Kimono tightener / TUE 8-1-23 / Bollywood Star Aishwarya ___ / Record label that declined to sign the Beatles in 1962

THEME: UP A TREE— Circled letters spell out the names of 9 trees, rising up in the grid.

Word of the Day: ZARA (Multinational clothing retailer based in Spain) —

ZARA (Spanish: [ˈθaɾa]) is a Spanish multi-national retail clothing chain. It specialises in fast fashion, and sells clothing, accessories, shoes, beauty products and perfumes. (Side note: It's never a great sign when headings on your company's Wikipedia page include "Exploitation and Child Labour" and "Allegations of Anti-Semitisim").

Hey folks, it's Eli back filling in for Rex again! When I agreed to write the blog for August 1, I neglected to realize that it would involve solving and writing on July 31, which is my wife's birthday (Happy Birthday, Melissa!). So, here I am, husband of the year, blogging the puzzle for all of you. Forgive me if I keep it a little brief.

To begin with, there's a lot of theme here. Like, A LOT. I don't always even pay attention to circled letters in an early week puzzle, and there were So. Many. Of. Them. That's not necessarily a negative thing, but this much theme density is always going to strain the fill. Rather than list all of the clues impacted, I'm just going to list out the trees (see above re: wife's birthday).

Theme answers:

• MAGNOLIA
• ELM
• BIRCH
• ASPEN
• CEDAR
• PINE
• MAPLE
• FIR
• SYCAMORE

Wow. I have a couple of theme nits to pick. First, it's a little weird that the column starting 11D has two trees in it (FIR and MAPLE) and all of the others only have one, but the trees aren't symmetrically laid out (more of a forest than a tree farm - does that work?), so it's not a huge deal. My other thought is having ENT (24D: Tolkein tree creature) is a cute nod to the theme, but using the word "tree" in the clue when the answer splits the revealer UP A TREE (34A: Cornered ... or a hint to this puzzle's circled squares) isn't ideal. I'm not a huge stickler when it comes to this kind of duplication, but I know it really bothers some people.

Really, though, the theme is fine. Impressive construction for sure. But the fill does suffer a bit. There's a lot of short crosswordese that isn't doing the puzzle any favors: OBI, ETAL, AERO, TOR, ACAI, ENE, ELAND, ANI, etc. Also not a huge fan of EVILER (51D: More dastardly) or partials like NO I (57A: "There's ___ in team") or VENI (9D "___, vidi, vici"). Such is the way of the Tuesday.

There's some fun stuff, too, though. Haven't thought about the BAHA MEN in a while (15A: "Who Let the Dogs Out" group):

Not exactly something I need or want to reminded of, but it made for a fun answer. Let's balance it out with some Beatles, who get a double dip today in DECCA (26A: Record label that declined to sign the Beatles in 1962) and RINGO (43D: Bandmate of John, Paul and George). 

Bullets:

• IN A-FLAT (18A: Like Chopin's "Aeolian Harp"étude) — I don't think I saw this while solving and thought the clue might be something like, "Where you might live in London."
• INFO (20A: Deets and dope) —This clue just tickled me a bit. Somehow both fresh feeling and old-fashioned.
• ALLEN (21A: William G. ___, patentee of a kind of wrench)

Ikea owes William a debt that can never be paid.

• MORALES (66A: Miles ____, teen who becomes Spider-Man in "Into the Spider-Verse)— Two great movies (so far) and some really entertaining comics. One of my favorites.

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter (at least for now) and BlueSky @eliselzer.bsky.socail (Sorry, I don't have any invites)]