Puffy, pink protagonist of Nintendo fame / MON 11-2-26 / Upper regions of the sky, poetically / Hexagonal mesh used to fence in poultry / Home installation providing propane to a grill or fireplace / Mountain cryptid whose name inspired a water-bottle brand / "Received and understood," in radio lingo

Constructor: Max Schlenker

Relative difficulty: Challenging (solved Downs-only) 

THEME: "I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT" (60A: "It all makes sense now!" ... or what you may exclaim after combining the ends of 17-, 23-, 36- and 51-Across) — last words of themers combine (?) to make (electric) light:

Theme answers:

• EMOTIONAL OUTLET (17A: Activity that helps one release pent-up feelings)
• CHICKEN WIRE (23A: Hexagonal mesh used to fence in poultry)
• TULIP BULB (36A: Early bloomer?)
• STAY CURRENT (51A: Be up-to-date with the news)

Word of the Day: KIRBY (25D: Puffy, pink protagonist of Nintendo fame) —

Kirby is a media franchise created by Japanese video game designer and director Masahiro Sakurai. The franchise revolves around the titular protagonist and his adventures on the fictional planet Popstar and beyond. The franchise is primarily developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo, with both companies jointly owning the property.

The franchise mainly consists of a video game series, which in turn mainly comprises platformers. The first game in the series, Kirby's Dream Land, was released in 1992. The second, Kirby's Adventure (1993), introduced Kirby's signature ability to copy enemy skills, allowing him to use them to progress through levels, distinguishing the series from other entries in the genre. The series also includes games in the puzzle and racing genres. Sakurai conceived the franchise as a game series for beginners, to which he partially attributes the series' success. Currently, the video game series contains thirty-nine games with over 50 million games sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises.

The franchise also includes an anime television series based on the video games, Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, which aired from 2001 to 2003 and also includes a special; and several manga series. (wikipedia)

• • •

After I "combine" an outlet, wire, bulb and current? Who am I, Edison? I just plug in my lamp, and flip a switch, man. It's just electricity. I guess the "combine" thing is supposed to elevate the puzzle above the rudimentary "last words"-type of puzzle, where all the last words have something in common, but whatever scenario it's imagining where "I" "exclaim" something doesn't really land. Still, the theme answers are strong in their own right, and the grid is somewhat more interesting overall than your typical Monday grid, so the puzzle's got those things going for it. The reason the fill is more interesting than usual is precisely the reason this puzzle was So much harder than usual (from a Downs-only perspective): namely, that there were not 4, not 8, not 12, but 13 (!) 7-letter Downs. Four banks of three, each of which was, to varying degrees, a bear. In general, the longer the answer, the harder it is to get with no crosses (which is what you're doing most of the time when you're solving Downs-only), so a bank of three can be daunting, and four banks of three, yikes—odds are you're gonna get hung up somewhere. For me, it was the NW above all. No way I was getting to THE GOAT with no help from crosses (1D: Highest-caliber athlete, to fans) (THE GOAT is actually the highest-caliber *anything*, to fans, but we'll let that go). "HUMOR ME" = brutal without help from crosses (2D: "Follow my train of thinking, OK?!"). Why is there an exclamation point in that clue?! I managed to get EGO TRIP, eventually, even though I wouldn't characterize an EGO TRIP as an "endeavor" (3D: Self-aggrandizing endeavor). Worst of all, I could not see what the first beginning of EMOTIONAL OUTLET was supposed to be, even after getting it down to ---TIONAL OUTLET! All I could think of was NATIONAL OUTLET. Gah! I also had CLOTH as FIBER for a bit (5D: Cotton or silk), so that didn't help.

Other corners were somewhat easier, though again, the clue phrasing threw me. I would never think of a GAS PIPE as an "installation," though I suppose that is a defensible characterization (39D: Home installation providing propane to a grill or fireplace). The PIPE part was quite a chore for me. The NE was probably the easiest of the corners, with the difficulty of the corners getting increasingly difficult as you move clockwise from there. But the part of the Downs-only experience that really got me was not a corner at all. It was the middle, specifically KIRBY. I thought for sure I was dead there. K---B- and no idea what to do. Even now, having looked up KIRBY for today's "Word of the Day," I just ... don't know. Like, it's a familiar pink blob, but I don't think I've known anyone who played a KIRBY game, or ever discussed KIRBY, or anything. Been around over 30 years and ... honestly, I've got nothing. It has made only the faintest impression in my mind. Looking up the NYTXW history of KIRBY, I now see that I had the *exact* same experience the *last* time I saw Kirby in a puzzle, in June of last year:

As I said, the difficulty shot way up for me once I hit the equator of this puzzle, due almost entirely to not knowing what the **** a KIRBY is (see "Word of the Day," above). Apparently the roster of characters in the Greater Nintendo Universe is inexhaustible and it's my sad fate to continue finding this out, in puzzle after puzzle, ad infinitum, like Sideshow Bob, just stepping on rakes, for the rest of my solving life.

So. Here I am again. Just a man, standing in front of a KIRBY, asking "WTF are you?" Anyway, somehow I managed to look at WA-TS and get beyond WATTS and WANTS to WARTS, and *that* is what finally knocked KIRBY loose from my brain. Ugh. Maybe if there had been more KIRBY ... what, movies? Toys? Something? Then his (his?) name might've stuck. Hopefully it sticks now. I still think the hardest part of the puzzle, from a Downs-only perspective, is the NW, but not knowing KIRBY didn't help! So slow. Over 8 minutes on a Monday!? LOL, that's my usual Saturday time. But when you're dead-stopped, as I was several times today, the clock ... doesn't care. 

Bullets:

• 64A: Muscle used in a dumbbell bench press, informally (PEC) — "dumbbell" is totally unnecessary here. Just say "bench press." Whatever "bench press" you can imagine, it's working your PECs, I promise. 
• 4D: Mountain cryptid whose name inspired a water-bottle brand (YETI) — just because a brand is named after something does not mean that thing "inspired" the brand. It's a water bottle. I don't believe the YETI "inspired" the brand. Someone just thought the name sounded cool. The end. YETI do not drink from water bottles. Even an amateur yetiologist knows this. They drink the blood of KIRBYs. Read a book!
• 46D: Nine-time Grammy winner Frank (SINATRA) — me, at first, sincerely: "Why won't OCEAN fit!?"

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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Its famous holes are formed by propionibacteria / SUN 11-1-26 / Repeated words in the chorus of "Sweet Child o' Mine" / Titular fictional heroine from the Alps / Pitch raisers for guitarists / Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. / Beethoven work originally titled "Bonaparte" / Symbol for a stop on a subway map / Roald Dahl title character who subsists on "snozzcumbers," with "the" / Payment inits. found in "debt-free" / Member of the largest contiguous empire in history

Constructor: Kevin Curry and Zhou Zhang

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Be Amazed" — the grid ends up being a visual representation of a LABRAT maze, with "CHEESE" (in a single square) at the end of the maze route. Shaded squares in theme answers form hidden (i.e. unclued) obstacles that the rat has to maneuver around on its way to the cheese. Also on the way to the cheese—circled letters spelling out the title of a "1998 book": WHO MOVED MY [Cheese]?

There are puzzle notes:

Theme answers:

• OBSTACLE COURSE (30A: Appetizers, entree or dessert)
• ROOM DIVIDER (15D: Unit in the game Clue)
• STONEWALL (69A: Slingshot ammo)
• BARRIER REEF (67D: Many a shipwreck site)
• INVISIBLE FENCE (99A: Out of sight)

Word of the Day: Who Moved My Cheese?  —

Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life is a 1998 motivational business fable by Spencer Johnson about change in work and life. The book is written as a parable about two mice and two "Littlepeople" during their hunt for cheese. A New York Times business bestseller upon release, Who Moved My Cheese? remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list. As of 2018, it has sold almost 30 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books. In November 2018, it was followed by a sequel called Out of the Maze. [...] In the corporate environment, management has been known to distribute this book to employees during times of "structural reorganization", or during cost-cutting measures, in an attempt to portray unfavorable or unfair changes in an optimistic or opportunistic way. This has been characterized by Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America as an attempt by organizational management to make employees quickly and unconditionally assimilate management ideals, even if they may prove detrimental to them professionally. Ehrenreich called the book "the classic of downsizing propaganda" and summarizes its message as "the dangerous human tendencies to 'overanalyze' and complain must be overcome for a more rodentlike approach to life. When you lose a job, just shut up and scamper along to the next one."

• • •

Hello from Halloween central—it's currently prime trick-or-treating hours (Saturday night, 10-31-26), and I'm up here trying to get the first part of blogging done so I can then go back downstairs and hand out candy to kiddies and finish watching Psycho (an annual tradition). Speaking of Psycho—I laughed out loud when I hit EROICA (which may be the only time that has ever happened or is ever likely to happen) (113A: Beethoven work originally titled "Bonaparte"), since that is the record that Marion's sister Lila finds on Norman Bates's turntable when she's wandering the Bates mansion looking for evidence of what happened to her sister—before Norman catches on that she's in there, runs up there from the motel, quickly changes into "Mother's" clothes, and then tries to kill Lila in the fruit cellar (I've seen this movie a Lot):

Unlike Psycho, or having your house beset by literally hundreds of trick-or-treaters because it's a beautiful Saturday night and you live in a very walkable and trick-or-treatable neighborhood, this puzzle wasn't very scary. I finished it with almost no trouble, despite the fact that I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be seeing, and I certainly have never read the book Who Moved My Cheese? So disappointed to read the puzzle notes and see that the puzzle was based on a "1998 book," only to have that book be some business book (?). I remember it being Very popular, but it seemed like some kind of businessy self-help something-or-other, so all I really know about it is the title. Really wanted the "1998 book" to be some kind of kid's book or some fantasy novel about a LAB RAT ... but no. Business book. Maybe if I'd read the book, the puzzle would've been more fun to solve. I guess the idea of hunting for cheese in a maze is key to the "ideas" of the book? Shrug. I admire the architecture of this one, and I really like the way the various obstacles were handled—formally unclued, but visually clued just fine, i.e. the clue for OBSTACLE COURSE points only to "COURSE" (30A: Appetizers, entree or dessert), but since you know you're dealing with a lab rat, the idea that those shaded squares represent barriers of some kind makes sense, especially after you piece together the first one or two. The whole maze conceit didn't gel for me visually at all, though, until the app did the work for me at the end, showing me the rat, drawing the rat's course through the grid, etc. So the "Aha" moment felt forced—like, I said "Aha," but only as the result of a post-solve visual representation, not as a result of figuring anything out myself. Disappointing in that regard. Clearly this puzzle literally wasn't for me (as I know nothing about this book), but I could still appreciate what the constructors were trying to do.

The fill must've been fine because I don't recall cringing much. Maybe I was just going too fast to notice. Crossing REHEAR with REDEALT is maybe not the most elegant moment. But aside from a smattering of crosswordese, the fill by and large seems fine. I didn't get hung up anywhere except the Taylor Swift song—I can hear the quoted lyric in my head, with the right cadence and notes and everything, but it's like a snippet that exists out of context (14D: Taylor Swift hit with the lyric" You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye"). I kept trying to follow it to some kind of recognizable chorus, but: no dice. If you'd given me a list of one-word title options, I doubt I could've told you the title was "STYLE." In fact, I know I couldn't have. Maybe if it was a multiple-choice test and the options were A. "Fun" B. "Run" C. "Jump" D. "Style" E. "Power" ... maybe. 


Bullets:

• 12A: Repeated words in the chorus of "Sweet Child o' Mine" (OHS) — one of my favorite moments of the solve, as I kept singing the song to myself, trying to figure out exactly what the "chorus" was, looking for a sequence of "words" that was repeated ... only to discover it's just the one "word," "OH," said over and over again. I think that besides "Sweet child o' mine" and a smattering of "ooh"s and "yeah"s, the "OHS" are the *only* words in the chorus. Let's find out.

• 26A: Roald Dahl title character who subsists on "snozzcumbers," with "the" (BFG) — I never read this, so all I ever remember about the title is that it's three (to me) random letters that are something like "B.F.D." (big f***ing deal). Is the title character a gnome? Does BFG stand for big F***ing Gnome? ... [checks] ... I mean, close: Big Friendly Giant.

• 59A: Payment inits. found in "debt-free" (EBT) — also found in ... "debt." Weird clue. Is the idea that when you use EBT you do not incur debt (because it's a government benefits program)? Still a weird clue.
• 73A: Greek goddess whose chariot is pulled by Firebright and Daybright (EOS) — three letters, ends in "S," Greek goddess—I don't really need to read the rest of the clue, although I am surprised to find that a Greek goddess has horses with names that make them sound like Care Bears or My Little Ponies (the latter is probably more apt).
• 12D: Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. (OCD) — am I supposed to just know what "C.B.T." is? Oh wait, is it Cognitive Behavioral Therapy!? Ha ha, bingo! EBT! CBT! BFG! OCD!

• 18D: Symbol for a stop on a subway map (DOT) — one of the hardest clues for me. "Symbol" had me thinking something much more ... symbolic. But it's just a DOT. Which is, technically, a "symbol," I guess. But it's not like a dog or an owl or a little house or even a star ... something more picturesque, which is what *I* was picturing.
• 31D: "___ your heart!" ("BLESS") — first guess, before I'd properly assessed the length of the answer or anything:

• 93D: ___ Arbor (ANN) — outside of the general NYC area, the crosswordingest cities in the U.S., judging by my correspondence / supporters, are Minneapolis/St. Paul and ANN Arbor. Pound for pound, it might be ANN Arbor. It's possible other cities have a lot of solvers and they're just solving other crosswords. Or people in those cities just don't care for me, who can say?

That's all for today. See you next time. And happy November (the best month)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. the latest episode of "Crosstalk" (a crossword construction podcast hosted by Daniel Grinberg) features a charming and insightful interview with Zhou Zhang (half of today's husband/wife construction team). Highly recommended. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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📘 My other blog 📘:

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