Fruity breakfast biscuit / MON 8-21-23 / National park with the notorious Angels Landing hike / Letter between sigma and upsilon / Hashtag that trended in a late-2010s movement / Fishy bagel topper / Spiny sea creatures

Constructor: Jennifer Nutt

Relative difficulty: Harder side of Medium (from Downs-only perspective)

THEME: Hearing the ocean — first words of theme answers are all homophones of various ocean phenomenon that one might "hear" if one were to put one's ear to a seaSHELL (40A: Something you might hold to your ear in order to hear the first parts of 18-, 24-, 52- and 62-Across)

Theme answers:

• TIED (tide) THE KNOT (18A: Got hitched)
• WAIVE (wave) CHARGES (24A: Not require fees to be paid)
• CURRANT (current) SCONE (52A: Fruity breakfast biscuit)
• EDDIE (eddy) MURPHY (62A: "Saturday Night Live" cast member from 1980 to 1984)

Word of the Day: AUDIE MURPHY (alternative (i.e. wrong) answer to 62A) —

Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971) was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition. [...] After the war, Murphy embarked on a 21-year acting career. He played himself in the 1955 autobiographical film To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name, but most of his roles were in Westerns. He made guest appearances on celebrity television shows and starred in the series Whispering Smith. (wikipedia)

• • •

For real had -DIE MURPHY and wrote in AUDIE MURPHY, thinking, "oof, pretty old-timey, but I guess that's crosswords for you!" I only know AUDIE MURPHY exists because crosswords have told me so. They've told me so many times, apparently, that I, a dead-center Gen X'er, went to AUDIE MURPHY, rather than EDDIE MURPHY, as the --DIE MURPHY I thought most likely to occur in the puzzle. When asked in 9th-grade French class (an oddly specific and strong memory) who my favorite actor was, I replied "EDDIE MURPHY"—perhaps with a French accent, who can say? The point is, crossword-solving has so badly corrupted my brain over time that bygone crosswordese now (apparently) springs to mind much more quickly than the beloved people, places, and things of my childhood. What an odd place to find oneself in, mentally. Anyway, I hope that those of you who have never heard of AUDIE MURPHY are now prepared for the unlikely event of an AUDIE sighting, sometime in the near (or distant) future. This error on my part did not add much to the difficulty level of the puzzle—I got out of it pretty quickly—but it did rattle me more than any of the other, more straightforwardly ambiguous (and therefore tougher) parts of the Downs-only experience. As for the theme, I'm somewhat impressed that so many oceanic movements have homophones! I don't believe anyone ever held a seaSHELL to their ear and thought, "Oh, I hear an eddy," so that themer struck me as the weakest by far, given the whole SHELL conceit, but on the whole, I thought the theme was cute. SHELL also doesn't quite strike me as descriptive enough. It really is SEASHELL that is the definitive shell type. But SHELL will do, I suppose.

First struggle, Downs-only wise, was committing to "ANY TIME NOW..." I really want the phrase to be "ANY DAY NOW...," esp. give the implicit impatience that I read in the clue (3D: "We're waiting..."). "DAY" just seems more on point, more sarcastic. I wrote in "ANY TIME NOW..." but it felt iffy, and when not one but two adjacent answers proved tricky (or just wrong), I actually lost faith in "ANY TIME NOW..." and pulled it. Sob. See, I had 21D: Above (OVER) as ATOP. And then alongside it, where OUTSET was supposed to go (4D: Very beginning), I had ... well, nothing. Couldn't come up with a word. So an iffy answer, a wrong answer, and a blank all conspired to give me fits, slightly, right where the first word of the first themer was supposed to come together. I got the TIED THE KNOT area and then worked back to the NW. Once I pulled ATOP, things righted themselves fairly quickly, and I saw the "tied" / "waive" water thing coming together (at least that's what I suspected, and I was ultimately right). Lower down, I flubbed the Greek alphabet (pretty customary for me), and considered things like PHI or PSI and maybe RHO before finally realizing "TAU! It's SIG "S" TAU "T" That was the name of the frat your roommate joined, those are the letters, that's it!" (45D: Letter between sigma and upsilon). Briefly considered ANAL (!) for PRIM (49D: Strait-laced) and even more strongly considered ROMPS for ROUTS (53D: Decisive victories). And not being sure about *those* three adjacent answers (TAU PRIM ROUTS), caused problems similar to the ones I had up top. And then the AUDIE MURPHY fiasco happened. But that was it for major trouble. Blanked on ZION for a bit (12D: National park with the notorious Angels Landing hike), so that was uncomfortable. But not fatal. Wanted RAKES *IT* IN (10D: Earns and earns and earns), so balked at the correct answer. And thought maybe ELI Lilly was ELY Lilly. But none of these minor issues caused substantial grief. Finished up with INANE, which the puzzle, thematically, was not. Again, I thought it relatively clever and inventive.

After going to NYC for the Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament ... I ended up having to come home early due to a minor household / housesitting "emergency," and so I missed the tournament entirely. It seems to have been a rousing success. You can still order the tournament puzzles—you can even have *them* print out and mail you the puzzles (there are some unconventional puzzle dimensions, as I understand it ... my wife printed our puzzles out, and I haven't made my way through them yet). Get the puzzles (and see tournament results!) here. My weekend wasn't a total loss. I actually got two good days in, both of which included my daughter (recently relocated from St. Paul to Queens!). We saw a musical ("Shucked!"), we saw art (the Van Gogh "Cypresses" exhibit at the Met), we ate a very pricey and good if atmospherically odd lunch on the Upper East Side next to a pair of very very catty and gossipy older ladies who seemed to hate their friends, and another couple who seemed extremely bored by even their most extravagant-looking food (so extravagant-looking that we then ordered it). Here are some pictures. The upshot: Summer in NYC—smells like trash and weed, and yet still *highly* recommended:

That last one was a bra my wife thought looked good. I just stared at her like "who even are you right now?" (though tbh I kinda agree with her). Doing even the dumbest stuff with my wife and daughter is just a blast. Now that the kid is in NYC (currently interviewing for positions in theater production and design), I hope I see her a lot more. See *you* tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]