Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Andy Walker

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:37)

THEME: DINER'S CLUB — Credit card industry pioneer (each theme answer is common term made up of a food followed by a name for a golf club)

Theme answers:

[Garnish for a glass of iced tea] for LEMON WEDGE
[Appliance at a hotel breakfast bar] for WAFFLE IRON
[Expensive cabinet material] for CHERRY WOOD

Word of the Day: DINERS CLUB —

The idea for Diners Club was conceived at the Majors Cabin Grill restaurant in New York City in 1949.[6] Diners Club cofounder Frank McNamara was dining with clients and realized he had left his wallet in another suit.[7] His wife paid the bill, and McNamara thought of a multipurpose charge card as a way to avoid similar embarrassments in the future.

• • •

Hi friends, it's Malaika here, subbing for what I hope is a Relaxed Rex! I thought this puzzle was very, very easy-- I did not have to stop and think for any entry. I solved exactly as fast as I was typing, and honestly my time was a little slow because I was distracted watching the Olympics. That's a sign that the grid was super "clean," aka contained lots of recognizable vocabulary, and very few obscure terms or abbreviations. (IGA and FAO were the toughest entries for me.)

This was a perfectly nice and cute theme. I don't particularly like or care about golf, but I have heard of all three of these types of clubs. The foods in question would pair together really well-- waffles with some sweet and tangy lemony ricotta and cherry compote?? Yes please! Or maybe topped with a lemon curd and a cherry French 75. Sorry for this food tangent, but I'm thriving right now in the lush embrace of late summer produce. I have a shirt with cherries and lemons (and tomatoes and oranges) that I call my Summer Bounty Shirt and I adore wearing it in the summertime.

Please enjoy this glamour shot of a tomato that I grew and ate

When a puzzle has four theme answers of "easy" lengths, ("easy" meaning there are plenty of options to arrange them in a grid-- if you don't construct, ten-letter entries are significantly easier to build a puzzle around than fourteen-letter entries) I like for there to be a couple of "bonus" entries, aka long down answers with no relation to the theme that are still fun. Here we didn't get any of those, but that might be because the letters (Ws, Fs, C, H, Y) are deceptively tricky to integrate smoothly. And there was still fun mid-length stuff like MEDUSA and COBRAS and ROOMBAS and even JAPAN.

This is my life right now

Random final thought which will give y'all a lot of opportunities to comment on my age-- I have never heard of DINERS CLUB. (Shouldn't it have an apostrophe, btw??) I have heard of a "supper club" and wondered if it was similar, but that's not the case. Anyway, I don't want to hear you comment on my age. I'd rather hear you comment on what your favorite Olympics event is! I love gymnastics' floor event (for men and women), and women's beach volleyball. Also it's always fun to see what the W/NBA players are up to.

Bullets:

[Actor Driver] for ADAM— ADAM Driver is so funny to me because, through no fault of his own (except I guess being a hot actor), he has become the hero in a bunch of different contemporary romance novels. What happens is that women write fiction about him (well, usually his character Kylo Ren), it becomes popular, they change his name, and then publish the book. I've read a couple books where I'm two chapters in and realize "oh my God this is ADAM Driver, isn't it??"Here's a fun article about the phenomenon.
[Number of U.S. states without any straight borders] for ONE — I immediately looked up which state it was, and then felt dumb for not figuring it out (Hawai'i)
[Last-resort button in a cockpit] for EJECT — Maybe this is a silly question but.... do all cockpits have this?? Does like.... a random commercial Boeing plane have an EJECT button??

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare coming to you a little late, for the first Tuesday of August (while hoping Rex is having a lovely vacation)! I’ve been spending essentially all of my free time (and, yes, maybe a little work time) watching the Olympics. The pommel horse guy, the muffin guy, and the two sharpshooters just may have taken over my entire Twitter feed. And then you’ve got Simone Biles doing Simone Biles things. Noah Lyles winning the 100m by five thousandths of a second. American Kristen Faulkner with a surprise gold in the road cycling after a boss move with two kilometers to go. And on and on and on. Watch out for Fiona O’Keeffe in the marathon and Nikki Hiltz in the 1500m (I raced against them both in high school!). I’m gonna be sad when the Olympics is over soon, so I may just have to actually watch volleyball and rugby and cycling other than every four years now.

Anywho, with that long intro waxing poetic about the Olympics, let’s move on to the puzzle…

Constructor:Daniel Raymond

Relative difficulty:A little harder than an average Tuesday

THEME: Phrases that begin with “as” followed by a pronoun and a verb

Theme answers:

AS YOU PLEASE (17A: "Any option is fine by me")
AS THEY SAY (21A: "Or so the motto goes")
AS I LIVE AND BREATHE (27A: With 33-Down and 51-Across, "What a surprise!")
AS WE SPEAK (59A: "Currently ...")
AS IT HAPPENS (65A: "By a stroke of luck ...")

Word of the Day:NUYORICAN (3D: Many a resident of Spanish Harlem) —

Nuyorican is a portmanteau word blending "New York" (or "Nueva York" in Spanish) and "Puerto Rican," referring to Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, their culture, or their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the New York metropolitan area). This term is sometimes used for Puerto Ricans living in other areas in the Northeastern US mainland outside New York state, as well. The term Nuyorican is also sometimes used to refer to the Spanish spoken by New York Puerto Ricans. An estimated 1,800,000 Nuyoricans are said to live in New York City, the largest Puerto Rican community outside Puerto Rico. The Oxford English Dictionary cites this word as evolving slowly through roughly the last third of the 20th century, with the first cited reference being poet Jaime Carrero using neorriqueño in 1964 as a Spanish-language adjective combining neoyorquino and puertorriqueño. (Wiki)

• • •

That was a pretty fun and harmless puzzle. The theme on its own (which really is just connected because all phrases start with “as”) isn’t anything to write home about. And I would’ve loved an “as you wish” in there (“The Princess Bride” being one of my favorite movies and all). But the construction was impressive, with two sets of phrases directly on top of each other, starting on the far left and finishing on the far right. And I really liked how AS I LIVE AND BREATHE (27A) zigzagged through the puzzle and acted as a connector for the other theme answers. Each of the theme answers was generally nice in and of itself. My favorite was probably AS IT HAPPENS (not solely because it reminds me of the amazing movie “It Happened One Night”)

I really liked a lot of the words in the puzzle, which felt fresh. POLYP (13D: Individual coral organism) isn’t a word you see all that often. Nor do you see BOTANIST (53A: Plant biologist, by another name), SENSATE (45D: Opposite of numb), AREPAS (52D: South American corn patties), or NUYORICANS (3D) often. Heck, we even got CHEEZ-IT (10D: Brand of orange crackers)! (I used to love those until my body decided it doesn’t like eating gluten.) BARRE (53D: Ballet rail), RAW TALENT (36D: Innate skill), and TWANG (55D: Southern way of speaking) were nice to see, as well.

There were a surprising number of words ending in two vowels in the puzzle — ALUMNAE (14A), MAO (16A), PALAU (12D), PUPAE (40D), and MEA (47D). And it felt to me like other answers had more back-to-back vowels in them than usual, too, but I don’t have the data to back me up on this one. There were also quite a few people in there, too — OSCAR (54D: Witty Wilde), SELA (7D: Emmy-winning Ward), MARA (58A: Actress Kate or Rooney), SAHL(43A: Wry Mort), ELIA (61A: Kazan who directed "A Streetcar Named Desire"), andARIANNA (70A: Huffington who founded The Huffington Post).

My biggest hang-up with the puzzle was probably DASH IT (9D: "Drat!"). I’m not sure I’ve actually ever heard someone say DASH IT (not even my father), so I had “dang it” and thought that was certainly right. Lo and behold, that caused me some issues in the north section of the puzzle.

We also had a lot of the typical crosswordese that I’m not a big fan of, such as TAT (57D: Bit of ink) (this is in puzzles way too much). Then there was APP (11A: Instagram, for one) and PIC (31A: Instagram post, for short). Did we really need to double up on Instagram clues? We had RAN (68A: Campaigned) and TAN (69A: Beachgoer's goal, maybe), right next to each other, no less.

Some other words and abbreviations were just meh, like EXEC(29D: Business bigwig), CDC (8A: Org. in "Outbreak" and "Contagion"), PER (49A: According to), PIN (67D: A.T.M. need), and WAS (48A: Is no longer). I also don’t know if 66D: Experiencing little to no amorous attraction, informally for ARO was clued clearly enough. I put “ace” there, which is when people experience little to no sexual attraction toward any gender. But the answer was ARO, which is when people experience little to no romantic attraction toward any gender. I’d say “amorous” in the clue does lead you more toward ARO, but maybe the clue still should’ve been a little more explicit.

Misc.:

It’s pretty funny to have the SEINE (56D: River through Paris) in the puzzle given all the controversy surrounding it and triathletes being forced to swim in it for their event and possibly getting E. coli. One athlete even said he tried to prepare himself for swimming in the SEINE by microdosing E. coli leading up to the event… which is just… awful. They never should’ve had to swim in the SEINE, and there absolutely should’ve been a backup.
One of my favorite restaurants in college was a small Colombian place that was known for their AREPAS (52D). And it very quickly became my favorite place to take friends and family when they would visit.
My coworker the other day had to get a copy of a client’s file ready for them, and it was so big that it needed to go on a CD ROM (46A: Obsolescent PC storage medium). She said that she’d never burned a CD before and was excited, which made me (at 28) feel incredibly old.
Anyone looking to become a better person might be looking for that GNUEWE (5D and 72A). There’s my attempt at a Dad joke. I’ll see myself out…
“TEXAS Hold ‘Em” (32A) by Beyoncé is a phenomenal country song and Cowboy Carter a great album. Please, Grammys, finally give her album of the year for this one.
Sense8 (or SENSATE (45D)) was an amazing show on Netflix that lasted a couple seasons before being unceremoniously canceled. It was a unique concept, with 8 strangers around the world being connected to another’s thoughts and actions, and Netflix shouldn’t have canceled it like they do EVERY GOOD SHOW!! Maybe I’ll go rewatch the show once the Olympics are over, and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

And that's all from me, folks! Have a great rest of your August.

Signed, Clare Carroll, a medal contender in yelling at the TV

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Meghan Morris

Relative difficulty: Hard (13:17)

THEME: OUGH "homophones" — The theme plays with a classic quirk of the English language, which is that the letters "ough" can be pronounced in a variety of different ways, without any obvious pattern or rule. These words are arranged symmetrically throughout the grid, and form a sort of a cyclical "ladder" or "loop"-- each connects to the last.

Theme answers:

Given the way ROUGH (Uneven) is pronounced, you'd expect BOUGH (Main branch of a tree) to rhyme with it; instead we have the word BUFF (Rhyme of 49-Across, but not a homophone of 19-Across)
Given the way BOUGH is pronounced, you'd expect COUGH (Attention-getting sound) to rhyme with it; instead we have COW (Rhyme of 19-Across, but not a homophone of 46-Across)
Given the way COUGH is pronounced, you'd expect DOUGH (It gets baked) to rhyme with it; instead we have DOFF (Rhyme of 46-Across, but not a homophone of 21-Across)
Given the way DOUGH is pronounced, you'd expect THROUGH (By way of) to rhyme with it; instead we have THROW (Rhyme of 21-Across, but not a homophone of 43-Across)
Given the way THROUGH is pronounced, you'd expect ROUGH to rhyme with it; instead we have RUE (Rhyme of 43-Across, but not a homophone of 49-Across)

Word of the Day: LIGHT OPERA (Many a Gilbert and Sullivan work) —

Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its shorter length, the operetta is usually of a light and amusing character. It sometimes also includes satirical commentaries.

• • •

Hi friends, it's Malaika on a Regularly Scheduled Malaika MWednesday! I had a lovely fish-centric dinner with a friend tonight, and then tried to take the train back to my place. To my despair, it was out of service and I had to walk twenty minutes home in the pouring rain. I patted myself dry with a kitchen towel and immediately began my duty of solving and reporting on the crossword puzzle. I live to serve!!

This puzzle is missing something to me. It took me several minutes to figure out what was going on. I'm not a huge fan of clues that give you zero "free" information, though they are common enough in all puzzles and I will confess that I have even included them in some of my own. What do I mean by zero "free" information? An example (unrelated to today's puzzle) would be saying something like [Anagram of X-down] rather than something like [Food that anagrams to X-down]. In this puzzle we get information about what it rhymes with, but no pure clue. This might cause problems! I could see someone who isn't a Pear Expert and has forgotten the term "homophone" putting in "how" instead of COW, for instance.

I think my biggest problem is that the puzzle goes to a lot of lengths to keep some cyclical elegance to this theme, but the crossword isn't ultimately the ideal way to display this. I hope I was able to convey that cycle in my theme bullet points above-- it's cool that the first and last instances of the theme are both ROUGH. And it's also cool, if not genuinely amazing, that every single one of these entries was able to be arranged symmetrically in the puzzle. But I feel like a grid just isn't the right vehicle for this!! I wish this could have been some sort of round or swirling or looping variety puzzle that visually connected these terms in the way they deserve. I've spoken before about how I feel constructors should pitch every creative and outlandish idea they can think of, and editors should reel them in-- I think the editors should have redirected on this one.

Because of the constraints of the theme answers, the grid had to be pretty segmented, with lots of three-letter words. I don't mind a high number of three-letter words (I've definitely made puzzles with 20+ of them!), but I do mind when I notice it while solving, which is what happened in this case. Awkward stuff like AWS, ORS, RNS, and ENE stood out to me, and (due to the nature of the theme) there weren't even a lot of fun longer answers to balance them out.

Of the longer stuff, I was a fan of FEDORA and FUSILLI. My joke is that "I like my pasta like I like my hair-- curly." I always have a packet of gemelli or cavatappi or FUSILLI in my pantry; I love how the sauce clings to the twists. Other entries like SOPHIES, HR ISSUE, and ONE NAME didn't feel in-the-language to me.

Cavatappi is legit my favorite pasta shape. What's yours??

I'm very curious to hear what y'all thought of this puzzle, as I can sense it's going to be divisive! Please remember to be kind and constructive in your critiques <3

Bullets:

[Key that might be part of a chain] for ISLE— This took me a second as I am more familiar with the spelling "cay" because of this novel. But "key" is very valid as well; I'm sure many of us have heard of the Florida keys.
[Marshland] for FEN— While we're on the topic of books, one of my favorite favorite favorite books is called The Magicians and features a minor (not even secondary-- maybe tertiary??) character called FEN. When I have this entry in a puzzle that I've made, I am always tempted to use that cluing angle, and I always decide not to.
[Exerciser's target] for FLAB — Is this true? In my experience, you lose FLAB by changing your diet, unless you're doing enormous amounts of cardio. To me, exercise is more about building strength (or having fun!!)
[Park in N.Y.C., e.g.] for AVE — The misdirect here is that Park AVE is a pretty famous street
[Leopard's spot] for LAIR — Do leopards famously hang out in LAIRs?? Am I missing something? I thought they slept in tree branches.

xoxo Malaika

P.S. Here's today's homegrown tomato:

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy; even tired and unable to type, still a 3:30 solve

THEME: MINUTE HAND [Part of a clock depicted four times in this puzzle?] — there's four HAND rebuses; I'm a fan of the reveal in that in involves repronouncing "minute" to make the theme work

Word of the Day: LOU (He asked Bud "Who's on first?") —

The Heptapod languages are two constructed fictional languages used in Ted Chiang's short story, Story of Your Life, as well as its later film adaptation, Arrival. In-universe, they are used by the "heptapods", an alien race that makes contact with humanity.
The languages are classified by two separate names, "Heptapod A" and "Heptapod B", as the species uses two separate languages; the former is a spoken language, and the latter a semasiography. These two languages together encapsulate two different concepts of time—Heptapod B presents time as synchronous, while A presents time as sequential, with causality. The two languages are grammatically unrelated. [wikipedia; in the film the alien creatures are nicknamed Abbott and Costello, who are the Bud and Lou (respectively) actually referred to in the clue]

• • •

Christopher Adams here again, filling in today (and also Saturday) for some tricky puzzles. Full disclosure: I solved this while dead tired (two full time jobs after an ungodly early morning run). Thankfully it seemed like a lot of answers / clues were ones I've seen before, and those dropped in quickly enough (even if my tired fingers couldn't quite type them correctly the first, or second, or even third time). Only real problem was going for UNCLE at 5D first, and even then my thoughts while solving were "UN---, "unhand" doesn't fit, let's go UNCLE, but that doesn't fit with "scotch and..."...oh, there's a rebus here", and (in theory) I was off to the races again.

Theme answers:

SCOTC[H AND] SODA [Mixed drink with an alliterative name]
[HAN D]YNASY [Preceder of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese history]
EASIER SAID T[HAN D]ONE ["It's not as simple as it sounds"]
C[HAND]ELIER [Ornate lighting fixture]

Anyway, thank goodness this was an easy solve, which, nothing wrong with that sometimes for a Thursday. Sometimes it's a tricky hard puzzle. Sometimes it's an easy puzzle to introduce a tricky concept (here, a rebus). And sometimes it's just a relief to have an easy puzzle after a long day; not every Thursday needs to be hard, and if nothing else, this provides a greater contrast for when it actually is difficult.

And thankfully it was also a fun theme; the theme answers were more fun than not (especially the spanner, which I assume was one of the seeds, but also SCOTCH AND SODA and even ~~HANDY NASTY~~ HAN DYNASTY). The down answers were also lively; it's easy as a constructor to focus only on the long entries since they take up more real estate and are what most solvers will notice first, but the shorter rebus entries were all fun. Admittedly, they all used HAND quite literally (as opposed to the acrosses), but three of the four (all but AT HAND) had clues that were evocative and made them fun, and bonus points for the consistency of having actual hands in all the downs but none of the acrosses. Also, bonus points for running REDHANDED through two theme entries pretty cleanly (only the nearby EVO is a demerit), which is a nice touch.

Olio:

STU [Name spelled out in "The Alphabet Song"] — As far as clues go, this is an old chestnut that's oft RETOLD, and I wish it weren't. It is the second worst cluing angle that I see regularly in the NYTXW; the first, of course, is the NYTXW cluing names (and especially female names) as anything but actual people with that name. I am once again asking Will, Joel, etc. to stop this practice (and I am once again tired of having to make this point).
ODD [Like most primes] — Two is, of course, the oddest prime of all, as it's the only one that isn't odd.
COD [A carved one hangs in the chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives]— It's known as the Sacred Cod, and the state Senate does them one better with (and I am not making this up) the Holy Mackerel (which, imo, is the best fish; it's certainly my favorite to eat).
CASHEW [Vegan cheese ingredient, often] — I did not know this, and now I have a new quest for the next time I'm at the local Hy-Vee (assuming this doesn't happen at the Iowa State Fair this weekend).
EPEE [Weapon that shares an etymology with "spade" and "spatula"] — Also did not know this, very interesting to learn this and will research it more tomorrow. Will not, however, watch any Olympic fencing; too busy rewatching the men's 1500m and 400m races.
ASIA [Setting for the FIFA World Cups of 2002 and 2022] — Given that I lived in one of the host countries here while they were building some of the host cities for the Men's World Cup, quite easily saw through the misdirect of country vs continent here.
SLEEP ["Don't give up on your dreams. ___ longer" (quip)] — I'm going to bed, no alarm, see you all Saturday.

Yours truly, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Hemant Mehta

Relative difficulty: Medium (9:07)

THEME: Themeless

Word of the Day: TELEX (Email ancestor) —

Telex is a telecommunication service that provides text-based message exchange over the circuits of the public switched telephone network or by private lines. The technology operates on switched station-to-station basis with teleprinter devices at the receiving and sending locations. Telex was a major method of sending text messages electronically between businesses in the post–World War II period. Its usage went into decline as the fax machine grew in popularity in the 1980s.

• • •

Hey friends, it's Malaika! I solved this puzzle while listening to Orville Peck's new album, which is called Stampede. I think my favorite song off it is Chemical Sunset. I simply adore a country song with a little harmonizing!!

Easy themeless puzzles are my fave, and this one rocked. Such a blast! This grid shape seems to lend itself to Really Good Friday Puzzles; at one point it was used on a Friday three weeks in a row. When I make a themeless puzzle, I start with one entry locked into place, and then construct everything else around it. I know others who do the same, and I like to guess what the Inciting Entry was. Here, I'd expect it to be KINK SHAME.

I'm really stunned at how many of the long answers were delightful. INDIE BANDS / GO OUT ON TOP was an awesome way to begin the puzzle, and the little column of LET ME EXPLAIN / BREATH MINTS / ALMOST DONE was also very fun. I particularly liked that last entry which sounded so conversational. I say ALMOST DONE way more than I ever say "I'm almost done." (I will say that I found the clue for BREATH MINTS (Apt anagram of TINS BEAR THEM, minus an E) difficult to parse, and not particularly interesting or fun. I feel like we've been getting more of this type of clue since Joel took over for Will-- is that true, or am I totally off-base here?)

On the right side of the puzzle, I liked MUSEUM TOURS with it's clue, [Journeys into the past?]. Although that is making me realize how few wordplay clues we got here. That was one of just three in the whole puzzle. One reason for this is that it's tough (though not IMPOSSIBLE hehehe) to clue conversational phrases like I MISSED YOU with a pun. But I think GLASS TUMBLER and BARREL RACE definitely could have had some punny options.

I know a couple people who don't like to include weapons or violent entries in their puzzles, but it doesn't bother me (as a constructor or as a solver). I thought it was nice to get a Godzilla mention in reference to H BOMB-- it reminded me of how the production team of the most recent Godzilla movie wore matching shoes to the Oscars.

And they won!! Best Visual Effects on a budget of $15 million

As a final note... what do you guys think about how he stacked A PLUSES atop B TEAMS? Do you think it was on purpose, or a happy coincidence?

Bullets:

[Wedding planning website, with "the"] for KNOT — This site is ubiquitous amongst thirty-somethings in NYC. I've gotten three wedding invites on it so far, and there are always ads on the subway for it.
[Where you can find ME] for US MAP — The "ME" in the clue is referring to an abbreviation for Maine
[Line drawn after an early wrong guess in hangman] for TORSO — This puzzle may not have had a lot of punnery, but this was some nice imagery

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Spencer Leach

Relative difficulty: easy-ish; most of the struggle was getting logged into all the various accounts and then realizing all my settings were off; seriously, how TF does anybody solve crosswords with all the annoying "halfway done!" popups, they're so awful and annoying

Word of the Day: TON (The "long" version of it is 12% heavier) —

The long ton, also known as the imperial ton or displacement ton, is a measurement unit equal to 2,240 pounds (1,016.0 kg). It is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois system of weights or Imperial system of measurements. It was standardized in the 13th century. It is used in the United States for bulk commodities.
It is not to be confused with the short ton, a unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds (907.2 kg) used in the United States, and Canada before metrication, also referred to simply as a "ton".
A long ton is defined as exactly 2,240 pounds. The long ton arises from the traditional British measurement system: A long ton is 20 long hundredweight (cwt), each of which is 8 stone (1 stone = 14 pounds). Thus, a long ton is 20 × 8 × 14 lb = 2,240 lb. [wikipedia; gotta love the inherent randomness of imperial units]

• • •

Christopher Adams here, back at the keyboard after a very long day at the Iowa State Fair, and then a long experience trying to get into the puzzle (and this blog) because I'm staying in a hotel overnight, which means I'm not on the usual computer, which meant having to remember a lot of passwords that I haven't used in years because my computer remembers them, and then realizing all my solving settings were off, so navigating this puzzle was like a deer on a frozen pond; anyway, even if I don't remember passwords, I remember answers, especially when the clues are way too easy for a Saturday (all things considered, about a 3:30 solve w/o navigation issues).

Not really what I was wanting from a Saturday if I wanted something difficult; lots of the clues that wanted to be difficult or misdirect simply didn't do either of those things. You give me a question mark on [Regular joes?], you might as well put up the bat signal and say "it's a coffee pun". You put in a brand most solvers won't know (MANIC PANIC) and then immediately nerf the difficulty by saying it's rhyming, which gives solvers letters for free. Etc etc. And quite a few of the clues (SRO, BIG TOP, RAMS, LIRA, BAO, many others) were just straight definitions (or oft-used clues) that I'd expect to see early in the week. I guess you could say that I was ONTO [23A: Not fooled by] this puzzle.

And there's not much in the way of fill for me to like here; others will like MANIC PANIC, PICKLEBALL, TIKTOK DANCE, etc. more than I do, but these are just things that range from meaningless to me to things I actively abhor (again, YMMV). YOU PROBLEM was nice, but more the exception to the rule; ditto for TWISTER MAT and GEOCENTRIST (more for the clues, which again, exception to the rule).

Olio:

PICKLEBALL [Sport that has generated noise complaints across the country in recent years]— I look forward to this trend dying as soon as possible, as I am not a pickleball person. Also, there's pickle beer at the State Fair; I will not try that, as I am not a pickle beer person.
MATRYOSHKA [She's so full of herself!] — I didn't like this clue, since my understanding is that (traditionally) the dolls are not all the same, but represent different people, and so the outermost doll may be full of other people, but not herself. At least it was an attempt to be cute and tricksy that wasn't immediately obvious, though; took a few crossings here.
CLUB FED [Relatively nice prison, humorously]— A cutesy, jokey entry about a prison is still an entry about a prison; can't say I've heard this term before, but didn't care to see it here and don't care to see it again.
YOU PROBLEM [Another's issue, in modern lingo] — Gotta love the NYT trying to meet the constructor's vibes, but instead giving off "how do you do fellow kids" vibes by adding the (completely unnecessary) tag "in modern lingo".
MOSEY [Walk leisurely]— There will be lots of moseying on day two of the State Fair, in addition to more foot long corn dogs, lemonade, deep fried food, beers, etc.

Yours truly, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

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Constructor: Caryn Robbins

Relative difficulty: Pretty Easy

THEME: Take the El Train— The letters "EL" are added to common phrases to turn them into wacky phrases. Like a Calvin turned his carboard box into a Wackyifier.

Word of the Day: TELOS (65D: Final purpose, to Aristotle) —

Telos (/ˈtɛ.lɒs/; Greek: τέλος, translit. télos, lit. "end, 'purpose', or 'goal'")^[1] is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of human art. Telos is the root of the modern term teleology, the study of purposiveness or of objects with a view to their aims, purposes, or intentions. Teleology is central in Aristotle's work on plant and animal biology, and human ethics, through his theory of the four causes. Aristotle's notion that everything has a telos also gave rise to epistemology.^[2]

• • •

Hello one more time, Rexacateers, it's Eli! I believe this is the last day of Rexplacements for now since Rex is back from vacation tomorrow. His vacation is going great. How do I know? Because yesterday it included lunch with me and my wife followed by a screening of The Godfather: Part II at the New Beverly Cinema! We had a fantastic time, and I'd love to share pictures, but nobody took anyway. Oh well, plenty of memories. On to the puzzle!

Theme answers:

EXCHANGE WEDDING VOWELS (23A: Say "O di" instead of "I do"?)
PACK YOUR BAGELS AND GO (38A: Eviction notice sent to a New York deli owner?)
PEELER REVIEW (50A: "This thing is SHARP! It handles potatoes and carrots with ease," e.g.)
WHAT'S PASTEL IS PAST (69A: Interior decorator's assertion that bold colors are back in style?)
NOEL FLY ZONES (87A: Santa's routes on Christmas Eve?)
DON'T GET MAD, GET ELEVEN (96A: Advice after one's rival scores a perfect ten?)
YOUR DELAYS ARE NUMBERED (117A: Airline's promise to improve its timeliness?)

I love Chicago and I love public transportation, so when I saw that the theme was "Take the El Train" I got excited. But, it turned out to be a simple "add a couple of letters" theme. Oh well, can't win 'em all. This also seems like a good excuse to plug the Midwest Crossword Tournament happening in Chicago on October 5 (https://www.mwxwt.com/). I can't make it, but you definitely should! It'll be a great time.

Despite the simplicity of the theme, I thought it worked pretty well. Both the original and modified phrases all worked well, and some of the cluing made me giggle. Don't Get Mad, Get Eleven sounds like Nigel Tufnel found a second career as a revenge coach.

The only holdup I had was determining where to put the "EL" in What's Pastel is Past. The phrase would have worked as well as "What's past is pastel." Not a complaint, just something that made me think twice. Other than that, once I figured out the theme it was off to the races.

The theme density didn't leave much room for sparkle in the fill. Looking over the grid, not much is standing out to me. I really don't like SNARL UPS (35D: Traffic jams). I mean, I hate cars and traffic more than most people, but in this case I mean I don't like the phrase. I can see it is a valid dictionary definition, but it doesn't sound like something I actually hear people say. And I live in LA; I've heard a LOT of traffic jam descriptors. I'm also a runner and cyclist who does a lot of metric races, and I have never seen kilometer abbreviated as KIL (26A: Le Mans race unit: Abbr.). I've seen "K" and "KM" which are too short to be crossword answers. If you needed a longer answer, I've heard people (military types, mostly) use "Click" or "Klik." But never KIL. There is a surprising lack of proper names in this one, but the one that really stands out is WELBY (24D: Dr. Marcus of old TV). The appearance of Marcus Welby, MD immediately makes the whole grid feel 20 years older. I knew it immediately because I know a lot of TV stuff, but I turn 42 this week and this show is an ancient reference to me.

What kind of nerd am I?

So, I was going to do my normal highlights, but I realized there were a lot of examples of the kind of nerd I am (in addition to being a crossword nerd, naturally).

ALE (1D: Stuff served in a horn at a Renaissance faire, perhaps) — Not only am I the kind of nerd who brews his own beer, I'm also the type to go to a Ren Faire and drink ale out of my horn.

Sorry ladies, I'm married

SPEEDO (16D: Maker of tiny trunks)— I am a triathlon nerd and also a word nerd. So, while I typically wear TYR swimwear (named for the Norse god of war; also a mythology nerd), Speedo has become a proprietary eponym, like Band-Aid or Kleenex. I'll spare you a swimwear picture.
SEGA (7D: Company whose name is derived from "Service Games") — I enjoyed learning this trivia, but I'm including it here because I'm a classic video game nerd. I don't think there's many gamers my age who can't hear this logo just from looking at the picture:

DUNE (115D: Sea turtle nesting site) — I'm the kind of sci-fi/fantasy nerd who just read all 900 or so pages of the original book Dune. Not the kind who had read it as a kid, but I did read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in elementary school. I should probably read that again; I can't imagine I really got it at that age.
PICK A CARD (3D: Magician's request) — Finally, I'm the kind of nerd who tried his hand at magic. I unfortunately lack any kind of manual dexterity, so I could never hack it. I still enjoy a good magician, though, especially close-up/slight of hand stuff.

Ok, I think that's all I've got for you today. I hope you've had as much fun solving and reading as I have blogging for you all. Enjoy your Sunday!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Shaun Phillips

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only), though I haven't solved a crossword in nine days, so maybe I'm just rusty

THEME:"ARE YOU FOR REAL?" (32A: "Seriously ?!" ... or what one might ask of the answers to starred clues in this puzzle?)— beings that aren't real ... or are they? (49D: The answers to the starred clues in this puzzle ... or are they? = MYTHS)

Theme answers:

TOOTH FAIRY (17A: *One leaving money under a pillow)
IMAGINARY FRIEND (22A: *Hobbes, vis-à-vis Calvin)
LOCH NESS MONSTER (46A: *Cryptid in the Scottish Highlands)
SANTA CLAUS (53A: *"Ho, ho, ho!" hollerer)

Word of the Day: PEPSI ONE (10D: Discontinued competitor of Coke Zero) —

Pepsi One, corporately styled PEPSI ONE (so named because it contains one calorie per eight-fluid ounce [230 ml] serving), was a sugar-free cola, marketed by PepsiCo in the United States as an alternative to regular Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. // On June 30, 1998, the artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration. PepsiCo responded within one hour, announcing the introduction of Pepsi One (which reached store shelves the following October). The original formulation was sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium. This new variety was based upon an earlier product (sold in other countries) called Pepsi Max, but it featured a formula and flavor profile developed specifically for the U.S. market. // The launch of Pepsi One included an advertising campaign featuring the slogan "just one calorie." Subsequently, comedian Tom Green appeared as the spokesperson in a series of television advertisements that began airing in April 1999 [...] In January 2014, Consumer Reports magazine tested levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI) – a potential carcinogen – in various beverages in the United States and found that Pepsi ONE was one of two drinks that contained the chemical in excess of 29 micrograms per can or bottle, with that being California Proposition 65's daily allowed amount for foods without a warning label. // In mid-2015, after its sister product Diet Pepsi had changed to using sucralose and Ace-K as sweeteners instead of aspartame, Pepsi One was discontinued. PepsiCo wrote on its website that "Pepsi ONE has been discontinued. We regularly evaluate our product portfolio to find efficiencies, and we have decided to remove Pepsi ONE from the marketplace. Pepsi ONE has very limited distribution and will be out of the marketplace by start of the year 2015, and in some markets product inventory has already been exhausted." (wikipedia)

• • •

[at Moby Dick restaurant on the pier (please note
looming stranger / serial killer in background)]

Hello, solvers. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program, i.e. me writing this blog every damn day! I can't say I missed it ... no, that's not true. I did miss it. A lot. I didn't miss getting up every day at 3:30am to write, true, but I did miss writing. And solving. And complaining and what not. I'm at a bit of a loss without my daily ritual. But if you gotta be at a bit of a loss, I'll tell ya, Santa Barbara is the place to do it. Perfect weather Every Single Day. Some morning fog, sure, but that just gave the seaside some ambience, and made running / walking by the ocean (every morning!) very, very comfortable. It was nice to see my parents, and my sister, and nephews nieces etc. We've been doing these family summer trips for over twenty years, and everyone's Slowing Down now, which is Just Fine with me. I like my vacations to feature a few scheduled events and then a whole lot of nothing. I walked a ton (very very walkable city), ate a ton (very very eatable city), and read a ton (well, two books—that's pretty good!). Mainly I made friends with birds. Every day we'd go down to the beach and hang out with the birds. You've got your usual gulls, and crows (everywhere!), and shorebirds (like curlews), and then egrets and pelicans and kingfishers and swallows (under the pier), but my favorite of all were the very visible, very sullen, occasionally loud black-crowned night herons, who hung out in numbers right by the running path. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. The first one I saw, I thought it was hurt, because it seemed too close to people, but nope, there were a bunch of them hanging out right by the street, around an abandoned pool of some sort, I think. Anyway, they look like grumpy old men, which may be why I related to them. Adorable.

Other than black-crowned night herons, the most interesting thing I saw in Santa Barbara was seals (or maybe sea lions—a bunch of them, just hanging out in the water about 10 yards or so from shore ... lurking ... plotting). Oh, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who was right in front of me in line for ice cream. Wild. Don't ask me what she ordered because I do not remember. I was too busy thinking, "Wait, is this real?" But it was. She was. More real than the TOOTH FAIRY, I assure you. I ended up ordering Honey Almond Crunch and it was delicious. The ice cream place was called RORI'S, which is one of those names that gets crossword constructors thinking, "Be more famous! I could use you!" Neither RORI nor RORIS has ever appeared in the NYTXW. For good reason. Too regional. But if RORI'S ever went national, I guarantee you'd start seeing it in grids almost immediately. A name built for crosswords. Crossword Crunch would be a good ice cream flavor. What flavor would Crossword Crunch be? Suggestions welcome (though if your ingredient list doesn't include OREO, don't expect to be taken seriously).

Today's theme didn't feel like much of a theme. I mean, the core of it is just "imaginary creatures," which is too insubstantial to qualify as a theme, so I guess it's the revealer ("ARE YOU FOR REAL?") that is supposed to put this one over the top. I dunno. I guess. I can't say I disliked it, but it did seem pretty, uh, vanilla (ice cream callback!). I think the puzzle kind of lost me with the "bonus" themer (MYTHS). You can feel the puzzle really straining to convince you that the theme is legit. Feels like an answer that was maybe incidental / accidental, that they then tried to conscribe into thematic service. The revealer was OK, but that one went too far. Felt forced. "... or are they?" Yes, they are, they are MYTHS, what are you doing?

As for difficulty ... well, technically I failed the Downs-only assignment today. I had LADED at 46D: Filled with cargo (LADEN), which gave me DONE instead of NONE, and since DONE is a perfectly ordinary word, I didn't blink. Until I didn't get the "You Completed the Puzzle!" message. Then I had to hunt my mistake. Bah. But besides that one square, I got through it OK, with two significant sticking points. The first, lesser sticking point came around TSKS (ugh) SKIER KERRY, the last of which I wasn't sure how to spell (KERRI?), the second of which had a "?" clue (7D: Person who might need a lift?), and the first of which is just a horrid piece of (plural!) crosswordese (hence the "ugh") (6A: Reprimanding sounds). The bigger sticking point was NEW MOM / BUM / BUNION, with BUM being the real issue. Could not get a word meaning [Backside] from -U-. I think of BUM as primarily British, so ... yeah, a hint there ("to a Brit") would've been helpful. Also, working Downs-only, I though NEW-OM was NEWSOM (as in California governor Gavin), so NEW MOM (!) came, eventually, as a big surprise (38A: One on maternity leave). But I weathered that part and finished without further incident (except the LADED incident). Had ATAD before ABIT, but that's ordinary stuff (36D: Ever so slightly).

Notes:

10D: Discontinued competitor of Coke Zero (PEPSI ONE) — very on-brand for the NYTXW, debuting an answer only after it is well and truly bygone. Mwah! Never stop being your beautiful belated self, puzzle!
31D: When repeated, sound effect for Cookie Monster ("NOM!") — a fine answer, but oof, a truly horrible dupe of "Monster" (which features prominently in one of the theme answers: LOCH NESS MONSTER.
55D: Summer Olympics powerhouse (USA) — a fitting clue for this day after the Summer 2024 Olympics closing ceremonies. The USA was indeed a powerhouse once again this year, finishing with more medals (by far) than any other country (126, including 40 gold, to 2nd place China's 91). I didn't catch much of it, though I did get to watch crossword favorite Simone BILES (5) dismantle the competition in the women's all-around. She seemed to be on a different plane. Unreal. Mythical, almost. (just trying to tie it in, here...)

47D: Olympic snowboarder White (SHAUN) — it must be pretty hard to lay off signing your name to your grid. I mean, the grid comes together in a certain way, you get an opportunity, you gotta take it, right? Or no? Anyway, yes, I noticed. My best friend's name is SHAUN, so in her honor, I'll let this bit of self-indulgence slide.
43A: Frozen ocean water (SEA ICE) — when you solve Downs-only, you get to discover little flukes in words and phrases that you might not notice otherwise. For instance, the fact that SEA ICE is just one letter off from SEANCE, which is what I Really wanted this answer to be for a bit (before A BIT made it impossible).

Glad to be back. See you next time (which, if my math is right, is tomorrow).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. just a few more vacation highlights

[at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles]

[some off-the-menu mezcal deliciousness that my bartender called "Agua Bendita" ("Holy Water")]

[Santa Barbara has a Goodwill]

[with my sister, Amy]

[from my balcony]

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Benjamin Panico

Relative difficulty: Easy (or Challenging, depending on your familiarity with the puzzle's subject)

THEME: TONI MORRISON (55A: Author who received the Nobel Prize in Literature on the basis of her first six novels, all featured in this puzzle) — six novels by Toni Morrison:

Theme answers:

JAZZ (8A: 1992 novel set in 1920s Harlem)
THE BLUEST EYE (19A: 1970 novel exploring racism's effect on a young girl's self-esteem)
TAR BABY (30A: 1981 novel about the interplay of privilege and poverty in a Caribbean romance)
SONG OF SOLOMON (35A: 1977 novel whose title references a lyrical Old Testament book)
BELOVED (42A: 1987 Pulitzer-winning novel about the haunting of a formerly enslaved family's home)
SULA (65A: 1973 novel set in "the Bottom," a neighborhood slated to be demolished for a golf course)

Word of the Day: TONI MORRISON (55A) —

Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (née Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. Morrison earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor in fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her novel Beloved was made into a film in 1998. Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States and the Black American experience.
The National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. She was honored with the National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters the same year. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 29, 2012. She received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2016. Morrison was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020. (wikipedia)

• • •

First themer I got was THE BLUEST EYE and I thought, "wow, that's kind of a deep cut for a Tuesday puzzle." And then I got JAZZ and started to think the same thing but then immediately realized "oh, we're just doing TONI MORRISON novels, is that it?" And that was it. It's a list of her first six novels, which just happen to be symmetrically arrangeable in a crossword grid (when you throw Morrison's name in the mix as well). From a puzzle standpoint, this isn't much. It's a list. Here's the author. Here's six books she wrote. There's no wordplay, no tricks. Just titles. And it's not even an anniversary—Morrison's birthday, say (Feb. 18), or the anniversary of her Nobel Prize win, or anything. Just her name and her books. So ... ho-hum. And yet it's really hard for me to be mad at a grid that has one of my very favorite novels splashed right across the middle of it. If you're going to bore me with a list, I'd say this list about as interesting a way as there is to do it. I enjoyed taking the trip through Morrison's back catalogue. As an English major who was in college at the peak of Morrison's productivity and fame (i.e. just after BELOVED came out), these titles all came to me very, very easily. Lots of my friends were Women's Studies majors of one kind or another (English, Sociology, etc.), so I became very familiar with the Morrison bibliography very quickly, and though I've only read two of these books, I filled in every title in today's puzzle without any difficulty at all. Well, there was some difficulty with the first title (THE BLUEST EYE), since at that point I didn't know they would all be Morrison titles. But after the second title (JAZZ) ... whoosh! So I liked this puzzle insofar as I like TONI MORRISON and enjoyed briefly reminiscing about my college days, when she first came to my notice and when I first read her work. And yeah, SONG OF SOLOMON, man. It's a life-changer. A disturbing, even horrifying work, but a warm and wise one as well. And a page-turner! I might pick it up again soon...

There's not much going on today beyond the list of book titles. Those answers are inherently flashy and interesting. The rest of the grid, much less so. The "Z"s gave it some zing, but otherwise, it's pretty routine and unremarkable. It's also very easy—as it would have to be, since for many people there's probably going to be plenty of difficulty in the theme itself, the way there is always difficulty in working out proper nouns you've never heard of. I have no idea how familiar Morrison's catalogue is to the general public. Seems plausible that even very well read people might not know more than one or two titles. So there was no room for the non-thematic fill to get too hard or too cute. Gotta keep those crosses coming in clean so no one gets Naticked. I don't see any potential Naticks today. Only SULA and (to a lesser extent) TAR BABY have any chance of thwarting people with an uninferrable letter, and their crosses all seem clear to me. The "Y" in TAR BABY came from OYS (26D: Pained cries), which could easily have been OWS or even OHS, I suppose, but again, you can get the "Y" by inference, i.e. TARBABW is nonsense. That first "A" in TAR BABY comes from EVA, whose clue is unusual (21D: #bestfriends4___) but ultimately pretty straightforward. I don't see an ounce of difficulty in this puzzle outside the themers. I had some mild trouble working out the awkwardness of RETURN TO (4D: Pick up again, as a book)."Pick up" was ambiguous—I thought I was returning to the library to check it out again, or buying another copy, not simply coming back to it after having put it aside. But this resulted in mild hesitation, not actual confusion or stoppage. I always balk at VLOGS because that word has always seemed made-up and embarrassing, and now seems dated, but again, it's not like it was hard to come up with (43D: YouTube journals, essentially). Conceptually, this puzzle wasn't particularly innovative or original or clever, but it did provide a welcome opportunity to remember a great author. Maybe that's enough.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"YOUR ROOTS ARE SHOWING" (48A: With 56-Across, hairstylist's observation (that also applies to 17-, 25- and 34-Across?)) — numbers are replaced with their (square) roots in three answers:

Theme answers:

CLOUD THREE (from "cloud nine") (17A: Seventh heaven)
SWEET FOUR (from "Sweet Sixteen") (25A: March Madness round)
"WHEN I'M EIGHT" (from "When I'm Sixty-Four") (34A: Beatles hit written by a teenage Paul McCartney)

Word of the Day: Tegan and Sara (12D: Tegan and Sara, e.g. = POP DUO) —

Tegan and Sara (/ˈtiːɡən, ˈsɛərə/) is a Canadian indie pop duo formed in 1998 in Calgary, Alberta. The band is led by identical twin sisters, Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin(born September 19, 1980). Both musicians are songwriters and multi-instrumentalists.
The duo has released ten studio albums and earned a Grammy nomination in 2012 for their video album Get Along. Their most recent album, Crybaby, was released on October 21, 2022.Their memoir, High School, was released on September 24, 2019, and in the fall of 2022, the TV series based on the memoir was released on Amazon Freevee.

• • •

[My CSA]

Do hairstylists really say this to their clients? Seems blunt. Maybe too blunt. "YOUR ROOTS ARE SHOWING" sounds like something you'd say to someone you're trying to casually insult (for being old, or phony, or not keeping up appearances), a phrase possibly followed by "dearie" or preceded by "honey." But then it could just be a benign observation from your hairstylist. I don't know. I don't have hair, and I never colored it when I did have it, so this is slightly foreign territory to me, but I'm familiar with the concept of roots showing, and I like what this puzzle has done with the idea. The basic idea of the theme becomes evident right away, or early anyway. I got CLOUD, and then NINE wouldn't fit in the five remaining spaces, so I had to work crosses to see what sort of NINE substitute was supposed to go there. Had a little trouble getting into that THREE—first two short crosses I tried to work were misfires (GAGS and HAH instead of SETS and HEH) (5D: Comedians' collections + 6D: "Good one")—but after some hacking, the THREE showed up and, yeah, THREE is the square "root" of NINE, as you probably know. Once the square root idea was clear, the other two themers weren't hard at all, but they were kinda fun to discover. The only question was "why are we doing this?" (i.e. "what is the revealer payoff going to be?"), and it only took a few letters in the first part of the revealer for the whole thing to become clear. That's a lot of real estate to give over to a revealer when you've only got three actual theme answers (no examples of the theme at all below the grid equator!), but when you're revealer's fresh and sassy, maybe it deserves to take over half the grid. And if that revealer was too easy to get, well, it's Wednesday, not Thursday, so no one's really asking for excessive difficulty here. For me, the cuteness levels were sufficient, none of themers were duds—I'm happy.

The fill was more hit/miss. Those banks of 6s and 7s in the corners are a showcase for some more-interesting-than-usual fill (I'm particularly fond of the GETWET TAILPIPE MATINEE SNAGGED grouping in the SE), but there's a bit of clanking in the short stuff. I will never not find SPOOR unappealing as a word, and in the plural, moreso, especially if you cross it with ODO- (one of your less appealing prefixes ... and prefixes are rarely if ever appealing). I managed to remember OIKOS, and it's fine, I guess, but ODO OIKOS SPOORS just gives off a kind of ... ODOR (59A: Gym bag emanation). OIKOS ODOR ODO ODE HOER ... say that a few times, that'll wake you up. Or ERR EERIE EPEE ERAS, that's fun too. You can take back your SMS and your AMS and your ACTI, your DEE and your DEO, your SNO and SLO. It's all a bit LIMP. I love PHO but I'm not sure I love PHOS, which makes its NYTXW debut here as a soup plural—there are a few earlier (much earlier) appearances of PHOS in the puzzle, but those are all clued [Light: Pref.], except for that one time in 1988 when Maleska clued it as [Old cries of contempt], oof. Thank god *that* clue never reappeared. I would definitely have said "Pho!" to that. Possibly multiple times. So many "PHO!"S would I have uttered!

Notes:

21A: Texting format, in brief (SMS) — one of those abbrs. that I know but always slightly misremember. Is it RSS? MSS? HMS? LDS? ... SMH.
35D: One making a bed (HOER) — ah, HOERs in beds, that doesn't sound weird or double entendre-y at all! Did you know that HOER is, in fact, Dutch (and Afrikaans) for "whore"? True story.
39A: Major league? (ARMY)— I got this easily enough, but it took me a while to fully understand it. My mind just processed "Major league" as just a large group (a metaphorical ARMY) of something. Only later did I realize, "oh, 'Major' is a rank ... in the ARMY ... so the ARMY is the 'league' that the Major ... plays in?" Something like that.
47A: Composer ___ Carlo Menotti (GIAN) — I'm used to thinking of "Giancarlo" as one name (to the extent that I think about the name at all, which, admittedly, is only when I happen to be thinking about Giancarlo Esposito). Menotti composed the opera "AMAHL and the Night Visitors," which I have never seen and only know about because of crosswords. Definitely keep an eye out for AMAHL if you've not seen him before (70 NYTXW appearances, 33 in the Modern Era). The opera made its debut on NBC in 1951 ("the first opera specifically composed for television in the United States") and first appeared in the NYTXW in 1953. Let it not be said that Margaret Farrar* was averse to pop culture! A two-year turnaround time, that's not bad.

53A: Wilbur, to Fern, in "Charlotte's Web" (PET PIG) — had that first "P" and wrote in PIGLET. Because Wilbur is a PIGLET. Very unfortunate misstep.
22D: Insistently unhip (STODGY) — I prefer to think of myself as "delightfully old-fashioned," but if you must namecall... I mainly hear this word now in baking contexts, specifically in the voice of Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*Margaret Farrar was the first editor of the NYTXW

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SPEECH-TO-TEXT (39A: Technology used in writing the starred clues?) — clues are written as if SPEECH-TO-TEXT technology misheard the speaker / clue writer (i.e. clues contain errant homophones):

Theme answers:

EIFFEL TOWER (18A: *Rod-shaped parasite) ("Rod-shaped Paris site" (or "sight," I suppose))
PARTY SUB (27A: *Soup or sandwich) ("Super sandwich")
BUTT DIAL (54A: *Embarrassment from a self-own, perhaps) ("Embarrassment from a cell phone, perhaps)
CLOUDY SKIES (62A: *Grade-A quality) ("Gray day quality")

Word of the Day: Alain-René LESAGE (19D: 18th-century French novelist whose name means "the wise man") —

Alain-René Lesage (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ ʁəne ləsaʒ]; 6 May 1668 – 17 November 1747; older spelling Le Sage) was a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks (1707, Le Diable boiteux), his comedy Turcaret (1709), and his picaresque novel Gil Blas (1715–1735). // Very little is known of Lesage's life and personality. Various anecdotes represent him as a very independent man, declining to accept the literary patronage required to survive. One story tells of the time he had been entreated to read his manuscript (according to the fashion of the day) at the Hôtel de Bouillon by the Duchess. The hour appointed for the reading was noon, but the dramatist was still very interested in legal matters and was detained until 1 o'clock attending the decision of a lawsuit. When he finally appeared at the Hôtel and attempted to apologise, the Duchess of Bouillon was so cold and haughty, observing that he had made her guests lose one hour waiting for his arrival. "It is easy to make up the loss madame", replied Lesage; "I will not read my comedy, and thus you will gain two hours." With that, he left the Hôtel and could never be persuaded to return to the Duchess's house. (wikipedia)

• • •

Is the EIFFEL TOWER"rod-shaped"?? Of all the ways I would've described that structure (which I spent a lot of time looking at the last couple weeks, on account of the Olympics), "rod-shaped" is not among them. I think of a "rod" as perfectly straight. Like the "inanimate carbon rod" that wins "Employee of the Month" in that one "Simpsons" episode. That rod is straight. Rods are straight. The EIFFEL TOWER tapers to a point. Seems more like a narrow pyramid than a rod. So much so that I have been sitting here saying "rod-shaped" over and over, hoping to discover some SPEECH-TO-TEXT possibility that I'm missing. It's not like I struggled to get that first themer—I had EIFF- pretty quickly, so I just wrote in the obvious and then tried to figure out how the clue was supposed to make sense. I got the "Paris site" pun pretty quickly, so felt good about leaving EIFFEL TOWER in place, but not that good. Still feels like there's something I'm missing, so weird is "rod-shaped." The word "rod" appears nowhere on the EIFFEL TOWER's wikipedia page. But OK, fine, it's "rod-shaped," moving on... I thought the theme was fine, though it really felt like something I'd seen before. Not much difficulty, but it is kind of fun figuring out the SPEECH-TO-TEXT errors. The hardest speech command to figure out, for me, was the one that might produce "Grade-A quality". Weird, now, as it seems obvious: "Grade A" sounds exactly like "gray day." But I think my brain was trying to make one word out of "Grade A" and was only getting something like "Grady." Grady is the absent-minded friend of Fred Sanford on "Sanford & Son," but it was hard to see how anything about him evoked CLOUDY SKIES, so I just cocked my head and stared dumbly at the screen for a few seconds, like a dog trying to understand television, until "gray day" finally popped into my thick skull.

I know the "technology" here as "VOICE-TO-TEXT," though "SPEECH-TO-TEXT" is not only valid but actually Googles about twice as well. Is there any difference between the two, or are they just two different names for the same thing? I never (well, rarely) use SPEECH-TO-TEXT, as I just end up having to make corrections, which often take at least as long as it would've taken to compose the message in the first place. But I also hate adapting to any new technology, and most of my more normal friends and family have been using SPEECH-TO-TEXT for a while now, especially when they're out and about and need to send a quick text. I wouldn't say the revealer was hard to work out—I could already tell there were "mishearings" afoot—but SPEECH was definitely the (non-Paris) site, or locus, or whatever, of the toughest (for me) part of the puzzle. Not SPEECH itself, but the answers all around and through it, starting with LESAGE, which is LOL obscure at this point. In the olden days, you used to see GIL or BLAS clued as the (once) "famous" French novel GIL BLAS, so I must've seen the guy's name before, but if so, it registered not at all (GIL hasn't been clued that way since '08, and for BLAS, since '10; note: while there are myriad ways to clue GIL, there's only one non-LESAGE way to clue BLAS: [Panama's Gulf of San ___]). I got LESAGE like many of you probably got it—by inferring it from "the wise one."

Also running through SPEECH was REMEDY, which I very confidently wrote in as REPAIR (off the "RE-") (35D: Fix). This meant that though I immediately thought EVILEST for 47A: Most diabolical, it wouldn't work. It also wouldn't work because for 40D: Plant in the mint family with healthful seeds (CHIA), I somehow wrote in DILL (!?) and off of that wrote in ISO- (again, !?) at 44A: Straight, informally (HET). That is some creative f-ing up right there. And was it "AW HECK!" or "AW HELL!" I wanted the former, which, to my eye/ear, is more "colorful" than the latter (which is more common, and therefore lacking "color"). So everything in the vicinity of SPEECH ended up being a mess (though SPEECH itself was not to blame). My struggles (though minor) extended west and south from there, as PCB seemed like it could be anything. I considered DDT, then really wanted CFC (chlorofluorocarbons), but eventually got PCB entirely from crosses and still don't know exactly what it is. Looks like it stands for "polychlorinated biphenyl." Huh. Alright then. Looks like letter gibberish. TCB. PCP. PBJ. Blah blah blas. I also struggled with TENTS (55D: Rainflies can cover them). I guess I don't go camping enough (i.e. ever ... well, rarely—I'm not averse, just lazy). In truth, though, the puzzle wasn't that hard. My only mistake outside the whole center-to-SW region was when I wrote BENCH in, first thing (1A: City sitting spot = STOOP).

Bullets:

12D: Small sofa (LOVE SEAT) — for better or worse (mostly worse), LOVE SEAT is going to make me think of JD Vance for the foreseeable future

6D: Persian's realm? (CATDOM)— Speaking of Vance, here's one for all the "childless cat ladies" out there! I love cats. I have two cats. I guess this (gestures to entire surroundings) is CATDOM? All cats are CATDOM? I dunno. This is not a word I can imagine using, except maybe facetiously, the way you might stick the -DOM suffix on anything to refer to the wider world of that thing (thiefdom! breaddom!). And yet it's a word. In the dictionary. And so is DOGDOM. And HORSEDOM (though the second hit I get on that search is the OED, which assumes I meant to search for "whoredom" (!?)). I would keep googling through all of animaldom, but coffee is calling my name, so before I google "giraffedom," I'll just move on.

57D: Identifying words from a familiar voice ("IT'S ME") — I really like this clue. I can't put my finger on why; it's pretty ordinary-looking. But there's something ... perfect about it. Spot on.
21A: Base figure, for short (NCO) — a military base, not a low or evil creature, or a number, or whatever else "base" or "figure" might've made you think (NCO = non-commissioned officer, one of the first pieces of crosswordese I learned back in the day)
26D: Friends, in slang (PEEPS) — your people are your PEEPS. Because your friends are neon-colored marshmallow birds.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kate Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Libby (20A: Libby offerings = EBOOKS) —

The Libby mobile app requests the user's library card. With the library card, Libby connects to the user's account at the library and provides support in checking out books. The intent is improved service and ease of accessing the library instead of using the library's own website.
A reviewer for Literary Review of Canada praised Libby's management of reading data, including books read and books in queue for reading. A reviewer for Time called Libby one of the best apps of 2018. Popular Mechanics named Libby as one of the best apps of the 2010s.
According to OverDrive CEO Steve Potash, as of 2023, Libby is used by approximately "90% of public libraries in North America". Free library services of the sort supported by Libby are unusual in a time period when almost all such services come from commercial vendors. (wikipedia)

• • •

The pillars of this puzzle are very nice (PLAYED MIND GAMES, "ALL KIDDING ASIDE..."), and the other longer answers are at least solid, with SELL SHORT over STAY TUNED being perhaps the spunkiest section (SPUNKIER, that is, than most other sections). That said, the puzzle runs a little plain, a little dull. Beyond the pillars, the marquee stuff doesn't quite sing. I might feel differently if I were more on the puzzle's cultural wavelength. There are probably people for whom ZOOLANDER is a welcome answer (30D: Film character who asks "Did you ever think that maybe there's more to life than being really, really, really ridiculously good-looking?"). I saw that movie when it came out, in the theater, once, and haven't thought about it since. The clue meant nothing to me. I had -OOL and thought there was some movie character named COOL Somebody Or Other. COOL KEN or something. It sounded like something a Ken would say. I've seen many Bond films in my life, though almost none of the recent (i.e. 21st century) ones, and if I ever saw Goldfinger, I certainly forgot that any part of it took place in the ALPS. That "Locale" could've been anywhere. Any four-letter place. CUBA? LAOS? I wanted to write in MOON (this is probably because I saw Moonraker at the New Beverly in L.A. two years ago, the last time I watched a Bond flick). And I lived through the '80s and listened to more radio then than at any other time in my life and I still have no idea, as I sit here right now, what Diana ROSS song this is—"Chain Reaction"? LOL OK now I see why I don't remember it. It Peaked at No. 66 (!?) In This Country, wwwwhhhhyyyy is this the Diana ROSS song you're using!? Yeesh. The woman had more Top Ten hits than you can shake a stick at (both solo and with the Supremes), and you give me "Chain Reaction?" Yes, it was (apparently!) No. 1 in Ireland and Australia and the UK, but I do not live in those places, and the bulk of the NYTXW's solvership does not live in those places, and the NYT is not based in those places, so cluing ROSS this was is inexplicable, really.

[listening to this now and I swear I've never heard it before, ever ... which, considering how much radio I listened to and how much MTV I consumed in the mid-80s, feels statistically impossible; this song simply didn't register in the U.S.]

Also no clue about Libby. None. I was thinking tea, but that's Lipton. Libby's (apostrophe "S") was a company that produced canned food and vegetables for a time. Libby's Libby's Libby's on the label label label you will like it like it like it on your table table table. If you watched a lot of TV in the '70s, then you know what I'm talking about. But E-BOOKS. Nope. I hate E-BOOKS. Reading for me is an opportunity *not* to look at a screen or hold a "device." I tried. Lord I tried. Seemed ... efficient, or paper-saving, or something, but the whole E-BOOKS experience is just soul-crushing for me, so nope. Nope. I do use the library app Hoopla, but mostly just to stream free movies. I've never seen the Libby logo until today. It seems ... popular. But I never heard of it. So once again, the puzzle just missed me, culturally. On the other hand, Cindy SHERMAN (24D: Artist Cindy known for her photographic self-portraits) and HOLLY Hunter (17A: Hunter on screen) are old friends (so to speak), so the puzzle's cultural POV didn't miss me entirely. It just missed me enough to make this otherwise easy puzzle somewhat difficult. Which put it right at expected difficulty level, I guess. The puzzle was very ... expected. I mean, it feels like the definition of "just fine." It's well made. It's not loaded with gunk. Some of the clues are tricky. A routine Friday, in most respects. Nothing particularly standout, nothing particularly godawful.

[OMG Cousin Oliver! LOL, wow, YouTube is a drug]

Lots of opportunities for missteps today, most notably, I think, at 54A: Add exaggerated details to, where you could have the first three letters (EMB-) and still write in the wrong answer, i.e. EMBELLISH. EMBELLISH fits, both spacewise and meaningwise, and it's a more common word (in this particular sense) than EMBROIDER. I'd use EMBELLISH. I would not use EMBROIDER. But that's OK. Not faulting the puzzle, only pointing out the dastardliness of the clue and the EMB- coincidence. There's also the potential RATTLE-for-RACKET misstep (36D: Clatter) (I made this one, or at least strongly considered making it). Did you spell BURGS right at first pass? (21D: Small towns). I didn't (BERGS!). I think that's it for actual slip-ups. There were some absolute did-not-knows, like COMTE (49A: Cheese also known as French Gruyère), and ... hmmm, that may be the only answer in the grid that I truly didn't recognize (though I've almost certainly seen it in cheese shops and cheese sections of supermarkets over the years, but like a pedestrian clod just kept buying boring old Gruyère, I guess) (which is Swiss, not French, despite its French-looking name).

Notes:

18A: English cathedral city (ELY)— a reflex answer for old-timers like me. Put it in your crosswordese quiver right now, 'cause you're gonna see it again (if you don't see Tarzan portrayer Ron ELY first) (there's also apparently an ELY, Nevada, and even an ELY, Minnesota, but it's the cathedral city and the Tarzan guy that dominate Elydom)
33A: Expeditions, e.g. (FORDS)— The Expedition is an SUV produced by Ford Motor Co.
30A: Where lines may be drawn in the sand (ZEN GARDEN) — excellent clue, one that kept me stump for a good while (since I didn't have the "Z" from ZOOLANDER). ZEN GARDENs contain gravel or sand that is raked "to represent ripples in water." The rakes produce the lines ... in the sand.
14D: Things found in a well (STAIRS) — er, I guess. But you'd never call a stairwell anything but a stairwell. You'd never (ever) refer to the space in which one finds the STAIRS as simply the "well." This clue definitely feels like a case of TTH (Trying Too Hard).
35D: Million ___ March (political event of 2000) (MOM) — you'd be forgiven for putting in MAN here. The Million MOM March was, in fact, modeled on (or at least patterned its name after) the Million Man March, which was held five years earlier. The "Man" march was concerned with the civil rights of Black men. The "MOM" march was concerned with gun violence.
55A: Coin once known as the "piece of eight" (PESO) — I have only ever encountered the term in the plural ("pieces of eight"), and then only because it was the title of a Styx album. I saw that album cover in record stores a lot as a kid. Never heard the title song, but this song (the biggest hit on the album) was a juggernaut:

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Brandon Koppy

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (one hard section, the rest easy)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: NATTY ICE (36D: Low-cost lager from Anheuser-Busch, familiarly) —

Natural Light is an economy brand 4.2% ABV reduced-calorie pale lager introduced in 1977. The brand was originally called Anheuser-Busch Natural Light. In 2008 The Wall Street Journal listed it as the fifth largest selling beer in the U.S. Natural Ice is an economy brand 5.9% ABV ice beer, introduced in 1995. Nearly two decades after the introduction of Natural Ice a malt liquor named Natty Daddy (8% and 5.9% ABV) was added to the market in 2012. It competes directly with the MillerCoors brand Keystone Light, Milwaukee's Best Light, Southpaw Light while Natural Ice competes directly with Keystone Ice/V9, Milwaukee's Best Ice and Icehouse and Natty Daddy competes against Keylightful, Keystone Lime and Icehouse Edge. Anheuser Busch continues to add to the Natural Light profile releasing Naturdays in 2019. Currently there are three flavors, original strawberry lemonade, pineapple lemonade and red, white and blueberry. (wikipedia)

• • •

For a puzzle that was ultimately pretty easy, I had a Lot of initial wrong answers today. Some of them understandable, some of them (much) less so. I was writing them down on a notepad as I solved, so I have the strangest list here next to me. If future archaeologists ever found it, they'd be like "what the **** were these people up to!?" It reads as follows:

OMAHA

SYRUP

YA HEAR (ick!!!) [that "ick" was for the *correct* answer; more on that later]

JAMBOREES

LUNCH

Off to the side there's an "Ohio!" (reminding me to address the slur on that state's piety at 10D: Like Medina, Saudi Arabia, vis-à-vis Medina, Ohio) ("Hey, you don't know that, how dare you!" I said quietly to myself) (my wife and daughter are still, like normal people, asleep at 4:30am as I write this). Then down below I've written "PRINCE 🎵" to remind me to put this on the blog:

[20A: Reason one might read a "Speed Hump" sign and laugh]

But back to the list: I'm not sure I actually wrote in LUNCH, but I definitely wrote in all the others. Yes, I thought the brand of frozen french fries were "Born in OMAHA" (I had the ---AH- and my brain sent out a big OMAHA signal; pattern (mis-)recognition!) (19A: Grown in ___ (brand of frozen French fries) (IDAHO)). Yes, I thought forsythia might be a SYRUP (again, pattern (mis-)recognition—I had S-RU-) (5A: Forsythia, for one) (SHRUB). And then "YA HEAR!?" wow, if only that had been right. "YA HEAR!?" is an actual complete expression. It's even made two appearances in the NYTXW before. Whereas "YA FEEL!?" (debuting today, no surprise there) really really (to my ear) needs a "ME" after it in order to make any sense. I have heard "YA FEEL ME!?" many many many times over the decades, mainly when rappers have tried to explain themselves in one way or another. The "ME"-less version ... that got by me. Consequence of getting old, I guess. Grimacingly painful to write that one in the grid. I assume it's perfectly valid, in some contexts, but it still felt oof. Which is too bad, because this grid is really quite lovely and largely oof-free. JAMBOREES for CAMPOREES will surprise no one, as the Boy Scouts have a National Jamboree every year. CAMPOREES is one of the stupider portmanteaus (-eaux?) I've ever encountered, but I *have* encountered it before, so that change wasn't too hard. Which brings us to LUNCH, which ... well, again, I had letters in place (-CH), which triggered the pattern-recognition part of my brain, which (again!) sent up the wrong answer. "Wait, you can't order wings with LUNCH? You can only eat them ... as a standalone dish? Or a snack? I knew Buffalo was its own self-contained island of climatic and cultural weirdness, but that's absurd" (46D: In Buffalo, it's a faux pas to order this with Buffalo wings). But no, not LUNCH. RANCH. I love the idea that some burly Bills fan snarfing wings is gonna use a word like "faux pas" with orange Buffalo sauce dripping off his lips and fingers. "RANCH? Oh dear, no. It's simply not done," he splurted.

So, five out-and-out missteps. And yet this puzzle played pretty easy overall. Easy and delightful. The first answer that really made me perk up was DIRTY MIND, and then came the center stack, which is a real piece of work (no, I mean that unironically—I loved it). My only complaint is that it was way too easy to get through. I no-looked STAIRMASTER from pattern recognition alone (ST--RMA----). SCREAM QUEEN was a cinch, given what I had in place already—it's the answer that got me to change "YA HEAR!?" to "YA FEEL!?" (still feels bad...). GOES NUCLEAR might've taken a little more effort, but not much. A great stack that unfolded all in a rush, which made it read like the world's most bizarre headline: "STAIRMASTER SCREAM QUEEN GOES NUCLEAR!" (if she was already screaming on the Stairmaster, "Nuclear" must be pretty bad).

Moving on, I also loved the remaining marquee answers down below: MACGYVERS (as a verb!) and "I NEED A HUG" and "NO BACKSIES," the last of which absolutely saved my hide in the SE, which was (for me) the only tough (i.e. properly Saturday) portion of the grid. That SE corner just ground me down (comparatively). I don't drink beer, and I really don't drink convenience store beer, so NATTY ICE, yikes. I had heard of the NATTY part, so that went in OK, but the last three letters, nope. Also nope: STAR as a verb (43A: Mark as important, in a way). And the idea that "8-8-1" was supposed to represent a win-loss record (i.e. 8 wins, 8 losses, 1 TIE). Sports woes continued with my not really knowing or caring that the RAIDERS (of the NFL) had moved to Las Vegas, and thus thinking that "Eleven" must refer to a dice roll (though I did think "shouldn't there be a comma after "Eleven" if it's a dice roll...?") (38D: Eleven in Las Vegas). Eleven players on a side in football, that's what that "Eleven" means. Forgot the river through Glasgow for a bit before the "C" and "Y" finally jogged it loose (CLYDE). The only time I ever think about the LSAT is when crosswords force me, and I forgot the top score was 180, so even that little answer held me up (54D: Something that's good to do a 180 on?). And LOL at the idea that I know any of the character names on This Is Us (network TV character names being among the least appealing of pop culture clues). Would much have preferred the Hardy heroine or the titular Shirley MacLaine role or really any other TESS (esp. in a puzzle already crowded with TV stuff: HBO DRAMAS and SQUID GAME and what not). So I had NATTY- and REESE'S and not a lot else down there in the SE. But then "NO BACKSIES" slid in and saved my backside. Did I NEED A HUG? I did not. I was fine. Moved over to the SE and finished the puzzle off with next-to-no effort, the end.

11D: So-called "king of the Egyptian gods" (AMON-RA) — if the puzzle is too (TV) show-y, it's also a bit too Egyptiany, I think. AMON-RA andOSIRIS!? (39D: God slain by his brother, then resurrected by his wife). Who's paying the NYT for this kind of exposure? Big Egyptology, no doubt. Anyway, that "O" in AMON-RA can also be an "E" or a "U" (yes, all valid spellings of this dude), so let's just hope you know your Indian menu words (18A: Potatoes, in Indian cuisine = ALOO)
62A: Toaster's opening ("HERE'S...")— as in "HERE'S to my stupid brother, whose marriage to Lisa here is in no way ill-advised! Salud!"
25A: Some skintight clothing (SHAPERS)— maybe the hardest answer for me in the top half of the grid. After SPANX and SPEEDO I didn't have anything left in my skintight "S"-word arsenal. I am more familiar with the term "SHAPEWEAR" than I am with SHAPERS, but I assume it's valid.
1A: Ireland's second-best-selling musical act after U2 (ENYA) — if I ever saw a bigger gimme at 1-Across on a Saturday, I'm not sure when that was. Four letters + Ireland + music should trigger your ENYA reflex immediately. It's doubtful you'd even attempt a Saturday if that reflex were not already well developed and lightning-fast. I've been listening to her first album a lot lately and I love it, partly because it's just a nice atmospheric thing to have on in the house during Drinks hour (5-6pm, ritually), but also because the cover (front and back) features two adorable babies:

[Babies!]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME:"For Your Amusement" — amusement park attractions that are depicted visually in the grid (in circled-square formations)

Theme answers:

DROP TOWER (4D: Amusement park attraction depicted to the right of this answer)
BUMPER CARS (25A: Amusement park attraction depicted above and below this answer)
ROLLER COASTER (65A: Amusement park attraction depicted weaving through this answer)
WATER SLIDE (111A: Amusement park attraction depicted above this answer)
WHAC-A-MOLE (79D: Amusement park attraction depicted in and around this answer)

Word of the Day: Louis SACHAR (67D: Louis who wrote "Holes") —

Louis Sachar (/ˈsækər/ SAK-ər; born March 20, 1954) is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the Wayside School series and the novel Holes.
Holes won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". In 2013, it was ranked sixth among all children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal. [...] Holes is a 1998 young adult novel written by Louis Sachar and first published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book centers on Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to Camp Green Lake, a correctional boot camp in a desert in Texas, after being falsely accused of theft. The plot explores the history of the area and how the actions of several characters in the past have affected Stanley's life in the present. These interconnecting stories touch on themes such as labor, boyhood and masculinity, friendship, meaning of names, illiteracy, and elements of fairy tales.
The book was both a critical and commercial success. Much of the praise for the book has centered around its complex plot, interesting characters, and representation of people of color and incarcerated youth. [...] Holes was adapted by Walt Disney Pictures as a feature film of the same name released in 2003. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, was commercially successful, and was released in conjunction with the book companion Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm normally a fan of these constructors, but this one fell flat for me. The visuals just aren't interesting or evocative enough. Tepid, if visuals can be called tepid, which they can, because I'm calling them that. The most creative of the "amusement park attraction" visual representations is the WHAC-A-MOLE, with those various "MOLE" parts peeking out from their (imagined) holes there at the bottom of the grid. That's cute. But the others? I dunno. The "slide" is just ... a diagonal? Five letters on a diagonal. And DROP TOWER is just five letters divided by one black square? I get that the "ER" is supposed to be "dropping" away, so ... I see it, but it just doesn't make much of a visual impression. Aside from weakness, one of the visuals is completely (I would argue, fatally) unlike the others, in that it completely fails to follow the representational logic of the set. See, for DROP TOWER, you get the "drop" represented by the circled-square arrangement of the letters in "TOWER"; for BUMPER CARS, you get the "bumper"ness of the cars represented by the circled-square arrangement of the letters in "CAR" (three times). One word in the straightforward answer ("DROP"; "BUMPER") forms the basis for the circled-square arrangement of the other word(s) in the straightforward answer ... except. Except for ROLLER COASTER. If ROLLER COASTER were done right (or done according the theme's own logic), then only the word "COASTER" would be "rolling," just like only "TOWER" is "dropping" and only "WATER" is "sliding" and only "MOLE" is "whac-a"-ble. It's such a glaring issue that ... yeah, I don't get it. I don't get why the inconsistency didn't bother anyone. Maybe it did and they just decided "who cares?" There's just not enough sizzle in this thing to make the inconsistent execution worth it. A more eye-popping or stunning or otherwise impressive themer set might've made the ROLLER COASTER thing overlookable. But as I said up front, the visuals are just too tepid, and so the inconsistency of ROLLER COASTER seems like more of a liability.

While there were some parts of this grid I didn't enjoy at all (ORRERY into RESPAWN into SACHAR (?), above all), for the most part the fill is solid and varied and even amusing. CHEST HAIR over HATERADE
is easily the highlight of the puzzle for me (85A: Prominent feature of Tom Selleck or David Hasselhoff / 89A: Sour grapes drink?). Just imagining a bunch of dudes in the early-80s watching "Magnum P.I." and trying to convince themselves Tom Selleck isn't that sexy. Maybe mocking his short shorts, or his prodigious 'stache, or the Farrah-style pin-up posters on their sisters' bedroom walls ... just drinking the CHEST HAIR HATERADE ...

[for comparison]

You all know the term "HATERADE," right? It's what haters drink. When they're hating. They drink "HATERADE." It's metaphorical. A portmanteau of "hater" and "Gatorade." I feel like the term gained currency some time in the late 20th century ... yes, the OED's earliest evidence for "HATERADE" comes from 1993. Here's their definition: "A notional drink that engenders or embodies feelings of hatred, negativity, or resentment; chiefly as part of an extended metaphor, esp. in to drink…" Ooh, "notional." I like that better than "metaphorical." This is the fourth NYTXW appearance of HATERADE, so maybe you're all familiar with the term already. The clue for it today was diabolical, which is probably what's making it stand out to me (89A: Sour grapes drink?). I was like, "[Sour grapes drink?] ... well ... that's ... wine ... kind of, right? Some kind of ... wine?" No. Bigger problem for me in that section was the answer directly under HATERADE: I had -I-S at 95A: Lapel attachments and of course I wrote in PINS because, I mean, lapel PINS, that's what they are, literally, things attached to lapels, argh. So it took me a while to pull out PINS and put in MICS; PINS ensured that both SEMOLINA and WHAC-A-MOLE were slow in coming together.

[I went downstairs just now, where my wife is solving the puzzle on a clipboard, and the *first* thing she said is "What's going on with ROLLER COASTER?! 'ROLLER' should not be in those circled squares ... "COASTER" should be "rolling"in those squares ... those squares should say COASTER COASTER!" So I feel vindicated, and also "COASTER COASTER" is our new word for "ROLLER COASTER"]

Further notes:

15A: Quick second? (ASST.) — "Quick" = abbrev. indicator, and "second" = (per merriam webster dot com, noun (1) def. 2) "one that assists or supports another, especially the assistant of a duelist or boxer." So "quick second" = "abbreviated assistant" = ASST.
36A: N.Y.C. home of "Christina's World" (MoMA) — extremely famous and oft-parodied Wyeth painting, in case you forgot or somehow didn't know ...

[Andrew, *not* N.C.]

51A: "Her Kind" poet Sexton (ANNE) —

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

114A: People who call New Zealand "Aotearoa" (MAORI) — pretty sure everyone calls it that now. "Beginning in the late 20th century, Aotearoa has become widespread in the bilingual naming of national organisations and institutions" (wikipedia). But yeah, it's a MAORI-language term.
117A: Nickname for the Los Angeles Angels (HALOS) — I got this easily, but semi-balked at the spelling, as I want most pluralized "O"-ending words to be spelled -OES. Don't I? HEROES, yes. But then ZEROS. And LASSOS and SOLOS. But definitely POTATOES. Man, English is insane.
5D: Participate in a Lakota smudging ceremony (BURN SAGE) — don't love this. That is, I do love it, or would, if SMUDGE or SMUDGING were the *answer* ... that feels like a coherent thing. BURN SAGE feels like an arbitrary verb phrase, like "paint walls" or "eat food" or whatever. Feels like a clue, not an answer.
10D: A gilded one is seen on King Tut's crown (COBRA) — had the -RA in place, so the word "crown" in the clue triggered an automatic TIARA response.
37D: Jazz pianist Garner (ERROLL) — A one-L ERROL, he's a drinker / A two-L ERROLL, he's a ... plinker?

36D: Fruity Italian wine (MOSCATO) — never had MOSCATO, to my knowledge, but I have had (German, or maybe French) Muscat, which helped here.
97D: Part of an omakase meal (SUSHI) — got this off the "I," but can't remember what "omakase" means ... I must've seen the term in Kamogawa Food Detectives, or heard it in Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), but I just ... forgot. Here we go:

The phrase omakase, literally 'I leave it up to you', is most commonly used when dining at Japanese restaurants where the customer leaves it up to the chef to select and serve seasonal specialties. The Japanese antonym for omakase is okonomi (from 好み konomi, "preference, what one likes"), which means choosing what to order. In American English, the expression is used by patrons at sushi restaurants to leave the selection to the chef, as opposed to ordering à la carte. The chef will present a series of plates, beginning with the lightest fare and proceeding to the heaviest dishes. The phrase is not exclusive to raw fish with rice and can incorporate grilling, simmering and other cooking techniques. (wikipedia)

71D: Consequently (THENCE) — ugh you wouldn't think a word like this could flummox me, esp. with the "TH-" in place, but yeesh. THUSLY? THERETO? Whatever quaint and / or legalistic word was being asked of me, my brain just could not.

OK, that's all. This puzzle wasn't for my amusement, but maybe it was for yours. I hope so. See ya.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kenneth Cortes

Relative difficulty: Well, for me, solving Downs-only, it was Challenging (for a Monday, obviously)

THEME: positionality— theme answers whose first words "TOP""BOTTOM""LEFT" and "RIGHT" point to different answers that are "literally" at the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the grid:

Theme answers:

TOP SIRLOIN (17A: Prime cut of beef ... or 5-Across, literally?) / 5A: Texas Roadhouse specialty (STEAK) ["STEAK" is "SIRLOIN," and it is "literally" at the "TOP" of the grid]
BOTTOM LINE (62A: Balance sheet total ... or 68-Across, literally?) / 68A: D.C.'s subway system (METRO) ["METRO" is a "LINE," and it is "literally" at the "BOTTOM" of the grid]
LEFT BEHIND (27D: Abandoned ... or 25-Down, literally?) / 25D: Tush (BOOTY) ["BOOTY" means "BEHIND," and it is "literally" on the "LEFT" side of the grid]
RIGHT ANGLE (11D: One of four for a square ... or 32-Down, literally?) / 32D: Biased point of view (SLANT) ["SLANT" is an "ANGLE," and it is "literally" on the "RIGHT" side of the grid]

Word of the Day: YABBER (46A: Go on and on) —

Originally Australian.
1841–
intransitive. To talk; to converse; to speak rapidly or excitedly; to chatter.
In early use applied (often in contempt or derision) to the act of speaking a language which is unintelligible to the hearer, esp. that of an Australian Aboriginal speaker. (OED)

• • •

YABBER dabber ... don't. Please don't. What is this word? I know the word "yammer." It means "to talk foolishly or incessantly" (i.e. to [Go on and on]). I know the word "jabber." It means "to talk rapidly, distinctly, or unintelligibly" (i.e. to [Go on and on]). But what in the [beeeeeeeeeeep] is YABBER? I mean, I know what it is now. I looked it up. But I've never seen this word before in my life. Putting some Australian garbage (no offense, lol) in the puzzle on a Monday, what the actual heck? All of the OED examples of YABBER are from Australian sources. [Sidenote: it's also a word with seemingly racist origins: see OED entry, above]. Seems bizarre to pretend that this is just a word people (i.e. people in this country) use. It is not. Do you have any idea how much this "answer" messed me up today. Just try inferring a word that you have never seen in your life and are pretty sure is not a word. Solving Downs-only requires working at least partially by inference. Unless you just magically know all the Downs cold, you have to use the Downs you know to get letters that help you infer at least some of the Acrosses, which then help you get the Downs you couldn't get in the first place, lather rinse repeat. But good luck inferring YABBER. And because YABBER crosses BOOTY, I would not commit to BOOTY, which was a thematically crucial element, so ... sigh. This was just one of several problems I had with the Downs-only solve today, but it's the only one I'm actually Mad about because, as I say, YABBER is not a word that people use in this country, jeez louise, come on. Are you sure it's not actually "yammer" and the speaker just has a cold???

For the last three NYTXW appearances of YABBER (i.e. the only other appearances in the Modern Era—a Wednesday (2011), Sunday (2007), and Sunday (2002), respectively), the clues all indicated the answer's Australian-ness ("to an Aussie,""Down Under,""to an Aussie"). So this answer (which, again, is YABBER) has never (before today) appeared in an easy, early-week puzzle, and has never been clued without its Aussie indicator. Even in the pre-Shortz era (where the answer appeared only twice (Sun. 1988, Thu. 1979)), YABBER never showed up on a Mon or Tue, and never lacked its Aussie indicator ("in Queensland,""in Sydney"). The Aussie indicator tells American solvers "this is gonna be off" and so your solving brain can loosen up and accept weirdness. Without it, you're looking for a regular word that is used in this country, which YABBER ... isn't. This is bafflingly poor editing. I know it's no big deal because the puzzle is ultimately easy yabba yabba yabba, but it's still bad.

Because of the Downs-only thing, I could only really see half the themers. Even though I had STEAK / TOP SIRLOIN, and BOTTOM LINE / METRO filled in, I had no idea how they were thematic (or even that they were thematic). The only themers I could see were the "LEFT" and "RIGHT" ones, and neither one of them—neither the long answers, nor the short answers they referred to, were clear to me at first pass. [One of four for a square] was *particularly* hard, since I wanted something having to do with "SIDES." I eventually figured out LEFT BEHIND, but even then I was like "how is your BOOTY'literally' your LEFT BEHIND? I thought it referred to your *whole* behind..." It just took a while for the gimmick to register. I'm honestly surprised that I managed to finish without cheating (i.e. looking at Acrosses). I had "I BUY IT" before "I SEE IT" (10D: "Yeah, that seems plausible to me"), because "I BUY IT" is obviously better, as well as just more interesting, so ... yeah, that didn't help with my RIGHT ANGLE / SLANT problems in the NE and E. It took some Doing to infer STEFANI, which is the only way I managed to see BY FAR (29D: Without question). I had ESTEEM (?) before ASSESS (34D: Judge the value of). I absolutely (!) blanked on ABSOLUT (after STOLI and SKYY I was out of ideas) (Did I mention I hate vodka and don't understand why anyone drinks it? True story). And while I wanted BALLER fairly early, I had trouble committing to it (47D: Hoops player), mostly because BALLER has come to have meaning far beyond the basketball court. As I say, I feel lucky to have finished clean.

But OK, putting aside the Downs-only shenanigans, what about this theme? I dunno. Top bottom left right. It's kind of fussy, esp. for a Monday. I mean, there's some cleverness there, but you could do this theme with all kinds of TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT, and RIGHT-starting answers. The themer set feels arbitrary, not particularly tight. Overall, the puzzle's fine, but it doesn't have the perfect snap and the elegant simplicity that I crave in a Monday.

Notes:

10D: "Yeah, that seems plausible to me" ("I SEE IT")— did anyone else initially read this sarcastically and want to write in "I'LL BET"? Something about the "Yeah..."
20A: Tongue-tingling taco topping (HOT SALSA) — I would not call the mouth sensation that I get from truly HOT SALSA a "tingle." That is too weak and vaguely pleasant a word to describe it. If the salsa is merely "tongue-tingling," it's mild. Tongue-searing, tongue-scorching ... if you absolutely must have your four-part alliteration, maybe "tongue-torturing"? "Tongue-torching"?
36D: Whom "video killed," in a 1979 hit (RADIO STAR)— love remembering this song, but hate this phrase as a standalone answer. It doesn't have enough standalone power, not enough currency or meaning outside of this song.
13D: Through which we sniff, snort and sneeze (NOSE) — what kind of quaint-ass phrasing is this? There are rules about clue and answer being the same part of speech. A prepositional phrase should not be able to clue a noun. And again with the alliteration? A little goes a long way, I swear. [Singer Simone], [Soothing succulent], [Sign for the superstitious] ... maybe tap the brakes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. The OED is full of gems...

1969
Few Australians can speak English. Most have learnt from disc jockeys and yabber in an odd language called Strine.
Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) No. 69. 1/2

STRINE (6) actually made an NYTXW appearance on a Sunday back in 2019, when I called it "the most obscure thing I've ever seen in the puzzle"

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Constructor: Sam Buchbinder

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:THE SOUND OF MUSIC (59A: Best Picture winner of 1965 ... or a description of the ends of 17-, 30- and 45-Across?) — musical instrument homophones:

Theme answers:

TRADEMARK SYMBOL (cymbal) (17A: Superscript by a brand name)
AIR FORCE BASE (bass) (30A: Fighter jet's landing spot)
GOLDMAN SACHS (sax) (45A: Investment banking giant)

Word of the Day: Tajikistan (34A: Neighbor of an Uzbek = TAJIK) —

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. It has a population of approximately ten million. [...] The country has been led by Emomali Rahmon since 1994, who heads an authoritarian regime and whose human rights record has been criticised. // Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Tajiks form the ethnic majority in the country, and their national language is Tajik, a variety of Persian. Russian is used as the official inter-ethnic language. While the state is constitutionally secular, Islam is nominally adhered to by 97.5% of the population. (wikipedia)

• • •

Short write-up today, as it's the first day of my Fall semester and ... let's just say I ~~am completely unprepared~~ have a few details left to iron out in my syllabuses (that's right, syllabuses, none of this fake-Latin plural baloney). The main thing I felt while solving this was "wow this is easy" and "this fill feels ... of YORE" (19D: Days long ago). There's nothing particularly awful about it, it just felt stale, like 2014-normal instead of 2024-normal. The feeling started off with CAB IT, which, surprisingly (I found out just now), has only been appearing in the puzzle since 2015 (!?). Feels like a mid-century expression. Maybe I'm thinking of LEG IT, which feels related (and has occasionally been clued as [Walked, slangily] since at least 2001). Weird for CAB IT to flourish only in the Age of Uber, but then maybe not weird, since, as we know, the NYTXW is typically belated in all things. After CAB IT there was a flood of short mediocrity: OCTET EST OXO AHEM EEK CCCP CRO and FRIEDA, just to stay in the top part of the grid. I like Peanuts ... no, who am I kidding, I love Peanuts, but every time I see FRIEDA I think "man, that is a minor character" and "oh this is one of those deals where the constructor probably thought that was how Frida Kahlo spelled her name, and then, when the grid was finished and the cluing began, realized ... nope. Gotta resort to the tertiary Peanuts character” (26D: Curly-haired friend of Charlie Brown). The bottom half of the grid is equally dull (APSES, HAHA, HEE), if maybe a little less so. There's some Scrabble-f***ing in the SW that gets you a "Z," but it's hard to believe it was worth it—why would you deliberately put TMZ in your grid if you didn't have to? Bizarre. Anyway, I had no idea what the theme was, the puzzle was easy, the fill was tired: this was 90% of my experience today.

The theme is cuteish. Pretty straightforward. Those last words are all words that "sound" like "music"al instruments. The theme answers themselves are kind of bland, but the theme is consistent, it works, there's a bit of an "aha" on the back end, no real complaints. Like the fill, it's pretty straightforward, but unlike the fill, we get some playfulness at least. The hardest part of the puzzle for me BY FAR (please clap for my callback to yesterday's puzzle) was TAJIK because LOL central Asian geography is among my top Jeopardy! / trivia / test-taking nightmares. I could easily be conned into believing in a fake -stan, and the fact that any of them are right next to China (which my brain has in a completely other part of the world) is disorienting. Today, I invented a -stan: TAZIKSTAN. My Uzbek neighbor was a TAZIK. This (obviously) is because of ... Khazakhstan? [Looks it up] Damn! So close. Almost spelled that right on the first try: it's actually Kazakhstan, which is (comparatively) enormous but someone doesn't even abut Tajikistan!? So I invented a neighbor for the Uzbek: the TAZIK. Good alien name, incorrect earthling name. Luckily there are no such things as ZELLYBEANS (are there?).

[this'll get you going in the morning!]

Lightning round:

43D: Iconic outfit for a noted chairman (MAO SUIT) — I had RED SUIT, confusing it (I assume) with Mao's Little Red Book. This is a pretty (bygone) communist puzzle. The MAO SUIT. The member of a former Soviet republic (TAJIK), the Letters on old Soviet rockets (CCCP). This may be part of what's making the puzzle feel a little bit "of YORE."
21A: Losing line in tic-tac-toe (OXO)— as I've said before, not a fan of the "tic-tac-toe" line of cluing when actual things (here, a kitchenware brand) are readily available. [Losing line in tic-tac-toe] is bottom of the barrel stuff. Why go there if you don't have to go there. Reserve it for XXO or OOX or whatever. Better, yet, never use losing tic-tac-toe lines in your grid. Ever.
37A: Longtime Heat coach Spoelstra (ERIK) — just as the puzzle is heavy on the bygone Communism, it's also heavy on the basketball. ERIK Spoelstra here, and then the NBA (61D: Org. associated with the John Tesh instrumental "Roundball Rock"). and then the March Madness clue on UVA (63D: 2019 March Madness champs, for short). Not sure why you go to the basketball well that third time when you absolutely don't have to. I guess it makes UVA harder for a significant non-sports-loving subset of solvers. I think it's better to vary your frame of reference.
51D: "Wonderwall" group (OASIS) — anyway, here's "Wonderwall"

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. OK so once again the promised "short write-up" did not exactly materialize. Someday.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Stacey Yaruss McCullough

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Rat-a-tat splat? — wacky "blank-a-blank blank" phrases where all the "blanks" rhyme:

Theme answers:

RUB-A-DUB CLUB (17A: Gathering for lathering?)
DING-A-LING BLING (26A: Jewels for fools?)
CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOK (42A: Fryer piled higher?)
CHUG-A-LUG MUG (56A: Cup to drink up?)

Word of the Day: FAB LABS (9D: Workspaces with 3-D printers and laser cutters, informally) —

[Gabby, Baxter, ca. '09, RIP]
A fab lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication.
A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything". This includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production.
While fab labs have yet to compete with mass production and its associated economies of scale in fabricating widely distributed products, they have already shown the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production.
The fab lab movement is closely aligned with the DIY movement, open-source hardware, maker culture, and the free and open-source movement, and shares philosophy as well as technology with them. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this write-up really will be short because I don't know what to say about this. I feel like there must be something I'm missing. There's the "___-A-___" thing, and the rhyming thing, but the specific wackiness? I don't get. What rhymes with "Rub"? Lots of things! Pick one! Which one? Who cares?? CLUB, BLING, WOK, MUG, these could've been any other appropriately rhyming words, right? The utter arbitrariness of all of them is weird. I do not get the logic here at all. Usually there's some *reason* for the wacky, but today, that reason appears to be solely "well, it rhymes," and that ... doesn't feel like much. There's this kind of desperate attempt to make the theme ... denser? ... by making the clues rhyme too, but that only highlights the thinness of the theme. The clue rhyme is different from the answer rhyme. I can't really call this a fault because I don't really know what the theme thinks it's doing. I don't get it. Sincerely. CHUG-A-LUG MUG at least makes a kind of sense—you might chug out of a mug. But CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOK makes no sense at all unless you work at a wok storage facility, and even then, wouldn't you say "CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOKS," plural? Help me make it make sense. Or don't. There's (literally) always another day, and Thursday will come soon enough.

The puzzle felt like it should've been on the easy side, but I got hung up enough on the fill that it ended up closer to Medium for me. The arbitrariness of those final theme words didn't help, though. Specifically, I had DING-A-LING RINGS as that second themer, at first. The plural in the clue ("jewels") had me thinking "plural" in the answer, and "RINGS" have jewels, and "RINGS" is plural, and "RINGS" rhymes with "DING" and "LING," so that's what I wrote in. And it was wrong. I have never heard of FAB LABS despite the fact that my brother-in-law talked my ear off (in a good way!) about 3D printing earlier this month when I was in Santa Barbara on the family vacay. He has a small-scale home workshop, though, I think—a personal fab lab. Anyway, he never used the term and I was left to discover it the hard way, today, mid-puzzle. The "FAB" here refers to "fabrication" and not, alas, "fabulous," which is what I (sincerely) assumed. "What wondrous technologies these are! Let's call the place where you use them ... the fabulous laboratory! No! Better yet, the fab lab!" That one answer kept me from turning the corner from the top into the top-right, which was a fairly significant stoppage. The only other thing I didn't really know in this puzzle was ICE BOX CAKE, but at least I've heard of it, vaguely. Can't quite conceive it, but I've heard of it.

The fill on this one felt a little clunky (RICAN, AGER) but I think it's mostly solid and overall just fine. Errors (besides the RINGS-for-BLING thing (!)) included "C'MON!" for "I'M IN!" (52D: "Let's do it!"), and "MMMM!"and"MORE!" for MOAN (36D: Reaction upon tasting a decadent dessert).

Notes:

55A: Outfit inspiration for a Swiftie (ERA) — is the "Eras Tour" not over yet? When are we gonna stop doing this tortured "Let's make the puzzle youthfulish by forcing clues to be about Swifties" thing? Never? OK. I'm pro-Taylor Swift and Swifties but ... pick your spots. This clue felt like a stretch. Do people really say to themselves "I'm going to dress like Taylor from [X] 'ERA'?" Yes? OK. Moving on.
34A: Toy found in King Tut's tomb (TOP) — really wanted PUG or POM. Wrong kind of "toy."
30D: Most common Czech surname (NOVAK) — I did not know that. The only NOVAKs I know* are B.J. NOVAK and then the cranky conservative NOVAK guy who used to be on PBS, who I feel like is actually related to B.J. NOVAK. Hang on ... ah, no, I screwed that up. Robert NOVAK was the conservative PBS commentator guy. No relation to B.J., I don't think. B.J.'s father is WilliamNOVAK, who ghostwrote celebrity memoirs for Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan, and Magic Johnson. The most famous NOVAK is probably NOVAK Djokovic, but there, it's his first name, and also, he's Serbian, not Czech. Annnnnyway....

53D: Mysterious character (RUNE) — ah, "character" as in "letter or symbol," not "fictional and/or distinctive person."
40D: Sus (SKETCHY) — I like this, though since the clue is abbr. slang (for "suspicious"), the answer really should be SKETCH (an abbr. I have definitely used and heard used). Here's Ben Zimmer writing in the Times (2010) about related terms: "Creeper! Rando! Sketchball!"
50D: Guinness record holder for "Mammal with the most names" (PUMA) — Mountain lion, cougar, catamount ... I went through an "I Love Mountain Lions" phase around the turn of the century. It was a weird time. I blame Y2K.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*oh &^$% I forgot about Kim NOVAK, how!?!?

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Brad Wiegmann

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Letter openers... — you have to read the first two letters of each theme clue aloud in order to get the first word of the answer; thus [MEDALS] is a word that starts with "ME-" and means"awards," so your answer is EMMY ("M" E") AWARDS:

Theme answers:

EMMY AWARDS (17A: MEDALS—i.e. awards that starts "ME-")
GEOLOCATION (24A: GOBI DESERT—i.e. a location that starts "GO-")
ESSAY QUESTION (36A: "SAY WHAT?")—i.e. a question that starts "SA-")
ANY OLD THING (48A: NEOLITH)—i.e. an old thing that starts "NE-")
"ARE YOU GAME?" (59A: RUMMY)—i.e. a game that starts "RU-")

Word of the Day: L'Orfeo (25D: Lover of Euridice, in opera = ORFEO) —

[note: there are at least five operas with ORFEO in the title; this is the first and most famous] L'Orfeo (SV 318) (Italian pronunciation: [lorˈfɛːo]), or La favola d'Orfeo [la ˈfaːvola dorˈfɛːo], is a late Renaissance/early Baroque favola in musica, or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua. While Jacopo Peri's Dafne is generally recognised as the first work in the opera genre, and the earliest surviving opera is Peri's Euridice, L'Orfeo is the earliest that is still regularly performed. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well that theme was a lot easier to comprehend than it was to explain. I got it early and easily and then immediately went off to see if I could get every themer in the grid with no additional help. Here's where I picked up the theme...

And then here's me after I tried to get 'em all...

As you can see, I couldn't quite do it? The only GEO- word that would come to me was "GEOCACHING" and dear lord who could have foreseen that something as specific as [GOBI DESERT] would lead to something as hypervague as LOCATION? As for [RUMMY], I assumed that was slang for a drunk, and so wanted something like "ARE YOU HIGH?" (something I'm much more likely to say than "ARE YOU GAME?"—which most people would slangily shorten to "YOU GAME?" anyway...). So there were still theme things left to discover after the theme clicked, but not many. Got the gimmick and the puzzle opened right up, which meant that despite some toughish cluing here and there, this one played well on the Easy side. I like the theme just fine, though the only answer that seemed truly clever—the real winner of the day—was [NEOLITH]. Came close to a literal LOL while working that one, something about the professorial term "Neolith" being reduced to mere "OLD THING" seemed funny to me. The rest of the themers ... they do the job. The concept is lightly amusing, the execution is uneven but mostly solid. Too easy by far, without enough real thematic zing, but not bad, on the whole

One real tough spot for me: the NE. OK, not real tough, but toughish. Trouble started with GOT AT instead of GOT TO (22A: Irritated), and then two "?" clues, neither of which I could quite process. I know the term "naked eye," obviously, but my brain was like "Why would it look bad with your naked eye? or why would your eye look ... badly?" But the idea is just that there are things that simply can't be seen with the naked EYE, which means it's not the "best" at "looking" (at microbes, say). Then there was the ABBOT, who sits at the "Top of the order" ... of monks. It's a good "?" clue (9D: Top of the order?), with a surface meaning that screams "baseball" and then seemingly infinite potential other meanings (depending on how many meanings of either "top" or "order" you can imagine). In the end, it's pretty straightforward, actually, but once your (my) brain goes into "?"-clue, mode, it can be hard to emerge from the weeds. Then there was BOYTOY, which, again, I just couldn't come up with (11D: Young male lover, informally). I wanted something in the ROMEO / LOTHARIO family. BOYTOY implies a specific relationship to a partner, a somewhat demeaning and objectifying relationship, in a way that other words for mere "lover" do not, which is probably why BOYTOY didn't occur to me. I actually figured all this out without that much trouble, but compared to the rest of the grid, that NE corner seemed like work.

A couple things that grated. One was the cloying cutesy language. BOOTIE seems pretty neutral, but it started a baby-talk trend that just kept going, including referring to feet as "Tootsies" (5A: Tootsie treat? = PEDI) and finally (literally finally, the last thing I put in the grid) referring to one's rear end as both the cringey / dated [Buns] (in the clue), and the truly horrifically infantile PATOOT in the answer. Real nails/chalkboard stuff, and a hard way to go out. Otherwise, the only other problem I have with this grid is that it contains NEO when NEOLITH is such a prominent thematic component. That seems like very bad editing. Doesn't matter that you clue NEO some other, non-prefix way. Still seems like a jarring dupe, especially as NEO literally crosses the [NEOLITH] answer.

Some other things:

19A: "Cheers" bartender Woody (BOYD)— Woody Harrelson (who played "Woody") and Ted Danson have a newish podcast called "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" where they just chat to famous people they know (Jane Fonda, Laura Dern, etc.) and talk about the good old days, and I find it soothing and charming.
7D: 41, to 43 (DAD) — gratuitous Bush content? That, I did not need. Why would you do this? Who requested this?
14D: Blue reef fish (TANG) — want to say "never heard of it," but I'm pretty sure that's what I said the last time TANG appeared ... wait. No. This is the very first time (?!) TANG has been clued as a fish. Oh I feel better. I assumed it just went in my head one day and fell out the next, like so many things I "learn" from crosswords. Anyway, TANG are aquarium fish that look like this:

62A: Land that split from Zanzibar in 1861 (OMAN) — truthfully, I had -M-N and saw "Land..." and just wrote in OMAN without reading further. Embarrassingly, I have no idea what "Zanzibar" is. I've heard the name, of course, but ... nah, I got nothing. Sounds mythical. Isn't there a candy bar named "Zanzibar"? No, I'm thinking of ABBA-ZABA ... or maybe a ZAGNUT. Anyway, lest I be called an incurious lout, here's what Zanzibar really is:

Zanzibar is an insular semi-autonomous region which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 km (16–31 mi) off the coast of the African mainland, and consists of many small islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. The capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre, Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site. (wikipedia)

38D: Catchphrase for moviedom's "International Man of Mystery" ("OH, BEHAVE!") — you can tell the editors know the puzzle is too easy when they refuse to name "Austin Powers" in this clue. So you kinda gotta solve two things: who has that moniker *and* what was his catchphrase? For me, neither one was an issue.
50D: University of North Carolina team, to fans (HEELS)— short for "Tarheels"
55A: Lassie's owner on old TV (TIMMY)— this feels like a pop culture thing that will get generationally evaporated very quickly. I never saw one episode of Lassie (more my parents' generation), but the idea that this wonder dog could essentially telepathically communicate with its owners, "telling" them where the danger was or whatever, was a standard joke when I was growing up. Your parents' pop culture is proximate. It's in your orbit. You "know" it even if you don't know it. But your grandparents' pop culture??? I dunno. I'm curious where the Lassie line is, age-wise. I mean, I assume people still recognize the name Lassie, but TIMMY? His "fame" seems like it might not be long for this world.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Taylor Johnson and Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Aparna NANCHERLA (33D: Comedian Aparna who wrote "Unreliable Narrator") —

Aparna Nancherla (born 1982 or 1983) is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She has had recurring roles on television series including BoJack Horseman and Corporate and has written for Late Night with Seth Meyers and Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. Nancherla released her debut comedy album Just Putting It Out There through Tig Notaro's Bentzen Ball Records on July 8, 2016. [...] In seasons four, five and six of BoJack Horseman, from 2017 to 2020, Nancherla had a recurring voice role as BoJack's alleged daughter, but actual half-sister, Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzerelli-McQuack. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was two puzzles: extremely easy, and NANCHERLA. Pop culture proper nouns are, as you know, frequently an adventure, and can be radically inclusionary ("Hey, I know that person! So happy to see her!") ... or exclusionary ("Who the ...!?"). I fell somewhere in the "Hey!" / "Who the!?" gap. I could picture her. I knew I'd seen her in ... that thing ... with those people ... on that show ... but her name, I just ... couldn't retrieve it. I would've been able to retrieve APARNA much more easily, I think (her first name has appeared once before, in a 2018 puzzle), but NANCHERLA, that ended up being a letter-by-letter ordeal. Well, "ordeal" makes it sound harder and more grueling than it was, but still, her name was an extreme outlier in this otherwise very easy and relatively (if not completely) name-free puzzle. What I liked about NANCHERLA was looking her up and discovering that she voiced a recurring, important character on Bojack Horseman (a show I adored); she was the voice of Bojack's half-sister, Hollyhock. In fact, she does a Lot of voice work for animated shows. Unreliable Narrator (the book mentioned in the clue) was not something I'd heard of, so it did nothing to help me retrieve her name. She's an established comedian / writer, so she's eminently crossworthy, but she's also not a household name, so if solvers are gonna struggle *anywhere* today, they're gonna struggle there. And when you struggle in only one place, it gives you a kind of WARPED solving experience, an imbalanced feeling. It's like I forgot most of the rest of the (lovely) puzzle because all of my actual solving energy had to go into making NANCHERLA appear. But—and this is crucial—the crosses were all fair. Can't imagine a single letter that a solver might wipe out on. So, no Naticks! Which, at the end of the day, is the most important rule of crosswords. So you have to work to get a name you've never heard of. It happens. And if you have heard of it, then you get that thrill of recognition. Either way, we all survive.

["... hunting the HORNY black TOAD ..."]

But there were other answers in this puzzle, so let's look at them. We've got SWIFTIES content, which seems like it will never let up, abate, or relent (10D: Fan base added to the O.E.D. in 2023), but beyond that we've got a cavalcade of cute colloquialisms—a truly loaded puzzle at the marquee-answer level. "I HAVE TO RUN!" over "NOTE TO SELF ..." into the big drop at "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?" You've got the cutesy half-sailorish "AHOY THERE" (2D: Bit of salty language?) ("salt" is slang for "sailor") and the curt "YEAH, FINE" (20A: Begrudging assent) and the exasperated "WHO KNOWS!?" All the moods, basically. It's colorful and smooth and entertaining, extremely hard to fault. I don't have any real struggles to document or report, though. Didn't make any mistakes, didn't fall into any traps, and didn't work particularly hard to get anything beyond the aforementioned NANCHERLA. There was one little moment of puzzlement when I wrote in OWN for 60D: Beat decisively, in video game lingo (PWN), and then, faced with BIG O- at 59A: Forest, in a metaphor, just stared for a few seconds and thought "BIG ... BIG ... BIG OLD TREE?" What the hell kind of folksy idiom is that, I wondered. "C'mon, kids, we're gonna take our sleeping bags and tent and go out camping in the BIG OLD TREE," Pa would say. I thought the answer was the metaphor. But the forest is the metaphor. "You can't see the forest (BIG PICTURE) for the trees." And so PWN, not OWN. That's the kind of fun, low-key struggle I enjoy having on a Friday. Wish there'd been more of that, or more of any kind of resistance today, but I can't be too mad at a grid this pretty.

Bullet points:

18A: Holly genus (ILEX)— OK, so there's one stale olden Maleskaesque answer in the puzzle. Sometimes you gotta feed OOXTEPLERNON (the God of Bad Short Fill). Sacrifice an answer. Appease him. It's easier that way. You don't want him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry. The things he does to grids ... gruesome.

[October 30, 2009]

40A: "TiK ToK" creator (KESHA)— this clue made me smile. Her hit song "TiK ToK" (2010) preceded the existence of the app by many years.

58A: Antagonist in a 1604 play ... or a 1992 animated movie (IAGO)— I want to say I got this because of Shakespeare, but if I'm being honest, I think the Othello villain and the Aladdin parrot flew into my head roughly simultaneously
38D: West Coast political hub, familiarly (SAC) — do people call it that? I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, just a few hours south of Sacramento, and I don't remember anyone saying that. But then, I don't remember anyone talking much about Sacramento at all. Anyway, SAC is a baseball term to me, now and forever, irrevocably.
52D: Color of a proverbial French beast (NOIRE) — from the expression "bête NOIRE" (literally, "black beast"), which means "something strongly detested or avoided" (merriam webster dot com). It is also the ironic name of a 1987 Bryan Ferry album ("ironic" because I neither detest nor avoid it.)

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (except for a single square, which was a total guess)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: RON English (52A: Pop artist ___ English) —

Ron English (born June 6, 1959) is an American contemporary artist who explores brand imagery, street art, and advertising. [...] English has produced images on the street, in museums, in movies, books and television. He coined the term POPaganda to describe a mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, from superhero mythology to totems of art history, populated with his original characters, including MC Supersized, the obese fast-food mascot featured in the movie Super Size Me, and Abraham Obama, the fusion of America's 16th and 44th Presidents. Other characters in English's paintings, billboards, and sculpture include three-eyed rabbits, cowgirls and grinning skulls – visual, with humorous undertones. (wikipedia)

• • •

[21D: Batman adversary with a stitched burlap mask]

So yesterday, NANCHERLA provided an example of a pop culture name that (for me) stood out strongly for being the least familiar thing in the grid. If you don't know it (as I (mostly) didn't), it requires much more attention and effort than anything else in the grid, and thus makes the solving experience go kind of lopsided. But yesterday, all the crosses were fair. I felt like the puzzle was *helping* me to get it, was constructed in a way that made me enjoy (and not resent) learning the name. Cool cool. Now fast-forward to this puzzle, where (again, for me), virtually the same thing happens—the puzzle throws a long pop culture answer at me that I have never heard of in my life—but instead of the crosses being fair ... well, they are mostly fair, but they also include one short pop culture answer that I have never heard of in my life, and that, dear reader, that has made all the difference. And in a bad way, not a Robert Frost way. I worked this puzzle all the way down to ... this:

And then just shrugged. That "country singer" hasn't been much of anything, fame-wise, for a decade. I mean, I don't listen to pop country as a rule anyway, but I have a reasonable familiarity with the bigger names at least. But HUNTER HAYES (24D: Country singer with the 2012 hit "Wanted") ... I just looked up HUNTER HAYES and his albums since this mid-'10s ... if they fell in the forest, I'm not sure anyone heard them. Just crickets. But he seems to have been a thing for the first half of the '10s. Whatever, let's just say, he Missed Me Completely. I ended up being able to infer HUNTER easily enough, and ultimately I inferred the "H" in HAYES because it was obviously the best guess (HAYES being a name that I have at least seen, on presidents and Will and Grace actors and what not). But the director of CODA? No hope. Like the entire career of HUNTER HAYES, Sîan HEDER's name just missed me. My apologies to her: she's accomplished enough, for sure; won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (for CODA). I've just never seen anything she's done. I know a Bill HADER, he's great, but as you can see, different spelling. The Napoleon Dynamite actor guy is a HEDER (Jon HEDER), I probably would've been more confident in that "H" if it had been him. But as is ... oof, that "H." So I've got two proper nouns [check] of less than top-tier fame [check] that cross [check] at an uninferrable letter [debatable]. I did infer the letter. So I guess it's not a true Natick. But I tell you, I had my finger hovered over that "H" key like "come on come on come on please be right big bucks no whammies!" And I was semi-surprised, though mostly just relieved, when the "H" ended up being correct. That crossing made an otherwise decent Saturday puzzle reeeeeeal unpleasant there at the end.

Just like yesterday, the proper noun debacle stood in stark contrast to the rest of my solving experience, as I blew through most of the rest of the grid, no problem. I blew through it a little faster yesterday, true, but that's why Friday is Friday and Saturday is Saturday. Relative to their expected levels of difficulty, F and Sat were equally easy for me. The SW corner today played like a Monday; I doubt I was down there for more than 30 seconds. The NW gave me YUCA, which looks all kinds of wrong—I want there to be two "C"s in there, but YUCCA is a perennial shrub, where YUCA is another name for "Cassava," a root tuber. Ah, well, looks like the confusion is baked into the name itself from way back: "Early reports of the species [yucca] were confused with the cassava (Manihot esculenta). Consequently, Linnaeus mistakenly derived the generic name from the Taíno word for the latter, yuca." But even though that spelling was unfamiliar to me, I still wanted YU(C)CA, so I was prepared for the letters when they came, and the rest of that corner was a cinch (thank you, Crosswordese Ambassador James AGEE for granting me access) (9D: "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" writer, 1941) [side note: AGEEwas hired by TIME, INC. as a reporter, right out of college]. The NW corner (where I started) was also pretty easy, once I got past my initial error: DAR / REPOTS instead of ABU / UNPOTS (I was thinking of DAR es Salaam, the "largest city and financial hub of Tanzania," which is not a capital, last I checked, was not in the "Mideast," alas). The capital of Tanzania, by the way, is DODOMA, which has never appeared in the NYTXW, despite its seemingly favorable letter configuration (short, lots of vowels, alternating vowels and consonants, terminal "A"). Now you're prepared for when DODOMA eventually drops, which it will, some day, trust me.

That just leaves the SE, easily the toughest of the puzzle's corners. Again, proper nouns come into play, as I had no idea who RON English was. He was apparently on "The Simpsons," but well after I'd stopped watching it. I had the last letter of his name as an "S" because I assumed 37D: Many Grindr users (GAY MEN) was going to be an "S"-ending plural. I also had MBA before MFA (47D: Deg. from Yale's Geffen School), SOFT SPOT before SOFT SIDE (the former being waaaaaay more of a thing than the latter) (49A: Vulnerable part of one's personality), and I didn't really know that BIG AIR was an event. Snowboarding, sure, BIG AIR, uh uh. Still, though, that corner played like an average Saturday corner, in terms of difficulty—took some work, but it was all ultimately gettable. The only thing that was truly harrowing about this puzzle was the HEDER / HAYES "H"-bomb. I defused it, but only barely. Speaking of barely ... BARLEY. Specifically ... BARLEY WATER!? (8D: Drink of boiled grains with purported detoxifying effects). Yeesh, between HUNTER HAYES and BARLEY WATER, it's like this puzzle is trying to be actively unappetizing. Luckily there's a cute FOSTER KITTEN (6D: Candidate for a "forever home") and some TURKEY JERKY and a copy of "Batman" with THE SCARECROW on the cover, so the puzzle was not without its pleasures. In fact, the longer answers (of the non-BARLEY non-country music persuasion) are really solid across the board. Also SHTICKY and "DID I ASK?!"—both winners.

Notes:

5D: Strong, as a bond (AAA)— that's a financial bond rating
20A: Prominent feature of a jacket (TITLE) — that's a book jacket
14A: Actress who voiced Mei Lee's strict mother in Pixar's "Turning Red" (SANDRA OH) — almost none of the words in the clue mean anything to me, but I still got SANDRA OH off the SAN-.
30A: "Pleeeease?" ("CAN'T I?") — look, if you elongate the clue, I'm gonna want to elongate the answer, those are just the rules. This is how I explain that the first thing I wanted to write in here was "CAAN I?" Also, no kid says "CAN'T I?" with a "T," that's absurd. It's "CAN I?" or nothing.
16A: Second slide of many a meeting deck (AGENDA) — no idea what a "meeting deck" is. Is this some kind of cartomancy ritual performed in board rooms? ... Wow, I was pretty close.
35A: Habitat for sphagnum moss (BOG) — is that where they grow the barley for HUNTER HAYES' BARLEY WATER? Sounds like it. [grimace]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Number of U.S. states without any straight borders / MON 8-5-24 / Word with Double or Planet / "Yippee!," in internet-speak

Brand of orange crackers / TUES 8-6-24 / Hole in one's head / South American corn patties / Micronesian nation composed of 200+ islands

Gun-regulating grp. / WED 8-6-24 / Denver-to-Omaha dir. / Communicate like a Sphynx

Vegan cheese ingredient, often / THU 8-8-2024 / First nonhuman species encountered in the "Star Wars" franchise / Response to an anticlimactic reveal / Basic level of a popular ridesharing app / Company with a purple heart in its logo / French vineyards

Replacement for the Spanish colonial real / FRI 8-9-2024 / Animals that appear in the fossil record before trees / Stigmatize sexual preferences, in modern lingo

The "long" version of it is 12% heavier / FRI 8-10-2024 / Brand of brightly colored hair dye with a rhyming name / First civilization to cultivate potatoes / Animal whose pattern allows it to camouflage into grassland / Gambling venues with a portmanteau name

Athena's gift to Athens / SUN 8-11-24 / Europe's second-longest river / Mideast dignitaries: Var. / "____ is to place as eternity is to time": Joseph Joubert

Discontinued competitor of Coke Zero / MON 8-12-24 / When repeated, sound effect for Cookie Monster / Cryptid in the Scottish Highlands / "Ho, ho, ho!" hollerer / Bluey or Snoopy / Indian yogurt drink / Arkham ___ institution for many Batman foes / "Billions" airer, for short

Big name in Greek yogurt / WED 8-14-24 / Texting format, in brief / One making a bed, perhaps / Leakes of reality TV / Beatles hit written by a teenage Paul McCartney / Insistently unhip

Libby offerings / FRI 8-16-24 / "Chain Reaction" singer, 1985 / Artist Cindy known for her photographic self-portraits / Meals that traditionally include four cups of wine / Cheese also known as French Gruyère /

Louis who wrote "Holes" / SUN 8-18-24 / Part of an omakase meal / Jazz pianist Garner / Fruity Italian wine / Prominent feature of Tom Selleck or David Hasselhoff / Participate in a Lakota smudging ceremony / Indigenous people with a First Moccasin ceremony / A gilded one is seen on King Tut's crown

Whom "video killed," in a 1979 hit / MON 8-19-24 / Explosive block in Minecraft / One of four for a square / Hoops player / "Here's a shorter summary," on internet forums / Poorly drawn circle, perhaps / Fern's reproductive cell

Neighbor of an Uzbek / TUE 8-20-24 / Curly-haired friend of Charlie Brown / Superscript by a brand name / Longtime Heat coach Spoelstra / Offices with partitioned workspaces, in slang

Lassie's owner on old TV / THU 8-22-24 / Blue reef fish / Lover of Euridice, in opera / Young male lover, informally / 41, to 43 / Land that split from Zanzibar in 1861 / What doesn't look the best naked? / Tootsie treat? / Fitness fanatic, in slang? / Stampeders in "The Lion King"

Holly genus / FRI 8-23-24 / Beat decisively, in video game lingo / Jazz trumpeter Jones / Forest, in a metaphor / Color of a proverbial French beast / Antagonist in a 1604 play ... or a 1992 animated movie / Free-roaming residents of Japan's Nara Park / Famed recipient of a lesser blessing