Gala throwaway / THU 11-21-24 / San Francisco organization supporting women in the arts / Classic sitcom streaming on Britbox, familiarly / On ice longer than normal, say? / Eponymous youth sports organization, the largest of its kind in the U.S. / Khan, former Pakistani prime minister / Informal green lights / N.B.A. player-turned-sports-analyst Rose / grazing (winter farm feeding strategy) / U.S. city named for a geological formation / Like some barrel-aged spirits

Constructor: Katie Hoody

Relative difficulty: Medium (gimmick was simple, but overall cluing was tough) 

THEME: TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ (56A: Cheeky review of 18-, 24- and 46-Across) — long books ... that's (literally) it

Theme answers:

• DAVID COPPERFIELD (18A: 1850: 350,000+ words)
• LES MISERABLES (24A: 1862: 530,000+ words)
• ATLAS SHRUGGED (46A: 1957: 550,000+ words)

Word of the Day: Madame Thénardier (38A: Thénardier and Bovary: Abbr. = MMES) —

The Thénardiers, commonly known as Monsieur Thénardier (/təˈnɑːrdi.eɪ/; French pronunciation: [tenaʁdje]) and Madame Thénardier, are fictional characters, and the secondary antagonists in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables and in many adaptations of the novel into other media.

They are unscrupulous working-class people who blame society for their sufferings. Early in the novel, they own an inn and cheat their customers. After they lose the inn in bankruptcy, they change their name to Jondrette and live by begging and petty thievery. They serve, alongside Javert, as one of the two arch-nemeses of the story's protagonist, Jean Valjean. While Javert represents the justice system that would punish Valjean, the Thénardiers represent the lawless subculture of society that would exploit him. The novel portrays them as shameless and abusive figures; some adaptations transform them into buffoonish characters, though sometimes still criminals, to provide comic relief from the generally more serious tone of the story. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow. A puzzle for people who hate reading. And cats. I am ... neither of those people. The entire puzzle seems to exist so that the revealer can sneer at the idea of reading long books, which is to say, sneer at the idea of reading in general. You know what's TOO LONG and I wish I DIDN'T READ? That revealer. That "review" isn't "cheeky," it's idiotic. Nobody writes it out like that. It's TL;DR, and only TL;DR. Plus, are these books really so "long"? They don't strike me as iconically long. Not like War and Peace or Infinite Jest or, if you really want a doorstop, Clarissa (~950,000 words!). DAVID COPPERFIELD is just ... a novel by Dickens. I read it earlier this year. It's normal Dickens novel length—roughly the same length as [deep breath] Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Little Dorritt, Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend (all 340,000+ words). And while it's true that I have not read LES MISERABLES or ATLAS SHRUGGED, it ain't beause they're "TOO LONG," for god's sake. I don't demand Reverence of Literature from my crosswords, but this kind of shallow sneering nonsense can ... let's be unprofane and say "take a hike." Oh, is the book long? Is reading hard? Are you tired? Do you want a lollipop? Grow up. You don't have to read books if you don't want to, but your inability or unwillingness to read anything longer than a Tweet is a You problem. Don't blame the books. The books are exactly the length they're supposed to be. Also, if you're shouting "BAD KITTY!" at your actual kitten for any reason, let alone for the mere fact of "spilling milk," I'm taking your kitten away from you, asshole. Why are you giving the kitten milk, anyway? You clearly shouldn't own a cat. Give me the cat. You go manage your anger. Kitty and I are gonna curl up with a long book.

This puzzle is 16 wide, which may be one of the reasons it felt slow despite having a transparently easy theme. But mostly it felt slow because the cluing kept being paralyzingly vague. Occasionally there were names I just didn't know (like IMRAN) or terms I didn't know (BALE grazing?), but it was the vagueness that really slowed me down. Stuff like 37A: Tool for PATSY or 34D: Invoice unit for ITEM or 14D: Bolsters for AIDS (I had ADDS and PADS before AIDS). That PATSY / ITEM / JOISTS sections was sluggish for me, which made MISS SCARLET sluggish as well (again, a very vague clue—in "Clue" alone there are six "characters" (not counting "Mr. Boddy"), and anyway "classic whodunit" suggests book, not board game). Thank god for OAKY, which got me traction in that section, finally (33D: Like some barrel-aged spirits). I had some difficulty elsewhere as well. Getting from ["Stop with that!"] to "C'MON!" wasn't easy, especially considering that "M" was in IMRAN (a total mystery name) (42D: ___ Khan, former Pakistani prime minister). Had some trouble parsing "I MESSED UP" (35D: "That's on me"), in part because I kept wondering if the speaker was maybe offering to pay for something rather than owning up to a mistake. There's a "San Francisco organization supporting women in the arts"? Is anyone outside S.F. supposed to know this? Bizarre. And when did COALS become an acceptable plural? The gag Christmas gift is COAL. Uncountable noun. No "S." You might refer to "lumps of coal," but never COALS. Never COALS. Well, maybe if you’re getting raked over the COALS. I think the COALS have to be hot to be plural. As clued, COALS is about as absurd a plural as DADAS, which ... Oh look, they cross. Fun. 

[PATSY]

Some notes:

• 53D: Informal green lights (AOKS) — my apologies to AOKS for leaving it out of the "absolutely terrible plurals" discussion, above
• 35A: On ice longer than normal, say? (IN OT) — So ... this clue is so weird. In sports slang, if a game is "on ice," that means it's sewn up, won, over. But if the game is IN OT (in overtime), then obviously that's not the meaning that this clue is after. If the game in question is a championship game, perhaps there is champagne "on ice" back in the locker room waiting for the outcome ... but the champagne itself wouldn't be IN OT, so that makes no sense either. The only thing that makes sense is that the game in question is a hockey game, and so the players are literally "on ice" longer than they "normally" would be (in a regulation-length game). Or else it's something to do with the Old Testament and I am way, way off base.
• 43A: Students run for it (GYM CLASS) — oof, the syntax here. Students run in GYM CLASS, yes. "For" ... you need a lawyer to make "for" OK. I thought this was some kind of CLASS office, like CLASS president or CLASS treasurer. That's probably the misunderstanding the clue was meant to provoke.
• 8D: Eponymous youth sports organization, the largest of its kind in the U.S. (POP WARNER)— formally known as "POP WARNER Little Scholars"—like Little League, but for (American) football. 
• 9D: Location within an office building: Abbr. (STE) — short for "suite"
• 47D: Not a straight shot (SLICE) — this is golf. A non-straight shot is either a "hook" or a SLICE
• 41D: N.B.A. player-turned-sports-analyst Rose (JALEN) — I was at Michigan when the Fab Five became famous, so JALEN was a gimme for me, but it seems like the kind of sports name that might flummox the (sizable) non-sportsy contingent of solvers.

• 52D: Gala throwaway (CORE) — this one got me. Following [Theater throwaway] (STUB), it really got me. I assumed "Gala" was a party, and while you might throw your ticket STUB away after leaving the theater, I could not imagine what you might throw away after leaving a gala. I had COR- and still no idea because the cross was also baffling me. I was staring at B-STS for 62A: Records and ... nothing. BUSTS? Criminal "records" are made up of BUSTS? LOL, no. "Records" here are "top performances or most remarkable events," i.e. BESTS. And the [Gala throwaway] is a CORE. Because "Gala" is a variety of apple. Clearly I need coffee. So I'll stop here.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S: the tenth annual edition of the NYT's Puzzle Mania comes out on December 1. If you're not a dead-tree newspaper subscriber, you can now pre-order a copy of the puzzle extravaganza for yourself (for $7 + shipping). This is the holiday supplement that has tons of different puzzles in it, including (in previous years) a truly giant crossword puzzle, which you have to put on a large table or the floor to solve. Anyway, it's an event. And now you know how to get it if you want it.  

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Reef predator with extendable pharyngeal jaws / WED 11-20-24 / Dapper sartorial choices / Coloring implement since 1903 / Makeshift shield during a food fight / Comic strip with a collection titled "Shoes: Chocolate for the Feet"

Constructor: Robert S. Gard

Relative difficulty: Medium (Easy + whatever challenge is involved in discovering the gimmick)

THEME: SHRINK RAY (64A: Downsizer? ... or a hint to six squares in this puzzle) — a "RAY" rebus, where "RAY" must be "shrunk" to fit in a single square (six times):

Theme answers:

• CRAYOLA CRAYON // MORAY EEL / SPRAY TAN (17A: Coloring implement since 1903 // 2D: Reef predator with extendable pharyngeal jaws / 6D: Artificial bronze)
• PORTRAYALS // LUNCHTRAY (35A: Film representations // 10D: Makeshift shield during a food fight)
• CRAY-CRAY // STRAY / GRAY AREAS (47A: Totally bonkers // 38D: Potential rescue pet / They're open to interpretation)
• RAY-BAN // BRAYS (50A: Big name in sunglasses // 46D: Hee-haws)

Word of the Day: Zhou EN-LAI (19A: China's Zhou ___) —

Zhou Enlai (Chinese: 周恩来; pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade–Giles: Chou Ên-lai; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the inaugural premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 until his death in 1976, and concurrently as the inaugural Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1949 to 1958. Zhou was key figure in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and ally of Mao Zedong during the Chinese Civil War, later helping consolidate its control, form its foreign policy, and develop the economy. (wikipedia)

• • •

A rebus on Wednesday. Did not see that coming. But then I did see it coming. Pretty quickly. Had the MO- at 2D: Reef predator with extendable pharyngeal jaws and thought "well that's MORAY ... but MORAY won't fit. MORAYS fits, but it's not a plural clue ... [gets first "E" from O'ER] ... if it ends "EEL," then ... wait, is it a "RAY" rebus?" And it was. 

The only questions now were "how many "RAY"s?" and "what's the revealer?" I guess there was some question about whether all the rebus squares would be "RAY," but since it's Wednesday (and not Thursday), I didn't think the puzzle had much trickiness or difficulty left to give. And it didn't. Just a bunch of scattered "RAY" squares, two thirds of which can be found in just two answers (CRAYOLA CRAYON and CRAY-CRAY). I wish the revealer had been more evocative or meaningful to me. I had RAY and no idea what could come before it. I haven't thought of a SHRINK RAY since ... I don't know when. Feels very mid-century comic book to me. How does Ant-Man shrink? I feel like it's not a RAY-based shrinkage, hang on ... oh right, Pym particles. According to an MCU fandom site, they're "subatomic particles that can increase or reduce mass as well as density and strength and are heavily used by Ant-Man and Wasp." When's the last time I saw anyone get shrunk with a ray? In The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), it's exposure to chemicals in an experimental perfume. In The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), it's a "strange fog." I just went and looked up "SHRINK RAY" and it looks like it was popularized in the mid-20th century, primarily by the movie Fantastic Voyage, and then reiterated and parodied in various contexts over the years, including in Despicable Me and (multiple times?) in the Lilo & Stitch franchise. As I say, I'm familiar with the concept, but the phrase itself just didn't spring to mind. If you gave me "Shrink ___" (Password style), I'd say "WRAP." Anyway, yes, you shrink "RAY" in order to fill six squares—a very literal revealer.

The resulting "RAY" answers weren't very interesting in and of themselves, though, and the rest of the grid doesn't have a lot to offer as far as entertaining fill. Things get very choppy toward the middle and we get subjected to a lot of gunk, a lot of ABU PDQ QUA UAE gunk, a lot of NSFW CFOS TSA gunk. Looking it over now, though, I'd say the grid comes in pretty solid overall, especially for a puzzle with so much theme density. Since I picked up the rebus easily, the only trouble came from finding the "RAY" squares (not much trouble at all, actually, despite their being unpredictably located), and then finishing off the puzzle—i.e. picking up SHRINK, which was made somewhat harder than it might've been by the terrible cluing on the adjacent CANE. No one puts CANEs on their Christmas tree. Way too heavy, and anyway grandpa needs his CANE to get around; seems cruel to put it on the tree. The things that are on the tree are candy CANEs. No one says "CANE" without the "candy" part when they are talking about "candy CANEs." The [Christmas tree decoration] is, iconically and only, "candy CANE." CANE alone is garbage. I was like "... CONE?" Little decorative pine CONEs? Seemed plausible. More plausible than (non-candy) CANEs. Bah. That clue is CHUM (61D: Shark bait). 

Further reading:

• 25A: Comic strip with a collection titled "Shoes: Chocolate for the Feet" ("CATHY") — oh right, I forgot about her thing for chocolate. All I remember is her pathological obsession with her weight. And "ACK" (3), of course. 
• 27A: "You should open this on a personal device" heads-up (NSFW) — this clue is just wrong. Plenty of people have "personal devices" on them at work. They might use them at work. NSFW stands for "not suitable for work." It's not the device, specifically, that's in question—it's where you're using it. Yes, don't open the porn site on a work computer, but mainly don't open it in a workplace environment. 
• 43A: Parent working behind the scenes? (STAGE MOM) — this clue is extremely literal, so even though I see the "pun" you're trying to make there, with "scenes" being literal theater / movie "scenes," the clue really doesn't need a "?" at all.
• 56A: Move to the beat? (PULSATE) — I don't think of pulsation as "movement." The blood is moving, the thing that is doing the pulsating isn't going anywhere.
• 1D: Dapper sartorial choices (ASCOTS) — "Dapper," eh? I guess that's one word for it. Here's William Windom sporting an ascot in an episode of Love Boat that I watched recently—we're up to Season 6, and I said to my wife "we're gonna be done soon..." only to check and discover that it ran into a 10th season and there are actually close to 100 episodes left to go. I want to get off, I can't get off, I want to get off, I can't get off. The ship goes to Mazatlan, the ship returns to the Port of Los Angeles, the ship goes to Puerto Vallarta, the ship returns to the Port of Los Angeles. Like Gopher, Julie, Doc, Isaac, Merrill, and Vicki, I seem to be doomed to ride this thing forever (though if I remember correctly, I think Julie's time is gonna be up very shortly...). Sorry, here's the promised picture of William Windom in an ascot (of sorts):

• 2D: Reef predator with extendable pharyngeal jaws (MORAY EEL) — there is one entertaining aspect of this puzzle, which is—it's very fun to say "extendable pharyngeal" over and over again. It's like something out of Gilbert & Sullivan: "In short, in matters vegetable, extendable, pharyngeal, / I am the very model of a model Major-General!"

• 4D: Show on which Julia Louis-Dreyfus got her big break, in brief (S.N.L.) — Julia Louis-Dreyfus was one of two celebrity sightings I had this year (which I don't have a lot, as I live in Binghamton, NY). I stood behind her (and some of her family) in line for ice cream at an indoor food court in Santa Barbara this summer. That was in August. Earlier in the summer, on the way back from our Canadian vacation on the north shores of Lake ERIE, I saw Samantha Bee at a rest area in western New York. As you can see, I lead a thrilling life.

[Here's my ticket to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies' inaugural game against the ERIE SeaWolves (13D: Pennsylvania home of minor-league baseball's SeaWolves); see? thrilling life!]

• 39D: Culture group (BACTERIA) — this clue is good. Nicely misdirective. Another highlight of the puzzle.

NOTE: the tenth annual edition of the NYT's Puzzle Mania comes out on December 1. If you're not a dead-tree newspaper subscriber, you can now pre-order a copy of the puzzle extravaganza for yourself (for $7 + shipping). This is the holiday supplement that has tons of different puzzles in it, including (in previous years) a truly giant crossword puzzle, which you have to put on a large table or the floor to solve. Anyway, it's an event. And now you know how to get it if you want it.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Hue granter? / TUE 11-19-24 / Track-and-field star Richardson / Saga sage since 1980 / First name in civil rights history / Common surname in Pakistan / Quintet found in a supervocalic word / Half of a rhyming synonym of "haphazard" / Sci-fi author Butler / Like content that causes secondhand embarrassment

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)

THEME: TIME BUDGET (62A: What 17- and 38-Across combine to form?) — familiar verb phrases clued as if they were part of a time management plan:

Theme answers:

• SAVE THE DAY (17A: Find a way to avert disaster)
• SPEND THE NIGHT (38A: Have a sleepover)

Word of the Day: SHA'CARRI Richardson (38D: Track-and-field star Richardson) —

Sha'Carri Richardson (/ʃəˈkæriː/ shə-KERREE; born March 25, 2000) is an American track and field sprinter who competes in the 100 metres and 200 metres. Richardson rose to fame in 2019 as a freshman at Louisiana State University, running 10.75 seconds to break the 100 m collegiate record at the NCAA Division I Championships. This winning time made her one of the ten fastest women in history at 19 years old. [...] In July 2023, she became the US national champion in the women's 100 metres at the 2023 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, running 10.82 seconds. // Richardson won gold in the 100 m at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, beating Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in a new championships record time of 10.65 seconds. On the penultimate day of the 2023 World Championships, she also won gold as part of Team USA in the women's 4 × 100m relay final with a championship record of 41.03 seconds.^[11] On June 22, 2024, Richardson defended her title as the US national champion in the 100-metre sprint event by winning the women's 100m final in 10.71 seconds (WL), qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, where she won the silver medal in the 100m and gold in the 4×100 relay.

• • •

My main comment on this puzzle is I've never heard the term "TIME BUDGET," LOL. I've heard of budgeting your time, and I've heard of time management, but while the concept of a TIME BUDGET is perfectly comprehensible to me, the phrase itself ... shrug. Not familiar. So unfamiliar that I had TIME- at the revealer and I looked back at the two theme answers and couldn't conceive of what could follow. Hacked at crosses and got BUDGET. It seems like a very clever idea. A tight, comprehensive, economical theme. Just wish the revealer had resonated with me instead of landing like a thud at my feet. Even after getting the "B" I was like "TIME ... BANDIT?" (that was a fun movie). But no, TIME BUDGET. I'm sure it's a common phrase—just didn't snap or crackle or pop with me. 

This puzzle played hard for me, but not for the reasons you might think, i.e. not because the grid was absolutely swamped with names. I knew all the names, except SHA'CARRI, which I knew—had seen, had heard of, could picture—but couldn't spell. Actually, besides SHA'CARRI, one name did give me trouble, but it's not because I didn't know it. It's because I thought it was a different name entirely. In fact, I was sure it was a different name entirely. I had M- at 22D: First name in civil rights history and without hesitation wrote in MEDGAR (Evers). Bypassing the most famous first name in American Civil Rights history—the most famous M-name for sure—that was probably not the smartest move. But MARTIN never occurred to me because it seemed too obvious. The way the clue is worded, I figured it was something less common. A deeper cut. So in went MEDGAR and screech went my solve, for a bit. Brittney GRINER got me out of the MEDGAR mess, but I still didn't see MARTIN for some time. It just wasn't computing. The Most Obvious Answer was not computing. Me: "MARVIN ... someone?" Oy. But that didn't mess me up nearly as bad as one seemingly insignificant square in the NE. I took one look at 19A: "Who ___?" and, with the "T" in place, wrote in "IS IT." "Who IS IT?" Seemed legit. Very legit. And the crosses check out, except ... why couldn't I make *any* sense out of 12D: "Don't bother with that"??? IGIOREIT!? I tore that "word" apart and tried parsing and reparsing it all kinds of ways: nothing. I could see that it was a phrase that probably ended in IT, but still, IGIO- ... IGIO- ... nothing starts with IGIO-!!! (unless Armani has written a memoir called I, GIORGIO that I'm unaware of). I checked every cross multiple times before finally realizing that it was "Who ISN'T?," not "Who IS IT?" So ... "IGNORE IT!" GAH, for sure. Many GAHs.

The other (lesser) slow spot in the grid for me came (unsurprisingly) in the initially empty BUDGET section of the grid. I did not know that SHAH was anything but a former ruler of Iran (46A: Common surname in Pakistan), and (worse) I thought that the "low tie" at 58A: Low tie score (ONE ALL) was ONE ONE (ONE ONE having been a "low tie" thirty-two times before in NYTXW history). So not only was BUDGET unknown to me, but the surrounding fill locked up on me, so I really did fizzle toward the finish. Not entirely satisfying. But again, as far as the theme goes, I'm willing to admit that the problem is mine, not the puzzle's. I *want* to be the person for whom TIME BUDGET meant something, who wrote in TIME BUDGET and thought "damn, that's good." But I wasn't. 

As for the names, it's almost comical how aggressively namey this puzzle is. I spent all weekend complaining about the puzzle steering so hard into proper noun trivia of late, it was like this puzzle was giving me the middle finger, LOL. The one reason I'm not as mad at this puzzle for its names as I am at some other recent offerings is that the names in this grid feel like they're making a collective statement, a statement about Black representation in the crossword puzzle. That is to say, this is the Blackest puzzle I've ever seen. Especially for a puzzle where Blackness is not part of the theme. Pound for pound, square for square, you'd be hard pressed to find a Blacker puzzle. VIVICA Fox and Brittney GRINER and MARTIN Luther King and SHA'CARRI Richardson and OCTAVIA Butler and SIMONE Biles and STELLA (from How STELLA Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan)? Seven Black names, all in a grid where Blackness isn't the theme!? That is impressive. Also impressive: a puzzle without white people. Not a one. Feels like a point is (low-key) being made—after all, there have been hundreds and hundreds of puzzles without Black people, so ... what if we tried it this way? I have to respect the puzzle's defiant commitment to Black visibility (and shout-out to today's honorary Black people, CARLOS Santana and YODA) (43A: Guitarist Santana + 15A: Saga sage since 1980). 

Bullets:

• 6D: Hue granter? (DYE) — OK so there's one white person in the puzzle ... kinda
• 20A: Like content that causes secondhand embarrassment (CRINGE) — love the modern clue on this one. CRINGE as adjective. Nice.
• 69A: Express contempt (SNEER) — ah, the SNEER/SNORT kealoa*! I wrote in SNEER but all the while thinking "it's gonna be SNORT." But I lucked out.
• 51D: Quintet found in a supervocalic word (AEIOU) — I follow enough word nerds on social media that I know what supervocalics are—words that contain all the (non-Y) vowels. FACETIOUS, for instance, contains them all in order. There's probably a special word for that: Superdupervocalic or some such nonsense.
• 49D: Half of a rhyming synonym of "haphazard" (HELTER) — the other half is SKELTER. Some warped part of my brain is connecting this clue to HOT (23A: Sweltering) via Don McLean

["HELTER skelter in a summer swelter..."]also["... and we sang DIRGES in the dark..."] (28D: Mournful songs)

NOTE: the tenth annual edition of the NYT's Puzzle Mania comes out on December 1. If you're not a dead-tree newspaper subscriber, you can now pre-order a copy of the puzzle extravaganza for yourself (for $7 + shipping). This is the holiday supplement that has tons of different puzzles in it, including (in previous years) a truly giant crossword puzzle, which you have to put on a large table or the floor to solve. Anyway, it's an event. And now you know how to get it if you want it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.  

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Personal bidding, in an idiom / MON 11-18-24 / Hindu festival of colors / Two-player offensive sequence in basketball___ / Scurry, first Black woman in the National Soccer Hall of Fame / Subgenre for Lorde and Lana Del Rey / Performers of kickflips and boardslides / Doughnut shapes, mathematically speaking / Iconic landmark in Yosemite Valley

Constructor: Rajeswari Rajamani

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

THEME: "--CK AND --LL" — four theme answers follow this pattern (??? I think that's it ???)

Theme answers:

• BECK AND CALL (17A: Personal bidding, in an idiom)
• JACK AND JILL (28A: Who went "up the hill" in a nursery rhyme)
• PICK AND ROLL (44A: Two-player offensive sequence in basketball)
• COCK AND BULL (59A: Like a hard-to-believe story)

Word of the Day: BRIANA Scurry (20A: ___ Scurry, first Black woman in the National Soccer Hall of Fame) —

Briana Collette Scurry (born September 7, 1971) is an American retired soccer goalkeeper, and assistant coach of the Washington Spirit as of 2018. Scurry was the starting goalkeeper for the United States women's national soccer team at the 1995 World Cup (3rd place), 1996 Summer Olympics (gold medal), 1999 World Cup (champions), 2003 World Cup (3rd place), and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games (gold medal). She played in the semi-final and playoff for third place in the 2007 Women's World Cup (3rd place). She was a founding member of the WUSA, playing three seasons as starting goalkeeper for the Atlanta Beat (2001–2003).

Her career total of 173 international appearances is the second most among female soccer goalkeepers. It is also the fifteenth most of any American female player, and the thirty-second most among all women.

Scurry was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame on August 3, 2017. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't know when I've seen a theme that's less of a theme than this. I kept looking around for a revealer, or an indication of some deeper meaning to the theme, some greater coherence that I wasn't seeing. But I think it's just -CK AND -LL. Like, these are four phrases that follow that specific spelling pattern. And that ... is all. Conspicuously missing the most famous -CK AND -LL of all—ROCK AND ROLL—but that would've made PICK AND ROLL impossible, so I get it. PICK AND ROLL is the more original choice there. But all in all ... there's just not a lot here. I don't even know how to talk about this theme. There it is! It is what it is. A few of the phrases have some inherent charm. Everything but JACK AND JILL feels ... if not fresh, then at least vibrant and interesting. Still. Still. This isn't much. Sometimes LESS is more, it's true (31D: "Sometimes ___ is more") (is that a theme answer!?), but this might be too ... LESS.

The fill was painful right out of the gate. Not just bad—screenshot bad (that's when it's so bad that I stop to take a screenshot to document the precise moment at which I noticed the badness).

I was already annoyed at having to change LEGAL to LICIT (3D: Permitted by law) but at least LICIT is a word. AOKAY!? With the full spelling of OKAY? It's just hard to imagine someone bothering to spell it all out like that when they've already gone such a slangy route. It's like formal slang, this odd concoction. Looks like AOKAY is not new—it's been perpetrated on us six times before, all since 2009. A good example of "once one person uses it, it gets into wordlists and then Everyone starts using it." Well it's an abomination, please stop. A-OK, on the other hand, is A-OK—ninety-two appearances in the Modern Era and 150 overall going back to 1962. By a KO, A-OK wins the battle of A-OK(AY)s. And while I might've just winced and moved on from AOKAY alone, AOKAY crosses the equally bad ITTY. And in such an itty *bitty* corner ... Why? There should be no junk fill in small corners, especially in early-week puzzles, especially when the theme is not dense or otherwise grid-taxing. See also the choice of "EWW!" in the NE corner (11A: "Yuck!"). "Yuck!" is right. Just change that ugly thing to ELF and you've got yourself a real nice corner on your hands, no "Yuck!" necessary.

One other thing, and it's a thing I've been noticing a lot lately, but haven't had the time or inclination to comment on: what is with this (seemingly) recent cluing trend where a clue starts with a relative pronoun but doesn't include the relevant noun. So ... take [Who went "up the hill" in a nursery rhyme]. No "Couple" or "Pair" or "Duo who went 'up the hill'," just ... "Who went up the hill." That one weirdly looks like a question, but it's not a question—it's a relative clause. See also [On which croquet and cornhole are played]. Not "Surface on which," just "On which." I get that you want to save ink and/or space, but relegating the noun in question to implied status always feels awkward, every time I see it in a clue. And I'm seeing it A Lot more recently. Nearly every day, it seems. Maybe this manner of cluing has always been happening, and there's absolutely no change in frequency. I'm just noticing, and reacting to it, more, for whatever reason. Whatever's going on, I don't care for it. It's a minor issue and interferes with my comprehension of the clue not at all. For all its economy, it just seems inelegant, somehow. 

Notes:

• 29D: Subgenre for Lorde and Lana Del Rey (ALT-POP) — a term seemingly at odds with itself. The other major figure in this "subgenre" (which is dominated by women) is Billie Eilish. But what does the term ALT-POP mean, exactly? From wikipedia:

Alternative pop (also known as alt-pop) is pop music with broad commercial appeal that is made by figures outside the mainstream, or which is considered more original, challenging, or eclectic than traditional pop music. The Independent described alt-pop as "a home-made, personalized imitation of the mainstream that speaks far closer to actual teenage experience", and which is commonly characterized by a dark or downbeat emotional tone with lyrics about insecurity, regret, drugs, and anxiety. 

• 26D: Performers of kickflips and boardslides (SKATERS) —as in "skateboarders." Avril Lavigne, who had a 2000 hit with "Sk8er Boi," is cited as a progenitor of the contemporary ALT-POP genre.

• 49A: Doughnut shapes, mathematically speaking (TORI) — a torus is a doughnut shape. TORI is the plural. Doesn't feel like a Monday-level clue, but then ... what is the Monday-level clue for TORI? I want to say [Actress Spelling] but then I'm old. I want to say [Singer Amos] but then (again) I'm old. Looks like they've all been Monday clues of late. In fact ... [scans alllll the TORI clues] ...  there appear to be *no* other TORI clues available. It's Spelling, Amos, or doughnut—the TORI Trinity. Before Shortz it was all "moldings": [Rounded moldings], [Column moldings], [Architectural moldings], [Convex moldings]. Shortz revolutionized TORI cluing by eliminating "moldings" entirely. In fact, his first three TORI clues established the TORI Trinity: [Actress Spelling] (1994), [Singer Amos] (1994), [Geometric shapes] (1995). Crosswords have never been the same. What a legacy.
• 12D: Partner of tear (WEAR) — this was slightly hard because I didn't know which "tear" I was dealing with, the kind that rhymes with "tier" or the kind that rhymes with "tare." And then I wanted to put "Tear" in the first position of whatever the partnership was: "Tear and ___." But I did get to WEAR (and tear) somehow. Probably only took a few seconds, but there was a seeming lifetime of brain-spinning in those seconds.
• 49D: On which Ping-Pong and air hockey are played (TABLE) — they are not played on one TABLE. The games in question have completely different tables, and yet the puzzle has clued it in the singular. This is ridiculous. There is no one "which" on which those two games (Ping-Pong and air hockey) are played. Each one is played on its own distinct TABLE, but they (Ping-Pong and air hockey) are played on (seriously, very different) TABLEs (plural).
• 11D: Iconic landmark in Yosemite Valley (EL CAPITAN) — despite growing up in California's Central Valley and visiting Yosemite several times, I blanked on this at first. The hardest of the Downs for me today, during my Downs-only solve. I could picture only HALF DOME, which wouldn't fit. None of the other Downs seem terribly problematic, from a Downs-only perspective. Maybe GALLANT or CAJOLE (both nice words), or AMICUS (less nice ... because Latin, legalese, partial).

One last thing: the tenth annual edition of the NYT's Puzzle Mania comes out on December 1. If you're not a dead-tree newspaper subscriber, you can now pre-order a copy of the puzzle extravaganza for yourself (for $7 + shipping). This is the holiday supplement that has tons of different puzzles in it, including (in previous years) a truly giant crossword puzzle, which you have to put on a large table or the floor to solve. Anyway, it's an event. And now you know how to get it if you want it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Glass artist Chihuly / SUN 11-17-24 / Breanna of the W.N.B.A., to fans / One of Mario's catchphrases / Participant in the annual "S.N.L." Christmas joke swap / Seminal protest song written at a Greenwich Village cafe / Coupon clipper's acronym / HOMES component / James for whom a NASA telescope is named / Pasted pasta

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Ariela Perlman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Nothing But Blue Skies" — a puzzle that visually depicts a HOT AIR BALLOON (with its black square configurations) and then contains a series of diminutive things (clued as if they were diminutive because seen from said HOT AIR BALLOON), and then a few more vaguely related answers:

Theme answers:

• UP UP AND AWAY (23A: Line before takeoff)
• "BLOWIN' IN THE WIND" (4D: Seminal protest song written at a Greenwich Village cafe)
• TAKE THE HIGH ROAD (14D: Refuse to sully oneself)

The small things:

• SMALL TOWN (39A: Neighborhood seen from a 93-Across?)
• TINY HOUSE (65A: Dwelling seen from a 93-Across?)
• WEE LASS (104A: Girl seen from a 93-Across?)
• MINIVAN (108A: Vehicle seen from a 93-Across?)

Word of the Day: DALE Chihuly (91A: Glass artist Chihuly) —

Dale Chihuly (/tʃɪˈhuːli/ chih-HOO-lee; born September 20, 1941) is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture". [...] In 1971, with the support of John Hauberg and Anne Gould Hauberg, Chihuly co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Washington. Chihuly also founded the HillTop Artists program in Tacoma, Washington at Hilltop Heritage Middle School and Wilson High School. // In 1976, while Chihuly was in England, he was involved in a head-on car accident that propelled him through the windshield. His face was severely cut by glass and he was blinded in his left eye. After recovering, he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in 1979 while bodysurfing. // In 1983, Chihuly returned to his native Pacific Northwest where he continued to develop his own work at the Pilchuck Glass School, which he had helped to found in 1971. No longer able to hold the glassblowing pipe, he hired others to do the work. Chihuly explained the change in a 2006 interview, saying "Once I stepped back, I liked the view", and said that it allowed him to see the work from more perspectives, enabling him to anticipate problems earlier. Chihuly's role has been described as "more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor". San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Erin Glass wrote that she "wonders at the vision of not just the artist Chihuly, but the very successful entrepreneur Chihuly, whose estimated sales by 2004 was reported by The Seattle Times as $29 million." (wikipedia)

• • •

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... a HOT AIR BALLOON. Is a HOT AIR BALLOON a "whimsical" method of transportation? Why? I think of it as just ...  a method of transportation? Whimsy not required. Where is the inherent whimsy? I don't get it. The HOT AIR BALLOON the first successful method of human flight. I guess you can make it whimsical by turning the balloon into various novelty shapes, or by using it to race around the world in 80 days, but "Whimsical method of transportation" seems odd, or oddly narrow, as a description here. But cluing aside, this puzzle seemed ... I dunno. Whimsical, probably. It's doing three different things (black-square visuals, small things, vaguely balloonish things). That's a lot of things. Why it's doing any of these things, I don't know? Is it balloon month? Are HOT AIR BALLOONs in the news? Making a comeback? The theme is harmless enough, but whatever whimsy or romance or fun was supposed to accompany a HOT AIR BALLOON-based puzzle was simply lost on me. Kind of the way the appeal of the annual balloon rally at Spiedie Fest here in Binghamton is lost on me. It's obviously a big deal to lots of people—there are even balloons in the city's iconography, including some that are carved into the supports of freeway overpasses. But balloon fever, I somehow never caught. I don't feel any kind of way about this topic. 

["It's a word, it's a plan..."]

I do think it's somewhat clever to take familiar diminutive things (SMALL TOWN etc.) and clue them as if they were regular-sized things seen from a great distance (specifically from the distance of a HOT AIR BALLOON in flight)—this is the one truly innovative and clever thing about the theme. Making a vague balloon shape out of black squares, shrug, OK, but pictures in the grid don't tend to interest me much on their own. And as for the three "bonus" answers ... I guess you had to do something. There are only four "small" things, so you gotta cram some more theme material in there somehow. Otherwise the theme would feel too slight. As is, the whole thing seemed a little scattershot. But it's probably loaded with whimsy, and my whimsy meter is just down. I'm no whimsy aficionado, and even on my most whimsical day, I think the general population tends to appreciate whimsy more than I do. There's definitely a cuteness to all of this. It just didn't make for a very interesting solve. The balloon element is obvious, and the theme answers are both sparse and fairly easy to get. More trickiness, more cleverness, more bite, that's what I tend to want in a Sunday (or any) puzzle. For all its pictorial splashiness, at the actual puzzle level, it's a bit too plain for me.

And the proper nouns just keep coming. The puzzle has, of late (specifically, this weekend) been inundated with names, making trivia rather than wordplay the basis for so much of its clues. Playing around with our common language, with vocabulary, with the funny way words work in English ... we still get that, but the puzzle really seems to be leaning hard in the pure trivia direction of late. I had to stop and take a deep breath after getting not one but two proper nouns, right out of the gate. 1-Across and 1-Down—name and name. And again, one of them didn't even have to be a name. WARD is just a regular-old English word. I think it's fine to clue WARD via Jesmyn (1D: Jesmyn ___, first woman to win two National Book Awards for Fiction) (I actually know her name, and she's certainly puzzleworthy)—I'm just pointing out that the puzzle often makes the choice to lean into names, in a way that often seems excessive. When your puzzle is already rife with names, steer ... away. ILENE is tough (I've seen her name a few times over the decades, but always forget how it's spelled) (32D: "The L Word" creator Chaiken). ERIVO (despite being 3/4 of the way to an EGOT) was tough for me, despite the fact that I've seen trailers for that Wicked movie about a dozen times now (71D: Cynthia of 2024's "Wicked"). You know, it's weird: those trailers do not even make it clear that the movie is a musical (which, I'm told, it is) and they never mention the names of the actors. ERIVO, Grande, Goldblum ... no mention. If only they had just put ERIVO's name on the damned screen in those trailers, maybe I'd've had a shot here (side note: the Wicked movie hasn't yet been released—always weird to clue an actor via a movie no one's seen yet). 

Crossing JOST and J-LO felt slightly cruel. I barely heard about that J-LO documentary (90D: Singer in the '24 documentary "The Greatest Love Story Never Told"), and I haven't watched a single episode of SNL (or any late-night comedy anything) since 2016, so I don't even know what an "annual 'S.N.L.' Christmas joke swap" is (90A: Participant in the annual "S.N.L." Christmas joke swap). I do know who Colin JOST is, but ... I just think that clue could use a "Colin." Would've helped me, for sure. And then there's BOMER (51D: Matt of "Magic Mike").. OK, BOMER. As with yesterday's puzzle, there are So Many Recent Movie clues—three of them today that mention the year "2024" by name (the JLO, ERIVO, and IDEA clues). Relying overly heavily on one cluing niche is, I will continue to contend, bad editorial practice. DALE the glass guy was maybe the hardest name in the puzzle for me, but at least there I feel like I learned something. Would be hard to argue that there are too many glassblowers in the damned puzzle, that's for sure.

The one good, or at least interesting, thing about having a picture puzzle today is that the white-square configurations are unconventional, leading to interesting stack formations through the middle of the (mirror symmetry) grid. You get these little isolated pockets of answers, all in strange shapes. Those were kind of an adventure, especially the ones inside the balloon itself. There are only very narrow passageways in and out of those sections, so they are slightly hard to get at, and they feel like areas where it would be easy to get stuck. Having RAMA (as clued) (31D: Hindu god of rights and responsibilities) alongside ILENE in one of those pockets seems like a feature that might create difficulty for some solvers. But all the crosses seem fair, in the end. So I'm weirdly enjoying negative whimsy today. The balloon picture itself, I don't care that much about, but the resulting white-square configurations, those are at least making the shape of my solving journey ... different. And as Bill Murray says in the non-2024 movie Groundhog Day, "different is good."

Notes:

• 27A: Detector of lies, informally (B.S. METER) — debuted in 2022 and has now been used four times. I'm tired of seeing it. Its originality has worn off. I know, I know, "it's whimsical!," right? It's too showy and long a term to be repeating so often. Feels like stale whimsy, now. 
• 29A: Apt rhyme for "fling" (SLING) — there has to be someone besides me who thought the "fling" was sexual and put SWING here. Swingers are more associated with group sex and swapping than "flings" (or, uh, so I hear), but still, it feels like the words arguably live in the same linguistic universe.

[from my own personal collection of trashy paperbacks]

• 43A: Movie in which the Wet Bandits get "scammed by a kindygartner" (HOME ALONE) — still have never seen this movie. Maybe I'll see it someday and think "wow, why did it take me so long, this movie is wonderful." But then again maybe (probably) not. I know the premise of the movie, and I know the stars of the movie, but "Wet Bandits"? Ew. (So named because they leave the water running at every house they rob, like a calling card—but if you wanted notoriety, you'd think you'd adopt a cool name and not one that made you sound like you'd peed your pants)
• 63A: Feline hybrid (LIGER) — wouldn't know this beast existed were it not for crosswords. See also the TIGON (which has made just one NYTXW appearance, to the LIGER's thirteen).
• 70A: Breanna of the W.N.B.A., to fans (STEWIE) — last name Stewart. One of the most famous WNBA players. I knew her name. I did not know she shared a nickname with the baby from Family Guy. Slightly weird to get Breanna Stewart in nickname form before we've ever seen her in BREANNA form (that's a name that's dying to be in crosswords, but so far ... nothin').

• 77A: Coupon clipper's acronym (BOGO) — Do people still clip coupons? The demise of the local newspaper seems like it would put a damper on the popularity of literal coupon "clipping." "BOGO" = acronym, from "Buy One Get One (free)."
• 112A: Concerning "speck" in a sugar bowl (ANT) — is this whimsical? If you just have one (dead?) ant in your sugar bowl, consider yourself lucky. They don't tend to travel solo. Things could be much worse.
• 54A: HOMES component (ERIE) — I'm in the middle of a Great Lakes summer vacation extravaganza with my best friends—we've stayed on (directly on) Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Erie so far. Next year it's Ontario, and then the following year we'll end up on Huron, probably somewhere near the top of Michigan (roughly the dead center of Great Lakesdom). When we're done hitting all the Great Lakes, we're all getting Great Lakes tattoos. This Is My Midlife Crisis! As midlife crises go, it's pretty fun.

• 79D: One of Mario's catchphrases ("HERE WE GO") — "catchphrase." This banal thing. It's just a phrase. A regular old phrase. Did you need to drag (and I mean draaagggg) Mario into this? Why "Mario" a clue when you don't have to? The things you think are whimsy, I can't understand.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. you can now pre-order a physical copy of the NYT's big Puzzle Mania special edition (which comes out two weeks from today: Dec. 1, 2024)—more than 50 puzzles including (if it's like past years) a super giant jumbo crossword. All for $7. Go get it.

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