Odysseus' faithful dog / MON 3-24-25 / Like seaweed or raw octopus / K-pop group with an "army" of followers / Person who has reached near-mythical status / Call of Duty handle, e.g. / Vehicle in a light rail system / Character in "Frankenstein" films who doesn't appear in the the Mary Shelley novel

Constructor: Victor Schmitt

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: ALL OVER THE MAP (57A: Here, there and everywhere ... or where to find 20-, 33- and 41-Across's ends?) — last words of themers are all things you might find on a map:

Theme answers:

• BATHROOM SCALE (20A: Something you might step on before or after a shower)
• MORAL COMPASS (33A: Set of ethical standards)
• LIVING LEGEND (41A: Person who has reached near-mythical status)

Word of the Day: "The Boys" (38D: "The Boys" and "The Bear," for two) —

The Boys is an American satirical superhero drama series developed by Eric Kripke for Amazon Prime Video. Based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, it follows the eponymous team of vigilantes as they combat superpowered individuals (referred to as "Supes") who abuse their powers for personal gain and work for a powerful company (Vought International) that ensures the general public views them as heroes. The series features an ensemble cast that includes Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Chace Crawford, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Elisabeth Shue, Colby Minifie, Aya Cash, Claudia Doumit, Jensen Ackles, Cameron Crovetti, Susan Heyward, Valorie Curry, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. [...] The Boys premiered its first season of eight episodes on July 26, 2019. A second season premiered on September 4, 2020, with the third season following on June 3, 2022. In June 2022, the series was renewed for a fourth season, which premiered on June 13, 2024. In May 2024, the series was renewed for a fifth and final season, which is expected to premiere in 2026. As part of a shared universe, a spin-off web series (Seven on 7) premiered on July 7, 2021, an adult animated anthology series (Diabolical) premiered on March 4, 2022, and a second live-action television series (Gen V) premiered on September 29, 2023. // The series has been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2021, and has won seven Critics' Choice Super Awards and six Astra TV Awards. (wikipedia)

• • •

Yes, those are all parts of a map. They can all be found on different parts of a map, possibly all on the same map, so ... sure, that revealer works. It's not exactly exciting, but it's kind of a textbook Monday: straightforward, clean, easy. Not sure why cheater squares were needed (black squares after "CCS" and before "NSA")—just makes the short fill shorter. With a theme this undemanding, should've been easy enough to fill the grid without resorting to that kind of crutch, but whatever—that's a technicality that no one is really gonna notice. The theme is basic—last words all share a common trait, and those same words are used in different (non-thematic) contexts in each of their respective answers. That is, non-map kind of "scale," non-map kind of "compass," non-map kind of "legend"—though the compasses are at least vaguely similar, in that both of them concern direction. The only way to take "compass" a truly different direction would've been to have it be the kind of compass you use to draw circles. But I think making the compass figurative (as it is in MORAL COMPASS) is a sufficient change of meaning. Best not to think about it all too much. The themers all end in different map elements. That's it. That's the puzzle. It's Monday. It's fine.

The short fill is the one place this puzzle falls off a little, but not in ways that are gonna make anyone throw their puzzle across the room. SRI URSA BTS SSN ORR ETTA etc. Nothing you really want to see there, but nothing you haven't seen a million times before, nothing that's gonna give you trouble, so nothing that's likely to register as truly bothersome. Solving Downs-only, I can tell you that the only short fill that really (*really*) bothered me is ROLD (14A: ___ Gold, pretzel brand). Awful. Truly awful. No excuse for a non-word like that on an easy Monday. And in a section where you've added a cheater square to make filling the grid easier, it's really inexcusable. Cheater squares are what you add because you need to get *rid* of things like ROLD. As a Downs-only solver, you need the Acrosses to be recognizable things, and ROLD was Not. I assumed I had a mistake there, but couldn't see what it could be. ROLD went right through the one answer up top that I was struggling with—the poorly clued SLIMY (7D: Like seaweed or raw octopus). I assume that I'm supposed to think of the seaweed and octopus as edibles (why else would "raw" be in there), and I've never thought of edible seaweed as SLIMY. Nori (the edible seaweed I experience most often) is the opposite of SLIMY. So boo to that clue. And huge boo to ROLD, the worst debut I've seen in a good, long while. Not All Debuts Are Good. And now constructors are going to have it ROLD in their databases, and they're going to assume it's OK to use. And it may be—but only in the tightest of spots, not in a basic 76-word Monday grid. The northern section of today's puzzle is send-it-back bad. Just because it's an easy Monday doesn't mean you shouldn't polish every inch of your grid.

Only two other answers gave me pause during the Downs-only solve, making this among the easier Downs-only solve I've ever done. GAMER TAG was gibberish to me for a while (10D: Call of Duty handle, e.g.), until I'd inferred a bunch of crosses. I recognize the term, but honestly, even after I got GAME, the only thing I wanted was GAME NAME, and that seemed (and was) impossible. I also had some reluctance to enter TV DRAMAS (38D: "The Boys" and "The Bear," for two), since, if I recall correctly, The Bear won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. [Looks it up]. Yep! Also the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series—Musical or Comedy. Not at all self-evident that that show is a TV Drama. As for The Boys, I have no idea. I don't have anything to do with Amazon anymore. 

Bullets:

• 62A: Character in "Frankenstein" films who doesn't appear in the Mary Shelley novel (IGOR) — I don't think "fun facts" usually qualify as "fun," but this one kinda is. It's definitely a "fun" way to clue an answer that's been in the crossword countless times.

• 2D: Knight-___ (medieval character wandering in search of adventure) (ERRANT)) — this clue, also fun. Probably didn't need the whole parenthetical bit, but by getting "wandering" in there, you make explicit the word you're looking for ... plus, it just makes the concept in question more vivid. I studied medieval literature in grad school, so I've read about more knight-ERRANTs than I can remember. (Weirdly, I had a vivid grad school dream just last night, one in which there was some kind of reunion, and I was seeing certain people for the first time in 20+ years, and it was slightly stressful ... also, I realized *in the dream*, "... wait, why does everyone look the same? People would've aged." My dream brain does not have aging technology, apparently. 
• 
  44D: Country between Djibouti and Sudan on the coast of the Red Sea (ERITREA) — got it on the first guess, no crosses. This may seem like no big deal, but it feels like a big deal, in that ERITREA was not a country when my basic idea of world geography was set in stone (or nearly so) back in middle school. ERITREA only got its independence in 1993. In fact, I'm pretty sure I only learned about its existence because of crosswords (possibly in 1993 itself, when ERITREA first appeared as a country in the NYTXW: [Nation born May 24, 1993] (Sep 12, 1993)—I can't believe the NYTXW was ever that timely with its cluing!). ERITREA actually appeared many times before 1993, but only ever as a part of Ethiopia ([Former Italian colony], [Ethiopian province], etc.)), and never during the time in which I would've been solving (i.e. post-1991). ERITREA's capital is ASMARA—handy to know, as Asmara frequently appears on ERITREA clues, and is an answer itself, from time to time (12 times in the Shortz/Fagliano Era, *37* times before that).

I'm happy to announce (all this week) that a new edition of These Puzzles Fund Abortion is available now (These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5!). Donate to abortion funds, get a collection of 23 top-notch puzzles from some of the best constructors in the business—mostly standard U.S. crossword puzzles, but also some cryptic crosswords, variety puzzles, and even an acrostic. Rachel Fabi and C.L. Rimkus have done such a great job with these collections over the past few years, raising over $300,000 for abortion funds around the country. I support a number of charitable organizations, but hardly any of them give me crosswords in return. So I'm going to give TPFA5 my money today [update: done!], and I hope you do too. Here's the link.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Use a Clorox wipe on, say / SUN 3-23-25 / Gummy candy company / Doomed Ethiopian princess / Like bread more suitable for panzanella / Best impression of a Springfield patriarch? / Vehicle in 2020's "Nomadland" / Figure on a Wyoming license plate / Temporarily banish, as a college roommate / Heats to just below a boil, as milk / It might have -GUEST in its name / Oklahoma's "Wheat Capital" / Ambrosia salad ingredients

Constructor: Andrew Colin Kirk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (probably just "Easy," but I got stuck for a bit in the NE)

THEME: "Where'd You Go?" — familiar phrases have their "U" changed to "ME," creating wacky phrases, which are all tied together and explained by the theme revealer: "IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME" (115A: Classic breakup excuse ... or a phonetic hint to 23-, 36-, 47-, 67-, 86- and 93-Across)

Theme answers:

• RESIST THE MERGE (from "resist the urge") (23A: Stay in one's lane?)
• MEN SOLVED MYSTERIES (from "unsolved mysteries") (36A: CliffNotes version of Holmes and Watson stories?)
• MENDER LINES (from "underlines") (47A: "When do you need this patched up?," "Do you have the missing button?," etc.?)
• FINEST HOMER (from "finest hour") (67A: Best impression of a Springfield patriarch?)
• VOTER FRAMED (from "voter fraud") (86A: Headline about a falsely incriminated person casting a ballot?)
• NAILED THE DIS MOMENT (from "nailed the dismount") (93A: Delivered a nasty insult with perfect timing?)

Word of the Day: panzanella (31A: Like bread more suitable for panzanella) —

Panzanella (Italian: [pantsaˈnɛlla]) or panmolle (Italian: [pamˈmɔlle]) is a Tuscan and Umbrian chopped salad of soaked stale bread, onions and tomatoes that is popular in the summer. It often includes cucumbers, sometimes basil and is dressed with olive oil and vinegar. [...] The name is believed to be a portmanteau of "pane", Italian for 'bread', and "zanella", a deep plate in which it is served. // Panzanella was based on onions, not tomatoes, until the 20th century. // Modern panzanella is generally made of stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry, red onions, tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Cucumbers and basil are often added. // Other ingredients—lettuce, olives, mozzarella, white wine, capers, anchovies, celery, carrots, red wine, tuna, parsley, boiled eggs, mint, bell peppers, lemon juice, and garlic—are sometimes used, but Florentine traditionalists disapprove of them. (wikipedia)

• • •

DREARY pretty much sums it up. This is a theme genre that I'm just not that fond of because it's so hard to get the wackiness above polite-smile grade. There's absolutely nothing "funny" about "voter fraud" becoming "VOTER FRAMED." That's the real low point of the theme. The high point is probably MEN SOLVED MYSTERIES, just because it's silly and it involves more than just a "U"-to-"ME" switch (as with a few other themers, the changed letters are accompanied by the fragmentation of a word into two words—here, UNSOLVED into MEN SOLVED). As for the rest, shrug. For sheer ridiculousness, I guess NAILED THE DIS MOMENT is noteworthy, but overall there's just not enough cleverness or excitement to be squeezed out of this concept. The title is also bad, in the sense that it just duplicates the "You" pun found in the revealer. You gotta take the "joke" in a different direction there. But that's a superficial concern. The bigger problem is that the theme just doesn't bring enough heat. It's a variation on a well-worn concept that was never very funny to begin with. Unless your puns are outrageous, stunning, right on the money ... it's not worth it.

Also not worth it, under any circumstances: DEGERM (!?!?!?!?) (11D: Use a Clorox wipe on, say). It's obvious that DEGERM (the worst thing in the grid) was a result of ill-considered grid-building at the earliest stages. that is, if you strip out everything but the theme answers (which are essentially fixed), you are immediately presented with a very big grid-filling problem: a six-letter answer that follows the pattern --G--M. It's the first place a constructor's gonna have to work on, because your options are *real* limited. There's like ... maybe half a dozen not-completely-terrible answers that can fit that pattern (MAGNUM, LOGJAM, ORGASM ... DOGDOM? ... there are more, but they get less appealing from there). So you gotta lock one of those in early and build around it. DEGERM???? How not-a-word is it? So not-a-word that This Is Its Debut (it was used once before, 25 years ago, in a Diagramless variety puzzle, but never in the regular crossword). The best thing to do is move your black squares around, or your themers around, and find a way to avoid that very unforgiving letter pattern in the first place. That way, you don't have thousands and thousands of people solving your puzzle and wincing at the same answer. If you want people to focus on your theme, your fill should be neither STALER nor SMELLIER than it has to be. DEGERM isn't stale, but it is definitely "higher in rank?" than most answers I've ever seen.

The puzzle does sneak some entertaining fill in here and there. I don't give a damn about Darmouth as an institution, but still, I think BIG GREEN is ... well, yeah, colorful. DO NICELY is a phrase that does nicely, and who doesn't like FREE WIFI. Despite the fact that there are a couple of bad patches of short fill (IMHO DEET ALMA is one, SSNS ÉTÉ DAHL is another), most of the rest of the grid is actually pretty decent. Not much to struggle with today, though I did manage to get knotted up in the NE for a bit when I wrote in STEAMS instead of SCALDS at 13A: Heats to just below a boil, as milk. Spending too much time in coffee shops, I guess. That "S" to "S" answer worked with both "S" Downs, but of course none of the other Downs worked, nor could I make either of the two Acrosses go anywhere. "T" to "T" was "TAKE IT!" (22A: "Here!"), a phrase I kept wanting to start with "THAT..." or (ironically) "THERE!" But nope, no fit. The "A" to "E" answer at 25A: One place to redeem tickets, also not computing. I think of ARCADEs as places full of video games, maybe pinball machines. I haven't been in the "redeem tickets" type of ARCADE since ... I dunno, did Chuck E. Cheese used to have a ticket-winning and -redemption feature? I think so. Yes, this random site on the internet says so. Anyway, no dice on "TAKE IT!" or ARCADE, and no more crosses to help out because of incorrect STEAMS, and then I couldn't get the long Downs from their latter halves. -VEIN and -ASET just wouldn't move the needle at first on 16D: Retain and 17D: Told some jokes, say. Eventually I took out STEAMS, and then, with a great reluctance bordering on disgust, I tried DID A SET for 17D. "Horrible answer, let's hope it's wrong..." But it wasn't. Suddenly saw LEAVE IN and whoosh, all the answers in the NE went in. Of all the EAT-A-SANDWICH-type answers, DID A SET ... is certainly one of them. Would love to DEGERM "DID A SET." Nothing other part of the grid caused nearly so much trouble.

Bullets:

• 6A: Doomed Ethiopian princess (AIDA) — class crossword fare. It's a fine answer, but the clue on OPERA (19A: Setting for 6-Across)—didn't love that. It was easy enough, but cluing OPERA as the "setting" for AIDA just seems perverse. I guess it wants you to screw up and write in EGYPT (or CAIRO, where AIDA premiered)

["With just three days more / I have just about learned the entire score ... to AIDA!"]

• 30A: Vehicle in 2020's "Nomadland" (VAN) — this is the one where Frances McDormand rides around the country living out of her ... VAN. Directed by Chloe ZHAO. Just thinking about that movie gives me very strong peak COVID-era vibes. I don't know if I'd call that movie good, but I remember really feeling its loneliness.
• 56A: Figure on a Wyoming license plate (COWBOY) — for a brief time, this figure was a COYOTE. I think Wyoming should consider the COYOTE for its license plate. But then they hunt coyotes in Wyoming, because of course they do, what else are you going to do in Wyoming? (except yell at your smug, boot-licking Congressperson) (jk Wyoming, your state seems nice, if fairly empty):

• 77A: Temporarily banish, as a college roommate (SEXILE) — the concept existed, for sure, but I never remember hearing this term irl. Not sure how I know the term, but I do (this is its second NYTXW appearance, the first in 8 years)
• 113A: Liqueur in a spritz (APEROL) — not my favorite drink. I've lost whatever taste for fizz I ever had. Mixers in general are not really my thing. Booze-forward and ice-cold (whether over rocks or up)—that's what I'm looking for from a cocktail. The Manhattan remains the gold standard.
• 6D: Noted family of New York City's Gilded Age (ASTORS) — speaking of cruise ships ... (sorry, too soon for Titanic jokes?)
• 58D: Ambrosia salad ingredients (ORANGE) — I would describe said "salad," but I don't feel like nauseating myself. Miniature marshmallows? Mayonnaise?!? What is wrong with you people? The only Ambrosia I care to think about is...

• 83D: Summer setting in Somerset, for short (EDT) — so ... there must be a "Somerset" in ... what? Massachusetts? Wait, Kentucky!?!? There's also one in NJ and PA. All are in the Eastern Time Zone. I have no idea which Somerset was intended. I was thinking England. That misdirection was probably the point of the clue (besides the "summer" pun, of course)
• 1D: Wine whose name is the first half of its country of origin (PORT) — ah yes, PORT Ugal. My daughter just flew home from there, after being stuck at sea for a little bit because storms made the sea too rough to sail into port at Lisbon. She's been just outside Venice for most of the last few months, overseeing the installation of theaters in a brand new cruise ship. But now she's back stateside, where in a few months she'll be back in Minnesota as Production Manager of the Great River Shakespeare Festival this summer, before packing up and moving to Connecticut in the fall, where she will become ... [drum roll] ... an ELI (48D: Yalie). Are graduate students considered ELIs? Anyway, after years of my mocking the crossword for being so damn Yale-centric, I suppose this ironic twist of fate was inevitable. But congrats to her, though. Yale School of Drama. Could do worse. (Sorry, it's technically the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, LOL, the school got demoted to second billing) (I believe this satisfies my "brag about my daughter" limit for 2025; more next year, I'm sure.)

I'm happy to announce once again that a new edition of These Puzzles Fund Abortion is available now (These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5!). Donate to abortion funds, get a collection of 23 top-notch puzzles from some of the best constructors in the business—mostly standard U.S. crossword puzzles, but also some cryptic crosswords, variety puzzles, and even an acrostic. Rachel Fabi and C.L. Rimkus have done such a great job with these collections over the past few years, raising over $300,000 for abortion funds around the country. I support a number of charitable organizations, but hardly any of them give me crosswords in return. So I'm going to give them my money today, and I hope you do too. Here's the link.

Take care,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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