Courteous behavior, formally / SAT 12-16-23 / Trash hauler / First band to surpass one billion streams on Spotify (2014) / Singer Bobby with a brave-sounding last name / Custom car built with old parts and a shabby aesthetic / Classic video game character portrayed by John Leguizamo (1993) / Follower of one or single in biology / Musical effect that comes from the Italian for "to play on a harp"

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: The 1521 Edict of Worms (39A: One subject to a religious ban from the 1521 Edict of Worms) —

The Edict of Worms was a decree issued on 25 May 1521 by Emperor Charles V. Its contents proscribed Luther's writings, declaring him a heretic and an enemy of the state, even permitting anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. Though it was never enforced, (the movement for reform and protection from Protestant supporters acted in his favour) Roman Catholic rulers sought to suppress Luther and his followers, and Luther's travels were restricted for the rest of his life.

It was the culmination of an ongoing struggle between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church over reform, especially concerning the practice of donations for indulgences. However, there were other deeper issues that revolved around both theological concerns:

• On a theological level, Luther had challenged the absolute authority of the Pope over the Church by maintaining that the doctrine of indulgences, as authorized and taught by the Pope, was wrong.
• Luther maintained that salvation was by faith alone (sola fide) without reference to good works, alms, penance, or the Church's sacraments. Luther maintained that the sacraments were a "means of grace", meaning that while grace was imparted through the sacraments, the credit for the action belonged to God and not to the individual. (wikipedia) 

• • •

***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's currently mid-January, that's you!)*** : Hello from the first properly wintry week of the season in Central New York! It's January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. So ... 17 years ... not bad. At this time last year, I was recovering from COVID and still dealing with the very fresh grief brought on by the untimely death of my cat, Olive. I was very grateful for the blog at that point, since it grounded me in routine and gave me a place where I could lose myself in a pastime I love, and share that love with others. OK, yes, true, I don't always *love* crosswords. Sometimes it's more hate-love or love-hate or "Why are you being like this, you stupid puzzle!?" It ain't all positive vibes, as you know. But I realized last year that part of what makes this blog so fun for me, and what makes it a solace to many readers, is the sense of commiseration it provides. Sometimes the puzzle thrills you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't; and sometimes it infuriates you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't. But either way, the blog is here; it's *always* here. You get to have your feelings validated, or you get to shake your head at my errant judgment and often breathtaking ignorance, but either way, you get to share an experience that's an important part of your daily life, and maybe you learn something new. Above all, I hope you feel that there is a real person with a real life and real emotions and (very) real human flaws who's telling you what it was *really* like for him to solve the puzzle. I never wanted to be an expert, offering some kind of bloodless know-it-all advice and analysis. I wanted blood. Blood on the page. There will be blood! ... But also, music videos. And Words of the Day. And, if you hang around long enough, cat pictures. Like this one:

This is Ida (she put herself in the bin, I swear). Ida is the happy sequel to last year's grief. At the beginning of January, I was mourning. By the end of January, I was still mourning, but now I had a new companion (as did my other cat, Alfie, who *really* needed one). Why am I talking about my cats? Because they are constant, they give shape and rhythm to my day, and I love them even if they sometimes drive me crazy. Just like crossword puzzles! (See that! Segue! This is why you should pay me the big bucks!) 

However much I love writing this blog (and I do, a lot), it is, in fact, a job. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for 17 years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Every day. At very ... let's say, inconvenient hours (my alarm goes off most mornings at 3:45am). Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. But that sort of thing has never felt right for me. I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way. 

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):

Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you cards, and once again those cards feature (wait for it) cats! My cats: Alfie & Ida. This year, an elegant set of five!

These really capture the combination of beauty and goofiness that I love in cats (and puzzles, frankly). I'd say "Collect All Five!" but every snail-mail contributor will get just one and (hopefully) like it! Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle... 

• • •

I could tell right away from the shape of this one that it was more likely to be a puzzle to endure rather than savor. That thick tube of 8s running through the middle would, at best, hold up OK, but would be unlikely to provide much sizzle, and the highly cut-off corners would play like puzzles unto themselves, with maybe one winner in each corner if I was lucky. And I wasn't wrong, though this one probably did come out on the higher (i.e. cleaner / smoother) end of what I was expecting. It's fine. REAL NEAT, you might say (if you were Theodore Cleaver). Actually, REAL NEAT is pretty effusive, coming from Beaver. My feelings are more tepid, but I will say there was nothing truly off-putting ... except maybe the desperate attempt to be racy, which eventually felt a little juvenile and had me thinking "OH, COME ON!" even before I hit PORNO (17A: Film unlikely to have a costume designer). By that point, I had already endured two side-by-side answers that were trying to evoke the idea of group sex or sex with multiple partners. Now, the first one ended up being a fake-out—nothing to do with group sex, just GROUP DATES, but the clue was clearly like "wink wink, nudge nudge, made you think of orgies, didn't I?" (13D: Situations involving multiple romantic partners). Well, yes, great, thanks. Obviously THRUPLES are just boring things by now, not particularly racy, but something felt slightly Trying Too Hard (TTH) about the sexual suggestiveness here. PORNO just confirmed the tone for me. The icing on the erotic cake. GROUP DATES or THRUPLES, either one on its own, and I don't blink. Side by side, and ... well, now you're doing a bit. Less cute.

My main problem with THRUPLES was the damn spelling. I always want it to be THROUPLE, which fit perfectly. THRUPLE always seems like it should rhyme with ... uh ... Mott the Hoople, I guess (are there really no other "-OOPLE" terms in the world!?). Oh, Quadruple! That's the rhyme I was looking for. It's not "quadrupple," it's "quadroople," and so "thruple" always looks to me like it should be pronounced "throople," so I don't spell it "thruple." Well, I don't spell it at all, or think about it much, if I don't have to. But if I have to, "throuple" is what I want. Plus, today's clue just said "Portmanteau," no indication of singular or plural, so I fell into my own THROUPLE trap (you wouldn't like it there—uncomfortably crowded). So we get plural THRUPLES, one of a barrage of plurals that started to feel a bit conspicuous as I moved through that thick middle. AXONS SURE SIGNS THRUPLES CAR SALES RIPTIDES GROUP DATES FLAT SODAS COPSES NGOS — that's a corner-to-corner run of the plurals (though there are several more S-ending words). Kinda leaning hard on those "S"s there. FLAT SODA is a great answer, but somehow in the plural it loses its fizz ... huh ... I guess that's apt ... nah, still don't like it. 

I liked CRIME RING and (oddly) WEE LASS. I got into that corner pretty easy off the (to me) absolutely transparent 1A: Place with dressing options (SALAD BAR). And so:

You can see that I don't know how to spell SCOW (a "skow" is a thing, isn't it?) (1D: Trash hauler), and I went with LITERATE before LITERARY (3D: Bookish), but otherwise, the Downs off of SALAD BAR gave me more than enough traction to polish off the NW corner without much trouble. Couldn't exit that corner with bumping into the THRUPLES on their GROUP DATES ("We're off to see a PORNO!"), but I misspelled the former (as you know) and I didn't get the latter at first (GROUP SEX wouldn't fit), so I just rebooted with ARI? / IRA? in the NE (9A: Name found forward and backward in "Miranda rights"), confirmed that it was IRA with AXONS (11D: They're impulsive), and from there plowed straight through the middle of the grid in fairly methodical fashion, NE to SW, corner to corner. Surprisingly little real resistance. Only the ugly RATROD (???) gave me any pause (34D: Custom car built with old parts and a shabby aesthetic). 

That just left the SE, where I managed to come up with SCOUT MOTTO off just the SC-, but I wasn't entirely sure of it (43A: "Be prepared"). I think I wanted the apostrophe-S, SCOUT'S MOTTO. But no. It's "SCOUT'S HONOR!," but SCOUT MOTTO. Wanted EAR MUFFS at 46A: Winter accessory but instead got a single EAR WARMER (for both ears? I guess if you've got one of them single-piece headband dealies, and not a unit with distinct ear pieces, it's a singular WARMER, and not WARMERS). And that was that. Finished with MTN. That's either climactic ("I climbed the mountain!") or anticlimactic ("oh boy, a 3-letter abbrev"), depending on how you look at it.

Question mark clues!:

• 28A: Events offering a whole lot to choose from? (CAR SALES) — the "lot" is a car lot
• 36A: Crushes that have lost their sparkle? (FLAT SODAS) — the "Crushes" are sodas, as in the brand—best known for "Orange Crush"

• 5D: Time piece? (DECADE) — oof. So "piece" is just "some random amount of"? Er, OK.

Hey, just noticed that this puzzle is 16 wide. Why? Bizarre. Usually when you break form, there's a clear reason. Apparently "just 'cause" is a reason now. Huh. Wish the results had been more scintillating, but again, they're fine. It's a very acceptable, reasonably smooth Saturday grid. No low notes. Just not enough high notes for my taste.

Speaking of high notes: Your Holiday Pet Pics keep rolling in, and I'm going to do my best to get them all posted by year's end (yes, there are that many). Here we go—six more! Three kitties with their trees!

[Autumn! (thanks, Rob)]

[Brady! (thanks, Kenneth)]

[Dipper! (thanks, Virg & Dave)]

And three wise puppers bearing gifts*! (*the gifts of cuteness)

[Cash! (thanks, Emily)]

[Sam, with his adoring human, Hannah! (thanks, Kit)]

[And finally ... Chloe, who is not a moose, why would you say that!?]
[Thanks, Leroy!]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. clue on DARIN really should've read 35A: Singer Bobby with a brave-soundin' last name, missed opportunity

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]