Yellowish color for old computer graphics / TUE 2-24-26 / Tiny swine / Brew that's a little cloudy and fruity / Utter rubbish / President of China beginning in 2013 / Supermodel Hadid

Constructor: Adam Aaronson

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

THEME: e.g. — every theme clue ends with "e.g.," and every theme answer has the initials "E.G.":

Theme answers:

• ETHNIC GROUP (17A: Nuyoricans, e.g.)
• ELECTRIC GUITAR (24A: Fender Strato caster, e.g.)
• EL GRECO (36A: "The Disrobing of Christ," e.g.)
• ENDOCRINE GLAND (50A: Thyroid, e.g.)
• EVENING GOWN (59A: Dress for a soirée, e.g.)

Word of the Day: Nuyoricans (see 17A) — 

Nuyorican is a portmanteau word blending "New York" (or "Nueva York" in Spanish) and "Puerto Rican," referring to Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, their culture, or their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the New York metropolitan area). This term is sometimes used for Puerto Ricans living in other areas in the Northeastern US Mainland outside New York State as well. The term is also used by Islander Puerto Ricans (Puerto Ricans from Puerto Rico) to differentiate those of Puerto Rican descent from the Puerto Rico-born. (wikipedia)

• • •

Feels like it's been a while since I thought the editors misjudged the level of difficulty in this direction—that is, since a puzzle felt harder than average for its day of the week. But this one, yeah, this one felt like a Wednesday, for sure. Spelling XI JINPING alone was a total adventure (31D: President of China beginning in 2013), then there was the toughish (for me) clues on EL GRECO and AMBER (I had OCHER (?)) (6A: Yellowish color for old computer graphics) and BOO (8D: Honeybun) (so many three-letter "Honeybun"s out there), and then the supermodel I don't know (GIGI), the ARM/AIM thing (43A / 33D: Asset for a thrower), the WHEAT part of WHEAT BEER. All of this was gettable, it just took more time than most Tuesdays take. More "what?," more hacking around until the letters fell into place. And it didn't just take more time to solve—it also took more time for me to understand the theme. Not a ton of time, just ... some. At the end, I could see that all the themers had "E.G." as their initials, but ... why? I kept looking for a revealer, but ... nothing. "E.g., e.g., where would you put the 'e.g.' in a puzzle like this?" Well, duh. The clues. I had not noticed that every clue ended in e.g. because crossword clues end in e.g. all the time—it's not a distinctive feature. So that little twist—turning a perfectly ordinary clue element into a theme element—was surprising. Clever. Again, more characteristic of later week puzzles. But I appreciated the "oh!" moment. 

'Mainly I was just relieved that there was a revealer (of a sort). Because before that, I was thinking "uh ... just having E.G. initials is not enough. Not themeworthy." The cluing conceit gives the E.G. stuff purpose. It's a neat little trick. During the solve, my ideas about what the theme might be were all over the map. At first, I noticed that both ETHNIC GROUP and ELECTRIC GUITAR feature an "ICG" letter string broken across their two words. But then EL GRECO broke up that pattern. By the time I got ENDOCRINE GLAND, I was like "is there 'CRINGE' in every answer? Anagrammed? For some reason?" But no, that didn't check out either. I don't necessarily enjoy fumbling around like that, but I did think it was kinda cute the way the "e.g." in the theme clues was eventually like "hey, hey there ... you missed me. I'm right in front of your damned face."

The fill today wasn't really on my wavelength or in my pleasure zone (... sorry, that sounds erotic, I won't ever say it again ...), but at least it's not dull. I don't really know what a MINIPIG is (46A: Tiny swine). I assume it's a small pig. Maybe a pet? I also hate / never hear the term AUTOBIO (30A: Self-written life story, informally). Just say the word, yeesh. Maybe it's a written and not a spoken thing? Neither of these "words" is really my thing, but I see them trying, and I appreciate the effort, esp. on a Tuesday. The fill was not promising right out of the gate—any time I stop to take a picture of the NW corner, that is a bad sign. A sign that the fill annoyed me so much I needed to document it:

I'd recommend that if you have a particularly rough corner in your grid, you not call attention to the problem by literally labeling it DRECK (1A: Utter rubbish). Looking at it now, it doesn't seem so bad, but DMED and RETIE back-to-back set my "no, make it stop" alarm off early. Once I got momentum going, the uglier stuff (your ENTs and your laugh syllables and your PCHELP, etc.) didn't bug me as much because I blew right through it. There's something kind of ugly about the mash-up of EVEVEVEVE material in the south. EVE crossing EVENING crossing VEE crossing LEVEE (crossing LEVIES!!!?). Need some air down there. Way too same same (same same same). But the rest of the grid is lively and varied. This is one of those puzzles that wasn't really for me, but seemed well made overall. My gut said three stars, but my head was like "it's probably a little better than that, you should bump it? If only for being a little weird and kinda hard, you should bump it." So I bumped it.

Bullets:

• 36A: "The Disrobing of Christ," e.g. (EL GRECO) — using the artist's name as a descriptor of their work is completely conventional ("Is that a PICASSO!?"), but I was still expecting a general category here (like, I dunno, OIL PAINTING).

• 11D: Brew that's a little cloudy and fruity (WHEAT BEER) — I think the "fruity" part threw me. I didn't know that about WHEAT BEER. Of all the things that are "fruity" in this world, I'm not sure I would've placed WHEAT in that category. The "fruity" had me thinking "sour," but SOUR BEER wouldn't fit.
• 6A: Yellowish color for old computer graphics (AMBER) — as I said earlier, my first guess here was OCHER. What I did not say earlier: after MARDI gras forced OCHER out, my next move was not AMBER. It was UMBER. I don't even really remember what color UMBER is. I just remember the name from the "Burnt UMBER" crayon color among my Crayola crayons when I was a kid. Burnt umber is reddish. Straight up UMBER is pretty brown. If you squint and wish real hard, you can kinda see "yellowish" in there, but nah, it's pretty brown.

• 15A: Actress Watts of "The Friend" (NAOMI) — Easy (what other "Actress Watts" is there?) but my first response was "That's a strange way to clue her. What the hell movie is that?" Then I remembered: it's the NAOMI Watts / Bill Murray / Great Dane movie from a couple of years back that I really meant to see and never did. Read a whole (fascinating) article about that dog, and what it took to cast the dog and care for the dog during filming, etc. It was in the New Yorker, I think. (Yep, here it is). Really made me want to see the movie. And then I didn't. I hate when that happens. Guess I'll watch it now. On to the Letterboxd Watchlist it goes!

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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Psychotherapy switcheroos / MON 2-23-26 / South American barbecue / Time machine car in "Back to the Future" / Fruit with a "bellybutton" / Rude goodbye to an enemy / Text on a red, white and blue sticker / Root used in making poi / Object hitting people's heads in old cartoons / British singer Rita

Constructor: Hannah Binney

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: ROLE REVERSALS (37A: Psychotherapy switcheroos ... or what are hidden in 17-, 25-, 50- and 59-Across?) — "ROLE" appears backward in four answers:

Theme answers:

• BACHELOR PAD (17A: Home for a single guy)
• THE LORAX (25A: Dr. Seuss book with the quote "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.")
• DELOREAN (50A: Time machine car in "Back to the Future")
• NAVAL ORANGE (59A: Fruit with a "bellybutton")

Word of the Day: ASADO (54D: South American barbecue) —

Asado (Spanish: [aˈsaðo]) is the technique and the social event of having or attending a barbecue in various South American countries: especially Argentina and Uruguay where it is also a traditional event, as well as Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), Chile and Paraguay. An asado usually consists of beef, pork, chicken, chorizo, and morcilla, all of which are cooked using an open fire or a grill, called a parrilla. Usually, red wine and side dishes such as salads accompany the main meats, which are prepared by a designated cook called the asador or parrillero. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't think I've ever had less to say about a theme. Yes, those are "ROLE"s going backwards inside their answers. ROLE ... REVERSALS. Got it. Very literal. So literal, I can't believe it hasn't been done before. Oh look, it has: April 10, 2012 (NAVEL ORANGE was even one of the themers). Sigh. Look, no one is going to remember. *I* didn't even remember. I just have a sense about these things. But still, I do think the minimum due diligence a constructor should do before making a puzzle for the NYTXW is to run the revealer (and possibly a themer or two) through the NYTXW database to see if it's been done before. If it has, the whole thing should be D.O.A. Unless my idea radically improves on the core concept, I can't see trotting out a theme I know has been done before, even if I know almost no one's going to know. It would just feel bad. But I guess one way around not feeling bad about it is not checking at all. In that case, you might expect the editors to check. Maybe they did and didn't care. Seems possible. On the one hand, who cares, it's been a long time. On the other, there are constructors and aspiring constructors out there trying to get their puzzles published, getting rejection after rejection, and it must be at least slightly demoralizing to see some other constructor succeed with what is essentially a recycled theme. Anyway, the ROLEs, they go backward. Ho + hum. Would've been more impressive if the reversed ROLEs had broken across two words each time (as in THE LORAX or NAVEL ORANGE) instead of just half the time, but if we're not going for originality, we certainly aren't going for elegance. The grid is solid. It's a Monday. Whatever. Moving on.

The one thing that makes this puzzle stand out is "SEE YOU NEVER," a phrase I don't really get. I think I've heard it? Maybe? But it really doesn't sound like something you'd say to an "enemy." Maybe someone you don't care for and don't want to see again, but an "enemy" ... that's someone you're probably going to see again. That's someone you are involved with in some way. I want to like this phrase because of its originality, but I wouldn't use it and don't quite understand who would, so it's a bit of a miss for me. I think I'm just deeply disappointed that the answer wasn't what I really wanted it to be: "SEE YOU IN HELL!" Now that's got some real enemy energy to it.

The other long Down, LOBSTER TRAP, is also a standout (27D: Cage for crustaceans). Like "SEE YOU NEVER," it's an original. If you can't give 'em an original theme, at least give 'em original long Downs. That seems to be the theory today. For a five-themer puzzle, this one has pretty decent fill. Lots of short repeaters, I guess, but I've seen worse.

[41A: Text on a red, white and blue sticker]

The Downs-only experience was pretty much a cinch. There was a brief struggle with getting the phrasing on "SEE YOU NEVER" right, and "BOOYAH!" was not front of my brain either—needed several inferred crosses to pick that one up. Beyond that, though, there were very few problems. I had ASADA before ASADO and would never have discovered that error if PASED had been a thing (69A: Sat for a portrait = POSED). That SE corner also had a cross-referenced clue (63D: 63-Down, in this puzzle) that I thought was going to be thematic. But no, it's just the last Down clue. I never END on the last Down clue, so the presumption that 63-Down is in fact the END seems, well, presumptuous. Errant, in my case. But I figured out what they wanted. In the END. HEAT UP was the only other Down answer that didn't come to me pretty much straight away, but with every other Down in place, the "H" and "E" were clear, and from there, HEAT UP wasn't hard to see. The END.

Bullets:

• 50A: Time machine car in "Back to the Future" (DELOREAN) — I know I posted this yesterday but I'm compelled to repost it today because the core premise of this movie (Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which I saw on Saturday and loved) is that the two main characters build a time machine modeled specifically on the DELOREAN in Back to the Future. There's also a throwaway Teen Wolf reference in the movie, just to intensify the Michael J. Fox content—the movie is intensely committed to its Canadianness, which is perhaps not surprising, since it's Canadian and takes place entirely in Canada (mostly Toronto, though there's some talk of going to Ottawa).

• 54D: South American barbecue (ASADO) — with an "O," it's the name of the barbecue per se; with an "A" (ASADA), it's just an adjective meaning "roasted," usually clued as the second part of the phrase [Carne ___] ("roasted meat"). The "A" version is much more common, but also much more recent (probably owing to the increasing popularity of "Carne ASADA" on Mexican restaurant menus in the U.S. in this century. There have been six (6) ASADO appearances in the NYTXW, stretching all the way back to 1948 (!), whereas there have been thirty-seven (37) ASADA appearances, but the first appearances wasn't until 2009. So ASADA arrived in the NYTXW sixty-one years after ASADO, but then quickly blew past it in terms of total appearances.
• 28A: ___ Today (USA) — OK, it's at least a little bit funny that USA is followed immediately in this puzzle by ... USB (29A: Kind of computer port). You know, there's a USC, a USD, a USE ... Note to constructors: I'm not saying you should build a theme around this concept somehow, but I'm also not saying you shouldn't.

[51D: Object hitting people's heads in old cartoons]

That's all, folks. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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