"Principle of Parsimony" philosopher / THU 6-12-25 / Gridiron game for young tykes / Temporarily established panel / Article about a photo? / ___ Wister, the so-called "father of western fiction" / Writer Capote, to friends / The Titanic disaster partly inspired its invention

Constructor: Daniel Bodily

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: QUADRUPLE DOUBLE (50A: Major basketball feat ... or a feature shared by 3-, 6- and 9-Down) — three theme answers have four double-letters apiece, each of which is squished into its own box:

Theme answers:

• AD HO[C C]O[MM]I[TT][EE] (3D: Temporarily established panel)
• A[LL]-A[CC]E[SS] PA[SS] (6D: You can go anywhere with one of these)
• P[EE]W[EE] F[OO]TBA[LL] (9D: Gridiron game for young tykes)

Word of the Day: OWEN Wister (18A: ___ Wister, the so-called "father of western fiction") —

Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American writer. His novel The Virginian, published in 1902, helped create the cowboy as a folk hero in the United States and built Wister's reputation as the "father of Western fiction." He was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. The Western Writers of America renamed the Saddleman Award for best book of the year to the Owen Wister Award, and Mount Wister in Wyoming was named in his honor. (wikipedia) // The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains is a 1902 novel by American author Owen Wister, set in Wyoming Territory during the 1880s. Detailing the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch, the novel was a landmark in the evolution of the western genre, as distinguished from earlier short stories and pulp dime novels. The Virginian paved the way for westerns by authors such as Zane Grey, Max Brand, Louis L'Amour, and others. The novel was adapted from several short stories published in Harper's Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post between Nov 1893 and May 1902. (wikipedia)

• • •

Again? Didn't we just have a QUADRUPLE DOUBLE theme earlier this year? [... searching my own website ...] Yes. Not earlier this year, but late last year (Oct. 14, 2024) Exactly the same concept. Today's puzzle adds the rebus angle, but otherwise, it's just phrases with four double-letters, with a QUADRUPLE DOUBLE revealer. The earlier puzzle was an easy Monday puzzle, and its themers were ACCESS HOLLYWOOD, MISS MISSISSIPPI, and "WELL, WHOOP-DEE-DOO!" (a themer set that, while not perfect, is somewhat more colorful than today's set, I think). Pretty surprised they accepted puzzles with the same revealer and (nearly) the same concept so close to one another. I think the theme is actually more appropriate for a Monday. I mean, yes, rebuses add "trickiness" to a puzzle and tend to get a puzzle slotted on Thursdays for that reason, but all you've done here is put the double letters in single boxes. As Thursdays go, this was very straightforward. Piece of cake. I got the first themer without trying very hard at all. I mean, what's gonna follow AD HOC ...? I thought maybe PANEL, for a second, but "panel" is in the damn clue. Then I checked a cross and saw OCcam sitting there; or, rather, I saw that he wanted to sit there, but didn't have enough room. Huh, maybe his double-"C" goes in one box. Huh, that would give me AD HOC C... and "committee" also has a bunch of double-letters, let's see what happens." And I typed the whole answer in, rebuses and all, no sweat:

Then I just followed that answer down and started on the bottom of the puzzle. Despite having no idea what was supposed to follow SORT at 36D: Excel function (SORT DATA), I managed to get down into the bottom via the extremely easy, total gimme, bizarrely overclued SPIRO (47D: ___ Agnew, vice president who resigned in 1973). From there, it wasn't too long until ...

The revealer clue, again, very easy. And now, at this point, I knew where the other double-letter answers were located. Before, I felt like I was walking through a minefield, wondering when the double-letter squares were gonna pop up and surprise me, but not anymore. So an easy puzzle got easier. I just circled the grid, saving the hardest-looking section (the north) for last, and sure enough, it was the hardest (lots of white space, and a QUADRUPLE DOUBLE answer I couldn't immediately put together—besides the PASS part). But it wasn't that hard in the end. They just hand you one of the double-letters with the very easy clue on WILLOW (14A: "Weeping" giant). And that's that. So what've we got—a theme that (very) mildly SOUPS UP a theme that's already been done, a theme we just had. The themer answers as standalone phrases aren't that interesting. You're mostly just going on a hunt for double-letters, and the hunt becomes a joke once the revealer tells you exactly where the prey is.

The only struggles today came with compound answers where I had one part and couldn't figure out the other(s) very easily. [SORT ___]; [___ GAUGE]; [___THROWS]. But all of those blanks ended up falling under the pressure of crosses pretty quickly. The most interesting answer in the grid, besides maybe SOUPS UP, is Hakeem OLAJUWON, whose name I confess I could not confidently spell on the first go (never quite sure of the vowels). That answer is also a kind of bonus themer (38D: N.B.A. great Hakeem who is one of only four players ever to achieve a 50-Across (1990)). Too bad the puzzle couldn't find a way to make him symmetrical ... unless SORT DATA has some kind of hidden thematic juice. I guess you have to SORT DATA to figure out which four N.B.A. players had QUADRUPLE DOUBLEs. But you don't have to sort it much. Man, SORT DATA is such a dull answer. Also, I thought the function was just "Sort." When I want to alphabetize or order sets of numbers, I just hit "Sort" ... but then I use "Sheets," not "Excel." Maybe Excel prefers to maintain the formal full name (SORT DATA). Or else SORT DATA is another function entirely and I'm just confused. Not unlikely! (hmm, in Sheets there's actually "Sort Sheet," "Sort Range," "Sort Range A-Z," "Sort Range Z-A" ... All sorts of "sorts").

Assorted other things:

• 16A: Condition that Simone Biles has described as giving her a "superpower," briefly (ADHD) — second time I've seen ADHD clued via Biles recently. In fact, I learned she had ADHD from that earlier ADHD clue, which I think might also have mentioned Michael Phelps.
• 41A: "___ are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made" (quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck) ("LAWS") — not a big fan of this "attributed to" stuff. He said it or he didn't. There must be lots of "LAWS" quotations out there that have reliable, documentable sources. I wrote in LIES here at first, which makes little sense, but I had the "L" and just wrote in the first thing that came to mind. I should've seen that I already had LIES in the grid at that point (55D: They may be white or naked).
• 61A: Article about a photo? (FRAME) — so, "Article" in the sense of "item" or "thing." Tough clue, especially in this puzzle, where most of the clues are relatively straightforward.
• 65A: Org. that developed the "pumpkin suit" (NASA) — the astronauts look much cooler now

• 48D: City that's an anagram of SALEM (SELMA) — this is just insulting. And lazy. The puzzle is already very easy. Are you so out of ideas for SELMA that you have to resort to a remedial anagram clue?!
• 7D: Briefly experienced, with "of" (GOT A TASTE) — Winner of the first annual 
• 'EAT A SANDWICH" Award for "Answer that best embodies the spirit of EAT A SANDWICH." 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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