Gymnastics rings feat with arms fully extended / FRI 10-9-20 / throwing faddish sport / Prez with same initials as NYC landmark / Tribe that traditionally spoke Chiwere

  Found this one solid, if a bit drab. Attempts at currency and hipness and slanginess occasionally felt forced (who has *ever* responded to a door knock with "WHO DAT?"??) (is AXE-throwing genuinely faddish? Was it ever?), and the longer fill could've been a lot snazzier, but the puzzle holds up OK, for the most part. Sadly, the part that didn't hold up, for me, was the part where I finished up, so I was left at the end with a pretty bad aftertaste. I'm talking about the SW corner, which is a heap of cobbled-together abbrs. (GWBUSH) and awkwardly written-out numbers (U.S. TEN) and singulars that should never be singular (MOB ... TIE? Just one?) and whatever you wanna call "AH, I SEE." Yipes and yeesh to all that. There was no other concentrated winciness, though, that I could see. ARMATA di Mare was a total "????" and of course I wrote in ARMANI there at first, but I'm gonna assume that that "fashion label" is *massive* and that I just don't know it because I don't really follow fashion labels (actually, I don't have to assume that last part because it's definitely true). CALICOES looks super-dumb with the "E" in the plural, but I guess those are the pluralizing rules ... I think I just don't like fabrics in the plural (cats in the plural, however, would've been just fine). I just didn't have the usual number of "cool!" moments while solving this one. In fact, I don't think I had a single one. Sorry, I mean, "I believe that I had NARY A ONE." Feel the quaintness!

Why are there OLIVE PITS in your Greek salad? Are most Greek salads made with unpitted olives?? Or is the idea that the pits are "left over" in the course of *making* the salad? And what is with the clue on ATE? Why!? The NYTXW relies so heavily on "groaner joke" humor in general, in so many of its themed puzzles, does it really have to steer *into* the "groaner joke" here for a simple word like ATE? Also, the "joke" ... is terrible, even from a "groaner" perspective, because ATE is a homophone of EIGHT so I assumed initially there was some actual time-of-day joke happening ("ATE a clock" / 8 o'clock???). But no, the ATE joke is the "consuming" part ... it's so bad, on so many levels. Hardest thing for me to get today was HANGS—it is a very reasonable (if highly slangy) synonym for "Chills," but wow I needed every cross. I think that's it for me today. Please enjoy the splendor of autumn!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

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