Famed shoe designer / MON 4-21-25 / Cute name for a spouse's task list / Place "rocked" in a Clash song / Sled pullers in the Arctic / Garfield's frenemy in the comics / Only nonrigid weapon in clue

Constructor: Thomas van Geel

Relative difficulty: Challenging (**for a Monday**) (**esp. if you're solving Downs-only**)

THEME: "GESUNDHEIT!" (56A: Polite response to the ends of 17-, 25-, 34- and 48-Across) — the ends of the themers represent a sneeze: "Ah, ah, ah ... Choo!":

Theme answers:

• BAR MITZVAH (17A: Coming-of-age ceremony)
• THE CASBAH (25A: Place "rocked" in a Clash song)
• CHEETAH (34A: Animal that can go 0-60 in three seconds)
• JIMMY CHOO (48A: Famed shoe designer)

Word of the Day: DOJA CAT (36D: "Paint the Town Red" rapper) —

Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini (born October 21, 1995), known professionally as Doja Cat (/ˈdoʊdʒə/), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she began making and releasing music on SoundCloud as a teenager. Her song "So High" caught the attention of Kemosabe and RCA Records, with whom she signed a recording contract prior to the release of her debut extended play, Purrr! in 2014.

After a hiatus from releasing music and the uneventful rollout of her debut studio album, Amala (2018), Doja Cat earned viral success as an internet meme with her 2018 single "Mooo!", a novelty song in which she makes humorous claims about being a cow. Capitalizing on her growing popularity, she released her second studio album, Hot Pink, in the following year. The album later reached the top ten of the US Billboard 200 and spawned the single "Say So"; its remix featuring Nicki Minaj topped the Billboard Hot 100. Her third studio album, Planet Her (2021), spent four weeks at number two on the Billboard 200 and spawned the top ten singles "Kiss Me More" (featuring SZA), "Need to Know", and "Woman". Her fourth studio album, Scarlet (2023), adopted a hip-hop-oriented sound and peaked within the top five of the Billboard 200, while its lead single "Paint the Town Red" became her most successful song to date, as it marked her first solo number-one on the Hot 100 among eight other countries.

Described by The Wall Street Journal as "a skilled technical rapper with a strong melodic sense and a bold visual presence", Doja Cat is known for creating videos and performances which achieve virality on social media platforms such as TikTok. Well-versed in Internet culture, she is also famed for her absurdist online personality and stage presence. She has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including one Grammy Award from sixteen nominations, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, and five MTV Video Music Awards. She is one of the biggest commercial artists of the 2020s according to Billboard, and was included on the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2023. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did not like this grid at all. Ridiculously massive corners (esp. for an early-week grid) with a horribly choppy center. Centering CHEETAH in the grid appears to have had cascading consequences, resulting in ... this. So we get these absurd banks of 7s in every corner, but no good / spicy / interesting long Downs, of the type that tend to liven up themed puzzles. So no long Downs, but plenty of short dull stuff (ALEE AGAR SIS MAHI ODIE TNT AMIN (why!?) ELENA ADAS UNA SMEE etc.). Those banks of 7s are OK—they're not ugly or anything, they're just awkward. They make the puzzle feel lopsided and strange. And for those of us who solve Downs-only, the added challenge was almost too much. I couldn't believe I actually got the NW corner without much trouble. The NE corner, however, yeeeeeeeesh. I had ___ BET and no idea what was supposed to go there. EVEN? SAFE? The clue was not much help (10D: Not quite a sure thing). Its negative phrasing ("not quite") did not have me looking for a word as rosy as "GOOD." And then APPEASE? That seems reasonable, yes, but, when you have no letters but the "A" near the end (----A--), and the clue is 11D: Mollify, let me tell you, PLACATE seems like a pretty good option. 

[Legit love this song (content warning ... it gets a little saucy)]

The SE corner was a snap because I knew JIMMY CHOO and DOJA CAT—if the latter answer flummoxed you, don't say I didn't warn you. (and I quote: "Four letters, half vowels, oddly-placed "J" ... you can see how this name might, occasionally, come in handy when you're filling a grid, specifically when you're filling your way around a (fixed) "J." If DÉJÀ is reasonably prevalent (37 appearances in the Shortz Era), then you can see how DOJA might proliferate. If you "don't like rappers" in your crossword, oh well, too bad. Just learn DOJA Cat now and spare yourself a lot of pain later." (Mar. 17, 2025)). But the SE corner, well, that just about did me in. I got APACHES and then .... zilch. I was able to throw "GESUNDHEIT!" across that section, but it did nothing to help me with the 7s. Nothing did. I wanted a plural of some breed of dog (SAMOYEDS? HUSKIES?) rather than DOG TEAM (42D: Sled pullers in the Arctic). Just as I used the "A" to get PLACATE (wrong!) in the NE corner, I used "I" to get OUTFITS (wrong!) in the SE (43D: Wardrobe = ARMOIRE). And as for STARTLE ... just couldn't see it (44D: Surprise). Not with just the latter "T" in place. I don't even remember how I managed to finish. I think I just tried to imagine 5-letter words starting "MA-," thought of MAGMA, and then the "G" made me think "DOG" and bam, I was back in business. But anyway, the Downs-only solve was brutal.

As for the theme of the puzzle, it left me a little cold, mostly because "VAH BAH TAH CHOO" isn't a thing. I was already sounding out the endings to try to figure out the theme before I ever got to the bottom, and when I hit CHOO and realized I had to ignore the "V" "B" and "T" (respectively) in those final syllables, it just didn't feel right. You say the "CH-" in "CHOO" but not the "V" "B" or "T"? I see why, but I still felt let down that the actual sound gimmick in this puzzle was so banal. I'm gonna start sneezing "Vah ... bah ... tah ... CHOO!" Seems more fun. I've always said sneezing should be more fun, and now I'm going to do something about it.

Some other stuff:

• 16A: Only nonrigid weapon in clue (ROPE) — "nonrigid" is a really awful word, the longer you stare at it. Looks like the name of one of Odin's, uh ... horses? Did he have horses? Well, yes, but just Sleipnir, his 8-legged horse. Nonrigid may not belong to Odin, but she definitely hangs out with Sleipnir.
• 46A: Garfield's frenemy in the comics (ODIE) — I don't remember them ever being "friends." I would've called Odie Garfield's NEMESIS (though Odie is probably too kind-hearted and dim-witted to be anyone's actual NEMESIS).
• 26D: Cute name for a spouse's task list (HONEY-DO) — ugh, define "Cute." Hate this "name" and this whole concept. Reinforces a lot of stupid gender norms. Real '90s-sitcom stuff. Boo.
• 35D: Rock's Emerson, Lake & Palmer, for one (TRIO) — me: "Let's see, we've got Emerson, that's one, and Lake, two, and then Palmer, three ... I'm gonna say TRIO!" You used to see these guys in the grid from time to time as ELP ("... I need somebody, ELP! Not just anybody, ELP! You know I need someone, ELP!!!"). They were a big name in '70s prog rock.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Juvenile locust / SUN 4-20-25 / Peach or plum, botanically / Little flap, maybe / Hotheaded liberal politico who's eager to hear? / Dam near the Philae Temple of Isis / Plant that was a top-five girl's name in the 1970s / Smitten person's declaration / "Suh-weet! I love this sandwich cookie!"? / Group that Tiger hires to install wall art? / Makeup of some metallic bonds

Constructor: Victor Schmitt and Tracy Bennett

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Double Vision" — three-word answers where first part of middle word is the same as the first word and last part of middle word is the same as the last word(s) [... yes, that is an accurate description, cool]

Theme answers:

• WOODS WOODSCREW CREW (25A: Group that Tiger hires to install wall art?)
• SPAM SPAMALOT ALOT (41A: Send fan mail en masse to a Monty Python production?)
• MAD MADISON IS ON (60A: Angry early president can be seen now in TV footage?)
• DEM DEMAGOG AGOG (85A: Hotheaded liberal politico who's eager to hear?)
• PRO PROCURES CURES (104A: Pharmacist comes through for customers?)
• RED REDACTION ACTION (122A: Editor's strike?)
• POST POSTAGE AGE (3D: Email era?)
• WHOO! WHOOPIE PIE! (56D: "Suh-weet! I love this sandwich cookie!"?)

Word of the Day: IAN Somerhalder (126A: Actor Somerhalder) —

Ian Joseph Somerhalder (/ˈsʌmərhɔːldər/ SUM-ər-hawl-dər; born December 8, 1978) is an American former actor and current business owner. He is known for playing Boone Carlyle in ABC's science fiction adventure drama television series Lost (2004–2010) and Damon Salvatore in the CW supernatural teen drama series The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017). (wikipedia)

• • •

My brain feels like it's melting—is that really how you spell "DEMAGOG"—I could've sworn there was a "-ue" on the end of it. [Looks it up] Oh thank god. I'm correct. According to merriam-webster dot com, "DEMAGOGUE" is the spelling—under "variants" it says "less commonly DEMAGOG." I'd say "way less commonly." That answer was probably the hurtiest of the lot, not just because DEMAGOG was spelled bizarrely, but because nothing in the clue really indicated demagoguery at all. Being a "hot-headed politico" does not make you a DEMAGOG(UE). Needless to say, the theme kind of went off the rails for me there. The rest of it meandered from fine to bland to awkward. Some of the theme answers seemed pretty snappy (POST POSTAGE AGE, MAD MADISON IS ON, SPAMS SPAMALOT A LOT), but some were just too contrived to be funny (WOODS WOODSCREW CREW) or just kind of blah (PRO PROCURES CURES—"PRO" seems very weak as a stand in for "Pharmacist"). Had some trouble with "WHOO! WHOOPIE PIE!" mostly because "WHOO!" doesn't really track (for me) as a "Suh-weet!" stand-in. "Woo hoo!" is the expression I was looking for (the fact that I live under the deep and abiding influence of Homer Simpson may have something to do with that). I also haven't seen / thought of a WHOOPIE PIE in years. Decades? People still eat these? The only "sandwich cookie" I know is, well, you know.

The puzzle was pretty easy overall, though some of those themers were hard to parse (despite the fact that they should've been *easier* to parse than usual, given the repetitive nature of the theme). And some of the fill today proved a little elusive. The one that held me up the most was DANAE (118A: Mother of Perseus). I deal with classical mythology a lot in my classes, but somehow DANAE never comes up. Is she famous for anything else besides being Perseus's mother? Nope, not really. That answer was in the thick of the toughest section for me, connecting PETDOOR (hard to get from clue) (101D: Little flap, maybe) to URACIL (109D: RNA base). But when I say this section was "the toughest" for me today, it really wasn't that tough. None of it was. I had to work a little, that's all. I guess I had to work a little over in the E/SE as well, where ABODE had a really tricky clue (96A: Liver spot?) (i.e. the spot ... where one ... lives), and ADVENTURE seemed like it wanted to be ... something else (90D: Thrill-seeker's pursuit). I was considering ADRENALIN. And ugh, that section had that horrible manosphere "thought" "leader" guy in it, why, why, why would you do that? No one wants that. Sadly, there aren't any other suitably famous ROGANs you can go to for that clue. It's either use the podcast guy or tear it out and refill the grid some other way. I think you know what way I'd lean.

[102A: Smitten person's declaration]

Very easy-to-understand theme today. Took me exactly this long to pick it up:

I read the clue (3D: Email era?), took one look at the title (always a good idea on Sundays), and in went POST POSTAGE AGE. Having the core concept locked down made the rest of the themers much easier, even if, occasionally, they were weird enough to flummox me for a bit. Outside of the aforementioned DANAE and ABODE sections, the only part of the puzzle that felt somewhat hard to get ahold of was the aforementioned DEMAGOG, which had both BILOBA and STREGA running through it. I tried to spell BILOBA all kinds of ways: BILBAO? BILBOA? I feel like Ginkgo BILOBA used to be, like a trendy supplement for a while? In the '90s? Is it still? It's supposed to help with memory or something. (52D: Ginkgo ___ (tree species)). If only there was a supplement that could help me remember ... here, I'll use my favorite supplement: the internet [click click click]. Yes, "brain supplement." "The European Medicines Agency Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products concluded that medicines containing ginkgo leaf can be used for treating mild age-related dementia and mild peripheral vascular disease in adults after serious conditions have been excluded by a physician" (wikipedia). As for STREGA, I made it my Word of the Day, not too long ago, and that ... kinda helped (62D: "___ Nona" (children's book based on a folk tale)). I still wanted wrong words at first: STRADA, maybe? Still not loving STREGA as an answer, but at least this time it didn't take me completely by surprise. 

[111D: Singer with the 2021 hit album "Solar Power"]

Observations and explanations:

• 55A: Dam near the Philae Temple of Isis (ASWAN) — this answer keeps catching my eye and every time I think "why is A SWAN" in this puzzle? How is that even being clued? ... oh, right, the dam." 
• 70A: Go beyond the opponent's baseline, in tennis (OVERHIT) — only just debuted a few years ago (2019), though it appeared in a NYT acrostic a few years before that. "Baseline" is the example of the thing being exceeded each time, except for the one time it was [Send beyond the green, say]. I would've thought "OVERSHOOT" for golf, but golf's not really my thing, to say the least, so sure, golf too, why not? LOL when I google [overshoot the green] my first five hits are cryptic crossword clue explanation sites. But after those, yes, looks like "overshoot (the green)" is def a real golf concept. (PS: the cryptic clue in question: [Overshoot the green badly, though not with the driver (9)]. Can you solve it? Answer below*. 
• 112A: Plant that was a top-five girl's name in the 1970s (HEATHER) — never thought about it, but yeah, went to school with a number of HEATHERs, and HEATHER Locklear and HEATHER Graham were famous actresses of roughly my age (a little older and a little younger, respectively), but then, sometimes in the '90s it looks like, the HEATHER (and Jennifer, and Amy) market collapsed, and the Brittany / Caitlin / Madison apocalypse began... 

• 129A: What very punctual people arrive on (THE DOT) — very weird to have THE DOT not following a specific time. "I'll be there on THE DOT!" What dot!?!?
• 6D: Certain queer identity, for short (ARO) — as in "aromantic." 
• 16D: Makeup of some metallic bonds (ARCWELDS) — don't remember this at all. Must've worked my way around it using crosses. If you arcweld, you weld using an arc created by electricity.
• 45D: Juvenile locust (NYMPH) — ah, locust taxonomy! Finally a subject I'm an expert in! (shouted someone, possibly ... but not me). 
• 85D: Peach or plum, botanically (DRUPE) — basically, a stone fruit. I learned this word from crosswords ... and then crosswords promptly stopped showing it to me (it's been 17 years!!!!? and only the second appearance in the last 34 years ... this surprises me; really thought the word was more common)

[RAH, lol]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Longtime constructor and all-around smart guy Natan Last has a book about crossword puzzles coming out later this year called Across the Universe: The Past, Present and Future of the Crossword Puzzle. If I had an advance copy (hint hint!) I'd be able to tell you all about it. But I'm quite sure it's going to be good. We're in a mini-boom period for crossword books. Last year we got Anna Schechtman's wonderful Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle, and now there's Natan's book (due out the day before my birthday: Nov. 25, 2025)

Here's Natan with the prepublication hype:

My book Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of The Crossword Puzzle, is now available for pre-order! If you can, would you pre-order it through Bookshop, Books-A-Million, Barnes and Noble, or your local bookstore? 

Pre-orders help books get attention and remain a powerful way to support authors. I've been lucky to receive an early blurb from Stefan Fatsis, the bestselling author of Word Freak, who calls Across the Universe "a gridful of insight and pleasure ... a deft and deep exploration of the crossword puzzle’s obsessive grip on American life." 

In the book, I go through the history of crosswords, starting with the very first puzzles in the yellow journalism-tinged era of the 1910s, plus a postwar crossword craze in which solving competitions, crossword musicals and movies, and black-and-white-checkered outfits were all the rage. I elaborate my own history with the puzzle too, from combing through archives in Will Shortz’s basement to being invited onto a Martha Stewart episode dedicated to puzzles (she said she solved more while she was in prison). All the while, I track how the puzzle’s identity is constantly shifting—becoming, in different eras, a frivolous diversion, a literary and artistic object (including for some of my own writerly heroes like Gertrude Stein, Vladimir Nabokov, and T.S. Eliot), the latest game for AI to conquer, and even a primary source of revenue for the modern newsroom. 

You can read excerpts from the book in The New Yorker and The New York Times; the Times piece is about the role of games in moments of crisis, and, unfortunately, is as relevant as ever. I'll be having some events once the book comes out, and I'll keep you posted on that. But for now, pre-order if you can! 

Both Anna and Natan are in their 30s now, but have been constructing since they were teenagers, so there's a ton of experience there, as well as a still relatively youthful perspective on recent crossword history. I hope I get an advance copy of Natan's book at some point, so I can promote it in greater detail later in the year, but I'm gonna pre-order one today either way. If I end up with two copies, fine: it'll make a nice gift.

*[Overshoot the green badly, though not with the driver (9)] = PASSENGER 

• Cryptic part of the clue: "Overshoot" = PASS; "green badly" = anagram of "green" = ENGER
• Definition part of the clue: "not with the driver" = in the car but not driving it = PASSENGER

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Sound from a dental click / SAT 4-19-25 / Portmanteau pants / Move quickly with the wind, as clouds / Film franchise that boosted sales of Ray-Ban sunglasses, for short / 20th-century activist ___ Milholland, dubbed a "Joan of Arc-like symbol of the suffrage movement" / Celestial object producing a so-called "lighthouse effect" as it rotates

Constructor: Alex Tomlinson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: INEZ Milholland (19A: 20th-century activist ___ Milholland, dubbed a "Joan of Arc-like symbol of the suffrage movement") —

Inez Milholland Boissevain (August 6, 1886 – November 25, 1916) was a leading American suffragist, lawyer, and peace activist.

From her college days at Vassar College, she campaigned aggressively for women’s rights as the principal issue of a wide-ranging socialist agenda. In 1913, she led the dramatic Woman Suffrage Procession on horseback in advance of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration as a symbolic herald. She was also a labor lawyer and a war correspondent, as well as a high-profile New Woman of the age, with her avant-garde lifestyle and belief in free love. She died of pernicious anemia on a speaking tour, traveling against medical advice. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was fine, but for the third day in a row, way, way too easy. There was a time when Saturday puzzles would absolutely f*** you up. A time when I, a fairly experienced solver, would have to Work, hard, to bring one of those babies down. A few of them absolutely broke me. But now if a Saturday takes me as much as 8 minutes, that's actually on the harder side. Today's puzzle ... well, without speeding at all, taking multiple screenshots along the way ... I don't know how long it took me, but I know that my computer's clock said 10:07 as I was printing the finished puzzle out (it's currently Friday night) and the puzzle doesn't even come out until 10:00, and I don't think I started right at 10:00, so ... conservatively, this took me a leisurely 5 minutes. 6 tops. And again, that's without any urgency on my part. That's about the amount of resistance I'd expect from a Wednesday puzzle. In fact, the Wednesday puzzle might've given me more resistance this week than this puzzle did. Having very few proper nouns and a relatively clean grid really helps move things along, but still, cluing could've been significantly amped up. I have exactly three parts of the puzzle marked as problem areas: INEZ (one of the few proper nouns, just didn't know her); SCUD (really thought the verb was SCUT, for some reason ... possibly because SCUD is the missile) (8A: Move quickly with the wind, as clouds) (SCUT is menial work); and BASE JUMP (51A: Go off a cliff, maybe) (I know the phenomenon, but for some reason my first stab at this answer was BASE DIVE, which gave rise to the amazing pants portmanteau, DORTS ... which I thought were maybe "denim shorts" ... which is what JORTS, in fact, are (jean shorts)). Nothing else in the grid caused more than a few moments' hesitation, tops. 

["... to improve your [Know-how in negotiations, say]"]

Yesterday's grid had so many snappy answers that I was too happy to complain very much about easiness. But today, the snappiness has abated somewhat. Hard to get excited about some guy who thinks he has BUSINESS ACUMEN dreaming up ACTION ITEMs while on his REVERSE COMMUTE. Also hard to get excited about semi-redundant answers like EXAM PAPER and (esp.) EMAIL SPAM. The high notes just weren't that high, and without difficult, or even particularly clever, clues to at least provide a solving challenge, there wasn't nearly so much pleasure to be had today. Again, I think this is solid enough, and clean enough. But it's neither as flashy as yesterday's nor as hard as a Saturday oughta be.

The puzzle starts with a gimme (1A: Support in construction) that also provides the opening letters of two very long Down. I went IBAR REFER ASOF IRA RULE before I could stop moving my fingers, which gave me most of those long Downs: some of BUSINESS [blank] (I wanted SENSE or something like that) and all of ALONG THOSE LINES:

From there, I started in on the bottom with SUDS (64A: They're in a lather) and whooshed back up the grid again, filling in everything adjacent to those two long Downs without too much problem. Before long (a couple minutes, at most), I was half done:

TABARD is kind of a hard word (45D: Sleeveless medieval garment), but I feel like we had it really recently. . . nope, apparently not. I swear, I encountered it really recently, and talked about it ... with someone, somewhere? Maybe it was at the tournament? Anyway, if that stumped you, that seems reasonable. Aside from the few proper nouns, I'm not seeing any likely sticking points. The highlights of this puzzle for me were ALONG THOSE LINES ... and, to a lesser extent, DETECTIVE BUREAU (would've liked DETECTIVE AGENCY better, as it's more in-the-language, ergo snappier ... and it fit! Thankfully, I worked that answer from the bottom up, so AGENCY was never an option). BASE JUMP is also a winner—it's a debut with a lot of bold energy. On the other end of the spectrum, energy-wise, is MADE A STOP, which is a real EAT-A-SANDWICH moment. The man who believed he had BUSINESS ACUMEN MADE A STOP during his REVERSE COMMUTE so he could EAT A SANDWICH. Easier to formulate ACTION ITEMs on a full stomach, I assume, probably.

Assorted notes:

• 33A: Sound from a dental click (TUT) — "dental click" must be a technical linguistic term, like a "fricative" or "plosive" or something like that. Yes, here we go. At first I thought I was going to have to imagine the sounds of various machines in the dentist's office. Grim.
• 35A: Need for an international student (VISA) — speaking of grim. The USA is currently kidnapping international students off the street and putting them in detention centers solely because they expressed opinions at odds with those of the current administration. Rümeysa Öztürk *had* a valid F-1 student VISA. Lot of good it did her.
• 14D: Film franchise that boosted sales of Ray-Ban sunglasses, for short (MiB) — Men in Black. Not sure if I would've got this with no help, but thankfully I had the "B" in place, and that was enough. I just watched Tommy Lee Jones in the 1978 American giallo Eyes of Laura Mars last week. I can't say I loved it, but Faye Dunaway is always a treat (here, as a famous fashion photographer who has visions of a serial killer's POV right before he kills), and late-'70s NYC always looks amazing, even in its awfulness. Laura Mars falls in the category of "not good movie that I would definitely watch again."

• 56A: Duke residence (DORM) — as attempted fakeouts go, this is a pretty old one: the old "hide the college name" trick (e.g. [Temple building], [Rice pad], etc.). Seems like maybe you should be looking for the residence of a duke or duchess. But no.
• 6D: Those whose time has come and gone? (EXCONS) — I like the answer and I really like the clue. The "time" here is the time they served in prison.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Watered-down espresso, essentially / FRI 4-18-25 / 1960s-'80s singer/TV host Marilyn / Home of the first hippopotamus in Europe since the Roman Empire / Trend that involves pink accessories and decor / Three-part event, informally / Its flag includes a coconut tree and a sailboard / Social movement introduced in 2006 / Who "can't buy you love" in an Elton John hit / Some Elomi products / Trashy TV character?

Constructor: Greg Snitkin and Glenn Davis

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Naomi KLEIN (10D: Naomi ___, author of 2007's "The Shock Doctrine") —

Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism and capitalism. In 2021, Klein took up the UBC Professorship in Climate Justice, joining the University of British Columbia's Department of Geography. She has been the co-director of the newly launched Centre for Climate Justice since 2021.

Klein first became known internationally for her alter-globalization book No Logo (1999). The Take (2004), a documentary film about Argentine workers' self-managed factories, written by her and directed by her husband Avi Lewis, further increased her profile. The Shock Doctrine (2007), a critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics, solidified her standing as a prominent activist on the international stage and was adapted into a six-minute companion film by Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón, as well as a feature-length documentary by Michael Winterbottom. Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) was a New York Times nonfiction bestseller and the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. (wikipedia)

• • •

Like yesterday's puzzle, this was way too easy. Also like yesterday's puzzle, this was very enjoyable (while it lasted). Also also like yesterday's puzzle, there are very few weak or ugly spots in the grid. Gunky parts are few, so you can keep your attention on the pleasing parts of the puzzle, which are many. The one knock I had against this puzzle was BARBIECORE, which already feels dated—but the bigger issue is that it's *not* a debut, and BARBIECORE ... that's one of those answers that once someone uses it, you probably don't want to touch it again for another decade, if ever (17A: Trend that involves pink accessories and decor). It's too ostentatious to be a repeater. Great the first time you see it, but immediately a thousand times less great the next time, especially if that next time is significantly after the concept stopped really resonating through the culture. BARBIECORE had a good year there. 2023-24, that was really it's moment. Last year, when it first appeared, felt just fine. The answer was brand new, and the Oscars for 2023 movies (which happened in March 2024, and for which Barbie got a bunch of nominations) were not that far in the rearview. But we've moved on. As a culture. (OK this may be wishful thinking on my part—apparently there is some godawful A.I. thing that can turn a picture of you into a Barbie-like figure, complete with box. I'm not linking to this, because it is cursed, and I don't really think it counts as BARBIECORE, anyway). It's possible that this puzzle got accepted a long time ago and the editors were just slow to get it out (a common complaint among constructors). This is why the NYT should figure out a way to turn puzzles around more quickly. It's not the brand that's the problem today. BARBIE per se, great, other BARBIE-related answers, sure, go nuts, but BARBIECORE is so of-a-moment, so time-specific, that today it made me mentally shout "seen it!" It's not the marquee answer it thinks it is. 

[Marilyn MCCOO! #1 the day I was born]

However ... this puzzle is loaded with other marquee answers, such that I forgot about BARBIECORE very quickly. "DIAL IT BACK!," yes! Great opener. "DIAL IT BACK!" is possibly something you've said to me before, possibly while reading the previous paragraph. It's a nice, polite alternative to "omg would you shut the f*** up." Perfectly in-the-language and colloquial and zingy. See also PLAY IT COOL and "SURE, WHY NOT?" Bullseye, bullseye. I love a good AMERICANO, so when I read the clue (13D: Watered-down espresso, essentially), I laughed out loud, like "fair, fair." You can see why coffee shops went with AMERICANO. "Can I get a large watered-down espresso, please?" Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, or prime your palate. But the description is not INAPT. And the hits kept coming: ROCK BOTTOM, FIGHTS DIRTY, DOUBLE OR NOTHING, LONDON ZOO (32D: Home of the first hippopotamus in Europe since the Roman Empire). How many puzzles have Roman hippos!? Very few, I'd venture to guess.

I can count on one hand the answers that gave me any trouble at all today, and they are all five letters or fewer. Totally blanked on the Elton John song, despite knowing and liking the Elton John song (which is how I feel about most Elton John songs). The only thing I could think of that "can't buy me love" was MONEY, but it wouldn't fit. Wrong word, wrong song, wrong number of letters. "MAMA Can't Buy You Love" (1979) was not one of John's major hits (#9 would be major for anyone else—not for John). Still, mad at myself for forgetting. I hate WRAPS (why would you ruin delicious sandwich ingredients by wrapping them in a clammy flavorless conveyance that you have to eat in order to get at the delicious sandwich ingredients?! Why would you waste so many calories on so little joy?!) (47D: Deli purchases). When I think of "delis," I think of real sandwiches. So WRAPS was a no-go, and I don't wear bras, and though there are BRAS in my house (53A: Some Elomi products), I don't think any of them are Elomi, so that was also a no-go (if Elomi is so well known, how in the world has it never been a NYTXW answer!?!? It's perfectly designed for grid stardom). Anyway, when two no-gos (WRAPS/BRAS) cross each other at a tiny puzzle passageway ... grinding halt. But the puzzle was so easy today that I just leaped over the WRAPS/BRAS problem, plunked down OSCAR at 48D: Trashy TV character?, and kept going. I had some trouble coming up with "AGAIN?" (very ambiguously clued) (50D: Reply of shocked annoyance). And I did not know they put TALC in chewing gum (28A: Common additive in chewing gum). But that's it for solving trouble. Had a couple of odd missteps along the way (ZINC for DISC at 30A: Throat lozenge, often; TIBET (!?) for TIGER at 55A: Its stripes represent wisdom in Buddhism). But otherwise, this was an easy ride. Not once did I cry "NO FAIR!"

More:

• 22A: Three-part event, informally (TRI) — as in a TRIathlon.
• 37A: Its flag includes a coconut tree and a sailboard (GUAM) — had the "M" and almost wrote in SIAM here. Almost.

• 64A: It's OK (SO-SO) — gratuitous "It's" in the clue. Not a fan. 
• 2D: Not quite right (INAPT) — not a fan of this either. The "quite" implies that it's close to right, but INAPT is just "wrong"—nothing about it suggests degree of wrongness. 
• 51D: Social movement introduced in 2006 (#METOO) — got this easily enough, but assumed the clue had a typo. Surely it was 2016, not 2006 ... but then I looked it up and sure enough, it was 2006. But it was 2006 on MySpace, so it didn't exactly go worldwide. Then in 2017, it became a hashtag (#metoo) in an era when social media was much more prevalent in the culture (and MySpace a forgotten relic), and at that point, the #METOO movement really took off.
• 24D: Make amends? (ALTER) — the question mark in the clue told me the clue was not meant to be taken literally, and yet, with the answer at five letters and starting with "A," I was powerless to resist writing in ATONE. "Why am I doing this when I know it's wrong!!!" I cried (silently).

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Literally, "equal legs" / THU 4-17-25 / Horseshoe enthusiasts? / Toward that place, quaintly / Large cask for beer or wine / Pickle or asparagus unit / Small, embedded program / 2013 movie co-starring Scarlett Johansson in which she is never seen / Refurbish, as an old piano

Constructor: Ilan Kolkowitz and Shimon Kolkowitz

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: You can't see the FOREST for the TREES (64A: What you can't see due to the 38-Across in this puzzle? / 38A: See 64-Across) — images of trees appear in six black squares—those six squares hide letters necessary for the completion of six Across answers to which they are adjacent:

Theme answers:

• (F)LOTUS (25A: *Abigail Adams or Eleanor Roosevelt, informally)
• ELM(O) (29A: *Red denizen of Sesame Street)
• (R)ASH (39A: *Hasty)
• FIR(E) (45A: *"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a ___ to be kindled": Plutarch)
• (S)PEAR (47A: *Pickle or asparagus unit)
• APPLE(T) (52A: *Small, embedded program)

Also!!!: all the seemingly "wrong" theme answers (that is, the answers as they appear in the grid, minus the tree-letters) are, in fact, types of TREES: LOTUS, ELM, ASH, FIR, PEAR, APPLE] [!!!!!!] 

Word of the Day: SCHWEPPES (31D: Big name in soft drinks) —

Schweppes (/ʃwɛps/ SHWEPS, German: [ʃvɛps]) is a soft drink brand founded in the Republic of Geneva in 1783 by Johann Jacob Schweppe; it is now made, bottled, and distributed worldwide by multiple international conglomerates, depending on licensing and region, that manufacture and sell soft drinks. Schweppes was one of the earliest forms of a soft drink, originally being regular soda water created in 1783. Today, various drinks other than soda water bear the Schweppes brand name, including various types of lemonade and ginger ales.

The company has held the British royal warrant since 1836 and was the official sponsor of Prince Albert's Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London in 1851.

• • •

Well I *could* see the FOREST for the TREES, pretty early, but that didn't keep me from enjoying this puzzle. The visual gimmick made the trick transparent (telling you exactly where the "hidden" letters were going to be); it also made the puzzle feel more Wednesday than Thursday in terms of difficulty. But the originality of the concept and the consistently entertaining and mostly clean grid kept the puzzle from being either boring or annoying. You really just need the first two tree letters (F, O) to see what's going on, and if you're working top down (as most of you do, right?), then they don't take long to appear today. I got ELM(O) first then (F)LOTUS, and that was that:

I ran into the TREES part of the revealer not long after:

[Note: extremely ironically, I never saw the fact that all the themers, as they are written in the grid, are actually trees themselves; that is, I couldn't see the trees for the forest!—this tree-name feature takes this puzzle from good to great, imo]

There is some visual wonkiness. Not that fond of the layout of FOREST and TREES—the placement of those words feels arbitrary (esp. TREES), and it's always nicer to have a full, snappy phrase than ... whatever this is (a phrase I have to complete in my mind). But this may be the best way to execute this concept, as the full phrase ("can't see the forest for the trees") is cumbersome, so the puzzle focuses on just the relevant parts (FOREST, TREES). Makes sense. I don't mind that the trees are not symmetrical. Forests are not symmetrical, after all. Looks good with the trees kind of grouped but scattered. There's no real logic to which answers the tree-letters go with—they only work in one direction. Why? Just 'cause. Primarily because the grid would've been way, Way harder to build if those tree-letters had to work for all adjacent answers, Across and Down. I admire the fact that the puzzle seemed to know its limits and stay inside them, making the overall solve pleasant, smooth, enjoyable. Try to do more with it, and you get into "look at me!" / stunt-puzzle territory—a puzzle that's architecturally impressive, but a drag to solve.

["But honeychild, I've got my doubts..."]

There were a few rough spots, and a few potential solving pitfalls. I'm not sure everyone is going to be familiar with ACTIN / TUN (5A: Cellular protein / 7D: Large cask for beer or wine). Those are both fairly specialized terms. I knew TUN, but not ACTIN, though ... ACTIN sounded right. Familiar. That may be due to the probably unrelated athlete's foot remedy, "Tough actin' Tinactin," but whatever gets you there gets you there! My daughter is home for a few weeks and solving the puzzles I print for her, and so, having seen the places she has found challenging, I'm thinking about what parts might give her (a reasonably intelligent casual solver in her mid-20s) trouble [note: yesterday, like a good many of you, she wiped out at HIRT/REOS; and like me, she had ANESUP (instead of ACES UP) for that damn solitaire game, only she couldn't see how to fix it]. I'm betting ACTIN/TUN is one of those places. The other one might be MNEME, lol, not the loveliest-looking Muse (at least not on the page—I'm sure in person she's a knockout) (37A: Muse of memory). You can infer at least the MNEM- part from the word "mnemonic," but that answer is still likely to be a toughie for many. But the crosses there are all fair. I have a hard time seeing anything else that is likely to give an experienced solver trouble. 

The fill today is bouncy and pretty. I'm realizing just now that I never even saw "USE THE FORCE!" (!!?). That's how easy the puzzle was—that entire long Down just got filled in via crosses. Oooh, I'm also noticing that the grid is asymmetrical. I could see that the trees were asymmetrical, but wow, the whole grid, cool. I like the symmetry restriction in crosswords, but if there's a thematic reason to break it, go ahead and break it! ISOSCELES is a cool-looking word (4D: Literally, "equal legs"), as is SCHWEPPES (9 letters but just one syllable!). I like that "USE THE FORCE" runs through EMPIRES (since the Empire, famously, strikes back in the second "Star Wars" movie) and I like that (F)LOTUS sits atop SPOUSES (yes, it's "ESPOUSES," but I'm still not technically wrong) (if you have trouble finding a husband or wife irl, do you settle for an E-SPOUSE? God I hope not, that sounds sad ... wait, was that the plot of HER? (22A: 2013 movie co-starring Scarlett Johansson in which she is never seen). I never saw it). The only unsightly part of the grid is EES SST, and those answers are tucked well out of the way in the far SE, so I didn't mind them much. 

[15A: Mars with bars]

Bullet points:

• 42A: What three is (CROWD) — not normally a fan of putting the article in the answer, but the answer here really Really wants to be "A CROWD." Three is A CROWD. I got it easily, but I might've made a little face.
• 46A: Eliot protagonist (MARNER) — so, George Eliot and Silas MARNER. My dad was a physician, and not much of a fiction reader, possibly because he was forced to read Silas MARNER in high school and haaaaaaated it (and to this day, despite having enjoyed other Eliot novels, I haven't touched Silas MARNER).
• 56A: Toward that place, quaintly (THITHER) — let it not be said that I can't handle some quaintness. I can handle precisely this much quaintness. THITHER weirdly made me smile. When you teach early modern literature, you build up a tolerance for certain quaintnesses.
• 9D: What a bad assistant might be (NO HELP) — not sure why I like this answer so much, but I do. Hard to make six-letter answers stand out in a good way, but this one did, for me.
• 34D: "___ the Doughnut," start of a children's book series ("ARNIE") — wow, what? I know Pete's a Pizza, but not ARNIE the Doughnut, to say nothing of the ... series? ... he's a part of. "Arnie the Doughnut was [Laurie] Keller's third book. Released in April of 2003 by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, it is the story of an anthropomorphic chocolate frosted sprinkle doughnut named Arnie, who changes his fate after being purchased by Mr. Bing." (wikipedia).

• 36D: Horseshoe enthusiasts? (FARRIERS) — these are literal shoers of horses. Because of the "?" I really thought the answer was going to be ... whatever the word is for someone who studies (horseshoe) crabs.

• 46D: John ___, author of "Annals of the Former World" (MCPHEE) — an exquisite writer. Every time he has a piece in the New Yorker, I read it word for word. I keep meaning to read more of his books. But then I keep meaning to read lots of things, sigh.
• 45A: *"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a ___ to be kindled": Plutarch ("FIRE")  — forgot that this was a themer and thought the answer was actually "FIR" (like maybe you used the tree to start the fire?). Kinda cool that all the trees in the grid appear to be FIR trees (even though, again, FIR is not an actual answer in this puzzle)
• 42D: Like one who might have to hoof it (CARLESS) — I want to hate this answer, but then I wish much more of the world was CARLESS, so I have decided to like this answer (because "hoof it" is a phrase I associate exclusively with city walking, my first thought for this answer was CABLESS).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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