Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Polyamory portmanteau / FRI 7-28-23 / Titular protagonist in a Marcel Proust novel / Thin pancakes in Mexican cooking / Mexican garments also called jorongos / Mints sold in transparent plastic boxes / Move in a flash hypothetically / Apple product that once had an X added to its name

Polyamory portmanteau / FRI 7-28-23 / Titular protagonist in a Marcel Proust novel / Thin pancakes in Mexican cooking / Mexican garments also called jorongos / Mints sold in transparent plastic boxes / Move in a flash hypothetically / Apple product that once had an X added to its name

Friday, July 28, 2023

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Hoang-Kim Vu

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Mancala (61A: Pieces in the game mancala = STONES) —

Mancala (Arabic: منقلة manqalah) refers to a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces. // Versions of the game date back past the 3rd century and evidence suggests the game existed in Ancient Egypt. It is among the oldest known games to still be widely played today. (wikipedia)

• • •

Super-psyched when INCH UP proved correct at 1A: Edge forward. Less psyched that "UP" ended up crossing the "UP" in UPDO (5D: Certain bun), but I think that's it for UPs in this grid, so as violations go, it's pretty minor. Getting 1-Across right off the bat on a Friday (or Saturday) is typically a harbinger of a fast solve, and today was no exception. The quadranted structure kept the puzzle from getting too whoosh-whoosh (a sensation I associate not just with speed, but with dramatic darting around the grid), and yet it still had a nice flow and a bouncy demeanor. Low proper noun factor, so it felt very accessible. I'm slowly reading Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time or whatever the current favored translation of the title is, and by "slowly" I mean I am still in the first part, which is called "SWANN's Way" (20D: Titular protagonist in a Marcel Proust novel). It's great, really beautiful, but I've been reading it before bedtime and ... it's not that kind of book. It dwells on little things for long periods of time, really turning over both objects and feelings and examining them from different lights, and without a strong, clear narrative through-line (it's deliberately meandering), it's easy to forget what the hell you were reading the night before. Still, gorgeous. NYRB recently reissued James Grieve's 1970s translation of "SWANN's Way," and that's the one I'm reading. You don't need to know this, but maybe you were thinking about reading it some day. The Grieve translation is clean, crisp, clear. Recommended.

Not recommended: the word THROUPLE. The state of THROUPLEdom, I'm agnostic on, but the word THROUPLE is singularly ugly. And nonsenscial. A couple is two. I get that you are reconceiving "couple" but why not just make it its own thing. I proposed THREEDOM and my housemates (not that drunk) thought it was pretty good. "We Invite You To Celebrate Our THREEDOM!" "Let THREEDOM Ring!" You can do a lot with THREEDOM, I'm just saying. I'm also not loving OVERDRAW as a verb. I'm sure it exists, but we're sitting here trying to use it in a plausible way and not really succeeding. Also, it's not a concept having to do with "credit," so the clue kinda clanked as well (16A: Take more credit than warranted?). I'll trust you that LAND ART is a thing, but that was one of the hardest answers in the puzzle for me, for sure (27A: Outdoor installation using earth, rocks, vegetation, etc.). "WHO DOES THAT?" was also hard to come up with, or at least mildly challenging (17D: "The nerve of some people!"). The clue suggests being affronted, where the answer suggests mere astonishment. I see the connection. Now. But not then. MAC OS feels bad. Can't put my finger on it. Just bad. It's a debut, and I'm ... not surprised. Kinda telling that no one's ever touched this. MAC OS is just ... descriptive. The Mac operating system. Doesn't really feel like a "product" in the sense of a brand. I know only OSX, and apparently, the OS is past X now, so ... something about the wording just felt odd or off to me. The housemates (who work in software, in various capacities) think the clue is fine, but they're also disagreeing mightily about minutiae so who knows if they know what they're talking about. I mean, they're my friends, they're very smart, but you never know.

[From the vacation house in Grand Marais, MN:
Two group portraits: one with my ass, one without]

I had Gretzky as The GREATEST instead of The GREAT ONE. Apologies to Muhammed Ali. CREEDS before CREDOS (3D: Tenets). Kealoa* at HURTS / HARMS (4D: Damages). I said this puzzle was lightish on proper nouns, but there are a few potential stumpers, like Marc COHN, really surprised that I retrieved that name as easily as I did (48A: "Walking in Memphis" singer Marc). My friend Shaun (sitting over there, on the couch) has a "soft spot" for this song, but when I asked her how to spell the singer's name just now, she said "C-O-E-N," so even the soft-spotted person couldn't spell his damn name right. I think he's the most obscure name in the grid. Certainly more obscure to me than SWANN or Janis IAN or J.P. SOUSA or Bob SAGET or TIG Notaro or even MR. BLUE, though there were lots of Mr. Colors in that movie. That's all you really needed to know about the movie to solve that answer. I ended on TAMPON, which was a total surprise. I had PAD but was thinking "What could a PAD alternative be?" Not the direction I imagined the cross-referenced pairing was going to go. Don't normally love an informationless cross-references like this, where you have to solve one answer (via crosses) before having a hope at the other, but finishing on TAMPON was oddly ... I want to say thrilling. I may be overselling it. But I was happy the puzzle went there, having been squeamish about such things for many, many years. I hope you found things to like about this one. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

97 comments:

Monsta 1:33 AM: I came her to say how much I love the music videos you post with the comments. I’m a syndicate solver so I won’t see this puzzle for a few weeks, but I just solved one from June and you had the video of Cece Peniston posted and it made me so very happy. It was one of my favorite cycling songs back in the 90’s—nothing like getting into a steady groove with my pedaling with this song blaring through my Walkman headset. Thanks for the sweet memory jolt. Such an enjoyable blog! And I do send you a few bucks every year for your efforts—I do appreciate your work.
maverick 1:50 AM: Oh, duh! does not match NO WONDER for me at all.
Duh! == No wonder! (No shit Sherlock)
Oh, duh == No wonder (I should have known that)
Both of the those are tenuous at best. Oh, duh! Can't find a way to make that work at all.

MAC OS is fine (computer programmer). Surprised it hasn't been in there before.

Spirit-raising? as a noun was pretty confusing. Not sure about the ? there either.

Good review, hit much of the same. Definitely gave me some challenge, but never felt completely blocked. Difficulty hit the sweet spot for a Friday pretty nicely.
okanaganer 2:01 AM: Rex: it's Gretzky, with a zed. Okay, down there you say "zee", whatever. I've never read any Proust (Science and Architecture degrees, y'know), is it really worth trying?

I started out sputtering on this, going thru the whole grid entering only a handful of answers. But then the engine caught, just like my old lawn mower, and I was off to an average solve, just hard enough to feel good finishing.

Typeovers: for "how some thieves are caught": IN THE ACT before ON CAMERA. For "Spirit-raising": BIG TOAST (physically "raising" spirits!) before EGO BOOST. THREEPLE before THROUPLE; you're right, Rex, it sounds stupid.

Re PERU and the equator, here is a surprising fact: Brazil is so huge north to south, that its northern tip (at only 5%deg; N) is closer to Halifax Canada than to its own southern tip.

[Spelling Bee: Thurs 0, my last word this 8er, surprising.]
GILL I. 2:11 AM: So Jeopardy is over and I download my favorite day of the week. Toss in my SERAPES and I begin to BOLT at a fairly decent clip. I'm in the attic picking up things here and there and beginning to wonder if I'm going to like this. A big smile at WHO DOES THAT just off of the easy OVER DRAW. 7D. Who is this Notaro dude? Does someone really name their child TIG? Is it short for tight wads? I peeked and I was right.
Then I get to some other names. Damn. Just ignore....Go on to see if I like this or not.
Hit on ENGAGEMENT PARTY. Did it make me whoop with uncontrollable euphoric ebullience. Not really. The clue was fine but it didn't fool me.
GORDITAS. Well, you see, the traditional ones go back to probably the Mayan era. In Mexico they are filled with a spiced pork rind and other delectables. You really don't go to an authentic Mexican establishment and ask for GORDITA pancakes with some maple syrup
Then I get to my least favorite type of cluing....31Down alternative/43 Down alternative. Why? Could you not have clued a TAMPON PAD differently? Are you trying to be coy? Is this a hee hee?
Moving long.
Should I be upset or feel out of some loop for not knowing what "Polyamory" means? I had THROOPLE because "Question of incredulity" was my strange mind thinking VOODOO! YOU DO? Yes...I VOODOO.
So I finished. I peeked to see if my unknowns fit in the slots that were meant to be. They did. Did I win a prize? Oh wait...Why in the world are SAKE BOMBS involved with Beer? Ay dios mio.
Anyway..@Rex hadn't posted yet so I went over to Xword to see what Jeff thought about this. I rarely do, but this time I wanted to see if my mind worked as maybe his did. Good gravy!!!! He gave it POW!!!!
jae 2:48 AM: Medium. Very smooth with plenty of sparkle. The SE corner is terrific. Liked it a bunch and Jeff gave it POW.

Auras before ANKHS, CREedS before CREDOS, and several types of acid before ACETIC were my major erasures.

Did not know SWANN and COHN.
Chris Menzel 3:40 AM: Fun, pretty easy solve. Kinda loved WHODOESTHAT. I guess “new rock band” made the 15-letter centerpiece pretty clever. But I confess I didn’t even get it until just now when I was about to comment that I didn’t understand the question mark in the clue (which, without it, would be pretty terrible). Oh, and MacOS is definitely an Apple product, no less than OS/2 and Windows are products of IBM and Microsoft, respectively. Totally fine clue.
Loren Muse Smith 3:53 AM: What a beautiful offering. Gorgeous. With the perfect amount of push-back for a Friday.

My first entry, IAN, provided no toehold, so I sniffed around for other gimmes. Believe it or not, my second entry was ENOS. Love those kinds of clues. FWIW, “renewal ceremony” has the same number of letters as ENGAGEMENT PARTY. Doesn’t the woman usually score a new ring at a vow renewal? By the way, terrific clue for that (Hi, @Chris Menzel)

I guess I took just enough Spanish to sense the “fatso” meaning in GORDIDITAS. I looked it up, and GORDITA does indeed mean “chubby.” Little chubbies. Hah. My fingers. That’s why I always choose a polish that’s the color of my skin; I want nothing to draw attention to my short, fat little sausage fingers.

@GILL IP – great post, start to finish! Your “throople” made me laugh.

Rex -I actually had a dnf because I guessed wrong on the MICOS/COHN cross. I went with an A. Talk about yer textbook Natick.

For me, the star today is WHO DOES THAT? And it crosses

OVERDRAW – WHO DOES THAT? Underpaid teachers.
BADMOUTHS – snarky, petty little people. Like me.
LAND ART – I dunno. Retired people with a lot of time? I googled it, and some LAND ART is pretty cool.
SAKE BOMBS – people well on their way to doing some really stupid stuff
THROUPLE – people with a ton of self-confidence, maybe?

There was a THROUPLE on a recent episode of Below Deck. I think I’m pretty open-minded, but I sure felt suspicious and doubtful. Watched’em like a hawk for signs of, well, throuble. Funny that THROUPLE has a “relationship-some” connotation, whereas threesome carries a “hanky panky-some” feel. Amirite? Rex – love your “threedom” idea. Hah! If a THROUPLE ever becomes famous, they could be a tabloid “tritem.”

I kept thinking about that LAND ART. As always, when ART comes up, I feel inferior and intimidated. I just don’t “get” most art. The emotion I’m supposed to experience never happens. I take that back; once at the Louvre, a painting by Georges de la Tour rendered me speechless, stunned. And Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird” poem makes me cry every time. When that caged bird “opens his throat to sing … a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still,” I’m overcome. I teach those birds, caged by the crappy circumstances they were born into, caged by the failure of our collapsing educational system, caged by the ignorance of the everyman who refuses to see their very real, very vast potential.

Ahem. Anyway, on a lighter note, say 49A’s clue fast three times. Now say unique New York three times fast. Then toy boat.

Loved EGO BOOST. Since BOOST can also mean steal, that phrase could *almost* be one of those Janus dealies like sanction and peruse. You can get your ego boosted by a compliment or a put-down. Last year, I called the mom of a student from the Congo because I wanted to tell her how terrific her son was. When she answered with an accented, tentative, Hello, I knew I was in trouble. Vic had told me that they speak Lingala, and my Lingala consists of one word: mbote. But I forged ahead. Parlez-vous francais? … Oui. I proceeded to tell her in French how lovely her son was – nice, smart, respectful. The next day my conversation with Vic went something like this:

Me: Did your mom tell you I called?
Vic: Yes
Me: Did she tell you I spoke to her in French?
Vic: Yeah. She said your French isn’t that good.

EGO. BOOSTed. Ouch. Hey – I haven’t really spoken French in almost 40 years. But he assured me that she understood what I was saying.
Melrose 4:02 AM: Hard for me, couldn’t crack SE corner
Conrad 5:09 AM: What @Melrose said. It was pretty much Easy-Medium until the SE. It didn't help that I misread the clue for 49A as "Craft stand stand." MR. pink before blue at 44D and totally blanked on most of the corner.
CWT 5:13 AM: What a nice post; Rex should be blushing and proud!
CWT 5:30 AM: If I had a nickel for every time I’ve started reading Swanns Way I’d be a rich man. But still wouldn’t have finished it.
Anonymous 5:42 AM: If I were telling a story and at the end I said “Like, WHO DOES THAT?” it would be because the person in question violated some implicit or explicit social code. I don’t think it’s just astonishment.
Natasha 5:57 AM: Threedom is one of my favorite podcasts. Actually, my favorite podcast. I'm wearing a Threedom shirt right now.

I loved that this puzzle had PAD and TAMPON cross-referencing each other and neutral reference to polyamory. I didn't love ENGAGEMENTPARTY as the marquis answer, however. F*** the wedding industrial complex and amatonormativity.
Shirley F 6:11 AM: My kitty is named SWANN and his littermate-sister is Odette. They both developed personalities quite different from their namesakes...thank goodness!
sf27shirley 6:14 AM: My beautiful tabby cat is named SWANN and his litter mate sister is Odette. Thankfully they both developed personalities quite different from their namesakes.
Liveprof 6:15 AM: If a throuple decides to end it and winds up in court over who gets the property, it's a three-piece suit.

When my wife asked if I picked up my outfit for the wedding, I told her I had the jacket and pants but the vest was yet to come.
kitshef 7:14 AM: I am unable to see SWANN without thinking about the All-England Summarize Proust competition, in which contestants are given 15 seconds each to summarize the seven-volume, 24000-page work.

I was unfamiliar with LAND ART, COHN, SAKE BOMBS, or THROUPLE, but other than COHN you could figure them out from the clues, at least to some extent. Hand up for wanting THReePLE, though.

And by the way, I also found this easier than last Friday’s. The super-easy experience everyone else apparently had last week surprises me.
SouthsideJohnny 7:20 AM: Just nits on this one - LAND ART seemed a little too green paintish for me today. I don’t typically think of TAPAS as spread out on a table (more likely spread out over several courses in my experience), although a TAPAS party would probably welcome such a concept, so it gets a pass as well.

THROUPLE just sounds dumb - a little editorial discretion may have been warranted there, but at the end of the day it was pretty harmless. I did drop WAPO right in cuz I personally feel that the daily Xword that they publish (from the LA Times) is (unfortunately) consistently superior to the frequently arcane-filled and trivia-laden NYT offerings (with the added bonus that I don’t have to take math exams in foreign languages).
Wanderlust 7:35 AM: No time for my usual rambling today, but since Rafa is a guest blogger, he may also be a regular reader. Just wanted to say this was a GREAT ONE to you and your co-constructor!
Son Volt 7:50 AM: I guess an outlier today as I found this trivia laden and clumsy. At first glance the segmented grid appeared daunting - but the solve was pretty straightforward for a Friday. Agree with Rex on some of the fill - OVERDRAW? and MAC OS are rough - THROUPLE is forgettable.

Deer Tick

Definitely no whoosh - it was over quick so I guess that is semi-redeeming.

SATIN Sheets
Anonymous 7:55 AM: Grand Marais!! We were just “up north” for a week, visiting from NYC. Enjoyed a few delicious meals at The Angry Trout! Have fun and enjoy the cool lake breeze.
bocamp 8:02 AM: Thx, Rafael Musa & Hoang-Kim Vu; wow what a doozie! 😊

Easy/med/hard.

Blitzed the top 1/2, but SAD TO SAY, went COLD in the lower 1/2, the SW being tuff enuf, but almost died in the SE.

Not knowing the 'pancake' was critical, as I couldn't get the down PA_ cross.

In the woeful SE, had _AKE shotS crossing scat, had totally forgotten the names of the characters in 'Reservoir Dogs', had no clue re: the 'strand', and had why sO? So, that little piece of real estate took more time than all the rest of the puz combined. I think it was SOLD OUT that broke the logjam. Whew & Phew!

Didn't we have a debate re: IN AREA recently. Can't recall the outcome, tho. 🤔

When all was said and done, a successful adventure, and a great workout.

Enjoyed the battle! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
pabloinnh 8:03 AM: Filled in the NW cornerlickety-split and thought, wow, what an easy Friday and was almost instantly disabused of that notion. TEMPTS begat MYNAH which led nowhere. Finally regained traction with the GREATONE, and did another corner (not fond of segmentation like this) and amazingly enough got ENGAGEMENTPARTY form the ENG and that was it for a while.

Almost gave up but pressed on and eventually learned lots of new things, like SANDART, Mr. COHN, SAKEBOMBS, THROUPLE, and MRBLUE. It took forever to see GORDITAS, shame on me.

So a tough one here and it didn't lead to the satisfaction you get when you remember something you knew you knew, more of a really? OK.

Nice struggle, RM and HKV. Really Made me scratch my head with Hardly Known Very obscure (to me) info, but a worthy opponent, and thanks for all the fun.
Lewis 8:04 AM: Two constructors who are relatively new to the NYT scene – Rafael since 2022 and Huong-Kim since 2019, and already solidly entrenched. Out of Rafael’s five puzzles, by the way, four, including today’s, have earned Jeff Chen’s POW (Puzzle of the Week). Wow!

I sat back for a moment, my face starting to turn red, after seeing [Camp accouterments] for BOAS, thinking, “Have I been saying ‘accoutrement’ wrong all my life?” A quick search showed that both are LEGIT.

As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken for six years now, I must report that this grid has only two double letters, which is unusually low, that is, lower than five. This is the lowest count I’ve seen, and the only other time I saw it was in 2017.

Solving crosswords has honed my skill of seeing answers with fewer crosses, a skill that enabled a solve like I had today, where swaths of white after first pass started to incrementally, then, more and more, with blazing speed, fill in. That, after all my years of solving, still feels thrilling.

MR BLUE got me to thinking about how many songs have “Blue” in the title: “Blue Skies”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Blue Bayou”, “Mr. Blue”, “Blue on Blue”, “Blue”, “Behind Blue Eyes”, “My Blue Heaven”, “Tangled Up In Blue”, “Mr. Blue Sky”, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, “My Blue Heaven”, “Blue Moon”, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, “Crystal Blue Persuasion”… Feel free to pile on here!

Rafael and Huong-Kim, this was a high-quality puzzle that I relished. WHO DOES THAT? You do. More, please, and thank you!
JJK 8:11 AM: I found this easy except for the SE corner, where I actually had a DNF because I didn’t know THROUPLE (ugh!) or MRBLUE, couldn’t come up with TMI (no excuse for that), and don’t know anything about beer cocktails. I think cocktail is much too sophisticated a word to be paired with beer, but I don’t like beer so I’m prejudiced I suppose.

I love WHODOESTHAT.
Dr.A 8:20 AM: Love this puzzle! So fun. And I beg to different on WHO DOES THAT? I say it in an affronted state especially when I’m driving. Good job constructors!
Ted 8:21 AM: For what it’s worth, my wife uses “who does that?” exactly as clued in the puzzle
Anonymous 8:22 AM: The constructors might be horny? Eros, throuple, satin lingerie, on top....
Nancy 8:28 AM: PAD v TAMPON????!!!! WHO DOES THAT???? YOU DO, NYT???? For shame!

I didn't know GOR?ITAS, even though I'm not a stranger to Mexican cuisine, and thought that PA? would probably be PAD. If s, I'm looking for something like NOTEBOOK for its alternative. Not... Oh, never mind.

Every time I see a movie role clued, unless it's someone iconic like RICK or ILSA, I get annoyed. Who remembers such trivia? 44D, which I needed very, very badly, looked as though it might be MR BLUE -- but that seemed like a silly name unless it was from a kid's cartoon show. So I looked up the cast of "Reservoir Dogs" and -- whaddya know? -- they're all named like that. Mr. Brown and Mr. Pink and...

What an odd-sounding movie.

I've said this before, WAPO: If "Democracy Dies in Darkness" then why are you blocking me out with your blasted paywall? You can't have it both ways, WAPO. Think about it.

This puzzle started off very easy and got especially tough for me in the SE. I needed that one cheat to finish it.

The high point of the puzzle, I thought, was the wonderfully and fiendishly clued ENGAGEMENT PARTY.
mathgent 8:39 AM: Very tough for me. Particularly the NE, which is borderline unfair, especially for us on the west coast who don't see the WAPO on our newsstands. PROGAMER?

I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs in years but when I saw that 44D was MR????, MRBLUE jumped into my head. That's why I do these things. Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's first full-lengther.

I had some fun just now looking up THROUPLE (rhymes with "couple") and menage a trois and trying to figure out the difference. I think that a THROUPLE can all be of the same sex, menages are two and one. And in a THROUPLE, each member typically will have sex with the other two, not so in a menage.
Anonymous 9:07 AM: This puzzle made me feel so out of touch. I’ve never heard of Tig Notara, Swann , Mr. Blue, a throuple or gorditas, had barely heard of what’s his name Saget and had no idea anyone mixed sake and beer (and I’ve had a lot of sake, but mostly in Japan). I did actually know Cohn and how to spell it. So of course it played harder for me than most of you. I had no problem with overdraw. It’s what you do to your bank account when you become overdrawn
egsforbreakfast 9:10 AM: I’ve heard that Neil Simon originally wrote the script for The Odd Throuple, featuring Felix, Oscar and the androgynous Drew..

Those with BADMOUTHS find it hard to eat GORDITAS.

Gotta run. Really nice puzzle. Thanks, Rafael Musa and Hoang-Kim Vu.
Anonymous 9:18 AM: Janis Ian wa also my entry into this one. Thought I was mighty clever when I answered “ Go solo” for 18 across.
A Braveheart 9:42 AM: They may take our wives....but they'll never take our threedom!!
Anonymous 9:50 AM: who else was just reading about madeleine cakes after this one?
RooMonster 9:50 AM: Hey All !
Puz gave me a good tougher solve. Had to leave for a minute or two, then came back and was able to finish UP. And got the Happy Music!

The NW for me was the toughest. The NEVADA clue was misleading! I was thinking, "It's got to be Las Vegas, but it doesn't fit." Clue says - Home to the US city... - so naturally I was looking for a city. Had NE_A__, and actually wrote in NEWARK! Thinking NYC-adjacent, sure, that's plausible.

LAwnART for LANDART, byCAMERA-ONCAMERA, bead-coRN-YARN, cOtS-kOAS-BOAS (sneaky, that one), AiraS-AMKHS.

Thanks Taco Bell for me knowing GORDITAS. Har.

Nice brain waking FriPuz. Gotta BOLT.

No F's (MAN!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Texas Momma 10:23 AM: PAD and TAMPON? Just yucky.
Joe Dipinto 10:42 AM: This seemed rough at first glance, but TIG, IAN, COHN and TICTACS were gimmes; plus I made a few fortuitous guesses which helped me move down the right side and across the bottom. Never saw "Reservoir Dogs" but I knew the characters all had "Mr. Color" names so BLUE went in off the U in SOLD OUT (one of my isolated guesses). As is usual for me, the NW was the last section completed.

Agree with @maverick that "Oh duh" does not equate to NO WONDER. "Oh duh!" is for when you realize you didn't think of something patently obvious; NO WONDER! is for when some new bit of information suddenly causes a situation to make sense.

A musical throuple
Gary Jugert 10:43 AM: Well, this went poorly and ended with female hygiene products, so I'm out.

Uniclues:

1 Begins the terrifying journey to chat with the pretty girl.
2 Feature of the Santa Fe Plaza.
3 "How's your head feel now?" the devil asks.
4 YouTube handle for bodybuilder.
5 Closed the dojo.
6 Ad campaign for the state leaving nothing to the imagination.
7 "Sit in a recliner and do a puzzle" and "Offer your opinion of an opinion on Blogger" among others.

1 TEMPTS INCH UP (~)
2 SERAPES IN AREA
3 BAD MOUTHS SAGET
4 PEC ON CAMERA
5 SENSEI SOLD OUT
6 NEVADA: NO WONDER
7 GREAT ONE CREDOS (~)

My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Snogged Pooh-man. CANOODLED MILNE.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mack 10:55 AM: This started out as such a promising, fresh challenge and wound up kicking itself in the teeth with a cascade of bad clues and answers.

LAND ART??
THROUPLE??
IN AREA??
TIG??
SWANN??

My will to live is waning.

I figured this Proust guy must be someone I should really know about, so I looked him up. Nope. Just a no-name with apparently no notable works. Of course that means we should all know SWANN.
I hope no one in the history of this or any parallel universe has ever said "THROUPLE," or else humanity is truly doomed.

And the clueing?
"Rock band" is a hard cringe. They're really trying to force it.
Since when is EROS a planet?
Why is "spirit raising" clued with a question mark? That's not word play.
"______ acid" could be a number of things.
That TAPAS clue -- could it be more vague?

Overall not great. Good effort but it tripped on its own shoelaces.
Greendot 10:55 AM: @LMS Thank you so much for teaching those “caged birds”. It sounds like your job can give you a lot of grief but I, for one, really admire your enduring efforts.
Newboy 11:24 AM: Easy?? Excruciating masochistic delight here! Even the gimme entries like ODOULS today flummoxed me. I was able to come out ON TOP thanks to endless patience from Ms Newboy whose EGO BOOSTing hints saved my nonstreak. POW indeed seems appropriate

Thanks for grid & Rex & @LMS & @Liveprof &@Lewis. In Crossworld even bad days are good days.
burtonkd 11:35 AM: Hands up for thieves caught INTHEACT, hi okanager

At least HARMS is slightly better than HurtS for "damages". Things can hurt without doing any damage.

My best attempt: Oh, duh = NOWONDER = So that's why that happens.

@I Gill - Tig Notaro is a woman and lesbian, which she uses in her performances and terrific TV series, "One Mississippi".

I confused Reservoir Dogs with Reservation Dogs again, stupid brain! Blue Willow is a dishset referred to in that (fantastic) show returning soon for a final season. Back to the Reservoir Dogs, I love Steve Buscemi asking "Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?".

I'm guessing Rex is using MACOS to write this? Looks funny jammed together, but completely fine answer, surprised it hasn't been used before.

GORDITAS are known enough that Taco Bell makes a gordita crunch. I know it's not real Mexican food...

In no other context would I be squeamish about seeing TAMPON to be the pair of PAD, but I've been so trained on the breakfast test here.
burtonkd 11:36 AM: @Mack, are you doing a parody?
burtonkd 11:38 AM: We just visited and debated INAREA recently for insurance. I might not have remembered that if not for this blog, so thanks all!

My throuple limit for posts is done, see you tomorrow!
Shirley F 12:02 PM: Sorry for posting the same thing twice (about my cat Swann) - i was told the first post didn't go through. Must've been that MACOS-X.
jae 12:21 PM: @Gill and anyone else interested in TIG - Netflix has a 1 hour special titled Tig that is well worth watching.

@burtonkd - Yes, Reservation Dogs is a fantastic show which you can see on Hulu,
Erik T. 12:22 PM: Shouldn't "circle" in the clue for ARCTIC be capitalized?
Nancy 12:25 PM: @kitshef (7:14) writes: "I am unable to see SWANN without thinking about the All-England Summarize Proust competition, in which contestants are given 15 seconds each to summarize the seven-volume, 24000-page work."

Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!! What an awful idea for a competition! In fact it's the worst competition idea I've ever heard in my life!

The only thing worse than being required to read the endless "Swann's Way" in school is being required to read the endless Swann's Way in school in French!

If I absolutely had to, here's how I'd sum it up for the All-England Proust Competition:

That very tasty madeleine
Was swallowed in a shot.
But nothing in the world of Proust
Can ever be forgot.

A trifling snack for you and me:
Not worth those endless pages.
But Mr. Swann drones on and on --
His mem'ries last for ages!
jb129 12:30 PM: I didn't know TIG & didn't have the patience to sit with Throttle although I did with Enos.

Don't think I like pad & tampon being in the puzzle. I'm assuming the constructors are men?
WiseWoman 12:35 PM: @mathgent 8:39
I have lived on the West coast for over 50 years and my on-line subscriptions and daily reads are the Washington Post. NY Times and The Guardian. I now live in Canada and there is NO reasonable newspaper here! I read the Vancouver Sun just for local news.
The beauty of the internet.
Anonymous 12:35 PM: yay love to see the manbabies in the comments today
jb129 12:41 PM: typo - I meant throuple.

Reading the comments, I'm glad I wasn't the only one turned off by pad/tampon. Maybe a female should construct a puzzle about penis size.
Anonymous 12:43 PM: I was hoping someone would mention Threedom! I believe Scott is a regular NYTXW solver as well, so who knows, maybe he reads this blog.
GILL I. 12:49 PM: OK...So I looked up TIG Notaro...Thanks @burtonkd and @jae...My apologies for calling her a dude. Her given name is Mathilde and when she was two years old, her brother gave her the nickname. Boy do I feel enlightened.
Anonymous 12:52 PM: Yeah ditto on poly and menstrual realities being just normal cluing, I loved both those. I actually really liked the clue for ENGAGEMENTPARTY so that was okay for me although I'm with you in spirit.
Anonymous 12:52 PM: Valerie
Tom F 12:55 PM: Great puzzle, aside from MACOS.
Trina 1:12 PM: PAD and TAMPON? WHO DOES THAT? No thanks.
Mack 1:18 PM: OMG the prudes complaining about feminine hygiene products. "Eewww! Women's physiology is icky!"

I think I might go into my bathroom cupboard and touch some tampons with my bare hands!

HORRORS!

😂
I mean, seriously...
Beezer 1:25 PM: I really enjoyed working the puzzle and was TEMPTed to cheat on TIG Notaro until I finally switched my brain from a police car or fire siren and started thinking of The Odyssey variety. D’oh. Anyway a very well done puzzle! I don’t know why (perhaps it’s my age) but I did wince a bit at the discovery of TAMPON. Perhaps jock strap and athletic cup will be coming to a xword soon.

@Nancy, I feel your pain on WAPO! I blocked WAPO on my news feed a while back! At least the NYT will give you (I think) 3 free articles every 6 months or so before its paywall crashes down.

@Mack. I think you are funnin’ us! Proust is the most famous author that practically no one has actually read (or at least finished). A guy in my book club actually had taken a “sabbatical” from the club in order to read Remembrance of Things Past. He was back pretty quickly and I don’t think he could even finish Swann’s Way. I’ve had no desire to read Proust but I tend to think of him as the original David Foster Wallace and makes Foster Wallace seem non-rambling.
Anonymous 1:29 PM: Throuple???? This junk makes me...so....MAD.
Anonymous 1:38 PM: Had an adolescent moment of "wouldn't it be funny if it was tampon, yuck yuck." omg it is tampon. but really, why not?
old timer 1:44 PM: THROUPLE is horrible. What about Triad, a song written by David Crosby, but performed, brilliantly, by Grace Slick with the Airplane.
Anonymous 1:48 PM: I love Reservoir Dogs, but when I saw six letters at 44D, I instantly wrote in MR pink. MR BLUE was such a minor character!
Mack 1:54 PM: Heh... yeah, I was being purposely snarky with my "no name" comment. I expected some retorts.
But seriously, I looked at his entire bibliography on Wikipedia and I haven't heard of a single one of those works. That's probably not entirely his fault, though.
Masked and Anonymous 2:15 PM: Fairly average-gnarly FriPuz solvequest, at out house.
With a few no-knows, as usual: TIG. COHN. SWANN. GORDITAS. THROUPLE. SAKEBOMBS. PROGAMER. Last three were kinda deducible, tho.

staff weeject pick: RAS. Nice sneaky, non ?-marked clue.
fave other clue: ENGAGEMENTPARTY's clue. Superbly twisty.
fave fillins included: TELEPORT [schlocky!]. WHODOESTHAT + YOUDO + SADTOSAY. MRBLUE ["I'm Mr. Blue … wah-oh-wah-oo…"][The Fleetwoods, 1959].

Thanx for gangin up on us, Musa & Vu dudes. Real good themeless job.

Masked & Anonymo5Us

**gruntz**
Tom F 2:18 PM: I don’t understand why folks are queasy about PAD and TAMPON?

Aren’t hygiene products fair game? Would SWAB or BANDAID be a problem?
Liveprof 2:44 PM: From the "you can't win" department:

On a family trip about 25 years ago, which included Nevada, I learned that I had been mispronouncing it my whole life (till then). I was saying Nevada like Nev-ah-da, but the locals said it with the a as in arrow. So I immediately started pronouncing it correctly. My teenaged daughter continued to pronounce it Nev-ah-da. I said, "Caity -- we just learned that the people who live here pronounce it Nevada." And she said, "Well, I don't live here." D'oh!
Joe Dipinto 2:54 PM: If you've never heard Tig Notaro's Taylor Dayne story, it's pretty hilarious.
okanaganer 3:01 PM: @WiseWoman 12:35 pm, fellow Western Canadian here. Before the internet ruined everything, there was at least one really good newspaper: the Globe and Mail. Its integrity declined a bit under competition from the new National Post, who basically didn't care about fact checking. Then came the internet.

The hard copy is kinda thin now of course, and I don't pay for an online subscription, so I don't read it enough to know if it's still any good.
Carola 3:13 PM: Medium here. My way in was from the NE, beginning with ENOS confirming TEMPTS, enough to get me through the section, at the bottom of which -ERA and -RTY suggested ON CAMERA and ENGAGEMENT PARTY. Then, despite the wealth of crossing opportunities, a slowdown, as I saw no obvious "for sures" in the remaining quadrants. But lucky guesses at ISOBAR, EGO BOOST, and SOLD OUT got me what I needed to piece it all together. Enjoyed it.

I became familiar with the term LAND ART at an exhibit of work by Andy Goldsworthy.

Do-overs: Me, too, for MynAh, CREedS. Help from previous puzzles: IN AREA, THROUPLE, SAGET. No idea: COHN, SAKE BOMBS. Partial no-idea: I'd seen the word GORDITAS before, but didn't really know what they were (maybe a cousin to carnitas?). They sound delicious.
Kevin O'Connor 3:26 PM: Too old to tolerate Tarantino. Ditto PAD/TAMPON.
LAND ART?
Wanted TRULY over YOU DO.
But back to LAND ART - REALLY?
Anonymous 3:27 PM: Lmao grow up
Anoa Bob 3:28 PM: Hereabouts they are called GORDITOS. Since GORDO means "fat", I've always thought of GORDITOS as little fat things or maybe little chubbies. I imagine them as being deep fried globs of lard so have never tried one.

TIG is also a common, widely used type of welding, Tungsten Inert Gas welding.

SAD TO SAY, I'm betting that the non clues for 31D "43-Down alternative" and 43D "31-Down alternative" were because no one wanted to do the mature adult thing and give them a LEGIT feminine hygiene product clue. Smacks of Victorian/ Puritanical times, no? WHO DOES THAT these days? Apparently YOU DO, NYTXW.

I was expecting a geologically related answer to the clue for 34A "Gathering to show off a new rock band?" I was blind sided by the ENGAGEMENT PARTY answer. Hmmm, is "rock band" slang for an ENGAGEMENT ring? C'mon MAN.
OISK 3:54 PM: Two Naticks for me, and blew both, although I (as we say at Saratoga "shuddahaddit") I use PCs, and didn't know there was a MAC Os, or that it once had an X. I had "Cake bombs" and OC. But had I pronounced "Sake" properly when I went though the alphabet, I'd have gotten it right. Never heard of TIG Notaro. So I had TOG, and "on area" instead of "in." 50 -50 guess, and I lost. Plenty of other stuff like Gorditas, throuple, the game mancala, lucky that my father in law liked Odouls..... Overall, this one deserved to be badmouthed, AFAIAC...
MarthaCatherine 4:10 PM: Re: land art. some of this is breathtaking

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS705US705&sxsrf=AB5stBhlYMOqCbPE4FUTBqxwm8fu4_RnCw:1690573023018&q=land+art&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiowoOkk7KAAxU0kIkEHci9C3oQ0pQJegQIDBAB&biw=1216&bih=605&dpr=2
Anonymous 4:47 PM: With respect to Rex’s comment that the term “overdraw” is not a concept that applies to credit, an overdrawn account with a bank is the same as bouncing a check.
bocamp 5:39 PM: @MarthaCatherine (4:10 PM)

Thx for the link; definitely some 'breathtaking' LAND ART! I clicked thru on the balanced STONE heart, to a wonderful iStock site featuring lots more STONE art.:)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
pabloinnh 6:01 PM: Reading today's comments makes me think that Proust was the inspiration for "TLDR.
Tom F 6:10 PM: Truly flummoxed by the commenters queasy at hygiene products and agree with @ANOA BOB that the NYT showed a lack of guts clueing them properly.
Anonymous 6:58 PM: Two thumbs up for Reservoir Dogs. Must see Tarantino movie.
Anonymous 7:03 PM: I found nothing to like in a grid where the clues were just so out there, along with the answers.
Anonymous 7:10 PM: MINOR planet is the clue. It is a category of celestial body that is too small to be considered a planet so yes that is a thing. I heard about them when Pluto was downgraded to minor planet. It was a pretty big story.
You complain about vagueness and fill in the blanks which could be any number of things. But this is Friday and these clues are typical for the Times puzzle.
Spirit raising IS wordplay A riff on seance. Note the singular. Hence the?
Rock band is a matter of taste but I do see most here liked it here.
Proust of course is one of the most famous early 20th century authors of France. So I am not sure what you are referencing.
Michelle Turner 7:18 PM: Don’t it Make My Brown Eyes Blue.

Overdrawing your checking account is absolutely about getting credit for having funds that you don’t.
M@ 8:38 PM: I disliked much of this puzzle, but I was so glad to read the review. Proust is incredibly beautiful and you've described the experience of reading him perfectly.
Anonymous 10:43 PM: What’s “coy” or “hee hee” about choosing between a TAMPON or a PAD? It was clever clueing. Also, many types of pancakes have nothing to do with syrup (scallion pancake, potato pancake…). And did you really pause just to make fun of someone’s name? And a SAKE BOMB is literally served in a glass of beer… Maybe you should try getting out more?
Anonymous 12:09 AM: The name of the (minor/dwarf) planet is ERIS, not EROS. This seems like a significant editing/ fact checking error. Plenty of other ways to clue EROS.
Anonymous 12:28 AM: I’m just glad to see you’re solving puzzles in Grand Marais, where I grew up on summer weekends and which is an underrated, undeniably beautiful/real part of the country. Panorama, indeed.
KennyMitts 12:34 AM: 100% agree. Journalism is far too important a job for the people who practice it to be paid.
Dee 12:53 AM: You rock, Rex Parker! Don’t know what I’d do without you.
Have a nice weekend.
spacecraft 12:10 PM: DNF, thanks to the absolutely horrendous SE. There's just no way to get all that, most especially 57 across. A potentially good puzzle ruined by one awful section.

Wordle par.
Burma Shave 12:14 PM: EROS HARMS NO ONE

WHO TEMPTS THAT MAN?
YOU WONDER, "Will THAT THROUPLE stop?"
YOUDO what ONE can,
O, but WHO DOES GO UP ONTOP?

--- MR. IAN O'DOUL
rondo 12:26 PM: Nearly clean grid except NE where a MinAh was occupying the MACAW space for a while. Noticed: INCHUP/UPDO cross; ONTOP ONCAMERA. SITS in the corners.
Wordle phew due to 4 shots at GBGBG. NOWONDER @SPACEy had a par.
Anonymous 1:02 PM: Nicely done RM and H-KV.
Diana, LIW 1:16 PM: No. Just no.

That's all

DLIW
Anonymous 4:37 PM: I also, like others found the SE corner to be the hardest. My breakthrough was 42D's ankhs, which gave me the cross sake bombs, which is the American boilermaker made Japanese by Americans. Take a shot of sake, put it on a pair of chopsticks on top of a glass of Asahi beer. You pull out the chopsticks and the sake drops into the glass of beer. Have a few of those and you will be bombed.