Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Luke Vaughn

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Sketchy — Theme answers are related to drawing.

Theme answers:

GOLDENDOODLE (20A: Popular dog crossbreed)
LEAVE NO TRACE (27A: Have an invisible footprint)
FIVE CARD DRAW (46A: One version of poker)
COMEDY SKETCH (55A: "SNL" offering)

Word of the Day: Taro (63A: Root used in making poi) —

Colocasia esculenta is a tropical plant grown primarily for its edible corms, a root vegetable most commonly known as taro (/ˈtɑːroʊ, ˈtæroʊ/), or kalo (see §Names and etymology for an extensive list). It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in African, Oceanic, and South Asian cultures (similar to yams), and taro is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants.

(Wikipedia)

• • •

It's August Monday once again! In November this time. (Am I going to make that joke every month? Probably.) Honestly I wasn't blown away by this one, as you can probably see by the fact that I wasn't really able to find a good word of the day. It was definitely a solid introduction-to-crosswords kind of Monday, no Naticks or tough crosses, but on the other hand the clues and fill were just kinda...blah. It's kind of cool that the constructor had dogs on the brain though. We had SPEAK, STAY, GOLDENDOODLE...and goldendoodles are so cute! I thought for sure it would be LABRADOODLE but that didn't quite fit.

The theme was cool, a typical Monday theme. I like that it evokes the sketchy early stages of art specifically. I took two art classes in college, but I still can't draw very well. Here's my final project for my figure drawing class!

Bullets:

RAP (60D: Genre for Megan Thee Stallion) — Change that R to a W and you could still have a Megan Thee Stallion related clue, but I don't think Will Shortz would be okay with printing it. WAP is a great song though.
IAMB (18A: Poetic foot with a short and a long syllable) — Do we have any sonnet writers or other kinds of poets in CrossWorld? I used to write a ton of sonnets in iambic pentameter. I've moved on to free verse, but I did some pretty good sonnetteering back in the day. Not to toot my own iamb or anything.
ESSAY (36A: Part of a test that may produce a hand cramp) — I don't want to jinx anything but so far my essay assignments for library school have all been really cool! Our most recent one was to research different libraries/archival institutions and look into how they're handling the pandemic. I also wrote a paper where I got to interview an archivist friend of mine and ask her about her career. Who knew learning about libraries could be so interesting? ....I knew, that's why I went into this field. :P
WAYNE (64A: "Party on, ___!""Party on, Garth.") — A little WW scene to start your Monday.

Signed, August Thompson, tired graduate student.

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Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Challenging (high 3s ... it is oversized, but still)

THEME: HANDY-DANDY (64A: *Very convenient ... or, when read in six parts, a hit to the answers to the starred clues) — all themers are two-part answers, where first part starts H, ends Y, and thens second part starts D, ends Y, so ... H *and* Y, D *and* Y ...

Theme answers:

HOWDY DOODY (18A: *Classic TV show starring a cowboy puppet)
HUMPTY DUMPTY (40A: *Nursery rhyme character seen in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass")
HEAVY DUTY (11D: *Industrial-strength)
HUNKY DORY (35D: *Peachy-keen)

Word of the Day: PEDWAY (33A: Path between buildings) —

Pedways are elevated or underground walkways, often connecting urban high-rises to each other, other buildings, or the street. They provide quick and comfortable movement from building to building, away from traffic and inclement weather. Two of the largest networks of underground walkways are located in Canada. RÉSO in Montreal and PATH in Toronto each consist of approximately 30 km of underground walkways in the heart of their respective city centres. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well I guess I should just be happy the puzzle did not try to get cute with some election-themed nonsense. But this felt off to me, in a bunch of ways. First, "read in six parts" ... first, that's a big ask, and second, it doesn't really explain what's happening here. The main problem is that "AND" does not work. AND doesn't tell indicate H (or D) at the *front* and Y at the *back*... it's just AND. The word "hyena" has an H AND a Y, but it wouldn't work as a word in a theme phrase because what is going on (the relationships between the letters) Is Much More Specific Than Mere "And" Indicates. There's also (ironically?) an "and" (or some kind of connecting thought) missing between H AND Y and (!) D AND Y. In short, I can piece it all together, I see what you are trying to do, but that revealer phrase simply fails to express the exact nature of the theme. It's off. It misses. Clank. And a 16-wide clank at that. The other main issue I had was that it didn't feel like a Tuesday, fill-wise, in the sense that it's exceedingly rare that I won't have heard of three (3) answers in a Tuesday puzzle, but PORKIE MONOGYNY and PEDWAY, all new to me. All inferrable, ultimately, but they all slowed me down like crazy. Is PEDWAY a Canadian term? I know skyways (from Minneapolis, and (related) the Replacements song), and I've been in underground pedestrian tunnels in NYC, and I guess those are technically PEDWAYs, but seriously this is not a word I can remember ever seeing or hearing. MONOGYNY seems like a fine word, I just couldn't piece together root words fast enough to get it without crosses. Lastly, "Designer dog" is a grotesque concept. Please never use that phrase again. It's a dog. Also, why name the Pomeranian in the clue but *not* the Yorkie????????? (45A: Designer dog that crosses a Pomeranian and terrier). That clue is just f'd up in too many ways.

Had LOO instead of LAV, which crossed PEDWAY, so that was awful (28D: Washroom, in Worcester). Nothing much else to say, except I've never, literally never, never ever, seen a TEAR in an emoticon (71A: The apostrophe in :'-() Not once. Not a solitary time. Legit thought it was a nose. Like ... Nose 2, I guess. No idea. Awful clue.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I see we're still doing Morse Code ... DIT ... [deep sigh] ... please stop (65D: E, in Morse code)

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Constructor: Jack Murtagh

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:17)

THEME: Norite, Dolerite (INDIE ROCK) (my weak fake example that I came up with at 4:30am) — which is to say, words in theme clues must be sounded out by their initial letters to the first word in the answer (N, D, => INDIE); the second word in the answer is the type of thing those clue words are (Norite, like Dolerite, is a type of ROCK). Theme answer result is a familiar phrase (INDIE ROCK):

Theme answers:

EASY MONEY (17A: Euro, Zloty) (clue words start with E & Z, i.e. "EASY," and both are types of MONEY)
ICY BLUE (26A: Indigo, Cerulean)
EMPTY NESTER (40A: Macaw, Tern)
ANY TIME (54A: Noon, Eleven)
ESPY AWARD (66A: Satellite, Pulitzer)

Word of the Day: EAZY-E (25D: N.W.A member known as "The Godfather of Gangsta Rap")—

Eric Lynn Wright (September 7, 1964 – March 26, 1995), known professionally as Eazy-E, was an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur who propelled West Coast rap and gangsta rap by leading the group N.W.A and its label, Ruthless Records, pushing the boundaries of lyrical content. [...] During N.W.A's splintering, largely by disputes over money, Eazy-E became embroiled in bitter rivalries with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who had departed for solo careers in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Resuming his solo career, Eazy-E released two EPs. Yet he remained more significant behind the scenes, signing and nationally debuting the rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony from 1993 to 1994. // In 1995, Eazy-E was suddenly hospitalized and diagnosed with AIDS, and died due to its complications. He is often referred to as the godfather of gangsta rap. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey. How are you? Doing OK? Great. I went to bed around 10pm and woke up before 4am. Not completely atypical, these days. Got a pretty monastic lifestyle going over here. Lots of quiet. Lots of routine. More than you need to know, I'm sure. So, this puzzle ... was good. I enjoyed it. The concept is so simple, if weirdly hard to explain succinctly, but it yields some pretty nifty results. I will say that once you grasp the theme, the themers become Very easy to get, but that's not so terrible. I was slow to start, so being fast to finish means things even out nicely in the end. I thought the grid was pretty flashy too, for a themed grid that wasn't trying exceedingly hard for flash. BASTILLE DAY and LIBRARY CARD are very nice, and when you can land an occasional snappy mid-length answer, like "WHO'S IN?," you're doing alright. I think EMPTY NESTER was my favorite of the bunch, and so I like that it's in the marquee (i.e. center) position. Fitting. My only issue today was that having EASY and EAZY in the same grid feels a little iffy. Also, the clue on ACCTS felt, well, defensible, but not really apt. "What do you offer?""Accounts.""Ah ... I ... see." The answer is so broad as to be meaningless. But this is a trivial matter. My overall impression of the puzzle was: nice. "It's a BOP," as they say (about music ... but I'm gonna borrow it for puzzles today).

I really struggled to get DUB (1A: Change from "Gojira" to "Godzilla," say), and when I struggle to get the 1-Across clue, things often don't go well for me. It's a very good clue, but I thought the answer would have to do with writing, somehow, not sound. Needed "D" and "B" to see it. Also had DIE OUT before DIE OFF and no idea what the three letters after "I" would be at (13A: Jobs creation). Apple ambiguity like this is probably my very least form of routine short-answer ambiguity. Worse that ALOT vs. ATON vs. TONS, you ask? Let's call it a tie. Really wanted to put EURO MONEY in that first themer slot, but "Euro" is in the clue and then the "Y" from DYE made EURO impossible. Also struggled with ION / WIGS, and (somewhat less) with ACCTS / CHAINS. This is all to say that the first third of this puzzle felt toughish for a Wednesday. But then knowing the theme really opened things up quickly, and, well, there's very little green ink on the bottom half of my grid. No real trouble down there.

At 69A: Singer, I had SEAR before CHAR (SEAR vs. CHAR probably takes the bronze in the Routine Short-Answer Ambiguity Olympics). I tried to write SPILL ... something before I wrote SPIT IT OUT (I really do have an aversion to "SPIT") (36D: "Tell me already!"). My favorite wrong answer today, and one of my favorite wrong answers of all time, came when I hastily read the clue at 48A: Subject of many articles in Allure and Seventeen (BEAUTY) and, with BEA-TY in place, I wrote in ... BEATTY. Now, when you see BEATTY, your brain may go to Warren, but mine went instantly to Ned. I really, really like the idea of Allure and Seventeen readers being obsessed with Ned Beatty ... I mean, why not? He's a fantastic answer. He was in "The Rockford Files" once, for pete's sake. That puts him in Hall-Of-Fame territory with the likes of Joseph Cotten and, uh, let's say, Linda Evans. Anyway, these things I believe: teenage girls love '70s-era Ned Beatty (if they have any taste at all), and this puzzle was enjoyable.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Jeremy Newton

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (?) (not sure, had some technical issues with how to enter the theme squares, clock not reliable)

THEME: HASHTAG (39A: Symbol formed by four crossings in this puzzle) — four rebus squares contain "I"s (for the Down answer) and an equal sign ("=") (for the Across answer), which together I guess are supposed to form "#"

Theme answers:

ALL THINGS BEING = / SK(II)NG (17A: Translation of the Latin phrase "ceteris paribus"/ 13D: Traveling between the poles?)
SEPARATE BUT = / WIIG (27A: Doctrine that was found unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education / 26D: Kristen formerly of "S.N.L.")
= OPPORTUNITY / WIIS (46A: Fair for everybody / 43D: Some Nintendo consoles)
= RIGHTS MOVEMENT / SHIISM (61A: Organized effort for justice under the law / 49D: Branch of Islam)

Word of the Day: SEN (53A: Former monetary unit in Japan) —

n. pl. sen
A Japanese unit of currency equal to ¹/₁₀₀ of the yen. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

This seems like a waste of a potentially good idea. There's just no HASHTAG content ... so there's nothing particularly HASHTAG-y about the solving experience. It's "I"s and equal signs. The whole thing really felt fussy and unpleasant to solve. To be honest, I never saw that HASHTAG was the theme. I thought it was just "Two "I"s in one direction, but they're lying down ... to form an equal sign." Obviously the *content* of the puzzle (the thing its themers actually have in common, the long ones anyway) is EQUAL. So when HASHTAG just kinda filled itself in from crosses, I had no reason to suspect it was involved in the theme in any way. Seeing it after I was finished solving, my reaction was "well, that makes a little more sense" but also "that's dumb, there's no HASHTAG content in this puzzle" and also "wow, I don't care." The fill and clues also seemed fussy / old-fashioned / bygone / WEIRD. Really hostile to put the first themer in Latin (?). Big professorial, elbow-patches energy. And AGASP ALAS and DO BE (!?!) all in the same grid. Did a pearl-clutching Victorian write this? DO BE is egregious. You can change that to a very common noodle type SOBA with very, very little difficulty. Then you can change WHEW (which is also *bad*, in the sense of ambiguous—I had PHEW!) to the common word WHET. Tada. SWELLS / SOBA / WHET > DWELLS / DO BE (!?) / WHEW. Real words, no partials. Lots of opportunities for interesting clues. It can be done. If you care.

Some other things:

WHEE (55D: "How fun!")— ... and WHEW? In symmetrical positions? More words, fewer sounds, please! Why isn't this answer GHEE!? Why!? GHEE is so much better. With SOBA up top and GHEE down below, your puzzle would be much tastier (and more interesting)
MESH TOP (25D: See-through garment)— had real trouble with this because I couldn't figure out what kind of "garment" was going to be meshed. Was looking for a specific kind of garment, not just the very generic TOP, ugh. Had MESH BRA for a bit. Seemed ... plausible, if maybe not practical.
MOB (63D: Pride : lions :: ___ : emus) — always hate these analogy-type clues, just as I always hate the "obscure word for a group of animals" type clues. MOB is such a good word, but this clue has the sensibility and savor of the musty Maleska era (see also the clue on SEN, why, why would you do bygone currency when you have other options? It's unfathomable). Also, I should note here that the MOVEMENT part of (EQUAL) RIGHTS MOVEMENT was not at all clear to me, even after I had the first part of the answer. Seems way, way too generic. Clue doesn't let you in on a particular cause, answer doesn't specify one ... anyway, long story somewhat shorter, I had (EQUAL) RIGHT COVENANT written in there for a bit. "Equal rights amendment,""Women's rights movement," that is how the phrases appear in my brain. :(
INTWOS (42A: How promgoers typically arrive) — this answer is bad and also many many promgoers these days arrive uncoupled, as parts of groups, so maybe stick with Noah's Ark if you have to have this not-great bit of fill in your grid
OMG (7D: "Wowie!," to Gen Z) —I guess they used to say "Wowie!" back when they TOGged up to go to prom exclusively INTWOS.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Aimee Lucido

Relative difficulty: Medium (started out eeeeasy, but then wow I got repeatedly roughed up the Whole SW area) (mid-6-minute mark, somewhere in there)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Ernest Rutherford (49A: Rutherford and Shackleton, for two) —

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRS, HonFRSE (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand–born British physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867).
In early work, Rutherford discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon, and differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation.This work was performed at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances", for which he was the first Canadian and Oceanian Nobel laureate. (wikipedia)

• • •

Despite having no clue about 1A: YouTube star Chamberlain, whom The Atlantic called "the most talked-about teen influencer in the world" (EMMA), I got off to a fast start on this one and was quite enjoying my trip around the grid, across the top and over into the NE and down into the east and center and then ... sputter sputter sputter. If you draw a diagonal on the grid from NW to SE, I have almost no green ink above that line and a sea of green ink below it. Just couldn't make sense of a bunch of clues and, crucially, didn't know who either of the ERNESTS was. That was especially unpleasant, as plural names are never that fun, and plural long names, less fun, and then when you don't know the name(s) ... all fun gone. Important dead white guys, no idea. Oh well. That answer was a connective answer, which could've led me into the SE, but didn't. It crossed another answer I couldn't get, this time because the clue didn't mean anything to me. I don't think I know what [Diagnostic computer setting] means. I've heard of SAFE MODE, but don't know what it has to do with diagnostics. So that's two longer connective answers that were just blocked for me. Clue on YEOMAN didn't help me (wanted CORGI but it wouldn't fit) (52A: Buckingham Palace attendant) (a little weird to have "attendant" in a clue when INATTENTIVE is in the grid, but OK). UNC before UVA (58D: A.C.C. basketball powerhouse). OURS before ONE'S (64A: Gender-neutral possessive). Absolutely no idea about OR IN (always sucks to have the bad fill be the struggle point) (53D: "... now ___ the future") (Me: "ON TO"!?!?). No idea about yet another computer-related clue at 57D: !, in some programming languages (NOT). DROVE NUTS is right!

I think FOR ALL I CARE is PRIMO fill, for sure. Same with BITTER END, though it's a bit, uh, on the nose for our current political moment. I was less thrilled about the clue on NAVELGAZERS (25D: More familiar term for omphaloskeptics). Yesterday it was a Latin clue, today Greek, and with this one crossing the GermanALTE (36A: German opposite of "junge") ... I just didn't find it pleasant. Also, I just don't believe anyone calls NAVELGAZERS"omphaloskeptics." That clue is just a "Hey, do you even know your Greek root words, you PHILISTINES!?"-type clue, and meh to that, say I. I will say that I really should know ALTE by now—crosswordese I've seen a bunch, but somehow couldn't get to. I think it's because ALTE looks like it should mean "high" (as in "elevated," not "stoned"), so it's always slightly surprising to remember it means "old." Clue on AURAL also not great to my ... ear (!). It's a hearing exam. There are oral exams, and there are hearing exams. Calling it AURAL ... people tend not to do this because it sounds so much like "oral." And since I originally wanted BONKERS for 47A: Absolutely crazy (BANANAS), I had O-RAL and for a half-second worried that there was some kind of rebus or other trick going on. Why was there an additional blank square in "ORAL"!? But it was AURAL. Sigh. Lastly, clue-wise, I superduper object to the clue on SPLAT (22D: [Kerplop!]). [Kerplop!] is the sound of an object being dropped into water; SPLAT is the sound of a fly being flattened by a swatter. They are fundamentally different sounds. So I like the grid on this one OK, but many of the clues just missed me, either because they were bad, or because I was dumb. A little of both.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins and Paolo Pasco

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (low 6s)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: HETTY Green, a.k.a. the Witch of Wall Street (32A) —

Hetty Green (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916), nicknamed the Witch of Wall Street, was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. She was known for her wealth and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "greatest miser", which meant that even when being incredibly rich, she was a renowned cheapskate, as she refused to buy expensive clothes, pay for hot water, and wear a single dress, that was only washed when it was worn out. She amassed a fortune as a financier when other major financiers were men. After her death, The New York Times stated that "It was the fact that Mrs. Green was a woman that made her career the subject of endless curiosity, comment and astonishment." (wikipedia) (side note: like many wealthy people, she inherited *so* much of her initial wealth—hundreds of millions in contemporary US$)

• • •

Kameron Austin Collins
wrote the essay that
accompanies this recent
Criterion Blu-Ray, which
I just bought and
am excited to open

Very happy to see the names on the byline this morning. Feel like I don't see them nearly enough. I was not surprised by how much I enjoyed the puzzle, but I was a little surprised by how easy I found it. It had a very open, bouncy, Friday feel to it—not a dreary low-word-count puzzle, not a lot of showy white space, lots of opportunities for toeholds. The toehold thing is important, and probably the reason that the center of the puzzle weirdly felt harder than any other place. If you've always got 3- and 4-letter answers near by to grab on to, then you've always got hope of getting the stacks (or blocks) of longer answers. Shorter answers are, in the main, much easier to get without crosses than longer answers are. And there are 3- and 4-letter answers available in all sections of this grid, which you'd think might make the grid kind of tiresome, short stuff being typically unexciting. And yet the short stuff is solid enough that it's not a distraction, and the longer stuff that it's propping enough is so interesting that that is what you remember. I mean, when I think about the NE corner of this grid, I think "wow, I loved that," not "ugh, ELOI and DSL again!" Anyway, I never felt truly stuck or in trouble because shorter answers kept providing the lifelines I needed to keep going whenever things got thorny. Plus, the grid is full of things I like and know, and what I don't like or know wasn't terribly hard to get. So the puzzle felt playful and spirited but not SNOTTY (or "bumptious," a word I thought I knew but I guess not ... I would've had it as "loud and crude or otherwise acting like a bumpkin" (!?) but it means "self-assertive or proud to an irritating degree").

Always nice to run into a gimme at 1A: Flatten like a bug (SMOOSH). At least, I hoped SMOOSH was right, and when I ran the crosses, enough of them came back plausible that I kept SMOOSH in place, which proved to be the right move. Most of my problems today ended up being single-letter problems, the worst of which was writing in SNAP-ON instead of SNAP-IN (the former being infinitely more common than the latter, in my unscientific estimation) (23A: Secure with a click). That little vowel problem made PILED IT ON (21D: Really didn't hold back) really hard to see, esp. because my brain wanted POURED IT ON, for which the "O" (in SNAP-ON) worked ... but of course POURED IT ON was too long, so I kind of freaked out at the possibility that the phrase was actually spelled PORED IT ON and I had somehow never realized this in my half-century+ on this planet. That answer ran through HETTY, which I also didn't know, and it's very close to STN (28D: What a dot on a map might represent: Abbr.), which was hard to get, esp. after I decided that the "dot on a map" might be a mountain (MTN).

Elsewhere, struggled with a single letter yet again when I wrote in SAXOS before SAMOS (31A: Aegean Sea island) (probably because of analogy to NAXOS, which is also a Greek island, as well as a classical music label). Then there was the very last letter I put in the grid: the "R" in AGER / ART ROSS (46D: Smoking or drinking, e.g. / 58A: Eponym of the N.H.L.'s points leader award). I didn't struggle there so much as stumble blindly into success. I have only a very general awareness of the NHL and its rites and rituals. I've almost certainly heard of the ART ROSS Trophy (see, I knew it was a name associated specifically with a "trophy"), but there's no way I could've put that together without almost all of the crosses. So it's ridiculously lucky that the first time I actually laid eyes on the clue came when I had literally one square left to fill in. And luckily I'm familiar enough with this type of clue on AGER (as in, something that ages you), so I dropped the "R" and bam, done. ART ROSS—handled before he ever became a problem.

I haven't highlighted the great answers in this, possibly because they highlight themselves. CELEBRITY CRUSH! DROP THE MIC! NOT ANY MORE! And wow, GARANIMALS, I had no idea I needed to see that in the grid (11D: Mix-and-match children's clothing brand). I had no idea they still made those. Feels like a throwback to my childhood, though I might be confusing GARANIMALS with UNDEROOS ... has that been in a grid!? Anyway, it's underwear with a coordinated top and bottom, with different themes like superheroes and what not. Typically (originally, anyway) for children, but now I see there is an adult line and I'm mildly disturbed so I'm going to log off now. Have a nice day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Caitlin Reid and Evan Kalish

Relative difficulty: Medium (10-something)

THEME:"Wait, What?"— in theme answers, long a sound (as in "wait") is changed to short u sound (as in "what"), with wacky results:

Theme answers:

"YOU GOT THAT STRUT!" (22A: Compliment to a runway model?)
CUSS SENSITIVE (31A: Easily offended by foul language?)
"WHY THE LONG FUSS?" (45A: Question to a tantrum thrower?)
"RUDDERS OF THE LOST ARK" (63A: Relics proving how Noah steered his boat?)
LOADED THE BUSES (83A: Prepared for a field trip?)
MUCK-UP ARTISTS (95A: Masters of slapstick?)
THE NUMB OF THE GUM (109A: Title for an oral surgeon's handbook?)

Word of the Day: KEGELS (67D: Pelvic exercises) —

Kegel exercise, also known as pelvic-floor exercise, involves repeatedly contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor, now sometimes colloquially referred to as the "Kegel muscles". The exercise can be performed multiple times each day, for several minutes at a time, but takes one to three months to begin to have an effect.
Kegel exercises aim to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. These muscles have many functions within the human body. In women, they are responsible for: holding up the bladder, preventing urinary stress incontinence (especially after childbirth), vaginal and uterine prolapse. In men, these muscles are responsible for: urinary continence, fecal continence, and ejaculation. Several tools exist to help with these exercises, although various studies debate the relative effectiveness of different tools versus traditional exercises.
The American gynecologist Arnold Kegel first published a description of such exercises in 1948. (wikipedia)

• • •

I want to apologize to those of you who read me only on Sunday. Well, not apologize ... but I do feel bad, as I realized today that I haven't actually *enjoyed* a Sunday puzzle since something like August. I enjoy puzzles every week. Mondays and Thursdays and especially Fridays and most of the time Saturdays, these are reasonably frequent sources of joy for me. But some people just do the Sunday, the big one, the marquee puzzle ... which also happens to be, without a doubt, the weakest day the puzzle has to offer. This is, of course, totally upside-down, as it's the puzzle with the most hype, the one people have heard of (and erroneously think is the most difficult). But man it's like they can't find anyone to come up with themes of genuine cleverness and wit and interest, that are fun to solve, that aren't in some way tedious. I feel like the puzzle veers wildly between "stunt puzzle / architectural feat that hurts to solve" and "wacky sound-change theme from 1995," more or less. Today, we get the latter. The wacky results are just corny / groany. I guess THE NUMB OF THE GUM, with its double sound change, is supposed to be some great exclamation point on the whole thing, and it's arguably the best of the lot, but the lot ... is not best. Be best! (LOL, how were the last four years real?)

I don't know when I "got" the theme but there was no aha moment, more just a dawning semi-realization. I honestly had no idea At All that YOU GOT THAT STRUT was a sound-change pun, as "you got that straight!" sounds so wrong to me. "You got *that* right!" yes. "Damn straight!" yes. "You got that straight!" ... er ... maybe? Still, the puzzle was basically easy until I got to the SW corner, where MUCK-UP ARTISTS stayed hidden forever. Just couldn't parse it, *and*, for some reason, nearly every cross made me cock my head like "what?" Couldn't come up with KAFKA from that clue (96D: "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" is the last short story he wrote), had ACHES before LUSTS (92D: Yearns (for)), no idea about RECIPE (74D: Instruction for a course?), no idea about IONIC (98D: Kind of chemical bond in salts), had PLUCK instead of SPUNK (99D: Vivacious quality) ... and then I had trouble with ACCEDE (80A: Relent), and LIMA (92A: World capital established in 1535), and HOPE (words inside long quotations—never easy for me) (102A: "To live without ___ is to cease to live": Dostoyevsky). MUCK-UP ARTISTS feels like a pretty bad theme violation, in that you've got an extra short u sound there that *isn't* part of a sound change. Unpretty. Inelegant. Clunky. Gotta stop writing now and get back to watching people celebrate! See you tomorrow!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kate Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Challenging (look, I was nearly a minute over my average ... it's only 74 words, that's probably part of it (?) ... I dunno what happened, man ...) (high 3s, which is a sluggish Tuesday time for me)

THEME: P-LL— a vowel progression theme, with the first themer starting PALL, and then each subsequent themer moving that vowel one notch up, til you get to PULL:

Theme answers:

PALLBEARER (17A: Raiser of the dead?)
PELL GRANT (24A: Financial aid for college that doesn't need to be repaid)
PILL BUG (37A: Arthropod that can roll into a ball)
POLL TAKER (49A: Busy person just before an election)
PULL QUOTES (59A: Lures for magazine readers)

Word of the Day: OLGA Tokarczuk, 2018 Literature Nobelist (16A) —

Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk ([tɔˈkart͡ʂuk]; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual who has been described in Poland as one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful authors of her generation. In 2018, she won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights (translated by Jennifer Croft). In 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. (wikipedia)

• • •

Distracted by the fact that this was clued to Tuesday, possibly easy Wednesday levels of difficulty. Most easy puzzles are 78 or 76 words, this one's 74 (so, more wide open), but the problem for me was just a lot of clues that were not clear or seemed more Fri / Sat or ... just weren't Monday. This has nothing specifically to do with whether the puzzle is inherently good or not; but the editor put it on the wrong day, imho. The theme type is definitely Mondayish, but it didn't flow like a Monday at all. Started right away with CAT at 1A: Thing with pads and claws (PAW). Looking for a CAT part, I guess. This made PUPIL (already bizarrely clued) really hard to see (1D: Necessity for a teacher). Then the first themer had a "?" clue (even though this is not a "?" / wacky-type theme—as I've said before, I hate this). So I had no idea re: PALLBEARER until I had many crosses. No idea who the OLGA Literature Nobelist is (I remember looking her up briefly several years ago when she won, just as I looked her up briefly just now ... and I'm going to forget her just as quickly, I suspect—totally crossworthy, but not at all Monday material). Not sure about the APE part of GOES APE (9D: Flips out). No idea re: COCKAPOO, which I kinda wanted but couldn't spell and anyway kinda thought was a bird (?!) (I was thinking "cockatiel" ... I think) (31A: Mixed-breed dog that's part spaniel). Not sure about ENOL (25D: Unstable chemical compound). Wanted an actual company name, not just CASH, at 31D: Alternative to Venmo. Was not at all sure of how many Rs and Ls were in RAPPELS, and wanted some kind of two-word phrase before RAPPELS ever became clear. Clue on METOO was vague, so even ME- didn't do it for me (44D: Trending hashtag beginning in 2017). Wanted a MARE to be doing the kicking (56D: Farm animal that kicks). Worst of all, though, where the non-theme stuff is concerned, was the clue on SWAG, which I could not at all accept (57A: Appropriate initials of "stuff we all get"). It should just say [Initials of "stuff we all get"] or [S, W, A, G]. The thing is, the NYTXW never, ever just hands you an acronym like that, so I figured I was misreading or misunderstanding something. It's like cluing NOW as [National Organization for Women, for short]. What the hell? So I hesitated a bunch before acquiescing to the criminal obviousness. Awful.

Also strange and thus difficult: the clue on PULL QUOTES (59A: Lures for magazine readers)."Ooh, I can't wait to see what PULL QUOTES the magazines will lure me in with this week." What? "Lures"? I can see how a lawyer could defend this clue, but of all the things that I think of as "lures,"PULL QUOTES (a term I wouldn't even think to use in reference to magazines) doesn't even rate. I'm gonna read the article based on whether I care about content. The PULL QUOTES might be saucy, but they aren't "luring" me. Also, they're inside the magazine ... so the whole vagueness about what the readers are being "lured" to do is strange. If I'm a magazine reader ... I'm already *reading* ... sigh. "Lures," what am I, a fish? Anyway, this puzzle is absolutely average last-century stuff, theme-wise, which would be tolerable if it were run on the correct day, but it wasn't. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Robert Fisher

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (I just woke up, which may have made me slower, but I was over 4, which is sluggish on a Tuesday)

THEME: people in charge of the drinks? — theme clues are people who work with drinks ("?") but answers are just familiar phrases that can be interpreted punnily (!) as people who work with drinks:

Theme answers:

PORT AUTHORITY (20A: Sommelier?)
DRAFTSPERSON (29A: Bartender?)
FOUNTAINHEAD (46A: Soda jerk?)
GROUNDSKEEPER (56A: Barista?)

Word of the Day: GOUDA (27D: Dutch city or a cheese it's famous for) —

Gouda (Dutch pronunciation: [...] is a city and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, between Rotterdam and Utrecht, in the province of South Holland. Gouda has a population of 72,338 and is famous for its Gouda cheese, stroopwafels, many grachten, smoking pipes, and its 15th-century city hall. Its array of historic churches and other buildings makes it a very popular day trip destination.
In the Middle Ages, a settlement was founded at the location of the current city by the Van der Goude family, who built a fortified castle alongside the banks of the Gouwe River, from which the family and the city took its name. The area, originally marshland, developed over the course of two centuries. By 1225, a canal was linked to the Gouwe and its estuary was transformed into a harbour. City rights were granted in 1272. (wikipedia)

• • •

Second day in a row when the "easy" puzzle felt like a slog. Looked at four clues in the first (NW) section before I actually knew one cold. No clue about SNAFU SCOPE NONOS or ALERT at first glance. Had to wait til FOOT before an answer was clear. Had to wait until SCO-E and even then wait some more to understand SCOPE, so bizarrely vague was its clue (and so rarely do I ever, ever use a SCOPE ... hey clue, don't say "you" if you don't mean "me") (1D: It will have you seeing things). At 2D: Discussing politics and religion with strangers, often (NONOS), "Discussing politics and religion with strangers..." is one thing, not two, so the idea that that answer would be *plural* never occurred to me. "Qui vive"?? I always forget what this means (because it's not current at all), and even when I remembered (vaguely) what it meant, I put the wrong answer in (wrong answer: ALIVE; 3D: On the qui vive (ALERT)). All that slopping around for a lousy 5x5 corner that isn't even well filled. That opening did not augur well. The theme isn't bad, conceptually, but DRAFTSPERSON was a total mystery to me, even after I got DRAFT. I don't think I've ever seen the word. I get now that it is the non-sexist, genderless version of the more common "draftsman," but even then, I only sort of know what a "draftsman" is, and that answer doesn't really fit with the other themers (AUTHORITY, HEAD, and KEEPER all imply a certain important status, whereas PERSON ... doesn't).

Annoying clue on ANNOY (33D: What an onslaught of political ads may do). Had DROSS before DRECK (40D: Rubbish). The SE corner is about as exciting (that is, not) as its symmetrical counterpart, but at least the clues made sense to me by then. I enjoyed two answers in this puzzle: "WHAT OF IT!?" and "INDULGE ME." Colloquial, lively, fun. The rest of this puzzle was, uh, flat.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Easy (faster than yesterday, and today's was 16 wide)

THEME: DOUBLEDAY (62A: Big name in American book publishing for 120+ years ... and a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — every theme answer is a "DOUBLE DAY" because it contains two words that can precede "DAY":

Theme answers:

HOLYFIELD (18A: *Four-time heavyweight champ nicknamed "The Real Deal")
WEDDING PRESENT (23A: *Gift that comes with a hitch?)
VETERANS MEMORIAL (38A: *Place that honors those who've served)
BUSINESS SCHOOL (51A: *Producer of a lot of suits?)

Word of the Day: HOBS (54D: Goblins, in folklore) —

noun A shelf or projection at the back or side of a fireplace, used for keeping food or utensils warm.
noun A tool used for cutting the teeth of machine parts, as of a gearwheel.
noun Chiefly British A hobgoblin, sprite, or elf.
noun Mischievous behavior. (American Heritage Dictionary, 5th ed.)

• • •

Either this one was much easier, comparatively, than either of the past two days' puzzles, or giving myself ten or so minutes to wake up in the morning before I start solving really makes a world of difference. Or both. This one has an oversized grid (16x15) and I still came in under my average Wednesday time. Since I struggled (again, comparatively) with the past two days' puzzles, I thought maybe acing a puzzle would make me like it more, but much as I wanted to like this one, there are just so many problems. The theme is not bad so much as bland. It's totally passable but not very interesting. This type of theme (both parts of an answer can precede / follow a word to make a familiar phrase) is old as the hills, and virtually every example of it that I've ever seen has two unfortunate qualities. First, the revealer doesn't have any "aha" magic in it. It definitely "reveals" what the theme is (and in today's case, you'd never know it without the revealer), but my reaction tends to be (as it was today) "oh..." rather than "oh!" Second, the theme answers, as a set, tend to be dull. I mean, HOLYFIELD looks *scintillating* next to all the rest of them. WEDDING PRESENT ... BUSINESS SCHOOL ... I almost fell (back) asleep just typing that last one out. VETERANS MEMORIAL is interesting only insofar as it makes the puzzle *look like* it's a Veterans Day-themed puzzle ... but then it isn't, which almost seems insulting. It's Veterans Day. Do a Veterans Day puzzle or don't (this is not the constructor's fault, btw). This puzzle just sorta waves at the holiday on its way to ... a publisher. Anticlimactic, in the extreme. Anyway, today, blandness reigns, themewise.

The fill is pretty weak all over, starting with COKED (!?!?!) (1A: Converted into fuel, as coal). I've only ever heard that used in phrases, usually preceding "up" or "out of his mind." Needed every cross to get it here. That whole corner should've been handled so much more smoothly. COKED is awkward, CAHN is crosswordese (especially unwelcome with ICAHN is somehow also in the grid), ELY is even more crosswordesey than CAHN, and DIF NEO OBOE aren't doing much for you up there either. Handling the "B" and the "K" seems to have presented real constructing problems, but these are problems worth working through. Smooth it out! Answers too often felt like they'd been grabbed out of a bag of Ye Olde Answeres of the Past. EPEE GOAPE ESS all in the same section, crossing the bizarre-looking "Var."ANTEED (borderline inexcusable, esp. in a grid that is already creaking under the weight of iffy fill). GYRE and NAOH and ENG and HOBS down below are not, esp. collectively, gonna brighten anyone's day. CAHN ICAHN ELY ELWES EVA ELON ... that's really too many overfamiliar faces. The most interesting thing in the grid was XIÈXIE, which I don't think I've ever seen and definitely needed every cross for (6D: Mandarin "thank you"). I'm not sure I *liked* it, I just know it broke up the monotony. I really hope you knew it, or remembered the XFL, because otherwise it really seems like you might have had a Natick* situation on your hands. Is that how you spell EYELETS? (31A: Holes in shoes). Wow, only just now realizing that EYELETS and aiglets are somehow both parts of shoes (well, aiglets are part of shoelaces, but same DIF). They could've made that less confusing (and by "they" I guess I mean "the word gods," I don't know). OK, that's all, Happy Wednesday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*uninferrable crossing of two not-universally-familiar answers, especially proper names

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Constructor: Kristian House

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed)

THEME: "To" => "Two" — familiar phrases that contain "to ___," where the blank is a homophone of a letter of the English alphabet; in the grid, the "to ___" phrase is represented as two (2) letters:

Theme answers:

"To a Skylark" => AA SKYLARK (so, "'two-A" SKYLARK) (17A: Shelley ode that begins "Hail to thee, blithe spirit!")
"Talk to you later" => TALK UU LATER (28A: "Bye for now")
Floats out to sea => FLOATS OUT CC (45A: Gently leaves shore)
"To be or not to be..." => BB OR NOT BB (61A: Famous question first asked around 1600)

Word of the Day: TASHA Alexander, historical mystery novelist (33A) —

Tasha Alexander (born 1969) is an American author who writes New York Times bestselling historical mystery fiction. [...] In 2002, while living in New Haven, Connecticut, she started work on her first novel, after being inspired by a passage in Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night. Carolyn Marino at William Morrow acquired the book, And Only to Deceive, which was published in 2005 as the first installment of the Lady Emily series. Following a move to Franklin, Tennessee, where Alexander wrote her second novel in a local Starbucks, she eventually relocated to Chicago, where she married British novelist Andrew Grant (brother of bestselling author Lee Child) in 2010.[...] The Lady Emily series, set in a time between the 1890s and 1900s and spanning across cities throughout Europe, follow the adventures of Lady Emily and her husband Colin Hargreaves. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well there's one main problem with the theme and it's so obvious that maybe I'm the only one who actually found it a problem. Always possible. The problem is, There are two letters ... lettersssssss ... Two As, two Us, etc. So what I'm looking at is "Two 'A's Skylark," not "Two A Skylark." It's two As ... then SKYLARK. It's not a compound adjective (i.e. a two-A skylark), because that makes no sense unless the answer were SKYLAARK (now *that* is a two-A skylark!). Unless you are thinking mathematically (which, ugh, I guess is what half of you all do), then the whole AA = 2A feels off. It's two "A"s, not two A. "TWO Bs OR NOT TWO Bs!, that is what I'm looking at!" If you can overlook this massive conceptual ... let's say, issue ... then you've got a pretty straightforward, basic, kinda old-fashioned Thursday on your hands. The grid is definitely a little heavy on the overfamiliar short fill, which often happens when the grid is built with massive amounts of 3-, 4-, and 5-letter answers—not much room for sparkle, lots of room for AÇAI and ALAI and etc. PLUGS AWAY and HIT AND RUN are just fine, "SIR DUKE" is always welcome, and I have an odd fondness for I.T. BANDS (perhaps because they are a constant concern in my own life). So, the theme is conceptually flawed, from where I stand, and the fill is a bit on the tepid side, but I did not have a bad time.

There are an awful lot of names in this puzzle, which is the one aspect of the puzzle that I can see moving the difficulty level much further up for some people. The names also skew older. It's at least a little dangerous to cross TANDY (30D: Jessica who was the original Blanche DuBois on Broadway) and EYDIE (44A: Vocalist Gorme), as neither of those names is particularly common / obvious / inferrable, and there's a good chance that people under 40, and especially under 30, would never have heard of either of them. I don't know any other TANDYs or EYDIEs *besides* these two, so if I didn't know them ... I'd have no way to get to them by analogy. Most of the other names seem like they wouldn't present too much problem *except* that KAROL / TASHA crossing, yikes. TASHA was the real yikes, actually. I feel very lucky that kinda sorta knew KAROL (26D: Pope John Paul II's first name) (wrote it in when I got the "K" from SKA), because the only TASHA I know is TASHA Yar from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and I didn't even actually watch that show (my wife did). Needed every cross for TASHA, and KAROL was by faaaar the diciest of those crosses. It's really really really best to avoid crossing not-universally known names, especially at letters that can't be easily inferred (this is what the term "Natick" was created to describe). And such crossings arguably happened twice today—though "A" is probably the only good guess at TASHA / KAROL, as KIROL seems pretty implausible... but if I'd never seen EYDIE, I'd think that was implausible too. Be careful with crossing names, please. Thank you. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Sawyer Tabony and Ashton Anderson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (high 5s, w/ sleep still in my eyes)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: WORD (CLUE) —

DEFINITION

• • •

Would you like your bread singed? I didn't think so. SINGES connotes an unwanted light burning (as when you can't get the gas element on your stove to light and then it suddenly bursts to life, singing the hair on your hands, and hopefully only your hands), whereas "Toasts" suggests an intentional, delicious browning. I guess you could singe marshmallows, but come on, you don't singe marshmallows. You Toast Them. ANYWAY ... I had the -GES at 42A: Toasts, say and eventually wrote in WEDGES ... which, while implausible, seemed, and still seems, way more plausible than SINGES. Happily for me, and you (probably), that [Toasts, say] clue on SINGES is probably my biggest gripe today, as the grid was full of mostly delightful answers and very few of the clues had me wanting to hurl my computer out the window (it's been very warm, so. the storm windows are not yet up). In a perfect world, you probably wouldn't cross WAY and AWAY (see the NW corner), or have NO IRON, NO WORRIES, NO ONE, *and* NO FEES in the same grid, but we live in a postlapsarian world, and so we mortals will just have to be happy with great-but-flawed until the coming of the New Crossword Jerusalem (sorry, I've been teaching Paradise Lost, and I can't stop saying "prelapsarian" and "postlapsarian," and then the weird religious words just follow from there...) (no, seriously, Paradise Lost is just trampling through my brain at the moment; I spelled the [Soup dumpling] W-A-N-T-O-N at first, probably because Milton describes Eve's hair waving in "WANTON ringlets" ... Mmmm, wanton soup ...)

As happens so often, I struggled most with the NW (where I started). Even after getting the front ends of the longer Acrosses, I'M ON A ROLL was the only one of them I could manage to throw down successfully (15A: "Look at me go!"). "LET'S ..." man, that could've been anything, "an outstretched hand" suggesting so many things. I thought maybe the hand was trying to shake yours, or else trying to help pull you to safety after you managed to nearly fall off the face of Mount Rushmore (in addition to reading Milton—watching Hitchcock). And NO WORRIES is clear enough once it's filled in (17A: "You're good"), but if you've only got the first three letters, and you have no idea of the context for / tone of "You're good," then you're left wondering "NOW" what? Add in that I forgot Awkwafina's real first name was NORA (20A: "___ From Queens," comedy series co-created by Awkwafina), and that section became something of a bear. So I floated downstream, down the west side of the puzzle, where I found much less resistance, and didn't actually get back to finish up the NW until the very, very end ("C" in CLEANED was my last letter) (8D: Hit the jackpot, with "up").

Five things:

35A: Key of Dvorak's "Serenade for Strings": Abbr. (E MAJ.) — this answer is fair enough, I guess, but DMIN and EMAJ and all these musical key abbrs. are really a PAIN in the rear to fill in unless you are one of the few people who know this kind of stuff cold. I got the "E," wrote in the "M," then had to go retrieve the crosses. Actually, I inferred pretty quickly that it was EMAJ, not EMIN because the "J" was in an initial position (where "J"s usually are found), and also wow EMIN is really truly ugly ... I had to have faith that these constructors wouldn't do that to me. Faith rewarded! Paradise regained! (Sorry, the Milton again...)
47A: Cousin of "OMG!" ("WHOA!") — I was genuinely concerned that the puzzle was going to try to perpetrate WOAH on me. Have you seen this stylization of the exclamation? It's remarkably, disturbingly, obscenely common among, uh, younger people. Sorry, younger people. I try to love everything you do. But this is a line in the damned sand.
37A: "Think so?" ("YEAH?")— among the hardest clues of the day. Intonation is *everything* here, and YEAH is not a word I would normally read as interrogative. I did like the overall slangy, colloquial feel of the grid, "UP TO YOU" was another one that was tough to pick up, but once picked up, felt right (12D: "I'm good with whatever").
18A: Excited (ASTIR) — ASTIR is what you are when you first wake up in the morning, EAGER is what you are when you are excited. And of course the first letter I had in place was the "R" ...
11D: Prominent feature of a babirusa ("deer-pig") (TUSK) — no idea what animal this is. Still, this would've been easy enough to pick up off the "K" in NIKOLA, if I hadn't typoed STUBS (10A: Wikipedia articles that need expanding) as SRUBS and somehow never noticed (!) ... so I lost a lot of time first working through every cross in RUSK and then wondering what part of the deer-pig body was the RUSK. Actually abandoned the section, went and finished up the puzzle, then had to come back to RUSK to find my error. So I guess the "T" in TUSK was, technically, the last letter I entered in the grid. See, this is why my early-morning solving times are not to be trusted. I'm happiest in the early morning, but I am not my sharpest, that's for sure.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy birthday, mom :)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Emily Carroll and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy or Easy-Medium (untimed)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: demonym (55D: New Zealand demonym => KIWI) —

: a word (such as Nevadan or Sooner) used to denote a person who inhabits or is native to a particular place (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

I've started turning the timer off when I solve in the morning, because speeding just feels very, very antithetical to the whole early-morning vibe that I cherish so much (it's my favorite time of day By Far). We'll see what this does for my solving mood, but so far, so good. I found this puzzle delightful, and comparatively. Thorny in places (especially the "?" clues), but very tractable in the end. All of its long, grid-spanning phrases are worth it—if you're going to take up that much real estate, it's nice when the answers sizzle instead of just lie there adequately. I botched my first go at SO IT'S COME TO THIS because I wrote in SO IT COMES TO THIS (4D: "I see you've left me no choice"). Same letter count. You just move an "S" a few spaces over and it's the same answer. Very, very luckily, I caught the error right away thanks to the very easy clue on WARS (22A: "All ___ are civil ___, because all men are brothers" (quote attributed to François Fénelon)). That really opened up the grid, for sure. Had a wee scrap with the front end of MNEMONIC DEVICES because, well, I don't know the particular mnemonic device used in the clue (36A: "My Violent Evil Monster Just Scared Us Nuts" and others) (for the order of the planets, obvs), and I really had no idea what 23D: Bath water? was after. Also, it looked like [Bath water?] had to end in a vowel, because its last letter follows an "M" in the cross, but then somehow, after mulling over AVO_ for a few seconds, the whole thing just clicked into place and whoosh went that long answer across the grid. Finished up the east pretty quickly and could immediately see that the end of the 15-letter Down over there had to end in -TION, and then looked at the actual clue for that answer and thought, "hmm, looks like STICKY up top." And it was. Ironically, STICKY SITUATION, not sticky at all.

Really liked ROBOT ARM, GPS UNIT, UMPTEEN, NEW MONEY, and TANDOORI, which I like because it's tasty and because it came to me instantly, with no crosses in place, and lastly because it really helped make the Across answers in the NW easy to see—helped me get off to a pretty fast start. I had GEL ERA IPSE and NEIN (wrote in NYET and then instantly corrected it—stupid brain hiccup); these were all in place, along with the very incorrect AYE at 2D: Parlement vote (OUI), and then TANDOORI slid into place and instantly the long Acrosses up there became obvious, which means my AYE error was obvious. And off we went. Not sure about ON GOD (8D: "I swear!"); definitely the clunkiest thing in the grid for me. Maybe it's olde tymey!? I had "BY GOD!" in there for a bit, but TANDOORI made that impossible. I know that the Canadians stand ON GOD for thee, Canada, but that phrase just isn't familiar to me. I also didn't know PALO was "stick" in Spanish. Thought EDIE (39D: 1960s "It Girl" Sedgwick) was an EVIE at first, and now can't remember who *is* an EVIE. Surely someone ... ah, EVIE Sands! Such a crossword name.

Definitely fell for the MEDUSA / ATHENA trap at 13D: Mythical figure associated with snakes, but, as with all today's traps and pits and dead ends, this one was easy enough to get out of. Love the clue on KENT (27A: Lane hugger?). Had the "K" and legit thought "... KERB?" But KENT, yes, he does hug Lois LANE from time to time, if memory serves. I just found the overall frame of reference of this puzzle very suitable to me. Literary terms! (DOGGEREL, a gimme) (37D: Crude verse). New Zealand! (my wife is a KIWI) (55D: New Zealand demonym). Diana RIGG! (of "The Avengers"!) So much to love. See you tomorrow ... for the Sunday puzzle ... why can't the Sunday puzzle have so much to love!? There's so much more of it ... sigh. Oh well, I can always hope. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Caitlin Reid

Relative difficulty: Easyish (9:01)

THEME:"Theme Shmeme" — sigh, there is no theme :(

Word of the Day: LIENOR (49A: Bank, at times) —

: one holding a lien against the property of another (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

This is what happens when you're out of ideas. Nothing in the tank. Total admission of defeat. The Sunday themeless is not ... meaningful conceptually. It fills time, but it spits in the face of what a good Sunday is supposed to be, what it often *used* to be—the marquee puzzle of the NYT. The splashy, ambitious, *thematically* clever big-canvas puzzle event of the week. But week after week, the Sunday is a shambles, a faded zombie version of its former glory (when greats like Liz Gorski used to construct for the NYT on a regular basis). And so I guess when the well runs completely dry, we get this: a completely forgettable placeholder of a puzzle. It's not *bad*, to be clear. It's fine. I filled nine minutes of my life. It was a brief diversion. But there's nothing to recommend it. Themelesses this size are meaningless. Against the two themelesses that just preceded it (Friday, Saturday), it seems lackluster, thin. It's so big, that it feels like you can do almost anything, but the achievement means almost nothing. I think my bar for Sunday themelesses is a. please don't do them, and b. if you do them, they should be Startlingly good. And this is just fine. OK. Again, it will occupy your brain for a period of time between roughly 10 and 45 minutes. The end. It's solid throughout, but there's not much here that would make me sit up and cheer in a 15x15, so in a 21x21, yeah, it's just a shrug from me. But it was easy, and lots of people seem to be setting personal records with their solving times, so I'm guessing no one's going to complain too much about this concession to idealessness. Ah well.

There aren't any real low points, except LIENOR, ouch ... and I thought ALIENOR was bad (weirdly, I've seen ALIENOR more than I've seen LIENOR, I'm almost certain). Those three letters between "L" and "OR" were an Adventure, for sure. I had LENDOR (?) and LESSOR (!?) before eventually getting the whole answer from crosses. Otherwise, nothing awful in this puzzle. Also, nothing very exciting. I kinda liked [Barely afloat?] for SKINNY-DIPPING, but that's about the only answer that I remembered fondly after I was done. I'm realizing now why I assumed there'd be a theme (besides, you know, the obvious, i.e. that it's Sunday and the puzzle has a title): two of the long Acrosses have "?" clues. In addition to the SKINNY-DIPPING clue, there's the corresponding, symmetrical clue on COURT REPORTER (27A: Hearing aid?). Speaking of "?" clues, 1-Across gave me more trouble than just about anything in the grid (1A: Round number? = BARTAB). It's a fine clue, just anomalously tough. Also tough for me:

Tough for me:

25D: Bring down (LOWER)— got the "L," wrote in LEVEL
19D: Mudbug, by another name (CRAWDAD) — got the "CRAW," wrote in CRAWLER (?)
41A: First attempt (FORAY) — Had no idea that the concept of "first" was built in. I hear "first FORAY" and "initial FORAY" a lot. Those are redundant? Huh.
78D: Golfer Jordan who won the 2015 U.S. Open (SPIETH) — after a while I recognized the name, but I try really hard not to pay the least bit of attention to this exclusionary country-club "sport" that is beloved by some of the worst people on the planet. If you never put a golf clue in a puzzle again, I would not complain.
79D: Republican politico Reince (PRIEBUS) — ok this wasn't "tough for me," just hilarious to me, literally laughed and thought "omg that guy ... remember *that* guy?" Is he still someone? What an embarrassment.
85D: Prepare to deplane (UNBELT) —LOL I have never called it that. I unbuckle my seatbelt, but my need to save breath on syllables has never driven me to utter anything as stupid as UNBELT.

OK, XXOO BYE.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jennifer Nutt

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:04)

THEME: BABY STEPS (59A: Small advances ... or the progression suggested by the ends of 17-, 23-, 33-, 41- and 48-Across) — last words in the theme answers are "STEPS" in the normal motor-skill development of a "BABY":

Theme answers:

JELLY ROLL (17A: Sweet item at a bakery)
HOUSE SIT (23A: Keep watch while a homeowner's away)
PUB CRAWL (33A: Bar-to-bar activity)
MIC STAND (41A: What a speaker or musician may adjust before starting)
CAKEWALK (48A: Easy win)

Word of the Day: SPRING TIDE (29D: Shore phenomenon around the time of the new and full moons) —

: a tide of greater-than-average range around the times of new moon and full moon (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Was briefly irked that only one of the theme answers actually contained a word related to "steps" (CAKE WALK), but then quickly came to accept that "steps" could refer to stages in a process, and that the process in question was adequately represented by the last words of the themers in today's puzzle, so I finally arrived at grudging acceptance, which is honestly the best I can do today. This theme works fine. The fill is fine. It's fine. It's visually unusual, in that most of its themers (2 through 5) are neither flush to the side of the grid nor centered. Four 8s in a row just sort of float off-center toward the middle of the grid. It's ... a look. It makes the whole center part of the grid look and feel very choppy, somehow; it's a very black square-heavy grid (40 of them, which is def on the high side). But if you're gonna cram in this many themers, it's not surprising that you'd have to make rather liberal use of the black squares, to keep the grid manageable (i.e. fillable in a way that is not awkward / ugly). For all the short fill this one contains, it never felt tiresome, and HORACE DOGSTAR DAMASK and SACHETS are all at least mildly interesting answers. In most themed puzzles, it's just a couple of longer Downs that hold any real interest, but this one didn't rely solely on SPRING TIDE and CAMERAWORK to liven things up, which is nice.

I've had a couple glasses of wine tonight, which may have affected my speed skills, but I had a number of sticking points today, starting right off the bat at 1A: Tricked by doing something unexpectedly, with "out" (FAKED). It's a long, unwieldy clue, and it's got the whole "with 'out'" part to factor in, and my brain couldn't do anything with it for what felt like a long time (as long as it took me to get most of the crosses). KILO also took a bit, because the clue was so vague (3D: Metric weight, informally), and since FAKED and KILO cross, I stumbled rather than shot out of the NW. I also had a (metric) ton of trouble with CAMERAWORK; I watch a *ton* of movies, and think a lot about cinematography, so ... I don't know what I was expecting this answer to be, but nothing as informal as CAMERAWORK. I had the "C" and thought "... C ... INEMATOGRAPHY?" And even after I got CAMERA I wasn't sure what came next. [Job for a cinematographer] sounds like it wants, well, a specific job, a subset of what a cinematographer does, but CAMERAWORK is the totality of what a cinematographer does. I like the answer OK, but the clue was weirdly baffling to me. Worst part of the puzzle by far was trying to figure out what spelling of KEBAB they were gonna go with today. I managed to get *both* vowels wrong this time, yay me. Nothing else caused too much trouble. So I guess that's that. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kyle Dolan

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:40)

THEME: GROW A SPINE (61A: "Show some courage!" ... as this puzzle's theme can do?) — last word in first themer is "I," and each subsequent themer adds one letter to its last word (through PI, PIN, SPIN) until you end up "growing" the word "SPINE" at the end of the last themer (which is also the revealer):

Theme answers:

MOTHER MAY I (16A: Cousin of Simon Says)
"LIFE OF PI" (24A: 2012 Ang Lee film set largely at sea)
HAIR PIN (38A: Support for an updo)
BACK SPIN (49A: What a chop shot imparts)
GROW A SPINE

Word of the Day: Punjabi (53A: Many a Punjabi) —

Punjab (Gurmukhi: ਪੰਜਾਬ; Shahmukhi: پنجاب; /pʌnˈdʒɑːb/, /-ˈdʒæb/; /ˈpʌndʒɑːb/, /-dʒæb/; Punjabi: [pənˈdʒaːb] (listen); also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb)^[a] is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of eastern Pakistan and northern India. The boundaries of the region are ill-defined and focus on historical accounts.
The geographical definition of the term "Punjab" has changed over time. In the 16th century Mughal Empire it referred to a relatively smaller area between the Indus and the Sutlej rivers.^[2] In British India, until the Partition of India in 1947, the Punjab Provinceencompassed the present-day Indian states and union territories of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi and the Pakistani regions of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory. It bordered the Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwaregions to the west, Kashmir to the north, the Hindi Belt to the east, and Rajasthan and Sindh to the south.
The people of the Punjab today are called Punjabis, and their primary language is Punjabi. The main religion of the Pakistani Punjab region is Islam. The two main religions of the Indian Punjab region are Sikhism and Hinduism. (wikipedia)

• • •

growing a spine tower

The editor's love affair with the grimly adequate puzzle continues. The theme does what it says it does, in its literal, punny way. The fill, outside the themers, is loaded with your typical short stuff, occasionally tiresome (ENID, ETAS, SRA, EYRE crossing AYE) but completely standard. There are some midrange highlights in "OH, GREAT" and the full-named B.B. KING (my fav answer of the day, actually) (42D: Blues legend with the hit "The Thrill Is Gone"). LAUGH LINE would be fine, except they never come in the singular, only the plural, so the lone line is awkward (34D: Facial wrinkle suggesting a jovial spirit). But all I could think about at the end of this puzzle was how awful two answers were: LATERGRAM (3D: Photo posted days or weeks after it was taken, on social media) and PEDS (as clued). I'm a constant user of social media and this is literally the first I'm hearing of this incredibly dumb term LATERGRAM. What does it rhyme with? Not "Instagram," that's for sure. I've heard of other Insta-related slang, like FINSTA (your "fake Insta" account); FINSTA makes sense to me, on multiple levels. This ... doesn't. What kind of horrible purchased word list did that come from? People post pictures they took days / weeks ago all the time. They're just pictures. Posts. The idea that you would have to invent this dumb name for them ... yikes. Admittedly, I don't use Instagram, which belongs to Facebook, which is a truly vile perpetrator of disinformation and abettor of violence. Deleted my Instagram account last year, and never really found any use for it while I had it. LATERGRAM ... phew, dumb.

And as for PEDS. My dad was a physician, my mom was a nurse, my stepmom was a nurse, my sister is a nurse, I have pediatrician friends ... I've just never, ever, ever heard this term (this bad fill, normally clued in re: pedestrians) as slang for kids' meds. How do people not get confused using such bad slang? Why do you need different slang for *kid* meds as opp. to adult meds. Do they call old people's meds GEDS? (geriatric ... meds)? Look, you put PEDS in the grid, it's bad, just own it, embrace it. Don't try to shoehorn some slang in here to gussy it up. It stinks.

There's nothing much else here to comment on. The only sticking points for me were LATERGRAM and CAKEPOP / PEDS. The rest just kinda filled itself in. I did struggle briefly with COT, as I was thinking of "extra" as some kind of nice amenity, not a sad barracks-like thing they roll in so your kid doesn't have to sleep on the floor. That's all. Enjoy your Tuesday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Amanda Rafkin and Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Medium, maybe Medium+ because of the rebus element

THEME: TWO PEAS IN A POD (34A: Almost twins ... as suggested by this puzzle's circled squares?)— circled squares contain two "P"s:

Theme answers:

STRIPPOKER / COPPERTOP
WRAPPARTY / "I'M HAPPY"
VIP PASSES / WHOPPER, JR.
FLIPPHONES / APPLE

Word of the Day:"ERES TU" (48D: 1974 pop hit with Spanish lyrics) —

"Eres tú" (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈeɾes ˈtu], "It's You") is a popular Spanish language song written in 1973 by Juan Carlos Calderón and performed by the Spanish band Mocedades, with Amaya Uranga performing the lead vocal.
It was chosen as Spain's entry in the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest. After reaching second place in the contest, it was released as a single.
This song also has an English version entitled "Touch the Wind" with lyrics by Mike Hawker.
This song also has an Indonesian version entitled "Hatiku" ("My Heart") with gospel lyrics used in Catholic mass. (wikipedia)

• • •

The revealer is fine, but it turns out just putting two "PP"s into squares just isn't that fun. It's a one-note gimmick, and while some of the "PP"-containing answers, like FLIP PHONES, are interesting in their own right, for the most part solving this puzzle just involved a programmatic placement of "P"s in their proper positions.Once you get the trick, it's paint by numbers, fill-in-the-blanks. There's plenty of theme action, technically, but none of it really *feels* like theme action. So you get essentially nine "theme" answers (if you include the revealer), but not nearly that much theme impact. Which means that all that theme material severely undermines your ability to fill the grid well / smoothly, while delivering very little in the way of thematic payoff. Actually, considering how badly the theme material taxes the grid, it's surprising the fill is as smooth as it is. Aside from "ERES TU" (which ... honestly, feel free to delete that bit of ancient crosswordese from your word list annnnny time) and the nobody-wins dilemma of OVOID-or-OVATE at 21A: Shaped like grapes, there isn't too much irksome in the grid ***except*** in the NW, which is kind of a disaster (and, not coincidentally, where I had the most trouble). Let's start with this, because it's the most important issue:

3D: Sign in an apartment window (TO RENT)

No fooling, if you do a google image search of ["to rent" sign] you just get picture after picture of "FOR RENT" signs. TORENT looks like you misspelled "torrent." You have to respect the way language actually works, and not call your lawyer in to try to justify the way you want it to work. It makes everything bad when you do this. THE NETS also makes everything bad, the way most definite articles in sports teams names do (for more badness, see the unsayable and improbably singular NYJET). There is literally nothing to clue the "OH" part of "OH, THAT" (2D: Words following "Which thing?"), which makes that answer, oh, awful.

You also probably shouldn't cross the exclamation "OH" with the exclamation "OHO!" Oh, no, you should not. I wanted ROT at 1A: Go bad, and I should've followed that feeling, but then I saw that DAISES / AHA worked at 1D: Platforms for speakers / 14A: "Well, looky here!," so I put those answers in and took ROT out, thus ruining three answers in one fell swoop, woo hoo! I can accept RANDR as an answer if you can accept that no one ever really likes to see it, so throwing it into this already heavily compromised corner feels punitive. OK, that's all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Derek J. Angell

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed)

THEME: "Wheel of Fortune" — theme answers have no vowels, central Down answer = "CAN I BUY A VOWEL?" (13D: What you might cry when trying to answer the six starred clues?)

Theme answers:

MRV GRFFN (18A: *Creator of 55-Across) (Merv Griffin)
VNNWHT (20A: *Co-host of 55-Across) (Vanna White)
RSTLN (30A: *Group of six given for free on 55-Across)
PTSJK (41A: *Co-host of 55-Across) (Pat Sajak)
BNKRPT (52A: *Bad place to land on 55-Across) ("Bankrupt!")
WHLFFRTN (55A: *It debuted on 1/6/1975) ("Wheel of Fortune")

Word of the Day: NEAL McDonough (23D: Actor McDonough) —

Neal McDonough (born February 13, 1966) is an American actor and producer, known for his portrayal of Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), Deputy District Attorney David McNorris on Boomtown (2002–2003), Sean Cahill on Suits, Robert Quarles on Justified, William Parker in Mob City, and Dave Williams on ABC's Desperate Housewives (2008–2009). He also appeared in films such as Star Trek: First Contact, Minority Report, Walking Tall, The Guardian, Flags of Our Fathers, Red 2, The Marine 3: Homefront, Traitor, The Hitcher, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Proud Mary, and as Dum Dum Dugan in various Marvel Cinematic Universe films and TV series. He appeared as Damien Darhk on Arrow, and in Legends of Tomorrow. He also plays as Malcolm Beck on Yellowstone. He is also known for voicing a variety of comic book characters, most notably Bruce Banner in the animated TV series The Incredible Hulk (1996-1997). (wikipedia)

• • •

Last day of actual (virtual) face-to-face classes today, so I gotta get to it, ergo this will be brief. Speaking of brief—it did not take me long to figure out this theme, and thus (pretty much) take any kind of theme energy, any chance of future surprise, completely out of the puzzle. I mean, once you get the gimmick, the rest of the theme stuff is obvious (except BNKRPT—totally forgot that was a SPIN possibility ... haven't watched this show since high school, i.e. for decades). Anyway, here's where I was when the puzzle was basically over for me:

I took one look at that "MRVGR-" combo up top, then I took another look at it, then I realized, "nope, those letters are all solid, something weird is clearly going on with the theme." Then, since the MRVGR- clue referred to 55-Across, I looked at 55-Across, and though the date didn't tell me much, the fact that I was dealing with a "creator" and a "debut" told me a TV show was involved, and Merv Griffin came right to mind (I wonder if younger people are as familiar with his name as I am. He had his own afternoon talk show when I was a kid). And that was that. You've got that vowel question as your anchor. The concept here is cute, but in the end the theme is something of a miss, first because I was basically done before I began, which made filling in most of the other themers a rote exercise. But the bigger problem is the phrasing of the question. Really feels like "I'D LIKE TO BUY A VOWEL" is the phrase that people say. Really really feels that way. Here, the phrase has been fudged into a question, purely for structural reasons (so it can be 13 letters long and sit dead center, and so the "N" and "W" can sit in positions that allow for the symmetrical crosses (MRVGRFFN, WHLFFRTN). Over before it began, and *clank* on the marquee answer. OK idea, iffy execution.

[This was somehow a radio hit when I was in high school.

I don't remember it being sung by some Cheech Marin knock-off (!?!)]

Only a couple trouble spots. Weirdly, the answer that fought me the most was SEEDBED (25A: Groundwork of a plant manager?). Had -EED- and went for WEEDING. Then, later, WEEDBED (!?). Is a SEEDBED just an area that has been recently seeded? Oh, I see that it's the ground that has been prepared for seeding. Ok. I have heard the term. But I still like WEEDING, which is definitely work that a "plant manager" does, and it's a word in common use. No idea who the NEAL actor was, though looking at pictures, I've seen him in things a bunch. He's basically the "hey, *that* guy" of contemporary TV (I have a lot of these in the older movies I watch). Had -ETFISH and honestly no idea what that first letter was supposed to be (41D: Aquarium denizen). Thought there might be a species called the JETFISH. But no ...it's a PET ... FISH :( Pat Sajak helped me there, which helped me finish off the eastern section. SST gave me trouble (24A: Noted "retiree" of '03). Never flew on one, really shaky on the dates they were operational. I actually refused to anagram WINTER'S O'S and got SNOW TIRES from crosses (9D: Apt anagram of WINTER'S O'S). Something about having to stop my solve to rearrange letters felt insulting. Because I forgot "Bankrupt!" was a SPIN option, not knowing FAN (60A: Geisha's accessory) had me struggling slightly in the SW. After OBI, I'm fresh out of ideas for 3-letter Geisha accessories. FAN, you say? OK. The end. (Somehow this write-up wasn't any shorter than my regular write-ups; habit is a strong force...)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I liked UP VOTES (43A: Online endorsements)

P.P.S. the A.D.A. in 12D: A.D.A.-compliance option (RAMP) is the Americans with Disabilities Act, not the American Dental Association, in case you were confused

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium (untimed)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ADIA Barnes, W.N.I.T.-winning coach (6D) —

Adia Oshun Barnes (born February 3, 1977) is the head women's basketball coach for the University of Arizona. She played at the collegiate level for the University of Arizona, then seven seasons of professional women's basketball with the Houston Comets, Seattle Storm, Minnesota Lynx, and Sacramento Monarchs in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She has played internationally with Dynamo Kiev in Ukraine. Barnes has also served as a TV color analyst broadcasting WNBA Seattle Storm games. Barnes is married to Salvo Coppa, a basketball coach she met in Italy. The wedding date was July 4, 2012. (wikipedia)

• • •

Really enjoyed this one for the most part. Did not, however, enjoy finishing with an error. I just spelled "AY, CARAMBA!" the way I heard it ... with a "U" ("carumba"). And as for the cross ... yes, ADIA does look, in retrospect, more like a human name than UDIA, but the clue made the answer so obscure-seeming (winning the N.I.T., or W.N.I.T., is not a thing anyone knows you for, whoever you are), that I figured the name could very well be something deeply unusual like UDIA. So, "AY, CARUMBA!" / UDIA. Wah wah. That's on me, but if I'm the only solver to do that today, I'll eat my hat. This is one of those times when good ol' crosswordese cluing (i.e. [1998 Sarah McLachlan hit]) would've been a big help, especially when crossing a foreign word that isn't even really a word (?) (wikipedia says caramba is a euphemism for carajo). Failing to solve a puzzle correctly because I screwed up a clue about "The Simpsons"!? A show I watched worshipfully for its entire first decade? This is a career low point.

But the rest of it was cool. Not IBANKERS, which will always suck (in life, in the grid) (11D: Many workers on Wall Street, informally), but the rest of it, yeah. I like to think of this puzzle being loosely about a married couple who are in therapy but sincerely working on the relationship and, well, by god, things are going pretty well! From TRUST EXERCISE to CUDDLE BUDDY to SAFE WORDS, that's a good day! I love Buster Keaton. I call my cat "Buster Keetin," which apparently a well-known humorist has also done with his cat, but I did it independently of him, so shh. Are there really people who calculate the exact shape and size of the earth? Like, every day? Once a year? This is a job? I inferred GEODESISTS from Buckminster Fuller's "geodesic dome" (16A: Experts in determining the exact shape and size of the earth) That answer helped me change Spanish MAIN to Spanish MOSS (7D), but alas, it did not help with UDIA.

I had CUDDLEBUNNY before CUDDLE BUDDY, which is cuter, but also wronger. I also had YUK YUKS at 45A: Hearty har-hars (BIG YUKS). So, as if in some ridiculous nightmare or animated television series, BUNNY & YUKYUKS chased me around the SW for a bit, with a little help from a shape-shifting GABBANA (which is to say, I couldn't remember if it was two Bs one N or two Ns one B). Only other trouble spot was ERHARD (43D: German leader after Adenauer), a name I somehow don't know *and* wrote in after just the ER-. So I did know it. Or I "knew" it, I guess. Good thing I got that area sorted, because I was getting tired of guessing song titles at 54A: "Kiss Me ___ the Phone" (2009 #23 hit). "'Kiss Me, I'M IN the Phone'!? What kind of horror-story song ...!?"

[You wanna wake up and feel good, blast this]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Medium (untimed)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: LINAC (10D: Machine in a particle physics lab, in brief) —

A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear beamline. The principles for such machines were proposed by Gustav Ising in 1924, while the first machine that worked was constructed by Rolf Widerøe in 1928 at the RWTH Aachen University. Linacs have many applications: they generate X-rays and high energy electrons for medicinal purposes in radiation therapy, serve as particle injectors for higher-energy accelerators, and are used directly to achieve the highest kinetic energy for light particles (electrons and positrons) for particle physics.
The design of a linac depends on the type of particle that is being accelerated: electrons, protons or ions. Linacs range in size from a cathode ray tube (which is a type of linac) to the 3.2-kilometre-long (2.0 mi) linac at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. (wikipedia)

• • •

This felt very Saturday-y. Struggle struggle progress struggle progress progress progress late struggle finish. As happens so often for me, the NW was the toughest place for me to get traction, and a total dud the first time around. First thing in the grid: "HAKUNA / MATATA," which was a guess, but an ... I want to say "educated" one, but in context that hardly sounds right. Or ... I guess my ears have been "educated" enough to allow me to "guess" that answer, so OK. Educated guess. It was a song from that movie, and since "CAN YOU FEEL / THE LOVE TONIGHT?" didn't fit, I went for "HAKUNA / MATATA," and then immediately checked some of the short crosses to see if I could confirm its rightness. ASP and NUM told me I was probably correct, and I loped along from there. Actually, "HAKUNA / MATATA" wasn't the first thing in the grid, just the first correct thing. I wanted INCH and ARCH at 6D: Part of a foot (HEEL) before realizing there were way too many possibilities to blindly guess there. I also wanted LIEU (duh) at 1D: In ___ of (WANT), which is one of two deliberate fill-in-the-blank traps in the puzzle (see also 14D: ___-fi, which is somehow not SCI-) (SPY-). This is an incredibly cheap way to add difficulty to a solve and thanks but no thanks I always hate it. Ambiguity of a sort is fine, but when you suggest a very common thing but then provide a super-uncommon thing, in what purports to be a common phrase (common enough to be a fill-in-the-blank), then that is cheap. You can do Extremely Difficult without doing cheap. Come on. Anyway, my first real foray into the grid was in the SE, off of "MATATA," as my total-stab guess of THE (ugh) SINAI ended up being right, and then the GOTHS and the POET collaborated to help me sew up that corner in no time.

ERGO in the SE gave me a Huge assist in the NE—or maybe I wouldn't have needed the ERGO-backwards tip to get OGRE, I dunno. The clue is pretty transparent (12D: Despotic boss). I just know that the "G" helped me get RING UP and then that corner was done quickly despite my having no idea re: LINAC. The late struggle came in and around GIBBS (ugh, whyyyyyy? who watches "NCIS"!?!?! I know, millions of people, but still, ugh) (23D: Lead agent on "NCIS"). Also IBMPC, which, yuck. We just call it a PC. IBMPC crossing BTU next to INAKIT next to ECIG was yikesawful. I had ARMENIA (!) before PRUSSIA at one point at 40A: Ally of Britain during the Seven Years' War. I also misread 3D: Bill and Hillary Clinton have each won one as something like "each have one" and even with IOWA I couldn't figure out the next word. I thought maybe they collected something or had some pets from IOWA? An IOWA CHICKEN or something. Who knows what these people are into? So that western section was full of stumbles for me.

Really liked:

"WEIRD, HUH?"
FREE SPIRIT
BURNING MAN

Could've done without:

URSAE
IBMPC
TNN
ENESCO (old-school crosswordese with a name that can be spelled two ways, -CO or -CU)

OK, now realizing that my actual actual actual first thing in the grid that was correct was T-MAN, who just sat there by his lonesome until I came back to rescue him toward the end. T-MAN could've been NESS, I guess, but sometimes your crosswordese-fluent brain guesses right (19A: Bootlegger's foe).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Actor Nielsen of "Airplane!" / MON 11-2-2020 / Coins in India / Marijuana cigarette, in old slang / Version that's just for show

Classic TV show starring a cowboy puppet / TUE 11-3-20 / Designer dog that crosses a Pomeranian and terrier / Gossipy meddler / Practice of males mating with one female but not vice versa as in bees and ants

N.W.A member known as Godfather of Gangsta Rap / WED 11-4-20 / Change from Gojira to Godzilla say / TV personality who once said in an ad The only thing bolder than Fuze Iced Tea is ME!"

Former monetary unit in Japan / Translation of Latin phrase ceteris paribus / Wowie to Gen Z / Drugmaker Lilly / Drama that's credited with boosting sales of Lucky Strike / Dress up old style

YouTube star Chamberlain / FRI 11-6-20 / Rutherford and Shackleton for two / Soup-soaked bread say / German opposite of junge / More familiar term for omphaloskeptics

Eponym of NHL's points leader award / SAT 11-7-20 / Cartoonish Will who popularized the term graphic novel / Mix-and-match children's clothing brand / Punctuate a killer performance / Pixar character with a pet cockroach / Tart taproom offering / Chapati alternative / Hebrew name meaning ascent

Italian automotive hub / SUN 11-8-20 / Word capital established in 1535 / Marauder of old / Farm-to-table consumer / Starting piece on a1 or h8, say

Tokarczuk 2018 Literature Nobelist / MON 11-9-20 / Unstable chemical compound / Trending hashtag beginning in 2017 / Lures for magazine readers

Product once advertised with the jingle Who Wears Short Shorts? / TUE 11-10-20 / How Marcie addresses Peppermint Patty for no apparent reason

Ron of Tarzan on 1960s TV / WED 11-11-20 / Lye in chemistry class / Suave 1991 hit / Converted into fuel as coal / Former gridiron org for Memphis Maniax Orlando Rage / Series of bookings across America

Vocalist Gorme / THU 11-12-20 / Alexander historical mystery novelist / Shelley ode that begins Hail to thee blithe spirit / Unknown people slangily / Famous question first asked around 1600 / Baseball strategy that starts with a stolen base attempt

Ancient undeciphered writing system / FRI 11-13-20 / Wikipedia articles that need expanding / Hijiki or arame in Japanese restaurant / Successful shot from downtown in basketball lingo / Prominent feature of babirusa deer-pig

Literally art-doer / SAT 11-14-20 / New Zealand demonym / 1960s It Girl Sedgwick

Mail lady on Pee-wee's Playhouse / SUN 11-15-20 / 1989 Tom Hanks black comedy / Keto adherent e.g. / Republican politico Reince / Small bird with complex songs / Seasonal song with lyrics in Latin / Lipa Grammy-winning pop artist

Tablecloth fabric / MON 11-16-20 / Green item proffered by Sam-I-Am / Jitter-free jitter juice / Roman poet who wrote Seize the day put no trust in the morrow / Shore phenomenon around time of the new and full moons

Children's medicine in doctor-speak / TUE 11-17-20 / Bugler in Rockies / What a chop shot imparts / Photo posted days or weeks after it was taken on social media

Midge Maisel's father on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel / WED 11-18-20 / Adkins for Adele / Betting game in which you could lose your shirt / Time away from the grind for short / 1974 pop hit with Spanish lyrics / Farm-share program, for short

It debuted on 1/6/1975 / THU 11-19-20 / Peaceful rustic scene / Long-running TV series set in Las Vegas / ADA compliance option / Noted retiree of '03 / Country that has no rivers / Memorable hurricane of 2017 / People who are tight in modern lingo / Room opposite kitchen on Clue board

German leader after Adenauer / FRI 11-20-20 / Spanish opposite of odio / Old English dialect / Requests made to latecomers in brief / Classic Buster Keaton film set in Civil War times / Discontinued grocery chain that was once the US's largest retailer