The Rock's signature W.W.E. move / SAT 11-1-25 / Controversial Richard Serra sculpture once seen in N.Y.C.'s Foley Square / Materialistic type of the 1980s / Campus opening? / Prez with a V.P. nicknamed "Cactus Jack" / Conflicts waged on behalf of third-party powers / Number of Spanish provincias that touch Portugal / "I'll think about this and decide later" grouping

Constructor: Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TILTED ARC (17A: Controversial Richard Serra sculpture once seen in N.Y.C.'s Foley Square) —

Tilted Arc was a controversial public art installation by Richard Serra, displayed in Foley Federal Plaza in Manhattan from 1981 to 1989. It consisted of a 120-foot-long (37 m), 12-foot-high (3.7 m) solid, unfinished plate of rust-covered COR-TEN steel. Advocates characterized it as an important work by a well-known artist that transformed the space and advanced the concept of sculpture, whereas critics focused on its perceived ugliness and saw it as ruining the site. Following an acrimonious public debate, the sculpture was removed in 1989 as the result of a federal lawsuit and has never been publicly displayed since, in accordance with the artist's wishes. [...] The post-minimalist artwork was designed and constructed in 1981. Exemplifying Serra's minimalist, conceptual style, Tilted Arc was a solid, unfinished plate of COR-TEN steel, 120 feet (37 m) long, 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, and 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) thick. As its name suggests, it was slightly tilted. The steel rusted over time.

 

Placed in the Federal Plaza, the work bisected the space, blocking views and paths of those who frequented the plaza. Serra said of the design, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step, the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."

For Serra, an important part of the work's meaning was that it would interact with the commuter passing through the plaza, a location usually passed through quickly on the way to somewhere else. This would subsequently become important as the basis for Serra's designation of the work as site-specific. (wikipedia)

• • •

Another proper (i.e. appropriately challenging) Saturday, hu(rr/zz)ah! True, I had to put up with a couple of answers that were just two random words to me, answers where, if you'd shown them to me yesterday, I'd've been like "yes, those are two words I recognize, but why are they next to each other?" But at least one of those answers (TILTED ARC) was something I was actually happy to learn about, so I'm not that mad at it, and the other (PEOPLE'S ELBOW) ... shrug (27A: The Rock's signature W.W.E. move). First I'm hearing of it, don't care, will forget about it tomorrow, but no harm done. With that answer and EPIC Games (??) (51A: ___ Games (Fortnite company)), I am reminded that not all crossword answers and clues are written Just For Me. On Saturday in particular, I can just deal. And I did. It's always easier to take the stuff you don't know (or like) when a grid offers you so many other wonderful things. The long answers in the corners are all lovely. None of them feel like filler, and a few of them really stand out (MAYBE PILE! PROXY WARS! MOM FRIEND!). Then there's the alliterative power of the middle of the grid, a series of powerful plosives, "PASS IT ON" and PONIED UP and BEYOND PARODY (I guess PEOPLE'S ELBOW is part of that mid-grid "P" Parade as well). There are 16 "P"s in this damned grid. Is that a lot? That seems like a lot? Ha, yes, in terms of "P" content, it is tied for 5th in the Shortz Era (excluding Sundays). The champion is Byron Walden's Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 puzzle with 20 "P"s! But that was a themed puzzle where six "P"s were baked in). In fact, all the puzzles ahead of this one in "P" content have "P"s as part of their theme, which makes today's puzzle the "P" champion, Themeless Division, edging out a Hoang-Kim Vu themeless from last year. Hey, did you know that this past Monday's puzzle (10/27, SIDE EFFECTS) set a record for "F"s!? 14 "F"s! OK, I'll get out of the weeds now. Anyway, a passel of "P"s kept today's puzzle pulsing with pep.

Bunch of initial errors today, but one in particular stands out because of how certain I was of its correctness and how proud I was of (I thought) seeing right through the wordplay. I'm talking of course (of course?) about 18A: Campus opening? I had the "H" and instantly and confidently thought "Ha, that's HARD C!" Because the "opening" (first letter) of "campus" is a HARD C (unlike the soft "C" of, say, "cell"). Nice try, puzzle! Can't fool me. Only you apparently can because the answer is HIPPO (as in HIPPOcampus, the brain component). If anyone else made the "HARD C" error, please know that my hand is up awaiting your high-five. Don't leave me hanging.

Other mistakes: I wrote in PERM before PEDI (23A: Salon service, for short) and EATEN before EAT IN (28D: Put away some groceries?)—my rationale on that last one was admittedly flimsy. "He has put away some groceries," "he has EATEN some groceries." That might have worked for [Put away, as some groceries?] but as written, EAT IN is the better answer, I admit. EATEN gave me -EE for the end of YUPPIE (i.e. YUPPEE!?) and I was like "that cannot be how you spell that" (38A: Materialistic type of the 1980s). True. Otherwise, no more outright errors except the predictable PREENS before PRIMPS and the far less predictable YELLEN before YELICH (whomst amongst us has not confused Fed Chairs and Baseball MVPS!?).

Never heard of ELISE Mertens, I don't think (2D: Mertens of tennis). Getting rid of cable television means that I'm a lot less sports-aware than I once was. I used to have ESPN on in my house by default much of the time, but no more, and so names, even in sports that I do pay attention to (like baseball—sorry Christian YELICH!) don't work their way into my brain as easily. One word that apparently worked its way out of my brain today was AGOUTIS, an animal I know (or knew) exclusively from crosswords (35A: Only mammals that can crack Brazil nut shells with their teeth). Seems like it's been a long time since I've seen it. I had that -TIS ending and thought "COATIS? COAATIS!?" But no, an agouti is a little mouse-like creature ... sorry, a biggish mouse-like creature (i.e. rodent) of South America. I think I've covered all the things I absolutely didn't know today. It's a solid handful, but not enough to bring me down. This is what's cool about crosswords. You can be ignorant as hell and still get to the finish line through the magical power of "crosses."

[AGOUTI(S)]

What else?:

• 10A: Like some on-the-go purchases (IN-APP) — I get that apps are found on mobile devices, which are portable, but I don't really get the "on-the-go" part of this. I can make IN-APP purchases just sitting on my couch.
• 19A: "Read Me" readers (USERS) — at first I thought this was the Neal Stephenson novel Read Me, but that book is actually called REAMDE, which I really should've remembered (it is presumably a mash up of the phrase "Read Me"). When my sister and I first discovered the book (after I read its sequel, Fall) we couldn't stop saying it. REAMDE. REAMDE. It's fun to say.

• 9D: Greek goddess whose name becomes a Mexican beer if you change the first letter to T (HECATE) — thank god I knew the goddess (and the beer) because I could easily have ended up with a controversial sculpture called the TILTED ARM or TILTED ARK (ooh ... did anyone end up with TILTED ARK? That seems at least remotely plausible, since HEKATE is spelled that way sometimes.
• 52A: Speculative venture (FLIER) — I use the phrase "take a flier on ..." more than any person should. And every time I do, I feel like "am I making this up? Is this a thing people actually say?" Thanks to this puzzle for confirming that yes, someone uses FLIER in this way.
• 8D: Toyota models from 1978 to 1999 (TERCELS) — probably helps if you lived through (and drove through) that era. I can see how this answer crossing TILTED ARC might've caused some confusion for some (especially younger) people.
• 11D: "___ am your father (often-misquoted film line) ("NO, I") — I thought the misquote was "LUKE, I am your father." So I'm confused. Wait ... OK, now I'm realizing that I'm confused because the puzzle has given us the actual line and not the misquote (which is what I am familiar with). In my head, the clue was asking for the misquote, and I knew "LUKE, I am your father" was a misquote, so ... I got turned around. OK, it all makes sense now. Phew. (I'll admit—I didn't know what the real quote was—it's no fun to say "NO, I am your father!" in the Vader voice. You need the "LUKE" part for context, and for the fun of holding the "U" in LUKE for an extra-long time).
• 57D: Prez with a V.P. nicknamed "Cactus Jack" (FDR) — never saw this clue, and thank god. Cactus Jack!? No idea. It turns out FDR's veep, John Nance Garner, got his nickname because he fervently supported the prickly pear cactus as the Texas state flower when he was in the state legislature. Despondent over the fact that the cactus lost out to the bluebonnet, Garner went on to console himself with the vice presidency.

[winner]

[loser]

Happy November (the best month!). See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Earth goddess in "Das Rheingold" / FRI 10-31-25 / Cookie marketing units / Yosemite Sam's role in "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol" / Opposite of the Latin "odi" / Point in a film when an iconic song sets the scene / City across the Rio Grande from El Paso / Caroline Kepnes thriller written partly in the second person / Cone ___ (iconic Jean Paul Gaultier undergarment)

Constructor: Juliana Tringali Golden

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ERDA (30A: Earth goddess in "Das Rheingold") —

The United States Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) was a United States government organization formed from the split of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1975. It assumed the functions of the AEC not assumed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The agency was created as part of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which was passed on October 11, 1974, in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. The act split the Atomic Energy Commission into two new agencies: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would regulate the commercial nuclear power industry, while the ERDA would manage the energy research and development, nuclear weapons, and naval reactors programs.

The Energy Research and Development Administration was established on January 19, 1975. The first administrator was Robert Seamans, followed by Robert W. Fri.

In 1977, ERDA was merged with the Federal Energy Administration to form the United States Department of Energy. (wikipedia) 

Also: 

Erda (/ˈɜːr.də/ UR-də) is a city in Tooele County, Utah, United States. The population was 4,642 at the 2010 census, a significant increase from the 2000 figure of 2,473. Erda was previously a Census-Designated Place (CDP) and a township but officially received its incorporation certificate in January 2022. (wikipedia)

• • •

[Earth goddess in "Das Rheingold"]!? Such a lovely grid, why, why would you drop this bottom-of-the-barrel crosswordese in there? Because it's Halloween and you thought you'd exhume the dead? OK, actually, that's pretty good, I'll allow it. Just think of ERDA as a spooky little haunting, the Ghost of Crosswords Past. How past? Ha ha, check it out:

Man, those 20th-century folks were really hot for Wagner. That's one hell of a heat map—towering columns of ERDA from the '50s through the '80s, and then Will takes over in the mid-90s and you can practically hear the ERDA supply getting choked off. It's been twelve years (!!?) since we last saw ERDA. I would absolutely have tanked ERDA if I hadn't known for sure that Ms. Clooney is an AMAL, not an AMEL—that is, I had ERDE written in there because I'm pretty sure that's German for "earth" and so that seemed the most plausible answer. I hope you all also knew AMAL, and the other ERDA crossings, because it seems at least plausible that many of you will be in my shoes here (those shoes being size "Never Seen a Wagner Opera In My Life And Sure As Hell Don't Know Who ERDA Is"). ERDA? Never ERDA her! This is why you should polish your grids within an inch of their lives, and not an inch and a half—I really enjoyed solving this, but I can't not see ERDA. The puzzle ends up like a fridge full of delicious food and then one small can of half-eaten cat food that you opened a month ago and forgot about (why would it be behind the mayonnaise?! who put it there where I wouldn't see it?). Before I stepped in ERDA, I was having a pretty good time. I had a pretty good time afterward as well. Hard to express how big an outlier that little answer is.

I've never seen a crossword that had its own NEEDLE DROP before (3D: Point in a film when an iconic song sets the scene). No, the puzzle didn't actually start playing music, but my brain did. Specifically, I've been thinking a lot about the NEEDLE DROPs in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, which was the first movie I saw with my Moviegoing class this year. Which means that as soon as NEEDLE DROP dropped, the first great NEEDLE DROP of that movie (in fact, the whole scene that it's in) started playing in my head. I can't find any clips of that scene (introduction of Willa, doing her karate forms in the dojo), so I'll just play the song

There's also another perfect NEEDLE DROP at the very end of the movie, but it's so good that I actually don't want to tell you the name of the song—in case you plan on seeing the movie but haven't yet, I don't want to deprive you of the fresh experience of that moment. For more information, here's the episode of Wesley Morris's podcast "Cannonball" where he discusses the movie in detail with guest Sean Fennessey:

The second movie I saw with my Moviegoing class was Roofman, starring Channing TATUM (coincidentally, Blink Twice was the first movie I saw with my Moviegoing class the first time I taught it, last year). Yesterday, I kept pronouncing it like ... like it was a last name, like it rhymes with "Goodman," while everyone else was saying the "Man" part like a separate word, like he was a superhero, Superman or Batman, which is probably the correct way to do it. Also, apparently I pronounce "roof" like a crazy person—my students were all team long-U (i.e. rhymes with "goof"), whereas I ... I don't even know the name for the vowel sound I use, but when I pronounce it, it rhymes with the dog bark sound, "woof." Seriously, the entire class looked at me like "why are you saying it that way?" and then I just tripped all over the title every time I said it for the rest of the class. Anyway, this puzzle made me remember recent movies I've seen and enjoyed, including Sinners (starring HAILEE Steinfeld), and I appreciated that. AYO EDEBIRI (28D: Emmy-winning actress for "The Bear") also stars in a recent movie that I nearly put on the ballot for my Moviegoing class (they vote each week on what we'll see), but it just didn't look that good, so I left it off.

This puzzle played pretty easy, but twice I got stuck at the crossroads of two longer answers. OPENED ... / LAUREL ... no idea what was supposed to follow either, particularly the former. I guessed LAUREL TREE easily enough, eventually, but I don't think I knew a "bay" was a tree. Oh, bay leaves. Is that where they're from? A bay tree? That would ... make sense. Are bay leaves laurel leaves? I was thinking of the horse meaning of "bay," but then couldn't understand why a horse would be "green" (is it envious? inexperienced?). OPENED DOORS was much harder (6D: Provided entrees), as "entrees" = food to me (OPENED ... A RESTAURANT!?!?). The other pair that stopped me for a bit was "LET'S ..." / "THAT'S ..." I really liked discovering "THAT'S SO COOL!" which is bright and bouncy and in-the-language. I really did not like "LET'S BOUNCE" (47A: "We should get out of here"). Feels extremely contrived, even though it's intelligible. BOUNCE on its own as a slang term for "leave" is fine. “I gotta bounce,” “he bounced,” etc. It's the "LET'S" part that feels ... meh [apparently it’s a normal thing to say (acc. to the internet)—not sure why the “let’s” part clanks in my ear]. I had the ending letters (-CE) and all I could think of was ...

The "ZZ"s also got me into a little trouble, as I had HURRAH before HUZZAH at 27A: Old-fashioned "w00t!" Without those "Z"s, EBENEZER and JUAREZ are hard to see, as you can imagine (or maybe as you experienced yourself). I don't think I've ever seen "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol," and if I had, I probably would've thought SCROOGE before EBENEZER (Yosemite Sam is his full name, as far as I know, so nothing indicated to me that I should be looking for Scrooge's first name, specifically) (9D: Yosemite Sam's role in "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol"). I wrote in SUAREZ at first for 10D: City across the Rio Grande from El Paso and then didn't check the cross and ended up having to hunt down ESECT (?) at the end of the solve (9A: Boot = EJECT). Before that, the only mistakes I had besides HURRAH were CAPRI before CRETE (37D: Island home of what may be the world's oldest living olive tree (2,000+ years)) and of course ... ERDE :(

Bullets:

• 35A: Cookie marketing units (GIRL SCOUT TROOPS) — I guess they are "units," in the military sense. I could tell the answer started GIRL SCOUT, but then hesitated a bit deciding what should come next.
• 39A: Opposite of the Latin "odi" (AMO) — "I hate" v. "I love"
• 41A: Stinky ___ ("Toy Story 2" antagonist) (PETE) — this may as well have been ERDA to me. I don't remember all the Toy Stories. Not sure I've seen them all. It's likely I only saw the one. This puzzle is full of proper nouns, and if that's not your jam, I can see how this puzzle might be less than pleasing.
• 25D: Apt anagram of GAMES minus M (SEGA) — so dumb. Just an awkward-ass clue. It's either an anagram or it's not. Nothing can be "apt" if you have to "minus" something to get there, come on.
• 55D: British monarch between William and George (ANNE) — that's William of Orange (of "William & Mary" fame) (1689-1702) and George I (1714-27). William and George are also the names of the likely next two British monarchs as well, as you probably well know.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. that RUN dupe is very bad (RUN/I GOTTA RUN), but I didn’t see it because I blew right past RUN. Thanks for pointing it out, commenters!

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Soup stock in Japanese cuisine / THU 10-30-25 / Genre for Aretha Franklin or Usher / Chicago exchange, for short / Flour used in Indian flatbreads / What pulls out all the stops? / Food generally known outside the U.S. as "lady's fingers" / Lake in the homeland of the Washoe people / Fish also known as a batomorph

Constructor: Howard Neuthaler

Relative difficulty: Very easy

[Before you enter the last letter...]

[... and after]

THEME: "DEFYING GRAVITY" (66A: With 68-Across, "Wicked" song suggested by the answers to the seven starred clues (and whose singer is spelled by the circled letters reading from left to right) — seven Down answers must be written in with their last letter appearing first, as if the last letter has unnaturally risen up or ... defied gravity. The levitating (green) letters spell out "ELPHABA," the (green) witch who sings "DEFYING GRAVITY" ... the letters of ELPHABA's name are arranged in triangle formation, a bit like the outline of a witch's cloak in flight (no idea if this is a feature of the puzzle or a mild hallucination on my part):

Theme answers:

• ETHOS --> THOSE (2D: *The ones over there)
• LEASE --> EASEL (29D: *Stand before a meeting)
• PADRE --> AD REP (5D: *One selling commercial time, informally)
• HEART --> EARTH (45D: *Your home)
• ALOOF --> LOOFA (9D: *It's used to scrub the tub)
• BRAND --> R AND B (32D: *Genre for Aretha Franklin or Usher)
• AKRON --> KRONA (12D: *Some Scandinavian money)

Word of the Day: ELPHABA Thropp (see circled letters) —

Elphaba Thropp [...] is the protagonist of Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the novel's musical theatre adaptation, and the musical's two-part film adaptation, Wicked (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025). She is a reimagining of the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In the Baum novel, the Witch is unnamed and little is explained about her life; Wicked creates a backstory for her and explores the world of The Wizard of Oz from her perspective. Elphaba is modeled after Margaret Hamilton's portrayal in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: green-skinned, clad entirely in black and wearing a tall peaked hat. Maguire formulated the name "Elphaba" from the pronunciation of Baum's initials—"L.F.B.". (wikipedia)

• • •

I would criticize this theme for being too show-specific (and for being too much like a paid promotion—"See Wicked: For Good, in theaters November 21!," I half-expected an enthusiastic voice to exclaim upon completion), and I can see how this puzzle might've been irksome for people who don't pay very close attention to popular culture generally (I didn't really know anything about Wicked until last year, frankly), but for those of us who are familiar with the musical (and in my case it's really only half-familiar), the puzzle is pretty impressive. Pretty magnificent, actually, at least thematically (the fill ... eh, we'll get to that). There are so many aspects of the theme that really ... elevate it 😎. First of all, there's the green. It is rare that I think that technological advances in puzzle software have yielded anything really worthwhile (animations etc. often leave me cold), but having the thematic material be green today was a really nice touch. Elphaba's green-ness is iconic—it's the most recognizable visual element of the book and musical, in all its promotion. So hurray for that, and hurray for the fact that all the seemingly "wrong" Downs with the levitating circles in them are actually real terms in their own right. ETHOS, PADRE, ALOOF, etc. The letter doesn't just levitate, but creates a whole other word. And the letters spell out ELPHABA's name, and the letters form a triangle that looks kinda like a witch's cape, and (if you're solving on your computer or phone) that "cape" stops "DEFYING GRAVITY" and returns to earth once you've correctly completed the puzzle (if you think of the green grid-spanning answer "DEFYING GRAVITY" as the ground or "earth" in this puzzle). Thematically, the puzzle is doing a lot of things, and doing them all well. If you know the show, it's hard to imagine your not liking this theme.

For me, this puzzle was way, way too easy. Maybe the idea was that some people might not be familiar with the movie, so the puzzlemakers wanted to make sure those people could still solve it successfully. I dunno. But I got the theme concept almost instantly ...

... and while I loved the whole way the theme unfolded, I did not have to struggle at all to make it unfold. Whoosh and whoosh and done. Lots and lots and lots of short stuff made the grid both easy and a little dull / overfamiliar. And then the long stuff ... look, I was prepared to let one EAT A SANDWICH-type answer go—MAKE A CAMEO is pretty solid, as such answers go—but then the puzzle hits me with a second?! (GOT A TAN). NAW, man, NAW, come on. That and NO ONE ON made me wince a little (I'll give NO ONE ON a pass, though, as it is a somewhat inventive debut, and one that appears during the climactic week of the baseball season—the Blue Jays are now up 3 games to 2 on the Dodgers and could win it all ... on Halloween!) (CANADA BEAMED feels like a premonition!). But overall, the fill is by no means bad, and there's some sparkly stuff in there, like PARAGON. Really hated "OK, GOOGLE," as the puzzle already felt like a paid promotion. Boo. Did an AD REP write this puzzle? Ad copy = bad copy. Especially ad copy for surveillance robots. Stop it.

More:

• 18A: What pulls out all the stops? (DRANO) — does it "pull," though? This answer took several crosses to get.
• 37D: Chicago exchange, for short (MERC) — wrote in MUNI, which ... I think is the transit system in S.F.? Yes.
• 19A: Food generally known outside the U.S. as "lady's fingers" (OKRA) — first, ew, gross, what? Second, isn't "lady's fingers" already taken, as far as foodstuff names are concerned? I thought they were cookies. Don't you soak "lady's fingers" in order to make tiramisu? Yes, ladyfingers (one word) are, in fact, "sponge cake biscuits roughly shaped like large fingers." What is wrong with other countries? Can y'all not just say "OKRA?" Or choose a different body part?

• 1D: Soup stock in Japanese cuisine (DASHI) — needed a cross or two to jog this culinary term loose from my word horde. ATTA, on the other hand, came to me instantly, as it should to all of you now. Neo-crosswordese. No longer is ["___ boy!"] (or "girl!") the only, or even the primary, cluing option for ATTA.
• 7D: The Marlins, on scoreboards (MIA) — I always have to stop and think about whether they're FLA or MIA (they used to be FLA).
• 55D: Left of center? (SOFT C) — a wicked (😎) "letteral" clue. The "c" in "center" is "soft," and it appears on the "left" side of the word (i.e. it's the first letter). Very cryptic.

That's it. Gotta fly....  😎 ... see ya next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Aquarium diagnostic / WED 10-29-25 / Feminist sex educator Shere ___ / Dracula's preferred way to eat wings? / Beer brand on "The Simpsons" / Cold-weather cryptid / Mythical luster? / Fastener with an onomatopoeic name / Lake that's the "thumb" of New York's Finger Lakes

Constructor: John Donegan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Dracula puns — familiar phrases clued as if they were Dracula-related:

Theme answers:

• RIGHT OFF THE BAT (16A: Dracula's preferred way to eat wings?)
• LIGHT ON HIS FEET (26A: What makes Dracula frantically hop around?)
• UPON REFLECTION (47A: When Dracula doesn't feel seen?)
• RAISE THE STAKES (61A: Get ready to attack Dracula and his pals?)

Word of the Day: Shere HITE (43D: Feminist sex educator Shere ___) —

 

Shere Hite (/ʃɛər ˈhaɪt/ shair HYTE; November 2, 1942 – September 9, 2020) was an American-born German sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite built upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey and was the author of The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study on Female Sexuality. She also referenced theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970s, such as Anne Koedt's essay "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm". She renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German. (wikipedia)

• • •

Whoa, does Dracula actually eat bats? I thought he just turned into one, sometimes. Vampire cannibalism? That's rough. I missed that movie. I love that pun, but ... I'm not sure it's canon. Still, I generally thought this was a winning Halloween-week theme. If the NYTXW wanted to do a whole monster week leading up to Halloween, I would not mind. Outside the theme, though, this puzzle felt pretty Mondayish. Wednesdays are the one day of the week that seemed to actually be getting a little harder of late, but not today. There's nothing in here that a regular solver wouldn't know, and there's a lot of overfamiliar faces: ABIT ETA YETI OREO ETS IHOP INES ANTE IWIN ELIS AAA DEA, and then three names out of the Crosswordese Pantheon: ICE-T, GRU, and crossword double-threat Shere HITE—the one name that really did brought-out-of-mothballs—do people under 40 know who she is? She rose to fame in the '70s and became a staple of crosswords almost immediately thereafter, but her grid appearances have waned in this century. Here's my HITE report:

[xwordinfo dot com]

All of those HITEs are Sheres. As you can see, this is her first appearance in five years. It's been even longer for SHERE, which you also used to see a bunch, but while all HITEs are Sheres, not all SHEREs are Hites. There's one other crossword SHERE—SHERE Khan, the tiger in The Jungle Book. Both SHEREs seem equally dated now (The Jungle Book not being the dominant cultural reference point it once was). Here's the SHERE report:

All SHEREs are Khans before 1977. We've seen absolutely no SHEREs since 2019, and no SHERE Hite since 2016. The GRUs, however, just keep coming:

LOL what is that sad, lone red GRU back in 1973??? [Scottish particle: Var.]!?!?!?! I think I found the most self-parodic arcane crossword clue of all time. I wouldn't know what a "Scottish particle" was, let alone what a "Variant" looked like. Is it supposed to be a version of "grew?" No, it literally means "particle": "GRU, also grue. A particle, an atom, used both lit. and fig. Obs. in Eng. since 15th c." (Dictionary of the Scots Language). "Obs[olete]. in Eng. since 15th c."!? Again, LOL. Crosswords used to be wild.

[9D: Neighborhood in Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London"]

Outside the themers, which involved a little piecing together, there were very few hesitations today. The PAGAN part of PAGAN GODS wasn't immediately clear to me (3D: Jupiter and Mars). "Planets" or "Roman gods" were my first thoughts. Parsing PH TEST took a little effort. I have never owned an aquarium and do not aspire to own an aquarium, so all "diagnostics" are unfamiliar to me, though PH TEST certainly makes sense (12D: Aquarium diagnostic). Despite teaching multiple works where Satan is a central figure (he's literally central in Inferno, and he's the dang protagonist of Paradise Lost), the word FALLEN did not exactly leap to mind (though it's accurate enough) (53A: Like Satan, in the Bible). I don't see any serious sticking points in the grid, though that's assuming the names (GRU SHERE SONNY etc.) are familiar to you. But all those names seem fairly crossed, so what you end up with is a lightly punny holiday treat, with nothing much to distract you from the wackiness of the puns. The fill might've been a little stale, but not such that it detracted from the overall solving experience that much. 

["... and Judd Nelson" !?]

[27D: "New Jack City" co-star, 1991]

Further:

• 35A: Food fight projectile (PEA) — in a food fight, everything is a "projectile." If you're taking time to load up individual PEAs on a spoon and flick them at people, one at a time, I guarantee you are losing.
• 66A: Rains hard? (HAILS) — the oldest misdirect clue. Methuselah wrote this clue. When he was like 8, he wrote it. If not this exact clue, then variations on it like [It comes down hard].
• 69A: Mythical luster? (SATYR) — the SATYR is notoriously lustful, so ... he's a luster. I never considered any other meaning of "luster." The "?" pretty much said "not the normal way you'd use that word." There's only one meaning of "Mythical," but "luster" ... that was obviously the pun word.
• 8D: Cold-weather cryptid (YETI) — presumably the YETI is a cryptid no matter the weather. [Cold-climate cryptid] might've been more accurate (and it's got bonus alliteration!)
• 10D: Knock back a few (IMBIBE) — a great word, as well as the title of David Wondrich's indispensable history of the cocktail.

• 29D: Fastener with an onomatopoeic name (SNAP)  — is "SNAP" the sound a snap makes? Is it named after the sound? It is defined by closing or locking with a "click" (merriam-webster dot com), so ... I guess the fastener's name is inherently sound-related. 
• 49D: Lake that's the "thumb" of New York's Finger Lakes (ONEIDA) — I live very near the Finger Lakes and yet couldn't name them all for you. I certainly didn't know ONEIDA was the "thumb." But I did know ONEIDA existed, and with the crosses I had in place, all I really needed from this clue was "Lake." Let's see ... Cayuga, Seneca, ONEIDA (apparently), Keuka ... errrrr ... dang, there's eleven of them!? How is one the "thumb," then? Shouldn't there be two thumbs? Who has 11 fingers? I have geographical as well as anatomical questions... Wait wait wait. ONEIDA isn't a Finger Lake at all!!!! It's just (allegedly) a "thumb" in relation to (???) the Finger Lakes. That clue is very confusing.

• 41D: Beer brand on "The Simpsons" (DUFF) — I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda ... I mean, I am familiar with this beer:

[my friend Andrew and me, many years ago]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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