Battleship corner / FRI 9-20-24 / Lawbreakers, informally / Four-year-old in pig tales? / Apt name for a successful crypto investor? / Philosophy influenced by Aristotle's concept of the Unmoved Mover / Plural form decried by staunch "Star Wars" fans / Windy flight?

Constructor: Jackson Matz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Bella THORNE (53A: Actress Bella of Disney's "Shake It Up") —

Annabella Avery Thorne (born October 8, 1997) is an American actress, singer, and writer. She first received recognition for her roles as Margaux Darling in the series Dirty Sexy Money (2007–2008) and as Ruthy Spivey in the drama series My Own Worst Enemy (2009), the latter of which earned her a Young Artist Award.

Thorne gained prominence for her role as CeCe Jones on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up (2010–2013), for which she received several awards and nominations, including winning an Imagen Award. Thorne has since appeared in numerous feature films, including Blended (2014), Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015), The Babysitter film series (2017–2020). She received praise for her roles in The DUFF (2015), Amityville: The Awakening (2017), and Infamous (2020). Thorne also led the drama series Famous in Love (2017–2018), for which she received nominations from the Teen Choice Awards.

Outside of acting, Thorne has ventured into music; she released her debut single, "Watch Me" in 2011, which charted at 86 on the US Billboard Hot 100. She has since released the EP Made in Japan in 2012 and the EP Jersey in 2014. She made her directorial debut in 2019, directing the adult film Her & Him, which garnered positive reviews and won a Pornhub Visionary Award. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hard to follow yesterday's barnburner, but this one felt particularly pale. The marquees just don't ... marquee enough. The 15s are all solid, but only one of them really shines—and it's the one I got within the first 10 seconds or so: a promising beginning that was never matched again. That beginning was probably the most interesting and strangest part of my solve. I read 1A: Philosophy influenced by Aristotle's concept of the Unmoved Mover (THEISM) and thought "well I don't know that, but it's probably an -ISM." So I wrote in -ISM and checked the crosses. And ... 1-2-3 blast off!

It felt like a trap. Was I ... MISSING THE POINT? Or did I really just rocket across the grid off a single letter in a hypothesized suffix? Turns out, the latter, which was fun. Always fun to get a big whoosh like that.  A similar transgrid experience soon followed.

As you can see, I was slightly less sure about THANKSGIVING DAY, so had to check it with crosses (namely DYADS). I knew the Lions played every Thanksgiving, but I thought maybe there was some wacky name for that game, some kind of portmanteau, like THANKSLIONSBOWL or something. But no, it's simply the date of the game, THANKSGIVING DAY. Anyway, whoosh whoosh, which I usually like, but after this initial rush things slowed back down to normal Friday levels, and the highs just never got very high. I actually like the shorter 11s today better than I like all the 15s—PESCETARIAN paired with HARD AS A ROCK ... a fish-eater with great abs, is what I'm imagining. You might be imagining something racier. Speaking of something racier, did you know Bella THORNE directed an "adult film" called Her & Him? It's true! It won a PornHub Visionary Award, which is a thing that exists, apparently. I seem to have missed THORNE's career almost entirely, what with Disney and porn being things that are generally off my radar these days. She's very famous, I just (generationally) missed her. When I see THORNE, I think of mid-century humor writer THORNE Smith, that's how old I am.

There were a few shorter things that put me off the grid (when your marquee stuff doesn't sizzle, then problems in the short stuff start to stand out). Worst of all was HAVOCS ... as a verb? (33A: Lays waste to). I mean, it's terrible as a plural noun, but it's virtually nonsensical as a verb. I assume this verbal meaning of HAVOCS is dictionary-attested, somewhere, but yikes. Yeah, Google's dictionary source (Oxford Languages) has this verb version of "havoc" as explicitly "Archaic." Merriam-Webster dot com, however, doesn't tag it that way—just has it as a regular word— so ... OK, I guess this is a thing "havoc" means, but literally never, nowhere, by anyone, in any situation have I heard this, so ... fun. I have heard SOPS as a verb, but I'm never gonna like it. I can tolerate SOP in the verb phrase "to sop up," but for me SOPS (on its own) wants to be a plural noun (meaning, roughly, "bribes"). SOPS is, in general, just a wholly unappealing word, right up there with "moist" (which at least has delicious cake connotations). So SOPS / PERPS was a frowny-face from me, as was the clue on EXES, what the hell??? (8D: People for whom a "no contact" rule might apply). I'm not sure exactly what "rule" this clue is referring to, but a "No contact" order is legal means of protecting (primarily) women from abusive partners (frequently EXES). Why would you evoke that with your clue? I'm sure there are other reasons for a "no contact" order, but my one time on jury duty involved a case where a guy violated his "no contact" order and ... he wasn't a nice guy. There are so many nicer, less trauma-adjacent ways to clue EXES. Bizarre cluing choice here. Also bizarre: JEDIS (41D: Plural form decried by staunch "Star Wars" fans). I mean, your clue is basically telling me "yeah, this is a trash plural," so ... treat it that way (i.e. don't use it). 

[24A: Gunty who wrote "The Rabbit Hutch," winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction]

More things:

• 7A: Four-year-old in pig tales? (PEPPA) — fictional pigs ... I got Wilbur ... I got, I dunno, Piglet? And then I'm out. PEPPA Pig is a phenomenon that I just missed. My daughter would've been about the right age for it when it first hit the States ('05), but she generally did not watch commercial children's TV. She didn't watch TV much at all, though she did have a semi-hilarious addiction to watching DVDs of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the series starring Melissa Joan Hart that ran '96-'03—which was, to our credit as parents, a very good show). But PEPPA Pig, no. So I needed some crosses to get PEPPA.

["This is a school, not a bordello"—RIP Martin Mull]

• 15A: Members of the family Passeridae (SPARROWS) — knew this was a bird family, and guessed SPARROWS correctly, but I was very aware, as I was writing it in, that SWALLOWS also fit.
• 23A: Pilot productions? (PENS) — Pilot is a company that makes PENS, so that's what that's about.
• 27A: Industry that emerged in the 1970s (GAMING) — wow, "industry" had me thinking something more ... industrial. Interesting / toughish clue.
• 30A: Windy flight? (SPIRAL STAIRCASE) — kind of meh as an answer, but the misdirective clue is kind of fun (not windy like Chicago, but win- (rhymes with "vine") -dy like a winding ... staircase, actually; or a long and winding road, if that's more your thing)

• 34A: Option for a backpacker (HOSTEL) — had the "H" and wanted HIKING. "Option" is not a great option here, as OPT is already in the grid (19D: Elect). 
• 35A: Apt name for a successful crypto investor? (ERICH) — unless he pronounces his name E-RICH (like he's a rapper or something), then no, unapt, boo to this clue. It's only "apt" if it sounds right, and this doesn't sound right.
• 51A: Unwelcome sight in musical stairs (NO SEATS) — very frowny face drawn next to this answer on my print-out. Not a phrase that's strong enough to stand alone.
• 28D: Kind of number represented by the equation M = v/c (MACH) — so ... kind of number represented by "M." So ... "M" ... it's just "M." That's what the "M" stands for. The "M" stands for MACH. Clue could've just been [M, in aeronautics]. (MACH 1 = the speed of sound, represented by the "c" in today's "equation")
• 30A: A "whole" thing (SHEBANG) — Ugh to "A" here. There is no "shebang" that is not preceded by "the" and "whole," so "A" is an absurdity. A SHEBANG implies multiple SHEBANGS, and ... no. Unless you mean this SHEBANGS:

• 32D: Battleship corner (A-ONE) — despite thinking of the "Battleship" game almost immediately, I didn't get this one until I had it down to A-NE, and even then I was like "... who's ANNE and what is she doing in the corner of a battleship?" I haven't looked at a "Battleship" board in forever, so I assume that A1 is somehow a ... corner of that board. OK, yeah, here we go:

Hope this puzzle didn't havoc you (am I saying that right?). See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Diagnostics done with "Foot-o-scopes" in old shoe stores / THU 9-19-24 / February Revolution abdicator / Jason Mraz hit that spent 76 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart / A proverb about risk: Don't ... / Performers wearing oshiroi makeup / Cable channel known for its original movies / Law mandating curb cuts, in brief / Japanese company that created Hello Kitty / Largest city in Yorkshire, England / Fast-food sandwich that has had multiple farewell tours

Constructor: Josh Goodman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Breaking the rules... — various common expressions (beginning "Don't ...") are represented literally (spatially) in the grid, where the missing verb actually tells you (the solver) what to do, i.e. how to enter the answer. So you have to do what the original expressions explicitly tell you not to do:

Theme answers:

• AESTX (9A: A state slogan: Don't ...) (... mess with 'TEXAS') (i.e. if you ‘mess with’ (or scramble) the letters in ‘TEXAS,’ you get AESTX)
• BAS [ALL] [YOUR] [EGGS] KET (17A: A proverb about risk: Don't ...) (... put 'ALL' 'YOUR' 'EGGS' in one BASKET) 
• 4D: Most important thing (BE [ALL])
• 5D: Jason Mraz hit that spent 76 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart ("I'M [YOUR]S")
• 18D: Goads ([EGGS] ON)
• PBLUESAISNUERSES (41A: A tip in the working world: Don't ...) (... mix 'BUSINESS' with 'PLEASURE')
• CRY
•   MI
•    L
•    K (57A: An idiom about regret: Don't ...) (... 'CRY' over spilt 'MILK')
• CART | HORSE (64A: A plea to plan wisely: Don't ...) (... put the 'CART' before the 'HORSE')

Word of the Day: oshiroi makeup (33A: Performers wearing oshiroi makeup => GEISHAS) —

Oshiroi (白粉) is a powder foundation traditionally used by kabuki actors, geisha and their apprentices. The word is written with kanji meaning "white powder", and is pronounced as the word for white (shiroi) with the honorific prefix o-.

When worn by geisha and maiko, oshiroi is notable for only partially covering the nape of the neck, as an uncovered nape was traditionally considered erotic in Japanese culture. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ha ha, yes. Feels like it's been forever since I solved a puzzle I whole-heartedly loved, but I loved this one. It's not flawless, but its strengths are so strong that I am more than willing to overlook any minor defects. I don't need a puzzle to be perfect in every way, I just need its core idea to be good (check) and the execution to be surprising and fun (check and check). It's possible I've seen variations on this theme before, where the physical arrangement of words stands in for some part of a phrase, but if so, I've never seen it done with this kind of verve and panache and ingenuity. I literally exclaimed "oh, wow" when I got the first themer—the improbable three-word rebus in "put all your eggs in one basket" (BAS [ALL] [YOUR] [EGGS] KET). I couldn't get those rebus-square Downs to work (primarily because I didn't know they were rebus squares), and then ... aha (the first of many AHAS ... which is why I'm not mad at that particular "bad" plural (AHAS)—I feel like the puzzle earned it). I went from "what the hell is a four-letter Jason MRAZ song?" to "ugh those circles are probably involved, leave it and come back" to "-KET ... so BAS-KET ... oh, so I just put EGG EGG EGG in those circled squares!" to "wait, what? 'I'm EGGs?' 'I'm EGGy?' When did Jason Mraz release that!??" to "oh my god ALL, YOUR, EGGS, bam bam bam" and then came the literal out-loud "oh wow." I then though that Alllllll of the circled squares were gonna be rebus squares. "This ... should be interesting!" But no, those first ones were the only ones. The rest of the circled squares just held single letters, which formed words that were bent or s p r e a d o u t or ximed pu (i.e. mixed up). Every theme answer performed a different trick. It was like watching balance beam followed by uneven bars followed by vault followed by floor routine—something new to see every time. And all landings: nailed. Can't fault a one of them. Straight 10s. Hallelujah.

As for the "defects" I mentioned above, there's one thematic one—the first three themers all turn the idioms into instructions for us, i.e. we have to "put" all the eggs in their place, we have to "mess" with Texas, we have to "mix" business and pleasure, we have to "put" cart before horse ... but when it come for CRYing over spilled MILK, there's nothing for us to do. Our action, as solvers, is not incorporated into the idiom. We "put," "mess," and "mix," but we don't "cry." So that answer's a wobbly tire, for sure, but I was so caught up in the challenge of working the idioms out visually that I honestly didn't care, or even really notice, that that answer was anomalous in that way. That answer's anomalous in lots of ways—it goes onto four rows, it's got the "over" and the milk "spilling" to deal with—so I think it gets artistic license. If the puzzle itself is about breaking the rules (and it is), then this last answer can go ahead and break the puzzle's own "rules." I don't mind. Go off, puzzle! Do your thing!

As for the fill, I'm actually surprised it's as strong as it is, given what seems like a pretty demanding theme. My only real winces came at INALIE (an old standard, but one I hate ... it's just Not standalone-worthy), and then at ISN'T SORRY (38D: Has no remorse), which felt like 'green paint' (i.e. a phrase one might say, but not one that has sufficient standalone strength). I also think people are far (far) more likely to say "It's no use" or "it's pointless" or "hopeless" than "IT'S FUTILE" (if only to avoid the "it's feudal?" confusion), but the fact that it's not a first-tier expression doesn't invalidate it. I think it's fine. 

What I loved most about this theme is that I really had to *think* about every one of these themers. It's not that they were particularly difficult to come up with, but they weren't transparent, and in every case, I had a significant moment of "what's going on here?" — the expression itself didn't come to me right away, and so I had to back my way into it by watching the circles fill in from crosses and then inferring the expression from there. The first one (with the eggs) was actually the easiest one to get, along with CART | HORSE. The hardest for me was probably AESTX. I got the letters easily enough, but the only "slogan” I could think of was "Don't Tread on Me" (actually thought TREAD might go in those squares a first, except ... "Don't Tread on Me" is not a state slogan). Getting to "Don't ... mess with Texas" felt great—another little aha burst. Worked the business/pleasure one from the back end, so it took some doing, but again, when I got it, big aha (not a big "ugh," as often happens with tricky / gimmick puzzles, where my struggle is often "rewarded" with some awkward contrivance). Finished up in the SE corner, which was tough for a few reasons, none of them really thematic. First, I thought 49D: Character name in both "The Seagull" and "Three Sisters" meant that the name could be found literally in the titles ... like, embedded in their names. So I was looking to see what letter strings those two titles had in common ... only to find out that no, it's not a trick question (like [Woman in dire need?] from the other day), it's just an actual character name (IRINA). And then there was BANKS, which was, I'm serious now, the hardest thing in the grid for me today. I have been in hotels with multiple elevators, and maybe someone even referred to them as BANKS, but wow that answer was Not coming to me today. Instead of BANKS, I drew blanks. Nothing. Zip. Thank god for crosses.

Bullet points:

• 21A: Yankees slugger Juan (SOTO) — he's very, very good. And, for someone who is already a four-time All-Star, still very young (25). He looks very much like a future Hall-of-Famer, so expect to see his name a bunch in future puzzles (i.e. possibly forever).
• 6A: Law mandating curb cuts, in brief (ADA) — Americans with Disabilities Act. "Curb cuts" are literal cuts in curbs that allow for mobility devices to get from sidewalk to street easily.
• 70A: Half a score (TEN) — A "score" is twenty. I forgot that for a half second and just stared at TEN like "but ... but ... TEN is a score all on its own. It's a perfect score. I don't ge- ... oh, right."
• 13D: Diagnostics done with "Foot-o-scopes" in old shoe stores (X-RAYS) — they used to let shoe stores have x-ray machines!?!?! Did they come with lead aprons, what the ...!?

• 36D: Japanese company that created Hello Kitty (SANRIO) — just commit it to memory. I did. (I'm actually stunned to see that this is only the second appearance of SANRIO in the NYTXW ... feels like something I had to learn because of crosswords, but ... I do solve other crosswords, so that's probably where I've seen it)
• 64D: Abraham Lincoln was the first to keep one at the White House (CAT) — aw ... hello, kitty!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Linux software packages, informally / WED 9-18-24 / House of worship at the top of 67-Across / Car with a three-box design / Cutesy term for a swap / Lawless princess / Largest arboreal mammal, informally / Pioneering 1940s computer

Constructor: Casey Callaghan and Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Easy or Challenging (depending on your familiarity with the architecture in question)

THEME: THE SPANISH STEPS (67A: Architectural attraction in Rome depicted by this puzzle's grid?) — a famous Roman staircase leading up to the TRINITÀ DEI MONTI church, and represented here by a staircase-shaped set of circled squares where the "steps" are made out of "Spanish" numbers (UNO DOS TRES CUATRO)

Word of the Day: THE SPANISH STEPS (67A) —

[source: The Morgan Library]

The Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti) in Rome, Italy, climb a steep slope between Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church, at the top.

The monumental stairway of 135 steps is linked with the Trinità dei Monti church, under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France, at the top of the steps and the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See in the Palazzo Monaldeschi at the bottom of the steps. The stairway was designed by the architects Francesco de Sanctis and Alessandro Specchi. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've never been to Rome, never even set foot in Italy, never heard of the TRINITÀ DEI MONTI, and I only know THE SPANISH STEPS exist from watching a lot (a lot) of Italian "giallo" films of the '60s and '70s:

[La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo (1963), d. Mario Bava]

... though I watched Roman Holiday this summer, so I must've seen them then, too:

[Roman Holiday (1953), d. Wyler]

They're also in Anthony Minghella's 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley:

[The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), d. Minghella]

So they're iconic, and I've seen them (in movies) a number of times, but still, I couldn't retrieve their name (had STEPS and could think only of THIRTY-NINE STEPS — a perfect fit (15!) ... but a Hitchcock movie (1935), not an actual staircase). And I certainly didn't know the name of the church (needed every cross (!) for that one). So I can't say I enjoyed the puzzle, because I just didn't know the reference (not really), so there was no spark of recognition. That's my problem, admittedly. The staircase is certainly famous enough, and if you're familiar with it by name, then I can see admiring this. The one thing I don't really get is the staircase itself. I get that you have built the "STEPS" out of "SPANISH" numbers, but why numbers? And why four? Obviously there are more than four steps. The "staircase" depicted in the grid has eight steps, but as you can see from the pictures above, the actual SPANISH STEPS far outnumber that (135 steps!). So the visual here feels like something kind of tacked on because the constructor(s) made the serendipitous discovery that both TRINITÀ DEI MONTI and THE SPANISH STEPS were a perfect, grid-spanning 15 letters long ... and then couldn't really think of what to do from there. So we get a "staircase" with an arbitrary number of steps and an arbitrary set of Spanish words. To be fair, it's kind of a cute solution to the problem of depicting "Spanish" "steps" — maybe a simple visual pun is enough — but the connection to the actual steps feels pretty tenuous.

["Uno, dos, tres, cuatro!"]

The fill on this one starts out pretty awful (ÉTÉ ENIAC ORANG, all at once, yeesh), but then you get the lovely LACUNA (just me? I love that word) (22A: Unfilled space) and the handsome IGNOBLE and the PRIMROSE PITMASTER who TRIED HARD, and the short stuff gets less ugly, so overall the grid actually ended up being pretty enjoyable to work through. Winced hard at TRADESIES though (43A: Cutesy term for a swap) ... didn't we just have one of these cutesy -SIES expressions? SAMESIES, maybe? TWINSIES? I forget. Anyway, whatever it was, it was more familiar / in-the-language than TRADESIES (?) feels. Also winced at DISTROS, but that's just because I have no idea what that is (42D: Linux software packages, informally). It may surprise you to find that I've spent very little time thinking about [squints at grid] "Linux software packages," let alone thinking about them "informally," so pfft, shrug, if you insist. But again, otherwise, once you get out of that NW corner, this grid seems just fine. 

More points of interest:

• 13A: Lawless princess (XENA) — while XENA may have occasionally (frequently?) stepped outside the bounds of the law, the "Lawless" here represents the actress's name—Lucy Lawless
• 24A: Half of a Dashiell Hammett detective couple (NORA) — The other half is Nick. The couple is featured in the novel The Thin Man, which was adapted into the classic 1987 movie, Ernest Goes to Camp. Nick & NORA also lend their names to a style of cocktail glass. We have two chilling in our freezer at all times :)

• 29D: Bright spots? (ATRIA) — had the "A," wrote in AURAS, got briefly (and, it turns out, pointlessly) mad at the whole AURAS v. AURAE problem.
• 64D: Sunrise direction, in San Salvador (ESTE) — hard to get excited about a piece of crosswordese like ESTE, but I did like that the puzzle managed to work both "Salvador" and "Dali" into the clues (9A: Like the watches in Dali's "The Persistence of Memory"). The choice of "San Salvador" felt like a wink at the earlier Dali clue, which probably wasn't intentional, but it's art, man, you see what you see. And Dali was Spanish too! And he painted staircases! Who's seeing things now?!

["Heaven Canto 1 (The Divine Comedy)" (1950s)]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Brand popularity metric / TUE 9-17-24 / "AB negatve" or "B poditive"? / Father/son surname in Chicago politics / Dessert drink made from frozen grapes / "Rushmore" and "Clerks," for two / Prominent part of a bowline knot / Texter's "hang on a sec"

Constructor: Howard Neuthaler

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Tuesday*)

THEME: CHANGO (23D: "Presto ___!" ... or a hint to 17-, 28-, 41- and 52-Across) — familiar phrases have their last letters "changed" from "E" to "O," creating wacky phrases, which are clued wackily ("?"-style):

Theme answers:

• BLOOD TYPO (17A: "AB negatve" or "B poditive"?) (from "blood type")
• SAME HERO (28A: Odysseus vis-à-vis Ulysses?) (from "same here")
• NOT QUITO (41A: Surprising answer to the question "What is Ecuador's most popular city?") (from "not quite")
• LEMON LIMO (52A: Prom transport that keeps breaking down?) (from "lemon-lime")

Word of the Day: CLYDE Drexler (6D: Basketball great Drexler) —

Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player who currently works as the commissioner of the Big3 3-on-3 basketball league. Nicknamed "Clyde the Glide", he played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), spending a majority of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers before finishing with the Houston Rockets. He was a ten-time NBA All-Star and named to the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Drexler won an NBA championship with Houston in 1995, and earned a gold medal on the 1992 United States Olympic team known as "The Dream Team". He was inducted twice into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2004 for his individual career and in 2010 as a member of the "Dream Team". Drexler is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players and greatest shooting guards of all time. (wikipedia)

• • •

I was kind of with this one at first. TYPE to TYPO and HERE to HERO both had just the one letter change *and* the one sound change, which is really a sound addition—it's like you're just adding an "O" to the end. But then NOT QUITO comes along and ... well, that answer didn't feel quite-o right-o. Because now you've got additional sound changes (notably the first vowel sound in "QUITO," but also the initial consonant sound ("kw" to "k")), so instead of having this cool, lean, simple, elegant thing going on, you've got a clunker. LIME to LIMO also clunks in this same fashion. It would've been better if the simple change in the first two themers had continued with the last two—or if the more complicated change of the last two had been operative from the beginning. Something about switching apparent logic midstream made this one feel not smooth, not quite (!) worked out. Now, you can argue that this puzzle's execution of the theme is actually the most simple and elegant, in that all that has changed, in every case, is the final letter. That's it. "E" to "O." What could be simpler? But I don't just look at words, I hear them, and the pronunciation inconsistencies feel like a glitch. Another thing that feels like a glitch—not having both halves of the incantation "Presto CHANGO" in the actual grid. So odd to just have "CHANGO" on its own, in that weird (completely arbitrary) position. Also—and this isn't the puzzle's fault—"CHANGO" looks like it should rhyme with "tango" or "mango," so somehow looks extra-ridiculous without its "Presto" to give it context. PRESTO and CHANGO have the same number of letters, so could (theoretically) have been arranged symmetrically in the grid. That would, admittedly, have been tougher to pull off, but PRESTO on the left of the grid, CHANGO on the right, that would've been better, or more aesthetically pleasing, at any rate.

I actually think "NOT QUITO" is the best of the bunch, in that it is the wackiest, the most wacky, the king wackadoodle themer of the day, for sure. Which is to say it's the most daring and the most inventive. Also, twenty bucks* to anyone who can, without looking, name the actual most populous city in Ecuador. It's got 2.7 million people (to Quito's 1.8) and I've never heard of it. Give up? You should give up. The answer is Guayaquil. Put that in your grid and smoke it! Zero NYTXW appearances for GUAYAQUIL, you'll be unsurprised to learn. You can't exactly call Guayaquil "obscure," though. No city that big can properly be called "obscure." It's the 17th biggest city in South America, and the 7th biggest outside Brazil. Man, Brazil has So Many cities of 3+ million people. Campinas? Salvador? After Rio and Recife (why do I know Recife!?), I'm pretty much out. Ooh, São Paulo, I know that one from crosswords (SÃO!). You're all probably way better at world geography than I am. Maybe you all knew (or at least had heard of) Guayaquil. Not me. News to me. I'm staring at this list of the 50 largest cities in South America (all with populations over a million) and just shaking my head at my own ignorance. Anyway, NOT QUITO is right. It's not Quito. It's Guayaquil. And now you know. Or you already knew, and now you know how little I know, which is pretty much the daily theme of this blog.

Back to the theme. Another thing I would've liked, that would've made it ... nicer ... is if there were no other "O"-ending words in the grid. At all. Let your theme shine by eliminating the static, the competing "O" noise. No OPPO or ALPO or AGO or CAMEO or SLO-MO or "UM, NO" or BUONO. Just TYPO HERO QUITO LIMO and out. One last thing on the theme: there really should be an extra "?" in the NOT QUITO clue (41A: Surprising answer to the question "What is Ecuador's most popular city?"). All the others have "?" as a wackiness indicator, but this one just has the regular old interrogative "?" that I guess is supposed to double for the wackiness indicator, but wackiness indication is an entirely separate role, so a second "?" (outside the quotation marks) seems appropriate. This is maybe the smallest criticism I've ever had of a clue, but I notice what I notice and I want what I want, smallness be damned.

The fill is interesting in places, ugly in others. The SW corner is particularly ugly. EHUD INUK DEKES ... that is high levels of grim packed into one tiny corner. On the other hand, I like that there's a Q SCORE alongside CUE TIPS but no Q-TIPS in sight. Somewhere on the sidelines, Q-TIPS is shedding a single tear. "Am I not ... good enough?" I had more trouble than I usually have on Tuesdays, which is to say I had some non-zero amount of trouble. The very nature of the theme meant you had to kind of think about those answers, and then, well, there was "WELL, GEE" (the "WELL" part was not immediately apparent), and "UM, NO" (not "UH, NO," as I first thought) (26D: "That's just completely incorrect"), and then I had EASES before CALMS, that was an unforced error, for sure (39A: Soothes). Oh, and that BARBELLS clue got me good (37D: People are often spotted pressing them). I came at it from below and even after I got BELLS all I could think was "well, DOORBELLS doesn't fit!" It's a great clue, with both "spotted" and "pressing" having weightlifting meanings—double wordplay! 

Bullets:

• 22A: Dessert drink made from frozen grapes (ICEWINE) — drove past a lot of vineyards in southern Ontario this summer that seemed to specialize in ICEWINE. And oh look, there's a reason for that: "Canada is the world's largest producer of icewine, producing a greater volume of icewine than all other countries combined with Ontario producing over 90% of Canada's icewine, followed by Germany" (wikipedia). I don't know that I've ever had it.
• 1D: Texter's "Hang on a sec" (BRB) — "be right back"
• 36D: Abandon one's social plans (BAIL) — nice modern colloquial clue on this one, love it.
• 4D: Cloying (TOO SWEET) — had the "T" and actually tried TREACLEY (a variant spelling that I invented solely for this answer). 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*not actual bucks, more heartfelt good wishes

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Setting for "My Cousin Vinny" / MON 9-16-24 / One assigned female at birth and identifying as such / Letter-shaped plumbing piece / Fruit that's a citrus, not a hybrid of a pomegranate and melon

Constructor: Robert Corridan

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: LA LA LAND (59A: 2016 film starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling ... or a hint to 17-, 23-, 36- and 46-Across) — theme answers contain the letter string "LALA": 

Theme answers:

• L.A. LAKERS (17A: N.B.A. team with LeBron and Bronny James, for short)
• RURAL ALABAMA (23A: Setting for "My Cousin Vinny")
• MALALA YOUSAFZAI (36A: Youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner)
• VANILLA LATTE (46A: Sweet Starbucks order)

Word of the Day: POMELO (56A: Fruit that's a citrus, not a hybrid of a pomegranate and melon) —

 

The pomelo (/ˈpɒmɪloʊ, ˈpʌm-/ POM-il-oh, PUM-; Citrus maxima), also known as a shaddock and from the family Rutaceae, is the largest citrus fruit, and the principal ancestor of the grapefruit. It is a natural, non-hybrid, citrus fruit, native to Southeast Asia. Similar in taste to a sweet grapefruit, the pomelo is commonly consumed and used for festive occasions throughout Southeast Asia and East Asia. As with the grapefruit, phytochemicals in the pomelo have the potential for drug interactions. (wikipedia)

• • •

Nah, this doesn't quite work. Specifically, the "LAND" part of the revealer has nothing to do. The only one of these answers that's an actual "LAND" is RURAL ALABAMA ... which also happens to be the most contrived answer of the lot. I know that the theme answers can be conceived of as "lands" in some vague metaphorical sense, but that's weak. If you give me LA LA LAND, that LAND part better mean something. And it doesn't. A simple letter string isn't that interesting, and it's especially uninteresting if one of the resulting answers is something as tenuous as RURAL ALABAMA. Moreover, MALALA YOUSAFZAI isn't a great fit either, given that "LALA" breaks across two words in every theme answer *except* that one. The LALA is contained entirely in her first name, leaving her last name just hanging out to dry. No, this one just doesn't have the next-level concept of the polish to make for a very good Monday (or any day). It's not bad, but it's not good enough. 

Solving this Downs-only was easy enough, except for one part that felt pretty harrowing, namely, the tail end of YOUSAFZAI. I threw those Downs down and got plausible crosses, but something about -ZAI felt wrong/off, so went to the end of this puzzle worried I was not going to get a "Congratulations!" message at the end. So I guess that part wasn't "hard" so much as dangerous-feeling. The harder part—the hardest part for me, by far—was figuring out 21D: Decided to skip. At first I assumed it ended -ED, but when that didn't work out I eventually got it down to -A- OUT ... but then nothing. For a while, the only thing I could think to make out of that first word was "RAN," but RAN OUT didn't feel like a good answer for [Decided to skip] (perhaps because it's not). Thankfully, NONY is not a word, or I might've written in RAN OUT and left it. But NONY looked like a definite no-no, so I waited a bit and ran some other scenarios and finally hit on SAT OUT. And yes, that looked much better. TONY > NONY, for sure. 

Otherwise, the only other real hesitations I had today came right away, at 1D: Org. with the motto "Because Freedom Can't Protect Itself" (ACLU), and then "OK, BUT," which is a really odd standalone answer (odd enough that it's only ever appeared one other time, ten years ago). Oh, and BLABBY, which seems like a borderline nonsense word (10D: Loose-lipped). No hope there until I finally got inferred the "B" in GWBUSH (8A: POTUS #43). One thing I liked about BLABBY, though, was it helped me guess the "F" in FLAB (43A: What "muffin top" and "spare tire" are euphemisms for). See, since I was solving Downs-only (i.e. not looking at Across clues), I was staring at -LAB, which gave me multiple options for that first letter, but since I could eliminate BLAB (because BLABBY was already in the grid), I went ahead and tested FLAB ... and it worked. I realize now it could've been SLAB, not sure why that didn't occur to me, but once the "F" went in, FINEST immediately followed.  I had MAMA before DADA (no surprise there) (53D: Baby's first word, perhaps). Forgot the first letter in P-TRAP (45D: Letter-shaped plumbing piece), but thankfully S-ELLS wasn't likely to be anything but SPELLS (or, rather, P-TRAP rang a bell, whereas M-TRAP and W-TRAP and H-TRAP seemed ... unlikely). I was surprised to see LILLE, which seems kind of a minor French city for a Monday, but I was able to get it off just the "L," so maybe it's more major than I thought. In crosswords, at any rate. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

The Beyhive and the Swifties, for two / SUN 9-15-24 / Nebulizer's output / 2017 film about Wolverine / Platform for Mega Man, for short / Kristin ___, first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic games / "The Great" pope / Altima alternative / Creature whose mating habitats are a scientific mystery / Bailey of 2023's "Little Mermaid"

Constructor: Aimee Lucido

Relative difficulty: Very Easy

THEME: "One for the Books" — book titles with punny "___book" clues

Theme answers:

• HIGH FIDELITY (21A: Record book?)
• MERRIAM-WEBSTER (31A: Spell book?)
• THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (46A: Green book?)
• THE GIVING TREE (65A: Logbook?)
• NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (83A: Yearbook?)
• A GAME OF THRONES (97A: Rule book?)
• FRANKENSTEIN (113A: Scrapbook?)

Word of the Day: Kristin OTTO (117A: Kristin ___, first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic games) —

Kristin Otto (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁɪstɪn ˈʔɔtoː][...]; born 7 February 1966) is a former German swimmer, becoming Olympic, World and European champion, multiple times. She is most famous for being the first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic Games, doing so at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. In long course, she held the world records in the 100 meter and 200 meter freestyle events. Otto was also the first woman to swim the short course 100 meter backstroke in under a minute, doing so at an international short course meet at Indiana University in 1983. (wikipedia)

• • •

[cover: Milton Glaser (1973)]

Hard to have feelings about this one because it was over so fast. There were book titles, they were easy to figures out, and ... that was that. The wordplay in the themer clues all made sense for the most part. HIGH FIDELITY is a book about a record shop, so [Record book?], sure. I balked a little at MERRIAM-WEBSTER since that didn't seem like the full title of the "book" in question (which surely must include the word "dictionary" somewhere, right?) (31A: Spell book?). Also, I thought "spellbook" was one word. Anyway, dictionaries are what you consult for spell-ing, so, sure, fine. "Green" is slang for "money" so [Green book?] => THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, OK. I forget the plot of THE GIVING TREE. I feel like the tree maybe gives and gives until ... does it actually become a stump, or a "log" (65A: Logbook?)? That clue seemed a little tenuous, but again, I haven't thought about this book since I was a child. NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR is indeed a year, so [Yearbook?], fantastic. Did not know there was an indefinite article at the beginning of (A) GAME OF THRONES, isn't that funny? (97A: Rule book?). I guess there are families that "rule" (i.e. reign, hold power) in that "book," so that explains that. And then lastly there's FRANKENSTEIN ... whose monster is made out of ... scraps, is that it? (113A: Scrapbook?). Seems like this theme could've gone on forever. Surely there are [Notebook?]s out there, either famous books about music, or maybe an epistolary novel like Clarissa. [Blue Book?] ... well, anything smutty will do there. Or a novel about sadness. Or the sky. It's a cute idea for a theme, but it feels very loose and somehow not entirely satisfying. The cluing felt clever on FRANKENSTEIN and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, less so on the others. But again, it was all over in a flash, so I didn't have time to feel much of anything.

I liked the NE corner, home to some of the more interesting non-thematic fill today, like GHOSTED (14D: Suddenly stopped texting), and the SLOW BURN / FOOD WASTE cross. Otherwise, though, it was all pretty much PRO FORMA (70A: Perfunctory). Good chance to flex your crosswordese muscle today. AYLA is a go-to. A staple. A standard. Gotta have it in your arsenal. You just ... know it. I have never read and have no real interest in reading Clan of the Cave Bear, but I know AYLA well. See also ST. LEO (94D: "The Great" pope), by far the most namechecked pope in crossworld (papacy = 440-61). He also comes in LEOI form (three straight vowels, can't beat that!). But he's not the only "great" Leo! There's a different "Leo the Great" who was a Roman Emperor from 457-74. If you confuse them, well, sure, that makes sense—they're both "Great" and were alive at the same dang time, what the hell? Anyway, the Roman Emperor "Leo the Great" is easy to recognize, as he is probably most famous for His Insane Eyes!!

If you look into his eyes, you turn to stone. That's how he turned to stone—looked in a mirror, and bam, instant statue. There's more crosswordese: ETNA and APSE and EWES EWER NTH EEL UTE and and and IBIS ... but at least I learned something with that IBIS clue (76A: Sebastian the ___, University of Miami mascot). This is about as weird as Alabama having an elephant mascot. The Crimson Tide has an elephant, and the Hurricanes have ... an IBIS!? Amazing, improbable animal life in mascotland.

[That's an IBIS? It's giving Howard the Duck]

Bullet Points:

• 1A: "Here's looking at you, kid" or "You can't handle the truth!," famously (AD LIB) — had to LOL at "famously" because I had no idea (the first quote is Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, the second is Jim Varney in Ernest Goes to Camp)

• 29A: Altima alternative (SENTRA) — I thought it would be an alternative make, and so I jumped from Nissan to Hyundai and wrote in SONATA. Like the Altima, the SONATA is a mid-sized sedan, whereas the SENTRA is a compact (recategorized from subcompact in 1999, though the EPA now rates it as "mid-size" due to its interior volume—look at me, car guy! Thanks, wikipedia!). The SENTRA is known as the SYLPHY in East Asian and other markets. That's a great-looking car model (crosswordwise). No AIEOUs! And now you know about it, so it's fair game. So if you are an elemental spirit (or a slender, graceful woman) and you're in the market for a vehicle for which you are aptly named, consider a SYLPHY. You're gonna have to move to China, but ... probably worth it.
• 41A: Creature whose mating habitats are a scientific mystery (EEL) — to quote Friday's puzzle, CITATION NEEDED. "A scientific mystery"? You're gonna have to give me more info here. Sincerely (if briefly) thought the puzzle was being cheeky and the answer was gonna be MAN. Anyway, looks like eel breeding is slightly less of a "mystery" now than it was even a few years ago. 

For years, the epic life cycle of European eels remained an unproven theory. It was only in 2022 that scientists tracked silver eels to their spawning grounds, where the females release millions of eggs that are externally fertilised by the male eels. (BBC Science Focus, 2022)

• 73A: Mother of Perseus (DANAE) — you ever just *know* something but you don't know how you know it and you think "why do I know that?" and your knowledge surprises you so much that you don't actually trust it? That was me and this answer.
• 112A: Chugging a bottle of hot sauce, perhaps (DARE) — you do something *on* a dare, but your doing of it is not the DARE itself. There's just something ... slightly off about the clue phrasing here, to my ear.

• 118A: Late-night host who once wrote for "The Simpsons" (O'BRIEN) — someday I will enter that last vowel with confidence. Today was not that day.
• 79D: A Tyrannosaurus rex's was nearly 17 inches long (EGG) — I do not think of eggs as being "long," as being measured by "length," so this was weird. I mean, of course, they aren't perfect spheres, not even close, so they have length and width, but the clue was phrased to suggest body part so I thought body part. EAR? That seemed ... small for a T-rex. But then its arms are disproportionately small, right, so who knows!? Oh, whoops, looks like dinosaurs didn't have external ear tissue at all. Rex Parker—come for the crossword commentary, but ... well, leave for the paleontology, really not his thing.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...