___ Bradham, inventor of Pepsi / WED 8-13-25 / Newbery Medal-winning 1989 novel for children by Lois Lowry / "Too ___" (2024 #1 Hozier hit) / Covid-19, in slang / 2006 romantic fantasy novel by Stephenie Meyer / Acclaimed 2004 science fiction work by David Mitchell made into a 2012 film

Constructor: Jared Cappel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: SKY WRITING (56A: Message from a pilot ... or what 17-, 22-, 36- and 48-Across each is?) — book titles that contains things seen in the "sky":

Theme answers:

• CLOUD ATLAS (17A: Acclaimed 2004 science fiction work by David Mitchell made into a 2012 film)
• RAISIN IN THE SUN (22A: 1959 Broadway drama by Lorraine Hansberry, with "A")
• NEW MOON (36A: 2006 romantic fantasy novel by Stephenie Meyer)
• NUMBER THE STARS (48A: Newbery Medal-winning 1989 novel for children by Lois Lowry)

Word of the Day: NUMBER THE STARS (48A: Newbery Medal-winning 1989 novel for children by Lois Lowry) —

Number the Stars is a 1989 historical novel by the American author Lois Lowry about the escape of a family of Jews from Copenhagen, Denmark, during World War II.

The story revolves around ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen, who lives with her mother, father, and sister Kirsti in Copenhagen in 1943. Annemarie becomes a part of the events related to the rescue of the Danish Jews when thousands of Jews were to reach the neutral ground in Sweden to avoid being relocated to concentration camps. She risks her life to help her best friend, Ellen Rosen, by pretending that Ellen is Annemarie's late older sister, Lise, who was killed after she was hit by a car. However, her former fiancé, Peter, who is partially based on the Danish resistance member Kim Malthe-Bruun, continues to help them.

The story's title is taken from a reference to Psalm 147:4, in which the writer relates that God has numbered all the stars and named each of them. This coincides with the Star of David, which Ellen Rosen wears on her necklace and is a symbol of Judaism.

The novel was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1990 as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." (wikipedia)

• • •

Gonna try to keep this brief, as I found this one extremely off-putting, right from the word 'go.' It didn't help that I read this article yesterday about the shooting up of the CDC (which included the killing of a cop) by a man convinced that the COVID vaccine had made him sick (it's a paywalled WaPo article that I read via AppleNews—not hard to find) (here's a related article at The Guardian) (and another at the NYT). That clue on CDC (1D: Org. encouraging flu shots) only reminded me that the current director of HHS, who oversees CDC, does precisely the opposite of “encouraging flu shots.” He is a singular malevolence, a narcissistic anti-science conspiracy theorist who is doing his level best to get millions of people killed by gutting mRNA vaccine research. God love all the actual scientists, the decent, qualified people at the CDC, but ... the NYTXW continues to insist that public health agencies like the CDC, EPA, etc. are still committed to things they aren't committed to, at least at the top. And then to throw the repulsive TULSI Gabbard at me just a few clues later—another Trumpist conspiracy theorist currently trying to distract attention from the president's involvement with pedophiles and sex traffickers by leveling treason accusations against Obama over "Russiagate" (how many lifetimes ago was "Russiagate"?). And then a cutesy Anne Frank pun on top of that (???) (14A: Frank account? = DIARY). It's like the puzzle was doing everything it could to be unlikeable before I'd really even gotten started. And then, ugh, the slangy term for the disease that killed millions of people ('RONA) (55A: Covid-19, in slang) ... none of this is my idea of a good time. As for the theme, the idea is cute, but all I can do is think of much better books that do the same thing as these. Goodnight, Moon; The Fault in Our Stars; The Sun Also Rises. Never heard of NUMBER THE STARS (perhaps because I was no longer a child in 1990, and did not have a child of my own until over a decade later). That title and the Pepsi guy (???) (1A: ___ Bradham, inventor of Pepsi) (CALEB), and the Hozier song (???????) (29D: "Too ___" (2024 #1 Hozier hit) (SWEET)) took this one into harder-than-usual territory for me. 

The longer non-theme answers come in very solid. I appreciate that. I didn't so much appreciate the false revealer at LIBRARY (41D: Spot to find 17-, 22-, 36- and 46-Across). I can see why you'd be tempted to turn this into a "bonus" themer, but it just ended up being confusing. "That's a terrible revealer," I thought, before finding out it wasn't the revealer at all. It also weirdly made the puzzle harder, in the sense that you had to have figured out the theme, or seen that the theme answers were all pieces of literature, before you could answer it. The short fill on this one felt a little weak. OLLAS? I know the word well, from crosswords of yore, but crossing ILSA, it felt like ... well, a crossword answer of yore. AHH crossing OOHS is not great. Cary ELWES continues to be fantastically overrepresented in the NYTXW, relative to his actual fame. Has he ever been clued via any movie besides The Princess Bride? Whoa, it turns out: yes! But not since 2016. And (bizarrely) the last five ELWES clues have been identical, word for word:

It's weird to think there was once a time where ELWES was more frequently clued via Twister than via The Princess Bride. Also, what the hell is The Cat's Meow (2001)!?!? I want to say "first I'm hearing of it," but I had a crossword blog when that clue was used (2009), so obviously that wouldn't be true. This is at least the "second I'm hearing of it." Didn't quite have the cultural impact of Princess Bride (or even Robin Hood: Men in Tights), I guess.

[I dunno ... I'd watch this ... I'm *gonna* watch this. If it's terrible, Don't Tell Me]

Bullets:

• 16A: "Casablanca" heroine (ILSA) — you'd think that after 30+ years of solving crosswords I'd've figured out the ELSA v. ILSA distinction. They used to both be film clues. ILSA was "Here's looking at you, kid," and ELSA was the lion from Born Free. Frozen has changed the primary cultural reference point for ELSA. I think if I can get my brain to think "Casablanca v. Frozen" instead of "Casablanca v. Born Free," I can lick this E/I confusion, because I know that Frozen girl is an ELSA ... which makes Ingrid Bergman an ILSA. (The fact that I know the movie ILSA, She Wolf of the SS exists isn't helping, frankly!) 

• 61A: Type of word banned in North American competitive Scrabble in 2020 (SLUR) — I mean, good for competitive Scrabble, but you could clue SLUR so many ways that didn't make me think about (racial) SLURs. It's like this puzzle is going out of its way to be a downer.
• 49D: Letter-shaped fastener (U-BOLT) — I wrote in T-BOLT, is that a thing? Oh, it is? OK, I don't feel so bad now.

That's all, see you next time. And hey, if you wanna watch The Cat's Meow (starring Cary ELWES) with me, let me know. You can follow me on Letterboxd. You can follow me either way, actually. I basically watch movies non-stop, though my knowledge of movies from this century (esp. the '00s) remains very spotty. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Online publication of Vox Media / TUE 8-12-25 / Lorde who wrote "Sister Outsider" / 1990s-'00s sitcom starring Brandy / Tres o cuatro / What the Beyoncé title "6 Inch" refers to / Edible Christmas ornament / People living abroad for tax reasons / Like this: ESMCLDRBA

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TOUCANS (63A: Birds phonetically suggested by a feature of 17-, 27- and 51-Across) — the letter string "CAN" appears two times in each theme answer ("two 'can's" = TOUCANS)

Theme answers:

• CAN'T HOLD A CANDLE (17A: Pales in comparison)
• CANDY CANE (27A: Edible Christmas ornament)
• MEXICAN-AMERICAN (51A: Chicana, for example)

Word of the Day: THE CUT (18D: Online publication of Vox Media) —

The Cut is an online publication that, as part of New York magazine, covers a wide range of topics, such as work, money, sex and relationships, fashion, mental health, pop culture, politics, and parenting, with a specific lens for women. // In 2015, The Cut published a New York Magazine cover feature by Noreen Malone that included interviews with 35 women who had accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault. The cover image and photo portfolio by Amanda Demme included portraits of all the women seated and an empty chair to symbolize those unable to come forward.

In 2018, The Cut published an essay by Moira Donegan in which she revealed herself as the creator of the "Shitty Media Men" list that contained rumors and allegations of sexual misconduct by men in the magazine world. Later that year, Lindsay Peoples's essay "Everywhere and Nowhere," about the challenges of being a Black voice in the fashion industry, came out, sending a "ripple of waves through the industry."

An excerpt from E. Jean Carroll's book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal ran in 2019 on The Cut and on the cover of New York's print magazine, in which she first shared her story of being sexually assaulted by then-President Donald Trump.

In 2022, The Cut ran a special package that highlighted resources for accessing an abortion nationwide following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The Cut is known for a number of columns, including Madame Clairevoyant's weekly horoscopes; as-told-tos in "Sex Diaries"; and the "How I Get It Done" series, highlighting the routines of influential women. The Cut has published widely read personal essays including Emily Gould on the "Lure of Divorce," Grazie Sophia Christie on "The Case for Marrying an Older Man," and Charlotte Cowles's "The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger".

• • •

This is just a beautifully crafted puzzle. A beautifully crafted easy puzzle. I love it because it shows that easy puzzles don't have to be boring. The theme is simple but cute, and kinda funny. Just three themers! (plus a short revealer). Back in the day, three themers was pretty normal, but some time in this century, a theme-answers arms race seemed to start where the standard went to four and often well north of that. This was enabled by the rise of constructing software, which allowed puzzle makers to more easily fill grids with a dense set of fixed answers (themers are always fixed in place first when you're building a theme puzzle). But more is not necessarily better (as you may be aware), and there's something to be said for a theme that leaves a little air, a little breathing room so that the rest of the grid can shine a bit. And today's grid does just that. First, it's clean as hell. Polished, vibrant, lovely. Plus it opts for mirror symmetry over the more customary rotational symmetry (a feature occasioned by the theme—how else to arrange this set of answers symmetrically?), and this gives us a grid with very deep corners in the SW and SE. Deep pockets! And it's here where the grid really goes to the next level—two banks of 9-letter answers, each of them 3 wide—so (if I may show off my math skills...) that's six 9-letters answers, all of them good to great, giving this puzzle a level of non-thematic pizzazz rarely seen in themed puzzles. Six 9s?! That don't compromise grid quality at all? In addition to a full theme!? Nuts. Bonkers. It won't feel bonkers, because it just plays like an easy early-week puzzle. The craftsmanship on this one isn't showy. But if you make puzzles yourself, you know how impressive the work is here. 

In addition to the six 9s, it's got five 7s (!), and even some of the shorter fill is original and interesting (THE CUT, BLIGHT, MOESHA). I just looked at the grid sitting here on my desk and said "man, this is just a good puzzle." Aspiring constructors should study this puzzle. It's not that there's no overfamiliar short stuff, it's that the repeaters (TSAR, UAE, DES, OLE) are doing work, holding together sections composed of much stronger stuff—they allow the shiny stuff to shine. Another thing that makes this puzzle remarkable is how much it foregrounds Black women. Again, there's nothing particularly showy with how Erik does this, but yeah, four Black women (more if you count the women in the clues —e.g. Beyoncé, Kerry Washington). And precisely no white men (unless maybe you want to count ARES (?) or the TSAR). Historically, the (in)visibility of people of color generally, and Black women specifically, has been an issue that many solvers have called attention to and that (fairly recently) some constructors have tried to address. This puzzle quietly gives Black women the kind of puzzle prominence that is absolutely routine for white people (men in particular). I say "quietly" because it does nothing to the overall solvability of this puzzle. MOESHA is a bit of a throwback (55A: 1990s-'00s sitcom starring Brandy), so if any proper noun gives trouble today (beyond THE CUT), it's probably that one, but the rest are right over the plate. AUDRE Lorde may not be as well known to solvers as ANITA HILL and HARRIET Tubman, but she's in the puzzle a lot (full name earlier this month), so if you don't know her, you should. Weird fact: LORDE first appeared in the NYTXW as the pop star of that name back in 2015. The first person to clue LORDE as the poet Audre LORDE was ... Melinda Gates!? (in a puzzle co-constructed with Joel Fagliano back in 2018). Bizarrely, AUDRE has appeared fewer times (2) than the full AUDRE LORDE (3). Sorry, I'm in the statistical weeds now. My point is, this puzzle centers Black women. That may not matter to you, but it's a deliberate move, and I think it's worth noticing. (11D: Lorde who wrote "Sister Outsider")

The only trouble I had with this one was THE CUT (I know of it, but the name didn't leap to mind) and ... I think that's it. I did write in CAIN before BRAN, which made me laugh (38D: Raisin ___). Nice when a mistake makes you laugh at yourself rather than gnash your teeth or say "d'oh!" or slam your head on the desk or whatever your reaction of choice to self-stupidity is. Again, this puzzle has very few lowlights, and the highlights are everywhere. I smiled at the clue on SCRAMBLED (30D: Like this: ESMCLDRBA), raised my eyebrows at the inventiveness of "ARE WE LIVE?" (31D: "Has our broadcast started?") and nodded appreciatively at the double-X of TAX EXILES (32D: People living abroad for financial reasons)—and that's just in the SW corner! That is one hell of a stack (still not sure what to call a "stack" that involves Downs rather than Acrosses). 


Bullets:

• 19D: Tres o cuatro (NUMERO) — me: "OK, so three and four is ... seven ... but ... that's SIETE! I don't ... wait, what does 'o' mean? ... oh ... right." "O" means "or," not "and," my bad.
• 40D: A dispiritingly large percentage of phone calls (SPAM) — I appreciate the commiserative tone of this clue. It's nice to have some acknowledgment of how badly polluted our lines of communication have become. We finally got rid of our landline because it was 90% garbage calls that we never answered. I don't get many SPAM calls on my cell, but email, texts ... it never ends.
• 50A: University in western Pennsylvania, familiarly (PITT) — in the near future, this answer will be clued as the (soon-to-be) Emmy-award-winning TV show, so keep your eye out for that.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, REX Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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Lego piece in the shape of a person or animal / MON 8-11-25 / Small tower on a castle / Recipient of two Golden Globe Best Actress nominations for Netflix's "GLOW" / Independence Day banger / Apt anagram of NOTE / German cry of annoyance / Craftiest animal in the Garden of Eden / Channel with a call to order?

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Monday, solved Downs-only)

THEME: CHEESE BOARD (64A: Cocktail party staple that may contain the ends of 17-, 25-, 38-, 42- and 55-Across) — just like the clue says: last words of all the themers might are all items you might find on a CHEESE BOARD: 

Theme answers:

• FIRECRACKER (17A: Independence Day banger)
• TRAFFIC JAM (25A: Rush hour snarl)
• MINIFIG (38A: Lego piece in the shape of a person or animal)
• "HI, HONEY" (42A: Warm greeting to a spouse or partner)
• ALISON BRIE (55A: Recipient of two Golden Globe Best Actress nominations for Netflix's "GLOW")

Word of the Day: ALISON BRIE (55A) —

Alison Brie Schermerhorn (born December 29, 1982) is an American actress, writer, and producer.

Brie earned recognition for playing Trudy Campbell in the drama series Mad Men (2007–2015), and had her breakthrough starring as Annie Edison in the sitcom Community (2009–2015). She then voiced Diane Nguyen in the animated comedy series BoJack Horseman (2014–2020) and portrayed Ruth Wilder in the comedy drama series GLOW (2017–2019), receiving nominations at the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards for the latter.

In addition to her television work, Brie has featured in films such as Scream 4 (2011), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), The Lego Movie film series (2014–2019), Get Hard (2015), Sleeping with Other People (2015), How to Be Single (2016), The Post (2017), The Little Hours (2017), Promising Young Woman (2020), and Happiest Season (2020). She also wrote, produced, and starred in the films Horse Girl (2020), Spin Me Round (2022), and Somebody I Used to Know (2023). (wikipedia)

• • •

Whoa, that was a rush! As a Downs-only solving experience, that was about as thrilling as it gets. Things kept seeming impossible (so many longish Downs), and then bam, I'd get a crucial Down and then crack some kind of pattern recognition code and boop boop boop, a section would fill itself in. In the NW, in the SE, in the middle-to-NE section, this sort of "uh oh, I'm sunk" followed by "wait! I got it!" cycle kept occurring. And that's not even counting the total leap of faith I had to take on MINIFIG (which I fig-(!)-ured was an actual miniature fruit until I looked at the clue post-solve). I put in GARB, then took out GARB because what long word ends in '-FIG?', then finally had to leave it because everything else looked good. I also had to navigate (!!) ERIE and its FISH without being able to look at the clue for ERIE and having a complete non-clue for FISH (26D: See 31-Across)—eventually, I figured, sure, ERIE's a lake, it's got FISH in it ... why not? And sure enough, why not! When I carefully clacked in the last few letters in REHEARSE (once I realized the clue was asking for a verb, not a noun) (11D: Practice for opening night), I felt like I was defusing a bomb, only I was hoping for an explosion, not a dud (I wanted the "Congratulations" message to pop up, is what I'm saying). Clack ... clack ... clack ... boom. Success. What a ride. I solve Downs-only to make things more challenging on Mondays, but I rarely get an experience this white-knuckly, this borderline disastrous, with this many AHAS. The theme itself is pretty straightforward, a pretty standard variety, but the originality of at least three of the theme answers (MINIFIG, "HI, HONEY," ALISON BRIE), and the semi-harrowing quality of the Downs-only solve made me a fan. If you crashed and burned on your Downs-only solve, believe me, I understand. If you don't solve Downs-only, well that's cool too. You are normal! I assume that, like me, you mostly enjoyed the puzzle, even if you probably found it easier and slightly less exciting.

The clues were often, let's say, less than straightforward. I could only imagine GONDOLAS being propelled by poles (1D: Vessels that may be propelled with poles). "FOR NOW" implies (to me) that things will or are likely to change in the future, which isn't reflected in the more certain phrasing of 3D: "Unless something changes...". I read 14D: "Shucks!" as an embarrassed kind of "Gee!" (like "aw, shucks"), so the dejected exclamation "DRAT!" took some crosses to pick up. FETID is a reasonably ordinary word, but it still didn't leap to mind at 27D: Stinking to high heaven (I weirdly considered REEKY (!?)). On the other hand, I was able to drop FREE WIFI and NETI POTS with zero help from crosses. Same with "DEAR JOHN" and ITALIANS, so it wasn't all struggle. I think that's what made it more interesting—the whoosh of success followed by the feeling of peril and doom ... followed by more of the same. I only made one outright error during the solve, though—wrote in IMARET (!?!) instead of TURRET at 54D: Small tower on a castle. I feel like that's a mistake only an inveterate solver (who is not quite thinking straight) could make. Really made a muck of my SE for a bit. But when you end up with things like YOAE and BRMT as your Acrosses, it's pretty clear you've gone wrong somewhere, and in the SE, it was clear which of the Downs was mostly like the bad egg. So goodbye IMARET, hello (much more ordinary) TURRET. And, eventually, hello successful solve. [addendum: I actually made two errors during the solve—the other one (besides IMARET) was guessing CHEESE PLATE before CHEESE BOARD]

Helped to know who ALISON BRIE is, for sure. Much better that I never saw the clue for her, because I have never seen a single episode of GLOW and don't know anyone who has. I'm sure it's great, but few shows are less on my radar than that one. I have, however, seen ALISON BRIE in many other things: Mad Men, Bojack Horseman, and (most notably) Community, which is definitely where I first saw her (which means I must've started watching Mad Men late, because Mad Men predates Community by two years) (or else I just didn't notice her in Mad Men—her role there (as Pete's wife, Trudy) is much smaller than it is on Community). I was lucky to be able to slap down her full name as soon as I saw that the first part of that answer was likely gonna be ALISON. I imagine there will be many solvers who don't know her name, and who also have never heard of a MINIFIG, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if this puzzle played a little harder than usual for a Monday (if not all *that* hard in the end).


Bullet points:

• 20A: Apt anagram of NOTE (TONE) — think music (took a few seconds for the "apt"ness to kick in for me)
• 50A: ___ Way, block in Lower Manhattan where a popular cookie originated (OREO) — of all the ways to clue OREO, this ... is one of them. I actually don't mind it. Go nuts, as far as I'm concerned. We've seen OREO so many times that every new instance should be *required* to show us something new in the cluing.
• 72A: This is not working! (REST) — "!" signifies a very literal clue. Note the lack of quotation marks around the clue phrase, which means we're looking not for an equivalent of the phrase itself, but for an equivalent of "This." Not working = REST.
• 37A: Channel with a call to order? (HSN) — Home Shopping Network. The pun here feels a little clunky. Why would any channel, or anything that is not a meeting, have a "call to order"? The misdirect is awkward (obviously you "call" HSN to "order" things ... I'm just saying the surface-level meaning of the clue doesn't sound great to my ears)
• 23D: German cry of annoyance ("ACH!") — German "ACH!" (as in BACH), Scottish "OCH!"  (as in LOCH). OCH! There hasn't been an OCH! in the puzzle since 2015! That's quite an OCH dr-OCH-t! (hey, look, the "drought" pun works in Middle English, so ... there)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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Showy daisies / SUN 8-10-25 / First letter of "menorah," in Hebrew / Helpful site for a D.I.Y.'er / Smash to smithereens / Place with moving exhibits / Shakespearean potion ingredient / Basis for a write-off perhaps / Many a hangout in Boystown, Chicago / Bit of blue on a map of Scotland / Radiohead's first #1 album (2000)

Constructor: Adam Wagner and Chandi Deitmer

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Passing Glances" — an "EYE" rebus where one "EYE" square appears in each themer; every theme clue starts with an ellipsis, and the idea is that each one is supposed to start with the phrase "I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE" (63A: Children's game phrase that should start the italicized clues ... or a hint to eight squares in this puzzle) (so the clue describes the spied thing, and each spied thing contains an "EYE" rebus square, or a LITTLE "EYE"):

Theme answers:

• CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN (21A: ... something big and rocky with a Space Force base in it)
• 3D: Showy daisies (OXEYES)
• DONKEY EARS (29A: ... something pointy grown by Pinocchio)
• 13D: Iowan, by another name (HAWKEYE)
• ERLENMEYER FLASK (39A: ... something conical in a chemistry lab)
• 26D: Fast-food chain founded in New Orleans (POPEYE'S)
• JAPANESE YEN (46A: ... something round and metallic with kanji written on it)
• 48D: Hole for a shoelace (EYELET)
• SMILEY EMOJI (84A: ... something yellow and happy in a text message)
• 86D: Shakespearean potion ingredient (EYE OF NEWT)
• BREYER'S ICE CREAM (87A: ... something soft and melty in a black tub)
• 64D: Sleep, informally (SHUTEYE)
• HONEYEATER (96A: ... something feathery sipping on nectar)
• 99D: Scrutinize (EYEBALL)
• DOUBLE-YELLOW LINE (111A: ... something long and painted on a highway)
• 102D: "Ridiculous!" ("MY EYE!")

Word of the Day: HONEYEATER (96A) —

The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family, Meliphagidae, of small to medium-sized birds. The family includes the Australian chats, myzomelas, friarbirds, wattlebirds, miners and melidectes. They are most common in Australia and New Guinea, and found also in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea. Bali, on the other side of the Wallace Line, has a single species.

In total, there are 186 species in 55 genera, roughly half of them native to Australia, many of the remainder occupying New Guinea. With their closest relatives, the Maluridae (Australian fairy-wrens), Pardalotidae (pardalotes), and Acanthizidae (thornbills, Australian warblers, scrubwrens, etc.), they comprise the superfamily Meliphagoidea and originated early in the evolutionary history of the oscine passerine radiation. Although honeyeaters look and behave very much like other nectar-feeding passerines around the world (such as the sunbirds and flowerpeckers), they are unrelated, and the similarities are the consequence of convergent evolution. (wikipedia) 

[TUI (3) — not seen in the NYTXW since 2004 😞] 

The tūī (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) is a medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze coloured with a distinctive white throat tuft (poi). It is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand, and the only species in the genus Prosthemadera. It is one of the largest species in the diverse Australasian honeyeater family Meliphagidae, and one of two living species of that family found in New Zealand, the other being the New Zealand bellbird (Anthornis melanura). The tūī has a wide distribution in the archipelago, ranging from the subtropical Kermadec Islands to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, as well as the main islands. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

• • •

I liked the revealer. I liked that everything being "spied" had a "little 'EYE'" inside it, and I liked that the revealer also made sense of the strange ellipsis-starting clues. Once you know that the clues themselves are written in the style of someone actually playing the game "I Spy," they make a lot more sense. So conceptually, yes, sure, hurray, good job. The execution felt kinda wobbly to me, mostly because "EYE" isn't a particular common letter string to find embedded in a word or phrase, and so (unsurprisingly) some of these answers feel odd or forced or strange. CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN? Is that a place? I assume it is because you're telling me it is, but if CHEYENNE isn't followed by WYOMING (or AUTUMN, actually), then I don't know what it's doing. A Space Force base???? Well, points off for reminding me that Space Force actually exists and is not an ill-conceived and ultimately discarded idea from a scifi show that never made it out of its first season. 

Are there other YENs besides the JAPANESE YEN? I see that the currency is formally called that, but it still felt redundant. I have never heard of an ERLENMEYER FLASK (I'm just assuming that ERLENMEYER is one name, I don't know), but that's on me, I'm sure. Just ... out of my wheelhouse, completely. SMILEY EMOJI ... do I call it that? Happy face emoji ... smiley face emoji ... smile emoji ... I think these are more likely to come out of my mouth. I can't really dispute its real thingness, but over and over again, the answers were either "???" or just slightly off, to my ear. The one that landed best for me was HONEYEATER, first because, well, yay, birds! And second, the HONEYEATER "EYE" is doing what I wish every EYE did in a puzzle like this, i.e. break across two words (or word parts) with no additional words left hanging. DONKEY EARS and SMILEY EMOJI do this successfully as well. It always makes me a little sad when words like (today) MOUNTAIN, FLASK, ICE CREAM, and LINE are there but uninvolved in the actual wordplay. "EYE" just doesn't touch those words or have anything to do with them. It's the most elegant expression of the theme, to have every element in every theme answer "EYE"-involved. But thumbs-up for the concept, for sure, and for a generally well-filled grid overall.

Sadly, the theme was very (very very) easy to uncover. Here's how long it took me to uncover:

I know my five-letter crossword flowers, I do. See also OXLIPS (where's my LIP rebus!?—PURSED LIPS? Hmm, not sure PURSED conveys shrunkenness well enough. "MY LIPS ARE SEALED" (inside eight tiny boxes in this grid)?? ... I'm gonna have to work on this). [Showy daisies], starts with "O," that's OXEYES ... but it wouldn't fit ... so I made it fit! Then looked at the puzzle title ("Passing Glances") and knew I did the right thing. The hardest parts of this puzzle were the themers I didn't know, namely the MOUNTAIN part of CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN and basically the whole of ERLENMEYER FLASK (which ... it is one name, right? ERLENMEYER. Not ERLEN MEYER, like OSCAR MAYER ... [looking it up] ... yes! Named after EMIL (4) Erlenmeyer). But as for the theme, once you find the first "EYE," it's basically unvaried thereafter. Seven more "EYE"s, and you know they're coming, which gives you a leg up on all subsequent themers. Clues were toughish in places, but overall this was pretty average in terms of difficulty, maybe a bit on the easy side. Jet lag is still playing tricks on my mind and body, though, so I may just be tired. 

If you, like me, have never heard of ERLENMEYER FLASK, then I sure hope you understood the clue on ENS (39D: Several characters in nonfiction?). Otherwise, that first "E" in ERLENMEYER might've been a mystery (or you ended up with a mistake). There are "several" ENS (i.e. the letter "n") in the word "nonfiction," which is what that clue for ENS is getting at. "Letteral" clues like that (where the clue is pointing to a letter inside of itself rather than pointing to an answer in conventional fashion) often trip people up, so if that happened to you, you weren't alone, I guarantee it. Also, if you, like me, didn't know MEM (?) (6D: First letter of "menorah," in Hebrew) ... well, I'm less afraid there, as all the crosses seem solid—even if you didn't know MOUNTAIN, I think you can guess from the clue language ("big and rocky") that the answer was probably not gonna be the CHEYENNE FOUNTAIN (I might buy MEF as a Hebrew letter, but CHEYENNE FOUNTAIN—unlikely).

And the rest!:

• 1A: Helpful site for a D.I.Y.'er (EHOW) — still haven't visited this site, ever. Only ever seen it in xwords. "Getting rid of the human editors who formerly identified and approved content to be produced increased profits for the company by a factor of 20–25 times" (wikipedia). So ... probably not going to be visiting it any time soon, then.
• 72A: Alfred E. ___, mascot of Mad magazine (NEUMAN) — still misspelling this name, despite knowing the mascot in question since I was like 6. NEWMAN v. NEUMAN ... I had a girlfriend in college with the last name NEUMAN, you'd think I could manage the distinction, but no. I think my brain's logic must be something like, "well, I obviously liked my girlfriend, and I don't really fancy this Alfred E. guy, so his name must be the other spelling." And yet no.
• 87A: ... something soft and melty in a black tub (BREYER'S ICE CREAM) — forgot to ask: why is the ice cream "soft and melty"??? Is it because we're playing "I Spy" in the back of a hot car after a trip to the supermarket? Because otherwise I don't get it. "Cold and creamy" would make sense. "Soft and melty" is a product failure.
• 12D: Wedge placed next to a wheel to prevent it from moving (CHOCK) — had no idea this had a name. I wanted SHIM (not long enough).
• 31D: ___ idéal (BEAU) — realizing just now that I know the phrase but not (really) what it means: "A mental conception or image of any object, moral or physical, in its perfect typical form, free from all the deformities, defects, and blemishes accompanying its actual existence; a model of excellence in the mind or fancy; ideal excellence" (wordnik). Just sounds like an "ideal" to me, but OK.
• 45D: Newswoman Phillips (KYRA) — no idea, but then I watch TV news exactly zero minutes per year, so ... not surprising.
• 61D: Smash to smithereens (ATOMIZE) — wanted this (the letters fit) but this word doesn't make me think of smashing. It makes me think of ... misting? Doesn't an ATOMIZEr spray mist? Or perfume or whatever? Yes, it "converts a substance [...] to a fine spray" (wordnik). But I guess if you smash something into tiny particles, that is also a form of atomizing.

• 76D: Can you believe it? (-ISM) — I cannot. As in, I cannot believe this non-word continues to get foisted on me year after year. Any belief system is, technically, an -ISM. And if you didn't know, well now you know.
• 90A: Place with moving exhibits (ZOO) — because the animals ... move around? In their cages? Huh. That must be it. Still, weird phrasing.
• 23A: "So weird..." ("HOW ODD...") — don't love the "HOW" dupe (see 1A: EHOW). Also don't love the "YELLOW" dupe (in the clue for SMILEY EMOJI ("something yellow...") as well as in the answer DOUBLE YELLOW LINE)
• 86D: Shakespearean potion ingredient (EYE OF NEWT) — best answer in the grid, I think. Best of the "EYE" crosses, for sure.

That's all for me today. Belated thanks to all the writers who filled in for me while I was away in Santa Barbara, which is basically a perfect place. Sunny and 70s every day, extensive running and bicycle lanes along the oceanfront, at least two really fine cocktail bars ... oh &^$%!!!!!! I was supposed to get in touch with one of you (my gentle readers) about getting a cocktail, and I said I would, and then I got swept up in family stuff and didn't. Dammit! I'm sure the person in question would've been lovely, and ... well, a free drink is a free drink. Ugh. OK, off to write an apology email, I guess. Annnnyway, Santa Barbara has it all. Including, sadly, fires, as well as a cost of living that is likely a bit beyond me. But I will be back, for sure. Here are some photos:

[me stalking the elusive Great Blue Heron (note: not actually elusive)]

[snowy egrets, having a heated discussion]

[these cacti were actually at the Huntington Museum, near Pasadena]

[the view from my balcony]

[it just looks like this ... every night ...]

[base of the Moreton Bay Fig Tree, the "largest ficus macrophylla in the U.S."] 

[every plant looks like it's out of a scifi movie]

[absorbing the local culture]

[my stepbrother rented a giant van to drive the whole family around in, then invented a fake company and had tshirts, hats, and other merch made, including this magnet to put on the side of the van. 100% commitment to the bit!]

[my Old Fashioned at The Good Lion]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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