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]