Italian rice balls / SUN 5-22-22 / Snack item that's partly foreordained? / Love ___ Pet Shop Boys dance hit of 2009 / Publication with an annual Power 100 list / Eric B Pimp C Chuck D / Weasel family members / There was Noah-counting for it

Constructor: David and Karen and Paul Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Parting Ways" — eight Down answers are double-clued; the answers split at a circled letter, and then the answer to the first clue heads one way (west) while the answer to the second heads the other (east). The resulting Across answers (made up of the latter part of both Down answers) are coherent (but unclued) words and phrases. The circled letters end up spelling out SEPARATE, which ... I don't know if it's a verb or a noun here, but either way: apt.

Theme answers:

• DESPOTS / DESIGNS (5D: Tyrants / Patterns) => STOP SIGNS
• WHEREVER / WHENCE (12D: Anyplace / From which place) => REVERENCE
• PLUMPED / PLUM POSITION (29D: Made puffier, as cushions / Very desirable job) => DEPOSITION
• TRAVELER / TRANCE (53D: Tourist, e.g. / Hypnotic state) => RELEVANCE
• BERGERON / BERETS (61D: Tom who hosted "Dancing With the Stars" / Brimless caps) => NO REGRETS
• STAMINA / STATIONS (73D: Endurance / Subway map info) => ANIMATIONS
• SECRET LOVER / SECRETING (84D: Tryst partner / Discharging, as a liquid) => REVOLTING
• PRELIM / PRESTONE (104D: Qualifying match, for shot / Big name in antifreeze and brake fluid) => MILESTONE

Word of the Day: ARANCINI (54D: Italian rice balls) —

Arancini (UK: /ˌærənˈtʃiːni/, US: /ˌɑːr-/, Italian: [aranˈtʃiːni], Sicilian: [aɾanˈtʃiːnɪ, -ˈdʒiː-]) are Italian rice balls that are stuffed, coated with bread crumbs and deep fried, and are a staple of Sicilian cuisine. The most common fillings are: al ragù or al sugo, filled with ragù (meat or mince, slow-cooked at low temperature with tomato sauce and spices), mozzarella or caciocavallo cheese, and often peas, and al burro or ô burru, filled with ham and mozzarella or besciamella.

A number of regional variants exist which differ in fillings and shape. Arancini al ragùproduced in eastern Sicily have a conical shape inspired by the volcano Etna. (wikipedia)

• • •

If you think I'm going to go HARD- (ass ... I mean CASE!) on a puzzle that a young man co-constructed with his parents (!!!) then LOL you don't know me as well as you thought you did. Actually, if I didn't like it, I'd probably still have to share that info with you, such is my perverse commitment to writing what I'm actually thinking / feeling, but hey, good news, I actually did like this one. My exact comment (to myself) upon getting the theme concept was a sincere and curious "Oh, hey, innnnnnteresting." There are a lot of layers to this theme. I don't know that it actually needs the showiest element, actually. That is, I think I was least impressed by the fact that the circled letters spelled SEPARATE, in part because it's just not a very colorful or evocative or interesting or (in this case) terribly specific word, in part because I wasn't really sure if it was intended to be interpreted as a verb or a noun. But kudos for trying to do *something* with those squares where the answers diverge; if nothing else, it gives the grid some visual interest, and adds another layer of theme restriction to an already pretty strict theme. Those Down answers have to diverge *and* their diverging latter parts have to spell out a plausible answer. It's a nice little trick. The SEPARATE part gives it a kind of coherence that it wouldn't have otherwise, I see; that is, without it, the puzzle is just a bunch of diverging answers ... which would've been enough for me, but the added spelling trick is nice little cherry, even if the cherry doesn't really add much to the overall Wow factor. The most important thing here is that the puzzle was actually fun to solve; I liked being able to use the hybrid Across answer (that is, knowing it would have to make a real word/phrase) to help make sense of the Downs that flow into it. I hope this puzzle's title ("Parting Ways") is not a coded way of saying that David's parents are getting a divorce. Unless that makes them happy. Anyway, that's probably not what's happening here. No deeper meaning. Just a good, family puzzle.

I loved the weirdo shape of this grid (a rectangular 19x23). I am all for off-book grid shapes, as long as you've still got some kind of symmetry (or at least an artful asymmetry). I had two trouble spots, both of them coming right around the transition from the top half to bottom half of the grid. SCORER had a "?" clue that I couldn't see through (50D: Point person?), and it was next to a themer I couldn't start (BER-), which was itself next to a clue where I couldn't understand how "clutch" was being used (60D: Parts of a clutch). A clutch of EGGS! Yes, I do know that meaning, though it's the last meaning of "clutch" I would come up with if I had to list all the "clutch" meanings I know. I worked it out, but there was a definitely slow-down in that area, and then again around ELLIOT Page, which is really stupid, as I absolutely know his name but also totally blanked, even with ELL- in place, ugh. Me: "Man's name ... starts ELL- ... how many of these can there be!?!?!" Had no idea about the adjacent ASIAN pear (72A: Kind of pear that resembles an apple), and wasn't sure about ATM since I only take $$$ out of ATMs—I've literally never put $$$ in (72D: $$$ taker). Forgot that PRESTONE was a thing (really wanted FIRESTONE), but otherwise, no other answers really stand out as troublemakers. I thought the grid had some lovely non-theme fill, like ARANCINI and "MAN OH MAN!" and "BIG NEWS!" and LAVA CAKE. Fun stuff.

Notes:

• 56A: Wall molding (CORNICE) — I had a sweet CORN ICE cream cone today, and it was delicious (if global warming is going to roast me to death in the middle of spring, I'm gonna die with a cone in my hand)
• 42D: Amounts of sugar, perhaps (SPOONFULS) — my brain keeps glitching on this. "Spoonsful ...  SPOONFULS ... Spoons ... full? "Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full" ... not bagfuls ... but ... SPOONFULS ... Attorneys ... General? ... OK wait, let's start over ..."
• 10D: Snack item that's partly foreordained? (OREO) — I really really hope that everyone got and appreciated this answer, but I worry that the cryptic-type cluing might've baffled a solver or three (OREO is part of ("partly") the word "foreordained"). 
• 17A: Janis ___, main role in "Mean Girls" (IAN) — uh, do all girl-centered teen comedies feature protagonists named after famous singers of the Baby-Boomer generation!? (The main character in "Clueless" is Cher)

• 37A: Places of refuge (ASYLUMS) — if there's one thing I count on crosswords for, it's weird-ass Latinate plurals, so I really Really balked at this perfectly normal English plural. If the puzzle won't give me ASYLA, who will!?

READER MAIL!

And now, I'm going to print this blog's official first-ever "Letter to the Editor." The writer and I had a series of email back-and-forths and he said "you should write about this conversation" and I said "why don't you put your thoughts in the form of a Letter to the Editor?" and I did not think he would but when I checked my email later in the day, bam, there it was. And here it is (Subject line: "my letter to the editaur"):

Dear Rex:

I love your work.  I read you daily.  You are a cantankerous prude.  

As you know from our previous email exchanges, I find your analyses spot on, if just a tad grumpy.  But I like the grump.  I rely on the grump.  What I do not like -- because the attitude you take is symptomatic of, or even a contributor to (you are, undeniably, an "influencer"), what I believe is a longstanding weakness in the crossword genre.  It, and you, seem Victorian in your sensibilities.  

TV and newspapers and news sites report the world as it is.  Much muck and mayhem and malodor, murder, indecency, crudeness, crassness, cruelty.   On TV, Homer gets drunk and strangles Bart.  The South Park kids curse.  One of them gets murdered all the time.   Movies delve into sex with aplomb and without apology.  And yet crosswords, for the most part, seem to inhabit a different world, one closer to, say, movies in the 1940s and 1950s under the fusty, harrumphing, puritanical Hays Code.   They do not include as clues or answers anything that might cause an elderly 1920s dowager to almost swoon with the vapors. 

You might say this is a trivial complaint about an inconsequential issue , and in one sense, of course it is. But  I would contend that there IS damage done to the crossword genre by instituting an outdated set of criteria for what are acceptable answers: It makes crosswords seem stilted, mannered, and out of touch with modernity.   An atavism.  Further, it skews their readership toward the older readers.  Not a good thing.

Hitler?  Perhaps the most influential and consequential monster of history -- a name almost better known than anyone's, ever -- has, to my memory at least, never appeared in the Times XWord—at least not for decades.  Vomit, a totally normal bodily function, one that can be induced to save lives?  Nope. Too icky apparently for Mr. Hays.  Orgasm?  Gimme a break.   And don't get me started on body parts.  Has "penis" ever appeared?  Even though there are nearly 4 billion of them in the world?

This brings me to the stunning reason I write this.  The other day you allowed as to how you suppose "vagina" might be okay.  It astounded me; seemed like a seismic change in your thinking.  Except it isn't, really, I fear.   A few days before that you railed against the Times's answer of "phlegmy."  Icky icky icky-poo that you do not wish to see in your crossword puzzle.  You wrote "No one but no one wants to encounter PHLEGM in their puzzles."  That was an uncharacteristically erroneous statement.  I, for one, do.   I found it refreshing

You have also spoken against seeing in your crossword puzzle the name of a person of whom you do not approve.   Elon Musk comes to mind.  You don't like that one little bit, even though, well, he is the RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD.   Get him out of my puzzle, you demand.  I, Rex Parker, do not wish to see this name.  Trump, too, one of 46 presidents of the United States.  He displeases you, and you are horrified when your crossword insists that you confront, for a second, this distasteful presence. 

An answer in a crossword puzzle does not endorse the worthiness or humanity of a person or the niceness and sweetness of a thing.  It is simply an acknowledgement that we are adults living in a complex, fascinating world.  I do not, personally, approve of Hitler or Trump or, for that matter, Musk.  I do not think it is remotely tasteless to include them as answers.  I do not harrumph.  "Taste" may be in the eye of the beholder, but that eye should not be behind a 19th century monocle.  

So "vagina" might be okay with you now?  Wow.  But how would you feel about "clitoris"?  Is that different?  Why?  (I confess that I am ending with this as an experiment.  I want to see if you will publish the name of this perfectly normal body part EVEN IN YOUR BLOG, or will you prudishly substitute [Redacted] ?  And if so, why?) 

Respectfully, and tastefully, 

Gene Weingarten [ed.: Gene is a former columnist for the Washington Post]

The editaur (i.e. me), briefly, responds: 

Dear Gene,

First, re: "clitoris," my "19th-century monocle," as you put it, would be more than happy to see CLITORIS (or even CLIT) in the grid. And if you can't see how PHLEGM and VAGINA might provoke vastly different reactions from a solver ... I don't know what to say about that. Those terms are both related to the body, but that's about as far as the similarity goes. At any rate, I'm not trying to lay down rules. All I've ever done is explain my genuine feelings about the effect that words (and names) have on me. Some I don't like, but tolerate. Some I tolerate ... less well. Mostly I don't like seeing the names of awful people (or orgs.) who have done (truly) awful things. I would like to be the kind of person who sees all words and names as legit simply because they exist in the world. But I am a mere human being trying to be honest about his human feelings, even if those feelings sometimes seem overly sensitive or even outright contradictory ("Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself"); so no, no HITLER for me, or PUS, or [redacted former president], or ORBÁN or ... I dunno, lots of things. No racial slurs, no slurs at all. There are a host of terms I can think of that a. exist, and b. are entirely unwelcome in my grids. I won't name them, but you can probably make such a list yourself if you tried. If I were editor, I would likely make reasonable allowance for stuff I don't particularly, personally like. But as a solver, I'm going to yap at whatever feels bad or wrong or gross or whatever. I assume disagreement will be plentiful. This has never bothered me. After all, if no one disagreed, my Inbox would be a much sadder, emptier place... ~RP

So ... I guess I publish letters to the editor now, so if you have something you want to say (about crossword puzzles, or the blog, or the above letter, or anything that's at least crossword-adjacent), feel free to write me at rexparker at icloud dot com, or (if you're really old-school) at the snail-mail address in the sidebar of this blog. Either way, make sure you put "OK TO PRINT" somewhere on the letter. If I plan on printing it, I'll let you know (snail-mailers should give me an email address to speed the process up a bit :)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

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