Brother on TV's "Bonanza" / MON 10-26-26 / Sergeant's superior, slangily / Bit of derring-do / Band with the 1999 triple-platinum hit "All Star" / Ends a relationship with by suddenly cutting off communication

Constructor: Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: SCATTERSHOT (61A: All over the place ... or a hint to the circled letters in 16-, 25-, 39- and 48-Across) — letters "S" "H" "O" and "T" are "scattered" (non-consecutively) inside longer answers (in circled squares):

Theme answers:

• SQUASH COURT (16A: Walled area for a racket sport)
• SMASHMOUTH (25A: Band with the 1999 triple-platinum hit "All Star")
• "JUST THIS ONE TIME" (39A: "Pretty please? I won't ask again")
• PSYCHED OUT (48A: Played mind games with)

Word of the Day: SMASH MOUTH (25A) —

Smash Mouth is an American rock band from San Jose, California. The band was formed in 1994 and was originally composed of Steve Harwell (lead vocals), Kevin Coleman (drums), Greg Camp (guitar), and Paul De Lisle (bass). Harwell's departure in 2021 left De Lisle as the sole remaining original member. They are known for their songs "Walkin' on the Sun" (1997), "All Star" (1999), and "Then the Morning Comes" (1999), as well as a cover of the Monkees' "I'm a Believer" (2001).

The band adopted retro styles covering several decades of popular music. They have also performed numerous covers of popular songs, including War's "Why Can't We Be Friends?", Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up", Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)", ? & the Mysterians' "Can't Get Enough of You Baby", the Beatles' "Getting Better", Queen's "Under Pressure", House of Pain's "Jump Around", and "I Wan'na Be Like You" from The Jungle Book. They also composed two songs for the South Korean animated film Pororo, The Racing Adventure: "Beside Myself" and "Everything Just Crazy".

The group's debut album Fush Yu Mang has been certified platinum twice by the RIAA and their second album Astro Lounge has since been certified platinum thrice. Their song "All Star" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 2001. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was pretty listless, as these types of themes go. The whole endeavor felt very dated, very old. Like, self-consciously old. Almost like the puzzle was doing a bit. I haven't seen a puzzle with this kind of non-consecutive letter theme for a while. They were more prevalent decades ago, but unless the concept is smashing, they generally seem kind of musty and passé these days. I don't think SCATTERSHOT is fresh enough or interesting enough to make the theme seem worth it. I guessed the revealer well before I even got there. The staleness extended beyond the theme, though. The fill ... I either winced or exclaimed "What!?" or laughed when I got to 17D: Brother on TV's "Bonanza" (HOSS). I knew it, but only from having done a million crosswords in the late 20th century and early '00s. "We're still doing HOSS?" is probably what I said, now that I think of it (this is the 106th NYTXW appearance of HOSS, but the first in five years and the first Bonanza-related clue in six). And HOSS came on the tail of a rather unpromising string of Downs (INURE, NSA, GEST). 

Going back at least 50 years, we've also got RHODA (love her! but today, with so much other old stuff in the grid, she just makes the grid seem older). Also the E.R.A. (as clued). And TALIA Shire in the Godfather movies. Also Superman (in the "IT'S" clue) (65A: Word before "a bird," "a plane" and "Superman!"). And L'IL Abner (so many LILs out there, why this one when the puzzle already leans so ostentatiously into the far past?). And an Elvis song for SHOOK. And NAT King Cole. Even [Sergeant's superior, slangily] felt like a thing people would've been much more familiar with a half century+ ago than now. Almost all these things are before *my* time, and I am ... less and less young. Even the thing that is from Exactly my time is, I have to admit, quite old (19A: "___ Lips Are Sealed" (1981 Go-Go's hit) ("OUR")). First album I bought with my own money, that Go-Go's album—Beauty and the Beat— at the Wherehouse Records in the Fashion Fair Mall, Fresno, CA. I think I picked up Billy Squier's Don't Say No as well. Good times. This puzzle, in both theme concept and fill, was less of a good time. It's fine to wax nostalgic, but this is taking it all a little far. The crusty, overfamiliar fill (EIEIO ONEK OSE REFI NSA INURE GEST LOOIE) only makes the datedness more apparent. I do think the theme answers have some charm all on their own, though "JUST THIS ONE TIME" really really would rather be "JUST THIS ONCE" (in that it seems much more like what one would actually say). The clue on GHOSTS stands out for its relative currency (46D: Ends a relationship with by suddenly cutting off communication). I also like LITHUANIA. Challenged my geographical knowledge (totally forgot the capital was Vilnius). This is the sixth LITHUANIA appearance in NYTXW history. There was once a 56-year gap between LITHUANIA appearances (1953-2009). Not a fun fact, exactly, but a weird one.

No real challenge today for the Downs-only solver (i.e. me). Took a few inferred crosses for me to pick up LITHUANIA, as I say. I idiotically wanted "FIRED" and "RILED" before having a massive "Duh" + D'oh!" moment with "SHOOK" (26D: "All ___ Up" (Elvis #1 hit)). [Bogeymen] seem like something other, something more specific than MONSTERS, so that also took some crossing. Otherwise, no issues. Saw right through the "trick" clue at 1D: Firing offense? (ARSON), and mostly cruised the rest of the way.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Like a video with an inflated view count, maybe / SUN 10-25-26 / Dal ___ (musical notation) / Stark sister from Winterfell / Artistic designs that glow under black light / Cover letters, say? / Zipper up vis-à-vis zipper down? / Blazer vis-à-vis a windbreaker? / Peridot vis-à-vis jade? / Man's name that means "prosperous" in Arabic / Typical landing page, online / NFL'er with horns on his helmet

Constructor: Dylan Schiff and John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Relatively Speaking" — familiar phrases that begin with -ER words are clued as if those words are comparative adjectives:

Theme answers:

• LITTERBUG (22A: Firefly vis-à-vis a fruit fly?) (because fireflies are "bugs" that are more "lit" than fruit flies)
• OLIVER STONE (24A: Peridot vis-à-vis jade?) (... Peridot is a "stone" that is more "olive" than jade)
• BUTCHER BLOCK (34A: Muscle Beach vis-à-vis Venice Beach?) (... Muscle Beach is a "block"[???!] that is more "butch" [rly?] than Venice Beach)
• LIGHTER FLUID (49A: Oil vis-à-vis water?) (... oil is a "fluid" that is "lighter" than water)
• SHUTTERFLY (63A: Zipper up vis-à-vis zipper down?) (... zipper up is a "fly" position that is more "shut" than zipper down)
• BUFFER ZONE (67A: Weight room vis-à-vis the cardio room?) (... a weight room is a "zone" that ... uh ... has more "buff" people in it than a cardio room does [rly?])
• EASTER ISLAND (82A: Maui vis-à-vis Oahu?) (... Maui is an "island" that is farther "east" than Oahu) 
• BOMBER JACKET (94A: Blazer vis-à-vis a windbreaker?) (... a blazer is a "jacket" that is ... uh ... somehow more "bomb" [infinite "?!?] than a windbreaker is)
• SOONER STATE (109A: Delaware vis-à-vis the other 12 colonies?) (... Delaware was made a "state" more "soon" than any other state)
• HYPERTEXT (111A: "OMG THIS IS AWESOME!!!!" vis-à-vis "good job i guess"?) (... that first all-caps bit is "text" that is ... more "hype" [again, I say, "!???"] ... than the latter all lower-case bit)

Word of the Day: Yokokimthurston (46A: Music artist on the 2012 album "Yokokimthurston" => ONO) —

Yokokimthurston (stylized in all caps) is a collaborative album by Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, released by Chimera Music on September 25, 2012. "Early in the Morning" was released as a single, on June 5, 2012. The cover is from a Kim Gordon painting. // According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Yokokimthurston received "mixed or average reviews" based on a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 from 13 critic scores. On another aggregator AnyDecentMusic?, it was given an average of 4.3 out of 10 based on 8 reviews. (wikipedia) // "But if a collaboration between these three was inevitable, its timing is uncanny: It represents Moore and Gordon's first musical release together since announcing their separation after 27 years of marriage. While it would be overly presumptuous to believe that Moore and Gordon's union here has any bearing on the future of their relationship, it's heartening that they've chosen to spend this moment of their lives with Ono, a woman who understands all too well the difficult dance between creativity and matrimony. As such, YOKOKIMTHURSTON is not so much a decibel-bursting showcase for the Queen of Noise and her unruly understudies as a conversation between intimates speaking in tongues and tangles-- a voyeuristic glimpse into a private, discomfiting exchange." (pitchfork) [ed.: Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore are founding members of the seminal noise rock / post-punk band Sonic Youth]

• • •

Visceral negative reaction to this one. Much of the fill is just off-putting to me on a personal level. AI SLOP will never not be slop, Scott BAIO is a noted right-wing ****wit (sharer of Sandy Hook conspiracy memes—among other disgusting fringe lunacy—and alleged molester of his underage costar), and BOTTED can absolutely shoot itself into the sun, the SOONER the better (94D: Like a video with an inflated view count, maybe). What a horrible awful no-good very bad "word." BOTTED. BOTTED. That is a life de-affirming "word." I can barely look at it (it's a debut, of course). I refuse to believe UV TATTOOS are real. No, I believe they're real, but I hate that I now know they exist. What are ... what ... why? (3D: Artistic designs that glow under black light). Straining for a "cool" "modern" answer and coming up with ear-rotting eye-bleeding garbage. I do not understand the sensibility. But the bigger problem for me today was the theme, which ... when it worked, it worked, but when it didn't, boy did it not. There are several things I just can't get my brain around. The first is the idea that a "beach" is a "BLOCK." Maybe both the beaches in that clue (34A) take up exactly one city block, is that right? Or is "BLOCK" here just "a BLOCK of land, such as a beach"? In which case ... what??? Also, is one beach really "butcher" than the other? Do "muscles" make you "butch?" What do the people of Venice Beach look like? Waifish? Terminology is not computing. I actually think BUFFER ZONE works better for the beach clue than it does for the gym clue (67A). Like, a lot better, since in the gym clue, it's not the gyms themselves but the people in them that are more or less "buff." But I guess that's true of the beaches too. You see how messy this all is.

But I haven't even gotten to the two themers that make the least sense to me. HYPERTEXT ... how can something be "more hype"? I get that there is more hype (i.e. enthusiasm) involved in an all-caps "text" than an all-lowercase one, but these "-ER" words are supposed to be comparative adjectives and ... if "hype" is an adjective, then I am too old to know it. And I'll say the same thing about "bomb." Moreso. I've heard of something being "the bomb," as in cool or fashionable, but if something is "bomb" it's ... what? A blazer is more bomb than a windbreaker? Is it an issue of formality?  I am both at sea and ASEA (88: Not on solid ground). It's completely possible that there's just some Gen Z slang, some bending of pre-existing slang that I don't get, or hear, or whatever, but my god BOMBER and HYPER are fingernailing the chalkboard of my soul. I thought some of the theme answers actually worked pretty nicely—the ones that involved totally made-up comparative adjectives, like LITTER and OLIVER and SHUTTER and EASTER. The whole concept loses a little of its pizzazz when the -ER word is already a comparative adjective (e.g. SOONER, LIGHTER). But it's the beach answer and especially the BUFFER and HYPER answers that really did this one in.

ENOCH EZRA EYRE EIRE ARYA ONO UMA EVITE. There, I got that out of my system. Why are you hiding the gender of the FANGIRL in that clue??? (68D: One displaying enthusiastic devotion). So weird. Crossing "UH, NO" and "OH, OK"—not OK. SIGN crossing SEGNO, not much better. Cross-referencing them doesn't make me like SEGNO any better (37A: Dal ___ (musical notation)). Let's play some Dolly Parton and move on to bullet points:

[96D: Dolly Parton classic]

Bullets:

• 73A: Man's name that means "prosperous" in Arabic (YASIR) — one of the tougher names in the grid, made tougher by the fact that I had FERROUS running through there (instead of FERRITE) and I have no idea who EZRA Jack Keats is. With one cross an error and the other a mystery, YASIR took more effort than most things in this grid.
• 18D: Cover letters, say? (TEACH) — oof. I love when I figure out the "?" clue and it's clever or funny. This was not one of those times. TEACH KINDERGARTEN, maybe (in what other teaching context would you "cover letters"?). But just TEACH? Boo. I hiss at that answer.
• 39D: Richard who had his first starring role in 1978's "Days of Heaven" (GERE) — a beautiful man, a beautiful movie. Also a beautiful man—Oliver Reed in The Devils (1971), which has been rereleased and is in theaters now (I saw it yesterday). What a shocking, funny, fantastic film.

• 80D: Typical landing page, online (HOME) — why did you need to go "online" yet again for this one? Was AISLOP and BOTTED not enough? Can we not just let HOME be ... somewhere else? Something likable? Anywhere non-digital? That would be nice.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Jeff Chen wants you to know that he has recently launched two daily word games: Pair Down and Squeezy. If you're looking to add more word games to your daily menu, give them a try. They're fun.  

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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