Sluglike secretary in Monsters Inc / WED 1-12-22 / Two-patty burgers introduced in 1997 / Venue for meals with microbrews / Sister brand of crest / Eschew scuba gear say / Pre-weekend outburst / Impromptu signal to slow down

Constructor: Adam Aaronson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: RHYMING (46D: Like 17-, 26-, 40-, 51- and 64-Across, with respect to the numbers in their clues) — every word in every theme answer rhymes with a number; relevant numbers appear at the end of each theme clue, e.g. [7, 9] appears at the end of the clue for KEVIN KLINE because "seven nine" rhymes with KEVIN KLINE:

Theme answers:

• KEVIN KLINE (17A: "A Fish Called Wanda" co-star [7, 9])
• GREAT FUN (26A: A total blast [8, 1])
• WAR HERO (40A: Purple Heart honoree, maybe [4, 0])
• FREE DIVE (51A: Eschew scuba gear, say [3, 5])
• GLUE STICKS (64A: Some poster-making supplies [2, 6])

Word of the Day: MCDOUBLES (12D: Two-patty burgers introduced in 1997) —

The McDouble is a hamburger sold by the fast-food restaurant chain McDonald's. It is a variation on the double cheeseburger, with only one slice of cheese placed between the two beef patties. It was introduced in 1997, but was discontinued until 2008. It is one of the cheapest products sold by the company. (wikipedia) (it says the sandwich was discontinued, but there's a Bacon McDouble that seems to be on the current menu ... it came back during the pandemic, maybe? ... it's confusing, and I don't eat there, sorry I can't be more help) 

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** . Happy Newish Year! 2022! I hope you are holding up during these cold, dark days. It's early January, which means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 

2021 was an important year for me, as my blog (this blog, the one you are reading right now) turned 15 years old! [noisemaker sounds!!!!]. That's a lot of years old. For a blog, anyway. 15 is also a pretty important crossword-related anniversary—maybe the only important crossword-related anniversary. The standard US crossword grid is 15x15, and now Rex Parker is also 15! Rex Parker, spanning the grid to give you the constant variety of crossword commentary: the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat (dum dum dum DUM!) The human drama of ... OK now I'm just channeling Jim McKay from the '70s-era introduction to "Wide World of Sports," but I do hope this blog has provided some insight, some entertainment, some commiseration, some solace, some sense of regularity during what are obviously pretty tumultuous and often lonely times. I hope it has enhanced your solving pleasure, giving you something to look forward to even (especially?) when the puzzle lets you down, and someone to celebrate with when the puzzle is wonderful. If it's also given you someone to shout at in disagreement, that's OK too.

A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully there's illumination and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

I'll throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. Last year's thank-you postcards featured various portraits of my cat, Alfie, designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. They were such a hit that I asked Ella to design this year's thank-you postcard as well, this time featuring both my cats. And this is the result. Behold this year's thank-you card: "Alfie and Olive: Exploring the Grid":

We went back and forth on whether she should add more black squares to make the grid look more plausibly fillable (that's a Lot of white space), but in the end we decided not to crowd the jumping (or hanging?) Olive with more black squares, and instead just to leave the card as is, with the idea that the cats are exploring a grid that is ... under construction. Anyway, this card is personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share it with snail-mailers (and oh, what the hell, if you are a PayPal / Venmo donor and you want one too, just say so in the message). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD."  Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

• • •

This one has a bit of a "so what?" problem. Lots of words rhyme with numbers. What exactly is the logic of putting those words together into phrases? True, every number zero to nine is represented once and only once, so that's something—that shows some kind of careful attention to the number set as a whole, and it gives the execution a certain elegance that comes from limitations. But most solvers, or many, anyway, are not going to notice that little bit of elegance. They're just gonna see number rhymes, and again I'm back to "so what?" Perhaps if the numbers had any numerical meaning, any internal logic. If they were less arbitrary-seeming, maybe you'd have something. But here, there are just numbers in brackets, and the only thing those numbers indicate are rhymes for the words in the answers. For me, the RHYMING revelation didn't arrive until it was too late to be useful, and (crucially) knowing that the numbers rhymed with the answer was completely unnecessary to the easy completion of this puzzle. The RHYMING was a detached, merely ornamental fact. KEVIN KLINE is obviously the star of "A Fish Called Wanda," all the bracketed "7" and "9" do is confuse me a little. But it wasn't the kind of confusion that interfered with solving: KEVIN KLINE went right in and I moved on. So ... ? The theme letdown was worse for me than it might have been because the first clue I looked at after I read the revealer clue was WAR HERO, which rhymes with FOUR ZERO, which are the Actual Numbers On That Clue!—it's 40-Across, and its rhyming numbers are FOUR and ZERO. FOUR ZERO, WAR HERO, That is nifty. But it also gives you expectations for the rest of theme answers, and those expectations are dashed as soon as you look around (i.e. KEVIN KLINE is 17-Across but doesn't rhyme with ONE SEVEN, obviously). Making *every* theme clue do what WAR HERO does is likely structurally impossible, but still, having just the one themer make any real numerical sense only highlighted how tacked-on the clue numbers are in the first place. Maybe it is interesting that you can make five solid theme answers out of ten words, each of which rhymes with a different digit, 0 to 9. But it's only interesting in a vague, curious, looking-back kind of way. From a solving perspective, the bracketed numbers were just a distraction. Perhaps there's a better way to execute this concept. Maybe if the theme answers were much harder to get without knowing the RHYMING gimmick, that would've been more engaging. But as is, the numbers are just extraneous information, and since (outside of 40-Across FOUR ZERO WAR HERO) they don't do anything particularly number-y, the theme falls a little flat for me.

The puzzle was easy, whether you figured out the RHYMING gimmick early or not. The one clue where knowing about the RHYMING might've helped was GREAT FUN, which was not a phrase that leapt to mind, even after I had the GREAT part.  It's clearly the weakest of the themers (which are remarkably solid overall). That NE corner was by far the hardest part of the puzzle for me. One problem was that even when I consumed a ton of fast food I didn't eat at McDonald's, so yeah, semi-discontinued menu items of the '90s and '00s, not my wheelhouse. I needed a few crosses to pick it up. Worse for me, in that NE corner, was GOALS, which I still don't think I understand (37A: Ends of mazes). In the sense that a finishing point of any journey is a "goal," I guess, but is that the technical name for the end of a maze? Look, I confess I'm no maze aficionado, so maybe GOALS is industry-standard lingo. I have childhood restaurant-placement memories that contain words like "Enter" and "Exit," Or maybe "Start" and "Finish," but GOALS is not a word I've ever associated with mazes, ever. I watched "The Shining" last night, so I've weirdly got maze on the brain (there's a dizzying hedge maze at the Overlook hotel, where a harrowing final scene takes place). But GOALS just didn't register. ARMS for [Huggers] took a little thinking too, so that corner was slowish, but the rest was definitely fast. 

[this is *not* the "harrowing final scene"—it's our eerie, beautiful introduction to the maze interior]

Again, it's names that caused most of the slowdown. Beyond those MCDOUBLES, there was ROZ (no idea) and ZACH, whom I know, but can never remember the "H" v. "K" question at the end of his name. Had trouble with the CUT part of PAY CUT, which pairs "well" (i.e. depressingly) with LAID OFF today. I guess if you're on a "new career path," things are ultimately looking up for you, but PAY CUT / LAID OFF definitely brought the room down a little today. Retorts remain among the lowest forms of fill ("IS TOO!"), but the fill is generally very clean today, and those long Downs in the SW are particularly nice (GASTROPUB IN THE ZONE!). Not sure how I feel about the clue on BINGED (48D: Oversaw?). I want to like it ... but I'm not quite sure how it works ... I guess I'm not sure I think of "binging" as watching "too much" ... the concept of "over-," in the sense of going past an established limit, doesn't quite work. Or else it's judge-y. "Over-" according to whom? I originally thought that [Oversaw?] meant that the binging had given you a kind of overview of, let's say, the whole series you're watching, but I don't think that's it either. I liked the clue on HIKER, though if you live where I live, you would be well advised never to hike in shorts—the tick problem is just too bad. Even in the dead of summer, I'm wearing LEVI'S (3D: ___ Stadium a.k.a. "Field of Jeans"). See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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