Its famous holes are formed by propionibacteria / SUN 11-1-26 / Repeated words in the chorus of "Sweet Child o' Mine" / Titular fictional heroine from the Alps / Pitch raisers for guitarists / Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. / Beethoven work originally titled "Bonaparte" / Symbol for a stop on a subway map / Roald Dahl title character who subsists on "snozzcumbers," with "the" / Payment inits. found in "debt-free" / Member of the largest contiguous empire in history

Constructor: Kevin Curry and Zhou Zhang

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Be Amazed" — the grid ends up being a visual representation of a LABRAT maze, with "CHEESE" (in a single square) at the end of the maze route. Shaded squares in theme answers form hidden (i.e. unclued) obstacles that the rat has to maneuver around on its way to the cheese. Also on the way to the cheese—circled letters spelling out the title of a "1998 book": WHO MOVED MY [Cheese]?

There are puzzle notes:

Theme answers:

• OBSTACLE COURSE (30A: Appetizers, entree or dessert)
• ROOM DIVIDER (15D: Unit in the game Clue)
• STONEWALL (69A: Slingshot ammo)
• BARRIER REEF (67D: Many a shipwreck site)
• INVISIBLE FENCE (99A: Out of sight)

Word of the Day: Who Moved My Cheese?  —

Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life is a 1998 motivational business fable by Spencer Johnson about change in work and life. The book is written as a parable about two mice and two "Littlepeople" during their hunt for cheese. A New York Times business bestseller upon release, Who Moved My Cheese? remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list. As of 2018, it has sold almost 30 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books. In November 2018, it was followed by a sequel called Out of the Maze. [...] In the corporate environment, management has been known to distribute this book to employees during times of "structural reorganization", or during cost-cutting measures, in an attempt to portray unfavorable or unfair changes in an optimistic or opportunistic way. This has been characterized by Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America as an attempt by organizational management to make employees quickly and unconditionally assimilate management ideals, even if they may prove detrimental to them professionally. Ehrenreich called the book "the classic of downsizing propaganda" and summarizes its message as "the dangerous human tendencies to 'overanalyze' and complain must be overcome for a more rodentlike approach to life. When you lose a job, just shut up and scamper along to the next one."

• • •

Hello from Halloween central—it's currently prime trick-or-treating hours (Saturday night, 10-31-26), and I'm up here trying to get the first part of blogging done so I can then go back downstairs and hand out candy to kiddies and finish watching Psycho (an annual tradition). Speaking of Psycho—I laughed out loud when I hit EROICA (which may be the only time that has ever happened or is ever likely to happen) (113A: Beethoven work originally titled "Bonaparte"), since that is the record that Marion's sister Lila finds on Norman Bates's turntable when she's wandering the Bates mansion looking for evidence of what happened to her sister—before Norman catches on that she's in there, runs up there from the motel, quickly changes into "Mother's" clothes, and then tries to kill Lila in the fruit cellar (I've seen this movie a Lot):

Unlike Psycho, or having your house beset by literally hundreds of trick-or-treaters because it's a beautiful Saturday night and you live in a very walkable and trick-or-treatable neighborhood, this puzzle wasn't very scary. I finished it with almost no trouble, despite the fact that I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be seeing, and I certainly have never read the book Who Moved My Cheese? So disappointed to read the puzzle notes and see that the puzzle was based on a "1998 book," only to have that book be some business book (?). I remember it being Very popular, but it seemed like some kind of businessy self-help something-or-other, so all I really know about it is the title. Really wanted the "1998 book" to be some kind of kid's book or some fantasy novel about a LAB RAT ... but no. Business book. Maybe if I'd read the book, the puzzle would've been more fun to solve. I guess the idea of hunting for cheese in a maze is key to the "ideas" of the book? Shrug. I admire the architecture of this one, and I really like the way the various obstacles were handled—formally unclued, but visually clued just fine, i.e. the clue for OBSTACLE COURSE points only to "COURSE" (30A: Appetizers, entree or dessert), but since you know you're dealing with a lab rat, the idea that those shaded squares represent barriers of some kind makes sense, especially after you piece together the first one or two. The whole maze conceit didn't gel for me visually at all, though, until the app did the work for me at the end, showing me the rat, drawing the rat's course through the grid, etc. So the "Aha" moment felt forced—like, I said "Aha," but only as the result of a post-solve visual representation, not as a result of figuring anything out myself. Disappointing in that regard. Clearly this puzzle literally wasn't for me (as I know nothing about this book), but I could still appreciate what the constructors were trying to do.

The fill must've been fine because I don't recall cringing much. Maybe I was just going too fast to notice. Crossing REHEAR with REDEALT is maybe not the most elegant moment. But aside from a smattering of crosswordese, the fill by and large seems fine. I didn't get hung up anywhere except the Taylor Swift song—I can hear the quoted lyric in my head, with the right cadence and notes and everything, but it's like a snippet that exists out of context (14D: Taylor Swift hit with the lyric" You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye"). I kept trying to follow it to some kind of recognizable chorus, but: no dice. If you'd given me a list of one-word title options, I doubt I could've told you the title was "STYLE." In fact, I know I couldn't have. Maybe if it was a multiple-choice test and the options were A. "Fun" B. "Run" C. "Jump" D. "Style" E. "Power" ... maybe. 


Bullets:

• 12A: Repeated words in the chorus of "Sweet Child o' Mine" (OHS) — one of my favorite moments of the solve, as I kept singing the song to myself, trying to figure out exactly what the "chorus" was, looking for a sequence of "words" that was repeated ... only to discover it's just the one "word," "OH," said over and over again. I think that besides "Sweet child o' mine" and a smattering of "ooh"s and "yeah"s, the "OHS" are the *only* words in the chorus. Let's find out.

• 26A: Roald Dahl title character who subsists on "snozzcumbers," with "the" (BFG) — I never read this, so all I ever remember about the title is that it's three (to me) random letters that are something like "B.F.D." (big f***ing deal). Is the title character a gnome? Does BFG stand for big F***ing Gnome? ... [checks] ... I mean, close: Big Friendly Giant.

• 59A: Payment inits. found in "debt-free" (EBT) — also found in ... "debt." Weird clue. Is the idea that when you use EBT you do not incur debt (because it's a government benefits program)? Still a weird clue.
• 73A: Greek goddess whose chariot is pulled by Firebright and Daybright (EOS) — three letters, ends in "S," Greek goddess—I don't really need to read the rest of the clue, although I am surprised to find that a Greek goddess has horses with names that make them sound like Care Bears or My Little Ponies (the latter is probably more apt).
• 12D: Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. (OCD) — am I supposed to just know what "C.B.T." is? Oh wait, is it Cognitive Behavioral Therapy!? Ha ha, bingo! EBT! CBT! BFG! OCD!

• 18D: Symbol for a stop on a subway map (DOT) — one of the hardest clues for me. "Symbol" had me thinking something much more ... symbolic. But it's just a DOT. Which is, technically, a "symbol," I guess. But it's not like a dog or an owl or a little house or even a star ... something more picturesque, which is what *I* was picturing.
• 31D: "___ your heart!" ("BLESS") — first guess, before I'd properly assessed the length of the answer or anything:

• 93D: ___ Arbor (ANN) — outside of the general NYC area, the crosswordingest cities in the U.S., judging by my correspondence / supporters, are Minneapolis/St. Paul and ANN Arbor. Pound for pound, it might be ANN Arbor. It's possible other cities have a lot of solvers and they're just solving other crosswords. Or people in those cities just don't care for me, who can say?

That's all for today. See you next time. And happy November (the best month)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. the latest episode of "Crosstalk" (a crossword construction podcast hosted by Daniel Grinberg) features a charming and insightful interview with Zhou Zhang (half of today's husband/wife construction team). Highly recommended. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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Rap group with the 1992 #1 hit "Rump Shaker" / SAT 10-31-26 / F in physics / Canadian coin, informally / Opera with the shepherd's song "Io de' sospiri" / Schöningen ___, German mine discoveries that may be up to 300,000 years old / Surgical tool with a namesake medical journal / Count on one's fingers?

Constructor: Erik Agard and Brendan Emmett Quigley

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Schöningen SPEARS (46A: Schöningen ___, German mine discoveries that may be up to 300,000 years old) —

The Schöningen spears are a set of ten Palaeolithic wooden weapons that were excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the 'Spear Horizon' in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Helmstedt district, Germany. The spears are among the oldest hunting weapons yet discovered and were found together with animal bones and stone and bone tools. Being used by the oldest known group of human hunters, they provided unique proof that early human ancestors were much closer to modern humans in both complex social structure and technical ability than thought previously. [...] thermoluminescence dating of heated flints in a deposit beneath that which contained the spears, dates the spears to between 337,000 and 300,000 years old, placing them at the end of the interglacial Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9, and recent scholarship has tended to support an MIS 9 date for the spears. However, a 2025 study suggested an even younger age of approximately 200,000 years ago, and manufacture by Neanderthals. The Schöningen spears are the oldest complete wooden weapons and, along with the incomplete British Clacton spear point, among the oldest known worked wooden implements. // The spears were constructed from Norway spruce as well as pine. They are suggested to have been used both as throwing weapons, as well as thrusting spears for personal defense. // To date, hominin remains have not been discovered from the Schöningen Pleistocene deposits and, therefore, the species that crafted and used the wooden weapons and other tools at Schöningen remains uncertain. (wikipedia)

• • •

"I DON'T BITE"—nice way for a Saturday puzzle to open (14A: "No need to worry around me"). Do I trust you, puzzle? I do not. But I appreciate the warmISH welcome (also, "I DON'T BITE" is just a great standalone phrase). Turns out, though, that the puzzle's claims about itself were largely truthful. I waded in with trepidation, the puzzle, seeming to sense that trepidation, said "I DON'T BITE," and then almost immediately thereafter I found out that yes, compared to many other Saturday puzzles I've done, this one was going to be a TOTAL SWEETHEART (3D: That's a good one!). A bright long answer that seems to confirm the claims of an earlier answer? Amazing. So amazing that I only choked on RATES A TEN for a second or two instead of my customary all-puzzle-long (1A: Couldn't get any higher?). You ever EAT A SANDWICH that RATES A TEN? Peak human experience. Oh man I want a 10 sandwich now (it's currently 4:51am, so I'm gonna have to wait). I came shooting out of the NW on the wings of TOTAL SWEETHEART and while things stayed interesting and occasionally challenging throughout, it's true, the puzzle didn't bite. It did playfully nip at me, though, in the middle of the puzzle, but that's just because it was having fun with me—I literally laughed out loud when I realized I was gonna have to spell WRECKX-N-EFFECT for this puzzle (29A: Rap group with the 1992 #1 hit "Rump Shaker"). Straight out of a Gen X spelling bee nightmare, that one. To my enormous pop cultural credit, I made just one mistake on the first pass: WRECKS-N-EFFECT. But the "X"! Of course the "X," there had to be an "X," I knew the spelling got wild somewhere. One thing I love in a puzzle, besides non-biting, is good music. Something to set the mood, get in your head, provide accompaniment for your solving journey. This puzzle gives you options. In one room, you've got your choice of TOSCA or John LENNON. In the main room, however...

[Hope you weren't REKT by this answer (Quite a week for variant spellings of "wreck") (see 3D, here)]

This one had great flow and it stayed fun throughout. There's crosswordese around the edges, here and there, but well below maximum tolerance levels—I got no problem with a stray ORC ÊTES or STAT or TSAR or Slammin' Sammy SNEAD or even a RIATA/TIARA combo as long as the marquee answer are plentiful and lit up like this. You've got the oratorical flair of Jesse with "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and the cocksure certainty of "IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE," a host of other solid answers, and really very little in the way of garbage. The clues weren't quite as playful as they were yesterday, but I liked the way this one played a teeny bit better, which may be because yesterday's puzzle was just too easy. This one to me felt like a proper Friday ... so difficulty basically dropped a notch for both the F and Sat puzzles, leaving Saturday as the only late-week puzzle putting up a proper fight. 

Never got stuck anywhere in this puzzle once I got out of the NW. Changing that "S" to an "X" in WRECKX-N-EFFECT was easy, and then ... I dunno, I'm not seeing any sticking points. I wrote in TREASURE CHEST before TREASURE TROVE, but again, that was an easy fix—via the very nicely clued FIVE (33D: Count on one's fingers?). It took me a while to accede to CRAFT, which didn't feel like a very precise answer to 41D: Mastery. You master your CRAFT, but is CRAFT itself "Mastery"? Apparently yes, but my brain doesn't like it. I sure as heck didn't know the German cave SPEARS, but again, the crosses were kind. I know a fellow Upstate NY crossword person who plays CARILLON —or although I may be thinking of the Cornell Chimes, which are not (I'm sternly told) a CARILLON, as a "true carillon has at least 23 bells, and a different playing console" (wikipedia). Anyway, knowing that instrument helped a bunch in the SE. The clue on MAIL threw me (10A: Stamp collector?) but everything around it just sorta filled itself in, and I finished up MAIL (and the whole puzzle) by writing in the "L" in LICORICE without ever even seeing the LICORICE clue. So, in the end, as promised, no biting, TOTAL SWEETHEART.

Bullets:

• 42D: F in physics (FARAD) — woo hoo, remembered this despite having absolutely no memory of what a FARAD actually is. "The farad (symbol: F) is the unit of electrical capacitance, the ability of a body to store an electrical charge, in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to 1 coulomb per volt (C/V). It is named after the English physicist Michael Faraday (1791–1867)." (wikipedia)
• 39D: Canadian coin, informally (TOONIE) — well it's either gonna be the LOONIE or the TOONIE (the $1 and $2 Canadian coins, respectively). "Two" + "Loonie" = TOONIE. Portmanteau! (which, coincidentally, is the name of their never-minted $3 coin, as well as a small town on Lake Winnipeg)
• 23D: "Boulevard des Capucines" painter (MONET) — I'd like to thank EON for clearing up any possible MONET/MANET confusion here. Did you know there are two MONET paintings with this title? (both from 1873-74).  It's true. And they're really different. I think I prefer the grayish one better, but I'd have to see them in person to really know. "Capucines" = nasturtiums, and not, as I thought, monkeys (those are "capuchins").

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

Signed, Rex (-N-EFFECT) Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S.

P.P.S. 😎 

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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✏️Upcoming Crossword Tournaments✏️:

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📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

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