Millennial's successor, informally / TUE 5-21-24 / Purifying filter acronym / Fruit also known as calabash / Outbuilding for many a historic home / Kind of motor used in robotics / Post-panel sesh / Toffee bar brand since 1928 / Classic video game with the catchphrase "He's on fire!"

Constructor: Zachary David Levy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**—just a bit harder than normal)

THEME: BABYPROOF (63A: Make safer, in a way ... or what the starts of 17-, 27-, 38- and 52-Across might be?) — phrases that begin with things associated with a baby:

Theme answers:

• CRIB NOTES (17A: Cheat sheets)
• BOTTLE GOURD (27A: Fruit also known as calabash)
• CARRIAGE HOUSE (38A: Outbuilding for many a historic home)
• MOBILE PHONE (52A: Counterpart to a landline)

Word of the Day: BOTTLE GOURD (27A) —

Calabash (/ˈkæləbæʃ/; Lagenaria siceraria), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as a vegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil, container, or a musical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh.

Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically called calabash gourds. The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the course of human migration, or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (and existed in the New World) during the Pre-Columbian era.

There is sometimes confusion when discussing "calabash" because the name is shared with the unrelated calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), whose hard, hollow fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was sluggish for me. Maybe it's because I know the term as CRIB SHEET, so when I got CRIB I was ... out of ideas Maybe it's because [Sneak previews] are not really the same as PROMOS. A "sneak preview" is "a special showing of something (such as a movie, play, or product) before it becomes available to the general public." And while I guess you could say that a "sneak preview" is, in fact, promotional, the term "PROMOS" usually refers to something much shorter than a full performance: a short film, video, movie trailer, etc. Maybe the trouble was that I am 54 and still can't spell LADLES ("lAdElS?"). Or that I've never heard anyone actually say NOBS for "heads" (18D: Noggins) (I'd've gone with NABS or even NIBS before NOBS there). Or that I don't know what a BOTTLE GOURD is, really, and only half-know the term CARRIAGE HOUSE. Or that MOBILE PHONE is much less used where I come from (i.e. planet Earth) than "cellphone." Or that I couldn't quite parse "OH NEAT!" for a few beats, or couldn't remember that SERVO was a thing (37D: Kind of motor used in robotics). Or maybe I'm just adjusting to this new hot weather. Whatever it was, it was something. I don't really get the revealer. Do the crib and bottle and carriage and mobile prove ... that there's a baby in the house somewhere. Nice deduction, Sherlock. Why are we looking for the baby? Shouldn't we know where the baby is? Are we detectives? kidnappers? The whole "proof" angle needed to be more tightly wed to the theme concept for it to really work. This is just a remedial "first words associated with"-type puzzle pretending it's something more. 

I ughed at the UGH/UGG thing even more than I ughed at GENZER, one of the worst-looking things ever committed to grid (43A: Millennial's successor, informally). OMERTA and RAJAS and EDSEL gave this one a real old-school crosswordese feel, though to be fair most of the rest of the grid stays reasonably familiar and clean. Never a fan of Scrabble-f***ing and this puzzle was doing it like krazy (no "K,” oddly, but every other damn letter, many of the rarer ones crammed into corners with obvious but incomprehensible intent). I'd rather have a PANDA than a QANDA any day (and kindly never ever show me the "word" "sesh") (19A: Post-panel sesh). That Alec Baldwin middle name business had me doubting the name Carly RAE Jepsen. Alec RAE Baldwin, you say? That's the trivia of the day for me. Fun fact and hot take: the best Alec RAE Baldwin movie is Miami Blues. 


Additional notes:

• 49A: Fashion house whose logo features Medusa (VERSACE) — Since I'm only vaguely aware of fashion houses, generally, I did not know this. This immediately makes VERSACE my favorite fashion house, unless there's one with a cyclops or Cerberus in the logo, then that one wins.

• 4D: Red scare? (DEBT) — because DEBT is conventionally marked in red in financial ledgers, and DEBT can be scary, I suppose. This clue was another reason my solve felt slowish, right from the jump.
• 13D: Array at a farmer's market (STANDS) — clue really has you imagining farmery, produce-y things (APPLES! GREENS! GOURDS!!), but then all you get is ... STANDS? Bah.
• 30D: Nonalcoholic beer brand (O'DOULS) — no idea how I remembered this. Haven't thought about O'DOULS in forever. Never had a nonalcoholic beer in my life, to my knowledge. If I'm not drinking drinking, I'll stick to water, thanks.
• 32D: Composer Rachmaninoff (SERGEI) — this made me laugh because my mother-in-law was here this weekend from NZ and so I switched the cocktail hour music to classical because I thought she'd like it better and sure enough at some point her ears perk up. "What's this? No, let me guess ... well it's a piano concerto, obviously ... I can often tell the nationalities of the composers ... might be Russian." If I'd let it play longer, or if it hadn't been somewhat faint (it was playing in the next room), I'm certain she could've ID'd it. It was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. "Ah, Rach II," she sighed, as if remembering a friend.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Secondary story, in TV lingo / MON 5-20-24 / Ogre with a donkey sidekick / Travel from Kauai to Maui to Oahu, say / Hotels.com mascot who must be a commanding officer / Fast-food icon who surely heads a brigade / Purple pop / Yucatán people of old

Constructor: Jack Scherban

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "YOU AND WHAT ARMY?" (49A: Unfazed response to a threat from 20-, 31- or 38-Across?) — non-military figures with military titles:

Theme answers:

• SERGEANT PEPPER (20A: Beatles album character who apparently is an infantry leader)
• CAPTAIN OBVIOUS (31A: Hotels.com mascot who must be a commanding officer)
• COLONEL SANDERS (38A: Fast-food icon who surely heads a brigade)

Word of the Day: COLONEL SANDERS (38A) —

[no emails, please]

Colonel Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was an American businessman and founder of fast food chicken restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (also known as KFC). He later acted as the company's brand ambassador and symbol. His name and image are still symbols of the company.

Sanders held a number of jobs in his early life, such as steam engine stoker, insurance salesman, and filling station operator. He began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. During that time, Sanders developed his "secret recipe" and his patented method of cooking chicken in a pressure fryer. Sanders recognized the potential of the restaurant franchising concept, and the first KFC franchise opened in South Salt Lake, Utah, in 1952. When his original restaurant closed, he devoted himself full-time to franchising his fried chicken throughout the country.

The company's rapid expansion across the United States and overseas became overwhelming for Sanders. In 1964, then 73 years old, he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown Jr. and Jack C. Massey for $2 million ($19.6 million today). However, he retained control of operations in Canada, and he became a salaried brand ambassador for Kentucky Fried Chicken. In his later years, he became highly critical of the food served by KFC restaurants, believing they had cut costs and allowed quality to deteriorate. [...] 

Sanders was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 by Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon. // Kentucky Colonel is the highest title of honor bestowed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and is the best-known of a number of honorary colonelcies conferred by United States governors. A Kentucky Colonel Commission (the certificate) is awarded in the name of the Commonwealth by the governor of Kentucky to individuals with "Honorable" titular style recognition preceding the names of civilians aged 18 or over, for noteworthy accomplishments, contributions to civil society, remarkable deeds, or outstanding service to the community, state, or a nation. The Governor bestows the honorable title with a colonelcy commission, by issuance of letters patent. (wikipedia)

• • •

A few quibbles with this theme, which I otherwise loved, mostly for being completely bizarre. Firstly, the "Sgt." in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is not written out. It's definitively "Sgt." and only "Sgt." This is what I'd call "The Reverse DR. WHO Problem" (in that the "doctor" in DOCTOR WHO is always written out fully but crosswords seem to think it's OK to stylize it as DRWHO). Having SERGEANT written out fully here feels like some kind of violation. Further, it seems that "Sgt. Pepper" really was a military leader—that is, the dude in the photo used to represent him on the album was a real military leader, though James Melvin Babington seems to have been a Major General rather than a Sergeant. SERGEANT PEPPER does, technically, remain mythical. But other than that, I thought this theme was delightful. When I'd finished, the connection between revealer felt pretty tenuous, and ever after reading the clues, it still seems highly contrived, but its nutso hypothetical context is what makes it hilarious. The idea of any of these guys "threatening" you (or me, or anyone) is bizarre, but somehow, once you imagine it, the non-military impotence of these dudes with military monikers becomes absurd. Funny. CAPTAIN OBVIOUS is a great answer all on its own—I was actually happier (solving Downs-only) thinking it was just the general term one might hurl at someone saying something everyone already knows, but if you need it to be the hotels.com guy, sure, whatever. The whole concept here feels bonkers, which is to say it feels genuinely risky, which is part of why I approve. Fake military dudes with phony credentials issuing idle and possibly drunk threats with no real possibility of violence in sight—this is my idea of a good Monday time.

As a Downs-only solve, this one was a breeze, and there were a couple of genuinely lovely and/or surprising Downs along the way, specifically B-PLOT (rare that you get a 5-letter answer that feels fresh) (and yes, it's a debut) (25D: Secondary story, in TV lingo) and ISLAND HOP (also a debut) (33D: Travel from Kauai to Maui to Oahu, say). My only hesitations when solving came at the tail ends of answers. For some reason, I pulled up short after GRAPE at 8D: Purple pop (GRAPE SODA) because I was picturing an ice pop / Otter Pop / popsicle-type pop and not the more obvious soda pop. Guessed right on the KEBAB spelling, which is always nice (though having SERGEANT PEPPER in place meant that one of the vowels was already sorted). I wasn't sure if the CHOY in "bok CHOY" was a CHOY or a CHOI, so I left it blank and thankfully S-ST clearly called for a "Y" and not an "I" (41A: The "S" of GPS: Abbr.). I thought the [Arizona city or county] might be MESA (?) so I left it blank at first pass. And then with VIDEO, for some reason the first thing in my head was VIDEO DISC (??) instead of the (again) more obvious answer, VIDEO TAPE (34D: Medium for old home movies). Oh, and I had GRABS before GRIPS ( 46D: Holds tightly on to). Otherwise, whoosh, no resistance, no trouble, definitely among the easier Downs-only experiences I've ever had.

What's the difference between MAYAS (59A: Yucatán people of old) and MAYANS? Is there one? MAYAS somehow looks weird to me. Like, I'd have called the people in question MAYANS or simply MAYA before calling them MAYAS, but what the hell do I know about ye olde Yucatán plurals? Seeing Mike MYERS in the grid made me laugh, as I was just recently telling someone my only good celebrity sighting story, which involved going to the Beverly Hills eatery Kate Mantilini after a performance of my sister's then-boyfriend's play, and in this seemingly ordinary-looking, maybe slightly fancy diner, which wasn't very crowded, there was Mike MYERS, in a Toronto Maple Leafs jacket, sitting at a booth with two other people, and there was someone I believe was the composer Marvin Hamlish (don't ask me how I knew what he looked like) and then later in the evening I noticed a couple leaving (or maybe they were coming in, I forget), and while the man was in the entryway, waiting for his date to come back from the bathroom, he started doing a little dance to the music that was on the radio, and that music was "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" by Culture Club, and that man was Jon Cryer. Of course, this all now feels like a fever dream, so if I have misidentified any of the people in question, I apologize, it was 1994, no one really knows What was happening in 1994. In fact, 1994 might actually have been 1993. Years were wobblier then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Nincompoop, more vulgarly / SUN 5-19-24 / A "waking dream," per Aristotle/ Giveaways in some common scams of the 2010s / Grunting ox, by another name / 1991 crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening / Drink for which Pliny the Elder recorded a recipe / Video game company that published Frogger / Frosting alternative / Member of an isolated colony, once / Masters of underwater camouflage

Constructor: Christina Iverson and Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Hold Your Doze" — familiar phrases become wacky phrases once they're written out as you might pronounce them if you had a cold, i.e. a stuffy nose ('doze'):

Theme answers:

• "SHOULD THE DEED ARISE ..." (26A: "If that missing house title ever does show up...") ("should the need arise ...")
• WHAT ELSE IS DUE? (43A: Question from someone with a lot of outstanding debt?) ("what else is new?")
• DO AS I SAY DOT AS I DO (57A: Teacher's instruction in a class on pointillism?) ("do as I say, not as I do")
• IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE (80A: Stevedore's complaint?) ("It's a Hard Knock Life" (the song from "Annie"))
• "USE YOUR DOODLE" (92A: "No need to find a professional illustrator!") ("use your noodle")
• "THAT'S A DOUGH BRAIDER" (110A: Tour guide's remark at the challah factory?) ("that's a no-brainer")

Word of the Day: BUGSY (1D: 1991 crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening) —

Bugsy is a 1991 American biographical crime drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by James Toback. The film stars Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Bebe Neuwirth, and Joe Mantegna. It is based on the life of American mobster Bugsy Siegel and his relationship with wife and starlet Virginia Hill.

Bugsy was given a limited release by TriStar Pictures on December 13, 1991, followed by a theatrical wide release on December 20, 1991. It received generally positive reviews from critics. It received ten nominations at the 64th Academy Awards (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and won two: Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. (wikipedia)

• • •

[103A: NASA shorthand for a spacewalk] 

This is a fine theme idea. Pretty sure I've seen some version of it before, but I've been doing puzzles for three+ decades, so that's not Terribly surprising. The title pretty much gives the game away, and I have to say  I wasn't that thrilled by the title. It's not particularly evocative of anything, or even a good, or particularly funny, pun. Plus, the only time you'd speak this way is if you had a cold. Yes, if you hold your nose and talk, this is how you'd sound, but who does that? The stuffy nose / head cold angle is the one you want to go with here, and "Hold Your Doze" doesn't come near it. But this is arguing about the hood ornament on the car. The car itself—just fine. The best thing about the puzzle is how it sticks the landing—that is, how it saves the best, and themeiest, themer for last, hitting us with a double dose of "D" changes in "THAT'S A DOUGH BRAIDER," which is also perfectly clued with that reference to challah (110A: Tour guide's remark at the challah factory?). Another low-key but significant accomplishment of the theme answers is that none of them contain "M"s, which would've demanded a completely different sound change ("M" to "B"), if the theme was to remain consistent with the nose-holding pronunciation. You'd either have to have a bunch of "M"-to-"B" sound changes—make it part of the bit—or (as here) none at all. So the theme isn't all that complex, but there's nice attention to detail in the execution, with the deft avoidance of "M"s and the thoughtful placement of the Doziest (Double-D) answer in the final, exclamation-point position. Nice craftsmanship. The theme answers are varying degrees of funny. The last is the best, I think, but I also thought "DO AS I SAY, DOT AS I DO" was outlandish enough to be worth it, and "IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE" was right on the money, on a literal level (not even terribly wacky). I also liked remembering "Annie" (or Jay-Z, if that's your primary frame of reference).

The theme is pretty thin, as Sundays go, so there's room for some nice longer fill, and with room to breathe, the grid in general tends to be pretty clean. There's something semi-hilarious about NOT PICTURED (34D: Caption for an absent student, say). Just the idea of people missing their club or team's yearbook photo ... shouldn't make me laugh, but it does. I'd've gone with "club" or "team member" in the clue, since an "absent student" is more of a classroom, less of a yearbook thing, but I guess the clue is technically correct. FONDANT hasn't been seen in the NYTXW since 1983 (!?!?!), which makes no sense at all (89D: Frosting alternative). Welcome back, basic cake decorating feature! Put it on a PEDESTAL! Really love the WHOOP WAZOO corner. Maybe not thrilled about ZOO crossing WAZOO ("WHOSE ZOO?" "WA-ZOO!" "WHOSE ZOO?" "WA-ZOO!" (Cheerleaders and hype men, feel free to borrow that one, especially if you've got a gig at a zoo in Washington)). But it's hard to be mad at WHOOP WAZOO! Let's all get WHOOP WAZOO TATTOOS. It'll be cool. 

What the hell is this IPADS scam? (7D: Giveaways in some common scams of the 2010s). Did they actually give the IPADS away, and if so, how is that a scam? Should "Giveaways" be in quotation marks? I'm not quite old enough to get targeted for these scams yet, but please check in on older people in your life because, speaking from unfortunately personal experience, you would (or might) be stunned at how many of the most nakedly scammy scams actually work, and how easily people you've always known to be reasonable and careful can fall prey to them. Jaw-dropping. Alarming. Special place in hell-type stuff. Besides this alleged IPADS scam, I'd heard of everything else in the grid, I think, including POP OFF, though I'm not sure I could've defined it precisely. Also, pretty sure POP OFF also means "run your mouth without much thought." Looks like Google / Oxford Languages is defining it as "speak spontaneously and at length, typically angrily." But I've heard this newer "Perform very well" meaning too.

Bullets:

• 1A: End of the line? (BAIT) — a toughie, right off the bat. I needed BAI- before I saw it. My wife needed -AIT ("Oh, you knew BUGSY, did you?" Guilty). 
• 36D: Official OKs (SAYSOS) — not a term that wants to be pluralized. At all.
• 65A: How one might punnily define "Saran" or "sari"? ("IT'S A WRAP") — I groaned, but I also don't hate the corniness. You're allowed some corniness. Mix it up! It's Sunday. Show me what you got, clue-wise!
• 101A: What "Eat" stands for in the mnemonic "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" (EAST) — who is it, exactly, that needs a mnemonic for the basic cardinal directions? ROYGBIV, I get. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos, LOL, not gonna remember that one, but I respect it. Every Good Boy Does Fine, sure. But "Never Eat Soggy Waffles?" How hard is it to remember North South EAST and West. And if it is hard, why didn't you just go with NEWS? Is the idea that "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" puts the directions in clockwise order? 54 years old and never heard of anyone needing a mnemonic for the directions. Crazy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Crowd energizer at a hip-hop concert / SAT 5-18-24 / Sobriquet behind 154 sonnets / Blacksmith-turned-agricultural magnate of the 19th century / Start of a 1950s political slogan / Where Steve Jobs first worked after college / Singer Brendon who fronted Panic! at the Disco / Its wool is the world' rarest natural fiber / Spanish opposite of "pobre"

Constructor: Adrian Johnson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Nicolas ROEG (26D: "The Man Who Fell to Earth" director) —

Nicolas Jack Roeg CBE BSC (/ˈroʊɡ/ ROHG; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing Performance (1970), Walkabout (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Bad Timing (1980) and The Witches (1990).

Making his directorial debut 23 years after his entry into the film business, Roeg quickly became known for an idiosyncratic visual and narrative style, characterised by the use of disjointed and disorienting editing. For this reason, he is considered a highly influential filmmaker, cited as an inspiration by such directors as Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan and Danny Boyle.

In 1999, the British Film Institute acknowledged Roeg's importance in the British film industry by naming Don't Look Now and Performance the 8th- and 48th-greatest British films of all time in its Top 100 British films poll. (wikipedia)

• • •

Mother-in-law is in town, which is to say in my house, which is making for slightly tighter quarters and slightly more hilarious conversations, in that she asks about why I get up every morning at 3:45am and I explain what I do (i.e. this blog) and she says "oh you still do that, do you? now what is it you do, exactly? ... and people read that, do they? and it's cryptics, then? no? what are American crosswords, then? just little quizzes?" It's lovely that she's curious, but also there is a reason I never talk to anyone about this part of my life when asked "what do you do?" I should have some kind of card printed out that I can just hand people, a dead-tree FAQ that spares me the time and energy and bemused stares and awkward silences. Anyway, I slept terribly and the cats are being Extra annoying. Usually I wake up and feed them and then they sleep while I write, but this morning they're just milling and occasionally meowing, like "why is that door shut that door is never shut open that door meow meow [sound of cat wrestling]." The dawn chorus has started, though, and I'm done with this (mostly) lovely puzzle, so I feel like the morning's energy is turning in a good direction. 

I said this puzzle was "Easy-Medium," but it's really "Easy." I just got stubbornly bogged down in the NW, which is to say everywhere around URIE, which is one of those "how the hell should I know?" non-inferrable pop culture names designed to drive me batty (18A: Singer Brendon who fronted Panic! at the Disco). I also got ridiculously hung up on the Steve Jobs answer. Where did he work right out of college? Uh ... let's see -T-R- ... hmm ... STORE? That seems ... vague. AT ... something? AT LAW? AT I.R.S.? These seem implausible. Etc. Getting ATARI was one of the D'oh-iest moments I've had of late. So weird to call CELIBACY [Nun's habit?] since it's the opposite of a habit. It's not doing something. It's just not there. Also, no offense, but not all nuns. I mean, if Paul Verhoeven has taught me anything ...

I tried ALPACA at first for 1D: Its wool is the world' rarest natural fiber, but that left me with C-- for the U.S. state with the only unicameral legislature, and I knew that wasn't CAL or COL but NEB. I then immediately wanted VICUÑA, but the improbability of someone whose four-letter last name started UR- had me hesitating. Sigh. Thank god IMARETS was a gimme (2D: Turkish inns). Once I finally acceded to VICUÑA, I saw CALL ON THE CARPET (or what I hoped was CALL ON THE CARPET), and once crosses confirmed it (SIC!) the puzzle really sped up. Really really. I don't remember much of anything south of ATARI. Answers just seemed to fill themselves in. I got "THERE ARE NO WORDS" without ever looking at the clue at all. A textbook example of how the hardest part of most themelesses is getting initial traction. Struggle struggle whoooosh. That is a fairly typical pattern.

[VICUÑA fawn in the Atacama Desert]

This puzzle was way way nameier than yesterday's puzzle, which was conspicuous (in a good way) in its lack of reliance on proper noun trivia. Names are fine, but this one gets dense at times, with DEERE ROEG SAURON all coming on successive Acrosses, and URIE and EMEKA representing what I would consider reasonably obscure names. I mean, if you follow those things (PATD, '00s NBA), then you luck out, but non-fans don't have easy access to those niche names. But no matter. That's crosswords! If the crosses are fair, then no foul. I really really liked the long stacks up top and down below ("I MEAN IT THIS TIME!" and SAVE-THE-DATE CARD are particularly vivid), and when the marquee stuff is great, the rest of the grid just has to be solid and keep from buckling. This grid more than held up its end of the bargain. It's actually very clean, stray bits of crosswordese notwithstanding. My only real gripe today is the clue on MALES (27A: 76% of U.S. governors in 2024, a record low). Human beings are men / women. Livestock are MALES / females. I cringe every single time some guy refers to adult human women as "females," and it turns out I don't like "males" any better for adult human men. 

Once again, I had a clue-reading problem today, where I read 1-Across as [Where you might stop for the sheer fun of it?] and I thought the answer was going to be a hair salon or sheep station (wrong "sheer"), or else ... I don't know, a roadside inn at the top of a cliff somewhere. I'd stop there. But no, it's "shop," and it's VICTORIA'S SECRET, which sells "sheer" undergarments. Surprised (mildly) that LIFT UP wasn't tied to VICTORIA'S SECRET. Real missed opportunity there. 

Bullet points:

• 20A: Start of a 1950s political slogan ("I LIKE") — Ike (as in Dwight D. Eisenhower) is who they like. Good ol' DDE. One of many many many gimmes in today's puzzle for me (ROEG, IMARETS, ESAI, ONO, SAURON, OPRAH, HOLI, THE BARD, etc.)
• 33A: Many a character in the 2018 animated film "Smallfoot" (YETI) — never heard of this film. Keeping up with children's fare is Ex-Haus-Ting. But I got this off the YE- without much trouble. Instantly, in fact. What other "character" could possibly start YE-? The fact that the movie title appears to be playing on "Bigfoot" also helped.
• 55A: Andre Agassi, e.g. (IRANIAN-AMERICAN) — if you thought maybe ITALIAN-AMERICAN, you are forgiven, I'd say. Not that *I* did that. No, not me, I would never [whistles idly and innocently]. But I can see how one might.
• 34A: Make toast? (RUIN) — if you're "toast," you're done for, over, RUINed. Now that I think about it, it's a terrible metaphor. Toast is delicious. I have peanut butter on toast every morning. Decidedly not ruined.
• 38D: Crowd energizer at a hip-hop concert (HYPE MAN) — love it. Favorite non-long answer of the day, for sure. Unsurprisingly, it's a debut.  

• 41D: Cross state lines? (TIRADE) — so good, this clue. I had TIR- and no idea. Or, rather, I thought "I can't even think of a six-letter word that starts TIR- except TIRADE, but that makes no ... oh." A TIRADE is a barrage of "lines" you might deliver if you are in a "cross state" (i.e. angry).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. today's constructor, Adrian Johnson, is one of the editors behind "Puzzles for Palestine" (a benefit collection featuring lots of big crossword names, which you can read about here), and he asked that I share a link to gazafunds.com, "a project that connects people to crowdfunding campaigns for individuals and families from Gaza." You can hear Adrian, as well as Rachel Fabi (“These Puzzles Fund Abortion”), Juliana Pache (BlackCrossword.com) & Erik Agard, talk about their innovative crossword work on the latest episode of  “The Allusionist” podcast (Allusionist 194: Good Grids)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Court figure, in old slang / FRI 5-17-24 / Modern TV attachment / Last thing left in Pandora's box / Long rows? / Dessert skipper's explanation / Hill's partner in publishing / Food item that's fittingly shaped like a mouse cursor

Constructor: Hemant Mehta

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TANGRAMS (40A: Seven-piece puzzles) —

The tangram (Chinese: 七巧板; pinyin: qīqiǎobǎn; lit. 'seven boards of skill') is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat polygons, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective is to replicate a pattern (given only an outline) generally found in a puzzle book using all seven pieces without overlap. Alternatively the tans can be used to create original minimalist designs that are either appreciated for their inherent aesthetic merits or as the basis for challenging others to replicate its outline. It is reputed to have been invented in China sometime around the late 18th century and then carried over to America and Europe by trading ships shortly after. It became very popular in Europe for a time, and then again during World War I. It is one of the most widely recognized dissection puzzles in the world and has been used for various purposes including amusement, art, and education. (wikipedia)

• • •

[What I pictured when I read
"Dessert skipper" (37D)]

Can you wavelength a constructor just by following them on X (née Twitter)? Is "wavelength" a verb now just because I want it to be? Whatever the answers to these provocative questions, I absolutely destroyed this puzzle. I don't time myself anymore, but it feels like I would've been somewhere near a record Friday time today. Hit the ground running in my NIKES (1A: Jordans, e.g.) and Did Not Stop. OK, I paused, slightly, in a couple of places, but virtually every clue just seemed transparent, even the ones that seemed to want to get tricky or vague or trickily vague on me. So there was lots and lots of whoosh today. Almost too much whoosh (not usually a problem!). The marquee answers could maybe have used a little more spice, but they're all rock solid and occasionally lovely. Except "I'M ON A DIET"—it's solid enough, but ugh, "dieting," the practice and especially the industry, boo. Much better were FELL IN LOVE (yay) and LOSING SLEEP (boo in life, yay in grid) and CHEESE WEDGE (mmm) and CTRL-ALT-DEL (esp. as clued—makes it sound hilariously profane) (53A: "Three-finger salute," to help reboot) (and it's a little poem, too; like "Be kind, Rewind," only ... longer). Laughed professionally at 56A: Outpaces the syllabus (READS AHEAD) since some small but significant portion of my students seem never even to have read the syllabus itself. "It's In The Syllabus" is maybe the longest running professor joke. Evergreen response 1/2 of all student questions. Put it on a T-shirt (pretty sure someone already has). LOL, there's an entire Etsy store dedicated to this phrase!

[from phdcomics.com]

So it was easy. This is not to say that I didn't make a few wrong moves along the way, starting with SNIDE COMMENT at 5D: Cutting lines (SNIDE REMARKS). "Lines" did not necessarily mean the answer was going to be plural, since a bunch of "lines" can be understood cumulatively as a single "comment," so COMMENT in the singular didn't faze me. But then I checked the COMMENT crosses, starting (as always) with the shortest cross, and, well, I know my Scottish islands reasonably well, especially the four-letter ones, and I don't know of one with "T" in the second position, but I do know SKYE, so in went SKYE, out went comment, and in went REMARKS ("K" is a high-value letter in both Scrabble and crosswords). Wasn't sure about the Navy answer—thought it might be NAVY or NAVAL something or other, but I wanted CADET and NAVAL CADET didn't fit so I tried NAVY CADET and whaddya know? Perfect. Eventually had the PLAN part of FALLBACK PLAN and couldn't think of anything but BACK-UP PLAN, which I guess is the same thing as a FALLBACK PLAN, just with BACK in a different place. Took a little hacking at the crosses to make the FALLBACK part come into view, but just a little hacking. Not strenuous hacking. Had the CAB- part of 28A: 1873 invention first used in San Francisco and ironically couldn't do anything with it. I say "ironically" because I was born in San Francisco and so books about the place, usually featuring CABLE CARs on the cover, figured large in my childhood.

BEDIM before GO DIM (34A: Fade out) and LEGAL before LEGIT (25D: Not sketchy) and STOP before DROP (57A: Not keep hanging on). Wow, that last one is pretty literal, and potentially painful! (note: I misread the clue: It's [Not keep harping on] ... that's better, and less grim]

Was prepared to be mad at the clue for CMAS for including the word "Award," which I thought was what the "A" stood for (23A: Awards won by George Strait in three separate decades, familiarly). But no, the "A" stands for "Association," as in "Country Music Association," so having "Award" in the clue doesn't violate any cluing rules (namely, the rule where you can't clue an initialism using any of the words represented by the initials in question). Not much to explain today. ROKU is a popular streaming service with set-top boxes that attach to your TV (11D: Modern TV attachment). The "rows" in 21A: Long rows? are "arguments," "fights," i.e. FEUDS. We don't really say "row" (rhymes with "cow") on this side of the pond, but that's OK, it's not exactly obscure. CAGER is holy-cow-old slang for a basketball player. Like, it was old when I was young. I am no longer young. It was one of the first bits of crossword slang I learned back when I started solving in the early '90s. Me: "Wait ... how is this basketball slang? I've been following basketball for most of my life and I have never, never ever, heard anyone use this term?" Crossword: "Welcome to crosswords, buddy! We've got all kinds of stupid words! You're gonna love it!"  

[I learned about this (great) song from Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) when she played it on one of the episodes of her Apple Radio program "St. Vincent's Mixtape Delivery Service"]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Repetitive clicking sound? / THU 5-16-24 / "Shirt Front and Fork" sculptor, 1922 / Michael Jackson's first concert tour after the Jackson 5 / Craft measured in cubits

Constructor: Sara Muchnick

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "ALL FOR ONE" (and "one for all") (63A: When read forward and then backward, motto that suggests how to interpret this puzzle's starred clues) — in the starred clues, you have to change "all" to "one" (or vice versa) in order to make sense of the answer:

Theme answers:

• "SOME NERVE!" (17A: *Gone) (=> Gall)
• TOILET BRUSH (24A: *Stone tool) (=> Stall tool)
• ICE CREAM (36A: *Scoop received in a call) (=> Scoop received in a cone)
• SPARKLED (43A: *Shall) (=> Shone)
• ROTARY JOINT (52A: *It gets the ball rolling) (=> It gets the bone rolling) (also known as a "pivot joint")

Word of the Day: BAD (31D: Michael Jackson's first concert tour after the Jackson 5) —

Bad is the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson. It was released on August 31, 1987, by Epic Records. Written and recorded between 1985 and 1987, Bad was Jackson's third and final collaboration with the producer Quincy Jones. Jackson co-produced and composed all but two tracks, and adopted an edgier image and sound, departing from his signature groove-based style and falsetto. Bad incorporates pop, rock, funk, R&B, dance, soul, and hard rock styles, and incorporated new recording technology, including digital synthesizers. The lyrical themes include media bias, paranoia, racial profiling, romance, self-improvement, and world peace. The album features appearances from Siedah Garrett and Stevie Wonder.

Nine singles were released, including a record-breaking five number ones: "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror" and "Dirty Diana". Bad was promoted with the film Moonwalker (1988), which included the music videos for several Bad songs. The Bad tour, Jackson's first solo world tour, grossed $125 million (equivalent to $322 million in 2023), making it the highest-grossing solo concert tour of the 1980s. Jackson performed 123 concerts in 15 countries to an audience of 4.4 million. (wikipedia)

• • •

[20A: "Shirt Front and Fork" sculptor, 1922
(Jean ARP)]

This is a cute, simple, and reasonably elegant trick. I can't believe some constructor didn't think of it before. "ALL FOR ONE and one for all!" is the kind of expression that's just begging to be used as a revealer. It's the kind of thing you build a theme around. And ... yeah, that is exactly what has happened here. The trick is to get your swapped clues to sound like real clues. For instance, [*Tone tale] wouldn't work because what the hell is that? Yes, a swap would get you [Tall tale], and that might get you, say, FISH STORY, but the surface level of the clue has to make sense, and [*Tone tale] absolutely doesn't. If you used something like [*Tone tale], you'd give the game away fast, in that the solver would know instantly that there's some trickery happening with the clue words themselves, some swapping or rearranging that's going to have to happen to make things make sense. As it is, the only way you know trickery is afoot is that you can't get an answer that makes sense for the clue as written, and so you have to reason backward from the answer you do get, and that ... doesn't make sense. Not until you get to the revealer, anyway. Today's theme clues all seem like very normal clues—except for the stars (*) of course, which tell you something is going on. I don't like to jump to the revealer in a puzzle like this—feels like cheating. But when I couldn't figure out the gimmick after working through the first two themers, I sped down to the bottom, found the revealer, worked it out in very short order, and that was that—the trick was revealed (aha!), and the magic gall, I mean gone. At least it was a genuine aha. 

The puzzle was way, way too easy for a Thursday; this made the revealer very easy to get, and once the trick was revealed, there was nothing left to puzzle out. Everything got very straightforward. Sometimes you get the revealer but there's still work to be done, even when you know the trick—rebus squares you still gotta track down, or other mental gymnastics left to perform. But not today. Do the swap and poof, mystery puzzle becomes ordinary puzzle. Carriage back into pumpkin. But it was an impressive transformation, and fun while it lasted.

I had some issues with the cluing here and there, most notably on the first themer ("SOME NERVE!"), which only works as a spoken expression, right? I guess you could swap out "gall" and "SOME NERVE" in a hypothetical sentence ... OK ... "You've got SOME NERVE coming in here and telling me, Chef Luigi, how to cook lasagna!" I guess you could put "gall" in there and have it work. But "SOME NERVE!" feels more equivalent with "The gall!" They feel like equivalent standalone expressions, expressing shock that someone could be as rude or shameless as they're being. Actually maybe "the nerve!" is the standalone expression I'm hearing in my head the loudest. Anyway, something about the "SOME" in "SOME NERVE" is making me not like the answer as a one-to-one equivalency for mere "gall." Also didn't like SUIT as a singular "item" considering it's only the jacket part of the SUIT that has "tails," right? (28A: Tailored item that can have tails). The BAD clue is ... not good, in the sense that it's written without parallelism: the clue references his former group, but the answer is the name of a tour. His last tour (before BAD) was the Victory tour. Maybe "after leaving the Jackson 5" would've made things clearer, but "concert tour after the Jackson 5" makes it seem like "Jackson 5" is, itself, a tour. And it's not. The writing just seems sloppy here. I also balked at DOEST because isn't it DOST? Looks like both are archaic second person singulars of the verb "to do." DOEST is one of the few times the grid wanders into less than lovely territory with the fill (ENE, SMS, TOAT, etc.). Overall, it's reasonably clean. Not thrilled by the ISSA / ARP cross, but if you don't know one of those, then have you ever solved a crossword before? Olds are gonna nail ARP, and any recent solver's gonna know ISSA. Crosswordese generations collide!

Bullets:

• 1A: Seabird's nesting spot (ISLE) — I had MAST. Pretty sure I read "nesting" as "resting."
• 47A: Vegetable that's a letter off from an Ivy (KALE) — the lengths to which the NYTXW will go to mention Yale are hilarious. "Emergency! This puzzle doesn't yet mention Yale, what're we gonna do!?" "Uh ... well, KALE rhymes with Yale, so ..." "Genius! Yes! Run with it! Phew, crisis averted."
• 67A: Where to find a very wet sponge (REEF) — my theory is that things that live their entire lives under water are not, in fact, wet. You can only be wet on land. In the ocean, you just ... are. This clue is speciesism, is what I'm saying.
• 2D: Repetitive clicking sound? (SHORT I) — a letteral clue! (where the clue points at itself, specifically at a single letter in the clue—today, both the "I"s in "clicking"). This may be the only clue in the whole puzzle that rises to Thursday difficulty standards. Is the "I" in "ing" "short" though? Those two "I"s in "clicking" sound very different from one another, but I guess they both fall under the general category of "SHORT I." The two "I"s in "Repetitive" are actually more fitting examples. (More on the specifics of vowel length here)
• 37D: Head of lettuce? (CFO) — the only thing the NYTXW likes more than Yale is trying to convince you that people still refer to money as "lettuce" (or KALE, actually, LOL)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. TOAT = “to a T”

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...