English translation of the Irish "aigéan" / SUN 1-19-25 / Pokémon with a catlike appearance / Boondi ___ (yogurt dish with dried chickpea flour) / Turkish travel stops / Hugo-winning sci-fi author Bacigalupi / Arjuna's skill, in the "Mahabharata" / "Strega ___" (classic children's folk tale) / New York x paper / Nashville neighborhood known for its many recording studios / Winter haven for some small mammals / Nature's fishhook, you might say / One of the "holy trinity" ingredients in Indian cuisine

Constructor: Emily Sharp and Kunal Nabar

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Word Problems" — answers are familiar phrases, but clues are written as mathematical problems:

Theme answers:

• DIVISION OF LABOR (22A: Hard / work) (phrase meaning "labor" is "divided")
• PRODUCT OF THE TIMES (31A: New York x paper) (phrase meaning "The Times" is expressed as a "product" (i.e. ___ x ___))
• ROOT CAUSE (51A: √generate) ("root" of a word meaning "cause")
• DIFFERENCE OF OPINION (66A: It's what - you think) (phrase meaning "opinion" expressed as a subtraction problem (by which you calculate "difference"))
• SQUARED UP (82A: (Pixar movie)²) (the "Pixar movie" Up is "squared")
• INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (99A:  ∫ workout routine) (phrase meaning "circuit" is expressed as an integral)
• ADDED COMPLEXITY (112A: Rocket science + brain surgery) ("complex" things are "added" together)

Word of the Day: "Strega NONA" (40A: "Strega ___" (classic children's folk tale)) —

Strega Nona is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola. If considered as a folktale, the story is Aarne-Thompson type 565, the Magic Mill. It concerns Strega Nona (resembling what would be "Grandma Witch" in Italian, although this would actually be "Nonna Strega", with the two words reversed and the first one spelled with a double n) and her helper, Big Anthony. With only a single "n" (i.e., Nona), the title actually means "Ninth Witch" in Italian. The book, which is likely dePaola's best-known work, was published in 1975 and won a Caldecott Honor in 1976. It was one of the "Top 100 Picture Books" of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal. Strega Nona has been challenged or banned in some children's libraries in the United States because it depicts magic and witchcraft in a positive light. // Strega Nona is a wise woman and witch doctor who lives in Calabria, in southern Italy. Because she is getting old, Strega Nona employs a young man named Big Anthony to do household chores. One night, Big Anthony observes Strega Nona singing to her magic pasta pot to produce large amounts of pasta. However, he fails to notice that she blows three kisses to the pot to stop the pasta production. // Big Anthony shares his discovery with the townsfolk the next day, but he is laughed at. Two days later, while Strega Nona is visiting her friend Strega Amelia, Big Anthony sings to the pasta pot and successfully conjures up large amounts of pasta, which he serves to the townsfolk. However, since Big Anthony cannot stop the pot from cooking, the pasta gradually covers Strega Nona's house and nearly floods the entire town. Disaster is averted when Strega Nona returns and immediately blows the three kisses to stop the pot's cooking; she punishes Big Anthony by making him eat all of the pasta. (wikipedia) 

• • •

Pretty much the definition of "Not For Me." I took Calculus II in the fall of 1987 and never thought about math again after that (except for the math required to get through Physics I, which was not much—that was my only A+ in college! How!?). It's not that I didn't understand the concept here. I just didn't love it. It didn't strike a chord. It's not my thing. Moreover, some of the "problems" seem to be perfectly expressed, while others seem ... like train wrecks? Or messy, anyway. Like, the clue on SQUARED UP seems perfect: Up is a "Pixar movie," and the clue has "Pixar movie" squared ... or a SQUARED ... UP. Nice. But what the hell is going on with the PRODUCT OF THE TIMES clue? I know that the "Times" is a New York paper ... is the idea that you turn the "New York paper" into an equation by just putting a "times" symbol in the middle of it? And which part is mathy? "Product?" "Times?" All "___ times ___" equations yield "products." The exact way the clue works here is unclear to me. The execution just feels super-awkward. Same thing with the clue on DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. It's like ... you take the words that mean "opinion" and just randomly drop a "-" symbol in there (the way you randomly plunked a "x" symbol in the earlier clue), and that's ... it? If both the numerator and denominator meant "labor," I'd understand the DIVISION OF LABOR clue better. I think. Why do the division and subtraction and multiplication clues have the "/" "-" and "x" symbols just dropped in the middle of phrases, but the addition clue actually has real, discrete terms, i.e. different, standalone "complex" things on either side of the "+" symbol. That makes sense to me. Two "complex" things are being "added" together. The others don't make sense because the units in the equation don't stand alone. I apologize—I can't quite express why the placement of these mathematical symbols frequently feels odd and arbitrary, but it does. The root and integration clues seem to work a lot better than the simple arithmetic ones. I dunno. I'm admittedly not a math whiz, but some of these just clanked, to my ear. The others were fine, but as I say, the concept here is someone else's idea of a good time—hopefully yours, but definitely not mine.

As for overall difficulty, this one was pretty average, perhaps a bit on the easy side. The themers didn't really present any problems, and there was so much short fill in this one that moving through it was a problem only when I encountered a name I didn't know, which is pretty typical (and only happened a handful of times today.  It's a very choppy grid, complete with four cheater squares* to make answers even shorter. This made the puzzle skew toward crosswordese at times (it's even got -ESE in it!) (38A: Language suffix). OGEE and AGEE! Together! You don't see that too often. Still, the puzzle does get in some decent longer stuff. I like NO VACANCY, ESOTERICA, and esp. "IN A PAST LIFE..." (as clued) (67D: "When I was much younger..."). Normally, I would also say that I loved KILIMANJARO, but today, I'm just happy I survived KILIMANJARO. See, like ... some of you? many of you? at least a few, I'm guessing ... I was not 100% sure of all the vowels in KILIMANJARO. Actually, there's just one vowel I wasn't sure of—and it just happened to have a cross that was Absolutely no help. The puzzle tells me that "Strega NONA" is a "classic" children's folk tale, but hoo boy that is News To Me. I mean ... nope, nothing, nada, never heard of it. Nonsense words to me, both "Strega" and "NONA." Sounds Italian? (Yes: See Word of the Day, above). Anyway, total Natick for me. I guessed correctly, but ... I left this square until the very, very end:

It was really between "O" and "A," with the "O" seeming possible because "MON" is so close to "MONT," which is part of so many mountain names ("Mont" is Fr. for "mountain," "Monte" is Italian for "mountain"). But "A" just looked better. Felt better. So that's what I guessed. Actually, I reasoned that if the answer were really NONO, the clue would've gone a completely different (and more familiar) route. Same thing for NONE. That square was oddly harrowing. Nothing else about this puzzle was at all scary. There were names (there are always names) that were beyond me. The Pachinko author (116D: "Pachinko" author ___ Jin Lee = MIN). The Hugo-winning guy (though I'm sure he's been in the grid before) (6D: Hugo-winning sci-fi author Bacigalupi). I know I've thought to myself that AYO Edebiri's name would be useful for crosswords (12D: Actress Edebiri of "The Bear"), but did that help me remember it today? It did not. Needed crosses. Gah. Arjuna was unfamiliar to me (43A: Arjuna's skill, in the "Mahabharata"), as was that "Strega NONA" business, and the idea that anyone anywhere ever called COYOTES "brush wolves" (?) (55A: Brush wolves, by another name). But all these minor challenges were easily overcome because surrounding fill was, generally, a cinch.

Bullets:

• 59A: Post-spring cleaning event (TAG SALE) — where I come from (and where I currently live), we call these "garage sales" or "yard sales." 
• 65A: Nashville neighborhood known for its many recording studios (MUSIC ROW) — I like this one. Seems original. (And it turns out, yes, this is a debut answer)
• 33D: English translation of the Irish "aigéan" (OCEAN) — I like that the Irish term evokes the Aegean (which got its name from Theseus's father, Aegeus). I don't know what the linguistic relationship of Irish to Greek is. The resemblance may just be coincidence.
• 107A: Burrowing rodent (MOLE RAT) — wanted this to be MUSKRAT at one point. Muskrats are indeed rodents, and they *occasionally* burrow (to make nests) (look at me, I'm a muskrat expert!), but they don't burrow full-time, or, like, build a whole identity around it, the way MOLE RATs do, apparently.

• 117A: Social workspaces for some remote workers (CAFES) — overthought this one and went looking for some modern term, some neologism used in the business world that I was perhaps not entirely familiar with. But I also wanted CAVES at one point (because you might work the remote (control) in your man CAVE?). But no, it's just CAFES, a place where lots of people work on their laptops ... or at least have them open, I have no idea what they're doing.
• 121A: Winter haven for some small mammals (SHED) — another one where I was expecting a technical term instead got something perfectly ordinary. 
• 21A: Practical (UTILE) — that UTILE / USE TO crossing made me screw up my face a little. Same root. Too close. From merriam webster dot com:

For over a hundred years before "useful" entered our language, "utile" served us well on its own. We borrowed "utile" from Middle French in the 15th century. The French derived it from Latin utilis, meaning "useful," which in turn comes from uti, meaning "to use." "Uti" (the past participle of which is "usus") is also the source of our "use" and "useful." We've been using "use" since at least the 13th century, but we didn't acquire "useful" until the late 16th century, when William Shakespeare inserted it into King John. Needless to say, we've come to prefer "useful" over "utile" since then, though "utile" functions as a very usable synonym. Other handy terms derived from "uti" include "utilize," "usury," "abuse" and "utensil."

• 55D: Pokémon with a catlike appearance (MEW) — had the "M," saw "cat," wrote MEW, and crossed my fingers. It worked!

Hey, the online Boswords tournament is starting up again soon. Here's organizer John Lieb to explain:

Registration is open for the Boswords 2025 Winter Wondersolve, an online crossword tournament which will be held on Sunday, February 2 from 1:00 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Solvers can compete individually or in pairs and will complete four puzzles (three themed and one themeless) edited by Brad Wilber. To register, to see the constructors, and to watch a short video describing the event, go to www.boswords.org.

That's all. See you next time.

*"cheater squares" are black squares that do not add to the overall word count, inserted simply to make the grid easier to fill. Today, these are the black squares after ANT and before SAC, and after SHED and before SKIN. Despite the negative connotations of the name, cheater squares are not inherently bad. Used judiciously, they can be very helpful to a constructor in smoothing out the fill quality of a given section. 

P.S. Last week during my yearly fundraising drive I decided to add Zelle as a payment method on the last day, which worked fine ... until it didn't. Several contributions were mysteriously rejected. It is not a big deal, but if you contributed that way, it's possible it didn't go through (this applies to only like a dozen of you). The problem was on my end ("MY BAD!"). I apologize. The bank and I have spoken. I should have the kinks ironed out for next year. For now, it's still just PayPal, Venmo, and snail mail. Thanks! 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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