Shifty little sucker? / SAT 12-21-24 / Austrian composer Mahler / X follower, perhaps / Black-and-white divers / Pen for a hit / Bed hogs, at times / Woodpecker fare / Jhené ___, Grammy-nominated R&B singer / Character who says "I am short, fat and proud of that" / Last ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, familiarly / Star-forming region nearest to Earth / Noisy Asian bird / Short palindrome in the middle of a famous longer one

Constructor: Barbara Lin and Lewis Rothlein

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (Challenging for me, but I made some ridiculous, sleepy decisions)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: SALT Treaty (23D: SALT, but not PEPPER = NUCLEAR PACT) —

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II.

Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, in November 1969. SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries.

Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979 in Vienna, the US Senate chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which took place later that year. The Supreme Soviet did not ratify it either. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985, and was not renewed, although both sides continued to respect it.

The talks led to the STARTs, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, which consisted of START I, a 1991 completed agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, and START II, a 1993 agreement between the United States and Russia which never entered into effect, both of which proposed limits on multiple-warhead capacities and other restrictions on each side's number of nuclear weapons. A successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm out of practice. The puzzles have run so easy of late that I don't have much recent experience of struggling with a hard one, and today's, yeesh, just couldn't get a grip. From start to (especially) finish. In retrospect, I see all kinds of ways that I *should" have been able to navigate through the grid more easily. If, for instance, I'd looked at all the long Across clues in the NW instead of resolutely focusing on the short Downs, I'd've seen 17A: The "King of Mambo" (TITO PUENTE), which would've been a gimme for me. I probably could've gotten OPERA HOUSE too if I'd just looked at the damn clue, sigh (15A: Madrid's Teatro Real, for one). No idea why the only long Across I even looked at up there (before abandoning it) was 1A: Shifty little sucker? Weird. I solve just after waking, around 4am, and I think my brain just wasn't warm enough for this one. You can see how long it took me to get traction, here:

And as you can see, there are errors. CAV for NET (the NETs were in the finals? Twice?), ANNA for ALMA (???). You can see I just don't know the Names in this puzzle. My response to the clue about The Hate U Give was "I thought that was written by a woman" (40A: "The Hate U Give" author Thomas). LOL, pfft. Yes, dummy, it was. "Thomas" is the last name. The AIKO singer, absolutely no clue (26D: Jhené ___, Grammy-nominated R&B singer). A LOGAN that's not an airport? No clue. But I did know TITO PUENTE and Rooney MARA and REBA, of course, so not all names were poison. Still, those names I didn't know were real barriers. The hardest part for me was the end, the SE, where I had BON- and ITC- and a very tentative DEEP-SEATED (I always wonder if it's actually DEEP-SEEDED), and then .... nothing. Couldn't think of much of anything starting BON-. Wanted IT COULDN'T HURT, but that wouldn't fit, and somehow my brain never entertained the shorter CAN'T. Doesn't sound natural in my mouth, though it makes perfect sense. So Acrosses were a no-go. And coming at that section from above ... nope, couldn't do that either. I thought the vineyard eponym was gonna be a wine producer, I couldn't fathom what [Form letters?] was, I was expecting something much less straightforward at 48D: Blue laws, e.g., so I was very stuck. Even the "famous" palindrome threw me, as I thought "Madam, I'm Adam" might be part of a longer biblical palindrome (???) and so wrote in EVE instead of ERE (from "Able was I ERE I saw Elba"). I still don't really get how ETD is a "Track stat."  Oh, train track. Yikes. Anyway, I had to run the alphabet for the first letter of [Woodpecker fare] (three letters ending "P") ... and when I got to "S" I saw SAP, and that made me see BONSAI TREE (51A: It's a little shady), and that was all I needed. Grueling for me. 

The grid looks fine. The only time I was actually enjoying myself was somewhere in the middle, when I got RUN INTERFERENCE and LOWER FORTY-EIGHT (a lovely center cross) (34A: Alabama is in it, but Alaska is not). The corners are very solid, and I especially like BLOW A GASKET. Didn't love the cutesy clue on BENDY STRAW, as I don't think "shifty" is a word anyone would ever apply to a straw, and I don't think of straws as "little," either (compared to what?). Still, BENDY STRAW is a fine answer. There's really no longer answer that feels forced or awkward, or even particularly dull or lifeless, and that's a pretty good accomplishment.

Help!:

• 1D: X follower, perhaps (BOT) — of all the things "X" can be, one of those things is a decaying social media site where, famously, many users are actually BOTs. This clue took me a while to understand, even after I got it, so if you didn't get it right away, you're in good company. Well, you're in my company, at any rate.
• 19A: No longer waffle (OPT) — even something as simple as this was actually tough in its ambiguity. I ended up in an unexpected kealoa* situation—ACT worked just as well. Better, I thought. "ACT now!" "It's time to ACT!" Replace either of those with OPT and you sound absurd. 
• 28A: Lines in bars (URLS) — after the "X" ambiguity and the OPT/ACT ambiguity, we get even more ambiguity here. What kind of "bars?" What kind of "lines?" Who can say. I had UPCS in here for a bit.

• 23A: À la king? (NOBLY) — more ambiguity. I was trying to decide between REGAL and ROYAL. The phrase "À la king" is used adjectivally on menus ... it's technically a prepositional phrase. Did not see adverb coming. Also didn't see generic "noble" coming with specific "king" in clue. 
• 38A: Stake (FUND) — grimace-y face, I am making one. Is this a noun or verb situation? I guess this is def. 3c of "Stake" ("an interest or share in an undertaking or enterprise"), but I'm not certain who these two words swap out for one another.
• 47A: "And the ___ raths outgrabe" ("Jabberwocky" line) (MOME) — words can't express how much I resent having to know the non-words from this damn poem. After "slithy TOVES," I got nothing. There's gotta be a way to get MOME out of this grid.
• 58A: What some people display after getting stuck? (TATS) — an awkward, ungainly clue, the awkwardness and ungainliness undermining its intended humor. I had T-TS here and ... yeah ... I thought exactly what you're thinking ... I was like "wow, I guess that's one way to get help." 
• 5D: Like a noisy toy (YAPPY) — only just now realizing the "toy" is a type of dog and not an actual child's plaything. Brutal clue (I think I wanted AROAR at one point (???)).
• 10D: Bed hogs, at times (WEEDS) — more brutality. Very Saturday, this one.
• 27D: Japanese food that's a good source of what it spells backward (NORI) — one of my few successes today. Got this with no crosses, and got it early on, so it really helped.
• 35A: Pen for a hit (E-CIG) — I couldn't make any grammatical sense of this clue. So it's a vape "pen" that you take a "hit" from? The world of vaping is terra incognita to me. I smoked actual cigarettes for two years in my youth and then stopped and that is not entirely but pretty much my entire experience of smoking.

That's it for the puzzle. More Holiday Pet Pics now!

Here's Mickey, who agrees that the Chiefs are looking pretty good again this year, but would rather you put the ornament on the tree ... please. 

[Thanks, Jack]

Little Kiddle says "there's nothing 'Holiday' about this picture, you're not really going to sen- ... oh, you are? Huh, OK." You'r'e very pretty, LK. Maybe next year you'll get a little red bow or something. 

[Thanks, Lesley]

Penny here could kinda pass for a flying reindeer, so ... sure, it's a 'Holiday' pic, whatever

[Thanks, Anne]

Snowflake has been into the catnip and is having a holiday visionary experience. "The angels are all around us, man ... can't you see them ... glowing in their multitudes ..." Sure, Snowflake. We all see them. You just get some rest.

[Thanks, Amy]

Foxglove would prefer not to

Foxglove's canine sister Maggie, however, embraces the season wholeheartedly. Here she is engaging in her favorite winter sport: snoozing on a blanket (RIP, sweet burrito) 

[Thanks, Anthony]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Common motifs in high art? / FRI 12-20-24 / Member of the Golden Horde / Goddess often depicted clothed in green / Rhea's relative / Ancient music halls / Subject of 199 silkscreen paintings by Warhol / Org. with towers / Aptly named descendant of Standard Oil

Constructor: Henry Josephson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: THE GOLDEN SPIKE (32A: Symbol of America's first transcontinental railroad) —

The Golden Spike (also known as The Last Spike) is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The term last spike has been used to refer to one driven at the usually ceremonial completion of any new railroad construction projects, particularly those in which construction is undertaken from two disparate origins towards a common meeting point. The spike is now displayed in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. [...] Completing the last link in the transcontinental railroad with a spike of gold was the brainchild of David Hewes, a San Francisco financier and contractor. [...] To drive the final spike, Stanford lifted a silver spike maul and drove the spike into the tie, completing the line. Stanford and Hewes missed the spike, but the single word "done" was nevertheless flashed by telegraph around the country. In the United States, the event has come to be considered one of the first nationwide media events. The locomotives were moved forward until their cowcatchers met, and photographs were taken. Immediately afterwards, the golden spike and the laurel tie were removed, lest they be stolen, and replaced with a regular iron spike and normal tie. At exactly 12:47 pm, the last iron spike was driven, finally completing the line. (wikipedia)

• • •

[56A: "Sorry, those secrets are
*beyond* classified"]

If this is a debut (as it appears to be, since the constructor's name is not in my database), then it's one of the more impressive debuts I've ever seen. The grid shape itself is arresting. At first glance, it looks too choppy—like, too many black squares, too many short answers, not promising. But then it unfolds and it has this really incredible flow—not all-over flow, but a kind of trickle-down, three-part flow, where one mini puzzle leads down to the next, that part fills up, and then down you go again to the bottom, with big, bright answers splashing across the grid along they way, leaping like KOI across the grid (I know, KOI don't really leap, just play along, for once!). And yes, there are a lot of short answers, but they are mostly clean and *all* in service of gorgeous marquee answers. That is the proper job of short fill—hold the longer, better, more impressive fill in place without being aggressively ugly. And today's marquee fill is indeed impressive. Eight (8) grid-spanners! Well, two are near-spanners, at 14 instead of 15 letters long, but that's another virtue of the grid: you get a couple of rarely-seen 14s (for structural reasons, 14s are often hard to accommodate in a 15x15 grid, generally), and you get a center stack that's leaning, staggered, a little off-kilter, which keeps the grid from being excessively blocky (yes, sometimes I just like (or don't like) the way the squares look in the grid—not as important as how the puzzle plays, but the eye likes what it likes). Yes, the puzzle was too easy, but it was fun while it lasted. Exhilarating to be able to drive ANSWERED TO NO ONE (7D: Had carte blanche) like a spike, right through the heart of the grid, and then have THE GOLDEN SPIKE show up as an answer. My spike didn't *complete* the puzzle, the way THE GOLDEN SPIKE completed the railroad, but man was it fun satisfying to hammer it home:

[one little mistake at this point: JOAN instead of JOÃO (15D: John, in Portuguese); I was thinking of Miró, who was Spanish, not Portuguese]

This puzzle has one pretty bad editing foul-up, which is that the word "GOLDEN" somehow made it into a clue (46D: Member of the Golden Horde), despite being already in the grid, and in a marquee position. This is fine with small words (articles, prepositions, ultra-common 3- or 4-letter words), but with longer words, it's obtrusive. Solvers are apt to notice. At best, it's a distraction. Reads like a glitch. At worst, a solver might second-guess an answer because "they wouldn't duplicate such a standout word, would they?" They shouldn't, that's for sure. Absolutely no need for "Golden" to be in that TATAR clue. Unforced error. (Although I have to say that that clue led to my favorite mistake (or near-mistake) in the puzzle—I had TAT-, looked at [Member of the Golden Horde], and thought "... TATER?" Gonna start calling my tater tots "The Golden Horde."

These puzzles with long stacks and lots of short crosses are often much easier than they look because just a few of those crosses can unlock a longer answer, and then you get a cascading effect from there. Cascading! That's the word for how this solve played out. It played out waterfallishly. Falling water, one third down to the next third down to the next. Well, there's the rapid descent of the central spike ("ANSWERED TO NO ONE"), but after that, back to the top and cascading commences. I have almost no ink on my printed-out grid, which means very few trouble spots. That JOAN-for-JOÃO error didn't last long. I had some minor trouble wondering what MARIJUANA was going to have to do with art ("motifs"), but they realized "oh, they're looking for a motif, not a specific art term" (14A: Common motifs in high art?). It's just LEAVES. The crosses there were so easy that LEAVES just materialized without much effort on my part. Had a couple seconds confusion trying to parse MINERAL DEPOSITS (38A: Veins, e.g.) because I had MINE- and figuring it was going to be some more specifically *mining* term. MINE ... something. But then the "R" from ORGAN slid in and that problem went away. I lucked into knowing the one not-terribly-famous name in the grid (ELLY) (47D: 2024 M.L.B. All-Star ___ De La Cruz). Baseball fans will know him, others, I'm guessing, not so much. He's very young (b. 2002, MLB debut 2023). But very good and likely an All-Star for years to come. I remember when I first saw his name and thought "hmm, good for crosswords." So now you know. ELLY. Be on the lookout. Move over, ELLY May Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies, there's a new ELLY in town.

Further notes:

• 1A: Abbr. in a scholarly paper (ET AL) — Me: "IBID!" (bzzt!)
• 18A: Goddess often depicted clothed in green (GAIA) — earth goddess. Never sure if it's GAEA or GAIA. Just gotta wait on that cross.
• 43A: Where to watch the cubs (DEN) — hmm, I'm gonna guess that park rangers don't recommend that you do this. Cubs are cute, but ...  you're gonna wanna stay out of the DEN.
• 1D: Rhea's relative (EMU) — a gimme ... and yet my crossword brain went "MOA! It's MOA! Write in MOA!" "But Rhea's are still around and the MOA's been extinct for over five hund-" "Write it!"
• 13D: Aptly named descendant of Standard Oil (ESSO) — if I ever knew this, I forgot it. "S" "O"—whaddya know.
• 23D: Move like a crab (SIDLE) — there's a very arresting shot of a sidling crab in the movie All We Imagine As Light, which I saw at Cinemapolis up in Ithaca yesterday. A remarkable, patient, subtle, lovely movie about three Mumbai nurses—their friendship and the challenges they face as (mostly) single women in the big city. Recommended.

• 26D: Place to take notes (ATM) — so bank notes, i.e. currency. Cute.
• 50D: Ancient music halls (ODEA) — there are lots of repeaters in the short fill, but this is the only one I would classify as hardcore "crosswordese." 
• 57D: Org. with towers (AAA) — they tried to get you with the towers/towers thing (tall structures v. things that tow .,. your automobile). Hope you survived. I never even saw this clue.
• 52A: Subject of 199 silkscreen paintings by Warhol (MAO) — same as with MOA-for-EMU above, except here my brain was shouting "ONO!" "Jeezus, brain, you know it's not ONO!" "Ooooooonoooooo!"

Holiday Pet Pics now! 

(reminder: submissions closed til next year!)

First up, a double shot of Roxy, who was Jewish, but also the most ardent Christmas enthusiast. She'd sport whatever look you wanted. Up for anything. What a sweet baby (RIP)

[Thanks, Liz]

Henry and Lily here look slightly less enthusiastic, but they are hungry for treats, so they will patiently abide your photo session, just hurry up with it.

[Thanks, Carol]

"Oh, hi, whatcha doin? Takin' a photo of the tree? Can I be in it?" Sure, Penny. You can be in it.

[Thanks, Ciara]

According to their owner, Cody thinks he hears Santa, but Bella knows it's just the mailman. "Go back to sleep, Cody." If it's not the real thing, Bella ain't budging.

[Thanks, Martha]

And finally, this hilarious chonkster and his microhouse. The cat's name is Rocky, and well, I guess you're wondering how he got into this predicament. I'll let his owner tell it: "This was a Xmas present for our then-feral then-outdoor cat, but I misunderestimated just how big he was in comparison to the house I bought online. Eventually, a friend used it as a model to make a 1.5x scale one he could fit in." Rocky says "It fits. I sits. Keep out!"

[Thanks, David]

See y'all tomorrow, I hope.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Futile batting statlines, in baseball lingo / THU 12-19-24 / Parenthetical on four #1 albums since 2021 / Laser-focused mindset / Sticky treats, in more ways than one? / Hedgehog lookalikes / Nantz's longtime N.F.L. commentating partner / Coding catchall

Constructor: Brandon Koppy

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SCREEN / SHARES (45A: With 45-Down, displays during an online presentation ... or a hint to three pairs of answers in this puzzle) — answers with the initials "T.V." cross at their first letter, resulting in three "TV" squares—so the first letters of the two words in each theme answer are a kind of "screen" (TV), and those letters "share" one box:

Theme answers:

• TUNNEL / VISION (11A: Laser-focused mindset)
• TAYLOR'S / VERSION (22A: Parenthetical on four #1 albums since 2021)
• TERMINAL / VELOCITY (31A: Speed limit, of a sort)

Word of the Day: OH-FERS (36D: Futile batting statlines, in baseball lingo) —

O-fer

Definition

Descriptive of a batter who fails to get a hit in any number of at-bats in a game or series of games. "Bob Buhl owns the worst O-fer in major league history-0 for 88 over two seasons." (Sports Illustrated, June 7, 2004). Davey Johnson, commenting on Rafael Palmeiro (quoted in The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 28, 1997): "If he goes O-fer, he's going to get down on himself." Sometimes spelled "ofer". Syn. O-for; oh-for; oh-fer, 1; 0-fer.

Etymology

The term is created from "0 [zero] for," as one would say when speaking of an "0 for 3" game. (Dickson Baseball Dictionary)

• • •

Well you had me ... and then you lost me. Right at the end. Goal line fumble (to use a sports term, which this puzzle *really* seems to like). I guess *I* was the one who fumbled, but it feels like the puzzle fumbled. In short, I thought the revealer execution was garbage, in that it was built exactly like the rest of the theme answers (with Across + Down answers crossing at their first letter), except the "T/V" gimmick was abandoned in favor of ... just an ordinary single letter ("S")? To set up the "T/V" pattern and then arbitrarily break it ifor the revealer (even though You Have Built Your Revealer With Exactly The Same Structure) felt cheap. Like a cheap trick. That "T/V" non-appearance befuddled me way more than the theme itself actually did—I wrote that (erroneous) "T/V" square in pretty quickly when I saw the revealer had the same first-letter-shared structure as the other themers. So the revealer wouldn't come, and then, well, that corner was not exactly the friendliest, with the weird word COYEST (when do you rank coyness?) and the absolutely bonkers clue on GESTATE (60A: Baby bear?)—so if you "bear" ("carry") a "baby," you GESTATE it ... in your womb? Torture. Syntactically, anyway—torture. So I basically irised in on that non-"T/V" square, the shared "S" in SCREEN SHARES, and finally I absolutely had to ditch the "T/V" and then I could see the actual revealer. I know that the revealer clue clearly says "a hint to three pairs of answers," and a "T/V" in the revealer's first square would've made it four, but who goes back and counts? Or even thinks about that number? Bah. That non-"T/V" shared square felt like a let-down and a betrayal, a breach of contract. Also, profoundly anticlimactic, which is sad, because I think the revealer itself is great, and the theme is really well done overall. I mostly enjoyed myself ... until I entered that SE corner, and then—meh and bah and boo.

Leaving the particular structure of the revealer out of it, I thought the theme was clever and well-executed. I particularly like the grid structure—mirror symmetry along the NW-to-SE axis—and the fact that all the "TV"s line up along that axis. Uncovering the gimmick wasn't too tough today. Some bumbling at first in the NW corner (pretty normal), and then—after imagining that [Some mustangs] were T-TOPS (?) and that a [Commoner] was a PEON—I hit 22A: Parenthetical on four #1 albums since 2021 with -AY- in place, and I thought "TAYLOR'S Version! ... but where's the 'version'? ... huh, must not be right." I went back up in the NW corner, got TUNNEL, wondered where "vision" had got to, and then *finally* looked Down, saw the cross-reference, and realized the VISION (and the VERSION) were right there all along, crossing the TUNNEL (and the TAYLOR'S) at the first letter. 

A "TV" rebus, cool. And again, SCREEN SHARES is a nice revealer ... just not the way it's executed in the grid, which feels like the COYEST trick I've ever seen (hey, maybe COYEST is a word?). I probably should've made "TAYLOR'S / VERSION" the Word of the Day. Famously, Taylor Swift rerecorded a bunch of her early albums in order to gain ownership of the material. So those rerecorded albums have "(TAYLOR'S VERSION)" appended to their titles.

I pay far less attention to professional sports than I used to when I was a kid (obsessed! with all the majors except hockey, which we did not have in California, then, and which I couldn't be bothered to care about when it finally did come). So sports terminology and slang is generally familiar to me, but I'm very aware that that is not the case for many solvers, so when I see it in droves, in spades, in avalanches, I start to feel for those non-sports folks. Today, I really felt for them when OH-FERS (36D: Futile batting statlines, in baseball lingo) ended up right next to POSTS UP (37D: Hangs out for a while), a bizarrely-spelled (and awkwardly clued) baseball term right alongside what I assume is a basketball term. I mean, there's nothing in the clue about basketball, but the only place I know the phrase POSTS UP from is basketball. To "post up" means "to take up a position against a defender in the post in basketball while standing with one's back to the basket" (merriam-webster.com). Centers or other big men often are said to be "hanging out in the (low) post." If there is some non-basketball meaning of POSTS UP that equates the term with "hanging out," I don't know of it, and neither do the online dictionaries I'm looking at. Insane clue for POSTS UP. [update: Urban Dictionary seems to know this “hang out” definition, and wiktionary has “occupy a position” as its fourth def]. And as for OH-FERS, yikes. I would ... not spell "O" like that. The "O" (said as the letter "O") stands for zero, so putting an "H" on it makes it look *ridiculous*. Apparently someone somewhere decided you could spell it that way if you wanted, but that is not the common way to spell it, and I feel sorry for the undoubtedly many solvers for whom that entire clue and answer was inscrutable. And then to have AND ONE (42D: Free throw after a basket) and the WTA (58D: Org. for Coco Gauff) and Phil SIMMS (14D: Nantz's longtime N.F.L. commentating partner) also in the grid? Even I, a sports non-hater, thought the puzzle was going overboard.

More:

• 6A: Comedian Ken of "The Masked Singer" (JEONG) — me: "how the **** would I know, who even watches that **** show, come on!" Also me, seconds later: "Oh, it's just Ken JEONG. He's on that show? Huh."
• 35A: Sticky treats, in more ways than one? (POPSICLES) — a great clue, and frankly, I'm not sure it even needs the "?"—they do have sticks, so they are stick-y. I know we don't use the term "sticky" that way, but it's Thursday, trust me to figure it out.

• 9D: Burning man? (NERO) — ugh, this one made about as much intuitive sense as [Baby bear?]. NERO (famously, probably apocryphally) fiddled while Rome burned. According to History dot com, "the fiddle didn't exist in ancient Rome." So there's that. But back to the clue—I guess NERO is a man *associated* with "burning"? [Grimace] [resigned headshake] [moving on]
• 33D: Hedgehog lookalikes (ECHIDNAS) — my first instinct is always to spell this "ECHINDAS" (rhymes with "Lindas"?). I don't know why. Also, I just found out that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 opens tomorrow. No idea if any ECHIDNAS are involved, as I can't imagine caring about this franchise at all, for any reason. Like, if you made a movie in a lab specifically designed to keep me away, this would be that movie. If there were an interest level below zero, that would be my interest level. In related news, I'm driving over an hour today to see All We Imagine As Light, a truly awful / forgettable / confusable title, but apparently one of the best movies of the year (the very best, according to Sight + Sound). If there are ECHIDNAS in it, I'll let you know.

Time for Holiday Pet Pics now 

(again, this year's submissions are closed, thank you!)

Ruby has had enough of the photo sessions and would like you to just throw the damned ball already

[Thanks, Mark]

Sadie has also had enough of the photo shoot. She seems calm here, but you can tell that she's about to bust out of there and take Santa with her. 

[Thanks, Juliann]

I know this is the gaze of a dog (Fenway) who just wants you to hurry up and finish your puzzle already so you all can go for a run, but when I look at this sweet face, all I feel is calm. My jaw unclenches, my shoulders relax. All is calm, all is Fenway. 

[Thanks, Sarah]

From Fenway to a couple of more bat-sport pets—the brothers Baseball and Cricket. They spend their days lounging, purring, sleeping, and failing to understand the rules of each other's respective sports

[Thanks, Mike]

And finally today we have Simon & Scout, seen here taking a much-deserved break from their busy touring schedule for "Simon & Scout's Tap-Dancing Holiday Revue!"

[Thanks, Pamela]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Fool, from the Yiddish / WED 12-18-24 / Sylvan ___ (electropop duo) / Flower in a children's rhyme / Lunchroom, casually / Longtime Saints QB whose name has a windy homophone /

Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic and Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "CONSIDER THE ODDS" (40A: Think before placing a bet ... or what solvers must do to fully appreciate each starred clue) — the odd squares in six answers (which are shaded in the grid) spell out words that are also answers:

Theme answers:

• GREEN PEAS (18A: *Mendel studied them) (odd letters spell GENES)
• FRAZZLE (20A: *Disconcert mightily) (odd letters spell FAZE)
• ALL SORTS (31A: *Tons) (odd letters spell ALOT)
• FOOTNOTE (46A: *Book designer's concern) (odd letters spell FONT)
• ARCHERS (61A: *Ones with good aim) (odd letters spell ACES)
• SITUATION (63A: *Mess that might be sticky) (odd letters spell STAIN)

Word of the Day: YUTZ (4D: Fool, from the Yiddish) —

noun

Slang.

1. a stupid, unthinking, or socially inept person: // First recorded in 1980–85; of uncertain origin; perhaps an alteration of putz ( def ); perhaps from American Yiddish yutz “penis, fool” // [Example sentence]: “I mean, Ted Cruz, think about what a yutz this guy is! I don’t care what your political view is: If a guy said that my wife was ugly and my father killed Kennedy, there is no way in the world you could have me come out and say, ‘I’ll defend you.’

   From Washington Times (dictionary.com)

• • •

These themers seem like good finds, but it also feels like the themers were "found" by some bit of simple code that someone wrote—one that searches a giant database of answers for words or phrases where the odd numbered letters, taken together, *also* form a word or phrase in that database. From those results, you check to see which pairs can be clued similarly, and voila. Maybe I'm wrong and the constructors just "found" these answers through trial / error / prolonged cogitation, but that sounds ... exhausting. Still, human beings have to conceive the concept, and the concept is clever. Some of the pairs do seem remarkably related—that GREEN PEAS / GENES one, for instance. Right on the money. FRAZZLE / FAZE are a solid pair as well. The rest are fine, with "book designer" pair involving perhaps the biggest stretch when it comes to cluing—I don't think of FOOTNOTEs as the purview of the book "designer," but I suppose there are certain layout and style considerations where FOOTNOTEs are concerned. Still, you could say that about literally any aspect of the book. Whatever, both answers are from Bookville, it's fine. The theme was architecturally interesting, but whatever it gained from the double-answer aspect, it lost (in terms of entertainment value and challenge) by being overly easy. You've got two shots at every clue, two answers going at the same time, and so twice the pattern-recognition power that you'd have with an ordinary clue. I certainly wrote in GENES before I remembered GREEN PEAS—so GENES ended up being a big help toward getting the longer answer. Same with FONT / FOOTNOTE and ALOT / ALL SORTS. This took a lot of the bite out of the puzzle. I wasn't that thrilled with the revealer either, which feels a little weak as a phrase. You play the odds, you weigh the odds ... somehow CONSIDER THE ODDS just doesn't have the standalone pop and oomph that I was hoping for (I got THE ODDS and then had to wait for help from the crosses to get the rather limp CONSIDER.

Also, the revealer was kind of superfluous from a solving standpoint because, I mean, how could I *not* CONSIDER THE ODDS? You highlighted every single one of them for me. The puzzle forces your attention to those squares rather than letting you find them yourself. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is the kind of puzzle that might actually benefit from one of those post-solve animation dealies the NYTXW has increasingly used as visual glitz in recent years. It would have been nice to have the "odd letters" aspect of this grid appear as a kind of revelation. I guess I did get a kind of "aha," but it was muted, and very early. After the first themer, filling the others in was kind of painting-by-numbers. I was curious to see what the pairs would be, but with the big puzzle twist in my rearview, there just wasn't much aha left. More, "oh, I see." "Did you see!?" Yes, I SAW (56D: "You don't have to tell me").

On the plus side, the grid on the whole seems pretty polished (except that SE corner—what a mess of Es Ts and Ss). Lots of snazzy longer Downs. INNOVATE doesn't do much for me, but the others are actively good, including LAERTES, and particularly RADON TESTS (33D: Parts of many home inspections) and CINEASTE—a word, and magazine, that I love (8D: Film buff). I love it from afar, in that I would never use it in a sentence myself, but I like the way it looks, and I like that it exists. I also like having a few honest-to-god old-fashioned dead-tree magazine subscriptions, and CINEASTE is probably the one I most look forward to. That and the other movie magazine I get, Sight + Sound. I enjoy my New Yorker, but as you probably know, they pile up faster than I can read them. And the Guardian Weekly, oof, good reporting and writing, but I can't say I look forward to it. Every issue has some atrocity front and center, right on the cover. I mostly just hand that magazine to my wife immediately, and then she'll direct my attention later to whatever movie / book / culture article she thinks might be interesting to me. Honestly, I mainly get the Guardian for the cryptic crossword in the back (highly recommended if you are an American training to be a better cryptic solver and want to be humiliated by your insufficient skills (and non-Britishness) on a regular basis)


Bullets:

• 1A: Flower in a children's rhyme (POSY) — first thought was IRIS, but that's only because my best friends have a child named IRIS. As soon as my brain went into "children's rhyme" mode, "pocket full of POSY" came to me straight away.
• 44A: Amazon Handmade competitor (ETSY) — wow, I didn't even know Amazon Handmade existed, so I'd say ETSY is (improbably) winning the branding wars. Amazon Handmade should try a shorter, more crossword friendly name. Worked with ECHO and (esp.) ALEXA. I mean, ask Apple about its choice to lean into crossword-friendly names. Or better yet, ask SIRI. All the free advertising anyone could dream of ... (IMAC, IPAD, IPOD, etc. etc. etc.)
• 40D: Lunchroom, casually (CAF) — now I know what this emoji 😒 is supposed to signify—it's my face when someone tries to convince me that people call the cafeteria the "CAF." 
• 54D: Longtime Saints QB whose name has a windy homophone (BREES) — weird to add the homophone bit. Drew BREES is a future Hall-of-Famer. I can see adding the "windy homophone" helper on a M or T, but by W things should toughen up. I mean, you didn't use a "sounds like a Canadian gas brand" helper on Sylvan ESSO (12D: Sylvan ___ (electropop duo)), and that band is way Way more obscure than Drew BREES.

That's all for the puzzle today. Time to move on to our ongoing end-of-year feature, Holiday Pet Pics (submissions are now closed, try again next year!)

It's an all-cat extravaganza today. Instead of ending with a partridge in a pear tree, we'll start with kittens in Christmas trees ... again! (it's the most common genre of Holiday Pet Pic). This is Lilly, who has gone to all the trouble of getting into the tree but is now distracted by some piece of fluff on the ground that only a cat could possibly see or be interested in. Careful jumping down, Lilly!

[Thanks, Michelle]

And here's another tree explorer, Remy. "I iz ornament?" For now, Remy, yeah. (Look at his silly hind leg hanging down. Hang in there, buddy!]

[Thanks, Olivia]

Annie, on the other hand, has decided that a small plush fake tree is safer

[Thanks, Kitty]

Barney is making a return appearance. He was on the blog last year. He is now a very elegant 17 years old. After allowing you to take his photo, he is headed to the club to enjoy a cigar and a martini. Send the driver for him around 7pm, would you? 

[Thanks, Stacy]

Maizie wants you to know that she is in no way a willing participant in this "Christmas spirit" stuff. She is simply warming her butt on the charging laptop. Any appearance of festiveness is completely coincidental.

[Thanks, Linda]

And finally today we have Orzo and Moose, fighting over the NYT's special holiday Puzzle Mania section. Don't worry, guys, there are more than 50 puzzles, you can share! What? You don't want to solve the puzzles in Puzzle Mania, you just want to sit on it because it's rectangular and on a flat surface? Oh, well, then, fight to the death, I guess

[Thanks, Rob]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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