Toondom's Olive / TUE 11-18-25 / Dentist, colloquially / Shipped without prepaid postage, for short / Martial art with bamboo swords / Japanese stadium that has hosted M.L.B. and N.F.L. games / Cereal variety from Switzerland / Appear gradually from the black, as a film image / Limerick's locale

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium

THEME: TO-DO LIST (57A: Collection of tasks ... or what 17-, 26-, 35- and 47-Across comprise?) — two-word phrases where the first word starts with "TO-" and the second word starts with "DO-":

Theme answers:

• TONE DOWN (17A: Soften, as a message)
• TOP DOLLAR (26A: A very high price, so to speak)
• TOOTH DOCTOR (35A: Dentist, colloquially)
• TOKYO DOME (47A: Japanese stadium that has hosted M.L.B. and N.F.L. games)

Word of the Day: SENT C.O.D. (40A: Shipped without prepaid postage, for short) —

Cash on delivery (COD), sometimes called payment on delivery, cash on demand, payment on demand or collect on delivery is the sale of goods by mail order where payment is made on delivery rather than in advance. If the goods are not paid for, they are returned to the retailer. Originally, the term applied only to payment by cash but as other forms of payment have become more common, the word "cash" has sometimes been replaced with the word "collect" to include transactions by checks, money orders, credit cards or debit cards. // Advantages of COD for online or mail order retailers:

• The customer does not need to own a credit card to purchase.
• Impulse purchases may increase as payment is not due at the time of ordering.
• The credibility of retailers may be increased because the consumer only has to pay when the item is delivered.

Disadvantages of COD for online or mail order retailers:

• Orders might be returned as buyers are less committed to the purchase than if they had paid in advance (which led to the eventual elimination of C.O.D. with many TV offers in the United States and Canada by the early 1980s).
• Logistics partners charge additional fees for COD orders. (wikipedia)

• • •

First ugh was at LAOTZU, both because he's the crosswordesiest philosopher who ever lived and because it's impossible to know which spelling of his name the puzzle is going to want: I went with LAO-TSE (last two letters, wrong). Wikipedia has it as LAOZI, and you'd think the crossword would've jumped all over that spelling, but ... 

[xwordinfo]

Maybe it hasn't taken because it looks like it's pronounced "lousy." According to wikipedia: "Lǎozǐ is the modern (pinyin) romanization of 老子. In English, a variety of pronunciations and spellings of the Chinese name exist, such as Lao-tse and Lao Tzu. It is not a personal name, but rather an honorific title, meaning 'old' or 'venerable'. Its structure matches that of other ancient Chinese philosophers, such as Kongzi (Confucius), Mengzi, and Zhuangzi." Anyway, as soon as I see that guy's name, or parts of his name, my Bumpy Fill ahead warning system goes off. NEWAT (instead of NEWTO) wasn't great (6D: Just getting started with), and CLIO is a bit niche (25D: Advertising award), but actually, the NW ended up coming out OK. But then I hit the middle of the grid and the dreaded REUNES (!) and that got an audible ugh from me, followed by an even bigger one when I hit ETERNE. Between those two examples of only-in-crosswords ugliness, I also had to endure THE DOT (an awful partial—I almost wish this stood for "THE Department of Transportation), and SENT C.O.D. Aside from being an awkward verb phrase, I have never sent or received anything C.O.D. in my life and haven't even heard the term since T.V. ads of my childhood. I think I had to ask my parents what the hell it meant. Apparently it's still a popular delivery option in India, but not here, that's for sure. NEONATE EDDA EDDY OATY OYL TSAR. They also, collectively, dragged things down, but it's really REUNES and ETERNE that made me wince. ETERNE? Even the old-timiest of dead poets don't use ETERNE that much. Constructors really gotta quit reaching for that one.

As for the theme, it's fine, adequate. In no way exciting, but it does what it does. It's got a bit of wordplay going in the revealer, which is nice. I can't believe TO-DO LIST hasn't been done before. Oh, look, it has. In 2016. Identical theme. This bugs me. It's true, it's been nine years, no one (except the first puzzle's constructors) is going to remember one puzzle from 2016, but the bare minimum you can do as a constructor making a puzzle is search your theme answers in the databases to see if someone's done it before. The audience won't remember, but conscientious constructors (I guarantee you) will be like "come on ... I try and try and try to get a puzzle accepted and this one gets through by just replicating a theme that's already been used?!" This puzzle only has one theme answer in common with the 2016 puzzle, but the revealer's the same, the concept is the same. Same same.

I'm begging constructors to a. clean your wordlists of painfully overused gunk, and b. just do a bare minimum of research before you go forward with a theme (It's really the editor's fault—the duplication of the theme is surely a coincidence, not theft. People conceive of similar themes independently of one another all the time). 

[TOOTH DOCTOR?]

This one was very easy to solve. Didn't even think about the theme and just kind of followed my answers termite-like until very quickly I found that I had traversed the grid—diagonally, from NW to SE. This means I got the revealer before I got 75% of the themers, which made getting those themers extra easy:

I do not believe people say TOOTH DOCTOR, or at least I don't believe it's used "colloquially." "Slangily," maybe, "facetiously," possibly. But that is definitely the weakest themer of the lot. TOP DOLLAR is nice (just like it was in the 2016 version of this puzzle). TOKYO DOME is an inventive answer—probably the high point of the puzzle. There's a smattering of decent fill—KARMIC and TINKERER and IRELAND and even JETSAM, but overall things skew tired and slightly olden, and the theme is really just a shrug (and a not-particularly-original shrug at that).

[please enjoy this amazing last-minute goal that put IRELAND over Hungary in a World Cup qualifier over the weekend]

Bullets:

• 4A: Rebound, as a pool shot (BANK) — a normal word, but of course I wanted CAROM, a crossword word. Stupid fifth letter, not fitting in the spaces allotted ...
• 8A: Requirement for domestic air travel starting in 2025 (REAL ID) — I thought your passport worked as well. Yep. "If you already have a valid passport, you don't need a REAL ID for domestic flights." 
• 1D: Material that's been deliberately thrown overboard (JETSAM) — this distinguishes it from FLOTSAM, which ... is just material that's already floating in the sea? Wreckage? What is FLOTSAM? Wait, FLOTSAM can also be material deliberately thrown overboard? That's confusing. "Flotsam /ˈflɒtsəm/ (also known as "flotsan") refers to goods from a sunken vessel that have floated to the surface of the sea, or any floating cargo that is cast overboard." "Jetsam /ˈdʒɛtsəm/ designates any cargo that is intentionally discarded from a ship or wreckage." (my emph.). Those meanings would appear to overlap. FLOTSAM and JETSAM are also, of course, the EELS (!) from The Little Mermaid.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]

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Classic arcade game with bull's-eye rings / MON 11-17-25 / Sch. with a T station / Boot, good, loom, moon, pool, rook, woof / Tot's three-wheeler

Constructor: Rena Cohen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Count 'em! — familiar two-part phrases where the second part is a number; each answer is clued as a list of things that are examples of the first part; how many things are on that list is determined by the second part, i.e. the number. For example, the clue for FIGURE EIGHT is eight figures (17A: Circle, cone, cube, cylinder, heart, pentagon, star, triangle)

Theme answers:

• FIGURE EIGHT (17A: Circle, cone, cube, cylinder, heart, pentagon, star, triangle) (eight figures)
• SWEET SIXTEEN (27A: Airheads, Dots, Fun Dip, Heath, Kit Kat, Life Savers, M&M's, Milk Duds, Nerds, Oh Henry!, Peeps, Pez, Rolo, Skittles, Twix, Twizzlers) (sixteen sweets)
• DOUBLE-O SEVEN (44A: Boot, good, loom, moon, pool, rook, woof) (seven double-"o" words)
• JACKSON FIVE (60A: Andrew, Ketanji Brown, Mahalia, Reggie, Stonewall) (five Jacksons) (none of them actual members of the Jackson Five, nice)

Word of the Day: Mahalia Jackson (see 60A) —

Mahalia Jackson (/məˈheɪliə/ mə-HAY-lee-ə; born Mahala Jackson; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to the development and spread of gospel blues in black churches throughout the U.S. During a time when racial segregation was pervasive in American society, she met considerable and unexpected success in a recording career, selling an estimated 22 million records and performing in front of integrated and secular audiences in concert halls around the world, making her one of the best-selling gospel music artists. [...] Nationwide recognition came for Jackson in 1947 with the release of "Move On Up a Little Higher", selling two million copies and hitting the number-two spot on Billboard charts, both firsts for gospel music. Jackson's recordings captured the attention of jazz fans in the U.S. and France, and she became the first gospel recording artist to tour Europe. She regularly appeared on television and radio, and performed for many presidents and heads of state, including singing the national anthem at John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Ball in 1961. Motivated by her experiences living and touring in the South and integrating a Chicago neighborhood, she participated in the civil rights movement, singing for fundraisers and at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. She was a vocal and loyal supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and a personal friend of his family. (wikipedia)

• • •

Experimenting with a star rating system. Might not last, but I'm gonna see how it goes. Three stars is basically Good Enough—the minimum for a Thumbs Up. I expect most puzzles will come in in the two- to four-star range, with the one- and five-star ratings being reserved for puzzles that are truly exceptional (in either direction).

Today's puzzle was thoroughly delightful. Since I solved it Downs-only, I never saw the cluing conceit, which is the best part of the theme. I thought I was just doing a puzzle where the theme answers ended in numbers ... for some reason. I thought there might be a revealer, but that never materialized. When I finished, I couldn't figure out what these answers had in common besides the numbers, which is to say I couldn't figure out what the numbers were doing. Why these numbers? But even then, even before I finished the puzzle and got a chance to look at the theme clues, I was having a good time. The theme answers are solid answers in their own right, and there were a good number of strong longer answers in the Downs, and the short fill only clanked a few times—EKES, OKING, EIEIO, nothing terribly jarring. it felt very well made, and ended up being very doable. When I finally took a look at the theme clues—I caught sight of the list of candies first—my immediate reaction was "oh, that's cute." Coincidentally, I had just finished an Out of Left Field cryptic crossword (highly recommended!) with a Halloween theme, where the revealer was TRICK OR / TREAT, and the clue was ["Tractor and trike crashed!"—that's what you might say to acquire any of twelve Across entries]. So, you anagram "tractor” and “trike" ("crashed" is the anagram indicator) and you get TRICK OR / TREAT, which is what you say to get ... candy! Only when I got the revealer did I realize that a full dozen of the answers in the grid were candy brands (they were not clued that way). Heath, Airheads, and Skittles are the only candies that that puzzle and today's puzzle have in common. Sorry for the long, sweet digression. I really like cryptics. And candy. And this puzzle, it turns out.

If I had been editing this puzzle, I would have changed that Jackson clue a touch, replacing the slave-owning / slavery-defending Confederate general and the slave-owning / slave-trading U.S. president with two names from the long list of much-more-pleasant-to-remember Jacksons. Samuel L., maybe, or, Peter, Bo, Phil, Jesse ... hell, I'll take Shoeless Joe over Andrew any day. Also, Peeps is not a candy in the same way that the other fifteen in the SWEET SIXTEEN clue are candies. Peeps are a seasonal abomination. If they aren't on the candy rack near the checkout at a drugstore or grocery store or convenience store, then they don't belong on this list. One other possible criterion: would you hand it out at Halloween? Peeps? Absolutely not. What are you, a monster? A Peeps sales rep? Replace Peeps with Almond Joy, and VOILÀ! Perfect clue.

Bullets:

• 4D: "If you want me to be honest ..." ("I MUST SAY...") — The clue is conditional, but the answer isn't, so this clue/answer pairing feels ... off. "If you want me to be honest" implies that some other person wants your opinion. "I MUST SAY..." is a declaration of your own need to offer that opinion, whether anyone wants it or not.
• 33D: Like most cheeses with rinds (AGED) — cheese, four letters, rind ... crossword reflex caused me to write EDAM before I'd really thought about it. This was quickly fixed.
• 22D: Sch. with a T station (MIT) — the "T" is the nickname of Boston's transit system, the "Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority":

• 39D: Classic arcade game with bull's-eye rings (SKEE-BALL) — "Classic arcade game" makes me think only of the stand-up video games I played so often as a kid. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, that sort of thing. So it took my brain a few seconds to move to a much older, pre-digital format of arcade game ... which I also played as a kid. Showbiz Pizza had an arcade that featured both video games and SKEE-BALL, so I spent a lot of time trying to roll the ball into the center of those "bull's-eye rings"; you can see the SKEE-BALL lanes in the background of this poorly edited home video of a Colorado Showbiz circa 1990.

• 11D: Insect that stings (BUMBLE BEE) — a nice symmetrical animal counterpart to GROUND HOG. You've got Punxsutawney Phil heralding more winter and the BUMBLE BEE declaring the arrival of spring. I had some trouble parsing this answer—the last answer I filled in, because so few of the crosses were easy to infer as a Downs-only solver. The first and third "E"s were the only things I was (pretty) sure of. I thought "OK, what stings" and ran through wasp, ant, and bee ... saw that BUMBLE BEE would fit but honestly thought, "do those even sting?" They always look so harmless, these big puffballs floating around. But yes, they can sting. I feel like there's even a children's song about it. I'll let Ms. Rachel sing it for you.

 ["Female bumblebees can sting repeatedly, but generally ignore humans and other animals" (wikipedia)]

And now here's a different bee-related song to rid your brain of that grating toddler music (I was listening to this album last night during cocktail hour, so it's on my mind). 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Early smartphone model of the 2000s / SUN 11-16-25 / Formerly with law enforcement, informally / Castle fortifications / Uncle Sam's land, informally / Frequent question bout the spelling of "Caribbean?" / Conflict that ended with the Treaty of Nanking / Movable parts of record players / Wally ___, astronaut who commanded Apollo 7 / Selina ___, the veep on "Veep"

Constructor: Randolph Ross

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Misquoting Shakespeare" — wacky clues lead to imaginary phrases that sound like misquotes of famous phrases from Shakespeare:

Theme answers:

• "GOOD KNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE" (22A: King's assessment of his son the Crusader?)
• "TO THINE OWN ELF BE TRUE" (40A: Santa's view on loyalty for those who help him?)
• "FARE IS FOUL / AND / FOWL IS FAIR" (51A: With 61-Down and 78-Across, "Food at this restaurant stinks, but the duck seems fine"?)
• "TWO B'S OR NOT TWO B'S" (64A: Frequent question about the spelling of "Caribbean?")
• "A NOSE BY ANY OTHER NAME..." (87A: Schnozz, honker or beak?)
• "BEWARE THE TIDES OF MARCH" (112A: Warning to a beachgoer on St. Patrick's Day?)

Word of the Day: Wally SCHIRRA (88D: Wally ___, astronaut who commanded Apollo 7) —

Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (/ʃɜːˈrɑː/ shur-AH; March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put humans into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7, becoming the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In December 1965, as part of the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program. [...] Schirra was the first astronaut to go into space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown into space in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In total, he logged 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After Apollo 7, he retired as a captain from the U.S. Navy as well as from NASA, subsequently becoming a consultant to CBS News in the network's coverage of following Apollo flights. Schirra joined Walter Cronkite as co-anchor for all seven of NASA's Moon landing missions. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gonna be brief because I have nothing good to say about this. A startlingly weak pun theme with fill that made me cringe over and over. This felt like what might've passed for an OK puzzle 30+ years ago, but today ... I can't believe this was accepted. The title of the puzzle isn't even trying, that's how weak this theme is. "Misquoting Shakespeare." Yes. You are doing that. But why? What is the point? These puns are completely arbitrary and not funny in the least. The central one ("FARE IS FOUL / AND / FOWL IS FAIR") is the best of the lot, by far, largely because it's an epic two-parter (three- if you count the "AND") where the quotation sounds exactly like the original, correct Shak. quote. That is, it involves perfect homophones, one in either half of the symmetrical quote, and the quote itself actually borders on amusing.  "TWO Bs OR NOT TWO Bs" is also OK—the clue addresses a very real spelling issue, so ... fine. But the others, oof, they do nothing. They have no wit, charm, sense of humor, genuine playfulness. "Uh, what sounds like 'night,' I know, KNIGHT?" Who cares? The resulting phrase is practically nonsense, and certainly isn't funny. And the remaining three are somehow worse than that. At least "KNIGHT" actually sounds like "night." Why "ELF"??? I mean, if you're going to try a pun there, why not go with "shelf," which is at least closer to "self"? "TO THINE OWN ELF BE TRUE" makes about as much sense as "TO THINE OWN CELL (phone?) BE TRUE" or "TO THINE OWN SELF BE BLUE." And then "A NOSE BY ANY OTHER NAME?" Why NOSE???? Why not HOSE or POSE? Why not BEWARE THE RIDES OF MARCH? Or SIDES OF MARCH? Or EYES OF MARCH, for that matter? These themers today involve only arbitrary minor sound / spelling changes, and (the real crime) they yield almost nothing in the way of humor. I can forgive groaners, but I can't forgive how meek and tepid these groaners are. Try harder! "EAT TWO, BRUTE!" "LORD, WHAT FOOLS THESE TURTLES BE!" "MY KINGDOM FOR A HEARSE!" "LET SLIP THE CLOGS OF WAR!" "NEITHER A BURROWER NOR A LENDER BE!" These are also bad, but they are no worse than what we end up getting. With no guiding principle beyond "kinda sorta sounds like Shakespeare" ... ugh.

["Beware the Eyes of Mars!"]

And the fill—a problem from the start. OK, you're throwing ENOLA and STN at me right off the bat in that little corner in the NW, I've seen worse. What's that? You wanna give me the odd prepositional phrase ON EARTH too? Sigh, OK, you're pushing it, but so far, this is just ordinary crud. But then you try to smack me with a cold fish labeled À LUI and that's it, I'm completely out of the puzzle now. I wrote À MOI in there, which is bad enough, but it's a common kind of bad: a short foreignism that's not the kind of thing you're apt to know if you don't speak the language, but that you see from time to time (less now than in the bad old days of crosswordese, but still, you see it). But À LUI? Check out this À LUI heat chart:

[xwordinfo]

You can see, even Maleska (NYTXW editor 1977-93), whose name is virtually synonymous with the pre-Shortz crosswordese-heavy grid, was like "we should probably take it easy with this À LUI stuff.” And then in the Shortz Era, it practically disappears. 'Cause it's bad. Hasn't been used in nine years. Standards for fill are generally much higher now than they were decades ago, but lately (this week, and esp today) things have regressed. Please understand that if À LUI were an aberration, if most of this grid were cleanly filled, I would definitely point it out (and boo at it), but I wouldn't be dwelling on it. You're allowed some less-than-pretty stuff when you're making any grid, particularly a themed Sunday. But this grid just kept throwing subpar fill at me. I've had enough French to know it, but it's ugly as a piece of short fill, and, along with its crosswordese counterparts up there, really indicative of the direction this grid is going. To wit: OR I comes at you next, and then THE I (!?), and things get EELIER (!?!) in the NE, where we get still more French (FRÈRE) and some EMILE I've never heard of. And then there's a whole ESC / ECONO / OPI / ANE patch. And things go on like that from there. The names in this one also seemed pulled from Crossword Roster of Yore. ODETTE (30A: "Swan Lake" role) and HALAS (91D: "Papa Bear" of the N.F.L.) and SCHIRRA, the last of those being exceedingly tough for anyone who has no real memory of all those early space missions and who was involved when / where. SCHIRRA was the one name that nearly broke me, as I had ABASE instead of ABASH at 96A: Leave red-faced, which gave me SCIERRA, which looked bad, but not much worse than SCHIRRA looks, honestly. And it's not just not enough good stuff or contemporary stuff or fun stuff to balance the puzzle out.

The grid isn't all bad. I'm fond of PARAPETS and WORSE OFF. IN A TRICE is arcane, but not in a way I hate. It's good-quaint. FLASH CARD, GARROTE, TYPIFIED, WESTERNS—the puzzle gets off a few good ones. But mainly it felt like this puzzle was pummeling me with half-baked puns and a whole arsenal of tired, tired fill. I said I was gonna keep it brief, so ... this is "brief" for me. I'll stop. On to the Bullets.

Bullets:

• 21A: Conflict that ended with the Treaty of Nanking (OPIUM WAR) — which one? It's either the OPIUM WARS, plural, or you're gonna have to be more specific. This clue is referring to the First OPIUM WAR, which is the title of its wikipedia page because, again, there were more than one. Specifically, there were two, the first one fought between the British Empire and China, 1839-42, the second between UK/France and China, 1856-60. If you talk about these wars, you talk in the collective (OPIUM WARS), or you specify which OPIUM WAR you're talking about. Because you have to. Because there are two. FIRST OPIUM WAR would be great fill, imho. OPIUM WAR is blargh unless your clue is [One of two 19th-century conflicts between the UK and China].
• 20A: Early smartphone model of the 2000s (TREO) — bygone smartphones? You gotta be courageous enough to delete stuff like this from your wordlist. TREO is a crutch. With every passing day, it's worse fill. There is no rehabilitation until something else comes along with that name, something that is not a long-bygone phone model. When I search [TREO] on DuckDuckGo (which I generally prefer to Google), the smartphone appears nowhere on the first page of hits. Even on Google, I'm getting a TREO Foundation and TREO scented candles before I'm getting (finally) pictures of early smartphones. [Palm TREO] is what you wanna search. Lots of models, starting in 2002, but done by 2008. Seventeen years gone. No one should have to remember phone model names that are that old. TREO has such a grid-friendly combination of letters, I get why a constructor might want to use it, but ... have courage. Throw it in the ocean.
• 76A: No Mr. Nice Guy (MEANY) — really thought this was spelled "MEANIE" ... because it is. MEANY is a Var. (as in "Variant")
• 121A: Movable parts of record players (TONE ARMS) — I move one of these parts on a regular basis, but still never remember this technical term. I think I just call it the "arm," if I call it anything

That's enough of that. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Showy purple flower / SAT 11-15-25 / Condition of Freud's "Rat Man," in brief / Brand associated with push-ups / Form of literature coined by Sartre / Unable to move while holding a sleeping baby, in slang / High point of 1950s car design? / Westminster Abbey has one named after King Henry VII / L.G.B.T.Q. vacation destination on Cape Cod, for short

Constructor: Kyle Dolan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Chick COREA (37A: Chick of jazz) —

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba", and "Windows" are considered jazz standards.

As a member of the Miles Davis band in the late 1960s, Corea participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered one of the foremost pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.

Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He won 28 Grammy Awards and was nominated for the award 77 times. (wikipedia)

• • •

[mom, me, a long long time ago]

Between NAPTRAPPED and the PUDGY fingers, this puzzle felt like it was written by someone with a little baby at home (1A: Unable to move while holding a sleeping baby, in slang / 48D: Like a baby's fingers, perhaps). Or someone who lives near a baby or has friends who have a baby. Undoubtedly a CUTIE. It was nice to begin and end with babies being babies, though I have never in my nearly 56 years on this earth (11 days to go!) heard the term NAPTRAPPED. I have, however, experienced it, though these days it predominantly involves cats ... which are kinds of "babies." We certainly call them "baby" enough. Well, the little one, Ida the white cat, she's "baby" more than Alfie the tabby, who is more of a "big boy." I often ask them, when I see them after not seeing them for a while, "Who's this baby?" The answer, of course, is them. They're the baby. It's kind of like when you ask your dog, "Who's a good dog?" Your dog, the dog you're talking to, that's who's a good dog. Anyway, if a cat falls asleep on you, you are not allowed to move, this is law. Many an activity (like dinner) has been significantly delayed because one or the other of us is like [points to lap or chest where cat is] "can't move." CATTRAPPED. As for NAPTRAPPED, if it's in the puzzle, I guess someone somewhere is using the term. Because it's adorable, and because it describes a real phenomenon that should have a name, I'm happy to allow it.

[CATTRAPPED]

This puzzle was just as easy for me as yesterday's puzzle, but today is Saturday, which should be much harder, so I feel cheated once again of the struggle I crave on this day. The names that came at me were all very familiar. Not a one of them new to me. We don't have The Mount Rushmore of Crossword Names, but we have A Mount Rushmore: SHEL Silverstein, ERNO Laszlo, Chick COREA, and JET LI. I've seen the real Mount Rushmore, and it's impressive, but if those presidents were replaced tomorrow by SHEL ERNO COREA and JET LI, I'd be planning my trip to South Dakota right now. 

I even managed to remember OTIS Day and the Knights, though I had help from the "O" there. The only thing I had (some) trouble remembering was PHLOX—stared at that "HL" like "uh ... that's impossible," but then it wasn't—and RIYALS (they put the "Y" in there, do they? Well I'll be sure to remember th- nope, already forgotten). That RIYALS / PANELIST / FISH FRY / LLC was probably the stickiest part of the grid for me. I had the -ST at the end of 41A: Game show figure and wanted some kind of HOST. Wanted the [Close of business?] to be ESS (I've been solving too many cryptics, i.e. just the right amount of cryptics). FISH FRY was easier, because I understood the FISH part re: Lent, but I didn't know the FRY was particularly "Lenten" (39D: Lenten event). We have this roving business around here, Doug's FISH FRY, which is basically a truck out of which fried fish is served, usually in some parking lot, always as part of some fund-raising event. It's the only thing I think of when I hear FISH FRY, and it's not particularly (or at all) "Lenten," so ... yeah, hesitated at the FRY part, but it fit, and felt right, so ... there we go. I like it as an answer. 

Other things I liked: the whole SE corner. FLAT-FOOTED / ROLLICKING / "YES, INDEEDY!" goes through a lot of looks and moods for a little corner. And I really like that the crosses keeping the corner together really hold up. I cannot quibble with a one of them. In every corner, in fact, I'm impressed that the short stuff holding the long stuff in place almost never got gunky. I think I let out two "ooh, nice"s. Once early on, as I was just getting my footing:

And then shortly thereafter, when I realized DO DIRTY was going to be an answer (10D: Betray). A wonderful, colorful colloquial expression. With apologies to Sartre, I had no idea the ANTI-NOVEL was a thing—can't say I've read many of those (13D: Form of literature coined by Sartre). But otherwise, everything from SHONDALAND to WONDERBRA was pretty dang familiar to me. Once again, I wish it had all been harder, but that's the editor's fault. The grid is very nice.

[3D: L.G.B.T.Q. vacation destination on Cape Cod, for short]

Bullets:

• 20A: It's used for hair therapy (HOT OIL) — having no hair myself, hair therapy is not something I think of often ever. This answer was hard to parse because I had -OTOI- and assumed it was one word. I was like "that's not how you spell LOTION." No, no it's not.
• 25A: Swear off, with "of" (REPENT) — I don't like these as equivalents. Swearing off is much more informal and non-moralistic than REPENT (of). Do you REPENT of sweets, or alcohol? Repenting is for sins and it strongly implies regret. If I swore off cocktails tomorrow, first, please know that it is against my will, that either a doctor or someone with a gun is making me, and second, I would have no regrets. Every cocktail I drank—perfect. 
• 30A: Win dough? (PRIZE MONEY) —I was trying to understand the "?" here. I get the literal part—"dough" you get from a "win" is PRIZE MONEY, but what was I supposed to be hearing / seeing with that clue? Answer: it sounds like "window." So, you know, if someone was reading the clues to you, you might've been fooled (?).
• 40D: High point of 1950s car design? (TAIL FIN) — not a part of most FISH FRYs.
• 50A: Westminster Abbey has one named after King Henry VII (CHAPEL) — Henry VII was the first monarch in the Tudor dynasty. After the defeat of Richard III, it goes him, the wife killer, then it gets choppy—Edward VI for a few years, then Lady Jane Grey for nine days, then Bloody Mary (and Philip, technically), who tried to return the country to Catholicism (sometimes violently, hence her nickname), and after a few years of that we finally get Elizabeth (who reigned for a relative eternity—almost 45 years). Good luck remembering all the bits there between HVIII and EI. 

• 30D: Places to keep play things (PROP ROOMS) — this makes me think of my daughter, who has spent a lot of time in PROP ROOMS, and who will be home from her Theater MFA program in less than two weeks! My birthday and Thanksgiving and the Girl's Return, woo hoo! That's a hell of a week. Let's end where we began—with PUDGY fingers!:

[Penelope, Ella, me, ca. 2001]

That's enough for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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