Khan tract? / THU 10-31-24 / Throw hard, in modern slang / Pigeonry / Certain edible seedlings / Summer drink made from the fruits of two tropical trees / powder (manicure type) / "Duh!," in textspeak / What the puck is going on? / General during the Clone Wars / Like Polish, but not polish / BeBe's sister, in a gospel duo / Campbell of horror film fame / Graphic showing the status of a download, say

Constructor: Sarah Sinclair and Paolo Pasco

Relative difficulty: Medium (except that SE corner, yipes)

THEME: "MONSTER MASH" (34A: Halloween-themed hit, with a hint to four squares in this puzzle) — four monsters (a DEMON, a TROLL, an OGRE, and a GOLEM) are each "mashed" into a single square ... it's a monster rebus! Boo!

Theme answers:

• PRIDE MONTH / DESDEMONA (20A: June observance / 4D: "Othello" role)
• CRESCENT ROLL / TEA TROLLEY (22A: Pastry whose dough is used in making pigs in a blanket / 13D: Source of refreshments on a train to London)
• PROGRESS BAR / MICROGREENS (48A: Graphic showing the status of a download, say / 34D: Certain edible seedlings)
• MANGO LEMONADE / MONGOL EMPIRE (45A: Summer drink made from the fruits of two tropical trees / 35D: Khan tract?)

Word of the Day: DIP powder nails (40A: ___ powder (manicure type)) —

Dip powder nails is a technique in which you or a nail technician dusts or brushes a pigmented powder over your nails to create an opaque layer of color. It got its name because when you’re DIYing it at home, you can literally “dip” your nail into the jar of powder (more on the specifics below). Dip powder nails typically require a few coats of powder for opacity before you paint a liquid sealant painted on top to harden the powder. Finally, they're sealed with a top coat for shine. The result? A manicure that can last around three weeks without chipping or lifting. (cosmopolitan dot com)

• • •

[Apollo & DAPHNE]

Wow, yes. This puzzle. This is how you do a holiday puzzle. First of all, it's appearing on the actual holiday that it's celebrating—not one, or three, or however many days earlier, as sometimes happens—so that's nice. And luckily for me (and hopefully you) that day is Thursday, which means it's party time. It's pull-out-all-the-stops time, burn-this-mother-down time. Actually, it's a fairly simple concept. It's just a rebus puzzle, with monsters in the rebus squares. But what elevates this puzzle is ... well, lots of things. First of all, the perfect revealer. Has that song title ("MONSTER MASH") really been sitting around for well over half a century and no one (til now) had thought to use it as a revealer in a crossword puzzle? I gotta believe it's been attempted, somewhere, at some time, but not to my memory, not in the NYTXW, anyway. The song has been in the puzzle, of course—seven other times—but no one (apparently) had thought to build a theme around it, despite the fact that it seems to be crying out for rebus revealer status. 

But it isn't just that the revealer is perfect, it's that the puzzle unfolded in such an entertaining way, because the revealer only revealed so much. Sometimes, once you get a revealer, the puzzle becomes much easier to solve; I've often filled in all thematic material immediately upon getting the revealer or grokking the basic theme gimmick. But today ... well, first, I got the rebus pretty quickly; if you've ever seen, or read, or especially taught Othello (as I have), then it's possible that you noticed, or had it pointed out to you, that with Othello & Desdemona, "HELL" appears in his name and "DEMON" appears in hers. So I got DES(DEMON)A easy and thought "ooh, demons, cool," figuring I'd be seeing a bunch of demons today. But then the TROLL jumped out at me in the NE and I thought "OK, dang, we're gonna get all kinds of monsters ... cooler." And then I got the revealer and thought "damn ... damn that's just stupidly perfect." But even knowing the basic concept, I Still Had To Hunt Two More Monsters, and let me tell you, that last monster put up a fight. This is perhaps because the monster in question, the GOLEM, is ... not a Halloween monster? It's a figure from Jewish folklore, and since many Jews do not celebrate Halloween for religious or cultural reasons, GOLEM seems an unlikely guest at this party. But technically, a GOLEM is a kind of "monster," and all the revealer promises is that monsters will be mashed, not that all said monsters will be iconically associated with Halloween. And since the GOLEM did inspire Frankenstein's monster (which is very iconically Halloweeny!), judges say ... fair. Tough (as hell), but fair.

[It's time ... the official start of Christmas music season; sorry, I don't make the rules, it's Christmas season now]

I was so mad at CRESCENT—I practically shouted "they're called CRESCENT rolls!"—that when the TROLL finally popped out of his hiding place, I felt like the puzzle was listening to me. It played a little joke on me. Got me mad about a problem that didn't actually exist and then shouted "gotcha!" Good one, puzzle. OGRE was weirdly easy to get. I think I had the MICR- part of MICR(OGRE)ENS and just started testing "O" monsters ... not many of those! OGRE was the first thing I thought of, and bam, in went the greens. It's the dang GOLEM that took forever. Why? Sigh, well, I had the MANGO- part of the two-part fruit drink thingie, but I'd written in MANGO, leaving me with MONG- for the opening of 35D: Khan tract? (that's "Khan" as in "Genghis" and "tract" as in "piece of land"). It's really *that* clue that kept GOLEM hidden for a while, because even after I'd worked out the back end of the answer (-IRE), I kept trying to make MONGOLIANEMPIRE work. Oh, and that clue on PROPER didn't help, yeesh. Without the word "noun" anywhere in the clue, it never ever occurred to me that you would refer to a word as PROPER. PROPER modifies "noun," or maybe "name," but without that cue, I kept looking for some specific property of Polish (the language), and getting nowhere. "I know there's a monster in here somewhere, dammit! What the hell kind of monster is an "olianemp"?! Eventually I tried MONGOL (rather than MONGOLIAN) EMPIRE, and boom, there it was. So MAN(GO LEM)ONADE crossing MON(GOL EM)PIRE was a PROPER train wreck. I was lucky enough to know YEET and DAPHNE and WHAM!, and I was done. Well and truly—and happily—done. Puzzle solved, monsters defeated. Good time had.

[BeBe's sister, in a gospel duo]

Notes and Explanations:

• 17A: "Duh!," in textspeak ("OBVS!") — this puzzle is ostentatiously slangy, with OBVS and YEET (60A: Throw hard, in modern slang) and TRASH (as clued) (10D: Just terrible, in slang). I'm guessing YEET was the most troublesome of the three for many. I am not a native YEET sayer, but I've seen it enough by now to not be surprised by it. This is the third YEET of the year, fifth all time (it debuted just last year).
• 24A: Common situations in time travel narratives (PARADOXES) — had the PARA- part and (since I already knew it was a monster rebus) wanted PARALLEL UNIVERSES but good luck finding the monster that will make that answer work. (I dare you to go to your next Halloween party as a Lleluniv!)
• 28A: Its cups aren't supposed to runneth over (BRA) — this made me laugh. 
• 36A: What the puck is going on? (RINK) — another perfect clue. At first I thought "shouldn't this be where the puck is...?'" But no, the RINK (surface) is what the puck is going (sliding) on.  
• 30A: Last word in the full title of Cervantes's most famous novel (MANCHA) — familiar to fans of the musical ... 

• 33A: Pigeonry (COTE) — I love the word "pigeonry." Sounds like the shenanigans that pigeons get up to. You know? Flying. Cooing. Pooping on statues. Your basic pigeonry.
• 48A: Graphic showing the status of a download, say (PROGRESS BAR) — had PROGRESS MAP here, for some reason. A MAP is also a "graphic" so it made sense to me in the moment, even if BAR is infinitely better in retrospect.
• 56A: Opposite of a jumbo shake? (TREMOR) — the puzzle is having fun. Not content to baffle you with hiding monsters, it also throws a lot of wacky clue curveballs at you. I appreciated the spirit of the whole thing. We even get bonus spooky content, just to Halloween things up a bit more: a haunted corn maze (dead END!); horror film star NEVE Campbell (of Scream fame); ominous FOGHORNS ... it sets a mood, this puzzle. Zany-spooky. I'm feeling it.

• 21D: Institution with A.T.M.s known as "Green Machines" (TD BANK) — no idea. Wait, I think my stepbrother works for them. I know he works for some bank, and commutes to Toronto several times a month. Hmmm. We don't have these banks near me. Not anywhere I have lived. Looks like the parent company is in fact Canadian. I only know the name because ... probably because of ads, or the naming rights on some stadium or something. Oh, and because they were recently in the news, not for good reasons (when are banks in the news for good reasons?): "On October 10, 2024, in a historic settlement with U.S. authorities, TD pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $3 billion in combined penalties for money laundering conspiracy over a decade, including failure to monitor trillions in potentially suspicious transactions annually, necessitating a four-year independent monitorship and comprehensive AML reforms." (wikipedia)
• 31D: Dating app for queer women (HER) — no idea. Luckily, not hard to infer. 
• 49D: 2016 election nickname (BERN) — as in Bernie Sanders. I forgot about all that "Feel the BERN" stuff. Seems fitting that the only "nickname" I can remember from that (TRASH) election is "JEB!" Which isn't even a nickname. Just a sad, failed slogan. The least efficacious exclamation point in electoral history. Please clap.

See you in November ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Louisiana Acadian / WED 10-30-24 / Wrap on a roll / Symbols of electrical resistance / Father of, in Arabic / Classic soda brand / Rock singer Shirley / Naught, nil, nada / Popular music genre from Nigeria / Ghoulish character who appears after someone follows the instructions at 17- and 59-Across / Certain Disney princess-inspired Halloween costumes

Constructor: Josh M. Kaufmann

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BEETLEJUICE (29D: Ghoulish character who appears after someone follows the instructions at 17- and 59-Across) — a movie-promo puzzle (?). In the movie(s), if you say "Betelgeuse" (the character's actual name) three times, he appears (which may or may not be helpful, depending on the situation you're in); today's puzzle gives you instructions to make him appear, putting BEAT, ULGE, and OOSE in circled squares and then telling you: PUT THEM TOGETHER (17A: With 59-Across, instructions for the sets of circled letters) and SAY IT THREE TIMES (59A: See 17-Across)

Theme answers:

• AFROBEAT (30A: Popular music genre from Nigeria)
• INDULGENT (37A: Overly lenient)
• GOOSE EGG (49A: Naught, nil, nada)

Word of the Day: Shirley MANSON (47D: Rock singer Shirley) —

Shirley Ann Manson FRSA (born 26 August 1966) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, musician, and actress who is the lead singer of the Scottish-American rock band Garbage, who have toured worldwide and sold over 17 million records as of 2017. Known for her forthright style, rebellious attitude, and distinctive deep voice, her accolades include nominations for two Brit Awards and seven Grammy Awards.

Manson's musical career began in her teens, when she was approached to perform backing vocals and keyboards for the band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. She was later approached by the band's record label with the idea of launching her as a solo artist, and recorded an album with her band Angelfish. She joined Garbage in 1994, and they achieved critical and commercial success with their self-titled debut album (1995) and Version 2.0 (1998). They followed this by performing and co-producing the theme song to the 19th James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999) and releasing their acclaimed third album Beautiful Garbage (2001).

Following the troubled production of Garbage's fourth album Bleed Like Me (2005), the group went on hiatus; during this period, they released a greatest hits album (2007). Manson began to write and record solo material in 2006, but nothing came to fruition. She instead pursued acting, playing Catherine Weaver on the science fiction television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008). Garbage reunited in 2010, and have since released three more albums: Not Your Kind of People (2012), Strange Little Birds (2016), and No Gods No Masters (2021). Manson also hosted the music podcast The Jump with Shirley Manson (2019–2021).

• • •

I can see how one might do something really good with this theme, but this ... isn't it. It has elements of "it," but in a couple of ways it simply goes off the rails. The first and most obvious problem is that the "character" is not actually named BEETLEJUICE. It's "Betelgeuse" (as in the star), which is pronounced (roughly) the same as "BEETLEJUICE." I realize that "BEETLEJUICE" is how people think of him, because that's the name of the movie. But the clue says "Ghoulish character" and the character's name is absolutely positively without a doubt named "Betelgeuse" (read the wikipedia entry for either the original or the sequel if you don't trust me here). "But most people won't know that!" Who cares? Get it right or go home. 

The worse problem, though, for me, from a pure solving pleasure standpoint, was the phrasing on the instructions. In order to get the instructions to come out to a perfect, grid-spanning 15 + 15, the instructions become super awkward. Grammatically tortured, even. PUT THEM TOGETHER ... but SAY IT THREE TIMES? Just "Say them together three times" would've been perfect, but here ... "it" has no referent. Well, there's the imagined referent, the entity that comes from "putting THEM together" (in your mind, or mouth) but oof, the phrasing, you would never say this particular set of instructions. It's clunky at best. I could see that the final part of the instructions was going to be "THREE TIMES" and I had No Idea what could go in the five squares preceding it. "SAY THEM" wouldn't fit, so ... "UTTER THREE TIMES?" The "IT" in "SAY IT" just bugged the hell out of me. Lastly, ANTAGONISTS is a surprisingly weak "themer." It's too vague a word, not closely associated enough with the movie to be truly meaningful. Plus it's in the plural. Plus, since he's sometimes helpful, "antagonist" seems like a not quite on-the-nose description of what he is. I'm no BEETLEJUICE expert, I just happened to see both the original and its sequel very recently (BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE was one of the movies my "Moviegoing" class chose to see earlier this semester), so the "Betelgeuse" thing in particular was freshly on my mind.

Even if the theme had been perfect, the fill ... I don't know why the editors don't insist on more polish. This was one of those puzzles where I stop before I've even exited the NW to take a screenshot of the grid because the fill is already ominously off:

SARAN ABONE (?) ABU NEHI and I haven't even really started!!? And then IFI right after that. And CAS ... and ENOL ... SSN ETO MCATS HTML all in one corner ... ELSAS in the plural (!?!). Nice attempt to rescue that last one via Halloween costumes (timely!) (43A: Certain Disney princess-inspired Halloween costumes). But no, this one was rough. The theme is pretty dense, and I understand how fill can suffer under those conditions. But still. SEEM MAD??? I think OTOLOGY (weirdly) was the only longer non-theme answer in this puzzle I actually enjoyed seeing. I do, however, really like all the BEAT / ULGE / OOSE answers. That's a really solid set: AFROBEAT / INDULGENT / GOOSE EGG. Again, the core concept of the theme was really good. I mean, it seems like a paid promo (BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE is still in theaters where I live), and I don't like that so much, but as movie-specific themes go, this had promise. But the execution just missed, imho. 

[AFROBEATs, a derivative of AFROBEAT]

What else?:

• 21A: The "lava" in a lava lamp (WAX) — I haven't seen one of these in so long. I don't think I ever really thought about what the "lava" substance was. GOO ... I think GOO was my first guess.
• 25A: Calculator symbol on a MacBook, e.g. (ICON) — so ... [Symbol], then. This one confused me because of all the specificity ("calculator," "MacBook") that turned out to be meaningless.
• 1A: Wrap on a roll (SARAN) — wrote in SUSHI, "confirmed" it with SAP (1D: Sentimental sort) :(
• 66A: What lives in a hole in the wall? (NAIL) — I did appreciate how hard the puzzle is trying to make this puzzle spooky. [Spooky mo.] (OCT), [Lake with a spooky-sounding name] (ERIE). And while the ELSAS aren't spooky, they are Halloween-y. You could argue A BONE is spooky (if you ignore the clue). It kinda suggests "skeleton." And if you are inclined to have nightmares about bad crossword fill, then it's definitely frightening.
• 26D: Louisiana Acadian (CAJUN) — this one (briefly) stopped me cold because my brain just went "'Acadian' ... 'Acadian' ... hmm, let's see ... [shuffling boxes around] ... 'Academy' ... 'Academic' ... we got an 'Arcadian' ... nope, sorry, not sure where we put 'Acadian,' boss." Sigh. I got CAJUN easily enough, but had to go to the dictionary to refresh my memory on "Acadian": "relating to the former French colony of Acadia in eastern Canada."

Hoping that a flawed Halloween puzzle today means a real sizzler of a Halloween puzzle tomorrow (which is actual Halloween, after all). See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. RIP to my favorite crosswordese—the only TERI I'm interested in, the only GARR there is, my beloved TERI GARR. Best comic actress of my lifetime. xoxo

[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook]

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Titular film character who lives in a swamp / TUES 10-29-24 / Name shared by two of King Henry VIII's wives / Sitcom extraterrestrial / "Of course!," in Spanish

Hello, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday of Spooktober! Hope everyone has been having a good spooky season and enjoys their Halloweek. The weather has been getting a bit chillier here in D.C., leading me to break out my ear warmers and thicker gloves so I can bike when it’s in the 30s. (Though it might be 80 degrees the next day, so that’s… fun.) I watched my Steelers win (!!!) as I did this write-up. They had me stressed until the end, but they pulled it off and managed to extend their streak of winning home games on Monday Night Football to a truly crazy 22 games. 

Anywho, on to the puzzle...

Constructor: Kathy Lowden

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Rhyming expressions describing an amount of something

Theme answers:

• DOZENS OF COUSINS (17A: Whole bunch at a family reunion?) 
• SCORES OF DRAWERS (25A: Large array for a desk?) 
• OODLES OF POODLES (46A: Big group in a dog show?) 
• OCEANS OF POTIONS (61A: Massive collection for an alchemist?)

Word of the Day: PIPPIN (49D: Broadway musical about the son of Charlemagne) —

Pippin is a 1972 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto. The musical uses the premise of a mysterious performance troupe, led by the Leading Player, to tell the story of Pippin, a young prince on his search for meaning and significance. The 'fourth wall' is broken numerous times during most traditional productions. (Wiki)

• • •

Meh. 

I suppose the theme was cute, and the construction seems impressive because the theme answers cross the entire puzzle. But it felt like the rest of the puzzle was sacrificed to make this rhyming scheme work, and I couldn’t muster more than a shrug when I realized what the theme was doing. Usually, if there’s a gimmick like this with the theme answers, without a revealer, there’s a payoff elsewhere, like with long downs or interesting clues or something. Instead, we got a lot of crosswordese and then didn’t get many fun answers. The construction meant the longest non-theme answer was seven letters, and I didn’t particularly love either of those answers. 

My favorite of the non-themers would have to be LIZARD brain (47D: (source of our primal instincts, it's said)), and BLOTTO (6D: Drunk as a skunk) is a good one. On the other hand, I hated PEP BAND (39A: Performing group at a homecoming game) (even if it’s apparently a thing, according to Wikipedia). I didn’t understand the three clues/answers revolving around numbers (14A, 42A, and 18D) and why they were done like that (Spanish, French, and Italian, with seemingly no rhyme or reason as to why). 24D: Rear end, in London's West End is a weirdly specific clue with a rhyme scheme all to tee up the word ARSE. BZZT (3D: [Wrong answer!]) strikes me as a particularly ugly word and not a common way of describing a buzzer. And that’s not to be confused with PSST (60D: Vowelless attention-getter), which also made an appearance. We even had THAT (10A: "I'll drink to ___!") as an answer, which I think sums up the boring fill. 

I swear I’m in a better mood than I seem to be as I describe this puzzle! I mean, my Steelers are 6-2 going into their bye week. I just don’t think the theme was cute or clever enough to justify the rest of the puzzle falling somewhat flat.

Misc.:

• ANNE Boleyn and ANNE of Cleves (12D: Name shared by two of King Henry VIII's wives) — I solved this clue/answer especially quickly because I’ve listened to (and hope to one day see!) the musical “Six,” which is an absolutely incredible telling of history that shows the depth to each of the six women who happened to be married to Henry VIII. (Henry VII was also married to three Catherines — Catherine of Aragon, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr — only one of whom was executed!) 
• MII (35A: Customizable Nintendo avatar) reminds me of the many, many hours I spent playing the Wii growing up. I was especially good at Wii tennis. And then the heading-the-soccer-ball one (once Wii Fit came out). But, then again, there was the time I was trying to smack a ball on a par five while playing Wii golf, and the little wristbands weren’t especially well made at the time, so the controller slipped out of my hand, and I… broke my aunt’s TV. Oooops! 
• I may not have DOZENS OF COUSINS (17A), but my dad is one of eight kids, so I have 15 just on his side of the family. We have a family reunion every other year on the New Jersey shore, and there are so many people we once had to charter a bus to get somewhere. And our family keeps growing, too, as my cousins keep getting married and having kids! 
• I took ECON (48D: Supply-and-demand subj.) in college (as a history major), and basically the only thing I remember was the supply and demand curves we had to draw and analyze. 
•  “Agatha All Along” is my favorite TV SHOW (10D) right now and has a character who’s a SEER (4D: Oracle) — and she’s played by Patti LuPone. (Yes, it’s a tenuous connection, but I wanted to talk about this show.) It’s absolutely incredible, and I highly recommend it! The premise is a coven of witches who have to walk a dangerous road together to each get what they most desire at the end (if they make it). 

And that’s all from me! See you all in November.

Signed, Clare Carroll, a not-so-spooked (right now) Steelers fan

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Angler's supply / MON 10-28-24 / Energy, idiomatically / Eight-armed creatures / Nursery rhyme about the hazards of decaying infrastructure / Pass idly, as time / Beverage with a Big Mac, perhaps / Valvoline competitor

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FALL CLASSIC (59A: Nickname for the World Series ... or what you might call 17-, 28- or 45-Across) — "classic" nursery rhymes that involve some kind of "fall":

Theme answers:

• JACK AND JILL (17A: Nursery rhyme about a disastrous trip up a hill)
• HUMPTY DUMPTY (28A: Nursery rhyme about the perils of sitting on a wall)
• LONDON BRIDGE (45A: Nursery rhyme about the hazards of decaying infrastructure)

Word of the Day: EDNA St. Vincent Millay (8D: Poet St. Vincent Millay) —

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.

Millay won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her poem "Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"; she was the first woman and second person to win the award. In 1943, Millay was the sixth person and the second woman to be awarded the Frost Medal for her lifetime contribution to American poetry.

Millay was highly regarded during much of her lifetime, with the prominent literary critic Edmund Wilson calling her "one of the only poets writing in English in our time who have attained to anything like the stature of great literary figures.'' By the 1930s, her critical reputation began to decline, as modernist critics dismissed her work for its use of traditional poetic forms and subject matter, in contrast to modernism's exhortation to "make it new." However, the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1960s and 1970s revived an interest in Millay's works. (wikipedia)

• • •

One of the easier puzzles I've ever solved Downs-only. I went from 1D: Angler's supply (BAIT) all the way through 34D: "Submit by" dates (DEADLINES) before I finally hit a Down I couldn't get on the first guess: 35D: Beverage with a Big Mac. Just couldn't think of a coherent 9-letter answer right away. My main problem there was having LOUD-- at 33A and not being able to infer the ending (i.e. the -LY, which would've given me the first letter in LARGE COKE). Or, rather, I could infer an answer, but sadly that answer was LOUDER (or even LOUDEN (?)). Why LOUDLY didn't occur to me in the moment, I don't know. Anyway, one answer later, I had 36D: Christmas season ... which I definitely wrote in as NOEL, which made me think "... LOUDEN? Really?" But then I remembered that the Christmas season could also be YULE, and the "Y" made LOUDLY feel very right, which it was, and that "L" got me to LARGE, and the COKE part just seemed obvious after that (although SODA or COLA were both plausible, I guess). The latter half of the solve was definitely bumpier than the first half, but not too much. Had SUNBEAMS before SUNRISES (39D: They brighten everyone's days). And then AS YET before SO FAR (48D: To date). Every other Down went right in, either with no help, or with help from the themers I was able to infer. I had to think a little bit before I got KILL (44D: Pass idly, as time). I had the "I" and wanted "WILE" ... as in "WILE away the time" ... only that's spelled "WHILE," so ... that wasn't gonna work. I got to KILL by running the letters that could go at the front of -ARL, and realizing that "K" was one of those letters. "C" and "E" also worked, technically, but they weren't so promising in the Down. I guess technically "M" could've worked too, but MARL? On a Monday? In this economy? Unlikely.

Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, clays, and silt. When hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae.

Marl makes up the lower part of the cliffs of Dover, and the Channel Tunnel follows these marl layers between France and the United Kingdom. Marl is also a common sediment in post-glacial lakes, such as the marl ponds of the northeastern United States.

Marl has been used as a soil conditioner and neutralizing agent for acid soil and in the manufacture of cement. (wikipedia)

As for the theme, it seems just fine. A simple little Monday theme with a clever and surprising revealer. Not just clever and surprising, but timely! The FALL CLASSIC is underway as we speak. The Dodgers are up two games to none on the Yankees, but Shohei Ohtani (the Dodgers' best player, and the best player in baseball) partially dislocated his shoulder while trying to steal second base in Game 2, so ... who knows what effect, if any, that will have on the Dodgers. Will Ohtani sit out Game 3? Will he be back on the field? If so, will he be at full strength? Will it even matter? I mean, the Dodgers have plenty of talent, they can probably win two without him. Annnnnnyway, FALL CLASSIC! That's what's up. I love that it's Dodgers / Yankees, as that was the World Series matchup the year I got into baseball (1977), as well as the following year, the year I got into baseball cards (1978). I lived in California and, despite having been born in San Francisco, immediately became a Dodgers fan. Yes, I learned the bitter taste of disappointment early as a sports fan. It was weird seeing Reggie Jackson at a restaurant in Monterey a few years back, as I realized a. he is smaller than I imagined (my not being 8 years old any more may have something to do with that), and b. I still hate him (just kidding, he seemed very nice).

Notes:

• 2D: Eight-armed creatures (OCTOPUSES) — hurray, an answer for the pluralizing purists! None of this OCTOPI baloney. Here's a handy explanation of how to pluralize (and not pluralize) "octopus," from the good folks at Ocean Conservancy:

[Sadly, OCTOPI is in dictionaries and constructor databases and therefore isn't going to die any time soon]

• 23A: Susceptible to sunburn (PALE) — I resemble that remark! (note: I wouldn't put "sunburn" in the clue when SUNRISES is in the grid, but as with "octopus" pluralizing, I tend toward persnicketiness in these matters).
• 48A: Energy, idiomatically (STEAM) — never saw this clue (obviously, because I solved Downs-only), but it's the kind of thing that would've slowed me down. It's funny that STEAM hangs around as a metaphor for energy. I assume it comes from STEAM-engine trains. Yes, that appears to be true. Earliest evidence of its use as a metaphor for "energy" in the OED (that I can see) is the 1830s, and as "first usage" quotations go, it's a good one:

1. 1832

   I have..a way of going a-head, by getting up the steam..—and the fuel is brandy.

   F. Marryat, Newton Forster vol. III. iii. 39

• 43A: "My Zoom joke flopped ... I guess it's not remotely funny," e.g. (PUN) — what if your joke about your Zoom joke flopping also flops? Sadly, this joke was not on "still on mute."

• 5D: How often many people brush their teeth (avert your eyes, dentists!) (ONCE A DAY) — such a weirdly worked-up and judgy clue. With the histrionic parenthetical aside to dentists at the end, I thought the answer was going to be way more alarming than ONCE A DAY. Like NOT AT ALL. And "many"? "Many people"? How many? If you've got an actual statistic, by all means run with it, but this "many" assertion is absurd.
• 61D: Valvoline competitor (STP) — clue: "Valvoline." brain: "Vaseline ... has 3-letter competitors?"

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Europe's highest volcano / SUN 10-27-24 / Nearly succeeded ... but there's a catch! / Steak option in northern Canada / Do-to-do delivery? / Hair-lightening brand / Millimeter-wide photo used for conveying secret messages / Montreal hockey player, to fans / Horned antelope of southern Africa / Add milk to a customer's coffee, in diner lingo / What's mined in a stannary / Nintendo antagonist in purple overalls

Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Working the Night Shift" — an elaborate moon phase puzzle, where circled squares (representing phases of THE MOON (84D: This puzzle's subject)) orbit THE EARTH (66A: Apt central entry for this puzzle). Phases are represented by waxing and waning spellings of "MOON"—from a blacked out circle representing a new moon, through "M" "MO" "MOO" "MOON" (for full moon) then "OON" "ON" "N" and back to the blacked out circle again. There are also a handful of punny moon-related themers:

Theme answers:

• ROUND TRIP (19A: Complete journey ... or what 84-Down makes in this puzzle?)
• GOING FULL CIRCLE (37A: Completing a cycle, like 84-Down in this puzzle?)
• IT'S JUST A PHASE (111A: "They'll grow out of that" ... or a description of eight squares in this puzzle)

The "MOON" phases:

• EMAILED / ARM (43A: Like many verification codes / 35D: Slot machine lever)
• KEMO SABE / SMOOCHED (67A: The Lone Ranger, to Tonto / 63D: Gave a big kiss)
• MOOSE MEAT / "MAKE IT MOO" (91A: Steak option in northern Canada / 55D: Add milk to a customer's coffee, in diner lingo)
• HONEYMOON SUITE / THE MOON (97A: Newlyweds' booking / 84D: This puzzle's subject)
• "I CAN'T GO ON" / HIRED GOON (88A: Weary cry / 53D: Mob enforcer)
• LONDONER / SONORITY (64A: Sherlock Holmes, e.g. / 58D: Feature of James Earl Jones's voice)
• WAR SONG / INN (40A: "Battle Hymn of the Republic," for one / 31D: Stopover)

Word of the Day: ELBRUS (39D: Europe's highest volcano) —

Mount Elbrus is the highest mountain in Russia and Europe. It is a dormant volcano rising 5,642 m (18,510 ft) above sea level, and is the highest stratovolcano in the supercontinent of Eurasia, as well as the tenth-most prominent peak in the world. It is situated in the southern Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the western extension of Ciscaucasia, and is the highest peak of the Caucasus Mountains.

Elbrus has two summits, both of which are dormant volcanic domes. The taller, western summit is 5,642 metres (18,510 ft); the eastern summit is 5,621 metres (18,442 ft). (wikipedia)

• • •

I should give this puzzle its due. I tend not to like puzzles with elaborate visual gimmicks, as they usually result in a solving experience that is slightly to very painful. Everything bends to the will of the gimmick, and the puzzle itself (the fill quality, the overall enjoyability) tends to suffer. The stunt is a monster and makes the actual solving experience bad—that is my general experience, more or less, to varying degrees. And today's puzzle isn't really an exception—I got the theme gimmick, all of it, early, so most of what I remember has nothing to do with the unfolding of the theme gimmick and everything to do with the weirdo answers that pepper the grid (more on those later). There is so much ink on my printed-out grid, and hardly any of it is directly related to the theme, which is, I have to say (finally, after all that) impressive. I mean, the moon does its waxing and waning thing in a very clever way, with "MOON" waxing from "M" to "MOON" and the waning from "MOON" to "N"; it wanes from the front, so every phase actually looks different (i.e. every square has different letters in it). The visual representation of the phases, with the EARTH at the center, that is all very nice. Not so huge a fan of the THE in THE [MOON]—I had "MOON" and thought "what could possibly go in front of it?" ... only to have the answer be a mere definite article. Total thud. But generally, everything inside and including the circled squares = good. 

The theme gets weaker as it tries to cram in theme answers. It probably should've stopped at "IT'S JUST A PHASE." That's the perfect revealer, and the only one the puzzle really needs. ROUND TRIP is OK but meh. And then there's ... man, I can barely look at it ... sigh ... and then there's GOING FULL CIRCLE. How do I say this? To put it bluntly: that is ... not the phrase. GOING FULL CIRCLE, not a thing. Or, rather, perhaps a thing, but a very off-brand, weak thing. Things do not go full circle. They come full circle. Google it. ["Come full circle"] = 4.53 million results. ["Go full circle"] = ... [drum roll] ... 151K. So ["Go full circle"] gets roughly 3% (!?) of the number of hits that ["Come full circle"] gets. COMES FULL CIRCLE would have fit! It would've been perfect here. The choice of GOING FULL CIRCLE is baffling. The most tin-eared thing I've seen in the puzzle in a while (and I saw ACNED just yesterday!). Jarring. Bizarre.

The fill is generally OK, but there are a number of answers that clanked for me, ranging from the ugly to the obscure. DOASET was the first thing that made me visibly wince (25A: Complete some reps). Big EAT A SANDWICH energy on that one, but less bold than EAT A SANDWICH, so ... worse, somehow. Both MOO answers are kind of contrived, but "MAKE IT MOO" is painfully so (55D: Add milk to a customer's coffee, in diner lingo) ("diner lingo" always feels largely fictional; I've spent a lot of time in diners and never heard any of it). Then we get into what, for me, was a fairly lengthy list of "what the hell?" answers today, starting with the ELLEN (who?) / STEENBOK (what?) crossing (109A: ___ Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state / 87D: Horned antelope of southern Africa). As my wife said while she was solving, "If the -bok is not a springbok, I have no idea." Then there's ELBRUS ... I ... I just ... yeah, absolutely no clue. If it's an important European mountain, especially in six letters or less, I figure the crossword would've told me about it by now. But do you know when the last time was that ELBRUS appeared in the NYTXW? Answer: not in my solving lifetime. In fact, not in my lifetime lifetime. It last appeared in one of Margaret Farrar's puzzles back in 1957. Needless to say, I needed every cross there. Next, we have MICRODOT, which is ... a "photo?" (73A: Millimeter-wide photo used for conveying secret messages). That one eluded me (though it's been in the NYTXW a few times before—roughly once a decade since the Shortz Era began). And then there's the "Bake Off" winner (93A: Celebrity chef Hussain who won "The Great British Bake Off"). Man, I watch that show and I still had absolutely no idea. There are too many seasons, too many winners, dear lord, my brain has no room for this stuff. [Note: while I was solving, I hated EYEBALL IT, but I have since (in the past half hour or so?) come to like it, maybe even more than like it (79D: Guesstimate). Sometimes stuff just grows on you. Quickly].

NADIYA was particularly rough for me, as I had -ADIYA and no idea what the cross was supposed to be. I thought I was staring down a Natick at LI-EDOUT / -ADIYA—my very last square. I ran the alphabet to make LI-EDOUT work (81D: Nearly succeeded ... but there's a catch!). LIVED OUT? No, it's LINED OUT, which I only accepted because NADIYA really felt right. See, the problem is that the clue for LINED OUT, in trying to be clever, ends up being wrong and bad (the eternal risk of attempted cleverness). There is nothing about a line-out (in baseball) that suggests "Nearly succeeded." Zero. Nothing. Yes, the implication is that you have hit the ball hard (or hardish), but people line-out into easy, uneventful outs all the time. Lots of liners are pretty soft, actually, or else are hit directly at a defender, in which case no, you did not "nearly succeed." You merely put the ball in play. And then quickly went back to the dugout. I get that the puzzlemakers really, Really wanted that "catch" pun in "... but there's a catch!" It's a good pun! But it falsifies the clue in order to make it "work." So it doesn't work. 

Bullets:

• 40A: "Battle Hymn of the Republic," for one (WAR SONG) — such a weird answer. Weird because it never appeared in a puzzle until 2023, where it was clued via "Over There" (WWI). I guess those are songs associated with wars ("Battle Hymn" with the Civil War), but I did not know there was a category of song called WAR SONG. If it was a thing, you'd think it would've appeared in puzzles back ... well, closer to the wars those songs are associated with. The twentieth century, anyway. FIGHT SONG, yes. WAR SONG, I dunno.
• 53A: Montreal hockey player, to fans (HAB) — I learned this from crosswords. And yet I apparently partially unlearned it, because I had -AB and wanted only TAB and FAB but didn't really want either, so had to run the alphabet. To my very small credit, when I hit "H," I knew I'd hit it. HAB is short for "Habitants," early French settlers in Québec.
• 28A: Do-to-do delivery? (OCTAVE) — excellent clue ("do" is a musical note here, as in "do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do")
• 63A: Hair-lightening brand (SUN-IN) — I haven't thought about this brand since the 80s—except when the puzzle has reminded me (three times now since I started blogging). If I hadn't known SUN-IN, I could easily have screwed up ELBRUS. If the pattern in S-NIN, then SUN-IN seems the obvious choice, but only if you are parsing it correctly (as two words). If not ... seems like any vowel could go there (assuming you didn't know ELBRUS, which I'm guessing you probably didn't) (not you, you're a genius, obviously—I'm talking to the other people).  I nominate this ad for "Worst Use of Rap in a TV Commercial, Ever":

• 20D: Roman numeral that anagrams to part of the eye (DLI) — Random Roman numerals (RRNs) are terrible, obviously, but I guess this is slightly more fun than [551, in Old Rome] and much more gettable than [Year of Jordanes's Origin and History of the Goths], say.
• 64A: Sherlock Holmes, e.g. (LONDONER) — That "ON" square was where I first realized what was going on with the theme. I was a little thrown, since I already had one circled square filled, and it held just one letter. But LONDONER would not be denied, and suddenly I realized "oh, the circled squares are parts of the word "MOON"! Again, a nice aha moment, though it came very early and made all the circled squares very easy to fill in:

• 116A: "___ Affaire de Femmes" (1988 French classic) ("UNE") — easy enough to infer, but what the heck is this "classic"? Are there "classics" from 1988 now? Seems ... too recent. [looks it up] Oh, hey, it's a Claude Chabrol film (translated in its US release as Story of Women) starring Isabel Huppert—one of my favorite actresses and biggest movie crushes. It's the true story of a woman guillotined in 1943 for performing abortions. Wow, definitely one of those "glad to learn something from the puzzle" situations. Might watch this soon. I don't think I've ever seen a Chabrol picture (???!). I've probably seen a dozen or so Huppert movies. The Trout (1982), White Material (2009), Coup de Torchon (1981), Amour (2012), and Amateur (1995) are among my favorites. Amateur completely broke my brain in the mid-90s. I think it was the first VHS tape I ever bought.  I played the soundtrack nonstop. It's the movie that made me fall in love with Huppert, which is semi-hilarious, as she plays an ex-nun with a terrible haircut. Didn't matter. I was absolutely done for. God bless you, Hal Hartley.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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