Constructor: Nate Cardin
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME:"NOT MY FIRST RODEO" (54A: "Done this before, you know!" ... or a hint to the last words of 17-, 23-, 31-, 40- and 48-Across)— last words are things one might see at a rodeo:
Theme answers:
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***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** : Hello from the first properly snowy week of Winter 2024! It's early January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. So ... 17 years ... not bad. At this time last year, I was recovering from COVID and still dealing with the very fresh grief brought on by the untimely death of my cat, Olive. I was very grateful for the blog at that point, since it grounded me in routine and gave me a place where I could lose myself in a pastime I love, and share that love with others. OK, yes, true, I don't always *love* crosswords. Sometimes it's more hate-love or love-hate or "Why are you being like this, you stupid puzzle!?" It ain't all positive vibes, as you know. But I realized last year that part of what makes this blog so fun for me, and what makes it a solace to many readers, is the sense of commiseration it provides. Sometimes the puzzle thrills you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't; and sometimes it infuriates you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't. But either way, the blog is here; it's *always* here. You get to have your feelings validated, or you get to shake your head at my errant judgment and often breathtaking ignorance, but either way, you get to share an experience that's an important part of your daily life, and maybe you learn something new. Above all, I hope you feel that there is a real person with a real life and real emotions and (very) real human flaws who's telling you what it was *really* like for him to solve the puzzle. I never wanted to be an expert, offering some kind of bloodless know-it-all advice and analysis. I wanted blood. Blood on the page. There will be blood! ... But also, music videos. And Words of the Day. And, if you hang around long enough, cat pictures. Like this one:
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This is Ida (she put herself in the bin, I swear). Ida is the happy sequel to last year's grief. At the beginning of January, I was mourning. By the end of January, I was still mourning, but now I had a new companion (as did my other cat, Alfie, who *really* needed one). Why am I talking about my cats? Because they are constant, they give shape and rhythm to my day, and I love them even if they sometimes drive me crazy. Just like crossword puzzles! (See that! Segue! This is why you should pay me the big bucks!)
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However much I love writing this blog (and I do, a lot), it is, in fact, a job. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for 17 years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Every day. At very ... let's say, inconvenient hours (my alarm goes off most mornings at 3:45am). Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. But that sort of thing has never felt right for me. I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way.
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) 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. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you cards, and once again those cards feature (wait for it) cats! My cats: Alfie & Ida. This year, an elegant set of five!
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These really capture the combination of beauty and goofiness that I love in cats (and puzzles, frankly). I'd say "Collect All Five!" but every snail-mail contributor will get just one and (hopefully) like it! 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 indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle...
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OK I get the "RODEO" part but not the "NOT MY FIRST" part so much. The way I'm explaining it to myself is that the "RODEO" parts of the answers are "not (the) first" words of the answers, but the last. As if the answers themselves were saying "the RODEO part of me is NOT MY FIRST ... part." It really seems like the constructor noticed that the (excellent and original) phrase "NOT MY FIRST RODEO" was a 15, a perfect grid-spanner, and decided to conceive a theme around it. But it's basically just the same kinds of theme answers you'd get if the revealer were simply RODEO. Which is why I like the "my last words NOT MY FIRST words" explanation that I've devised. So we've got a great revealer that really needs a lawyer (me!) to make it seem completely relevant to the themer set. Underneath that, we've got a very basic "last words"-type theme (where the last words of various phrases are all thematically related to one another in some way). It's a fine set, but none of those answers are anything to write home about. What the grid really has going for it is one stand-out answer (SHOW DOG!), and cleanness all around. The banks of 7s in the NE and SW are especially smooth. Solid, vibrant answers, no compromises in the quality of the surrounding fill. Really fine work at a granular level. No groany crosswordese. Always nice to see a grid that's been well and truly polished. It takes diligence and dedication to get the gunk out of a grid, and on an easy puzzle, smoothness like this probably won't get much notice or appreciation. So I'm noticing and appreciating.
This is Marina's first Christmas! Here she is, all ready for a picnic, I think...
This is Mona. Doesn't seem like a Holiday Pic, I know, but Mona is not normally allowed on the table. However, the no-cats-on-the-table rule has been suspended for the Holidays! (how in the world did you enforce that in the first place!? I'm laughing at the very idea that I could forbid my cats to go ... anywhere)
And now our last two pets, who, while not related, do share a very similar silly doofus vibe:
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- SAN ANTONIO SPURS (17A: Tim Duncan's longtime N.B.A. team)
- PORK BARREL (23A: Metaphor for some special-interest government spending)
- RED BULLS (31A: Energy drinks that "give you wings")
- TED LASSO (40A: Titular soccer coach on a hit Apple TV+ series)
- CLASS CLOWN (48A: Attention seeker at school)
Ted Lasso (/ˈlæsoʊ/ LASS-oh) is an American sports comedy-drama television series developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly, based on a character that Sudeikis first portrayed in a series of promotional media for NBC Sports's coverage of England's Premier League. The show follows Ted Lasso, an American college football coach who is hired to coach an English soccer team with the secret intention that his inexperience will lead it to failure, but whose folksy, optimistic leadership proves unexpectedly successful.The first season of ten episodes premiered on Apple TV+ on August 14, 2020, with three episodes followed by weekly installments. A second season of 12 episodes premiered on July 23, 2021. In October 2020, the series was renewed for a third season which premiered on March 15, 2023.
The series has received critical acclaim, with particular praise for its performances (notably Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, and Juno Temple), humor, writing, themes, and uplifting tone. Among other accolades, its first season was nominated for 20 Primetime Emmy Awards, becoming the most nominated first-season comedy in Emmy Award history. Sudeikis, Waddingham, and Goldstein won for their performances, and the series won the 2021 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Sudeikis also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series. (wikipedia)
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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 three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)
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["I wont last long without a shop that i need red bull from to get me through the day"]
From a Downs-only solving perspective, this was a snap. Went right across the top of the grid with the Downs until the NE, where the bank of 7-letter answers proved somewhat daunting ... actually, even there, there wasn't any hold-up except ERRATIC. Both POUTINE and "RESPECT" were gimmes. It was in the opposite corner that things finally got a little dicey. I didn't trust "WHAT NOW?" at all as an answer for 37D: "Where do we go from here?"so I left the pre-NOW part blank for a bit, and I couldn't get INCITED at all for a bit, and then the first thing I tried there was IGNITED (39D: Provoked). But sorting this all out really didn't take that long. Just seemed long compared to how long the rest of the puzzle took, which was not long at all. No hold-ups. Anywhere. I have no green ink on my printed-out grid, which means two things—very clean fill and no difficulty whatsoever (I use the green pen mostly to highlight trouble spots—ugliness and struggliness).
Downs-only is easy when the Downs come fairly readily *and* the long Acrosses are easy to parse and guess with just a few letters in place. Didn't need much at all to see SAN ANTONIO SPURS. Only needed the very ends of both TED LASSO and NOT MY FIRST RODEO to guess those two. My one moment of hesitation came while trying to parse RED BULLS. Not used to thinking of the beverage in the plural, so my first thought was "uh ... what are RED BALLS?" Don't answer! TMI! (man, TMI is showing up a lot these days) (51A: "I did NOT need to know that?").
Some more Holiday [Nonhuman Household Resident] i.e. Pet Pics now. I know, I know, it's not the "holidays" any more. Tell that to the pets in my Inbox!!! Here we go...
First we've got Daisy and "her nemesis" Freddie. Daisy was much older and has since passed away, but Freddie (yet another dog named for Freddie Mercury!) obviously continues to rock on!
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| ["Daisy, Daisy, chew up that stocking, chew!"] |
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| ["What do you see, Freddie?""I see ... I see ... I see a little silhouetto of a man!" (thanks, Richard)] |
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| [Thanks, Jacob!] |
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| [Thanks, Paul] |
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