Alternative to a spicy Dorito / THU 2-20-24 / Blue man group member? / Digital work fueled by machine learning, in brief / Who said "A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture" / Move after a touchdown / Lynchian or Felliniesque, say / Sensational, on Broadway / Virtual storefront in an online marketplace

Constructor: Peter Gorman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ONE- / OFF (29A: With 43-Across, something never to be repeated ... or a hint to the answers to the italicized clues) — every theme answer is about the puzzle itself, just ... OFF by ONE (of whatever unit is in question)

Theme answers:

• TWENTY-ONE ACROSS (20A: This clue)
• FOURTEEN LETTERS (37A: This answer)
• WEDNESDAY PUZZLE (51A: This crossword)

Word of the Day: TAKIs (41A: Alternative to a spicy Dorito) —

Takis are a Mexican brand of flavored rolled tortilla chips produced by Barcel, a subsidiary of Grupo Bimbo since 2019. Fashioned after the taquito, it comes in numerous flavors, the best selling of which is the chili-lime "Fuego" flavor, sold in distinctive purple bags, introduced in 2006. Besides the rolled corn chips, Takis produces other snacks with the same flavor lines, including different potato chip varieties, corn "stix", popcorn, and peanuts.

Takis were invented in Mexico in 1999 and introduced to the United States in November 2001 (originally as Taquis, before being renamed to Takis in 2004) and Canada in 2015. Barcel originally intended to aim Takis towards a Hispanic demographic, but its popularity has quickly spread among Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

• • •

The one thing that keeps this puzzle theme above water is the fact that all the themers relate to the puzzle itself—that is, that the stuff that is "one off" is all part of a coherent set. I never really like the cutesy, precious, self-referential type of themes (which often strike me as smug and self-congratulatory, as if the puzzle were full of excessive self-regard), but today, the meta quality gives the theme coherence. I mean, there are infinite answers that could be clued in a way that is "one off," so you need something, and the puzzle itself ... will do nicely. The themers are also all fifteen letters long, so there's a physical, structural coherence to the themer set as well. That said, huge shrug—that is how I felt. To me, the answers were simply wrong, but they were easy to get, so I had a strong "who cares?" feeling while I was solving. And then because of the absurd revealer placement, I didn't see ONE-OFF until near the very very end, which would have been fine, ideal even, if the revealer had been really clever or crossword-related or anything. But it's just ... ONE ... OFF? Yeah, I see that. Obviously everything is ONE OFF? That's all you got? ONE OFF? Pffffffft. Major anticlimax. 

Further, the physical location of that revealer is one of two completely inexplicable choices made by this puzzle. So ... this puzzle is in English, and in English, we read left to right. Why in the world is the first part of ONE-OFF on the right side of the grid? Put ONE where BAS is, put OFF where NES is, and now the revealer reads correctly: top to bottom, left to right (ugh, just writing BAS and NES is reminding me of how unpleasant the non-theme part of this puzzle was). Was it really impossible to make ONE and OFF work in the much more sensible positions? Anyway, themewise, this puzzle ... let's say it makes the most (or a lot) of a pretty weak concept. Usually things are the other way around—great idea, poor execution. Today, weak idea, but ... good job getting the themer set to cohere as well as it does. Next time don't botch the revealer placement. Unforced error. Hell, with all those three-letter answers on the same rows as ONE and OFF, you had *tons* of placement options. Better to get creative and break symmetry completely (with ONE and OFF one atop the other, or on the same row, or even as successive answers) than do this awkward backward garbage.

[57D: Locale depicted in Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights"]

The other completely inexplicable choice made by this puzzle is singular TAKI. It's so bad. Singular DORITO is bad enough, but somehow singular TAKI is infinitely worse, for a number of reasons. First, TAKIs are far far far less famous, as a brand name, than Doritos, which are like the Coke of chip products. This doesn't mean they (plural) can't be in the grid, but why are we getting a singular TAKI (it's a debut, of course), before we ever get the actual full name of the product, which, again, is TAKIS, plural. TAKIS has never appeared in the NYTXW ... ever. And you want its first appearance to be ... a single TAKI? What's worse is that there's absolutely no reason for this stupid answer to be here. Jacques TATI is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I would be thrilled to see him here. TAKI is like Bizarro TATI, like the hateful, evil version of TATI. Would not see TAKI's movies. Anyway, just change the "K" to "T" please. That gives you INT, which I don't love, but you could make it ONT (short for "Ontario") if you wanted. Whatever, anything to get stupid singular TAKI out of there. If you prefer TAKI to TATI, well, I'm sorry you hate CINEMATIC things, may god have mercy on your soul.

The fill in this grid is pretty poor, right from the jump. First indication you should revise your grid: it has OCULI in it. OCULI crossing ACOW is basically a blaring siren of "no no, stop stop stop." And then from there into AIART ... again? (22A: Digital work fueled by machine learning, in brief). It just debuted last week (Sunday!), and like all unwanted and terrible tech things, it seems to be proliferating, becoming obnoxiously ubiquitous against the will of reasonable, decent human beings. The longer Downs on this one are actually pretty decent (not a fan of the gratuitous definite article in THE MUSES, but ETSY SHOP and RECORD DEAL are good, and the clue on HOLIDAY INN is really good—28D: Home to many kings and queens). But the short fill is often miserable. OCULI ACOW AIART BOFFO (what year is it???) ESSES NES FORA BAS DMED MATEO ... and that's just a start. The one virtue of the fill is that it was all very easy to get. It's kinda grim, but you don't have to struggle for any of it, so ... yeah, that's something.

A handful of other things:

• 16A: Move after a touchdown (TAXI) — what an airplane does after it has landed, assuming it has not landed upside-down ... not gonna forget that one soon.
• 34A: Who said "A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture" (DIOR) — I mostly find quote clues unworthy, i.e. the quote feels banal or not worthy knowing, but I like this one a lot.
• 58A: ___ Roy, Booker Prize-winning author, 1997 (ARUNDHATI) — definitely high-fived myself for not only knowing this answer but spelling it correctly on the first pass.

• 26D: Blue man group member? (SMURF) — this is good, but it was spoiled for me by a puzzle I did recently which had this exact wordplay as the entire theme. All the answers were part of the "blue man group." I forget who they all were. Maybe Beast (from X-Men) or Huckleberry Hound or Dr. Manhattan ... anyway, it's good wordplay. Apologies to whoever made the puzzle I'm talking about, as I can't remember who you are and I couldn't remember the themer set, my bad. (the puzzle must've commemorated the final Blue Man Group performance in NYC on Feb. 2—the last of more than 17,000 performances).
• 54D: Only character shown in the final 30 minutes of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (DAVE) — Mmmm, CINEMATIC. I like this clue because it calls attention to those truly weird final 30 minutes. Everyone remembers HAL, but weird old DAVE in that white room ... nice to give that scene some attention.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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