Fictional thief Lupin / THU 1-9-25 / Film writer/director Goldberg / Awesome, in 1990s slang / TV journalist Ling / One of 3,000+ annually for IBM / Off-line, to those online / "Fleabag" airer / Notable site of enlightenment / Pixar film set in the fictional town of Santa Cecilia / Italian for "baked"

Constructor: David P. Williams

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium

THEME: NATO Alphabet (38D: Grp. whose alphabet is used eight times in this puzzle) — one word in each clue is actually a disguised "letter" of the NATO Alphabet, which you must read as a letter (not a word). Theme clues must be read as [letter] [category of thing]—answers are specific things in that category that starts with that letter, e.g. [Charlie horse] is CLYDESDALE because a CLYDESDALE is a "horse" that starts with "C" ("Charlie"):

Theme answers:

• CLYDESDALE (17A: Charlie horse)
• PANDA (21A: Papa bear)
• SERGIO (26A: Sierra Leone)
• THIRTEEN (27A: Tango number)
• GAZPACHO (40A: Golf course)
• WELCH'S (42A: Whiskey soda)
• QUITO (45A: Quebec city)
• ARTHUR ASHE (51A: Alpha male (double))

Word of the Day: ARSÈNE Lupin (20A: Fictional thief Lupin) —

 

Arsène Lupin (French pronunciation: [aʁsɛn lypɛ̃]) is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc. The character was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine Je sais tout. The first story, "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin", was published on 15 July 1905.

The character has also appeared in a number of books by other writers as well as numerous film, television, stage play, and comic book adaptations. Five authorized sequels were written in the 1970s by the celebrated mystery writing team of Boileau-Narcejac. (wikipedia)

• • •

***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** : It's early January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. Writing this blog is a joy, but it is also a job—an everyday, up-by-4am job. My morning schedule is regular as hell. So regular that my cats know my routine and will start walking all over me if I even *stir* after 3am. You ever lie there in the early morning, dying to simply roll over or stretch, but knowing that the second you do, the second you so much as budge, the cats will take it as a signal that you're through with sleep and ready to serve them? So you just lie perfectly still, trying to get every ounce of bedrest you can before the cats ruin it all? That's me, every morning. I guess you could say they "help" get me up on time to write, but come on, I have an alarm for that. The cats are adorable, but frankly they're no help at all. After I feed them, I go upstairs to write, and what do they do? They go straight back to sleep. Here I'll show you. This was two days ago, when I came downstairs after writing:

And this was yesterday, same time:

Those pictures are from two different days, I swear. And I'm guessing when I go downstairs this morning, I'll find much the same thing. They are beautiful creatures, but they cannot solve or type or bring me warm beverages. When it comes to blogging, I'm on my own. And look, I'm not asking for pity. The truth is, I love my life (and my cats), but the truth *also* is that writing this blog involves a lot of work. I get up and I solve and I write, hoping each day to give you all some idea of what that experience was like for me, as well as some insight into the puzzle's finer (or less fine) qualities—the intricacies of its design, the trickiness of its clues, etc. The real value of the blog, though, is that it offers a sort of commiseration. While I like to think my writing is (at its best) entertaining, I know that sometimes all people need is someone who shares their joy or feels their pain. If you hate a clue, or get stuck and struggle, or otherwise want to throw the puzzle across the room, you know I'm here for you, and that even if my experience is not identical to yours, I Understand! I understand that even though "it's just a puzzle," it's also a friend and a constant companion and a ritual and sometimes a Betrayer! I don't give you objective commentary—I give you my sincere (if occasionally hyperbolic) feelings about the puzzle, what it felt like to solve it. I can dress those feelings up in analytical clothes, sure, but still, ultimately, I'm just one human being out here feeling my puzzle feelings. And hopefully that makes you feel something too—ideally, something good, but hey I'm not picky. Whatever keeps you coming back! Hate-readers are readers too!

Whatever kind of reader you are, you're a reader, and I would appreciate your support. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for over eighteen (18!?) years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. And maybe I'd make more money that way, I don't know, but that sort of thing has never felt right for me. And honestly, does anyone really need yet another subscription to manage? As I've said in years past, I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way. 

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):

Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you card, and once again the card features (wait for it) cats! 

Ida & Alfie, my little yin/yang sleepers! (They're slowly becoming friends, but don't tell them that—it makes them mad and they will deny it). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle....

• • •

This was one where I went hunting for the revealer clue early. Put together CLYDESDALE pretty easily, and obviously that's a horse, but couldn't make sense of "Charlie" so I kept going. When I got to 26A: Sierra Leone and couldn't get it from -GIO, I decided "that's it, where's the revealer?" And when it wasn't in the obvious place (last long Across answer), I just scanned the clues until I saw the phrase "... in this puzzle." Who expects a four-letter revealer in an off-center no-man's-land part of the grid? Anyway, took one look at 38D: Grp. whose alphabet is used eight times in this puzzle, immediately thought NATO, couldn't make the "N" cross work, briefly doubted NATO, but then finally looked at the theme clues again and thought, "no, it's definitely NATO." The puzzle was pretty much over right there. All themers unlocked. Not that they were so obvious, even when unlocked. I mean, who's go-to "'G' course" is gonna be GAZPACHO!? Mine would be GOULASH, mostly because I watched Christmas in Connecticut over the holidays and there's a whole GOULASH argument in there between Felix and the Irish housekeeper. What are other "G" courses? GRITS? GREEN BEANS? Those are more sides. Maybe everyone thinks of GAZPACHO and I'm an outlier. My point is that simply knowing the word started with "G" didn't make it a gimme. With some of the others, though, knowing the trick to the clue really narrowed down your options. Only one five-letter "Q" city I know (a crossword favorite!) so that went right in. Not many "W" sodas either, and the "(double)" in the ARTHUR ASHE clue made that one particularly easy. Nice touch ending on a double. Always nice to finish with a flourish. Not all answers were so nice. THIRTEEN could've been TWO or TEN or whatever, and [Tango number] certainly has the clunkiest phrasing of all the theme clues, which are supposed to sound like familiar things; "number" here would mean song, i.e. a song you can dance the tango to—so it works, technically, but it's not nearly as familiar a phrase or expression as the others. Overall, it's a cute theme, even if it does (at times) yield fairly arbitrary theme answers and loses much of its crunch after you figure out the gimmick.

[Arguing about stew v. goulash]

[Midtown! I want to go to there...]

I got slightly held up a bunch of times, but never really stuck. First and worst mistake was probably HBO for BBC at 1D: "Fleabag" airer. I watched it and still botched it. In the US of course it didn't air on the BBC, but it didn't air on HBO either. I think I saw it on Prime (a subscription I've now ditched). Anyway, the center "B" from HBO worked—always bad when you can "confirm" a wrong answer with a cross (BRONCO!). But I got out of that snare pretty fast. I had trouble driving BODHI- into the bottom of the grid because all I could think of was "Bodhisattva" and anyway I'd misread the clue as [Notable stage of enlightenment] (actual clue: 32D: Notable site of enlightenment). BODHI ... NESS? But then I dropped down, got PEZ instantly, and came right back to speed. I said my worst mistake was HBO, but now that I look the grid over, it was probably actually TAILOR, which is what I had initially at 48A: Cut some slack? (TAUTEN). I figured that a tailor might ... cut ... slacks. Sure, it's slacks, not "slack," but I figure the clue was just stretching things, the way it often does in "?" clues. TAILOR was anchored pretty solidly because of the correct first two letters. But as with HBO, it couldn't stay in place for long because the easy-to-get answers around it just put too much pressure on its wrongness. Oh, I also had AFTER ALL instead of ALL-IN-ALL (36D: At the end of the day). That's three wrong answers that worked semi-well with their crosses. And yet the puzzle still felt very easy. Weird.

I was lucky enough to know almost all the names in this one, because man there are a lot of them, including three in the themers alone. EVAN and ARSÈNE and OLSEN and SELENA and EUNICE and on and on. Made the puzzle feel a little too trivia-testy for my tastes. That NE corner I can see being a bear for some people, and not just because PANDA bear is up there (is a PANDA really a bear? oh right, it is—it's KOALA that's not; nevermind...). If you've never heard of J.J. WATT, then prying your way into that NE corner would've been challenging, esp. with yet another name up there (LISA) and a potentially toughish clue on JEDI (16A: Knight of film). If you can navigate the names, though, this one was mostly a breeze.

Bullets:

• 35A: Italian for "baked" (COTTA) — weird, in a not-great way, to cross two Italian terms in the middle of the grid (or anywhere) (see also 27D: Entire, in Italian => TUTTO)
• 56A: Vivacious, theatrical and passionate type, it's said (LEO) — LOL I had the "O" and wrote in EMO
• 2D: Off-line, to those online (IRL) — "in real life"
• 22D: Singer Gomez (SELENA) — Also [Entrepreneur Gomez] (she's a billionaire now?) and notably [Actress Gomez]. She's probably best known currently for being on Only Murders in the Building, but I just saw her in Jim Jarmusch's zombie film, The Dead Don't Die (2019), an absurd and occasionally hilarious film starring everyone under the sun. Recommended.

• 6D: Lob in the direction of (TOSS TO) — I had TOSS AT. Awkward phase either way.
• 35D: Pixar film set in the fictional town of Santa Cecilia (COCO) — Eventually there will be so many Pixar films there is no way I will be able to keep them straight. We may already be to that point. And yet somehow, despite never having seen it, I got COCO off the last "O."

This week I'm highlighting the best puzzles of 2024 by focusing on one day at a time. I kept a spreadsheet of every puzzle I solved last year, complete with ratings from 0-100 (with 50 being my idea of an "average" NYTXW) (They really did average out to around 50, with Saturday being my fav day (avg 57.7), and Sunday (obviously) being my least fav (avg 42.9). 

Here are my Top Three Thursday Puzzles of 2024. (I'm not ranking them; it's nicer that way)

• Paolo Pasco and Sarah Sinclair, MONSTER MASH (Thursday, 10/31/24) — a Halloween rebus puzzle where names of "monsters" are "mashed" into a single square. A concept so obvious, no one ever did it before! Perfect execution. Mwah.
• Paolo Pasco and Sarah Sinclair, STUFFED CRUST (Thursday, 6/27/24) — a pizza-shaped grid where all the answers along the perimeter (i.e. "crust") are "stuffed" with two letters. A pictorial grid that I actually loved. Ingenious.
• Ricky J. Sirois, ["Stacks!"] (Thursday, 11/28/24) — Down answers ending in "stack" are represented by a literal (rebus square) stack of ... whatever precedes "stack" in the answer. So SUBSTACK = "SUB" on "SUB" on "SUB," HAYSTACK = "HAY" on "HAY" on "HAY," etc. Another cool rebus variation. Worked perfectly.

Apparently I like a good rebus. Tomorrow it's on to the themelesses. See you then.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]