Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Milo Beckman

Relative difficulty: Medium (6-something, but that's with repeated wrestling with the software over the number-boxes ... plus it's très oversized (16x16)

THEME: 2021— numbers 2, 0, 2, and 1 go in the boxes at the center of the grid, resulting in the following number-containing answers:

Theme answers:

CATCH-22 (19D: Inescapable bind)
FOREVER 21 (39A: Fast-fashion retailer)
20 PERCENT (37A: A fifth)
01 ALUMS (38D: First graduates of the new millennium, informally)

Word of the Day: fast fashion (39A: Fast-fashion retailer: FOREVER 21) —

: an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

You'll forgive me if this write-up is short. I figure if I'm up this late, I may as well celebrate properly at 12:00 a.m., but that's in less than an hour, and once I figure in drink-pouring time, well, the writing window is tight. Today's constructor sent me his original clues so that I could see how much they'd been changed by the editor. It's an 80-word puzzle and Milo counts just 25 of his own clues among the published clues. That seems like a pretty heavy editorial hand, but every constructor has a tale or twelve about such heavy-handedness. I once had something close to a quarter of the entire *grid* changed between acceptance and publication—and on a Sunday-sized puzzle. Humbling / humiliating. I couldn't see how the changes were anything but a lateral move, but then I didn't have decades of editorial experience and wasn't in charge so who cares. Point is, our puzzles are our babies and none of us are that thrilled when they come back to us looking all ... different. But editors standardize difficulty and also give the puzzle a distinctive voice and their work is crucial to any smooth-running puzzle. When editors are good, they improve your work, and it's a gift. I'm not going to do a side-by-side clue comparison today (if Milo has any specific comment, I'll post it later), but most of the final clues seem to have been simplified, shortened, or made more accessible in some way. This means, sadly, that a lot of the life (that is, a lot of younger-skewing cultural specificity) has been wrung out of them. Still, most of the clue edits I'm looking at seem reasonable, if not necessarily inspired. The most interesting change to me is the lone grid change: RZA got changed to MBA (23A: Résumé asset). I can hear 90% of solverdom exclaiming "thank god," but I think RZA is a cool answer (originally clued as [Wu Tang founder/beatmaker]). Dude is legit famous. He raps, produces, acts, scores movies (parts 1 and 2 of Tarantino's Kill Bill, for example). Main problem, though, is that he's not a household name to most NYTXW solvers, so every cross on RZA has to be extremely gettable, and I'm not sure the "R" in RPG (i.e. role-playing games) is. So we end up getting MBA ... more ultra-common snoozy bizspeak. But it's viable. And on a short answer, that's good enough. And anyway, the main interest of the puzzle lies elsewhere.

Not usually into themed Fridays, but at least today's theme is date-specific, so I can forgive it. There's nothing terribly earth-shattering about the idea to express 2021 like this, but it's still nice. I will say that '01 ALUMS does not sound nice to my ears at all. I had '01 CLASS there at first, and while that doesn't sound nice either, it felt like a more coherent phrase. So that answer felt forced. But the others seem fine, even if 20 PERCENT is entirely arbitrary. They could've at least clued it as [Common tip amount] or something like that, but it is what it is. [A fifth]. Maybe that was some kind of whiskey-related misdirect. Not sure. I really liked SO LAST YEAR (51A: Passé). Good any day, but on New Year's Day, mwah! I struggled up front with IFORONE ARCH and IFS, and then wanted PSYCHOTROPIC before PSYCHOACTIVE at 18A: Like some mushrooms. After that, only the SW gave me any trouble, largely because I (bizarrely) couldn't parse FERGUSON at all (39D: Missouri setting of 2014 civil rights protests). Oh, and I wanted GRAS instead of GROS (53A: Opposite of petit), had never even heard of EVELINE (44A: Title heroine of a James Joyce story), and couldn't get my head at all around 61A: Complete a lap? (SIT). Groan. Even with SI-, I had no idea. SIP? Gah. Thinking track "lap" and dog-drinking "lap" ... never considered the lap you "complete" (again, groan) when you SIT.

OK, Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for coming around as often as you do (however often that is).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe easier ... it's an oversized grid again (16x15), so if you're a little slow today, blame that)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Cape Verde peninsula (8D: Capital on the Cape Verde peninsula => DAKAR) —

Cape Verde Peninsula, French Presqu’île du Cap Vert, peninsula in west-central Senegal that is the westernmost point of the African continent. Formed by a combination of volcanic offshore islands and a land bridge produced by coastal currents, it projects into the Atlantic Ocean, bending back to the southeast at its tip. Exposure to southwesterly winds contributes to Cape Verde’s seasonal verdant appearance, in contrast to the undulating yellow dunes to the north. The cape is the site of modern day Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and its immediate suburbs. (britannica.com)

• • •

It's always weird to see things written out in letters that you never actually see written out in letters, like BTWO, ARTOO, or (today) EEQUALSMCSQUARED (36A: Noted relationship in physics). It looks freaky, but I can't decide if that's a plus or a minus. Anyway, today that answer is the reason the puzzle is 16 wide, so I guess everyone involved thought it was marquee-type stuff. OK. The rest of the puzzle is strong enough that it doesn't really matter if you're on board the EEQUALSMCSQUARED train or not. Lots and lots of haven't-seen-that-before, and most of it tolerable or better. The slang is mildly grating—HELLA COOL feels a WEE bit dated (in a way that its clue, "Dope!," does not), and MOO JUICE, ugh, all infantilizing kiddyspeak like this makes my skin crawl—but that, I realize, is probably a highly idiosyncratic and personal response. Both bits of slang have (or have had) currency, and give the grid a zing that keeps it out of Dullsville. I'll take grating colloquialisms over nautical lingo any day (LAID TO, bah!) (44D: Stopped a ship using the wind, in nautical lingo). This one had bite in nearly every section, but those super-long answers were all super-easy to get, so it was easy to at least get a toehold in every corner of the grid. I struggled a bunch, but in a very normal Saturday way, and on balance ended up with favorable feelings about this one.

[Had HELLA GOOD before HELLA COOL; I blame this song]

Broken record here: the slowest part was the getting started part, i.e. the NW. When you have nothing (yet), you are in the worst position you are ever going to be in, solving-wise, so while you might start a puzzle very easily and eventually hit a place where you are dead stuck, in general, if you solve a lot of puzzles, the place you are likeliest to be slowest is the beginning. Today, BLACK COD, LOL, OK. That may as well have been clued [It's a color and a fish, good luck]. And now I realize it very nearly *is* clued that way (1A: Delicacy also known as sablefish), but I was thinking of sable as a fur not a color. Worst mistake I made up there was SLAKE at 1D: Slow down. Now I don't even think SLAKE can be made to mean that, but at the time, after realizing it was KEA and not LOA, SLAKE felt good. You ever have an answer that just feels *good* and then it ends up not only being wrong, but never having made sense in the first place. I think that's what I had on my hands here. Wait, no, I was right! SLAKE does mean "Slow down" ... kinda ... it's just a bit, you know, obsolete:

Slake is no slacker when it comes to obsolete and archaic meanings. Shakespearean scholars may know that in the Bard's day slake meant "to subside or abate ("No flood by raining slaketh. . . ." - The Rape of Lucrece) or "to lessen the force of " ("It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart." - Henry VI, Part 3). The most erudite word enthusiasts may also be aware of earlier meanings of "slake," such as "to slacken one's efforts" or "to cause to be relaxed or loose." These early meanings recall the word's Old English ancestor "sleac," which not only meant "slack" but is also the source of that modern term. (merriam-webster.com)

So SLAKE is "correct" for the clue, in a highly-adjacent and obsolete sort of way. I will console myself with that. Or is it "condole?" I watched the new "Emma" on New Year's Eve and someone used "condole" and I thought "ooh cool word wait how is that different from 'console'?" Turns out, they're very similar in meaning, highly overlapping, but I've wandered away from the puzzle now, and it's getting late so...

Five things:

9D: "That's enough out of you!" ("SHUT IT!") — I assume other people wrote in "QUIT IT!" at first here too. That seemed exactly like where a "Q" would go, and this puzzle seemed so fond of "Q"s ... and yet no.
35A: Actress/YouTube star Koshy (LIZA)— we all draw our lines, and here's one of mine: "YouTube star." I'm just out. Can't. Bridge too far. Be another kind of star. Can't even bother to look this one up. In this instance, I am an incurious bastard.
18A: Speed up (HUSTLE)— had the H and S and T before I saw the clue, so *of course* I wrote in HASTEN. That is some awful luck right there. Usually great to have a bunch of crosses before you see a clue, but not when they lead you right over a cliff.
50A: Euro forerunner (ÉCU) — so ... not the *immediate* "forerunner," then (this monetary unit officially died with the French Revolution). I might've gone with "ancestor" here, but OK.
11D: Like some exotic drinks at tiki bars (SET ON FIRE)— went initially with LIT ON FIRE, which, unlike some of my other errors today, is entirely excusable, imho. I just read a great French-Canadian comic called Les Ananas de la Colère which was set in and around tiki bars, which are not necessarily my preferred kind of bar, but at this point I would give Anything to go into Any bar and just sit off to the side and drink my cocktail and solve my crossword and enjoy the blissful feeling of being alone, yes, but In Public. Hoping 2021 has this in store for me. And you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Paolo Pasco

Relative difficulty: Medium (just north of 10 min.)

THEME:"Busting Moves"— theme answers all feature letter strings that spell out dances, with each dance being interrupted (or "busted," I guess) by a single square; those squares (which are gray in the app and probably in the paper) read, in order: "MAY I CUT IN?"

Theme answers:

SUPREME LEADER (23A: Title for Iran's Ali Khamenei)
SHIRTWAIST (25A: Tailored blouse style)
BOY PROBLEMS (43A: Subject of some teen gossip sessions)
MOUNTAIN GOAT (47A: Sure-footed alpine climber)
CRUMB CAKE (68A: Bakery item that's often messy)
PORT-AU-PRINCE (88A: Caribbean capital)
SHORT-ANSWER (91A: Kind of test question)
SAILS ALONG (114A: Proceeds breezily)
VOLLEYBALL NET (117A: What a spike goes over)

Word of the Day: GIGI Saul Guerrero (110A: Horror director ___ Saul Guerrero) —

Gigi Saul Guerrero (born February 27, 1990) is a Mexican-Canadian filmmaker and actress. She gained recognition for creating and directing the 2017 horror web series La Quinceañera. In 2019, she directed episodes of The Purge and the anthology horror series Into the Dark.
Guerrero has been praised as one of the top emerging directors in the horror genre by Empire, Dread Central, Bloody Disgusting and Creators.co. Variety described her as part of the new wave of Latinx talent. (wikipedia)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS!*** . The calendar has turned on another year (thank God), and while that might mean a lot of things to a lot of people, for me it means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. Last year at this time, I wrote about what a melancholy year 2019 was; my oldest dog had died and the world was kind of a wreck. And then 2020 happened, and I learned what a real wreck looks like. In February, my other dog died (R.I.P. Gabby). And then, well, COVID. And let's be honest, even with a new president, 2021 is going to be, uh, challenging as well. But I hope that the regular ritual of solving crosswords brought some solace and stability to your lives this past year, and I hope that my blog added to your enjoyment of the solving experience in some way. This year my blog will celebrate its 15th anniversary! I feel so proud! And old! A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully some insight and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

And heck, why don't I throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which they did that one time someone contributed that way—but it worked!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. And my thank-you postcards this year are really special. They are portraits of my new cat Alfie (a bright spot of 2020), designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. And they look like this:

He's eating kale in that middle one, in case you're wondering. Anyway, these cards are personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share them with the snail-mailers. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

* * *

Yesssssssssss. Where has this puzzle, or puzzles like it, been (seemingly) all my life!? The Sunday is usually such a drag—often the stuffiest, stalest, tiredest puzzle of the week despite being the *marquee* NYTXW puzzle, with decidedly more regular solvers than any other day of the week (if my blog traffic is any gauge). Such a waste of a captive audience. A real chance to shine, and yet nearly every week, thud thud thud. But then, new year, New Attitude! This would've made a great, great contest meta puzzle: just cut out all indicators of where the dances are, all gray squares, and just ... let it ride. Tell solvers: "The answer to this puzzle is a question," and force them to figure it out from the title alone ("Busting Moves"). It would've been hard, and would've left a lot of solvers frustrated, which is why the NYTXW didn't present it this way, but I bet most of you could've figured it out, eventually. You'd be surprised what you can figure out from a punny title alone. People who subscribe to Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest actually sign up for this type of torture on a regular basis. It's "fun"! But ANYway, the NYTXW is a different animal, and they basically hand you the trick, but that's fine—that way, everyone gets to appreciate it immediately. And it's so good. I mean, no, you don't actually "cut in" in, say, "BALLET," but that's not the point; you do "cut in" at a dance, and these are all dance *types*, and that's all they have to be. I didn't have the gray squares in my software, so while I could see that there were "busted" dances, I was like "Why?" But my first thought, from solving metas for so many years, was to look at the break. Surely the "break" squares must do something, I queried, wearily, assuming that they would not, in fact, do something. But then they did. They spelled out a thing! A relevant thing! And that, readers, is how I had my first genuine, eye-popping "aha" moment with the NYTXW in a long, long time. 2021 should just stop right here. Walk away while you're on top, 2021!

This puzzle started out with two of my fill nemeses in one corner: ETAILER and EGESTS were like twin monsters trying to keep me from entering the grid and enjoying myself, but I was like bam, pow, take that you two, and I blew past them and things got much nicer after that. Best / worst moment was my total and complete inability to parse "KARATE KID," LOL "sports movie" WTF? (6D: Title nickname in a 1984 sports movie). I had KARATEK- ... and still, I swear, no idea. Woof. Not my finest hour. Had PLATES for ROUTES, yikes (7D: Courses). Real bad miss with "I FIGURE..." for ODDS ARE (15D: "My guess is ..."); between the -RE at the end and the "My" part of the clue (suggesting "I" in the answer), I really Really thought I was right. Oof. But again, I fought through it. I don't mind a puzzle that roughs me up a little if the payoff is nice. LOLAT is iffy but so iffy that I admire its chutzpah (52A: React to, as an online joke). I had some more trouble with MUFASA / FAULT. Wanted MUMBASA (which is a vowel away from a Kenyan city), and that FAULT clue just fooled me (61A: It's ground-breaking) (I figured if there's a FAULT, the ground is already ... broken?). I completely blanked on KONMARI despite having read and partially followed the advice in MARie KONdo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up"! Never seen "Zootopia," but now mad at myself for guessing EEL at 127A: The antagonist Bellwether from Disney's "Zootopia" (EWE), as a "wether" is a sheep and I *knew* that. Oh ... it's a castrated male sheep. I did Not know that.

OK. Great. Hope you enjoyed this one too. Cheers!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kathy Wienberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (2:46)

THEME: WONDER WOMAN (61A: Co-founder of the Justice League) — theme answers are very basic trivia re: WONDER WOMAN:

Theme answers:

DIANA PRINCE (17A: Identity of 61-Across)
DC COMICS (30A: Originator of 61-Across)
LYNDA CARTER (36A: Television portrayer of 61-Across)
GAL GADOT (44A: Film portrayer of 61-Across)

Word of the Day: ROUTE MEN (39D: Some delivery people) —

: a person who is responsible for making sales or deliveries on an assigned route (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS!**. The calendar has turned on another year (thank God), and while that might mean a lot of things to a lot of people, for me it means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. Last year at this time, I wrote about what a melancholy year 2019 was; my oldest dog had died and the world was kind of a wreck. And then 2020 happened, and I learned what a real wreck looks like. In February, my other dog died (R.I.P. Gabby). And then, well, COVID. And let's be honest, even with a new president, 2021 is going to be, uh, challenging as well. But I hope that the regular ritual of solving crosswords brought some solace and stability to your lives this past year, and I hope that my blog added to your enjoyment of the solving experience in some way. This year my blog will celebrate its 15th anniversary! I feel so proud! And old! A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully some insight and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

* * *

I regret to inform you that I did not like this at all. I'm not just talking about the fact that it's a screamingly vanilla trivia puzzle with zero to offer in the way of cleverness or ... any real interest. I'm also talking about the fact that is the closest thing I've seen to what looks like the puzzle being used for product placement / paid advertising ... well, ever. I can't remember ever seeing anything this blatantly commercial-seeming. As you probably know, "Wonder Woman 1984" just opened. Christmas Day. I assume they ran this puzzle with the idea that it would be "timely," given the recent opening of the movie, but when commercial enterprises are concerned, "timely" reads a lot like "promotional."GAL GADOT stars as DIANA PRINCE in a DC COMICS production of the latest WONDER WOMAN film! Thank goodness LYNDA CARTER is here to at least provide the teensiest bit of evidence that this is a general-interest "WW" puzzle that just *happened* to come out near the release of the movie. The "bonus"DC COMICS answers—AQUA (49A: Lead-in to "man" in superhero-dom) and AMY (28D: Adams who played Lois Lane in "Man of Steel")—only make matters worse. With the NYTXW running sponsored crosswords on its site sometimes, and with them selling prime advertising real estate directly above the crossword in the actual paper newspaper, *and* with the crossword being the most profitable part of the NYT, with a huge subscriber base, I am more prone to being suspicious / cynical / conspiracy theory-minded about these things. I don't yet think that the NYTXW is in league with OREO or Famous AMOS or Big Cookie in general, but give it a bit. I'll get there. Anyway, if this had been in any way thoughtful or clever, I could maybe have forgiven the blatant commercial angle. But it wasn't, so I can't.

What are ROUTE MEN? I looked it up, so ... it's a rhetorical question, but seriously, I've never ever heard that term, and do not believe anyone says it (anymore?). I assume ROUTE MEN get LUMBAGO, a term I *do* sometimes hear, but only ironically, or in old movies. Maybe they also get GOUT too, I dunno (that's a depressing little malady crossing, that one). Possibly some ROUTE MEN are CBERs? (more hip fill for y'all). Sigh. I liked SEA LEVEL, esp. as clued, so that's ... something (3D: Rising concern?). But sadly all the joy of SEA LEVEL was immediately negated by its truly repulsive neighbor, the swole crosswordese ALIENEE (an answer I often think of as the paragon of long crosswordese; if anyone ever asks you "Can crosswordese be longer than five letters?" please point them in the direction of ALIENEE). I finished the puzzle quickly, and that always feels good, but sadly my job also involves *reflecting* on the puzzle, and today, that did not feel so good. Hope you are feeling better than I am. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Amy Schecter and Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: famous people doing things — familiar 3rd-person verb phrases are clued as if they express what someone famous is currently doing; that is, the first word (a 3rd-person verb ending in "S") is clued as if it were preceded by an apostrophe:

Theme answers:

PAT'S DOWN (16A: Singer Benatar feels blue)
SUE'S OVER (20A: Author Grafton has arrived for dinner)
DAWN'S ON (26A: Actress Wells has just entered the scene)
JACK'S UP (!) (37A: Actor Nicholson will bat next)
WADE'S IN (48A: Baseball's Boggs has agreed to join us)
CHUCK'S IT (53A: Actor Norris got tagged)
WARD'S OFF (59A: TV father Cleaver has just left the starting line)

Word of the Day: TERN (35D: Relative of a sea gull) —

Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consist of eleven genera. They are slender, lightly built birds with long, forked tails, narrow wings, long bills, and relatively short legs. Most species are pale grey above and white below, with a contrasting black cap to the head, but the marsh terns, the Inca tern, and some noddies have dark plumage for at least part of the year. The sexes are identical in appearance, but young birds are readily distinguishable from adults. Terns have a non-breeding plumage, which usually involves a white forehead and much-reduced black cap.
The terns are birds of open habitats that typically breed in noisy colonies and lay their eggs on bare ground with little or no nest material. Marsh terns construct floating nests from the vegetation in their wetland habitats, and a few species build simple nests in trees, on cliffs or in crevices. The white tern, uniquely, lays its single egg on a bare tree branch. Depending on the species, one to three eggs make up the clutch. Most species feed on fish caught by diving from flight, but the marsh terns are insect-eaters, and some large terns will supplement their diet with small land vertebrates. Many terns are long-distance migrants, and the Arctic tern may see more daylight in a year than any other animal.
Terns are long-lived birds and are relatively free from natural predators and parasites; most species are declining in numbers due directly or indirectly to human activities, including habitat loss, pollution, disturbance, and predation by introduced mammals. The Chinese crested tern is in a critical situation and three other species are classed as endangered. (wikipedia)

• • •

* * *

This theme mostly works, except for the one place it doesn't. No, let me rephrase. It works, roughly, on its own terms, but those are not the only terms it feels like it's working on when you're solving, so (to my ear) there is one big clanker in this themer group. I wonder if I did a poll and just asked, "Which of these ... [counting] ... seven (!) is substantially not like the others?" there'd be a consensus. Anyway, the problem is CHUCK'S IT. All the other final words are prepositions. Conspicuously, obviously so. And "IT" ... is not. It's just not. The preposition thing felt absolutely crucial the entire time I was solving, as one after the other of the themers was built that way: famous person + apostrophe S + preposition. On and on. And on. Until Chuck. Poor Chuck. Also, poor Dawn Wells. She was the first themer I got, and so the whole endeavor started out slightly sad; in case you hadn't heard, Dawn Wells died just last week. Dec. 30, 2020. Dawn Wells was of course famous for playing Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island." I always hated that whole Ginger *vs* Mary Ann thing, since there's no reason to pit women against each other like that. And yet the answer was always Mary Ann :)

I was briefly and (probably) unintentionally amused, in a 10-year-old-boy kind of way, when I saw the verb/preposition pattern develop ... and then hit JACK. If you played a quick word association game, or ... was it "Match Game" where they made you guess the most popular fill-in-the-blank answer? Anyway, if you'd played that game with me, and asked me to quickly complete [JACKS ___], let's just say "Up" is not the place my brain would've gone to first. So I mentally filled the squares with the wrong preposition and got a laugh. But the real answer was UP. Jack got UP. Not OFF. UP. But then Ward Cleaver got OFF and I was laughing all over again.

What else? I'm stuck on prepositions. I don't want there to be any other prepositions in this puzzle *besides* the ones that complete the theme answers, and I especially don't want any other two-word verb phrases ending in a preposition (looking at you, END AT). Keep your theme tight and don't let parts of it leak into the fill ... I always say! I had a little trouble getting the OVER part of SUE'S OVER, but otherwise, the themers were all quite easy. But since they all involved "celebrities," and the well-known-ness of those can be highly variable, it's possible that the theme wasn't always easy for you. I wonder how many people under 40 know who Dawn Wells was. Or Ward Cleaver, for that matter. Oh, yeah, the other odd-man-out themer (besides the Chuck Norris one that annoyed me) was the Ward Cleaver one, since he's fictional, and the other famous people are not. Further: OMAN does not sound like the exclamation in question, so since the clue didn't not specifically indicate *looks* like, that clue was no good (2D: Country whose name can be an exclamation). I guess with the right (Jamaican?) accent, OMAN can be an exclamation. Bah. The "successive identical clue" strategy once again shows its head and shows why it's generally bad, as the clue (44D& 46D: Trial stages) works really well for one of the answers (BETAS) and really iffily for the other (the ultra-generic TESTS). I thought the SW corner was the most fun, with its shot and CHASER and GNOMES shouting "TEACH ME to JETSKI!" (OK I fudged the last bit, it's JETSKIED, but my brain hears what it hears). Have a nice day!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Eric Bornstein

Relative difficulty: Well, probably easy in the app, but for me, using my software, where the clues were laid out normally, and the Down themers just had [See puzzle notes], and I refused to do that, it was slower. Here's the "note" I was supposed to read:

THEME: ___ AND ___ — apparently the clues were presented as one set, with no separate Acrosses or Downs, and then for the numbers that were shared by an Across and a Down, that Across and Down formed a ___ AND ___ phrase; thus:

Theme answers:

STOP & STARE (1. Rubberneck)
PRIM & PROPER (5. Stiffly formal)
STARS & STRIPES (9. Old Glory)
SWEET & SOUR (33. Kind of sauce in Chinese cuisine)
BORN & BRED (41. Fully from, as a place)
SOCKS & SANDALS (43. Footwear fashion faux pas)
DRINK & DRIVE (45. Risk losing one's license, say)
TRIED & TRUE (56. Proven to be reliable)

Word of the Day: FOMO (66A: Anxiety about being excluded from the fun, for short) —

informal
: fear of missing out : fear of not being included in something (such as an interesting or enjoyable activity) that others are experiencing (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

* * *

My solving experience was very different from most of yours, and not in a good way. The thing is, I can tell that if my experience *had* been the same as yours, my feelings about this puzzle wouldn't be much improved. I would've solved it more quickly, and sure, that always makes a puzzle easier to bear, but the whole concept ... just kind of bleh. I've seen this before, first of all, so there's nothing new here. And what's here, pairing-wise, is really ragged. I mean, there's a lot of it, but I'd say too much of it, as the pairs run the gamut from very tight (STARS/STRIPES, SWEET/SOUR), to tight enough (TRIED/TRUE, BORN/BRED) through the very grim (DRINK/DRIVE) down to things that don't have a tight association at all (if I said SOCKS & ___ you'd say SHOES). Also PRIM works on its own for (5. Stiffly formal), as does PROPER, but the others require the full phrase. So the themer set is ragged. This is a sight gag, really, the whole "uniclue" thing, and I can't understand caring. Also, having [Each] clue EVERY was a major distraction, as all I could think was "why isn't EACH & EVERY an answer in this puzzle??" My themers were hard to figure out initially, as my solving software presented the clues in regular format, and then the Down half of the themer just said [See notepad]. Of course I never ever [See notepad] when I'm told to [See notepad], so I made it hard on myself. I wonder if my way wasn't actually *more* fun, since I at least had to struggle to put the gimmick together. But in any format, I'm gonna pass on this whole "uniclue" thing that the NYTXW is trying to make happen.

Fillwise this was average. Some good stuff (KNOCK IT OFF!, he said, to the puzzle) some less good (UOMO ESSENE FROS TRUTV RIATA WASA IATE). I'm definitely not pro-TIER TWO, as it doesn't feel like enough of a thing, but at least it's weird instead of boring (29. Second-level). I remain legit stunned that anyone thought DRINK & DRIVE was an appropriately whimsical phrase for a crossword theme, just as I'm stunned that "losing one's license" is the "risk" they've decided to worry about. [Risk killing pedestrians, say]—how do you like that clue? Sound good? No? OK, then maybe rethink what you're doing here.

OK, I gotta get back to watching GA election results (which is to say, watching people celebrate said results on Twitter). I feel like the write-up is a little light tonight, but maybe that's appropriate for a puzzle that's a little light on clues. To make up for the short write-up, here's some pictures I took today while *trying* to work at my desk. Take care!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Matthew Stock and Sid Sivakumar

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (typical Thursday—played Hard, then, once you got the theme, Easy)

THEME: STRIKE THAT (59A: Words of correction ... or a hint to 16-, 20-, 36- and 54-Across) — themers have the letter string "THAT" replaced by "XXXX" (so, "struck" out):

Theme answers:

WIXXXXWIST (i.e. with a twist) (16A: Cocktail specification)
DONXXXXE (i.e. "Don't hate!") (20A: "Get your negative energy outta here")
DEAXXXXAFUNERAL (i.e. "Death at a Funeral") (36A: 2007 black comedy directed by Frank Oz)
FELXXXXS (i.e. felt hats) (54A: Fedoras, e.g.)

Word of the Day:"Death at a Funeral" (36A) —

Death at a Funeral is a 2007 British black comedy film directed by Frank Oz. The screenplay by Dean Craig focuses on a family attempting to resolve a variety of problems while attending the funeral of the patriarch. [...] In 2010, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, and Martin Lawrence starred in a US remake of the same name, directed by Neil LaBute. Peter Dinklage returned to play the role of Peter, although the character was renamed Frank. The film was released on 16 April 2010 to mixed reviews. (wikipedia)

• • •

* * *

Ooh, I like this concept. Normally not the biggest fan of trying to show off by cramming your grid full of Scrabbly letters like X Q J Z etc., but this is a very purposeful and controlled X chaos. Also normally not the biggest fan of grid gibberish, but the strike-out gimmick makes this less gibberish, more ... occlusion? Anyway, I think it's a pretty nifty theme idea, and I think the grid as a whole largely holds up, given how much pressure those "X"s put on the grid. You wanna unleash sixteen "X"s on a grid, you better figure out how to contain them, i.e. keep them from forcing you into the land of Ugly Fill. Uncommon letters can have a cascading Bad effect, as fill opportunities narrow and sometimes severe accommodations are made. But today I only balked at a few fairly typical clunkers, like ALII and LEOXI (can't believe we escaped with only one pope or other Roman numeral-affixed leader, tbh). Obviously ALII doesn't have an "X" in it, but as I say, a Scrabbly bomb can reverberate, and ALII is "X"-adjacent. Anyway, the grid stays clean. The theme was funnish to uncover. There were some really fresh answers in there (EXOTOXIN, PROXY WAR). So despite the fact that I slipped and stumbled all over the place trying to get started, I ended up enjoying the solving experience quite a bit.

There's one thing, though... UV WAVE. Like ... really? A single wave is a "sunburn cause"??? "Oh, you're really red, must've been that ... UV WAVE ... that hit you ... that one time ... remember?" I've never seen UV waves in anything but plural form, and since the clue did not indicate a singular or plural answer, I went in a much more sensible direction at first, which is to say I went with a. a plural, and b. the word that most people use: UV RAYS. The "UV" was set early, and I "confirmed" the "A" with ANTE, and bam, that was that. It was so disappointing, later on, to find out that the real answer was this sad, lone UV WAVE. People call them "rays"! They only refer to them in the plural! So I don't know if that was a deliberate or accidental trap, but it felt cheap as heck. I was so locked in to UV RAYS that even when I hit a clue that obviously screamed ENO (27A: Brian in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), since I had the answer starting with an "S," my only thought was "dang, who are the other Brians besides ENO?" Later, when I thought 13A: Big wheels (HUMVEE) was HUMMER, I found myself in an equally absurd position, staring at 14D: Italian stratovolcano, looking at the "R" I had in the first position, and wondering "dang, what are the other Italian volcanoes besides ETNA?" So basically ENO and ETNA (old friends) were shouting and waving their arms wildly, trying to warn me that I'd gone errant, but I just stumbled further in the morass.

Worst of all in that NW section, from a deeply personal standpoint, was the fact that I couldn't make heads or tails of the dang *cocktail* clue. I enjoy cocktails ~3x/week. I had a Negroni variant (made with Cynar instead of Campari) just last night. And you know what? My wife served it WITH A TWIST (orange) ... and *yet*, between trouble thinking of "specification" as a prepositional phrase, and the UVRAYS trouble, and the ... oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the OMAR trouble! I put in HUMMER (wrong) at 13A: Big wheels and then, when asked to think of a four-letter poet starting OM-, I went straight to OMAR (as in Khayyam) (it actually started OV- and was OVID) (7D: Poet who said "Let others praise ancient times. I am glad I was born in these"). So, yeah, throw that into the mix, and I had zero hope of figuring out what was going on in NW. Total disaster. So bad, in fact, that I actually decided to go straight to the revealer (i.e. to the bottom of the grid, where I imagined the revealer would be) and build the puzzle from there. Which I promptly did: ITS + ASSAY + SRIS + EXTRA + WRITER + KEA ... and then I could see STRIKE, which had to be followed by THAT (59A: Words of correction [...]). And since I did actually have all the "X"s in place in the NW, I knew immediately how the whole striking business was going to be expressed in the grid. It would still be a while til I discovered that UVRAYS and OMAR were wrong, but I had the key now, and getting to the end was pretty easy after that.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Evan Kalish

Relative difficulty: Easy except maybe for a few names ...

THEME: none— well, there are a lot of "IT"s, but I presume that's not thematic ...

Word of the Day: Zaha HADID (36A: Award-winning architect Zaha ___) —

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid DBE RA (Arabic: زها حديد‎ Zahā Ḥadīd; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was a British Iraqi architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building."
She was described by The Guardian as the "Queen of the curve", who, through her signature adoption of non-Euclidean geometries, "liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity". Her major works include the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the Broad Art Museum, Rome's MAXXI Museum, and the Guangzhou Opera House. Some of her awards have been presented posthumously, including the statuette for the 2017 Brit Awards. Several of her buildings were still under construction at the time of her death, including the Daxing International Airport in Beijing, and the Al Wakrah Stadium in Qatar, a venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Hadid was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She received the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize, in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, she was made a Dame by Elizabeth II for services to architecture, and in February, 2016, the month preceding her death, she became the first woman to be individually awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (Ray Eames and Sheila O'Donnell had previously been awarded it jointly with Charles Eames and John Tuomey respectively). (wikipedia)

• • •

* * *

Several names I didn't know here, but the rest of the puzzle was so easy (for me) that I blew right through them. I really should store EDNA Lewis's name away somewhere in my brain, as this is not the first time I've seen it. But I definitely forgot it. When I see "country" and "cooking" and four letters, my brain, from past trauma of multiple solving experiences, automatically jumps to DEEN, ugh. Gotta retrain it. Here's a deal: I'll remember EDNA Lewis (she can be the number 1 EDNA as far as I'm concerned), if the NYTXW never mentions Paula DEEN's name again? Yeah? We good? Good. Who else did I stumble on? Oh, HADID! Now that I see her face, I have definitely heard of her, but her name just hasn't stuck the way other crossword architects have, guys like GEHRY and of course our fearless leader I.M. PEI, R.I.P. Seems like HADID is more than worthy of inclusion, and has a very grid-friendly name, so it would be great to see her more. It would also be great if when we saw her, she had much, much better clues than this one. "Award-winning architect" tells us nothing, not even the "award" that she "won"—hello, she was the first woman to win the bleeping *Pritzker*, which is a known award name. You can say it / include it in your clue. Or you can include some other pertinent fact, like one of the many, many buildings she designed. *Something* that defines her for the solving audience. The work of inclusion involves establishing worthiness and bringing the audience along. Last name on my "huh?" tour is HENRI. Don't feel too bad about that one, as I can only name [... counts on fingers ...] huh, zero, zero milliners. I guess the full name Henri Bendel was an NYC-based accessory store. Not on my radar. But as with EDNA, I got crosses, and as soon as I could make a name out of the letters I had, that was that. With HENRI and EDNA it wasn't hard. HADID took a little more work. But as I say, that's it for difficulty today, for me.

Nicest part of this puzzle actually came before I solved it, at 4:45am, when my phone alarm went off and I reached over, picked it up, and saw the following text from my daughter on the notice screen:

(PR) = personal record

She is right about the age I was when I started doing crosswords religiously—towards the end of college. And with it being winter break at The U (of Minn.), and with all the pandemic-induced staying at home, she's had a lot of time to practice. All I ever wanted was a kid who would commiserate with me about crosswords. [Sniff] I'm so proud. Actually ... I guess I now have to look forward to her eventually a. dunking on me with her faster-than-me times, and then inevitably b. pitying me and helping me out with all the pop culture that means less than nothing to me. Ah well, we're in a father/daughter sweet spot right now, crosswords-wise, and I'm just gonna enjoy it.

"The Mandalorian" is my new "Game of Thrones," in that I would prefer not to. Sometimes the hype of something becomes so unbearable that I just ... refuse. I figure I'll learn everything I need to know (like this YODA clue, 49A: Whom Grogu resembles on "The Mandalorian") from crosswords and from people never shutting up about it. I should probably also store GROGU away for possible future use. I've taken a hard turn away from all forms of Fandom in general, and "Star Wars" fandom can be Particularly unbearable (see also Marvel fandom). There's something about fandom mindset that brings out bad, weird, cultish behaviors in people. Idolatry over enjoyment. Inflexible mind. It reminds me of political fandom, which is ... how we got ... here [vaguely gestures toward the window, in the direction of D.C.]. I'm sure it's good TV, I just have quirky aversions to oppressively popular things, so I'll pass. I'l also pass on E-SCOOTERS (66A: Rechargeable city transport), which sound all cool and green or whatever, until you're a pedestrian just trying to walk around Denver and every stupid yokel and careless kid is riding those damned things every way they're not supposed to. Oof. Just walk, ffs. What else? I like how "THIS GUY GETS IT!" is splattered across the middle of the grid (37A: "See, SOMEONE understands what I'm saying!"), both because it's a snappy (if somewhat bro'y) phrase, and because it really seems like a self-referential moment; that is, this guy seems really into the word "IT." We get it. No, seriously, we get "IT"—three times, including an "IT" that crosses the "IT" in "THIS GUY GETS IT" ("AS I SEE IT"). I'd say COOL ITwith the "IT"s, but at least it's given me something to talk about. Adieu.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Trenton Charlson

Relative difficulty: Medium? (untimed)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SCUD (20A: Move fast, as clouds) —

1: to move or run swiftly especially as if driven forward clouds scudding across the sky
2: to run before a gale (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

* * *

This grid seems fine, and yet I kept finding the experience of solving it off-putting. I have this reflexive disdain for puzzles where the constructor gets a Scrabble-tile bee in his bonnet. As soon as I sense that it's going to be "watch me put Zs and Qs and Js in as many places as I can!" type of deal, my eyes start to roll and my interest starts to wane. Jamming the grid with high-value Scrabble tiles is some early-aughts puzzboy idea of excellence (it's very much a male constructor move ... though, it's a very male constructor world, still, especially on Saturdays, so maybe the actual data would be less conclusive). As I say, though, the puzzle seems to handle all the Scrabbliness OK. I'd just rather have a grid driven by thoughtfulness and freshness and liveliness than one driven by Scrabbliness, because *most* of the time, JQZ fireworks aren't worth it. Again, this one holds up pretty well. I just can't help my nails-on-a-chalkboard response to unchecked JQZ fervor, which feels like a bad instinct to encourage. The only answer that really made me smile today was "NICE SAVE" (not a rare letter in sight). I'll take genuine freshness over superficial dazzle any day.

Things began weirdly and inauspiciously:

SCUD is the dumbest word, and its dumbness is here compounded by my own dumbness: knowing enough to be in the ballpark, but not enough to get it right. SCUT ... means something else. They're both equally ugly words (this is probably due to their cousin, SCUM, who is both much more popular and iconically ugly). But they all have negative associations. SCUT means "tedious or menial" (in relation to work, usually), and SCUD is probably best known for being a kind of missile used by the Iraqis in the first Gulf War. Anyway, SCUT was wrong, but close enough that I was able to get going. Soon I ended up here:

And then was very much stuck. Stunned that I had the fat back ends of all those answers and no idea what their fronts might be. You can put anything in front of -ESQUE, so no hope there. I thought -RMORE was going to be one word (can't believe I've been solving this long and still forget to shake that one-word impulse out of my brain when I get stuck, ugh). And then there was blank WALTZ. Of course Coltrane plays JAZZ—it's the obviousness of it that kept me from seeing it. I thought a waltz was a waltz was a waltz, 1 2 3 1 2 3, wherever you found it. SAX WALTZ wouldn't fit, FREE WALTZ (which I considered because of association with "free JAZZ!") seemed improbable—contradictory, in fact. I tried the short answers in there, but had this weird balk at OBI because I thought maybe LEI (!?!?!) (19A: Accessory that might have a netsuke attached), and then BIT could also have been TAD (22A: Modicum). Sigh. It was only when my brain finally went "uh, it's not just *JAZZ* WALTZ, is it?" that I had a most deflating "aha" moment. An "oof" moment. It really was the "ha ha, look at us, we're a bunch of valuable Scrabble tiles, TADA!" quality of that moment that made me resent every bit of JQZ glitter that followed.

After that corner, though, things got considerably easier. But then I knew JAMAL, which seems like the kind of answer where if you knew it, wheeeeee, and if you didn't, uh oh (35A: ___ Crawford, the N.B.A.'s all-time leader in four-point plays). Again, the high-value "J" comes into play. I went JAMAL to JOESCHMO with no trouble, and that corner was over quickly. In fact, looking over the grid now, no part of it offered much resistance after I escaped the NW. The cluing was a normal level of toughness for Saturday, I think, but there were no places to get bogged down. But maybe my just happening to know PAMELA Hayden's name very well gave me an unusual advantage down there (46D: ___ Hayden, actress who voices Milhouse on "The Simpsons").

If you luck into knowing the proper names in a tough puzzle, you can really fly, and if those names aren't exceedingly well known by the general population, your sense of how easy the puzzle was can really be skewed. So as I say, this felt normal to me, but on a Saturday, just one unknown name can be the difference between success and stuckville. Last letter into the grid was, appropriately (and anticlimactically) the bra size, i.e. the "D" in DCUP (21D: Certain bra spec). No way to know what letter goes there til you get the cross. So I signed the DOTTED line and was done. It's a better-than-SOSO puzzle, I can see that. I just got put off by it early, and the joy never came back—though I guess the ODE TO JOY there at the end did help, a little. Gonna play that now to try to brighten this dark-in-so-many-ways winter day. I wish you all joy as well.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alex Bajcz

Relative difficulty: Medium (10-something)

THEME:"Oh, Fourpeat's Sake!" — repeating four-letter strings ... yes, that is all:

Theme answers:

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND (22A: Classic saying originated by John Donne)
BAHAMA MAMA MIX (31A: Aid for making a tiki bar cocktail)
"WELCOME HOME, HON" (48A: "Glad to have you back, dear!")
PRIMETIME TV (62A: Most expensive block)
"WHERE WERE WE?" (72A: Post-interruption question)
KING KAMEHAMEHA (87A: First ruler of a united Hawaii)
ALUMINUM INGOT (103A: Relatively light foundry product)
ROMA TOMATO SAUCE (118A: Potful in some Italian kitchens)

Word of the Day: ARTURO Schomburg, Harlem Renaissance figure (77A) —

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (January 24, 1874 – June 10, 1938), was a historian, writer, and activist. Schomburg was a Puerto Rican of African and German descent who moved to the United States and researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years, he collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other materials of African history, which were purchased to become the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, named in his honor, at the New York Public Library (NYPL) branch in Harlem. (wikipedia)

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS!*** This is the last day of my annual week-long fundraising effort for the blog. It's been a weird week, to say the least. An assault on the Capitol—did not see that coming. I spent the week being buffeted back and forth emotionally, with the horrible news out of DC dragging me down, but then the generosity and kind messages from blog readers lifting me up. It's been so nice to hear from readers this week, and to be reminded of what a big, weird, wonderful world crossword solverdom is. People have been particularly complimentary of (and desirous of) the Alfie postcards my daughter designed (see below). Many of you have asked whether they were available for purchase as a complete set. As of now, they are not, but that may change. I'll let you know. Anyway, it's been very gratifying to hear from readers. So often writing the blog feels a bit like shouting into the void, so it's nice to be reminded the void isn't such a void after all. I can't thank you enough for your readership and for seeing the value in what I do here, whether that's explaining the themes, or helping you understand tricky clues, or just giving you a feeling of commiseration when you, too, are disappointed in or furious at or madly in love with the puzzle. It's about community. Feeling less alone in this otherwise (mostly) solitary endeavor. I see you out there. And I'm grateful.

The PayPal button and snail mail address are always sitting over in the blog sidebar, but otherwise, that's it for fundraising pitches for the next 51 weeks. Really REALLY hope they're better than the past 52. Happy New Puzzling Year, everybody.

Here are the annual contribution options one last time.

First, Paypal:

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

* * *

Wow, well, I guess karmically things have to even out eventually. Last Sunday's puzzle was so nice ... and we now return you to our regularly scheduled program of Sunday tedium. This was somehow both way, way too straightforward (you can tell just from the title and looking at the grid how the theme is going to express itself) and confoundingly forced and tortured. Some of these themers are just painful, first among them being BAHAMA MAMA MIX. It's the MIX that really gets me. There's a mix?? I barely know this cocktail exists, and you are telling me there is a mix. You use a mix. A mix? A mix. Margarita mix, hell yeah, I got you. Bloody Mary mix, OK, sure. Daiquiri mix? Yes, we're still friends. BAHAMA MAMA ... MIX? Come on now. I'm not saying there isn't such a thing, but come on. Further, ALUMINUM INGOT!?!?!? Look, these themers should be things, real things, actual things, not some preposterous theoretical thing that you would never ever ever accept in a puzzle as a self-standing answer. "WELCOME HOME, HON!?!?!?!" I had "SON," which at least you can imagine someone saying. Presumably a SON might've been away for a long time. Possibly he doesn't live with you any more. But a HON has maybe just been at work? Or the store? I don't know, but it's not the '50s, what is with this weird formal "WELCOME HOME, HON?" Again, son comes back from, I don't know, war, maybe, it's an Event. The formality of the phrasing makes sense. HON, my word. INGOT, dear gracious everloving wow. What are these themers? And the SAUCE is just sitting out there in that last themer, the only word in alllll the theme answers not touching any of the fourpeated letter strings. Sad. In the end, this is a bland concept, ridiculously executed.

The MIX thing was really gahhhh because I couldn't make sense of the "X"—the cross was FEDEX, and I ... guess I just have a different idea of what "overnighting" means (18D: Overnighting option). See now it refers to shipping, but the "-ing" isn't even strictly necessary, and makes it seem like camping or other kind of sleeping arrangement is the context. What else? I misspelled Hans Christian ANDERSEN of course ("-ON") (90D: Giant in fairy tales?). Had AMEN RA because as I've said before that damn second vowel can go all kinds of ways (40A: Supreme Egyptian deity). "Circular arrow button" doesn't mean anything to me—I don't even know where that is, or what context I'm supposed to be imagining. Very unevocative. So RELOAD, pfft, needed a bunch of crosses (10D: Click the circular arrow button, say). Had HEAT before RIOT (2D: ___ shield) (sidenote: RIOT shield, maybe not a direction I would've taken the puzzle this week). STOMP before STAMP (25A: Really put one's foot down).CAF remains very much not a thing you order. It's regular or decaf, those are the options. You could order a half-CAF. But no one is like "gimme a CAF!" Stop with this tone-deaf nonsense cluing! (80D: Quick pick-me-up?) ("Quick" because it's an abbrev.). Haven't seen "R.U.R." in a very long time. Old school crosswordese. Seeing it again ... honestly, not TERRIF. Still, not as painful as the EMS clue (43D: Mammal's head and heart?) (its "head and heart" because it starts with an "M" and has two "M"s in its middle, GET IT!?!?!). For pete's sake, somebody submit some decent Sunday puzzles to the NYTXW. Your marquee puzzle should not be batting below the Mendoza line.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Martha Kimes

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Deli-ghtful — Theme answers begin with sandwiches.

Theme answers:

WRAP PARTY (18A: Cast celebration at the end of filming)
CUBAN CIGARS (26A: Souvenirs from Havana)
CLUB HOPPING (44A: Going from nightspot to nightspot)
SUBREDDIT (59A: Certain online board for discussion of a topic)
DELI (58D: Where you might find the starts of 18-, 26, 44- and 59-Across)

Word of the Day: STOLI (67A: Popular vodka brand, for short) —

Stolichnaya (Russian: Столичная, also known as Stoli) is a vodka made of wheat and rye grain. A well-known Soviet brand, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union the ownership of Stolichnaya has been disputed between the Russian state-owned company FKP Soyuzplodoimport and SPI Group, a private company founded and owned by Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler.
(Wikipedia)

• • •

I liked this one overall, seemed like just about the right challenge level for a Monday with some interesting fill, but I had a few nitpicks. SUBREDDIT is total crosswordese, I only got it because I'm what the kids call "too online." Good joke on BAR NONE. Weird discrepancy with the foreign language clues; why is CASA "house in Mexico" but OEUF is "Egg: Fr."? I'm not a fan of the whole "in ____" style for foreign language clues anyway, but adding "Fr." is just kinda lazy...there must be another way. I've had enOEUF of this. Oh, and did anyone else have CZAR for TSAR? Took me ages to find and correct that.

What do you call a sorceress at the beach? A sand witch! As usual, I find very little to say about this Monday theme. My favorite sandwich is a classic grilled cheese. Make it with cheddar and throw some green apple on that bad boy and you've got yourself a gourmet meal. What about you, CrossWorld?

Bullets:

MCRIB (1A: Periodically sold fast-food item) — I'll admit it. I've had one of these recently just to see what the hype was all about. Took one bite and it was like enjoying a fresh wad of wet newspaper with some barbecue sauce. Took another because surely I had to be missing something, and realized that what I was missing was that it was actually more like an old tire slathered in sugary tomato. Seriously, no idea why people like this gross sandwich. At all.
OYL (23A: Olive ___ [Popeye's sweetie]) — Who doesn't love Popeye? Couldn't find very many great cartoon clips, so here's Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.
MORAL (64A: Ethical) — I thought there was some big philosophical difference between ETHICAL and MORAL? Any philosophers out there able to educate me on that one?
PUTS (19D: "Nobody ___ Baby in a corner" [line from "Dirty Dancing"]) — I think I legally have to post this.

Signed, August Thompson, tired graduate student.

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[Follow August Thompson on Twitter]

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (it's oversized, 16x15) (4:00)

THEME: THIS TOO SHALL PASS (37A: Adage on the impermanence of suffering ... or a hint to 18-, 29-, 46- and 61-Across)— things that pass

Theme answers:

KIDNEY STONE (18A: Hard deposit in a bladder)
BIPARTISAN BILL (LOL, ok) (29A: Legislation often resulting from compromise)
PRO QUARTERBACK (46A: N.F.L. signal caller)
BRIEF MOMENT (61A: Jiffy)

Word of the Day: MOONFISH (8D: Ocean dweller so named for its roundish, silvery body) —

n. pl. moonfish or moon·fish·es
1. Any of several carangid fishes chiefly of the genus Selene, found in warm coastal waters of North and South America and having a short silvery compressed body.
2. See opah. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

I am, in fact, going to pass. MILDEWY is an OK kind of icky, though the clue was ickier (and much vaguer) than it needed to be (1A: Fungus-filled, maybe). But it was really KIDNEY STONE that killed the vibe for me, very early on. I have been fortunate enough not to have a KIDNEY STONE yet, but as I understand it, they are (or can be) extremely painful. And then you go and make a punny little joke out of it with your revealer? I dunno. I don't get the impulse to te(e)hee at people's pain like this. I will admit that my tolerance for "laugh at people's pain" is probably at an all-time low this week (i.e. the first week post-violent white supremacist assault on the Capitol). I know, it *seems* totally unrelated to laughing at kidney stones, but trolls laugh at pain, and all those ****ers with their stupid body armor and their zip-tie handcuffs, who were literally planning to murder Nancy Pelosi and hang Mike Pence, well, you saw the smiles. So much smiling while murdering police officers. So happy. So laughing at suffering is low on my list of things to do right now. And speaking of politics, that second themer is a laugher. Since when does any legislation get "passed" anymore, particularly a (genuinely) BIPARTISAN BILL? "Compromise?" What kind of nostalgic "West Wing"-addled Washington, D.C. fanfiction is this? Currently, one part of the "BI-" in "bipartisan" claims the presidential election was invalid (based on literally zero evidence) and actively supports white native terrorism—so BIPARTISAN BILL, ha. Further, the PRO in PRO QUARTERBACK is an unnecessary tack-on, i.e. it's only here to make the symmetry work out. Quarterbacks at any level pass. Nothing special about a pro in that regard (come to think of it, nothing special about the BIPARTISAN part of BIPARTISAN BILL, either—no necessary connection to the "passing"). BRIEF MOMENT ... yeah, OK. I think that where the theme is concerned, KIDNEY STONE is actually the *best* of these answers, but it's also the worst, for reasons I've already covered.

I had EPALA- and didn't carefully read the clue (11D: Govt. testing site for air and water quality), and so the only answer that seemed plausible was EPA LAW, which resulted in BIPARTISAN WILL, which *really* seemed insane ... but also plausible. Only other trouble spot was "OK, NOW," which ... I'm having trouble understanding the tone in which I'm supposed to read those words. The clue is *not* helping (53A: "Well, alrighty..."). Are these stand-alone expressions, or just ... lead-ins to some unidentified statement? The "alrighty" is really throwing me. Folksy in a way that I can't pin down, ERA-wise. Anyone might say "OK, NOW..." whereas who the heck is saying "alrighty?" Sounds either ironic or passive-aggressive. Lack of clear context and indefinite slanginess are both hampering things here. Anyway, I had the "OK" and needed help from crosses to get the "NOW." Not much else to say. Really liked "IT'S A LOT" (the simple, spot-on colloquialisms are often the best; though, again, I'm not sure the clue quite captures the deadpan, understated beauty of "IT'S A LOT") (68A: Vague comment akin to "More than you might think"). CAROLINA is not an "Area," though, stop. If you use states in your clue, then a state better be your answer. There's a North and there's a South. Only James Taylor's getting away with CAROLINA all on its own.

Still don't know the "GOT" characters yet. Had the "Y" and guessed ANYA at 58D: Maisie Williams's role on "Game of Thrones" (ARYA). That's pretty close. Someday I'll manage to commit to memory more "GOT" names than Ned Stark ... OR NOT.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Jane Pauley is the constructor's mom, so that TV HOSTS clue is slightly adorable (71A: Jane Pauley and Rachel Maddow)

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Constructor: Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (untimed)

THEME: NBA movies — movies clued as if they had something to do with NBA players:

Theme answers:

"THE KING'S SPEECH" (20A: Address by a Sacramento N.B.A. player?)
"THE PELICAN BRIEF" (35A: Game notes for a New Orleans N.B.A. player?)
"THE GREEN HORNET" (46A: Charlotte N.B.A. player in charge of recycling?)

Word of the Day: RPGS (49D: Dungeons & Dragons and others, for short) —

A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game; abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one feels pretty thin. Not sure what the NBA has to do with movies, but weirder combos have been the basis of puzzles, so fine, let's accept the premise. Still, several problems. Mostly, it's just dull. These aren't terribly funny clues or interesting movie titles, and "THE GREEN HORNET" isn't even best known as a movie (it became well known as a radio show, running for 15+ years, and then spawned a series of movies none of you have seen, as well as an iconic if short-lived TV show, which some of you undoubtedly have seen). The 2011 movie did big business, but it has like zero cultural shelf life. It seems out of place here on many levels. Further, seems really weird to put this theme in a 15x15 with just three answers. If you (I) can instantly think of a better movie and better answer than any of the ones in the grid ("RAGING BULL"), then maybe the theme isn't being expressed ... as well as it might. You really couldn't do anything with SUN? ROCKET? WARRIOR? I mean ... "UNCLE BUCK"? No? The theme ends up feeling anemic and lackluster and just ... not ready for prime time. Doesn't help that it's totally outshone by the long Downs (specifically HIT THE WEIGHTS and CUTE AS A BUTTON).

ERBE, oof (48D: Flavorers in Italian cookery). That is ... something. I have no idea why ERBE > ERSE here. I'm no ERSE fan, but it's recognizable at least. Why would you try to get cute with the worst little bit of fill in the grid? Just accept that it's bad, keep its badness commonplace, and move on. But ERBE? YEESH. Nothing else in the grid is particularly IRKsome. Only trouble I had was totally self-inflicted. Wanted EXPO at 1A: Fair (JUST), and then when that was clearly wrong ... I don't know, I got turned around. Put in JEST at 1D: Not be serious and then crossed it with JAKE (doesn't JAKE mean "Fair," as in "on the level"? ... looks like it means "all right,""fine"). Anyway, once I had JAKE in there, my brain weirdly switched to thinking the 1D clue was the 1A clue, and so I ended up crossing JEST with ... JEST :( Wasn't til I reviewed the grid that I saw ETAH sitting there and thought, "well that can't be right" (2D: Home of the Anasazi State Park Museum) (UTAH). That's all. There's definitely a theme *concept* here, but the expression is ... a little wide of the mark.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. here's an interesting little article at merriam-webster.com on the meaning of "swole" (18D: Make an effort to get swole), which I expect to see more and more as a five-letter answer in the coming years

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Constructor: Aimee Lucido and Ella Dershowitz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Challenging (all of the "Challenging" part came from the theme squares ... which is also where much of the "Easy" came from ... it was a ride)

THEME: SPIN THE BOTTLE— the letters B, O, T, T, L, E appear clockwise in the grid, twice, inside the circled squares; in one position, the letters work for the Downs; in another position (rotated 180 degrees), the letters work for the Acrosses, i.e. you have to start BOTTLE at the top to get the Downs right, and you have to start it at the bottom to get the Acrosses. This means you have double-occupied circled squares, with the one that works for the Across making a plausible-looking (but wrong) ghost answer in the Down, and vice versa, each time. It's a lot:

Theme answers, starting from the top and going clockwise:

GATOR / LUBES (with GABOR / LUTES as ghost answers)
BLAST / CAMEO (with BOAST / CAMEL as ghost answers)
SEEPS / TATER (with EATER / STEPS as ghost answers)
CUBIT / LITRE (with CUT IT / LIBRE as ghost answers)
DROOL / LASES (with DROLL / OASES as ghost answers)

Word of the Day: ABOUTNESS (23D: Relevance of text, in librarian's lingo) —

The subject of a work contained in a resource, which is translated into controlled subject languages (e.g., classification schemes, subject headings lists); includes topical aspects and also genre and form. (librarianshipstudies.com)

• • •

I adore this idea, and I think it's impressively ambitious in its execution, but it's also a bit of a mess. Expressing "spinning" is hard, and as you can see by my theme description, this puzzle's version of "spinning" isn't easy to describe succinctly, though it's pretty straightforward in the end. BOTTLE works for Acrosses in one configuration, but you've got to "spin" it 180 degrees for it to work for the Downs. And yet you need both letters in the square, which creates chaos, though the chaos comes mainly while solving. I got SPIN THE BOTTLE pretty early, and figured out the spin concept as well, but I never saw exactly how much the BOTTLE had "spun" until I was done with the puzzle. I got the first BOTTLE configuration OK (with the "B" at the top), but as I was solving, I just couldn't get a handle on where the next BOTTLE sequence stopped and finished, or even if it was going in the same direction. So every single BOTTLE square was, in practice, uncrossed, i.e. I didn't have the aid of a crossing letter (which is kind of the heart and soul of cross-words), since the crossing letter was always different. I like that the "wrong" answers also make plausible crossword answers, although it doesn't add much to the puzzle, since a. you can tell the wrong answers are wrong, i.e. they're not fooling anyone, and b. because you have to put two letters in the square, you still have a gibberish-y looking grid. So it's like the elegance of having the "wrong" answers be plausible answers is kind of lost in madness. I appreciate it on an architectural level, but I'm not sure if it was necessary. Still, why not? I don't know if solvers are going to notice / appreciate it, but careful attention to detail is never bad, even if no one sees it. So, HOORAY for this theme even if actually solving (and describing!) it turned out to be a bit of a chore.

I am friends with many librarians and love them as a rule, but ABOUTNESS feels pretty, uh, niche-y. I don't dislike it, but the wikipedia page for it is so useless, so poorly written, that I had to look elsewhere for a solid definition related specifically to librarianness. This is why it seems pretty niche-y to me—having to go to a specialist website for a clearish definition. It's almost certainly the least heard-of thing in the grid (the only unheard-of thing, for me). It was ultimately inferrable, though ... as with the theme, my instinct is to love it, but I'm also kind of making a questioning face at it. Because it's very gettable, I think I'm pro. Certainly better than the average dreariness you might have had in its stead. Still, someone should clean up that wikipedia page.

The NW (i.e. the start) was my main trouble spot once again, as AWOL had no military indication in the clue (not faulting the clue, just explaining why AWOL didn't occur to me) (1A: Missing), and the clue on ASIA looked very specific but wasn't (17A: Home of Baikal, the world's deepest lake) (ASIA is big!), and that clue on LEAS(E) involved a massive direction using a word ("letter") that is both valid and never used by anyone in actual speech (4D: What a letter needs). What's the difference between a "letter" and a "lessor"??? Aha, turns out, zero. Zero is the difference. Car ads use "lessor" ... sigh, "letter," frowny face. Had STAS before STNS (60D: Listings on a train sched.), which is really the most awful kind of "mistake" you can make—a junky little piece of crosswordese, and you trip on it? Bah. I call my cat Olive "OLIVIA," so I like that answer (she has a tendency to DROOL (51A: Have a Pavlovian response), so more cat relevance there). I liked LOSE FACE and the "FAERIE Queene" spelling of FAERIE (22A: Mythical being, old-style). The grid is quite solid, especially given all the theme shenanigans. I did not have a bad time! Happy Thursday!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. please enjoy this Fire Safety Crossword Puzzle, sent to me by one of my readers. By "enjoy," I mean ... I don't know what I mean. I mostly just marvel at the construction and then imagine horribly wrong answers:

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Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" only because I had some trouble getting those central Acrosses)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EGO DEATH (48A: Complete loss of self-identity) —

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. In Jungian psychology, the synonymous term psychic death is used, which refers to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey.It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.
In descriptions of psychedelic experiences, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of psychedelics. The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al. to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self occurs. The concept is also used in contemporary spirituality and in the modern understanding of Eastern religions to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" and self-centeredness. This conception is an influential part of Eckhart Tolle's teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering (in the Buddhist meaning). (wikipedia)

• • •

This one got better as I went along, and there were a few genuinely good surprises along the way. It was also mostly easy, with the only thing putting the brakes on my solve being the structure of the grid, i.e. how sequestered the NW corner is. I finished up in the NW fairly quickly, but there's just that little exit at the bottom of that corner, and STO- and ST- were no help to me in getting those first two long Acrosses. Thought STO- was gonna be STOOD ... OUT ... somehow. No idea what ST- could be. First passes at the adjacent short Downs (LAMBO, FERAL) yielded nothing, so I had to jump down to the SW and reboot. Luckily, this wasn't hard. FABLE FORGOT POLO POEMS. Swung around to the middle of the grid and got RIGHTS ... but had no idea what kind of RIGHTS (7D: Topic in property law, colloquially). This was now the second time I was thwarted by the center of the grid. No help, stalled progress. So I took hacks at the shorter Downs in the middle. Got MOSHE and (despite its tricky clue) SHIFTS (27D: Uses a manual, say), and the adjacent "FH" there was on its own enough for me to be able to see MAIDS OF HONOR. Things sped up from there. Once middle came into view, SQUATTERS was easy, and the "Q" made "QUEER EYE" easy (actually, that would've been a gimme without the "Q") (16A: Hit Netflix reboot starring the Fab Five), so the NE didn't put up much of a fight. Finished in the SE, which was the easiest section by far. It's just as sequestered as the NW corner (what w/ grid symmetry and all), but having the first letters on the long Downs *really* helped. Got LOOKBOOK off just the "LO"(34D: Fashion designer's portfolio) and RESORTS off the "R," then all the short Acrosses, one after the other, then JEAN and MCS and done. Finished that corner so FAST I surprised myself. So overall, more easy than hard, but the middle of the grid gave me enough trouble to keep it from being too much of a walk in the park.

Once again, I tripped right out of the starting gate. Went with UMPIRE / ROOD instead of BATBOY / ONUS. And I thought I was so cute getting ROOD so easily, ugh (5D: Cross to bear). This is the kind of error you make when you teach Old English poetry (see "The Dream of the Rood"). Luckily YEP got me out of that error pretty quickly. Forgot Julie BOWEN's last name, so that was the toughest thing up there by far. In fact, as is fairly typical, it's the proper nouns that provided the most significant barriers along the way. For me, today, BOWEN and LAMBO (30D: Ferrari alternative, slangily) and TYRONE (13D: County in Northern Ireland) were the ones that took a lot of hacking to get at. I forgot that anyone called a Lamborghini ... that. And the only TYRONE I know is Power. But at least it was it was a recognizable (presumably Irish) name. The only answer to make me screw up my face resistantly was SPOONS (31D: Percussion in some folk music that may be improvised). This is one of those clues that takes me farther from the actual answer the more it goes on. Can't any instrument be "improvised"? SPOONS aren't part of any "folk music" I've listened to, but ... yeah they are a percussion instrument. Just couldn't get there from the clue.

The grid overall is remarkably solid. Really enjoyed seeing THE ROBOT, EGO DEATH, and SQUATTERS' RIGHTS. Nothing particularly tricky in the cluing today. Smiled when I got USED CARS (18A: There's a lot of them for sale). Just a nice-lookin' puzzle, honestly.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Sam Ezersky

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day:"SAW V" (34A: 2008 horror film sequel) —

Saw V is a 2008 horror film directed by David Hackl (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. It is the fifth installment in the Saw film series. The film stars Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Mark Rolston, Julie Benz, Carlo Rota, and Meagan Good. The plot follows FBI Agent Peter Strahm, who pursues Detective Mark Hoffman after discovering his identity as one of the Jigsaw Killer's apprentices and successor, while Hoffman begins designing his own Jigsaw "games" to test people and tries to frame Strahm to keep his identity secret. The film also explores Hoffman's backstory and explains how he became Jigsaw's apprentice, while continuing several story lines started in Saw IV. [...] The film received generally negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 13% based on 76 reviews, with a weighted average of 2.92/10. The site's consensus states "If its plot were as interesting as its torture devices, or its violence less painful than its performances, perhaps Saw V might not feel like it was running on fumes." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 reviews. (wikipedia)

• • •

Started this with seven correct guesses in a row: CUTEST APRS LAPUP SPA GAGS GARETH ASIT. Only hesitation there, ironically, was GARETH (ironic because I teach Arthurian literature—had the GA- and thought "GALAH- ... no, GAWAI- ... no. What the ...? Oh, right, GARETH. Deep cut!") (GARETH is one of Gawain's four brothers, killed by his childhood idol Lancelot during the latter's bizarrely heedless rescue of Guinevere near the end of Le Morte D'Arthur). The puzzle opened so easily, I was kind of surprised. Gave me the front end of MERRIAM-WEBSTER (easy), and parts of the front ends of all the top Acrosses. I was having an OK time until I was asked to piece together a hybrid instrument I did not know existed until (checks watch) today. Just now. GUITARLELE is ... and I'm sorry if you're an aficionado ... the dumbest-sounding thing I've ever heard of. Literally awful coming out of your mouth. The sounds don't flow right. The ukulele is already like a mini-guitar, what are you even doing? (I know, string count, whatever.) It just looks so dumb in print. It is not great from a solving standpoint when the letters you have to piece together from crosses are "-LELE." Was that supposed to produce joy? Well, I hope it worked on you. This answer was lethally crossed by LETHALLY, which has the dumbest clue ever written: 3D: Bad way to be poisoned. Me: "... all of the ways?" What are the good ways to be poisoned? So GUITARLELE with that LETHALLY clue chaser, oof. Trying way too hard to be novel in the first place, and then ... was that LETHALLY clue trying to be funny? I don't know. It all just kind of stank. I slowed down in that part of the puzzle, but only from disgust, not from true difficulty.

Also very let down by OBAMA SUPPORTER. The SUPPORTER part, actually, It was easy to get, but it was also so weak-seeming. I got OBAMA and thought, "well, that can't just be SUPPORTER, because then really you could put any politician's name in the grid and follow it with SUPPORTER." So even though SUPPORTER was the first thing that sprang to mind, I didn't write it in. This led to my only (short-lived) experience of being stuck in this puzzle: could not get either M--ON or --DE from their clues. I figured I'd get one of those, and then I'd know if SUPPORTER were right. But neither made any sense to me. So I just abandoned that area and went back to the west and got going again over there. Flew down and around the south, with only CORNISH PASTY holding me up at all (and only because the clue was vague). Finished at perhaps the most disappointing square in the grid: the EASTON (?) / BUSHEY (???) crossing. Two inconsequential place names, crossing each other, fantastic. Luckily I've heard of EASTON. BUSHEY ... is just an excuse for you to gratuitously wedge a Harry Potter clue in here? Why? Why would you do that? If *that* is BUSHEY's claim to "fame," maybe it isn't ... famous? Enough? By the way if you want a good EASTON clue, try ["Morning Train (9 to 5)" singer Sheena ___]. Oh ... wow, I just found out that Sheena EASTON was (hold on to your tams) NÉE ORR. That's some prime crossword DNA. She deserves to be the only EASTON clue. I am now a SHEENA SUPPORTER (where EASTON clues are concerned).

The answers up top are delightful, and I especially enjoyed the clue on MUSEUM EXHIBIT (13A: Remains to be seen, say).TIDEPOD weirdly dates the puzzle (well, the clue does, anyway) (11D: It was once a challenge to eat). UNPAIR is a word that I hate (so ugly) but love (so current and in-the-language). Gratuitous poker reference on my favorite number (NINES) was deeply unwelcome (46D: Wild cards in "baseball" poker). It was all over pretty fast. Have a nice day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Tracy Gray and Tom Pepper

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"Double-Crossed"— grid contains six rebus squares, inside of which are two sets of double letters, which are to be read in one direction the Acrosses, and in reverse direction in the Downs)

Theme answers:

OVERHEAD DOOR / BLOOD DRIVE (23A: Way into a garage, typically / 7D: Subject of a Sleeves Up campaign)
CARTOON NETWORK / RAMEN NOODLES (34A: Nickelodeon competitor / 13D: Classic dorm room meal)
GLORIA ALLRED / STELLA ARTOIS (61A: Prominent women's rights lawyer / 45D: Part of a college visit, typically)
STROBE EFFECT / COFFEEMATE (76A: Visual phenomenon created by short flashes of light / 66D: Nestlé creamer)
BALLOON ARTISTS / SCHOOL LOANS (104A: Some entertainers at children's birthday parties / 85D: Sallie Mae products)
DAYTIME EMMYS / SWIM MEETS (119A: Awards show that airs at night, ironically / 101D: Pool competitions)

Word of the Day: MIOTIC (73A: Causing constriction of the pupils) —

: relating to or characterized by miosis; [(miosis, n.) : excessive smallness or contraction of the pupil of the eye] (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't know if it's harder or easier than normal to make a puzzle like this. All I know is that it's tiring to solve. It was tiring to enter the double double letters, and it was double tiring that there was no point. This is the kind of puzzle that almost *has* to have a meta-puzzle payoff to be worth it—that is, if the double double letters had ended up spelling out some kind of message, something relevant to the idea of doubling or doubleness or whatever, then you could go "wow, cool, nice." But I tried spelling things and it didn't really work out (though depending on how you write out all the double letters, you *can* almost make the word DOUBLE happen ... but no, there's no message here, ultimately). It would've been slightly nicer to solve this on paper, where at least I could've seen the letters I was entering, but it would've been equally disconcerting in terms of letter order reversal (i.e. the double letters are in one order going Across, and reverse order going Down, for some reason). The concept feels half-baked. The rebus double-letter circles were both the most interesting and the hardest part of the solve, but they weren't as interesting as they could've been, and they stand out mainly because the rest of the grid is lackluster. I like that this puzzle has more ambition than your typical stale Sunday, but this needed another layer, another element, to really stick the landing. As it is, double double, ho hum. Kind of a letdown.

By far the hardest themer square for me was the OVERHEAD DOOR (?) / BLOOD DRIVE one. First one I encountered, and the only one that doesn't have at least one totally transparent cross. Your "way into a garage" is ... through the garage door. Is OVERHEAD DOOR the kind of garage door that retracts and then sorta slides back onto the roof of the garage? OVERHEAD DOOR sounds like some kind of trap door, like you are entering the garage through the ceiling, somehow. No idea what a "Sleeves Up" campaign is, so the BLOOD DRIVE part was also opaque to me. No other theme square posed nearly so much trouble. Wanted EUGENIA instead of EUGENIE, why in the world would I know about / care about Prince Andrew's kids, ugh (57A: Prince Andrew's younger daughter).

I think of them as "college loans," or "student loans," not SCHOOL LOANS, but I guess that's a colloquial expression people sometimes use, so OK. Had LAYIN before LAYUP, of course (108D: Easy two points). No idea what MIOTIC means (73A: Causing constriction of the pupils). "Myopic" (also eye-related), sure, but MIOTIC was a yikes (crosses were easy, though, so no big deal). Does ETHERNET still exist? How is NEODADA"old" and also "neo"(95D: Old genre for 12-Down)? Like ... is it "old" in that Yoko ONO no longer works in that genre? I honestly didn't even know it *was* a genre. It's basically an excuse to lade your grid with vowels, is what it is. I think I like BUM A RIDE and ANTI-THEFT and maybe STEAM OPEN. The rest of the grid is good enough, but not delightful. Again, if the theme had done something spectacular, as I kept hoping it would, we'd be having a very different conversation. Ah well. It is admirably ambitious, but in the end, pleasure-wise, no better (or worse) than your average NYTXW Sunday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Jeff Stillman

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:01)

THEME: American / European cities — four cities in America, clued as *not* their European namesakes:

Theme answers:

PARIS, TEXAS (17A: City where you won't find the Eiffel Tower)
ATHENS, GEORGIA (24A: City where you won't find the Parthenon)
NAPLES, FLORIDA (46A: City where you won't find Virgil's Tomb)
TOLEDO, OHIO (56A: City where you won't find the El Greco museum)

Word of the Day: Virgil's tomb (see 46A) —

Virgil's tomb (Italian: Tomba di Virgilio) is a Roman burial vault in Naples, said to be the tomb of the poet Virgil (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC). It is located at the entrance to the old Roman tunnel known as the Crypta Neapolitana or grotta vecchia in the Piedigrotta district of the city, between Mergellina and Fuorigrotta. // Virgil was the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death. In the following centuries and particularly in the Middle Ages his name became associated with legends of miraculous powers and his tomb the object of pilgrimages and pagan veneration.At the time of Virgil's death, a large bay tree was near the entrance. According to a local legend, it died when Dante died, and Petrarch planted a new one; because visitors took branches as souvenirs the second tree died as well. (wikipedia)

• • •

This seems a pretty decent set of answers, and a pretty original way to clue them all ("City where you won't find..."). Wish there'd been a way to include the one glaring omission from this set: MOSCOW, IDAHO. While it's true that Moscow, ID is not as nationally well known as any of the others, there is a major university there (the University of Idaho); my mom grew up in Idaho, my grandma lived there until her death last year at the age of 99, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins used to live a short drive from Moscow (in Lewiston, ID), so I'll admit the place is probably more on my radar than it is on you, but still, the University of Idaho angle makes it legit and at 11 letters long it could've sat in the middle of the grid. The puzzle probably would've ended up more Tues. or Wed.-level in difficulty, though, just because Moscow, ID is a little more obscure, and the grid would've been tougher to fill cleanly, but it probably would've worked. Still, this set is fine. And I learned something about Virgil's tomb, which, who knows, maybe will come in handy when I start teaching the Aeneid yet again in a few weeks.

I ended up with a fairly normal Monday time, but that average time masks the fact that I was Very slow to start and Very fast to finish. When the top Acrosses give me trouble on a Monday, I'm in trouble, and man did they give me trouble. The clue on PIN UP was by far the hardest (1A: Get ready to him, say). Just no idea. There is a Monday meaning for PIN-UP and this ain't it. The Monday meaning is a racy picture, the hyphenated PIN-UP. The Betty Grable PIN-UP. The verb phrase, yeesh, that took several crosses to see. And then the next top Across, 6A: Hankering (ITCH), at four letters, I confidently wrote in URGE. Again, there is a Monday meaning of ITCH, and this ain't it. So two fat whiffs on the first two Acrosses on a Monday, when a mere twenty seconds of solving time is the difference between Easy-Medium and Medium-Challenging, yikes. Luckily the bottom half of the grid went much, much faster. The kind of fast that feels like flying. So I managed to get my time back to ... boring normal.

The fill on this is a bit musty, a bit last-century in its predilections (can't remember the last time I saw MATA, and then there's the other crosswordese name part, ALVA, for instance) but it's a clean kind of stale. The one "look at me, kids! I'm slangy!" bit in the puzzle somehow also felt olden: "NERD ALERT!" I think Homer Simpson says this once, maybe, when he goes back to college and tries to be one of the Jocks. Somehow I find nerd discourse infinitely tiring these days. People brag about being nerds now; cool / pretty / rich people imagine that they are, or were, nerds, so, the whole insult angle ("Poindexter!") feels either dated or fraudulent. I don't mean to get IN A LATHER about it (is that expression still in use?), it's just that "NERD ALERT!" felt some combination of abusive and old-fashioned and didn't land for me. HAS-BEENS are by definition passé, and yet I really liked that answer. PHASE TWO is stupidly arbitrary, but harmless, I guess. Overall, a luke-warm thumbs-up today. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Olivia Mitra Framke

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 3s) (it's oversized, 16x15)

THEME: CAKE (60D: Word that can follow either half of the answers to the starred clues) — just what it says:

Theme answers:

LEMON YELLOW (18A: *Bygone Crayola color)
HOT COFFEE (12D: *Sign in a deli window, perhaps)
FRUIT CUP (41A: *Sweet, healthful treat)
WHITE RICE (35D: *Staple of Japanese cuisine)
COCONUT CRAB (62A: *World's largest terrestrial arthropod)

Word of the Day: COCONUT CRAB (62A) —

The coconut crab (Birgus latro) is a species of terrestrial hermit crab, also known as the robber crab or palm thief. It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, with a weight up to 4.1 kg (9.0 lb). It can grow to up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length from each tip to tip of the leg. It is found on islands across the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Pacific Ocean as far east as the Gambier Islands and Pitcairn Islands, similar to the distribution of the coconut palm; it has been extirpated from most areas with a significant human population, including mainland Australia and Madagascar. Coconut Crabs also live off the coast of Africa near Zanzibar, and the Gambier islands in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The coconut crab is the only species of the genus Birgus, and is related to the terrestrial hermit crabs of the genus Coenobita. It shows a number of adaptations to life on land. Like other hermit crabs, juvenile coconut crabs use empty gastropod shells for protection, but the adults develop a tough exoskeleton on their abdomens and stop carrying a shell. Coconut crabs have organs known as branchiostegal lungs, which are used instead of the vestigial gills for breathing, and after the juvenile stage they will drown if immersed in water for too long. They have an acute sense of smell, which has developed convergently with that of insects, and which they use to find potential food sources. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a well-established theme type that's almost never enjoyable. I don't know why people continue to make them. "This short word can follow or precede both parts of all those answers you just put in the grid ... VOILÀ!" The revealer always comes like a thud, the theme answer review like an autopsy. "Oh, CAKE ... the answer is CAKE ... [looks over grid] ... ok I guess that mostly checks out ... SIGH." The problem with this theme type is that it often convinces you to try to pass off some wonky answers. Today's puzzle manages to avoid this problem, mostly, though COCONUT CRAB, yikes, on a Tuesday? With that (very non-coconut-specific) clue?? Glaring outlier, that one, in terms of general familiarity. This type of theme is not exciting or important enough to bloat your grid like this (it's 16 wide to accommodate the even-numbered length of the central Across, which has to be centered for reasons of symmetry—can't center an answer of even-numbered length in a regular 15x grid). So there's just ... more. And you get that thing I never love, where there are non-theme answers right alongside of, and the same length as, themers (see NE, SW corners). Yes, they are bonus long answers, and both of them today are OK, but aesthetically I just like it better when the themers stand out, lengthwise.

Two other problems with the theme. The clues are ... odd. This is part of what made the puzzle harder than your typical Tuesday. They're very vague. Clue on LEMON YELLOW may as well just have been [Color]. Clue on COCONUT CRAB, well, we've been over that one. I would never in a million years associate a "deli" with HOT COFFEE, though I guess I've watched enough old movies that maybe I can imagine it now. The clue did almost nothing to help get me there, though. The other theme problem is minor, but really really affected the end of the solve (you know, the climactic, most important part): the first letter of the revealer (CAKE) was the very last square I wrote in, and instead of writing it in with an emphatic Pow, I wrote it in tentatively, with a half grimace. Not at all confident. There is no clue for CAKE (beyond the fact that it can follow the answer parts) and the cross on "C" is ooooof an org. initialism (EEOC), the ugliest thing in your grid, and again, it had a vague clue (59A: Workers' rights org. since 1965), which left me just *hoping* at the end that "C" was correct (once I had EEO- in there, I figured "C" was "Commission," from Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and I was right, but it still felt more like a guess than I'd've liked). I can easily see someone's never having heard of EEOC, and therefore having a weirdly hard time with that cross, and thus a weirdly hard time getting to CAKE—the whole central premise of the puzzle. You gotta be more careful with the cluing and crosses on your revealer. It has to pop. To leave it just sitting there, a sad, unclued four letters, in an awkward, not-very-themelike position (the third-to-last Down answer!?), with the ugliest bit of fill you've got crossing its head ... that's just mean.

GLOW STICK, GUEST ROOM, good. Short fill in SW (ATIT RICO ICER), woof, not good. Mostly, the fill here felt very standard-20th-century. Fine. Let's just never do this theme type again. Please. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Natan Last, Andy Kravis and the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class

Relative difficulty: no idea ... harder than usual, I think

THEME: THE UNITED STATES (36A: Red, white and blue land ... or what 15-, 22-, 45- and 57-Across feature?)— familiar phrases where one word signifies "united" and the other word is made up of two state abbrs. "united" (or "fused" or "joined") together:

Theme answers:

MIND-MELDING (15A: Sharing thoughts like a Vulcan [Detroit, Fargo])
"MATCH GAME" (22A: Classic of daytime TV first aired in 1962 [Atlanta, Bangor])
JOINT PAIN (45A: Arthritis symptom [Altoona, South Bend])
WINE PAIRING (57A: Sommelier's suggestion [Oshkosh, Omaha])

Word of the Day: TARA (37D: Seat of ancient Irish kings) —

The Hill of Tara (Irish: Teamhair or Cnoc na Teamhrach) is a hill and ancient ceremonial and burial site near Skryne in County Meath, Ireland. According to tradition, it was the inauguration place and seat of the High Kings of Ireland, and it also appears in Irish mythology. Tara consists of numerous monuments and earthworks—from the Neolithic to the Iron Age—including a passage tomb (the "Mound of the Hostages"), burial mounds, round enclosures, a standing stone (believed to be the Lia Fáil or "Stone of Destiny"), and a ceremonial avenue. There is also a church and graveyard on the hill. Tara is part of a larger ancient landscape and Tara itself is a protected national monument under the care of The Office of Public Works, an agency of the Irish Government. (wikipedia)

• • •

This felt like a Thursday puzzle that they ran today because it's Inauguration Day (Happy Inauguration Day, by the way). The level of gimmickry is much more Thursday than Wednesday, and though much of the cluing was ordinary Wednesday stuff, there was enough difficulty early on, when combined with the theme shenanigans, to get me pretty badly stuck at the outset. The worst part, in the end, was that there was far less shenanigans than the confusing cluing let on. It's weird ... this is just a themeless puzzle if you take away the random place names in brackets at the end of the theme clues (and the post-ellipsis bit in the revealer clue). You don't need any of the theme stuff to solve. But then ... it feels like they made the puzzle hard enough that you actually might have needed to resort to the theme to help you out. I definitely resorted to it in the SE to figure out WINE PAIRING. Still, it really is just a high word-count themeless puzzle, totally solvable without any of the theme elements. It's bizarre. The theme helped me out late in the solve, but early on it absolutely confounded me. If there hadn't been two city names at the end of the MIND-MELDING clue, I would've plopped MIND-MELDING down without a second thought; but because the cities suggested something themey was clearly going on, and because I couldn't get a couple of the MIND-MELDING crosses, I was certain some kind of rebus or shared-square scheme of some kind was going on, specifically where the "E" and "L" were in MIND-MELDING (more on that in a bit). So adding the city names to the end of the clue actually made things much less clear than they would've been otherwise. In fact, the confusion produced by the city names combined with horrendous / weird / vague cluing on some of the fill (POET, TIED, SLOMO) to make the NW a total nightmare.

So, the NW ... I hate hate hate clues like 1A: "God is the perfect ___": Robert Browning (POET). Fill-in-the-blank quotes are The Worst. They probably seem to make sense to the cluer, but to the solver, honestly, most of the time it could be any word. The fact that the quote is from Browning is actually useless. So what if I know he's a poet. That doesn't make me think POET is the right answer here. In fact, I thought the answer (after I got a few crosses) was POEM. I like POEM so so so much better than POET. I should've been Browning's editor. Much more interesting to think of God as something multi-layered, ineffable, and invented by humans than as some sad human analogue in the sky, scribbling at His desk. Bah. Combine my mistake there was the absolutely baffling clue on TIED (4D: One up, for example). "One up" is the opposite of tied, in that if you are one up, you are ahead. Is this ping-pong-speak? I am used to the term "all" to express a tie. But "Up"? I know that it's used ... maybe casually in tennis or soccer? Anyway, that clue was super-confusing. I had POEM / MIED (??) and then no idea about SLOMO(13D: It helps you see details—just no help, this clue).This meant two answers running through MIND-MELDING were mysteries. Two adjacent answers, two adjoining squares. I went down and picked up the revealer and then somehow got *more* lost because, well, two adjoining squares were giving me trouble ... and the theme is something about uniting states ... I kept trying to figure out how "MI" could fit in one square or "ND" could fit in the other. Again, nightmare. Eventually, I got out of there, somehow, and the rest of the puzzle was easy enough, except the SE, which like its symmetrical counterpart, was filled with rough cluing on the short fill (NEO-Latin!?). But at that point I knew what was going on with the theme, so I could get WINE PAIRING and pull myself through.

Let's see, what else was tough? I forgot the Gulf of SIDRA was a thing (5D: Libya's Gulf of ___), which made the NW even rougher than it already was. Also, couldn't believe ANN was the answer at 7D: She's a doll, since you would never ever ever say just ANN without "Raggedy" in front of it. Woof and oof to that clue. Had PAN (or was it POT) before WOK (hyper-vague clue there) (57D: Cooking utensil) and STEP before KICK (54D: Rockette's move), and distrusted SNIPE, since a SNIPE hunt is a hunt for a fictional animal, or so I thought from having watched that one episode of "Cheers" (44D: Wading bird with a long, slender bill) You can see how badly I needed the theme trick to pull me out of this morass in the SE.

I really think the theme is cute, actually. I don't see any logic behind the city names in the theme clues, though, beyond the fact that they are (random?) cities in the relevant states. Why not use capitals? I mean, Altoona, wtf? So arbitrary. But the theme answers themselves are solid and I did get a genuine (if grudging) aha when the theme clicked. Most of the difficulty for me was caused by overthinking the theme early on, and by a pile-up of bad luck (again, early on) that sent me down a horrible rabbit-hole of wrong ideas about the theme. In retrospect, it all seems so clear. Except for the POET / TIED thing. Not forgiving the cluing nonsense there. You hear me, Robert Browning!? Unforgiven!!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Term for censored dissident in 1984 / FRI 1-1-21 / Title heroine of a James Joyce short story / Fast fashion retailer / Backdrop for the Compromise of 1850 / Park Corner London tube station / Appropriately named ghost in Nintendo games / Honorifics that can be repeated to indicate higher status

Delicacy also known as sablefish / SAT 1-2-21 / Milk slangily / Caribbean locale across the water from Morro Castle / Stopped a ship using the wind in nautical lingo

Poison-treating plant / SUN 1-3-20 / Poet Limón / Stuffed and friend cornmeal pocket in Mexican cuisine / Realm for comic book fans say / Secondary social media accounts in brief / Noodles sometimes served with tsuyu sauce

Trucker who relays bear traps / MON 1-4-21 / Pain in the lower back / Ocular inflammations

Actress Wells has just entered the scene / TUE 1-5-21 / TV father Cleaver has just left the starting line / Classic NYC punk rock venue / Petite pooch familiarly

Ancient Jewish ascetic / WED 1-6-21 / City near Leeds with historic walls / Anxiety about being excluded from the fun for short / East Coast city on a western coast / 1950s-60s entertainment group / Third and fourth word in many limericks

2007 black comedy directed by Frank Oz / THU 1-7-21 / Drum typically played with one hand / Thanks for noticing me character of kid-lit / Pope whose pontificate lasted less than one month in 1605 / Italian stratovolcano / Hindu honorifics

Award-winning architect Zaha / FRI 1-8-21 / Chef Lewis who wrote the Taste of Country Cooking / Whom Grogu resembles on the Mandalorian / Home to the so-called Silicon Docks European equivalent to Silicon Valley

Sea urchin at a sushi bar / SUN 1-10-21 / Overnighting option / Classic saying originated by John Donne / Oscar 1987 Peace Nobelist from Costa Rica / First ruler of a united Hawaii / Quack doctor's offering / the Doughnut children's book series

Flat-topped hill / MON 1-11-21/ Letters between thetas and kappas / Actress Donovan of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" / Hilton alternative / Soccer star Hamm

Hard deposit in a bladder / TUE 1-12-21 / Maisie Williams's role on Game of Thrones / Ocean dweller so named for its roundish silvery body

Flavorers in Italian cookery / WED 1-13-21 / Oof, that was bad / Leader in a kaffiyeh / Make an effort to get swole

Mythical being old-style / THU 1-14-21 / Common impeachment charge / House member with 11+ million Twitter followers informally / Ancient unit of length

Fruits that are the basis of Marillenschnaps / FRI 1-15-21 / Fashion designer's portfolio / Ferrari alternative slangily / Percussion in some folk music that may be improvised / Model Boyd who inspired songs Layla Wonderful Tonight / Topic in property law colloquially / Bottom of an interrobang

Bagless vacuum maker / SUN 1-17-21 / Former basketball star Gilbert / Legendary firefighter Red / Deep-toned cousin of English horn / Jazz instrument pitched in key of B flat / Subject of Sleeves Up campaign

City where you won't find Virgil's tomb / MON 1-18-21 / 1986 sci-fi sequel set in deep space

World's largest terrestrial arthropod / TUE 1-19-21 / Collectible caps of the 1990s / Large herbivorous dinosaur that could walk on two legs / Difficult area to maintain control of in Risk

Seat of ancient Irish kings / WED 1-20-21 / Wading bird with long slender bill / Digital media player since 2008 / Classic of daytime TV first aired in 1962 [Atlanta Bangor] / God is the perfect Robert Browning