Papal vestment / WED 1-8-25 / Rick of Rickrolling fame / Southwestern gully / Surgeon, informally / Pitchfork-shaped letters / Personification of darkness, in Greek myth / Younger Stark daughter on "Game of Thrones" / Noneternal flames? / Casserole topped with guacamole or sour cream / Mountain above Vulcan's forge

Constructor: Laura Dershewitz

Relative difficulty: Easy (except for one exceedingly arcane word, which thank god I vaguely remembered)

THEME: BUMP, SET, SPIKE (53A: Common volleyball combo ... or 20-, 34- and 41-Across together) — three theme answers could be described as a "BUMP," "SET," and "SPIKE," respectively:

Theme answers:

• MINOR PROBLEM (20A: Hiccup) (a minor problem could be described as a "bump")
• STAND-UP ACT (34A: Comedian's stage performance) (a stand-up act could be described as a "set")
• POWER SURGE (41A: Burst of energy) (a power surge could be described as a "spike")

Word of the Day: ORALE (64A: Papal vestment) —

The fanon (old Germanic for cloth) is a vestment that around the 10th or 12th century became exclusively reserved for use by the pope during pontifical Mass. The Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon has the same privilege. // It consists of a doubled shoulder-cape (somewhat like a mozzetta) of white silk ornamented with narrow woven golden stripes, so that the colors alternate white and gold. The first layer of the fanon is placed under the stole and the second over the chasuble, under the white pallium. The two pieces of the fanon are nearly circular in shape but somewhat unequal in size and the smaller is laid over and fastened to the larger one. To allow the head to pass through, there is a round opening in the middle with a vertical slit running down the neckline at the back. The front part of the fanon is ornamented with a small cross embroidered in gold. // The fanon is similar to an amice; it is, however, put on not under the alb, but above it. [...] On 21 October 2012, Pope Benedict XVI wore the fanon during a canonisation Mass, and again on 25 December 2012, and 6 January 2013. Pope Francis, since his election in 2013, has yet to use it, as of 2024. One source considers that it "has ceased being commonly used". [...] [A]s early as the end of the twelfth century the fanon was worn solely by the pope, as is evident from the express statement of Innocent III (1198–1216). The vestment was then called an orale; the name of fanon, from the late Latin fano, derived from pannus (penos), cloth, woven fabric, was not used until a subsequent age. (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! 

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... 

***

Extremely easy puzzle—easier than yesterday, never noticed the theme til the very end, hardly hesitated while filling it all in—except for one answer: a textbook piece of crosswordese risen from the dead to haunt and ultimately destroy this puzzle. There may as well not be any other words in this puzzle. It's so weird and alien and from-outerspace that it's hard to pay attention to anything else. I'm talking of course about today's Word of the Day: ORALE. If anything counts as ARCANA in crosswords, this is it. This is the kind of word that crosswords of yore used to rely on a lot because, I mean, look at those letters! Choice, common letters. Think about how often you see ORATE or ORALB or even ORANG in the puzzle, Wouldn't it be nice to have somewhere else to go when facing ORA--? Well, yes it would. So, because everyone was filling grids by hand with no computer assistance, constructors to cling to just about Anything that counted as a "word." And so ORALEs filled the grid. Never a dominant word, but ... look at this ORALE frequency chart. I mean, really look at it, because it is telling:

[xwordinfo dot com]

If you want to know one of Will Shortz's greatest accomplishments as an editor, just stare at that chart. He slew the ORALE! And not only the ORALE, but lots of other arcane nonsense just like it. He got rid of (or seriously minimized) the awful stuff (known broadly as "crosswordese") and filled the resulting void with slang, colloquialisms, names from pop culture, music, sports, the supermarket aisle.—everyday things. The constructors had something to do with it, obviously, but the puzzle took a more populist, more general-knowledge, more "fun" turn when Shortz took over, that's for sure. Goodbye, ORALE! You can see he tolerated it for a decade or so and then poof—gone. For almost twenty years, absolutely extinct. Which was fitting, as the term ORALE itself is extinct, replaced long ago by "fanon" (Word of the Day), which is itself pretty obscure (in 1989, FANON was clued as [Orale] and I'm pretty sure that simple cluing choice actually summoned the Antichrist; sources are vague]). The question is, why is ORALE in this puzzle—this otherwise easy Wednesday puzzle? It's not like it's helping make that corner pretty!! ITAL, KOLA, LISBOA, EXES. None of that **** is top-tier. But ORALE should be an absolute deal-breaker. A neon sign saying "step away from the keyboard for a few." Cannot fathom having ORALE in my grid and thinking, "that's fine." There's lots of other "crosswordese" in this grid, but nothing, absolutely nothing, can touch ORALE. Head-shakingly bad. Everyone involved in ORALE-gate should apologize. (For future reference: in addition to being a papal vestment, ÓRALE is "a common interjection in Mexican Spanish slang" ("It is also commonly used in the United States as an exclamation expressing approval or encouragement") (wikipedia). ORALE is also "the point where a line drawn tangent to the inner margin of the sockets of the two middle incisors of the upper jaw and projected onto the hard palate intersects the midsagittal plane" (no really, srsly, that's merriam ****ing webster talking))

Apparently, in addition to ORALE, there was a puzzle with a theme, so let's talk about that for a second. The revealer phrase means nothing to me, or next to nothing, as I watch volleyball only during the Olympics, but those three terms (BUMP, SET, and SPIKE) are familiar enough, and those three theme answers are in fact definitions of those three terms, so the theme works. It's not at all exciting, but it does its job. Solid. Fine. The fill is less than fine. Even if you pretend ORALE doesn't exist (which I highly recommend), you're dealing with an avalanche of tired short stuff (ETNA PSIS NAAN URLS ARR MAA ORDOC ETTU KOLA MOS etc., and only a couple of longer answers to add any life or spice. Plus it was oddly name-heavy. The names were familiar enough, but they started to feel like gnats, a little bit. Lots of crossword names like RAVI and ARYA and IONE and (to a lesser extent) BILBO, and then some longer stuff like ASTLEY and ABELARD, and then one ridiculous name (TUPPER) and one long name—an old actor, whose name will seem fresh or stale or completely unknown, depending on you knowledge of or feelings about old movies. I like ZERO MOSTEL as an answer—maybe the best thing in the grid. SPOILSPORT is nice, but otherwise, there's really not a lot to (actively) like. 

My only "bump" was actually the "B" in BUMP. I initially had the trio as JUMP, SET, SPIKE, and so couldn't easily get into that SW corner. But I guessed CHEESIEST and that got me in. And since JENT isn't a word, so far as I know, I was able to change it to BENT without any trouble and bam, done. I'm looking the puzzle over now and ... nope, no other trouble spots. The LISBOA / ORALE craziness, and then the BUMP/JUMP dilemma, and nothing else. Easy. But not just easy. Sadly, also boring. The cluing just wasn't giving me anything today—no energy, no pizzazz. I know I complain about clues "trying too hard" sometimes, but I'd rather have that than "not trying at all." Look how plain everything is. I kinda liked [Noneternal flames?] for EXES, but only because it made me think of The Bangles song (perhaps the CHEESIEST of all their hits):

Notes:

• 27A: Casserole topped with guacamole or sour cream (TACO PIE) — I like tacos and I like pie but something about TACO PIE sounds bad. It's a textural thing. Also, I just don't like sour cream. Guacamole, on the other hand, is from God and could entice me to eat just about anything. So who knows, maybe I'd love TACO PIE if it leaned heavily on the guac—GUACO PIE!
• 28D: Southwestern gully (ARROYO) — a watercourse that's typically dry but fills seasonally, sometimes with flash-flooding.
• 38D: Personification of darkness, in Greek myth (EREBUS) — another name! I was proud that I remembered this one today. Pretty sure I learned it from crosswords. Isn't EREBUS also a mountain/volcano, just like ETNA (54D: Mountain above Vulcan's forge)?? [looks it up] Yesssss, southernmost active volcano on earth, over 12,000 ft high, in Antarctica. Hurray for my not-completely-failing memory.

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 Wednesday Puzzles of 2024. (I'm not ranking them; it's nicer that way)

• Rebecca Goldstein, "I'M WALKIN' HERE!" (Wednesday, 6/26/24)—clues are famous people and answers are the places where they famously walked: Jesus (SEA OF GALILEE), Dorothy Gale (YELLOW BRICK ROAD), and Neil Armstrong (TRANQUILITY BASE). A truly original idea with a great Midnight Cowboy revealer.
• Adam Aaronson, LONG AND SHORT OF IT (Wednesday, 11/6/24)—long theme answers contain a second, short answers inside them (in shaded squares), e.g. [Bird with a distinctive call] = MEADOWLARK; [Band in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame] = BLACK SABBATH, etc. 
• Luke K. Schreiber, ANIMAL CROSSING (Wednesday, 10/2/24)—every answer crossing ANIMAL CROSSING is, in fact, an animal (the puzzle that taught a lot of people what a NEMATODE is, LOL)

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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