Epitomes of slowness / TUES 8-25-26 / Something told with two hands? / Moon believed to have a subsurface ocean / Free-spirited style, informally

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday in August! Hope everyone has been staying cool (and dry, at least, on the East Coast, where it’s been raining around 4 p.m. most days). My big news is that I got to see BTS when they came to Baltimore, and my life got infinitely better — although my sister and I lost our voices completely. I’m now off to Los Angeles this weekend for Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields music festival, which should be a ton of fun. 

Most importantly, before I move on to, you know, the puzzle, I have to plug my sister’s article in The Wall Street Journal!! As I’m writing this, it’s not published yet, but it goes live at 2 p.m. today, Tuesday, in the travel section under the headline, "I Walked 500 Miles on the Camino de Santiago to Find What Comes Next," by Shannon Carroll. I’ll be back to update the link when the story goes live! [Edit: Here it is!]

Anywho, with all that, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Bryan Kaproth-Gerecht

Relative difficulty: Easy-medium

THEME: PLANETS (45D: Celestial "wanderers" ... or what this puzzle's circled letters represent) — The eight planets are listed in the puzzle, with the circled letters representing their approximate distance from the sun

Theme answers:

• MERCURY (34A: 1st) 
• VENUS (28A: 2nd) 
• EARTH (51A: 3rd) 
• MARS (33D: 4th) 
• JUPITER (10D: 5th) 
• SATURN (15A: 6th) 
• URANUS (62A: 7th) 
• NEPTUNE (1D: 8th)

Word of the Day: NO-SEE-UMS (7D: Tiny biting insect) —

Ceratopogonidae is a family of flies colloquially known as no-see-ums, sand flies, or biting midges, generally 1–3 millimetres (1⁄16–1⁄8 in) in length. The family includes more than 5,000 species, distributed worldwide, apart from the Antarctic and the Arctic. Ceratopogonidae midges are also one of the best-studied cocoa pollinators. (Wiki)

• • •

I quite enjoyed that puzzle! The circled letters and the dotted lines showing the orbits were complex, even a tad gimmick-y, but, overall, the construction was very impressive, especially coming from a first-time constructor. The constructor managed to fit in eight planets with different orbits represented — in order — along with additional words that are relevant to the theme such as SUNS (15D: Symbols of fair weather) and TITAN (47A: Moon believed to have a subsurface ocean). 

The theme seems timely, too. The PERSEIDS (16A: Summer meteor shower named for a mythological hero) meteor shower is in the news; there was a total solar eclipse a couple of weeks ago; a partial lunar eclipse is coming up; and there was an alignment of six planets earlier this month. 

I pretty quickly realized the theme and what the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. would represent, so I immediately went around the puzzle typing in the planets. That made this a quicker-than-normal Tuesday solve for me. It did take me quite a bit to figure out what the circles represented; I thought they might represent the first letter of the planets, maybe they created an anagram, etc. Only after creating a little graphic for myself did I realize that the circle letters in each planet represented that planet’s approximate distance from the sun. 

For those of you with not great eyes (i.e., my dad), you might have strained to see the dashes that create the circles representing the orbits. I wonder why there are only seven dashed circles, with URANUS and SATURN on the same orbit — and not one for each of the eight planets. But that’s above my knowledge (or was all the constructor could manage). I didn’t think a revealer was even necessary, given that the theme was obvious, but it’s still impressive that the constructor got ORBITAL (44D: Like the paths of 45-Down, as visually depicted in this puzzle) and PLANETS (45D: Celestial "wanderers" ... or what this puzzle's circled letters represent) in there, too. 

(As a “Psych” lover, I couldn’t help but be sad Pluto wasn’t on there.) 

I struggled a fair amount in the north (middle) of the puzzle, especially with NO-SEE-UMS (7D). I’m not sure I have ever heard that term before, so I was incredibly confused. Combine that with the vague OH DAMN (6D: "Wowza!") that doesn’t really fit the clue, crossing MENSA (24A: Smart set) and AEON (20A: Billion years, astronomically), and it took me a bit to puzzle through. I thankfully know AKON (4A: One-named Senegalese American singer with the #1 hits "I Wanna Love You" and "Don't Matter") very well, growing up listening to his music, but I imagine some people struggled there. 

Along with OH DAMN (6D), there were a few other quotations that I didn’t really like. Like: IT’S A DATE (60A: "I'd love to go"), AW C’MON (25D: "Man, that's hardly fair!"), and THAT SO (48D: "Are you sure?"). They’re part of the category that’s so vague that many things can fit. MIDI (20A: ___ skirt) was also annoying, given it could’ve easily been “maxi” or “midi,” and the clue gave us nothing to go on. I refuse to believe SHIVERY (39D: Like someone emerging from freezing cold water, typically) is a word. WAWA (56A: Drink in a sippy cup, to a toddler) clued like that seems a bit weird. RAT (8D: Creature sometimes trained for bomb detection) gave me pause because I tried “dog.” Even when I got to “_AT,” I took a bit to understand that it had to be RAT, not “cat.” I had enough downs that I got TECATE (58A: Mexican beer brand) quite easily, but that felt like a harder-than-a-normal-Tuesday type word. (My sister, who knows her Mexican beers, said she put Modelo.) 

All that being said, there were still some good words in the puzzle — on top of the fun theme. My favorite word was ENAMOR (32A: Captivate), followed closely by TRILL (19A: Musical flutter). I also liked BARISTA (3D: One known for the morning grind?). It was good seeing IVERSON (2D: Allen who was the 2001 N.B.A. M.V.P.), as he’s the only good A.I. The clue/answer for TIME (38A: Something told with two hands?) was fun (even if I did have _I_E and thought I was very clever when I confidently put in “jive”). 

Overall, the puzzle was an enjoyable solve — and an impressive construction!

Misc.:

• I’ve recently gotten into F1 (after watching the Netflix show “Drive to Survive”), and I’ve been watching the races each weekend. So it feels on point to have PACE CAR (40D: Raceway speed setter) even if it’s called a “safety car” in F1. (Go, Kimi and/or Oscar!) 
• I’d kind of forgotten about AKON (4A) over the years, but he’s apparently still going strong with 41.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and his biggest song, “Smack That,” (with Eminem) has 1.7 billion streams. I was 10 years old when that song came out, and I knew all of the lyrics, including the rap, which, looking back, was rather raunchy. Oops! 
• I loved CHASM (46A: Great divide). First off, it’s a fantastic word. The clue is also the title of the incredible Noah Kahan album “The Great Divide" (which I saw him perform most of last month — from the barricade!). 
• I will always remember the moon TITAN (47A) because I did a presentation in 7th grade science class on SATURN (15A). I learned TITAN is the planet’s biggest moon and is the second biggest in the solar system. (Anything else, I’ll have to brush up on from the Internet). 
• If only there were penalty kicks after a TIE GAME (43D: Reason to go into penalty kicks) in the regular season of the Premier League so my Liverpool team could’ve completed the comeback and actually won our stupid opening game against Newcastle instead of just tying it up in the 100th minute.

I’m also very pleased that my dog, RED (53D: Sunburned, perhaps), made an appearance in the puzzle today (even if it should have been clued to be about her instead!). As I’ve written this, I think she’s brought me eight toys because she wants to play, so maybe she knows she’s being written about.

And that’s all from me! Hope you all have a great September. (And don’t forget to go read my sister’s article😊)

Signed, Clare Carroll, RED’s giant

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Natural wonder in Venezuela / MON 8-24-26 / Clerical vestment / Presentations with an 18-minute limit / Word after Georgia, Virginia or low / Leave the cocoon / Zing ___ (brand of Bloody Mary mix) / "The Magicians" novelist Grossman

Constructor: Steven Jopek

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

[8 days without a Star Wars reference, in case you're wondering]

THEME: HELL OR HIGH WATER (35A: Any foreseeable difficulty ... with a hint to 17-, 25-, 50- and 60-Across) — four theme answers, two of which are (allegedly) examples of "hell," two of which are examples of (literally) "high water":

Theme answers:

• UNDERWORLD (17A: Criminals' sphere)
• TIDAL WAVE (25A: Tsunami)
• PURGATORY (50A: Stop in the afterlife)
• ANGEL FALLS (60A: Natural wonder in Venezuela)

Word of the Day: ANGEL FALLS (60A) —

Angel Falls (Spanish: Salto Ángel; Pemon: Körepakupai Vená) is a waterfall in Venezuela. It is the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, with a height of 979 metres (3,212 ft), and a plunge of 807 m (2,648 ft). The waterfall drops over the edge of the Auyán-tepui mountain in the Canaima National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima), a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Gran Sabana region of Bolívar State. The height figure, 979 m (3,212 ft), mostly consists of the main plunge but also includes about 400 metres (1,300 ft) of sloped cascade and rapids below the drop and then a 30-metre-high (100 ft) plunge downstream of these talus rapids.

The falls are along a fork of the Río Körepa which flows into the Churún River, a tributary of the Carrao River, itself a tributary of the Orinoco River.

With regard to overall height, a revisited validation of waterfall measurements is not available, and there is still uncertainty whether Angel Falls or South Africa's Tugela Falls is the tallest (both measurements were taken at considerable distance from the two waterfalls). (wikipedia)

• • •

I really wanted to like this. At the halfway point, I did. I got the revealer, looked back at the two themers I'd already gotten, realized one was a word for "hell" and one was an example of "high water," and thought, "oh, that's fun." HELL OR HIGH WATER is a really nice phrase. OK, the full phrase is COME HELL OR HIGH WATER, but it's fine as it is. So, halfway through, feeling alright. And then I hit PURGATORY. Let me tell you something about PURGATORY. First, as any MEDIEVAList (and probably lots of other people) can tell you, it is not "hell." I mean, it is decidedly, definitively, absolutely positively not "hell." The very fact that the clue tells you it is a "stop" in the afterlife tells you that it is not hell. If you know anything about hell, it's that it's not a stop. You go in, and that's it; you don't get out. "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here." Ever heard of it? Kind of famous. Do you know how much PURGATORY is not hell? It's so much not hell that Dante wrote a book about hell (Inferno) and then wrote An Entirely Separate Book about purgatory (Purgatorio), an Entirely Separate Realm of the Afterlife. They are distinct and non-overlapping places. If you are in Purgatory, despite the fact that you might be there for a long time doing unpleasant things over and over, you are Very Very Happy to be there and doing your punishment with great alacrity because (say it with me) you are Not in hell. People in Purgatory get out! They are, in fact, Heaven- (Paradiso-) bound. People in hell, not so much. Not at all. Virgil can leave hell for a bit to show Dante around the first part of purgatory, but eventually he has to hand Dante off to Beatrice because even he, the most important and revered denizen of Inferno (the only one who can get out even temporarily), can only go so far. So ... fatal thematic error. I mean, mind-spinningly fatal. Good theme idea, utterly ruined.

The fill also got a little weak on the back end. CMA ALB ELA (and ELLA?) ... so much overcommon gunk ... and ZANG!?!?!?! (45A: Zing ___ (brand of Bloody Mary mix)). "Brand of Bloody Mary mix" lol what? Seriously, what? LOL. I know you wanted that "Z," but what in the world is happening there? This is the debut of ZANG. You can see why no one ever bothered to use it before. It's awful. A partial Bloody Mary mix name???? Purge your wordlist!!! The great Japanese director Yasujiro OZU is still waiting to make his first appearance in the NYTXW, and meanwhile this frickin' Bloody Mary mix half-name is like "hey, you mind if I cut the line, cool, thanks!" Jeez louise. I do like ZURICH as an answer. Still, not worth the ZANG of it all. Also, so many names in this one. None of them are particularly tough (except maybe LEV, if you're not familiar with modern fantasy lit), but ugh so many: NADIA OLGA POE ESTEE RHEA RIAN LOEW ELBA LEV ELI REGAN ERNIE APU, make it stop (I could've added ARETHA to that list, but you will Never hear me complain about Aretha being in the puzzle).

Bullets:

• 4D: Leave the cocoon (EMERGE) — this was maybe the hardest Down in my Downs-only solve. An odd way to come at EMERGE. Luckily, adjacent Downs allowed me to infer the first few letters of EMERGE, so no great tragedy.
• 65A: Arctic creatures with flippers (SEALS) — "Arctic" ... I mean, sure, but they're just ... creatures with flippers. There are SEALS in plenty of non-Arctic places. Coincidentally, we're in the middle of John Sayles's The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) (I stopped it halfway through to come up and write just now). It's the movie we're watching this week in my Movie Club. It's very seal-centric, and it's set in Ireland, which, last I checked ... not Arctic.

• 25D: Word after Georgia, Virginia or low (TECH) — well you got me. I was like "... REEL?" Seems kinda weak to have two of the three examples be schools, but at least it was unusual. Not "partial Bloody Mary mix name" unusual—just plain old "kinda interesting unusual." You know, the good "unusual."
• 38D: Like many horror flicks (GORY) — speaking of GORY horror flicks, I just saw and really liked Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. The goriness is comically hyperbolic, and I'm not sure I'd actually call it a "horror film"—more a film about horror films, specifically, about the relationship between a young director tasked with rebooting a slasher franchise and the star of the original movie in the franchise (made some forty years earlier), now a reclusive figure living in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The latter character is played by Gillian Anderson (of X-Files fame), who ends up playing a kind of spiritual/sexual Virgil to Hannah Einbinder's Dante, and let me tell you—you've never seen anything like this relationship on screen. Also, you will never look at Kentucky Fried Chicken, or hear the Counting Crows' "Long December," quite the same way again.

[I was gonna play the Counting Crows song for you here but then I stumbled on this surprising and gorgeous solo version by MJ Lenderman, enjoy]

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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