Fashion designer Carolina / SUN 2-15-26 / Duchess of ___ (noted Spanish title) / Certain public transit network / ___ Winter, basketball coach who famously innovated the "triangle offense" / Photo-editing technique used to create a smooth transition / Video game character aptly celebrated in Mar. 10 / Made younger-looking in an editing studio, say / Reality TV franchise created by Tyra Banks / Science-and-nature magazine familiarly / Sarcastic response to a show-off / Horn contents at a Viking feast

Constructor: Michael Lieberman and Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Good to the Last Drop" — theme answers "drop" (merging with separately clued Down answers) just after the letter string "HERE," as hinted at by the revealer, IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE (73A: "Things are only going to get worse" ... or a hint to answering the seven italicized clues in this puzzle):

Theme answers:

• BLOW TO SMITHEREENS (24A: Completely destroy with a blast)
• MOTHER EARTH (27A: Gaia, by another name)
• TEACHER EDITION (40A: Version of a textbook designed for instruction)
• FEATHER EDGE (96A: Photo-editing technique used to create a smooth transition)
• ETHEREAL (93A: Delicate, as beauty)
• AT THE REAR (123A: In back)
• IS THAT ALL THERE IS? (125A: "Wait, are we done?")

Word of the Day: TEX Winter (60A: ___ Winter, basketball coach who famously innovated the "triangle offense") —

Morice Fredrick "Tex" Winter (February 25, 1922 – October 10, 2018) was an American basketball coach and innovator of the triangle offense, an offensive system that became the dominant force in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and resulted in 11 NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2000s. He was a head coach in college basketball for 30 years before becoming an assistant coach in the NBA. He was an assistant to Phil Jackson on nine NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. Winter was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2016, the NBA created the annually presented Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award in his honor. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one rides entirely on the revealer. It's a clever, extremely literal use of the phrase "IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE"—it got a big "aha" out of me, for sure—but the theme itself is very one-note, with nothing particularly interesting or funny or clever to show you. Words contain the letter string "HERE," and after "HERE," they head ... down. Over and over and over (seven times). Kind of a shrug, and an easy one at that (once you know the "HERE"s are out there, you're basically given those four letters for free every time you see an italicized clue). Obviously the execution of this theme involves some intricate architecture. Those themers not only have to drop after the "HERE," but they have to merge seamlessly into Down answers. But from a solving standpoint, filling in those answers just wasn't that interesting. There's just not enough cleverness or humor to carry this one over a huge Sunday-sized grid (slightly oversized at 22 wide). It all works fine, but aside from the revealer, it lacked pop. My main feeling at the end was that it was all kind of dull. And, relatedly, once again, the puzzle was terribly easy. I've got red ink here and there on my grid print-out (signifying various snarl-ups), but it's pretty sparse, and none of the snarl-ups held me up for very long. The puzzle had just one answer that seemed particularly original, but sadly it was one of the answers I liked least: WEED TEA. I am clearly behind on the whole THC beverage craze (my only experience with edibles being sleep gummies). WEED TEA? It's really called that? Yeah, it looks like "cannabis tea" is indeed sometimes called WEED TEA. I wish that answer did something for me. I needed something in this puzzle to do something for me. I have to give that answer credit for trying, at least. The rest of the grid just kind of lies there. RESPELLED? Hmm. I'm making a very grimacey face right now just looking at that word. You will be shocked (shocked, I say!) to discover that both WEED TEA and RESPELLED are debuts. I'll say it for the billionth time: Not All Debuts Are Good™. But if it's WEED TEA vs. RESPELLED, well then, WEED TEA wins by TKO, for sure. 

By far the hardest part of the puzzle for me was this little knot in the upper middle, where (off of "-IT-") I had written in BITE for 47A: Sharpness (WITS). This left me with TRAM BAY in the cross (26D: Certain public transit network), which I was on the point of rationalizing: "You gotta keep the trams somewhere, I guess." Since "bay" has various architectural / structural meanings ("bomb bay," "cargo bay," etc.), I was ready to accept TRAM BAY ... but the clue says [Certain public transit network] and TRAM BAY (if such a thing existed) seemed like it would be *part* of a network, not the network itself. Annnnnyway, I left the mistake in place and would have kept it there til the end if it weren't for the unlikely help of U.S. STEEL (37D: World's first billion-dollar corporation). I thought, "that's gotta be U.S. STEEL," and a couple of crosses confirmed it, but I had "USE-" at the beginning (because I still had "BITE" for 47A: Sharpness). Eventually U.S. STEEL became undeniable, and after a second or so of trying to make BITS work for 47A: Sharpness, I took out the "B" from TRAM BAY and TRAM-AY / -ITS became TRAMWAY / WITS. Maybe I've heard the term TRAMWAY before but I don't know that I've ever been anywhere with a TRAMWAY. Disneyland, maybe? No, wait, trams are like streetcars or trolley cars? Public transport that runs on a network of rails integrated right into the urban environment. Well, I've been to San Francisco, and I've been on cable cars (which are a type of "tram"), so I guess I have seen a TRAMWAY. I don't remember anyone's calling it that. Thanks to wikipedia, I now know that San Francisco (where I was born) was the first city to operate cable trams, and Dunedin, NZ (where my wife grew up) was the second. Clearly we were fated to be married! Brought together by public transportation history! Ah, destiny! Happy belated Valentine's Day, everybody!

The other toughish part for me was FEATHER EDGE, a term I don't really know as I don't spend a lot of time editing photos. I put the "HERE" into that answer and it did virtually nothing for me, even after I got the "EDGE" bit (from WEDGE) (91D: Shoe with a thick sole). The impossible (for me) clue on ALBA (104A: Duchess of ___ (noted Spanish title)) and the very weird colloquial clue on "ABOUT TO" (98D: "Next on my list"), kept the FEATHER EDGE corner (SW) dicey there for a bit. But then (for the first time in my life) MARIO came to the rescue! Usually I'm tripping over myself trying to answer clues about the vast Mario Universe (about which I know nothing except what the puzzle tells me), but today, I got that MARIO clue easily (110D: Video game character aptly celebrated in Mar. 10). I don't think I've ever been so happy (or happy at all) to see a MARIO-related clue. MARIO ... MAR10 (i.e. Mar. 10, i.e. 3/10) ... you see the resemblance. Very cute. 

Bullets:

• ___ Winter, basketball coach who famously innovated the "triangle offense" (TEX) — I'm gonna dispute "famously" here. When you say "triangle offense," I say Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson ran the triangle offense "famously." This TEX guy may have "innovated" it, but I'm not sure "famously" applies, since this is the first I'm hearing of him. He was Jackson's assistant coach on nine championship teams (all six Bulls championships plus the Lakers' threepeat of 2000-02).
• 105A: Made younger-looking in an editing studio, say (DE-AGED) — a very real and (to me) very creepy thing. I associate the process with Scorsese's The Irishman, for which DeNiro and Pacino and Pesci were all digitally DE-AGED in order to play their younger selves.

• 107A: Reality TV franchise created by Tyra Banks (TOP MODEL) — as an enthusiastic non-watcher of so-called "Reality TV," I only know the names of shows from hearing them discussed ... wherever. I really thought this show was called America's Next TOP MODEL. Where am I getting that from? Oh ... well, that is its name. TOP MODEL is just how it's known familiarly (also ANTM, put that in your grid and smoke it!). Really could've used a "familiarly" here. But knowing the full name of the show made getting the partial name of the show pretty easy, actually.
• 62D: N.Y.C. neighborhood that's home to the Grey Art Museum (NOHO) — should've made "Grey Art Museum" my Word of the Day because that name meant absolutely nothing to me. You tell me "N.Y.C. neighborhood" and it's four letters, I'm going SOHO, maybe NOHO. So I waited for the cross. No problem. I've been to a lot of N.Y.C. museums, but I've never even heard of the Grey. Ah, I see, it's NYU's art museum. It's called the Grey Art Museum because of a 1973 gift of one thousand works from someone named Abby Weed Grey. So there's some more WEED for you, if you're into that.

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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Screw or nail, to a Brit / SAT 2-14-26 / North African fortress / Beer brand from Trinidad and Tobago / Honorific meaning "elder brother" / Antagonists in 2013's "Captain Phillips" / It's made with two fingers / Like a nepo baby's life, perhaps / Arrive suddenly and from a distance, metaphorically / Losing team in the "Miracle on Ice"

Constructor: David Karp

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: if you squint and wish real hard, maybe (but no, not really—just a vaguely "Valentine"ish arrangement of red squares where normally black squares would be) 

Word of the Day: CASBAH (47A: North African fortress) —

A kasbah (/ˈkæzbɑː/, also US: /ˈkɑːz-/; Arabic: قصبة, romanized: qaṣaba, lit. 'fortress', Arabic pronunciation: [qasˤaba], Maghrebi Arabic: [qasˤba]), also spelled qasbah, qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term alcazaba in Spanish (Spanish: [alkaˈθaβa]), which is derived from the same Arabic word. By extension, the term can also refer to a medina quarter, particularly in Algeria. In various languages, the Arabic word, or local words borrowed from the Arabic word, can also refer to a settlement, a fort, a watchtower, or a blockhouse. (wikipedia) // Algiers is a 1938 American crime drama film directed by John Cromwell, written by John Howard Lawson and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie and Hedy Lamarr. The plot concerns a French jewel thief hiding in Algiers who meets a beautiful French tourist. The Walter Wanger production (originally distributed by United Artists) was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name. [...] The film was most Americans' introduction to the picturesque alleys and souks of the Casbah. It was also the inspiration for the 1942 film Casablanca, written specifically for Hedy Lamarr in the female lead role. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to release Lamarr, the role went to Ingrid Bergman. // The oft-quoted invitation extended by Charles Boyer to "come with me to the Casbah" does not appear in the film, but still became comedians' standard imitation of Boyer, much like "Play it again, Sam" for Humphrey Bogart, "Judy, Judy, Judy" for Cary Grant and "You dirty rat" for James Cagney, all misquotes. Boyer hated the phrase, believing that it demeaned him as an actor. However, the Looney Tunes cartoon character Pepé Le Pew, a spoof of Boyer as Pépé le Moko, did say "Come with me to the Casbah" as a pickup line.

• • •

[ROBBIE (6) / ELORDI (6)]

That's a pretty poor excuse for a 🩷. Looks more like the outline of a dog's face looking straight at you, with its tongue sticking out. Hmm ... I do love dogs, so ... that's the thing, you can see "love" in a lot of these answers if you want to. I mean, LOVE TRIANGLES has "love" built right in (12A: Features of many romantic dramas). And SEX TAPE ... I mean, you don't need "love" for that, but ... people in love might make one of those, I guess (30A: Intimate footage). After that, the "love" content gets a little thin. Yes, I see "COME" over there, and no I'm not counting it. CARE is a kind of "love" (4D: Attention to detail). Charles Boyer is a paragon of romance—he might ask you to come with him to the CASBAH (even though he never actually said the line "come with me to the CASBAH"—see "Word of the Day," above). Oh, and there's that clue on SHAG, which fooled me but good. Wasn't til after I was done with the whole puzzle and was looking it over that I realized, "Oh, they weren't looking for TOOLS after all. 'Screw' and 'nail'—I get it now. Nice one, puzzle." I went to see the new Wuthering Heights movie yesterday, which is artificially pumped full of "love" content (including ridiculously conventional "romance" tropes and tons of sex), so it's not hard to get me to see love and sex and unintentional sexual innuendo in this grid. TOOLS, GET IN ON, LOAD UP, SWIG, SANTA PHOTOS—these are all filthy answers if you want them to be. But mostly what we've got here is a standard Saturday. Actually, difficulty-wise, it's substandard (way too easy). LOVE TRIANGLES had me thinking there was going to be a "love" theme, but then SOMALI PIRATES pretty much took the wind out of those sails (10D: Antagonists in 2013's "Captain Phillips").

When 1-Across is a gimme, the puzzle tends to play easy, and this is especially true if 1-Across is a long answer, like PEACE SIGN (1A: It's made with two fingers ... man, every clue is reading dirty to me now). I threw down PEACE SIGN with 80% certainty and then checked the crosses, and yep, they checked out:

The only thing that gave me trouble up there was SANTA PHOTOS, which feels off. People (children, mostly) might get their photos taken with Santa at the mall, say (what has the demise of mall culture done to the photos-with-Santa industry!?). But I don't think I've heard the phrase SANTA PHOTOS before. It's plausible, it's not wrong, exactly, it just didn't come to mind quickly because it's not a very ... alive phrase. Oh, and do people really text GTG ("gotta go")? You know "bye" has the same number of letters, right? Weird. Hell, "tata" has just four, you could use that if you wanted—if you could spare the time to type the extra letter. Some of that short stuff up top is unpretty (ENE ATT GTG), but I like the stack. The one at the bottom is fine, but less interesting. REMOTE WORKERS is a solid answer but not exactly an exciting one. Love SIMONE BILES but she's in the grid all the time. TAKES A BET, though ... that answer definitely EATS A SANDWICH. Plus, it reminds me of how sports gambling has taken over every aspect of American life now—the Draft Kingsification of sports threatening to seep into everything—everything you do, every political event, everything that happens. Gambling culture corrupts everything. Players manipulate outcomes. Players get threatened by loser gamblers who are mad that the player didn't make a play. Degrading stuff, all around. So yeah, TAKES A BET did less than nothing for me. I really like the heart center, though. If you PARACHUTE IN with a SEX TAPE up your SLEEVE(S), you're sure to be the life of the party. The other fill in there actually holds up pretty well, so bravo to all the atria and ventricles there. Well done.

Bullets:

• 38A: Like a nepo baby's life, perhaps (CUSH) — well as you know (maybe, if you were here that one time...) I hate the very term "nepo baby." Just the way it looks and sounds. It's idiotic. A blanket term of derision that people apply very indiscriminately. So I guess it's fitting that it should clue the "word" CUSH, a "word" for which I have nothing but derision. The word (no scare quotes) is CUSHY. Maybe if you're texting and really in a hurry ... 
• 53A: One of the "Golden Girls" of the 2024 Summer Olympics (SIMONE BILES) — me after reading the first five words of this clue: "BLANCHE DEVEREAUX! No, too long. ROSE NYLUND! Too short, ugh! DOROTHY ... what was her name? ... DOROTHY ZBORNAK! Still too long. SOPHIA PETRILLO! Dammit!" (OK, so I didn't get all the way to Dorothy and Sophia, whose last names I had to look up, but that first part definitely happened)
• 12D: Takes badly? (LOOTS) — fun ("fun") to put this right next to the SOMALI PIRATES. This is one of two clues that initially misread quite badly. For some reason I read [Talks badly?] and (off the "L") wrote in LISPS. I also read [Many a private investor?] at 25D: Many a private investigator? (EX-COP). I wanted, I don't know, ANGEL, something like that.
• 17D: Honorific meaning "elder brother" (AGHA) — I've seen AG(H)A countless times over the years, but I did not know this bit of trivia. Interesting. 

["Your name it is known in high places / You know ... the AG(H)A Khan / And he sends you a racehorse for Christmas / And you keep it ... just for fun (for a laugh, ha ha ha)"]

• 34D: Greenland expanse (ICE SHEET) — yeesh, lotta "ICE" the last two days. Yesterday we had ICE ARENA (?) and THAI ICED TEAS (as well as MINNESOTA NICE), and today, a big (but probably shrinking) ICE SHEET. Oh, and the "Miracle on Ice" (19D: Losing team in the "Miracle on Ice" = U.S.S.R.). Was "ice" always everywhere like this, or am I just more inclined to notice it these days, for reasons?

• 40D: Nervous laughs (HEHS) — I had HEES, but yeah, HEHS is nervouser. Equally terrible as an answer (all laugh syllables bad, plural laugh syllables worse), but definitely more "nervous."
• 47D: Beer brand from Trinidad and Tobago (CARIB) — the one answer that totally stumped me today. I could get there pretty easily from the clue (specifically, the beer's place of origin), but still, no, never heard of this beer. Wanna see a picture? OK, here you go.

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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