One making a listing on Airbnb / MON 4-25-22 / Cartoon films like Spirited Away and Ninja Scroll / Mom to Jaden and Willow Smith / Military leader who lends his name to a Chinese dish

Constructor: Li Ding

Relative difficulty: Easy (apparently ...)

THEME: FOOD FIGHT (36A: Type of battle that 17-, 26-/49- and 60-Across might be engaged in?) — theme answers are FOOD-associated figured with military (i.e. "FIGHTin'") ranks in their names:

Theme answers:

• GENERAL TSO (17A: Military leader who lends his name to a Chinese dish)
• COLONEL / SANDERS (26A: With 49-Across, the face of Kentucky Fried Chicken)
• CAP'N CRUNCH (60A: Cereal mascot in a naval uniform)

Word of the Day: Lucretia MOTT (7D: Abolitionist Lucretia) —

Lucretia Mott (née Coffin; January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848 she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which Mott co-wrote the Declaration of Sentiments.

Her speaking abilities made her an important abolitionist, feminist, and reformer; she had been a Quaker preacher early in her adulthood. When the United States outlawed slavery in 1865, she advocated giving former slaves, both male and female, the right to vote (suffrage). She remained a central figure in reform movements until her death in 1880. The area around her long-time residence in Cheltenham Township is now known as La Mott, in her honor. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't speed-solve any more. That is, I don't try to go as fast as I can. I don't time myself at all. I solve pretty fast because I have a lot of experience, but my days of clock-watching are pretty much over. I found it was inhibiting my enjoyment of the puzzle's, uh, let's say finer features (on days when it actually had them). But I understand the race and the rush, the obsession with personal records for each day of the week, etc. This is all to say that Paolo Pasco just posted his solving time for this puzzle, and it was 53 seconds, so chew on that for a while, won't you? 

That is the fastest time I've ever seen posted on a NYTXW. Ever. I'm not saying it's a record, because I don't know if there's any way to know, really and truly, but if it's not ... I don't know. There are only a handful of people on earth who can even break two minutes, and only a very very small handful who can even flirt with the one-minute mark. Now, under tournament conditions, you'd have to solve on paper, and breaking one would be well nigh impossible, but that's what they said about two minutes under tournament conditions, and that has now been done, so I don't know man. I just marvel at the greatness, to be honest. And the keyboard skills, my god, don't sleep on those. They have to be perfect for you to come anywhere near one minute. My fat fingers and dull brain only ever got to the low 2:20s on a NYTXW puzzle. I broke four minutes on paper under tournament conditions precisely once. And I am, ahem, a very good solver. So kudos (plural) to Paolo, and my condolences to his aspiring rivals in the speed game.

As for this puzzle: yeah, OK, this will do nicely. The theme is narrowly defined and consistent and kinda funny, insofar as the idea of CAP'N CRUNCH waging war with COLONEL / SANDERS makes me laugh (team CAP'N, for sure). The revealer is a clever way to bring the whole thing together. Not sure what else to say. I tried to think of military ranks that the theme left out and I just can't do it right now, off the top of my head. Are there privates or admirals or corporals or majors who have given their names to foods? You'll let me know. Very lucky that these military foodies happen to fit snugly and symmetrically in the grid. Nice find. 

The fill holds up well. I really thought the puzzle might play slow because of all the long Downs in the corners, but because they were clued very easily, I think those long Downs only made the puzzle play faster. You can knock out lots of territory very, very quickly by working the Downs, bam bam bam (bam) in those corners. My only hesitation came when I came up blank on my first pass at NAIVETÉ (12D: Gullibility based on inexperience). I had the -ETE and with no way to know that it was an -ETÉ and not an "-eet" pronunciation, I had to reach up into the short Acrosses in that NE section to get some help. I also balked slightly at SLUSHY (22D: Like winter roads during a thaw) (I think SLEETY came to mind first), and I definitely had SNIT before SNOT (a word I would not put in a puzzle for any reason ever, gross) (56D: Annoying little squirt). 

Notes:

• 51A: Work in clay or marble (SCULPT) — that's twice in two days for this not-terribly-common word. Weird coincidence. There was a period of about 13 years where SCULPT didn't appear even once (2008-21).
• 42A: Humble reply to "Nice job!" ("I TRY") — once again I am asking you to stop pretending that this comment is actually "humble." The normal response to "Nice job!" is "Thanks." "I TRY" is some passive-aggressive self-martyring / self-aggrandizing. Stop.
• 41D: Nickname for Las Vegas (SIN CITY) — also the actual name for a multi-volume Frank Miller comic (and subsequent movie franchise)

• 57A: Really bothered (A TEAT) — I just wanted to write A TEAT, because that is how my brain parses it when I see it in the grid, and if I have to see it, so do you. That's how it works!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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