Storybook baddie / TUE 7-22-25 / Utah ski resort / Hollywood icon Hayworth / Company whose business is picking up? / "Come again??," casually / Purple smoothie berry / Planetary body, to poets / Informal hangout at which attendees may jam or gossip

Constructor: Jeremy Newton

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: triple scoop — shaded squares depict a triple-scoop ice cream cone in each stage of its construction (just the cone = "V"; one scoop = "O" on top of "V"; etc. There are two punny revealers: TALL ORDER (16A: Big ask ... or a hint to this puzzle's shaded squares?); and SCOOPED UP (59A: Eagerly obtained ... or a hint to the contents of this puzzle's shaded squares?):

The ice-cream answers (I'm not gonna type these out vertically—just consult the grid, above, for the full visual effect):

• VAT (1D: Big winery fixture)
• "I LOVE YOU SO MUCH" (13D: Words that express a deep-felt affection)
• GROOVED (24D: Shook it to the beat)
• GOES CUCKOO OVER (8D: Enjoys immensely)

Word of the Day: RITA Hayworth (65A: Hollywood icon Hayworth) —

Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and appeared in 61 films in total over 37 years. The press coined the term "The Love Goddess" to describe Hayworth, after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s. She was the top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II.

Hayworth is widely known for her performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, in which she played the femme fatale in her first major dramatic role. She is also known for her performances in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Blood and Sand (1941), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Pal Joey (1957), and Separate Tables (1958). Fred Astaire, with whom she made two films, You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942), once called her his favorite dance partner. She also starred in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly. She is listed as one of the top 25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hayworth received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1645 Vine Street in 1960.

In 1980, Hayworth was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, which contributed to her death in 1987 at age 68. The public disclosure and discussion of her illness drew attention to Alzheimer's, and helped to increase public and private funding for research into the disease. (wikipedia)

• • •

And the summer doldrums continue. Another very easy, very dull puzzle. I appreciate the seasonal visual gag. This puzzle is trying to do something original, so, you know, points for trying. But none of the themers except the last one take any real thought or imagination; that is, it's not hard to find a word starting with "V" ... or containing "OV" ... or "OOV." It's only the "OOOV" word that is at all surprising or extraordinary-seeming, and unfortunately that one struck me as slightly off. That is, I tend to go cuckoo *for* things, not cuckoo *over* them. The phrase exists, sure, but it googles about 1/10 as well as "go cuckoo for," and that's *after* I take "Cocoa Puffs" out of the search equation. As for the twin revealers ... I guess they're fine. They both come at the concept in a semi-punny way: a triple scoop is, in fact a TALL ORDER, and the scoops do go ... up? Sure. I don't hate this theme, I just think that despite its visual interest, it's a little, let's say, vanilla. The real problem with the puzzle, though, is that it played like a themeless (no need to have any idea what's going on with the theme to solve it), and as a themeless, it's deathly boring. Leaving the two long Downs aside, this grid is bleakly boring, CHOCK full o' fill that is stale and olden. Once again, the grid has not been built with an eye toward interesting fill, in that it's almost all 3-4-5s, with nothing (outside the themers) over 7, and only two of those, neither particularly noteworthy. In fact one of those 7s ("'SCUSE ME") felt really awkward to my eye/ear—not my favorite made-up spelling. But nevermind that; if the grid had been colorful and varied and interesting, I wouldn't have blinked at "'SCUSE ME." It's just that today "'SCUSE ME" has to do a lot of lifting, because the rest of the grid is just lying there, and "'SCUSE ME" really isn't up to it. ALTA ALAS ACAI ASIF ICAN EATME EWES EPEE SESH (ugh) IPAS crossing CPA, plus another dreaded "playground retort" ("DO TOO!"). I've seen worse fill, for sure, but I've seen better.

I made some pretty predictable mistakes today, all easily fixable. I also typo'd ACHY as ACHE (fingers have a mind of their own sometimes) (35A: Sore, as joints) and had to search for my error at the end. Had the "U" at 45A: Company whose business is picking up? (UBER) and wrote in USPS (?). Right next door to that, I wrote in ROAMS before ROVES (of course) (42A: Wanders here and there). For 51D: Kept ___ on (monitored) (TABS), I (again, of course) had EYES. But that's really it for SCREW-ups, and those SCREW-ups were all very minor. The puzzle basically put up no resistance—not unusual for a Tuesday, I guess, but I wish the puzzle had had at least a little fight in it, or some surprise or cleverness beyond the theme. It really needed ... something more. No matter how clever your theme, the bulk of the solver's time will be spent filling in non-theme answers, so that part of the puzzle should really do a little something more than just sit there taking up space.

A few more things:

• 65A: Hollywood icon Hayworth (RITA) — making RITA Hayworth my Word of the Day really solidified for me the fact that I get RITA Hayworth and AVA Gardner hopelessly confused. They're basically the same person to me, despite the fact that one of them is in two of my favorite movies, and the other ... isn't. They're both brunette bombshells, Hollywood royalty of a certain era—the exact same era, in fact. Their careers were solidly mid-century. In fact, their lives are almost coterminous (Hayworth 1918-87, Gardner 1922-90). I thought RITA Hayworth was married to Mickey Rooney at one point, but that was AVA Gardner (who was also married to ARTIE Shaw (also of crossword fame) and Frank Sinatra). RITA Hayworth, on the other hand, was married to Orson Welles, as well as Prince Aly Khan (and a few other guys as well). RITA's career was, to my mind, the more enviable one, if only because she was in Gilda (1946) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) (though that's really Jean Arthur's movie, as far as female stars go). Gardner got an Academy Award nomination for Supporting Actress Mogambo (recommended only for Grace Kelly completists like my '90s self), and she starred opposite Burt Lancaster in Robert Siodmak's great The Killers (1946), but still, gotta give the acting edge to RITA. Maybe I'll be able to keep them straight in my head now. More likely, not.

• 32D: Vampire bat feature (FANGS) — sticking with the movies for a minute ... and speaking of vampires ... I watched The Lost Boys (1987) yesterday for my weekly Movie Club, and it was So Much Worse than I remembered. The shallowest characterization you will ever see in any movie. No one has any motivation. It's basically an extended late '80s MTV music video, not nearly dark enough to be scary, and not nearly as funny as it thinks it is. If you are a big fan of the Cor(e)ys, if you found their on-screen antics hilarious, then boy is this the movie for you. If you want to see great actors (Dianne Wiest!) absolutely wasted, shoved into roles that are beneath them, this is the movie for you. Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Feldman had both been in the truly great Stand By Me just one year earlier. Talk about a come-down. Actually, if you just wanna do a memory lane thing to your teendom (my teendom) then, OK, I get it, this *is* the movie for you. It definitely is ... of a time. But as a movie, it is Ter-ri-ble (note: none of my Movie Club agreed, they all seemed to enjoy it; I just sat there silently watching them all talk, stunned that I had once respected these people and counted them among my friends ...). 

• 7D: Planet whose evening temperatures plunge to -200ºF (MARS) — wanted to write in earth, largely because I was freezing last night—the house is set up for summer sleeping, windows open, bedding down to just a sheet, but last night temps went way down and I had to get up in the middle of the night in search of something to make me warmer (a nearby hoodie did the trick). 
• 56D: Father of Thor in both myth and the Marvel Universe (ODIN) — why in the world does any part of this clue following "Thor" exist??? He's the father of Thor. That's it. Unless Marvel is paying you for product placement, there is absolutely no reason to mention their stupid universe. So weird how they choose *this* clue to be (unnecessarily, uninterestingly) longer, when there are so many other terse clues that could've used spicing up. There is limited cluing real estate. You gotta use it better than this.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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