Remote sensing technology that uses lasers / THU 10-8-26 / Audacious, informally / Perceived Democratic electoral bloc / "Midnight Cowboy" con man / Cezanne created a pyramid of them / Host Meredith of "25 Words or Less" / Something inside or outside a wine bar?

Constructor: Rachel Grey and John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: put it in reverse! — answers are literal descriptions of the clue, which is a word that has been turned around (to form a separate, unrelated word): 

Theme answers:

• COUNTERARGUMENT (17A: Taps) ("Taps" is "spat" backward (“COUNTER”), "spat" = "ARGUMENT")
• RETROCHIC (24A: Trams) ("Trams" is "smart" backward ("RETRO"), "smart" = "CHIC")
• FLIP OF A SWITCH (36A: Paws) ("Paws" is "swap" backward ("FLIP OF A"), "swap" = "SWITCH")
• HAIRY BACK (49A: Dessert) ("Dessert" = "tressed" backward (“BACK”), "tressed" = "HAIRY")
• DRINKS ALL AROUND (58A: Naive regal gnat) ("Naive regal gnat" = "Evian, lager and Tang" backwards (“ALL AROUND”), "Evian, lager and Tang" = "DRINKS")

Word of the Day: LIDAR (31D: Remote sensing technology that uses lasers) —

Lidar (/ˈlaɪdɑːr/, an acronym of light detection and ranging or laser imaging, detection, and ranging, often stylized LiDAR) is a method for determining ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the optical receiver. Lidar may operate in a fixed direction (e.g., vertical) or it may scan directions, in a special combination of 3D scanning and laser scanning. // LiDAR is used within terrestrial, airborne, and mobile equipment around the globe. It is commonly used to make high-resolution maps, with applications in surveying, geodesy, geomatics, archaeology, geography, geology, geomorphology, seismology, forestry, atmospheric physics, laser guidance, airborne laser swathe mapping (ALSM), and laser altimetry. It is used to make digital 3D representations of areas on the Earth's surface and ocean bottom of the intertidal and near coastal zone by varying the wavelength of light. It has also been increasingly used in control and navigation for autonomous cars and for the helicopter Ingenuity on its record-setting flights over the terrain of Mars. Lidar has since been used extensively for atmospheric research and meteorology. Lidar instruments fitted to aircraft and satellites carry out surveying and mapping – a recent example being the U.S. Geological Survey Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar. NASA has identified lidar as a key technology for enabling autonomous precision safe landing of future robotic and crewed lunar-landing vehicles.

• • •

I appreciate the theme—a concept I think I've seen before, and one that was not at all hard to uncover—but solving it felt extremely fussy and awkward (lots of strangely clued 3s and 4s). I'm also not sure "Tressed" = HAIRY, in that simply having hair does not make one HAIRY, which is how you'd describe someone with a lot of hair (or a dog, I guess). They're not great synonyms. I mean, "tressed" isn't a great word at all, no one uses it ever in any context ever. It's usually used in combinations. "Golden-tressed," e.g. HAIRY ... doesn't get at it. So that themer was a big miss, but the others worked fine, with DRINKS ALL AROUND being the real winner, properly placed at the end of the puzzle (always save the best for last). Despite grasping the theme concept very early, the themers remained hard, as I still had a lot to figure out (what the synonym for the reversed clue would be + how the "backward" part of the answer was going to be expressed). I mostly just crossed those answers heavily and then looked at their clues. Solving that way,  there was only one themer I had any trouble with—FLIP OF A SWITCH—and that was because so many of the crosses in its first half were gobbledygook to me. 

Most of the green ink on my print-out today is concentrated in the WNW, right around BALLSY and its environs (which, as you can see, includes the front end of FLIP OF A SWITCH). The real killer answer through there, for me, was LIDAR, a word I've never seen in my life (not even in crosswords—this is a debut). I looked it up and ... there it is (Word of the Day), but [deep sigh] those are just five random letters to me. I just read what LIDAR is an acronym for and I've already forgotten. I had RADAR in there at first. I also had real trouble with FARADAYS (37D: Units of electric charge). Had the DAYS part and thought there was some term like "usage days" or "watt days" or something. My BLUE WALL was a BLUE WAVE, so that screwed that WNW area up even more (3D: Perceived Democratic electoral bloc). The CAB clue made *no* sense to me until I ran the alphabet at C-B (22D: Something inside or outside a wine bar?). Could not see that the "way" in 27A: In the way of (À LA) meant "manner," ugh. Kept trying to imagine some kind of physical impediment. And then there's BALLSY, a word I just didn't expect the NYTXW ever to use (30A: Audacious, informally). Too testicular, I would've imagined. But OK. Anyway, all that confusion mashed into one little area meant major annoyance for me. Out of all that mess, I kind of like BALLSY, but the rest of it—untangling it was simply unpleasant.

[Pyramid of Skulls, 1901]

Hated the Warren Buffet clue about BETting on America, what a bunch of jingoistic billionaire horsesh*t, please don't show me billionaires talking in my puzzle, stop listening to billionaires. Tax. Don't listen. Tax. Similar feelings about the clue on AIM (10D: Making money or becoming famous, maybe). Those are stupid f*cking AIMs, empty, hollow, meaningless unto themselves. So many potentially beautiful AIMs in the world and we get this vapid, unimaginative crap. Make better BETs, have better AIMs. I was much happier w/ Cézanne's "pyramid" of skulls, which I had forgotten about. I briefly thought maybe he'd piled up some kind of flower. I also liked CROP DUST, in that it reminded me of North by Northwest, which gives me a chance to say R.I.P. Eva Marie Saint, who died two days ago at the age of 102. Won the Academy Award for On the Waterfront and then got to be in one of the greatest suspense films ever made opposite the most gorgeous and charming screen talent of all time. This is chemistry:

["Think how lucky I am to have been seated here"]

[38D: Spray from a plane]

I was also happy to see Nora EPHRON today, especially as clued (41A: Nora who wrote "When Harry Met Sally ..."), as I just finished watching When Harry Met Sally... again for the first time in decades this past Monday and it remains a stunner. Genuinely funny and charming, with iconic autumn-in-New York settings and great supporting performances from Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher (the wagon wheel coffee table ... "baby fish mouth!" ...). The writing and storytelling are also nearly flawless, but the secret, irreplaceable weapon is Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan's face, her voice, her whole affect. It's like watching someone single-handedly create an ideal of a form—in this case, the romcom heroine. So many others seem like pale imitations by comparison.

[I watch a Lot of movies: you can follow me on Letterboxd]

Bullets:

• 9A: How low can they go? (BASSI) — read "how long can they go?" so you can imagine my confusion on (finally) getting the answer
• 57D: Thelma and Louise, e.g. (PALS) — this seems a flippant way to describe what they are. I had the PA- and wrote in PAIR ... PALS ... I don't think two people who are merely PALS drive off a *&^%ing cliff together, is all I'm saying.
• 65A: Everybody's hands (DEALS) — "Hands" are DEALS. The "Everybody's" threw me off. Badly.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. one last song

  
["She looks like ..."]

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Call to cruisers, for short / WED 10-7-26 / Bygone company whose website has been revived as satire / Sly reply to "You can't possibly know that!" / Patterned fabric

Constructor: Ben Zimmer

Relative difficulty: Hard!! (20:02-- most Wednesdays take me under 15min)

THEME: DO A DOUBLE TAKE — Theme answers are pairs of words. One word has two of the same letter removed to form the other word.

Theme answers:

• TRUE BLUE for [Staunchly loyal]
• "Take" the two Us to make TREBLE
• SATURDAY for [Popular date night]
• "Take" the two As to make STURDY
• RAIN GEAR for [Macs and wellies, e.g.]
• "Take" the two As to make RINGER
• ATLANTIS for [Aquaman's domain]
• "Take" the two Ts to make ALANIS

Word of the Day: GRABLE (Pinup icon Betty) —

Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million, and for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she placed among the Quigley Poll's top 10 box office stars (a feat only matched by Doris Day, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, although all were surpassed by Mary Pickford, with 13 years). The U.S. Treasury Department listed her as the highest-salaried American woman in 1946 and 1947, and she earned more than $3 million during her career.

• • •

Hi squad! Welcome to another Malaika MWednesday! I thought this puzzle was hard and I don't think that I often say that. I am trying to crystallize what made this hard. I think it was the entries in the grid. Upon closer look, this grid only has 72 entries in it! (The fewer the entries, the harder it is to fill the grid.) And, nine of them are theme entries. (The more theme entries, the harder it is to fill the grid.) And, the theme entries cross! (When areas of the grid are dense with required entries, it is harder to fill the grid.)

Sometimes I get on my high horse and say "Just because a theme is impressively tough to construct doesn't mean it should be a puzzle." Well, not today! I clocked this theme as impressively hard to construct, but I don't know that it's obvious to the majority of solvers. (Chime in though!) And the revealer is so, soooo good. I do think it's worth it.... I thiiiiink. I'm like 90% sure it's worth it. There were aspects of this puzzle that felt a little irrelevant-- why did it matter that the entries crossed? Why did it matter that the letters U, A, A, and T, were "taken"? Why was the revealer phrased like that, when DOUBLE TAKE could have worked just as well? But nevertheless, I think it was worth it.

The Internet tells me this horse is called Do A Double Take

I have had the experience of hearing a phrase when I'm out in the world touching grass, thinking that it could be a revealer, and then trying to think what it would actually literally mean for it to be a revealer. And I have also had the experience of a revealer and the associated mechanism appearing in my head fully formed like the birth of Athena. This puzzle strikes me as the former, but I wonder what Ben's brainstorming process was like! I think there are a lot of ways to interpret the phrase "double take."

Some of the harder entries for me were partial, or had partial energy. ALB, ARE SO, LIE TO, RACE IN, OH BUT I DO, EATS AT, TIDED, NO TAR, KEEP TABS, EASE INTO, TOSS OUT. I wonder if the grid could have been updated to have a couple more black squares (and thus, entries) to avoid this. (Fwiw, at a cursory glance that does not seem possible!) Stats about a puzzle often betray the core vibe of it. Standard specs might claim that a longer entry is better than two three-letter words, but I would prefer having known entries like "cat" and "leg" over tough-to-parse stuff like KEEPS TABS.

Bullets:

• [Dolly Parton vis-a-vis Dollywood] for THEME — I don't know why this clue rubbed me the wrong way. It's correct! It just felt a little dehumanizing. Like she's a costume instead of a person. I was looking for an entry here like "inspo" or "namesake"
• [___-famous (reel popular?)] for INSTA — Ugh I would have looooooved to see this not as a partial!! I want [Reel popular?] as a clue for "Insta-Famous"!!! This is referring to the fact that vertical videos on Instagram are called "reels"
• [Well-manored men?] for EARL — Fantastic clue! Perfect for a Wednesday.
• [Musical artist with the fastest video to reach one billion views on YouTube] for ADELE — I was absolutely shocked by this stat! I knew she was popular, but wow! This was for the music video for "Hello" which came out in October 2015.
• [Hall with a self-titled daytime talk show] for TAMRON— This was completely unknown to me. I needed every cross for every letter.

xoxo Malaika

P.S. My boss Andrew told me that his brother reads all of these. Hi John!! Feel free to tell your brother that I am intelligent, charming, well-spoken, etc etc. Whatever moves you.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

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