Pirates' support group? / WED 4-30-25 / Stitchers' gathering / Alternative to a blur or pixelation / Wonderland interloper / ___ Ghani, former Afghan president / A reason to act this very instant ... / Spun some records, informally / Caveman's covering / Apt anagram for "brush"

Constructor: Adam Vincent

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: CLEAN / ONE'S CLOCK (6D: With 32-Down, beat an opponent soundly) — ordinary phrases are turned into clock + cleaning-related puns:

Theme answers:

• THE TIME IS RIPE (15A: A reason to act this very instant ... or why you might 6-Down 32-Down) ("ripe" here means "stinky" (def. 5b, here)—that's why you need to "clean" the clock)
• HAND SOAP (34D: Bottleful that might 6-/32-Down) (a clock has "hands")
• FACE WASH (39D: Bottleful that might 6-/32-Down) (a clock has a "face")

Word of the Day: ASHRAF Ghani (2D: ___ Ghani, former Afghan president) —

Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan former politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was overthrown by the Taliban.

Ghani was born in Logar, Afghanistan. After his grade-school education in Afghanistan, he spent much of his time abroad, studying in Lebanon and the United States. After receiving his PhD in cultural anthropology from Columbia University in 1983, he taught at various institutions and was an associate professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. For much of the 1990s, he worked at the World Bank. In December 2001, he returned to Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban government. [...] 

In 2014, Ghani became president after winning the controversial 2014 Afghan presidential election. The election was so disputed that negotiations between Ghani and rival Abdullah Abdullah were mediated by the United States. Ghani became president and Abdullah chief executive, with power split 50-50. On 18 February 2020, Ghani was re-elected after a delayed result from the 2019 presidential elections. He was sworn in on 9 March 2020. // On 15 August 2021, his term ended abruptly, as the Taliban took over Kabul. Ghani and staff fled Afghanistan and took refuge in the United Arab Emirates. He later stated he left in order to avoid further violence, and that staying and dying would have accomplished nothing but adding another tragedy to Afghanistan's history. However, he was also condemned across various spectrums for abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban and has been accused of corruption during his administration. (wikipedia)

• • •

[30A: Alternative to a blur or pixelation]

I liked the grid way more than I liked the theme (which I didn't really grasp as I was solving). The main (huge) problem, to my ears, is the ONE'S in the main phrase: CLEAN / ONE'S CLOCK. I can't see "ONE'S" without thinking of it as self-reflexive. DO ONE'S BEST, A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE, ATE ONE'S WORDS ... in all these cases, "one" does these things. One has a lot on one's plate. One does one's best. One eats one's words. But one does not (not not not not) CLEAN / ONE'S CLOCK. That you would mean you clean your own clock. But that's not how it works. You clean HIS clock, or THEIR clock—you do it To Someone Else. The idea that I'm supposed to read "one" as "an opponent"—as the "the other guy," not the "cleaner" themselves— ... it just doesn't work. Too awkward. That kind of kills the theme for me. But it's definitely an original idea, this clock-cleaning pun thing, so I admire that, just as I admire the overall grid shape here—a mirror-symmetry grid with really deep answer-banks on the bottom, where the bulk of the theme material is. Impressive that crammed in there with that theme material are other answers that are equally long, and at least as interesting: OLD FLAME, SEWING BEE, RESCUE DOG, FLAT FEES. These all gave the puzzle some character. And the shape of the grid—with that oddly difficult-to-access lower-center block—was fun to navigate. So I'm really just mad at the ONE'S today. And "mad" is perhaps an exaggeration. But sincerely, I don't think ONE'S works, on a fundamental, basic-sense level.

Flew through this with few hesitations. Absolutely no idea re: ASHRAF. The whole Afghanistan political situation was always way too chaotic for me to even begin to keep track of. I remember Hamid Karzai, but after him, my memory of Afghan leaders is faint. Not surprisingly, ASHRAF is a debut (a Modern debut—it appeared in the grid once, in 1972, clued as [Moslem elite] (??)). I can picture a CENSOR BAR (30A: Alternative to a blur or pixelation), but I didn't really know that that is what it was called, which is what made ACCESSing the lower-center part of the grid a bit of a challenge. Could not enter from the top—even with ONE'S CLOCK in place—so I had to get in from below, via PEGLEGS, which I got easily enough (52A: Pirates' support group?). So when I say that section was "a bit challenging," all I really mean is that my attempt to get into it in a kind of natural flow, from above, was thwarted, and I had to wait and come at it a different way. So not "difficult" to solve so much as "temporarily delayed." Kind of screwed up the SE corner briefly when I opted for "ALAS..." instead of [SIGH] at 53D: [Ah, woe is me!]. And I absolutely blanked on the Marvel supervillain (even with the "U" in place!) and had to wait for several crosses before I remembered it. I really do not care about the MCU at all now. I'm barely aware of the new movies that come out. There's one coming out Friday, apparently. Who cares? Why would you see that when you can see Sinners (again)? 

Other things:

• 1A: Leafy vegetable with a lot of vitamin K (KALE) — they should've worked "aptly" into the clue somehow. Vitamin "K" sounds like something I'd make up if I was trying to market KALE as a health food. Sounds like a marketing gimmick. But apparently it's a real vitamin. My vitamin alphabet runs out at "E." 
• 17D: Apt anagram for "brush" (SHRUB) — "brush" can be shortened form of "brushwood," which is "a thicket of SHRUBs or small trees."

• 47A: Obama-era policy whose last three letters spell a different Obama-era law (DACA) — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (immigration policy). ACA is, of course, Obamacare (i.e., the Affordable Care Act).
• 7D: Wonderland interloper (ALICE) — because Wonderland is filled with strange creatures, I did a double-take on "interloper," like it was some kind of beast I couldn't quite remember... a tove or a Jabberwock or a Bandersnatch or some nonsense. Like a jackalope, maybe. But it's just ALICE. And "interloper" is just someone who intrudes.

One last, tiny thing—I don't understand why the cross-references are written out differently every time for the theme answers: the clue for THE TIME IS RIPE has "6-Down 32-Down"; for the FACE WASH clue, a slash is added ("6-Down/32-Down"), and then for the HAND SOAP clue, the cross-reference gets condensed down to "6-/32-Down." Tiny differences in each iteration, whyyyyyyy? It's bizarre. Seems intentional, and yet the differences are meaningless, so actually it just seems sloppy. If they are inconsistent for a reason,  I can't see it, and if they aren't inconsistent for a reason, why did no proofreader say "hey, uh ... why are these all different? Shouldn't we standardize them?"

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Bestrewn with droplets / TUES 4-29-25 / Double-decker checker / Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, for three / Verb that has largely replaced "Skypes"

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday of April! 

Did you all just hear that? Yes? That was me screaming with joy because my Liverpool Reds won the Premier League title!! In our first year with our new manager, we clinched the title with four games left! So I’ve been on cloud nine since Sunday. Life is good! Well, mostly… A couple of weeks ago, I had a bike accident and ended up in the ER. Luckily, there were no cars involved, and I’m all good now (I just still have a very swollen finger and a painful neck). But I’ve got a new bike now that I get to go pick up tomorrow! In the meantime, I’ll keep my feet up and watch some more sports (like watching my Warriors eke out a win against the Rockets to go up 3-1 in the series). 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Gene Louise De Vera

Relative difficulty: Medium-hard

THEME: GROWING PAINS (21A: Early struggles for a new enterprise … or a hint to the shaded squares) — The shaded squares are words that are usually exclaimed when in pain and grow in number of letters from left to right in the puzzle

Theme answers:

• TOO LATE NOW (28D: "You had your chance") 
• HIT THE ROOF (29D: Go berserk) 
• DON’T SLOUCH (32D: Instruction to improve posture) 
• PHOTOSHOOT (34D: Cameraperson's session)

Word of the Day: Juana INES de la Cruz (55D) —

Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana was a New Spanish writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, as well as a Hieronymite nun, nicknamed "The Tenth Muse", "The Mexican Phoenix", and "The Phoenix of America" by her contemporary critics. She was also a student of science and corresponded with the English scientist Isaac Newton. As a Spanish-criolla, she was among the main contributors to the Spanish Golden Age and is considered one of the most important female writers in Spanish language literature and the literature of Mexico. Sor Juana's significance to different communities has varied greatly across time, having been presented as a candidate for Catholic sainthood; a symbol of Mexican nationalism; and a paragon of freedom of speech, women's rights, and sexual diversity, making her a figure of great controversy and debate to this day. (Wiki)

• • •

This was a somewhat challenging Tuesday puzzle and a nice debut from constructor Gene Louise De Vera. The theme didn’t excite me a whole lot at first glance, but I liked it a whole lot more when I realized that the four exclamations that are the theme answers grow in size from left to right. SHOOT (34D) seems like a bit of an outlier, but I suppose it is still something you’d say if you stub a toe (or you might say a four-letter word that’s not quite crossword-appropriate). My biggest complaint with the puzzle is that it sure seemed that TANGENT LINES (53A: Figures that are straight approximations of curves, in geometry) should have some relation to the theme, given that it has the same weight as GROWING PAINS (21A) and was toward the bottom of the puzzle, where the revealers were. But then TANGENT LINES was just there with no relation, which felt clunky. 

I wasn’t particularly wild about any of the theme answers, but they were fine. PHOTOSHOOT (34D) was probably my favorite. DON’T SLOUCH (32D) was my least favorite, but maybe that’s just because I, of course, have great posture; or maybe I just repressed the memory of my mom saying this to me repeatedly growing up. HIT THE ROOF (29D) seems antiquated, and I can take or leave TOO LATE NOW (28D). 

It was nice that there wasn’t much crosswordese; the construction doesn’t lend itself to too many three-letter words (which also might’ve had something to do with my finding it to be a bit harder Tuesday than usual). The structure of the puzzle is aesthetically nice, too. 

I struggled with some of the proper nouns in the puzzle — EBSEN (35D: Buddy ___, Jed Clampett portrayer on "The Beverly Hillbillies"), ROS (39D: Children's author Asquith), and INES (55D) tied me up for a bit. And then HIED (29A: Went in haste) and ELO (37A: Rating system used in chess) are words that I knew somewhere in my brain but that took a while for me to come up with. 

I loved some of the other words in the puzzle, like OOMPH (22D: That extra punch), SCOWL (5D: Death stare), and SHOD (56D: Like a racehorse's feet). I also loved the clue and answer for KING (8D: Double-decker checker). And ST. PAT’S (47A: Green day, familiarly?) is another clever clue/answer. PRIMROSE (38A: Proper-sounding spring flower?) is both very clever and cute. DRAPERY (46D: Curtains) is a good word. ON A WHIM (58A: Without forethought, say) is a great phrase. I’m not sure why, but I liked seeing ICE WINE (48D: Dessert drink made with frozen grapes) in the puzzle. 

Still, there were some other things I don’t think worked. The clue for DNC (25A: Blues group, for short?) is trying a bit too hard. I didn’t love HOT OR NOT (43A: Early 2000s rating site with a rhyming name) being right there at the center of the puzzle. And is a SCEPTER (56A: Pageant prize) actually given to pageant winners now, or is it more likely a tiara, a sash, and a bouquet? 

But overall, this was a clever puzzle with some fun fill, and I’m looking forward to more from this constructor!

Misc.:

• PRIMROSE (38A) reminds me of the younger sister character in “The Hunger Games” series, which I just finished a reread of. I also read the new book “Sunrise on the Reaping.” It was emotionally devastating but so well done. Now we’re getting casting news, and it looks like it’s going to be a stellar movie (when it comes out in November 2026). 
• I’m stretching a bit here, but CODE (57D: What a software developer develops with) also relates to the medical field and is something that a doctor might say in an ER — like “CODE blue!” And… speaking of ERs… Everyone should watch a drama on HBO (41A) called “The Pitt,” where each episode in the 15-episode season represents one hour of the same shift in the ER. It’s fantastic. Brilliant. Stupendous. Wonderful. All the good things! 
• Seeing LENA Headey (18D: "Game of Thrones" co-star Headey) in the puzzle reminds me of this quite funny clip from a few years ago that’s recently been making the rounds on my TikTok, where a comedian has a show where the premise is that she has to interview people she’s never heard of and guess who they are. 
• My puppy is now six months old and is, of course, as adorable as ever (not that I’m biased or anything)! Please admire the pictures below because I’m officially a dog mom who needs to show hers off all the time. The fact that her name is Red is pretty perfect, because my Reds just won the Premier League, so I’d say she was a good luck charm. My sister and I managed to snag the pic on the top left (as she was trying desperately to bite my jersey — or maybe just kiss the crest like a good little Red).

And that’s all from me! See you all in May. 

Signed, Clare Carroll, still screaming aaaaaaAH

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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1980s skating great Thomas / MON 4-28-25 / Round Mongolian dwelling / Versatile yet unspecialized sort / Cuban cocktails garnished with mint leaves / Often-spotty service on a train / Funnyman Rogen / Marcus who co-founded MGM

Constructor: Sue Fracker

Relative difficulty: Easy (Easy-Medium for me, solving Downs-only)

THEME: MULTI-HYPHENATES (58A: Ones with many talents ... and a hint to 17-, 24-, 35- and 51-Across) — literal description of four theme answers:

Theme answers:

• JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES (17A: Versatile yet unspecialized sort)
• FIVE-YEAR-OLD (24A: Typical kindergartener)
• KNOW-IT-ALL (35A: Smarty-pants)
• MOTHER-IN-LAW (51A: The Bible's Naomi vis-à-vis Ruth)

Word of the Day: DEBI Thomas (48D: 1980s skating great Thomas) —

Debra Janine Thomas (born March 25, 1967) is an American figure skater and physician. She is the 1986 World champion, the 1988 Olympic bronze medalist, and a two-time U.S. national champion. Her rivalry with East Germany's Katarina Witt at the 1988 Calgary Olympics was known as the Battle of the Carmens. (wikipedia)

• • •

This write-up will be short (I swear!), not because I'm pressed for time, but because I just don't have much to say. I don't really understand how this concept passed muster. There are so many multi-hyphenate phrases in the world—why are we doing these, exactly? The themer set is so incredibly arbitrary, so apparently random. FIVE-YEAR-OLD? Why not four- or three-? No reason. MOTHER-IN-LAW? Why not father- or sister-? No reason. Why not WILL-O-THE-WISP or STICK-IN-THE-MUD or SO-AND-SO or GOOD-FOR-NOTHING or NE'ER-DO-WELL or on and on and on? I just cannot understand why this theme was deemed NYT-worthy. Feels like it was made thirty years ago, for a different publication with somewhat lower standards. Even the fill feels old. All the names are very familiar if you've been solving for decades. DEBI Thomas! That was a throwback (last seen in 2016, and before that, 2003). But SAAB and USAIR and PEPA and even OTERI all gave this one a decidedly ye-olden-days feel. You get a little pep in the corners (from stuff like EGO SURF ... and that bank of 7s in the SE corner is pretty nice), but overall this felt like the minor leagues—very passable, but not at all ready for the big time. Not in the year 2025, anyway. 

The Downs-only solve was super-easy up top. I ran the first five without hesitation:

From there, JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES came quickly (after JACK-O'-LANTERN—yet another multi-hyphenate!—wouldn't fit), which gave me letters for all the other Downs up top, and that really loosened the puzzle up for me. I didn't miss an answer, I don't think, until the bottom half of the grid, when all of a sudden I started to wobble. The worst obstacle, in retrospect, was probably NIPPY, a word I was convinced never to use many decades ago by a Japanese-American professor who had had people "jokingly" call the weather "NIPPY" within her earshot once too often (the first three letters are an ethnic slur for people of Japanese descent). It's a word that the NYTXW has not used now for twelve years, so for those reasons, it was not on my menu of possible answers for 53D: Like a brisk wind. I wrote in STIFF. Pfft. MULTI-HYPHENATES was always going to be tough to parse (solving Downs-only), but that error made it worse. And then I went and added a second error at 52D: Gave a big thumbs down, say (HATED). I put in BOOED ... and later, RATED. I should say that these errors made MOTHER-IN-LAW hard to parse as well. Throw in my having no idea what to do with 45D: "Count me in!" ("I'M THERE!")—even with the "I'M" in place—and the whole thing ends up a bit of a mess in the south. I got out of it, but it took some effort, unlike the top half of the grid, which took none.

A few more things:

• 1D: Cuban cocktails garnished with mint leaves (MOJITOS) — a nice way to open. It's a good word, and it always feels good to be able to drop a longer word in with no crosses. I knew right away it was correct, both because the cocktail is familiar to me, and because it put the "J" right where I would expect a "J" to go—at the front end of an answer, particularly a longer answer. Solve long enough and you get a pretty good feel not just for plausible / likely letter combinations, but for "Q"- and "Z"- and "J"-placement as well.  

• 44D: Bread box? (TOASTER) — first thought was "ATM ... something?" So it was funny to discover that this answer not only crossed ATM, but also had the same clue (nearly) as ATM (54A: Bread box, for short?). This is one of those times when the repeated-clue gimmick works perfectly. 
• 36D: The "O" of O.T.C. (OVER) — as in "OVER-the-counter" (more MULTI-HYPHENATES!)
• 25D: Round Mongolian dwelling (YURT) — while it shouldn't, this word always makes me laugh because there is a building on the Pitzer College campus that was called, familiarly, "The YURT"—at least that's what it was called when I was at Pomona in the early '90s. I don't know that it was an authentic YURT. More ... YURT-shaped, probably. Anyway, calling one of your buildings "The YURT" seemed like the most Pitzer College thing imaginable. Pitzer was the most free-spirit/crunchy-granola/discover-your-journey-type school of the five Claremont Colleges ... maybe it still is. Hard to know. All liberal arts colleges nowadays seem like they're incredibly hard to get into and full of the same highly aspirational and driven types (my sister, who was not at all a free-spirit/crunchy-granola/discover-your-journey type, graduated from Pitzer in 1994). Looks like Pitzer doesn't even have the YURT anymore, and hasn't for a long while. This Pitzer Facebook page is like "Did you know Pitzer once had a YURT!?" Yes. Yes I did. RIP, YURT.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Food-centric broadcasts originating in South Korea / SUN 4-27-25 / Line in old Apple ads / Bear's counterpart on Wall Street, once / Purple yam in Philippine cuisine / One of three on the Mayflower / Tough customer for a wedding planner / Cannabis variety contrasted with indica / Longtime Japanese camera brand / Coming-of-age Pixar film of 2021

Constructor: Jacob Reed

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Numbers Game" — theme clues are written as numbers on a CALCULATOR read-out, and you have to read them UPSIDE-DOWN in order to make sense of them:

Theme answers:

"Big sleigh boss" = SANTA CLAUS

"Bilbo's O:" THE ONE RING

"Bee Gees boogie" = "STAYIN' ALIVE"

"Hillbillies' booze" = MOONSHINE

"Google log" = SEARCH HISTORY

"Bolshoi shoe" = BALLET SLIPPER

"High heels" = STILETTOS

"She is Ellis Bell" = EMILY BRONTË

Word of the Day: MUKBANGS (33A: Food-centric broadcasts originating in South Korea) —

A mukbang (UK: /ˈmʌkbæŋ/ MUK-bang, US: /ˈmʌkbɑːŋ/ MUK-bahng; Korean: 먹방; RR: meokbang; pronounced [mʌk̚p͈aŋ] ^ⓘ; lit. 'eating broadcast') is an online audiovisual broadcast in which a host consumes various quantities of food (generally from easily accessible and popular fast-food restaurant chains) while interacting with the audience or reviewing it. The genre became popular in South Korea in the early 2010s, and has become a global trend since the mid-2010s. Varieties of foods ranging from pizza to noodles are consumed in front of a camera. The purpose of mukbang is also sometimes educational, introducing viewers to regional specialties or gourmet spots.

A mukbang may be either prerecorded or streamed live through a webcast on multiple streaming platforms such as AfreecaTV, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch. In live sessions, the mukbang host chats with the audience while the audience types in real time in the live chat-room. Eating shows are expanding their influence on internet broadcasting platforms and serve as virtual communities and as venues for active communication among internet users.

Mukbangers from many different countries have gained considerable popularity on numerous social websites and have established the mukbang as a possible viable alternative career path with a potential to earn a high income for young South Koreans. By cooking and eating food on camera for a large audience, mukbangers generate income from advertising, sponsorships, endorsements, as well as viewers' support. However, there has been growing criticism of mukbang's promotion of unhealthy eating habits, particularly eating disorders, animal cruelty and food waste. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did this fool anyone? At all? For any amount of time? I took one look—one glance—at the first theme clue my eyes landed on, and instinctively, immediately read it UPSIDE-DOWN. 

Read that clue (20A) UPSIDE-DOWN and you get "Big sleigh boss"—not hard to decipher from there. Who else is that gonna be besides Santa? I should not be able to enter a theme answer on a Sunday with absolutely no help from crosses—with absolutely nothing else in the grid, even. Reading calculator read-outs upside-down like I'm a ten-year-old whose friend has just shown him that "58008" upside-down spells out "BOOBS" ... no, this didn't do much for me. The clues are occasionally clever, and creative, as they'd have to be, given that you have only nine letters to work with ("9” is the one numeral that does nothing, letterwise, when you turn it upside-down). I had to think a bit about "BILBO'S-O," so the clues weren't all transparent. But this was a one-trick puzzle, and once you discover the trick (which, again, for me, happened immediately), then there's not much surprise left. In short, it is impressive that anyone *could* do this, but I'm not so sure anyone *should* have. It's too easy, and not terribly fun to solve. 

The fill has some major issues as well. In general, it seemed clean enough, and some of the longer stuff was occasionally interesting ("SO NOT TRUE!," MEDIA FASTS), but there was some stuff that seemed odd or dated or both. "I'M A MAC"? How old is that slogan now? Looks like it was a thing from roughly '06 to '09. Absurd. Not just bygone, but barely there to begin with. It's not even that snappy—doesn't stick with you. It's something your wordlist convinces you is valid, but ... you gotta make these judgments yourself. Not everything in your wordlist is good. For example, ON A LEAD—not good. Especially not good as clued (24A: How detectives might act). You might follow a lead, but you act on a tip. Your dog might be ON A LEAD (i.e. a leash). But even that clue wouldn't make me like ON A LEAD as fill. 

But the biggest problem with the puzzle is probably the MUKBANGS / IGA cross, which I guar-an-tee you is going to baffle a non-zero number of solvers today. It's not that either of these words lacks crossworthiness. MUKBANGS in particular has a lot going for it—original, modern, full of crooked letters. And IGA Swiatek has won five Grand Slam titles, including four French Opens. But crossing two non-English names of non-universal fame at a completely uninferrable letter is always, always a bad idea, because you should never, as a constructor (or editor), allow for crosses that you *know* will be Naticks for a good number of people. You gotta do better handling your crosses. [Semi-illustrative: I knew IGA but not MUKBANGS (though maybe I'd heard of it before); my daughter (24), on the other hand, knew MUKBANGS but not IGA ... or "STAYIN' ALIVE," apparently! I know this because I just found her nearly completed puzzle downstairs, where MUKBANGS is filled in just fine, but a huge swath of "STAYIN' ALIVE," including the "A" in IGA, is missing—the only part of her puzzle that isn't completed. I'm not surprised at all that she doesn't know IGA Swiatek, but "STAYIN' ALIVE"? How could I have failed to provide her a proper Bee Gees education!?].

 More:

• 49A: One of three on the Mayflower (MASTS) — me, seeing "three" and thinking of early colonial voyages: "Let's see, NINA, PINTA ... wait a minute."
• 52D: Rapper Kid ___ (CUDI) — a very tough one if you know very little about rap (I know this describes a lot of you). You can't infer anything there. Just four random letters. Huge career, a couple of Grammys, but fame-wise (and certainly crosswordwise), he's no DRE, he's no NAS, he's no ICE-T. Holy cow, this is the NYTXW debut of CUDI!? I've seen him in crosswords before—this is why I solve a variety of puzzles, many of them more contemporary-minded, with younger, more adventurous constructors (though I knew of Kid CUDI before I ever saw him in a grid). With CUDI, though, unlike with IGA, the crosses all seem very fair. For the record, KIDCUDI (7) (full name) has still never been used in the NYTXW. Also for the record, Kid Cudi has appeared—three times—in NYTXW clues: for RAPPER ([Kid Cudi or Lil Baby, e.g.]), KID ([Rapper ___ Cudi or DJ ___ Loco]), and, "NITE" ([Kid Cudi's "Day 'n' ___"])

• 62A: Root word? (OLE) — i.e. the "word" you might use if you were "root"ing for someone (at a soccer match, or bullfight, I guess)
• 96A: ___ Moriarty, novelist who wrote "Big Little Lies" (LIANE) — didn't love one of the crosses here, either, specifically the "L"; real easy to imagine someone who has maybe heard of Big Little Lies but does not know the author's name ... [raises hand] ... and also is not that familiar with contemporary animated movies (LUCA). Any DIANE / DUCAs out there!? 
• 111A: Some large structures for pet owners (CAT CONDOS) — cat interlude!

[we call the four-tiered structure Alfie's sleeping in a CAT CONDO—not sure the one-tier circular structure Ida's in qualifies as a full "condo." More of a cat pied-à-terre]

• 10D: Italian diminutive suffix (-INO) — oy, wanted either -INI or -INA here, since THE ONE RING, as a phrase, doesn't really mean much to me. (I've seen the damned LOTR movies, I know about the ring, I just didn't remember the specific phrase THE ONE RING).
• 12D: Bear's counterpart on Wall Street, once (STEARNS):  — gather round, kids, and I'll tell you about the *last* time the stock market crashed ... it was way back in aught-eight ... 
• 14D: Tough customer for a wedding planner (BRIDEZILLA) — I know it's the name of a reality show and everything but I'm still not in love with this term, esp. when it's being passed off as an ordinary thing one might call a woman. Plays into stupid gender stereotypes. And there's no male equivalent. No GOLFZILLA, no Count Pick-up TRUCKULA, no Abominable Sports Fan ... the only emotion most dudes allow themselves to express publicly is anger, and yet it's the bride who's a -zilla? Sure.

[" A Novel By Ellis Bell"]

• 21D: Cannabis variety contrasted with indica (SATIVA) — INDICA & SATIVA are here to stay, so may as well learn them if you don't know them already. Not that I know anything about this stuff, but ... SATIVA will tend to light you up, whereas INDICA will tend to chill you out. 
• 39D: Show that, uh, didn't win 43 of its 54 Emmy nominations (LOST) — OK, I love this clue. It's legitimately funny, watching the clue try not to use the word "LOST" in the clue for LOST. Well, funny to me, anyway.
• 110D: Purple yam in Philippine cuisine (UBE) — a super-rare word in the crossword until Philippine cuisine went more mainstream here in the U.S. This is its third appearance in the last two years, after having been off-grid since 1990 (when it was clued as [Yamaguchi city])

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S.  Have you seen Sinners? You should see Sinners. On the big screen. With a crowd. As your leader, I command you. How does this relate to crosswords? Well, someday director Ryan COOGLER is gonna appear in the grid, perhaps after he wins the Best Director Oscar for Sinners, and you're gonna wanna be prepared.

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"That's so relatable," in modern slang / SAT 4-26-25 / Convincing A.I.-created video / "Gossip Girl" fashion descriptor / Short product overview, in business lingo / Something picked in a fortunetelling game / Emily ___, winner of the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel / Traditional treat in Japanese New Year celebrations / ___ Dunn (brand of ceramic art and other housewares) / Words on a statue honoring Washington / Tantric meditation practiced while in a sleeping state / Literally, "good word"

Constructor: Sarah Sinclair and Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Emily TESH (20A: Emily ___, winner of the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel) —

Emily Tesh is a science fiction and fantasy author. She won the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel for her first novel, Some Desperate Glory. She won the World Fantasy Award in the novella category in 2020, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2021. [...] Some Desperate Glory is a science fiction novel by Emily Tesh, with political themes and "thrilling action," according to reviewers. It was published in spring 2023 by Tordotcom. [...] According to Lisa Tuttle, writing for The Guardian: "The well-told story combines thrilling action with more thoughtful content, touching on such hot topics as AI, fascism and gender politics, and looks like another award winner." //  A starred review in Publishers Weekly concluded: "The political theme of breaking away from fascist ideology pairs beautifully with smart sci-fi worldbuilding ... and queer coming of age." // In the Washington Post, Charlie Jane Anders wrote, "the story blends thrilling action with a mind-bending course in cosmic metaphysics, which keep shifting your sense of what this book is about." (wikipedia)

• • •

Sorry, short write-up today as somehow a work emergency (!?) has fallen in my lap overnight (on the weekend!? I teach English ffs, this shouldn't be happening!), and I need to attend to it immediately. I'm really glad this puzzle played relatively easy for me, because after getting the infuriating work email first thing upon waking, I was in No MOOD for excessive struggle, despite the fact that it's Saturday and "struggle" should generally be part of the brief. I could tell early on that the puzzle was going to skew young(er)—I mean, I could've guessed it from the constructors (two lovely people whose combined ages don't even reach my own, I don't think), but then stuff like 27A: "That's so relatable," in modern slang ("MOOD") and 42A: "Gossip Girl" fashion descriptor confirmed it. Though I will say, looking the puzzle over now, it's actually pretty light on generationally specific stuff, and light in general on the kinds of proper nouns that tend to feel generationally exclusionary. The clues on ADAM, WOOLF, ERROL, for instance, could've come from the year 2000 or 1975 or even earlier as easily as the year 2025. This is to say that the puzzle had a youthful swagger but a broad-minded outlook. There's lots of stuff to like here—or hate, if that's your vibe today, I suppose. Me, I mostly like it. I am (now) a not-so-SECRET ADMIRER (though you're never gonna convince me that DREAM YOGA is real, no matter how much supporting material you throw at me) (15A: Tantric meditation practiced while in a sleeping state).

The only thing I didn't particularly care for today was ONE-PAGER, but then "business lingo" always rubs me the wrong way (probably because I absolutely do not speak it ... and find much of it silly-sounding) (13D: Short product overview, in business lingo). ONE-PAGER sounds pretty ordinary, though. I've assigned ONE-PAGERs (i.e. one-page papers) to students before, so while this "business lingo" version is unfamiliar to me, the phrase itself doesn't sound ridiculous to my ears (always nice). I also didn't care for the clue on TESH—I love that there's a new TESH in town (move over, John), but it seemed weird to clue her as having won the Hugo for Best Novel and then not saying what that novel is!? It's her first novel! If it was good enough to win the damn thing, then go ahead and name it! It wouldn't have helped me (I wouldn't have known her name either way), but the clue would've seemed like it was at least doing something useful. If you're gonna introduce a new name, a name that wouldn't be crossworthy except for a single book, Name The Book. Let people know. (Bizarrely, TESH's Some Desperate Glory is actually in my house right now—I bought a handful of highly recommended new fantasy/scifi books last summer in a fit of aspirational consumption, and then promptly failed to read most of them ... maybe now ... maybe now (he said to all the unread books on his shelves ...)).

OK, short write-up, I said!! I met both Sarah and Rafa at the ACPT earlier this month, so it seemed fitting (to me) that the first entry in the puzzle was EGG-HEADED (it was nice to be in an environment so thoroughly EGG-HEADED that the term ceases to have any meaning). My daughter is home now (and for a few more days), and so the "Night owl" / LATE RISER clue made me smile (our sleep schedules are almost completely upside-down). I liked the alliterative "H"-fest in the middle of this grid, which also seemed like a vaguely thematic grouping. If you throw a successful HAIL MARY on your HOME TURF, you might wanna enjoy a HOT PAD after the game. The only trouble for me today was pinning down that "H" at TESH / HAIL MARY (thought she might be a TESS and couldn't parse HAIL MARY, esp. with that elliptical clue (21D: Hard pass?)). I thought "hard" might be literally hard, like rock hard, so even with the "H" I was thinking HAIL as in hard rain, not HAIL as in HAIL MARY. I couldn't make sense of "fashion descriptor" in 42A: "Gossip Girl" fashion descriptor (PREPPY). "Descriptor" was the stumbling block. Who is doing the describing? When? Where? It seems like the clue just means "how one might appropriately describe the fashion on Gossip Girl," OK. Also weirdly struggled with 43D: Something picked in a fortunetelling game (PETAL). "What the hell is a fortunetelling game?" I couldn't think of any. Magic 8 Ball? Is that a "game"? But no, the "game" in question appears to be some version of "(s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not ..."

What else?:

• 17A: "Would you like a bite?" ("WANT TO TRY?") — absolutely fine, and yet when the answer is colloquial like this, I expect it to be properly slangy, which means I tried to make "WANNA" answers happen for a bit.
• 27D: Traditional treat in Japanese New Year celebrations (MOCHI) — I did not know this about MOCHI. I feel like MOCHI had a moment (in the U.S.) several years ago and then faded, but maybe they're still going strong and I've just tuned them out. Actually, now that I think of it, I'm thinking of MOCHI ice cream, not MOCHI per se. 
• 6D: Actress and comedian Edebiri (AYO) — never heard of her ... 
• 26A: ___ Dunn (brand of ceramic art and other housewares) (RAE) — never heard of it (seriously, this time)
• 23A: Countdown occasion, for short (NYE) — New Year's Eve
• 31D: Words on a statue honoring Washington (BEST ACTOR) — loved this clue. Took me a few beats to realize the "Washington" in question was Denzel (Best Supporting Actor for Glory, BEST ACTOR for Training Day). Washington is currently playing Othello on Broadway (to great acclaim and massive box office success—although ticket prices are apparently, uh, very high).

• 22A: "The young man who has not ___ is a savage": George Santayana ("WEPT") — I had the "W" and "T" and wrote in ... WANT. I thought it was a commentary on the savagery of the rich.

So much for a short write-up. Some day ...

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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