Prohibited in Islam / TUE 5-5-26 / MLB stadium demolished in 2009 / Flightless bird from South America / Intermittently offered fast-food pork sandwich / 2016 Ariana Grande love song / Motorcyclist's invitation / Figure in a school pep rally / Media misinformation

Constructor: Max Schlenker

Relative difficulty: Challenging (***for a Tuesday***)

THEME: It's a snap, a cinch, etc. — phrases meaning "it's easy" that follow the [It's a ___] pattern are meant to be taken literally, so that the answer is a literal example of whatever fills in the blank in [It's a ___]:

Theme answers:

• LADYFINGER (18A: It's a piece of cake)
• SIMON SAYS (27A: It's child's play)
• HEADLESS HORSEMAN (42A: It's a no-brainer)
• TRADEWIND (52A: It's a breeze)
• NATURE HIKE (67A: It's a walk in the park)

Word of the Day: RAMBO (53D: Title role for Sylvester Stallone) —

Rambo is an American media franchise centered on a series of action films featuring John J. Rambo. The five films are First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), Rambo (2008), and Rambo: Last Blood (2019). Its titular protagonist is a United States Army Special Forces veteran played by Sylvester Stallone, whose Vietnam War experience traumatized him but also gave him superior military skills, which he has used to fight corrupt police officers, enemy troops and drug cartels. First Blood is an adaptation of the 1972 novel First Blood by David Morrell.

Though critical reception was mixed, the film series has grossed $819 million in total, $300 million of which is from the most successful film, Rambo: First Blood Part II. Sylvester Stallone is the only actor to have appeared in all five films in the franchise. Stallone co-wrote the screenplays of all five films, and directed Rambo (2008), the fourth film of the series. The franchise also spawned an animated series, as well as comic books, novels and video games. (wikipedia)

• • •

I think the theme is actually fine. Tougher than the usual Tuesday theme by its very nature—the actual answers don't have anything in common and you have to think figuratively every time, finding a single element inside a very broad category each time—but clever. Would've been right at home on a Wednesday, I think, but I'm not mad about the above-average Tuesday difficulty of the theme. What I am mad about is ... well, two things, and if you can't guess what those two are, then you must be new here, welcome, hello, this is a crossword blog that I write every day. So, firstly, the fill—this may be the worst-filled puzzle I've seen this year, not because any one answer is so bad (well ... there's one, but we'll get to that), but because once the crosswordese avalanche gets going, it never ever ever stops. It just picks up steam, rolling all over the grid, from top to bottom, and seemingly getting bigger along the way. Usually if the fill is so weak that I stop to take a grid picture early, that's a bad sign. Today, I stopped not once, not twice, but three times, because I couldn't believe that every single nook and cranny of this puzzle was going to be stuffed with tired repeaters, and yet ... the puzzle kept surprising me. I could've stopped very early, in the NW corner, where ORAL ARAL TADA LLAMA were already crowding the grid with their mustiness, but I decided to let it ride. But then, after HOOHA and then, on the other side of the grid, ODESSA and SKEE, I'd had enough.

Later, after the NARC ONCD and the ASHY RHEA, I re-had enough:

And then re-re-had enough down below, where the avalanche finally buried me alive, such that I couldn't even see the theme any more. The theme didn't matter because the short fill had suffocated me.

They brought back the IKEA MCRIB for this thing!? And an EPEE? And this is before the puzzle closed out with a NEATO ETUDE at the REN fest, not to mention the EMCEE ETS. And that middle. TSO THY LOOS. Ruthless. This puzzle was ruthless with its short gunk. How is anyone supposed to enjoy the interesting theme when the (oversized!) grid has not been properly attended to and cared for? 

But the real dealbreaker today was FAKE NEWS (26D: Media misinformation). F*** that guy and his stupid f***ing catchphrases and the whole right-wing project to discredit journalists and destroy journalism as a resource in this country. F*** him and SARAH Palin and Sylvester f***ing Stallone and his RAMBO bullshit. There is no neutral way to clue FAKE NEWS. That is a phrase popularized by one dude—one singularly amoral and incompetent dude—and then amplified by the worst bunch of sycophants this country has ever seen. As for Palin: there are many many SARAHs out there, and so few of them are national embarrassments, why not use one of those? I was gonna let that clue slide, though, until I hit FAKE NEWS, which I will never let slide. And then at the end of the puzzle, to run across one of the most famous megafans of the current White House resident—and in his stupid fake-he-man RAMBO costume no less—too much. I normally wouldn't have given RAMBO a second thought, but today? After the intentional rightwing boosterism? No. All too much. Hard no. I don't solve the puzzle in a vacuum. I solve it as an American citizen alive and kicking in 2026, so yeah, smearing that guy and his lackeys all over the puzzle does in fact make a difference as to how I feel about the puzzle. Overreacting?Too sensitive?  Great. I'm fine with those accusations. Someone should be sensitive.

DATUM!? Rueful LOL. Sorry, the fill, it just hurts so much. DATUM is one of those "words" that will occasionally (recently?) trip me up when I play Quordle because I forget that it is, in fact, a "word." I didn't struggle much with DATUM, but I did struggle elsewhere a bit. FAVE for GOTO (1A: Tried-and-true choice, informally). I balked at both OLYMPIAD and HARAM, the former because OLYMPIAD didn't seem particularly mathy-sciencey—aren't the regular Olympics called an OLYMPIAD?—and the latter because even though my brain wanted HARAM, I didn't trust it. "Are you just making up a word that kinda / sorta sounds like HALAL, brain?" Apparently not. HOMERUNS was a bit of a toughie as clued (23D: Undeniable successes). Took me several crosses to get the MASCOT part of TEAM MASCOT (31D: Figure in a school pep rally). KETTLES, also tricky (35A: Ones always blowing off steam?). These clues, and the oversized grid, made sure that my time was much slower than usual today (I don't actually time myself anymore, I could just tell).

Bullets:

• 10A: Motorcyclist's invitation ("HOP ON!") — one of the few breaths of fresh air among the short fill. A nice, zippy, colloquial phrase. "HOP ON! We're going to IDAHO!" (a beautiful place—where my mother grew up and where my grandmother lived her whole life)
• 46A: 2016 Ariana Grande love song ("INTO YOU") — another thing that slowed me down. If I've heard this song, I've forgotten it. What I know about ARIANA GRANDE is that both halves of her name appear in crosswords a lot, particularly the shortened form of her first name (ARI). 

• 72A: "OMG, same!" ("TOTES!") — are people still saying this? Did they ever? Real "IT'S LIT" energy here. 
• 73A: About 50.7% of all Americans (WOMEN) — reflexively started writing in ASIAN here until I looked at the clue a little closer. Subset of "Americans" + super-common five-letter answer = ASIAN(S). Or so says brain, anyway, when brain is on autopilot.

That's all for today. Happy Cinco de Mayo. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Traditional circular dwelling / MON 5-4-26 / Culinary personality Lakshmi / Suddenly feels repulsed by a romantic partner / Slogan encouraging the use of seatbelts / Simple game requiring steady hands / Fasten, as a ship's rope / 2017 Pixar film set in Mexico

Constructor: Kate Schutzengel

Relative difficulty: Easy? (I once again failed the Downs-only solve bec. wtf is an AMENITY KIT lol)

THEME: GETS THE ICK (58A: Suddenly feels repulsed by a romantic partner ... or a hint to 17-, 23-, 37- and 48-Across) — there are two "ICK"s in each theme answer

Theme answers:

• CHICK FLICK (17A: "Sleepless in Seattle" or "Legally Blonde," informally)
• BRICK BY BRICK (23A: Methodical way for something to be built)
• CLICK IT OR TICKET (37A: Slogan encouraging the use of seatbelts)
• PICK UP STICKS (48A: Simple game requiring steady hands)

Word of the Day: SKYE terrier (56D: Scottish terrier breed) —

 

Skye terrier, breed of dog that was originated as a hunter on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, and has remained relatively unchanged for about 400 years. In the 19th century the Skye was one of the most popular terriers and was used as a working dog as well as the pet of the nobility. It is characterized as sturdy, alert, and good-tempered. It has a large head, long body, and short legs, and its ears are either erect or hanging. The long, straight coat ranges from black to pale yellowish brown. Adult height is 9.5 to 10 inches (24 to 25 cm); weight is about 24 pounds (11 kg). (britannica.com)

• • •

Two problems. One is a me problem, I guess: I have never heard of this expression. It's so ... depressing, somehow. People get suddenly repulsed by their romantic partners??? I mean, I get that things can go sour, but sudden repulsion? When did people start saying this? It's awful. Anyway, I'll just assume that everyone's been saying it for years and I am hopelessly old and happily married and therefore out of the loop, fine. But there's the second problem, which is much, much more of a problem: how does the revealer work, exactly? I mean, there are two "icks" in each theme answer, I see that, but how does GETS THE ICK "hint" at that fact, exactly. You aren't adding "ick" to anything; the icks are just ... there. In the words that they are in. There's no "getting" of anything. And there are two icks ... why? The revealer is GETS THE ICK, singular. But there are two. For no particular reason that I can see. So it's off on two counts: the "gets" part makes no sense, and there's more than one "ick." If the phrase were GETS THE ICKS ... well, we'd be closer to a functional revealer, but still not there. It's honestly bizarre to me that this puzzle was accepted, as it simply doesn't ... work. The theme answers themselves are colorful enough, with CLICK IT OR TICKET being particularly lively, and definitely middle-of-the-grid-worthy. But conceptually, this thing is D.O.A. 

Also D.O.A.—my attempt to solve this thing Downs-only. I laughed out loud, and continue to laugh out loud, at AMENITY KIT, a phrase I am learning Just Now, despite my having literally spent Thursday and Friday nights in a hotel! I was mentally scanning the hotel room and bathroom while trying to imagine what ___ KIT could be. The only KIT I could think of was a SHAVING KIT. Also, I (wrongly) inferred LUMEN instead of LUMET at 30A, and that "N" really added to my troubles. There finally ended up being too many letters that I had to infer that weren't clearly inferable, and none of them were helping me see AMENITY. G-PS, A-AT, L-NA, LUME-, -RS ... I couldn't fill any of these GAPS (!!!) confidently enough to begin to get a handle on AMENITY. Ah well. That's the danger of Downs-only solving; sometimes you crash and burn. I just wish I'd crashed and burned on something more interesting than AMENITY KIT (a debut answer, unsurprisingly). [validation!—I went downstairs and saw that my wife, also a Downs-only Monday solver, had the entire puzzle finished ... except AMENITY KIT]

SKIPS SCHOOL sounds more natural to me than SKIPS CLASS (29D: Plays hooky), but ... maybe I'm just responding to the alliteration. SKIP(S) CLASS is definitely a thing. Way more of a thing than AMENITY KIT. Besides AMENITY KIT, I didn't have any trouble with the Downs-only solve. Just little stuff. BLAST for BLARE (25D: Play loudly, as from a speaker). MCAT saved me from inferring POP TOP instead of MOP TOP (47D: Exam for a future doc), which would not have occurred to me. Not much left to talk about in this grid besides the short overfamiliar stuff (of which there is a lot). Oh, and IT'S LIT, an expression that somehow already sounds dated. LIT on its own, in this modern sense of "exciting" or "excellent" ("fire"), seems fine on its own, but somehow "IT'S LIT" sounds contrived, like a parent trying to convince their teenager to go to church because the pastor plays guitar or something. "You'll love it, honey. All the kids say that it's really lit!" Now that we've established that it sounds corny, I really want to teach an introductory literature course called "IT'S LIT!" We will read exclusively about things that are on fire (Fahrenheit 451!), or else people who are drunk (Gatsby!). Or maybe, ironically, we'll read "The Little Match Girl." Too morbid? Possibly.

Bullets:

• 17A: "Sleepless in Seattle" or "Legally Blonde" (CHICK FLICK) — still not the hugest fan of this term, which sounds like a derogatory thing guys say about movies that they wouldn't be interested in because they're "for girls." Sleepless in Seattle and Legally Blonde are both good movies. It would not occur to me to call either a "CHICK FLICK."
• 26D: Traditional circular dwelling (YURT) — "Traditional" not really giving you a lot. Maybe add an adjective or something ("Mongolian!"), if only for color.
• 64A: Fasten, as a ship's rope (BELAY) — it gets a little nautical down below, with BELAY following hard on the heels of MAST (62A: Pole on a sailboat). BELAY is obviously the much more technical term. I think it's a rock-climbing term, too, isn't it? Yes.
• 1D: 2017 Pixar film set in Mexico (COCO) — I'm learning that COCO is by far the dominant four-letter animated film in crosswords. You'd think it would be ELIO, but ... I guess that movie wasn't popular enough. 

• 39D: Reassurance after a loud crash, say ("I'M OK!") —maybe the best clue I've seen for "I'M OK." Paints a vivid picture.
• 48D: Culinary personality Lakshmi (PADMA) — "Culinary personality" is such a weird phrase. "Hey, I met this new woman and I really like her! She's beautiful!" "What's her personality like?" "Uh ... culinary?" "Is she a chef?" "... maybe?" Lakshmi is the creator, host, and executive producer of Taste the Nation with PADMA Lakshmi.

• 7D:  Sound effect for a bop on the head (BOINK!) — maybe my favorite part of the puzzle. I have a smiley face drawn next to it. I'm also fond of YOINK!

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

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