Apparel competitor of Playtex / THU 10-19-23 / Egyptian temple site / Tent with smoke flaps, in an anglicized spelling / Musicians that play with mallets / Shelfmate of Chips Ahoy! and Oreo / One hanging around a kennel? / How English poets wrote previously?

Constructor: Colin Ernst

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: [DO][UB][LE] [DO][WN] (57D: Gamble boldly, in a way ... or a hint to the answers to this puzzle's italicized clues) — verb phrases meaning (roughly) "gamble boldly" appear as "Down" answers with the letters "doubled" up (i.e. two letters to a square):

Theme answers:

• [UP][S T][HE] [AN][TE] (1D: Makes things more interesting)
• [BE][T T][HE] [FA][RM] (54D: Risk it all)
• [RA][IS][E T][HE] [ST][AK][ES] (24D: Make things more interesting)
• [GO] [FO][R B][RO[KE] (11D: Risk it all)

Word of the Day: KARNAK (47A: Egyptian temple site) —

The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (/ˈkɑːr.næk/), comprises a vast mix of temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construction at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I (reigned 1971–1926 BCE) in the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000–1700 BCE) and continued into the Ptolemaic Kingdom (305–30 BCE), although most of the extant buildings date from the New Kingdom. The area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut ("The Most Selected of Places") and the main place of worship of the 18th Dynastic Theban Triad, with the god Amun as its head. It is part of the monumental city of Thebes, and in 1979 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List along with the rest of the city. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly surrounded, modern village of El-Karnak, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) north of Luxor. (wikipedia)

• • •

One of those puzzles where I admired the concept more than I actually enjoyed filling the grid. This was especially true after I discovered the basic conceit (two letters per square in the answers with italicized clues). I almost wish the theme answers had been neither italicized in their clues *nor* symmetrical, so at least there would've been some element of surprise, some thrill of discovery. Yes, the puzzle would've been much harder, but it also would've been less dull. Once you get one theme answer, you can infer that all the other theme answers are going to work the same way. This doesn't mean the answers are transparent (you still gotta work the crosses etc.), but there's not much thematically left to discover, except the revealer, which I pretty much guessed right away (that is, shortly after uncovering the double-letter concept). The theme is a dutifully literal representation of a familiar expression, which is the bread & butter of crossword themes. This one is obviously high-end, with an architecture that is showier and more complex than usual. But it felt oddly by-the-book. Everything doubled, everything down, everything symmetrical, tidy, in its place. You can't fault the cleanliness of it all. But my main experience while solving was ploddingly entering two characters per square, over and over again. After the first themer drops, most of what's left is just Work, not Revelation or Surprise or Fun.

The theme execution is orderly and mostly tight, but there's one little wobble. Well, maybe two little wobbles involving one themer in particular. First, the obvious odd-man-out change to third-person with [UP][S T][HE] [AN][TE]. You've got GO, RAISE, BET ... but then UPS, with the "S." Makes it slightly wonky, but it's a minor and probably necessary blemish. Symmetry gotta symmetry, so fine, UPS, not UP, that'll do. Less acceptable, to my eye, is the clue on [TE]E-PEE (23A: Tent with smoke flaps, in an anglicized spelling). Uh ... hmm. So ... TEPEE, which gets used in crosswords all the time, fits perfectly in those five spaces, and is also an "anglicized spelling." Here, I'll let wikipedia explain:

A tipi (/ˈtiːpiː/ "TEE-pee"), often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟótiyapi, and as a loanword in US and Canadian English, where it is sometimes spelled phonetically as teepee and tepee. (wikipedia) (my emphasis)

So the puzzle pretends like it's telling us something helpful with that "anglicized spelling" bit, but it's telling us nothing. This makes the [TE]E-PEE clue weird and anomalous, in that a "wrong" answer (TEPEE) makes perfect sense, and fits. Every Single Other Rebus-Involved Answer is impossible to enter in any plausible way that doesn't involve the two-letter gimmick. You either get the rebus bit or you're stuck. But in this case: TEPEE is absolutely valid for the clue. I don't think I'd be nearly as annoyed by this clue if it hadn't appeared to be going out of its way to give me extra information, while actually giving me nothing. It also seems to imply that TEPEE isn't anglicized, which is wrong.

I could tell from square one that this was a rebus puzzle of some sort. The very first clue wanted to be UP TO but UP TO wouldn't fit (you know, the normal way). And after that, nothing fit. When you can't get Anything to work in a corner, and it's Thursday, there is a very, very good chance that you're dealing with a multiple-letters-in-a-single-square situation. This puzzle also basically highlights the trouble spots by italicizing the theme clues, so everywhere I was struggling, there was a theme clue cutting right through that section. Again, may as well have held up a neon "REBUS" sign. Even so, it took a little work to figure out the exact nature of the rebus. That didn't happen in and around the first theme answer in the NW, but once I started struggling in and around the second themer I encountered, I dug in and eventually dug up the trick:

[you can see my initial TEPEE there]

I think DI[ET]S was the first answer I attempted with the double letters (32A: Food regimens). Then [RA]CES (24A: Derbies, e.g.) and A[ST]OR (though I have no idea who this "historic" lady is) (45A: Britain's historic Lady ___). As is typical with the Thursday gimmick, once I got it, the rest of the puzzle got much easier. I can't recall any real trouble spots. I struggled a bit to remember KARNAK, and I wasn't entirely sure of the spelling of GARRETS, and HE[RM]ES was fairly elusive (69A: High-end fashion house)—certainly the most elusive of the theme-crossers, for me (that, and [AN]NEALED). But everything else, very gettable. I can see how the NE might've been the hardest section to get into, with the non-America CITROËN (22A: French automaker) and the somewhat unusual VIBISTS (9D: Musicians that play with mallets) being the main access routes to that section. But hopefully you, like me, found Abe VI[GO]DA to be a gimme. Or maybe BA[RB]IE was your gimme (not for me, still haven't seen it). I lucked out up there, in a way, because I've been listening to a lot of Milt Jackson records lately, and Milt Jackson ... plays vibes. So pretty quickly after reading 9D: Musicians that play with mallets, I was like "uh ... is VIBISTS a word?" And it is! VIBISTS VI[GO]DA AMEN(S)!

Given how taxing the theme must've been on the grid, the fill holds up very well today. The "UP"s cross in the NW, but again, small matter, made necessary by the theme, so forgivable. More partials than usual (UP TO, I'D BE, IN AT), and a couple of awkward two-word phrases (IS ONTO, AS FAST). But those were all theme-involved, so I'm not mad. The longer answers are solid, and I don't think I winced anywhere. The crosswordese (AER, ERSE) was infrequent and (therefore) tolerable. I expect the fill to be compromised somewhat by a theme this dense, so my main feeling today was "it's fine—could definitely have been a lot worse." Does anything need explaining? LONG U is the vowel sound in the word "prune" (67A: What's found in the center of a prune?). ID TAGs "hang" around dog's necks (43A: One hanging around a kennel?). English poets used to use the word "ERE" to mean "previously" (41D: How English poets wrote previously?). ROO is a character in the Pooh universe (Poohniverse?). Weird to call ROO a "critter" (64D: Critter that grows by leaps and bounds?). Hmm, now that I think of it, the clue probably wants me to think of 'ROO as a general term for "kangaroo" here. So nevermind. OLGA makes bras, MRS. Claus is married to Santa, Harry REID was Senate majority leader. Hopefully you knew the university staffers were RAS and not TAS (48D: Univ. staffers)—otherwise you'd end up with KATNAK. If you'd never heard of KARNAK, then KATNAK seems like a very plausible mistake. Would love to hear if anyone got KATNAK'd. I want someone to have been KATNAK'd. I just like the idea of someone saying "D'oh, I got KATNAK'd!" But you're all probably too smart for that. Alas. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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