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

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