Texas city on the Mexican border / THU 1-9-20 / Spicy Indian fritters / Down goes Frazier caller / Spanish boy's name related to sixth month of year / Capital of US for 54 days in 1784 / French port on Mediterranean

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Challenging? (not sure, solved it on clipboard)

THEME: Black tea ("T")— black squares that form "T"s in the grid must be treated like letters that are part of adjacent answers ... so answers will seem like they're missing the letter "T" but that "T" (or those "T"s) are supplied by the black-square "T" formations in the grid. Thus, 3D = HOO(T), 4D = EDI(T), 24A = (T)RIPLE(T), etc.

Word of the Day: SOCORRO (38D: Texas city on the Mexican border) —

Socorro is a city in El Paso County, Texas, United States. It is located on the north bank of the Rio Grande southeast of El Paso, and on the border of Mexico. El Paso adjoins it on the west and the smaller city of San Elizario on the southeast; small unincorporated areas of El Paso County separate it from the nearby municipalities of Horizon City to the north and Clintto the east. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 27,152. By the 2010 census, the number had grown to 32,013. As of July 1, 2018, the population estimate for the city from the U.S. Census was 34,533. It is part of the El Paso Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city is El Paso County's second-largest municipality, after El Paso. It has a council-manager type of government with five city council members. Socorro is the 93rd largest community in the state of Texas. (wikipedia)

Dutchess, 2002-2019

HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS. It's early January and that means it's time for my annual pitch for financial contributions to the blog, during which I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. It's kind of a melancholy January this year, what with the world in, let's say, turmoil. Also, on a personal note, 2019 was the year I lost Dutchess, who was officially The Best Dog, and who was with me well before I was "Rex Parker." Somehow the turning of the calendar to 2020 felt like ... I was leaving her behind. It's not a rational sentiment, but love's not rational, especially pet love. Speaking of love—I try hard to bring a passion and enthusiasm to our shared pastime every time I sit down to this here keyboard. I love what I do here, but it is a lot of work, put in at terrible hours—I'm either writing late at night, or very early in the morning, so that I can have the blog up and ready to go by the time your day starts (9am at the very latest, usually much earlier). I have no major expenses, just my time. Well, I do pay Annabel and Claire, respectively, to write for me once a month, but beyond that, it's just my time. This blog is a source of joy and genuine community to me (and I hope to you) but it is also work, and this is the time of year when I acknowledge that! All I want to do is write and make that writing available to everyone, for free, no restrictions. I have heard any number of suggestions over the years about how I might "monetize" (oof, that word) the blog, but honestly, the only one I want anything to do with is the one I already use—once a year, for one week, I just ask readers to contribute directly. And then I let 51 weeks go by before I bring up the subject again. No ads, no gimmicks. It's just me creating this thing and then people who enjoy the thing supporting the work that goes into creating the thing. It's simple. I like simple. Your support means a lot to me. Knowing that I have a loyal readership really is the gas in the tank, the thing that keeps me solving and writing and never missing a day for 13+ years. I will continue to post the solved grid every day, tell you my feelings about the puzzle every day, make you laugh or wince or furrow your brow or shout at your screen every day, bring you news from the Wider World of Crosswords (beyond the NYT) every day. The Word of the Day is: Quotidian. Occurring every day. Daily. Whether you choose to contribute or not, I'm all yours. Daily.

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

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

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. This year's cards are illustrations from the covers of classic Puffin Books—Penguin's children's book imprint.  Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, How to Play Cricket ... you know, the classics. There are a hundred different covers and they are truly gorgeous. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!
What a dismal version of the black-squares-are-letters-type theme. Why "T"s, why four of them, why? Further, why soooo much absurd trivia. TOULON? SOCORRO!?!?! RUPIAHS? BHAJIS? (actually, I'm not mad at BHAJIS, I want to try one; it's just that I've eaten at Indian restaurants many times in my life and this is the first I'm hearing of these) (13D: Spicy Indian fritters). Yes, *yes*, "isn't it great to learn new things?" of course it is, but it is decidedly not great for a puzzle to rely so heavily on minor cities and foreign currency in order to make the grid come out. It's a Drag (not a TOKE drag, a bummer drag). This is just such self-indulgent stuntery—purposeless show-offiness. "Watch me do this w/ some "T"s!""But why?""Who cares!?""But ... once they get the gimmick, won't it just be a slog? There won't be anything left to discover""(T)RUE DA(T)!" (ugh, that phrase already feels gentrified and dated). Here, this (t)wee(t) puts it better than I ever could:

So many names. So Many. Christopher MARLOWE and Jimmy DURANTE and ALROKER and SOCORRO and TOULON and RUSHDIE and TIRANE and that's just in the lower third of the grid. Rivial! Oh, I don't think RUPIAHS is pluralized with an "S." And ... the convention of spelling Tirana with an "E" at the end is ... so tired. So sad. So variantish. I've been solving long enough to leave that last letter blank until I checked the cross, but yeesh. It is (or should be) Tirana or nothing at all. SOCORRO has like nine people in it and if you google it, it's actually a New Mexican city that comes up first. Bad on its own, superbad next to (T)OULON (also not major). You want to throw some trivia in your grid, a small place name here, a currency there, OK, but when you turn the grid into a trivia dump, blargh.


If the "T"s had had any purpose, any logic to them ... if the fill had been less laden with SOCORRO-like proper nouns ... then maybe a theme like this could've been enjoyable. I certainly enjoyed that brief "aha" moment when I first figured out the gimmick (which weirdly happened at (T)ROU(T), after I got RUSHDIE, which was a gimme). But once I got the "T" thing, yes, the puzzle got a bit easier, but so what? It continued to wallow in dreck and had no remaining joy. Also, there are so many damn "T"s in this grid because of the black-square gimmick that I don't think there should be any others in the grid. That would've been impressive. Of course, it probably would've made the fill that much more torturous, too, so ... just forget I said anything. Go ahead, TRENTON, strut your superfluous "T"s!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]