Headwear for lesser royalty / TUE 5-14-24 / Young Flanders boy on "The Simpsons" / Neckwear for noisy dogs / Traveling fashion sale featuring the work of a specific designer / "Slaughterhouse Five" setting, in brief

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)

THEME: TREETOPS (38D: Common spots for eagles' nests ... or a hint to 2-, 9-, 21- and 24-Down) — you can find "tree" ... parts ... at the "top" of the answers to the indicated clues:

Theme answers:

• ROOTS FOR (2D: Supports from the stands)
• BARK COLLAR (24D: Neckwear for noisy dogs)
• TRUNK SHOW (21D: Traveling fashion sale featuring the work of a specific designer)
• LEAVES ALONE (9D: Lets be)

Word of the Day: TRUNK SHOW (21D) —

A trunk show is an event in which vendors present merchandise directly to store personnel or customers at a retail location or another venue such as a hotel room. In many cases it allows store personnel to preview and/or purchase merchandise before it is made available to the public. Typically, clients view the merchandise, place orders, and then wait for the vendor to manufacture and deliver the goods. If the merchandise has a designer, the vendor may choose to have the designer present at the event to add to the customers' experience. Prototypes, samples, remnants and leftover items from runway shows are also sometimes offered at trunk shows. Trunk shows may be open to the general public and advertised in the mass media or may be confined to special customers or those on a mailing list.

The term is derived from the common practice of merchandise being transported to these events in trunks. 

Trunk shows are particularly popular from January to May in the bridal industry because the bride can view more designer's collections than in store. (wikipedia)

• • •

[Messi, star of Anatomy of a Fall (2023)]

This one lost me at BARK COLLARS, which many animal advocacy groups, including the RSPCA, consider inhumane. I turn off TV shows and movies where anything bad happens to the dog. I once stopped watching a Walter Matthau comedy (!?) within the first minutes because some gangster or other shot a dog to demonstrate what a tough guy he was. We don't even see it happen, but knowing it happened was enough to make me say "nope" and shut it off. I got legitimately upset at last year's Anatomy of a Fall for making me watch a dog be tortured for Several Minutes (it's a great, great movie, but if you'd told me about that dog scene ahead of time, I might've said 'pass'; my wife can tell you what it was like to sit next to me for those five minutes—lots of mumbled swearing). I'm not saying my feelings are *completely* (or at all) rational. But dog harm of any kind is a complete no-go area for me, in all media. Your sensitivity level will undoubtedly vary. Still, BARK COLLARS, no. No. Bad vibes, for sure. [Neckwear for noisy dogs]?? Weird to acknowledge whale stress (31A: Military technology that's a source of stress for whales), but then just go all alliterative whimsy where dog stress is concerned. "Neckwear" makes even makes it sound like it's some kind of adorable dog fashion. Man I hate this clue.

But that wasn't my only issue with this thing. It felt like a boring themeless puzzle most of the time. It's got a lowish word count (74), so there's more white space than usual (esp noticeable in those NE and SW corners), and the puzzle didn't even seem to have theme answers at all at first because ROOTS FOR and the revealer, TREETOPS, don't stand out as longer answers because they are right next to answers of equal length. So aesthetically, it seemed off (those open corners were kind of a slog to get through, without much reward in the way of interesting fill). Then there's the arboreal absurdity of having ROOTS at the top of the grid (and TREETOPS at the bottom). I guess TRUNK SHOW was supposed to be the marquee answer, but I didn't know what a TRUNK SHOW was (I think I had TRADE SHOW and TRACK SHOW in there at various points), so that answer didn't shine for me the way maybe it did for some of you. Overall this played like a sloggy Tuesday themeless, with none of the interesting answers, none of the zing and pop, of regular (late-week) themelesses. 

Outside of TRUNK SHOW, there wasn't any real trouble, just an overall slower-than-usualness. I kept misreading clues, most notably 40A: Ideological split (SCHISM), which I read as "ideological spirit." I kept trying to make some version of ORANGEADE (ORANGADE?) work at 3D: Fizzy citrus drink (ORANGINA). I drank a lot of ORANGINA in Greece in 1987 (why??? because it was there), and I don't think I've seen it since. I mean, I'm sure I have, but it hasn't registered. TROU is possibly my most hated crossword answer of all time. I only ever see it in crosswords. The very phrase "dropping TROU" and the concept of "mooning someone" seems so corny, and extremely dated (like something boys in the '50s thought was funny???). I never never, never ever, see TROU anywhere but crosswords these days. Every single time I see it, it gets at least a mini "ugh" from me. Weirdly (very weirdly), though I can't imagine going to B SCHOOL (short for "business school"), I kinda like it as an answer, and I especially like it directly over BE HAPPY. If you want to BE HAPPY, I'm not sure B SCHOOL is the place to be, but B over BE made me happy. And hey, look, a BEE! (25D: Hum bug?). I'm enjoying the B/BE/BEEs. The rest of the puzzle, you can have back.

Bullets:

• 26A: Lead-in to some unsolicited advice ("IF I MAY...") — OK, I like this too, especially as clued. The "unsolicited advice" part is key. The phrase itself is colloquially perfect and it feels fresh (though it's been in the puzzle a few times before)
• 1A: Wafting smells (AROMAS) — yes, this is fine, but when the second [Wafting smells] came along (42A: ODORS), the spell was broken, as I realized, "so ... just 'smells,' then?" "Wafting" all of a sudden seemed awkwardly superfluous—it was the word that distinguished AROMAS from mere ODORS. But then mere ODORS showed up, also "wafting," and the magic of "wafting" vanished.
• 47A: Irreversibly committed (IN DEEP) — I don't think of this phrase indicating either commitment or irreversibility. I think that people get IN DEEP (whatever kind of deep they're in) mostly unintentionally. By accident. And I think that getting out of ... deep ... is just hard, not impossible. This clue is missing the "oh *&$% how did this happen?!" quality of being truly IN DEEP

• 19A: Okay boomer? (TNT) — total garbage clue. First of all, TNT is a very good boomer. Pretty sure it booms just fine. Second, ugh, I thought this stupid insult / meme that every extremely online dipshit was using to insult anyone they thought was "old" had died a well-deserved death by now, but now that it's no longer in regular use, now that the fad is well and truly past its prime, I guess the NYTXW (in typically NYTXW fashion) thought "now's the time!" 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Popular pastime played with putters / MON 4-13-24 / Topic of a wistful breakup song / Bearded garden figurine / Washable diaper material / Cut of meat that lent its name to a facial hairstyle

Constructor: Jeremy Newton

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Monday* *solved Downs-only*)

THEME: HOLE-IN-ONE SHOT (??) (33A: With 34- and 35- Across, something made by following the path of O's in this puzzle's grid) — it's supposed to depict a HOLE-IN-ONE (SHOT) in MINIGOLF (18A: Popular pastime played with putters), which was apparently invented in SCOTLAND (46A: Country with the first 18-Across venue (for ladies only, 1867))

Word of the Day: Margaret CHO (53D: Stand-up comic Margaret) —

Margaret Moran Cho (born December 5, 1968) is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She is known for her stand-up routines, through which she critiques social and political problems, especially regarding race and sexuality. She rose to prominence after starring in the ABC sitcom All-American Girl (1994–95), and became an established stand-up comic in the subsequent years.

As an actress, she has acted in such roles as Charlene Lee in It's My Party and John Travolta's FBI colleague in the action film Face/Off. Cho was part of the cast of the TV series Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime Television, in which she appeared as Teri Lee, a paralegal assistant. For her portrayal of Kim Jong-il on 30 Rock, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2012. In 2022, Cho co-starred in the film Fire Island, a portrayal of the LGBT Asian American experience in the eponymous gay village off the South Shore of Long Island.

• • •

If I'd gone with LOAF instead of LOLL at 5D: Sit around doing nothing, things might've been much easier, but LOLL really felt right (and was, technically, half right), and so LOLL stayed in place and (consequently) both of the longer Across answers up top became much much harder to parse (when you solve Downs-only, parsing's all you have). At one point I wanted MINIGOLF to be MINIMALL and LOADS OF FUN to be HOLDS OFF ON (!?). Aside from that problem, the rest of the grid was much easier, though a few of the longer answers eluded me for a while, including the one that went right through the shaded square—26D: Site for skeletons (CLOSET). Really (really) could've used a "metaphorically speaking" there. It is Monday, after all. But it's OK. I got there. GROW ON and "I HOPE NOT" were also toughish to get without help from Acrosses. In the case of "I HOPE NOT," the equivalency is not ... not what I'd call airtight, and as for GROW ON, I think of that meaning not just that something is becoming more tolerable, but that you're actually growing to like it. Then I had problem parsing some of the unlikelier Acrosses, like "YO DOG" (woof) and NO HOW and especially "IT'S DOPE" (42A: "Highly recommend!," in slang). Oh, and DIET gave me a mini-fit as well (49D: Try to lighten up?). I wanted ... I dunno, something to do with hair dye, I think. Never saw the theme while solving. Finished with what seemed like a lot of awkward fill and a couple of mysterious "O" squares (shaded and circled, respectively). Didn't even notice the string of "O"s traversing the grid at ODD angles. I can't say I think much of this theme. The revealer feels bad. Who says "HOLE-IN-ONE SHOT?" That is, who says the SHOT part? It's a hole-in-one. That's the shot. Everyone knows a "hole-in-one" is a (golf) shot. A "million-to-one shot," that's a thing. A HOLE-IN-ONE SHOT feels ... well, as I say, bad. Like some forced garbage you make up to get symmetry to work out. 

Don't love that the shortish (8-letter) Acrosses are thematic but the longer (10-letter) ones aren't. Seems ... again, bad. I guess you could try to lawyer your way into an argument that LOADS OF FUN is thematic ("MINIGOLF! It's LOADS OF FUN!"), but then you're gonna have to explain the dude with the single MUTTON CHOP on his face. What's he got to do with MINIGOLF? Or SCOTLAND? And where's his other chop? He needs another one to GROWN ON his face, just to even things out. Before I finished and read the revealer clue, I thought the theme must have something to do with the shaded/circled squares (correct!) but I didn't know what. Since one of the squares involved DEMONS (24D: Wicked spirits) and another involved a clue with "skeletons" (CLOSET), I thought something spooky was maybe supposed to be happening. I mean, there's a GHOST and everything (37A: Halloween cookie shape). But nope. It's putt-putt. Shrug. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Metal ring that holds a pencil's eraser / SUN 5-12-24 / Digital "container" associated with Bitcoin / Formula 1 tour stop since 2023, informally / Lady Gaga vis-à-vis Billie Eilish, e.g. / Polemology is the study of them / Dystopian classic whose title comes from "The Tempest" / 1995 blockbuster with numerous historical inaccuracies / Title Disney character of 1998 / Fruits exchanged on Chinese New Year / Spiritual hermitage / Suspense-building words

Constructor: Avery Gee Katz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Pixar Box Set" — seven Pixar movie titles appear in boxes (i.e. single squares) throughout the grid:

Theme answers:

• 
  CARS—25A: Original host of MTV's "Total Request Live" (CARSON DALY) / 11D: Prominent figure at the Academy Awards (OSCAR STATUE)
• LUCA—35A: Tourist destination in Baja California Sur (CABO SAN LUCAS) / 27D: Certain streaming library (HULU CATALOG)
• UP—61A: Cloud nine, so to speak (EUPHORIA) / 57D: Two-family dwelling (DUPLEX)
• SOUL—85A: Fried chicken, cornbread, collard greens, etc. (SOUL FOOD) / 62D: Home to the University of Montana (MISSOULA)
• WALL-E—96A: Digital "container" associated with Bitcoin (CRYPTO WALLET) / 67D: Refused to answer questions (STONEWALLED)
• BRAVE—98A: Dystopian classic whose title comes from "The Tempest" (BRAVE NEW WORLD) / 98D: 1995 blockbuster with numerous historical inaccuracies (BRAVEHEART)
• COCO—117A: Palm tree product used in skin care (COCONUT OIL) / 100D: Drink often served with marshmallows (HOT COCOA)

Word of the Day: Al OERTER (97D: Al ___, discus thrower in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame) —

Alfred Oerter Jr. (/ˈɔːrtər/; September 19, 1936 – October 1, 2007) was an American athlete and a four-time Olympic Champion in the discus throw. He was the first athlete to win a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games. Oerter is an inductee of the IAAF Hall of Fame. In 1973, he starred in the short-lived ABC legal sitcom Oerter in the Court! (wikipedia) (OK I made that last part up)

• • •

I'm trying to think of that Finnish runner I used to have to know for crosswords, back when 20th-century Olympians with crossword-convenient names were a much bigger deal ... ah, there it is: PAAVO NURMI ("The Flying Finn"). I bring this up because I cannot remember the last time I had to remember Al OERTER. Feels like 2008, but it's probably something like 2022 and I just forgot. Let's see ... ooh, no, I was pretty close: 2010! Fourteen years OERTER-free. He's only appeared in the NYTXW three times total (!?!?) ('03, '10, today), which doesn't feel like enough times for me to become familiar with his name, but familiar I am, and (I assure you) solely because of crosswords. I was not alive when he was an Olympian, and I am not a discus aficionado, so there's no other way I'm learning OERTER except for crosswords. Last time he appeared, I nearly Naticked on OERTER / BARKCLOTH (!?!?!). Man, fill was rougher back then. My Word of the Day that day was someone named Lin PIAO. Needless to say, that name hasn't stuck (that 2010 appearance remains of PIAO's sole NYTXW appearance). I think all the crosses on OERTER are fair today, so hopefully you survived that trip down Olympian Lane. [My cat has decided to get on my desk and threaten to walk across my keyboard so pardon me while I evict her] [Well now she appears to be evicting herself, so back to business]. The only name I truly didn't know was whoever that JEN person is. I try desperately not to know anything, not a thing, no thing, about the "Biden White House" (or any White House, I'm done—and what does it even mean to be "of the Biden White House"? Like, say the job title or don't say the job title, come on). Wasn't there a JEN Psaki "of the Biden White House"? How many JENs does he plan on employing? Voters need to know. Looks like today's JEN, JEN O'Malley Dillon, is the first female campaign manager of a winning presidential campaign (Biden '20). Seems noteworthy. Like ... the kind of thing you might put in a clue, even.

[the "Jennifer" of this song was one of my dearest childhood friends, true story]

As for today's theme, shrug, not really my thing. I have heard of all these movies, so that's something, but I have no idea which movies are Pixar and which aren't. Apparently MULAN isn't (kinda bugged me to see a non-Pixar animated film in this grid, for some reason—like, enough animated films, already; mix it up). The other movies are indeed movies. Some are famous, some slightly less so. Some are truly hidden in their respective answers (EUPHORIA, CRYPTO WALLET), some are definitely not (BRAVE NEW WORLD, SOUL FOOD). It's a straightforward rebus puzzle that's basically a short movie title Easter egg hunt or Whac-a-mole or whatever. Some of the "hiding" solutions are pretty clever (HULU CATALOG being the most desperate / inventive / interesting). The theme was just OK, but the rest of the puzzle was maybe slightly better than normal. Maybe. Anyway, I didn't hate the solving experience as much as I (frequently) have on previous Sundays. This was fine. 

But FERRULE! (31A: Metal ring that holds a pencil's eraser). FERRULE is the OERTER of pencil parts, in that it's pretty obscure and I also wouldn't know it at all if it weren't for crosswords. Actually, I may be confusing it with a different FERULE (is there a one-R FERULE? Can there possibly be multiple FER(R)ULEs?!). I thought it was a rod for beating children with or something like that. No, seriously. Hang on ... Ha! One-R FERULE is "an instrument (such as a flat piece of wood like a ruler) used to punish children" (merriam-webster.com). Told ya! Wow, a one-R and a two-R FER(R)ULE. What wonders and horrors the English language has lurking in its heart. This is two-R FERRULE's fourth ever appearance. One-R FERULE, on the other hand, has appeared a whopping 23 times, though only seven times in the Modern (i.e. Shortz/Fagliano) Era.

Ironically ... or strangely, anyway ... the toughest part of the puzzle for me today was nowhere near a rebus square. It was LABELMATE and everything around it. Well, not everything. I knew LENTILS, obviously (56A: Dal ingredients), and that Homer quote re: ALCOHOL is Hall-of-Fame, put-it-on-a-T-shirt level famous (51D: "The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems," per Homer Simpson). But somehow I thought 42A: Beam at a bar (JIM) had to do with sushi (probably thinking "bream"??) and as we've established I didn't know JEN, and MUMMIES eluded me (32D: They're kept under wraps), and also BELABOR (49A: Go on and on about). But mostly it was just the word LABELMATE (49A: Lady Gaga vis-à-vis Billie Eilish, e.g.). I have no idea what label anyone is on anymore. Not that I ever did, but I used to have at least a vague sense of whether someone was on Island or Sire or Electra or I.R.S. or whatever. Now? Zero idea, none, even if I know the artist reasonably well. So LABELMATE slowed my forward momentum more than anything else today. 

Notes:

• 108A: Picture book with characters like Odlaw, Wizard Whitebeard and Woof (WHERE'S WALDO?) — Pretty sure I've asked this before, but ... characters? Don't you just find the stupid stripe-shirt / ski-hat guy in a crowd? Is there really drama? A narrative arc? "Characters" implies such things. I had no idea.
• 59D: Frequent antagonist of Winnie-the-Pooh (BEE) — "Antagonist" seems kind of ... dramatic. Hyperbolic. Also, just one?? I don't remember my Pooh, but it seems more likely that there were many BEEs. Hmm, the Disney Fandom wiki (an august authority, to be sure) says the BEEs are "recurring antagonists" to W the P, so alrighty then. Nevermind.  
• 22A: "My only request ..." ("ALL I ASK...") — my favorite answer in the grid, along with "WAIT FOR IT ..." (4D: Suspense-building words)
• 66A: Formula 1 tour stop since 2023, informally (VEGAS) — Hey Siri, write a crossword clue that has nothing to do with me whatsoever. Like, combine the things I'm least interested in in one perfectly un-me clue/answer pairing. Thanks.
• 108D: Polemology is the study of them (WARS) — absolutely positively had TARS here at first. Luckily my brain refused to accept the existence of a THERE'S WALDO! (hell of a sequel title, though, you've gotta admit). 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

2000s sitcom about a woman with amnesia / SAT 5-11-24 / Environmental writer ___ Leopold / Ring-shaped bone that supports the skull / Meal makeup, maybe / HMO designation, for short / Forerunner of a streaming playlist / East African city whose name means "house of peace" / Pacesetter on a long frigid journey

Constructor: Billy Bratton

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALDO Leopold (26A: Environmental writer ___ Leopold) —

 

Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac (1949), which has been translated into fourteen languages and has sold more than two million copies.

Leopold was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. His ethics of nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental movement, with his ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. He emphasized biodiversity and ecology and was a founder of the science of wildlife management.

• • •

Really enjoyed this one, despite a few clunkers in the clues, and despite the grid's having possibly my least favorite shape—the pinwheel with the four *highly* segmented corners. It's like doing five separate puzzles! I want to do one puzzle! With nice flow between the sections! Bah! When you're solving a puzzle with this shape, there's always the looming threat that one of those many, many isolated segments of the puzzle is going to take you out, and you'll be stuck, with no way to come at it from another angle. Real minefield energy. Slightly stressful. But today, the mines were all defused very quickly, or nonexistent, or whatever makes the metaphor work, because at every turn, every time I wanted to enter a new section, the puzzle Let Me Right In. It was weird. Had the usual NW trouble, flailing around for a bit, as one does, but then the puzzle just handed me the keys to the middle of the grid when it asked for the [2000s sitcom about a woman with amnesia], and after a half-second of "How should I...?" I nearly gasped "Oh my god" because I knew it. I knew it cold. 

"SAMANTHA WHO?"! How did I know it? Well, first, I watched it. All of it, I think (it wasn't on the air very long, sadly—just two seasons, '07-'09). The other reason I remembered it so quickly is that I've had a signed promotional photo from that show staring at me here in my office for ~15 years!

One of the weirder moments of my early blogging career was having someone calling themselves "Christina Applegate" turn up in my comments section who turned out to Actually Be Christina Applegate (an accomplished crossword solver who once told a crossword-related story on Letterman, LOL). Anyway, celebrities never send me anything, but she did, and it was thrilling. Oh, I guess Anne Meara did send me a polite correction email once. That was also thrilling. Also also thrilling: having the puzzle open right up. The center is really the highlight of the puzzle, which is rarely the case with a grid like this, where there's so much white space there that you usually see at least one desperate, made-up, awkward, or ugly entry. But not today. OK, maybe LITTLE THING is usually in the plural, whatever, I think it's fine. Plus there's BATTLE SCARS and GOT THE SHAFT and DAR ES SALAAM, a real trove of delightfulness. And then, as I say, all those scary isolated corners actually had a greeter waiting to show me in and make me feel welcome. GOAT YOGA! MIX TAPE! "I WOULDN'T" ... I mean, "I WOULDN'T" sounds foreboding, but nope, that answer ushered me right in, and straight to the finish line. It's not that the puzzle didn't have any Saturday bite. It had some. For sure. But I never got well and truly stuuuuck. Which I appreciate.

A couple things clunked for me today, but they were LITTLE THINGs (see! plural!). I don't believe "I'M CALM" is a thing (1D: "No, you're the one getting worked up!"). I mean, you might say it, but it really doesn't want to stand alone. If you're saying "No, you're the one getting worked up!" with the stress and the exclamation point and everything, you're not calm. Also, if anything, you would say "I AM CALM," no contraction, as you're obviously disputing someone else's claim that you're not. Got a big "NO" written next to that answer. Another big "NO" written next to FISTS (43D: "Rocks"). I assume this refers to the game "Rock Paper Scissors"—you'll note how the game is not called "Rocks Papers Scissors." Putting "Rocks" in quotation marks like that is especially egregious since no one says "Rocks" in the context of the game. Maybe a game recap? ("I played four rocks, three papers, and a scissors!"). But no. "Rocks" is ice. "Rock" is FIST, singular. Boo to this answer. 

Hardish getting started today since no idea re: ATLAS or MRS. Meyer's whatever it is or random 5-letter boy's name. Also had some TEND/LEAN confusion (23A: Show bias). The other confusion up there was actually the answer that got me started: 5D: Many are Persian (RUGS). Of course CATS works too. Luckily both answers occurred to me before I committed to either, so I tried the neighboring answer to see which of RUGS v CATS worked best alongside it. This led to the hilarious moment at 6D: Gross home? where I went "Oh, Ari Gross! He's on NPR!" (brain, to me, five seconds later: "Uh, no ... Arye Gross co-starred on the sitcom Ellen. You're thinking of ARI Shapiro. He's on NPR. As is, famously, Terry Gross ... how you make it through a Monday let alone a Saturday is beyond me"). Who cares how I got there; I got there. NPR! That meant RUGS not CATS, and then INTERN, and then I was off and running.

Wrong answers: yes! I had some. "THAT'S IT!" for "THAT ONE" (34D: Comment with a point, say); "SAME HERE" for "SAMESIES" (good answer, but cringe thing-to-actually-say) (50A: "OMG, me too!"); SLED DOG for LEAD DOG (11D: Pacesetter on a long, frigid journey). I think that's it! That's plenty! My favorite clues were probably 15A: Asked for the fish, say (MEOWED) and 47A: Mythical rock singer (SIREN). And while I didn't exactly like 24A: Cheerios alternative, I have to respect it, because it sure as hell got me ("I thought I knew all the five-letter cereals! What the hell!?"). Not the cereal but the farewell(s). That is one way to turn TATAS (!) into an acceptable answer—distract me with the clue! I like how the puzzle later taunted me, like "hey, remember how you thought "Cheerios" was a cereal? That was fun. You were thinking of something with ... OATS, weren't you?" (40A: Meal makeup, maybe). Shut up, puzzle.

Last notes:

• 18A: "Path" of progress (INROAD) — As with ["Rocks"], I have no idea what the quotation marks think they're doing here. Take them away, in this case, and the clue works fine.
• 55A: Line around the Equator? ("IT'S HOT") — just imagining the millions of people who inhabit the equatorial portion of the globe walking around all day going "IT'S HOT" literally all the time. But I guess I'm supposed to imagine a North American traveling to the Equator, someone who would find the absolutely normal heat remarkable.
• 36A: Ones that are tired before they even move? (NEW CARS) — saw right through this one because I know the puzzle's tendency for the dumbest of puns. No one would say that their car was "tired" (in the sense of "possessing four tires") ... except some puzzlemaking nerds, they would definitely say that.

TATAS, everyones!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Lie, in slang / FRI 5-10-24 / Swimmer also known as a moonfish / Pop of color for an interior designer / One who can't handle their moonshine well? / Tech-savvy folks / Iroquois foe in the Beaver Wars

Constructor: Jesse Cohn

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: CAP (56D: Lie, in slang) —

Cap has functioned as a verb in English since the 15th century: mountains can be capped in snow, teeth can be capped with crowns, and pens and heads can be capped with, well, caps. In each of these cases cap has to do with a cover or top. But the verb cap can also be used to mean something else entirely: to lie, to boast, or to front. // Though often mistaken for new internet slang, capping (or cappin’) has been used in African American English for decades, and possibly much longer. In a Genius video featuring interviews with multiple rappers as well as a linguist, journalist Jacques Morel details the history of the term in rap music and dates the first mentions of capping in hip-hop to the mid-1980s and the phrase “high capping” to the end of that decade. The phrase no cap appears to be a newer development, becoming popularized in the 2000s and the 2010s with songs like “No Cap” by Atlanta rappers Future and Young Thug, and “Deadz” by Migos and 2 Chainz. In “Deadz,” Migos can be heard rapping the lyrics “no for real, no cap.” In Morel’s video, Migos rapper Offset defines cap as “bullshit” and “lies,” and no cap as “I’m dead serious.” (No cap is today sometimes rendered in emojis as 🚫🧢 or 🙅🏽🧢.) Willie D of Geto Boys glosses capping with multiple meanings ranging from the act of insulting someone to bragging or fronting. (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

A solid enough Friday, but the highs weren't high enough, and there were some editorial glitches that really put a few [Negative impression?]s (DENTs) in the solving experience. Speaking of highs not being high ... the word "high." It's in the grid (HIGH SCORES). And then it's in a clue (5D: High degree) ... and then it's in another clue (38A: High range). A minor issue? Possibly. But the issues continue. There's the "HEY" in the grid (15A: "Oh, why not" => "WHAT THE HEY") and then "Heyo" in the clues (46A: "Heyo" => "'SUP?") (short for "what's up?"). Only a desperate lawyer is going to claim that's not a dupe. And then there's the worst dupe of all. POWER USERS and "USE ME." That's a construction issue. Those "USE"s are pretty close to each other in the grid. And POWER USERS was probably my least favorite long answer in the grid to begin with (does merely "using" make you necessarily "Tech savvy"?). The fact that I'm noticing all these dupes means there's not enough pop and wow, not enough marquee answers in the grid. The ones that are there are mostly flat—acceptable, for sure, but definitely in need of an ACCENT WALL or two (liked that answer, btw) (1A: Pop of color for an interior designer). The NW corner had the most inventive and sparkliest longer fill, but it was also the hardest corner (because first) so I didn't feel its sparkle the way I would have if I'd hit it at a whooshier moment in the solve, but when things did get whooshier and I anticipated running into similarly sparkly fill, none of the rest of the grid would oblige me. There's nothing very wrong with this puzzle, it just didn't do the Friday Thing I like Friday puzzles to do, namely razzle (and also dazzle). It also has SMELLERS (23D: Noses). Hard to overcome SMELLERS. Really putting yourself in a hole there...

My only other significant gripe with this puzzle is the clue on AHAB (8D: Who soliloquizes "The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run"), specifically the use of the term "soliloquizes." I know you want to misdirect people, it's fun, etc., but that is a term for drama. "Hey, remember that famous AHAB soliloquy?" No, you absolutely do not, because there's no such thing. Hamlet has soliloquies, Macbeth has soliloquies, and almost certainly IAGO has soliloquies, which is what I (and, please tell me, many of you?) put in there at first. That quotation sounds very poetic, Shakespearean, even, and if you'd told me IAGO's soul was grooved to run on iron rails, I'd've said "yes" (and also "why are you talking like that?"). I love good misdirects, but that was a cheap one. On the plus side, the puzzle really nailed a couple "?" clues today, particularly the clue on WEREWOLF (7D: One who can't handle their moonshine well?). That got a definite mid-solve nod of respect from me. Same thing with the clue on NAVEL (34A: Evidence of a past personal connection?). Yes, the umbilical cord is a "past personal connection," that is undeniable. Hat tip, slight bow, kudos.

Trouble spots mostly came early, with DEL v DES (22A: "Of the," abroad), EASES v CALMS (3D: Placates), ELLA v ETTA (4D: Name that's also a suffix in Italian), and PHD v NTH (5D: High degree) confusion. Also, CHLOE was right in the middle of all that, and I have no idea who she is (2D: Actress ___ Grace Moretz) (b. 1997) (she's been in so many things and I've seen almost none of them). Oh, and as for AWARD, yikes (1D: Speech prompter, perhaps). I built it from the bottom so had an answer that looked increasingly like some kind of CARD. Sincerely thought there might be some kind of rebus going on for a second. [CUE] CARD?? The ambiguity of "prompter" made that one tough. Once I got out of that corner, far less trouble. Weirdly, the most trouble came from a name I knew (or "knew," I guess)—I watched all of Veep a few years back, and loved it, but couldn't remember (today, just now) if Julia Louis-Dreyfuss's character was a SERENA or a SELENA ... but, surprise! Turns out the answer is "neither." She's a SELINA (43D: ___ Meyer, the V.P. on "Veep"). That SE corner got harder in other ways too. While ROMA was easy to come up with, TRIESTE was less so (41D: Italian seaport that's home to Miramare Castle), in part because 45A: Some hired professionals, for short was so vague that almost any letter of the alphabet seemed plausible in the P-S slot. I exaggerate. Some. I wanted PAS (short of "personal assistants"). But no: PIS ("private investigators"). I've seen several PTS in the past couple weeks for my stupid-but-improving wrist (multiple PTS working at the same clinic, that is). Are PMs "hired professionals"? Kinda? Are POs "parole officers?" Anyway, P-S slowed me, especially insofar as it crossed that Italian (but looks French) city I never think about. 

I am quite certain that CAP will have put nails in more than a few solvers' tires today. Hard, hard generational divide there. I forget where I (recently) learned that meaning of "(No) CAP," but I know that after I learned it, I marched into class and asked my students if they knew the term, and yeah, they all knew it (and laughed at me, I presume affectionately). Meanwhile, I heard an older man (i.e. roughly my age, lol) working behind the coffee counter at school try to make a "cap" pun/joke to one of his coworkers, and then ask semi-earnestly, "isn't that what the kids say? 'No CAP!'" I told him yes, that is what they say, his pun was good and he should be proud of it. Not every "old guy looking out for old guy" situation is bad.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Fishing basket / THU 5-9-24 / Pigeon dish / Bloodroot produces an orange one / Like the smell of a pub / Body part where a sock might go? / Product identifier similar to a U.P.C.

Constructor: Joe DiPietro

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: in old Rome? — the letter strings "ONE," "TWO," "FOUR," and "EIGHT" are represented in the grid by their Roman numeral equivalents:

Theme answers:

• WALKED (I) GGSHELLS (walked [on e]ggshells) (16A: Used extreme caution, in old Rome?)
• "DON (II) RRY ABOUT IT" ("don'[t wo]rry about it") (30A: "Everything will be fine," in old Rome?)
• THE SKIN O (IV) TEETH (the skin o[f our] teeth) (38A: What we might escape by, in old Rome?)
• W(VIII) HE EVIDENCE (w[eigh t]he evidence) (57A: Do a judge's job, in old Rome?)

Word of the Day: ERG (44A: What a piece of work!) —

The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10⁻⁷ joules (100 nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol erg. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from ergon (ἔργον), a Greek word meaning 'work' or 'task'.

An erg is the amount of work done by a force of one dyne exerted for a distance of one centimetre. In the CGS base units, it is equal to one gram centimetre-squared per second-squared (g⋅cm²/s²). It is thus equal to 10⁻⁷ joules or 100 nanojoules (nJ) in SI units. (wikipedia)

• • •

[it means "One Claudius"]

I kinda liked unpacking these theme answers. The numerals were all well and truly buried in their respective answers (all of them breaking across two words, rather than merely embedded in a single word, or appearing as the numbers themselves, which would've been boring). This is the kind of gibberish that I can accept in my grid—gibberish that isn't really gibberish if you're reading it right. And they're all a perfect grid-spanning 15, and the numbers form an orderly list, doubling as you progress down the grid. I'd've preferred "ancient Rome" to "old Rome" in the clues. Otherwise, I think the theme is aces. But man, things have gotten way, way too easy of late. For a while there, the interim editor seemed to have jacked the difficulty of the puzzles up in a pretty noticeable way (whether intentionally or not), but things have yawed waaaayyy in the other direction in recent days. Every day this week has felt like a Monday until today, which (gimmick aside) felt like a Tuesday. I really would like my Thursdays to have more punch and more flash. The fill today is smooth and uncringey (hurray), and MILD WINTER and STEEP FINES are solid longer answers, but the theme is carrying all of the excitement burden. The burden of interest? The only thing interesting about the puzzle is the theme, is what I'm saying. In a case like this, on a Thursday, the cluing could at least try to put up a bit of fight—get weird or clever or something. But I've looked this puzzle over and have marked hardly any clues as particularly tough or tricky. Fight me, puzzle!

Whatever interest ON IN YEARS and GO ON A TEAR had was negated by the fact that they both contain "ON." Normally an "ON" dupe would not be something I'd notice (or care about), unless the "ON" words intersected or there were three+ "ON"s or something like that. But when symmetrical marquee-level answers dupe a word, I notice. But as I say, moving through the non-thematic areas of this puzzle was largely a pleasant experience. A nice walk. No cool birds or beautiful foliage, but no rain or gnat swarms either. Only a few hesitations and missteps today. Got MILD W- and when I couldn't make MILD WEATHER fit, I was briefly confused. I guess the word "news" in the clue threw me a bit—I think of the weather as "news," but not the season itself. "Forecast" might've got me there. But no matter. My level of confusion, like the imagined weather (I mean winter), was merely mild. I thought a SQUAB was a kind of bird, not a [Pigeon dish]. Ah, I see it is an "immature domestic pigeon or its meat" (wikipedia) (my emph.). I was not sure if it was a dish that contained pigeon, or something the pigeon itself might eat. Also, I routinely confuse SQUAB and SQUIB, so thank god CAR (eventually) was clear (26A: Where F comes before E?) (i.e. on the gas gauge). 

Some more notes:

• 9A: Body part where a sock might go? (CHIN) — this one seems designed to get you to write in SHIN. Well, anyway, that's what I did. But SHIN would mean reading the clue in a more literal, "?"-less way. Here, the sock is not an article of clothing, but a punch. And if you're going to sock someone, I guess the chin is as good a place as any (though your hand would probably prefer the belly)
• 27A: Product identifier similar to a U.P.C. (SKU) — Me: "Uh ... CPU?" (no: that's computerese for "central processing unit”). I haven't seen or thought about SKU numbers in forever, and don't actually know what SKU stands for, so let's find out ... drum roll ... googling ... OK, looks like it's "stock keeping unit." It's pronounced "skew," right? "Skoo" seems like it would be too silly for any self-respecting person to want to say.
• 46A: Result of a failed field sobriety test, for short (DWI) — still not sure what the difference between DWI and DUI is (from a legal standpoint, that is). I went, as I always do, with DUI, largely because it's just easier to say, unless you've decided to treat them as true acronyms, in which case I believe they are both pronounced "Dwee!" 

[I've seen this dumb billboard around town so many times, you'd think I'd've switched my default from DUI to DWI by now. True story: I first thought these were political billboards meant to smear some guy named Tom who was running for office]

• 12D: Mitchell & ___ (sports apparel company) (NESS) — No idea. It's Eliot or Loch or go to hell, NESS-wise.
• 51D: Like the smell of a pub (BEERY) — do not love this as an adjective. As a supporting actor on The Rockford Files, however, I'd love it:

[Noah BEERY, Jr. as Jim's dad, Rocky]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. SWAK = “Sealed With A Kiss”; I though this was well known, but based on some initial comments, apparently not

P.P.S. reader Daniel G. sent me a picture of his cat a while back and I don't remember why and it's just been sitting on my desktop for weeks and weeks now, so now seems as good a time as any to post it—this is Gorky. He's helping:

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