Happy-sounding advocacy grp. / WED 8-26-26 / Enhancing "blemish" (3x) / Teach, playfully (3x) / Nut in Sausalito cookies / Word that can precede cry or baby / Instrument associated with beans and salsa? / Capital city known as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans" / Modern lead-in to quit or bait / Pinocchio's tell

Constructor: John Kugelman and Lance Enfinger

Relative difficulty: Easy

[39A: Sci-fi pilot ___ Solo]

THEME: "SOME PEOPLE!" (57A: "Unbelievable!" ... or what 17-, 25-, 35- and 46-Across are made from, letterwise?) — theme answers comprise people's names:

Theme answers:

• BEAUTY MARK (17A: Enhancing "blemish" (3x)) (Beau, Ty, Mark)
• EDUMACATE (25A: Teach, playfully (3x)) (Ed, Uma, Cate)
• SALTED CARAMEL (35A: Sweet popcorn coating (4x)) (Sal, Ted, Cara, Mel)
• MACADAMIA (46A: Nut in Sausalito cookies (3x)) (Mac, Ada, Mia)

Word of the Day: BEAUTY MARK (17A) —

A beauty mark or beauty spot is a euphemism for a type of dark facial mark so named because such birthmarks are sometimes considered an attractive feature. Medically, such "beauty marks" are generally melanocytic nevus, more specifically the compound variant. Moles of this type may also be located elsewhere on the body, and may also be considered beauty marks if located on the face, shoulder, neck or breast. Artificial beauty marks have been fashionable in some periods.

• • •

This was weird, and today, weird is good. The theme answers were all very easy to get, but by no. 3 I started wondering what those little parenthetical bits at the end of the clues meant, so I stared at them and thought "... 3x what? ... 4x what?" And that's when I saw them, the names—well before the revealer. Actually, in the first set of names I saw, MEL appeared twice because I had the middle themer as MELTED CARAMEL. I was like "Two Mels, huh, interesting? Is that legal? Oh well, it's at least plausible, I guess. You get four people together, two of them might be named MEL. Not probable, but plausible." Eventually that answer came around to the much better SALTED CARAMEL, and I was back on track, but I had no idea how they were gonna land this thing. What kind of revealer could you possibly have for just a series of name strings? And the revealer we get—perfect. You can read it with the shocked and offended tone that the clue asks for, but you can also read it as the most literal and (to my mind, hilariously) lazy description of the theme. "What are those answers made up of?" "I dunno, just SOME PEOPLE." "Famous people?" "... not really." Obviously there are famous people who have these names (though I don't think I know anyone actually named MAC ... nope, I lied: MAC Davis. He was a country singer. Even had his own TV show. Here he is performing a gospel medley with ... special guests:

So I'D SAY the revealer was perfect. Really sold the whole thing. I don't know that I believe people actually say EDUMACATE. Maybe Homer Simpson said it once. It sounds like a Homerism. I know he said "Saxamaphone," so why not EDUMACATE?

And yet it didn't take long for EDUMACATE to come to me, though that turn from the upper middle into the NE was probably the hardest bit for me, as I wasn't sure about EDUMACATE, blanked on the South American capital, didn't know that a [Housemother] was a MATRON (I thought those were just for prisons), and, as usual, could not come up with the "word that can precede" answer at 22D: Word that can precede cry or baby. Is a "WAR baby" one conceived during wartime? Or just a very bellicose baby? Anyway, I wanted FAR for a second, but couldn't rationalize "far baby." "What's a far baby?" "That baby over yonder!" Otherwise, the only other answer I tripped on in his puzzle was, ironically, related to my own teaching. [Units of verse]? Starting with "F"? I had STEAM instead of SWEAT at 51D: Result of a hot pursuit? at first, which meant my [Units of verse] ended -EM and so I was like "that's gotta be POEM ... doesn't it?" But that "F" would not budge. When I finally saw that STEAM was in fact SWEAT, I got FEET and had quite a "D'oh!" moment (speaking of Homerisms). I literally taught the meaning of poetic FEET on Monday, and will revisit the topic today. Sigh. SOME PEOPLE would forget their own head if it weren't attached to their body.

["Do I EVER Cross Your Mind?]
Bullets:

• 47D: da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, for example (IAMBS) — unstressed/stressed, that is an iamb. IAMBS are metrical FEET. I tend to use actual words as examples ("today" "again" "above" "below"), but ominous da-DUMs will also do the trick
• 28D: What cards with circles, stars, plauses, squares and wavy lines test for, in brief (ESP) — these are called Zener cards. Spoiler alert: no one has ESP.

• 10D: Instrument associated with beans and salsa? (MARACA) — I wrote this in without much trouble but a few seconds afterwards, as I was like "wait, what? I know there might be dry beans inside a MARACA, but there can't be salsa in there. Salsa's ... wet. The beans won't rattle right!" You'll be glad to know it didn't take me too long to realize that the salsa in question was a dance style, not a condiment.
• 42A: Fred Flintstone's boss at the rock quarry (MRS. LATE) — she was always late. Drove Fred crazy, as he had to punch in and got in trouble if he wasn't on time.

[prehistoric surveillance culture]

• 7D: Happy-sounding advocacy grp. (GLAAD) — The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Here's GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis, yesterday: “[Dolly Parton's] support for LGBTQ people spans decades, from the 1990s with her track ‘Family,’ where she expressed that all should be welcome regardless of religion or sexual orientation; to the powerful ballad ‘Travelin’ Thru,’ which Parton penned for the film TransAmerica and earned her an Oscar nomination; to her early support of marriage equality in 2009, well before its legalization. [...] Parton‘s warm spirit, kindheartedness and joie de vivre deeply resonated with the LGBTQ community, cementing her as a global queer icon whose art always held space for outsiders, no matter the risk. Parton‘s entire career was built on love and respect for all, and her unwavering allyship is a legacy that will last forever."

That's all for today. I'll leave you with Dolly ... at the OPRY (54D: Grand Ole ___) ... 1969 ... the year I was born ... just leaving people slack-jawed. R.I.P. to an irreplaceable force of goodness in the world

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Epitomes of slowness / TUES 8-25-26 / Something told with two hands? / Moon believed to have a subsurface ocean / Free-spirited style, informally

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday in August! Hope everyone has been staying cool (and dry, at least, on the East Coast, where it’s been raining around 4 p.m. most days). My big news is that I got to see BTS when they came to Baltimore, and my life got infinitely better — although my sister and I lost our voices completely. I’m now off to Los Angeles this weekend for Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields music festival, which should be a ton of fun. 

Most importantly, before I move on to, you know, the puzzle, I have to plug my sister’s article in The Wall Street Journal!! As I’m writing this, it’s not published yet, but it goes live at 2 p.m. today, Tuesday, in the travel section under the headline, "I Walked 500 Miles on the Camino de Santiago to Find What Comes Next," by Shannon Carroll. I’ll be back to update the link when the story goes live! [Edit: Here it is!]

Anywho, with all that, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Bryan Kaproth-Gerecht

Relative difficulty: Easy-medium

THEME: PLANETS (45D: Celestial "wanderers" ... or what this puzzle's circled letters represent) — The eight planets are listed in the puzzle, with the circled letters representing their approximate distance from the sun

Theme answers:

• MERCURY (34A: 1st) 
• VENUS (28A: 2nd) 
• EARTH (51A: 3rd) 
• MARS (33D: 4th) 
• JUPITER (10D: 5th) 
• SATURN (15A: 6th) 
• URANUS (62A: 7th) 
• NEPTUNE (1D: 8th)

Word of the Day: NO-SEE-UMS (7D: Tiny biting insect) —

Ceratopogonidae is a family of flies colloquially known as no-see-ums, sand flies, or biting midges, generally 1–3 millimetres (1⁄16–1⁄8 in) in length. The family includes more than 5,000 species, distributed worldwide, apart from the Antarctic and the Arctic. Ceratopogonidae midges are also one of the best-studied cocoa pollinators. (Wiki)

• • •

I quite enjoyed that puzzle! The circled letters and the dotted lines showing the orbits were complex, even a tad gimmick-y, but, overall, the construction was very impressive, especially coming from a first-time constructor. The constructor managed to fit in eight planets with different orbits represented — in order — along with additional words that are relevant to the theme such as SUNS (15D: Symbols of fair weather) and TITAN (47A: Moon believed to have a subsurface ocean). 

The theme seems timely, too. The PERSEIDS (16A: Summer meteor shower named for a mythological hero) meteor shower is in the news; there was a total solar eclipse a couple of weeks ago; a partial lunar eclipse is coming up; and there was an alignment of six planets earlier this month. 

I pretty quickly realized the theme and what the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. would represent, so I immediately went around the puzzle typing in the planets. That made this a quicker-than-normal Tuesday solve for me. It did take me quite a bit to figure out what the circles represented; I thought they might represent the first letter of the planets, maybe they created an anagram, etc. Only after creating a little graphic for myself did I realize that the circle letters in each planet represented that planet’s approximate distance from the sun. 

For those of you with not great eyes (i.e., my dad), you might have strained to see the dashes that create the circles representing the orbits. I wonder why there are only seven dashed circles, with URANUS and SATURN on the same orbit — and not one for each of the eight planets. But that’s above my knowledge (or was all the constructor could manage). I didn’t think a revealer was even necessary, given that the theme was obvious, but it’s still impressive that the constructor got ORBITAL (44D: Like the paths of 45-Down, as visually depicted in this puzzle) and PLANETS (45D: Celestial "wanderers" ... or what this puzzle's circled letters represent) in there, too. 

(As a “Psych” lover, I couldn’t help but be sad Pluto wasn’t on there.) 

I struggled a fair amount in the north (middle) of the puzzle, especially with NO-SEE-UMS (7D). I’m not sure I have ever heard that term before, so I was incredibly confused. Combine that with the vague OH DAMN (6D: "Wowza!") that doesn’t really fit the clue, crossing MENSA (24A: Smart set) and AEON (20A: Billion years, astronomically), and it took me a bit to puzzle through. I thankfully know AKON (4A: One-named Senegalese American singer with the #1 hits "I Wanna Love You" and "Don't Matter") very well, growing up listening to his music, but I imagine some people struggled there. 

Along with OH DAMN (6D), there were a few other quotations that I didn’t really like. Like: IT’S A DATE (60A: "I'd love to go"), AW C’MON (25D: "Man, that's hardly fair!"), and THAT SO (48D: "Are you sure?"). They’re part of the category that’s so vague that many things can fit. MIDI (20A: ___ skirt) was also annoying, given it could’ve easily been “maxi” or “midi,” and the clue gave us nothing to go on. I refuse to believe SHIVERY (39D: Like someone emerging from freezing cold water, typically) is a word. WAWA (56A: Drink in a sippy cup, to a toddler) clued like that seems a bit weird. RAT (8D: Creature sometimes trained for bomb detection) gave me pause because I tried “dog.” Even when I got to “_AT,” I took a bit to understand that it had to be RAT, not “cat.” I had enough downs that I got TECATE (58A: Mexican beer brand) quite easily, but that felt like a harder-than-a-normal-Tuesday type word. (My sister, who knows her Mexican beers, said she put Modelo.) 

All that being said, there were still some good words in the puzzle — on top of the fun theme. My favorite word was ENAMOR (32A: Captivate), followed closely by TRILL (19A: Musical flutter). I also liked BARISTA (3D: One known for the morning grind?). It was good seeing IVERSON (2D: Allen who was the 2001 N.B.A. M.V.P.), as he’s the only good A.I. The clue/answer for TIME (38A: Something told with two hands?) was fun (even if I did have _I_E and thought I was very clever when I confidently put in “jive”). 

Overall, the puzzle was an enjoyable solve — and an impressive construction!

Misc.:

• I’ve recently gotten into F1 (after watching the Netflix show “Drive to Survive”), and I’ve been watching the races each weekend. So it feels on point to have PACE CAR (40D: Raceway speed setter) even if it’s called a “safety car” in F1. (Go, Kimi and/or Oscar!) 
• I’d kind of forgotten about AKON (4A) over the years, but he’s apparently still going strong with 41.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and his biggest song, “Smack That,” (with Eminem) has 1.7 billion streams. I was 10 years old when that song came out, and I knew all of the lyrics, including the rap, which, looking back, was rather raunchy. Oops! 
• I loved CHASM (46A: Great divide). First off, it’s a fantastic word. The clue is also the title of the incredible Noah Kahan album “The Great Divide" (which I saw him perform most of last month — from the barricade!). 
• I will always remember the moon TITAN (47A) because I did a presentation in 7th grade science class on SATURN (15A). I learned TITAN is the planet’s biggest moon and is the second biggest in the solar system. (Anything else, I’ll have to brush up on from the Internet). 
• If only there were penalty kicks after a TIE GAME (43D: Reason to go into penalty kicks) in the regular season of the Premier League so my Liverpool team could’ve completed the comeback and actually won our stupid opening game against Newcastle instead of just tying it up in the 100th minute.

I’m also very pleased that my dog, RED (53D: Sunburned, perhaps), made an appearance in the puzzle today (even if it should have been clued to be about her instead!). As I’ve written this, I think she’s brought me eight toys because she wants to play, so maybe she knows she’s being written about.

And that’s all from me! Hope you all have a great September. (And don’t forget to go read my sister’s article😊)

Signed, Clare Carroll, RED’s giant

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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