Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Dan Schoenholz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" due almost entirely to ECHINODERM)

THEME: Abbrs. "hidden" inside phrases with which they are roughly synonymous — theme answers are phrases that contain synonymous initialisms (inside circled squares):

Theme answers:

"IF I'M BEING HONEST..." (17A: "Truthfully...")
RESERVE ONE'S SPOT (36A: Secure a seat at the table, say)
"... AND MAKE IT SNAPPY" (54A: "Hurry up!")

Word of the Day: ECHINODERM (9D: Starfish or sea urchin, in a biology text) —

An echinoderm (/ɪˈkaɪnəˌdɜːrm, ˈɛkə-/) is any member of the phylumEchinodermata (/ɪˌkaɪnoʊˈdɜːrmətə/). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers as well as the sea lilies [...] Adult echinoderms are found on the sea bed at every ocean depth, from the intertidal zone to the abyssal zone. The phylum contains about 7,000 living species, making it the second-largest grouping of deuterostomes, after the chordates. Echinoderms are the largest entirely marine phylum. The first definitive echinoderms appeared near the start of the Cambrian. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is one of those clever ideas that doesn't come off quite as well on the page. Non-consecutive circled squares have always been one of the most unappealing crossword tropes for me, and so the concept and execution have to be really good for me to overcome that initial aversion. Here, the potential theme set seems very, very narrow, and given that restriction, I have to say the theme set works very well. All those initialisms are very close matches for the answers they appear inside of. Of course some people (way way more than I would have thought, based on a recent Twitter poll I saw) believe that the "H" in IMHO actually *means* "HONEST," and if that were the case, then the initial "H" would be duping a word in the answer, and that would be a flaw. But since, as I think this puzzle definitively establishes, the "H" emphatically stands for "HUMBLE," the theme answer works just fine. Still, RESERVE ONE'S SPOT was an awkward, unpleasant, not-really-gridworthy answer to have to write in. The 15 that has ONE'S in it was, for a time, a kind of crossword cliché (A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE being an answer you would see ... well, more than once is the point). RESERVE ONE'S SPOT is kind of unimaginable as a standalone answer in, say, a themeless crossword, and it's not any more appealing in a thematic context. It's more explicable, it's here for a reason, but you have to have a really forgiving heart to let RESERVE ONE'S SPOT get a pass. RESERVE A SPOT almost seems like a standalone thing. The ONE'S really brings it down somehow. The "AND" part of "AND MAKE IT SNAPPY" also seems a bit contrived, but if you think of "ASAP" as something you've tacked on to the end of a demand, the "AND" bit, i.e. starting with a conjunction, makes total sense. "Come get me, ASAP!""Come get me, AND MAKE IT SNAPPY!" Sure. Just fine. Technically you could've pulled off the ASAP embedding without the AND (there's an "A" in MAKE), but then you've got symmetry problems. Plus the "AND" just makes it more ... fun, somehow. More colloquialish. So conceptually, this is very cool. I just didn't care at all for that middle themer.

The fill was a little heavy on some crosswordesey names like MRT and MORT Sahl and ALEK Wek and AHAB and B'NAI B'rith, and then ASP EPEE EERIER OLEO ... there's more of that short repeater gunk than I would've liked to see, especially in a grid that isn't thematically dense. I liked LAID EYES ON and GIGGED and (weirdly) BOYO, but HOVERBIKES somehow left me cold. I should like it, but it felt like forced whimsy to me. Strange how some answers just rub you wrong. Rubbing me really wrong today was HIPPY-DIPPY—really not into these insulting phrases. We're making fun of people's ears yesterday, we're insulting their alleged "New Agey"-ness today. Bah. The clue on GO BALD is also kind of insulting. Like, Mr. Clean? Did he GO BALD? Is that part of his back story? Are there pictures of a lushly maned Mr. Clean somewhere? Also, his pate looks shiny in a way that suggests craft, care, and polish. If he had like a receding hairline or a bald patch at the back, then yeah, OK, I could maybe agree that he had "gone bald," but he doesn't, so he's not at all an appropriate example for GO BALD. [Lose hair] or [Emulate old tires] or something like that works better (and seems less "tee hee" / jokey as well). You've already got one (balding?) "MR." in the grid (MR. T!), do you really need another? Also, still not into SOT. Never gonna be into SOT. Not into making people with alcohol use disorder into figures of derision. SOT is crosswordese—that should be enough of a reason to try not to use it any more. On the other hand, I would use BARFLY, but I'd clue it as the movie of the same name, and anyway, BARFLY sounds whimsical and not necessarily bad. Whereas SOT ... it's hard to dress that one up. Anyway, no excuse for ALEK OLEO SOT all hanging out in one teeny tiny corner. Grid should be (Mr.) cleaner, for sure.

The clue on PAIL was terrrrrrible (1D: Item on a bucket list?). The "list" part makes absolutely no sense. PAIL is synonymous with "bucket." What's is this "list" stuff?! Is it "a list of synonyms"? Truly ill-advised attempt at wackiness there. ECHINODERM seems like a cool word but yeesh it is technical in a way that put it way, way off of Tuesday-level difficulty for me. If you give me ECHIN-, I've got ECHINACEA and then I'm all out of ideas. Nothing wrong with it, but it stood out starkly against the backdrop of otherwise broadly familiar terms and names. I don't think I've got anything else to say this morning, except that I guarantee you that "GENES" is an exceedingly uncute response to "Why are you so cute?" Just say "aw thanks" and move on. Anyway, you'd probably actually say "Good GENES." Otherwise, it will sound like you're attributing your cuteness to your pants.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Did no one on the editorial team see the TOW dupe (it's in the grid *and* in the clue for GARAGE—4A: Tow truck destination)? Easy enough to rewrite that GARAGE clue. It's easy to have dupes like this when you're constructing. You go blind after a while and can't really see your own grid straight. That's What Editors Are For.

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Constructor: Ryan Patrick Smith

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Tom Swifties — Theme answers are puns that follow a specific structure ... here, Wikipedia can explain this better than I ever could

Word of the Day: CHOUX (46A: Pastry dough used in crullers and beignets) —

Choux pastry, or pâte à choux (French: [pɑ.t‿a ʃu]), is a delicate pastry dough used in many pastries. Basic ingredients usually only include butter, water, flour and eggs (auxiliary ingredients and flavorings are also added).

• • •

Theme answers:

IN VERY POOR TASTE (17A: "You cooked this? It's *disgusting*!" said Tom ___)
INCONSOLABLY (26A: "What do you mean there are no PlayStations left in stock?" asked Tom ___
UNIRONICALLY (48A: "I'm worried I may have anemia," said Tom ___)
FRANKLY INCENSED (63A: "You guys are supposed to be 'Wise Men' and *these* are the gifts you bring a newborn?!" asked Tom, ___)

Hi everyone, it's Rafa here filling in for Rex! Happy to be back to talk about a themed puzzle this time. This is a *very* tried and true theme, which we've seen before in 2020, and in 2001, and in 1994, and in 1988 (!), and probably many more times too, but I'm tired of searching.

I'll quote Rex himself, from his last review of a Tom Swifty puzzle:

Here's the deal: Tom Swifties ... are an old thing. They are in corny old "joke" books, probably, and they are definitely on websites (over and over and over again). In the end, what you have are ... adverbs. Well, one adverbial phrase, and then adverbs. That's it. You (yes you) can go to a Tom Swifties page on the internet, just find a bunch of adverbs that will fit symmetrically in a grid, and bam, you have a "theme" now, congrats.

That's a bit harsh IMO, as the finds today do seem novel within the genre, but in general I agree it can be hard to get excited about a theme/concept that feels stale without any sort of new twist. Though, I'm sure some people appreciate a well-done version of a standard concept.

Anyhoo, for this set specifically, I quite enjoyed the middle two, though the first and last didn't quite land for me. The VERY felt a bit out of place in the first answer (I think IN POOR TASTE is the more common in-the-language phrase), and the last one felt just a bit too contrived, though I did appreciate the attempt. But also ... maybe the frankincense and myrrh aren't the most exciting gifts, but they brought gold!!! If I ever have a child and you bring me gold as a gift, I promise not to make a crossword slandering you.

I had no idea what myrrh looked like ... apparently it's this

Outside the theme, there weren't any long (>7) slots, but some fun stuff in CHEW TOY, SPA DAYS, etc. And pretty smooth too, with only YAR, ECCE, INDC standing out to me as dings. Let's not normalize IN[city name] as crossword fill! (So easy to say as a solver! If you ever see me using this in a puzzle I make, please do not hold this against me)

This is an apatosaurus. It does, indeed, have a prominent NECK

I loved the vibe that ANAL, SEXY, LMFAO brought to the puzzle! Of course they were clued a lot more tamely than they could, but I enjoyed seeing all the somewhat boundary-pushing fill. There were also quite a few fun clue moments. I chuckled at the reduplicative "reduplicative" clues for ISIS and NENE, and was a fan of the fresh (to me) angles for SMOG, ASAHI, and others. Clue of The Puzzle for me was [One foot in "the grave," poetically speaking] for IAMB -- a really fun aha that made the whole puzzle worth it! (A foot in poetry is a measure of poetic meter, and an IAMB and a common type of foot)

Bullets:

3D: Relief pitcher's success (SAVE) — I know zero things about baseball. Every time I see a baseball clue I skip it. Honestly, I'm proud of myself when I even recognize a clue is a baseball clue
68A: Het (up) (RILED) — I had never heard of "het up" before! Wonder if it's just a gap for me or whether this is regional or generational
25A: Support group associated with the Twelve Steps (ALANON)— This puzzle taught me that AA (which I was familiar with) and Al Anon (which was new to me) are two different groups that serve different audiences

That's all from me today! Hope to be back soon!

Signed, Rafa

[Follow Rafa on Twitter]

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BLACK SHEEP (31D: Familial outcast depicted three times in this puzzle) — three "black" squares contain names of different types of "sheep":

Theme answers:

ASH(RAM) / EXT(RA M)AYO (34A: Place for a spiritual retreat + 21D: Sandwich order specification)
CHEES(E WE)DGE / "HAV(E WE) MET" (56A: Slice of brie, e.g. + 45D: "Don't I know you from somewhere?")
MORA(L AMB)IGUITY / (LAMB)ORGHINI (15A: Ethical gray area + 19D: Italian auto with a bull in its logo)

Word of the Day: CHUB (56D: Cousin of a carp) —

Squalius cephalus is a European species of freshwater fish in the carp familyCyprinidae. It frequents both slow and moderate rivers, as well as canals and still waters of various kinds. This species is referred to as the common chub, European chub, or simply chub. // It is a stocky fish with a large rounded head. Its body is long and cylindrical in shape and is covered in large greenish-brown scales which are edged with narrow bands of black across the back, paling to golden on the flanks and even paler on the belly. The tail is dark brown or black, the dorsal fin is a greyish-green in colour and all the other fins are orange-red. The dorsal fin has 3 spines and 7-9 soft rays while the anal fin has 3 spines and 7-10 rays. The vertebrae count is 42-48. It can grow to 60 cm standard length but most fish are around 30 cm. // The chub is distributed throughout most of northern Eurasia [...] It is most abundant in small rivers and large streams in the "barbel zone" where there are riffles and pools. (wikipedia)

• • •

It's not just that this puzzle was well made, it's that it unfolded, for me, in a way that made it really delightful. With trick puzzles like this (ones where you really bend the "normal" rules of the game), there's always that initial tough part where you are wondering what the hell is going on, so you push letters around and wonder why nothing's coming together. And eventually (god willing) you pick up the trick. Maybe it's obviously great, or not; maybe the whole puzzle concept becomes evident to you in one whoosh, maybe you're still not sure what the point is. I like it best when my reaction to first getting the trick is "huh ... innnnteresting" because that means there more "aha" to come. So, black squares that actually stand for letters or words, I've seen that many times. The question, always, is "why?" Today, I did the initial "I'm kinda lost" struggle" and then finally picked up "RAM" (really needed the "X" from BOX SET to see EXT(RA M)AYO).

It's funny looking at the grid at this stage because you can see my solve just fall apart right where it runs up against the themers. Anyway, I was so happy to get RAM first because it left me to speculate: is RAM a verb? a brand of truck? is this puzzle gonna represent the whole damn zodiac!? So I *got* the gimmick but I still didn't *Get* it. Onward! And with almost my very next step, what should I encounter coming around the corner but a nice fluffy EWE!

And that got a big smile. I weirdly wasn't even thinking "sheep." I love when crosswordese (EWE!) gets upgraded to Special Element in a puzzle. I still had half the grid to go and I'd already had two "ahas." But again, I did not know the big picture: what's the revealer going to be? where are the other sheep hiding and what could they possibly be!? The answers to both questions came as genuine delights. I actually hit the revealer next, BLACK SHEEP, which, yeah, solid. That is, in fact, what is happening in this puzzle: SHEEP are in the BLACK. But then—again, by total happenstance—I end up finishing the puzzle up top (very uncommon), and this means that I—again, accidentally)—saved the best for last: the hidden LAMB! MORA(L AMB)IGUITY / (LAMB)ORGHINI is just a fantastic crossing on its own, but when you add the hidden "LAMB," I think it's really magical, and a fantastic place to have the entire puzzle come into view. Anyone else try to park a FERRARI in the Lambo's space at first? Pretty devilish that FERRARI fit perfectly (but FERRARI's logo is, of course, a horse ... of some kind). The theme gimmick itself (i.e. letters in the black squares) is fairly basic, but the concept here was clever, and it unfolded in just the right way for me.

The fill was pleasantly varied, and the only answers I truly balked at were SORORAL and HAHAS (the former for its rare adjectivity, the latter for its improbable plurality), but neither answer is bad. In fact, I'm not sure SORORAL isn't just fine—it's the counterpart to the very familiar "fraternal," and it's only because we have privileged brotherhood so much (in war, in fraternal orders) and generalized it to all humanity (in liberté égalité fraternité, "brotherhood of man," etc.) that it so outpaces SORORAL in its commonness. So it's a rare word, but a fine one. HAHAS really has no excuse, but the rest of the grid is so good, who cares? Loved AMY POEHLER. I remember when she debuted as a NYTXW answer, in a puzzle made by ... [checks notes] ... hey, me! Like the EWE, the WEE LADS made me smile. Possibly the WEE LADS are tending the EWE. And WEE is an anagram of EWE. It's all very Scottish, and I miss Scotland (I studied abroad there and later did research there, but haven't been back in over two decades). Love the HAIRBOW clue (29A: Accessory for Hello Kitty) because it reminds me that Shortz once rejected a puzzle by a friend of mine that had HELLO KITTY as an answer because he thought it was too obscure... Of course he then immediately encountered HELLO KITTY in the wild (in an airplane magazine, if I remember my friend's story correctly), and marveled aloud at what a weird coincidence that was (not weird—HELLO KITTY was already a worldwide phenomenon at that point). Stunned to see HARLEM SHAKE here! Hello, 2012! Is the HARLEM SHAKE really still a thing!? Wow, I thought it was just a meme. A now-olden meme. Apparently there is a real dance by that name, one that preceded the meme thing by decades. But, unsurprisingly, as wikipedia notes, "The dance that is done on the internet as a meme is not the Harlem Shake."

No real challenges today outside the theme. I had ERA for EON only to have ERAS show up later, so that was weird. No other weirdness though. Just a good Thursday time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. thanks for all the sympathetic comments yesterday re: the sudden death of my beloved wee cat, Olive. We learned in April that she had a severely enlarged heart and that the prognosis was bad, but medication gave her a completely normal and wonderful six months. And then she just went. Like that. It was awful. But also merciful. I loved her a whole, whole lot. I've had and loved (and lost) several pets in my life, but she was attached to me in a way I'd never experienced. It was a joy and privilege to have had her in my life these past two years. I don't know what else to say. Except, again, thanks for the kind words.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BOTTLE GREEN (5D: Dark hue named after a type of glassware) —

Bottle green is a dark shade of green, similar to pine green. It is a representation of the color of green glass bottles.
Green bottles on a windowsill
The first recorded use of bottle green as a color name in English was in 1816.
Bottle green is a color in Prismacolor marker and pencil sets. It is also the color of the uniform of the Police Service of Northern Ireland replacing the Royal Ulster Constabulary's "rifle green" colored uniforms in 2001. It is also the green used in uniforms for South Sydney High School in Sydney.
Bottle green is also the color most associated with guide signs and street name signs in the United States.
Bottle green is also the background color of the Flag of Bangladesh, as defined by the government of Bangladesh. Another name for this color is Bangladesh green. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow I just learned an awful weird lot about BOTTLE GREEN there. One of the perks of writing the blog is falling into wikipedia holes, which, as I write it, doesn't sound like a perk at all, but they can be fun while they last. Most things I learn in such holes on one day I forget by the next day, but I still like learning things and then knowing them for a time; then I can forget them and (maybe) learn them all over again someday. Bangladesh green! Gonna stick with BOTTLE GREEN, but I like knowing its other name. What might stick is the fact that BOTTLE GREEN is the name of the green on U.S. highway / street / road signs. That is a ubiquitous green the exact name of which I never really considered. I'm starting here because, well, it's the Word of the Day, which sort of spilled over into the beginning of my write-up, and because I just really like the term. And the color! And the idea of a color named for bottles that were that color. I enjoy things that come in such bottles. Mainly wine, but I feel like (mostly in my childhood) glass soda bottles were sometimes that color. All your citrusy ones like 7-Up and Sprite, but even Coke bottles were sometimes green. Almost all soda bottles are plastic now. Safer (can't break a plastic bottle over anyone's head, probably), but duller too. Thank you for allowing me to ruminate haphazardly about green bottles and BOTTLE GREEN.

["... and sometimes there'll be sorrow"]

This one started out SO-SO (literally and figuratively), but then PLAY IT COOL made things interesting, and then whoosh "IT CAN'T HURT" and whoosh BOTTLE GREEN sent me flying into the middle of the grid and goodbye SO-SO, hello fun. Did the puzzle dupe *and* cross the two-letter word "IT" there? Yes. Do I care? Not really. If you'd crossed "IT" at "DO IT" and "IT'S BAD," I would've wondered aloud what the hell you were doing, but in two gorgeous marquee answers like this, those "IT"s become small and fade into the background. Speaking of "IT," I got all turned around for a bit at 51A: Where it's at (VENUE) because ... well, it seemed like it could be anything, and also I've been doing so many cryptic crosswords that I thought maybe the puzzle was asking me where "it"aly was "at," so I briefly tried to think of how to make some abbr. for EUROPE or MEDITERRANEAN fit. And then ITALY actually showed up in the grid! (42D: Where the piano was invented). Crosswords are full of chance encounters and weird opportunities to get lost down various thought byways. But I didn't get truly lost very much today. Once I came whooshing out of the NW, it didn't take long for that center stack to come into view. Once I changed OOZY (ick) to OILY (still kinda ick) (30D: Sebaceous), things settled into place. I love love love "HANG ON A SECOND" over "WAIT RIGHT HERE!" because they sound like things that might be said in immediate succession by someone who has a surprise for you! Like maybe he goes into the next room and comes back to show you numbers that indicate that you WIN THE LOTTERY! (The clue on WIN THE LOTTERY is clever (34A: Make dough from scratch?), though when I think of winning the lottery, I'm thinking the big prize, a lotto drawing, and scratch-off tickets aren't usually involved, I don't think).

The NE was the toughest section for me. Until I got the "F" in FACADE, I couldn't see it, and I also couldn't work my way up into that section from the bottoms of the long Downs (i.e. from the -ORY of ADULATORY or the -NE of "WE'RE DONE!" (another good colloquial phrase). I thought about TON at 28A: Load but couldn't commit to it for a while. But once I finally put together FAST-TRACKED, that "F" got me FACADE and that was enough to start that whole section toppling. Finished up in the WINE CAVE. That CAVE part did not go in nearly as fast as the WINE part. I was thinking of wine storage in one's home or a restaurant, so when "cellar" didn't fit, I was out of ideas. But WINE CAVEs (usu. not actual caves, but just vast underground areas) are a common place for winemakers to store / age wine, apparently).

A few more things:

1A: Company that acquired Skype in 2005 (EBAY) — not really paying attention to the year in the clue, I wrote in ZOOM
39D: They parallel radiuses (ULNAS) — one of two places where I was like "please be the English -s plural, please be the English -s plural," and it was (the other place was CONCERTOS). I like that "radiuses" sort of tells you "don't worry, the answer's gonna be in the normal, non-Latin plural."
20A: "The other one!" ("NO, NOT THAT!") — More conversational goodness. I had "NO NO-" and was happy the answer wasn't, "NO, NO, IDIOT!"
48A: It's shortest at the Equator (DAWN) — you know what's remarkable—truly remarkable—about this grid? There's not one bit of pop culture in it. From Any Era. Oops, sorry, the puzzle does reference the NAE NAE there at 13D: When repeated, a 2010s dance move. Still, the almost total lack of proper nouns is noticeable ... once you look for it. But if you're not looking, all you feel is a delightful and entertaining and accessible puzzle. The grid is smooth, the fill is fresh, and all are welcome. It's kinda nice. I don't think pop culture is bad, by any means; it's just interesting to see that you don't *need* it to make a puzzle feel current. (oh, and I said all this in relation to DAWN because that's a good example of an answer that could've been a name but wasn't)

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. wait, is this Rafa's NYTXW debut!? (checks Twitter) Wow, it is! He's constructed for other VENUEs, so he's not new to this ... and it shows. Big congratulations to him.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Brooke Husic and Yacob Yonas

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: STABILES (5D: Mobile relatives) —

STABILE (n.): an abstract sculpture or construction similar in appearance to a mobile but made to be stationary (merriam-webster.com)

[Jerusalem Stabile I, Alexander Calder]

Alexander Calder (/ˈkɔːldər/; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, this has been quite a three-day run—I've barely groaned, ughed, or thrown my computer across the room once! Today's themeless puzzle provides an interesting comparison (and counterpoint) to yesterday's. Both puzzles played easy for me, and both are crammed with vibrant longer entries. Both of them have the kind of whoosh-whoosh flow I most enjoy in my themeless puzzles, and both feel very current and fresh. By way of contrast, yesterday's had almost no popular culture or trivia in it—hardly a proper noun in sight—whereas today's puzzle has names coming at you left and right. We start with a big-ass proper noun right off the bat at 1A: World capital whose name means "new flower" (ADDIS ABABA), though geography is not the type of trivia that typically flummoxes people. It's the names from the entertainment field (movies, music, sports) that can really split a solving audience, sometimes in terms of puzzle enjoyment, but especially in terms of puzzle difficulty. ELENA Delle Donne is either an out-and-out gimme ... or else you end up having to piece every part of her name together from crosses. I mean, you could say something similar, at least in theory, about every single answer in every single crossword (you know it or you have to cross it), but names tend to illustrate that problem most dramatically. Today's names, for me, were all mainstream and fairly crossed, and when you fall on the "hey, I know these people!" side of the trivia gap, the puzzle really speeds up, which tends to feel great. Even if I come at this puzzle from a trivia-hater's perspective, I have to believe it was still pretty doable, and that the bulk of the puzzle provided other fabulous answers aplenty. I think yesterday's puzzle showed that a grid doesn't need proper nouns to feel current, and I think this puzzle shows that you can pepper your grid with proper nouns as long as they are either mainstream-famous or fairly crossed. Turns out I enjoy both kinds of puzzles.

So what's so enjoyable about today? For me, the puzzle kicked into gear with "IS THAT A YES?"—that's the first bit of real flair, and probably my favorite answer in the grid ("OH REALLY?" UH, YEAH, really). I liked ALL-TIME HIGH, and liked that it ironically crashed down to the bottom of the grid. I liked WAGERS / LOSERS occupying the same row—sometimes when you make puzzles you end up with happy accidents like that. Entertaining juxtapositions. Like "IT'S ALL OVER" hovering ominously above NEARLYWEDS! I'm an EMPTY-NESTER, my mom grew up in IDAHO, I enjoy a good MALBEC—in virtually every way, this puzzle was in my wheelhouse. The things I thought were going to throw me—the science/tech-sounding stuff—ended up being very tame and no problem at all (DATA POINT, PH TEST). I was lucky enough to learn ARO just last week, in a different crossword puzzle. I knew about ACE (asexual) but couldn't make it work, and eventually ended up inferring ARO (from "aromantic"), and thus learned a new term ... and then bam, here it is, coming down Main Street. Love when that happens. Surprised they put the word "romantic" in the actual clue today (since that's what the "RO" part stands for), but maybe that was necessary.

Here was my opening gambit, just in case that's interesting to people who struggle with Saturdays. 1A: World capital whose name means "new flower" didn't help much (me: "NOVA ... SCOTIA? Oof no, not even close, move on ..."). So, as usual, I attacked the short stuff first, and I was lucky enough to start with 19A: Traffic controllers, in brief?, and that "?" practically screamed "it's not automobile traffic! or air traffic!" Next traffic to occur to me: drug. And thus DEA were the "controllers." That "E" got me DOSE, and that was all I actually needed for ...

Probably could've gotten ACID from just the "D," but with the "A" in place, it was obvious, and at that point, off I went. Whoosh + whoosh. Quickly ran through all the Downs in that section, and had enough material in place to close it out fast. Was not sure about STABILES, or what exactly would follow DATA, but once I got PAIRED, both those Downs became clearer, and ALL-TIME HIGH had me to the other side of the grid in no time.

More highlights:

50A: Duo who have to give up their foosball table spot (LOSERS)— I loved this, and I loved being tricked by this, And I Don't Even Like Foosball. I liked that I went from mild frustration, thinking a specific fictional duo was being asked for ("what stupid Cartoon Network show is this from!?"), to the huge aha of "oh, this is just any duo playing the dumb game in a dumb arcade or whatever ... LOSERS walk ... sure, yes, that's actually good."
32D: Knight shift, e.g. (CHESS MOVE) — only just now realizing that "Knight shift" is a pun. Maybe it's the actual term for that CHESS MOVE, but it's also a pun:

28D: Fourth letter of the Arabic alphabet (THA)— I don't mind the puzzle using less-than-great fill to teach me something new, as long as said teaching doesn't bog me down, and this didn't. Thought maybe Arabic had an ETA in its alphabet too (like Greek), but no.
11D: One who can finally stop postponing that long R.V. trip, maybe (EMPTY-NESTER) — maybe? uh, maybe not. It's like this clue doesn't know me at all! We just wanna be alone in a quiet house with our pets and a good book, and so that is what we are doing as much as possible with our empty nest situation. Well, we're going to NZ later this year, but that will use up all of our wanderlust for the next five years, probably.

My friend and fellow xword blogger Rachel Fabi is coming down from Syracuse today, with baked goods (!), so my day is virtually guaranteed to be great. Hope yours goes well too.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Daniel Bodily and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"To Be Continued" — Theme answers are broken across what look like three successive Across entries—you have to read the clues to those three entries as one clue in order to understand the full answer. The central such answer is also supposed to be a clue as to how to understand the theme answers themselves, i.e. you need to read BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES (63-67A: Read / Here / To / Understand / 23 answers in today's puzzle that don't seem to match their clues):

Theme answers:

ANTI / QUE ST / ORES (1, 5, 10A: Shops / Peddling / Collectibles)
MIRA / CLEO / NICE (35-37A: Historic / Hockey / Upset)
GARB / AGED / UMPS (54-56A: Waste / Disposal / Locations)
KALE / IDOS / COPE (76-78A: Dazzling / Pattern / Generator)
DRAM / A LES / SONS (92-95A: Classes / For / Actors)
MART / HASTE / WART (115-17A: Home / Decorating / Guru)

Word of the Day: ENOCH (24A: Nephew of Abel) —

Enoch [...] is a biblical figure and patriarch prior to Noah's flood and the son of Jared and father of Methuselah. He was of the Antediluvian period in the Hebrew Bible. [...] Enoch is the subject of many Jewish and Christian traditions. He was considered the author of the Book of Enoch and also called the scribe of judgment. In the New Testament, Enoch is referenced in the Gospel of Luke, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in the Epistle of Jude, the last of which also quotes from it. In the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy, he is venerated as a saint. (wikipedia)

• • •

The gimmick is clever, but this was no fun to solve. Once you see what the hell is going on, the only interesting thing about the puzzle is laid bare, and all you're left with is an absolute ocean of short fill to slog your way through. Perhaps there's something vaguely entertaining about seeing exactly how the parsing is going to go on those theme answers—the fact that each answer part could also pass as a standalone answer is definitely a bonus feature—but that's the only mystery left to untangle. Is it interesting that MARTHA STEWART breaks down into MART + HASTE + WART? Sure, kinda. But it's the constructor showing off—I don't really discover anything myself. I just figure out that the answer is MARTHA STEWART and then watch as the letters go in. I feel like the puzzle really wants me to clap, but the fact that is that I was only engaged in the puzzle up until I discovered the gimmick, and after that the solve felt rote. The nature of the theme meant that there was So Much Short Fill, which made for an overall dull grid. There's not an Across answer longer than seven letters, and only two of those (yes, the theme answers are, taken in total, longer than that, but even if so, this puzzle is absolutely awash in 3-4-5-letter stuff). There are some nice longer Downs, but only one that made me sit up and take notice—the excellent "I'M NOT A ROBOT" (4D: Captcha confirmation). What I dislike most about this grid is that it completely misunderstands how solving happens, at least online solving ... at least as I practice it, i.e. I never ever look at successive Across clues. Solving online, I can't even really see them as a block. I mostly look at the clue for the answer where my cursor is, which appears above the grid as I'm solving. If you solve on paper, you can look at the bank of Acrosses and see pretty clearly that the successive Across clues make sense as a unit, but that's not anything I can see clearly as a digital solver (and lots and lots of solvers are digital solvers). I still got an "aha" out of this thing, but it was a one-time thing, a single jolt of puzzle adrenaline in an otherwise listless grid.

I also don't think reading BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES really gets at what's going on here. I'm not reading "between" anything. I have to read *across* a series of clues, and then *across* some black squares, but there are no lines between which I am reading. Maybe I'm supposed to understand that phrase only in the most metaphorical of ways, i.e. I have to read non-literally. OK. But that revealer still feels less than spot-on. The only real difficulty I had today involved the theme, particularly before I figured out what was happening. "How does [Shops] mean ANTI" I wondered, as did probably most solvers in the early solving stages. It took longer than it should have, probably, for the penny to drop (again, I blame the whole puzzle lay-out issue, the expectation that I could see successive Across clues or that I would ever look at them in order—no, never). Then there was one time after I understood the theme where I just got caught unawares by a themer that didn't begin flush left, specifically KALE / IDOS / COPE. I puzzled over [Dazzling] = KALE way, way longer than I should have. I think before that moment all the themers I had started on the far left of the grid. But that was just a hiccup. The journey from 'aha' to the end was mostly just a chore, an exercise in dutifully and methodically filling in boxes, without much in the way of excitement or surprise to brighten the journey.

A few more things:

30D: Sound of shear terror (MAA)— this is both bizarre and horrific. You're asking me to imagine the shorn animal screaming out in terror ... and you're asking me to imagine that that animal is a goat? Goats say MAA, right? Sheeps BAA, goats MAA. I feel like these are the rules of American animal sounds. Anyway, the "terror" part of this clue is disturbing and mildly sadistic. I get that you want the "shear terror" pun, but sheesh.
38A: ___ Toy Barn (where Emperor Zurg chases Buzz Lightyear) (AL'S)— wow you have vastly overestimated how much I remember about the "Toy Story" universe. The only AL'S I know is from "Happy Days" ... which I know was actually "Arnold's" but I really thought that it got renamed at some point after Al Delvecchio took over as owner ... sigh, 8-year-old me would be so disappointed at middle-aged me's poor memory of this obviously important show.

43D: Fourth man to walk on the moon (ALAN BEAN) — wow this answer would've killed me if I hadn't (eventually) figured out the BET part of BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES. I had ALAN -EAN and could easily have been convinced that he was ALAN DEAN. I feel like maybe (certainly) people knew all those '60s/'70s astronauts a lot better in and around the '60s and '70s. I think I know an Orson Bean? He's an actor, right? Alan ... I probably heard of him at one point, but it clearly didn't stick.
47D: A charismatic person has one (AURA) — ??? This feels like some weird New Age-y nonsense to me. Do you mean "allure?" Because I've known a bunch of charismatic people, but I would never (ever) have said they had an AURA.
65D: Makes beloved (ENDEARS)— I had ENAMORS, which is wrong for the clue, but close enough to the clue's universe that it felt right. I didn't have any other missteps in this puzzle that I can remember.
95A: Get off berth control? (UNDOCK) — this is only the second NYTXW appearance ever for UNDOCK, possibly because it's a singularly unappealing word. The pun in the clue is good, the answer ... sigh. [Berth control devices?] would be a good clue for MOORING (which has appeared seven times, but not once in the past 20 years) (MOORINGS has appeared only once ever, and that was in 1950 (!?))

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Joe Rodini

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: SANS / SANS (1A: French for "without" / 70A: After 1-Across, what the first names at 20-, 36-, 43- and 57-Across all are?) — so ... I guess the idea is that the first names of the theme answers can all follow "San" (to form a city name) ... so somehow those first names are "lacking" ("without,"SANS) the "San" part of their name ... only they're not ... those are just their names ... I don't understand the logic here at all:

Theme answers:

FRANCISCO GOYA (20A: Spanish painter of "The Third of May 1808")
DIEGO RIVERA (36A: Mexican muralist twice married to Frida Kahlo)
PEDRO PASCAL (43A: Chilean American actor of "The Mandalorian" and "Narcos")
JOSE FELICIANO (57A: Puerto rican singer with more than 50 albums, including "Feliz Navidad")

Word of the Day:"The Third of May 1808" (20A) —

The Third of May 1808 (also known as El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madridor Los fusilamientos de la montaña del Príncipe Pío, or Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo) is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. In the work, Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular War. Along with its companion piece of the same size, The Second of May 1808 (or The Charge of the Mamelukes), it was commissioned by the provisional government of Spain at Goya's suggestion.
The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a ground-breaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. Although it draws on many sources from both high and popular art, The Third of May 1808marks a clear break from convention. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era. According to the art historian Kenneth Clark, The Third of May 1808 is "the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention". (wikipedia)

• • •

This was grim, on many levels. I expect many people won't care—they'll be too distracted by the speed records they're setting—but the theme makes very little sense, and the fill is about as poor as I've seen in a Monday in a long, long time. I kept stopping and wondering if *this* was the best place to demonstrate how bad the fill was, and then I'd solve a few more answers and hit some new low point. It wasn't so much one bad answer as an absolute slew of repeaters. Just an avalanche. It was like the grid hadn't been polished much at all. The whole NW corner just shrieked "yesteryear," fill-wise. The theme is not demanding, so there is no reason that the solver should have to endure So Much SERFS AMORE SETTO NIPAT STENTS COED LEDS ODEON ELEC and on and on and on. AGASP PALAU LAIC and on and On and on and on and on. Just abusive. Outside the themers, there are zero interesting answers in the grid. In fact, there are only two (2!) answers of 8 letters and nothing (seriously, nothing) else over 6. And only two of those!! The rest is just short stuff and it's just ... rough. As for the theme, how are those names "SANS""SANS"? They are not "without" the "SANS." They do not "lack""SANS.""San" can precede each of those names in a famous (or, in the case of San Pedro, not-so-famous) city name. But there's no question of being "without." There is nothing in the way the theme is executed that justifies the French "SANS" bit. I get that you want the cutesy SANS / SANS joke, but ... you gotta at least make the first "SANS" make sense.

[San Pedro's fame peaked in 1986 with this song]

Almost laughable that PEDRO is here among the far, far, far more famous San cities. PEDRO is also by far, far, far the least famous of the SAN-less people—Goya and Rivera are legendary, and Feliciano has at least been famous for decades, whereas this is the first I'm hearing of this "Mandalorian" actor guy. So that answer is a double-outlier. I just don't get this at all. At all. Overall, it was very easy, despite my not knowing (or not remembering) that FRANCISCO was GOYA's first name, and not knowing PEDRO PASCAL's name at all, and not knowing (for the second time in a week) a "Parasite" actor's name (today, CHOI Woo-shik). It was maybe playing a little slow for me, but for the last third of the puzzle I switched to Downs-only and rattled off like twelve in a row, without hesitation, to close it out. If this wordplay worked for you, I'm very happy for you. The theme missed me completely, and the fill was almost unendurably dull / overly familiar.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare, back for the last Tuesday of October, which has seriously flown by. I was solving this puzzle while watching the ManningCast on ESPN2, which was rather fun (if a little distracting, especially when President Obama was a guest). In general, right now is the golden time for sports, with the Premier League, the MLB playoffs, the NBA and NHL starting back up, NFL games on all the time, and the NWSL championship and the MLS Cup playoffs wrapping up. I’ve basically just had the TV on in the background 24/7 trying to keep up with everything! Too bad my Steelers look awful, and my Liverpudlians aren’t killing it like they usually do.

Anywho… on to the puzzle!

Constructor:Ashleigh Silveira and Nick Shephard

Relative difficulty: Easy-medium

THEME: STEPS UP ONE’S GAME —The circled letters in the puzzle each ascend diagonally to name a board game

Theme answers:

SCRABBLE(ascending diagonally from the first letter of 42A)
RISK(ascending diagonally from the first letter of 62A)
CHESS(ascending diagonally from the fourth letter of 24A)
MONOPOLY(ascending diagonally from the second letter of 60A)

Word of the Day:INXS (64A: "Need You Tonight" band, 1987) —

INXS (a phonetic play on "in excess") were an Australian rock band, formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales. The band's founding members were bassist Garry Gary Beers, main composer and keyboardist Andrew Farriss, drummer Jon Farriss, guitarist Tim Farriss, lead singer and main lyricist Michael Hutchence, and guitarist and saxophonist Kirk Pengilly. For 20 years, INXS was fronted by Hutchence, whose magnetic stage presence made him the focal point of the band. Initially known for their new wave/pop style, the band later developed a harder pub rock style that included funk and dance elements… In September 1988, the band swept the MTV Video Music Awards with the video for "Need You Tonight/Mediate" winning in 5 categories. (Wiki)

• • •

This puzzle was kinda nice? The grid itself is visually appealing, with so few black squares in it. The construction of the grid is impressive, with how the creators worked two eight-letter board games into the theme. Using the board games in the puzzle worked well and tied tightly to the revealer. There were also other answers that sort of related to the gaming theme throughout the puzzle, with DISC(1A: It's black on one side and white on the other, in Othello), ANTE(14A: Casino buy-in), PURSE (15A: Holder of keys, phone and IDs) (though clued differently, a purse can be the prize for winning a game), PIECE (15D: Jigsaw item), and even MUD HEN (9D: Toledo minor-leaguer, named for a marsh bird) (a member of a team that plays a game; yes, I know I’m reaching here).

The only piece of the theme that really irked me was the revealer: STEPS UP ONE’S GAME (7D). Does anybody talk that way? One needs to step up one’s game? People say, “step up your game” or “step up my game” but not that “one should step up one’s game.” I know I’m being a bit of a stickler, but that was a big piece of the puzzle to not be the common usage. Granted, I didn’t use the theme or the revealer at all in my solve, but I was annoyed when I looked back.

Hello, Natick at 58D/64A with VMI (Keydets' sch.) and INXS ("Need You Tonight" band, 1987) crossing each other. I’ve never heard of VMI (and the name of the obscure mascot in the clue surely didn’t help). I didn’t know the name INXS, either (though I’ve definitely heard “Need You Tonight” before), so getting the “I” there was tough and was the last letter I put into the puzzle. I thought it might be a “U” for “university” or maybe a “C” for “college” or maybe… or maybe…. An “I” for “institute” was pretty much the last thing on my radar. I put “char” instead of SEAR for 50D: Scorch on a grill, which caused me some trouble in the southwest corner, too.

The puzzle seemed to skew a tad older, which made some parts of the puzzle challenging for me. See: ELSIE (56A), the clue for POPO at 38D: The fuzz, INXS (64A), Lisa LOEB (16A), and SEE SPOT RUN (3D). My dad told me that the beginner books in first grade featured Dick, Jane, and Spot, but an interesting tidbit is that, when I was googling to figure out what SEE SPOT RUN was a reference to, I came across someone who said the line SEE SPOT RUN actually never appears in the books but is constantly referenced. It seems like one of those Berenstein vs. Berenstain bear paradoxes (see: the Mandela effect). Also, for whatever reason, I read the answer as “sees pot run,” which makes no sense and is quite funny to me looking back.

I really disliked the double use of “tab” at 22A: Soda can opener with POP TAB and 31A: Key above Caps Lock as TAB. I know working around “Scrabble” must’ve been tough, but it’s pretty ugly to repeat like that. Those are both alongside TBAR (23D) and TERRA (34A), which makes that section have way too many T’s, B’s, A’s, and R’s. Then, in the opposite section around “monopoly,” you’ve got WOOING (49A), OOPSIE (45A), AFOOT (37D), and FOO (41A), which is a whole lot of double “oo”s.

Overall, I enjoyed most of the clues used in the puzzle. My favorite clue/answer in a long time was 55A: Road gunk … or, when doubled, tooth gunk as TAR. I legitimately laughed out loud at that one. 4D: Inner ear? as COB is also pretty cute. Then, in other places, you’ve got words clued in kinda different ways, such as for TERRA (34A: Word before firma or incognita), EONS (54D: Periods longer than eras), and SAUCE (24A: Chimichurri or hollandaise). I always appreciate novelty.

Misc.:

The crossword is apparently the debut for both constructors, so congrats to them!
I was just part of a DEPOSITION (28D: Testimony under oath) last week and will be in probably many more in my legal future. I just hope that I don’t become MOOT (61A: Not worth having, as an argument).
My uncle was once the national Scrabble champion. No one will play Monopoly with my dad again because he gets maaad at the game (and his angry eyebrows come out). I can’t play chess with my much younger cousin because she’s way too good. The only real memory I have of Risk is when I was given the game as a birthday present as a kid, and it was the “Lord of the Rings” version; we never actually played the game, but I took the ring that was part of the game and wore that around for a while. I should’ve kept that ring in my pocket for when the new “Rings of Power” premiered.
44D: Belief system as CREED makes me think of the trailer that recently dropped for “Creed III,” which will be Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut and will also star Jonathan Majors. He’s in the new trailer that just dropped for Ant-Man 3, too, and appears poised to be the big bad in Marvel for the foreseeable future. He seems wonderful, and I’m very much here for him taking over Hollywood.

And that’s it from me! Hope everyone has a great November.

Signed, Clare Carroll, possessor of the one ring to rule them all

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Simeon Seigel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (a bit poky ... might be the oversizedness ...)

THEME: ALL FOURS (38A: What you're on when you're crawling ... or a hint to parsing 18-, 27, 46- and 61-Across)— 16-letter answers are made up of four component words, each four letters long (4x4 = 16):

Theme answers:

MARK / ET RE / SEAR / CHER (18A: Patsy + French "to be" + Singe + Pop queen = Sales wonk)
MAST / ER ST / RATE / GIST (27A: Boat pole + Old "once" + Pace + Essence = Chief planner)
BRAN / FORD / MARS / ALIS (46A: Fiber source + Auto make + Red planet + Boxing family = Noted jazz saxophonist)
READ / ILY A / VAIL / ABLE (61A: Interpret + Hockey's Kovalchuk + Colorado ski town + Fit = On hand)

Word of the Day: MOS EISLEY (68A: "Wretched hive of scum and villainy" per Obi-Wan Kenobi) —

Mos Eisley is a spaceport town in the fictional Star Wars universe. Located on the planet Tatooine, it first appeared in the 1977 film Star Wars, described by the character Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Alec Guinness) as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy".
A notable scene set in a seedy Mos Eisley cantina crowded with numerous alien races made a particular impact on audiences. Location filming for the spaceport took place from 1975–76 in Tunisia, with interiors filmed at Elstree Studios near London. (wikipedia)

• • •

I really wish I had anything positive to say about this puzzle. About solving this puzzle, I mean. I think the theme is ... interesting. Like, those words do in fact do that (break into four fours). But outside of BRANFORD MARSALIS, those words are not at all interesting in their own right, and less interesting, by far, are the component parts. I mean, what was the idea: "We know you love short fill (!?), so we're going to break Even Our Longer Answers into ... short fill. Like ERST! You guys like ERST, right!" I felt all my hopes for an entertaining solve completely bleed out of me the second I took a look at that first theme clue. I don't think I even tried to make sense of it. My attitude was more like "oh well, just run some crosses through it, I guess." And that's what I did. I quickly noticed [French "to be"] (ETRE) inside the first themer and just like that knew what the basic premise was. As I was filling in the absolute mountain of ordinary short fill in this puzzle, I was thinking, "man, this revealer better offer a hell of a payoff." Then, unexpectedly early, I hit the revealer: "ALL FOURS." OK, so this made the theme a little tighter than I'd imagined (up to then, I thought it was just a string of random words—wasn't really paying attention to their length). But again, this is the thing that you look at from the outside, or when you're done, and say "huh, curious." But when you're on the inside ... woof. (side note: kinda seems like cheating to count ABLE as one of the "fours" ([Fit]) when that's basically what the suffix -ABLE in READILY AVAILABLE means ... at least the other component parts are well hidden and completely etymologically separate from the longer theme answers they're found inside; whereas ABLE is just ... -ABLE).

There's only one interesting themer, and the only long answers in the puzzle at all are themers, and even those you've demanded we see as fragments, i.e. more ordinary short fill. Wait, I take it back, there are longish answers in the NE and SW corners. "THAT SUCKS" is probably supposed to be a highlight, and if that's how you felt, great. I have nothing against it, and in this grid it looks positively radiant, but it didn't AMUSE me the way I think it was probably supposed to. The least amusing longer answer, though, was MOS EISLEY, which I parsed as MOSE EISLEY, mostly because I thought it was a person. I saw "Star Wars" in the theater seven times as a kid. I remember the cantina scene very, very well. MOS EISLEY? That name left no trace. I guess it's part of the (gag) extended "Star Wars" universe, "Mandalorian" and what not. Sigh. This feels like way, way too deep a cut for a Wednesday. But again, as with THAT SUCKS, at least it's trying. The rest of the puzzle ... if it was trying, it wasn't trying to be fun to solve.

MCJOB AROAR SOAMI TODOS ... do you not look at those banks on either end and think "I gotta do better"? I know from experience that trying to put 5s in those positions (connecting one grid-spanning themer to another grid-spanning themer) is very, very difficult. Your initial and terminal letters for those 5s are all fixed in place. So maybe just getting out alive is the best you can do. But it's rough through there. And as I say, it's not like there's a ton of great stuff waiting for your elsewhere. I thought this played a little tough in places. Three kealoas* slowed me right down (SOAMI (not SODOI) and NOODLE (not NOGGIN) and RHONE (not RHINE)—I realize that I should probably know my RHONE from my RHINE but ... oh well). I have no idea who this "so-called"LORI is. Feels like a "Shark Tank" thing which means I will remain forever ignorant. Memo to all cluers of LEO(S): the Obama angle has been done To Death. He's the only president whose sign I can tell you off the top of my head. I'm actually stunned to see all these other presidents in the clue, because Obama is the only pres. I've seen clued this way (OK, not the only—looks like you've got about three Clintons in the database ... against eight or so Obamas). Took me every cross to get / understand MAR (45D: Tag, key or chip, say). Great clue ... for a Friday or Saturday. :) I leave you today with this (great) song about James MCAVOY, whom I know only from this song. Enjoy!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*kealoa = short, common answer that you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Barbara Lin

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: one letter off ... — six Across answers must be read twice, i.e. they are actually two-part answers, with the second part being just one letter off from the first part in each case; where the letter changes, you must put both letters in the square they share in order to make sense of the Down answer, so, for instance, BREAK / BREAD goes in the grid as BREA(KD) so that SOC(KD)RAWER can work in the Down:

Theme answers:

BREAK BREAD (20A: Eat, quaintly)
FACE FACTS (28A: Confronts reality)
"DON'T DO IT" (32A: "That's a bad idea!")
TALL TALE (46A: Wildly outlandish story)
POWER MOWER (53A: Lawn equipment with an engine)
GO TOE-TO-TOE (58A: Be in direct competition)

Word of the Day: Cynthia ERIVO (37A: Cynthia who played Harriet Tubman in 2019's "Harriet") —

Cynthia Erivo (/əˈriːvoʊ/; born 8 January 1987) is an English actress, singer, and songwriter. She is the recipient of many prestigious accolades, including a Daytime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Erivo began acting in a 2011 stage production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo ventured into films in 2018, playing roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up" on its soundtrack, which garnered her a nomination in the Best Original Song category. She played The Blue Fairy in Disney's live-action remake of Pinocchio (2022).
On television, Erivo had her first role in the British series Chewing Gum(2015). She went on to star in the crime drama miniseries The Outsider(2020), and received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her portrayal of American singer Aretha Franklin in National Geographic's anthology series Genius: Aretha (2021). (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this started out weird...

But then I figured it out it must be "It's a DEAL" at 4D: "It's a ___!" and so changed SUCK to VOID ... and *then* (eventually) changed DEAL to DATE. Sigh. Stumble stumble. Once I got back on my feet after tripping over my laces there at the starting line, I got up a pretty good head of steam and then ran right into the wall that I was supposed to run into, i.e. the theme. Wanted BREAK BREAD but couldn't figure out where the BREAD part had gone or was supposed to go. Off at a diagonal? Into a black square? Shrug. Worse, DON'T looked Perfectly Good as the answer to 32A: "That's a bad idea!" and since *my* theme clues were not (helpfully!) italicized, but instead appeared (unhelpfully, confusingly) inside quotation marks, I had nothing (except *double* quotation marks, which I didn't notice) to indicate I was dealing with theme material. Finally, SOCK DRAWER came to the rescue. "Well, this has to be SOCK DRAWER ... but ... wait, why does "KD" go in one square here, but with INORGANIC there's just that weird missing letter ... what do I do with INORGANC ... I don't g- ... oh":

"DON'T DO IT!" Not "DON'T!" That changed everything. After that, the predictably hard part (grokking the theme) was over. There were some regular, less predictably hard parts to come (trying to work out every single letter in ERIVO from crosses, trying to learn the term CAT CONDO mid-solve, etc.), but overall it played just a shade tougher than your usual Thursday.

The theme is very clever and interestingly executed, and I thought GO TOE-TO-TOE was an incredibly inventive example of the theme concept. The grid's got a decent amount of non-thematic spice, and the Down answers running through the themers were kinda fun to work out (struggled most with LOSING TIME (largely because it ran through that ERIVO section)). The very end of my solve was a brutal dead stop in the SE corner, where I wanted only CAT COUCH at 40D: Item of feline furniture, and I couldn't figure out what the [Tiny pedestals] were (that should've been easy) and I couldn't get [D.C. address?] to save my life. Great, but brutal clue. A "?" clue sitting *directly underneath* another "?" clue (68A: Make amends?), in a very small section. Seems kinda cruel. I wanted split / loose ENDS, but CAT COUCH was making it impossible. Finally I got EDIT and then TEES and was finally forced to confront the fact that something called a CAT CONDO apparently exists. Is that what you call the multi-tiered climbing posts? Wow. This is the second time this month that some piece of pet furniture has been an absolute wrench in the gears. Not a fun way to end. Overall ... well, "I LOVED IT" is probably too strong, but I definitely liked it a whole lot.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: MUDRA (16A: Symbolic hand gesture in Hinduism) —

A mudra [...]; Sanskrit: मुद्रा, IAST: mudrā, "seal", "mark", or "gesture"; Tibetan: ཕྱག་རྒྱ་, THL: chakgya,) is a symbolic or ritual gesture or pose in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. While some mudras involve the entire body, most are performed with the hands and fingers.
As well as being spiritual gestures employed in the iconography and spiritual practice of Indian religions, mudras have meaning in many forms of Indian dance, and yoga. The range of mudras used in each field (and religion) differs, but with some overlap. In addition, many of the Buddhist mudras are used outside South Asia, and have developed different local forms elsewhere. (wikipedia)

• • •

Yes, FUN. This was very nearly a textbook Friday, if by "textbook" we mean "my ideal." It's possible that it was a little too easy—the only thing that gave me any real pause was trivia, mainly that ALDO guy. Could've endured (and might've appreciated) a bit more resistance, but I'll just count myself lucky that I got to experience the zoom and the zoom and the cascade of long bright answers and the all-over section-to-section flow that makes Fridays ... well, FUN. And this puzzle started with AT SEA, which is, let's say, not auspicious. "Crosswordese at 1-Across! OH GOD!" But then whoosh went "I CAN'T LOOK" and whoosh went AMATEUR NIGHT and off I went. Actually, if I'm being honest, I didn't nail both those answers at first blush. I had "I CAN'T..." and all I could think of was "... WATCH? I CAN'T WATCH! That's what I'd say! ... what's another word for 'watch?" Sigh. Then I got AMATEUR easy but thought ... the second part would have some more specific meaning, some poetry meaning, like SLAM or something. So maybe the puzzle wasn't *too* easy after all. There was some struggle. Just not much, and certainly not a lot after I got my teeth into that creamy middle. Mmm, CINNAMON TOAST (though, again, I had some ??? about what the second part of the answer would be: ROLLS? BUNS? Gah). BURNER ACCOUNT was the one answer that really did fly across the grid (29A: Means of making untraceable social media posts). Brain wanted BURNER PHONE for a split second, but it wouldn't fit so bam, BURNER ACCOUNT. Best answer of the day, imho, although it might be more accurate to say it was the first half of the best one-two combo: I went BURNER ACCOUNT / DISCO ANTHEMS. Hard not to love. I hate the term LIFE HACKS (the way I hate the term "adulting"), but it's not bad as crossword fill (44A: Using frozen grapes as ice cubes and binder clips as cable organizers, e.g.). So I basically mowed a diagonal through the grid, NW to SE. I then pieced together the SW and, after a small wrestling match with ALDO, put the NE to bed as well. Good times. Fast times, but good times.

Remarkable moments along the way ... Well, I actually remembered LINNAEUS's name, which was a high point for me, a (historically) scientifically-challenged individual. I'm not so much surprised that Courtney Cox didn't win an EMMY as I am surprised that all the others did. I always thought of "Friends" as a show that did huge numbers, audience-wise, but didn't get much respect as far as awards were concerned. 2022 me thinks Joey was the best Friend; 1995 me is like "that guy!? No way." That show ran a long time and, yeah, basically Joey won. Improbable, but true. Speaking of friends (things you might shout at them), I liked the clue on "GUYS!" a lot. Very creative but also accurate. I didn't even see TOFF until just now (must've got it entirely from crosses) (48A: Aristocratic type, in British slang). Never saw DUCT TAPE's clue because I had the middle letters and I could just tell what it was (dangerous no-look move, but it worked out today). As for 51A: Subject of a houseguest's query, this will tell you what kind of "houseguest" I am:

Other things:

33A: Something a veteran won't make (ROOKIE MISTAKE) — well this is absolutely wrong. Veteran's definitely do make ROOKIE MISTAKEs. In fact, they audibly beat themselves up about having made ROOKIE MISTAKE. The whole point is "how did I do something so fundamentally stupid, something only a person with no experience would do." Sports blooper reels are full of veterans making ROOKIE MISTAKEs. [Something veterans hate to make], [Something veterans rarely make], either of those might've been better.

37A: Stocks (BROTHS)— renewing my confusion as to the difference between these two words...
53A: Gender-affirming treatment, in brief (HRT) — hormone-replacement therapy. I don't know that I love this abbr. more than I like any other abbr., but I do like gender-affirming-affirming clues, so I'll take this. The very mention of the phrase "gender-affirming" means I'm gonna hear from a BIGOT or two today, by email or in the comments section. Worth it.
55A: Broods (STEWS) — I had SULKS. In the same section, I also wrote in and tore out and then wrote in again ELENA. I don't really ... Disney. I pick stuff up as it floats around the culture. Which is why I "knew"ELENA but then doubted that I "knew"ELENA only to discover that I did, in fact, "know"ELENA.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Daniel Okulitch

Relative difficulty: Medium (started Hard, got Easy)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Queen ADELAIDE (5D: English queen who lent her name to a city of 1.3+ million in the British Commonwealth) —

Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (Adelaide Amelia Louise Theresa Caroline; 13 August 1792 – 2 December 1849) was Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover from 26 June 1830 to 20 June 1837 as the wife of King William IV. Adelaide was the daughter of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Luise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her. (wikipedia)

• • •

What is that, a phone? A grumpy face? A grumpy phone? It's an odd, blobby-looking grid, is what it is. It's unusual, I'll give it that. Daunting at first glance, but then you realize that actually there are plenty of short answers all over the place, which means lots of potential footholds, and not so much scary white space as there initially seems to be. I began by confidently attacking the short stuff in the NW corner and got precisely nowhere. I teach a class on 20c American Comics, including comics by important Black creators, and *I* couldn't come up with ORRIN, so if you knew that one, hoo boy, I am impressed (2D: ___ C. Evans, journalist who co-founded All-Negro Comics (1947)) (All-Negro Comics ran for exactly one issue). I wanted Jackie ORMES, and was very proud of knowing her name ... until I realized she was not the answer. Better ORRIN C. Evans than ORRIN Hatch, for sure, but YIPES, that's legitimately obscure. Thought Red and White might precede SEA, thought the bygone royal was a TSAR or a SHAH, wrote in FUSS for 3D: What's raised in a ruckus (CAIN) and tried to cross that with ACT AS at 16A: Be part of, as a show. I got INS in that section and that's all I got. Things then went from difficult to ugly as I crossed to the other side of the grid, where the going was easier but not exactly pretty. First answer: TASE (15D: Stun, in a way). Oof. Never happy to see this (brand-name) instrument of police brutality or the verb that derives from it. It was especially ... police-y today, appearing as it does right next to MIRANDA RIGHTS. I went TASE OOPS GEE SHMOO ... I told you, not pretty. And the unprettiest part came next: STENOG (11D: Court figure, informally) ... STENOG... STENOG. I thought the days of STENOG, with a "G," where behind us. I mean, the days of STENOG are, literally, behind us, but the "G," woof, been a long time (actually it appeared once in 2020, but before that it had been eleven years). Anyway, here was me:

And so I got started, but the NE continued to be impenetrable because getting the back ends of the long Acrosses didn't help me get the fronts. I forgot the name of the environmental MOVEMENT. I thought the [Silence notifications?] might be LIGHTS. And [Bourgeoisie and proletariat] sounded so specifically Marxist that I figured something much more particular than SOCIAL preceded CLASS at 1A. Then I tried to dip into the middle of the grid with an entirely made-up bread product called CROSETES! (7D: "Little toasts," in Italian). Very wrong, and yet ... somehow I managed to get into the middle of the grid anyway, and finally ended up with some fill I could enjoy: a SEX SCENE (30D: When you might see a star's moon?):

Things got way easier from here on out, as, unlike up top, I was able to get those middle answers from their back ends. I was especially able to see the horrid wrongness that was CROSETES and change it to a word I actually know reasonably well, it turns out: CROSTINI. After that, whooshed back west across the middle, then whooshed down around the SW corner into the south (where all the long answers went in very, very easily). But before that I must've taken a detour back into the pesky NW via ADELAIDE, a queen I've never heard of but a city I know of, and a song I know very well.

SAKS SOX SINTAX, all the things I failed to see at first fell into place. Then it was down to the Monday-easy bottom to finish things off. Ended with SINGLET, which I didn't understand at first (45A: Attire one might grapple with). I've never worn a SINGLET. Are they so hard to put on that you have to "grapple" with them, I wondered. But sometime during this write-up, it struck me that wrestlers wear SINGLETs, and that's probably what the "grapple" business is all about. In the end, this felt like three puzzles, difficulty-wise: the NW (hard), the middle and NE (easyish), and the bottom (extremely easy). Outside of the NW (and CROSETES!), I had no errors to speak of, except TAMPA before TEMPE (42D: Home of one of the country's largest state universities), and (much less explicably) RINGLET before SINGLET. A pretty average Saturday overall, but bonus points for the creepy, rotten pumpkin-like, ghost-like, sad-telephone-esque grid.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Addison Snell

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: coded message — I guess this is supposed to have something to do with ALAN TURING (25A: English computer scientist who pioneered the breaking of ciphers generated by the 98-Across) and the movie "IMITATION GAME" (40A: 2014 movie portraying the work of 25-Across, with "The") in that the grid contains a CRYPTOGRAM (114A: Sort of encoded message found in this puzzle's grid [SEE NOTE]), but if this is what an ENIGMA MACHINE is (98A: W.W. II-era encoding device), I could not be less impressed—basically all you do is a translate the circled squares via a simple letter-substitution code, which is just handed to you in a "note" ... like ... what? This is child's placemat stuff.

A four-year-old probably couldn't solve this crossword puzzle, but a four-year-old could damn sure "crack" this "code" if you actually just hand said four-year-old the code. Did you ever see "A Christmas Story"? Well I am basically Ralphie after realizing that all that his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring does is tell him "BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE," only in this case the hidden message is "CODES ARE PUZZLES, A GAME JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GAME" (which is nonsense, why would you make your big reveal complete nonsense!?)

The code:

JITSU / EASED / LOOKS / EVERS / CLUNK / BY SEX / PINGS / AVERS

Decoded message:

"CODES / AREAP / UZZLE / AGAME / JUSTL / IKEAN / YOTHE / RGAME"

Word of the Day: GOITER (7A: Pain in the neck?) —

A goitre, or goiter, is a swelling in the neck resulting from an enlarged thyroid gland. A goitre can be associated with a thyroid that is not functioning properly.
Worldwide, over 90% of goitre cases are caused by iodine deficiency. The term is from the Latin gutturia, meaning throat. Most goitres are not cancerous (benign), though they may be potentially harmful. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was grim. Grim. I honestly can't get my head around the idea that anyone thought this would be "fun" to solve. ("OVALTINE!? A crummy commercial!? Son of a b—!") Basically I solved the entire puzzle, easily, with no need to decode anything. If I didn't have to write this here blog, I guarantee you I would not even have bothered to do the letter-by-letter "decoding" to get to the "hidden" message, which is one of the great non-messages in the history of messages. What a banal and also inaccurate observation. "Like any other game!?" Games are different from one another. So many games, all of them with different rules and conventions and everything. "Just like any other game," bah. What an absurd generalization. And what does it reveal to us? What about it is unexpected or insightful or interesting or Anything? I guess I am supposed to be impressed that the "code" was rendered in the form of eight symmetrically arranged 5-letter words. Sure, congrats, but from the solver's perspective, there is zero, nada, nothing intriguing about writing in BYSEX or AVERS. It's just ... fill. Ordinary. Unremarkable. The longer "theme" answers are ... well, there are only four of them, and they are cohesive but mostly they just take up space—the bit we're supposed to ooh and aah at is all the code stuff, and it's hard to imagine a more anti-climactic outcome than solving this particular code. Not even worth doing. I'm told that the app does the code-breaking for you? Like ... maybe once you finish something software-y happens and you're supposed to ooh and aah at that? I'm just baffled at the idea that solving this would be anyone's idea of a good time. Looking at it, admiring its architecture, maybe. But solving it? Grr.

What's worse than the theme is the fill, which stopped me in my tracks multiple times, so unpleasant was it on the whole. INATEXT!? LOL what? That is a terrible prepositional phrase, and esp. bad since you've already got INOIL in the grid, practically right next door. I went INATEXT, INOIL, INRI ... and I had to take a deep breath, because it's like the puzzle was deliberately trying my patience. It gave me nothing in the way of sparkle or pizzazz. RESEATS RENEGE REEXAMINE ... where is the joy? Probably the most fun I had during this solve was figuring out how to spell DUMMKOPF (Two "M"s!? Wow, OK!). I also kinda like ERNIE PYLE, but when your spiciest answer is ERNIE PYLE, it's possible you have a spice problem. Maybe I'll throw ANNA WINTOUR in there too. But OF YORE!? LOL, man, did I BLINK AT that, for sure. It's hard to do a Sunday puzzle well—it's hard to do any themed puzzle well, but to have to do it over that much terrain (21x21) is a tall order. I sympathize. But I have rarely felt like a Sunday puzzle whiffed so bad, on both theme and fill. It's not even that the puzzle was *bad*, exactly. It's like it was very committed to an idea of *good* that I could not fathom. Everything was riding on that code, and ... well, from where I was sitting, that gamble just did not work out.

Notes:

87D: Bird of the Baltic (SMEW) — on the one hand, I am always happy to see more bird names in the grid. On the other, more important hand, SMEW is crosswordese OF YORE and so I was not entirely happy to see it return (I needed every cross—I'd actually forgotten it existed—used to get it confused with its crosswordese cousin SMEE all the time).
89A: What a "Wheel of Fortune" contestant might buy when looking for _NSP_RAT_ON (AN "I") — the ANI, like the SMEW, is a crosswordese bird OF YORE. It was so named because its call bears an uncanny resemblance to the voice of singer-songwriter ANI DiFranco. The only thing I want to say about today's ANI clue is, what kind of ... person ... stares at _NSP_RAT_ON and thinks "Uh ... I dunno ... I better buy a vowel"?
74D: Alvin ___, first African American to be elected Manhattan's district attorney (BRAGG) — we need to know *district attorney* names now!? That is a tall, tall order. U.S. Attorneys General, sure, those are national. But municipal DAs!? Pfffff, OK ...
61A: Thin porridges (GRUELS)— when's the last time, or any time, you saw this word in the plural? Aside from right now?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Emily Carroll

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: GHOST WRITER (59A: Hired pen ... or, punnily, the author of 20-, 36- and 43-Across?) — I don't think I get it, but I'll try: the answers are ordinary phrases reimagined as if they were Spoooky pieces of writing:

Theme answers:

SCARE QUOTES (20A: Punctuation marks indicating irony)
DOOMSCROLLS (36A: Binges on bad news, in modern slang)
DEAD LETTERS (43A: Mail that cannot be delivered or returned)

Word of the Day: ATHOS (18A: Friend of Porthos and Aramis in "The Three Musketeers") —

Athos, Count de la Fère, is a fictional character in the novels The Three Musketeers (1844), Twenty Years After (1845) and The Vicomte de Bragelonne (1847–1850) by Alexandre Dumas, père. He is a highly fictionalised version of the historical musketeer Armand d'Athos (1615–1644). // In The Three Musketeers, Athos and the other two musketeers, Porthos and Aramis, are friends of the novel's protagonist, d'Artagnan. Athos has a mysterious past connecting him with the villain of the novel, Milady de Winter. The oldest of the group by some years, Athos is described as noble and handsome but also taciturn and melancholy, drowning his secret sorrows in drink. He is very protective of d'Artagnan, the youngest, whom he eventually treats as his brother. By the end of the novel, it is revealed that he is the Count de la Fère. He was once married to Milady de Winter and attempted to kill her after discovering that she was a criminal on the run, an event which left him bitter and disillusioned. However, during the course of this novel, he is able to get his revenge on Milady. (wikipedia)

• • •

It's Halloween, and it's Monday, so I would love to just keep it lighthearted, say "cute, nice," and move along. And that's mostly what I'm gonna do. But I have to say (as I say above), I don't really get the theme. Or I don't understand how "punnily" is being used. Is the "pun" that "ghost" here is being taken ... what, literally? OK but since when does a ghost bring "doom." SCARE and DEAD I get, but DOOM seems slightly off. Also, LETTERS has not been sufficiently reimagined, the way QUOTES and SCROLLS have. SCARE QUOTES are punctuation, but if you follow the revealer's logic, then they are something a ghost writes ("quotations," I guess). DOOMSCROLLS is a verb, but following the revealer's logic, "scrolls" becomes (again) something a ghost writes. But DEAD LETTERS are ... letters. Not alphabet letters, but actual postal letters ... so the revealer definitely reimagines "dead" but it does Not reimagine "letters." The "punny" meaning is still the same as the clued meaning. The connection between "ghosts" and the themers feels very tenuous, even if you stretch the meaning of "punnily" a whole lot. And DEAD LETTERS just didn't take "punnily" far enough. But again, it's Halloween, it's Monday, just take your very fast time, eat some candy, and be happy, I guess.

The fill is also a problem. Below average, *especially* for a puzzle with such a light, undemanding theme. I hadn't even finished up the NW corner and I was already getting bad vibes. MEME MENSA NEMO MAMAS ASSAY ... it all felt very stale, very warmed over. ATHOS ADHOC SHAQ, same. And then ... HODOR??? A "Game Of Thrones" ... servant?? Look, maybe if your fill were sparkling, or at least butter-smooth, you could get away with HODOR—a little flourish to show off your "GOT" fandom. A little wink. Whatever. If you cross it fairly (as is the case today) who cares? And yet ... its comparative obscurity (on a Monday, in *this* tired grid) is somehow a little galling. I feel like you gotta earn HODOR, on a Monday, and this grid doesn't. ARIA SPA ALI PIETA IMAM IMAX EXES LASE EROS ATARI SNOOT ONTOE ESTD ELAN ERSE (!) ICARE (crossing IAGREE at the "I"!?). No, the grid just doesn't feel sufficiently polished for a Monday NYTXW with a low-density theme. The theme should be tighter and the fill should be cleaner. That's all. [scans the grid again] Yeah, that really is all.

Go see TÁR, it's really good. Cate Blanchett is a STÁR! OK, bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (***for a Tuesday***)

THEME: LINKING VERB (59A: Grammatical connector like "is" or "seem" ... or a connector found literally in 16-, 24-, 35- and 49-Across) — the letter string "VERB" can be found inside the theme answers, "linking" the first word in the answer to the second word in the answer:

Theme answers:

NEVER BETTER (16A: Upbeat response to "How are you?")
RIVER BASIN (24A: Central Brazil, for the Amazon)
COVER BAND (35A: Musical group that doesn't play original songs)
OVER BUDGET (49A: Costlier than projected)

Word of the Day: ECOLAB (28D: Big name in water purification) —

Ecolab Inc. is an American corporation that is headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It develops and offers services, technology and systems that specialize in treatment, purification, cleaning and hygiene of water in wide variety of applications. It helps organizations, both in private as well as public market treat their water, not only for drinking directly, but also for use in food, healthcare, hospitality related safety and industry. Founded as Economics Laboratory in 1923 by Merritt J. Osborn, it was eventually renamed "Ecolab" in 1986. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, this is a pretty good theme. Now take literally every single answer that is not a theme answer out of this puzzle and start over. Please. I'm begging you. The fill on this one was so rough, so old-fashioned and stale, so head-shakingly unsmooth, that I don't know why .... I don't know how ... I don't ... know. The red lights and alarms went off very, very early when I realized (with a start) that I was seeing MERL on a Monday. Like the canary in the coal mine, the MERL is a harbinger of doom, specifically the kind of doom that befalls you when you wander innocently into a Monday puzzle and get buried under a mountain of crosswordese and old world fill. I may have literally said "uh oh" when I hit MERL. Then ADELE ... crossed the "barbershop quartet"ADELINE ... which seems like a lot of ADEL-action, especially for crossing answers, but OK, you make it out of the NW alive, fine. Maybe things improve. But they do not. ACTIVTRE OER ... and all the time, you're getting what feels like a heightened number of cutesy "?" thrown at you (17D: Frequent flier? 7D: Coffee in the milky way? 27A: Slept soundly?). You really should earn that cutesiness. In a smooth grid, fine. In a mirthless, olden grid, the "?" are less welcome. As for the fill ... it gets worse. O'ER / ORE pair is unwelcome but looks harmless and quaint next to the *crossing* EERIE / ERIE pair. How in ... why ... why does no one balk at that, at any stage of the puzzle-making? Baffling. "IT" is here, twice. The proper noun "I" is here, twice. Even the acceptable stuff in the grid is pretty standard and stale (TEL OGLED (ugh) IRE DRNO EEO SAN ODE, those last three all stacked together). I don't know why greater polish is not required of the early-week themed grids.

Then there are the answers from outer space. First, VUDU, lol, I think maybe I kinda heard of that? Maybe? (36D: On-demand digital video brand). I had HULU in there, as people use HULU, and HULU seems the more Tuesday answer. But fine, sure, VUDU, whatever that is. Moving on, ECOLAB (28D: Big name in water purification) "Big name"? My dumb ass has been solving crosswords for 30 years and generally paying attention to the world for a good chunk of that time, and yet here it is, a Tuesday, and I get VUDU (faint bell) next to ECOLAB (literally no bell at all), back to back, side by side. And it's not like ECOLAB looks great. It doesn't look like cool, imaginative fill. It looks like product placement for a brand with an unloveable name. It looks like Yet Another ECO word. So it's both unfamiliar (to me) and unexciting. Last and possibly least in the "what?" department was MOVIE AD (39D: Trailer in a theater), an answer that is stunning in its failure to recognize that it is a clue, not an answer. That is, [Movie ad] is perfect for TRAILER. The reverse, much much less so. They're called TRAILERS. I saw about six of them before "TÁR" on Sunday. I might have accepted TEASER or even TEASER AD. Maybe. But MOVIE AD feels so completely tin-eared that I ... am out of words to describe how out of tune with the editorial process I am today. You've got a good theme. Seriously, simple concept, right on the money. Themers are all solid. All you've gotta do is fill a 76-word grid cleanly (and you could've made it 78 if 76 was too hard—no one would've blinked). But instead we get this. I have adored early-week puzzles in recent weeks, so if you wanna believe that I'm just "being a grump" or whatever, have at it. Or you could go back and look at *those* grids and acknowledge the overall quality difference. There's weak stuff in every grid; I only spend time enumerating it at length when the puzzle's not really giving me much else to do. This (clever) theme deserved (much) better fill.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I did (very much) like seeing ["Rumor has it..."] in a puzzle that also contains ADELE. Don't know if that was an intentional little wink, or an accident, but either way: nice:

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ethan Zou and Tomas Spiers

Relative difficulty: ...easy?? (leisurely 9:17 while watching Iron Chef: America)

THEME: BOX "ER" — There are twelve (!!) boxes in the grid with the letters "ER," each of four long answers contains three rebuses (rebii), and then the intersecting answers also contain it.

Theme answers:

Italian confection brand known for its gold foil wrappers-- FERRERO ROCHER / IBERIA, AVER, SEER
Small dog originally bred for fox hunting-- BORDER TERRIER / AMBER, ERMA, ZEROS
First men’s tennis player to reach 10 consecutive Grand Slam singles finals-- ROGER FEDERER / BEER ME, FERRY, FIERCE
Shout that may accompany many arms waving-- WE'RE OVER HERE / ALERT, AVERSE, FRERE

Word of the Day: TESS Gerritsen (author of medical and crime thrillers) —

While on maternity leave, she submitted a short story to a statewide fiction contest in the magazine Honolulu. Her story, "On Choosing the Right Crack Seed," won first prize and she received $500. The story focused on a young male reflecting on a difficult relationship with his mother. Gerritsen claimed the story allowed her to deal with her own childhood turmoil.

• • •

Hey besties! It's Malaika and I'm back for another Malaika MWednesday. I hope you all enjoyed your Halloweekend-- currently I am feasting on Reese's cups. I liked this puzzle a lot, and I hope you did, too! Sometimes there is Discourse (TM) about whether rebus puzzles should only be on Thursdays. Idk. I hated the very first rebus puzzle I did (I still remember it lol), then felt fine about them, and now I like them because I think they are usually pretty easy-- I got this one as soon as I read the clue for FERRERO ROCHER, which, by the way, is an awesome entry.

I also loooved WE'RE OVER HERE, this is something I truly yell all the time as someone who does a lot of Park Hang Outs.

These write-ups are kind of boring when it's a good puzzle! What else is there to say? OH HELL YEAH is a stellar long answer, and I like BEER ME as well, with that super clever clue (Slangy command to someone arriving with a six-pack). I wish RUMI had been clued as Beyonce's daughter, but I guess she hasn't really done anything yet. I can't even find any bad fill to comment on!! (AVER, I guess? Maybe?) Many thanks to Ethan and Tomas for this lovely Wednesday treat!

Bullets:

TIDAL and FIERCE also could have gotten Beyonce clues (via the streaming app and Sasha Fierce)
What is your favorite Indian flatbread? For me, it doesn't get any better than bhatura, but I respect the hell out of puri
Deal breaker? for NARC!! Wow!!

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Chase Dittrich and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ___ IN THE ___ — theme answers are familiar phrases that follow that pattern (except one of them just has "IN," no "THE"). The first blank is filled by letters that are *missing from the clue*; the second blank is filled by a word that is *synonymous with the clue* ... so the answer ends up describing the clue, thus:

Theme answers:

KICK IN THE PANTS (20A: _N___ERS) —"K-I-C-K" actually appears IN THE PANTS (i.e. in the word for "PANTS": KNICKERS)
ACE IN THE HOLE (25A: CRAWL SP___) (CRAWL SPACE = "HOLE")
PAIN IN THE ASS (42A: _EABR___) (PEABRAIN = "ASS")
HOLD IN CONTEMPT (49A: COLD S__U__ER) (COLD SHOULDER = "CONTEMPT")

Word of the Day: Leopold AUER (22D: Violinist Leopold) —

Leopold von Auer (Hungarian: Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845 – July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. [...] Auer is remembered as one of the most important pedagogues of the violin, and was one of the most sought-after teachers for gifted students. "Auer's position in the history of violin playing is based on his teaching." Many notable virtuoso violinists were among his students, including Mischa Elman, Konstanty Gorski, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Toscha Seidel, Efrem Zimbalist, Georges Boulanger, Lyubov Streicher, Benno Rabinof, Kathleen Parlow, Julia Klumpke, Thelma Given, Sylvia Lent, Kemp Stillings, Oscar Shumsky, and Margarita Mandelstamm. Among these were "some of the greatest violinists" of the twentieth century. (wikipedia)

• • •

This started out badly (for me, for the puzzle), but eventually got a lot better. I couldn't do anything with the NW corner at first pass—except INRE, so I just had this cruddy little bit of crosswordese sitting there. I made some headway in the north (EATIN' was the first thing I wrote in the grid with confidence (15A: Garden of ___ (punnily named snack brand)), but then ran into Old Crosswordese violinist Leopold AUER and Absolute Non-Phrase NO EAR and then paused and sighed a little. Felt like it was going to be one of Those Days (the ones where I continue to not understand why puzzles with non-demanding themes continue to have such subpar fill).

Forward momentum sort of died there, but I picked up the gimme Téa LEONI and followed crosses easily down to the bottom of the grid via ANTIDOTES. At this point, I still hadn't so much as looked at a theme clue. I like to dig into the short stuff before I go after the big game, and this puzzle had A Lot of short stuff. Went back to the NW and got my first pleasant surprise—I'd wanted KOANS earlier at 4D: Riddles in Buddhism but it wouldn't fit, but it turns out I was basically right; I just needed the more elaborate ZEN KOANS! Now we're talking. I feel like at this point, the puzzle got up off the floor and started actually showing some life. And then I sorted the NW and finally looked at the first theme clue. The "aha" at that moment was potent because I got it instantly—the answer, and the whole theme concept, in one bolt! I had so much of KICK IN THE PANTS in place that I actually mostly "knew" the answer before looking at the clue. I had that one moment of [squint] "huh?" and then bam, I plugged "K-I-C-K" into the pants (i.e. KNICKERS) and all was revealed.

The execution of the theme works out very well all the way through, with rock solid theme answers and remarkably plausible clue creations. I have just two issues, one big one small. The "big" is the idea that "ASS" = PEABRAIN. I could see it was going to be PAIN IN THE [something], but wouldn't write in ASS because, well, that's not what PEABRAIN means. "ASS" has to do with behavior and PEABRAIN has to do with intelligence, and while I can see someone yelling both insults at the same person, they don't feel very equivalent to me. My "small" issue is that there is no "THE" in the final themer. You get three blank-IN THE-blanks only to end with a themer that's just blank-IN-blank. Sometimes last themers are anomalous in a way that makes them spectacular, remarkable in some surprising way. This one just felt like a weak off-brand version of the others. Puzzle ended more whimper than bang. But still, overall, big thumbs-up to the theme today.

I watch "Stranger Things" regularly and still struggled to get ERICA (58A: Role on "Stranger Things"). She is a secondary character, but a memorable one. That is, the character is memorable. Her character name, apparently, not so much.

I initially had "Se7en" as being a movie about the Seven SEAS, which ... would (probably) have been a decidedly less gory movie (36A: The "seven" reference by the film title "Seven" = SINS). Are kids still saying TURNT? I tried to make LIT stretch to five letters, no dice. Had no idea Khan Academy did LSAT prep. They apparently do literally every academic subject and standardized test, so it's not the most helpful or interesting clue. Completely forgot that BEANIE Babies ever existed. What a time-specific fad that was, yeesh. But that fad was instrumental in the launch of EBAY, so ... it was a bizarrely important time-specific fad, I guess. You shouldn't have "Acts" in your (cutesy) PLAY clue (10A: Acts as one?) when you've got ACT in the grid (even if you have tried to clue it as yet another standardized test) (39A: Exam taken by many jrs.). I do like the cutesy PLAY clue, though. "Acts" taken together as "one" form a PLAY, nice. I finished up with BETS, which I needed every cross to get (54A: Goes over or under, in a way). The "Goes" threw me. Gambling stuff often throws me, as I just don't care. My favorite error today was when I thought Persian for "country" might be IRAN. Pretty badass to just name your country "Country," I thought. But alas, it was just the "country" suffix -STAN.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Juliet Corless

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: DPT (11A: Childhood vaccine combo) —

diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

This is a very old-fashioned kind of grid, one you used to see a lot back in the day when 15 stacks were a kind of Friday/Saturday fad. Now, this grid is highly unusual, in that has been rotated 90 degrees from its usual position, so the 15 stacks are running Down, not Across, but otherwise, you can find grids that just like this (stack up top, stack down below) all over the first and early second decades of this century. Before the construction software boom, getting those stacks to work out was a real feat, but the results were often iffy, and could result in a good deal of ugliness in the short crosses. Nowadays, with the aid of computers, pulling off stacks like this isn't as hard, and the results are generally less clunky. Which is to say, I used to dread seeing these stack-based puzzles, back in the day, but now I just feel neutral. Maybe they'll work, maybe they won't. These stacks are remarkably clean, on both sides, and though the short fill is indeed unpretty in places (EME SES DPT CIR), it mostly holds up quite well. The problem for me was the interest was Entirely in those stacks, and since all the interesting answers are, well, stacked, there is no real flow in the grid. The middle is far clunkier and less interesting than the sides, and you have to kind of hack your way through it—no wonderful answers opening up new vistas for you, and the longer answers that await you are things like FERRITE and BERI BERI (mmm, diseases) and REDEPLOY. So essentially the middle portion of the grid is just filler between the much more delicious edges. The puzzle ends up a kind of reverse sandwich, where the bread is the highlight and the bread contents are just ... there. Taking up space. Fine, but not particularly tasty, and certainly not the primary reason you're eating the sandwich (with apologies to delicious sandwich bread).

I started in on the short stuff (per usual) and was less initially successful than I would've liked. Got ARE and CEY and (on the other side) RAE, but thought the [Childhood vaccine combo] was MMR, because, well, that *is* a [Childhood vaccine combo] (measles mumps rubella). DPT is weird because it looks like it's just short for "diphtheria" (DPT = first three consonants, if you misspell it, as I typically do, "diptheria"), but then the "P" and "T" end up standing for other things. Regardless, neither "vaccine combo" is what you'd call "great fill," and not having those initial letters for the long Downs held me up. Same on the other side, where I did not initially get JFK, though I probably should have (1A: "We choose to go to the moon" speaker, for short). Eventually I changed SIFT to SKIM (21D: Go through lightly), got "OK, OK!" off that "K" (24A: "I already said I would!"), and the west side of the puzzle opened up from there:

Had KEYNOTE SPEAKERS before KEYNOTE SPEECHES (3D: Conference highlights) ... hard to explain why KEYNOTE SPEAKERS is a much, much better answer, but it is. The draw is the speaker, often a big name. Yes, that speaker gives a speech. But somehow "highlights" suggested the *draw*, i.e. the person, not the speech. That said, KEYNOTE SPEECHES is fine. JACK OF ALL TRADES is great, and FREAKING AWESOME, well, as an actual spoken term, I hate it, as I hate FREAKIN' as a euphemism, but as fill, it's original and fresh. The stack on the other side of the grid is the stronger one, with all the 15s coming in bright and strong.

More things:

19A: Usher's offering (ARM) — I wanted RAP, even though he's more R&B crooner than rapper

40D: Hollow (DALE)— paused here, thinking "is it VALE?" What Is The Difference!? Not much. Both valleys. Just read, in a def. of DALE: "synonym of the word valley" and thought "Ooh, where is this 'word valley' of which you speak, I would like to visit!"
47A: "Shut up!" ("CAN IT!")— had the "C" and wrote in "CUT IT!" Was probably thinking "CUT IT OUT!" but who knows?
51D: Resting spot for some buns (NAPE)— it's "Resting" that's troublesome here. Really angles those "buns" breadward. I was like "why would you rest baked goods in the NAVE?"
34A: Truffle hunting option (GODIVA) — As with "Resting" in the NAPE clue, "hunting" is doing aggressive, sweaty work here. A little toooo desperate to misdirect you. Obviously "truffle hunting" typically suggests the pursuit of scarce and delicious mushrooms. Pigs do this, or help in it, I think. But for this clue, the truffle you need to think of is chocolate, and the brand ("option") is GODIVA.
63A: One backward musician? (ENO) — god help me, I approve this clue; made me genuinely smile (ENO = the word "one" ... spelled "backward")

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: John Westwig

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: THE CATCH (13A: Famous game-saving 1954 World Series play by Willie Mays) —

The Catch was a baseball play made by New York Giants center fielder Willie Mayson September 29, 1954, during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, New York City. During the eighth inning with the score tied 2–2, Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz hit a deep fly ball to center field that had the runners on base poised to score. However, Mays made an over-the-shoulder catch while on the run to record the out, and his throw back to the infield prevented the runners from advancing. The Giants won the game 5–2 in extra innings, and eventually the World Series. The Catch is regarded as one of the greatest plays in baseball history. (wikipedia)

• • •

Weird U-shaped beginning to this solve, as I went ETHOS, SEEPED, and then, tentatively, JIBED (8D: Agreed).IRANI was also tentative, though JAM UP was more confident, and finally UNO CARD went in, the first thing that actually felt rock solid (11D: Skip or Reverse). That answer may also have been the highlight of this puzzle for me, as PINERY (?) set things on a rough track (12D: Dole Plantation, e.g.), and then the first marquee answer, HOLD A SEANCE, continued down that track, only a little more so. Look, HOLD A SEANCE is not exactly EAT A SANDWICH in its arbitrary verb-phrasiness, but it's definitely EAT A SANDWICH-esque. HOLD A SEANCE is tighter, for sure, more focused. I don't even dislike it, really. It's just that ... there are only two other answers in the whole puzzle that are this long or longer, so it's bearing a lot of weight, this answer; maybe if the rest of the grid had been really humming, HOLD A SEANCE would seem like a fine, even colorful addition to the party. But the bright, longer answers are simply few and far between today, and the other stuff is merely OK. HOLD A SEANCE isn't really up to the task of being one of so few marquee answers today. Early in the solve, that answer just felt a bit clunky, *as marquee answers go*, and it didn't feel like a harbinger of good. Once I dropped through NOT GOOD and CRAPPY, it felt like the grid was trying to tell me something. Confessing something.

I don't actually think the puzzle was CRAPPY, but ... take CRAPPY (38A: Bad). I really hate it in my grid. I mean, I say it, from time to time, but it's an ugly word. It makes the grid ugly and depressing in a way that CRUMMY or CRUDDY just doesn't. IOSAPP is also ugly, in a different way—a somewhat worse way, because it feels like it wants to be original and fresh, but it just looks made-up and weird. I mean, it's a real thing, but it's just not an entertaining answer. Feels forced. PRSAVVY also feels forced. Very forced. Like, extremely forced. PRSKILLS googles twice as well, and even that feels a little iffy. I get that the it must be tempting to debut an answer, but maybe that answer in your swollen wordlist isn't ... great. Consider it.

HIDE AND GO SEEK ... is a thing (14D: Game where it always counts) (cute clue, clever use of "it"). I wouldn't say the "GO" part, nor would most people in most circumstances, but it's definitely ... a thing. I do love PRIVATE EYES—a very big part of both my leisure and working life—and I love both the movies in the clue, so that was the real winning answer today, for me (50A: Figures in "Knives Out" and "The Maltese Falcon"). But it just wasn't enough to lift this one out of the humdrum. The puzzle was properly tough, so I got a good workout, but I didn't get much of what you'd call "enjoyment." The one thing this puzzle did give me was a feeling of vocabulary power, as I had no trouble with [Ochlocracy], a word I learned from a *brutal* Bob Klahn puzzle back in 2007!

Always nice to learn something from a crossword and then be able to put it to use ... fifteen years later (!). What else? Not sure why we're still doing Harry Potter clues, honestly. I mean, if you've got SNAPE, then you don't really have any other cluing options, but RAT!? To be clear, I am, in fact, trying to "cancel" J.K. Rowling. That is precisely what is going on. I won't succeed. But she's the rich white nice-lady face of a global bigotry movement, so ... pass. "RAP GOD" feels exceedingly hard as clued (17D: Eminem track with the Guinness World Record for "most words in a hit single"). I'm not nearly as rap-averse as many of you—not rap-averse at all, in fact—but the very existence of this song was news to me. But I don't mind it, in that you can infer the answer from fair crosses, and you learn a bit of trivia along the way. I got super-annoyed at the puzzle when I tried to move up into the NW corner from below, towards the end, and while I could work out CHAI TEA from -TEA (2D: Cardamom-containing coffeehouse creation), the other two 7-letter Downs leading up into that section were giving me -ING and ... -ING (not helpful!):

Luckily THE CATCH ended up being a gimme, and the corner fell from there. Only real error today came slam-bang in the middle of the puzzle, where, faced with -DDAYS at 34A: Romps, I wrote in SALAD DAYS. But then I got out of that jam with the help of the LADIES, who gave me the "L"—"Take the L," they said (This seemed unkind ... but then I understood). The "L" helped me ditch SALAD and replace it with different greenery: FIELD! I finished the puzzle having no idea how I was supposed to get from [Unsalted, perhaps] to ICY. Just baffled. Was thinking about snacks, cocktails ... people's dispositions ... it was only after I started down the road of "what are some things that are ICY?" that I hit upon "sidewalks in winter," and bam, the connection between salt and ice all of a sudden made sense. Maybe if I'd solved this puzzle in winter, that connection would've been clearer. We certainly salt our walkway and sidewalk multiple times each winter to keep ourselves and our neighbors from, you know, dying. But here in early November, no ice as yet, so the clue did not compute. And today, no ice again. 70 degrees in fact. Gonna go soak it in while I can. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"Length-ening"— familiar phrases get two changes: the addition of "EN" and the changing of the spelling / meaning of the word that follows "EN"—so the phrases have been "length-ENed" but also respelled:

Theme answers:

SQUARE EN ROUTE (from "square root") (24A: Why the party's about to get less hip?)
HOW EN SUITE IT IS (from "How sweet it is!") (35A: Realtor's exclamation about a primary bathroom?)
MARINE ENCORE (from "Marine Corps") (49A: How Shamu acknowledged the crowd's appreciation?)
"EN GARDE, IANS OF THE GALAXY!" (from "Guardians of the Galaxy") (70A: "Prepare for a sword fight, McKellen, Fleming and all other namesakes out there!"?)
MAKE-UP ENTREE (from ... I guess, "make-up tray" (?)) (90A: Dish cooked to smooth things over after a fight?)
CHOPPING EN BLOC (from "chopping block") (106A: What students in a karate class are often doing?)
THE ROYAL ENNUI (from "the Royal We") (118A: Challenge for a court jester?)

Word of the Day:"The MEAGRE Company" (Frans Hals portrait) (30A) —

The Meagre Company, or The Company of Captain Reinier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw, refers to the only militia group portrait, or schutterstuk, painted by Frans Halsoutside of Haarlem, and today is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum, where it is considered one of its main attractions of the Honor Gallery. Hals was unhappy about commuting to Amsterdam to work on the painting and, unlike his previous group portraits, was unable to deliver it on time. The sitters contracted Pieter Codde to finish the work.

Hals was originally commissioned in 1633, after the favorable reception of his previous militia group portrait, The Officers of the St Adrian Militia Company in 1633, in which all ensigns are holding flags and all officers are holding their weapons. The sergeants were shown, holding halberds to differentiate them from officers with spontoons. Hals seems to have initially intended an Amsterdam version of the same painting, beginning on the left with a smiling flag bearer wearing a flamboyant cut-sleeve jacket with lace and holding a flag in the color of his sash. Though it is impossible to tell on which side of the canvas Hals began painting, the light falls onto the figures from the left in the "standard" Hals tradition and this is also where the most important figures are situated within the painting. Since each sitter paid for his own portrait, it is presumed that Hals began with the most important sitters in order to "sell" canvas room to other paying officers. Whether or not Hals did in fact start on the left or drew a sketch of the entire group at once, the flag bearer on the left in this painting has been painted in a remarkably flamboyant way from the tip of his hat to the toe of his boots. This was possibly to prove to the decision makers in Amsterdam that Hals was capable of painting a schutterstuk in the "Amsterdam style", which included the entire figure. In Haarlem, the civic guards were traditionally portrayed in the kniestuk style of being "cut off at the knee" in three-quarter length portraits. (wikipedia)

• • •

Liked the way this one started, with the BLURRIER TAQUERIA of the NW corner, but with the revelation of the first themer, SQUARE EN ROUTE, I could feel my spirits deflate a little. "We're just adding 'EN'!? That's what 'Length-ening' means!? O... boy." There was something that seemed so, well, MEAGRE about the concept (more on MEAGRE later). And then came MARINE ENCORE, following the same add-an-EN pattern, which felt even more flaccid, and I reconciled myself to merely enduring yet another Sunday. But I will admit that "HOW EN SUITE IT IS!" ... well, it didn't win me over, exactly, but it definitely brought me around a bit. That is the kind of all-out loopiness I really want, in fact *need*, to see in themes that are this basic (e.g. add-a-letter (or two), drop-a-letter (or two), etc.). You wanna do some dumb puns, well OK, but please, nothing ... MEAGRE. Go for it. Better to be really truly gorily horrible, completely loony, then merely mildly chuckleworthy. "HOW EN SUITE IT IS!" has a fearless insanity that I admire. I also really do like that we're dealing not just with an "EN" addition, but with a complete word change as well (in the word that follows the "EN"), even though the title of the puzzle doesn't capture that aspect of the theme At All (it's a really bad title, tbh). I even retrospectively went back and gave a little credit to the clue on SQUARE EN ROUTE (24A: Why the party's about to get less hip?). It creates a ludicrous situation. Now, not all the themers (or their clues) do this, but there were enough that did. Enough, that is, to make me like this puzzle somewhat more than I like your average straightforwardly themed Sunday puzzle, and way more than I liked it at first blush. THE ROYAL ENNUI is very clever, and, well, I find it very difficult to be mad at an answer like "EN GARDE, IANS OF THE GALAXY!" That is a Marvel movie I would actually see.

There is some "oof" fill here and there, though. Let's start with MEAGRE, which clearly I am not yet over. I am kinda happy to learn about the Hals painting, which has a cool history, and which Van Gogh apparently rhapsodized over in a letter to his brother, Theo. But as fill, MEAGRE is super-ugly, and today it's also ridiculously hard. I needed every cross and was still certain something was wrong. Apparently this is how Brits spell "meager" (!?), but in its (very few) recentish past appearances, solvers were always alerted of both its meaning and its Britishness—we get Neither here: nothing to tell us that meagerness is at issue, and nothing to tell us about the British spelling. Worse, we get a *Dutch* painter, so the hell knows what letters are going to show up, really.

MEAGRE made me MOAN even more than ÉTAPE (oof, crosswordese of the oldenest kind) or EWASTE (a thing that I acknowledge is real but that is still bottom of the E-barrel fill). Then there's the execrable and always unwelcome EL*N MUSK, why!? That is a choice. I do not understand that choice. I also do not understand putting "IT" in your puzzle not once not twice not thrice but quattrice! HOW EN SUITE *IT* IS, IN *IT*, "*IT* CAME!," BOP-IT! make it stop. A couple of "IT"s in a Sunday-sized puzzle is probably not going to draw anyone's attention, but four ... four is four, and it's a lot. You may think, "I ... CON DU IT ..." ... but you really shouldn't.

Round-up!:

13A: A boatload (LOTS) — I had TONS because of course I did, the Curse of the Kealoa* is upon me!
108D: Joy of TV (BEHAR) — I have it on good authority that she solves crossword puzzles. That authority is a 2016 US Weekly interview where she says "I do the New York Times Crossword every day."
97D: "On Juneteenth" author ___ Gordon-Reed (ANNETTE) — she's a professor of law and American history at Harvard. I assumed "On Juneteenth" was a poem. I was wrong. It's a well-regarded short book explaining the significance of the annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S.
111A: Flatbread made with atta (ROTI)— had the "O" and wrote in DOSA, which is"a thin pancake in South Indian cuisine made from a fermented batter of ground black gram (lentil) and rice" (wikipedia). No atta in sight :(
17A: "Keep Ya Head Up" rapper, informally (PAC) — as in Tupac Shakur, or 2Pac.
92D: Unlike p (RATIONAL) —I got this easily despite having no idea what "p" stands for. I figured it was something something math something number something, and I was right. Looks like lowercase "p" can mean lots of things, depending on context, but nearest I can figure here, it's somehow "pi" (!!?). You couldn't just write the additional "i"?? [UPDATE: the clue *actually* reads [Unlike π] but my software couldn't handle the character and so rendered it "p"]

All hail the return of Standard Time, the Best Time, God's Own Time. Please enjoy the hour you were denied by Demon DST. See you ... soon, I hope.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

1953 title role for John Wayne / TUE 10-18-22 / Starfish or sea urchin in a biology text / New-Agey slangily / Louis XIV par exemple / biloba ornamental tree with a widely used extract

Game pieces in Othello and Connect Four / WED 10-19-22 / Looney Tunes bunny / Genre for Luther Vandross / John of "The Suicide Squad" / Home to over seven billion people / Swirl in a stream

Cousin of a carp / THU 10-20-22 / Dance move named after a Harlem neighborhood / Accessory for Hello Kitty / Eponym for an annual prize for American humor / Italian auto with a bull in its logo / Hawaiian word meaning hors d'oeuvre / Familial outcast depicted three times in this puzzle

Folded in French / FRI 10-21-22 / Sclera neighbor / Company that acquired Skype in 2005 / Weaselly animal / Unadon ingredient / Ties for vaqueros

Mobile relatives / SAT 10-22-22 / Duo who have to give up their foosball table spot / Santa's is H0H 0H0 in Canada / Desus & Mero airer for short / Fourth letter of Arabic alphabet / Democracy imperative

Chilean American actor of The Mandalorian and Narcos / MON 10-24-22 / Parasite co-star Woo-shik / Spanish painter of The Third of May 1808

Wining and dining, say / TUES 10-25-22 / Inner ear? / Borden Dairy cow / Snack item that might be twisted or dunked

Wretched hive of scum and villainy per Obi-Wan Kenobi / WED 10-26-22 / James who plays Professor X in film / Greiner so-called Queen of QVC / Quaff of gruit and wort in days of yore / Sound emitted by methane emitters / Leopold's partner in 1920s crime / Autonomous household helper since 2002

Item of feline furniture / THU 10-27-22 / Direction for snowbirds / Complains donkey-style / Tiny pedestals of a sort / Prosecco o Chianti

Symbolic hand gesture in Hinduism / FRI 10-28-22 / Ecologist Leopold who advocated thinking like a mountain / Means of making untraceable social media posts / Aristocratic type in British slang / Carl who pioneered modern taxonomy

Game of Thrones servant / MON 10-31-22 / Michelangelo sculpture whose name means compassion / Friend of Porthos and Aramis in The Three Musketeers / Hired pen or punnily the author / Small child's convenience for reaching a sink

Dark European thrush / TUE 11-1-22 / Big name in water purification / On-demand digital video brand / Russian waterway famed for its sturgeon fishery / 1960s film villain with prosthetic metal hands / Sweet sweetheart in a barbershop quartet standard

"___ Dere" (jazz classic about a toddler's many questions) / WED 11-2-22 / Friedrich who created a scale of hardness / Nutmeg's "sister spice"

Truffle hunting option / FRI 11-4-22 / Ceramic iron compound that's nonconductive / Critic in modern lingo / Obsolescent PC insert / Thiamine deficiency disease / Freedom for a screenwriter say / Old movie unit

Marbled savory snack from China / SUN 11-6-22 / Electronic toy with a blue pull handle / Flat-topped military hat / The Tasmanian one has been extinct since the 19th century / God who was said to be in love with this sister while still in the womb / Support group with a hyphen in its name