Experimental composer Charles / FRI 12-15-23 / Nephalist / Lines from a rapper in slang / Yard, nautically / Likely hyperbole from a texter / Button usually held down by a pinkie / Warning letters with a reddit link / West Coast NFL'er

Constructor: Alex Tomlinson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: INUK (10D: Arctic native) —

: a member of the Inuit people (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

***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... 

• • •

Well it was harder than yesterday, but most Tuesdays are harder than yesterday, so that's not saying much. This felt like reasonable Friday difficulty, but still on the light side. If I don't even have to read the clues on the three long Acrosses in the SW in order to finish the puzzle (and I didn't), then it can't be all that hard. Any resistance today came from the typical "word I didn't know" stuff, stuff you encounter in virtually every puzzle, and none of it caused any real stoppage. It had some of that whoosh-whoosh magic that I like to see on Friday, although my first would-be whoosh was ALOHA SHIRT, which is more like 10-letter crosswordese than anything as exciting as "whoosh." But then PASTRY CHEF came along behind and gave the grid some zing, and very quickly I was gazing at the grid with...

Just kidding, I lost my capacity for that long ago. I was not at all sure of this answer when I threw it across, but after CHILD'S TELESCOPE wouldn't fit, CHILDLIKE WONDER (34A: What on might look at the night sky with) was the first thing that came to mind. It's a corny phrase, but one thing I do love is that it's paired with the perpendicular grid-spanner HALLMARK HOLIDAY, which basically leaves you with The Two Holiday Spirits: Delight and Cynicism. People seem to mostly enjoy the Christmas season, but there is no more "overly commercialized celebration" than Christmas, so ... pick your feeling! I just like how the marquee answers seem to be marking out the spectrum of seasonal emotions. Very timely. I for one love the holiday season, mostly because of the lights people put up. It's a nice neighborhood feature during the darkest time of the year. We put colored lights in the bushes out front for the first time in a long time. They are not fancy, but they make me happy, as does our tiny Christmas tree, decorated with ridiculous ornaments we've accumulated over the years. Almost every commercial thing about Christmas, however, makes me miserable. Well, "miserable" may be too strong. Miserable-ISH. Put off, maybe. Irked. Anyway, I offer this discursion about my Christmas ambivalence as a prelude to my favorite, only mildly facetious wrong answer of the day. Faced with two ELS at the end of 55D: Common place to see Santa, I went with ...

Pretty sure "See you HELL, Santa!" was in the uncensored version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Originally, Santa said "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night." And then everybody who got coal shouted back, "See you in HELL, Santa!," and chucked coal at the reindeer. But that part was pulled, right about the time they added "under God" to the pledge of allegiance, I think. Thanks, Eisenhower.

Really liked the two longer colloquialisms today ("CAN YOU NOT?!" "... AND STAY OUT!"). Did not so much like all the textisms. Just a barrage of textisms. First, FTW ("For the win!"), which I actually haven't seen / heard in years, but at least (unlike so many faddish expressions) it stayed in my brain. Then not only NSFW and ROFL, but NSFW *crossing* ROFL. These initialisms have appeared in the grid enough that even if you aren't a big adopter of texting shorthand, you should know them. And yet, ick. Don't cross these. It's ugly. Just a horrid letter train wreck.

It's been a year since we've seen LIANA (50A: Tropical vine). Did you know we once went nearly seven years without seeing LIANA!? It's true. Good times. LIANA is Pantheon-level crosswordese, one of those short words seen only in crosswords that I learned early early on in my solving career (so, early '90s). If you didn't know it, do not feel bad. Look how much the '80s liked LIANA!

xwordinfo.com

Shortz, to his credit, brought fill like LIANA to heel. Still, a handy word to know, just in case. My only real "Word I Don't Know" today was INUK, which is making its debut today (!?!?!?) (10D: Arctic native). Glad it's a debut because I was like "how have I never seen this before?" INUIT is a crossword legend, but INUK, nowhere in sight ... until today.

I had KNOT before SPAR (1A: Yard, nautically). Did you know YARD is slang for $100? I've been watching Blast of Silence (1961), the 4th-greatest Christmas movie of all time, and they say YARD for $100 in that picture. It's good old-timey criminal slang. But not "nautical," I don't think, so not relevant here. I hesitated at OCHER v OCHRE, as I always will (29A: Earth-based pigment). I knew WENDIE Malick, though I did not know the spelling. Still, just knowing meant that I could make the spelling work, by inference. "If not WENDY, then ... WENDIE." I guess WENDEE was possible, but that just looks stupid (apologies to all the WENDEEs out there, both of you). "Stubbles" in the plural feels awful (18A: What stubbles may become => BEARDS). So many other ways you might've gone there without resorting to a plural no one would touch. 

Bullets:

• 18A: Number in a count (BALLS) — ball/strike count, in baseball. This clue was hard.
• 24A: Lines from a rapper, in slang (BARS) — loved this, got it quick. I know a lot of y'all hate rap, but expect to see this clue for BARS again.
• 43A: Pronoun functioning as an object (not a subject!) (WHOM) — yes, but nobody likes a shouty prescriptivist clue! 
• 46A: Half full? (ELS) — an old trick. ELS (plural of the letter "L") make up "half" of the word "full" 
• 4D: One you might beseech to get glasses (REF) — first thing I put in the grid (after the incorrect KNOT at 1-Across, which REF helped me fix)
• 14D: One on the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land (CALEB) — really thought this was gonna be a term for a *modern-day* voyager to Israel, LOL. Genuinely surprised when it turned out to be a specific figure from the Bible.
• 35D: Housework? (LAWS) — think House of Representatives 
• 28D: Nephalist (TEETOTALER) — so ... nothing to do with kidneys, then? Great, you taught me a useless word I will immediately forget, thanks. I've read books on Prohibition and taught Prohibition-era crime fiction and never have I ever seen the word "Nephalist." Dictionary says "Noun (obsolete)." Bah and humbug. Now I really want a drink.

You all have sent me so many Holiday Pet Pictures that it's gonna take me the rest of the month to post them all, even at the rate of several per day. Not mad! Just know that it might take a while for your cat or dog to show up. First holiday pets today are anonymous cats (tell me your pets' names!). 

[Sooooo many cats in Christmas trees in my Inbox!
How do your trees not fall over!? (thanks, Torey)]

[This came with an annotation: "Cat nuts roasting on an open fire" (thanks, Ellen)]

This is reader Liveprof's granddaughter Zoey and her "fierce watchcat" Emily

[Love the cat looking directly at the camera like "are we done here?"]

And here's Maddie looking sweet and noble:

[thanks, Connie]

And hey, looks like we're finally getting some more dogs in the mix. Note: you people really like to dress your pets in human attire, god bless these patient babies :) 

[Give Fiona All the Cookies, Her Suffering
Has Gone On Too Long! (thanks, Linda)] 

[Lola wants you to know that "The Bark Before Christmas"
is a terrible pun, one star (thanks, Sarah)]

More Holiday Pet Pics every day for the foreseeable future. My Inbox remains open, rexparker at icloud dot com. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]