Domaine d'Agnès Varda / SAT 11-9-24 / Ride arranged on one's own / Mononymous baseball star who played 28 seasons / Portmanteau for a moody and strong-willed toddler / Replace with a new contract in legalese / Musical counterpart of pizzicato / Something the floundering are said to be on

Constructor: Chandi Deitmer and Hoang-Kim Vu

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Tyronn LUE (20D: Tyronn ___, N.B.A. champion as both player and coach) —

Tyronn Jamar Lue (/təˈrɒn ˈluː/ tə-RON LOO; born May 3, 1977) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He formerly served as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, helping them win their first and only NBA title.

A former point guard, Lue played college basketball for the Nebraska Cornhuskers before being selected by the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the 1998 NBA draft with the 23rd overall pick. He was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers shortly thereafter. As a member of the Lakers, Lue won two NBA championships in his first three seasons. (wikipedia)

• • •

Two constructor names I have come to look forward to individually ... together on one byline. Nice. This is a very well-made puzzle, which I mostly enjoyed. The parts I didn't enjoy had very little to do with grid or clue quality and everything to do with the fact that I have a deep and admittedly only semi-rational aversion to Millennialspeak. Not to Millennials, per se, whom I tend to think of as ... well, just people. Dividing people by generation doesn't do most of us any good, so I try not to think that way. And yet. Yet. When it comes to certain expressions, slang, etc., there's no question that generational divides exist, and I guarantee you no one my age ever called their kid a THREENAGER (16A: Portmanteau for a moody and strong-willed toddler). What a ridiculous, unnecessary word. You already have "toddler," why did you need this other thing? Are you so portmanteau-deprived? I am admittedly not searching too hard, but the earliest references I see are circa 2016. Help me, OED! (Sorry, OED has only SCREENAGER (which was my first thought, actually) and TWEENAGER (which obviously couldn't be true, given the age restrictions)). The term THREENAGER also seems to be playing on negative stereotypes of actual teenagers, i.e. defiant, strong-willed, etc. so boo to that. The whole thing seems like a marketing gimmick. "We invented a new kind of toddler, buy this thing, take this advice, worry more than you already are!" The kid is three. Soon he'll be four. Come on. 

After THREENAGER came STRUGGLE BUS, another term I never heard until I was well into middle age (10D: Something the floundering are said to be on). I never liked it because initially I thought it was playing on the term "short bus," the term for the bus used to transport kids with mental or physical disabilities to school. So STRUGGLE BUS seemed inherently offensive. The term appears to be of uncertain, early 21st-century origin (online OED's got nothing), and I doubt it's actually offensive, but even if I wanted to use it now (and I don't), I just can't. It's ruined for me. And then, after those answers, after THREENAGER, and STRUGGLE BUS, after I already thought to myself "this is a heavily Millennialspeak puzzle...," came the Millennialspeak term I hate most of all: ADULTING (19A: Making a car payment, dusting the living room, scheduling a doctor's appointment, etc.). There's something so whinily self-infantilizing about it. Nothing makes me want to shout "Grow up!" more than someone talking about ADULTING. It's not cosplay! You get old. Then you die. Childhood is meant to be left behind and fondly remembered. Aging isn't bad—desperately clinging to youth is. Look, I'm just being honest about the gut reactions of the cranky old man who lives inside me. I believe only good and kind and warm things about Millennials as human beings, and I love everything about them, except for their invented vocabulary, which is frequently embarrassing. Avocado toast, however—delicious.

But less about getting off my lawn and more about how generally beautiful this puzzle is. It's full of freshness and surprises, and I suspect that even the slang that made me wince will give others great joy. I CAN TAKE IT! In fact, I'll take any puzzle that puts PANDA CAM alongside ALOO GOBI. Imagine eating delicious Indian food while watching adorable pandas (I am imagining it right now, and it's great). The NE corner is only so-so, but every other corner is bursting with life (or bursting with blood, in the case of the NOSEBLEEDS)). NOSEBLEEDS would be better at the top of the grid, but I like that CRAWL SPACE is down low where it belongs (I also love the clue: 54A: Very short story?). There's a clunky answer or two, here and there. KNEELAT, for instance, is a bit ungainly, and NOVATE ... well, I don't know what that is, but "legalese" is not exactly rich ground for fun fill (44D: Replace with a new contract in legalese). But this puzzle made me remember ICHIRO (good) and Ed "TOO TALL" Jones (good) and—once again, for the second time this week—Agnès Varda! (18A: Domaine d'Agnès Varda). So glad to see the NYTXW finally coming around on her. It's the Age of Varda! I hope my gushing about her at every opportunity helped you piece together CINÉ (the French word for "cinema") today.


It's note time:

• 11A: Plant also known as Pisum sativum (PEA) — I want at least one of you to have written in POT ("sativa" is a strain of cannabis).
• 17A: Actress Shawkat who played Maeby on "Arrested Development" (ALIA) — first thing I wrote in the grid. She's this century's EERO, or ELIA, or ENYA (technically ENYA is this century's ENYA, but you get my point). Straight-up crosswordese. And you no longer have to go to the Latin phrase "inter ALIA" to clue ALIA, hurray. I last saw ALIA Shawkat in Blink Twice (2024), where she plays Jess, a woman whose bright yellow lighter (with her name on it) becomes an important recurring object in the film.

• 1D: Ride arranged on one's own (KIT CAR) — this is a car you assemble yourself. So "arranged" as in "physically put together," not "ordered (like an Uber)." 
• 47A: Accomplish with precision (DOTOAT) — allow me to parse this for you: it's "DO TO A 'T'." Four words. I know, it's awful, let's not think about it. (Or, you can have fun pronouncing it "doe tote," as I'm doing in my head currently)
• 34A: Get hot and bothered (SWELTER) — first thought: "STEAM UP." The clue wanted me to think about sex so I thought about sex, what can I say?
• 48A: Purchase on an island? (GAS) — those little areas where you pump your GAS are sometimes called "islands." Hope you didn't write in LEI here.
• 53A: Falsify, in a way (COOK) — as in "COOK the books" (i.e. falsify financial records). I had -OOK and wrote in ROOK. So I was in the Fraud ballpark, but just ... off.
• 2D: Mononymous baseball star who played 28 seasons (ICHIRO) — I don't think of anyone whose last name is well known and frequently used as "mononymous." But yes, he's commonly referred to by ICHIRO ... so I guess it's OK. Is SHOHEI mononymous too now? PELE, now he's mononymous, as I cannot tell you any other part of his name. See also, once again, ENYA. (the "e" key just went out on my wireless keyboard, R.I.P. little keyboard, hello new tech expenditure)
• 51D: Musical counterpart of pizzicato (ARCO) — ARCO = played with the bow (pizzicato = plucked with the fingers)
• 41A: Like i, say (NONREAL) — very proud of getting this one fairly quickly, of the -EAL. I know "i" as the square root of "-1"—thus, a NONREAL number. Here's a more technical definition. Mathematicians will no doubt chime in in the comments. They tend to be big chimers when their field is at issue ("As a mathematician, ...”).
• 56D: Shot one waits to knock back (LOB) — alcoholic misdirection, my favorite kind of misdirection. Obviously the real context is tennis. 

Gonna go knock back several shots of coffee now. Not gonna wait. Take care, see you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

***

Important Note:

As of Monday, 11/4/24, the NYT Tech Guild is on strike. 

From The Guardian:

The Guild is asking that readers honor their picket line by boycotting the Times’ selection of games, including Wordle and the daily digital crossword, and to avoid other digital extensions such as the Cooking app.

Annie Shields, a campaign lead for the News Guild of New York, encouraged people to sacrifice their streaks in the wildly popular Wordle and Connections games in order to support the strike.

You can read more about the strike here (nyguild.org).

There were some anti-union talking points being credulously repeated in the comments recently, so just to be clear (per Vanity Fair): "The union said Tech Guild workers' main concerns that remain unresolved are: remote/hybrid work protections; “just cause” job protections, which “the newsroom union has had for decades”; limits on subcontracting; and pay equity/fair pay." 

Since the picket line is "digital," it would appear to apply only to Games solved in the NYT digital environment—basically anything you solve on your phone or on the NYT website per se. If you get the puzzle in an actual dead-tree newspaper, or if you solve it outside the NYT's proprietary environment (via a third-party app, as I do), then technically you're not crossing the picket line by solving. You can honor the digital picket line by not using the Games app (or the Cooking app) at all until the strike is resolved. No Spelling Bee, no Connections ... none of it. My morning Wordle ritual is was very important to me, but ... I'll survive, I assume.   

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]