Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FOUR CORNERS (34A: U.S. tourist locale that inspired this puzzle) — rebus puzzle with the "four" involved state abbrs. appearing in their respective "corners" of the grid:

Theme answers:

SHUT DOWN / CUTICLE (14A: Computer menu command / 3D: Manicure target)
ON RECORD / TACO BOWLS (17A: Officially noted / 11D: Typically tortilla-less meals)
LAZIEST / MALE GAZE (58A: Least likely to get up from the couch, say / 37D: Key concept in feminist theory)
"LEAN ON ME" / IRON MAN (55A: What to do "when you're not strong," in a 1972 hit / 43D: Extreme racing event)

Word of the Day: FOUR CORNERS (34A) —

The Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area is named after the quadripoint at the intersection of approximately 37° north latitude with 109° 03' west longitude, where the boundaries of the four states meet, and are marked by the Four Corners Monument. It is the only location in the United States where four states meet. Most of the Four Corners region belongs to semi-autonomous Native American nations, the largest of which is the Navajo Nation, followed by Hopi, Ute, and Zuni tribal reserves and nations. The Four Corners region is part of a larger region known as the Colorado Plateau and is mostly rural, rugged, and arid. In addition to the monument, commonly visited areas within Four Corners include Monument Valley, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Canyon, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The most populous city in the Four Corners region is Farmington, New Mexico, followed by Durango, Colorado.

• • •

One of the easier rebuses I've ever done. In pretty short order, you know it's a rebus, you know how many rebus boxes there are going to be ("FOUR"), you know what's going to go in them (state abbrs.), and you know (roughly) where they're gonna be located in the grid ("CORNERS"). It's a very straightforward, workmanlike theme. Seems very much designed to warm rebus-haters and/or newish solvers up to the very idea of rebuses—to try to get them on board and make the whole concept seem, you know, doable. Even fun. Can't say it was that much fun for me, despite the solid concept and overall sturdy construction. Just too much like a connect-the-dots puzzle, less like a proper (weird-ass) Thursday. But I do think as beginner's rebuses go, this one is good. I got that first square pretty easily and thought "a Utah rebus ... nah, that's impossible, who would do that? What, are you going to have the rebus squares ... form the shape ... of Utah ... OK maybe that would be cool ..." That *would* have been an almost literal connect-the-dots puzzle, but alas, not to be. Instead I hit the revealer very shortly thereafter, and I knew every thematic thing that was to follow. I didn't know the *precise* location of the rebus squares, it's true, but knowing that there was going to be one in each corner, and knowing what each square would contain, definitely helped skew this puzzle toward the Easy side. It's how I knew ON RECORD and MALE GAZE were right despite not seeming to fit. And there was never going to be any missing that "NM" square, since the answers in both directions are absolute gimmes that cannot be anything else. So, one two three four, there you go. If you've never heard of FOUR CORNERS, I imagine this would be much harder than I'm making it out to be. But my sister and mother both live in Colorado, and (as a result) I've been all over these states. Took a road trip through all four a few summers ago—Santa Fe and Flagstaff, both highly recommended.

Easy to get into this puzzle via ADA POG (4D: Programming language named after a pioneering programmer + 5D: Collectible disk of the 1990s). There were no significant areas of struggle today, besides remembering IOLANI Palace. That name used to appear a lot more in puzzles of old, for perhaps obvious, i.e. vowel-y, reasons. I definitely learned it from crosswords. But then apparently half-forgot it. But it came back, with crosses, as these things do. I have tried to studiously ignore the "Spider-Verse," but Spider-GWEN has stared down at me from enough comic store shelves that her name is quite familiar. I had trouble with the [Lager descriptor]; can't argue with the answer (PALE), though it's an adjective I associate much more readily with ALE. I had some trouble with 'TIS (40A: "Ah yes, yes indeed") since the clue seems *way* too long to substitute for such a short word, and there's nothing in the clue to indicate a contraction. I also hesitated to write in ACTIONS (32D: What many verbs indicate) since I would've said verbs indicate ACTION, in the singular, abstract sense. That's it for hold-ups; none of them took too long to UNRAVEL. Highlight of the puzzle was probably the clue on GARLIC (30D: Press material). Serious Thursday misdirection on that one. I like. Ooh, I also liked seeing the name of my friends' crossword podcast in the grid! That was surprising! (and cool, and very possibly intentional). "FILL ME IN!" is a long-running show is hosted by Brian Cimmet and Ryan Hecht (Brian runs the annual Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament and is my Central NY neighbor to the north, i.e. Syracuse; Ryan owns a comic book store in Cloverdale, California, for all your comics needs, Spider-GWEN and otherwise). I'm told next week's episode will be co-hosted by two more of my friends, Rachel Fabi and Neville Fogarty (with whom I solve cryptic crosswords on Twitch every week; yes, seriously!). So "FILL ME IN"—definite highlight. Otherwise, the puzzle was a bit plain, but undoubtedly solid.

Notes:

50A: He's saved by his sister, in a story (HANSEL) — I just saw the corniest movie version of this fairy tale last month on the Criterion Channel, the sole highlight of which (!) was Cloris Leachman as the witch (!!).

[Cannon Movie Tales: Hansel & Gretel (1987)]

21A: Love of texting? (BAE)— what you might call your "love" in a text ... though I never really thought of "BAE" as textspeak.
31A: Low power? (SQUARE)— so the power of "2" is "low" ... compared to the other powers to which you might raise a number ... I guess
60A: Picks up (SENSES) / 61A: Puts down? (SADDENS) — I'm not much for sequential clue humor, especially with sequential Acrosses, since I rarely encounter Across clues in order, but these two offer a cute 1-2 conclusion to the puzzle, which I wanted to point out even though I only noticed it after I was done.
57D: "The Simpsons" character in a green sweater (NED) — when he's not wearing skintight skiwear, sure ...

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Brandon Koppy

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium, maybe

THEME: TETRIS (59D: Best-selling video game celebrated in this grid)— the black-square chunks are shaped like the falling blocks in TETRIS; that vertical four-block chunk is (I guess) supposed to be falling directly into the four-block space occupied by the -TRIS in TETRIS. There are a bunch of punny themers here and there:

Theme answers:

BLOCKBUSTER (7D: Hugely successful film ... or an apt description of a 59-Down player) (because "blocks" are "busted" when you complete rows in TETRIS)
DISAPPEARING ACT (11D: Trick of being suddenly nowhere to be found ... or an apt description of victory for a 59-Down) (because blocks "disappear" when you complete rows in TETRIS)
DROP ME A LINE (22D: "Don't be a stranger" ... or an apt request from a 59-Down player?) (because some of the "dropping" blocks are shaped like lines? No, I think the idea is that a "line" of blocks gets "dropped" from the screen when you complete a row in TETRIS)

Word of the Day: TETRIS (59D) —

Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) is a multimedia franchise originating from a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. Video games with Tetris' core mechanics have been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the appropriation of the rights in the late 1980s. After a significant period of publication by Nintendo, the rights reverted to Pajitnov in 1996, who co-founded the Tetris Company with Henk Rogers to manage licensing. The franchise has since expanded into film, television, books, and music singles.

In Tetris, players complete lines by moving differently shaped pieces (tetrominoes), which descend onto the playing field. The completed lines disappear and grant the player points, and the player can proceed to fill the vacated spaces. The game ends when the uncleared lines reach the top of the playing field. The longer the player can delay this outcome, the higher their score will be. In multiplayer games, players must last longer than their opponents; in certain versions, players can inflict penalties on opponents by completing a significant number of lines. Some versions add variations on the rules, such as three-dimensional displays or a system for reserving pieces.
Built on simple rules and requiring intelligence and skill, Tetris established itself as one of the great early video games. By December 2011, it had sold 202 million copies – approximately 70 million physical units and 132 million paid mobile game downloads – making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. The Game Boy version is one of the best-selling games of all time, with more than 35 million copies sold. Tetris is available on over 65 platforms, setting a Guinness world record for the most ported video game. Tetris is rooted within popular culture and its popularity extends beyond the sphere of video games; imagery from the game has influenced architecture, music and cosplay. The game has also been the subject of various research studies that have analyzed its theoretical complexity and have shown its effect on the human brain following a session, in particular the Tetris effect.

• • •

[DIG DUG]

Oh this is bound to be a crowd-pleaser with a certain crowd. Really wish I were part of that crowd. I can recognize the creativity in this one, for sure, but I never played TETRIS so it doesn't hit me on that level, and even though I'm very familiar with the basic concept of the game, the visuals felt a bit off, particularly that four-square hole. I see now that the four-square black chunk is "dropping" from above, so it's like you've got it lined up for successful "busting" of all the "blocks" on the bottom four rows, but see, I'm filling a grid—I'm putting things into the white squares, so that area doesn't strike me as (ultimately) empty space. I mean, it's empty, but *I* fill it, so it's hard to imagine the black-square chunks as falling through space when the grid is completed. I assumed the hole at the bottom of the grid was something that *I* fill (and I do), but it really kept me from imagining it as an empty space into which *something else* is falling. Further, visually, black & white absolutely doesn't work for TETRIS. Just look at the screen picture above (under "Word of the Day"). Those blocks are co-lor-ful! And the *background* is black. So what kind of "player" was being referred to in the theme clues, and even the very idea that this was a video game at all, was not clear to me. I thought "player" was referring to an "actor" at first (largely because of the "film" clue on the first themer and the word ACT in the second). Once I looked at the revealer and saw it was a video game that I was supposed to be seeing, my honest-to-god first thought, the game I actually wrote in the six-letter space, was DIG DUG. I mean ... I got a hole there at the bottom of the grid, and little dug-out antfarm-like pathways ... it made sense to me. But back to TETRIS—I don't see how the -TRIS part of TETRIS is fairly "crossed." I mean, "everyone" knows TETRIS, I guess, so if you get the "TE-" you should be good, but ... since the visuals are not exactly spot-on, and since probably *not* "everybody" knows TETRIS, it really seems like there should've been another way to get the -TRIS. But you get a visually interesting grid, complete with purposefully asymmetrical grid and some nice longer answers, so there's pleasure to be had here. I just ... miss my themeless Friday. It's the best day of the week and they keep f***ing with it for no good reason. Run this on Thursday! It's a valiant attempt at rendering the video game in xword-grid form. Didn't work for me, but I do hope many of you enjoyed it. I admire the ambition, for sure.

No idea about FELIPE—that was probably the hardest part of the grid for me. That and TUA (no longer paying attention to American football at all). They're both fine names and didn't cause any real trouble. Oh, ROGUE STATES (good answer) was also hard because they decided to put this vague "?" clue on it (23D: Bad lands?). Evoking South Dakota (where "The Badlands" are) to clue ROGUE STATES ... interesting. Apt? You decide. [Picture of health?] is a strange "?" clue because it implies you're not sure, not sure if it's good news or bad, and anyway it's too vague, in that there's no reason this exact clue couldn't be used for XRAY or MRI or really any imaging of the body. Not SONOGRAM-specific enough, this clue. Enjoyed the clue on SNOG (47A: French, perhaps, in England). Thought the puzzle was trying a little too hard to force the gaming issue with clues on RIG (42A: Computer custom-built for playing games, in slang) and LAP (35D: Unit in Mario Kart games). Your entire theme is a video game. It's possible to just ... let it be. Maybe move the cluing around to *different* places rather than just getting more insular. Just a thought.

I had HAUL for HEAP (20D: Load). Not exactly sure why, but that's where the "H" led my brain. No other mistakes to speak of. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. yesterday's theme duplicated the theme of a puzzle the NYT ran back in '05. That puzzle took the "corners" part of FOUR CORNERS more literally, but otherwise, same same.

It's the kind of theme that constructors can easily come up with independently of one another, which is clearly what happened; and it *has* been 17 years since the first FOUR CORNERS puzzle ran, so from most solvers' perspective, the fact that it's basically a thematic rerun is not going to matter. Still, considering how many submissions the NYTXW gets these days, and how many original concepts *I know* are being routinely rejected, it seems extra weird that they would've accepted a puzzle they'd basically already run. It's not like it was from a previous editor's era. And it's not like there aren't databases to run FOUR CORNERS through (takes two seconds). I don't think anyone did anything wrong. But I do think editors probably shouldn't duplicate themes that they themselves ran. Seems a bit lazy / negligent.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: my ignorant ass— it's a themeless, actually

Word of the Day: LEN BARRY (17A: Jukebox crooner with the 1965 hit "1-2-3") —

Leonard Warren Borisoff (June 12, 1942 – November 5, 2020) known professionally as Len Barry, was an American recording star, vocalist, songwriter, lyricist, record producer, author, and poet. [...] As someone who sang rhythm and blues, he recorded hits in 1965 and 1966 for Decca Records in the US and released by Brunswick Records: "1-2-3", "Like a Baby", and "I Struck It Rich", a song he wrote with Leon Huff of the Philadelphia International Records producers, Gamble and Huff. // His first two hits also made the Top Ten of the UK Singles Chart. "1-2-3" reached number three. Those songs also peaked at number 2 and 27 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart respectively. "1-2-3" sold over four million copies, and gave Barry his second RIAA gold disc and a Grammy Award nomination for Contemporary Rock & Roll Male Vocal Performance. Both "1-2-3" and "Like a Baby" were composed by Barry, John Madara, and David White. // He performed at the Apollo Theatre in New York; the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C.; The Regal Chicago, Chicago; Illinois; The Fox Theatre (Detroit) in Detroit, Michigan; and The Uptown (Philadelphia), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also toured with Sam Cooke, The Motown Revue in the United Kingdom, and appeared on Top of the Pops.// He became a major singing star in The United Kingdom. Highlights of his European tour included featured performances at the London Palladium and Royal Albert Hall as well as numerous appearances throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. // Barry's respect for the Native American culture led him to write and produce the instrumental "Keem-O-Sabe". The song went to number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969 for The Electric Indian. (wikipedia)

• • •

See, this is the problem with taking away my Friday themeless—I have no warm-up puzzle that allows me to prepare for the Saturday. You need Friday to get you in the right mindset for Saturday, especially when the Saturday is a (gigantic grizzly) bear like this one. But instead I got that bizarre and relatively easy TETRIS concoction. That puzzle did nothing to prepare me for *this* puzzle, which fell on me like a ton of bricks or lead weight or collapsing roof (we're currently having our roof replaced, so let's go with the roof metaphor). I felt out of shape doing this puzzle, or like I hadn't stretched properly or something. Even though I had flashes of brilliance right out of the box (dropped ASS right in (1D: Something you might haul) and saw through the ADVERB clue pretty quickly (1A: Now or never)), the only thing I wanted to put in front of "decimal" was "Dewey," not DUO- (2D: Lead-in to decimal), but worst of all ... did you know that STITCH and SUITOR are the same length and have three letters in the same position? Sigh. It's true. And when you give me Penelope, I think about ... well, she was weaving, not STITCHing, wasn't she? Well, my brain was like "She's doing things with fabric! STITCH!" (in case you don't know / forgot: Penelope weaves Laertes's shroud by day and unravels it by night as a way of deferring her SUITORs). I pulled myself out of that hole easily enough, but it was an omen. It boded. Bade? Whatever, bad things were in store for me, is the point.

That set of long Downs in the middle was actually the easiest part of the grid for me, largely because XGAMES was a gimme (coming out of the NW with the "XG-" in place), and then TAZO gave me that "Z" that made LAMAZE very clear (great clue on LAMAZE CLASS, btw (16D: Recommended labor practice)). BANANA PEELS was pretty transparent (18D: Yellow slippers?) and so with the center settled I sort of slid right down into the SE corner—once I'd changed BOLTS to BRADS (44D: Carpentry supply), which gave me PRESS BOX (48A: Writer's block?), which gave me XOXO, and two "X"s was more than enough to handle that SE corner. So without too much more than regular Saturday effort I ended up here:

As you can see, no idea about LEN BARRY. I had put LEN BAKER in there, but when that didn't work out, I just left it. That far SW part of the SW corner — SPECIALS ERRANDS TESLAS— filled itself in pretty quickly, which I thought boded omenly in a good way! Good boding! But the Opposite Was True. I got my hopes up but then precisely zero of those long Downs wanted to play along. Worse, the short Acrosses weren't too helpful either. [Calendar abbr.]s aren't gonna help anyone. "Pfft, good luck guessing us, idiot," they seemed to sneer. I kinda wanted IMAY but I kinda wanted a bunch of stuff and kinda wanting never locked anything down. Finally decided it was CREMA (36A: Espresso foam) and not FROTH because 33D: "Pass" was probably NA- (W? H?), and 32A: Yank slightly was probably TUG ON (not TUG AT, as I had conjectured) (FROTH is more cappuccino than espresso, anyway). NAH gave me OPRAH (educated guess! five-letter "host" of something where "People Are Talking"? Ending in "H"? I have a guess!). And down the long answers came. AMOUR-PROPRE, oof, ouch, wow, parsing that was ... something (21D: Self-esteem, from the French). I know it, but haven't thought about it in god knows how long. Wish that corner hadn't ended on MINT COIN SET, which felt awkward and kinda made-up, or at least didn't strike me as a coherent, recognizable, on-the-nose Thing to me. I know coins can be mint, and you can buy them in sets, but MINT COIN SET somehow doesn't land. Only answer that really made me wince and cock my head and go "really?" Whereas AMOUR-PROPRE, despite being harder, felt like an old friend. Not necessarily a good friend, but an old one. "Oh ... it's you. I know you." A more satisfying feeling of recognition.

As for the NE, that initially looked much dicier than the SW—didn't get much help from those longer Acrosses leading into that deep corner. "LOOK HERE!" was good, and then I got MEH, which felt probably right, but MIMICS felt like a bit of a guess, so the whole situation seemed tenuous until I lucked into SPEED SKATES (off just the initial S-E-). Being able to drop a long Down early made everything easier than it had been in the SW, even though that NW corner is *full* of things I simply didn't know. IDEAL GAS LAW? LOL, whatever you say. SISTA Monica Parker, WES Studi ... this corner was here to remind me that however good I am at crosswords, I am actually one sorry ignorant human being, because that is the condition of being human, so you better stay curious and stay (reasonably) humble or you are not going to enjoy the ride. In the end, I enjoyed this ride, even if it leaned a little more heavily into trivia I typically like.

Notes:

46A: ___ Studi, first Native American man to receive an Oscar (2019) (WES)— his Academy Award was an Honorary one. I assumed I didn't know this guy, but boy was I wrong. He has appeared multiple (hilarious) times as Bucky on "Reservation Dogs"—my favorite current TV program (now that "Better Call Saul" is off the air).

[WES Studi is the dude in the jean vest who says "same as mine!"]

59A: In descending order: Mount Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, ___ (LHOTSE) — hoo boy, no idea ... but that corner was so easy that the answer just came together from crosses. I never even saw the clue until I had the answer completed.
35A: Blues singer ___ Monica Parker (SISTA)— wrote in SANTA, SANTA Monica being a thing I've heard of / place I've been / boulevard I've driven. Parker sang blues and gospel and died fairly young (age 58, in 2014)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Derrick Niederman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:"Opposites Attract" — theme answers contain letter strings composed of two "opposite" words:

Theme answers:

ALFRED NOYES (24A: English poet who wrote "The Highwayman") (them & us)
POOR RICHARD (30A: Early American pseudonym) (poor & rich)
FACE THE MUSIC (37A: Accept imminent punishment) (them & us)
HEART OF ROMAINE (68A: Caesar salad ingredient) (to & from)
FIX BREAKFAST (98A: Scramble some eggs, say) (fix & break)
ENDODONTICS (107A: Branch of dentistry that specializes in root canals) (do & don't)
KARLA BONOFF (114A: Noted songwriter behind Wynonna Judd's "Tell Me Why" and Linda Ronstadt's "All My Life") (on & off)
ROUTINE (46D: Same old, same old) (out & in)
PANDORA (55D: Her name is Greek for "all-gifted") (and & or)

Word of the Day: KARLA BONOFF (114A) —

Karla Bonoff (born December 27, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter. While Bonoff has released a number of albums, she is primarily known for her songwriting. Bonoff's songs include "Home," covered by Bonnie Raitt, "Tell Me Why" by Wynonna Judd, and "Isn't It Always Love" by Lynn Anderson.
Most notably, Linda Ronstadt recorded several Bonoff songs, including three tracks on the 1976 album Hasten Down the Wind ("Someone To Lay Down Beside Me", "Lose Again" and "If He's Ever Near"), which introduced Bonoff to a mass audience, and "All My Life", a 1989 duet with Ronstadt and Aaron Neville. (wikipedia)

["I got something to give you / That the mailman / Can't deliver..."]

• • •

I thought this was a perfectly decent Sunday puzzle. It's got a consistent and clever theme that delivers lively theme answers. The concept was pretty transparent, and that transparency made the puzzle much easier to solve. The only themer I can imagine giving anyone any trouble is KARLA BONOFF, which was easily my favorite themer since, for once, I Knew The Obscure Trivia Clue! Ding Ding Ding! Jackpot! I knew my number had to come up some day, and today was the day. I stumbled on KARLA BONOFF when I was deep into an early '80s pop music phase (one which I am arguable still in). I started listening to the Top 40 charts, including (and especially) those songs that I'd never heard of, and KARLA BONOFF's"Personally" (see video, above) was one of those minor hits. I remember reading that she had gone on to have greater success as a songwriter than as a performer, but since that day I read about her, I haven't thought much about her at all ... until today! I had the "ONOFF" part and thought, "ONOFF ... BONOFF ... is this ... it can't be KARLA BONOFF ... [checks crosses] ... omg yessssss it is!" Ok so I spelled it CARLA at first but whatever, I knew her! Please allow me to enjoy my feeling of pop culture trivia dominance for one moment .... OK, that's enough, thank you.

The other moment where I felt my specific specialized knowledge was a kind of superpower today was a moment many of you probably shared as well—it was the moment my crosswordese knowledge finally paid off in a big way with ALFRED NOYES! Does anyone outside of inveterate crossword solvers know that guy? Not sure, but knowing old whatshisname sure helped today. I somehow got FACETHEMUSIC first, and couldn't do anything with "THEMUS," but then ALFRED NOYES went in and I remembered that Sunday puzzles have titles and ... that was that. Theme sorted, right ... here:

HEART OF ROMAINE was probably the toughest themer for me to come up with, since I just would've said a Caesar salad has Romaine (lettuce) in it. Had HEART OF and thought "HEART OF ... ARTICHOKE? What is even happening here?" But HEART OF ROMAINE is a real enough thing (though they're possibly more often called "Romaine hearts"). The only time I balked at the theme was when I got to PANDORA; I just don't know if "AND" is really the "opposite" of "OR." I think "NOR" is the opposite of "OR." AND and OR certainly go together, all the time, but on a strictly technical level I wonder if "opposite" is, uh, apposite. Most folks are probably not going to blink at the pairing, and at worst it's a minor glitch. The fill on this one is quite solid. I just wish I hadn't ended on BEGEM! Such bad luck to wrap things up with the cringiest word in the whole grid. Everyone knows that [Deck out with spangles] is BEDAZZLE. I can't imagine BEGEM in a sentence. I'd've torn that whole corner out just to be rid of BEGEM, which my brain is resisting so hard it's decided to parse it BEG 'EM, i.e. "I'm gonna BEG 'EM not to put BEGEM in any puzzles ever again!"

Bullets:

28A: Persian ___ (rugmaker's deliberate mistake) (FLAW) — so ... just [Mistake], then? (such a weird clue—see also 75A: Flying ___ (martial arts strike) (KNEE))
89D: Meeting with a dead line? (SEANCE) — is "line" supposed to have genealogical significance? Like bloodline? Because in a SEANCE you're communicating with your relatives? Or is the "line" like a "telephone line," i.e. you use it to talk (to the "dead")? Probably the latter.
70D: One who gave us all a lift? (OTIS) — in that he gave us (i.e. the world) the elevator, sure
47D: He set a Guinness World Record in 2014, reporting for 34 consecutive hours (AL ROKER) — well that's pre-Katrina so I cannot conceive of why Al would be on air for that long ... oh, looks like it was some kind of fund-raising dealie for the USO.
118A: ___ Martell, "Game of Thrones" princess (ELIA)— you can "GOT" the clue all you want, but it's still crosswordese to me
90A: Norman or English king? (LEAR)— So Good! My fav clue of the day! I teach literature from the period of British history that contains both Norman and English kings ... but here the "Norman" is famed sitcom creator and producer Norman LEAR. "All in the Family"! "Sanford & Son!" And then there's "Maude!"

52A: Bird associated with bats (ORIOLE) — because of the Major League Baseball team the Baltimore Orioles, I assume
72A: It's over here (END) — definitely the answer I spent the most time staring at confusedly. Couldn't make sense of it. I think if "the" had been in front of END I would've understood it sooner (when you come to the END of something ... "it's over")

Speaking of the END: see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. about 49D: Northernmost N.B.A. city, on scoreboards (TOR)—POR and MIN would like a word ...

Fun fact, despite the whole “we the north” mantra and the latest #nytxw, the Toronto Raptors aren’t actually the most north NBA team @NytReview @rexparker https://t.co/879EHekVPK
— Luke Scholefield (@lukescholefield) September 11, 2022

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: easyish Monday, with a couple not-at-all-Monday clues/answers

THEME: SHONDA RHIMES (54A: Creator of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal" ... or, when said aloud, a hint to the starts of 20-, 30- and 45-Across) — each theme answer's opening word "rhymes" with "Shonda":

Theme answers:

FONDA THEATRE (20A: Los Angeles venue named for the star of "12 Angry Men")
"WANDAVISION" (30A: Disney+ series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe)
HONDA ACCORD (45A: First car from a Japanese manufacturer to be made in the U.S. (1982))

Word of the Day:"APACHE" (28D: Sugarhill Gang song with the repeated line "Jump on it!") —

[warning: cultural insensitivity aplenty]

• • •

Conceptually, this is pretty cute. A straightforward repurposing of a famous person's name. The RHONDAs and VONDAs of the world probably feel a little left out, but the fame factor on those folks isn't exactly Monday-level. Vonda Shepard is a singer and Vonda McIntyre was a scifi writer of note, but you couldn't use them on a Monday, and as for RHONDAs, turns out that name *feels* a lot more common than it really is. I blame the Beach Boys'"Help Me, RHONDA." The only well-known RH- RHONDA I can think of is RHONDA Fleming, an actress of yore (i.e. the '40s and '50s—my movie wheelhouse, but probably not yours). She played Jimmy Cagney's faithless girlfriend in the 1949 crime classic "White Heat" ("I made it, ma! Top o' the world!" [explosion!]). So anyway, you get the SHONDA rhymes that you get, and what you get is fine, though it was a little weird to get a TV series creator as the revealer and then a TV series she *didn't* create as one of the themers. Also, what the hell is the FONDA THEATRE? And why is it spelled Britishly? Man, I hate when American theaters do that. Feels weirdly pretentious. Leave the -re stuff to the Brits (and Canadians and what not). Am I supposed to know the FONDA THEATRE? I know FORD'S THEATRE (-RE again, what the hell, are all non-movie theaters spelled that way!?). I'm sure the FONDA THEATRE exists, but it doesn't strike me as famous. Not Monday famous. And speaking of not Monday famous, what in the actual heck is going on with the clue on "APACHE"!?!?! If you know the Sugarhill Gang, you know them for the ultra-famous early rap hit "Rapper's Delight." I have literally never heard of "APACHE," which is fine, I haven't heard of many things, but I really think this is a strange way to approach a Monday clue: to take an ordinary tribal name and turn it into a Saturday-level trivia question. Plus, you gotta wonder why you'd drive right into the whole cultural appropriation mess (see video, above). Just a bizarre cluing move.

Outside the theme, the fill was decent, maybe even slightly better than the usual Monday fare. I enjoyed seeing CHAUCER (my old friend) and GUERNICA, and CINCO DE MAYO makes for a pretty lively long Down there in the SE. ARCO ACAI ERRS didn't have me too hopeful coming out of the NW, but the fill picked up after that. Not sure I'd put ARCO and ARCS in the same grid (since they're both related to bows) (from L. arcus, "bow, curve"). Not surprisingly, I had difficulty only when the cluing tried to get cute, which today came with the tie-in clues about the things brought home intentionally/unintentionally from the beach. SEASHELL was easy enough, but SAND was not. I guess you get SAND in your towel and various bags and garments and thus you "bring it home" but that clue is a stretch, and the stretchiness adds vagueness and thus difficulty. I thought the answer was SUN- something. Seriously thought (for a second or so) that there was some kind of rebus afoot, and the answer was SUN [BURN] ... I mean, those are *definitely* "unintentional," whereas maybe you *meant* to bring home SAND from the beach. As a souvenir. So SAND added unpleasant grit. But otherwise, this played like a normal easy Monday. Hope you found at least some of this puzzle enjoyable. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Adam Wagner

Relative difficulty: normal (?)

THEME:"HERE'S THE KICKER..." (51A: Lead-in to a surprising twist ... or a hint to 16-, 22-=, 32- and 45-Across) — themers are all "kickers" in one way or another:

Theme answers:

FOOTBALL PLAYER (16A: Buffalo Bill, e.g.)
ROCKETTE (22A: Radio City Music Hall performer)
UNBORN BABY (32A: Bun in the oven, so to speak)
KANGAROO (45A: Marsupial stylized in the Qantas logo)

Word of the Day: Jason MRAZ (25A: Jason who sang "I'm Yours") —

Jason Thomas Mraz (/məˈræz/; born June 23, 1977) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He rose to prominence with the release of his debut studio album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come (2002), which spawned the single "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)", that reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. His next two studio albums, Mr. A-Z (2005), and We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. (2008), peaked in the top five on the Billboard 200; with the latter album spawning the Grammy Award winning singles "Make It Mine", and "Lucky" with Colbie Caillat.
The album's lead single "I'm Yours", reached the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100, while spending a then-record 76 weeks on the Hot 100, and was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).^[6] His fourth album, Love Is a Four Letter Word (2012), peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, becoming his highest-charting album to date, and spawned the single "I Won't Give Up", which became his second top ten on the Hot 100. (wikipedia)

• • •

Short write-up today because somehow I'm writing this at night instead of my usual 4:30am and I really have no business being up this late but I couldn't sleep so ... here I am. This felt long / slow, which is very Very weird considering that it's undersized (14x15). Just couldn't get on the right wavelength. There were names that I blanked on (OCKHAM) or forgot existed (MRAZ), and then a whole lot of awkward / dated fill (RUER, LEK, ECOCAR, etc.). I have never believed in ECOCARs, and I believe in them even less now that electric cars are so common. I'd (much) sooner accept E-CAR than ECOCAR. I'm looking at the grid and seeing AIS and I can't even imagine what its clue was. [... checking...] Oh. Artificial Intelligenceseses? (47D: The Terminator and HAL 9000, for two). Hmm. I think there's a reason constructors haven't tried to make that happen. It just looks / feels bad. It's an OK thing (and a movie title!) in the singular, but in the plural, woof, don't like it. Then there's just a heap of ye olde stuff, your ATATs and NONOs and TSARs and what not. IN THE ZONE and UP IN ARMS give the grid some much-needed life, but the short stuff is really far too bumpy. As for the theme ... it doesn't quite work for me. The revealer has potential, but somehow the execution feels uneven, haphazard. A FOOTBALL PLAYERmight be a "kicker"—that is a position that exists, true—but a ROCKETTE is definitely, always a "kicker." I think of KANGAROOs more as hoppers than kickers. Mules kick. I'm sure KANGAROOs do kick, but, I dunno, kicking's not really a paradigmatic Kangactivity in my mind. And sure, babies do kick in the womb from time to time, so that's fine, but the very phrase UNBORN BABY ... you know, I think maybe all the disingenuously sentimental anti-abortion / forced-birth rhetoric around the "unborn" has just SOURED me on this phrase. It's a perfectly fine phrase. It just hit me wrong, for some reason. I honestly could not come up with UNBORN BABY without a bunch of crosses. The creepy pregnancy euphemism in the clue ("Bun in the oven") was not helping. I just did not share this puzzle's idea of fun.

Jason MRAZ is a name that maybe ten years ago seemed cool to put in grids, but now it seems like an old person's idea of "fresh fill." He had two Top Ten hits a decade+ ago. I guess we're probably going to be seeing him for decades whether he remains culturally relevant or not. That's quite a letter sequence he's got there. But today he added to the overall stale feel of the short stuff. It's an interestingly symphonic puzzle, with both an OBOE and CELLOS making their presence felt. Was very happy that the plural was not CELLI today, but definitely hesitated there, thinking of how the puzzle loves CELLI and maybe this is actually some *other* instrument (it wasn't) (7D: Instruments played pizzicato in Britten's "Simple Symphony"). I wanted JAPES but then pulled it when I couldn't think of an airport code starting with "J" (truly my lowest low) (35D: Airport once called Idlewild, for short). Clue for FBI didn't help me at all (38A: Part of the D.O.J.). So I was ultimately rescued in that tiny section by ... well, more crosswordese (ABA). Thought NO SHOT was NOT HOT for a bit (40D: A 0% chance, colloquially). So yeah, this one just never clicked with me. Maybe night-solving just doesn't agree with me any more. Or maybe the puzzle really is just so-so. You'll decide for yourself, as usual. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Michael Dewey

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "HAPPY TRAILS" (35A: Theme song of a classic western, visually suggested six times in this puzzle's grid) — I don't know the title of the "classic western" without looking it up, but I'm gonna guess "The ROY ROGERS Show" ???? ... yep, that's it. The show starred ROY ROGERS and his third wife DALE EVANS. Today, the "HAPPY TRAILS" are meandering strings (or "trails") of letters that spell out synonyms of "happy":

The HAPPY TRAILS:

ELATED
GLAD
JOYFUL
JOLLY
CHEERY
MERRY

Word of the Day:"The ROY ROGERS Show" —

The Roy Rogers Show is an American western television series starring Roy Rogers. 100 episodes were broadcast on NBC for six seasons between December 30, 1951 and June 9, 1957. The episodes were set in the prevailing times (1950s) rather than the old west. Various episodes are known to be in the public domain today, being featured in low budget cable television channels and home video.

• • •

Wow, we're really going back today. Though their show was bygone well before I was born, these two were still in public consciousness when I was a small child, as was their song, so I was not completely in the dark. I have no idea how I know the song, or at least the part of the song that goes "HAPPY TRAILS to you / Until we meet again ..." Must've been a superfamiliar cultural tidbit, or pre-digital meme, or what have you. Maybe "Looney Tunes" picked it up, that's certainly how I learned about most music / culture from before my time. I think ROY ROGERS went on to found a chain of restaurants, as did DALE EVANS ... no, wait, that's Bob Evans (any relation to Dale? I have no idea). Looks like ROY ROGERS and DALE EVANS have the same number of letters in their names, and somebody decided to make a puzzle about it. The idea probably sounded good. In fact, it kinda sounds good now. Put the stars' names in symmetrical positions, then put their theme song in the middle as a revealer and make a bunch of "happy""trails" around the grid. If I'm describing it, sure, you might buy it. Seems clever. In practice, however, "trails" (or answers that go off the normal Across / Down directions) do what they always do: put tremendous pressure on the fill and make it predictably mediocre-to-painful. I was wary right away, at O'MEARA (the crosswordesiest golf name of all in the "Longer Than 4 Letters" category), and by the time I had ridden the bygone cowgirl DALE EVANS over to the bygone Mac app ICHAT, I was starting to make faces. The bygone names kept coming: EBAN ... LEEZA ... Then the fussy made-up little phrases ILOSE and ILLGO. By the time I got to that SE corner, with the ACEY G-MAN and *especially* THE ICE (!?!?!), I wanted to stop. I didn't not care about the handful of "HAPPY TRAILS" that awaited me. I wanted to take the horse back to the barn and go get some coffee.

The thing that happens when you take an answer off the Across / Down axes is that ... say you've got a standard (STD!) 8-letter Across answer. Put it in, and now you've got eight Downs that run through it, and each one now has one fixed letter. That's eight fixed letters. Now put that 8-letter on a diagonal instead of an Across and what do you get: the same eight fixed letters for the Downs that have to run through it, *plus* eight more fixed letters for the Acrosses that have to run through it. Locking letters in place really restricts your freedom to fill cleanly, and you essentially double the pressure on the grid when you run an answer on a diagonal. Plus, all those answers with pressure on them are all adjacent to one another. The grid is still fillable, but the results are not likely to make anyone truly ... happy. Today's answers aren't perfect diagonals, but the same idea applies—there's hardly an answer in the entire grid that isn't affected by the theme. I see a handful of Acrosses here and there. And as for Downs, KNOSSOS and WIT are the only Downs in the whole puzzle that doesn't run through at least one theme square. With a theme this dense, it's very hard to make the fill sing. Considering the level of difficulty, this grid is probably filled reasonably well. Basically we get a BUSLOAD of theme instead of CAPFULS, and so the fill creaks throughout. The theme is quaint, and will bring back nostalgic (possibly happy) memories for some portion of the solving audience, but for many others it will be a "????" and so the fill will be all they really have. And at best it's just OK.

I struggled only in the middle, where I didn't know which -SAT was at issue (28A: Princeton Review subj.), and I couldn't remember Mrs. POTTS (28D: Mrs. ___, "Beauty and the Beast" character), and worst of all I had SPREE for SPEED (32D: Tear). Ironically, I *knew* the [Suburb of Boston], LYNN being far more grid-common than that other infamous suburb of crossword-destroying fame (which remains a ONER in the Shortz Era):

Until we meet again ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium

THEME: raise and lower — theme answers are words that fit the phrase "raise (a/the) ___" (top half of the grid) or "lower the ___" (bottom half of the grid); in each case, the answer extends one letter beyond the boundaries of the grid, signifying that it has been "literally""raised" or "lowered":

Theme answers:

(O)BJECTIONS (3D: Make one's opposition known, literally)
(S)TINK (5D: Protest, literally)
(M)INIMUM WAGE (99D: Alleviate income insufficiency, literally)
(F)AMILY (11D: See children through to adulthood, literally)
VOLUM(E) (52D: Show respect to one's neighbors late at night, literally)
TEMPERATUR(E) (29D: De-escalate tension, literally)
PRICE(E) (60D: Put on sale, literally)
TOILETSEA(T) (36D: Demonstrate a bit of bathroom etiquette, literally)

Word of the Day: ATTA (28A: Flour in Indian cuisine) —

India
: unsorted wheat flour or meal (merriam-webster)

• • •

This doesn't work the way it ought to. Which is to say the execution is inconsistent and there are structural problems and there's no final payoff. I'll cut to the chase—there are four problems:

With the exception of (O)BJECTIONS, the solver has to mentally supply a definite or indefinite article to make the phrase work, i.e you "raise (O)BJECTIONS," but you "raise *a* (S)TINK" and you "raise *the* (M)INIMUM WAGE." I don't so much mind supplying the article, but whether it's no article, "a," or "the," it should be consistent across the answers, or at least ... I don't know ... have some sense of structure or pattern or something. What we have here is just haphazard.
We don't actually "raise" or "lower" the answers; they extend beyond the grid edges, but nothing moves. That is, (O)BJECTIONS is sitting flush with EGGO and POOH. The answer itself has not been "raised"; I thought that first themer was "BJECTIONO" at first, because then the whole "raising" thing would at least make a little sense (answer "raised," letter "O" falls to the bottom). But that was not to be.
The missing letters are, as far as I can see, completely unchecked. This is uncrosswords and semi-unsporting, though none of the letters is particularly hard to suss out (I had the most trouble with -TINK because I couldn't remember the ultra-crosswordesey TERRI's first letter ("KERRI?"). All letters are supposed to have two ways that you can come at them. Not true here, which leads me to my final bjection and greatest disappointment...
The "raised" / "lowered" letters, in the aggregate, don't do anything. I thought, "well, surely they're going to spell out some message, some phrase, something purposeful and meaningful ... something!" But no. OSMFEEET would make a good name for a space alien, but I don't think it amounts to much here. Huge, huge letdown.

Add to all that the weakish-creakish fill, which you can see for yourself, everywhere. I was tolerating it OK until I hit -EAL, which was a real last straw (64D: Ending with arbor). ATTA has a funny history in the NYTXW (28A: Flour in Indian cuisine). Hard for me not to see it as crosswordese, but I'm happy the puzzle seems to have discovered its Indian-cuisine meaning in the past couple years (much better than ["___ boy!"] or [Kofi Annan's middle name] or (in the olden olden days) [Leaf-cutting ant]). What's curious is that it would be more accurate to say that the NYTXW has re-discovered the Indian cuisine meaning. That clue got used a bunch by Farrar and Weng and even a few times by Maleska, but when Shortz arrived it disappeared completely. It was last seen in 1989 (!!!) before reappearing in March of 2021 and then again in July 2022. And now here it is again. All hail the dawn of a new age of ATTA!

Didn't appreciate how the Topo Gigio clue got an Italian answer (TRE) but the "La Bohème" answer got an English one (ARIA). I really wanted 46D: One of five in "La Bohème" to be ... whatever the Italian is for "ACTS" (ACTE?), solely because I was forced to go Italian for the answer to the Topo Gigio clue (47A: Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio). Boo. (And if you don't know what the heck "Topo Gigio" is, you won't be alone—if you're American, you have to have had cultural awareness of the "Ed Sullivan Show" for that name to ring a bell). I thought upholstery was maybe WELDED, so that was weird (35A: Like some upholstery). And I was leafing through a British dictionary the other day (long story...) and saw AGGRO, and so when 13D: More than miffed came along today, and I had the -GR- ... well, in it went. No other real struggles with the fill today. "SO LAST YEAR" and "NO SWIMMING" were fine, fun answers, and I like the symmetrical yin/yang thing that GOOD NEWS& NEGATIVE have going on. But the theme just didn't hum the way I wanted it to hum. ALAS. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Juliana Tringali Golden

Relative difficulty: Medium+

Theme: none

Word of the Day: Kate UPTON (10D: Kate on the cover of Vanity Fair's 100th- anniversary issue) —

Katherine Elizabeth Upton (born June 10, 1992) is an American model. She first appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2011, and was the cover model for the 2012, 2013 and 2017 issues. In addition, she was the subject of the 100th-anniversary Vanity Fair cover.
Upton has also appeared in the films Tower Heist (2011), The Other Woman (2014) and The Layover (2017). [...]
Upton started dating then Detroit Tigers baseball player Justin Verlander in early 2014, and they were engaged in 2016. On November 4, 2017 the couple married in Tuscany, Italy. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one played a little harder than usual for me, largely because of the intentional vagueness of many of the clues, especially the early ones. For example—1A: Poles have them (ICE CAPS) ... no idea which kinda "Poles" we're talking about; 1D: Film site (IMDB) ... no idea which kinda "film" we're talking about. 2D: Heart (CORE) ... yeah, "Heart" could be lots of things (thought maybe "GIST" at first); etc. In other parts of the puzzle, the puzzles just didn't quite land right. Like 65A: Essay writing, e.g. (PROSE). Never would've guessed something as generic as PROSE (which is nearly *all* writing) from something as specific-sounding as "Essay writing," which sounds more like a task, homework, an assignment, an avocation, I dunno. And is SUPERGLUE an [Exemplar of stick-to-itiveness]? I get that it is supremely sticky, but if that's what meant, then for sure the clue should have a "?" on it, since that has nothing to do with "stick-to-itiveness" as it's commonly (metaphorically) used. But maybe someone who keeps at something is said to be like SUPERGLUE? I've never heard that, but maybe it's a thing. Someone might stick *to* someone (i.e. beside someone, near someone) like SUPERGLUE, I suppose, but that seems less like stick-to-itiveness and more like hounding, pestering, or stalking. Not sure what the clue on MLSCUP thought it was doing, cleverness-wise (25A: Goal-oriented final match, in brief?). What is the wordplay the clue is going for? I see how "goal-oriented" means one (metaphorical) thing in common parlance and here is being used to talk about (literal) soccer goals, but what is a "goal-oriented final match"? That is not a coherent phrase, and it's not a phrase that suggests anything *but* soccer (or maybe hockey). It's like they couldn't lay off the "goal-oriented" wordplay but then couldn't make it specific enough to fit the answer, so they just turned it into a bizarre mish-mash of pun and literal, and *then* added "in brief" for good measure. People are "goal-oriented"—once you say a "match" is "goal-oriented," you've lost the misdirection and added confusion. [Showdown for the goal-oriented, in brief?], maybe? Not sure, just know that the "?" we get today is rough.

There were several delightful moments today, mostly in the longer answers. After that early struggle with the short stuff in the NW, I finally looked at 13A: Sugar refinery byproduct, and ELIA and ASK (my only two sure things in the NW) provided me with enough letters to see MOLASSES, which then got me CORE BEAD IMDB etc. Just after that came a flurry of sweet answers shooting out of that corner in all directions, starting with CANDYCANE, then DRINK IT IN (very nice) and "YOU NEVER KNOW..." (), which really blew things open:

AU NATUREL is a euphemism I don't hear much any more but I still like it a lot. I also (weirdly) liked the baby demanding to be picked up ("UP, UP"!). I was also very happy to see NEVILLE, not so much because I want to see any more clues about H*rry P*tter (I don't), but because puzzle constructor NEVILLE Fogarty is one of two dear crossword friends I solve cryptics with on (most) Tuesday nights. Fantastic constructor (you can see his cryptic crosswords at the New Yorker sometimes), and a lovely human being to boot. Absolutely loved "EASY, TIGER," even though I had it as "EASY THERE..." and that mistake caused a lot of SE confusion (33D: "Hey, hold your horses!"). I should've loved seeing NOIRISH, which is right up my personal and pedagogical alley, but that clue ... grrrr. "Hardboiled" and "noir" are not (not!) synonyms. There's a lot of terminological collapse because film noir so frequently feature hardboiled men (esp. detectives), but "hardboiled" describes a person, or maybe the prose, whereas "noir" describes either the (fatalistic, downbeat) mood, tone, atmosphere, worldview ... or the actual film qualities or techniques (expressive, often high-contrast B&W photography, flashbacks, voice-overs, etc.). Plenty of noir films and stories don't have anything "hard-boiled" about them. I don't know if they clue wants me to think of a movie or of a character in the movie, but NOIRISH is completely inapt for a [Somewhat hardboiled] person. This is a "close enough" / "horseshoes hand grenades"-type clue and I hate it. Feels sloppy. I really don't like -IZE but I do like realizing that the much better "ICE" can't go in that space for not one but two reasons: first, ICE is already in the grid at ICE CAPS (1A), and second, ICE at 28A would get you SEC at 21D, which would give you SEC crossing ... ONE SECOND. So the much better ICE would (sadly) give you a double dupe! And so you get a suffix, with a funky "Z" as your consolation.

Notes, entirely on the SW:

59A: Immediate threat to capture, in a game of Go (ATARI) — no idea why you do this with your crosswordese. It's crosswordese. Just own it and move on. I solved this by getting crosses and then inferring the answer from "game."
48D: G.O.A.T. material (CHAMP) — absolutely not. There are champs and there are champs but there can be only one G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). If you are hopping on the hyperbole bus and deciding that "all time" means "this month," then sure, any CHAMP will do. But I'm taking that "O.A.T." seriously. Iga Świątek is a champ, but Serena is the G.O.A.T. You see how that works? I thought the answer was going to be one of the words represented by the letters in "G.O.A.T." but none of them would fit.
51D: Anne of "Mom" (FARIS)— I wrote in SARIS ... is that anyone's name? Besides film critic Andrew SA(R)RIS, I mean? Harrumph. Not having the "F" made CRAFT PROJECT harder than it should've been.
50D: Roasted: Sp. (ASADO) — I thought it was ASADA (as in "carne ASADA"—thanks, Taco Bell), but looks like ASADA is just a Spanish adjective and as such comes in different genders. Just when I had ASADA and ADOBO sorted in my head, now I gotta deal with this ASADO business, sigh.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. an IAMB is a metrical foot composed of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, so ... "Pla-TOON," yes, "DUN-kirk," no (55A: "Platoon," but not "Dunkirk").

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Grant Thackray

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Patricia WETTIG (32A: Emmy winner Patricia of "Thirtysomething") —

Patricia Anne Wettig (born December 4, 1951) is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for her role as Nancy Weston in the television series Thirtysomething (1987–1991), for which she received a Golden Globe Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards.
After her breakthrough role in Thirtysomething, Wettig has appeared in a number of films, including Guilty by Suspicion (1991), City Slickers (1991), City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994), and The Langoliers (1995). She returned to television playing a leading role in the 1995 short-lived drama Courthouse and later played Caroline Reynolds in the Fox drama Prison Break (2005–2007) and Holly Harper in the ABC family drama Brothers & Sisters (2006–2011). (wikipedia)

• • •

I was surprised I got into this one as easily as I did. I ran through the spring Zodiac signs I know, and while both PISCES and GEMINI fit, they wouldn't work with 3D: Jacobean ___, which had to be ERA, so I figured the "sign" in 1A: Sign of spring must mean "evidence" and yeah, no idea there. But then I took an absolute guess at 2D: Name on a truck and it was ... right?! (HESS). And then I went back to the Zodiac for my [Sign of spring] and (voilà!) THE RAM:

You gotta look out for those "THE"s today, because they really come at ya. I was not terribly bothered by having THE RAM appear just two rows above THE SANDS OF TIME (the elegant marquee answer where the definite article feels most APT). But I lost patience a little with the third "THE" down below, at THE TANGO. It takes two to tango, not "two to do THE TANGO." Somehow if it's a modern party dance, like THE TWIST or THE WATUSI, I think the THE is great, but THE TANGO feels about as forced as THE WALTZ or THE MINUET. It's not wrong, it's just ... Definite Article Overload, man. I was also not a fan of MISS A CUE, today's entry in the "EAT A SANDWICH" sweepstakes. MISS A BEAT, that's a phrase. MISS A CUE ... sigh, squint, ok, I guess, but not really. My disposition toward this one was not warmed by the fact that the clue was difficult—I actually considered MISSLEEP at one point (?!) (6D: Go out too late). But as far as grid flaws go, THE TANGO and MISSACUE were about all that stood out. This one is very, very clean and virtually bump-free. It has that Flow that I love in a themeless. I wouldn't say I exactly "whooshed" around the grid, but I low-key whooshed. Slow-whooshed. It had a good beat and I could dance to it. But not THE TANGO. Some other dance.

There were cluing problems, however. A couple of big ones, involving marquee answers. The more minor problem involved the clue on AUDIO-VISUAL AID (47A: Slide behind a speaker, maybe). Since AUDIO is not strongly associated with a slide, I dunno... I wrote in AUDIO because it seemed like it had to be right, but then had some trouble filling in that little SW section at the end and so actually started doubting AUDIO. I guess AUDIO-VISUAL AID is a broad category that includes "slides," so it's not wrong, but I would've liked something more audio-y there, for clarity's sake. The much more major cluing problem came at 12A: Question ... oh, crud ... I just realized, just now, that I misread the clue! (12A: Question in a lot of cars?). Well, that is, I didn't notice its trick / punny meaning. Gah! I thought the clue was telling me that "WHERE DID I PARK?" was a question one hears in a lot of (i.e. a great many) cars, and I was like "but ... but ... but ... if you're already in your car ... doesn't that mean ... how ... why are you asking this!?!?" But of course "lot" here means a car lot or parking lot, so you hear the question in the lot, probably walking around, clicking your little chirpy key-ring mechanism, and yes, that tracks. I hereby retract the objection that I was going to make. Or, rather, I ... don't make it. I make it not. No objection! Aborted objection overruled!

Some notes:

19A: Like certain corrections (PENAL)— pfffff OK, technically, yes, I guess, but since you wouldn't say "PENAL corrections" (would you?) this one feels weird. It was very hard for me, and came right in the middle of the whole MISSACUE fiasco.
4D: Possible source of monthly income (RENTER) — I had RENTAL. This also happened near MISSACUE junction.
32A: Emmy winner Patricia of "Thirtysomething" (WETTIG) — remembered her, but not her vowels, my god. WITTIG, WITTEG, WETTEG, WETEGG, WETLEG, who knows!? Patricia WETTIG is married to Ken OLIN of crossword fame (also of "Thirtysomething" fame). I just realized I confuse Ken OLIN and Bob Saget. But only visually, not in crosswords.

25D: Relationship strains? (DUETS) — there were entirely too many "?" clues for my taste today, but this was a good one (with "strains" meaning "tunes").
7A: Performs repetitive tasks to gain experience points, in gaming slang (FARMS) — "in gaming slang" is a strong indicator that I won't have any idea what the hell is going on. Here, I was really, really glad I knew FIFA, because otherwise, hello Natick! I hope you at least knew FIFA! Game crossing game! Not sure how this cross is going to play for some of you...
19D: Hideout for Blackbeard (PIRATE COVE) — Had the "PIR-" and so got this one easily *except* for that "O," which I left blank at first because I thought a PIRATE CAVE might be a thing (pretty sure it is a thing).
43D: Role in 2020's "The Trial of the Chicago 7" (SEALE) —That's Bobby SEALE, co-founder (with Huey Newton) of the Black Panther party.
29D: Motivated, with "under" (LIT A FIRE) — this clue is so interestingly odd that I almost completely forgot that LITA FIRE is basically MISS ACUE's slightly but only slightly better-looking cousin. EAT A SANDWICH, LITA FIRE!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Easy (very very)

THEME:"Because I Said So!"— themers are just things parents say to their kids (mostly disciplinary); these are clued wackily ("?"-style) as various occupations'"go-to parenting phrase"s:

Theme answers:

"I'LL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!" (22A: Mechanic's go-to parenting phrase?)
"SIT UP STRAIGHT!" (37A: Personal trainer's go-to parenting phrase?)
"DON'T USE THAT TONE WITH ME!" (55A: Conductor's go-to parenting phrase?)
"I TOLD YOU A HUNDRED TIMES!" (79A: Mathematician's go-to parenting phrase?)
"YOU'RE GROUNDED!" (100A: Air traffic controller's go-to parenting phrase?)
"LET'S PLAY THE QUIET GAME!" (117A: Librarian's go-to parenting phrase?)

Word of the Day: Jardins d'enfants (60D: Jardins d'enfants, par exemple = ÉCOLES) —

nursery school [noun] a school for very young children. (dictionary.cambridge.com) [so basically it's the Fr. word for "kindergarten"]

• • •

Wow, really thought "Jardins d'enfants" was gonna be some famous school, but it's just a literal French translation of "kindergarten." Bizarre ... why didn't they do what we did and just steal the German word? Annnnyway, that answer and HUDDIE (what in the actual heck!?) and RENI (same!) were just about the only answers to give me even a moment's trouble in this otherwise absurdly easy Sunday puzzle. I see how the theme clues are trying to turn this puzzle into something more than just "Things Parents Say," but the problem is, once you realize the answers are just gonna be "Things Parents Say," not only do you not need the theme clues, you're almost better off without them. I didn't bother looking at any of them after I got the first couple of theme and answers, and I'm really glad I didn't, because they would've been more distracting than helpful. What the hell does a "mathematician" have to do with "I'VE TOLD YOU A HUNDRED TIMES!"? Like, because there's a number in there, all of a sudden it's part of the math profession now? Like everyday ordinary human beings don't use numbers? Baffling. And "DON'T USE THAT TONE WITH ME!" feels more apt for an art teacher than a conductor. I associate a conductor more with NOTEs than TONEs. Further, I really wanted that phrase to be "DON'T TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME!," which feels much more on the nose (twice as many hits for "DON'T TAKE" vs. "DON'T USE," per google). I sorta liked turning up all these disciplinary clichés, but this felt more like $100,000 Pyramid ("Things Parents Shout At You!") than a crossword puzzle.

PINK PANTHER and (esp.) TWO LEFT FEET really give this grid some oomph, for sure. Other than those answers, though, there's not a heck of a lot to comment on, good or bad. The grid is reasonably smooth, which is always nice. There are bumps here and there, but none that are that jarring. Beside the aforementioned names, which were from outer space as far as I was concerned, the only part that caused me anything close to trouble was the SW, and that was due almost entirely to the fact that I got the "T" in 125A: GPS calculations (ETAS) and wrote in RTES (this despite feeling, correctly, that I had already written ROUTE in the grid (40D: Road trip determination)). Because of that error, I couldn't see TEA (118D: Hot spot in England?) and I couldn't see "TELL ME!" (98D: "Spill it!"). Plus STARRY wouldn't stretch to fill the space at 92D: Like a clear night (STARLIT), and LAPIS is not a word I ever think of as a standalone thing (don't think I've seen it much without LAZULI in TOW). So yeah, there was some sputtering down in that corner, but there were enough easy answers to help me recover without too much effort. I think that's it. Hope you enjoyed the breezy cuteness of the concept, and hope you got more than 8 minutes enjoyment out of your solving experience (I didn't time myself, but I can't imagine I took that much longer than 8; certainly no more than 10).

["Don't you worry 'bout TWO LEFT FEET!"]

It's time once again for the Boswords Fall Themeless League—a ten-week crossword-solving competition / extravaganza. Here's tournament organizer John Lieb to explain:

Registration for the Boswords 2022 Fall Themeless League is now open! This 10-week event starts with a Preseason puzzle on Monday, September 26 and features weekly themeless puzzles -- clued at three levels of difficulty -- from an all-star roster of constructors and are edited by Brad Wilber. To register, to solve a practice puzzle, to view the constructor line-up, and to learn more, go to www.boswords.org.

I don't compete in these, or I haven't so far, but John always sends me the puzzles once the season is over and they're always highly imaginative and of a very high quality. If you're looking for some reasonably low-key competitive solving experience, all from the comfort of your own home, you should definitely have at it.

See you tomorrow (or next week for you Sundays-only folk),

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Leslie Young and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (***for a Monday***)

THEME: DOWN TO A SCIENCE (14D: Implementable with expertise and expert ease ... or how the starred clues' answers can be taken?) — all theme answers are "Downs" and they end in a "science" (i.e. a word that can precede "science"):

Theme answers:

ANNUAL PHYSICAL (4D: *Routine medical checkup)
ICE CREAM SOCIAL (13D: *"Cool" get-together with cones and scoops)
LAST MAN ON EARTH (7D: *Whom one might not marry no matter what!)

Word of the Day: DÍA de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) (19A) —

The Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos or Día de los Muertos) is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It largely originated in Mexico, where it is mostly observed, but also in other places, especially by people of Mexican heritage elsewhere. Although associated with the Western Christian Allhallowtide observances of All Hallow's Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, it has a much less solemn tone and is portrayed as a holiday of joyful celebration rather than mourning. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and to remember friends and family members who have died. These celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed. (wikipedia)

• • •

OK so this was delightful. It's just ... right on the Money for a Monday (I literally just typed "right on the Monday," so on the money for a Monday is this puzzle!). Here's what I ask of a Monday: 1. a simple cute theme that just Works. Original, bouncy answers are a plus, but honestly, the theme just has to be clever and not strained. Elegant simplicity is the key! And 2. smooth fill. Nothing fancy. Just let me travel this road pothole-free. And today checked both those boxes, strongly. Big red checkmark, two times. Let's take the theme. First of all, it's all Downs, so ... fun. Weird. Mildly disorienting. I'm into it. Do your weird little thing, Monday! Second, the themers are all 14s, what!? 14s are odd cumbersome things and so end up being the most grossly neglected and underrated of all the 3-to-15-letter answers. And yet today—four of 'em! So that's two ways we're in unusual territory, and we haven't even gotten to the actual content of the theme yet! As for that ... well, I worked the puzzle west to east, left to right, like a Normal, and despite not quite understanding what the revealer clue was even saying, I figured out what the answer was and damned if it is not a. a real phrase that b. works perfectly for its themers. All answers are in fact Down, and do in fact lead "to a (type of) science." Ding ding. Success. As for the fill, not a peep out of me as I was solving. All the short fill is totally acceptable, and we even get some fairly saucy longer stuff in CASH BONUS (16A: Profit-sharing reward, perhaps) and (esp.) CON ARTIST (57A: Flimflammer). The puzzle may say ERRATIC MESS-UPS, but I did not see anything erratic or messed up about this. It hums. This should be the average Monday. This is the bar. Good work, everyone.

["Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto*, you're beautiful!"]

[*Literally until just this second and for ~40 years thought this was "Miss Sacramento"]

The only issue I had with the puzzle was literally comprehending the clues on two of the themers, namely the aforementioned clue on the revealer, DOWN TO A SCIENCE (14D: Implementable with expertise and expert ease ...) and then also the clue on LAST MAN ON EARTH (7D: *Whom one might not marry no matter what!). On a Monday, I'm not sitting down and spending my time with a clue like it's a good book—I'm scanning and moving, scanning and moving. And these two just made my brain go "Nope! just figure it out from crosses!" And I did. And only later did I realize the perfection of the LAST MAN ON EARTH clue. I'm a little less fond of the revealer clue, as it's cutesy in a semi-cloying way, but whatever, man, as I said, this puzzle is otherwise pretty flawless, so it's all good. What else is there to say? It was easy, as a Monday usually is. I would like to praise the constructors for taking the time to polish The Hell out of this grid. You have no idea what it takes just to make an all-over clean and wince-free grid. It's work. It isn't showy work, but it's work nonetheless. Please respect the work. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Rachel Fabi

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: 3x — wacky phrases made out of 3 identical components, where the first two components are one unit and the third is another:

Theme answers:

"TUT TUT, TUT" (17A: Verbal disapproval of a boy king?)
CHOW CHOW CHOW (28A: Food for a sturdy Chinese dog?)
"ZOOM ZOOM" ZOOM (47A: Conference call for Mazda's marketing team?)
CAN-CAN CAN (64A: Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge?)

Word of the Day: CHOW CHOW (28A) —

The Chow Chow is a spitz-type of dog breed originally from northern China. The Chow Chow is a sturdily built dog, square in profile, with a broad skull and small, triangular, erect ears with rounded tips. The breed is known for a very dense double coat that is either smooth or rough. The fur is particularly thick in the neck area, giving it a distinctive ruff or mane appearance. The coat may be shaded/self-red, black, blue, cinnamon/fawn, or cream. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ooh, a good reason to keep this short today: personal bias! These are my friends. Good for them. So happy to see their names. This feels like a theme I've seen before, like, a long time ago, maybe, and maybe more Monday than Tuesday (if such a distinction exists). The theme presented zero challenge, is what I'm saying. Once you get the TUT string, the others don't require more than a cursory glance at the clue, and maybe not even that if you're just humming along and decide to risk a guess on a themer based solely on the crosses you have in place. In retrospect, I can't say I recommend this strategy, as it got me CHOO-CHOO CHOO at first, and then when I very quickly looked at the clue, I really only picked up "Chinese" and thought "is CHOO a Chinese ... vegetable of some kind?" Very dumb brain glitch. Speed kills, folks. But for the others, I just had to see "Mazda" to get the ZOOM one and I don't think I even looked at the CAN one ... which is too bad, because the clues are really where the action's at, with a theme like this. Speaking of CHOO-CHOO CHOO ([Shoe designer Jimmy's nickname in the train enthusiast community?]?), this is one of those themes that seems like it could be done many times over, with different themers each time. Where's my [Scot's refusal to do a hip-hop dance?] or [Hand drum somehow played by male turkey?]? These are ridiculous enough that maybe I've answered my own question, but still, there are probably a bunch more potential answers out there. That doesn't take away from these, which work fine.

The grid is clean and I really liked UPPER HAND, AT NO POINT, ASKED WHY, and LIZ LEMON. I also weirdly liked METRICS. I don't get it. That doesn't seem like a particularly likable answer, and yet ... here we are. OCTAD is really the only answer I wish would crawl back in the crosswordese bag. Kaley CUOCO was on a very popular TV show ("The Big Bang Theory") and has been nominated for lead actress Emmys twice (for her HBO show "The Flight Attendant"), so she's famous enough, but still maybe it would be nice if you put something, literally any identifying information about her, in her clue (61A: Actress Kaley). I of course, being me, didn't bother to look at the clue initially; faced with CUO-O, I wrote in CUOMO and immediately thought "Why are my friends making me see that guy's name this morning!?" But of course they weren't doing that at all. Again, speed kills, folks. Read your clues. Funniest "not reading the clues" moment came near the very end when I was staring down F-CAL and thinking "whaaaaat is happening?!" But, no, yes, FOCAL, normal word, all is well (53D: Central). Biggest of all the little mistakes today was staring at 27A: Part of 10-J-Q-K-A and thinking "what the hell kind of textspeak is that!?" (it's playing cards, of course) (ACE). Maybe I didn't get enough sleep. My cat has taken to pawing *at the wall art* at 4 in the morning. I think he thinks it's a window. In his defense, it is covered in glass and in a frame. Anyway, hope my wife doesn't trip on the pillow I threw across the room when she gets up this morning. OK, coffee time. Congrats, Rebecca and Rachel. Lovely to see you, as always.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: TAKE AN "L" (60A: Accept defeat, informally ... or what the last words of 19-, 24- and 49-Across do vis-à-vis the first) — familiar three-word phrases where the last word = the first word minus the letter "L":

Theme answers:

FIGHT OR FLIGHT (19A: Innate response to a threatening situation)
PAY-TO-PLAY (24A: Ante up for participation)
"BACK IN BLACK" (49A: AC/DC album after "Highway to Hell")

Word of the Day: Anderson .PAAK (38D: Musician Anderson .___) —

Brandon Paak Anderson (born February 8, 1986), better known by his stage name Anderson .Paak (/pæk, pɑːk/), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and drummer. He released his debut mixtape, O.B.E. Vol. 1, in 2012 and went on to release Venice in 2014. In 2016 he followed up with Malibu, which received a nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the Grammy Awards, followed by Oxnard, in 2018. At the 61st Grammy Awards, Paak won his first Grammy award for Best Rap Performance with the song "Bubblin". He won another Grammy in 2020 for Best R&B Album with Ventura and one for Best R&B Performance for "Come Home" (featuring André 3000). [...] In 2021, he formed the duo Silk Sonic with fellow singer-songwriter Bruno Mars. The duo's debut single, "Leave the Door Open", became Anderson's first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the recipient of four awards including Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 64th Grammy Awards. (wikipedia)

• • •

The theme answers here are all solid and strong, and I like how the middle word changes each time (and is the same length each time, and remains in the same columns of the grid each time ... tiny structural things, and not necessary structural things, but I notice and appreciate them anyway). The problem for me is that the phrase is "TAKE THE L." I mean, undoubtedly people say "TAKE AN 'L'," so it's not exactly far-fetched, but the way you hear it most often, in sports and gaming situations, is with the definite article: "TAKE THE 'L'." I decided to check by putting the phrases inside quotation marks in a google search, and my search for "TAKE AN 'L'" gave me "What Does 'Take the 'L' Mean?" as the first hit. The "TAKE THE 'L'" search yields way way way more results, though that search is admittedly tainted in part by the Motels' song of the same name. But the *first* thing that comes up in that search is something called an "emote" from the game Fortnite, and that's the correct context: gaming. "TAKE THE 'L'" is somewhat more hostile than "TAKE AN 'L'"—"TAKE THE 'L'" is used in the imperative, often in a mocking or demeaning way, essentially telling someone (your opponent, enemy, some jerk online) to accept defeat. I've seen it a lot. I have seen "TAKE AN 'L'" a lot less. Is this a dealbreaker for the puzzle? Not really. But did it do a chalkboard / fingernails thing to my brain? A little.

There are a lot of black squares here. A Lot. 44? Speaking of "L"s, there are a bunch of them (and flipped versions of them) in the black-square formations. Bonus theme content! Anyway, black squares eat up a lot of room. They are helping to keep the grid manageable, especially at the top and bottom of the grid (really looking at the blacks before and after both ABA (5A) and EPOCH (68A). Even with those extra blacks down below, you can really feel how constricted the fill gets down there with the pressure from two themers ("BACK IN BLACK" and the revealer). No surprise that that is by far the weakest part of the grid, fill-wise (NIETO and NIH are not really Wednesday words—I wouldn't use either unless I truly had to—and INKUP feels slightly desperate ... though SPUTNIK is so strong that it mostly covers for the rest of it). Other areas of the grid are very clean, and "YOU GUYS!" and BOOM BOXES are outstanding. My biggest struggle was trying to figure out what the hell the clue on NEWS was on about! (35D: The "-spel" of "gospel," etymologically). I was desperately looking for technical names for word parts, but it's just ... the meaning of "-spel" ("gospel" = "good news"). Such an awkward, wonky way to come at such a basic, infinitely clueable word.

The theme part of this was very easy, but the fill has enough rough / tough patches to make it potentially tough for some solvers. XHOSA NIETO NIH PAAK ... I can see any or all of these being new to some solvers. I know and have listened to Anderson .PAAK a lot. Knowing lots of people won't know him, and given that the name is uninferrably spelled, and that there's only one way in the world to clue that name, I don't know if I'd've chosen his name for the grid if I had other solid options ... but I did like seeing him. Names are weird. I'm always cognizant of how much personal familiarity affects enjoyment, let alone solvability. There's no reason you can't drop a new name in the grid as long as you cover your crosses, and these are all unimpeachable ... but I can still imagine a solver getting PAAK and going "... is that right? That doesn't look right?" Philosophies on the use of proper nouns in crossword grids vary Widely. Which is great, honestly. Keeps things interesting. Keeps you on your toes. Hope you didn't take the (or an) L on this one. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. new clue coming soon for ANDOR! ANDOR: it's not just a slash conjunction anymore! Step aside, ENDOR! It's ANDOR time! Tonight! (literally, tonight):

P.S. Happy birthday to my best friend, Shaun, who does not solve crosswords or read this blog, god bless her. In her honor, you all get bonus, date-specific music content. Enjoy!

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Helen Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BLACKJACK (34A: *Casino game associated with the sum of this puzzle's shaded squares) — "cards" totaling "21" are found inside casino-related phrases:

Theme answers:

PLACES A BET (17A: *Wagers at the casino (11))
AMOUNT WON (25A: *Profit at the casino (+2 = 13))
FACE CARDS (48A: *They're worth 10 points at the casino (+1 = 14))
BREAKS EVEN (56A: *Has a wash at the casino (+7 = 21!))

Word of the Day: Max STEINER (13D: Max ___, Academy Award-winning composer of "Now, Voyager") —

Maximilian Raoul Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who, threatened with internment in Germany during WW1, fled to England before emigrating to America in 1914 and became a celebrated composer for film and theatre. He was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, proficient at composing, arranging, and conducting, by the time he was fifteen. // Steiner worked in England, then Broadway, and in 1929, he moved to Hollywood, where he became one of the first composers to write music scores for films. He is referred to as "the father of film music", as Steiner played a major part in creating the tradition of writing music for films, along with composers Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, and Miklós Rózsa. // Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO Pictures and Warner Bros., and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three: The Informer (1935); Now, Voyager (1942); and Since You Went Away (1944). Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women(1933), Jezebel (1938), and Casablanca (1942), though he did not compose its love theme, "As Time Goes By". In addition, Steiner scored The Searchers (1956), A Summer Place (1959), and Gone with the Wind (1939), which ranked second on the AFI's list of best American film scores, and is the film score for which he is best known. (wikipedia)

• • •

I have to admit that I don't quite understand this one. Admittedly, I can't think of very many places I'd less like to be than a casino, so there's an inherent topic aversion, but even so I can usually appreciate or at least understand a basic card theme. But here ... I mean, to be clear, I understand the BLACKJACK concept perfectly. The cards total 21, the highest score in the game, so presumably you "win" in the end, but it feels like there must be some element that I'm missing, since merely putting four cards that total 21 in some phrases doesn't seem ... tricky enough. Thursday enough. I see that those phrases are themselves gambling phrases, so that makes the theme somewhat tighter than a normal "hidden words"-type puzzle would be (usually such "hidden words" appear in completely non-thematic phrases). But whatever is gained by having the theme be tighter in that way is surely lost by the fact that the phrases themselves just aren't that strong, particularly the first two: PLACES A BET (arbitrary 3rd-person verb phrase, à la "EATS A SANDWICH") and AMOUNT WON, which feels really flaccid and weird. Zero strong associations with the casino. You have "winnings" for sure, but AMOUNT WON feels like a line on some imaginary receipt. Bizarre. Further, the "cards" aren't particularly well embedded, in that only two of them (TWO and SEVEN) break across two words, the way a "hidden word" should, ideally. And then there's the unnecessary remedialness of the parenthetical parts of the theme clues. I guess those clues are trying to create some narrative energy, but ... the revealer has already told me the game I'm playing, and the "cards" are highlighted inside their answers so I can see them and ... I can count, so ... whatever drama the parentheses were supposed to be creating felt oddly condescending. Like the game was being taught to a child. Also, the climactic "21!" is kind of undercut by occurring in the clue for the very non-triumphant phrase BREAKS EVEN. Again, casinos are not my milieu. I have had to walk through them a couple times to get to concerts, but I have never voluntarily spent time there. So maybe I'm not the right audience for this puzzle. But I can't imagine even an inveterate gambler would find this theme that compelling, let alone challenging. If there is an element of the theme that I have failed to appreciate, please, let me know.

There's much better news where the fill is concerned. I really liked how SNAPPY and wide-ranging it was. From Max STEINER to RuPaul ("SASHAY Away"), from VELVETY KATSU to highlighted CHEEKBONEs, this puzzle had a lot of fun things going on. Widespread memes! ("Sir, this is an ARBY'S!") YUPPIE satire! MILK DUDs (underrated candy!), CAT POSE, even stupid GPS voice saying "ARRIVED," all of it made the grid feel very alive and lively. The puzzle was very, very easy (maybe too easy for a Thursday), so my struggle points weren't many, but I definitely had some (unpleasant) trouble trying to suss out the odd phrase AMOUNT WON, and then some more (much more pleasant) trouble in the SE, trying to make sense of T-REX over CTRL-P. Totally forgot there was a T-REX named "Sue" in Chicago, so I thought I was looking for an athlete (something about the "Field" in "Field Museum" was saying "sports?" to me). And I have a MacBook, so when I print it's "Command-P," not CTRL-P. So it was fun / slightly challenging to make sense of that mischievous pair of answers. Otherwise, everything felt very straightforward today.

A few more things:

29A: Certain buckwheat pancake (BLIN)— the singular of the much more familiar BLINI. Always looks weird to me in the singular.
4D: Fleece (SHEAR) — oh, this also caused me trouble. You SHEAR sheep to *get* "Fleece" (n.) ... but I guess "Fleece" (v.) is also a synonym of SHEAR (though I've only ever heard it used in the metaphorical sense, i.e. if you get overcharged or scammed or otherwise fraudulently separated from your money, you've been "fleeced").
1A: Part of the deck from which a dealer deals (TOP)— you hope. The puzzle tries to throw a little bonus thematic content your way here, and at ANTE (19A: It goes in the middle of a table). I'm more interested in getting *away* from the theme and back to eating MILK DUDs while watching "Now, Voyager" (w/ score by Max STEINER). Sounds like a good plan for this rainy day. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I think this is the constructor's NYTXW debut. Given how strong the grid is, I'm looking forward to seeing her byline again.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Aldis Hodge (25D: ___ Hardison, Aldis Hodge's character on "Leverage" (ALEC)) —

Aldis Alexander Basil Hodge (born September 20, 1986) is an American actor. Among his significant roles, he played Alec Hardison in the TNT series Leverage, MC Ren in the 2015 biopic Straight Outta Compton, Levi Jackson in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, Noah in the WGN America series Underground, Matthew in Girlfriends and Jim Brown in the 2020 film One Night in Miami.... He will play Carter Hall/Hawkman in the upcoming DC Extended Universe film Black Adam. (wikipedia)

• • •

This managed to be properly tough(ish) and have a lot of that zoom-zoom whoosh-whoosh feeling I look forward to experiencing on Fridays. Like many of Erik's puzzles, this grid is consciously, pointedly, even provocatively inclusive, by which I mean you can feel how whole-heartedly it's trying to represent various kinds of experience that crosswords have historically ignored. Even modern crosswords tend to hew to an imagined "norm" or "mainstream" that has been, unsurprisingly, straight, white, male, Anglo-American-centric, etc. That is, puzzles have tended to look a lot like the people making and producing and especially editing them. Today's puzzle moves its lens all over human experience, all over the globe, while still managing to feel pretty damn mainstream. Basically it was always a lie that being inclusive meant sacrificing mainstream appeal, and this puzzle proves it (as do, increasingly, many puzzles, both in the NYTXW and (esp.) other venues, including, most notably, all the puzzles at the AVCX, as well as the L.A. Times (under Patti Varol's new leadership) and the USA Today (under Erik's own leadership)). The longer answers had so much energy and sizzle. But inclusiveness is hardly the puzzle's only asset. Yes, GENDER EUPHORIA is a wonderful burst of trans-positive joy, but its symmetry-mate on the other side of the grid, ONE STEP AT A TIME, involves a really clever pun clue (which is a high compliment from me, I assure you) (5D: Not in bounds?) (not "bounds" as in "boundaries" but "bounds" as in "leaps & bounds"). And though it's not that showy, I loved the pairing of "NO COMMENT" over "THERE IT IS..." I just imagine someone saying they have NO COMMENT and then not being able to contain their COMMENT, and then some nearby party, who just *knew* there was going to be a COMMENT, exclaiming, "THERE IT IS..." It's a whole short story, is what I'm saying. A wide-ranging lens, a strong colloquial sensibility, and a great sense of fun—that's this puzzle's winning combination.

Here's the whoosh-whoosh I mentioned up top: bold, bright longer answers just shooting out of the NW and then across the center:

And yet the puzzle wasn't easy for me. I had to earn the whoosh. I put in LINGO right away at (1A: Jargon), but in the back of my head I kept thinking "ARGOT also fits" and then I also maybe wanted MONO at 1D: Like old-fashioned sound reproduction (LO-FI), which obviously doesn't start with LINGO's"L," so I ended up pulling LINGO before eventually working my way back there via SECTS / OCEANS / ICONS. Once I realized it was FORTE and not FORCE at 17A: Strength ... bam, I just exploded out of that section. Great feeling.

I struggled with short stuff, mostly. Didn't know you needed to have a whole damn MBA just to get a job in "marketing," but I guess for certain jobs in marketing, yeah. Association just wasn't strong for me, so I waited for crosses to help me out. Also could not get hold of the neopronoun FAE, despite its "folklore" hint. Once I got it (via AGES, which was also hard (29D: Characteristics that rarely change in cartoons)), I realized I had probably heard of FAE in this context before, but despite knowing a number of nonbinary people I don't know anyone personally who uses neopronouns, so they just don't come readily to mind yet. Don't really know what "Leverage" is but now that I see Aldis Hodge's face, he definitely looks familiar. Is it weird for an actor to play a character whose name is so much like his own? Aldis playing ALEC? A.H. playing A.H.? I've typed some version of "Aldis Hardison" a bunch of times this morning, a confusion no doubt exacerbated by the fact that I am a big fan of NZ musician Aldous Harding.

I haven't yet mentioned the fact that the grid is absurdly smooth. There's a lot of short stuff, but the closest it comes to grating is stuff ACER and ITSY, and that's not very close, especially when your marquee answers are paying off the way the ones in this puzzle are. Strategic use of cheater squares* (under LOFI, above MBA, and their symmetrical counterparts) undoubtedly helped manage the fill around those longer answers in the middle, resulting in an overall immaculate grid. Hope you found things to like about this puzzle. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*cheater squares = black squares that do not increase the word count, generally used (sparingly) to make a grid easier to fill cleanly

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Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: AMEDEO Modigliani (40A: Painter Modigliani) —

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (US: /ˌmoʊdiːlˈjɑːni/, Italian: [ameˈdɛːo modiʎˈʎaːni]; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought-after. Modigliani spent his youth in Italy, where he studied the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. In 1906, he moved to Paris, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. By 1912, Modigliani was exhibiting highly stylized sculptures with Cubists of the Section d'Or group at the Salon d'Automne.
Modigliani's oeuvre includes paintings and drawings. From 1909 to 1914, he devoted himself mainly to sculpture. His main subject was portraits and full figures, both in the images and in the sculptures. Modigliani had little success while alive, but after his death achieved great popularity. He died of tubercular meningitis, at the age of 35, in Paris.

• • •

Lots to do today—including participate in an online round-table discussion at the opening of the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition (enrollment still open)—so I'm going to *try* to keep this fairly brief. This puzzle felt like the antithesis of yesterday's puzzle in many ways, by which I don't mean that it was bad, just that it played very traditional and very old (to be clear, I count myself among the olds now—lots of this grid was right in my wheelhouse). It was reliant on names of yore maybe once too often. I love COUNT BASIE and AMEDEO Modigliani, so no problem there, but it would be great if you balanced them by moving the needle a little forward in time, but that is decidedly not where the needle goes (p.s. don't ask me re: needle, I don't know what the metaphor is exactly, but it feels right, just go with it). I don't think we ever make it out of the '70s (god bless the late great James CAAN) (25D: James of 1974's "The Gambler"). I had to deal with Matthew ARNOLD at the beginning (not exactly what the kids, or anyone, is reading these days), and then I went headlong into Gordon MACRAE, whoever that is (24A: Gordon ___, co-star of 1955's "Oklahoma!"). And later, just as I was thinking the puzzle was feeling pretty dated, who decides to show up and prove me right? The LENNON Sisters. On the "Lawrence Welk Show" no less. The grid is very sturdy and professionally made, so basic craft is not really at issue. But this puzzle feels much narrower in its socio-cultural bent than yesterday's did. It's one for the old-schoolers, of which I am one. But I could feel how limited this puzzle's imagined audience seemed to be. For me, with a crossword's cultural center of gravity, it's not a matter of old v. new. It's a matter of genuine variety.

It was a properly tough Saturday, though, I'll give it that. And I did enjoy solving it. Got started by working the short answers in the NW. Was very lucky that even though I only picked up a couple on my first pass, that was enough to get me going:

That nail polish brand is *everywhere* these days, so if you haven't memorized it by now, what are you waiting for?! It's not going anywhere soon, I promise you. And it was a real help today, for sure. I blanked on who wrote "Dover Beach"—even with the "A" in place. Couldn't get my brain off AUDEN, who wouldn't fit. I threw STORM CENTER down into the middle of the grid, to no effect. Then I threw PIÑATA down into the middle of the grid. This also had no effect, initially, but was right *enough* that it actually helped me pick up some of those central Acrosses later on. But at first, I was stuck, and had to go down to SAND and AMEDEO and build back up from the SW:

As you can see, PIÑATA (wrong) helped me get COUNT BASIE (right). It also helped me get SERATONIN, which is for real how I thought you spelled it (32A: Neurotransmitter targeted by Prozac) (SEROTONIN). Only later was I forced to change the cocktail from PIÑATA to PANAMA ... and then, a bit later, PALOMA. By far the hardest thing in the grid for me (and I love cocktails!). Oh, STATE MOTTO was also brutally hard for me (33A: There is one each in French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hawaiian and Chinook). I don't want to tell you how much of that answer I had in place before I actually saw the answer, but it was a lot (and PIÑATA *definitely* hurt me there). It's so weird how much of a gimme, how completely Monday the SCOTIA is, given the otherwise tough quality of this center (29D: Nova ___). Very out of place. But I suppose it was supposed to be a kind of life preserver thrown to the desperate and floundering, which is thoughtful. Overall, it's a very drunk puzzle (a PALOMA and TITO'S and BACARDI!?), and a very sturdy, clean puzzle. There weren't many thrills, but it gave me an enjoyable workout nonetheless. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. for your "Don't Believe Everything You Read Online" files, I offer you this gem, an apparently bot-written bio of me that gets several things wrong. Among other things, it briefly but jarringly confuses me with Will Shortz.

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Constructor: Meghan Morris

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME:"Take Two"— you have to "take two" letters out of the theme clues to make theme make sense: specifically, the letters "ET," as articulated in the puzzle's revealer: WORKS WITHOUT A NET (121A: Has no plan B ... or, when parsed differently, what each of the starred clues does vis-à-vis its answer?) (i.e. "works without an 'et'"):

Theme answers:

ELECTRICAL OUTLET (23A: *What's in your wallet) (i.e. [What's in your wall])
FAKE NEWS (32A: *Press junket) (i.e. [Press junk], etc.)
SHAVING CREAM (43A: *Barbershop quartet)
GEOLOGIST (49A: *Rocket scientist)
USERNAME AND PASSWORD (68A: *Security blankets)
INFLATION (92A: *A drop in the bucket)
EXTERMINATOR (95A: *Ticketmaster)
DRIBBLES (106A: *Ballet movements)

Word of the Day: TSWANA (105D: One of South Africa's official languages) —

Tswana, also known by its native name Setswana, and previously spelled Sechuana in English, is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about 8.2 million people. It belongs to the Bantu language family within the Sotho-Tswanabranch of Zone S (S.30), and is closely related to the Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi language and the Lozi language.
Setswana is an official language of Botswana and South Africa. It is a lingua franca in Botswana and parts of South Africa, particularly North West Province. Tswana tribes are found in more than two provinces of South Africa, primarily in the North West, where about four million people speak the language. An urbanised variety, which is part slang and not the formal Setswana, is known as Pretoria Sotho, and is the principal unique language of the city of Pretoria. (wikipedia)

• • •

This played very hard for me. I had nothing in the NW at first past, as there was "?" clue after "?" clue and then WALE clued as the rapper ... I mean, I'm pretty sure that album is in my actual iTunes library and I *still* couldn't retrieve the dude's name (2D: Rapper with the 2011 hit album "Ambition"). 2011 is a long time ago now, and it's not like we're talking about NAS- or ICET-level fame here. Just brutal first pass at that corner. Honestly couldn't get much of Anything until somewhere in the NE ... "CATS," I think (14A: Musical whose name is an anagram of the members of a musical). Lots and Lots of musicals / operas today. "CATS,""TOSCA,""AIDA," maybe others, I don't really wanna go looking right now. Anyway, once I did get some traction, I never really could get going because the theme remained inscrutable for a long Long time. I eventually just went down and looked at the revealer clue, but since I had nothing down there, merely looking at the clue didn't help. I think I worked my way down the whole east side of the grid, getting answers like SHAVING CREAM and INFLATION and having no idea why they were "right," until finally WORKS WITHOUT A NET went in, and I could (mostly) see what was going on. At first I was like "I don't see any 'net' to take out" ... then I remembered I was supposed to parse the answer differently, i.e not "A NET," but "AN 'ET'."

The gimmick works brilliantly in places. [Security blanks] just cruuuuuushed me. Didn't help that I was coming at nearly every themer from the back end (because I did the east first—not the wisest move). My main problem with the execution is that the "ET"-less clues really really Really need "?"s on them ... most of the time. Clue on GEOLOGIST ends up working perfectly—yes, a GEOLOGIST is in fact a "Rock scientist." But the rest of the "ET"-less clues end up being punny and/or really ... forced, in a way that would normally earn the clue a terminal "?" ... but no such luck. I guess we were just supposed to take the whole gimmick as one giant "?" Anyway, the "ET"-less clues range from weak (e.g. [Barbershop quart]) to perfect (e.g. the aforementioned USERNAME AND PASSWORD clue). Didn't love that there was a conspicuous "-ET" in one of the themers (ELECTRICAL OUTLET). I know the theme is clue-related, so there's technically no foul there, but I'd get all "ET"s the hell out of the way if I really wanted my theme to pop. Also, NET gets duped (see 65A: NET GAIN), which seems really bad, since NET is the key word in your revealer. And the title isn't great. Doesn't seem to really capture what's going on except in the vaguest of ways (i.e. you do in fact take two ... letters out of the clue). So all in all this is really ambitious and imaginative. I just found the execution a little wobbly.

Cute ATARI clue you got there...
(70D: Maker of the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial video game)

So much hardness for me today. Even after the disastrous opening (NW) corner, with its "?"TWERK clue (1A: Do some backup dancing?) and its "?"EVES clue (3D: The before-times?) (YORE!?) etc., I kept falling into ditches. So hard to seem STOMACHS coming from the bottom up, with such a vague clue (9D: Stands). So so hard to even grasp the meaning of READER (7D: Circulation unit). Both clues are fine, just very tough. Wanted EONS for ERAS in that same area (31A: Stretches of time). Wanted HEAPS ON for DUMPS ON in that same area (28A: Burdens with). No idea about John Legend song titles, so "ALL OF" was tough, esp. alongside BUENA, which I want to come before "Vista," not "Park" (12D: ___ Park, city west of Anaheim). Couldn't grasp meaning of "chain" in 50D: Tool chain (LOWES). Thought OZARK was OSAGE (51D: Missouri county on the Arkansas border). No idea who this non-Tharp TWYLA is (66D: "Schitt's Creek" role for Sarah Levy). Continue to be repulsed by NON-PC, as I am by UN-PC, both of which have been deleted from my wordlists. The very idea of "PC" is a right-wing shibboleth, so I won't go near it. What is an ETON shirt? I collar, mess, rifles, I've seen all these preceded by ETON, but "Global (?) brand of men's dress shirts," that's a new one on me, a mostly non-wearer of "dress shirts." That said, I generally found the bottom of this puzzle easier than the top, but that may just be because the more grid you have filled in, the easier things get, as a rule, and also I understood the theme by the time I was finishing up, which helped enormously.

Struggled to come up with that "K" in "OPTICKS" (81D: Sir Isaac Newton work on the fundamentals of light). Thought maybe OPTICES was a word. We already got a "tick"-based theme clue (EXTERMINATOR), so more "ticks" felt unwelcome. I live in "tick" country, which is also Lyme country, so "ticks" are always unwelcome. Luckily the grid felt otherwise mostly clean and largely pest-free. Loved GOT WISE and "OFF WE GO!" Very zippy. That's all I've got for today. Gonna take the day off and go see "Don't Worry, Darling." Looks like it's going to be either legit good or campy good, and I'm down for either. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy birthday to this blog, which turns 16 today

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Constructor: Margaret Seikel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (***for a Monday***)

THEME: HANG IN THERE (58A: "Stick with it!" ... or a hint to the answers to the starred clues) — places about which you might say, "yeah, you can (literally) hang in there":
Theme answers:

CLIMBING GYM (17A: *Indoor bouldering locale)
COAT CLOSET (11D: *Room by the foyer, often)
ART GALLERY (27D: *Place to buy a painting)
MAN CAVE (37A: *Male equivalent of a she-shed)

Word of the Day: RAGLAN (40A: Kind of sleeve that extends to the collar) —

A raglan sleeve is a sleeve that extends in one piece fully to the collar, leaving a diagonal seam from underarm to collarbone.
It is named after Lord Raglan, the 1st Baron Raglan, who is said to have worn a coat with this style of sleeve after the loss of his arm in the Battle of Waterloo.
The raglan mid-length sleeve is a popular undergarment (worn under the jersey) for baseball teams in MLB. (wikipedia)

• • •

Is a closet a "room"???? How big are y'all's closets, anyway? Never in my life would've thought to call a closet a "room," but I guess it's got four walls and a door, so maybe you can lawyer your way into a justification. Anyway, "room" definitions aside, I thought this was a remarkably clever theme. Take a familiar phrase, do some wordplay, shazam! If you can pull it off, it's golden. Gotta get a themer set that works *and* that fits symmetrically, but if you can tick all those boxes, you're good to go. You're not done though. You still gotta build a grid that you can fill cleanly, and then, you know, fill it cleanly. And this one's as clean as a whistle. That's two exceptional Monday puzzles in a row. Good stuff. True, I tend to blow through the Monday too quickly to notice whatever the heck is going on with the theme, and that was true today as well, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the gimmick once I'm done and properly paying attention. I've never heard of a CLIMBING GYM. Really really wanted CLIMBING WALL, which I've definitely heard of. But apparently they have whole "gyms" filled with things to "climb," who knew? Well, besides a bunch of you, I mean. The COAT part of COAT CLOSET feels arbitrary, but you gotta make your answers symmetrical somehow, and if COAT works, it works. HALL CLOSET feels like more of a thing to me, but maybe the idea is that a COAT CLOSET really brings home the idea of "hanging." Whereas who knows what you've got in your HALL CLOSET!? Shoes, board games, yoga mats, bowling balls ... you can't hang those!

MAN CAVE remains one of those gendered things that makes my skin crawl a little. Like, what does your little playroom have to do with your manhood, exactly? And she-shed is somehow worse? Like, did you really need an equivalent concept? Women should have caves and men should have sheds and people should have their own rooms if they want, whatever, gendering rooms is bizarre. Not sure I'd've gone with INS when "IN" is already "IN" the revealer, but two-letter prepositions are pretty innocuous, as dupes go. It was just BISCUIT Week on "The Great British Bake-Off," so the British word for "cookie" was fresh on my mind. I was just watching "The Rockford Files" before I came upstairs to solve, so that's probably how I would've clued (James) GARNER if I'd been given the chance. There's not much room for stand-out non-theme fill today, but as I say, the grid is so smooth it hardly matters, and anyway BOLSTER and DEMOTAPE and DOGSAT are plenty nice. No real sticking points today besides the theme answer stuff I already mentioned. Oh, "PINCH ME!," forgot to mention that answer—also a good one. I would say a PEAR is very-much-not round, so that clue was weird (56D: Not-quite-round fruit), but I still got the answer easy enough. OK, PEACE out, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Congrats to constructor and wonderful human being Brooke Husic on completing the Berlin MARATHON yesterday!

i'm not a huge personal update sharer but 4.5 yrs ago an orthopedic surgeon told me i might never run again b/c of an injury, last year i had two (2) foot surgeries for that same injury, and today i ran the berlin marathon (WR courtesy his GOATness @EliudKipchoge) ❤️‍🩹 pic.twitter.com/W83MYXv7uI
— alexandra ladee (@xandraladee) September 25, 2022

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Hello, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday in September. Hope everyone has had a great month and has been staying healthy. I spent this past weekend crying because Roger Federer played his final professional tennis match on Friday (a doubles match with Rafa Nadal — Team Fedal forever). Federer will forever and always be the GOAT in the men’s game. I’ve been keeping busy doing a lot of rock climbing and bouldering these days, and I’ve got the bruises and sore arms to prove it. “Climbing gym” was actually in the puzzle yesterday, and Rex said he didn’t know what it was?! I’ll have to take him to mine if he’s ever in D.C.

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor:Peter Koetters

Relative difficulty:Pretty easy

THEME: MONTH (69A: Any of 12 represented in this puzzle's shaded squares) — The first three letters of each of the twelve months of the Gregorian calendar are presented in sequential order

Theme answers:

JANet (1D: Treasury secretary Yellen)
FEBreze(5D: Air freshener brand)
MARianas (9D: ___ Trench, deepest place in the 10-Down)
APRes (24D: French for "after")
MAYan (25D: Chichén Itzá builder)
JUNta (26D: Postcoup group)
JULes (32D: Verne of sci-fi)
AUGie (36D: Hanna-Barbera's ___ Doggie)
SEPia (38D: Photo filter for a retro look)
OCTet (53D: Duo times four)
NOVel (54D: New and unusual)
DECor (55D: Interior designer's concern)

Word of the Day: ULEE’S GOLD (39A: With 70-Across, 1997 film in which Peter Fonda plays a beekeeper) —

Ulee's Gold is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by Victor Nuñez and starring Peter Fonda in the title role. It was released by Orion Pictures.The film was the "Centerpiece Premiere" at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. Fonda won a Golden Globe Award for his performance and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and a Screen Actors Guild Award. The film's title refers most concretely to the honey Ulee produces as a beekeeper, particularly that made from the nectar of the tupelo tree. Van Morrison sings "Tupelo Honey" (the title song of his 1971 album) over the end credits. (Wiki)

• • •

Was this the crossword puzzle of the year? Technically, yes. Otherwise, not really. The puzzle was well-constructed and kind of fun, but once you realize while solving that the shaded squares are months, there’s not much left that’s interesting about the solve and you can just put the start of some answers in without there needing to be any thought. The revealer of just MONTH (69A) also left a bit to be desired.

I figured out what was happening with the theme after three months (JAN, FEB, and MAR), which made the puzzle generally flow nicely for me. I did actually find the top half of the puzzle much easier (when I didn’t know the theme) than I found the bottom half of the puzzle (when I’d filled in all of the shaded boxes). I really was just blasting through the puzzle until I hit a snag somewhere around ULEES (39A) and CSPOT (30D).

That this puzzle was released today is a bit interesting. Today at sundown is the end of the Jewish New Year, which is maybe why a puzzle relating to a calendar was released on September 27. Wikipedia tells me that Rosh Hashanah is the “first of the Jewish High Holy Days, as specified by Leviticus 23:23-25,” and LEVITICUS (64A: Exodus follower) was in the puzzle, which suggests that the timing is probably not a coincidence. I wish, then, that the payoff was something about the Jewish New Year, even though the names of the months in the puzzle are obviously English and from the Gregorian calendar. Yes, I know the tie-in would have been complicated, but, without it, I think this puzzle would have been more apt toward the end of December or in early January.

The construction was impressive, as the constructor worked in 12 theme answers plus a revealer, but some of the fill definitely suffered as a result. I compiled just a miscellaneous list of answers that felt usual/boring to me, and I could’ve written down a lot more if I’d wanted to — ALDA; EDEN; VIA; UNA; CFO; EMU; RUN; ATE; VERY; EMIT; AGO; INN; IPA; UPA; ENS; and LOTSA. There was so much crosswordese, and I don’t think the clues were all that spectacular, either. I really dislike I MUST (56D: Possible answer to "Do you have to?"), because no one talks like that (tell me you can’t imagine a scene in a Shakespearean play where someone says “I must go posthaste”). Anagram clues feel boring to me (27D: Surname that's an anagram of NO LIE with ONEIL), though I do understand this one might’ve been there to help people who didn’t know MEAN JOE (25A: Nickname for N.F.L. Hall-of-Famer Greene) or ASNER (37A: Ed of "Up"). Oh, look, there’s JANET Yellen (1D) in another puzzle. And, if we really want to get nitpick-y, don’t jelly doughnuts technically have a hole in them where the jelly is inserted? I know that’s not the type of hole the clue is referring to, but my point stands. (I am a lawyer, after all.)

I didn’t know or understand the clue/answer with CSPOT (30D: Bill worth 100 bones) at all. Apparently, it’s slang where the “c” is for hundred and spot means bill? I’m still a little confused. I didn’t know STOOLIE (52A: Informal informant), which is more old slang. I’ve never seen (or heard of) the movie ULEE’S GOLD (39A/70A). Apparently, Peter Fonda was nominated for an Oscar for it, and constructors like the double “e” in there (e.g., OGEE (67A: Curved molding, in architecture)), but not knowing the film caused me some serious problems with 40D: Marine swimmer with a tall dorsal fin. I didn’t know if it was a jailfish, bailfish, SAILFISH, etc.

I did think there were some fun and fresh clues/answers. I loved NEIGHBORS (17A: Fencing partners?). ACUTE (16A: Like at least two angles of every triangle) was another fun one. I like thinking of a LEGO as a plastic brick (59D). TAMALES (23A: Dishes steamed in cornhusks), NOMADIC (54A: Like a wanderer), SAILFISH (40D), and MEAN JOE (25A) made the puzzle a tad bit more interesting. MEAN JOE Greene, especially, as I’m a huuuge Steelers fan and just generally a fan of Pittsburgh sports teams. So, seeing him and longtime Penguin JAGR (32A: Hockey great Jaromir _) in the puzzle was nice!

Misc.:

As long as I’m on the topic of the greatest sports city in the country… MEAN JOE Greene (25A) is one of the greatest football players ever. I grew up hearing stories about him and how he changed the trajectory of the franchise — my Dad grew up a Yinzer (and a diehard sports fan, at that). Before Greene was drafted by the Steelers in 1969, the team had the worst cumulative record in professional football. Since he was drafted, the Steelers have the best cumulative record. Also, Jaromir JAGR (32A) spent the most productive part of his career with the Penguins, winning two Stanley Cups. He’s maybe a top-10 player of all time, and he’ll go down in history as the third-best Penguin ever (behind Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby). He went on to play for a lot of teams after the Pens and is actually still playing at 50 years old in the Czech Republic!
Fun fact of the day: The official term in kpop for big celebrities is IDOLS (6D: Paparazzi targets). So, for example, all seven members of BTS are IDOLS. Now, we don’t love them (or anyone) being targeted by paparazzi, but some companies will allow official photographers at events, so I’ll just put these photos here. (Have a safe flight, Yoongi!).
I have a friend from law school named ALEXA (2D: Whom you might ask to turn off the lights, nowadays), who told me that the number of jokes she’s gotten in the last few years, like, “ALEXA, play me a song,” or whatnot is incalculable. There were times I’d say her name while on the phone with someone, and the ALEXA in my apartment would light up and start talking to me.
“Up” (37A) is the single greatest movie ever created. That is all.
ALOFT (33D: High in the sky) makes me think of how, yesterday, NASA collided a spaceship with an asteroid to see if it could knock it off its course, which is crazy and cool. Also, this tweet sums up how I felt watching the Cowboys-Giants Monday Night Football game:

And that's it from me! Have a ~spooky~ October.

Signed, Clare Carroll, forever a Federer fan

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Collectible disk of the 1990s / THU 9-8-22 / U.S. tourist locale that inspired this puzzle / Typically tortilla-less meals / What to do when you're not strong in a 1972 hit / 2005 biopic in which Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the title role

Iconic phrase in old Dick and Jane stories / FRI 9-9-22 / Spanish monarch beginning in 2014 / Out of nothing in creation myths / Ironic-sounding plot device in Total Recall / The sacred disease to ancient Greeks

Self-esteem from the French / SAT 9-10-22 / Jukebox crooner with the 1965 hit 1-2-3 / Blues singer Monica Parker / Co-host of 1970s program People Are Talking

Republic toppled in 1933 / SUN 9-11-22 / Instrument that makes a tsst sound / He's this in a 1963 Chiffons hit / Red block in Minecraft / Neighbor of Jammu and Kashmir / Eponym for one of the earth's five oceans / Her name is Greek for all-gifted

First Pixar film with a Black protagonist / MON 9-12-22 / Sugarhill Gang song with the repeated line Jump on it / Los Angeles venue named for star of 12 Angry Men / South American palm with black-purple berry

Bun in the oven so to speak / TUE 9-13-22 / Shop for a loxsmith? / Jason who sang "I'm Yours" / Marsupial stylized in Qantas logo / Instruments played pizzicato in Britten's "Simple Symphony" / Title role for Alan Ladd in classic 1953 western

Role for Daveed Diggs on "Black-ish" / WED 9-14-22 / Theme song of a classic western visually suggested six times in this puzzle's grid / Tik-Tok's 3-D musical eighth note, e.g.

Schitt's Creek matriarch / THU 9-15-22 / Clark with #1 country hit Girls Lie Too / Like the creator deity Viracocha / Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio / Where $50 bills and crossing your legs may be considered bad luck

Fulani braid decoration / FRI 9-16-22 / Treat with a hook / Chess prodigy protagonist of The Queen's Gambit / G.O.A.T. material / Big name in nail polish / Bygone Winter Palace resident / Platoon but not Dunkirk

Rooster raised for eating / SAT 9-17-22 / Org. running global championships since 1930 / Mascot whose head is a baseball / In which Nunavut means our land / Role in 2020's Trial of the Chicago 7 / Performs repetitive tasks to gain experience points in gaming slang

Baroque painter Guido / SUN 9-18-22 / Tragic showgirl of song / Animal working in the DMV in Zootopia / Word seen at the end of many Jean-Luc Godard movies / Liquor in tiramisu / Painter whose motifs include ants and eggs

Whom one might not marry no matter what! / MON 9-19-22 / Implementable with expertise and expert ease / Italian vino region / About one-third of Hispaniola area-wise / Cool get together with cones and scoops

Martial art with bamboo swords / TUE 9-20-22 / Accolades presented in Nashville / Local produce org. / Four-letter member of the Four Corners / Email action with paper clip icon / Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge

Japanese fried cutlet / THU 9-22-22 / Camera brand with a red circle logo / Chewy chocolaty morsel / Max Academy Award-winning composer of Now Voyager / Has a wash at the casino / Creatures on an Escher Mobius strip / Sue at Chicago's Field Museum

Modern reproductive tech inits / SUN 9-25-22 / Sir Isaac Newton work on the fundamentals of light / Odd-numbered page typically / Opera whose title character is a singer / Rapper with the 2011 hit album Ambition / Weekend destination for an NYC getaway maybe / Opera that aptly premiered in Egypt

Indoor bouldering locale / MON 9-26-22 / Cosmetic reapplication / Cassette submitted to a record label / Male equivalent of a she-shed / Room by the foyer, often

Chain of Polynesian islands? / TUES 9-27-22 / Rolling contest roller / Like at least two angles of every triangle / Candy from a "head"