Japanese game using pentagonal pieces / SAT 11-30-24 / Holiday honoring Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of fortune / End result of a starter / One of 11 for Big Ben / Fired (up), in old slang / Nova preceder / The so-called "heart of the scorpion" in the night sky / Painting technique in which the artist applies new paint atop a just-painted layer / Color akin to amarillo / Cart for the Budweiser Clydesdales, e.g. / Jack ___, Best Supporting Actor nominee for 1940's "The Great Dictator"

Constructor: Oliver Goodridge and Juan Garavito

Relative difficulty: Very Easy (though I finished with an error 😕)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DIWALI (14D: Holiday honoring Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of fortune) —

Diwali (English: /dɪˈwɑːliː/), also called Deepavali (IAST: Dīpāvalī) or Deepawali (IAST: Dīpāwalī), is the Hindu festival of lights, with variations celebrated in other Indian religions such as Jainism and Sikhism. It symbolises the spiritual victory of Dharma over Adharma, light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Diwali is celebrated during the Hindu lunisolar months of Ashvin (according to the amanta tradition) and Kartika—between around mid-September and mid-November. The celebrations generally last five or six days.

Diwali is connected to various religious events, deities and personalities, such as being the day Rama returned to his kingdom in Ayodhya with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana after defeating the demon king Ravana. It is also widely associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and Ganesha, the god of wisdom and the remover of obstacles. Other regional traditions connect the holiday to Vishnu, Krishna, Durga, Shiva, Kali, Hanuman, Kubera, Yama, Yami, Dhanvantari, or Vishvakarman. [...] 

Diwali is also a major cultural event for the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain diaspora. The main day of the festival of Diwali (the day of Lakshmi Puja) is an official holiday in Fiji, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and in some US states. (wikipedia)

• • •

Don't know when I've done a Saturday puzzle so fast. Should've been a Friday (way way easier than yesterday's puzzle), but even on Friday, this thing would've played easy. Do you have any idea how fast ...

... I rounded ...

... the bases ...

... on this one?

Those long answers around the perimeter of the puzzle, while truly gorgeous, also made the puzzle ridiculously easy. You could pick most of them up from just a few letters, and once you picked one pair up, you had access to a whole other quadrant on the other side of the grid. And so on. And so on. I got the long Downs on the west side of the puzzle Without Ever Looking At Either Clue—I was basically trying to slow myself down by working short crosses rather than just looking at the longer clues, but the short crosses ended up being so easy that by the time I looked at either of them, I had "HEY BATTER BA-" and "HOMEMADE BR- already in place. Would've loved this on a Friday. And it's still good today. Just ... they really flipped the Friday/Saturday this week, and the misplacement was jarring, both times.

["She had a blind DATE WITH DESTINY"]

But wait! I left out one problem. Largely because I never saw the problem until I was finished. "Finished." Do you see the problem? I've got a wrong square in the last three grid screenshots (above). When I "finished" and didn't get the "Congratulations" message, I audibly "ugh"'d and then went searching. And searching. I went over the whole grid and then went straight to the answers I was least sure about, like SHOGI (a game I'd forgotten existed) (42A: Japanese game using pentagonal pieces) and ANTARES (a star of whose spelling I was uncertain) (12D: The so-called "heart of the scorpion" in the night sky). Never heard of WET ON WET, but all the crosses seemed to check (33A: Painting technique in which the artist applies new paint atop a just-painted layer). And finally I went back to DINALI. Maybe I'd misspelled the holiday. [Checks crosses ... checks crosses ... ] "Oh F--- Me, it's that stupid stupid quote clue, isn't it! [infinite swearing]." Man I hate fill-in-the-blank quotation clues. On any day, in any circumstance. Despise them. I'm always like "how the hell should I know what this stupid quote is?!" I hate quotations because there's a smug self-importance about them, a sense that they're supposed to be WEIGHTY, but they're always stuff you'd see in a Hallmark card or else stuck to a refrigerator door or office cubicle—something faux-inspirational and corny. Which this Emerson quote certainly is. "Nature always WEARS the colors of the spirit"??! Uh, no. It absolutely does not. I think they have an actual term for how wrong that is. It's called the "pathetic fallacy." Annnnnnyway, not DINALI but DIWALI. After I changed it and got the "Congratulations" message, I was so mad at myself. Why did DINALI sound so right? Isn't DINALI ... something? After a few seconds of musing, I had a sad, belated "aha"—DENALI. That's what I'd been thinking of—the mountain formerly known as Mt. McKinley. Oof. So disappointing to end things this way. Half mad at my own clumsy memory, and half mad at all quotation clues, everywhere, through all time. Why wouldn't Nature NEAR the colors of the spirit? Or TEAR them? Or BEAR them? Or FEAR them? Or HEAR them? Or even REAR or SEAR them, for ****'s sake?  

So that square killed me, obviously. Which was a real surprise kill, since, as I say, I finished quickly and triumphantly. Deadly assassin, that square. As for the rest of the grid, resistance was minimal. Spelling ANTAR-S and remembering SHOGI at all, piecing together WET ON WET, those took a little thought, as I said above. I know the phrase "petite AMIE" ("girlfriend"), but still needed many crosses to see it. The hardest bit to work out (not actually hard) was probably the OAKIE / STOREY bit. I misremembered the actor as Jack OATES (probably thinking of Warren OATES). This left me wondering what Big Ben could possibly have 11 of. Something ending in -RSY. Bah. Eventually, though, I remembered that the actor was OAKEY ... only I spelled it like that at first, which didn't help with the Big Ben clue at all. Tried a new spelling (the correct spelling, OAKIE), and saw STOREY immediately. I don't think of clock towers as having STOREYs. Ya got me there. Elsewhere, no. You did not get me. Piece of cake. Until the fatal DINALI finale. 

So far, I've focused on my own successes and stumblings, but I want to make sure I emphasize how truly beautiful the long perimeter answers are on this thing. The top two marquee answers are about as good a side-by-side pair as I've seen. "HERE'S A THOUGHT ... DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?" Those two set a fun tone that would continue all the way around the grid. I love that "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?" is followed (directly underneath) by "I'M BAD." Love the comical vanity. Love the DATE WITH DESTINY that ironically collides smack into "THIS ISN'T WORKING." Love the jaded, world-weary voice in the NE going "SO WHAT?" and "WOW ME!" Well, the puzzle did wow me. Before it humiliated me with the damn "W" square, it wowed me. Are there some infelicities? Perhaps. HUHS in the plural is unfortunate. That ÉTÉS / ABBRS / IDEATES section is less than lovely. The only place I've ever seen anyone IDEATE is in crosswords. Seriously, a word that would not exist without the generous support of Big Crossword. And running Jack OAKIE into a British spelling of "story" is maybe not the puzzle's finest hour. But still, when your marquees are this good, little blemishes here and there really don't mean a thing.

Bullets:

• 18A: Export from Jamaica (SKA) — my condolences to everyone who confidently wrote in RUM
• 35A: Longtime candy company based in San Francisco (SEE'S) — since I was born in San Francisco and grew up in Fresno, this company is very, very familiar to me. I know they're in the Denver airport. Not sure if they're farther east than that. I very much associate the candy with my childhood, with home, with California. Haven't seen them much (if at all) since I moved to Michigan and then New York.
• 36A: Color akin to amarillo (ORO) — "amarillo" is Sp. for "yellow." ORO, of course, is "gold."

• 41A: Fired (up), in old slang (HET) — LOL yes, I know this expression, how do I know this expression? Is HET an abbr. form of "heated"? Yes, merriam webster dot com says "dialect past of heat." Looks like this "old slang" is still in use (examples at the merriam-webster website include quotations from CNN and New York Times, both from the 2020s)
• 48A: Nearly every third baseman and shortstop in M.L.B. history (RIGHTY) — since most infield throws are to first, and it's easier / more natural to throw across your body, particularly if your momentum is taking you away from first, as it often is for a shortstop.
• 5D: Attacked, as a castle (STORMED) — have fun storming the castle!

• 11D: End result of a starter (HOMEMADE BREAD) — if you got into breadmaking during COVID (or any time), then you probably made your own sourdough starter, a "live fermented culture of fresh flour and water," which combines with the natural yeasts in the environment to form a leavening agent.
• 39D: Nova preceder (BOSSA) — So, not the exploding star, but just the word "nova," preceded by BOSSA in the musical term "BOSSA nova."

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook]

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Sautéed-and-simmered Japanese dish / FRI 11-29-24 / Ghanaian author ___ Kwei Armah / Half of a noted arcade pair / Light lager variety, casually / Mohawk culture / XXX, in a way / Hit podcast beginning in 2014 / Mystic associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls /

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller and Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (very challenging up top, very easy down below)

THEME: none, for the most part — there's a little two-clue Beauty and the Beast "joke" in the middle of the grid, but I wouldn't call it a "theme"

Word of the Day: DAVE & Busters (56D: Half of a noted arcade pair) —

Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc. (stylized in all caps) is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's location has a full-service restaurant, full bar, and a video arcade; the latter of which is known as the "Million Dollar Midway". As of September 2023, the company currently has a total of 156 locations in the United States, with two in Puerto Rico and two in Canada. // In 1982, David "Dave" Corriveau (1951-2015) and James "Buster" Corley (1951-2023) opened the first Dave & Buster’s in Dallas. (wikipedia)

• • •

This wasn't for me. I don't know if it's a food hangover or what, but I could barely get started on this grid in the N/NW. The shape of that corner is such that there are no short crosses at the front ends of the longer answers, to help you get started, and the first short cross I found and tried was a name I'd never heard of (not the answer, not the two name parts in the clue, nothing) (4D: Ghanaian author ___ Kwei Armah). Yes, I should know more about world literature, but still, I won't be anywhere near alone in not knowing that name today. I went through all the short crosses up top and the only things I had, even semi-confidently, were TOMB and TWO (which I also thought might be VEE). I thought TEE UP might work at 11D: Begin a hole, but I also thought DRIVE seemed plausible; anyway, TEE OFF seemed like a much better answer for that clue than TEE UP. So I left it. And eventually I left that corner altogether—for the northeast, where I finally got some real traction with RNS, EAU, AMP. Once again, it's the names that were the main problem for me today; that, and what seemed like Saturday-level cluing all over the place. As for names, "NO TIME TO DIE" meant nothing to me except as some hackneyed phrase anyone might've used at any point in history for any crime- or adventure-related anything (17A: Bond theme song that won an Academy Award in 2022). AYI, no way, PATON I know as an author, not as an "Anti-apartheid activist," and then KINPIRA, LOL, that answer was just letters to me. First I've ever seen such a "dish" (43D: Sautéed-and-simmered Japanese dish). 

There were other names I knew (-ish) but needed crosses to get to (speaking of CROSSES, yeesh, that clue (2D: XXX, in a way)—I'm not British, this isn't a British paper, so we don't call it "Noughts & CROSSES"—we call it "tic tac toe") (I suppose you could also argue that "X" represents "cross" in road signs, e.g. "Ped Xing"—either way, that clue was ???). I saw Beauty and the Beast once 30+ years ago, so LUMIÈRE eventually came back to me, but he wasn't an instant get. And I stared at -AVE for more than a second before running the alphabet, hitting "D" for DAVE, and recalling that yes, I had seen many ads for a place called DAVE & Busters that looked like the awfulest place on earth. A place designed to keep me out. Like a Chuck E. Cheese for grown-ups, which is to say, like some place in hell—one of the noisier, more chaotic rings ... maybe level three (gluttons) or four (hoarders/spenders)?  Anyway, as I said, this puzzle was simply not for me. Over and over, just outside my frame of reference.

The proper nounification of the grid continues to run amok here, with a bunch of names, including at least a couple of names that didn't need to be names at all. When your grid is already choked with names, why that clue on ARM? (60A: "The ___ of the Starfish" (1965 sequel to "A Wrinkle in Time")). Why that clue on SERIAL? (48D: Hit podcast beginning in 2014). Either clue would be OK in a grid that wasn't already awash in names. The editor should have a greater sense of balance. The geographical names don't rankle nearly so much, since they seem equally available to all solvers. Not exclusionary. Anyway, the names (some of which I knew, more of which I didn't) distracted from some of the grid's finer points. The central Beauty and the Beast cross is cute, and those wide-open NW and SE corners are not bad, especially the Acrosses. And as hard as the top of this puzzle was for me, the bottom was easy. At times, very easy. Really uneven difficulty on the puzzle overall, with NW running like a Saturday, NE like a proper Friday, SE more like a Wednesday (KINPIRA notwithstanding), and SW like a Monday (done in seconds—never even saw the clues on ARM or RIA). In short, liked the Acrosses in the NW and SE, liked the Beauty and the Beast conceit, but didn't really groove on the much of the connective tissue, which I found sloggy, namey, oddly clued. The whole experience was less whoosh-whoosh than tromp-tromp-tromp. 

Bullet points:

• 21A: Chemistry research centers? (NUCLEI) — I learned about the components of cells in Biology, not Chemistry, but the clue is still kind of cute. (Forgot there are two kinds of NUCLEI—cellular (which I was thinking of) and atomic (which the clue was referring to))
• 43D: Sautéed-and-simmered Japanese dish (KINPIRA) — I'm writing a note about this in the hopes that it helps me remember (this worked once with BIRYANI, which you can also spell BIRIYANI; see, I remembered that too!):

Kinpira (金平) is a Japanese side dish, usually made of root vegetables that have been sautéed and simmered. The most common variety is kinpira gobō, or braised burdock root. Other vegetables used include carrots, lotus root; skins of squash such as kabocha, mushrooms or broccoli; and seaweeds such as arame and hijiki. Other foods including tofu, capsicums, wheat gluten (namafu); chicken thigh, pork, and beef. // The simmering sauce is made up of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and chili peppers. // Kinpira is named after the son of Kintarō, a Japanese folk hero. (!?) (wikipedia)

• 34A: Mystic associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls (ESSENE) — ancient answer that is also ancient crosswordese. All super-common letters. A real crutch. If you've never encountered the ESSENEs before, commit that name to memory, you'll see it again. Its convenient letters ensure that it will show up in grids, maybe not frequently, but forever and ever.
• 42A: They might be down for a ski trip (PARKAS) — A "down" pun clue. "Down" here = insulation provided by goose (or other waterfowl) feathers.
• 57A: Ones receiving free room and board, for short (RAS) — Resident Assistants. Student overseers of college dormitories. 
• 9D: Bore (HAD) — think "___ children"
• 12D: One whose hard work is showing? (REALTOR) — They "show" properties. 
• 25A: Light lager variety, casually (PILS) — short for "pilsner." I guess it's reasonably common among beer aficionados. Seems like a horrible cute-ified abbrev. to let loose on the grid, but someone debuted it in 2023 so now you're gonna see it forever.
• 39D: Piece of a children's book, perhaps (FLAP) — totally inscrutable to me. I was picturing illustrations, pop-up features, maybe tactile features like in Pat the Bunny, but FLAP, well, you got me there. I'm sure there are, in fact, FLAPs in children's books—you lift them, you find things, etc.—but that's not really a front-of-the-brain "piece of a children's book" for me.
• 31A: Mohawk culture (PUNK) — really thought this was going to have a Native American frame of reference, but then I live near Mohawk country. But the "Mohawk" in question here is the haircut, which is iconically associated with PUNK rock "culture."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Jazz great Baker / THU 11-28-24 / Nutrient-rich soil component / Digital newsletter platform / French, in England / British designer Crawford awarded a C.B.E. in 2021 / Mythological creature with origins on Sherpa folklore / Examine in great detail, as a text / '90s rapper with the hit "Still Not a Player"

Constructor: Ricky J. Sirois

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Stacks! — four Down answers = ___STACK, represented in the grid by their consecutive rebus squares forming a literal "stack" of the relevant word:

Theme answers:

• [SUB][SUB][SUB] (i.e. Substack) (14D: Digital newsletter platform)
• [SUB]ZERO (14A: Negative)
• [SUB]STANTIVE (17A: Considerable)
• TURKEY [SUB] (19A: Common order at a hoagie shop)
• [SHORT][SHORT][SHORT] (i.e. short stack) (34D: Pancake order)
• [SHORT] IRON (34A: 8 or 9, in a golf bag)
• RUNS [SHORT] (36A: Doesn't have enough)
• STOP [SHORT] (40A: Slam on the brakes)
• [HAY][HAY][HAY] (i.e. haystack) (35D: Place to find a needle, maybe)
• [HAY]RIDE (35A: Haunted ___ (Halloween activity))
• [HAY]SEED (39A: Bumpkin)
• MADE [HAY] (41A: Capitalized on an opportunity)
• [SMOKE][SMOKE][SMOKE] (i.e. smokestack) (54D: Factory chimney)
• [SMOKE]SCREEN (54A: Ruse designed to disguise)
• GOES UP IN [SMOKE] (57A: Amounts to nothing, as a plan)
• BUM A [SMOKE] (62A: Ask for someone else's cig)

Word of the Day: BIG PUN (45D: '90s rapper with the hit "Still Not a Player") —

Christopher Lee Rios (November 10, 1971 - February 7, 2000), better known by his stage name Big Pun (short for Big Punisher), was an American rapper. Emerging from the underground hip hop scene in the Bronx, he came to prominence upon discovery by fellow Bronx rapper Fat Joe, and thereafter guest appeared on his 1995 album Jealous One's Envy.

Big Pun signed with Fat Joe's label, Terror Squad Productions and Loud Records in 1997 to release his debut studio album, Capital Punishment (1998) the following year. Met with critical acclaim and commercial success, the album earned a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards, peaked at number five on the Billboard 200, and became the first hip hop recording by a Latino solo act to receive platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). His second album, Yeeeah Baby (2000) peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, although Pun died two months before its release. (wikipedia)

• • •

Happy Thanksgiving. Best holiday by a mile. Please don't call it "Turkey Day," which is blasphemy. Not everything has to be cute-ified. Some things are sacred. Also, not everyone eats Turkey. Although I do. And I will. Soon. With mashed TATERs, though again, why? Not everything has to be cute-ified. Just speak like a grown-up. They're "potatoes." TATER should only be used when preceding "TOTS." Or when someone hits a home run (which is the other "way" a TATER might be mashed) (27A: It might be mashed (in more ways than one!)). Wherever you are, whoever you are, even if you say things like "Turkey Day" and "mashed TATERs," I hope you are safe and warm and with people you love, and that you have many things to be thankful for. I'm thankful for Clare, who graciously filled in for me not once but twice, so that I can enjoy my birthday and sleep in for a couple days (though my body is on such a ruthlessly regular schedule that I pretty much woke up at 3:45AM anyway, though yesterday I lay there til a little after 4, much to the cats' consternation) (Alfie's "get up" routine involves crying and literally banging on windows, whereas Ida just walks all over you while purring loudly; I much prefer Ida's way, as it involves at least the facsimile of affection) (wow, that's a lot of parenthetical comments in a row) (speaking of "in a row"...). 

IN A STACK! I really enjoyed this theme, though it ended up being very easy to pick up, and once picked up, very easy to find and knock down. The first "stack" I encountered wouldn't stack right. I could see I was dealing with a rebus, and I wanted STOP [SHORT], but I also wanted RUNS [OUT], and I had no idea what kind of IRON I was dealing with in that golf clue, so I had [blank] over [OUT] over [SHORT]. Not intelligible. I'm realizing now that I didn't even look at the Down clue there. Bizarre. If I'd seen 34D: Pancake order, then [SHORT] stack would almost certainly have occurred to me right there. As it was, I went back to the SUB at the end of TURKEY [SUB] and I read *that* Down clue (14D: Digital newsletter platform), immediately knew it was [SUB]stack, then went back to the pancake clue and [SHORT]ed all those squares. Half the stacks in place, lightning quick. Then I thought "I wonder if we'll see a "smoke" stack. "Hay," I did not anticipate, though I should have. This was all happening very, very fast. So fast I never even saw some of the stuff I would not have known, or would have struggled with, like ILSE, who? That name was wonderfully absent from grids for over a decade, until it got reintroduced as a different "designer" ([Danish shoe designer Jacobsen]) in 2023, and now here it is again. Send it back to oblivion. We don't need another four-letter crosswordese name. All full up! Come back in 2028, or 2035. Or never. There aren't any ILSEs famous enough to justify crossword inclusion, though ILSE Crawford is better than ILSE Jacobsen, who doesn't even have an English-language wikipedia page. ARNE Jacobsen has a SUBSTANTIVE English-language wikipedia page, and are you eager to see him in the grid? You are not. Case closed. Au revoir, ILSE. As Bogart says in that famous Bogart movie, Key LARGO, "We'll always have Paris." [please send indignant corrections to ...]

ILSE was the worst of the fill, which ran a little rough. There are more ODISTS in crosswords than ever were or will be in real life. One texting abbr. is OK, two is too much, IMO (58D: Qualifying abbreviation). I could do without OMA DAE ACER ABA, but that stuff is all pretty ordinary (if unlovely). Mostly, the fill holds up, and you get a couple of nice longer phrases with international flair in the bargain (AMERICANOS, PIED-À-TERRE). The stack that yields the best crosses by far is the [SMOKE] stack. [SMOKE]SCREEN and GOES UP IN [SMOKE] are both vibrant and sparkly, and while BUM A [SMOKE] feels like a relative of "EAT A SANDWICH," it's a way more coherent phrase, so I'll allow it. Not only that, I like it. I quit smoking [checks watch] thirty-three years ago, but I do occasionally miss it. I actually like the smell (though only if it dissipates quickly—indoors, it would soon become unbearable). And you can look cool while smoking, which you absolutely cannot while vaping. No one, not a solitary person, has ever looked cool vaping. This is its major drawback, IMO. 


No trouble spots for me today. I am the right age to know BIG PUN, which, after ILSE, is the only name I can see giving people real trouble today. ESTES Park is right near where my mom and sister live, and it's been in puzzles a lot, so it's second nature to me, but if it's not second nature to you, then I imagine the ESTES/ILSE cross wasn't too pleasant. I can never precisely remember the German term for [Grammy] (ODA? OPA?), but the crosses there were a cinch (OMA!). I had SUBSTANTIAL before SUBSTANTIVE, which will likely be a common hiccup today. Had some trouble getting from [Uprightness] to HONOR, and a little more trouble getting from 8D: Delivery person? to ORATOR. I had the "O" and thought, "O ... B/GYN ... O? ... was its name-O?" Like maybe they were calling them "OB/GYNOs" now, slangily. I think GYNO alone can be slang (for "gynecologist"), but after "OB" ... I haven't heard that. And anyway, it was wrong. Wrong "delivery." 

Bullets:

• 65A: French, in England (SNOG) — clever misdirection here (using "French" as a verb meaning "kiss"). 
• 6D: Abbr. in a birth announcement (OZS) — as in "10 lbs 6 OZS" (which was the figure in my own "birth announcement," continued belated happy birthday to me)

[Beauty and the BAD KITTY]

• 46D: Pitcher for the reds? (CARAFE) — another good clue. Not hard, but clever (in case you somehow don't know, the Reds are a Major League Baseball team—more baseball-based humor for you on this Footballiest of Days)

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Maori ceremonial dance / WED 11-27-24 / Singer known as the "Queen of Tejano Music" / Good-looking couple? / Possesses a certain je ne sais quoi

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare (again)! You thought you were rid of me for a month, but I’m actually back to cover the last Wednesday of November, too. Let’s all collectively wish Rex a happy (now belated) birthday! And let’s also just forget I signed off yesterday by saying I’d see everyone in December and already wished people a happy Thanksgiving. We’ll just apply that all to this write-up, instead. The peril of doing these posts back-to-back is that I don’t have anything exciting to tell you about my sports teams, and I know how much you all look forward to that. 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Jill Singer

Relative difficulty: Medium-challenging (for a Wednesday)

THEME: THE THREE SISTERS — (39A: Corn, beans and squash, in Mesoamerican tradition ... or a hint to six answers in this puzzle) — the theme answers are two groups of three famous sisters

Theme answers:

• ANNE (5A: Member of an 1800s literary family) 
• CHARLOTTE (17A: Member of an 1800s literary family) 
• EMILY (18A: Member of an 1800s literary family) 
• KOURTNEY (45A: Member of a 2000s showbiz family) 
• KIM (50A: Member of a 2000s showbiz family) 
• KHLOE (61A: Member of a 2000s showbiz family)

Word of the Day: H MART (3D: "Crying in ___," best-selling memoir of 2021)) —

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir is a 2021 memoir by Michelle Zauner, singer and guitarist of the musical project Japanese Breakfast. It is her debut book, published on April 20, 2021, by Alfred A. Knopf. It is an expansion of Zauner's essay of the same name which was published in The New Yorker on August 20, 2018. The title mentions H Mart, a North American supermarket chain that specializes in Korean and other Asian products. After Zauner's mother Chongmi died of pancreatic cancer in October 2014, Zauner frequently made trips to H Mart, an experience she chronicled in her New Yorker essay and in "Real Life: Love, Loss and Kimchi" which won Glamour Magazine's 11th essay contest. (Wiki)

• • •

The idea of THE THREE SISTERS (39A) is clever — as long as you’re OK with the Bronte and Kardashian sisters being put on the same level. (I’m not.) Basically, I like how the groupings are structured and that the puzzle focuses on women. And it’s executed well. But… the Kardashian sisters in the puzzle? Really? I get that the idea was to have an older reference juxtaposed with a more modern one — and there are fewer famous trios of sisters than you might imagine — but it just felt wrong to have these two families together. As much as I hate “Wuthering Heights,” I was more than happy to see EMILY Bronte (18A) in the puzzle but groaned when I realized the puzzle was going to make me put in each Kardashian sister. One family had talent! Contributed to society! Wrote some of the best books in literary history! The other… 

If you can get past the Kardashian thing, there were a number of points to like about the puzzle. In particular, I enjoyed ROOT WORDS (63A: Linguistic "stems"), ERSATZ (30D: Fake), and GATEAU (25D: Patisserie purchase). I loved TORTOISES (37A: Symbols of longevity in Chinese iconography) and how the answer was clued. Having ICU (31A: Hospital dept. that sounds like a sentence), indicating the sentence “I see you,” crossing I SEE (31D: “Understood”) was clever. There was a thread in the puzzle of words in different languages, which I rather enjoyed — BEL ESPRIT (66A) (French), ERSATZ (30D) (German), GATEAU (25D) (French), NOEL (58D) (French), EIRE (4D) (Gaelic), SAN (48A) (Spanish), OLE (64D) (Spanish), and HAKA (40D) (Maori). The foreign words did make things slightly more challenging in spots. I’m glad Anthony DOERR (29D: Pulitzer-winning novelist) is in the puzzle — he’s the author of “All the Light We Cannot See,” which is a fantastic book, and “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” which pales only in comparison with the perfection of the former. 

This puzzle was so very heavy on proper nouns. I mentioned the proper nouns yesterday because there seemed to be a fair number. But today? Wow! I counted 26 in this puzzle. I mean you have to have the six names of the sisters, but even just starting the puzzle (going with the downs), you have five proper nouns in a row (ACCRA, COHEN, H MART, EIRE, and CLARA). CLARA Schumann (15D) was one I didn’t know (even though she’s *so* close to having the perfect name). She was a German pianist and composer and was apparently one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era (at least according to Wikipedia). 

My struggle in the puzzle mainly came with BEL ESPRIT (66A: Clever person), which is a term I’ve just never heard before, and the literal translation, “pretty spirit,” doesn’t really suggest a clever person. That was atop SLED (68A: Flexible Flyer, for one), which was another challenging one for me because I’d never heard of a Flexible Flyer (though in hindsight the clue makes sense). Combine those difficulties with 46D: Fit together, where I tried to put “nestle” instead of NESTED, and I spent some precious time working that section out. I wish we didn’t need to have THE SAHARA (42A: Home to horned vipers and deathstalker scorpions), which looks especially clunky right on top of THE THREE SISTERS (39A) (even if the construction may have been deliberate). My last little gripe is with the clue for TYPE O (67A: Universal donor's classification) because O-negative is the universal donor. O-positive is not.

Misc.:

• The lyrics of “Over the Rainbow” (21D) made me think about the movie “Wicked” and its press tour. So here’s your daily reminder to really hold space for the lyrics to “Defying Gravity” today. (And if you don’t know what I mean, congrats on not being chronically online. You can see what I’m talking about here, which has been all over my social media feeds and is too iconic not to share. Holding hands is out — holding pointer fingers is in.) 
• I tried to close my window by only hitting ESC (20A: Key to close a window), but it didn’t work. I suppose that, these days, it needs to be used in combination with another key. 
• I’ve always been partial to TORTOISEs and turtles — did you know there’s a tortoise named Jonathan who hatched in 1832 who’s still alive?! And there are several mythologies that feature the idea of a turtle carrying the world on their back (either supporting or containing it), which is an idea I love.
• If you somehow managed to miss the HAKA (40D: Maori ceremonial dance) being performed in the New Zealand Parliament by MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to protest and halt a bill being introduced, you must watch this powerful video. 
• My worlds collided a bit with "Crying in H MART" and BTS. The author was really excited when a BTS member, Jungkook, held up the book during a livestream, and she’s also said she’d love to cast another BTS member, RM, in the film adaptation! 

And that’s all from me!

Signed, Clare Carroll, who really won’t be back now until December (probably)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Feminine side, in Jungian psychology / TUES 11-26-24 / Part of a ski that cuts into the snow / "Terrible" stage of toddlerhood / Mover's tote

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare, back for the last Tuesday in November. We got our first real taste of winter here in D.C. last week when it briefly snowed; it was so chilly one day that I even decided to Metro instead of bike (which takes a lot). I’ve been enjoying my sports — yay, Liverpool at the top of the table by eight points; maybe yay on my Steelers, whose quality varies week to week; almost yay to the Washington Spirit, who made it to the NWSL championship but lost to the Orlando Pride last weekend; and big yay to the Warriors, who’ve had a great start to the season!

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Killian Olson

Relative difficulty: Pretty easy for a Tuesday

THEME: AUTO FILLED — (58A: Completed without manual input, as an online form … or a description of this puzzle's shaded squares) — The shaded squares of each theme answer spell out a car (or “auto”) brand

Theme answers:

• OUT OF ORDER (16A: Not currently functioning) 
• CONCRETE SLAB (22A: Section of a sidewalk) 
• MARATHON DANCERS (35A: Participants in an endurance competition set to music) 
• EGG MCMUFFINS (46A: Sandwiches that kick-started the fast-food breakfast industry)

Word of the Day: EGG MCMUFFINS (46A: Sandwiches that kick-started the fast-food breakfast industry) —

McMuffin is a family of breakfast sandwiches sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. The Egg McMuffin is the signature sandwich, which was invented in 1972 by Herb Peterson to resemble eggs benedict, a traditional American breakfast dish with English muffins, ham, eggs and hollandaise sauce… One reason the sandwich was [at-first] served open-faced was that a small tub of strawberry preserves was provided, along with a knife. The sweet and savory approach did not catch on (at least in the US), although a packet of strawberry preserves will still be provided upon request. The first McDonald's corporate-authorized Egg McMuffin was served at the Belleville, New Jersey, McDonald's in 1972. (Wiki)

• • •

Congrats to the constructor on a fun debut puzzle! This one had a clever theme and some nice long answers and left me little to complain about. All in all a good Tuesday. 

The AUTO FILLED (58A) theme is inventive, and topical, too, given how pervasive AUTO FILL is these days. I’m not usually a big shaded squares person, but it didn’t bother me much in this puzzle, and the car brands were all legit. The theme answers were a nice collection. I loved seeing EGG MCMUFFINS (46A) in the puzzle. I used to have so many sausage EGG MCMUFFINS when I was younger and traveling with my parents for one of my sporting events. MARATHON DANCERS (35A) seems slightly backward to me (like it could be “dance marathoners”), but it’s still a fun concept — apparently some of the original dance marathons went on for 1,000-plus hours, which is wild. CONCRETE SLAB (22A) was the most boring of the theme answers for me. OUT OF ORDER (16A) was also straightforward but has a nice ring to it. 

Along with the theme answers, I loved the long downs. We’ve got FOOD COMA (4D: After-meal drowsiness known scientifically as postprandial somnolence), which is apparently an actually scientific thing and something we may all experience come Thanksgiving when we’re eating a lot of food. The clue for TUMBLEWEED (10D: Western roller) was just about perfect, and it’s a word I can’t say I’ve ever seen in a crossword puzzle before, which excited me. RARING TO GO (26D: Bursting with anticipation) is a fun expression, and CHISELED (28D: Like a bodybuilder's physique) is a vivid word. I keep hoping someone other than my family will tell me how CHISELED my back muscles look after all my rock climbing, but *sigh* I guess I'll just keep waiting. 

My biggest hang-up with the puzzle was with a few of the clues. I got stuck with 44D: Good for skating, but bad for driving because I put “ice” instead of ICY. The clue seems to be calling for a noun but then instead gives you an adjective; ICY conditions are bad for driving and good for skating, but ICY isn’t bad for driving and good for skating. I don’t think 25A: High school events with elaborate proposals really works for PROMS because the events themselves don’t have elaborate proposals; it’s in the lead-up to the prom when you get “promposals” (but that might be nitpicking). For OMIT, I didn’t love the clue 23D: Replace with an ellipsis, maybe; the wording just seemed strange. As far as I’m aware, people don’t refer to a developer as a “dev,” so the clue for APP (6A: Dev's development) seemed like a long way to go to avoid a standard clue for some crosswordese. And if you’ll let me nitpick one final time, I don’t think 1A: They're artificial at half of all NFL stadiums really works for TURFS. You might say half the stadiums have artificial turf (singular), but it seems very strange to me to say that half the TURFS are artificial or that stadiums have artificial TURFS. Just another wording thing. 

On the other hand, I absolutely loved 52A: ___-referential (like the clue for 52-Across) as SELF. Seriously, that one clue/answer made my day and put me in a great mood for the rest of the solve. That’s just so clever (or I’m easily impressed). To a lesser degree, I thought 9A: Feature of a movie, or a movie review as STAR was also great. 

Although it didn’t feel like there were that many proper nouns in the puzzle, as I tried picking them out and typing them up, I see there were a pretty normal amount — LUNA; WEBMD, EGG MCMUFFINS, ANDOR, PEELE, KROC, EDYS, AMSTEL, GUIDO, ALDO, and Formula ONE. Maybe my feeling was because they seemed so familiar or easy, and I had a hard time trying to decide what could be a word of the day. I only struggled with AMSTEL (43D: Beer brand named for a Dutch river) (not a big beer drinker), though I imagine some people may not have seen or heard of ANDOR (6D: Disney+ series that's a prequel to "Rogue One"), given that it’s more recent. 

I liked having both KROC (14D) and EGG MCMUFFINS (46A) in the puzzle to connect McDonald’s. I’ve been guilty of checking my symptoms on WEBMD (21A: Site with a Symptom Checker feature) and deciding that I definitely have a brain tumor (spoiler: I don’t). I love Key & PEELE (7D: Key's partner in sketch comedy) sketches, even if it’s been way too many years. And I’ll truly never get used to seeing the ice cream brand EDYS (56D: Brand whose logo has an apostrophe shaped like an ice cream cone) in stores, rather than the West Coast version — Dreyer’s — which also has an ice cream cone in its logo. 

The puzzle wasn’t too bogged down by crosswordese. The only bits that really annoyed me were UH UH (2D: "Not a chance!"), AS AM I (28A: "Me too!," more formally), and I’M IN (18A: "Sounds like a plan!"). Those clues could have led to so many different, uninteresting answers, which I never like. I much prefer the form “slyest” rather than SLIEST (9D: Most cunning), which looks and feels very wrong. I also will never love the form of R AND B (12: Genre for D'Angelo or Daniel Caesar) in a crossword; my brain always wants to make it something like “Rand B” instead of reading it like it’s intended, as R&B. 

But overall the puzzle was cute and straightforward with pretty clean fill and was just what I needed. Not to be too SELF-referential.

Misc.:

• 60A: Part of a ski that cuts into the snow as EDGE obviously made me think of Mikaela Shiffrin, who just got her 99th World Cup win last weekend and will get to go for 100 at her home mountain in Killington, Vermont, this weekend. Go, Miki!! 
• GUIDO (47D: "Cars" character with an Italian accent) is seemingly used innocuously in this puzzle and references a car (or “auto,” which is on theme) from “Cars” that’s a small blue car that just dreams of being able to run pit stops in a race some day. But the word also apparently can be used as a slur against Italian-American men. So I would’ve left this one out of the puzzle. 
• 19A: Require one's owner to vacuum, perhaps as SHED reminds me… I’m very likely getting a puppy in just a few weeks! I’ll definitely be preparing myself for chewed up shoes and vacuuming and being tired from chasing the pup around. 
• I’ll never pass over a chance to share this Key & PEELE (7D) skit, where Keegan-Michael Key is a substitute teacher doing roll call; or this bit from the White House Correspondents Dinner, where Key does a bit he developed on the show and acts as President Obama’s “anger translator.”

And that’s all from me! Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you in December. 

Signed, Clare Carroll, who's hoping for an EGG-cellent December for my sports teams

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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