Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: RED HEAT (10D: 1988 comedy with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ivan Danko) —

Red Heat is a 1988 American buddy cop action comedy thriller film directed, co-written, and co-produced by Walter Hill and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Soviet policeman Ivan Danko, and Jim Belushi as Chicago police detective Art Ridzik. The film centers on the duo who, finding themselves on the same case, work as partners to catch a cunning and deadly Georgian drug kingpin, Viktor Rostavili (Ed O'Ross), who killed Danko's previous partner. Most of the scenes set in the Soviet Union were actually shot in Hungary. Schwarzenegger was paid $8 million for his role in the film. The film is dedicated to the memory of Bennie Dobbins, who died while filming in Austria. (wikipedia)

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Fairly short write-up today because the NYTXW was unavailable this morning for some unknown reason and so my normal writing window evaporated (I'm usually done by now, 5:55am). I need to get on with my day, so ... sorry, puzzle, but you're getting short shrift. Probably for the best, since most of what I'd be doing is groaning about how hard it was. I don't know if my rhythm just got thrown off by the outage or what but sitting down to solve a hard puzzle at 5:30am vs. sitting down to solve it right when I wake up (~4:15am) felt very different. I am extremely routinized when it comes to this blog, and so I don't know if my struggles today were the result of the puzzle itself or of my being off-schedule (for instance, I've already done some light exercise, I've already got the coffee made ... maybe these things have addled me). Anyway, woof, I had some moments there early on where I was like "Am I ever going to be able to solve this thing?" Just couldn't get a foothold. CHAW??? (1A: Leaves with a pungent taste in one's mouth?). LOL, not in a million years with that clue. Is CHAW a word for "chewing tobacco?" Yes, it is. I knew I was dealing with actual leaves (i.e. foliage), but I still couldn't think of an answer. I think I had COCA in there for a bit. But after that, only CLAM (tentative) and ATRA (certain) in the NW. NE wasn't much friendlier. Ended up way down in the SE before I finally got my (MEAT)HOOKs into this one, starting with AGED (wrong! it's DYED (46D: Processed with bloodroot or butternut)) but then ARSE (correct!) and SEED (53A: Sow what?) (genuinely funny clue—I wanted something to do with a pig, at first). Then ARKS CLERK FEAR (a guess), and then finally a sigh of relief as the corner started to really come together.

From there, I made steady if slow progress up the east coast, then through the middle—where I stalled out again when I couldn't get PACKS (29D: Starts to make a move) and wrote in TO LET instead of UNLET (32D: Available, as an apartment). But then down to the SW corner (thank you, LABATT's!) (42A: Eponymous Ontario brewer John), and then up and ta da, finishing where I started: CHAW! Disgusting way to end. But it was a good puzzle, in that I had to work, and the fill was decent. (In the morning puzzle confusion, I forgot to open the puzzle with the new version of the software, the one w/ the post-solve animation and timer, so I don't know how long it took me, but ... I wanna say 10? For me, an absolute whooping.)

SPEED ROUND:

9A: ___ pad (CRASH) — lots of "????" fill-in-the-blanks (or "word that goes with") today. None of them transparent to me. TAG (8D: Word with dog or ear). TREAT (23D: "My ___"). Neither of the quotations were familiar (though I got "FEAR" a lot more easily than I got "CRAG"). I wrote in "Go GREEN" (of course) before "Go SOLAR" (boo!) (20D: "Go ___" (environmentalist's catchphrase). Over and over, I tripped and stalled.
9D: Bunch of dubious characters? (CHICKEN SCRATCH) — fun (to me) fact—I debuted this answer back in 2012 (this is its first appearance since):

14A: Country that celebrates Stork Day on March 25 to honor the return of its national bird (LITHUANIA) — cool triv but lol my knowing this. It's just [Country] and wait for crosses.
26A: Light refreshments? (PALE ALES) — they're light in color, presumably.
31A: First Day observers (QUAKERS) — really needed that "Q" because I had -T-KERS (from the TO LET error) and nearly wrote in STOKERS, just assuming they were some sect I'd never heard of. First Day is just ... Sunday?
36A: Break dancing? (CUT IN) — very nice clue.

38A: Alex Honnold's "How I climbed a 3,000-foot vertical cliff — without ropes" and others (TED TALKS) — briefly thought 29D: Starts to make a move (PACKS) was PACES (!?) and so was surprised to find that there were things called TED TALES now ... (there aren't, it turns out).
39A: Kind of concrete that does not require pre-mixing (DRY-SET) — oof. Not PRE-SET, then? I ended up with DRI-SET, figuring it was some kind of industry spelling, since I was certain that UIGHURS was spelled with the "I" (u(i)gh!) (37D: Ethnic group in China's Xinjiang region).
6D: Whopper topper (ONION) — saw this for the hamburger clue it was, but wasn't sure it wasn't about lying ... when I think of the "top" of a Whopper, I think of sesame seeds, but I may be confusing it with a Big Mac. Looks like both burgers feature sesame seed buns, though only one has a jingle that mentions them. Whatever, the answer was ONION, which "tops" the beef, OK, but not the whole Whopper, so boo.

7A: Bad tipper? (FINK) — don't love this. Is the idea that he's bad for talking to the cops (presumably)? Is this clue pro-crime, pro-code of silence, pro-Omerta? Or is the FINK just a bad guy (in the generic sense of the term) and he's squealing? His tips probably aren't bad. They're good tips? Otherwise he wouldn't really be a FINK, would he?
12D: Confection named for Yankee legend Phil Rizzuto (SCOOTER PIE) — lol no, no idea. Don't know what that is, don't know what it's got to do with baseball, nothing nothing nothing. I had heard the term before, probably, since I was able to guess the SCOOTER part, eventually, but woof, no, I had nothing here. The internet is telling me it's just a knock-off of a moon pie.

["Holy cow! They're named after me.”]

13D: Finishes a shift? (HEMS) — shift = dress. I wrote in SEWS at first, then took the "finishes" part seriously and changed it to HEMS.
15D: Country house? (U.N. HEADQUARTERS) — great fill, clever clue.
22D: Fast bowler, in cricket (PACER) — lol please be serious. Cricket? Jeez louise.
48D: Actress/comedian Benaderet (BEA) — lol again no. The sheer number of things outside my ken today, ouch and woof and ugh. But again, I did appreciate the fight. Byron is one of my favs. Just wasn't on (or near) his wavelength today.