Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Amanda Rafkin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:29)

THEME: WIN-WIN SITUATION (57A: Circumstance that's good for everyone ... with a hint to 17-, 25- and 44-Across) — themers have the letter string "WIN" inside them twice:

Theme answers:

"BLOWIN' IN THE WIND" (17A: Bob Dylan song that was a #2 hit for Peter, Paul & Mary)
KNOWING WINK (25A: Sly signal)
TOWING WINCH (44A: Device for pulling a vehicle)

Word of the Day: Jule STYNE (62A: "Gypsy" composer) —

Jule Styne (/ˈdʒuːli staɪn/; born Julius Kerwin Stein, December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British-American song writer and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Funny Girl. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gotta be brief today. Exhausted. Also, either my wife or I seem to have bumped one of the dials on the stove before we went upstairs to sleep (in her case) or solve (in mine) because after I finished the puzzle I printed it out on the downstairs printer and as soon as I opened my office door I could smell gas. Ran downstairs to find the knob clicked (barely) on. So now it's all I can smell and it's making me sick. Windows open, ceiling fans going ... it's just still in my nostrils. Awful. Also exhausted because my cat got neutered today and his post-op has been ... interesting. He has zero chill so of course immediately he's jumping onto counters and chasing imaginary things and well long story short, blood, blood, blood. Not that much, actually, but a little blood looks like a horror movie, frankly. So back to the vet, ice, cone of sadness, and now a very unhappy cat in confinement for 24 hours. Oh, and somewhere in there I baked a chocolate cake. For my wife's birthday (Wednesday). I suppose I could've spent this paragraph actually talking about the puzzle, and then the write-up could've been less brief, but that's not what my fingers wanted to do, man.

Happy to see the Monday puzzle. Better late than never. No idea what that thing was yesterday, but this puzzle reassures me that someone out there can still make a competent Monday-type puzzle, so I look forward to things being back to normal next week. In the meantime, yes, this theme is just fine. Revealer is original and themers express it well. Not sure how I feel about *all* of the first words in the themers being present participles, but ... no, actually I do know how I feel, which is I don't care that much. A little more variety in word type might've been nice, but it's a pretty restrictive theme. The fill is the fill—bit of a YAWN, listing toward olden (STYNE, BWANA ... ELD) and clunky (ONEBC, NOSTEP, YOS). I had most of my trouble in and around ONEBC, where I had two crosses wrong (one from HIS instead of YOS, the other from BLOTS instead of BLOBS). Also couldn't remember STYNE's name at first. Otherwise, very easy overall. OK, that's it. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (~5 min.)

THEME: hand jive — the meanings of hand gestured, clued using ordinal numbers to describe what the various DIGITs do in each gesture (66A: What each number in the starred clues represents):

Theme answers:

HANG LOOSE (18A: *1st and 5th)
VULCAN SALUTE (24A: *1st separate, 2nd and 3rd together, and 4th and 5th together)
VICTORY (39A: *2nd and 3rd separated)
"CAN I GET A LIFT?" (49A: *1st)
"HOPEFULLY..." (60A: *2nd and 3rd crossed)

Word of the Day: VOCAL FRY (39D: Low, creaky speaking register) —

The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealization, pulse phonation, creak, croak, popcorning, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape, or strohbass) is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal closure that permits air to bubble through slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very low frequency. During this phonation, the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together, which causes the vocal folds to compress rather tightly and become relatively slack and compact. This process forms a large and irregularly vibrating mass within the vocal folds that produces the characteristic low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the glottal closure. The register (if well controlled) can extend far below the modal voice register, in some cases up to 8 octaves lower, such as in the case of Tim Storms who holds the world record for lowest frequency note ever produced by a human, a G₋₇, which is only 0.189 Hz, inaudible to the human ear. (wikipedia)

• • •

The theme is fine but getting through this felt like running a punishing gauntlet, where lots and lots of tired fill just kinda shove you around and poke you in your ears and stuff. The problem started at 1-Across, to be honest (1A: Lab test) (ASSAY). Fine word, you might say, and, uh, OK, yeah, it's a word, but it is crosswordy, in that I only ever see it there, and I see it not infrequently; and when words like that pile up, yikes. And it's not just the repeaters, it's the rando stuff like ACTIV and the crosswordese place names like LHASA and LOIRE and then LAO ATOP ASEA PTA SARI GRU etc. on full blast for the whole 15x15 experience. HORAE!? GELID!? Also, there's this ultra-annoying little tendency toward Scrabble-f*cking, with the X and Z and multiple Ks shoved into the grid to either no good or very bad effect. None of these letters are giving you much bang for your buck, and the sections they're in aren't exactly pretty, so what the heck is even happening? AKNOT? Is your "K" worth that? Letters aren't interesting—good fill is interesting. Clean grids are pleasant. That's the direction you want to go in. If you go in that direction, then people can focus on the theme you came up with, which is presumably where you want them to focus.

I've got green ink alllllll over my puzzle print-out. A lot of it is just flagging the tiresome fill, but some if it indicates trouble spots. I can never process [Word that does this if you do this thing to it]-type clues, so SHE (15A: Word that becomes its own opposite if its first letter is removed), crossing a "?" clue in ASH (6D: Outcome of being fired?), crossing LHASA (which I wanted to be either LAPAZ or SUCRE), that whole area caused a bit of a slow-down. Also totally blanked on HORAE, a term I know because I teach classical literature sometimes but omg there are so many groups of goddesses and my brain apparently just can't keep them all sorted (36D: Goddesses of the seasons). Went for ICEIN before FOGIN, of course (53D: Strand at an airport, maybe). I think that's it for genuine sticking points. Except, no, I had trouble with the FRY part of VOCAL FRY, a phenomenon which is somehow both a widespread scourge and a thing I've never heard of, or ... possibly have heard of but have never properly understood. I thought it was just the rasp you get after yelling at, say, a concert or sporting event. It seems like such a slangy recent coinage that the simple word "register" didn't clue me in.

I will close by displaying contempt for 59A: Display contempt for, in a way (SPIT ON), but I'm just gonna sneer at it because spitting in general is repulsive and spitting *on* someone is beyond the pale. Even as a metaphor, gross.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy birthday to my wife, who is the best

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Lindsey Hobbs

Relative difficulty: Medium (high 5s)

THEME: DOWN UNDER (55A: Nickname for 18-Across, and a hint to how four answers in this puzzle are to be entered) — themers are all associated with AUSTRALIA (18A: Locale suggested by this puzzle's theme) and are entered in such a way that the answer turns first "down" then "under" (i.e. the answers fold back underneath themselves):

Theme answers:

PLATY / SESUP (i.e. "platypuses")
KANG / OORA (i.e. "kangaroo")
VEGE / ETIM (i.e. "Vegemite")
DIDGE / OODIR (i.e. "didgeridoo")

Word of the Day: Novelist Santha Rama RAU (47D) —

Santha Rama Rau (24 January 1923 – 21 April 2009) was an Indian-born American writer. [...] When India won its independence in 1947, Rama Rau's father was appointed as his nation's first ambassador to Japan. While in Tokyo, Japan, she met her future husband, an American, Faubion Bowers. After extensive traveling through Asia and a bit of Africa and Europe, the couple settled in New York City, New York. Rama Rau became an instructor in the English language faculty of Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, in 1971, also working as a freelance writer. // She adapted the novel A Passage to India, with author E. M. Forster’s approval, for the theater. The play of the same name was produced for the Oxford Playhouse, Oxford, United Kingdom, moved to the West End in London, United Kingdom, in 1960 for 261 performances, and then on to Broadway in New York City where it was staged 109 times. It was adapted by John Maynard and directed by Waris Husseinfor BBC television's Play of the Month in 1965. Although the film rights originally required Rama Rau to write the screenplay, director David Lean found her draft unsatisfactory and was able to reject it, although she is still credited in the titles because he still used some of her dialogue. // Rama Rau is the author of Home to India, East of Home, This is India, Remember the House (a novel), My Russian Journey, Gifts of Passage, The Adventuress, (a novel), View to the Southeast, and An Inheritance, as well as co-author (with Gayatri Devi) of A Princess Remembers: the memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur. (wikipedia)

• • •

And a KOALA for good measure (31D: Dweller in a eucalyptus forest). Here's a Thursday where looking DOWN UNDER (i.e. looking at the revealer clue first) wouldn't have helped a damn bit, as the revealer points you to 18-Across and the 18-Across clue tells you nothing. So you've gotta get answers into the grid before you can begin to have even an inkling of what's going on, which is fine by me as I tend to plunge right into every puzzle, hacking away at what I can get until the theme just ... sort of ... shows itself. Today, it took a weird lot of time to do that. I made good progress, but for a long time just didn't know how to enter those themers. Would've picked it up much quicker, probably, if I just could've gotten TYPIFIED (5D: Embodied). Clue had me thinking of something much more ... corporeal, and without the "Y" or "P" I couldn't see it ... and without the "Y" or "P" I also couldn't see PLATY/PUSES, though, honestly I didn't stop to think about it too much. Again, I tend to plow ahead. It's not clear to me if stopping to think about PLATY/PUSES would've paid off or just been a time suck. My general philosophy is if you get stuck, even a little, and you can move on, move on. I think the first themer I tumbled to was VEGE/MITE, which was hard because there was no reference to AUSTRALIA in the clue, and nothing at all referring to VEGE/MITE's unique look / texture / taste. Just "brand of sandwich spread" ... yikes. And we not only eat VEGE/MITE in this household, we once stockpiled it when we learned our grocery store was going to stop carrying it (they've since reversed course on this decision, thank god). Anyway, once you get the trick, the puzzle is not hard—typical Thursday, in that regard. And, much to my surprise and delight, getting the theme today made me feel like the struggle was worth it—a simple and very elegant expression of the revealer phrase. A "Huh, cool" rather than [shrug] or "ugh, really?"

Aptly snared by SNARE today (6D: Catch). I had the "R" and wrote in LEARN (?). Like "catch" as in "hear of" or "pick up," as when someone doesn't hear something and says "Sorry, I didn't catch that, what did you say?," which, now that I write it out, really isn't a good substitute for LEARN, but Thursdays can be wacky, so ... yeah. Had a lot of trouble with TRAMPOLINE, as I took "bouncer" in the club / bar security sense and not in the "literally someone bouncing" sense (41A: Bouncer's equipment). And REPO MEN, also very hard, as I couldn't remember the very crosswordesey (and yet still not automatic) RAU. Did not enjoy seeing RAU (a name that is crossword-famous all out of proportion to its actual famousness), but the clue on REPO MEN was really good (47A: Ones coming for a ride?). As with RAU, I had trouble retrieving ATUL's name, but ATUL's book I have laid eyes on many many many times, which means that even though I've seen his name in crosswords far less often than I've seen RAU's name, I resent it much less (i.e. not at all).

Had RANKS before MARKS, that hurt (48D: Grades). Couldn't remember if it was FEY or FAY (30A: Eliflike). Since FEY can mean "marked by an otherworldly air or attitude" (m-w.com), you can see how one might get confused. Found "A WORD ..." very hard but ... it was one of those perfect hard answers where when you first get it you're mad but then after you sit with it you have to acknowledge that it is very much a real expression, clued accurately (37A: "I need to speak with you," briefly). Worst mistake today was a mistake combo. Went with OPAL (AUSTRALIA!) / HEEL, which I felt pretty good about, until none of the crosses worked and I quickly realized it was ONYX / STYX (52D: Traditional gemstone for a seventh wedding anniversary / 63A: Where Achilles took a dip?).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. only just now seeing the Australian clue on RUM (19D: ___ Rebellion, 1808 uprising in New South Wales). That may be a bit of trying too hard with the theme stuff. Know when to say when.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Medium (5:56)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: JENA Malone (53D: Actress Malone of the "Hunger Games" films) —

Jena Malone is an American actress who has appeared in over 40 feature films since beginning her career as a child actor in 1996. She gained critical acclaim for her film debut in Anjelica Huston's Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), followed by supporting parts in major studio films such as Contact and Stepmom (1998). She subsequently had roles in the cult film Donnie Darko, and the drama Life as a House (both 2001), before having starring roles in the independent American Girl (2002), the dark comedy Saved! (2004), and the drama The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005).
She co-starred as Lydia Bennet in the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice before making her Broadway theater debut as Sister James in Doubt, in 2006. Subsequent film roles include supporting parts in the arthouse drama Lying, the biographical drama Into the Wild (2007), and the supernatural horror film The Ruins (2008). In 2011, she appeared in the action film Sucker Punch before being cast as Johanna Mason in The Hunger Games film series, appearing in a total of three films between 2013 and 2015. She also had roles in Nicolas Winding Refn's controversial horror film The Neon Demon, and Tom Ford's thriller Nocturnal Animals (both 2016). (wikipedia)

• • •

Felt like I struggled a lot, but I finished in under 6, so it can't have been *that* difficult. I think falling asleep for two hours (!) on the couch immediately after dinner may have disoriented me a bit, though it doesn't seem to have affected my solving time too much. I liked this one pretty well up top, but then slightly less as I went along, for various not-terribly-serious reasons. I am always here for BAT FLIPS, in whatever form they take, and today they take crossword-answer form, which pleases me greatly (15A: Showboaty home run celebrations). "THEM'S THE BREAKS" is olde-timey in a way I actually quite like. Seems like something Daffy or Bugs would say. "OZYMANDIAS" looks great in the grid, and that poem is always timely, even if I can't reliably spell it ("... dias? ... dius?"), so exiting the upper third of the grid, I felt pretty good about the direction this whole enterprise was headed. The middle of the grid was way less ... way more ... it was just wobbly to my ear. I keep looking at ACCIDENTS HAPPEN and thinking both that it looks like a real expression and that I never hear that sentiment expressed quite that way. I feel like shit happens. Mistakes ... also happen. Or ... were made. I think my biggest problem with hearing this expression correctly is that the phrase that I've actually heard, over and over and over again, is "Accidents *will* happen." And I have heard it so often for the following reason:

I also just couldn't get a grip on the other two longer Acrosses in the middle of the grid. I had ___ TRIP and ___ TEST and in neither case was I sure what the first part was supposed to be. I think I put ROAD TEST in at first, and I know I wanted ACID TRIP at first (which I'm only just now realizing is hilarious and bizarre—wanting ACID to be the front end of one answer and having it turn out to be the front end of the other). I think I just don't use the term ACID TEST, even though I recognize it and would understand it in context (41A: Conclusive proof provider). And as for HEAD TRIP ... I think we just call them "trips" (31A: Mentally exhilarating experience). "That was a trip!""She's a trip!""Trippy!" The "head" part, while I'm quite certain it has colloquial validity, feels redundant to my ears. Like, where else is your "trip" going to happen, your leg? So, with none of the longer Acrosses really landing for me, the experience was less pleasurable in the middle section.

Things picked up again down below, though that SW corner (where I finished up) was oddly hard for me. I completely forgot the term CASING (45D: Door or window frame) and then had no idea in what context AGE would appear before a plus sign. I still don't. Is this to indicate "[some age] and up" (as in "people 50 and older")? I can hear someone saying "there were 50 plus people there," indicating "in excess of," but in that case you wouldn't write it out with a "+" so I just don't know. I'm going to ask someone on Twitter now, hang on ... people are shouting all kinds of things at me, like "jigsaw puzzle box" and "movie ratings" and "amusement park rides" and "board games," but the jigsaw / board game thing is more "ages ___ *and up*" (not "+") and the movie ratings I can think of with age are PG-13 (no "+") and I'll just have to take your word for it on amusement park rides ... this just seems an awkward clue since there's no definitive context here. Meh. And then the clue on SPOT was hard (55D: Word before check ... or a pattern), as I don't think "SPOT" is a pattern ("leopard spot," maybe ... but otherwise it's polka dot that's the pattern) and then I have never heard of JENA Malone despite her very long filmography. Bizarre that I watch as many movies as I do and have seen literally none of the dozens she's been in (she was not in the first "Hunger Games" movie, which I did see). The ZEE clue, ugh, totally got me (58D: Half of a jazz duo) (there are two "z"s in "jazz" so they're a duo, get it!?!?). Seems like it should have a "?" on it, but I'm not too mad about it. Thankfully I got ZEPPELIN without too many crosses, and then I rode the ZEPPELIN to victory (not all ZEPPELIN rides have such happy endings).

Notable mistakes I haven't yet mentioned: STOAT for SHREW (51D: Cousin of a mole); STERN and STEIN for STEEN (52D: Dutch painter Jan); ISLET for ISLES (22A: Key chain?); ETA for ETD (24D: A few minutes after your Lyft arrives, say) (had no idea what was supposed to be happening in those minutes ... I just assumed you were making a short trip). Oh, and OAFS before APES (12D: Brutes). The last thing I will say is that DISK always looks wrong to me (I think I use "disc" every time). There's something very uncircular about the letter "K." Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Victor Barocas and Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:40)

THEME: QUINCUNX / PLUS SIGN (1A: Pattern of five shapes arranged like this puzzle's central black squares / 62A: One of five depicted in this puzzle) — two answers refer to the five black-square formations seen in the grid (the rest of the grid is mercifully themeless)

Word of the Day: CLAFOUTI (36D: French dessert of fruit encased in sweet batter) —

Clafoutis (French pronunciation: [klafuti]; Occitan: clafotís [klafuˈtis] or [kʎafuˈtiː]), sometimes spelled clafouti in Anglophone countries, is a baked French dessert of fruit, traditionally black cherries, arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. The clafoutis is dusted with powdered sugar and served lukewarm, sometimes with cream.
A traditional Limousin clafoutis contains not only the flesh of the cherries used, but also the nut-like kernels in the stones. Cherry kernels contain benzaldehyde, the compound responsible for the dominant flavour in almond extract. They also contain a small amount of amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside - a compound potentially capable of releasing cyanide if consumed, but non-toxic in small quantities. (wikipedia)

• • •

I saw Brad Wilber's name on the byline and thought it would be on the tougher side for me, since he will inevitably throw some fancy / exotic / foreign vocabulary I've never heard of before in there because he reads more than you and me put together and he's just smart that way. And sure enough, there it was, bam, QUINCUNX (!?!?), bam, CLAFOUTI ... and yet my time was totally normal for a Saturday, so I learned a couple new words without too much aggravation, which is just fine with me. I was much more aggravated by AES and HOBS and ENE and a little bit by FES (mostly because I thought it was spelled FEZ) (58D: Morocco's next-largest city after Casablanca). But I very much liked "I DON'T LIKE TO BRAG" and "RETURN OF THE JEDI," and NAHUATL (40D: Language from which peyote comes) and XANADU (8D: Site of Coleridge's "stately pleasure-dome") and SPIT TAKE (14D: Reaction to an unexpected joke) were pretty snazzy as well (for the record, this is the only way in which I will accept "SPIT" in my puzzle). I'm very much not a fan of themes on Saturday (or Friday), as they tend to be themed enough to restrict the quality of the fill but not themed enough to really be worth it. Today's theme was kind of a shrug for me. A push. A wash. I didn't care about it. It's fine.

QUINCUNX nearly broke me up front. First of all, I wanted PENT-... something. Then I really wanted the latter part of the word to be -CRUX (because the black-square formations looked like crosses). I wasn't quite sure if the "Pattern of five shapes" was the five PLUS SIGNs or the five black squares arranged to look like a PLUS SIGN in each instance. Anyhoo, -CRUX was wrong. But knowing my Coleridge really helped because XANADU gave me not only the "X" but the "A" I needed to see UNDERSEA, and I was able to slowly piece things together from there. Found BANS very hard to get (19A: Some last a lifetime); had -ANS and still no idea, but luckily QUÉBEC fell into place and gave me that last letter I needed. Whole NE was a piece of cake. Zero problems there. Watched all of "Veep" earlier this year and still had no idea re: ANNA Chlumsky, but now that I see her face of course I know who she is. I did not realize she was the (child) star of the 1991 movie "My Girl" (opposite Macaulay Culkin) until just now. That's quite a career.

Never saw "My Girl," but I did see "RETURN OF THE JEDI"—probably several times—and yet that didn't keep me from failing to understand the clue and initially writing in RETURN OF THE KING (12D: Whence a memorable emperor's fall). I think of Darth Vader as "Lord Vader," so "emperor" weirdly threw me off. CLAFOUTI gave me trouble in the SW, but otherwise, smooth sailing. So overall, tough going around the two longer words I didn't know and couldn't hope to infer, and easy going everywhere else. Thus, Medium. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Miriam Estrin

Relative difficulty: Medium (10:17)

THEME:"Title Basin"— book titles made wacky by changing last word in the title into a homophone of the original word:

Theme answers:

"LIFE OF PIE" (23A: Yann Martel's baking memoir?)
"TENDER IS THE KNIGHT" (30A: F. Scott Fitzgerald's chivalric tale?)
"CANDIED" (46A: Voltaire's sweet novel?)
"IN SEARCH OF LOST THYME" (63A: Marcel Proust's kitchen mystery?)
"THE LITTLE PRINTS" (90A: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's pet story?)
"JULIUS SEES HER" (112A: William Shakespeare's historical romance?)

Word of the Day: TOE PICK (44A: What a figure skate has that a hockey skate lacks) —

noun
one of the sharp teeth in the front part of a figure-skating blade. (dictionary.com)

• • •

Jane Air. Huckleberry Fin. Cannery Roe. Native Sun. I could keep going, but why? Why? Why? This is the operative question today. Unless I'm missing some very sneaky hidden element to this theme, I don't see how this very weak theme, with very few elements, passes muster on a Sunday, especially when there is almost nothing to recommend the non-theme parts of the grid. A couple answers here and there are sort of nice (ABOUT TIME, SLUGFESTS), but most of it is just filler, and a lot of filler. The grid is constructed in such a way that it's very choppy, with a surfeit of short fill—3s, 4s, and 5s as far as the eye can see. That doesn't leave much in the way of potential interest, especially when the theme is so one-note, so weak. There's absolutely nothing clever or surprising about the pi / pie pun. It's exceedingly familiar by now (from Pi(e) Day, for one). Same with (k)night. Same with thyme / time. The prints pun is a little better, and the best one of all is probably "JULIUS SEES HER," though it was also the most annoying in some ways because it broke pattern (the pun going to two words instead of just one). CANDIED should not even be here, as it's not actually a pun. it's "Can-DIDE" (pronounced "can-DEED"), accent on the second syllable, whereas CANDIED has the accent on the first. Also, CANDIED really really breaks form by not being a multiple-word title where the pun is in the last word. And by being just a paltry seven letters long (not really theme territory). There are so few answers here ... you can't sneak a 7-letter one in there and expect it to have any impact. My friend Austin had to point out to me that there were six, not five themers, because I totally forgot to count it the first time through. In short, the theme is overly simple, with almost no comedic value, and the fill is bland (ECRU ... FLAX (???))—overwhelmingly short and (consequently) with almost no zip to it.

Not much to say about this one, actually. There were no real tough spots, no posers, no hot spots, no traps. I just plodded to the end. Oh, OK, there was one sticking point / trap. I wrote in KUMAR for 6A: Titular film character opposite Harold (MAUDE). That was very clearly obviously deliberately a trap. I didn't even consider MAUDE, despite the fact that I love (and own) that movie, and don't even remember "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" (or whatever it is they did). In that same section, though far less of a trap and far more of a personal screw-up, 17D: Goes undercover? (SLEEPS) really flummoxed me til the very last cross. I actually had BLEEPS (because if you "bleep" something ... you ... cover it up??). That was leaving me with something like BLOGFESTS at 17A: Knock-down-drag-out fights, which *almost* seemed plausible, but not quite. MUFFIN ended up being very clarifying, in the end. After I got out of that section, I had no trouble to speak of. So I will speak no more. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Fred Piscop

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (2:47)

THEME:"... in the comics"— clues refer to visual representations of (mostly) invisible phenomena "in the comics":

Theme answers:

STORM CLOUD (16A: Anger, in the comics)
WAVY LINES (15D: Odor, in the comics)
LIGHT BULB (26D: Idea, in the comics)
SWEAT DROPS (59A: Nervousness, in the comics)

Word of the Day: Rembrandt PEALE (48D: Portrait painter Rembrandt ___) —

Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style was influenced by French Neoclassicism after a stay in Paris in his early thirties. (wikipedia)

• • •

I love comics. I teach comics. I'm teaching a course on comics now, and I will teach another one in the spring. Thematically, this should be right up my alley. And it was, in the sense that the answers were all pretty easy to get. But there's a listlessness to the execution here. You know what would've been super cool? Well, it's likely impossible for the NYT to do this easily, but this puzzle is just screaming for visual clues. Like, work with the Charles Schulz estate and just use a series of single panels for your theme clues ... somehow.

That would be really innovative. As it is, "in the comics" just doesn't cut it. I mean, it's accurate enough, but all this puzzle does is make me wish I was reading comics. Also, it really feels like STORM CLOUDs are more commonly used to represent depression, sadness, or general sadsackery than anger.

Did you know that the unpronounceable symbols used to represent swearing in comics are called GRAWLIX? Why hasn't *that* been in a crossword puzzle!? I mean, besides its relative obscurity. It's a truly great word.

I mostly filled this one in as fast as I could read the clues / type. Hesitations for long-ass clues (e.g. 10D: In answer to request "Talk dirty to me," she sometimes says "The carpet needs vacuuming") (SIRI), slight forgetfulness (e.g. needing a bunch of crosses to remember MARACA (17D: Percussion instrument made from a gourd)), inexplicable blanking (e.g. couldn't remember EGRET??? Even after getting the "E"??? Actually considered EIDER for a half-second????) (65A: White-plumed wader), and, finally, in a single instance, absolutely positively not knowing something—namely, the portrait painter Rembrandt PEALE, who looks an awful lot like Hume Cronyn in "Shadow of a Doubt"

Anyway, Rembrandt PEALE seems pretty Saturdayish for a Monday (or any day, I guess). I know only one Rembrandt—the actually famous one. The actual Monday one. So I needed every cross there. But that's it for trouble. Hope it's a lovely autumn day where you are, and that you are able to enjoy it. Take care.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium (skewing slightly harder than normal?) (3:45)

THEME: BACKORDERED (38A: Like goods that are temporarily out of stock ... or a hint, alphabetically, to the answers to the starred clues) — answers to starred clues have letters that appear in reverse alphabetical order:

Theme answers:

TOOK HEED (17A: *Followed warnings)
YUPPIE (18A: *Materialistic sort, stereotypically)
SPLIFF (23A: *Marijuana cigarette, informally)
TROLLED (25A: *Posted inflammatory blog comments, e.g.)
WOOKIEE (50A: *Chewbacca, e.g.)
ROOMBA (52A: *Autonomous cleaner)
"TO LIFE!" (59A: *"L'chaim!")
SPOON-FED (62A: *Like toddlers in high chairs, often)

Word of the Day: Joe SATRIANI (65A: Guitarist Joe with 15 Grammy nominations) —

Joseph Satriani (born July 15, 1956) is an American rock musician, composer, songwriter, and guitar teacher. Early in his career, Satriani worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, such as Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick; he then went on to have a successful solo music career. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over 10 million albums, making him the best-selling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.
In 1988, Satriani was recruited by Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for his first solo tour.Satriani briefly toured with Deep Purple as the guitarist, joining shortly after the departure of Ritchie Blackmore in November 1993. He has worked with a range of guitarists during the G3 tour, which he founded in 1995. Satriani has been the guitarist for the supergroup Chickenfoot since joining the band in 2008. (wikipedia)

• • •

Cool, a Tuesday themeless! Trust me, this is the best way to think about this puzzle. Because if you're like me and you waste a good minute (which felt like a good half hour) trying to figure out what the theme was supposed to mean, and then you finally get it, your only response is likely to be, as mine was, "OMG WHO CARES!?" (well, it was more of an in-my-head "WHO CARES!?," as it's 5am and my wife and the cat are still asleep). Who has ever been thrilled, charmed, titillated, or amused by the fact that a word's letters are in reverse alphabetical order? Am I charmed by STU because his letters are in *alphabetical* order!? The answer is no, I'm charmed by STU because of the whole disco thing, and that alone.

I don't understand why people build puzzle themes around concepts that are both (largely) invisible and of no real inherent interest. This is a stunt puzzle, the kind you have to *explain* and then when you do explain ... again, who cares? It's all about the "feat of construction," which only the constructor himself is gonna be truly impressed by. "Feats of construction" are fine, great, impressive even, when they deliver ... interest. But here, I gotta point out the things that are impressive—that there are nine theme answers (including the revealer) and the fill still manages to be remarkably smooth for all that, that literally no other answers *besides* the answers to the starred clues have letters that appear in reverse alphabetical order, even the three-letter ones—and ... well, if a puzzle feature falls in the woods ... you get the idea. So as I say, best to consider this a Tuesday themeless. It's got some nifty fill, there are plenty of 7+-letter answers, and best of all, the short, overfamiliar fill is completely inoffensive and mostly stays out of the way. You can do RELET OPART TRU NIA USDO (!?) and even MPAA x/w AAS when there is so much longer fill to maintain solver interest.

Started slow because ugh the clue on 1A was a ****ing paragraph and it was trying to make me think about letters and it's too early in the morning for that (1A: Multi-Emmy-winning actor whose first and last names start with the same two letters). And then 1D: Exam for some smart H.S. students (AP TEST) got on my nerves because they are literally officially called AP *EXAM*s, so I figured the answer couldn't be AP anything. Then I forgot there was a LOOMPA Land. And I can never do those "Word with / after / before"-type clues very well, so SHELF shmelf (5D: Word after ice or book). But, as usual, once I made some headway, got my feet under me, I took off, and the bottom half of the grid was much much faster than the top. Overall, enjoyable enough to solve. I just wish I could've walked away from the puzzle as soon as I was done and remained blissfully unaware of the theme pointlessness. Ah well. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Dory Mintz

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 4s)

THEME: city puns— familiar phrases where first word is swapped out for a homophone that is also the name of a city; clues are wacky, of course:

Theme answers:

BERN BRIDGES (17A: Ways to cross a river in Switzerland?)
CANNES OPENER (28A: First showing at a film festival in France?)
DELHI COUNTER (44A: Census taker in India?)
SEOUL SEARCH (58A: Police dragnet in South Korea)

Word of the Day: BABU (1D: Hindu title of respect) —

The title babu, also spelled baboo, is used in the Indian subcontinent as a sign of respect towards men. In some cultures, the term 'Babu' is a term of endearment for a loved one as well. The honorific "ji" is sometimes added as a suffix to create the double honorific "babuji" which, in northern and eastern parts of India, is a term of respect for one's father. (wikipedia)

• • •

When I finished this, I assumed it had been written by an older person. By "older" I mean significantly older than me, and I'm 50. I also assumed "Dory" was a woman. Wrong on both counts! This theme is so slight and so stale that I'm genuinely stunned the puzzle was accepted. This feels like something straight out of the pre-Shortzian era. City puns? Some version of this theme has to have been done roughly 2000 times in the past half century. What's worse, the puns don't even result in funny or even genuinely wacky clues. They're leaden. Obvious. Plain. Boring. The only evidence I have that a bot programmed to think like a Baby Boomer who stopped solving puzzles in 1985 didn't make this puzzle was the clue on HAIM (6D: American pop-rock band composed of three sisters) and the freakishly (for this puzzle) current phrase, "I CAN'T EVEN ..." The whole frame of reference in this puzzle is largely bygone. I guess SOCHI wouldn't have been crossword-famous before 2014, but still, in fill and especially in concept, this puzzle seems like something straight out of the IMUS era (not sure exactly when that was, but most of it was not in this century, that I know).

It was also maddeningly hard ... or ... futzy, I guess ... to get through. Does PBR still have "hipster cred" (5D: Brew with hipster cred)? That clue feels like it's from the '00s. I wrote in IPA there, which felt ... not dead on, but close. So that messed things up. I don't remember GTE at all (31A: Co. that merged into Verizon); don't think I ever dealt with them in any way. So that initialism was a mystery (I had ATT I think, even though they're obviously still around and haven't merged with Verizon). I wrote in LARSON, thinking of 2015 Best Actress Oscar winner Bree LARSON, instead of actress ALISONBrie, which is weird because I watched and loved "Mad Men" and know very well who ALISON Brie is (she played Pete's wife; she was also in the sitcom "Community"). So that error is very much on me. Ugh, really wanted RAMP before RAIL (30D: Skate park feature), and that one nearly killed me (because RA- was correct, I almost didn't notice the errors in the crosses). But the area that really slowed me down the most was the SE—total train wreck, starting with SCADS for SLEWS (49A: Loads). Later, BENCH for STOOP (55A: Urban sitting spot). Later still, MEALY for WORMY (50D: Like a bad apple). Jeez, WORMY? That's really, really bad. I've never had a WORMY apple. Yikes. Also could not make any sense of PHON-, which is easily the yuckiest bit of fill in the whole grid (56D: Sound: Prefix).

Still mad that CANNES and CAEN are in the same puzzle. Two French cities? With names that are ... well, not identical in pronunciation, but PRETTY damn close? And those two answers *cross* each other? And one of them (CAEN) is hardcore crosswordese? That's a lot of "no."BABU is interesting in that it's a real term that also definitely belongs to times of yore where crossword frequency is concerned. It appeared just last year, actually, but before that, only twice since 1997 (!). Whereas from 1948-88 it appeared some twenty-one times. It baffled me, for sure. But it didn't irk me the way, say, AU LAIT on its own did. Hey, somebody do an AU LAIT / OLÉ! / OLAY theme, quick! There's gotta be a way. Yes, it's a terrible idea, but better to be a spectacular failure than the lukewarm (re)hash that is this puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I forgot to credit FANFIC as curent-ish (4D: Some derivative stories, colloquially). My apologies.

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Constructor: Sid Sivakumar

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: RUNS ON EMPTY (61A: Keeps going despite fatigue ... or a hint to three features of this puzzle)— letter string "RUN" appears three times, and each time the squares underneath it are EMPTY

Theme answers:

17A: They put in long hours to get better hours (LABOR UNIONS)
21A: What's theorized to have preceded the Big Bang ([nothing])
30A: Telephone when all lit up? (DRUNK DIAL)
36A: What polar opposites have in common ([nothing])
46A: Founder of the Sikh religion (GURU NANAK)
50A: What's uttered by a mime ([nothing])

Word of the Day: GURU NANAK (46A) —

Guru Nanak (Punjabi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ (Gurmukhi); گرو نانک (Shahmukhi); Gurū Nānak; [gʊɾuː naːnəkᵊ], pronunciation; born as Nanak on 15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), also referred to as Baba Nanak ('father Nanak'), was the founder of Sikhism and is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated worldwide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Katak Pooranmashi('full-moon of the Katak'), i.e. October–November.
Nanak is said to have travelled far and wide across Asia teaching people the message of ik onkar (ੴ, 'one God'), who dwells in every one of his creations and constitutes the eternal Truth. With this concept, he would set up a unique spiritual, social, and political platform based on equality, fraternal love, goodness, and virtue.
Nanak's words are registered in the form of 974 poetic hymns, or shabda, in the holy text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, with some of the major prayers being the Japji Sahib (jap, 'to recite'; ji and sahib are suffixes signifying respect); the Asa di Var ('ballad of hope'); and the Sidh Gohst ('discussion with the Siddhas'). It is part of Sikh religious belief that the spirit of Nanak's sanctity, divinity, and religious authority had descended upon each of the nine subsequent Gurus when the Guruship was devolved on to them. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ha ha, yeah, not a puzzle I should've been doing at 4:30am, straight out of bed, probably. All the non-theme parts were easy, but literally everything between the first EMPTY and the last EMPTY (so, everything in the center and center-west) was a mess. Spent tons of time just flat-out stuck, which virtually never happens. I'd even jumped ahead to the revealer clue to see if I could get some help and, well, not really. Even with the RUNS part in place, I couldn't figure out the rest of the phrase (RUNS ON AND ON came to me before RUNS ON EMPTY); and then, even after I completely understood the theme ... still stuck. Three major contributing factors to this. One, I needed literally every cross for GURU NANAK. Most of those letters could have been anything from my perspective (although I was able to put together the "RUN" part from knowing the theme). Two, ATONE, wow (39A: When some people break for lunch). I have to say that cluing a perfectly good English word as a phrase is a generally awful choice, and here it was really irksome because it came right in the heart of theme-impacted country, and so after I put in what seemed like the obvious ONEPM, I had no way of getting rid of that wrong answer with any certainty (not for a while, anyway). Which brings me to three: I just completely forgot the word DUVETS (24A: Down-hearted softies?). The "?" clue didn't help, but there was honestly one point at which I was staring at DUVE- and thinking, "well, no words start that way so I must have an error." Oof. Throw in, in that same center section, a non-S-ending plural in DATA (35D: Figures, e.g.) and a really hard clue on theme-affected TROJAN (25D: Misleading malware), and it meant total catastrophe for me, solving-speed-wise.

The west was also rough, as I forgot there were ever WHIGs in the U.S., and because of that could not come up with the very basic WANTED (34A: Word seen above a mug shot). And before I got HYPE (which took time) (38A: It may lead up to a letdown), I had no real hope of seeing BAYOU (28D: Place to catch shrimp)—that clue was not quite geographically specific enough for me (in that it was not geographically specific at all). So, tale of two puzzles today, as far as difficulty goes—that left/center chunk (yikes), and then everything else (fine). The only issues I had outside the Danger Zone was in the JUG / UTAH area. Hard clue on UTAH, no chance there (58D: Its name is said to mean "people of the mountains"), and I wrote in "ALL ears" before "JUG ears" (?) (57A: ___ ears). I know jugs have ears, but I don't know about the phrase "JUG ears" as a stand-alone thing. I've heard "JUG-eared" to describe someone with ears that stick out, but just "JUG ears," I dunno.

Really liked the clue on DRUNK DIAL (30A: Telephone when all lit up?). Really didn't like the clue on KILO, which lacked any indication that the answer was an abbr. (48D: Approximate weight of a liter of water). Always feels like cheating on the cluer's part when abbrs. are not signaled some way in the clue. OK, that's all, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium (slow, for me, for a R.W. puzzle, but still right around 6)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: CPI (35A: Cost-of-living fig.)—

A consumer price index measures changes in the price level of a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households.
A CPI is a statistical estimate constructed using the prices of a sample of representative items whose prices are collected periodically. Sub-indices and sub-sub-indices can be computed for different categories and sub-categories of goods and services, being combined to produce the overall index with weights reflecting their shares in the total of the consumer expenditures covered by the index. It is one of several price indices calculated by most national statistical agencies. The annual percentage change in a CPI is used as a measure of inflation. A CPI can be used to index (i.e. adjust for the effect of inflation) the real value of wages, salaries, and pensions; to regulate prices; and to deflate monetary magnitudes to show changes in real values. In most countries, the CPI, along with the population census, is one of the most closely watched national economic statistics. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was one of the toughest Robyn Weintraub puzzles I've ever done, and that still put me in totally normal Friday time territory, which tells you (me) that her puzzles are always very much on my wavelength, which is at least part of why I enjoy them so much. Today's effort looks really good, for the most part. She gets a lot of colorful longer answers into a grid that does not look at all daunting—no big blocks of white space, no gaping and largely cut-off-corners. Instead, there's shorter stuff crossing pairs of longer answers (in every corner), which lets you get a number of toeholds and make progress (relatively) easily. The puzzle felt harder than usual today, for me, first because, again, I'm solving straight out of bed in the morning, which always slows things down. But beyond that, there's the convergence of a lot of longer answers toward the middle of the grid—fewer short crosses = fewer toeholds = harder to pick things up. There also seemed to be a lot more vague / trick cluing. Lots of ambiguity. Take 1D: Mark (PATSY), which I couldn't make anything out of even after I got the "Y." Or 9D: Put out (IRK). I had wrong ideas about the meanings of both those clues at first, and without enough gimmes to really make headway in those early sections (N, and NW), I sputtered a lot in the beginning. Tough getting started. The BLOOD TYPEs (18D: B+ or A-) look like grade types, and I had -OOD- in there and thought briefly the answer was gonna be A GOOD MARK. I had to go clear over to the NE to get on solid initial footing (STE LSAT LONE ALLOT and off we go).

But two answers killed me more than any others, and I'm mad at the puzzle in one case and myself in the other. Let's start with the puzzle—I really don't like the clue on SHORT LIST (20A: Most promising slate of candidates). The problem for me is "slate," which is the word for the list of candidates *voters* have to choose from, whereas a SHORT LIST is something (most famously) a presidential candidate chooses his veep from. Now I *know* that you can read the clue totally apolitically, i.e. to mean "most promising set of choices, so the prez/veep context is not a given, but when you run a clue with not one but two political terms in it, and the answer itself is very much a political term, it's galling that those political terms don't match up. "SHORT LIST" and "slate" just clank. Without the "S" from PATSY, I couldn't see this answer for a long time. But the more upsetting D'oh moment was a failure that was all mine. Just as yesterday I couldn't think of any words that began DUVE-, today I could not think of any words that began ANCE- (24D: Tree toppers = ANCESTORS). This is likely because I was thinking of fir trees and not family trees. and my brain was probably only scanning botanical terms. Still! Ugh! I felt like such a PATSY.

There was slightly weaker short fill than I'm used to seeing in R.W. puzzles, but when I say that I'm really only talking about CPI, BRAE, and EDER (blanked on, got immediately, wasn't sure about the first letter, respectively). All the other short stuff failed to IRK, and was in every case propping up the very nice longer stuff, which is all you're likely to remember. Hope you enjoyed it, and fell on your face somewhat less often than I did. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Medium (8:08, first thing in the morning) (felt way faster, ??)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Sazerac (21A: Sazerac cocktail ingredient => RYE) —

The Sazerac is a local New Orleans variation of a cognac or whiskey cocktail, named for the Sazerac de Forge et Fils brand of cognac brandy that served as its original main ingredient. The drink is most traditionally a combination of cognac or rye whiskey, absinthe, Peychaud's Bitters, and sugar, although bourbon whiskey is sometimes substituted for the rye and Herbsaint is sometimes substituted for the absinthe. Some claim it is the oldest known American cocktail, with origins in pre-Civil War New Orleans, although drink historian David Wondrich is among those who dispute this, and American instances of published usage of the word cocktail to describe a mixture of spirits, bitters, and sugar can be traced to the dawn of the 19th century. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this was an adventure. A little menacing, at first, when I couldn't get anything going very easily in the NW, and then harrowing, briefly, in the SW, when BREECHING (?) (52A: Going from petticoats to pants, once) and AGE TO AGE (??) (57A: Eternally, in religious parlance) crossing a word (BRAG) clued via "rodomontade" (???) got me stuck in a hole for a bit. But despite the many challenges, there were enough GIMMEs lying around that I managed to make really steady and consistent progress overall, and ended up with a very normal time. I'm actually surprised, given how many GIMMEs there were, that my time wasn't faster. The thing with GIMMEs, though, I find, is that you have to, uh, see them. So often, I find that I'm flailing around, and that if I just looked, you know, up ... or over ... I'd see a nice juicy handout that would break the section I'm struggling in wide open. Usually I have this revelation in "D'oh!" retrospect, after much time has been wasted. Good to be methodical about looking at all the clues in your stuck area, even when you are in the midst of frustration. Still, in a puzzle that just handed me RYE CREME RARE ABBA GOLDA KSU TREF SOUCI TRON and EDU, I shoulda been faster. I'll blame it on the early-morning solving time, but I won't feel good about it.

Some observations:

16A: Categorized by district / 5D: HAL's earthbound "twin," in Arthur C. Clarke's "2010: Odyssey Two" (ZONAL / SAL) — the first things I wrote in the grid. Unfortunately, when I wrote them in the grid, they were ZONED and SID
15D: Tesla, for one (UNIT) — had the "-IT" and thought, "he ... he wasn't a BRIT! ... wait, was he?" (A: no, no he was not)
8D: The Hokies of the A.C.C. for short (VA TECH) — briefly mad at this answer, as a written-out thing, as it just looked weird, but then immediately thereafter heard in in my head (pronounced "Vah tech") and recognized that it was totally common in the college sports world as a said-out-loud thing. Kinda cruel to the "don't care about college sports" folks to put two college sports abbrs. in the same grid (see also KSU). Good for me, though. I don't care at all about college sports any more, but younger me sure did, and all that info is still there, woo hoo. And you get EDU in the bargain (its clue refers to KSU) (33D: Extension for 54-Down).
11D: "This is prophetic" in "Nixon in China," e.g. (ARIA) — yikes, the non-capital title words were a real curveball. I should've recognized "Nixon in China" as an opera, but in my head I think it was just "some kind of staged production, like maybe a play or a movie..." so I needed crosses to see ARIA for sure.
18A: Function with no limits? (ORGY) — OK, I'm going to shock you all when I tell you I've never been to an ORGY, but ... I imagine that "no limits" is an exaggeration. I get that the clue is a math pun, but still. Surely there are ORGY no-nos. Ground rules. Something. Feel free to weigh in here. OR NOT.

Overall, toughish, solid, and fun. Good "?" clues (rare) are always a plus, and we got at least two today: 2D: Intellectual property? (IVORY TOWER) and 37A: Takes a ride? (REPOS). I don't know how original the latter is, but it's kind of perfect in its misdirective simplicity. Hope you had good success with this one. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Challenging (north of 13 minutes???)

THEME:"At the Halloween play ..." — I don't even know ... themers are completions of sentences that are allegedly related to a Halloween play, whatever that is:

Theme answers:

AUDIENCE HISSED (23A: At the Halloween play, when the black cat appeared, the ___)
BAREBONES RENDITION (36A: ... the skeleton gave a ___)
A VARIETY OF PARTS (48A: ... Frankenstein had ___)
WARTS AND ALL (68A: ... the critics loved the witch's performance, ___)
NOBODY TO ACT WITH (85A: ... the ghost had ___)
REFLECTED ON HIS ROLE (92A: ... the vampire never ___)
AT THE WRAP PARTY (117A: ... the mummy was a hit ___)

Word of the Day: TORO (80D: Fatty tuna, in Japanese cuisine) —

Toro (toh-roh) is the term for the fatty part of the tuna, found in the belly portion of the fish. Toro is further broken up into two distinct subtypes, and they are more expensive due to their relative scarcity as a proportion of the entire fish. The two types of toro are:
Chutoro (choo-toh-roh), which is sometimes labeled chu-toro, is the belly area of the tuna along the side of the fish between the akami and the otoro. It is often preferred because it is fatty but not as fatty as otoro.
Otoro (oh-toh-roh), which is sometimes labeled o-toro, is the fattiest portion of the tuna, found on the very underside of the fish. This cut is fatty almost to the point of falling apart and can literally melt in your mouth. (sushifaq.com)

• • •

What the hell is a "Halloween play"? The very premise is ridiculous, and most of the answer are torture. Painful, forced puns, phrases that aren't even stand-alone phrases. Genuinely awful. There was not one moment during this solve when I was having fun. The theme is garbage, and there are no (zero) really good answers outside the theme. Stunningly awful, all the way around. I love Halloween, but this ... what is this? What a horrible way to end an otherwise lovely day—first day of early voting in New York. I stood on line for what is, for me, a ridiculous amount of time (something over an hour), just to make sure that my vote would be counted—not a given. My wife is currently in quarantine, which she learned about only yesterday, and even though it only lasts until Tuesday (and she's in no real danger, honestly, don't worry), it seems quite possible, with community transmission as high as it currently is in my county, that she could get quarantined again, for longer, through election day, and all of a sudden I'm thinking "what if I'm quarantined? And I am not allowed to leave the house? Is that possible? Because that is not acceptable." So I panicked today and just went and stood in line and did the thing. And I'm picking up an absentee ballot for my wife on Monday, Just In Case. She'll probably emerge from quarantine on Wednesday and be able to vote just fine, but neither of us is willing to take any chances. We both have a visceral need to be part of the event that puts a stake through the heart of the current administration. So please vote. Unless you're a f***ing Trumpist, in which case, please go jump in a lake. Where was I? Oh, yeah, riding high on my feeling of community and civic responsibility ... until this stupid puzzle came along.

The worst, the absolute worst thing about this puzzle is ASHOE (21D: Apt thing to wear during allergy season?). Whose idea was that clue? The fill is bad, enough, but fine, you need a partial like that, give me the Old Woman Who Lives In ___ and fine, it's done, moving on. But no, you gotta get cute with this awful, awful, inaccurate joke clue. It's apt to wear ... A SHOE? During allergy season? Let's start with the literal level here, as clearly nearly everyone wears A SHOE (two, even) every day, in every season. It's not an unusual, seasonal, or even very optional article of clothing, so the whole "apt thing to wear" is dumb on its face. Second, the "A" part ... is so awful. Why would anyone be looking for an indefinite article here? Why? I had --HOE and literally no idea. Thought I had an error (because I also couldn't get MY HERO! and had some other stupid name where stupid ancient crosswordese ANSE was supposed to be (9D: "As I Lay Dying" father), and thus also couldn't see MYLANTA, a brand I haven't even thought about in decades) (20A: Heartburn relief brand). But the very very worst thing about this whole A SHOE business is that It Doesn't Even Sound Like A Sneeze. It's "achoo," not "ashoo." This single clue / answer just makes me desperately wish for new leadership at the editorship position. Please. My kingdom for a different sensibility, with a decent sense of humor. Someone not living in Corny Punville circa 1975.

There was a host of stuff that made it hard, stuff I just didn't know. TORO, for instance (as clued). and LIVE OAKS (108A: Southern shade trees). But mostly the reason it was hard was that so many of the themers were impossible for me to figure out because they weren't really plays on familiar phrases. For ever WARTS AND ALL (fine), there was a BAREBONES RENDITION (the "RENDITION" part, brutal ... what?). Or REFLECTED ON HIS ROLE (dear lord, the ON HIS ROLE part, just gibberish to me). One of your themers is AUDIENCE HISSED. Please, I know it's a cliché statement, but please let that sink in. AUDIENCE HISSED. How in the world is NOBODY TO ACT WITH a phrase ... anywhere ... at all ... ever? I gotta quit. Can someone who is actually funny or clever please, I beg you, submit a Sunday puzzle? Because it has been a *Painful* last few weeks. Phew. Monday can't come soon enough. Good day. And vote!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Eric Bornstein

Relative difficulty: Medium (2:59)

THEME:"GET CRACKING!" (62A: Apt command to an 18-, 28- or 47-Across) — all the themers are occupations in which cracking (in one form or another) is involved:

Theme answers:

CODEBREAKER cracks codes (18A: One reading secret messages)
STAND-UP COMIC cracks jokes (28A: Professional joke teller)
CHIROPRACTOR cracks spines (47A: Health professional who has your back?)

Word of the Day: MUCHACHO (39D: Hombre-to-be, perhaps) —

1chiefly Southwest : a male servant
2chiefly Southwest : a young man (merriam-webster.com) (in Spanish, it's just a word for "boy")

• • •

If corny puns are your thing, then this puzzle works just fine. It's consistent, and the revealer has a certain spark, so ... yeah, there you go. It holds up. I have no complaints about the theme except that I continue to resent when "?" clues are used on themers when the theme itself is not "?"-clue dependent (see 47A: Health professional who has your back?). If your theme wackiness necessitates "?" clues all around, then by all means, go to town. But a randomly thrown-in "?" clue in a puzzle that doesn't specifically call for them, that's just confusing to me. Inelegant. Get your cleverness on somewhere else. Save it for the non-theme fill. Also, is there a difference between a STAND-UP COMIC and a stand-up comedian (the term I hear much more frequently)? Not faulting the answer, as it's certainly in-the-language, just wondering if there's even a subtle difference between the two. My initial inquiries indicate not. Maybe people just want to save two syllables because their time is valuable? I think I prefer "comedian" because it's a word with only one valence (whereas a "comic" can be a form of graphic storytelling). Actually I probably prefer it for totally unconscious reasons that have more to do with habit and experience. I think the first themer is a teensy-weensy bit of an outlier, in the sense that it's got a synonym for "cracking" built in ("breaker" meaning, essentially, "cracker"). But that's an issue that's too teensy-weensy to care too much about.

I felt really slow today, largely due to my not reading the clues correctly (this sometimes happens if I'm speeding through a Monday). I also roamed allllll over the grid in a real haphazard fashion (not a strategy that's conducive to speed). Read [Numbers for sports analysts] as [A number of sports analysts] and wrote in PANEL, lol. Had the "T" at 27D: Target of a camper's scalp-to-toe inspection and wrote in TENT (I associate campers with tents, and I do not associate TICKs with camping, since we have to do inspections like this any time we take so much as a long walk on a trail in the woods). [A physicist or a fashion designer might work with one] is a fine clue for MODEL, but it required many crosses and definitely slowed me down a bit. Wrote in CANDO (?!) before CREDO (30D: Words to live by). Wanted HOOLIGAN before HOODLUM (HOOLIGAN being a much better answer for 5D: Ruffian, too bad it didn't fit). And the clue on MUCHACHO just didn't register anything very clear to me at all. With all that sloshing around, I'm actually surprised I still came in under 3. That's all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Hi, all!

Hope everyone has been doing well and staying healthy, as we seem to be getting a third (fourth? fifth?) wave of COVID right now. I've been just staying cooped up in my apartment still, dealing with online classes and work and distracting myself with sports. But sports have been so weird during the pandemic that it's hard to know how seriously to take them or how much credence to give the season. Obviously, football counts on every front — my Steelers are the only undefeated team left in the NFL. Soccer counts, too — Liverpool is currently tied at the top of the English Premier League table and seems to be in pretty good form. But baseball? The Dodgers look like they may very well win the World Series; so, as a SF Giants fan, I decree that this 2020 season is null and void.

Now on to the puzzle!

Constructor: Luci Bresette and David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Pretty easy

THEME: Phrases that are aptly clued by using the same letters from certain words and phrases

Theme answers:

POLITICS AS USUAL (15A: Apt phrase that uses just the letters of U.S. CAPITOL)
TREASURE HUNTER (25A: Apt phrase that uses just the letters of UNEARTHS)
GETTING MARRIED (42A: Apt phrase that uses just the letters of GRAND TIME)
TRAINING SEMINAR (56A: Apt phrase that uses just the letters of MASTERING)

Word of the Day: ESME (32A: "__ & Roy" (children's TV series)) —

Esme & Roy is an American/Canadian animated children's television series created by Dustin Ferrer and Amy Steinberg… The show follows a little girl named Esme and her best friend, a monster named Roy, who take care of all kinds of creatures when their regular guardians need aid. Esme and Roy was broadcast simultaneously on HBO in the United States and Treehouse TV in Canada on August 18, 2018… (Wiki)

• • •

Overall, this puzzle was just fine, The fill was almost all classic crosswordese, and the theme was a bit of a poor man's anagram. But, the theme did at least have some pop to it. POLITICS AS USUAL was definitely my favorite of the theme answers — it felt different and interesting (even though things are decidedly not politics as usual right now...). But then it's like the theme answers just got less and less interesting as they went down. TREASURE HUNTER had a bit of flair. GETTING MARRIED didn't entirely work — that seems like a very specific way of having the "grand time" specified in the clue. And then it's hard to get excited about a TRAINING SEMINAR.

As meh as the three-letter fill was, I did like some of the four-letter fill. I loved: 12A: Chaotic way to run as AMOK; 36D: Safe space? as BANK (even if I did try to put in "base" first); 51D: Link letters as HTTP; 62A: Things you might open with a click as PENS; and 64A: Hitch, say as KNOT. But my favorite word of the puzzle was the five-letter word: KAPUT (1D). How great a word is that?

There was some repetition in the clues/answers with PLUS (5A: Grade upgrade) and MINUS (13D: Grade downgrade) and with RAT (30D: 2020 Chinese zodiac animal) and PIG (34D: 2019 Chinese zodiac animal), but it didn't really bother me, even though I know it bothers some people. In this case, playing the clues off each other was pretty harmless. And, if you have to find a way to clue some ugly-ish words, you might as well have a bit of fun with it.

Some other nits... I generally don't like answers like I'M ON IT (2D: "Consider that done!") or ALL SET (44D: "Ready!") that could really be any number of things. I thought TABLE LINEN (28D) should have been plural as "table linens"— and it seems Google generally agrees with me. Also, TIDAL pools (16D) don't really seem to be what they're called at all (again, according to my very reliable source called Google) — they're "tide" pools. For 6D: Mascara target as LASH... You don't put mascara on just one LASH— you put it on lashes! Seriously — try putting mascara on just a single lash... you can't! SOLO ARTISTS (3D: Ones who play alone) don't always play alone... You can be a soloist, but you're usually still going to need a band to back you up or dancers or something! And, finally, I didn't know ESME& Roy (32A). It's apparently an American/Canadian animated kids TV show that's been around for just two seasons, so that feels pretty obscure, no?

Misc.:

I clearly remember finishing JODI Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper” — I decided to read the final 20 pages or so during science class in 8th grade, and *slight spoiler alert* the ending is verrryy sad. So I was on the verge of bawling in class while my teacher went on and on about how the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell or something like that! (If you can’t tell, I wasn’t exactly paying attention.)
I figured out EGGO was the answer for 54D: Pop-up breakfast brand and immediately thought, “L’eggo my eggo,” despite not having heard that phrase in years, so I’d say that was some successful marketing on EGGO’s part!
TILT at windmills (60A) is just a lovely phrase!

PICCHU in the puzzle (5D) reminded me of this heart-warming story where Peru opened up Machu PICCHU for just one day so a 26-year-old Japanese tourist who’d waited for seven months in Peru could finally go in and see it!
I dunno if anyone here does the mini crossword puzzle, as well… but this feels wayyy too soon. There are so many other Amys out there — pick literally any of them to clue to!!

Have a great week!

Signed, Clare Carroll, fan of the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Challenging (like, hilariously off-the-mark for a Wednesday ... high 5s, i.e. my average Friday time) (it is oversized, but still, yikes)

THEME: a quote from Carrie Bradshaw (of the TV show "Sex and the City," which, bizarrely, the puzzle never indicates) about men ("Men!") in their 40s and crossword puzzles — "Men in their 40s are like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle ... TRICKY, COMPLICATED, AND / YOU'RE NEVER / REALLY SURE / YOU GOT THE RIGHT / ANSWER"

Word of the Day: IMARET (18A: Turkish inn) —

Imaret is one of a few names used to identify the public soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th centuries. These public kitchens were often part of a larger complex known as a külliye, which could include hospices, mosques, caravanserais and colleges. The imarets gave out food that was free of charge to specific types of people and unfortunate individuals. Imarets were not invented by the Ottomans but developed under them as highly structured groups of buildings. Nonetheless, imarets indicate an appreciation of Muslim religious teachings about charity found in the Qur'an. (wikipedia)

• • •

I knew I was in for ... something ... when I rolled out of bed, picked up my phone, and saw this thread in my Twitter mentions:

Good morning!

***

Carrie Bradshaw*

If you crowdsourced ideas about how to make a crossword theme that's completely unpalatable to me, I'm not sure you could, in your collective wisdom, come up with a "better" theme than this. Let's start with "quote puzzle." We could end there, but today, we start. Next, make it a quote from "Sex and the City," a show ... well, look, different people enjoy different things, and surely many of you enjoy(ed) that particular television program, which is fine, but nothing smacks of a certain kind of smug NYC provincialism more than that show, and, for a variety of reasons, it has, uh, never been to my taste. Speaking of smug NYC provincialism, the NYTXW is so certain of the centrality of Carrie Bradshaw to everyone's everyday life that they don't even indicate, in the clue or anywhere, that she's a fictional character from a TV show. I knew who she was, but it's a weird assumption that everyone will. Also, "men are like ___" or "women are like ___" or "life is like a box of chocolates" or "men are from Mars" or whatever little aphorism you're putting down, yeah that's not likely to sit too great with me. But if you are going to lay down an analogy, dear lord, let it be somewhere near the mark. Where to begin with this quotation? I can't speak to "men in their 40s," but crosswords, I know. First, the Thursday puzzle is the "TRICKY, COMPLICATED" one. Can Sunday be like that? Sure, but if you're going to run a crossword quote in a crossword, for crossword solvers, best not to propagate myths about crossword difficulty (do you know how widespread the idea is that the Sunday is the hardest? do you!?). Next, what "right answer"? The puzzle is not *an* answer? Do you mean that you're never really sure you got the right overall solution? I thought it was gonna end with something like "you're never really sure if you're through," because maybe guys in their 40s leave things ambiguous a lot (?) and certainly you might *think* you've finished a puzzle, but you could have wrong answers somewhere. That's ... plausible. But "the right answer" is just the wrong phrasing here. Also, the internet exists (even in Carrie Bradshaw's day) and the solution key exists, so you do, in fact, know if you have the right answer, if you just wait. But to explain the thematic grief, again, we can just go back to "quote puzzle." It's a quote puzzle.

Then there's the fill, by which I mean mostly the ridiculously hard (for a Wednesday) cluing. Clues on YETIS CORP DDAY HURT ICEAX etc. were more Friday/Saturday level, but the real problem was the dump truck full of proper names, my god. Peter is a huge trivia fan, creator of an app called Celebrity, which involves knowing famous names, but you know my feelings about proper names, especially in abundance and especially when they're, er, marginal, and especially especially when they're crossing or abutting. I'm not concerned about the total number of names today (though there are a lot), I'm concerned about the relative marginality of the names. Any one of these might be worthy individually, but all at once, yeesh, it's a lot: GABE AGEE (those ones cross) MAUREEN TESLA (fine answer, but as clued, yikes), LEVI KIDD IRA LENORE. I guess you could throw in Lil UZI Vert (the current go-to UZI clue for those who want to pretend they didn't put a murdering machine in the grid). Now, I knew roughly half those names, so I'm not pleading obscurity on every front. But when your names aren't of the household variety, things can and do get dicey.

Filling this puzzle out was a chore on every front. Puzzle couldn't decide what it was, and ended up being a trivia-heavy Friday mashed up with a Tuesday-type theme, and the result was ... well, it's Halloween week, so maybe the horror was intentional, I don't know. But FOGBOW (!?) is not a Wednesday answer (54D: Rare weather phenomenon that's white, unlike its colorful cousin), and MIKE PENCE ... (19A: Frequent "S.N.L." role for Beck Bennett) what are you even doing here, NYTXW? The Mini included the horrible new Supreme Court justice yesterday, and today the actual grown-up crossword gives us ... this guy. This disgusting lickspittle. This walking embodiment of fraud and moral decay. This abetter of incompetence and, frankly, where the COVID response is concerned, murder. Fuck him. Pardon my French. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*yeah, I know, just roll with it

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kurt Weller

Relative difficulty: Medium (6-ish, first thing in the morning)

THEME: NOT NOW (71A: "I'm busy!" ... or, if read in four pieces, an aid in solving several clues here) — several clues need to be read as if they contain NO "T" and NO "W":

Theme answers:

FREEZE (1A: Twice over) (so, Ice over)
AMALGAMATE (17A: Tallowy) (so, Alloy)
NO MATTER WHICH (37A: Tawny) (so, Any)
FAST ASLEEP (62A: Twin bed, perhaps) (so, In bed, perhaps)
RAM (2D: Wariest animal) (so, Aries animal)
COARSE (12D: Wrought) (so, Rough)
CAVIAR (47D: Wrote) (so, Roe)
EGO (64D: Freudian "wit") (so, Freudian "I")

Word of the Day:"SUPERCOP" (56A: Jackie Chan police film) —

Supercop (Chinese: 警察故事３超級警察; Cantonese Yale: gíng chaat gu sih sāam: Chīu kāp gíng chaat), also known as Police Story 3: Super Cop, is a 1992 Hong Kong action film starring Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh. Jackie reprises his "Kevin" Chan Ka-Kui character, a Hong Kong cop from Police Story and Police Story 2. It is the first in the Police Story series not to be directed by Jackie, with Stanley Tong taking over the helm. It is also the last appearance in the series for Maggie Cheung as Jackie's girlfriend, May. (wikipedia)

• • •

An easy puzzle with these weird, occasional clues that made no sense. Got a bunch of the mystery answers fairly easily, from crosses, and eventually stumbled upon the revealer, also easy, and then that made figuring out the mystery clues much easier. So this is basically a very easy, very boring puzzle, with a theme element that causes some delays up front ... unless you did the smartish thing, which is look for the revealer first, and work backward. I always find this much easier to do on paper, where I can just move my eyes to the final Across clues, where I'll usually find something that looks like a revealer clue (look for a longish clue with an ellipsis, or just look at the last long Across clue ... though today I did that and missed the revealer, which is weirdly in the Very last Across clue). I get tunnel vision when I solve on screen, and only look at the clue that is directly above the grid, i.e. the one that my cursor is on. This is great for avoiding eye movement time loss (a real thing in speed-solving), but on Thursdays, I should probably be slightly more disciplined about taking at least a few seconds to try to find the revealer. I didn't really enjoy the puzzle, because there wasn't much in the way of good fill, nothing interesting happening at all outside of the theme, and the theme was invisible for most of the solve. Just answers I got without knowing why. Getting NOT NOW made me go single-O "Oh," not double-O "Ooh!" I also didn't like how the arrangement of the theme material meant that the NW was by far the hardest part of the puzzle to get, simply because of the theme density, i.e. the *three* theme answers up there. While I could work out the isolated themers from crosses, I couldn't work out FREEZE / RAM / AMALGAMATE at all, and had to wait til the end to get those. Had -ALGAMATE and honestly wasn't sure I had all the letters right. I don't really know from alloys, and wasn't gonna risk anything until I knew what was going on. I also thought the CDC was the [Federal vaccine agcy.]. That didn't help.

OSMO- is some kind of terrible, as prefixes go (59D: Odor: Prefix). Not sure I've seen it standing alone like this—not a look I'd recommend to it. I *know* I had no idea it meant "odor." Luckily I'd seen CAEN very recently (58D: Large urban area in Normandy, France), so I had no trouble with it, or APPLET, or PEW, and thus the SE was much much easier than the NW (that's probably due in part to the fact that the revealer clue was pleasantly literal). The real issue today isn't that the theme isn't clever (it is), but that that cleverness doesn't translate to much of a solving experience. Also, the way the grid is constructed, there's virtually no interesting fill, no longer answers to add color to the grid. There's "SUPERCOP" and ROADHOG (21D: Driving nuisance) and that's about it. Consequently ... or coincidentally ... there's a preponderance of short overfamiliar stuff. Was glad to remember HELOTS today (13D: Serfs of olden days), a word I know best from a very memorable scene in one of my favorite movies, "Meet John Doe" ("a lotta heels!"):

See you tomorrow, everyone.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Trenton Charlson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (half-asleep, still finished just under 6)

THEME: THEME— DESCRIPTION

Word of the Day: WORD (CLUE) —

DEFINITION

• • •

Happy Halloween Eve. I wish the world could just be Halloween-scary, quaint-scary, instead of your-malevolent-leaders-want-you-to-just-get-sick-and-die-already scary, but you get the world you get and make the most of it. This puzzle wasn't scary, just boring. It was the sudoku of crosswords, in that I had to spend some time filling in boxes ... yeah, that's it. That's exactly how much pleasure it brought. To its, let's say, credit, it didn't bring any pain, either. It was easy enough, and there wasn't much in the grid to make me DEEP SIGH (36A: [Ho-o-o boy, here we go again ...]) (a pretty good answer slightly marred by the fact that it crossed a stupid nautical-time answer where I initially guessed ONEAM instead of ONEPM, oh the bos'n's gonna be so mad at me...) (28D: Two bells, nautically). There is one answer I probably would've resented a lot more if I hadn't managed to suss it out pretty quickly, and that is JASON FOX. LOL, who? I teach a course on Comics. Two, actually. I am one of the few people who still reads the funny pages, in the newspaper *and* online (my paper doesn't carry the new "Nancy" or the new "Mark Trail," so I go digital for those). And yet. And yet I had no idea about this answer. Had the JASON and ... nothing. "Foxtrot" is one of those strips whose name I have seen ... on book collections, maybe ... here and there. I'm aware of its existence, but familiarity with its character roster, uh, no. Yipes. This seems awfully obscure. Not an iconic character. The idea that you can describe him and still have me draw a total blank—where comics characters are concerned, that's a problem. The legit famous ones are iconic, and thus visually instantly identifiable. DEEP SIGH! Worse, this alleged character kept an "X" hidden from me, when SILEX was already keeping yet another "X" hidden from me (41A: Heat-resistant glass), so all I can say is, thank god XEROXES (44D: Copies, in a way) just *came* to me, out of the blue, because otherwise it would've been Stuckville for me, for sure.

So once again, a marginal proper name gums up everything. It really is the least pleasant way to get stuck, working out some name that means nothing to you. That same section also had Margaret KEANE, which... I have no idea how I pulled her name out of my brain (after I got the "K") (46A: Margaret ___, artist known for painting subjects with big eyes). I misspelled it at first (KEENE), and honestly I'm not sure if I knew it knew it, or just "knew it" in the sense that my crossword brain rolodexed through likely "K" names very quickly and the mostly likely one just happened to be correct. But that puts JASON FOX and KEANE in the same corner—slightly rough. I was lucky to "know"KEANE, and also lucky to know ELEANOR Smeal (who seems much more legit famous than the others) and Pablo NERUDA, so the SW corner went down easier (I had more trouble with KAPLAN, and thus KALAMAZOO, than anything else over there). Not much else to say. Started easy with NO-DRAMA Obama and didn't get much harder until that little JASON FOX bit there at the end. I wanted to object to plural ROOT BEERS until I remembered my kitchen cabinet, which typically contains anywhere from three to six different varieties of ROOT BEERS at any given time, so ... plural accepted! (29A: Floats are often made with them). Enjoy your day. Vote, maybe? OK bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. forgot about Mitch HEDBERG (13D: Comedian Mitch who said "I haven't slept for 10 days, because that would be too long"). Seems like a name that might've thrown a lot of you. He was funny. He died young, of a drug overdose, in 2005.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Stella Zawistowski

Relative difficulty: Medium (wireless keyboard stopped working mid-solve, so I didn't get a precise time, but I'd say 7-8 minutes? maybe? it's early, forgive me ...)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: CAERPHILLY (56A: Cheese from Wales, not southeastern Pennsylvania) —

Caerphilly is a hard, crumbly white cheese that originated in the area around the town of Caerphilly, Wales. It is thought to have been created to provide food for the local coal miners. The Caerphilly of that period had a greater moisture content, and was made in local farms. At the start of the 20th century, competition for milk in the local area saw production decline, and Caerphilly production was gradually relocated to England.
During the Second World War, production was stopped and diverted to Cheddar in English factories. After the war, those factories began to produce Caerphilly as it was quicker to make than Cheddar, and therefore more profitable. The majority of Caerphilly is now produced in Somerset and Wiltshire. Artisan cheesemakers still make Caerphilly in the pre-war style, and these have been successful at the British Cheese Awards. (wikipedia)

• • •

First, a clue explanation: 51A: A to B, say, Abbr. is VOL. because it is an imagined volume of a dictionary or encyclopedia or something where contents are arranged alphabetically. It's possible most of you got this immediately, but it's probably that some of you were like me and had no idea what it was supposed to mean at first. And perhaps you stayed in that place of not knowing. No shame in that. I, sadly, had to figure out what the hell it meant, as it's kinda my job. And after a minute, my brain toggled off of sound volume and over to book volume. How often do clues that try to get cute by being ECHOERs (!?) of other clues (see 53A: A to B, say (STEP)) just feel forced and off? A: a lot. This ECHOER clue for VOL. is defensible, and that is the best I can say about it.

Otherwise, the only answer in this grid may as well be CAERPHILLY, because I don't remember much of anything else. Oh, except ACCENT AIGU, which looks amazing written out like that (15A: ´, in French). Big thumbs-up there. The rest just existed. All of the interest was in the clues, I guess. Anyway, the only part of the puzzle I spent any time thinking about, the only part that gave me real trouble, was CAERPHILLY, a super-outlier where general familiarity is concerned. (I don't care if you personally knew the cheese, that's Fantastic, I'm saying that fewer people by far will have heard of the cheese than will have heard of the next least familiar thing in the grid) The -PHILLY part they sort of hand to you with the "southeastern Pennsylvania" part of the clue, so that was nice. But the CAER- part ... no way to infer any of that. All crosses needed. And when you need SCUD ... well, that's an ugly word to need. Main issue here was not at all trusting the "AE" sequence. I was so doubtful of it that at one point early on I pulled LEEDS (50D: European city where the first carbonated beverage was invented) and put in LINDT, because it gave me a more plausible-looking letter sequence there (CAN- as opposed to CAE-). But then SAT PREP came in with it's "R" and gave me CANR- and everything looked stupid again. Oh, also, LINDT is not actually a city, so there's that. (Me: "That's where the chocolate comes from ... right?"). Eventually I just had to trust that CAER- was right. And it was. And that was the memorable thing that happened during this solve.

Other things:

28A: Post-marathon treatment, maybe (ICE BATH) — started with an ICE PACK
25D: Crispy order at a Japanese restaurant (TEMPURA) — easy, and yet ... I had the "U" and "A" first and was dead certain I was going to be dealing with some kind of TUNA. Not smart.
39A: Protective wear around shellfish (BIB) — had the first "B" and reflexively, confidently wrote in BRA. My head had a picture of a BIB in it, but my fingers went "nah, it's BRA, trust us." Anyway, handle shellfish braless at your peril!
42A: Route for pulling a boat (TOW PATH) — wanted SEA LANE or SEA something, which made getting into that SW corner slightly tricky. Luckily that section had ALOUETTE, which was a gimme (34D: Titular children's song lyric after "Et la tête!"). Wait, did I say "luckily"? Because...
59A: Battle of the Hedgerows locale (ST. LO) — well, ALOUETTE gave me the "T" and so my brain went "four letters, "T" in second position, sounds British ... ETON!" Who knows what they do at ETON! It seems like a fictional place to me. A wizarding school,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Julian Lim

Relative difficulty: Medium (11-ish)

THEME: "West-Southwest"— W's are (mostly) turned into SW's creating wackiness clued wackily forever and ever ad infinitum dear lord make it stop:

Theme answers:

SWAY UP HIGH (23A: What an unsteady tightrope walker may do?)
SUMMER SWEAR (29A: "It's just too $%#@ hot!," e.g.?)
SWARM RECEPTION (40A: What a beekeeper receives at work?)
FOR SWANT OF A BETTER SWORD (67A: Why the knight went shopping?)
SPARKLING SWINE (94A: Hogs, after being scrubbed clean?)
SWEPT FOR JOY (111A: What the ecstatic janitor did?)
SWISH LISTS (117A: "Michael Jordan's Top 10 Free Throws" and others?)

Word of the Day: POWER-DIVE (80D: Sky fall?) —

: a dive of an airplane accelerated by the power of the engine (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

I just don't understand who these puzzles are for? Who is cheering for this? Who is excited by this? This absolutely tepid letter-change / wacky-clue banality, where is this fan base? I guess if you have a captive audience that doesn't really know that things can be different, can be way, way less stale than this, then you can just churn out mediocre Sunday fare like this, week after week after week. "Oh, Rex hates everything." I hate this. And you should too. "Hate" is maybe too strong. I'm just exhausted by this oversized unimaginative never-ending parade of Sunday madness. The title alone tells you that no one is trying very hard. It's just ... a literal description of the letter change? You change west (W) to southwest (SW). But the phrase "West-Southwest" doesn't mean much except a random direction. Who cares? Who!? And so a loooongtime constructor gets max pay for what is essentially filler. People were making puzzles exactly like this, exactly this exciting, actually, probably more exciting, in the 80s and 90s. And actually you can still do a simple theme like this today if the results are stellar, or if your revealer or title is really clever, or really ... if you've got any angle that makes it exceptional. But this is just drudgery. And not even consistent drudgery. You've got a "W" in that center themer that you *don't* change to SW ("WANT")—the only themed "W"word that doesn't change. It's a jarring, ugly inconsistency. You've also got "SW" answers in non-theme positions (e.g. SWAN LAKE), which just makes the whole theme execution seem ragged and inelegant. I have no more time for this thing. I have trick-or-treaters that need tending to. If this were a novice constructor, I still wouldn't like the puzzle very much, but I'd feel less indignant than I do now, when I see a veteran churning this kind of stuff out (and the editor continuing to accept it). This is worse than you deserve. I'm not lying about this.

There's lots of green ink right in the center of my printed-out puzzle because POP ___ coulda been soooo many things (34D: Beyoncé, for one) (STAR!? IDOL?!), and then END OFF, what on god's green earth is that? I can't imagine ever saying that ever in any context (43D: Conclude (with)). And both of those cross SEADOVE, what the f (62A: Little auk, by another name). So that was unpleasant. Forgot how to spell (crosswordese) UMIAK (17D: Boat sometimes built around a whalebone frame). I think I had UBIAK (?). Also had trouble up there in the NE with CRAWL (I had CREEP) (15D: Go at a glacial pace), and GENRE, which had a very ambiguous clue (18D: Soul, e.g.). No idea about Spike's sister JOIE (112D: Screenwriter Lee, sister of Spike). Really struggled with the cutesy SHORT U (92A: Upfront?) (get it? ... because the "front" of "up" is a SHORT U sound? Hey, here's another SHORT U sound for you: UGH (9D: "Yuck!"). Not much else to say about this one. Praying for a kinder, more ambitious, and more exciting November, puzzlewise. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. how about WAN LAKE? Already light-years better than any answer in this puzzle. Do the theme in reverse! Do something!

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Swahili sir / TUE 10-13-20 / Resource from bog / Bygone days old-style / Follower of face or fork

Potent strain of marijuana / WED 10-14-20 / Soap that comes in blue-green bars / Low creaky speaking register / Biblical kingdom in modern day Jordan

Instrument played using circular breathing / THU 10-15-20 / Language that gave us spunk slogan / Rebellion 1808 uprising in New South Wales / Autobahn hazard

Showboaty home run celebrations / FRI 10-16-20 / Latin Lo / Belligerent in British slang / Half of jazz duo / Number often seen before plus sign

French dessert of fruit encased in sweet batter / SAT 10-17-20 / Pattern of five shapes arranged like this puzzle's central black squares / Roman's foe in Gallic Wars / Whence a memorable emperor's fall / Morocco's next-largest city after Casablanca / Language from which peyote comes

Share a workspace in modern lingo / SUN 10-18-20 / Titular film character opposite Harold / Place for a shvitz / Lead role on Parks and Recreation / Subject of Rick Steves's travel guides / Brit's term of affection

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Portrait painter Rembrandt / MON 10-19-20 / Catkin-producing tree / Percussion instrument made from gourd / White-plumed wader

Guitarist Joe with 15 Grammy nominations / TUE 10-20-20 / Autonomous cleaner / Marijuana cigarette informally / Dangerous plant to have around / Punk rock offshoot

American pop-rock band composed of three sisters / WED 10-21-20 / Brew with hipster cred / Some derivative stories colloquially

Founder of the Sikh religion / THU 10-22-20 / Woos outside one's league so to speak / Many a 4WD ride

Highland slope / FRI 10-23-20 / Pieces of pomegranate / Former Bulgarian monarch / Fairy tale patriarch / Singer actor who narrated 1964's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

New Hampshire's Gate City / SAT 10-24-20 / Engage in rodomontade / HAL's earthbound twin in 2010 Odyssey Two / Muralla de Spanish landmark / Going from petticoats to pants once / Certain liberal of 21st century

Scarecrow portrayer / SUN 10-25-20 / Citrus fruit with portmanteau name /No-go area in brief / Indiana city that's 100 miles west of Lima Ohio / Capone contemporary

Hombre-to-be perhaps / MON 10-26-20 / Yellow flowers in primrose family / 1980s gaming console in brief / Title woman in song by Beatles Spinners / Health professional who has your back

Link letters / TUES 10-27-20 / Candy heart sentiment / Hershey's foiled collection / Madre's hermana

Palindromist Jon of Sit on a potato pan Otis / WED 10-28-20 / Whispered name in The Raven / Frequent SNL role for Beck Bennett / US Navy builder / What members of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion claim to be descended from / Rare weather phenomenon that's white unlike its cousin

Serfs of olden days / THU 10-29-20 / Large urban area in Normandy France / Biblical companion of Moses / Bug's sensory appendage / Wariest animal

10-year-old boy of comics with glasses and blond hair / FRI 10-30-20 / Two bells nautically / Acts like a quidnunc / Rhyming descriptor for Obama / Midwest city in title of 1942 Glenn Miller #1 hit / Plants whose name derives from Greek for dry

Cheese from Wales not southeastern Pennsylvania / SAT 10-31-20 / Disney villain based on King Claudius / Battle of the Hedgerows locale / Titular children's song lyric after et la tete / European city where the first carbonated beverage was invented

Number cruncher in Wall Street lingo / SUN 11-1-20 / Bolshoi debut of 1877 / Little auk by another name / Boat sometimes built around whalebone frame / Original site of Elgin Marbles / Coarse-grained igneous rock / Org that publishes journal Emotion / Amenity in GM vehicles