even if you'd rather not see this puzzle type, you were at least able to work through it successfully today. See you later.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):
    These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    One-named actress on "Parks and Recreation" / FRI 3-22-24 / Indie pop duo Sylvan / Modeling software, familiarly / Southwest sch. known for its numerous online offerings / Dutta, winner of the Miss Universe 2000 pageant / Shortest of a group of 12 / Tommy in the Hockey Hall of Fame

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    Constructor: Mansi Kothari and Erik Agard

    Relative difficulty: Easy (assuming you can navigate those short names; otherwise, ????)


    THEME: none 

    Word of the Day: Tamil NADU (39A: Tamil ___, India) —
    Tamil Nadu (/ˌtæmɪl ˈnɑːd/Tamil: [ˈtamiɻ ˈnaːɽɯ] [...] abbr. TN) is the southernmost state of India. The tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population, Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, who speak the Tamil language, one of the longest surviving classical languages and serves as its official language. The capital and largest city is Chennai. (wikipedia)
    • • •

    [28A: Aunt ___ ("Bel-Air" role) (VIV)]
    Hello, all. Short write-up today, as I have to leave early this morning (i.e. in a couple hours) (it's 4:28am right now!) for a day trip down to New Jersey. My wife has something she has to do there, and I'm coming along for the ride. Get to see my good friend Lee and [drum roll] my daughter, who's gonna pop over from the City and have lunch with us. Anyway, let's get to it. This looks like a debut from Mansi Kothari. Erik Agard's name, on the other hand, you will recognize if you've been doing puzzles for any length of time. Longtime constructor, American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (and Jeopardy!) champion, former editor of the USA Today crossword, he's one of the most prominent names in contemporary crosswords, and this puzzle has many elements of what I consider a typical Agard puzzle. First, and most important, I really enjoyed it. His grids are always so carefully, and thoughtfully, constructed, wide-ranging, and with a good sense of humor. I think of Erik as a kind of Reverse Maleska. Maleska was the editor that preceded Shortz, and he was (in)famous for putting things in the grid that he thought you *should* know. This included what struck many solvers as rank obscurity. Lots of three-letter rivers and animal genuses and what not. His was a very teacherly approach. Erik also has a teacherly approach, in that his grids include names he thinks you should know, or that he thinks are worth knowing, names that might strike some (traditional, longtime) solvers as obscure, but there are several big differences (imho) between these approaches, the most important of which is that Erik is trying to broaden our sense of what the crossword can be and (particularly) who it's for. He's taking U.S. puzzles beyond their historically Anglo-American frame of reference. His puzzles are Blacker and more international, more inclusive of women and younger people. But (and here's another difference from Maleska), the grids are crafted in such a way that people can *get* the names even if they don't *know* them (i.e. the crosses are fair), and they really do range widely, so it would be hard for any solver, from any solving demographic, to say "I'm not represented here at all." Lastly, there's a playfulness and sense of humor that makes it seem like the puzzle is supposed to delight instead of punish (I frequently felt like Maleska was punishing me—it's possible I kinda liked it, at times, but ... I wouldn't say that attitude was healthy). Anyway, this is a co-construction, and I don't want to diminish Mansi Kothari's contributions, but this had a definite Agard vibe, and I'm definitely here for it (even when I'm stumbling over my ignorance).


    Wow, that paragraph was longer than I expected. Down to business. Mötley Crüe's METAL UMLAUTs and EXTRA CHEESE pizza gave me big late-80s Pomona dorm room flashbacks, so I was pretty much sold on this one from the jump, but the moment where the puzzle seemed to go from "Good For Me" to "Good For Everyone" was right ... here:


    Great answer, great wordplay in the clue (31D: Intricately plotted fiction). Zoom zoom, whoosh whoosh, Happy Friday to me. There were two other stellar clues on stellar answers. 11D: Inapt response when somebody says "Happy birthday!," presumably ("SAME TO YOU!") made me laugh out loud, and 55A: Petty person? for ANIMAL LOVER was adorable. I was really thinking of Tom Petty there, but HEARTBREAKER didn't fit. There were the usual assortment of proper names I didn't know. Tommy IVAN seems like a very, very deep cut, as far as ice hockey lore is concerned. He coached the Red Wings to several Stanley Cups ... in the '50s. Looks like he went on to coach the Chicago Blackhawks for over two decades and won a Stanley Cup there as well. Admittedly, I know hockey the least well of the Big Four U.S. sports. But he was new to me. I'm happy to learn him. I'm never that happy being asked to know a beauty pageant winner, of any kind, from any year, EVER, so as for LARA, good for her, but shrug (48A: ___ Dutta, winner of the Miss Universe 2000 pageant) (she's a very successful Hindi-language film actress—that seems a more worthy accomplishment to highlight—not that I would've known her, but that cluing would've made her seem more worth knowing. Pageant shmageant). As for NADU (also new to me), it's a geographical name part, and it's the part that bugs me a little (39A: Tamil ___, India). Tamil NADU is an Indian state (worth knowing), but NADU on its own is like AVIV on its own. Not good fill. Just because something's never been in the NYTXW before (and it hasn't) doesn't make it good. NADU means "land" in Tamil ... and now you know! Please don't turn NADU into neo-crosswordese, thank you. (Although, in its defense, it is a very common place name part in South Asia, primarily India)


    I solved this puzzle fairly easily, despite a ton of missteps. GETS before GEMS (1D: Keepers), OCHO (my bad) before OTTO (3D: Quattro + quattro), SITE *and* SLOT before SPOT (29A: Place). Wasn't sure if it was VALE or DALE (43A: Low-lying area). I know about CAD from my daughter ... but only remembered this after I got it from crosses (54A: Modeling software, familiarly). Before that, no idea. Lots of schools have online offerings, I didn't know ASU was particularly "known" for that (8D: Southwest sch. known for its numerous online offerings). Seems slightly brutal not to have any geographical indicators in that clue, but luckily I knew RETTA (9D: One-named actress on "Parks and Recreation") which helped me get CHAR, which then seemed like the only reasonable answer for 6A: Toast, say (that gave me the "A" in ASU). Most solvers (I'd wager) are never going to have heard of Sylvan ESSO, so that made me laugh (61A: Indie pop duo Sylvan ___). I like them a lot! I mean, ESSO is still crosswordese, but why not give it a new spin (again, assuming the crosses are fair).


    That's it. Once again, this write-up has not been as short as I promised. My apologies. Good day. 

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):
    These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!
    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Egg-shaped brain structures / SAT 3-23-24 / 2022 rom-com with a predominantly L.G.B.T.Q. cast / cat holiday creature in Icelandic folklore / Activist born at 375 p.p.m. per her social media bio / Hill-adjacent field in brief / Fabric named for a Mideast capital / City of 1+ million near the Russia/Kazakhstan border / Fathers, in Hebrew

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    Constructor: Sam Ezersky

    Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging 


    THEME: none 

    Word of the Day: THALAMI (20D: Egg-shaped brain structures) —


    The thalamus (pl.thalami; from Greek θάλαμος, "chamber") is a large mass of gray matter on the lateral walls of the third ventricle forming the dorsal part of the diencephalon (a division of the forebrain). Nerve fibers project out of the thalamus to the cerebral cortex in all directions, known as the thalamocortical radiations, allowing hub-like exchanges of information. It has several functions, such as the relaying of sensory and motor signals to the cerebral cortex and the regulation of consciousnesssleep, and alertness. // Anatomically, it is a paramedian symmetrical structure of two halves (left and right), within the vertebrate brain, situated between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain. It forms during embryonic development as the main product of the diencephalon, as first recognized by the Swiss embryologist and anatomist Wilhelm His Sr. in 1893. (wikipedia)
    • • •

    This grid has some definite highs—I quite enjoyed that NE corner, particularly "WHY SHOULD I?" and that clue on AUDIOBOOKS (18A: Speaking volumes?)—but generally there weren't enough Great Answer to carry this one today. Meanwhile, this one felt like a trivia fest. Yesterday's puzzle had a few names that were tough to navigate, but this one's just loaded with "who was this person?" or "what is this place?"-type answers, over and over and over. A quarterback and memoirist a Venezuelan landmark a role (!?!) in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" a 2022 rom-com an activist a Russian/Kazakhstan border city, etc. Plus, the cluing was trying Very Hard to be Hard, but it didn't have as much playfulness and humor as yesterday's—at least not the kind that landed with me. Admittedly, you're gonna have a hard time getting me to warm up to a grid with BITCOIN-anything, or DOGNAPping, for god's sake (I was a big fan of that clue when I thought the answer was DOGSIT—not a fan of bad things happening to animals, in movies, TV shows, real life, and apparently, crossword puzzles) (42D: Take, as a pointer). I have "Awful" written next to NYSTATE (I live in that state, but man that answer looks/feels bad to me) (and the "Troy" misdirect is olde as the hills). "Awful" written next to [Lastin' line?] (SCAR) (I assure you that pun was not worth the fauxksiness in the clue). "Awful" written next to [Blue belt?] (SOB) (are "belt" and "SOB" nouns here? I can kinda see sobbing as "belting" out your "blueness" (i.e. sadness), but the clue frames "belt" as a noun, and I am not familiar with this meaning of "belt"). I have "Not A Thing" written next to STOLE A PEEK. You steal a look, maybe a glance; you (famously) sneak a peek. Is it supposed to be funny that STOLE A PEEK crosses DOGNAP? OK, that is kinda funny. Grim, but funny.

    ["Please don't steal me!"]

    When you have to provide an anagram for your "Veteran N.F.L. quarterback," then your "Veteran N.F.L. quarterback" is not famous enough to be in the puzzle (50A: Veteran N.F.L. quarterback whose name anagrams to SOMETHING). Commit to GENO SMITH! That clue is insulting. The rest of the puzzle is trying so hard to be hard, and then along comes this condescending "here, just rearrange the letters" clue? On a Saturday? smh. But I can't say that I didn't find a lot of the (occasionally weird-ass) clues fun to work through. Lots and lots and lots of misdirection today. I got 1A: They're seen around diners (BIBS) right away—so proud!—but I struggled (appropriately for a Saturday) with a lot of the other ambiguous stuff.

    Ambiguous stuff:
    • 15A: Worrisome word from a barber ("UH OH")— thank god for BIBS, because I'd've written "OOPS" in here without hesitation otherwise (BIBS made OOPS untenable). "OOPS" has the advantage of actually being one "word" (although I guess you hyphenate "UH-OH," so ... OK). 
    • 30A: [Smacks forehead] ("GAH!")— thank god for "I HEAR YA," because I'd've written "D'OH!" in here without hesitation otherwise ("I HEAR YA" made "D'OH!" untenable).
    • 43A: Way up in the mountains (GONDOLA) — I was thinking CHAIRLIFT, T-BAR, etc. but my "etc." didn't extend to GONDOLA as quickly as it should have. I started thinking maybe "Way up" was "Very far up." I had the -ON- and sincerely considered some form of YONDER ... YON HILL (!?).
    • 5D: Bring around (SWAY)— I was thinking the smelling salts kind of "bring around"
    • 4D: Like Beth among the March sisters (SHYEST) — when YOUNGEST (wrong, that's Amy) and SICKEST (grim!) didn't fit, I was out of answers. But I got SEXY fast (17A: Sizzling), and that "Y" gave me SHYEST.
    • 39D: Legit (ALL THAT) — these are both slang for "great""the real deal""a wonderful example of its kind" etc. 
    • 13D: Trace of music (ADKINS) — this wasn't actually that ambiguous to me. I don't know anything about this guy, but I know his name. Sadly, I spelled his name like the diet guy's name (ATKINS). But that wasn't too hard to fix.
    • 32D: Cleveland, e.g.: Abbr. (DEM) — LOL at the idea I know the party affiliation of pre-20th-century presidents (except Lincoln). But I had the "D" and after running through all the Clevelands I know (the city ... that character from Family Guy ...), I figured I was dealing with Grover and tried DEM. Success! 
    • 34D: Turkey bacon? (LIRA) — took one look at this clue, knew it was trying to misdirect me with both words, and just walked away. Not today, goofy clue. I'm gonna let crosses take care of you. And they did (Turkey is the country, "bacon" (slang for "money") is the currency: LIRA).
    • 38D: Hill-adjacent field, in brief (POLI-SCI) — As in "Capitol Hill." I went all over hill and gone to find the right hill (actual hill? Anita Hill?), but the terminal "I" (from KITS) settled things pretty conclusively. "POLI-SCI! Oh ... that Hill."
    • 40D: Plates for nuts (WASHERS) — at this point there'd been so much misdirection that I really didn't want to venture a guess as to what "nuts" might mean here. Both "plates" and "nuts" are ambiguous here, but you end up with ... hardware.

    While I didn't love this one so much, it did give me a proper Saturday workout. It tried me and tested me, and not always in annoying ways. So despite my earlier griping, I'm reasonably satisfied with the effort. See you next time.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Personal theory that isn't in the source material / SUN 3-24-24 / Chess move with a French name / Midas' downfall / Veg-O-Matic maker / Europeans who speak a non-Indo-European language / Render more youthful, as with CGI / He literally jumped the shark on "Happy Days"

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    Constructor: John Kugelman

    Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


    THEME:"Feeling Possessive" — third-person indicative verb phrases are clued as if they are possessive phrases

    Theme answers:
    • FUEL'S SPECULATION (23A: Oil futures?)
    • HOLD'S WATER (35A: Castle moat?)
    • FUDGE'S FACTS (55A: Sugar and cocoa content?)
    • TAKE'S ORDERS (79A: "Lights! Camera! Action!"?)
    • SET'S AT EASE (95A: "And ... cut!"?)
    • EXCHANGE'S NUMBERS (110A: Stock prices?)
    • POOL'S RESOURCES (15D: Noodles and floaties?)
    • PLANT'S EVIDENCE (49D: Leaf fossils?)
    Word of the Day: HEADCANON (98A: Personal theory that isn't in the source material) —
    Headcanon is a word used in film/television/comics/etc. fandom that refers to something a fan imagines about the characters (such as a scenario or relationship) but that doesn’t appear on screen/on the page. An example might be: “In my headcanon, Jar Jar Binks is the ultimate villain who orchestrated the downfall of the Jedi.” (merriam-webster.com)
    • • •


    Today's write-up is going to be short—not because I don't have time. I have plenty of time. I've just reached a kind of ... well, a state of total exasperation and fatigue with Sunday puzzles. I don't even know where to begin with how inadequate this theme is. How limp and last-century it is. It's giving nothing. It doesn't even have corniness going for it. Our job is to imagine ... apostrophes? Look, if you've got a simple (very simple) gimmick that yields great results, hey, go for it. Go. For. It. But this ain't it. This. Ain't. It. I cannot conceive why this was made, let alone why it was accepted. The clues aren't even trying to be amusing / entertaining / zany. Yes, a castle's moat is, phrased differently, a hold's water. The sugar and cocoa content are indeed facts about any given fudge. Where is the ... joke? The fun? The ... anything? This is the Jeremy's Iron of puzzles. If you know, you know. (And if you don't know, here you go):


    The very title of this puzzle tells you that everyone involved in the production of this thing has just given up and phoned it in. "What's the idea?""You imagine verb phrases as possessive phrases.""Huh ... OK, what's the revealer phrase? Something snappy? Something playful?""No revealer.""Huh ... OK, whaddya got for a title? Something snappy? Something playful?""Well, it's about possessives, so I was thinking: 'Feeling Possessive.' See, 'possessive' can mean 'overly attached' or 'clinging,' but here we're talking about 'possessive' in a grammatical sense.' Solvers won't know what hit 'em!""[30-second 1,000-yard stare] ... I ... but ... you ... [sigh] OK, sure, why not? Good enough. If I leave now I can still make happy hour. 'Feeling Possessive' it is. Good night!" [end of phone call].


    The bulk of the puzzle was fine. It was an ordinary grid filled ordinarily, except for the SW, which was on a completely different plane. Which is to say that the SW is the corner that contained HEADCANON, a "fandom" word I've never seen in my life. Needed every cross. I also had MESS room (is that a thing?) (76A: ___ room), so NEURAL NET took longer than it should have (78D: Machine learning model that mimics the human brain). I had SEU- as the first letters there and thought "What the hell machine did Dr. Seuss inspire!?" No other part of the grid offered much resistance. Wanted "No SIREE, Bob" but it wouldn't fit. Not familiar with the phrase "No PROB, Bob," but I managed to put it down anyway (!?). We've got the return of the AGA- fake word. AGAZE!? AGAPE!? No, today, it's AGASP (10A: Thunderstruck). I had the [Slangy greeting] as "YELLO!" and "HULLO!" before "HOLLA!," which I don't really think of as a greeting, but I don't really think about it at all, to be honest, and didn't know people still said this. Thought it died some time during the second Bush administration. Shows what I know. 


    No idea if it was gonna be MADD or SADD for 71D: Org. with the tagline "No More Victims," so I left that first letter blank, and then the cross was kinda tricky (70A: International date line?). I guess that in Spanish-speaking countries ("International"?), people might say TE AMO ("I love you") on a "date" (hopefully not the first one). I had GOLF SHOES before GOLF SHIRT. Exciting error, that (39D: Swinger's attire). I had PENCILS before PEN CAPS and was ... well, puzzled, to say the least (74A: They prevent accidental scribbles). I wanted WISEACRES but got WISEASSES (33A: People who might answer "What's up?" with "The sky"). That imagined scenario really sounds more -acre than -ass to me, but whatever you say. No idea re: EN PASSANT (16D: Chess move with a French name), but I know enough French that I could fudge that one (please accept this fudge's fact as my gift to you). ELO gives us yet another chess answer, grrreat, who doesn't love ... that? (41A: Kind of rating system in chess). And then there's IQ RANGE, which ... I'm just ... I'm begging you all to curate / cull your giant bought wordlists. Just. Begging. And the clue doesn't even know what it's doing. [85-115, typically]? Typically? Obviously the "range" goes lower/higher. What does "typical" mean? What percentage fall in that range? I mean, I don't care about this stupid, flawed, racially biased test, but I do care about clues meaning something, and "typically" is meaningless here. When I search [IQ RANGE] this "range" doesn't appear anywhere, on any page, in any hits. I'm seeing 70-130, 90-109 ... OK, I am really stopping now, because if I go on, I'm going to drive me and you nuts. See you next time.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. This will be my last day plugging These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 in the write-up, though the collection will be available for many weeks to come. Thanks to so many of you, the collection shattered its initial fundraising goal ($30,000) and is on the verge of reaching its next goal ($40,000)! If this is the first you are hearing about all this, here is my description of the puzzles and how to get them (from last Sunday's write-up):
    These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!
    P.P.S. [Necessities for retiring?] are SPARES because that's what you need for re-tire-ing cars after they get flats.
    P.P.P.S. 18D: Sweden has more than 200,000 of them ... I wrote in IKEAS so fast I didn't even bother to read the rest of the clue (...(of which only 1,000 are inhabited)). Love the idea that there are 199,000 abandoned IKEAS in Sweden (most of them on uninhabited ISLES) (good luck understanding that, future alien explorers!)

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Clichéd dismissal of Arizona's summer climate/ MON 3-25-24 / Woven creation of the Ojibwe people / Emma Stone's co-star on Showtime's "The Curse" / 2, 4, 6, 8, how do these numbers relate?

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    Constructor: Shannon Rapp and Will Eisenberg

    Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)


    THEME: Opening Day (which is actually Mar. 28, but ... close enough!) — baseball theme: second words of two-word phrases are all words for players on a baseball diamond:

    Theme answers:
    • DREAM CATCHER (20A: Woven creation of the Ojibwe people)
    • PANCAKE BATTER (29A: Thick liquid poured on a hot griddle)
    • NATHAN FIELDER (47A: Emma Stone's co-star on Showtime's "The Curse")
    • WATER PITCHER (56A: Pour thing?) [this puzzle is oddly horny for Emma Stone ... and pouring]

    Word of the Day: NATHAN FIELDER (47A) —

    Nathan Joseph Fielder (born May 12, 1983) is a Canadian comedian, actor, writer, director, and producer. He is known for his awkward persona and involvement in works that blur reality and fiction. His accolades include an Independent Spirit Award and a WGA Award, as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award. In 2023, he was featured on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

    Fielder was interested in comedy from a young age, and as a teenager was involved in his school's improv group, which also featured fellow comedian Seth Rogen. He majored in Business at the University of Victoria, which would later influence his work. After attending a comedy course at Humber College, Fielder started his career as a correspondent for CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes for the segment series Nathan on Your Side from 2008 to 2009. Fielder would later write and appear on the American sketch show Important Things with Demetri Martin (2011).

    In 2013, he co-created and directed the Comedy Central parody reality show Nathan for You, in which Fielder stars as a slightly more awkward version of himself, who offers advice to struggling businesses. The show ended in 2017 and was followed by the HBO docu-comedy The Rehearsal (2022–present). Fielder also executive produced the HBO docu-series How To with John Wilson (2020–2023). In 2023, he and Benny Safdie created his first scripted show, Showtime's The Curse, in which he stars, alongside Safdie and Emma Stone. (wikipedia)

    • • •

    Among the easiest Downs-only solves I've ever done, although I will admit that I accidentally saw 1A: Rum-soaked cake (BABA) before I managed to toggle to Downs, so I probably got B AND B (ampersandwich!) faster than I would've otherwise. Still, I would've gotten BAKED POTATO even without that initial "B" from BABA, so I think it's safe to say that this will play on the easy side for Downs-only solvers. For regular solvers, I don't know. That NATHAN FIELDER cross would've stumped me. I had no idea he had a Showtime show with Emma Stone. I know him from The Rehearsal, which is ... I don't even know how to describe it. It seems like a documentary/reality series where he helps people prepare for some big event coming up in their lives, something they're worried about or dreading. That's the "rehearsal," and in those first couple episodes [actually, just the first episode!], the "rehearsal" is elaborate—building exact replicas of the locations where events are to take place and hiring actors to play patrons, that sort of thing. It's awkward and hilarious and surreal. But then the show takes a hard left turn when [starting in episode 2] Nathan himself gets pulled into one of the guest's stories [as the non-romantic partner of a woman ostensibly "rehearsing" to be a parent], and then the rest of the first-season episodes are all about that plotline. No new guests, just this bizarre trip into half-fake pseudo-reality TV land. I don't remember details well, but I remember my wife and I were constantly looking at each other like "What Is Happening?" Completely original and unpredictable in a way that TV almost never is. I guess I'll have to check out The Curse, but if it's conventional scripted fare, even good conventional scripted fare, I'm afraid I'm going to be disappointed. The Rehearsal set the Weird Bar too high, and now that's all I want from him. Anyway, between that clue and the [Pour thing?] clue, I can see how actually having to deal with the Acrosses might've slowed you down. In the Downs, though—no resistance to be found at all.


    The theme is very basic, of a type that would've been very at home in the 20th century, even the pre-Shortz era, but the actual theme answers themselves, and the overall cluing, felt reasonably fresh. "IT'S A DRY HEAT" really gives you something extra to admire today (26D: Clichéd dismissal of Arizona's summer climate). That's one of the few Downs I wrestled with for more than a second or two, mainly because the "cliché" I was thinking of was "IT'S NOT THE HEAT / IT'S THE HUMIDITY," and I kept trying to make either half of that expression work. Ah well. "IT'S A DRY HEAT" works too, and it actually fits the clue (fancy that) (26D: Clichéd dismissal of Arizona's summer climate). The hardest answer for me to get was the last one: PROXY (55D: Designated representative). I had the "R" but the other letters were all bland and not easily inferrable. YA- could've been YAP YAK YAM etc. DUET- looked like it could only be DUETS. SPAN- looked like SPANS, or maybe SPANO (there's an actor Vincent SPANO, isn't there?) (A: Yes). And STA- could've been many other things besides STAY. So I had to push letters around and think on it, but I got there eventually. Even with that late struggle, this played very easy.


    The only part that made me go "boo!" ("boo! this is bad!" as opposed to "boo! scared ya!") was the clue on EVENS (34D: 2, 4, 6, 8, how do these numbers relate?). The "how" is what is bad. Clues are supposed to agree with answers grammatically, and EVENS is not a "how." I was looking for an adverbial phrase, maybe a prepositional phrase (How? Uh ... BY TWO?), but no, instead we get a mere synonym for 2, 4, 6, and 8: EVENS, i.e. even numbers. Sucks when the puzzle sacrifices clarity for cuteness. I love the idea (make it sound like a cheer!), but it doesn't work on the most basic wording level, so it doesn't work.


    Looking forward to actual Opening Day (Thursday!). Baseball is currently mired in a massive betting scandal involving its reigning AL MVP and highest-paid player, Shohei Ohtani, but ... as with most of the unpalatable aspects of pro sports that I enjoy, I'm just gonna pretend none of it matters. Play ball! And, as always, Go Tigers!


    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

    P.S. surprised that this is (apparently) Will Eisenberg's NYTXW debut. He's been constructing for what seems like years, but apparently only for other outlets (AVCX, New Yorker, etc.). Until now.

    P.P.S. today's constructors (frequent partners) also co-constructed a fun puzzle in These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4. Am I still plugging that collection? Apparently I am. It just crossed the $40K mark! Go get the puzzles for yourself if you haven't already.
     
    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Fairy tale monster / TUES 3-26-24 / Simplifies, as a fraction / "Harrumph!," to Scrooge / Mama's hermana

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    Hi, everyone! It’s Clare, back for the last Tuesday in March. I’m coming off of a third-place finish in trivia, which I’ll accept given that it was our first time back in a while. This month, I’ve been watching a lot of March Madness (particularly the women) and getting way too invested in my teams winning (and in Caitlin Clark). It’s also a rather busy time at work — USCIS has decided to increase filing fees on April 1, which means my firm is trying to get a whole lot of filings out before then. And all this has been happening while I’ve been dying a bit from this second winter that made me nearly freeze to death (before getting some hot cocoa) at a Washington Spirit NWSL game. (We won in dramatic fashion with an extra-time goal.)

    Constructors:
    Laura Dershewitz and Katherine Baicker

    Relative difficulty:Challenging (for a Tuesday)

    THEME: AD HOMINEM (34A: Kind of fallacious argument … or, phonetically, a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — Add a homonym at the end of the word/phrase that sounds like the prior word or syllable

    Theme answers:
    • HOTEL SUITE SWEET (17A: Mint on a pillow, maybe?) 
    • PIGTAIL TALE (27A: "Pippi Longstocking," for one?) 
    • MR RIGHT RITE (46A: Marriage ceremony for the perfect guy?) 
    • SECOND TO NONE NUN (57A: Mother superior?)
    Word of the Day:LARS (20A: "___ and the Real Girl" (Ryan Gosling film)) —
    Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American comedy-drama film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. The film stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, and Patricia Clarkson. Its plot follows Lars, a kind-hearted but socially awkward young man who develops a romantic yet nonsexual relationship with an anatomically correct sex doll, a RealDoll named Bianca. Though a commercial failure, the film was positively received by critics, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. (Wiki)
    • • •
    I thought the theme was quite fun and inventive. As a result, I enjoyed the solve more than I often do. Who doesn’t like a SUITE SWEET or a TAIL TALE or a RIGHT RITE or especially a SECOND TO NONE NUN— though I had to puzzle out that final one for a while. I realize three of the four final words are homonyms of the previous word, while the fourth (PIGTAIL TALE) uses a homonym of the previous syllable, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this was one of the more clever themes I’ve seen on a Tuesday. And I rather enjoyed it. 

    The rest of the fill surrounding the theme was on the tougher side, which contributed to my slower-than-usual time. SUI (57D: ___ generis (unique)) and MIEN (46D: Appearance) felt like words for puzzles later in the week. I wanted AEON (31A: Many millennia) to be eons, even though I knew the answer had to be singular. 

    Some of the downs were nice — I Iiked having CROATIA (2D: Country that adopted the euro in 2023), OUTRAGE (3D: Indignation), STATURE (44D: Reputation), and REDUCES (40D: Simplifies, as a fraction) in the puzzle, although I thought TIE IT UP (12D: Force a game into extra innings, say) was pretty meh. And THE SUNS (11D: Phoenix basketball team, familiarly) isn’t really a nickname for the team. The name of the city’s men's basketball team is just “the Phoenix Suns.” I suppose you could make the argument that by adding “the” you’ve turned it into a nickname, but then you could claim almost any sports team is a familiar name if you just add “the” (such as “the Steelers,” “the Warriors,” “the Giants,” “the Penguins,” etc.) The team nickname is part of the name — there’s nothing familiar about it. 

    There were a couple of mini themes in the puzzle — with 1A: Get moving (SCOOT) and 6A: Get moving? (PROD), along with 36D: Fairy tale monster (OGRE) and 47D: Fairy tale monsters (GIANTS) — which I thought added to the puzzle and the theme especially.

    Misc.:
    • I knew the answer to OHIO (16A: Dayton’s state) because my cousin is an assistant coach at Dayton for the men’s soccer team! 
    • I absolutely love The Sports BRA (24A: (Portland bar dedicated to women's athletics) and have been following along ever since it opened. It’s unique and lovely and amazing, and I love that it was in the puzzle. I’m jealous of everyone who can go. 
    • I distinctly remember wanting to be like Pippi Longstocking (27A) when I was younger; one time I slept upside down on my bed with my head where my feet were supposed to be. I was also Pippi Longstocking for Halloween one year with a wig and everything — including pipe cleaners to make my pigtails stick out. I now have red hair… maybe she was the basis for my dying it that color. 
    • BEDSIDE manner (50A: (doctor's demeanor)) makes me think of Cristina Yang from “Grey’s Anatomy,” especially because I’ve seen a million and one promotions for the show’s 21st season. (Cristina’s BEDSIDE manner was notoriously awful.) The fact that the show has been around for that long is simply wild. 
    • Fun fact: Something I learned tonight at trivia about “Shrek” (which features a famous OGRE) is that it doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test (i.e., do two women talk in a film about anything other than a man?). 
    • I’ve seen “My Cousin Vinny” with Marisa TOMEI (29D: Marisa who played herself in a "Seinfeld" cameo) more times than I should probably admit. I remember having a sleepover with my friend when I was younger, and we watched the movie three times over two days because it was just that good. If I ever have the chance to give my Letterboxd four favorites, that movie is definitely in there.
    Signed, Clare Carroll, a not so bare bear

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]


    Naval threats, according to an old saying / WED 3-27-24 / Release following the GameCube / T that comes before Y / Characteristic sound of Yoko Ono? / Chum, in Champagne

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    Constructor: Rich Katz

    Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


    THEME: Instructions for turning SCREWDRIVERS (54A: Toolbox tools): RIGHTY TIGHTY / LEFTY LOOSEY (19A: With 36-Across, mnemonic device for turning 54-Across ... or a hint to the answers to the starred clues)  — you must mentally supply "tight" on the right side of the grid three times (following, or to the "right" of, three answers), and "loose" on the left side of the grid three times (before, or to the "left" of, three answers)

    Theme answers:
    • SKIN tight (9A: *Closefitting)
    • "HANG tight!" (35A: *"Don't go anywhere!")
    • "SLEEP tight" (64A: *Rhyming partner of "Good night")
    • Loose TOOTH (13A: *Wiggler in a child's mouth)
    • Loose LEAF (39A: *Like some paper and tea)
    • Loose LIPS (65A: *Naval threats, according to an old saying) 
    Word of the Day:"Loose LIPS Sink Ships" (65A) —

    Loose lips sink ships is an American English idiom meaning "beware of unguarded talk". The phrase originated on propaganda posters during World War II, with the earliest version using the wording loose lips might sink ships. The phrase was created by the War Advertising Council and used on posters by the United States Office of War Information.

    This type of poster was part of a general campaign to advise servicemen and other citizens to avoid careless talk that might undermine the war effort. There were many similar such slogans, but "Loose lips sink ships" remained in the American idiom for the remainder of the century and into the next, usually as an admonition to avoid careless talk in general.(The British equivalent used "Careless Talk Costs Lives", and variations on the phrase "Keep mum", while in neutral Sweden the State Information Board promoted the wordplay "En svensk tiger" ("A Swedish tiger" or "A Swede keeps silent": the Swedish word "tiger" means both "tiger" and "keeps silent"), and Germany used "Schäm Dich, Schwätzer!" (English: "Shame on you, blabbermouth!").

    However, propaganda experts at the time and historians since have argued the main goal of these and similar posters was to actually frighten people into not spreading rumors, even true ones, containing bad news that might hurt morale or create tension between groups of Americans, since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (in charge of dealing with enemy spies) had rounded up the key agents in June 1941, so that the nation "entered the war with confidence that there was no major German espionage network hidden in U.S. society." [...] 

    Historian D'Ann Campbell argues that the purpose of the wartime posters, propaganda, and censorship of soldiers' letters was not to foil spies but "to clamp as tight a lid as possible on rumors that might lead to discouragement, frustration, strikes, or anything that would cut back military production." (wikipedia)
    • • •

    This theme grew on me as I circled the grid and realized how many layers it had, but I cannot tell you what a corrosive effect bad fill has on my initial mood and impression when solving a puzzle. I went "uh oh" at the very first answer I entered (IROC) and then "you must be joking" when the very next answer I got was OTOH. Junk, junk, right out of the box. I took a screenshot right there, but had no idea that things would actually get worse before I'd ever even left the NW corner (I threw that first screenshot away and took this one instead):

    [note: doubling OTOH with IMHO later on did not, I repeat not, make things better]

    Only-for-the-vowels IONIAN, the dreaded ON TOE ... this is the kind of tiresome short stuff that longtime solvers will have become inured to over the years, but I think a lot about people who aren't longtime solvers and how crummy this fill must seem. Plus, there's no reason to accept bad fill as a standard in the most high-profile crossword in the country. Again, it's a matter of density here—no one answer in particular, but a concatenation, a barrage. True, the NW is the worst of it, but the olden/boring fill is everywhere, as if the puzzle is barely holding itself together to accommodate the theme ... only the theme isn't really that demanding. Yes, you have not just three longer answers, but the six short ones that are more or less fixed in place. That does put stress on the grid. But it's your job to make the effects of that stress near invisible, particularly in a grid that doesn't actually hold any good fill at all beyond the instructions / revealer. It is fun (in a way) to discover the right/left gimmick, so you don't necessarily need sparkly fill today. But you do need it all to groan a little less.


    Another issue with the puzzle—an inevitable one—is that the entirety of RIGHTY TIGHTY / LEFTY LOOSEY goes in in one whoosh. True, you don't know the gimmick that's awaiting you, so the solve is nowhere close to over, but it's odd to give away that much real estate at once, especially since (as I say) there  is not another really interesting answer in the entire grid. The rest of the solve is just gunk and gimmick. Luckily, the gimmick is a good one. Didn't feel that way at first, but the theme ended up developing in an interesting way, with multiple ahas to be had. Firstly, I had TOOTH and had no idea anything was "missing" from the answer. Seemed right—a TOOTH can often be found wriggling in a child's mouth. Correct on its face. Mentally-supplied "Loose" not required. I could see that that clue was starred (*) but the answer seemed literal so I didn't think much about why and moved on. I got the long instructions right after that and didn't really read the clue all that closely (I tend not to with paragraph-long clues), so I thought the only thing left to discover was the last long answer, which turned out to be SCREWDRIVERS, which was ... disappointing. I mean, on-the-nose, obvious. Of course that's what RIGHTY TIGHTY / LEFTY LOOSEY refers to (that, or screw-top caps, jar lids, etc.). Nothing new there. Thud. Then I got LEAF and thought "that sounds wrong ... LEAF tea? LEAF paper? ... are those the terms?" But ... close enough, I thought, and kept going. I think it was only when I finally hit bottom, where LIPS made no sense without "loose," that I saw the gimmick. Or part of it—it was fun to realize a little later that missing "loose" was accompanied by missing "tight," and that each missing-word answer was appropriately oriented in the grid ("tight" answers on the right, "loose" answers on the left — RIGHTY TIGHTY / LEFTY LOOSEY, ta da!


    I liked also that the missing-word answers varied in terms of how hard they were to pick up, and that SLEEP, for instance, really played on the missing word (forcing some solvers, undoubtedly, to wonder how in the hell SLEEP rhymes with "Good night"). Then there was the ambiguity trap at 35A: *"Don't go anywhere!,"which, if you didn't fall into it, you probably didn't know existed. But I fell in. I came up from below, had the "H," and wrote in not "HANG" but "HOLD." The whole puzzle promptly seized up as every short cross over there failed, though even with "HANG" in place, ZIG was hard (why not ZAG?) (26D: Veer quickly) and TIN was hard (why not CAN?) (25D: Recyclable material). So that tiny area was a thorny mess for me. Otherwise, largely because the long theme stuff was so easy, this one played on the easy side, for sure. 


    Explainers:
    • 21A: T that comes before a Y (TAU) — not sure what the "Y" is, so I'm gonna look it up now ... OK, it's upsilon (or ypsilon), the twentieth letter of the Greek alphabet, and yup, it follows TAU directly. "Y" is what upsilon looks like in capital form (in lowercase, it's just a regular old "u").
    • 61A: Characteristic sound of Yoko Ono? (LONG "O")— a "letteral" clue, asking you to consider "Yoko Ono" not as a musician but solely as a name—a name containing four LONG "O"s. Yesterday, SILENT "B," today LONG "O,"tomorrow who knows?
    • 34D: Name found when reading between the lines? (ELI) — this is some cryptic crossword-type cluing: ELI is a buried word that you can find if you literally read between "thE LInes." Cute.
    That's it. Enjoy your day. See you tomorrow (Opening Day!). Take care.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

    [Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

    Nirvana achiever / THU 3-28-24 / Shade-tolerant perennial / Dustin's sweetheart on "Stranger Things" / Songwriter Barry who once had six consecutive #1 hits / Iberian greeting

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    Constructor: Dominic Grillo

    Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging


    THEME: POTATO / HEAD (1D: With 58-Down, classic toy that dropped gendered titles in 2021) — circled squares contain the various "body" parts of (formerly Mr. or Mrs.) POTATO HEAD, all positioned in the wrong places because, as the puzzle says, on the toy, those parts are INTERCHANGEABLE (59A: Like the parts of this puzzle's toy, as depicted throughout the grid)

    Parts:
    • SMILE (up top where the HAT should be)
    • NOSE and HAT (are these supposed to be EARs or HANDs, I cannot tell)
    • EAR (I think this is the NOSE's place? Maybe EYES?)
    • EYES (How did they get both EYES to go in the single NOSE hole? Or are the EYES one piece with this toy?)
    • HAND (down below where the SMILE should be ... I think)
    Word of the Day:"The Story of ADÈLE H" (57A: "The Story of ___" (1975 film by François Truffaut)) —

    The Story of Adèle H. (French: L'Histoire d'Adèle H.) is a 1975 French historical drama film directed by François Truffaut, and starring Isabelle AdjaniBruce Robinson, and Sylvia Marriott. Written by Truffaut, Jean Gruault, and Suzanne Schiffman, the film is about Adèle Hugo, the daughter of writer Victor Hugo, whose obsessive unrequited love for a military officer leads to her downfall. The story is based on Adèle Hugo's diaries. Filming took place on location in Guernsey and Senegal.

    20-year-old Isabelle Adjani received much critical acclaim for her performance as Hugo, garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role, making her the youngest Best Actress nominee ever at the time. The Story of Adèle H. also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Film, and the Cartagena Film Festival Special Critics Award. (wikipedia)

    • • •

    I guess it's a joke. The body parts are in the wrong place. Or am I just not looking at it from the right perspective? I don't know. I haven't seen a (Mr.) POTATO HEAD in four decades. I didn't know they still existed (beyond the Toy Story movies). The black squares toward the center form a kind of potato silhouette, and then the circled squares are placed in relation to that. As a piece of grid art, it's inventive. As a puzzle to actually solve, it wasn't really my thing. I've never had much patience for puzzles that are architectural stunts, largely because the solving experience so often seems not to be a consideration, and the fill often seems to suffer (as it does, in many places, today). But my main problem here is I don't think the architectural element is that good. It's sloppy-seeming. I tried (half-heartedly, I'll admit) to figure out what body parts were supposed to go where, and I couldn't figure it out. No idea where the HAND slot is *supposed* to be. Where's the other EAR? The other HAND? Why are there apparently two EYES in (apparently) the NOSE place, a place that wouldn't (would it?) have two holes? (looks like the toy's EYES might actually come in one piece, but in the grid, that is not how they appear). There's an admirable stab at whimsy here, but visually it all seems a bit of a mess. I mean, beyond the intentional mess of mixed-up body parts. The mess is a mess, is what I'm saying.


    Segmentation of the grid, particularly the extreme isolation of the center part (with only the narrowest of pathways in), made the puzzle somewhat difficult to travel through, and made that center section way harder than it would've been otherwise. You can only get in there via two answers: SEDIMENTS (which has a "?" clue, which meant that it was initially no help to me) (31A: Bank deposits?) and CHINESE YUAN (48A: Currency once pegged to the U.S. dollar). Luckily I knew the latter. I knew SEDIMENTS was probably something to do with river "banks," but SILT was the only word I had in my head, so I had to work from inside the potato before I got SEDIMENTS. And what do we have inside the potato? The plural of "poetry," LOL, I teach poetry (literally; later today, in fact) and I have never used the plural POETRIES in my life (I'm probably exaggerating, but not by much). If you were going to use it, you certainly wouldn't use it the way the clue has clued it, by reference to what are basically GENRES. [It can be epic or lyric] = POETRY. That would work. [They can be epic or lyric]? Hell no. Maybe (maybe) you might talk about the various POETRIES of the world—using it as a word for various poetic traditions. But mainly it's just poetry, man. No plural needed (or wanted). As for knowing names of poker guys, ugh, I remembered PHIL IVEY with a few crosses, but I can't say I enjoyed it (24D: Winner of 10 World Series of Poker bracelets). There's a dumb spelling game in here (37A: Synonym found after deleting half the letters of EXHILARATE) and a Britishly-spelled MITRE and the wholly underwhelming bonus (?) theme answer OVOID (46A: Shaped like this puzzle's subject). Also, I know PCP only as a drug and have never used that term to refer to my doctor, though I recognize that it's a valid abbr. (for "primary care physician"). So the middle part was the hardest part was the most unpleasant part.


    But PHIL IVEY was not the fill that made me wince the most. That honor goes to ADELE H, truly the worst crossword name partial of them all. Let me tell you all the ways it is bad. First, it's a partial. It's not the movie's title—it's a part of the movie's title. It is hyperspecific—there is no other way to clue ADELE H, and no other ADELE H in the universe to help you as an analogy. Like, I might not know a particular TIM or BOB or SUZIE (13A: Dustin's sweetheart on "Stranger Things"), but I can at least recognize those names as names that humans have. ADELE H, not so much. Further—that movie is exceedingly Not famous. It's nearly 50 years old and somehow, though I watch hundreds of movies a year, most of them on the Criterion Channel, and I read lots of writing about film, this film never comes up. It's a 50-year-old minor film by a major director, but (I'm pretty sure) most solvers will not have heard of it (let alone seen it) unless (like me) they learned about it from crosswords. Further, and worst of all, if you're a solver who doesn't know the film, then you don't have any idea that ADELE H is actually two words, or two parts: an ADELE part followed by the initial "H." ADELEH looks like one name in the grid. "Who the hell is ADELEH?" I can almost literally hear thousands of solvers asking in unison today. This is only the fifth time ADELEH has appeared in the NYTXW, and only the third during my blogging tenure (since '06). And all because of a terminal "H" occasioned by the placement of the HEAD in "POTATO HEAD." Stunningly, all appearances of ADELEH come from the Shortz (now Shortz/Fagliano) Era. The 1970s, when this movie at least had some currency, didn't want anything to do with ADELEH a crossword answer, and neither should you. Delete it.


    Other stuff:
    • 57D: Pulitzer-winning author whose name is found in nonconsecutive letters of "page turner" (AGEE) — this may be the stupidest clue I've ever seen in my life. "Nonconsecutive?" I hope you wrote in PETE and just left it there in defiance of this stupid clue. 
    • 25D: Deeply asleep, hyperbolically (COMATOSE)— one way to rescue your puzzle from excessive grimness (see also the clue on UZI).
    • 38A: Taiwanese president ___ Ing-wen (TSAI) — really should commit this to memory, but so far no luck. Had THAI here (?!?!) until SIGNAL BOX helped me out.
    • 15A: O-O-O part (TAC)— as in the game Tic-TAC-Toe
    • 45A: "Be mindful when clicking," in brief (NSFW) — Not Suitable For Work. Clue isn't really specific enough, since you should be mindful when clicking in many, many situations, not just when your buddy sends you porn.
    Off to teach the POETRIES. See you next time.

    Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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