Desperate pursuit of fame, in modern lingo / SUN 7-27-25 / Real chess playa? / Seasoning for una margarita / Much-maligned 2019 movie about which one review said "It's 'Battlefield Earth' with whiskers" / Noted rapper with an oxymoronic name / Skill taught to Luke Skywalker

Constructor: John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Easy (yet again)

THEME: Arranged Marriages — themers are all two-part, 22-letter answers where the first and last parts are anagrams of one another:

Theme answers:

• EXONERATING GENERATION X (24A: Forgiving middle-aged dads for their dad jokes, say?)
• TECHNOCRATS' TRENCHCOATS (47A: Attire for Larry Page and Sergey Brin when visiting Google incognito?)
• "STREET LEGAL? LET'S GET REAL!" (71A: "You think that hunk of junk'll pass inspection? Please!"?)
• CHECKMATING CHICK MAGNET (99A: Real chess playa?)
• "MARISA TOMEI, IT'S-A ME, MARIO!" (126A: Greeting from a famous Italian character to a famous Italian American actress?)

Word of the Day: SIGIL (132A: Magical symbol) —

1

: seal, signet

2

: a sign, word, or device held to have occult power in astrology or magic (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Some things I exclaimed while solving this puzzle:

• On getting my first themer (TECHNOCRATS' TRENCH COATS): "Oh, it's just anagrams? That's it? Goddammit!" 
• On reading the clue for ALT (15D: ___ right (political category)): "Why would you do that?! F***!"
• On getting CLOUT-CHASING (67D: Desperate pursuit of fame, in modern lingo): "Ooh, nice"
• On realizing the last themer was going to be "MARISA TOMEI, IT'S-A ME, MARIO!": "Noooooo ... that has definitely been used before!" 

That last one really feels like outright theft from where I'm sitting. I mean, maybe not, maybe the constructor never saw the puzzle where that anagram was first used. But still, it's at least mildly galling that the constructor is going to get credit for cleverness here when this (admittedly very clever) anagram is not original to this puzzle; it had already appeared in a much better (and tighter) puzzle seven years ago. That puzzle (a Thursday puzzle) was constructed by Erik Agard, and the theme was "HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE"—the theme answers were all (Hollywood) actors, but the clues didn't seem to make any sense ... until you realized that the clues were actually anagrams of the actor's names (hence the "shuffle"). In Erik's puzzle, MARISA TOMEI was clued (very, very memorably) as ["It's-a me, Mario!"]. 

[Feb. 8, 2018]

As you can see by my parenthetical commentary, I was very impressed by that anagram, as was everybody else at the time. That is not an anagram you forget. I mean [Germany] for MEG RYAN, that's one you might forget. Nice find, but forgettable. You don't have to try so hard to come up with that one. But the Tomei one, that's an all-timer. No one can ever use it again (in a crossword puzzle, anyway). It's retired. Or should be. So ... yeah, huge letdown when I ran into that answer. You can't copyright anagrams, and coincidences happen, I guess, but ... having seen that particular anagram deployed so successfully in the not-too-distant past, it felt gross to see it being used as a kind of showy exclamation point today. This puzzle needs a footnote or a citation or an Acknowledgments page. Pay Erik for that themer, is what I'm saying. It's his. I don't know that he discovered the anagram per se, but he definitely put it to thematic use first. (I'm almost 100% sure Erik won't be bothered at all, but I'm bothered, which is really all that matters) (I get mad about these things so others don't have to!) (If you really loved that anagram and it was new to you today, great, just ... ignore everything I just said, you deserve to be happy)

Now a few positive things. I know, I said (above) that I was like "Anagrams? That's it!" And that's basically how I feel. And yet, some of these anagrams were absolutely bananas, in a good way (the only good wacky answers are truly bananas wacky answers). The trench coat one left me cold (tepid, and I basically don't want to hear about "technocrats," like, ever), but the others were all good to great. CHECKMATING CHICK MAGNET almost got a legitimate chuckle out of me. I kept trying to anagram "CHECKMATING," like "what the hell could this possibly be!?" So that one, when I finally got it, really landed. Genuine "good one" from me. I don't know that the theme answers needed those little dark lines dividing them in half, but I guess they do help visually reinforce the gimmick. The puzzle also has some legit great longer non-theme answers. Love the Downs pair of BIGGIE SMALLS (9D: Noted rapper with an oxymoronic name) and CLOUT-CHASING, and the also-solid if somewhat soberer symmetrical Across pair of INVISIBLE MAN and THOMAS EDISON.

If you were going to wipe out today, where would that take place? The hairiest section for me was the very end, the SW, largely because I don't know the word SIGIL very well, and so really needed every cross to put it together. If any of them had been at all unclear, I might've been in trouble. Things got a little tense when I had AM/FM instead of AM/PM at 113A: Clock toggle (do you really "toggle" AM/PM??), and I was staring down the possibility of FROG Rock (115D: ___ rock (genre for Pink Floyd and Dream Theater, familiarly)), which ... I guess the "G" would've been right after all, but luckily I caught that "F: for "P" flub. And so the only cross that actually made me cross my fingers was SAL (127D: Seasoning for una margarita), which I was actually pretty sure of—salt is SEL in Fr., so SAL in Sp. seemed right). But SAL SIGIL was threatening. Felt ominous. Potentially wrong. SAL SIGIL ... sounds like a bookie or a talent agent. Or a movie producer, though I may be under the influence of The Studio (which features a movie producer character named Sal Saperstein, played by Ike Barinholtz) (they say his name in Episode 8 a lot). Anyway, eventually SAL SIGIL came through—thank you, SAL SIGIL:

["You can't handle the Sap!"]

Further observations:

• 29A: Cross-country conveyances (SKIS) — I was thinking something more like SEMIS (or maybe TRAINS?). Because they literally cross the country. Forgot about cross-country skiing.
• 62A: Much-maligned 2019 movie about which one review said "It's 'Battlefield Earth' with whiskers" (CATS) — speaking of forgetting ... wow did I memory-hole this movie! I mean, I never saw it, but until this puzzle, it was like it never existed. Sincerely, I think COVID did a number on my memory of the years immediately pre-COVID. What was 2019? Did it happen? I think I went to Montreal. Otherwise ... ??? I assume the Battlefield Earth comparison was based on quality (bad) and not plot. I was trying to think of a scifi movie title and was like "... RATS? Was there a RATS movie in 2019? Did they even have movies in 2019?"
• 98A: Basic BASIC statements (IFS) — I took a Computer Science class at (THOMAS) EDISON High School in 1983-84 (we just called it "Edison"). It was the only Computer Science course I ever took. I loved it. Got an "A." I remember nothing. Except that BASIC was the language we learned. Speaking of (THOMAS) EDISON, nice clue on that one today (130A: DC power player in the late 1800s?).
• 1D: One always cooking up new ideas? (CHEF) — are there no chefs out there who are stuck in a rut, just churning out the same thing every day, year after year? As someone who churns out the same thing every day, year after year, I have to wonder. Solidarity, unchanging CHEFs! You stick to your guns! Don't let anyone bully you into "new" things!
• 39A: Knows just when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, maybe (CHEATS) — hey, the gambler knew what people's cards were by the way they held their eyes. Not by cheating! You apologize to Kenny Rogers right this minute!

• 19D: 1980s band among Australia's all-time best-selling groups (INXS) — INXS's music was absolutely the best thing about The Lost Boys (1987), a film whose spectacular badness I am not yet over.

• 93D: Brian who co-founded the Long Now Foundation (ENO) — if you're like me, you're wondering "who the hell is Brian ENO?" ... jk, he's in every crossword, by law. But you are probably wondering "what the hell is the Long Now Foundation?" Well, I'll tell you [consults the Engine of Searching]:

The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking. The Long Now Foundation hopes to "creatively foster responsibility" in the framework of the next 10,000 years. In a manner somewhat similar to the Holocene calendar, the foundation uses 5-digit dates to address the Year 10,000 problem (e.g., by writing the current year "02025" rather than "2025"). The organization's logo is X, a capital X with an overline, a representation of 10,000 in Roman numerals.

Good luck, Year 10,000! I wish you well. That is, I hope you exist. And if you do exist, I hope that you refer to this particularly insane period of human history we're all living in now as "The Short Then."

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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