Carnivorous cinematic alien / TUE 6-9-26 / Assists, in basketball slang / English soccer star ___ James / Sound of a cartoon hit / Sport in an octagon, for short / Sonic boom generator? / Where employees work on tips and receive tips

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: steak orders — final words of four theme answers describe various levels of meat doneness:

Theme answers:

• RUBS RAW (21A: Chafes excessively)
• EXCEEDINGLY RARE (28A: Nearly unique)
• HAPPY MEDIUM (47A: Compromise that, ideally, leaves both parties satisfied)
• "THIS WON'T END WELL" (58A: Prediction of a negative outcome that is true of 21-, 28- and 47-Across)

Word of the Day: REECE James (54A: English soccer star ___ James) —

Reece Lewis James (born 8 December 1999) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Premier League club Chelsea, which he captains, and the England national team.

James joined the Chelsea academy as a youth and turned professional in 2017, a season where he captained the under-18s to victory in the FA Youth Cup and was named Academy Player of the Season. A productive loan spell with Wigan Athletic of the Championship saw him promoted to the Chelsea first team upon his return in 2019. He won the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup with the club in 2021, and was appointed captain in 2023. He led Chelsea to victory at the UEFA Conference League and FIFA Club World Cup in 2025.

After representing England at various youth levels, James made his senior debut in 2020, and went on to appear at UEFA Euro 2020.

• • •

This theme is so straightforward I can't believe it hasn't been done before. Maybe it has. The one thing it has going for it is the somewhat cheeky clue on the last answer, which acts as both a completion of the series (RAW, RARE, MEDIUM, WELL) and a revealer—none of the other answers will "end well" because they end with words that describe different level of meat doneness. Also, the grid has mirror symmetry instead of the typical rotational symmetry, which makes the puzzle visually interesting, and makes room for some colorful long answers in the NW and NE. I don't really have anything to say about the theme. It seems fine. Plain, but fine. As a solver, I never noticed the theme til the very end. Seemed like an afterthought. The puzzle played like a very easy themeless, with "THIS WON'T END WELL" as the one true marquee answer (a wonderful standalone phrase that would look great in any puzzle). As for those longer answers in the NW and NE, it's slightly weird to get a single DNA STRAND, but I don't mind it. It's quirky, and very gettable, so no harm done. I had HAIR SALON before NAIL SALON, which I don't feel too bad about, as ... isn't "tips" a hair term too? (11D: Where employees work on tips and receive tips). Didn't people (mainly women) used to get "frosted tips?" I have no hair, so I am out of my depth, but I really feel like "tips" has some kind of HAIR SALON context. Ah, look, "frosted tips"—still a thing. Good, I feel less crazy. On the other side of the grid, I've been to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe (a treasure), so NEW MEXICO was a gimme. As for "I MEAN, C'MON!" (3D: "Sheesh, gimme a break!") ... it's weird, but "C'MON" feels like the spelling you'd use if that was all that you were saying, whereas opening with "I MEAN" really seems to call for the full "COME ON." There's something slightly drawn out and dramatic about the expression that the clipped "C'MON" doesn't capture. I think the phrase is OK as is, but my ear is balking a little.

[at the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, 2019]

The few tough spots I had could best be expressed through a two-category Venn diagram: "People with names that sound like 'Reese'" and "Soccer-related things," with REECE James in the overlap. The guy looks / sounds familiar, but I think you really have to follow Premier League to know him. In the "Reese" category with him is Dee REES, whose name is more familiar, but still, I don't know if her name would've come to me right away (actually, she wasn't an actual "tough spot" at all because I never saw her—puzzle was so easy that her name just kinda filled itself in) (21D: Dee who directed 2017's "Mudbound"). Over in the "Soccer-related things" part of the Venn diagram, in addition to REECE we've also got USWNT (50D: Squad captained by Lindsey Horan to win Olympic gold in '24, for short). I find both USWNT and USMNT confusing as neither abbreviation contains a letter that stands for the damned sport that they play! The letters stand for U.S. Women's National Team. So every time I see either abbreviation, I think "... tennis? is the 'T' tennis? Is the 'N' ... netball? oh, I remember now: United Soccer-Winning National Team! That's it."

Bullets:

• 20A: Sport in an octagon, for short (MMA) — this one's a little too timely. (don't click through if you'd rather not think about the US president today)
• 55A: Sonic boom generator? (SEGA) — SEGA is the company behind the popular Sonic the Hedgehog video game, which gave rise to movie franchise and a whole Sonic universe ("boom!")
• 33A: Assists, in basketball slang (DIMES) — this, I knew. Speaking of basketball. Looks like the Knicks lost last night. Too bad. Oh well, at least this happened (again, don't click through if you'd rather not think about the US president today)
• 61A: "We feel the same way" ("US TOO") — reflexively wrote in "ME TOO." "US TOO" doesn't flow off the tongue quite as readily.
• 62A: Airport raced through in "Home Alone," in brief (ORD) — so, Chicago's O'Hare

• 64A: Sound of a cartoon hit (BOINK) — if you watch cartoons or read comics, you know, this could've been anything. SPLAT! THWAP! WHACK! Even with the "K" in place, I wasn't sure. 
• 6D: Carnivorous cinematic alien (BLOB) — That's The BLOB, to you. I don't think I knew that the BLOB was an "alien" (as in, from outer space?). I thought it was just ... a BLOB ... wreaking havoc on Steve McQueen ... somehow. BLOB is part of a really nicely filled little section at the top of the grid where (almost) all the answers seem vaguely related to each other. BLOB ... SPRAWL ... ABSURD! Maybe the government is trying to track it with SONAR, which BLEEPs periodically. And maybe at the end of the movie they case the BLOB back into the ABYSS whence it came (again, to be clear, I have never seen the movie and have no idea what happens besides ... a blob blobbing around town and Steve McQueen somewhere nearby):

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Scoundrel's deeds / MON 6-8-26 / Email winnower / Popular board game adapted from India [1] / Watercraft for an Inuit / Accessibility law inits

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only)

THEME: PARAMOUNT (50A: Of the highest importance ... or, when parsed differently, what each bracketed number in the clues indicates?) — the word "PAR" appears at the front of every word in the theme answers (first once, then twice, then three times)—so the bracketed number at the end of every theme clue indicates that answer's "PAR amount":

Theme answers:

• PARCHEESI (18A: Popular board game adapted from India [1])
• PARALLEL PARKING (23A: Challenge for student drivers [2])
• PARTY PARTY PARTY! (41A: Never stop having fun [3])

Word of the Day: HUGO Boss (12A: Designer Boss) —

Hugo Ferdinand Boss (8 July 1885 – 9 August 1948) was a German businessman who founded the fashion house Hugo Boss. He was an active member of the Nazi Party from 1931, and remained so until Nazi Germany's capitulation. His clothing company also utilized forced labour drawn from German-occupied territories and prisoner-of-war camps to manufacture military uniforms for the Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't really know what to do with this. I don't get it. I feel like I should get it. It's Monday. Monday themes should be clear. And this one appears clear. There are brackets telling you the amount (number) of "PAR"s in each theme answer. But ... why? What does Par have to do with anything? Is it golf? It doesn't feel very golfy, this puzzle. And nothing about PAR AMOUNT gets at the fact that "PAR" is in every word of every theme answer, and at the front of every word. Like, the PARs don't just appear, they appear in a very specific fashion ... but the revealer is only concerned with the "amount"? I feel like there's something clever here that I'm missing. Sadly, all I see are 1, 2, 3 "PAR"s ... for some reason. Or no reason. Just 'cause. Doesn't seem like a particularly inspiring idea for a theme. The parsing of PARAMOUNT as PAR [space] AMOUNT is kind of cute, but the end result is just ... counting "PAR"s, and that doesn't seem like much. Also, "PARTY PARTY PARTY" feels like a very weak and contrived way to get your three "PAR"s in. Is that a phrase people say? When they want to ... party (all the time) (party all the time) (party all the time)? I dunno. But I did enjoy the Downs-only solve, which felt constantly PARilous (just imagine that that is a good pun). I really thought I was going to fail to finish, multiple times, right up to the very end, when, finally, I managed to see GOTCHAS (4D: Hidden snags). With only the "C" and the "A" in place, I was Not seeing it. Earlier, I wanted CATCHES, which seemed to fit the clue really nicely, but the crosses just wouldn't work. So I was happy to get that last big 'aha' with GOTCHAS, although I can't say that's a term I've seen in the plural very often, if ever. Strange theme, challenging Downs-only solve. Some interesting / unusual answers (SPAM FILTER / REPORT BACK / KNAVERY). I didn't have a bad time, that's about all I can say by way of an overall assessment.

So GOTCHAS was my main struggle point. I got SPAM FILTER with absolutely no help from crosses (9D: Email winnower), so that made the whole NE very pliable, but once I got into the center, and all around that third themer, things got real gunked up. KNAVERY is not an answer that's easy to parse, as you almost never see it and so don't expect it. At least I didn't. Plus I had EEO or EOE at 36D: Accessibility law inits. at first (Equal Employment Opportunity / Equal Opportunity Employer). But it's a very specific law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that the clue was after. Not having that "A" made KNAVERY impossible to see (34A: Scoundrel's deeds). Also, I know a little too much about Inuit watercraft, I think, as I wrote in UMIAK for 34D: Watercraft for an Inuit (KAYAK). "Like the kayak, the traditional umiak was made from a driftwood or whalebone frame pegged and lashed together, sometimes with antlers or ivory, over which walrus or bearded seal skins are stretched" (wikipedia). If you solved crosswords in the olden days, you may not have made the same mistake I did here, but perhaps you're nodding your head understandingly. So my first pass at KNAVERY  came out UNEVERY, which almost looks wordlike (something less than every?), but isn't. I also had NEW TO before NEW AT (28D: Starting to learn) and I had trouble figuring out THRIFT (43D: What misers take to an extreme), which is not a word that screams "miser," for me. REPORT BACK was a bear (25D: Give a debriefing (to)), but the K from KAYAK (er, UMIAK), got me RUBIK, which got me the "B" I (really) needed to see the BACK part of REPORT BACK, and then I was able to infer the rest.

Bullets:

• 12A: Designer ___ Boss (HUGO) — pretty notorious Nazi. Made uniforms for Nazis. Used prisoner-of-war labor. Surely there are other HUGOs. Why not Victor? Or Weaving? 

• 38A: Card game whose name is something players cry (UNO) — also GIN. Gotta be careful.
• 59A: Up in the air (ALOFT) — was able to parse this Across fairly easily because I'd been thinking about this word recently, as it's a word that is potentially lethal when playing Quordle (or Octordle). You can have all the letters but still screw up and play FLOAT if you're not careful. And FLOAT and ALOFT don't just share the same letters—three of those letters are in the same place. Tricky. Dangerous. 
• 26D: Prime use for a crowbar (LEVER) — I think the "use" thing threw me. A crowbar simply *is* a LEVER. Like, [Crowbar, e.g.] would've been a fine clue for LEVER. The clue isn't wrong, but its phrasing made me think the answer would be something like "PRYING" or "SMASHING WINDOWS" (only, you know, shorter).

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I set the "Number of Days Without a Star Wars Reference" counter back to zero yesterday, late in the day, because, as someone in the Comments pointed out, the clue for RTE (46D: This is the way: Abbr.) is an expression frequently used on and popularized by The Mandalorian. 

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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