Teacher's pet, say, in slang / WED 10-21-26 / ___ saltado (Peruvian stir-fry dish) / Tender bend-er / Fabulous, in slang / Bird that gives pebbles as a courtship gesture / Crop whose trade contributed to the Opium Wars / Chemical suffix that indicates a double bond / Actress Dowd of "The Handmaid's Tale"

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: report card — clues are courses and grades; answers are familiar phrases that would seem to describe them:

Theme answers:

• PARKING FINE (17A: Driver's Ed: B)
• MOVING AVERAGE (28A: Gym: B+)
• BUILDING SUPER (42A: Wood shop: A)
• PAST PERFECT (56A: History: A+)

Word of the Day: LOMO saltado (39A: ___ saltado (Peruvian stir-fry dish)) —

Lomo saltado is a traditional Peruvian dish, a stir-fry that typically combines marinated strips of sirloin (or other beef steak) with onions, tomatoes, french fries, and other ingredients, and is typically served with rice. The dish originated as part of the chifa tradition, the Chinese cuisine of Peru, though its popularity has made it part of the mainstream culture. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm stuck on MOVING AVERAGE. Like, really stuck. First off, there's the "moving" part, which took me forever because I was looking for a gym activity, the way PARKING is a driver's ed activity, not an extremely vague general term for what one does in gym class. That was weird. But the real issue for me is the AVERAGE part. When did B+ become AVERAGE. I mean, let's all acknowledge that grade inflation is real, still, I have never seen any association between "B+" and AVERAGE. Even saying "B" is FINE is kinda weird and non-intuitive. But "B+" = average? There's no official or unofficial precedent for that, that I know of, and I've been putting grades on things for thirty years. Is there some kind of math in-joke here about grade inflation, i.e. that the "average" has "moved" over time from "C" (official "average") to B+ ("average" in practice)? I just can't square "B+ and AVERAGE. The latter two themers work much better than the first two. I believe that "A" = SUPER (despite the informality of that term) and "A+" = PERFECT, and BUILDING and PAST seem like very good descriptions of what one does in Wood shop and what one studies in History. But PARKING FINE is strange because PARKING is just one small element of Driver's Ed. The other themers have words that describe the totality of what's done or studied (MOVING, BUILDING, PAST), whereas PARKING is just a fragment. The theme seems half-busted to me today, despite the cleverness of the concept.

The puzzle was also way harder than I expected in parts. The entire NW was a bust for me at first. KISS-UP, yikes. I had -SUP at one point and still no idea. And KAPUT means "dead" to me. [Wrecked] is adjacent, but not really dead on, so those "K" crosses, oof. Killed me. Also, the cutesy injoke clue on IRATE meant nothing to me. Long clue that I didn't really understand (2D: Like a passionate solver discovering a filled-in airline magazine crossword, say). "Passionate" to IRATE, not a distance I was able to travel. IRATE seems insane, not "passionate." People solve the crosswords. That's what they're there fore. Yeesh. I always like finding a solve (or, more typically, partially solved) crossword in an in-flight magazine. You really learn ... a lot. About what people do ... and sometimes shockingly do not ... know. If not for the Münch painting up in that corner, I would've been really stuck. Another brutal clue: 26A: Tender bend-er (BUM KNEE). I am so confused about why there is a hyphen in "bend-er." Also, why there is no "?" on this clue, since it's clearly playing on "fender bender" (see how you don't hyphenate "bender"!!). I would not have minded this clue: [Tender bender?]. Still would've been tough, but at the least the punctuation would've made sense. I thought "Tender" was money, so I was quite lost. It's a cute clue, but confusing. 

Another difficulty: LOMO, which is quickly becoming neo-crosswordese, though since I still can't remember it, ever, it clearly hasn't achieved that status yet (this is its third NYTXW appearance, all since 2023). Stop convincing yourself that a partial Peruvian dish is good fill (LOMO means "spine" (?)—it seems to refer to the cut of beef: loin or tenderloin). Also, UTA, which was already crosswordese (see UTA Hagen), now apparently has a new clue. If only I knew the Mammoth played in UTAh. What an awful way to abbr. that state. More trouble with "WANNA SEE?," which did not clearly match its clue (37D: "Are you ready for this?"). If those colloquial imagined-speech clues don't land perfectly, they get very tough. I had fewer problems with the equally hyper-colloquial "IT'S LEGIT" (12D: "That checks out"). The clue on ACED, also tough in this odd adjectival form (52A: Like a tennis player who didn't even swing). I had ACHY. Made sense at the time. My boat had a SEA DECK before it had a SUN DECK (41D: Open-air part of a cruise ship). Very hard for me to get from [Nutrition sources] to DIETS. It's accurate enough, but again, the phrasing just felt ... odd. 

Bullets:

• 47A: Chemical suffix that indicates a double bond (ENE) — ugh, chemical suffixes. Bottom-rung fill. ENE is never going to be "good," so just make it a direction. Have fun with maps! [Memphis-to-Nashville dir.], something like that. Chemical suffix? Meh.
• 24A: Crop whose trade contributed to the Opium Wars (TEA) — one of those answers that I get in retrospect but that I absolutely did Not get during the solve. "Crop" "uh ... POPPIES? No? I'm out." 
• 61A: Stephen King's telekinetic teen of horror (CARRIE) — easy, but again, I do not understand the clue-writing at all. There's absolutely no need for "of horror" here. It's Stephen King. His name already says "horror." If you know CARRIE at all, you know what genre you're in. [Stephen King's telekinetic teen] is concise and has a beautiful rhythm to it. "Of horror" kills that, and for no good reason. Nobody's in danger of thinking CARRIE is [Stephen King's telekinetic teen of romantic comedy]. Come on. This is a harmless issue, but come on. 

• 6D: Bird that gives pebbles as a courtship gesture (PENGUIN) — I love bird clues but man this could've been anything as far as I was concerned. Luckily, by the time I saw the clue, I had the "-NGU-" in place, so no problem. 
• 9D: Actress Dowd of "The Handmaid's Tale" (ANN) — actress I've never heard of on show I've never seen and have no desire to see (I read the book, I'm good). Crosses were easy, ANN was inferable. no harm no foul.
• 50D: Fellow crew member (MATEY) —a [Fellow crew member] is a MATE. "MATEY" is some pirate-y, Popeye-esque slang, isn't it? I've only heard it in fictional contexts. The dictionary (m-w) has MATEY as an adjective ("companionable, sociable"). Every MATEY clue before this seems to have understood and appreciated and *indicated* the slanginess:

[xwordinfo]

• 38D: Fabulous, in slang (DOPE) — I went blank. With DO- staring at me, my brain completely emptied out. When I eventually got DOPE, I thought "... that's obvious. Why didn't you think of that immediately, you DOPE?" But I was talking to an empty brain, so ... no reply.

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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"Fire-breather" in the night sky / TUE 10-20-26 / Letter-shaped part of a blueprint / Old-time winter excursion / Las ___, Canary Islands / Improvised instrument in folk music / One who says "Hell if I know!"? / Pugilist's pain point perhaps / Relatively short Morse code bit

Constructor: David Falkowski

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "ALL KIDDING ASIDE..." (38A: "Seriously, though ..." or a hint to 17-, 25-, 48 and 58-Across) — familiar phrases ending in words that can mean "kid" (as in "tease"):

Theme answers:

• WEENIE ROAST (17A: Campfire cookout, informally)
• SLEIGH RIDE (25A: Old-time winter excursion)
• BRUISE RIB (48A: Pugilist's pain point, perhaps)
• SPACE NEEDLE (58A: Seattle landmark from which Mount Rainier can be seen)

Word of the Day: Las PALMAS (1A: Las ___, Canary Islands) —

Las Palmas (UK: /ˌlæs ˈpælməs, - ˈpɑːl-/, US: /ˌlɑːs ˈpɑːlməs, -mɑːs/; Spanish: [las ˈpalmas]), officially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of the Canary Islands in Spain. With a population of 383,516 as of 2024, it is the ninth-largest city in Spain. It is also the fifth-most populous urban area in Spain and, depending on sources, ninth or tenth most populous metropolitan area in Spain. [...] The city was founded by Juan Rejón on 24 June 1478, with the name "Real de Las Palmas". Rejón was head of the invading Castilian army, which then engaged in war with the locals. // The struggle lasted for a period of five years, costing a great number of lives, especially on the aboriginal side, which lacked sufficient means to defend itself against the armies sent by the Catholic monarchs. Even so, resistance was fierce. The end of the conquest came in 1483, with the incorporation of the island into the Crown of Castile by Pedro de Vera, who managed to subjugate the natives of Gáldar in the northwest of the island. [...] In 1492, Christopher Columbus (Spanish: Cristóbal Colón) anchored in the port of Las Palmas for a repair of the rudder of his ship Pinta and spent some time on the neighbour island on his first trip to the Americas. [...] In 1595, Francis Drake tried to plunder the town, leading to the Battle of Las Palmas. A Dutch raid under vice-admiral Pieter van der Does in 1599 was only slightly more successful; some of the town was destroyed, but the raiders were repelled. (wikipedia)

• • •

"ALL KIDDING ASIDE" is a great gridspanner and would seem to be a promising revealer, but as far as execution goes, there's one main problem: the "aside" part. There's nothing particularly "aside" about the kidding here. We're dealing with a basic "phrases that end with"-type theme, where the last words in the theme phrases have something in common. I am having trouble seeing anything particularly "side"-y about the last word in a phrase. Yes, the last word is on one "side" of its phrase, but when you're dealing with two-word phrases, every word is always at all times on some "side" of the phrase. The "kidding" words aren't even touching the "side" of the grid half the time. So I feel like I'm missing something crucial about what "ASIDE" is supposed to mean in this context. I also think "KIDDING" is a lot more jocular and lighthearted than what you do when you RIDE or NEEDLE someone, but that's a tonal mismatch that I could easily tolerate and probably wouldn't have been as distracted by if the "ASIDE" part of the theme had been handled more adeptly. 

The fill on this one also felt old. A little stale, but also old in its entire frame of reference. The advertising language alone felt ancient. Are they still using "Hello, MOTO" in ads? And ROLAIDS? That whole idea of "spelling relief" ("R-O-L-A-I-D-S") was a thing when I was a kid, but again, I didn't know it was still around (wow, it's still around). Both those references felt ancient. Morse code always makes a puzzle feel old (no one has even liked writing DIT in the grid; DIT and DAH, always unwelcome). The very idea of a WEENIE ROAST or a SLEIGH RIDE seems quaint and old-fashioned. Raging Bull is a legendary movie but even that is 46 years old now. And then much of the fill felt a little tired (ECIG, COATI, AXELS, ELL, ADOS, DIT, MOTO, ADOUT, OGLED). There's virtually nothing about the puzzle that suggests that it was made in this century. There's Michelle Kwan, I guess, but her competitive skating career ended sometime in the mid-aughts. Oh, there's gymnast Suni LEE. She's more recent. I just wish the puzzle felt a little more "now" and was a little ZANIER. GARBANZO is always a fun word. I want to like SEEMS BAD, but I think that's because I'm hearing it as a social media post—as an understated two-word commentary on a posted story that is in fact manifestly bad. But overall this fell a little short for me, at both the theme and fill levels.

Bullets:

• 30A: Flattering lines? (ODE) — no idea why this has a "?" on it. "Fun" fact!: with the question mark on it, this clue is a debut (!?!?!?!). It's been used three times before, but never with a question mark (For the record, this is the 950th ODE all time, the 521st in the Shortz Era). Since the other, non-"?" instances of [Flattering lines] occurred on later-week puzzles, maybe the idea is that on Tuesday, the solver needs ... I don't know. Some hint that the clue is a play on words? But is it a play on words? I don't really see it. [side note: I just learned that when xwordinfo gives you counts of all the times a clue has been used before, it does not distinguish between "?" and non-"?" versions of that clue—so, for instance, it indicated that [Flattering lines?] had been used four ("(4)") times, when in fact, with that "?," it had been used just this once. Gotta say, if you add a "?," I think it should count as a different clue]
• 42A: One who says "Hell if I know!"? (SATAN) — I get it, SATAN lives in hell, but I don't see how the "if I know" part really evokes .. anything. 

• 51D: "Fire-breather" in the night sky (DRACO) — hardest answer in the puzzle for me. I guess "fire-breather" was supposed to make me think of a dragon, which was supposed to remind me of the constellation DRACO, but not being a constellation aficionado, I had no idea there was a constellation named DRACO. I've probably seen it referred to in past puzzles, but it didn't stick. I never want to see another Harry Potter clue in my life, but it's true that such a clue would've made this answer a lot easier. Ah well, I'm happy to pay the difficulty price. And now I know DRACO is a constellation. Or I reknow it. Either way.

Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is derived from the Latin word for dragon. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. The north pole of the ecliptic is in Draco. Draco is circumpolar from northern latitudes, meaning that it never sets and can be seen at any time of year. (wikipedia)

• 53D: Shenzi in "The Lion King," e.g. (HYENA) — I take it back—this was the hardest clue for me. I thought Shenzi was an actor, lol. I have had to learn a lot of Lion King names (wasn't NALA in the puzzle just yesterday?), but if I've seen Shenzi before, wow did I forget it today.

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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