King in Norway's Fairhair dynasty / TUE 5-13-25 / Bone-in cut whose name became an endearment / Bright yellow creature that moves about 6.5 inches per minute / "Two pools of light, a mirror bright," in generative A.I. poetry / Co. behind the "Book Review" podcast / "Superberry" of South America

Constructor: Joe Rodini

Relative difficulty: Easy 

THEME: FOOD FIGHT (38A: Cafeteria shout that might provoke the moves at 17-, 26-, 54- and 64-Across) — phrases that are [food] + [synonym for "hit, as in a fight"]

Theme answers:

• FRUIT PUNCH (17A: Ladled party drink)
• CORNBELT (26A: The Midwest states, agriculturally speaking)
• LAMBCHOP (54A: Bone-in cut whose name became an endearment)
• BANANA SLUG (64A: Bright yellow creature that moves about 6.5 inches per minute)

Word of the Day: Fairhair dynasty (25D: King in Norway's Fairhair dynasty = OLAF I) —

The Fairhair dynasty (Norwegian: Hårfagreætta) was a family of kings founded by Harald I of Norway (commonly known as "Harald Fairhair", Haraldr inn hárfagri) which united and ruled Norway with few interruptions from the latter half of the 9th century. In the traditional view, this lasted until 1387, however, some modern scholars view this rule as lasting only three generations, ending with Harald Greycloak in the late 10th century. The moniker "Fairhair dynasty" is a retrospective construction: in their lifetime what little traces there are refer to them consistently as "Ynglings". // The Fairhair Dynasty is traditionally regarded as the first royal dynasty of the united kingdom of Norway. It was founded by Harald I of Norway, known as Haraldr hinn hárfagri (Harald Fairhair or Finehair), the first King of Norway (as opposed to "in Norway"), who defeated the last resisting petty kings at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in 872. [...] It is undisputed that later kings, until Magnus IV (Magnus the Blind, r. 1130–1135 and 1137–1139), were descended from Harald Hardrada: the 'Hardrada dynasty'. However, some modern historians doubt whether Harald III or his predecessors Olaf Tryggvason, Olaf II and Magnus the Good were in fact descended from Harald Fairhair [...] Scholars now consider the Fairhair dynasty at least partly the product of medieval invention. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this was Monday easy, easy-Monday easy, until the SW, where I made one oddly consequential mistake—I made my chop PORK instead of LAMB. The perils of backing into an answer. LAMB never occurred to me. See CHOP, write PORK. Now all of a sudden there are baseball clues I can't get!? (55D: George ___, M.L.B. player with batting titles in three different decades). LOL George BRETT played in the heart of my baseball card-collecting adolescence, but I was staring at KR-T- and had no idea who the player in question could be. How could I never have heard of a ballplayer who was that good a hitter, for that long!? (A: I couldn't—I just had an error). Compounding problems down there was the fact that I held back the last letter of OLAF I because who the hell knows how many OLAFs there are or what they did or when they lived. And that missing "I" was at least part of the reason I couldn't get 41A: Proctor's cue (BEGIN). Usually, when I think of proctors (esp. in crosswords), they are calling "time." I never think about them actually *starting* the test. So I didn't have BEGIN, which meant I didn't have the first letters of all those Downs in the SW, which meant I took longer than I should have to pry loose my PORK error. Oh, also in that corner, I'm supposed to know a "Co." with a "Book Review" podcast. That's its name "Book Review" podcast?!?! Not only have I never heard of it, the name is so generic that I don't understand how you don't call it something else, or why you would *ever* use it in a clue for NYT. Does the Times think it's the only publication that has a book review—the only one that reviews ... books? Is the show not doing well and so they're using the crossword to plug it? Such a weird clue choice, given how transparently easy all the cluing outside the SW corner was. Anyway, I don't remember the rest of the puzzle, as it required virtually no effort. I remember only my bloody struggle on PORK CHOP hill.

OK, I remember a little about the rest of the puzzle. What I remember mainly is thinking "this puzzle feels old." Any puzzle that opens with AMCS, Jamie FARR, and SRI seems almost intentionally retro. Jamie FARR! You used to see him all the time, because of M*A*S*H, which was very popular. In true, belated NYTXW fashion, FARR's grid popularity seems to have peaked immediately *after* M*A*S*H went off the air—so, in the mid-'80s. That popularity continued through the early Shortz era, but subsequently waned. Now you see him 0-1 times / year. I wouldn't have blinked at his name but he came in an initial barrage of stale stuff, so his oldenness stood out. You've also got CAPN ABUT EMO ... the aforementioned OLAF ... a playground retort ("the lowest form of crossword fill," per me) ... not a lot up front that is inspiring real confidence in the quality of the fill.  But to be fair, none of it is disastrous, either. It's very passable, very familiar. Too familiar for my tastes, but adequate. And the mid-range fill (all the 7-letter stuff) seems quite solid. As for the theme, it feels like something I've seen, but maybe not. The themers make a solid set, given how narrow the parameters of the theme are. Those first words are all "food," and those second words are all things one might do in a "fight," so ... mission accomplished. It's kind of cute, honestly. I just wish the grid had a little more, uh, punch, overall.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I like the SE corner best. Something about a NUCLEAR HYDRA excites me, as does the vivid RED CLAY of Roland-Garros (46D: Court surface at the French Open), and the rollicking verb CAROUSE (47D: Go on a pub crawl, say). Got a little worried about that last answer at first, wondering why you would be using your CAR- to get around during a pub crawl—seems like a very bad idea. But then, it turns out, no cars involved. All pub-crawl CAROUSE-ing done, appropriately (and safely), on foot. Still loving NUCLEAR HYDRA. Sounds like a perfect cheesy band name, or a very advanced D&D monster. Not a lot of good that broadswords, halberds and slingshots are gonna do against a NUCLEAR HYDRA, I'm afraid. Run away!

Bullets:

• 72A: "Two pools of light, a mirror bright," in generative A.I. poetry (EYES) — not sure what this clue thinks it's doing. Why is it "generative A.I. poetry"? Because it's corny? This is an oddly cavalier and ignorant clue. Like, A.I. sucks in so many ways, but it can do poetry better than this. This is more like how any hack poet might've written at any time in human history. Since A.I. steals from all poetry that's ever been written, it has a remarkable ability to produce verse that, while soulless, is far more sophisticated than this cliché tripe. I just don't think "in generative A.I. poetry" is a coherent thing. It doesn't work as a descriptor. There is no coherent world of "A.I. poetry"; we do not all understand the same thing when we see this phrase. I guess the puzzle is trying to sound "modern," but they're doing a pretty bad job of it. I thought the idea was going to be that A.I. makes a lot of dumb errors (which it absolutely does—if you've had more than a passing experience with Google's horrific "A.I. Overview," you know this). So my first answer here was AYES. I was trying to make the "in generative A.I. poetry" make any kind of sense. Silly me.
• 34A: Blanket draping a mountain at dawn (MIST) — turns out my brain has an order of operations when it comes to things blanketing mountains. First is SNOW. Then DEW (the "dawn" really wants DEW). Then ... nothing, really. I had to piece together MIST from crosses. "A blanket of MIST"—yeah, I can hear that. But it didn't come to me easily while solving (one of the few answers that didn't).
  
• 64A: Bright yellow creature that moves about 6.5 inches per minute (BANANA SLUG)  — interesting move, not using UC Santa Cruz in the clue. I figure that's how most people know the BANANA SLUG exists at all (it's their mascot). My stepbrother went there, as did a couple of people I went to graduate school with. It was the very first school I got into, and even though I didn't particularly want to go there (if only because my stepbrother had already gone there), I do remember feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that some college, any college, had accepted me. The university reached peak pop culture fame when Vincent wore a UC Santa Cruz BANANA SLUGs t-shirt in Pulp Fiction (it was an emergency clothing situation—he and Jules got blood and brains and stuff all over their nice suits).

[I own the shirt on the right—a scene from George Herriman's "Krazy Kat" (Ignatz hitting Krazy with a brick as Offissa Pupp looks on)]

See you next time, which is to say, Friday. I have a (routine) medical procedure tomorrow and I have scheduled two days of substitutes just so I can have a very lazy recovery. Rafa and Mali will take good care of you in the meantime.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]