Only card of its suit in a hand / THU 4-2-20 / Elf's evil counterpart / Large-beaked bird found in Africa / Gas brand that's also a musical direction / Fancy-schmancy language / Popular Italian car informally

Constructor: Evan Mahnken

Relative difficulty: Medium? (untimed clipboard solve)

THEME: FIVE-DOLLAR WORDS (57A: Fancy-schmancy language ... or the contents of some special squares in this puzzle) — a rebus with five different squares containing words that can also (kinda) mean "dollar":

Theme answers:

• NOTEPADS (9A: Places for to-do lists) / NO-TELL MOTEL (9D: Tryst locale)
• ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE (17A: Social media fad that went viral in 2014) / BUCKAROO (18D: Cowpoke)
• HORNBILL (24A: Large-beaked bird found in Africa) / BILL MAHER (27D: TV host once with an "Explaining Jokes to Idiots" segment)
• SINGLETON (28A: Only card of its suit in a hand) / SINGLES BAR (28D: Places where business is picking up?)
• CLAMOR (38A: Ado) / CLAM CHOWDER (38D: Manhattan, for one)

Word of the Day: Jack ELAM (21A: Jack of "Rio Lobo") —

William Scott "Jack" Elam (November 13, 1920 – October 20, 2003), was an American film and television actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films and, later in his career, comedies (sometimes spoofing his villainous image). His most distinguishing physical quality was his misaligned eye. Before his career in acting, he took several jobs in finance and served two years in the United States Navy during World War II.

Elam played in 73 movies and made appearances in 41 television series. Some of his more memorable performances were in Once Upon a Time in the West, High Noon, Support Your Local Sheriff!, and on the anthology series The Twilight Zone, and on the series Gunsmoke. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is shaky, but it holds up, ultimately, I think. I don't think either NOTE or BILL is nearly specific enough for the puzzle's purposes. Bills or notes can be of any denomination, whereas the others (a buck, a clam, a single) all very specifically stand in for one dollar, the denomination needed to make the revealer make sense (5 x $1 = $5). So 40% of the theme matter is overextended. I also wasn't too sure about the revealer, in that it seems like that expression "FIVE-DOLLAR WORDS," might bend and change over time, depending on who's using it. I see that "Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do" (or some close version of that expression) is attributed to Mark Twain in many corners of the internet. So it seems the specific "five-dollar" amount has a good deal of authority. My English teacher in high school used much smaller denominations to express this principle. "Don't use 50-cent words when a nickel word will do," something like that. I guess you could throw in inflation .. but then Mark Twain predates me by a handful of years, so ... I dunno. It's not like I had too much trouble figuring out the amount preceding the word DOLLAR, so no harm done. I'm just curious about how we ended up at five dollars as the price of fanciness. I'm also wondering what in the word a SINGLETON is!?! What a bizarre and (to me) obscure clue for that answer (28A: Only card of its suit in a hand). Somewhere in heaven, the director of "Boyz N The Hood" is staring, deadpan, directly into the camera.


I got ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE very early, so I knew a rebus had to be involved, but I had no idea what part of BUCKET CHALLENGE was supposed to get squozen. Since my first instinct is to look at the place where a word might break across the two words in the answer (i.e. the end of "bucket" into the beginning of "challenge"), I sincerely thought there might be some kind of boat rebus; that is, I tried to make KETCH happen. I tried to rebusify KETCH. A KETCH is a two-masted sailboat, a fact I don't actually know—I just know it's a kind of boat. I probably learned that from crosswords. Anyway, KETCH wouldn't work (too many letters), so then I thought ETCH was a rebus square. Why would you shove ETCH into its own box, I wondered. Well, you wouldn't. Luckily, it didn't take too much work with the crosses to sort things out. But even after BUCK and BILL, I didn't know what the squares were supposed to be. First thought: pro sports teams (Milwaukee Bucks ... Buffalo Bills ... weird that they play different sports, I thought, but we'll see ...). I honestly didn't get the dollar connection til the revealer, which is ... good? That's what a revealer is supposed to do: snap everything into focus in some surprising way. I do wish the set of five "dollar" squares could've been tighter, but as I say, it's defensible, and definitely interesting, as rebuses go.


Five things:

• 2D: Gas brand that's also a musical direction (ARCO) — the whole grid felt a little crosswordese heavy. Lots of overfamiliar short stuff, and then ELAM ISAO ETO MSDOS. I knew it all, but I've been doing these things for thirty years. I keep imagining younger (say college-age) people solving and being put off by how over-reliant the puzzle can be on bygone names.
• 3D: Something not to do before Christmas? (PEEK) — this is a weird "?" clue, since in context it's literal. In fact ... it's just literal. Don't PEEK. At your gifts. It makes sense. "?" should be reserved for some kind of real twist in meaning or play on words. Here, there's none of that. 
• 15A: Dessert not for the diet-conscious (TORTE) — put your diet clues in cold storage, please. I am plenty "conscious" of my diet and would absolutely house a TORTE if the time and place called for it. This clue evokes a horrible "ooh I'm watching my weight, desserts are naughty" culture that is very unuseful. It's got a super '50s vibe. My figure! Look, it's a TORTE, eat it or don't. Why bring up dieting here? A TORTE isn't any more "bad" for your diet than most of the other desserts on the cart. Clue things positively! Eat more TORTEs! Or, as I say, don't.
• 23D: Animal often with a "mask" around its eyes (FERRET) — like I sit around looking at ferrets all day. If the answer isn't raccoon or panda, I'm out. 
• 66A: Jabber? (BOXER) — I wrote in POKER. So that was weird.

Please read this open letter to the Executive Director of Puzzles at the New York Times (printed in full, below), written and signed by some very prominent names in the crossword world, as well as a growing number of solvers. The letter details unprofessional, exclusionary, and even abusive behavior by the editor. The unprofessional and exclusionary stuff, I have discussed routinely on this website. The abusive treatment of a test solver (leading ultimately to her resignation) will probably be news to you (I've known for a while, but that wasn't my story to tell, obviously). The demands of the letter are pretty reasonable; to my mind, they don't go far enough. But I am so happy to see so many people in the world of crosswords finally speaking out publicly about how important it is for editorial practices at the NYTXW to change in a way that respects constructors, particularly constructors who aren't white men. Read the letter for yourselves. You might also consider signing it (it's a shared doc, so you can just add your name, I'm pretty sure). Have a nice day.

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Dear Eric von Coelln,

We, the undersigned, are writing based on our experiences as New York Times crossword enthusiasts, constructors, test solvers, and assistants to the Editor. We write in light of two events: Claire Muscat’s decision to resign as a New York Times crossword test solver and the publication of Natan Last’s “The Hidden Bigotry of Crossword Puzzles” in The Atlantic, the latest in a series of articles about editorial implicit bias at the newspaper that benefits white male crossword constructors and solvers.

Claire left her job as a New York Times crossword test solver in 2019, after a year of work. As you know, she left because she felt tokenized: not only was she told that she was hired to check for content that might be offensive to female solvers, she was also asked not to offer advice or feedback outside of that identity-based purview. She was made to feel like a lesser solver and constructor than her male colleagues; she was told that her “primary role” was to be a female censor and not, in other words, a multifaceted solver like the puzzle’s other (mostly male) employees. Yet even when her feedback was gender-related, it was often met with such skepticism that she began to feel as if her role was essentially nominal; that the most important part of her position was the “diversity” requirement she fulfilled.

Natan’s essay describes the systemic erasure of minority and female voices in crossword puzzles themselves. As I’m sure you know, the crosswords published in the Times are overwhelmingly written by white male constructors. In describing this phenomenon—sometimes euphemized as the puzzle’s “gender problem”—Natan joined a chorus of journalists, academics, and crossword constructors before him who have tried to raise awareness about this field-wide discrepancy.

But Natan’s piece went further, articulating an even more pervasive threat to gender parity and inclusivity in crossword culture: the systematic erasure of minority voices in puzzles written by women, people of color, and queer constructors. This occurs both at the selection stage—when puzzles are disqualified because they include references that are considered unfamiliar to an imagined straight, white, male, and middle-aged audience—and at the editing stage, when clues are changed to cater to this imagined community of solvers. While these edits are often meant to make the puzzle more inclusive—to make them solver-“neutral”—the effect is to neutralize the lexicons and concerns of minority solvers and constructors. MARIE KONDO, BELL HOOKS, and FLAVOR FLAV are all examples of entries that have been deemed too “niche” for mainstream puzzles. And though Natan’s essay kept the names of editors and newspapers anonymous, the vast majority of his examples were drawn from constructors’ experiences working with the New York Times.

We write because Claire’s experience and Natan’s essay are noteworthy but not unique. We all recognize our own experiences in their stories. Our intention is not just to register concern or to chastise an institution that we love, which has thrived under the visionary leadership of Will Shortz. Instead, we are asking for three concrete measures that we think can correct for the blindspots of his system:

1. We ask that constructors receive access to proofs before their puzzles go to print. This practice is not only consistent with the Times’ editorial workflow in many other departments, it is also standard practice for all public writing. Though we acknowledge that the Times’s editorial team will have final say over entries and clues, we feel strongly that it is our authorial right to know what will be published under our bylines. This change to the Times’s editorial process will have a felicitous secondary effect: the constructor will serve as yet another test solver with the ability to lobby for cultural references that they think merit a place in the puzzle and to register concern over any reference they consider offensive and wouldn’t want attributed to their handiwork.

2. We ask that women and/or non-binary puzzle lovers comprise at least half of Will’s test solving team. This has often been the case at the Times, but it could be formalized. No one should be asked to serve as a token and proxy for an entire gender, which, after all, accounts for at least half of the Times’s solvers.

3. We want the Times to make a public commitment to adding diversity to its editorial staff. While many voices contribute to the making of the puzzle, it is nonetheless true that three straight white men are at the editorial helm. Though we’re sensitive both to the uncertainty around hiring in these trying economic times, and to the potential for a “diversity hire” to replicate much of the tokenistic discomfort Claire experienced, we still believe strongly that diversifying the puzzle means diversifying those who most closely shape it.

We hope you take these suggestions under consideration. We love the New York Times crossword puzzle. It continually makes our day and, for some of us, it has made our careers. But in order to feel confident supporting the institution with our work, we want our voices heard and our authorial rights recognized.

Sincerely,

[see all the signatories here]

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Have a nice day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]