Like the gods Inti and Viracocha / SAT 4-5-25 / Protofeminist poet Juana ___ de la Cruz / Label for a pile of submissions / Event whose winner is awarded the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy

Constructor: RAFAEL MUSA

Relative difficulty: MEDIUM

THEME: Nope

Word of the Day: RANDOM WALK (9D: Mathematical process used to model unpredictable phenomena) —

In mathematics, a random walk, sometimes known as a drunkard's walk, is a stochastic process that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some mathematical space.

An elementary example of a random walk is the random walk on the integer number line ${\displaystyle \mathbb{Z}}$ which starts at 0, and at each step moves +1 or −1 with equal probability. Other examples include the path traced by a molecule as it travels in a liquid or a gas (see Brownian motion), the search path of a foraging animal, or the price of a fluctuating stock and the financial status of a gambler. Random walks have applications to engineering and many scientific fields including ecology, psychology, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, and sociology. The term random walk was first introduced by Karl Pearson in 1905.^[1]

Realizations of random walks can be obtained by Monte Carlo simulation.

Ok, about half of that makes sense to me. I'm just going to picture the sandwalk from Dune. 

• • •

Hey everyone, it's Eli, filling in while Rex attends the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. And look at this, I once again get to blog a puzzle by fellow Rexplacement Rafa Musa! I don't know if he's at ACPT, as well, but now my paranoia is assuming he is, and I only got the assignment to blog this weekend because I was the only one who's not there. Hopefully next year. On to the puzzle!

Drag Queen JAN SPORT (4D - World's largest maker of backpacks), maybe about to spill some TEA (48A - Juicy news to share, so to speak)

This was a solid puzzle, if not overly flashy. I'm just starting to learn constructing, but it feels like 4 stacks of 9/10 Letter answers (2 across, 2 down) might make for a tricky grid to fill. But it doesn't strain all that much from the pressure. I didn't like the plural abbreviations of OJS (14D - Some breakfast orders, informally) or APS (23A - Human Geography and Calculus BC, for short). I'm also not quite sure what the clue for TROJAN WAR is saying, exactly (17A - Old story coming straight from the horse's mouth?). I mean, old story - yes. And I know about the Trojan Horse. But what does his mouth have to do with it? Did it vomit out the Greeks inside? Was The Iliad told by Mr. Ed? Maybe I'm just missing something.

Not gonna PHONE IT IN (58A) tonight...

I never really got a good footing on this puzzle, but I also never got fully stuck solving. Way more jumping around than usual, but ended up with a pretty normal time for a Saturday. Right off the bat at 4A (Actor Hutcherson who played 59-Across), I was able to plonk JOSH up top and PEETA down south, so I had multiple places to start. Not quite proud to know Hunger Games that well, but not embarrassed, either. I had dropped MPH in at 1A instead of LBS (Between 75 and 140, for an adult cheetah, Abbr.), and I have to think that was an intentional misdirect. I'm also never sure whether the Norwegian king/saint is going to be OLAV or OLAF (30D), but today the F won. Then there's those clumps of long answers. In general, they work, though I think the downs are stronger than the acrosses. I especially liked AFTER PARTY and its fantastic clue (26D - Ball two?) and HELL HOLES (31D - Absolutely awful places). I was going to put a clip of Spinal Tap's Hell Hole, but realized all I was hearing in my head was Corky St. Clair saying "don't want to live in this 'ell 'ole" while practicing his Cockney accent in Waiting for Guffman.

My biggest beef is with OH I FORGOT (30A - "Oops, that slipped my mind"). That "oh" feels really tacked on. I just winced a little filling that in. "I forgot" works fine on it's own. Why not "Gee, I forgot" or "Oops, I forgot"? Oddly, OK WISE GUY (5D - "Hey, dude, enough with the jokes") doesn't bother me. Feels more natural. Also makes me think of Stooges. That's about it. Overall, a solid Saturday.

Quick Hits:

• 5A - Like some who take testosterone (TRANS) - This is as good a reason as any to plug the upcoming A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle pack. Started by constructor Ada Nicolle in support of US-based transgender charities, it releases in June and I'll definitely be supporting it.
• 45A - Film character with obsessive fans called "brogres" (SHREK) — I'd never heard this term and it made me laugh. But being a big fan of the cartoon The Great North, I was familiar with the term Group Shrek.

It's what you think it is (but not what Wolf and Honeybee thought).

• 32D - Unable now to back out (IN TOO DEEP) — Because I graduated high school in the year 2000, I'm afraid I'm required to subject you to Sum 41:

• 40D - Bygone car manufactured in Lansing, Mich (REO) — Fine, a little Speedwagon to cleanse the pallet (or punish you further; I don't know your taste).

And with that I bid... oh crap, I forgot to include a Simpsons reference! Thank you, Rafa, for making it easy for me:

• 10D - Expression of surprise ... or dismay (AY CARAMBA)

Phew! That was close. Good luck and have fun to everyone at APCT this weekend! I'll be back tomorrow.

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Roman guardian spirit / FRI 4-4-25 / Anti-jaywalking directive / One getting in online debates, colloquially / Greek goddess who is the equivalent of the Roman Pax / Its flag was solid red with a white elephant / Hair color blending technique / Pinched pasta shape

Constructor: Karen Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: LAR (6D: Roman guardian spirit) —

Lares (/ˈlɛəriːz, ˈleɪriːz/ LAIR-eez, LAY-reez, Latin: [ˈlareːs]; archaic lasēs, singular lar) were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.

Lares were believed to observe, protect, and influence all that happened within the boundaries of their location or function. The statues of domestic Lares were placed at the table during family meals; their presence, cult, and blessing seem to have been required at all important family events. [...]

Because of these associations, Lares are sometimes categorised as household gods, but some had much broader domains. Roadways, seaways, agriculture, livestock, towns, cities, the state, and its military were all under the protection of their particular Lar or Lares. Those who protected local neighbourhoods (vici) were housed in the crossroad shrines (Compitalia), which served as a focus for the religious, social, and political lives of their local, overwhelmingly plebeian communities. Their cult officials included freedmen and slaves, otherwise excluded by status or property qualifications from most administrative and religious offices.

Compared to Rome's major deities, Lares had limited scope and potency, but archaeological and literary evidence attests to their central role in Roman identity and religious life. By analogy, a homeward-bound Roman could be described as returning ad Larem (to the Lar). (wikipedia)

• • •

So ... LAR. It's been a minute. It's been over four years, actually. Look, I'll get to the good stuff in a second, but LAR is bugging the hell out of me because I cannot for the life of me understand keeping LAR in any grid except under the most extreme circumstances, and I don't think this particular grid qualifies as "extreme." LAR is a "Tear It Down" kind of word. It is the household god of Crosswordese, which I define as "short fill, largely arcane, that died a pretty hard death the moment Shortz took over, but still annoyingly hangs around because its particular letter combinations prove too tempting, at times, in tough spots." You wanna see a crossword answer die a hard death in real time (well, in time, anyway). Check out this LAR timeline (the blue is when the Shortz Era begins):

[xwordinfo]

And yet, LAR ... not dead enough, apparently. Man, 1951. Fourteen LARs! What a time to be alive. At least it's not LER, I guess (a Norse sea god? Maybe? Hang on ... gah, Celtic! Celtic sea god! So close... LER has been M.I.A. since 2013, but somewhere out there, the Cult of LER awaits his return...). Reading about LAR was actually interesting to me, and yet I still think it's a "better to tear your grid down and try again" kind of answer. I'll eat all of my hats if it's not the least familiar thing in the grid, on average, for most solvers, by far. It could so easily be OAR, except ... you've got OARS sitting right there, practically adjacent to it. Still, I think you tear the non-15 stuff out, down to NSF and up to the far NW if you have to, just to get rid of LAR. If you put LAR in your grid, expect that to be one of the things, if not the primary thing, that solvers remember. 

(We now join our LAR-less portion of the program, already in progress.) ... latticework of 15s! A sparkling, solid foundation for an extremely whooshy grid. True, I have never heard the phrase CROSS AT THE GREEN (55A: Anti-jaywalking directive). I mean, I have crossed when the light turned green, of course, so I have crossed on green, and I have crossed at the corner, where the light is, but CROSS AT THE GREEN must be some kind of city-specific directive that just missed me. My most memorable street-crossing moment happened in Edinburgh in 1989, when one of my friends (Sarah?) stepped off the curb too soon, or didn't look the right way, or something, and had to jump back to the curb to avoid getting hit by traffic, which prompted the tiniest old man to walk up to her, point to the "Don't Walk" sign, and say (in the most Scottish accent possible): "Ye 'ave to wait for the wee man!" (you know, the little green walking guy that signifies "walk"). I hear that guy's voice in my head every time I'm waiting to cross the street now. 

[the wee man]

Anyway, CROSS AT THE GREEN did nothing for me, but the rest of the 15s were wonderful, running the gamut from the quaintly colloquial (USING THE OLD BEAN) (11D: Thinking hard, informally) to the currently colloquial (KEYBOARD WARRIOR) (17A: One getting in online debates, colloquially) and making stops at all points in between. Those answers really propelled me through the grid, getting me into all corners of the grid with relative ease. Look at this opening:

Exploding out of the gate in two directions! Amazing feeling. Maybe too amazing, as the puzzle was over a little quicker than I'd have liked, and there wasn't really much resistance to speak of, but it was fun while it lasted. The toughest part for me today was parsing the central 15: "I CALL 'EM AS I SEE 'EM" (35A: "Lemme be straight with you"). I had "ICALLE-" and ??? That "E" was baffling. Could not see at that point that the "TH" had been elided from "THEM" to produce "'EM." I also thought ISM was IST (28D: Ending with real or social), but even "M" would've probably still left me shrugging. But all I had to do was move on and come back to this answer, and eventually it filled itself right in. Otherwise ... no issues. I no-looked AI WEIWEI! Exhilarating. Seems unlikely, I know, but I took one look at the improbable letter pattern, --WEI--I, and just knew. I did read the clue after I'd entered the answer, just to confirm, but turns out I didn't need to. I still remember putting AI WEIWEI in a Sunday-sized puzzle I co-wrote many years ago, and having it rejected for obscurity. And now here we are. I don't know that AI WEIWEI is any more popular now than he was then. Maybe. Either way, I always enjoy seeing him. 

["Map of China"]

Had three different single-letter hesitations today, the "M" (not "T") in ISM, the terminal "E" (not "A") in IRENE (30D: Greek goddess who is the equivalent of the Roman Pax), and the "D" (not "E") in USING THE OLD BEAN ("OLE" seemed very plausible). Unless proper nouns gave you trouble, I don't see any other real trouble spots today.

More more more:

• 1A: It may lead to a second opinion ("ALSO ...") — hard, and fun(ny).
• 27A: Boorish sorts (SWINE) — good misdirection here. Thought "boorish" would be figurative. Maybe it still is, actually. We call people "SWINE," sure, why not? Point is, I penciled in a terminal "S" for this plural, and then eventually had to retract it.
• 39A: Turndown? (DOGEAR) — when you "turn down" the corner of a page in a book (in LIEU of a bookmark), you DOGEAR the page.
• 33A: Grad. student fellowship funder (NSF) — hard to know from day to day if any of these federal agencies are still functioning any more. Looks like there've been massive cuts to both the National Science Foundation and the NIH (National Institutes of Health). This is great news for, you know, haters of scientific progress and high-mortality enthusiasts. 
• 34D: High ___ (JINKS) — weird. I thought this was one word. Also, I wanted to spell this JINX. But no: though it's sometimes (apparently) spelled "hi-jinks," it really is two words, spelled just as it appears in the puzzle. 

• 49D: "___ Doone," R.D. Blackmore romance (LORNA) — LAR's favorite novel! Classic crosswordese (both LORNA and DOONE). The way the clue is laid out in my paper print-out of the puzzle, the first line of this clue reads "___ Doone," R.D." and my first thought was "There's a sequel ... where LORNA gets a degree? What's an 'R.D.'? Registered Dietician?" Lorna Doone, Registered Dietician sounds thrilling, in a perversely boring kind of way. Would read. Would LORNA Doone, R.D. recommend LORNA Doone cookies? You'll have to read to find out!

I'm off to Stamford today for the Crossword Tournament. Eli's got tomorrow and Sunday covered. See you Monday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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