Blue stop sign? / THU 5-28-26 / Walking-around money for Pavarotti? / Icy passage to Antarctica's McMurdo Station / Guardians of bushido tradition / Whistling stickup man on "The Wire" / McGwire's rival in the 1990s M.L.B. / Dark and sultry, like a femme fatale's gaze

Constructor: John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: A major "OR" deal... — "___ OR ___" phrases are clued as if the "OR" were affixed to the end of the first word:

Theme answers:

• TENOR TWENTY (17A: Walking-around money for Pavarotti?)
• PASTOR PRESENT (27A: Preacher's gift?)
• FACTOR FICTION (41A: 5 and 8 go into 42, for example?)
• MAYOR MAY NOT (55A: Local leader is prohibited?)

Word of the Day: Jimmy CARR (43D: Comedian Jimmy) —

James Anthony Patrick Carr (born 15 September 1972) is a British and Irish comedian. He began his stand-up career in 1997. He has regularly appeared on television as the host of Channel 4 panel shows such as The Big Fat Quiz of the Year (2004-present), 8 Out of 10 Cats (2005–2021), and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (2012-present). Carr is known for his rapid-fire deadpan delivery of one-liners and often controversial and edgy dark humour. [...] Carr was the first British comedian to have a Netflix stand-up special with his show Funny Business. [...] In a stand-up comedy performance released as a Christmas 2021 Netflix special titled His Dark Material, Carr joked:

When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.

During the show, Carr said the joke was meant to raise awareness of Romani victims of the Holocaust. The joke later received widespread attention the following February after a clip was posted and shared online. He was condemned by the Auschwitz Memorial, Hope not Hate and The Traveller Movement, who called anti-Romani prejudice the "last acceptable form of racism" in the UK. [...] In 2025, Jimmy Carr performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. The event was criticised by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as an attempt to whitewash human rights abuses committed in Saudi Arabia. Comedians who played at the festival faced backlash from journalists and fellow artists for participating. Carr defended his performance at the festival, stating: "I played it. I loved it. I think we need to give up on the idea that the Middle East becomes Western Europe." (wikipedia)

• • •

Didn't think much of this theme, but appreciated that the puzzle gave me a boatload of interesting non-theme fill, so that at times I could pretend like I was solving a pretty decent mid-week themeless. Those NE and SW corners are hot, and other longer answers like TERTIARY, LOTHARIO, SLOE-EYED, and DOORMATS (as clued!) (4D: People who get walked all over) really keep things lively all over. But yeah, no, the theme ... real mild on the HAR (har). Real "Jeremy's Iron" stuff. And even if you really liked it, I think it's much more of a Wednesday than a Thursday puzzle. There's nothing particularly tricky going on. You just PARSE (!) the phrases differently, and even if it takes you some time to get the first one because you don't know yet where the wackiness is going, after that, every themer is cake. In fact, I was able to no-look that third themer, no problem. I had most of its front end worked out from crosses, and the phrase was simply obvious. I was also able to no-look "OH, NO REASON," TERTIARY, and MENAGERIE—the puzzle was so easy that by the time I would look at a longer answer, it would be sufficiently filled in, such that looking at the clue was unnecessary (I don't recommend solving this way under tournament conditions, or any conditions, really, as it can bite you in the ass, but my pattern recognition was on point today). There was precisely one answer in the clue I didn't know: Jimmy CARR. I was like, "Kimmel? Fallon? .... Choo?" But no, he's just shoes. Anyway, once again, crosses easy, so even CARR didn't do much to slow me down. It is mildly interesting that there are (at least) four different cases where an "OR"-ending word can, if you break the "OR" off, form the front end of a familiar "___ OR ___" phrase. But still, the humor here never got above a single HAR, and mostly didn't even get there. But again, I'm grateful for all the longer answers, which, even if they weren't challenging, at least brightened up the solve a bit.

This thing opened way too easy. GANDHI to GOTO to OMAR to NINA and whoosh it was all over. Well, I did have to move over to the next little section to figure out what the "walking-around money" was going to be. Not sure where or when Pavarotti is "walking around," but TWENTY seems kind of low. If he were your child, then sure, here's a twenty, knock yourself out, kid. But for a grown-up, I dunno. Twenty seemed arbitrary, given the clue. But as I say, not hard. I weirdly enjoyed mentally spelling AARGH correctly on the first try, confirming it with WING (which got a funnyish misdirective clue—8D: Bit of a lark), and then confirming that with OWLS. Double bird surprise! We're working our way through season 2 of Twin Peaks (which is like being stuck in a long dark weird but kinda boring dream), and the OWLS, the OWLS (which, I've been told, are not what they seem) are making their presence felt a little more (due to some vaguely owl-shaped petroglyph, which was found in a cave, which, when manipulated, seemed to set off some kind of earthquake ... I told you it was like a dark weird boring dream!). Anyway, AARGH / WING / OWLS amused me. I think of throwing overhand, not OVERARM. Are they the same. The wikipedia entry is for "overhand throw" exclusively. It looks like they're basically synonymous (one of the cited sources on the page uses "OVERARM" in the title). The only thing besides CARR that gave me any pause was SENSATE, which I think of as merely "having the ability to sense (or perceive)," not as "perceptive" (in the sense of "insightful"). Maybe there's a meaning of "perceptive" that's just "capable of perceiving things." Yes, a neutral meaning. It exists. I never hear "perceptive" used that way (there's always the implication of keen perception), but the neutral "capable of perceiving" definition exists. Awkward. But not so awkward that you're likely to get held up for very long.

Bullets:

• 35A: Icy passage to Antarctica's McMurdo Station (ROSS SEA) — one of your more common seven-letter xword answers, due to all those common letters, including a rarely-seen triple-"S"! I probably should've made McMurdo Station my Word of the Day. "McMurdo Station is an American Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), a branch of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,200 residents, though the population fluctuates seasonally" (wikipedia). 23 NYTXW appearances all-time for ROSSSEA, 16 in the Shortz Era.
• 40A: Billionaire Musk (ELON) — I would be furious if the editors decided to change my non-racist ELON clue into this racist one. Truly one of the most execrable human beings on the planet. Essentially a mass murder. Just disgusting that he's here at all. Pardon my french, but fuck that guy.
• 26D: Guardians of bushido tradition (SENSEIS) — stupid me, I thought "sensei" was just a generic word for "teacher." Wait ... I was right, that is basically what it means. There are definitely SENSEIS in the "bushido tradition," but the narrowness of the clue had me imagining a much narrower, more Bushido-specific answer (Bushido = samurai moral code) (saw a beautiful (and bloody!) samurai movie yesterday called Hitokiri as part of my ongoing birth-year movie challenge (see 56 movies from the year I was born (1969) before I turn 57 (Nov. 26)). Eight down, only 48 to go (roughly 2 / week ... I can do it! I believe in myself! My couch-sitting powers are unrivaled!)

• 11D: Answer to "Why's your report card in the trash?" ("OH, NO REASON") — great answer, but this clue ... I dunno. This kid seems pretty dumb. You (presumably) suck at school and you have absolutely no idea how to hide shit from your parents? What skill set are you bringing to life, exactly, kid. 
• 32D: Blue stop sign? (SAFE WORD) — if the surrounding answers had been harder to come up with, this one might've proved more of a problem. "Blue" here means "sexual" ("profane" "indecent" "risqué"). Some sex activity (esp. BDSM) requires a SAFE WORD, which functions as an unambiguous stand-in for "stop," as the actual word "stop" may be part of the role-playing.
• 39D: Comes on little cat feet (TIPTOES) — I have never heard this expression (apparently from a poem about fog). My cats do not tiptoe. They would be insulted if you said that. Undignified. How dare you. They are naturally ninja-quiet. Stalking skills: unparalleled. No "tiptoeing" required.

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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All-powerful avatar in "Read Player One" / WED 5-27-26 / Style magnate Gucci / Pitch-altering clamps on guitars / Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards / Low-lying landform / Engineering competition with two "battling" devices / He's always hard to find

Constructor: Dario Salvucci

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: PART OF SPEECH (53A: Noun or verb ... or a description of 20-, 30-, or 46-Across) — fragments ("parts") of famous lines from famous speeches:

Theme answers:

• FOUR SCORE AND ("___ seven years ago...") (ABE) (20A: November 19, 1863)
• ASK NOT WHAT ("___ your country can do for you...") (JFK) (30A: January 20, 1961)
• HAVE A DREAM ("I ___...") (MLK Jr.) (46A: August 28, 1963)

Word of the Day: RONDO (36A: Musical piece with repeated themes) —

[the '70s were full of wonders]

The rondo or rondeau is a musical form that contains a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") which alternates with one or more contrasting themes (generally called "episodes", but also referred to as "digressions" or "couplets"). Some possible patterns include: ABACA, ABACAB, ABACBA, or ABACABA (with the letter 'A' representing the refrain).

The rondo form emerged in the Baroque period and became increasingly popular during the Classical period. The earliest examples of compositions employing rondo form are found within Italian operatic arias and choruses from the first years of the 17th century. These examples use a multi-couplet rondo or "chain rondo" (ABACAD) known as the Italian rondo. Rondo form, also known in English by its French spelling rondeau, should not be confused with the unrelated but similarly-named forme fixe rondeau, a 14th- and 15th-century French poetic and chanson form. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one really lost me in the fill. Right from the beginning, WALDO crossed with ALDO made me wince, and then there was the awful ONLSD right on top of that. A really rough start. Not IDEAL. And then somehow the puzzle closed worse than it opened. ABORC!? You want people to end your puzzle on ABORC!? A discarded Tolkien creature? A clumsily aborted attempt to write ABORT? We haven't seen that clunker in ten years, and for good reason. There's no reason to ABORC your puzzle like this. The theme is not particularly demanding, so the fill should be, at worst, dull. Ordinary. ABORC is somewhere far, far beneath dull and ordinary. And crossing weak stuff like OBI and BON?? How do you not tear this corner out and start again? ABORC is burn-it-down territory. Are you that wed to ROBOT SUMO!?! (whatever that is) (58A: Engineering competition with two "battling" devices). Make better choices. 

In between the awkward beginning and the fiery, disastrous end, there's some good fill, there's some bad fill, and there's a theme. I did not really care for the theme. It's not horrible, it's barely there, and arbitrarily executed. The first two "parts of speech" contain the first three words of the famous phrase and omit what follows, but then the third gives you the second, third, and fourth words of the famous phrase and leaves off just the initial single-letter pronoun ("I"). So PART OF SPEECH isn't a great revealer. You're not dealing with famous "speeches," you're dealing with famous phrases within those speeches. In each case, the phrase itself—the complete phrase—would actually, technically be a PART OF SPEECH. So PART OF SPEECH, aside from being a somewhat dull phrase on its own, also doesn't quite get at what's happening. And then in execution the theme is really just "first three words of famous speech phrases, except the one where I randomly drop the 'I' from the MLK phrase and give you the next three words." Maybe solvers are supposed to feel smart for recognizing the speeches? I don't really see where the pleasure is supposed to be. So while "DARN IT ALL," "GOT A MATCH," and LEADFOOT provide some entertaining moments, on the whole I'd have to say "ABORC ANO TALIA!" (that's crosswordese for "no thanks").

Where was the difficulty today? Nowhere, really. I read Ready Player One once a decade or so ago, I guess. It was fine. Are we supposed to know the lore now? Isn't it enough to ask me to know all the LOTR and GOT characters, now you want me to remember (checks notes) ANORAK? The (checks notes) "all-powerful avatar" from a minor franchise, the second installment of which was widely panned? Extreme eyeroll for that one (28D: All-powerful avatar in "Read Player One"). ANORAK is a perfectly good word, just clue it as the word. Anyway, I needed all the crosses there. Otherwise, the only dilemma I had was CAREEN vs. CAREER (which also somehow means (essentially) "careen")—it's really very confusing) (25D: Veer this way and that). So I left the last letter blank and TENS took care of it (48A: Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards). Not seeing any other potential trouble spots. I did get slowed down / mystified by 34A: Low-lying landform (GLEN). When I see a four-letter "landform," my Pavlovian response is MESA. When that didn't work, my brain just shut down. Also, without good reason, I don't think of GLENs as "landforms." They're depressions in the earth, so they seem like ... the inverse of "landforms." Just ... empty space between "landforms" (i.e. mountains or hills). This is a personal brain malfunction. The clue is fine as is.

[This song, and this performance in particular, always makes me stop and listen all the way through]

Bullets:

• 1A: He's always hard to find (WALDO) — is he, though? "Always"? Not loving this presumptuous clue.
• 35A: Filming location for the archaeological dig in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (SAHARA) — this is undoubtedly true, but ... SAHARA???? That's ... a pretty big place. 9.2 million sq km, to be semi-precise. May as well say the filming location was AFRICA or EARTH.
• 18A: Red flag for a mortgage applicant (BAD CREDIT) — isn't this a red flag for the potential lender, not the applicant? Like, the lender sees a "red flag" and decides not to lend. I don't really enjoy whatever "for" is doing here. I also just don't like thinking about the very concept of BAD CREDIT or the credit industry in general. Grim. The opposite of fun. ABORC! ABORC!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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