Noted Apple release of 1968 to fans / SUN 10-31-21 / Alveolar trill as it's commonly known / Match-ending rugby call / Southern region of Mesopotamia / Northern curiously named apple variety

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" is for the time it takes to figure out the theme, "Easy" is for the rest)

THEME: "Choice Words" —five  ___ OR ___ phrases appear in the grid; the "choices" they illustrate determine the "words" you write in the rebus squares that appear on the same lines as the ___ OR ___ phrases (the first option works for the Across, the second for the Down):

Theme answers:

• THE WHITE ALBUM (21A: Noted Apple release of 1968, to fans) / REMISS (4D: Negligent) = (HIT OR MISS) (23A: Haphazard)
• LIVER AND ONIONS (45A: Traditional British entree) / TIDIEST (35D: Least messy) = (DO OR DIE) (43A: Desperate)
• MOUNT RUSHMORE (68A: Noted U.S. rock group?) / BLESSES (64D: Consecrates) = (MORE OR LESS) (70A: Approximately)
• MARCHING ORDERS (90A: Military dismissal) / SHOUT AT (79D: Berate blisteringly) =  (IN OR OUT) (96A: "You game?")
• WHIRLWIND TOUR (118A: Hectic trip abroad) / CLOSETS (114D: Places hangers hang) = (WIN OR LOSE) (116A: Regardless of the outcome)

Word of the Day: Northern SPY (126A: Northern ___ (curiously named apple variety)) —

The Northern Spy, also called 'Spy' and 'King', is a cultivar of domesticated apple that originated on the farm of Oliver Chapin in East Bloomfield, New York in about 1840. It is popular in upstate New York.

The Northern Spy was one of four apples honored by the United States Postal Service in a 2013 set of four 33¢ stamps commemorating historic strains, joined by Baldwin, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith. [...] 

Northern Spy produces fairly late in the season (late October and beyond). Skin color is a green ground, flushed with red stripes where not shaded. The white flesh is juicy, crisp and mildly sweet with a rich, aromatic subacid flavor, noted for high vitamin C content. Its characteristic flavor is tarter than most popular varieties, and its flesh is harder/crunchier than most, with a thin skin. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a perfectly serviceable Sunday. Weirdly, I don't think the grid needed the actual ___ OR ___ phrases at all. They seem entirely superfluous. The whole deal with rebuses is that you have to find them / work them out. Sometimes you've got a revealer to give you a clue, if you aren't able to just work it out from context, but today you don't need the revealer because you've got the title, so it's easy (-ish) to figure out what's going on with the rebus squares (once you realize there *are* rebus squares) by just inferring the concept from the title: "Choice Words," HIT / MISS ... "hit or miss," I get it. I really get it. I don't need HIT OR MISS to also be another answer on the same line as that rebus square. I want to say it feels remedial, but it's not even that, because it's not like having HIT OR MISS in the grid really helps that much. It's just ... well, as I said, superfluous. Decorative. A structural element that makes sense, but that is not a necessary factor in theme comprehension or puzzle enjoyment. I thought the ___ OR ___ phrases were going to be scattered around the grid at first, because the first rebus square I got was HIT/MISS, but the first ___ OR ___ phrase I got was DO OR DIE. 

Getting the HIT/MISS square made me notice DO OR DIE, and made me suspect that there'd be a DO/DIE square somewhere in the grid. Seriously, I was totally finished with the puzzle before I realized that the ___ OR ___ phrases were on the same lines as their corresponding rebus squares. The way I solve (primarily from working crosses), successive Across answers never seem to have anything to do with one another. I got THE WHITE ALBUM, and even though HIT OR MISS is technically the "next" Across answer, since it's in an entirely different section of the grid, I didn't see it until significantly later, and didn't bother to think about its positionality relative to the HIT/MISS square. 

The fill here wavers from solid to cringey. More solid than cringey, I'd say—I particularly liked most everything about the SE corner, for instance, from ICE BLUE east and ROLLED R south (57D: Alveolar trill, as it's commonly known). But there's a wet and dirty patch of short gunk in the middle, from ROUÉ across through EASELS HSN NSA THON (!!) HRH NOSIDE (81A: Match-ending rugby call) and ending at ORIANA (71D: Journalist Fallaci who wrote "Interview With history"), that brought no joy whatsoever. I also think REMEET and ODEA are rough, US ROUTE is not deserving of stand-alone status, and TONNES *and* METRES is one too many britishisms. Also, how in the world are we still doing "AH, SO," facetiously or otherwise (112D: Semiserious "Got it!"). Nevvvver not gonna sound like someone doing a racist caricature of Asian-speak. But on to tastier things: I was just thinking today about how much cluing ambiguity leads to difficulty, and the example I was using in my mind was "Apple," which, even in musical clues, could have a bunch of different angles—at least three: iPods, Fiona Apple, and the Beatles' Apple record label. Then I solve this puzzle, which gives me not only the Beatles' label, but an actual, edible Northern SPY apple. My wife and I, in addition to having a farm share (which provides us >80% of the produce we eat through the summer and fall), bought into an *apple* share this year. We toured the orchard, and every two weeks we get a big box of apples, with different varieties (varietals?) as they come into season, complete with a little explainer leaflet, and sometimes pears! There's no point to this story except I love apples. I don't think we've gotten any Northern SPYs (spies?) yet this year. They're upstate apples, though, so ... maybe. Fingers crossed. Enjoy your Halloween.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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