Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Puppy chow (51D: Puppy chow ingredient => CHEX) —

Puppy chow, also known as monkey munch, muddy buddies, muddy munch, reindeer chow, or doggy bag, is the name for a homemade candy made in the United States, primarily in the Midwestern States. The recipe's name and ingredients can differ depending on the version, but most recipes will typically include cereal, melted chocolate, peanut butter (or other nut butters), and powdered sugar. Nut free versions can be made using nut butter alternatives, like Notnuts or sun butter. Corn, wheat, or rice cereal can be used, usually Chex and/or Crispix. The true origins of the candy are not known.

• • •

Considered making this whole write-up just a list of bullet points, since seemingly every clue is, well, SO EXTRA (12D: Trying way too hard, in modern slang). Feels like lots of things might need explaining today. We'll see. In what feels like a late-week trend for me lately, I totally washed out in the NW at first pass. Yes, ESSO, I got that, but otherwise, zilch. I was thinking of the Phillie PHANATIC when I read the mascot clue, but I've only ever heard him (him?) referred to by his whole name, and anyway didn't really know that you spelled it in that phunny way. ASHAMED seems obvious in retrospect (1A: Red in the face, say), but after BLUSHED (?), I had no ideas. Abandon ship. Finally got traction with FIR FISTS IDAHO IDES STAX, and you'd think that "X" would've sent me flying out of that corner, but no, "modern slang" (unsurprisingly) held me up. There's just so damn much of it, and it keeps changing, and I'm really hoping that millennials and even Gen Z are beginning, now and then, to feel that feeling of "wait, the kids are saying what now?" because it's a special feeling. Pfft. I've actually heard "SO EXTRA" plenty, I think, but I wasn't sure exactly how "modern" we were talking and I took one look at that clue (12D: Trying way too hard, in modern lingo) and was like "SO-X---? The clue says 'Trying,' so ... Something-ING? SOXXING? Are people SOXXING now?"

Might've busted out of the NE more easily except I got fooled by the (unexpectedly) cryptic clue on RENEE (18A: Woman in dire need?) (i.e. the woman's name found inside the phrase "dire need"). The "?" had me wondering where the wordplay was in "dire" or "need," but there's no play, or no play related to word meaning. Just consecutive letters. So I had to work for that first corner, but I got through, and then (finally) was able to throw WINDOW WASHER into the middle of the grid (27A: Job that anyone could see themselves doing?), and then a couple longer answers off of that, and so that awful feeling of "am I even gonna be able to do this?" (which I often feel on Saturdays, actually) went away, or abated, at any rate (even if you're making good progress on a late-week puzzle, you never know when some corner, some cross, is gonna leap out and bite you)

[I like that YODELERS is coming down from on high ... like a yodel (34D: Some long-distance callers)]

The only Weaving I know in the world of acting (or anywhere) is Hugo Weaving, so SAMARA was a ??? but she weirdly posed very little problem. Had her as SAHARA for a hot second, but SMALL CRAFT eventually took care of that (29D: Kind of boat affected by a wind advisory). As pop culture clues go, SAMARA was not nearly as brutal as LOTTA Sea Lice, a 2017 album that was on a lot of "Best of" lists that year but still, yikes. I say "yikes" as someone who has actually heard of the album, someone who has listened to Courtney Barnett (if not Kurt Vile) a great deal. I'm 100% certain that a huge chunk of you won't recognize even the names of the artists, let alone the name of the album. Its chart success was extremely modest (51 on the US album chart), so if you're not an indie rock fan, I feel for you today. The crosses all seem fair, so there's that.

Anyway, after escaping the NE and getting into the middle of the grid, there were no terrible trouble spots, just a steady Saturday struggle. Backed into the NW—the -THS got me POLYMATHS—and made pretty short work of it. The SW was a little tougher. I actually blanked on FINCHES, though that's really a gimme, or should've been (36D: "To Kill a Mockingbird" family). I could picture the "family" but the only name coming to me was "Scout." Anyway, easy with a few crosses, but the FITS part of FITS IN, not easy (36A: Doesn't stick out). ART STUDIO, not easy (30D: Setting for a sitting)—I had ART SCHOOL! Then there was "CHUG!" which I (of course?) had as "TOGA!" (showing my age, I s'pose) (48A: When repeated, college party chant). So there was futzing to be done in there, but nothing too hard. Finished in the SE ... sadly, I finished with CHEX, which I didn't understand at all. In the end, I reasoned that there must be some kind of snack called "puppy chow" made with CHEX that I'd just never heard of ... and I was right (see Word of the Day, above). Supposedly a midwestern thing. I lived in the "midwest" for the better part of a decade, never heard of it. There are many midwests, you learn, if you live long enough.

Bullets:

1D: Gala, e.g. (APPLE) — obviously a very vague clue, so I needed help from crosses. But even after I got it, I thought Gala was an Apple product, like the iPad... then I remembered no, it's an honest-to-god edible apple variety.
59A: Apollo was conceived in them (SIXTIES) — needs the "the," but OK. "Apollo" here is the space program.
4D: Where the average American lives (ANYTOWN, USA) — Because PEORIA, IL wouldn't fit.

5D: Word with the same meaning in English, Swahili and Mandarin, among other languages (MAMA) — interesting, but the clue was initially no help at all.
42A: It once ran the headline "Santa Dies on Xmas Trip": Abbr. (NYT) — I don't get it. Like, I don't get the joke or reference or anything. I guess it's funny but ... why? Is this a known headline? I guess they wanted to make it sound (kinda?) like The Onion, so you wouldn't immediately think "oh, you're talking about yourself, good one, NYT." [Looks up headline] ... Oh. Oh wow. You are not prepared, I promise you, for how maudlin or mawkish or one of those "m"-words this story is—from the front page of the Christmas Day edition, 1913 ... I give you this apparently legendary story about a dude w/ TB who died doing cosplay for the neighbor boy:

Annnnnyway, Merry Christmas, everybody! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Aimee Lucido

Relative difficulty: Very Easy

THEME:"One for the Books" — book titles with punny "___book" clues

Theme answers:

HIGH FIDELITY (21A: Record book?)
MERRIAM-WEBSTER (31A: Spell book?)
THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (46A: Green book?)
THE GIVING TREE (65A: Logbook?)
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (83A: Yearbook?)
A GAME OF THRONES (97A: Rule book?)
FRANKENSTEIN (113A: Scrapbook?)

Word of the Day: Kristin OTTO (117A: Kristin ___, first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic games) —

Kristin Otto (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁɪstɪn ˈʔɔtoː][...]; born 7 February 1966) is a former German swimmer, becoming Olympic, World and European champion, multiple times. She is most famous for being the first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic Games, doing so at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. In long course, she held the world records in the 100 meter and 200 meter freestyle events. Otto was also the first woman to swim the short course 100 meter backstroke in under a minute, doing so at an international short course meet at Indiana University in 1983. (wikipedia)

• • •

[cover: Milton Glaser (1973)]

Hard to have feelings about this one because it was over so fast. There were book titles, they were easy to figures out, and ... that was that. The wordplay in the themer clues all made sense for the most part. HIGH FIDELITY is a book about a record shop, so [Record book?], sure. I balked a little at MERRIAM-WEBSTER since that didn't seem like the full title of the "book" in question (which surely must include the word "dictionary" somewhere, right?) (31A: Spell book?). Also, I thought "spellbook" was one word. Anyway, dictionaries are what you consult for spell-ing, so, sure, fine. "Green" is slang for "money" so [Green book?] => THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, OK. I forget the plot of THE GIVING TREE. I feel like the tree maybe gives and gives until ... does it actually become a stump, or a "log" (65A: Logbook?)? That clue seemed a little tenuous, but again, I haven't thought about this book since I was a child. NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR is indeed a year, so [Yearbook?], fantastic. Did not know there was an indefinite article at the beginning of (A) GAME OF THRONES, isn't that funny? (97A: Rule book?). I guess there are families that "rule" (i.e. reign, hold power) in that "book," so that explains that. And then lastly there's FRANKENSTEIN ... whose monster is made out of ... scraps, is that it? (113A: Scrapbook?). Seems like this theme could've gone on forever. Surely there are [Notebook?]s out there, either famous books about music, or maybe an epistolary novel like Clarissa. [Blue Book?] ... well, anything smutty will do there. Or a novel about sadness. Or the sky. It's a cute idea for a theme, but it feels very loose and somehow not entirely satisfying. The cluing felt clever on FRANKENSTEIN and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, less so on the others. But again, it was all over in a flash, so I didn't have time to feel much of anything.

I liked the NE corner, home to some of the more interesting non-thematic fill today, like GHOSTED (14D: Suddenly stopped texting), and the SLOW BURN / FOOD WASTE cross. Otherwise, though, it was all pretty much PRO FORMA (70A: Perfunctory). Good chance to flex your crosswordese muscle today. AYLA is a go-to. A staple. A standard. Gotta have it in your arsenal. You just ... know it. I have never read and have no real interest in reading Clan of the Cave Bear, but I know AYLA well. See also ST. LEO (94D: "The Great" pope), by far the most namechecked pope in crossworld (papacy = 440-61). He also comes in LEOI form (three straight vowels, can't beat that!). But he's not the only "great" Leo! There's a different "Leo the Great" who was a Roman Emperor from 457-74. If you confuse them, well, sure, that makes sense—they're both "Great" and were alive at the same dang time, what the hell? Anyway, the Roman Emperor"Leo the Great" is easy to recognize, as he is probably most famous for His Insane Eyes!!

If you look into his eyes, you turn to stone. That's how he turned to stone—looked in a mirror, and bam, instant statue. There's more crosswordese: ETNA and APSE and EWES EWER NTH EEL UTE and and and IBIS ... but at least I learned something with that IBIS clue (76A: Sebastian the ___, University of Miami mascot). This is about as weird as Alabama having an elephant mascot. The Crimson Tide has an elephant, and the Hurricanes have ... an IBIS!? Amazing, improbable animal life in mascotland.

[That's an IBIS? It's giving Howard the Duck]

Bullet Points:

1A: "Here's looking at you, kid" or "You can't handle the truth!," famously (AD LIB) — had to LOL at "famously" because I had no idea (the first quote is Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, the second is Jim Varney in Ernest Goes to Camp)

29A: Altima alternative (SENTRA)— I thought it would be an alternative make, and so I jumped from Nissan to Hyundai and wrote in SONATA. Like the Altima, the SONATA is a mid-sized sedan, whereas the SENTRA is a compact (recategorized from subcompact in 1999, though the EPA now rates it as "mid-size" due to its interior volume—look at me, car guy! Thanks, wikipedia!). The SENTRA is known as the SYLPHY in East Asian and other markets. That's a great-looking car model (crosswordwise). No AIEOUs! And now you know about it, so it's fair game. So if you are an elemental spirit (or a slender, graceful woman) and you're in the market for a vehicle for which you are aptly named, consider a SYLPHY. You're gonna have to move to China, but ... probably worth it.
41A: Creature whose mating habitats are a scientific mystery (EEL)— to quote Friday's puzzle, CITATION NEEDED. "A scientific mystery"? You're gonna have to give me more info here. Sincerely (if briefly) thought the puzzle was being cheeky and the answer was gonna be MAN. Anyway, looks like eel breeding is slightly less of a "mystery" now than it was even a few years ago.

For years, the epic life cycle of European eels remained an unproven theory. It was only in 2022 that scientists tracked silver eels to their spawning grounds, where the females release millions of eggs that are externally fertilised by the male eels. (BBC Science Focus, 2022)

73A: Mother of Perseus (DANAE)— you ever just *know* something but you don't know how you know it and you think "why do I know that?" and your knowledge surprises you so much that you don't actually trust it? That was me and this answer.
112A: Chugging a bottle of hot sauce, perhaps (DARE) — you do something *on* a dare, but your doing of it is not the DARE itself. There's just something ... slightly off about the clue phrasing here, to my ear.

118A: Late-night host who once wrote for "The Simpsons" (O'BRIEN) — someday I will enter that last vowel with confidence. Today was not that day.
79D: A Tyrannosaurus rex's was nearly 17 inches long (EGG) — I do not think of eggs as being "long," as being measured by "length," so this was weird. I mean, of course, they aren't perfect spheres, not even close, so they have length and width, but the clue was phrased to suggest body part so I thought body part. EAR? That seemed ... small for a T-rex. But then its arms are disproportionately small, right, so who knows!? Oh, whoops, looks like dinosaurs didn't have external ear tissue at all. Rex Parker—come for the crossword commentary, but ... well, leave for the paleontology, really not his thing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Robert Corridan

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME:LA LA LAND (59A: 2016 film starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling ... or a hint to 17-, 23-, 36- and 46-Across) — theme answers contain the letter string "LALA":

Theme answers:

L.A. LAKERS (17A: N.B.A. team with LeBron and Bronny James, for short)
RURAL ALABAMA (23A: Setting for "My Cousin Vinny")
MALALA YOUSAFZAI (36A: Youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner)
VANILLA LATTE (46A: Sweet Starbucks order)

Word of the Day: POMELO (56A: Fruit that's a citrus, not a hybrid of a pomegranate and melon) —

The pomelo (/ˈpɒmɪloʊ, ˈpʌm-/ POM-il-oh, PUM-; Citrus maxima), also known as a shaddock and from the family Rutaceae, is the largest citrus fruit, and the principal ancestor of the grapefruit. It is a natural, non-hybrid, citrus fruit, native to Southeast Asia. Similar in taste to a sweet grapefruit, the pomelo is commonly consumed and used for festive occasions throughout Southeast Asia and East Asia. As with the grapefruit, phytochemicals in the pomelo have the potential for drug interactions. (wikipedia)

• • •

Nah, this doesn't quite work. Specifically, the "LAND" part of the revealer has nothing to do. The only one of these answers that's an actual "LAND" is RURAL ALABAMA ... which also happens to be the most contrived answer of the lot. I know that the theme answers can be conceived of as "lands" in some vague metaphorical sense, but that's weak. If you give me LA LA LAND, that LAND part better mean something. And it doesn't. A simple letter string isn't that interesting, and it's especially uninteresting if one of the resulting answers is something as tenuous as RURAL ALABAMA. Moreover, MALALA YOUSAFZAI isn't a great fit either, given that "LALA" breaks across two words in every theme answer *except* that one. The LALA is contained entirely in her first name, leaving her last name just hanging out to dry. No, this one just doesn't have the next-level concept of the polish to make for a very good Monday (or any day). It's not bad, but it's not good enough.

Solving this Downs-only was easy enough, except for one part that felt pretty harrowing, namely, the tail end of YOUSAFZAI. I threw those Downs down and got plausible crosses, but something about -ZAI felt wrong/off, so went to the end of this puzzle worried I was not going to get a "Congratulations!" message at the end. So I guess that part wasn't "hard" so much as dangerous-feeling. The harder part—the hardest part for me, by far—was figuring out 21D: Decided to skip. At first I assumed it ended -ED, but when that didn't work out I eventually got it down to -A- OUT ... but then nothing. For a while, the only thing I could think to make out of that first word was "RAN," but RAN OUT didn't feel like a good answer for [Decided to skip] (perhaps because it's not). Thankfully, NONY is not a word, or I might've written in RAN OUT and left it. But NONY looked like a definite no-no, so I waited a bit and ran some other scenarios and finally hit on SAT OUT. And yes, that looked much better. TONY> NONY, for sure.

Otherwise, the only other real hesitations I had today came right away, at 1D: Org. with the motto "Because Freedom Can't Protect Itself" (ACLU), and then "OK, BUT," which is a really odd standalone answer (odd enough that it's only ever appeared one other time, ten years ago). Oh, and BLABBY, which seems like a borderline nonsense word (10D: Loose-lipped). No hope there until I finally got inferred the "B" in GWBUSH (8A: POTUS #43). One thing I liked about BLABBY, though, was it helped me guess the "F" in FLAB (43A: What "muffin top" and "spare tire" are euphemisms for). See, since I was solving Downs-only (i.e. not looking at Across clues), I was staring at -LAB, which gave me multiple options for that first letter, but since I could eliminate BLAB (because BLABBY was already in the grid), I went ahead and tested FLAB ... and it worked. I realize now it could've been SLAB, not sure why that didn't occur to me, but once the "F" went in, FINEST immediately followed. I had MAMA before DADA (no surprise there) (53D: Baby's first word, perhaps). Forgot the first letter in P-TRAP (45D: Letter-shaped plumbing piece), but thankfully S-ELLS wasn't likely to be anything but SPELLS (or, rather, P-TRAP rang a bell, whereas M-TRAP and W-TRAP and H-TRAP seemed ... unlikely). I was surprised to see LILLE, which seems kind of a minor French city for a Monday, but I was able to get it off just the "L," so maybe it's more major than I thought. In crosswords, at any rate.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Howard Neuthaler

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

THEME: CHANGO (23D: "Presto ___!" ... or a hint to 17-, 28-, 41- and 52-Across) — familiar phrases have their last letters "changed" from "E" to "O," creating wacky phrases, which are clued wackily ("?"-style):

Theme answers:

BLOOD TYPO (17A: "AB negatve" or "B poditive"?) (from "blood type")
SAME HERO (28A: Odysseus vis-à-vis Ulysses?) (from "same here")
NOT QUITO (41A: Surprising answer to the question "What is Ecuador's most popular city?") (from "not quite")
LEMON LIMO (52A: Prom transport that keeps breaking down?) (from "lemon-lime")

Word of the Day: CLYDE Drexler (6D: Basketball great Drexler) —

Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player who currently works as the commissioner of the Big3 3-on-3 basketball league. Nicknamed "Clyde the Glide", he played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), spending a majority of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers before finishing with the Houston Rockets. He was a ten-time NBA All-Star and named to the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Drexler won an NBA championship with Houston in 1995, and earned a gold medal on the 1992 United States Olympic team known as "The Dream Team". He was inducted twice into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2004 for his individual career and in 2010 as a member of the "Dream Team". Drexler is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players and greatest shooting guards of all time. (wikipedia)

• • •

I was kind of with this one at first. TYPE to TYPO and HERE to HERO both had just the one letter change *and* the one sound change, which is really a sound addition—it's like you're just adding an "O" to the end. But then NOT QUITO comes along and ... well, that answer didn't feel quite-o right-o. Because now you've got additional sound changes (notably the first vowel sound in "QUITO," but also the initial consonant sound ("kw" to "k")), so instead of having this cool, lean, simple, elegant thing going on, you've got a clunker. LIME to LIMO also clunks in this same fashion. It would've been better if the simple change in the first two themers had continued with the last two—or if the more complicated change of the last two had been operative from the beginning. Something about switching apparent logic midstream made this one feel not smooth, not quite (!) worked out. Now, you can argue that this puzzle's execution of the theme is actually the most simple and elegant, in that all that has changed, in every case, is the final letter. That's it. "E" to "O." What could be simpler? But I don't just look at words, I hear them, and the pronunciation inconsistencies feel like a glitch. Another thing that feels like a glitch—not having both halves of the incantation "Presto CHANGO" in the actual grid. So odd to just have "CHANGO" on its own, in that weird (completely arbitrary) position. Also—and this isn't the puzzle's fault—"CHANGO" looks like it should rhyme with "tango" or "mango," so somehow looks extra-ridiculous without its "Presto" to give it context. PRESTO and CHANGO have the same number of letters, so could (theoretically) have been arranged symmetrically in the grid. That would, admittedly, have been tougher to pull off, but PRESTO on the left of the grid, CHANGO on the right, that would've been better, or more aesthetically pleasing, at any rate.

I actually think "NOT QUITO" is the best of the bunch, in that it is the wackiest, the most wacky, the king wackadoodle themer of the day, for sure. Which is to say it's the most daring and the most inventive. Also, twenty bucks* to anyone who can, without looking, name the actual most populous city in Ecuador. It's got 2.7 million people (to Quito's 1.8) and I've never heard of it. Give up? You should give up. The answer is Guayaquil. Put that in your grid and smoke it! Zero NYTXW appearances for GUAYAQUIL, you'll be unsurprised to learn. You can't exactly call Guayaquil "obscure," though. No city that big can properly be called "obscure." It's the 17th biggest city in South America, and the 7th biggest outside Brazil. Man, Brazil has So Many cities of 3+ million people. Campinas? Salvador? After Rio and Recife (why do I know Recife!?), I'm pretty much out. Ooh, São Paulo, I know that one from crosswords (SÃO!). You're all probably way better at world geography than I am. Maybe you all knew (or at least had heard of) Guayaquil. Not me. News to me. I'm staring at this list of the 50 largest cities in South America (all with populations over a million) and just shaking my head at my own ignorance. Anyway, NOT QUITO is right. It's not Quito. It's Guayaquil. And now you know. Or you already knew, and now you know how little I know, which is pretty much the daily theme of this blog.

Back to the theme. Another thing I would've liked, that would've made it ... nicer ... is if there were no other "O"-ending words in the grid. At all. Let your theme shine by eliminating the static, the competing "O" noise. No OPPO or ALPO or AGO or CAMEO or SLO-MO or "UM, NO" or BUONO. Just TYPO HERO QUITO LIMO and out. One last thing on the theme: there really should be an extra "?" in the NOT QUITO clue (41A: Surprising answer to the question "What is Ecuador's most popular city?"). All the others have "?" as a wackiness indicator, but this one just has the regular old interrogative "?" that I guess is supposed to double for the wackiness indicator, but wackiness indication is an entirely separate role, so a second "?" (outside the quotation marks) seems appropriate. This is maybe the smallest criticism I've ever had of a clue, but I notice what I notice and I want what I want, smallness be damned.

The fill is interesting in places, ugly in others. The SW corner is particularly ugly. EHUD INUK DEKES ... that is high levels of grim packed into one tiny corner. On the other hand, I like that there's a Q SCORE alongside CUE TIPS but *no* Q-TIPS in sight. Somewhere on the sidelines, Q-TIPS is shedding a single tear. "Am I not ... good enough?" I had more trouble than I usually have on Tuesdays, which is to say I had some non-zero amount of trouble. The very nature of the theme meant you had to kind of think about those answers, and then, well, there was "WELL, GEE" (the "WELL" part was not immediately apparent), and "UM, NO" (not "UH, NO," as I first thought) (26D: "That's just completely incorrect"), and then I had EASES before CALMS, that was an unforced error, for sure (39A: Soothes). Oh, and that BARBELLS clue got me good (37D: People are often spotted pressing them). I came at it from below and even after I got BELLS all I could think was "well, DOORBELLS doesn't fit!" It's a great clue, with both "spotted" and "pressing" having weightlifting meanings—double wordplay!

Bullets:

22A: Dessert drink made from frozen grapes (ICEWINE)— drove past a lot of vineyards in southern Ontario this summer that seemed to specialize in ICEWINE. And oh look, there's a reason for that: "Canada is the world's largest producer of icewine, producing a greater volume of icewine than all other countries combined with Ontario producing over 90% of Canada's icewine, followed by Germany" (wikipedia). I don't know that I've ever had it.
1D: Texter's "Hang on a sec" (BRB)— "be right back"
36D: Abandon one's social plans (BAIL)— nice modern colloquial clue on this one, love it.
4D: Cloying (TOO SWEET) — had the "T" and actually tried TREACLEY (a variant spelling that I invented solely for this answer).

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*not actual bucks, more heartfelt good wishes

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Casey Callaghan and Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Easy or Challenging (depending on your familiarity with the architecture in question)

THEME: THE SPANISH STEPS (67A: Architectural attraction in Rome depicted by this puzzle's grid?) — a famous Roman staircase leading up to the TRINITÀ DEI MONTI church, and represented here by a staircase-shaped set of circled squares where the "steps" are made out of "Spanish" numbers (UNO DOS TRES CUATRO)

Word of the Day: THE SPANISH STEPS (67A) —

[source: The Morgan Library]

The Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti) in Rome, Italy, climb a steep slope between Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church, at the top.
The monumental stairway of 135 steps is linked with the Trinità dei Monti church, under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France, at the top of the steps and the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See in the Palazzo Monaldeschi at the bottom of the steps. The stairway was designed by the architects Francesco de Sanctis and Alessandro Specchi. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've never been to Rome, never even set foot in Italy, never heard of the TRINITÀ DEI MONTI, and I only know THE SPANISH STEPS exist from watching a lot (a lot) of Italian "giallo" films of the '60s and '70s:

[La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo (1963), d. Mario Bava]

... though I watched Roman Holiday this summer, so I must've seen them then, too:

[Roman Holiday (1953), d. Wyler]

They're also in Anthony Minghella's 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley:

[The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), d. Minghella]

So they're iconic, and I've seen them (in movies) a number of times, but still, I couldn't retrieve their name (had STEPS and could think only of THIRTY-NINE STEPS— a perfect fit (15!) ... but a Hitchcock movie (1935), not an actual staircase). And I certainly didn't know the name of the church (needed every cross (!) for that one). So I can't say I enjoyed the puzzle, because I just didn't know the reference (not really), so there was no spark of recognition. That's my problem, admittedly. The staircase is certainly famous enough, and if you're familiar with it by name, then I can see admiring this. The one thing I don't really get is the staircase itself. I get that you have built the "STEPS" out of "SPANISH" numbers, but why numbers? And why four? Obviously there are more than four steps. The "staircase" depicted in the grid has eight steps, but as you can see from the pictures above, the actual SPANISH STEPS far outnumber that (135 steps!). So the visual here feels like something kind of tacked on because the constructor(s) made the serendipitous discovery that both TRINITÀ DEI MONTI and THE SPANISH STEPS were a perfect, grid-spanning 15 letters long ... and then couldn't really think of what to do from there. So we get a "staircase" with an arbitrary number of steps and an arbitrary set of Spanish words. To be fair, it's kind of a cute solution to the problem of depicting "Spanish""steps"— maybe a simple visual pun is enough — but the connection to the actual steps feels pretty tenuous.

["Uno, dos, tres, cuatro!"]

The fill on this one starts out pretty awful (ÉTÉ ENIAC ORANG, all at once, yeesh), but then you get the lovely LACUNA (just me? I love that word) (22A: Unfilled space) and the handsome IGNOBLE and the PRIMROSE PITMASTER who TRIED HARD, and the short stuff gets less ugly, so overall the grid actually ended up being pretty enjoyable to work through. Winced hard at TRADESIES though (43A: Cutesy term for a swap) ... didn't we just have one of these cutesy -SIES expressions? SAMESIES, maybe? TWINSIES? I forget. Anyway, whatever it was, it was more familiar / in-the-language than TRADESIES (?) feels. Also winced at DISTROS, but that's just because I have no idea what that is (42D: Linux software packages, informally). It may surprise you to find that I've spent very little time thinking about [squints at grid] "Linux software packages," let alone thinking about them "informally," so pfft, shrug, if you insist. But again, otherwise, once you get out of that NW corner, this grid seems just fine.

More points of interest:

13A: Lawless princess (XENA) — while XENA may occasionally (frequently?) stepped outside the bounds of the law, the "Lawless" here represents the actress's name—Lucy Lawless
24A: Half of a Dashiell Hammett detective couple (NORA) — The other half is Nick. The couple is featured in the novel The Thin Man, which was adapted into the classic 1987 movie, Ernest Goes to Camp. Nick & NORA also lend their names to a style of cocktail glass. We have two chilling in our freezer at all times :)

29D: Bright spots? (ATRIA) — had the "A," wrote in AURAS, got briefly (and, it turns out, pointlessly) mad at the whole AURAS v. AURAE problem.
64D: Sunrise direction, in San Salvador (ESTE) — hard to get excited about a piece of crosswordese like ESTE, but I did like that the puzzle managed to work both "Salvador" and "Dali" into the clues (9A: Like the watches in Dali's "The Persistence of Memory"). The choice of "San Salvador" felt like a wink at the earlier Dali clue, which probably wasn't intentional, but it's art, man, you see what you see. And Dali was Spanish too! And he painted staircases! Who's seeing things now?!

["Heaven Canto 1 (The Divine Comedy)" (1950s)]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Josh Goodman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Breaking the rules... — various common expressions (beginning "Don't ...") are represented literally (spatially) in the grid, where the missing verb actually tells you (the solver) what to do, i.e. how to enter the answer. So you have to do what the original expressions explicitly tell you not to do:

Theme answers:

AESTX (9A: A state slogan: Don't ...) (... mess with 'TEXAS')
BAS [ALL] [YOUR] [EGGS] KET (17A: A proverb about risk: Don't ...) (... put 'ALL''YOUR''EGGS' in one BASKET)

4D: Most important thing (BE [ALL])
5D: Jason Mraz hit that spent 76 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart ("I'M [YOUR]S")
18D: Goads ([EGGS] ON)

PBLUESAISNUERSES (41A: A tip in the working world: Don't ...) (... mix 'BUSINESS' with 'PLEASURE')
CRY
MI
L
K (57A: An idiom about regret: Don't ...) (... 'CRY' over spilt 'MILK')
CART | HORSE (64A: A plea to plan wisely: Don't ...) (... put the 'CART' before the 'HORSE')

Word of the Day: oshiroi makeup (33A: Performers wearing oshiroi makeup => GEISHAS) —

Oshiroi (白粉) is a powder foundation traditionally used by kabuki actors, geisha and their apprentices. The word is written with kanji meaning "white powder", and is pronounced as the word for white (shiroi) with the honorific prefix o-.
When worn by geisha and maiko, oshiroi is notable for only partially covering the nape of the neck, as an uncovered nape was traditionally considered erotic in Japanese culture. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ha ha, yes. Feels like it's been forever since I solved a puzzle I whole-heartedly loved, but I loved this one. It's not flawless, but its strengths are so strong that I am more than willing to overlook any minor defects. I don't need a puzzle to be perfect in every way, I just need its core idea to be good (check) and the execution to be surprising and fun (check and check). It's possible I've seen variations on this theme before, where the physical arrangement of words stands in for some part of a phrase, but if so, I've never seen it done with this kind of verve and panache and ingenuity. I literally exclaimed "oh, wow" when I got the first themer—the improbable three-word rebus in "put all your eggs in one basket" (BAS [ALL] [YOUR] [EGGS] KET). I couldn't get those rebus-square Downs to work (primarily because I didn't know they were rebus squares), and then ... aha (the first of many AHAS ... which is why I'm not mad at that particular "bad" plural (AHAS)—I feel like the puzzle earned it). I went from "what the hell is a four-letter Jason MRAZ song?" to "ugh those circles are probably involved, leave it and come back" to "-KET ... so BAS-KET ... oh, so I just put EGG EGG EGG in those circled squares!" to "wait, what? 'I'm EGGs?''I'm EGGy?' When did Jason Mraz release that!??" to "oh my god ALL, YOUR, EGGS, bam bam bam" and then came the literal out-loud "oh wow." I then though that Alllllll of the circled squares were gonna be rebus squares. "This ... should be interesting!" But no, those first ones were the only ones. The rest of the circled squares just held single letters, which formed words that were bent or s p r e a d o u t or ximed pu (i.e. mixed up). Every theme answer performed a different trick. It was like watching balance beam followed by uneven bars followed by vault followed by floor routine—something new to see every time. And all landings: nailed. Can't fault a one of them. Straight 10s. Hallelujah.

As for the "defects" I mentioned above, there's one thematic one—the first three themers all turn the idioms into instructions for us, i.e. we have to "put" all the eggs in their place, we have to "mess" with Texas, we have to "mix" business and pleasure, we have to "put" cart before horse ... but when it come for CRYing over spilled MILK, there's nothing for us to do. Our action, as solvers, is not incorporated into the idiom. We "put,""mess," and "mix," but we don't "cry." So that answer's a wobbly tire, for sure, but I was so caught up in the challenge of working the idioms out visually that I honestly didn't care, or even really notice, that that answer was anomalous in that way. That answer's anomalous in lots of ways—it goes onto four rows, it's got the "over" and the milk "spilling" to deal with—so I think it gets artistic license. If the puzzle itself is about breaking the rules (and it is), then this last answer can go ahead and break the puzzle's own "rules." I don't mind. Go off, puzzle! Do your thing!

As for the fill, I'm actually surprised it's as strong as it is, given what seems like a pretty demanding theme. My only real winces came at INALIE (an old standard, but one I hate ... it's just Not standalone-worthy), and then at ISN'T SORRY (38D: Has no remorse), which felt like 'green paint' (i.e. a phrase one might say, but not one that has sufficient standalone strength). I also think people are far (far) more likely to say "It's no use" or "it's pointless" or "hopeless" than "IT'S FUTILE" (if only to avoid the "it's feudal?" confusion), but the fact that it's not a first-tier expression doesn't invalidate it. I think it's fine.

What I loved most about this theme is that I really had to *think* about every one of these themers. It's not that they were particularly difficult to come up with, but they weren't transparent, and in every case, I had a significant moment of "what's going on here?"— the expression itself didn't come to me right away, and so I had to back my way into it by watching the circles fill in from crosses and then inferring the expression from there. The first one (with the eggs) was actually the easiest one to get, along with CART | HORSE. The hardest for me was probably AESTX. I got the letters easily enough, but the only "slogan” I could think of was "Don't Tread on Me" (actually thought TREAD might go in those squares a first, except ... "Don't Tread on Me" is not a state slogan). Getting to "Don't ... mess with Texas" felt great—another little aha burst. Worked the business/pleasure one from the back end, so it took some doing, but again, when I got it, big aha (not a big "ugh," as often happens with tricky / gimmick puzzles, where my struggle is often "rewarded" with some awkward contrivance). Finished up in the SE corner, which was tough for a few reasons, none of them really thematic. First, I thought 49D: Character name in both "The Seagull" and "Three Sisters" meant that the name could be found literally in the titles ... like, embedded in their names. So I was looking to see what letter strings those two titles had in common ... only to find out that no, it's not a trick question (like [Woman in dire need?] from the other day), it's just an actual character name (IRINA). And then there was BANKS, which was, I'm serious now, the hardest thing in the grid for me today. I have been in hotels with multiple elevators, and maybe someone even referred to them as BANKS, but wow that answer was Not coming to me today. Instead of BANKS, I drew blanks. Nothing. Zip. Thank god for crosses.

Bullet points:

21A: Yankees slugger Juan (SOTO) — he's very, very good. And, for someone who is already a four-time All-Star, still very young (25). He looks very much like a future Hall-of-Famer, so expect to see his name a bunch in future puzzles (i.e. possibly forever).
6A: Law mandating curb cuts, in brief (ADA) — Americans with Disabilities Act. "Curb cuts" are literal cuts in curbs that allow for mobility devices to get from sidewalk to street easily.
70A: Half a score (TEN)— A "score" is twenty. I forgot that for a half second and just stared at TEN like "but ... but ... TEN is a score all on its own. It's a perfect score. I don't ge- ... oh, right."
13D: Diagnostics done with "Foot-o-scopes" in old shoe stores (X-RAYS) — they used to let shoe stores have x-ray machines!?!?! Did they come with lead aprons, what the ...!?

36D: Japanese company that created Hello Kitty (SANRIO) — just commit it to memory. I did. (I'm actually stunned to see that this is only the second appearance of SANRIO in the NYTXW ... feels like something I had to learn because of crosswords, but ... I do solve other crosswords, so that's probably where I've seen it)
64D: Abraham Lincoln was the first to keep one at the White House (CAT) — aw ... hello, kitty!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jackson Matz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Bella THORNE (53A: Actress Bella of Disney's "Shake It Up") —

Annabella Avery Thorne (born October 8, 1997) is an American actress, singer, and writer. She first received recognition for her roles as Margaux Darling in the series Dirty Sexy Money (2007–2008) and as Ruthy Spivey in the drama series My Own Worst Enemy (2009), the latter of which earned her a Young Artist Award.
Thorne gained prominence for her role as CeCe Jones on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up (2010–2013), for which she received several awards and nominations, including winning an Imagen Award. Thorne has since appeared in numerous feature films, including Blended (2014), Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015), The Babysitter film series (2017–2020). She received praise for her roles in The DUFF (2015), Amityville: The Awakening (2017), and Infamous (2020). Thorne also led the drama series Famous in Love (2017–2018), for which she received nominations from the Teen Choice Awards.
Outside of acting, Thorne has ventured into music; she released her debut single, "Watch Me" in 2011, which charted at 86 on the US Billboard Hot 100. She has since released the EP Made in Japan in 2012 and the EP Jersey in 2014. She made her directorial debut in 2019, directing the adult film Her & Him, which garnered positive reviews and won a Pornhub Visionary Award. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hard to follow yesterday's barnburner, but this one felt particularly pale. The marquees just don't ... marquee enough. The 15s are all solid, but only one of them really shines—and it's the one I got within the first 10 seconds or so: a promising beginning that was never matched again. That beginning was probably the most interesting and strangest part of my solve. I read 1A: Philosophy influenced by Aristotle's concept of the Unmoved Mover (THEISM) and thought "well I don't know that, but it's probably an -ISM." So I wrote in -ISM and checked the crosses. And ... 1-2-3 blast off!

It felt like a trap. Was I ... MISSING THE POINT? Or did I really just rocket across the grid off a single letter in a hypothesized suffix? Turns out, the latter, which was fun. Always fun to get a big whoosh like that. A similar transgrid experience soon followed.

As you can see, I was slightly less sure about THANKSGIVING DAY, so had to check it with crosses (namely DYADS). I knew the Lions played every Thanksgiving, but I thought maybe there was some wacky name for that game, some kind of portmanteau, like THANKSLIONSBOWL or something. But no, it's simply the date of the game, THANKSGIVING DAY. Anyway, whoosh whoosh, which I usually like, but after this initial rush things slowed back down to normal Friday levels, and the highs just never got very high. I actually like the shorter 11s today better than I like all the 15s—PESCETARIAN paired with HARD AS A ROCK ... a fish-eater with great abs, is what I'm imagining. You might be imagining something racier. Speaking of something racier, did you know Bella THORNE directed an "adult film" called Her & Him? It's true! It won a PornHub Visionary Award, which is a thing that exists, apparently. I seem to have missed THORNE's career almost entirely, what with Disney and porn being things that are generally off my radar these days. She's very famous, I just (generationally) missed her. When I see THORNE, I think of mid-century humor writer THORNE Smith, that's how old I am.

There were a few shorter things that put me off the grid (when your marquee stuff doesn't sizzle, then problems in the short stuff start to stand out). Worst of all was HAVOCS ... as a verb? (33A: Lays waste to). I mean, it's terrible as a plural noun, but it's virtually nonsensical as a verb. I assume this verbal meaning of HAVOCS is dictionary-attested, somewhere, but yikes. Yeah, Google's dictionary source (Oxford Languages) has this verb version of "havoc" as explicitly "Archaic." Merriam-Webster dot com, however, doesn't tag it that way—just has it as a regular word— so ... OK, I guess this is a thing "havoc" means, but literally never, nowhere, by anyone, in any situation have I heard this, so ... fun. I have heard SOPS as a verb, but I'm never gonna like it. I can tolerate SOP in the verb phrase "to sop up," but for me SOPS (on its own) wants to be a plural noun (meaning, roughly, "bribes"). SOPS is, in general, just a wholly unappealing word, right up there with "moist" (which at least has delicious cake connotations). So SOPS / PERPS was a frowny-face from me, as was the clue on EXES, what the hell??? (8D: People for whom a "no contact" rule might apply). I'm not sure exactly what "rule" this clue is referring to, but a "No contact"order is legal means of protecting (primarily) women from abusive partners (frequently EXES). Why would you evoke that with your clue? I'm sure there are other reasons for a "no contact" order, but my one time on jury duty involved a case where a guy violated his "no contact" order and ... he wasn't a nice guy. There are so many nicer, less trauma-adjacent ways to clue EXES. Bizarre cluing choice here. Also bizarre: JEDIS (41D: Plural form decried by staunch "Star Wars" fans). I mean, your clue is basically telling me "yeah, this is a trash plural," so ... treat it that way (i.e. don't use it).

[24A: Gunty who wrote "The Rabbit Hutch," winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction]

More things:

7A: Four-year-old in pig tales? (PEPPA)— fictional pigs ... I got Wilbur ... I got, I dunno, Piglet? And then I'm out. PEPPA Pig is a phenomenon that I just missed. My daughter would've been about the right age for it when it first hit the States ('05), but she generally did not watch commercial children's TV. She didn't watch TV much at all, though she did have a semi-hilarious addiction to watching DVDs of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the series starring Melissa Joan Hart that ran '96-'03—which was, to our credit as parents, a very good show). But PEPPA Pig, no. So I needed some crosses to get PEPPA.

["This is a school, not a bordello"—RIP Martin Mull]

15A: Members of the family Passeridae (SPARROWS) — knew this was a bird family, and guessed SPARROWS correctly, but I was very aware, as I was writing it in, that SWALLOWS also fit.
23A: Pilot productions? (PENS) — Pilot is a company that makes PENS, so that's what that's about.
27A: Industry that emerged in the 1970s (GAMING) — wow, "industry" had me thinking something more ... industrial. Interesting / toughish clue.
30A: Windy flight? (SPIRAL STAIRCASE) — kind of meh as an answer, but the misdirective clue is kind of fun (not windy like Chicago, but win- (rhymes with "vine") -dy like a winding ... staircase, actually; or a long and winding road, if that's more your thing)

34A: Option for a backpacker (HOSTEL)— had the "H" and wanted HIKING. "Option" is not a great option here, as OPT is already in the grid (19D: Elect).
35A: Apt name for a successful crypto investor? (ERICH)— unless he pronounces his name E-RICH (like he's a rapper or something), then no, unapt, boo to this clue. It's only "apt" if it sounds right, and this doesn't sound right.
51A: Unwelcome sight in musical stairs (NO SEATS)— very frowny face drawn next to this answer on my print-out. Not a phrase that's strong enough to stand alone.
28D: Kind of number represented by the equation M = v/c (MACH) — so ... kind of number represented by "M." So ... "M" ... it's just "M." That's what the "M" stands for. The "M" stands for MACH. Clue could've just been [M, in aeronautics]. (MACH 1 = the speed of sound, represented by the "c" in today's "equation")
30A: A "whole" thing (SHEBANG) — Ugh to "A" here. There is no "shebang" that is not preceded by "the" and "whole," so "A" is an absurdity. A SHEBANG implies multiple SHEBANGS, and ... no. Unless you mean this SHEBANGS:

32D: Battleship corner (A-ONE) — despite thinking of the "Battleship" game almost immediately, I didn't get this one until I had it down to A-NE, and even then I was like "... who's ANNE and what is she doing in the corner of a battleship?" I haven't looked at a "Battleship" board in forever, so I assume that A1 is somehow a ... corner of that board. OK, yeah, here we go:

Hope this puzzle didn't havoc you (am I saying that right?). See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: David Karp

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: THEMELESS - It's Saturday!

Word of the Day: POT DE CREME (49A: Custardy French dessert) —

Pot de crème (/ˈpoʊdəˈkrɛm/ POH-də-KREM; French: [po də kʁɛm]),^[1] plural pots de crème (pronounced the same), is a loose French dessert custard dating to the 17th century. The name means "pot of custard" or "pot of cream", which also refers to the porcelain cups in which the dessert is served

• • •

Hi everyone, it's Eli filling in at the last minute. Hope your weekend is off to a great start. Today's puzzle is a pretty straightforward themeless offering. I drew a blank starting off in the northwest, got slowed by a few wrong answers in the southeast, and still finished it in under 5 minutes. Obviously your mileage may vary, but that's a pretty easy puzzle in my book. Let's see what we've got.

Like I said, I got nothing off-hand from the first few clues, so I jumped to a different section to get started. I confidently dropped NBA instead of NFL and POT AU CREME instead of POT DE CREME into 45A and 49A, but the fact that I couldn't make any sense out of 47D (LEXI: Golfer Thompson who qualified for the U.S. Women's Open at age 12) got me back on track pretty quickly. The fact that NEMO (45D: Spoiler alert: He's found in Sydney Harbour) was a true gimme that fit either answer didn't help. Once I got that sorted, though, I didn't really slow down until I finished. I hesitated for a second spelling AFICIONADOS, but no real worries there.

I never enjoy being reminded of the existence of AYN Rand or her unreadable books, but following it up with Miles MORALES is a nice palate cleanser. I also liked the trivia in the clue for PERU (32D: Country name that's also the Portuguese word for "turkey"). Learning things is fun!

Some of the longer answers seemed nicely in the language to me. ARE YOU NUTS, I CAN RELATE, and IS THAT A YES all brought a quick smile to my face. So bonus points for those. Getting all three of those phrases to fit without sacrificing the fill too much feels like a nice accomplishment. There's also a shot at skewing the puzzle younger crossing RIDIC (41D: So absurd, in slang) with PEACH EMOJI (54D: Butt text?). Now, I'm just past the generation that flirted using emojis, but I didn't think the peach was exclusively "butt." I thought... well, let's just say a quick Google confirmed my instincts and leave it at that.

Call Me By Your Name? That is one ridic peach. Don't get me started on 18A.

Stray thoughts:

32A: Business with the stock symbol WOOF (PETCO)— Good reminder to pick up dog food tomorrow. Wouldn't want my sweet Maeve to go hungry.

14D: U.S. city with the motto "Where Discoveries are Made" (LOS ALAMOS) — I suppose that's better than "If You Had Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds, You'd Be Home By Now."
26D: Major League Soccer team with pink home jerseys (INTER MIAMI) — Easy to remember when you keep seeing Lionel Messi in his jersey, rubbing it in your face that he's not playing for LAFC.
36D: Box office? (CUBICLE) — I never thought I'd miss a cubicle, but my current job has open, wall-less desks that you have to book every day rather than having an assigned space, so you can't personalize your desk or store anything overnight. If there's a way to dehumanize a work force, a corporation will find it.
35A: A whole bunch of people in a row (MELEE) - "Row" as in "fight." But this word always takes me straight to Monkey Island.

I think that's all I've got for today. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

Wait, did I just see a typo in the clue for 27A? In the app it says "Florida city where the "The Greatest Show on Earth" was once headquartered". That's too much "the," right?

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jeremy Newton and Tracy Gray

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Breakout Performance"— a puzzle based on THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (3D: With 6-Down, prison drama released on September 23, 1994); the grid contains a visual depiction of the movie's climactic prison escape, which is represented by a series of tunnels (made out of shaded squares containing words meaning "tunnel") in which the main character's name (ANDY DUFRESNE) can be found (spelled out in circled squares)

Theme answers:

18D: Lead role in 3-Down/6-Down (ANDY DUFRESNE)
15D: Portrayer of 18-Down (TIM ROBBINS)
50A: Houdini's signature feat ... or a hit to the circled squares in this puzzle (ESCAPE ACT)
57A: "Bad luck, I guess ... it was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the ___" (quote from 18-Down) ("TORNADO")

"A series of tubes...":

114A: Stage a jailbreak à la 18-Down (TUNNEL OUT)
87D: Main blvd. through N.Y.C.'s Chinatown (CANAL ST.)
91A: What a police escort may offer (SAFE PASSAGE)
44D: Fall accessory? (PARACHUTE)
82A: Certain online video snippet (YOUTUBE CLIP)
46D: 4x100 relay (TEAM EVENT)
95A: Classic cover-ups for spies (TRENCH COATS)
116A: Held together in a makeshift way (DUCT TAPED)

Word of the Day: UPN (45D: Bygone channel that launched with the two-hour pilot of 'Star Trek: Voyager") —

The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television networkthat operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' subsidiary, United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which produced most of UPN's series) turned it into a joint venture in 1996 after acquiring a 50% stake in UPN, and subsequently purchased Chris-Craft's remaining stake in 2000. On December 31, 2005, UPN was kept by CBS Corporation, which was the new name for Viacom when it split into two separate companies. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner jointly announced that the companies would shut down UPN and competitor The WB to launch a new joint venture network later that year. UPN ceased broadcasting on September 15, 2006, with The WB following two days later. Select programs from both networks moved to the new network, The CW, when it launched on September 18, 2006. [...] Most of UPN's programming through the years was produced by Paramount Television or a Viacom-owned sister company (Viacom Productions, Big Ticket Television, Spelling Television or CBS Productions). UPN's first official program was Star Trek: Voyager, with the first comedy shows to debut being two short-lived series: the Richard Jeni starring vehicle Platypus Man and Pig Sty. // Other notable UPN programs during the network's existence included The Sentinel, Moesha, Star Trek: Enterprise, WWE SmackDown, America's Next Top Model, Girlfriends, the Moesha spin-off The Parkers, Veronica Mars, Everybody Hates Chris, and the animated adaptation of Dilbert. In Summer 2005, UPN aired R U the Girl, in which R&B group TLC (not with Left Eye) searched for a woman to join them on a new song. The network also produced some special programs, including 2001's Iron Chef USA. Much of UPN's comedy programming between 1996 and 2006 (particularly those that aired as part of the network's Monday evening lineup) was largely aimed at African American audiences, with minor exceptions in shows such as Clueless, Realitycheck and Head Over Heels.

• • •

If ever a puzzle was (extremely) not for me, this is it. I really don't like this movie. I don't like this movie as strongly as most dudes loooove this movie. It is a classic guy movie. A touchstone for men everywhere. But it was so full of clichés and tired tropes that I just ... couldn't. Love TIM ROBBINS, love Morgan Freeman, do not love THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. Speaking of Morgan Freeman ... where is he? The complete erasure of Morgan Freeman ("Red") from this puzzle is ... telling? Ironic? Fitting? I know Red's not the one who digs his way out of prison, but still. Still. A little nod, maybe? Something? This movie has been accused (on more than one occasion) of indulging in the "Magical Negro" stereotype, where the Black character exists primarily to impart wisdom to the white protagonist and help him on his journey. In this puzzle ... well, we get a white man's journey, and the Black guy ... he's not even in the picture. Not even on that beach or wherever Andy ends up meeting him at the end of the movie ... [looks it up] ... ZIHUATANEJO! Why isn't that in the puzzle!? And where's Red, man? What happened to Red? You can't spell REDEMPTION without "Red."

But let's leave movie quality aside. Just 'cause I don't like the movie doesn't mean the puzzle can't still be good. And, yeah, if you're a superfan of this movie, I can see liking this, I guess. There are some execution problems, some things I didn't get, or that seemed clunky. The use of circled squares to spell out ANDY DUFRESNE in the "tunnels" was odd. Why is his first name all contiguous circles but his last name stretched absurdly throughout the series of "tunnels"? And the "Y"—Why "Y"? Why is that the letter that (visually) represents the breakout. And why is it given to us? Mine came pre-filled in, did yours? It's not an unchecked letter, given that the "Y" is in both INDY (115A: Annual May race, familiarly) and ANDY DUFRESNE's name, so that was ... weird. Visually weird. Also weird to have ANDY DUFRESNE as a regular entry in the grid ... why in two places?? Seems redundant. I already had tunnel-ANDY before I ever got to regular-answer ANDY, so that was extremely anticlimactic. I assume that the "tunnel" words are not an accurate reflection of the actual path Andy takes in the movie. I don't think they need to be. Just being passages that one might take when escaping prison is enough. But I don't know. I wonder about how much I have to know (or remember) about the movie in order to fully "get" the puzzle. And I feel bad for those solvers who never saw it (or worse, never heard of it).

A couple smaller but still irksome problems: all the "tunnels" appear as standalone words (or word parts) in their respective answers, except VENT (which is buried in "EVENT"). Outliers like that always bug me. Make me tic / twitch / grimace a little. Also deeply ironic to clue make the PASSAGE answer SAFE PASSAGE and clue it in relation to help from the cops (91A: What a police escort may offer), considering what the puzzle is supposed to be representing. I think ESCAPE ACT is a decent revealer, or descriptor, but "TORNADO" is just arbitrary and awful (57A: "Bad luck, I guess ... it was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the ___" (quote from 18-Down)). Has no place here. It's a part of a quotation that has nothing to do with prison escape. Bizarre choice of thematic material. But in the end, the puzzle is easy, and it's about a beloved movie, and it's at least trying to do something visually interesting, so I expect people will like it.

The fill is pretty decent except man FISH FIN made me want to throw my computer out the window. LOL, it's a debut! Not a welcome debut, but a debut nonetheless. A [Rudder found in nature] is a fin. It's just a fin. FISH FIN is ridiculous. True, not a '50s Cadillac fin. '50s Cadillacs are not found in nature. I had FIN and thought "well I know it's not FISH FIN." And then it was. The only other things in the grid that made me really wince was AS A BONUS (not standalone worthy) and MENSANS (because I think Mensa is corny and MENSANS is a godawful plural ... and another debut, what is happening?). Speaking of godawful plurals, AGAPES (LOL, yet another debut! yeesh, they're really debuting some clunkers today) (97D: Early Christian meals of love and fellowship). I know agape as a higher, unconditional, divine kind of love, a counterpart to eros (sexual love) or philia (brotherly love). These Christian potluck dealies ... no idea. Otherwise, I think the grid is actually admirably clean, especially given the thematic density.

Bullets:

1A: One getting into some hot water? (BATHER)— my weird comment on this clue is that "some" should not be there. The idiom is "get into hot water." If you're going to play on the idiom (as the "?" indicates), then get the idiom just right. The "some" feels extraneous.
35A: Texter's alternative to an eye roll emoji (SMH) — every time SMH appears in a puzzle, commenters wonder what it means and say they've never seen it before. This is the fifth overall appearance of SMH in the NYTXW, but the fourth this year (it debuted in 2020). It stands for 'shaking my head'and indicates a kind of exasperated disbelief or disappointment at another's ignorance or stupidity. "Bemused incredulity" is a phrase that Merriam-Webster uses. I like that.
55D: Yeti's commercial rival (IGLOO) — they both make coolers.
7D: Instrument strummed in the Train song "Hey, Soul Sister" (UKULELE) — that second "U" gets me every time. Because of UKE (a crossword standard), I spell it UKELELE. Sigh. Anyway, I won't subject you to "Hey, Soul Sister." But I will subject you to "Drops of Jupiter" ...

["She checks out Mozart while she does TAE BO (5)!"]

Book giveaway time! Stuart Gibbs's newest installment in his popular Spy School series—Spy School: Entrance Exam—is out this week (Sep. 24). Spy School is a humor/mystery novel series for young readers (ages 7 to 12), and this new book contains puzzles by none other than prolific NYTXW constructor Jeff Chen! If you've ever tried to get your young kids hooked on puzzles (come on, you know you have), then you know how hard it is to find good, age-appropriate puzzles. If you've got a young puzzler or young reader or young puzzler/reader in your home, you might give this book a try (read more about it here). You can always steal it from your kid and solve the puzzles yourself if you like, who's gonna stop you!? Anyway, Jeff has three (3) copies of Spy School: Entrance Exam to give away. If you want a shot at a free book, just send me an email (rexparker@icloud.com) with the subject line "SPY SCHOOL" by the end of tomorrow (Monday, Sep. 23, 2024). I'll pick three emails at random and then Jeff will send the winners their books. Or you could just buy the book! Whatever works.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy 24th birthday to my daughter Ella, who has given up crosswords ... for now ... she'll be back ...

[then]

[now]

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:18)

THEME: Abbreviations? — Theme entries end with three-letter abbreviations. I'm not sure if there's something more here. It doesn't seem like the letters spell anything out, or have any relation to each other. Please let me know if I'm missing a connection in the comments.

Theme answers:

[How some movies were released, pre-streaming] for DIRECT TO DVD
[Bruce Springsteen album with a red, white and blue cover] for BORN IN THE USA
[Question to someone who's on the way] for WHATS YOUR ETA
[A piece of cake, so to speak] for AS EASY AS ABC

Word of the Day: NTSB (Accident-investigating org.) —

I put OSHA here, and had never heard of this agency, so thought I'd educate us all: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine accidents, pipeline incidents, bridge failures, and railroad accidents.

• • •

Hey squad, it's Malaika here for an Off Schedule Malaika Monday! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I have been basking in the excitement of some recent late night dinners. From 2021 - 2023 we were losing a lot of late night spots in NYC, but I feel like there's been a little bit of a resurgence lately! Fingers crossed it continues-- sometimes you need an 11pm enchilada or a 3am pizza slice. If you have a fave Late Night NYC Spot, let me know in the comments and I'll check it out!!

I absolutely flew through today's puzzle! I'm trying to identify some of the vocabulary that, while easy for me, may have stumped a brand new solver-- KIR and ANODE stand out, and I wonder if new teenaged solvers are aware of ETTA JAMES and EDITH Piaf. (Fun to see them like this-- I usually see just "Etta" and "Piaf.") Anyway, do yourself a favor and listen to Beyonce's cover of "I'd Rather Go Blind" and Cristin Milioti's cover of "La Vie en Rose." Stunning songs. (Or listen to the originals!!! Also incredible, obviously!)

I wish there had been a little more to the theme here. It's totally serviceable, but this feels like a puzzle many people will solve without even realizing there was a theme at all, and I don't know if the long answers were fun enough to justify that. DIRECT TO DVD, in particular felt dated, rather than nostalgic, although maybe you disagree. I wanted the "ABC" in the last answer to indicate something, but it doesn't seem to be a revealer.

Which is your fave Direct-to-DVD Disney sequel?

What else? I was surprised they didn't clue LUCKY ONE in reference to the Taylor Swift song given that it's not a particularly in-the-language phrase, and given that the NYT crossword loves a Taylor Swift clue. But I guess the song is called The Lucky One, so they would have had to do a weird fill-in-the-blank. There was also only one question mark clue ([One serving you a whopper?] for LIAR) which felt a tad low to me.

Bullets:

[Mark Zuckerberg's company] for META — It's hilarious to me how he went through the whole rigamarole of changing the name in order to launch a Metaverse that was enormously panned and mercilessly mocked. Oh well. I guess he's still a billionaire so no huge loss.
[Lingerie top] for BRA— Something felt off about this phrasing, maybe because I have many bras I would not consider lingerie, and some lingerie tops that I would not consider bras. Could the clue have benefited from a ", perhaps" ?
[Bling worn on the head] for TIARA— I paused while solving because I thought this phrasing was so awkward. It felt like how an alien observing Earth and studying our language would describe a tiara.

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Hi, everyone! It’s Clare for the final Tuesday of September. Fall has officially started, and I for one am excited for (I hope) cooler weather and the spooky season. I’ve been going to a lot of concerts lately — it’s like all my favorite artists decided that coming to DC in the fall was a great plan. This is also an amazing time for sports, with the women’s basketball playoffs starting, the Premier League underway, the MLB playoffs about to start, and football kicking off. I, of course, cannot pass up a chance to mention that my Steelers have had a wonderful 3-0 start to this season! We’ll probably ruin that soon enough, but I’m gonna try to enjoy that for now.

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor:Kevin L. Shellito

Relative difficulty: On the easier side

THEME: Puns based on the names of big city newspapers

Theme answers:

VALLEY FORGE (17A: Washington post?)
FORTY NINER (31A: San Francisco examiner?)
PAUL REVERE (49A: Boston herald?)
TRAVIS KELCE (65A: Kansas City star?)

Word of the Day: PETRA(37D: World Heritage Site in Jordan) —

Petra, originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu, is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, Petra is also called the "Rose City" because of the color of the sandstone from which it is carved. The city is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and was settled by the Nabataeans, a nomadic Arab people, in the 4th century BC. Petra would later become the capital city of the Nabataean Kingdom in the second century BC. (Wiki)

• • •

Well, that was fun! Quite a debut from constructor Kevin L. Shellito. The theme was clever, and some of the answers were fresh, while the unusual and trivia-filled clues were my favorite part of the puzzle. There was even a nice range to the theme answers. Two related to the Revolutionary War (VALLEY FORGE and PAUL REVERE). Then there were the FORTY NINERs, just predating the Civil War. And you get to the modern day with Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and Jason’s brother, TRAVIS KELCE (who’s sorta known for playing some football himself, too).

I felt like I was learning something while solving the puzzle. I now know that there are approximately 20 quadrillion ANTs worldwide (which is mildly disturbing to think about) (64A). I learned that Ignacio Anaya invented NACHOs (33D). That EELs (18D) can swim backward. I was never a big science fair person, so I appreciated the reminder that baking soda and vinegar combine to create a LAVA effect (52D). And there were even more bits of trivia/facts for people — tahini is made from SESAME (38A); ELMS are the state tree of Massachusetts (23A); the Bosphorous is known for being NARROW (15A); etc. Basically, I’m ready to go crush it at trivia night right now.

The clues were also quite fun. My personal favorite being Personnel in vestments as CLERGY (72A). That got me chuckling. I also liked how ERRANT (8D: Like a drive in the woods?) tried to throw us for a bit of a loop. And we got to see Zorro and Dracula in a puzzle with CAPE (55D). I enjoyed the reference to a TV show I know — “Euphoria” — with RUE (16A: Zendaya's role on "Euphoria") even if I only watched one season.

I hit a couple of snags from trying “awake” instead of ARISE (22D: Greet the day); I first put “scar” instead of SCAB (73A: Evidence of healing); I tried making it “Neet” instead of NAIR (26A: Hair removal brand); and I first typed “MBA” instead of the actual MFA (24D: R.I.S.D. grad's degree) because I didn’t recognize the acronym R.I.S.D.

A few things didn’t quite work for me. In particular, a FORTY NINER (31A) was someone mining/panning for gold. Sure, they examined what they found, but they weren’t examiners. I also don’t know that I’ve ever seen a reference to a single FORTY NINER, unless you’re talking about a member of a certain football team. The people who descended on California in the mid-1800s were FORTY NINERs, plural. I also didn’t like SLEETS (44A: Comes down as a wintry mix) at all — even if it’s in the dictionary as a verb, it shouldn’t be. I think NACHO (33D) really needs to be plural. You don’t have a nacho. And NACHOs are a dish made of chips–and a whole lot of other goodies–not just a singular chip.

But it was overall a smooth and enjoyable puzzle for a Tuesday!

Misc.:

We could’ve had the Fever in the puzzle instead of the Indiana PACERS (51D: Hoosier hoopers). With the playoffs happening now, that would’ve been so timely. This season in the WNBA, we had the unanimous MVP A’ja Wilson (she’s legitimately incredible) and the unanimous rookie of the year Caitlin Clark, who plays for the Fever.
I didn’t think I liked PECAN (43A: Pie variety whose pronunciation inspires debate) pie for a while, but it turns out I just hadn’t given it a chance. Now it’s my go-to every year for Thanksgiving, and my family has become known for our tried-and-true recipe.
The New York Times agrees that it was a BRAT summer (11D). Charli XCX, anyone? Now what’s the fall going to be??
While my Steelers have started strong, my mom’s poor FORTY NINERs have had a rough 1-2 start. My dad won my sister’s and my loyalty to his hometown Steelers when I was just 10 by buying us each a jersey. We haven’t looked back since!
I’m hopeful the DOG DAYS (9D: Hot summer period named for the constellation Sirius) are actually behind us. And speaking of the DOG DAYS, I’m going to end with one of my favorite Florence + the Machine songs, which is undeniably fun and catchy.

And with that, have a great month of October!

Signed, Clare Carroll, a Steeler fan for life who knows that TJ Watt should win DPOY every year

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (names names names)

THEME: Wall of Sound ... — the answers on the outer edges of the grid are made entirely out of the notes (do re mi fa etc.) of the musical scale. The puzzle has not one not two but three revealers:

Theme answers:

FULL SCALE (30A: Life-size ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)
RINGTONES (36A: Phone numbers? ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)
SIDE NOTES (45A: Marginalia ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)

The wall (clockwise from the NW corner):

RE DO
SO FA
FA LA
MI RE
LA RE DO
DO DO
MI SO
SO RE
SO SO
RE TI RE

Word of the Day: DAVID HO (3D: AIDS researcher who was Time's 1996 Man of the Year) —

David Da-i Ho (Chinese: 何大一; born November 3, 1952) is a Taiwanese American AIDS researcher, physician and virologist who has made a number of scientific contributions to the understanding and treatment of HIV infection. He championed for combination anti-retroviral therapy instead of single therapy, which turned HIV from an absolute terminal disease into a chronic disease.
David Ho was born in Taiwan in 1952 and immigrated to the United States in 1965, where he was educated at California Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School (through the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology) before getting his clinical training at UCLA School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital.
He is the founding scientific director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, both housed at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. (wikipedia)

• • •

Rare that I wipe out right out of the box on a *Wednesday* puzzle, but that is what happened today, and though no other section gave me quite that much trouble, I did feel like I was working somewhat harder than usual to put the answers together today. Not hard hard. Just harder. There was at least some resistance all over, which I don't mind, but things have been so easy of late, across the board, that today's difficulty felt oddly elevated. Certainly, where the trivia / proper nouns were concerned, it felt more Thursday / Friday / Saturday than Wednesday. DAVID HO seems eminently worth knowing, but know him I did not, and encountering him first thing, in a section where I was already having some trouble (no idea what "show recording" meant, exactly in 16A: Pioneer in show recording—I wanted a person's name; hard (baseball) clue on RETIRE (1D: Strike out, perhaps), that slowed me down. I couldn't even get out of that section smoothly because the primary connecting word (that is, the word that was going to get me out of the NW and connect me to the rest of the grid) was *also* some trivia I didn't know or had forgotten (namely, GOURDE) (24D: Haitian unit of currency). Also didn't know GUTE (at least not the spelling ... GUTT?) and would not have remembered EDUARDO, probably, if I hadn't had a few of those last letters in place before I looked at the clue. I knew SNORRI, but then I'm a medievalist. I'm guessing most of you ... aren't? Twenty-six years since SNORRI's made an appearance in the NYTXW. He is a 12th/13th-century Icelandic poet and scholar who is believed to have written or compiled most of the Prose EDDA (or just EDDA), a very important source of Norse mythology (as well as a stock piece of crosswordese). "He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway." Fun fact!

As for the theme, it's actually quite elegantly done. The words one can make out of the scale aren't exactly scintillating, but the visual created by the *arrangement* of those words is at least interesting, and the triple revealer (!) more than makes up for any dullness in the note-answers themselves. Also, no all-note answer in the grid anywhere *except* the outer edge ... it's a nice touch. Maybe that was intentional, or particularly hard to do, but I like when the constructor keeps the theme entirely inside the theme ... no stray or accidental themers roaming around. And the revalers are pretty good, with clever wordplay all around. There are "notes" on the "side" of the grid, there are "tones" forming a "ring" around the grid, there's a "scale" ... hmm ... that answer doesn't work quite as well; that is, "full" doesn't really express the structure formed by the notes, the way "ring" and "side" do. But you do (eventually) get a "full" scale, i.e. every note from "do" on up and back to "do" again. Side note: I've been so indoctrinated by crosswords to believe that the note is spelled "SOL" that "SO" now looks weird and wrong to me. The fact that the three revealers all fit symmetrically, and that two of them drill directly into the outer wall, makes this puzzle architecturally elegant. Architecturally complicated puzzles can often feel fussy, with theme and non-theme answers alike feeling forced and awkward. Not so today. There's maybe more crosswordese-leaning stuff than I'd like (an ICI, an ESSO, a NAENAE in the ORRIN ODEA, etc.), but on the whole the grid holds up well, with lots of varied and even colorful answers (ANY OLD AVOCADO! ONE-OFF BISTROS!)

Bullet points:

21A: Stock quote? (MOO)— that's what the cow says. The cow says MOO. If you quote a cow, that is likely the quote you're going to get. If you got a different quote, I'd be a little surprised. ("Stock" here means "livestock," of course)
48A: Tool with a bubble (LEVEL) — Gotta get the bubble in the little liquid tube to sit inside the little marked area. That's how you know you're level. I think most levels are electronic now, but since I don't use levels on a regular (or even irregular) basis, I'm not a reliable authority.
55A: :"Toy Story" dinosaur voiced by Wallace Shawn (REX) — I of course knew that REX was the dinosaur in Toy Story, but I'd completely forgotten he was voiced by the great Wallace Shawn. What a career. From Manhattan to My Dinner with Andre to The Princess Bride to Clueless, an absolute delight, that guy.

9D: Fan fare? (FRANKS) — fans (of baseball) might eat FRANKS (i.e. hot dogs), which are common ballpark fare.
39A: Word after double or day (BED)— Peter really will sneak baseball references in wherever he can.

54D: Bowl feature (TIER) — think "bowl" as in "arena." The Hollywood Bowl, that kind of bowl. There are different levels (or TIERs) of seating. This clue actually gave me slight trouble. I had the "R" and ... nope, no help.
38D: Senokot alternative (EX-LAX)— eight appearances now for EX-LAX. Still no ENEMA, though. "ENEMA ... talk about great letters!" RIP, Merl Reagle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. this blog is now legally an adult. As you know, it takes a village, so thank you, villagers.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jesse Guzman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: DOUBLE / REVERSE (62A: With 63-Across, tricky football play ... as represented by this puzzle's shaded squares?) — each theme answer contains two sets of shaded squares in which the correct letters are reversed, resulting in a plausible answer ... that doesn't fit the clue:

Theme answers:

CRUELLA (i.e. CURE-ALL) (1A: Wonder drug)
GLOATS (i.e. GO LAST) (8A: Have the final turn)
SET POINT (i.e. STEP ON IT) (32A: Command to a getaway driver)
TARNATION (i.e. TARANTINO) (35A: Three-time nominee for Best Director (1994, 2009, 2019)
LAS VEGAS (i.e. SALVAGES) (39A: Rescues)

Word of the Day: SARA Bareilles (47A: Bareilles of Broadway) —

Sara Beth Bareilles (/bəˈrɛlɪs/ bə-REL-iss; born December 7, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She has sold over three million albums and over 15 million singles in the United States. Bareilles has earned various accolades, including two Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Tony Awards. In 2012, VH1 named her one of the Top 100 Greatest Women in Music.
Bareilles rose to prominence with the release of her second studio album, Little Voice (2007), which was her first recording for a major record label (Epic). The album included the hit single "Love Song", which reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Bareilles made her Broadway debut when she composed music and wrote lyrics for the 2015 musical Waitress, for which she earned nominations for the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. She subsequently received Olivier Award nominations for its 2019 West End transfer production. She released the 2015 studio album What's Inside: Songs from Waitress, in which she performs many of the musical's songs as well as some that didn't make it into the show. She has gone on to be involved with Broadway productions, including the 2016 musical SpongeBob SquarePants and a revival of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, both of which earned her Tony nominations. (wikipedia)

• • •

Started with a bang! Boom! PANACEA! (1A: Wonder drug). First thing in the grid! Me: "Yes! Nailed it! OK! Here we go! ... Here we ... Here ... Wait, isn't it LON Kruger? (5D: Longtime college basketball coach Kruger). Or maybe LEN, I forget, but definitely not CON. And how is [Makes a note of] gonna start with an 'E'? That doesn't work. Aw, man, is it not PANACEA? Well, that's deflating." Dispiriting, really. Just an embarrassing way to open, all full of confidence and certainty, only to fall flat on your face. Luckily, there were a bunch of gimmes in that NW corner to help hoist me back up, but once I had the corner all finished, I still had no idea why CRUELLA was right. I was trying to make the shaded squares mean something (RULLA?). And then the unshaded squares (CE?). Maybe run the shaded squares backwards (ALLUR?). I'm sure if I'd kept at it for a while, I would've gotten there, but tick tock, I gotta puzzle to solve, so I just moved on, assuming future themers would be more forthcoming ... and sure enough, the next one I got to was way more transparent. The only [Command to a getaway driver] I could think of was "STEP ON IT," and I looked at an answer that clearly had to be SET POINT ... and I saw it: the "STEP ON IT" hidden inside SET POINT. You just reverse the shaded squares and voilà! The whole thing ended up being a fairly typical Thursday experience: flail around until you grasp the gimmick, then just walk easily home. After SET POINT, there was nothing that would constitute real trouble the rest of the way.

These theme answers involve interesting word and phrase quirks, but I don't know how fun they were to figure out. I guess I had to work a little for SALVAGES (i.e. LAS VEGAS) because [Rescues] feels like it applies to a person, whereas SALVAGES ... doesn't. So I needed some help from crosses there, but the others (after CRUELLA, of course) were obvious. But that didn't make them total duds. I was kinda curious about what the unclued surface answer was going to be each time, so that, at least, was a surprise, and there was still the revealer to look forward to ... but that ended up being kind of a let-down. I mean, that is a football play, and it does literally explain what's going on with the shaded squares, but it's actually a little too literal. To be interesting. There's something anticlimactic about the explanation being so plain. There's no clever wordplay. Yes, there's a reverse ... twice ... a DOUBLE / REVERSE. I guess I wanted something more colorful, a repurposed colloquial phrase or something. DOUBLE / REVERSE felt too straightforward. Kinda dull. Maybe if I liked football more, I dunno...

Pretty easy puzzle overall, especially outside the themers. I might've spelled KIROV wrong at first pass (KIREV?) (24D: Russian ballet company), I don't remember. I couldn't remember the kind of LAP I was dealing with at 58A: Final circuit in a track race (BELL LAP). LAST LAP seemed right, and it fit, but ... no (also, GO LAST (i.e. GLOATS) was already in the grid). But the grid was just too full of gimmes for me ever to get significantly bogged down: ASSANGE ANGELOU OATES ANN KOTB ... the puzzle's just handing out freebies today. The one amusing (and nearly fatal) wrong answer I had today was RAT (25A: Something found near a trap). In retrospect, this clue was obviously written to elicit precisely this wrong answer, so RAT is less an anomalous personal pitfall than a predictable design feature (and therefore less amusing), but still, I did get a half-second or so of "What the hell biblical figure is this!?" before reading the *entire* clue, seeing Faulkner, and realizing my error. Again, they really make it easy on you today with the cluing. Oh, and if LAT doesn't make sense to you yet—it's a muscle (short for latissimus dorsi), as is "trap" (short for trapezius).

Bullets:

22A: Civil rights leader ___ B. Wells (IDA)— any opportunity to mention my cat (IDA), I'm gonna take. She was technically named after Lupino, but I call her "IDA B." a lot:

43A: What has posts all around a site (FENCE)— man, that clue is tortured. The surface meaning *wants* to sound like its internet-related, but just ends up sounding like some Uncanny Valley / AI-produced gibberish.
3D: Sudden riser in status (UPSTART) — again, such an ugly / weird clue. Recognizable words in an order no human would put them. "Riser" here is a ... person who is rising.
28D: "Wake word" for an Apple device (SIRI) — I've owned an iPhone since 2012 and have never, not once, used SIRI. Don't trust her. I'm sure she's still listening and telling her overlords everything I say, but I'm not "waking" her voluntarily. Afaic, she can stay dead. I think Apple devices should make you say SIRI three times, like "Beetlejuice." I still wouldn't use it, but that seems like it would at least be fun. Maybe they can rush a "Beetlejuice" setting for Halloween. Surely there's a lucrative movie tie-in here ... somewhere.
15A: Prominent feature of Hello Kitty (HAIR BOW) — I like all Hello Kitty answers because they remind me of the fact that Shortz once rejected a puzzle with HELLO KITTY in it (an Andrea Carla Michaels puzzle, I think), because he had never heard of it and didn't think people would know it. And then he read about it in an in-flight magazine immediately thereafter, and now it's everywhere, all over the grid. We even had the company that created Hello Kitty—SANRIO—in the puzzle last week, though that caused a lot of consternation because of its intersection with another not-too-familiar proper noun, LEO Rosten. So it looks like Natick now has a mayor: LEO SANRIO. Long may he reign.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Jake Bunch

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EGO death (9D: ___ death, concept associated with LSD trips) —

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. The 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender" and Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described later by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey. It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.
In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of drugs. The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al. to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self occurs.
The concept is also used in contemporary New Age spirituality and in the modern understanding of Eastern religions to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" and self-centeredness. This conception is an influential part of Eckhart Tolle's teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering.

• • •

[11D: Simply delectable]

This seems like a fine, ordinary Friday puzzle, but it lost my good will at 1-Across and never really got it back. Poker lingo, ugh. There's something uniquely repulsive about it to me. Other lingos that aren't my own don't bug me nearly so much. But poker lingo, barf. BAD BEAT? Sounds like a dance music problem to me. I think I had BAD DEAL in there at one point. It's such an unpleasant, ugly-sounding phrase, BAD BEAT. And hey, look at that, No Surprise, it's a debut answer today. Constructors have been debuting some winners losers of late. Just 'cause it's new doesn't mean it's good. I realize this is a highly personal reaction based on my finding the whole poker phenomenon uniquely unattractive. Poker on television, that was really the beginning of the end for me. The elevation of poker players to household names. Pass. Hard hard pass. I'm just saying, poker brings nothing good to the world so let's all memory-hole it forever. Thanks.

[The poker player has spoken!]

Once I got out of that NW corner (which, despite the putrid BAD BEAT, wasn't all that hard to work out), things leveled off. But they just leveled, that is, they were fine. Things were fine. Adequate. Of the marquee stuff, only VICTORY LAPS is really giving us some ZESTY Friday flavor. ON AUTOPILOT is a bit dull, plus it's part of this phenomenon today where answers are unnecessarily long. Like, we get the formal or redundant versions of several answers. First, ON AUTO is a common phrase (16 NYTXW appearances!), but today we get the full, unexpurgated ON AUTOPILOT (I had ON AUTOMATIC here at first). Then there's SPOT ADS, which is a thing, I admit, but it's a thing I see in puzzles way way more than I hear or see it irl, probably because "spot" and "ad" mean the same thing so most people just say one of them. Ugh. Then there's "ARE YOU IN?," a valid interrogative phrase, but, as with ON AUTOPILOT, we see more often in shortened form—as "YOU IN?" (10 NYTXW appearances!). I don't think of these answers as faults so much as ... a tendency to bloat for the sake of "originality." So your "original" answer feels like something we've seen (a lot) before, just ... bigger.

I really like the clue on MOSQUITO NET (24D: Debugging soft wear?) except I don't really think of the net as something you "wear." I guess you might have one hanging off your ... what, pith helmet? Whatever, the clue's commitment to the computer programming pun is so enthusiastic that I can't help but be charmed. "LET'S ROLL" and "YOUR CALL" lend some nice colloquial energy to their respective corners. And while I generally hate ICER as a word, and more in the plural, today I that hatred was defused by the visual pun of having the ICERS (if not the actual icing) right on top of the CUPCAKES.

My primary difficulty (to the extent there was any difficulty) occurred in and around the verb phrase WINS GOLD (32A: Triumphs for one's country, maybe). I read "triumphs" as a noun, so that was my problem there. Then there was the kind-of-clever but very ambiguous clue on STS. (i.e. "streets") (26D: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.: Abbr.) and the not-clever, very clunky clue on GULL (33D: Port caller). I get it, you see GULLs near "ports" and the noises they make are in the general category of bird "calls" but what sort of phrase is "Port caller"? Are you trying to evoke "port of call"? It's such an awkward phrase. If you're gonna go awkward, there should at least be some wordplay reason for doing so, but I don't see it / hear it. I wanted BELL here at first because I had the "LL" and ... isn't there some nautical time-telling thing involving "BELLs"? Yes. Yes there is. But that's on a ship, not (only) in "port." Needed crosses to get FLEET (65A: Side in a game of Battleship) (which was the only way I was gonna get that second CHOPIN answer, IN E), and I had ALETAP before ALE KEG (47D: Source of a draft). Other than that, this puzzle was a breeze.

Bullets:

30A: Org. whose website has a "Register Your Drone" page (FAA) — Federal Aviation Administration. They should have a "Destroy Your Drone" page. "Smash drone with hammer. Get new hobby." There, I just wrote it for them. You're welcome, FAA.
3D: Middle's middle (DEES)— a "letteral" clue, i.e. you need to look at the letters in the clue to figure out the answer, namely the "middle" letters in the word "middle," i.e. the DEES.

[Rick DEES at the 3:00 mark but ... honestly I think you're gonna wanna watch it all]

13A: Root words? ("GO, TEAM, GO!") — the "words" one might use when "rooting" for one's team. I'm rooting for the Tigers, who (improbably) seem like they're about to make the playoffs? They were a sub-.500 team like [checks watch] 3 minutes ago. What a world. Go, Tigers, go.
38D: Who's cutting onions? (DICER) — not sure what this clue is trying to do. I think it wants to evoke the colloquial expression "Who's cutting onions?" (used when someone is crying and wants to blame something besides their emotions), but then ... it ultimately wants to be literal (a DICER cuts onions). I guess I can't figure out precisely what work the "?" is going here. A wordplay "?"? A simple interrogative "?"? Both?
18A: It'll rock your world (SEISM) —why is the word "seismic" so great but the word SEISM so so terrible? I think it's a pronunciation issue. "Size 'em?" Is that how you say it? But it looks like "Say-ism," or like a typo for "sexism." I don't even like looking at it, let alone saying it. Just say "tremor." Or, if you must be fancy, "temblor."

See you next time, and my apologies to poker and drone enthusiasts everywhere. You deserve a more understanding crossword blogger.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy [counts on fingers ... runs out of fingers ... twice] 21st anniversary to my beautiful wife, Penelope, without whom ... well, I don't like to think about it. It's not pretty. Love you, honey.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Margaret Seikel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: dark MODE (45A: Dark ___) —

A light-on-dark color scheme, better known as dark mode, dark theme or night mode, is a color scheme that uses light-colored text, icons, and graphical user interface elements on a dark background. It is often discussed in terms of computer user interface design and web design. Many modern websites and operating systems offer the user an optional light-on-dark display mode.
Some users find dark mode displays more visually appealing, and claim that it can reduce eye strain. Displaying white at full brightness uses roughly six times as much power as pure black on a 2016 Google Pixel, which has an OLED display. However, conventional LED displays cannot benefit from reduced power consumption. Most modern operating systems support an optional light-on-dark color scheme. (wikipedia)

• • •

Quick write-up today, as I have an oddly full schedule, including a little crossword tournament up in Ithaca. But I often say "quick write-up" and it rarely comes to fruition, so let's see how this goes. This was a second day in a row where the marquee answers didn't seem quite up to snuff. I had a good reaction to REACTION GIF, but HIGHLAND COW ended up being oddly anticlimactic (17D: Shaggy Scottish grazer), as I got HIGHLAND easy enough, then just looked at those last three letters and thought "... is it just ... COW? Is that a thing?" It is! Anyhow, good enough answer, but the cow's got BACNE (i.e. back acne), so points off for repulsiveness (no offense to BACNE-havers, we've all been there, I presume, but ... not exactly an appealing bit of fill). And then there was SEED CAPITAL (14D: Angel's contribution), and this was the one that really killed the potentially creamy vibe of this triple-stack center. First, it's from the world of business/finance, and so the likelihood that it's going to be *scintillating* is ... low. And here's why—the self-importance. The inflated language. The businessspeakiness of it all. SEED ... CAPITAL? I had the SEED part, easy, but in my mind, the basic phrase here is "SEED money." Simple, direct, precise, common. A very in-the-language phrase. An angel (investor) provides seed money (i.e. initial funding) for any kind of business venture. But of course SEED MONEY wouldn't fit here—two letters short. So now I'm like "what are other words for 'money?' ugh, this is the last 'problem' my brain wants to be working on, now or ever: synonyms for 'money,' make it stop." I try FUNDING, but the crosses just don't work. So I just give up and work crosses. And the puzzle is so easy today that I get to CAPITAL eventually, but ... I mean, CAPITAL? La di dah, CAPITAL. It's just money, call it 'money.' This is like when everyone in business suddenly became an "entrepreneur." Oh, pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon, Monsieur Entrepreneur?" You're a businessman and you deal with money. Those are the nice plain terms. SEED CAPITAL, bah. (LOL, the entry at wikipedia is "Seed money" (vindication!), but wikipedia goes on to say, "also known as seed funding or SEED CAPITAL." Oh, money, then funding, then capital? You Don't Say!)

So 2/3 of those middle Downs were reasonably pleasing, but all the other long stuff only really gets up to the level of "OK." There's nothing that really pops or surprises in any of the corners. The grid's not bad, or ugly, it's just a little blah, and the puzzle as a whole was very, very easy, so there wasn't even the joy of the struggle today. Clues were mostly transparent. I was shocked that AGATHA was right at 1A: First name in mysteries. It's the first thing I thought of, which, on a Saturday, I assume is going to be wrong-o! Not EXACTO! (Do people really say EXACTO, "informally" or otherwise? Fonzie says "Exactamundo!"—now that's informal. Baroque, elaborate, hypersyllabic, yes, but still informal. To me X-ACTO is a knife brand, and that's all it is.). Was surprised to just glide through this whole grid, from AGATHA on down, with very little resistance. I just fell down the puzzle like a stream down the hill, inexorably pulled by gravity rather than anything that felt like real effort on my part—corner to corner in no time at all:

Not that there weren't hiccups along the way. One of those came right out of the gate. I "confirmed"AGATHA by crossing it with the [Shaving brand], which, of course is ... ATRA! 😕 And then I confirmed that wrong answer with ASHE (another right answer)! Sigh. Really locked into a four-letter mistake there. I went further—so certain of ATRA that off the (wrong) "T," I wrote in TUNE-UPS for 13A: Noncompetitive races (FUN RUNS), and you can see how many answers I can "confirm" off of TUNE-UPS. So that's a monumental snafu, first thing ... and yet all it really took to get out was remembering AFTA exists. After that, whoosh, no more stuckness. As you can see from the midsolve screenshot, above, I had ONCE instead of ONLY (41A: And no more), so that made the NE corner a little harder to get into than the others, but the others were Monday/Tuesday level, so saying the NE was "harder" isn't saying much. I got AORTAS off the "A" (nevermind that it was the stupid Latin plural AORTAE) (18A: Vital carriers), and EXO / EXACTO was easy, and INNS was a gimme (22A: Rustic respites), so that corner was over quickly. Oh, earlier, I did stop and stare at -AT for 35A: Pancake topper. First thought: "OAT?" Second, more desperate thought: "FAT?" I guess you do, conventionally (certainly pictorially), put a PAT of butter on top of your pancakes, but oof, still awful as clued. "What would you like on your pancakes?""PAT! PAT! Can I have PAT?!""We ... we have butter ...""PAAAAAAAT!""OK, OK, take it easy ... Who's PAT?"

Lightning round:

28D: First name for the third second-in-command (AARON)— ugh, presidential math, the worst. "OK, third president, so ... that's Jefferson, and then his veep was ... wait, was it really Burr? Huh, in all the Hamilton / "AARON Burr, sir" mania, I somehow forgot that very basic fact, LOL." Burr was VP during Jefferson's first term. For Jefferson's second term, it was George Clinton, who went on to be Madison's VP as well (?!), before ultimately abandoning the American political system altogether and joining Parliament:

11D: Intercessor for the frequently forgetful (ST. ANTHONY) — so he's the patron saint of people with memory problems. I did not know that. Kinda miffed that there's no abbr. indicator in the clue (as ST. is most def an abbr.), but on Saturdays especially I think they just throw basic decorum like that out the window.
37D: How some Hollywood relationships start (ON SCREEN) — really wanted this to be ON SET. We're talking about the actors, right? Not the fictional "relationships" in the movies themselves? I guess people who play lovers then become lovers, OK.
24A: Variable in Euler's polyhedron formula (V — E + F = 2) (EDGES) — no idea. None. "Polyhedron" was probably supposed to help me think of a shape with EDGES, but it did not. That's OK. I expect to have things baffle me, especially on Saturday. Way less bothered by EDGES (something I simply didn't know) than by the CAPITAL in SEED CAPITAL (a pretentious stand-in for a more basic term)—I know, I know: "Rex, it's a real term, I'm so tired of your etc.," relax, business guy; you have your reaction, I'll have mine.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME:"The Ayes Have It"— an "aye" pun ... the letter "I" is added to both words in familiar two-word phrases, creating wacky answers, which are clued wackily (i.e. "?"-style)

Theme answers:

CORNIER STORIES (22A: Anecdotes that are more likely to elicit eye rolls?)
TIRADE IDEALS (39A: Qualities of the perfect rant?)
WIRY SIMILE (47A: "Skinny as a beanpole" or "thin as a rail"?)
STEAMIER CLAIM (68A: More risqué assertion?)
TAXI BIASES (87A: Reasons that commuters might prefer Uber?)
WAITER METIER (95A: In-depth knowledge of the menu, perhaps?)
PLIANT GENIUSES (118A: Ones with flexible minds and bodies?)

Word of the Day: Ragamuffin (1A: Establishment where you might eat a muffin while petting a ragamuffin => CAT CAFE) —

The Ragamuffin is a breed of domestic cat. It was once considered to be a variant of the Ragdoll cat but was established as a separate breed in 1994. Ragamuffins are notable for their friendly personalities and thick fur. // The physical traits of the breed include a rectangular, broad-chested body with shoulders supporting a short neck. These cats are classified as having heavy bones and a "substantial" body type. // The head is a broad, modified wedge with a moderately rounded forehead with short or medium-short muzzle and an obvious nose dip. The muzzle is wide with puffy whisker pads. The body should appear rectangular with a broad chest and broad shoulders and moderately heavy muscling in the hindquarters, with the hindquarters being equally broad as the shoulders. A tendency toward a fatty pad in the lower abdomen is expected. // Fur length is to be slightly longer around the neck and outer edges of the face, resulting in the appearance of a ruff. Texture is to be soft, dense and silky. Ragamuffin kittens are usually born white and develop a color pattern as they mature. Every color and pattern is allowable, with or without white. Their coats can be solid color, stripes, spots or patches of white, black, blue, red, cream, chocolate, lilac, cinnamon, seal brown or mixed colors. Their eyes can be any solid color, with some exhibiting heterochromia.

• • •

The concept here is lackluster. There's just not enough oomph or pizzazz or charm to carry a Sunday-sized puzzle. The title seems like a shrug—an obvious, corny pun with no real cleverness to it. Sometimes simple themes can yield funny results, but today's just yields ... results. Virtually all the puzzle's difficulty is in those themers, primarily because they are so preposterous, but without any of the enjoyable zaniness that sometimes comes with preposterousness. Plus, some of the theme clues and answers just seemed off. The worst, for me, was the clue on PLIANT GENIUSES (118A: Ones with flexible minds and bodies?). Nothing about this clue suggests "genius." Nothing. Flexibility and genius are not the same. They are not. They aren't. A genius might have a flexible mind (whatever that means), but so might anybody. I had PL(I)ANT and then no idea what was supposed to follow. Because the clue was bad. Boo to that clue, for sure. As far as the answers themselves go, WIRY SIMILE was the one that stood out as a bit of a clunker because—unlike every other theme answer—the base term ("wry smile") already has an "I" in it. So instead of the two "I"s you get in every other theme answer, you end up with three. A three-ayed monster. Not a fatal flaw, but an inelegance, nonetheless. But again, the bigger problem today is that there's just not enough zing overall. The "I"-added answers just don't shine the way they ought to.

The real stars of this grid are the long Downs, particularly "RHAPSODY IN BLUE" (49D: Gershwin composition that opens with a famous clarinet glissando). I think STAG PARTIES and PUBLIC RADIO are also lovely, solid entries. I'm more neutral on SEE WHAT HAPPENS, mainly because it's a verb phrase that really could use ... context? More? "LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS," maybe? Or maybe it would be better clued as a kind of exasperated "what did I tell you?" type of expression. "See!? SEE WHAT HAPPENS!? He just sits there! I call his name, I whistle, but nothing. He just sits there. Oh why did I ever get a ragamuffin cat!? They're so standoffish, cool, and eremitic! Yes, I'm reading from a thesaurus, that's how sad I am, boo hoo! Well, I've had it. I'm gonna give Mr. Floofberry here to the CAT CAFE. Maybe he'll be happier there. Boo hoo." Etc. Annnnyway, those four long Downs were the highlight of the puzzle for me. The rest of it didn't seem to have much to offer.

[4D: Supergroup that performed at Woodstock, familiarly]

Speaking of "OFFER," that is what I had at first for 107D: Put forward (OPINE), which is part of what made that SE corner the toughest section by far (still not properly tough, but tougher, for sure). OPTIMA as an actual word (as opposed to a bygone Kia model), that was also trouble (114A: Most favorable conditions). You'd say "optimal conditions" ... you just would. If you said OPTIMA, you would be asked to repeat yourself, at which point you'd probably revert to speaking like a normal person, if only to save time. I don't think of the SUN BELT as a meaningful place. As a place at all. I am aware that it is a place of some geographical meaning and coherence, but if you ask me the place that's [Home to eight of the 10 fastest-growing cities in the U.S.], I'm gonna look for a state, probably. I don't mind the clue as is, just explaining why it added to my problems down there in the SE corner. Lastly, there was BUTTON UP, which is an expression I just wouldn't use (89D: Complete in a tidy manner). PUT A BOW ON IT, maybe. SEW UP, possibly. But not BUTTON UP. I had the -UT and was quite sure it must be PUT-something, so I tried PUT TO BED. That's kinda sorta in the ballpark of the [Complete in a tidy manner], right? Idiomatically? PUT TO BED: "to successfully deal with something or solve a problem." I'd call that ballparkish. But wrong. It's BUTTON UP. Again, not an idiom in my idiom ... bag? Canister? Quiver? Wherever one keeps idioms.

Bullets:

8D: Hwy. that includes a Lake Michigan ferry crossing (U.S. TEN)— this highway doesn't seem nearly major enough to be puzzle-worthy. I thought the answer referred to the interstate, but no, that highway is major and transcontinental (also, further south), whereas this highway is just a stretch of road through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I lived in Michigan for eight years and I go to Minnesota regularly and I'm not sure I've ever been on it (?):

9D: Virtual animal companion (NEOPET) — Are these still things? Feels so turn-of-the-century.
53D: Comparatively low (AS SAD) — woof, the cure is worse than the disease here. I am happy that you decided not to include a murdering tyrant in the puzzle (ASSAD), but I think maybe the real solution isn't so much a different clue as never including these particular letters in this particular order. AS SAD is about as clunky an answer as they come.
44D: Latin name for ancient Troy (ILIUM) — probably most familiar to English speakers from Doctor Faustus: "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships, / And burned the topless towers of Illium?" I guess he spelled it with two "L"s, but it's the same place. I wrote in ILION, which would've been correct, if the clue had said "Greek name ..."
31A: Players who straddle two positions, in hoops lingo (TWEENERS) — oof. I guess this is recent lingo? I used to be a big "hoops" fan in my youth and this term is unknown to me.
46A: Yodel alternatives (HO-HOS) — Yodels are snack cakes. I haven't thought about them since roughly 1983.

46A: Two for an opinion (CENTS) — I like that inflation has truly made the average opinion nearly worthless. Social media confirms this valuation daily.
72A: Ending of many designer dog breed names (POO) — about as good a clue as you're going to get for POO. The least shitty. The "POO" here is short for "poodle," I think. Most of your poodle crossbreeds are "doodles," but some of them are POOs, who can say why? Here's a Westiepoo:

103A: "Mulan" adversaries (HUNS) — I wrote in HANS. Like ... HAN Chinese. I haven't seen Mulan since the mid-90s when it came out.
18D: Menu items that McDonald's no longer offers in America, as of 2020 (SALADS) — man, COVID was more powerful than I thought. It killed SALADS. RIP, SALADS.
96D: No ___ May (pollinator-friendly movement) — if you're lucky, you live in a neighborhood where your neighbors don't call Code on you for participating in this "movement.". My neighbors won't call Code, but they *will* loudly complain from their neatly mown backyards, for sure.
62A: High style? (UPDO) — yes, I see the three (3) "UP"s in this grid (UPDO, BUTTON UP, TEEUP). That's right at, but not over, my "UP" limit. Innocuous two-letter words get a pass, especially if they aren't crossing one another.

Two more things: One, the Boswords Fall Themeless League is starting up again, with their first puzzle dropping next Monday, Oct. 7. Here's coordinator John Lieb with the deets:

Registration for the Boswords 2024 Fall Themeless League is open! This 10-week event starts with a Preseason puzzle on Monday, September 30 and features weekly themeless puzzles -- clued at three levels of difficulty -- from an all-star roster of constructors and are edited by Brad Wilber. To register, to solve a practice puzzle, to view the constructor line-up, and to learn more, go to www.boswords.org.

Also, congrats Richard Lichtenstein, Sandy Levine, and Seymour Gurion, who were the lucky winners of last week's Spy School: Entrance Exam book giveaway. And thanks to everyone who entered. I have yet to respond to all of your lovely notes, but I will ... :)

See you next time,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Alexander Liebeskind

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME:"YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" (59A: Cry from someone seeking revenge ... or a hint to the ends of 16-, 22-, 37- and 49-Across)— last words of theme answers are things you might pay:

Theme answers:

THESIS STATEMENT (16A: Sentence that often appears in the first paragraph of an essay)
SANITY CHECK (22A: Quick confirmation of feasibility)
ACID TAB (37A: Dose for an LSD trip)
BUFFALO BILL (49A: Football player in upstate New York)

Word of the Day: Tenochtitlan (6D: Empire whose capital city was Tenochtitlán => AZTEC) —

Tenochtitlan, also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican altepetl in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the city. The city was built on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The city was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century until it was captured by the Tlaxcaltec and the Spanish in 1521.
At its peak, it was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Today, the ruins of Tenochtitlan are in the historic center of the Mexican capital. The World Heritage Site of Xochimilco contains what remains of the geography (water, boats, floating gardens) of the Mexica capital.
Tenochtitlan was one of two Mexica āltepētl (city-states or polities) on the island, the other being Tlatelolco. (wikipedia)

• • •

A pretty basic "last words"-type puzzle (where the last words in the theme answers, in different contexts, all belong to the same category of thing—in this case, things you pay). I can't help but feel that STATEMENT is an outlier here. The others all feel like they belong to distinct contexts: you pay the CHECK at a restaurant, the TAB at a bar, and the BILL ... well, that could also be at a restaurant or bar, but you pay various BILLs (utility etc.) from home. A STATEMENT is just a subcategory of BILL. Your credit card STATEMENT is just a subcategory of "bill" in my mind. Also, you pay the check, pay the tab, pay the bill, but you don't "pay the statement." You might pay the statement balance (if you google ["pay the statement"], most all the hits involve "balance"). I think technically STATEMENT is perfectly defensible. It just doesn't land the way the others land, and seems like it doesn't quite fit. Doesn't quite have its own discreet lane. Bigger issue for me, though, was BUFFALO BILL, on two counts. The first, lesser count is the singular BUFFALO BILL. Something about using just one player seems sad and odd. Why not just clue BUFFALO BILL as the guy. You know, BUFFALO BILL Cody, the soldier, bison hunter, showman. He's a unique individual, unlike the BILLS, plural, which are a team. But non-pluralness isn't the real problem with BUFFALO BILL. No, the real problem is the clue. No Buffalonian (I think that's what they're called?) (just kidding, folks), I say no resident of Buffalo would ever say they live in "upstate New York." That is some provincial NYC crap right there. I know, I know, anything north of 96th is "upstate" to you all, but Buffalo is decidedly "western New York." It's nowhere near, say, Poughkeepsie (also, don't tell people from Poughkeepsie that they live "upstate," they hate it ... well, my students from there hate it, anyway). I generally think "upstate" is fine for most of non-NYC New York (including where I live, which is technically Central New York, or, more specifically, the Southern Tier), but Buffalo really is an entirely different ecosystem. It's the heart of western New York. Just ask any Buffaloer (I think that's what they're called).

The fill is surprisingly weak today. Cheater squares in the corners (NW, SE) and yet you've still got stuff like HAHAS and LIS and SOU and AONE and ANAL. That last one you could easily eliminate by changing TUNA to something like CORA or HORA or even TOGA—I'd take a partial like A GAL or A PAL or something like that over ANAL. It's not an offensive word, of course, it's just ... I dunno. I used it once in a puzzle and I've regretted it ever since. Don't make solvers think about anuses if you don't have to, that's my philosophy. One of them, anyway. Also, RETAIL SHOP kind of clanked. Feels like odd, formal, even dated phrasing. Ditto "mom-and-pop store." The clue did very little to help me get the answer. Needed lots of crosses. Otherwise, though, the Downs-only solve was pretty smooth. As usual, the longer Downs were the harder Downs, with MAIN IDEA and especially RETAIL SHOP taking a bit of work. But ELENA KAGAN (2D: Supreme Court justice appointed by Barack Obama) and BOOBIRDS (39D: Loud and unhappy sports fans, in slang) were gimmes, and nothing in the short stuff was too much of a problem either. As usual, I confused SERB and SLAV (31D: Balkan native), and I could not figure out the "word that can come before" clue (I'm truly bad at these). For 10D: Word before ended, handed or minded (OPEN), I originally wrote in EVEN. I know, "EVEN-ended" is not a thing. I see that now. What else? Oh, I tried every five-letter ancient American civilization I could think of (including OLMEC) before hitting on AZTEC. And I was slightly worried that PESKY might in fact be PESTY (is that a word?) (5D: Irksome).

That's it. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Kevin Curry and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium? Maybe a little north of Medium... (**for a Tuesday**)

THEME: CRYPTOZOOLOGIST (57A: Pseudoscientist investigating the "sightings" in this puzzle)— false sightings of mythical creatures; that is, mythical creatures are almost spelled out inside the theme answers (with each creature having just one letter wrong):
Theme answers:

TENNESSEE TITANS (17A: A.F.C. South team ("Look in the lake! It's ... ah, never mind") (false NESSIE, i.e. Loch Ness Monster, sighting)
MUCKRAKING (23A: Investigative journalism ("What was that in the sea?! I must be imagining things") (false KRAKEN sighting)
CUBIC FOOT (35A: Imperial unit of volume ("There's another one! I swear he just slipped into those trees...") (false BIGFOOT sighting)
COPY EDITOR (49A: Professional proofreader ("Over there, in the snow! That had to b something, right?!") (false YETI sighting)

Word of the Day: WASH. U. (6D: Sch. located in St. Louis, not Seattle) —

Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington, the first president of the United States.
Washington University comprises eight undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, including Arts and Sciences, George Warren Brown School, Olin Business School, Washington University School of Medicine, McKelvey School of Engineering, Washington University School of Law, School of Continuing & Professional Studies, and Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Washington University enrolls approximately 16,550 students across its campuses from all 50 states and more than 110 countries.
Washington University has been a member of the Association of American Universities since 1923 and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In 2021, the National Science Foundation ranked Washington University 25th among academic institutions in the United States for research and development expenditures. The university's athletic teams, Washington University Bears, play in NCAA Division III as a founding member of the University Athletic Association. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello and Happy October. I had two very different reactions to this one. At the start, I was lukewarm to cold on this puzzle, because both the fill and cluing seemed ... off. There's only one type of fire residue I associate with Santa, and it ain't ASH, what a weird clue (1A: Stuff in Santa's footprints). First, I hate to tell you, but Santa is not real, so there really should be some kind of iconic moment, a locus classicus, a piece of a poem or something, that confers ASH upon his soles. One can infer that if he lands feet first when he comes down the chimney, he's got ASH in his footprints, but oddly, you never (ever) hear about him tracking ASH around the house. But you do hear about the SOOT on his ridiculous suit, so ... ASH shmash is what I'm saying to that clue. And that was Answer One. Then came the crosswordese, AREEL and ASSAM and WASHU and ESE, and then the expectation that I'm going to remember Napoleon Dynamite at all, let alone the character's best friend (32A: Napoleon Dynamite's best friend).. Now, I *did* remember that people were wearing "Vote for PEDRO" t-shirts there for a while back in the ... whatever era it was. Early Aughts? Yes, '04-ish. But still, that is some weird millennial nostalgia right there. (See also the Taylor Swift clue—I know that song, but my brain couldn't produce any part of it except "Shake it off, shake it off!" (62A: Word repeated four times in the chorus of Taylor' Swift's "Shake It Off")). So the clues occasionally seemed off (or, in the case of Napoleon Dynamite and Tay Tay, oddly fandom-oriented), and the short fill (so much of it) just seemed weak ...

['HATE' is said five times, but (therefore) "repeated" just four, so the clue is correct]

But then ... then the theme kicked in, and I have to say that it's completely original and highly entertaining. Love all the misspellings, especially BICFOOT, which ... how is this not already the mascot for Bic pens? He could leave cryptic messages for the CRYPTOZOOLOGIST with his pen feet! Come on, it's a good idea and you know it. Anyway, building the idea of the false sighting into the cryptozoology-themed puzzle = mwah, perfect. I wasn't cheering right away ("so you're just misspelling NESSIE? OK but ... I don't get it, what's the point"), but as the other creatures rolled in, I warmed to the concept, and then when the revealer dropped, I thought "oh, there it is! A great word *and* a perfect grid-spanner. Nice." CRYPTOZOOLOGIST also landed in the grid really dramatically—I had just the -IST, merely glanced at the clue, and whoooooosh, there it went, soaring across the grid:

One problem with the theme cluing, though: a CRYPTOZOOLOGIST would never say "I must be imagining things" (see clue for "KRAKIN" sighting). The CRYPTOZOOLOGIST would believe what she sees, or thought she saw, because it's what she's looking for, what she's hoping to see. The other imagined CRYPTOZOOLOGIST statements are great because they express real hope, or disappointment ... but never doubt in one's own cryptozoological enterprise. "I must be imagining things" is not a phrase in the CRYPTOZOOLOGIST's phrase arsenal. But, again, otherwise, this theme is stupendous. Clever, imaginative ... great fun.

Lots of little missteps today, but no real capital-T Trouble. "HOO BOY!" or "HOORAY!" before "HOORAH!" (20A: Triumphant shout), although I guess "HOO BOY!" is more "YIPES!" then "YIPEE!" ... which is what I had instead of YIPES at first (50D: "Yowzers!"). Who the hell says "Yowzers!" Is that different from "Yowza?" Because "Yowza!" seems excited, whereas "YIPES!" seems freaked out. So that's twice I tripped on ambiguously excited exclamations. I also wanted DECOR instead of DRAPE (48A: Window dressing). I think of DRAPES, plural, as the "dressing." I like DRAPE better as a verb is what I'm saying. Or you could talk about the DRAPE of an article of clothing, the way it hangs on the body, that's good too. A single DRAPE in the window strikes my ears as weird. No other problems for me, though. The fill isn't so great today. I actually (briefly) sat here and worked out different ways of eliminating LEASTS from the grid, so much did I hate it (66A: Bare minimums). So far, my favorite alternative changes OWL to OMB, and then the two Acrosses down there change to MOVE IN and BEASTS (or BOASTs), but there's gotta be even better options ... I don't actually like OMB (Office of Management and Budget) at all, let alone on a Tuesday, but I really Really hate LEASTS, so ... yeah, fix that, pls. If LEASTS were good, it would've appeared way more often. All those ultra-common letters and it's only appeared in the NYTXW twice in my lifetime! For a reason! Because it's not good! I did like GAG GIFT, though (43D: Purchase for a white elephant exchange). Easily the best answer in the grid. I just taught Manny Farber's "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art" in my "Moviegoing" class, so White Elephants are fresh on my mind.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Luke K. Schreiber

Relative difficulty: Hard (13:05)

THEME: ANIMAL CROSSING — Nintendo video game series suggested by every answer running through this one?

Theme answers:

[U.C. Irvine athlete] for ANTEATER
[Worm found in every ecosystem on Earth, even the deepest oceans] for NEMATODE
[Experiment subject] for GUINEA PIG
[Dollar, informally] for CLAM
[Complain (about)] for CARP
[Literary ___] for LION
[Religious figure in red] for CARDINAL
[Cupid, e.g.] for REINDEER
[Airhead] for DODO
[Member of a historically privileged U.S. group] for WASP
[Close tightly] SEAL
[World's largest venomous snake] for KING COBRA
[State fossil of Indiana] for MASTODON
[Jungle peeper] for TREE FROG

Word of the Day: NEMATODE —

The nematodes, roundworms or eelworms constitute the phylum Nematoda. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a broad range of environments. Most species are free-living, feeding on microorganisms, but many species are parasitic. The parasitic worms are the cause of soil-transmitted helminthiases.

• • •

Hey squad! It's Malaika here, for your regularly scheduled Malaika MWednesday! I solved this while listening to one of Sabrina Carpenter's new songs. I loooove a sad woman who sings with a guitar! My favorite genre.

I really struggled to get a start with this puzzle-- I wasn't able to put in an answer until I hit ETS, nine entries into the puzzle. For me, that's a hard Wednesday. I suspected this wouldn't be a standard theme (i.e., 3-4 long across answers + one revealer) because of the shape of the grid, and indeed, I had literally no idea what was going on until I hit the revealer in the center. (I usually solve in order, so it took me a while to get there.) At that point, I was a little frustrated. The puzzle was hard for me, and I am really not a gamer at all, so I was preparing myself to have no idea what the theme was. But that wasn't the case!!

I've never played ANIMAL CROSSING, but I absolutely have heard of it from friends, The Internet, etc. And even if you don't know the game, you still understand the concept of animals crossing through the entry. Is every animal in this puzzle an animal that is in Animal Crossing? I have no idea, though my guess would be no. Playing as a NEMATODE does not seem cute and fulfilling, to be quite honest.

This is a real feat of construction, to have so many thematic entries all stacked like that! I can't even begin to think how I would approach making something like this. Actually I know how-- I would have the idea and then immediately go "Nope, that's impossible; moving on." As with every feat of construction, there are some trade-offs. I have never heard the word TEASEL before and I expect I never will again. And that top left corner, with NUMISMATIST, USURER, DOMINI, ERIN, and SENECA was where I spent roughly half of my solve time.

It seems like there was a concerted effort to clue the animals in non-animal ways, when possible. SEAL, for example, was clued as the verb. I liked this touch, which kept the theme hidden from me until I made it over to the down answers and clocked the revealer. Otherwise, I would have noticed all the animals much earlier and the gears would have started turning. I like to be tricked a little by the revealer and then go "Ohhhhh!"

Speaking of animals, this is a baby hippo called Moo Deng.
Will we remember his name six months from now???

The last thing I want to talk about it is only a little bit relevant to this puzzle. But I've been given a soapbox to stand on, so I will use it! (You are welcome to keep scrolling.) In the world of puzzles (the Crossworld, if you will), there's an ever-present tension between wanting to include entries that are "fresh," wanting to ensure that a large part of your audience is familiar with the entry, and handling the turnaround time between creating a puzzle and having it reach solvers. If there's a slang term that Kids These Days are using all the time, should it be in a crossword now, or should it wait until a broader audience is familiar with it? Or if you wait, will the term vanish from our lexicon?? Different publications have different goals and different timelines.

The Times, with its long turnaround time (typically a year from Creation to Publish) and its frequently-published collections, tries to avoid fads, while still including newish terms that they think will have Staying Power. Meanwhile, an outlet like Vulture magazine*, whose puzzles are posted weeks after creation and then sort of disappear into the void days later, leans in to incredibly flash-in-the-pan entries. If "Animal Crossing" were to appear in a Vulture puzzle, it would have run in 2020, when "New Horizons" was released. When it appears in The Times, it runs in 2024, years after the game has cemented itself culturally... perhaps even several years after some people think it's cemented itself!!

Since I've been making puzzles (which is not long! Four-ish years.) it feels like the number of places that are publishing puzzles has tripled. This is good for so many reasons, but one of my favorites is that each publication gets to have its own goals. Five years ago, I think there was a lot more frustration that The Times was unwilling to accept ultra-current entries which could very well become "out" before the puzzle had even been published. Now, those entries find homes in places like the aforementioned Vulture crossword and so many others.

My roommate's KATANAs-- see below for the story

Stepping down from my soapbox now for some bullet points.

Bullets:

[Samurai sword] for KATANA — When I was twenty, I borrowed my dad's minivan for a couple of weeks to help me move into my apartment. I let my roommate know that if he needed any furniture, he could find stuff on Craigslist and I could drive him there to pick it up. He let me know that he had found something to pick up. I remember thinking "Oh, good!" because this boy did not have a dresser, nightstand, or bed frame. We drove to collect his purchase and it was a set of three katanas.
[Natty dresser] for DANDY — This clue skewed a little old-fashioned to me; I was surprised to find out the constructor is a teenager. Honestly, I only ever hear the word "natty" in relation to a Natty Light.
[It might need to be recapped] for PEN — I loved the misdirect here!!
[Fivers] for ABES — If you have ever used this term to refer to a five dollar bill, please let me know in the comments! I'm not convinced that anyone does this.

xoxo Malaika

*I write puzzles for Vulture magazine and it is delightful to include ridiculous slang like WORK ISLAND, BRAT SUMMER, and NEPO BABY, without needing to worry if people don't know what those are a month from now.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Constructor: Rena Cohen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: POLYGRAPH (53A: Test required for all C.I.A. applicants ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — three theme answers are visual representations of failed POLYGRAPH tests, with the letters "LIE" representing a SPIKE in the readout (52A: 53-Across feature, as seen three times in this puzzle); that is, "LIE" appears in a single box, elevated above the plane of its answer (up and over a black square).

Theme answers:

[LIE]
WHILE SUPP S LAST (19A: Disclaimer on a sale poster)

[LIE]
CHAR SHEEN (26A: Actor who played a character with the same first name of "Two and a Half Men")

[LIE]
NONBE VERS (46A: Skeptics)

"LIE" crosses:

5D: Metal marble (STEE[LIE]) / 23A: Contradict (BE[LIE])
7D: Singer/songwriter Goulding (EL[LIE]) / 17A: More slippery (EE[LIE]R)
33D: Half sister of Kim, Khloé and Kourtney (KY[LIE]) / 41A: First name in student loans (SAL[LIE])

Word of the Day: Girls, INC. (9A: Girls, ___ (nonprofit since 1864)) —

Girls Inc. (established in 1864) is an American nonprofit organization which encourages girls to be "Strong, Smart, and Bold" through direct service and advocacy. // The Girls Inc. (Girls Club of America) movement was founded in 1864 in Waterbury, Connecticut. The organization's mission was to help young women who had migrated from rural communities in search of job opportunities, experiencing upheaval in the aftermath of the Civil War. In 1945, fourteen charter Girls Clubs joined together to form a national organization. In 1990 the Girls Club of America changed their name to Girls Incorporated. // Rachel Harris Johnson founded the organization. In 1919, she became secretary of the Worcester Girls Club, which her mother helped found. She later became the club's president and in 1945 formed a national organization and served as its first president until 1952. (wikipedia)

• • •

Theme good, fill bad. That is the tl;dr review today. I don't know that this is the best visual representation of what a polygraph SPIKE looks like—I'm used to seeing not one but several "spikes" when the testee lies, but then again, I've only seen POLYGRAPH readouts in movies, so who knows—but it's close enough. Anyway, it just has to evoke the idea, not mirror it perfectly, and this theme evokes the lie detector readout just fine. Cleverly, in fact. The answers SPIKE when there's a "LIE"—what more do you want from your lie detector theme!? My only complaint about the theme is that there are just three theme answers. Seems light, especially since I had two of the themers knocked off before the puzzle had really gotten underway. Picked up the "LIE" fast at STEE[LIE] / BE[LIE], and once I got to WHILE S- in the NW corner (19A: Disclaimer on a sale poster), it was no trouble at all to extrapolate from there to WHILE SUPP[LIE]S LAST, even though I didn't yet know how the whole "LIE" thing was gonna work yet. So I just wrote in WHILE SUPP, then got USHER, then read the clue at 28-Across and saw it was just a "—" ... and that was when I realized I had a split-answer-type theme on my hands. STEE[LIE] / BE[LIE] made the "LIE" look like a regular old rebus square. No indication of answers spiking. It was only when I hit the [—] clue that I knew something else was going on, that answers were jumping, and then, in a blink, bim bam boom, I'm 2/3 of the way through the theme before I really know what's happening:

So I went from thinking it was a simple "LIE" rebus, to realizing that the "LIE"s were jumping over black squares, but still no idea what the concept was. It was a bit weird to back into it through SPIKE. That is, it feels like the better revealer, the primary revealer, is POLYGRAPH, but I got to SPIKE first, so the "revelation" felt odd, slightly backward, but no matter. The revealers did their job, and provided good justification for all the jumping rebus action.

As I say, I would've enjoyed a fourth themer, but then I probably wouldn't actually want this theme to get any denser, as it would likely compromise the fill, which is already gunked up pretty bad. I was wincing throughout, from the cruelty of the ANTIBARK collar, to the avalanche of bad (overcommon and/or ugly) short fill (RELO IPSO POR YER PEI AER INOT AST DHS NAE HEH etc.), to the cloying quaint cutesiness of "OH, POOH," to ... well, a bunch of clues that just seemed off. I hate that MEEPLE is clued as a singular noun (6D: Human-shaped board game piece), when the word itself is clearly meant to sound like "people," which is (obviously) plural. I also just hate MEEPLE on principle, since it's also got a cloying cutesiness about it, but the singular/plural thing is particularly irksome. Who "commutes" via cab?? If you are a commuter, it seems highly unlikely that you could afford to get to work this way. Bus, subway, train, car ... all these things are likely "commuter" vehicles; cabs are not (the problem here is entirely with the clue, as SPLIT A CAB is otherwise a fine answer). And oof, PR PUSH (44D: Major media campaign, say), yet another unwelcome "original" / debut answer (this has been happening more and more lately, as inflated and badly curated wordlists pollute the crossword airwaves). The crossword is already annoyingly awash in "PR" answers—PRMAN, PRMEN, PRTEAM(S)—just as the world is annoyingly awash in PR. I don't need or want more PR answers. Please refrain.

Bullet points:

51D: Longhorn's college rival (AGGIE) — an AGGIE is also a type of marble, and since this answer is symmetrical with STEE[LIE], I can't believe the marble angle didn't occur to anyone. Maybe it did, but seemed too dated / obscure (since no one plays marbles any more—even I (an oldish person) only know these damn terms from crosswords of yore)
6A: Animal cry that sounds like a Greek letter (MEW) — Speaking of old, I was 54 years old before I learned that the "U" in "Mu" was a diphthong. That is, I learned it just now. I'd been (mostly mentally) pronouncing it like a cow's "moo" for as long as I knew the letter existed. Oh, man, "Nu" isn't pronounced "nyoo," is it? Please say no. Or "Nyo," I guess. (phew, it's "new," crisis averted)

1D: Cocido or callaloo (STEW) — I had the "S" and went with SOUP ... so close! Just ... too thin.
9D: City that's absolutely "gorges" (ITHACA) — that pun is a whole thing up there. There's a t-shirt and everything. No "absolutely," but I can see why this clue went that way.

58A: When sudden death can occur, for short (IN OT) — i.e. "in overtime.""Sudden death" is a "first-team-to-score-wins"-type situation.
41A: First name in student loans (SAL[LIE]) — if the first two [LIE] squares came easy, this one ... didn't. I just ... forgot to be on the lookout. The other two were so obvious that I figured the next one would be too, but no. I got all tangled up thinking the Kardashian sister was just three letters and the student loan name was just four and [Skeptics] was just five *and* ended in "S," which made me question INSOLE (25D: It fits under a tongue). This was by far the hardest part of the puzzle for me, all because I forgot to look for the theme element that I already knew existed :(

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Woman in dire need? / SAT 9-14-24 / Puppy chow ingredient / Trying way too hard, in modern slang / Apollo was conceived in them / Sister label of Volt Records / Baseball mascot with fluffy green snout / Highly rated French vineyards

Setting for "My Cousin Vinny" / MON 9-16-24 / One assigned female at birth and identifying as such / Letter-shaped plumbing piece / Fruit that's a citrus, not a hybrid of a pomegranate and melon

Brand popularity metric / TUE 9-17-24 / "AB negatve" or "B poditive"? / Father/son surname in Chicago politics / Dessert drink made from frozen grapes / "Rushmore" and "Clerks," for two / Prominent part of a bowline knot / Texter's "hang on a sec"

Linux software packages, informally / WED 9-18-24 / House of worship at the top of 67-Across / Car with a three-box design / Cutesy term for a swap / Lawless princess / Largest arboreal mammal, informally / Pioneering 1940s computer

Battleship corner / FRI 9-20-24 / Lawbreakers, informally / Four-year-old in pig tales? / Apt name for a successful crypto investor? / Philosophy influenced by Aristotle's concept of the Unmoved Mover / Plural form decried by staunch "Star Wars" fans / Windy flight?

Major League Soccer team with pink home jerseys / SAT 9-21-24 / Florida city where the "The Greatest Show on Earth" was once headquartered / Inn range?

Early Christian meals of love and fellowship / SUN 9-22-24 / Annual May race, familiarly / Texter's alternative to an eye roll emoji / Yeti's commercial rival / Rudder found in nature / Houdini's signature feat

Dance with a clickety-clack / MON 9-23-24 / Antidiscrimination inits. in the modern workplace / "___ Not Gonna Take It" (Twisted Sister hit)

Walker who wrote "The Color Purple" / TUES 9-24-24 / [Not my typo] / "Bye-bye," to Bonaparte / Bread served with baba ghanouj

Icelandic poet Sturluson / 9-25-24 / Senokot alternative / Dance counterpart of the Whip / County in northeastern Nevada / Pioneer in show recording / Word after double or day / AIDS researcher who was Time's 1996 Man of the Year / Tool with a bubble / Haitian unit of currency

Longtime college basketball coach Kruger / THU 9-26-24 / Sudden riser in status / Something found near a trap / Prominent feature of Hello Kitty / "Wake word" for an Apple device

Debugging soft wear? / FRI 9-27-24 / Tough loss for a poker player / Port caller / Middle's middle / Lines of text that are less useful on paper / Title for Bobby Flay on reality TV / Who's cutting onions? / Triumphs for one's country, maybe

Quick confirmation of feasibility / MON 9-30-24 / Football player in upstate New York / Empire whose capital city was Tenochtitlán / Loud and unhappy sports fans, in slang / Stat of interest to a competitive crossword solver

Worm found in every ecosystem on Earth, even the deepest oceans / WED 10-2-24 / Literary ___ / A public speaking coach might tell you to avoid these