Elvis Costello hit featured in "Notting Hill" / THU 7-17-25 / Search engine giant based in China / Pioneering puzzle-laden game / Characters in "There Will Be Blood" / Region known for its silk and tea / Words often appearing after a number and a hyphen

Constructor: Sam Brody

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: MATRYOSHKA DOLLS (7D: Compact wooden figures ... and a hint to 5-, 11-, 22- and 25-Down) — clues for the theme answers resemble MATRYOSHKA DOLLS (also known as "nesting dolls"); theme answers are familiar phrases that you assemble using three nested clues/answers:

Theme answers:

• CULINARY ARTS (5D: (Stops (false (not any) witness) filming)) [NARY inside LIAR inside CUTS]
• DOMAIN NAMES (11D: (Bucks' (lady's (roadside stopover) title) mates)) [INN inside MAAM inside DOES]
• TIME MACHINES (22D: (Baseball (German (physicist Ernst) possessive) rarities)) [MACH inside EIN inside TIES]
• PEER REVIEWS (25D: (Church (Buffalo's (minister, informally) waters) seats)) [REV inside ERIE inside PEWS]

Word of the Day: "SHE" (38A: Elvis Costello hit featured in "Notting Hill") —

"She" is a song written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer and released as a single sung by Aznavour in 1974. The song was written in English as a theme tune for the British TV series Seven Faces of Woman.

Aznavour also recorded it in French, German, Italian and Spanish, under the titles "Tous les visages de l'amour" (English: All the Faces of Love), "Sie" (English: She) "Lei" (English: She) and "Es" (English: [She] is), respectively. He also recorded the song in a more uptempo French version with different lyrics, simply titled "Elle" (English: She).

The song peaked at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and stayed there for four weeks; it was certified silver for shipments exceeding 300,000 units. It also reached number 1 in the Irish Charts, spending one week at the top. It was less popular outside the UK (where Seven Faces of Woman did not air); in France, the song narrowly missed the top 40, and in the United States, it failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted on the lower end of the easy listening charts.

Elvis Costello recorded a cover version of the song in 1999. This version, produced by Trevor Jones, was featured over the opening and final sequences of the film Notting Hill and charted throughout Europe. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

[peaked at 19 in the UK ... all those "dashes" are countries (incl. the US) where it didn't chart at all]

• • •

The hardest part of this puzzle was spelling MATRYOSHKA. In my head, the word sounds like "matruschka" (ma-TROO-shka), so the middle of the grid was something of an adventure, but otherwise, this theme presented almost no problems. It was clear right away, with the first themer I encountered (5D), what was going on. I had the "C-L" part, could see that the outer answer was going to be CUTS, put the "TS" at the end, and then used a couple more crosses to put the whole thing together. After that, I never looked at a "nesting" clue beyond the outer layer. That is, I'd get the front end from crosses, I'd read the clue, I'd put the back end in from there, and then, with whatever crosses I had in place, I'd just eyeball it and write in a word. I like to get a bunch of crosses in place before I ever look at a longer clue, generally, and today, that worked well. The beginning and end of the answer, plus whatever I had in the middle from crosses, just gave me the answer easily. The concept here is clever, but for me, the fun was over fast, and the revealer was exceedingly anticlimactic. I could see they were nesting—that was obvious from the clues themselves. MATRYOSHKA DOLLS is the appropriate metaphor, but as a solver, it felt redundant. It "revealed" nothing. Gave me a "hint" to nothing. It was explaining something to me that I could already see clearly. So the puzzle didn't have the zing it might. And like I said, I didn't even need the "inner" clues of the themers.  Execution seems well done (no idea how hard it is to find answers that break into nestable parts like this). The perfect symmetry on the nested answers is impressive, and it extends to the cluing (theme clues are all composed of two-word clues, where one word is in the front half of the clue and the other in the back half). So it's architecturally interesting, but a bit of a dud to solve. Anti-climactic, for sure.

But back to the middle of the grid—the spelling of MATRYOSHKA. I need to take issue with one of the crosses, specifically, with "SHE," specifically with "SHE" as clued (38A: Elvis Costello hit featured in "Notting Hill"). If you have never heard of this "hit," you are forgiven. I forgot it existed, and I have seen Elvis Costello in concert ... [counts on fingers ... runs out of fingers on one hand ...] seven? Yeah, seven times, I think. 1. St Paul; 2. Ommegang Brewery (near Cooperstown, NY); 3. Turning Stone Casino (the worst; central NY); 4. Bethel Woods (NY); 5. Ithaca; 6. Syracuse; 7. Ann Arbor ... yep, seven. I own countless EC records. So when I say I could not hum "SHE" for you right now if you paid me, perhaps you'll have some idea of how much "SHE" is not a "hit." OK, I'm listening to it right now, and it's definitely familiar, so he has probably played it at least once in concert, but ... "hit???" Elvis Costello has had precisely two (2) top-forty "hits" in this country in his entire (nearly 50-year) career: "Everyday I Write the Book" (#36, 1983) and "Veronica" (#19, 1989). He has a bunch of songs that feel like hits ("Alison" "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" etc.), but never actually were, by measurable standards (he made a big point about this on stage during the Syracuse concert). I think "SHE" has a lot of plays on Spotify, maybe? 1.5 million "views" on YouTube for the video (below). I guess that's something. But no, it is not a "hit" and never was. Maybe the least "hit" of any song that has ever been described as a "hit" by the NYTXW. I know of precisely one song called "SHE," and that's the beautiful Gram Parsons song, which I first heard in a cover by Chrissie Hynde (featuring Emmylou Harris). But the Elvis Costello "SHE"? No idea. Just a head-shakingly strange clue. 

I have never heard of BAIDU, but I'm guessing a lot of Chinese people have? (14A: Search engine giant based in China). Not my idea of a great answer (more ****ing tech names to memorize), but I guess if you're desperate, why not use it? On the other hand ... look how easy it is to do that corner up in more familiar (and utterly techless) fashion:

If you think the BAIDU version is better, that's fine, but we have Very different tastes. Aside from BAIDU, and "SHE" (as clued), there wasn't much that caused trouble today. I knew Jamie TARTT, but I imagine most non-"Lasso" watchers would have no idea what that character's name is, so if that eastern area of the puzzle was a challenge, I understand (36D: Jamie ___, "Ted Lasso" character). Looks like the crosses are pretty fair on TARTT, though, and nothing else in the puzzle (beyond what I've already mentioned) seems terribly taxing.

Bullets:

• 23A: Subject of evaluation by a college panel, informally (APP) — I had "AP-" and still managed to get this answer wrong at first (I thought it was APS, as in "AP tests")
• 30A: Characters in "There Will Be Blood" (OILMEN) — the OIL part was easy, but I wrote in ... OILERS (that's more of a hockey team)
• 65A: Pioneering puzzle-laden game (MYST) — a game I never played, but one I know well because it is four letters long and has unusual "Y" placement and so shows up in crossword grids from time to time.
• 23D: Region known for its silk and tea (ASSAM) — it's ASSAM Week here at the NYTXW! (see yesterday's puzzle). Crosswordese from way back. Sometimes you gotta refresh people's memory of the oldies. How else are newer solvers gonna learn? ASSAM was huge in the '70s (with a peak of nine (9) appearances in 1973). After falling out of favor in the late aughts / early '10s (only four (4) appearances total between '05 and '10), ASSAM appears to be making something of a comeback (five (5) appearances just last year).
• 35D: Words often appearing after a number and a hyphen (IN-ONE) — the hardest clue for me to wrap my head around today. Words ... following a number ... what? But I guess people say "two-in-one" or "three-in-one" to describe ... things that have multiple purposes? The phrase ALL-IN-ONE is way (way) more familiar to me.
• 46D: Withdraw one's testimony (RECANT) — I love this word. Why??? It's so ordinary. But it was the last thing I wrote in in the SW and I had this feeling of "oh, that's nice. That makes the corner nice." I don't always understand my emotional responses to words, and I certainly don't understand this one, but I'm smitten with RECANT today, who can say why? Shall I withdraw this testimony? Shall I RECANT? I shan't. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Maybe. Thou art probably pretty sweaty, if you live in the NE like I do. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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