Edible squash seed / MON 2-6-23 / Phenomenon witnessed from space / Popular same-sex dating app / Red hat of the Ottoman Empire

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Well I can tell you that if you solve this Downs-only, you get a hell of a ride, in that those long Downs are (or were, to me) utterly mysterious ... until you hit that last one, EARTHRISE, which was a gimme, and which then made alllllllllll the other theme answers fall into place, bam bam bam. So the EARTH did not "rise" for me—it more ... fell, backwards, but the final visual is pretty solid. I feel like I've seen this theme before, but maybe not, maybe it was a "MOONRISE" puzzle, although ... that would be way harder to do (hiding "MOON" inside longer phrases, not as easy as hiding "EARTH"). Anyway, this seems simple and effective and fine. Plus the fill is solid and varied enough that the puzzle never gets boring. Loved SQUIRM and GRINDR, though being an old married person who totally missed dating apps and isn't friends with people who use them (that I know of), I thought GRINDR was exclusively for gay men, which (acc. to paragraph two of that wikipedia entry, above) is apparently how it began in the late '00s. The clue's use of "same-sex" had me wondering if lesbians used it ... I honestly have no idea. Last time it appeared in the NYTXW it was clued [Popular gay dating app]. Now it's [Popular same-sex dating app]. Terminology is so multiplicitous and fluid these days, I just do my best to keep up and defer to people who know better. This is all to say that GRINDR was a gimme, in that I didn't see the clue and just saw that -NDR ending and knew immediately what was up :)

Are there no other IVANAs in the world? Truly? And did the clue have to write out the entire full-ass name of that creep that used to be president? I'm only looking at the clue now, since it's an Across, but yuck. Reading that clue would've made me SQUIRM for sure. SQUIRM, on the other hand, was a most welcome answer, and also one of the few tough parts of my solving journey today. Why? Well, I wrote in WRITHE. Other missteps ... hmmm ... none, really. There were definitely some strong pauses. At PERM (55D: Salon job), and at UPTON, for instance—when I saw that [Supermodel Kate] was gonna start with a "U" I thought "oh no, here we go, I'm gonna be upended by supermodel names yet again." Thought it would be someone contemporary and unknown to me. Also ... who's that other Supermodel Kate? ... waifish ... you know the one ... Moss!!! I was picturing Moss, but imagining the real answer was someone unknown to me. But nah, UPTON, that's a name I know. I don't know why I know Kate UPTON, is she married to someone famous? I really don't want to look this up. Sigh, hang on ... LOL yes, she is married to someone famous: 47-time Cy Young winner Justin Verlander! Look, the deal is you don't have to know anything about the names, you just have to know the names exist. That's all that's required for crossword success. 

That SW corner was by far the ugliest thing in the grid, and it's obviously because of that attempt to cram "bonus" theme material into the corner. Why? It adds nothing, and the results down there, particularly "AH, ME" (54D: "Alas!"), are not great. As a Downs-only solver, I can tell you that I was Not At All confident when I saw NETI drop into the grid. I wasn't sure that was anything at all; then I remembered that there was such a thing as a NETI pot, but I honestly wasn't sure how it was spelled. I double- and triple-checked the Downs and they were obviously right, so I just went with it, and sure enough: NETI (a NYTXW debut answer ... well, technically it's been used eight times before, but not since 1975, and all those other times it was clued as [Thatch grass] or [Pacific grass], man crosswords used to be awful). 

I just found out today about a crossword puzzle-pack benefiting children's charities ... and it turns out today's constructor is one of the project's constructors and editors! It's called "Grids for Kids" and it features puzzles for all skill levels, including six made specifically for kids. Constructors and editors are all pros. Looks like ... [counting] ... 25 puzzles total, including two cryptics! All you gotta do is give > $10 to a youth-focused charity and bam, the puzzles are yours. Good deal. For exact details, check out the project website here. See you tomorrow.