So-called "king of the road" / MON 3-31-25 / Basketball shot made while leaning backward / King of the gods, in Egyptian myth / Spinoff stories written by an author's readers, informally / Removes a dependence (from) / Like conga or mambo music

Constructor: Ryan Mathiason

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday, solved Downs-only) (undersized 14x15 grid, so if it played faster than usual, that's likely why)

THEME: IT'S GROWING ON ME (35A: "I'm starting to like this" ... or a hint to the starts of 16-, 24-, 47- and 58-Across, in order) — states of hair-having, from no hair-having to a lot of hair-having:

Theme answers:

• BALD EAGLE (16A: Bird that's the U.S.'s national symbol)
• BUZZKILL (24A: Debbie Downer)
• FADE AWAY 47A: Basketball shot made while leaning backward)
• AFRO-CUBAN (58A: Like conga or mambo music)

Word of the Day: STAR ANISE (30D: Plant with eight-pointed pods used in cooking) —

Illicium verum (star anise or badian, Chinese star anise, star anise seed, star aniseed and star of anise) is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to South China and northeast Vietnam. Its star-shaped pericarps harvested just before ripening are a spice that closely resembles anise in flavor. Its primary production country is China, followed by Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. Star anise oil is highly fragrant, used in cooking, perfumery, soaps, toothpastes, mouthwashes, and skin creams. Until 2012, when they switched to using genetically modified E. coli, Roche Pharmaceuticals used up to 90% of the world's annual star anise crop to produce oseltamivir (Tamiflu) via shikimic acid.

• • •

The main problem is really the progression, which is to say ... that is not how hair grows. You could grow from BALD to an AFRO, but you would not really hit BUZZ and you definitely would not hit FADE along the way—both of those are, by definition, styled (with a razor). So while the hair is definitely "growing," in a way, as the puzzle progresses, the progression itself is not really a logical one. In fact, a FADE is only appreciably longer than a BUZZ up top. On the sides, it's actually ... pretty BUZZed.

[fade = short on the sides, fuller on top, often tapered]

But sure, the haircuts featured here are, in general, increasingly long as the puzzle progresses. So ... that's something. I just wish the progression were more intuitive or made more sense or were tighter in some way. Otherwise, it's fine. The revealer is cute, even if it does mean we get a pitifully undersized grid. On the other hand, the grid does have one upside, which is the pairs of longer Downs in the NE and SW. They give the puzzle extra flavor. They also made the Downs-only solve much more of an adventure. Generally speaking, on average, the longer the answer, the harder it is to get with no help from crosses. If you've solved Downs-only at all, you know that most of the time, the nooks and crannies—the 3-4-5s crossing other 3-4-5s—are not nearly so much trouble as the places where the 7+-letter answers get involved. On most Mondays, you're lucky if you get just two long Downs in the puzzle, total, but today: abutting long Downs in two different sections. And unsurprisingly, that's where I was slowest. In the NE, instead of EMOTICONS, I had EMOJI- or ASCII-something, and I could make ARRIVAL TIME fit at 11D: Standard announcement of a pilot upon landing (LOCAL TIME). 

In the SW, I got A STUDENTS immediately (which feels amazing—getting a 9-letter answer with no crosses), but STAR ANISE was a no-go, and since it was next to FELIZ (which I also, for a while, forgot) (47D: Happy: Sp.), and next to GONE (which I thought might be LEFT) (36D: Departed), there were some GAPs in that corner for a while (though GAP, I also got immediately) (44D: Opening, as between teeth). The way these things finally come together, usually, is that because the themers extend to other parts of the grid, I'm able to use the letters from those parts to infer the entire themer, which then extends into the trouble spots and gives me new traction. For instance, inferring FADE AWAY from --D-AWAY gave me the "F," which gave me FELIZ, which gave me the "Z," which gave me ZEST, which *then* gave me enough letters that I was able to figure out STAR ANISE. This is why Downs-only is so much more interesting than just a straight solve for me, on Mondays—always the possibility for unexpected challenge and adventure.

Some more things:

• 1D: So-called "king of the road" (HOBO) — oddly hard for me, as I did not know that's what "king of the road" meant. I thought Roger Miller was the "king of the road"; or, rather, I didn't know Roger Miller was supposed to be a HOBO, but now that I recall the lyrics, of course he's a hobo ("Third boxcar / Midnight train / Destination, Bangor, Maine"). I often think about how great it is that I learned "King of the Road" from my 5th grade teacher, who would play guitar and teach us songs we could sing along to. Just imagine 25 ten-year-olds belting out: "... I ain't got no cigarettes!" You were the greatest, Mrs. Flam. Colorful polyester pantsuits, red hair swept up in a loose beehive atop her head. She was probably the same age that I am now. She really liked teaching and really liked us, and let me tell you, you *remember* the feeling of having a teacher like that.

• 8D: ___-Its (CHEEZ) — lol when "POST" didn't fit, I was baffled. Since CHEEZ is a partial brand name non-word, I should hate this as much as I hated ROLD Gold, but CHEEZ has its excuse built right in—gotta handle that terminal "Z" somehow! Not a lot of options!
• 9D: Yap (GAB) — most three-letters are a piece of cake on a Monday, but this one ... is "Yap" a verb? A noun? YAK? MAW? It's true that GAB seemed the most likely, but it's also true that I really had to be correct, because inferring those short Acrosses in the NE was gonna be murder if I didn't GAB right. 
• 15A: King of the gods, in Egyptian myth (AMON) — this was the one moment where I went back and double-checked my work. I knew that AMON-Ra was a thing, and that this was likely the context for AMON, but since you can spell AMON all kinds of ways, and since it's not great fill in general (esp. for a Monday), I was suspicious. But everything seemed solid otherwise, so I let it ride, and ... AMON it was.
• 45D: Spinoff stories written by an author's readers, informally (FANFIC) — "fic" being short for "fiction." I love FANFIC as an answer (though I wouldn't read it if you paid me). I sometimes call Dante's Inferno "Virgil FANFIC," but I'm mostly being flippant.
• 48D: Removes a dependence (from) (WEANS) — Clunk City, that clue, yikes. I just looked at it like "what?" In retrospect, it's literal enough, but wow is it ugly. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Architectural projection / SUN 3-30-25 / Feature of a safe landing / Fraudster Sorokin profiled in Netflix's "Inventing ___" / Weasel family member / Baguette in Vietnamese cuisine / Proteins hypothetically responsible for mad cow disease / Group in "a pension fund" / Fix, as a logbook entry / Canadian dollar, informally

Constructor: Simeon Seigel

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Mark My Words" — Clues must be understood spatially, with various punctuation "marks" standing in for "words":

Theme answers:

• THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT (27A: . [Not this])
• PREHISTORIC PERIODS (35A: ... Ancient)
• BUYS BY THE POUND (52A: # Believes)
• WRITTEN IN THE STARS (62A: * Composed *) (more like "written in the asterisks," but OK)
• DINES AND DASHES (70A: Feasts - - -)
• POST-GRADUATE DEGREE (87A: Alumnus º)
• READ BETWEEN THE LINES (99A: — Peruse —)

Word of the Day: Pamana Island (105A: Its southernmost point, Pamana Island, in more than 750 miles below the Equator => ASIA) —

Pamana Island (Dana, Dona, Ndana) is a small island off Rote Island in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province of Lesser Sunda Islands, and the southernmost point of Indonesia and of Asia. It lies exactly on latitude 11°S. Administratively this island is part of Rote Ndao Regency. It borders the Ashmore and Cartier Islands to the south.

The island is inhabited by some deer, various bird species and is visited annually by turtles who come to lay their eggs. (wikipedia)

• • •

Kind of remedial, kind of dull, with lots of little clunks along the way. "Period" and "point" are essentially the same "mark," so the first two themers felt like they were doing basically the same "trick." There's no clear reason for the brackets around [Not this] in . Like the words in the other clues, "Not this" are simply functioning as definitions, so the bracketing is just weird. And, if the puzzle weren't so easy overall, potentially misleading. DINES AND DASHES sounds awfully awkward in the third person. If the wordplay / markplay here were somehow truly stellar or mindblowing, these little glitches wouldn't register. But everything is so straightforward that there's no real wow factor, and therefore nothing to distract from all the little infelicities. The fill is slightly subpar as well. THE NSA? I thought THE MONA LISA was kinda clunky yesterday, but THE NSA is way worse. NSA has appeared 241 times (with a big jump under Shortz and an especially big jump in the 2020s, for some reason), and there's no difference between all those clues and today's clue (they almost all just use "Org." to signal the abbr.), which makes the THE here totally arbitrary, which ... boo (88D: Org whose budget is classified). And right next to A GRADES, also boo. And then REDATE? C SIDE?? US TIME??? "AH ME"!? (again with the bygone sighing expressions!). Hypothetically responsible proteins (!?!?!?!) (55D: Proteins hypothetically responsible for mad cow disease = PRIONS). What the hell? Are they responsible or aren't they? Now I'm booing science, sorry. If the scientists don't know, they don't know. I just found it hard to like this grid. Much of it is solid, just fine, but much of it is tin-eared, and there are no real high points. 

As usual, the NW was the place I was slowest—both because it's where I started, and when you've got nothing in the grid yet ... that's when you're likely to be slowest; and because the clues on those short answers were just hard for me. PASS should've been easy, but nope, I couldn't think of anything there (1A: Choose not to take part). I knew the Medicare section was a PART, but which PART, ??? (1D: Medicare section (PART B)). I had ALTA instead of ALTO (18A: High in the Andes), which wasn't that bad, but I crossed that "T" with OTTER instead of STOAT (3D: Weasel family member), which was (that bad, that is). Also, the only thing my brain wanted for 23A: Hit the ___ (ROOF) was ROAD. I was so turned around at first that I actually wrote in BATCAPES (!?!?) instead of BATSUITS for 31A: Film attire for George Clooney and Christian Bale. Next door wasn't too much better. I think the first thing I put in the grid with any real certainty was AGASSI (7D: Eight-time Grand Slam tournament winner from 1992 to 2003), and yet, in that same section ... I assumed the stiletto in question was a shoe, so BLADE wasn't coming anytime soon (24A: Stiletto feature). Still can't seem to differentiate AUGUR (portend) from AUGER (the hole-boring tool), so I left that vowel blank. Garfield is plump and orange (not to mention fictional) whereas my own tabby cat is lean and gray (mostly) and very much real (esp. at 3:45am when he's hungry), so it was hard to think of them in the same category of cat, though technically, yes, both TABBIES (5D: Garfield and others). I got RULETH but there's no way you can be That confident in RULETH because ... well, look at it. Also, REDATE, shme-date. So as you can see, just getting initial traction was an adventure. And Yet—once I got out of the N/NW, everything seemed to go Monday-easy, and the theme itself was maybe like a 3 out of 10 on the difficulty scale, and there's nowhere that seems likely to make anybody really Stuck-stuck, so ... yeah, Easy.

[TABBIES! Turns out you can't spell "Garfield" without ALFIE (+ "G" "R" and "D")]

Bullet points:

• 21A: Feature of a safe landing (RAIL) — the answer that baffled me the most. I knew it was right, and I wanted to leave it behind, but it was bugging me that I couldn't figure out how the hell it was correct. Eventually it dawned on me that we were talking about a staircase (specifically the level part, or "landing"). I think of the landing as the one part of a staircase that *doesn't* have a (hand) RAIL, but I guess for extra safety, they might. 
• 25A: Fraudster Sorokin profiled in Netflix's "Inventing ___" ("ANNA") — a random and near-meaningless string of words to me ... and yet "ANNA" floated right to the top of my brain. Must've just seen the title a bunch, perhaps while scrolling through the mind-numbing content farm that is Netflix. I'm about to pare down all my media subscriptions, and Netflix is at the top of the "to go" list. A few good things and a Whoooooooooole lotta nothin. A whole lot of "just OK" stuff, actually, which is somehow worse, or at least the same.
• 45A: Sch. whose student newspaper in The Reveille (LSU) — my wife used to teach there, in the History Department, but that was before I knew her. I went to LSU once myself, for a conference, when I was in graduate school. None of these biographical tidbits made any difference here—no idea what "Sch." this was supposed to be. "Reveille" had me thinking military, so I wrote in VMI at first.

• 106A: Group in "a pension fund" (AEIOU) — the vowels AEIOU appear in that phrase ("a pension fund") in that order.
• 78A: Modern love? (BAE) — the term "BAE" has been around long enough that it doesn't feel particularly "modern" to me anymore. Huh, looks like it only really took off in 2013-14, somewhere around there, so yeah, pretty modern. Anyway, you (not me, but you) might call someone you love "BAE" (the way you might use "babe" or "baby"). A romantic partner, most likely.

• 83A: Something searched for in vein? (ORE) — a decent pun, and an easy answer to get, but thumbs-down on the clue for duping "vein" (see 97D: Like a bodybuilder's arms = VEINY).
• 107A: Mark one's words? (EDIT) — this was kind of cute—the way the clue echoed the title of the puzzle, I mean ("Mark My Words").
• 22A: Architectural projection (ORIEL) — is this the bay window-type dealie? Yes: "A bay window projecting from an upper floor, supported from below with corbels or brackets." (wordnik)

• 10D: Baguette in Vietnamese cuisine (BANH MI) — Of course it's BANH, but my brain wanted BAHN, like "autobahn" or Kathryn Hahn or Steve Zahn. 
• 85D: Author who originally intended his pen name to rhyme with "voice," though Americans pronounced it differently (SEUSS) — wait, do non-Americans say "zoice!?" LOL that's some real "Frankenstein" / "Frankenstein" stuff. I love the idea that there's a Dr. Seuss ("Soyce!") out there, a kind of doppelgänger or evil twin of Dr. Seuss ("Sooce!"), writing books that make kids hate reading. Bad poetry that doesn't rhyme or scan, with horrific illustrations that give you nightmares. "One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish As Far As The Eye Can See Because Of An Oil Spill!" Sleep tight, kids

[80A: Translation of "fin" (END)]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I will be away next Sunday because I will be attending the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT, for the first time in nearly a decade. Hope to see some of you there. Whoever is subbing for me next weekend, you'll be in good hands, as usual, I promise.  

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Short Japanese sword / SAT 3-29-25 / Soffritto-based sauce / Where to get into the nitty-gritty? / Primary lang. of Gambia / Underground venues for some heavy-metal bands? / Political grp. dedicated to helping those who are H.I.V. positive / Birthplace of writer V.S. Naipaul / Cry from a cutthroat competitor

Constructor: Christina Iverson and Jacob McDermott

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TANTO (16A: Short Japanese sword) —

A tantō (短刀, 'short blade') is a traditionally made Japanese knife (nihontō) that was worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. The tantō dates to the Heian period, when it was mainly used as a weapon but evolved in design over the years to become more ornate. Tantō were used in traditional martial arts (tantojutsu) and in the seppuku suicide ritual. The term has seen a resurgence in the West since the 1980s as referring to a point style of modern tactical knives, designed for piercing or stabbing, though the style is not present on any traditional tantō.

A Tanto knife may refer to an American style of blade based [on] the Japanese tantō, usually with a squared rather than curved tip. (wikipedia)

• • •

Nice easy (-ish) Saturday puzzle. Felt way more like a Friday than a Saturday on every level—well, on two levels. The grid shape has good overall flow, which I associate with the best Fridays. No getting boxed into stupid sequestered corners, no giant hunks of white space. Also, the cluing was accessible, so while I definitely had to exert some effort here and there, the primary solving sensation was closer to "whoosh whoosh" than "aargh." There was only one answer that struck me as kind of obscure: I had no memory of TANTO, except maybe as an Italian word ... yep, it looks like that's the way it was clued literally every time it appeared before today (and it appears far less today than it did in days of yore). [So much, in music] is the most common clue for TANTO, but today they went with the samurai sword (the seppuku sword!), and I imagine that's going to slow a lot of people up, at least a little (as it did me). I got a few crosses and then thought "oh, they've just found a new non-Lone Ranger way to clue TONTO, cool." Nope. They found a new non-music way to clue TANTO. Anyway, TANTO stands out like a sore TANTO in this grid, as everything else feels extremely LEGIT and familiar. Well, maybe not ORBED, but the rest of it, for sure.

[TANTO ... also Spanish ...]

The only things I really winced at, or came close to wincing at, or didn't particularly care for, were the THE in THE MONA LISA (not hard, just ... gratuitous and ugly) (23D: Only beauty to go through history and retain her reputation, per Will Rogers) (I think Will Rogers is making me wince here more than the THE is). I'd also never heard the expression "barreled out," so even with -ELED sitting there, I had no idea what was going on. Barreling implies speed to me, whereas "peeling out" absolutely positively explicitly refers to leaving rubber on the road (and making a screeching sound while doing it). And while I've heard of barreling, I've never heard "barreling out." Unfamiliar clue phrase plus bad answer equivalency = frowny face emoji. Also didn't love the very general answer for the very specific clue at 40D: The W.N.B.A.'s Caitlin Clark, for one (PHENOM). There are so many specific things that she is, for one, that I never would've suspected something as generic as PHENOM. I thought maybe they wanted her team (Indiana Fever) or her position (point guard) or maybe even her native identity (Iowan). If you play for the Lakers, you're a Laker, and if you play for the Celtics, you're a Celtic, but what are you if you play for the Fever? Or the Heat, for that matter? A Hot One?

How'd you get started on this one. I opened with ... the MINES part of IRON MINES (1A: Underground venues for some heavy-metal bands?). With four letters open before MINES and "heavy-metal" clue, I probably should've been able to infer IRON, but I figured, why not just test the MINES part first, before you get too confident. Testing MINES proved ... inconclusive. All I was able to "confirm" was ENG (correct!) (8D: Primary lang. of Gambia) and ... "I'M OVER" (in correct). I dunno, "I'M OVER here!" just seemed plausible, what can I say? (6D: "___ here"). NO WORRIES, though, as I was fairly certain 20A: Gun was REV, which took out "I'M OVER" and gave me the "V" I needed for NAIVE (7D: Like a mark) (a "mark" here is the target of a scam). [Neon sign word] was clear all on its own (OPEN), no crosses needed, and from there, everything just opened up. Northwest, sorted. Nothing else took nearly so much effort.

["Mr. DINKINS, would you please be my mayor?"]

The first big highlight of this puzzle for me was CHEWING GUM, specifically the clue on CHEWING GUM (27D: Wrigley field?). It's an obvious pun, but a good one. I also loved the casual colloquialness of "NO WORRIES," "I DON'T CARE," and "EAT MY DUST" (I had it as "EAT MY DIRT" for a second or two, conflating "EAT MY DUST" with "EAT DIRT," I think). "EAT MY DUST" takes us back to PEELED out, which now makes me like that answer a tiny bit more (but then I never hated the answer, just the clue). The long (8+) answers in the NE were probably my favorite. Not sparkling, exactly, but very solid (ANTI-SOCIAL BACKSTORIES!). Liked the strange and potentially misdirective clue on COIN TOSS (28A: It requires a flipper), and adored Mr. TUXEDO CAT, hello, baby (32A: One always seen in a fancy fur coat). So happy when he turned up. I was spinning my wheels a bit in the center of the grid, trying to figure out what state the steak was in (CUBED) and [Encircled] could possibly mean (ORBED!?), when I decided to change SAND DUNES (9D: Where to get into the nitty-gritty?) to SAND BOXES, and bam, "X" marks the spot. Put that letter in and then there he was, my TUXEDO CAT. I wrote him in thinking "if this is wrong I do not want to be right." 

[it wasn't wrong]

More stuff:

• 25A: What's got about an ounce of scents? (SACHET) — I had no idea how much a typical SACHET holds by weight (or volume), so I'm just gonna take the puzzle's word on this one. I assume the SACHET is filled with pot pourri, whatever that is. A mix of things, I think.

• 46D: Soffritto-based sauce (RAGU) — "soffritto" = aromatic ingredients sautéed over low heat for long time. "In Italian cuisine, chopped onions, carrots and celery is battuto, and then, slowly cooked in olive oil, becomes soffritto. It may also contain garlic, shallot, or leek." (wikipedia). RAGU here is the general name for the meat sauce, not the brand name (although ... I mean, the jarred stuff probably also starts with "soffritto" so ... I guess that works, too).
• 48D: ___ Convy, host of TV's "Super Password" and "Win, Lose or Draw" (BERT) — yet another opportunity for me to talk about The Love Boat, on which BERT Convy was a frequent guest, including one time where he went on the cruise in drag (with his pal ARTE Johnson, who used to appear in crosswords allllll the time, ask your parents). 

[yes that's 3x Academy Award nominee and
mother of Laura Dern, Diane Ladd]

• BERT was in drag because it was a ladies' cruise (was this the one where there was a contest and the grand prize was a date with Engelbert Humperdinck? Having watched well over 150 episodes by this point, it's possible I'm conflating episodes). He was on the ladies' cruise because he was stalking his own wife, whom he suspected (for no reason) of being unfaithful. Scarily, even violently jealous men were considered cute back then. You get a lot of them on Love Boat. Real creepfest, much of the time. My wife and I are constantly turning toward each other and going "Why Do These Women Like These Guys!?" But back to BERT. IMDb tells me he was on seven (7!!!) episodes of The Love Boat. Google image search tells me he was also on something called The Love Boat II (!?), which I think was just a late (1987) Love Boat special (the series per se ended in 1986). Check out this TV ad—I miss the good old days of ridiculous TV and the ridiculous print ad illustrations that went with it ...

[a real Who's Who of '70s/'80s TV talent ... and also Celeste Holm!!]

[Celeste Holm!]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Poke bowl condiment / FRI 3-28-25 / Oh, brothers, where art thou? / Hybrid team sport that uses kayaks / San Diego County beach town with a racetrack / Bundle in an office / Food specialty that might be topped with creole mustard / Nonsense word akin to "blah"

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DELMAR (50A: San Diego County beach town with a racetrack) —

Del Mar (Spanish pronunciation: [del ˈmaɾ]; Spanish for "Of the Sea") is a beach city in San Diego County, California, located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Established in 1885 as a seaside resort, the city incorporated in 1959. The population was 3,954 at the 2020 census, down from 4,161 at the 2010 census.

The San Diego County Fair is an annual fair held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Horse racing is hosted at the Del Mar Racetrack every summer. // 

The horse racing track is exactly 1 mile (1.609 km) long, and races are run counter-clockwise. With a capacity of 44,000, it is the second largest horse-racing venue in the western United States, after the nearby Santa Anita Park. It is known for the slogans: "Where The Turf Meets The Surf" as well as "Cool as Ever." It was built by a partnership including Bing Crosby, actors Pat O'Brien, Gary Cooper, Joe E. Brown, Charles S. Howard and Oliver Hardy. A 100-mile AAA championship Indianapolis-type car race was held at Del Mar in November 1949, but the death of popular local driver Rex Mays in that event caused "big car" racing to disappear from Southern California circuits for 18 years. (In addition, the horse racing community was deeply resentful of oil-dripping cars being run on the horse-oriented dirt racing surface.) (wikipedia)

• • •

When I say this is an average Friday puzzle, I mean it's what an average Friday puzzle oughta be. Pleasant, diverting, with a little spice (WASABI MAYO!), nice flow, not much ugliness. The highs weren't that high for me today, but the lows weren't low either, and the whole thing feels very carefully and professionally constructed. The longer answers are pretty shiny, especially in the NW and SE, though I confess I have no idea what CANOE POLO is (31D: Hybrid team sport that uses kayaks). I mean, I can picture it, but I don't really believe in it. Feels ridiculous. Original, but ridiculous-original, not fun-original. Whereas "STAY CLASSY...," that feels fun-original. That's one of those rare answers that actually made me smile, though I also probably smiled at least a little at AFICIONADO, since it's a word I'm oddly proud I know how to spell effortlessly (unlike so many other words, sadly), and I probably also smiled a bit at NO-HIT GAMES, because I'm so happy baseball is back, even though it *immediately* broke my heart (we threw our best pitcher at them, but the Dodgers still beat the Tigers 5-4. [Shakes fist at sky], Damn you, TEOSCAR Hernández! Damn you and your towering three-run homer to centerfield off the reigning AL Cy Young winner! ... would not mind seeing your name in the grid, though, truth be told. Always loved the TEOSCAR ... like Oscar, but with a little oomph up front).

I have to ask, though ... what is SAWS UP? I cannot even imagine how to use that in a sentence. "I'm gonna go saw me up a mess of logs"? I knew the "teeth" was going to have to do with a saw, but how I was going to get a SAW- phrase to reach to six letters was beyond me. SAW ... SUP. Sounds like two actions you do in succession. "First we SAW! Then we SUP! A proper meal after a hard day of sawing!" Seriously, that phrase is baffling. So baffling, I almost didn't notice the duped "UP" (from SUN-UP) (I don't think it matters, but I did notice). Speaking of SUN-UP, lots (and lots) of dawn-related / sleep-related / waking-related answers today. If you AWOKE at SUN-UP, you might wish you were still ABED, and might even try to catch a little NAP later in the day (44D: Day break) (you know, a (sleep) "break" during the "day"). As someone who AWOKEs well before SUN-UP, I was feeling the sleepy / early-morning vibe of this puzzle, for sure. 

Hard starting today, as nothing went into the NW corner on my first ... well, many attempts to get something to stick. No idea about the WASABI MAYO for a while. I guess I don't eat enough poke bowls, despite seeing them referred to often in crosswords—I'm familiar with wasabi as a condiment for sushi, but today when I got MAYO, I actually tried to make SPICY fit. I must've been feeling the effects of sleepiness, because I actually did put letters from SPICY in there, with a "C" at 5D: Sound relative, giving me CAY, and an "S" up front at 1D: Nashville-to-Memphis dir., giving me the seemingly plausible SSW. Only then did I notice that I could not fill all the remaining spaces in ------ MAYO with the letters in "SPICY," and so tore SPICY out. But back to the start: nothing at 1A: Poke bowl condiment, and then nothing nothing nothing nothing etc. on all the Downs I looked at at first. After all that whiffing, I then got every Down I looked at from MIMES on, giving me this very weird-looking opening gambit:

Just did a puzzle last night where it was spelled YADDA, with two "D"s. Apparently you can fudge that one either way, depending on your need (21D: Nonsense word akin to "blah"). Before I saw it written out (in crosswords), I would've thought it was a two-D situation—I mean, it's "YABBA DABBA DO!", not "YABA..."—but apparently the crowd has spoken on this one, and either YADA or YADDA is acceptable. Anyway, once I got that traction up top, I was good to go. Only real hang-ups involved SAWSUP, and then the (ugh) repeated-clue [Append]s in the middle of the grid. As usual, the clue works better for one of the answers than it does for the other. ANNEX? Er ... I guess if you get a really, really good lawyer and a favorable judge, that means [Append]. As a verb, ANNEX usually has to do with incorporating adjacent territory into one's domain. Did Russia "append" Crimea? I ... suppose. Anyway, yes ANNEX and "Append" are synonymish, but you wouldn't swap out one for the other. As for ADD ON ... I had ADD TO at first (43A: Append). ADD ON is, admittedly, much better.

Bullets:

• 54A: ___ Blue (dandruff shampoo brand) (SELSUN) — like the ROLD in "ROLD Gold" (earlier this week), SELSUN is bad fill, in that it is a partial brand name of ridiculous spelling. It's like when you see STUF all on its own, without DOUBLE in front of it. In the case of ROLD, the matter was worse because a. it was a debut of such an answer, a new pollutant in an already polluted crossword database ecosystem, and b. it was patently unnecessary, in that it was a four-letter answer in an easy-to-fill grid, so there was no "desperation" excuse to fall back on. People seemed to think I was objecting to ROLD because I had never heard of it or thought it was hard. Neither is true. It just flat-out sucked as fill. Ugly dumb bad. No good constructor would choose to use it if they didn't have to. As for SELSUN ... yeah, don't love it, but it's holding a lot of pieces together in a late-week grid, so I object to it far less than I do to that stupid Monday ROLD.

• 4D: Oh, brothers, where art thou? (ABBEYS) — this is killer. Top notch. A1. Standing ovation. I would've liked the clue better on a singular ABBEY, maybe (since one ABBEY would also hold multiple brothers), but whatever. The clue is sensational. Outlandish and sensational. Sensational because outlandish. Nice work, everyone.
• 37D: Bundle in an office (REAM) — caused me more grief than it should've because of $%&^ing ANNEX (41A: Append), which I had as AFFIX (a much better answer for the clue!)
• 42D: Short day soon after the winter solstice? (XMAS) — XMAS is literally a short day (in that there is very little sunlight, compared to most other days of the year), but this clue is using "short" in reference to the fact that XMAS is ... an abbreviation.

I'm happy to announce (all this week) that a new edition of These Puzzles Fund Abortion is available now (These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5!). Donate to abortion funds, get a collection of 23 top-notch puzzles from some of the best constructors in the business—mostly standard U.S. crossword puzzles, but also some cryptic crosswords, variety puzzles, and even an acrostic. Rachel Fabi and C.L. Rimkus have done such a great job with these collections over the past few years, raising over $300,000 for abortion funds around the country. I support a number of charitable organizations, but hardly any of them give me crosswords in return. So I'm going to give TPFA5 my money today [update: done!], and I hope you do too. Here's the link.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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[Can't talk, eating] / THU 3-27-25 / Event in a tent / Reflexology setting / Cartoon series about a super robot / "Do you remember the ___, Mr. Frodo?": Sam Gamgee / "Son of the Dragon," in a medieval Romanian sobriquet / Mac platform renamed in 2016 / Onetime talk show whose studio audience was known as the "Dog Pound," familiarly / Request made through a downstairs intercom

Constructor: Brad Lively

Relative difficulty: Medium 

[14x16 grid!]

THEME: pass it on / pass it back — "IT" is transferred from one answer to either the preceding or the following answer, in four different rows

Theme answers:

• CIRCUITS ("circus") / MOJO ("mojito") (17A: Event in a tent / 19A: Minty Cuban cocktail ... Pass it back) 
• GRAVY ("gravity") / TAR PITS ("tarps") (26A: Sir Isaac Newton wrote about this ... Pass it on / 29A: Covers for a rainy day) 
• BRITAIN ("brain") / VISOR ("visitor") (40A: Smart sort / 42A: One signing a guestbook ... Pass it back)
• WHEN ("whiten") / SUBTITLE ("subtle") (52A: What some toothpastes do ... Pass it on / 53A: Not obvious)

Word of the Day: VOLTRON (42D: Cartoon series about a super robot) —

Voltron is an American animated television series franchise that features a team of space explorers who pilot a giant super robot known as "Voltron". Produced by Peter Keefe (executive producer) and Ted Koplar through his production company World Events Productions, Voltron was an adaptation of several Japanese anime television series from Toei Animation. The original television series aired in syndication from September 10, 1984, to November 18, 1985. The first season of Voltron, featuring the "Lion Force Voltron", was adapted from the series Beast King GoLion. The second season, featuring the "Vehicle Team Voltron", was adapted from the unrelated series Armored Fleet Dairugger XV.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe was the top-rated syndicated children's show for two years during its original run, and it spawned three follow-up series, several comic books, and a line of toys. (wikipedia)

• • •

The theme was pretty easy to figure out, but the cluing for some reason felt pretty amped up today, so my overall experience was actually a little slow. At one point early on, I had nearly the entire perimeter of the NW filled in (DISNEY, DISCS, SEE, YES I DO), and no idea what was supposed to go inside. Something similar also happened later in the SW, where I had CENAC and then .... [tumbleweeds]. The theme itself feels stuck in no man's land. You move "it," but you don't have a good revealer phrase, or phrase that makes the theme make sense, so you use ... two different ones? That are unrelated to each other? If all "IT"s had been moved to the right and you had a revealer like "PASS IT ON" (or even "PAY IT FORWARD"), you'd have something. Something coherent. "Pass it on" and "pass it back" don't pair that well. "Pass it back" is always a literal thing, like "here, take this piece of paper and pass it to the person behind you." But "pass it on" is about transferring information. The latter is a much more common / colloquial phrase than the former. The pair are mismatched, and so the theme just isn't as tight as it could/should be.

All the theme answers, as they appear in the grid, are unclued (i.e. there's no explicit clue for CIRCUITS, MOJO, etc.). This is a feature not a bug, but before you figure out the whole "IT"-shifting thing, it definitely makes the puzzle harder. It gets easier when you hit an italicized clue—those are basically screaming "this is the tricky part!" at you. I knew that I wanted MOJITO at 19A, but didn't get what exactly was wrong with MOJO until I hit 29A: Covers for a rainy day, which I instantly saw was gonna be TAR PITS: TARPS + "IT." Somehow TAR PITS was the thing that made me see what was going on with MOJITO. The theme was easy from there on out. Kinda paint-by-numbers. But as I said up front, the cluing stayed pretty tough, so I still had to work to get to the end. That work ... was not always pleasant. I think DROP TROU is one of the dumbest phrases in the world—like, from another era, slangy in an ugly way (24A: Provide a brief glimpse?). It's the reason I see TROU in the grid (as a standalone answer) way way more than I should. I just physically hate the phrase. Personal quirk, what can I say? Not the puzzle's fault, but enjoyment level dropped hard there. ETAPE, though, that is the puzzle's fault (49D: Tour de France stage). I got it easy enough, but man that's an ugly old-school foreign crosswordese word to foist on solvers. Its frequency dropped off hard after Shortz took over in the early/mid '90s, but it still hangs around, sadly.

[xwordinfo dot com]

The only answer that got me legitimately mad at the puzzle, though, was "OM NOM NOM." (43A: [Can't talk, eating]). Thanks, I Hate It. To be clear, I would've loved (or at least liked, or at least abided) "NOM NOM NOM." That dropped first "N," though, ugh. Ugh. "NOM" is often clued [When repeated, sound of eating] or [When repeated, sound effect for Cookie Monster]. "OM," however, is only ever a meditation syllable. I see that there are some GIFs out there that have the eating sound effect as "OM NOM NOM," but that doesn't make me like it. I also see plenty of "NOM NOM NOM." If it's "NOM" in crosswords (it is), and it's "NOM NOM" in crosswords (once, a couple years back), then it should be "NOM NOM NOM." Like so:

I stopped watching cartoons in the early '80s, so VOLTRON (while a very familiar name) did not leap to the front of my brain until I had some crosses in place. There was a decidedly '80s tween boy vibe to this, with the kids' cartoons and the video games and ARCADE and the Tolkien and what not (46D: "Do you remember the ___, Mr. Frodo?": Sam Gamgee). I was an '80s tween boy (for the early '80s, anyway), and yet none of this stuff resonated with me. ARSENIO, that resonated with me (14A: Onetime talk show whose studio audience was known as the "Dog Pound," familiarly). Right on target. I was the right age to experience that phenomenon in real time, with full force. I wish more stuff resonated with me, but sometimes you just don't luck out. The fill on this one seems fine, but its "highlights" were (mostly) not for me. ESTUARY is a fine word (though hard for me to get today, for sure) (5D: Long Island Sound, e.g.). "LET ME UP" sounds more like something you'd say if someone was sitting on top of you than something you'd say through an intercom. Also, if it's really a request made over an intercom, then it's rude. And not really a request. More of a command. 

Explainers etc.:

• 15A: Expressions of contempt (SNORTS) — not sure what you call it when both KEA and LOA show up in your grid, but that's what happened today. Me: "SNEERS! ... ugh, no, it's SNORTS." Me, later: "oh ... SNEERS ... there you are" (62A: Expressions of contempt)
• 21A: Figure for the prosecution, for short (ADA) — Assistant District Attorney. I prefer the Dental Association. Or the Lovelace.
• 39A: Electronic device from which users take "sips" (VAPE) — do you know how impossibly uncool this looks? Just smoke. I mean, don't, you'll get lung cancer or emphysema, but aesthetically, I'd much rather watch you smoke than "sip." There's a reason people smoked like crazy on film in the olden days and hardly anyone vapes on film. And it's not just health-consciousness. Smoking just looks great. Whereas vaping just looks desperate and sad, no matter how hot you are. To be clear, my objection is not moral in any way. It's purely aesthetic. 
• 56D: Feature of some outdoor obstacle courses (MUD) — could've been anything. Or, wasn't clearly MUD, at any rate. Clear as MUD!

• 59A: "Son of the Dragon," in a medieval Romanian sobriquet (DRACULA) — in retrospect, this should've been obvious, maybe, but oof, no. No idea. Thought they were throwing some Game of Thrones crap at me here. "Romanian" should've tipped me. But it didn't.
• 60A: "At the Movies with Ebert and ___" (ROEPER) — as with ARSENIO, I am the right demographic for this as well. None of the spice of the Siskel days. But it was on and it was about movies and it had Ebert, so I watched sometimes.
• 53D: Reflexology setting (SPA) — "setting" is a word that the puzzle uses in confusing ways sometimes. I thought maybe there were "setting"s in reflexology, like maybe you set your foot ... phaser ... to stun or something. But I guess some SPAs just offer "reflexology," so there's your "setting."
  
• 8D: Mac platform renamed in 2016 (OSX) — is it iOS now, then? Nope, that's mobile. It's actually macOS, so ... look for that in your grid sometime soon, I guess, inevitably, sadly. LOL they should have a cereal shaped like old Apple Macintoshes called "MAC O'S!" Would. Buy. (N)OM NOM NOM!

I'm happy to announce (all this week) that a new edition of These Puzzles Fund Abortion is available now (These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5!). Donate to abortion funds, get a collection of 23 top-notch puzzles from some of the best constructors in the business—mostly standard U.S. crossword puzzles, but also some cryptic crosswords, variety puzzles, and even an acrostic. Rachel Fabi and C.L. Rimkus have done such a great job with these collections over the past few years, raising over $300,000 for abortion funds around the country. I support a number of charitable organizations, but hardly any of them give me crosswords in return. So I'm going to give TPFA5 my money today [update: done!], and I hope you do too. Here's the link.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy Opening Day to all who celebrate! As always, go Tigers.  

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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