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

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