Stream with a lot of shade? / FRI 9-26-25 / Antibiotic used to treat anthrax / It might be on display at ComicCon / Flock : geese :: business : ___ / Enemigo de un ratón / Repeated word in the Star Wars" prologue / Indigenous person of northern South America

Constructor: Larry Snyder

Relative difficulty: Medium (by old standards—by recent standards, more Medium-Challenging)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: "Alea iacta EST" (24A: "Alea iacta ___" ("The die is cast")) —

Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") is a variation of a Latin phrase (iacta alea est [ˈjakta ˈaːlɛ.a ˈɛs̺t]) attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on 10 January 49 BC, as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy, between Cesena and Rimini, in defiance of the Roman Senate and beginning a long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase is often used to indicate events that have passed a point of no return.

According to Plutarch, Caesar originally said the line in Greek rather than Latin, as ἀνερρίφθω κύβος anerrhī́phthō kýbos, literally "let a die be cast", metaphorically "let the game be played". This is a quote from a play by Menander, and Suetonius's Latin translation is slightly misleading, being merely a statement about the inevitability of what is to come, while the Greek original contains a self-encouragement to venture forward. The Latin version is now most commonly cited with the word order changed (Alea iacta est), and it is used both in this form, and in translation in many languages. The same event inspired another related idiom, "crossing the Rubicon". (wikipedia)

• • •

Struggled more than usual, but I feel like some of that struggle was caused by sleepiness. I mean, it should not have taken me as long as it did to get MEGHAN, for instance (42D: Duchess of Sussex beginning in 2018). I don't care about royals at all and generally zone out whenever they're mentioned, but still, she's pretty famous. The only name I could think of, though, was CAMILLA (sp?), so ... pfft. And then stuff like VERGE (55A: Border (on)) and SEE (48A: Call at the table?) ... seems like these should've come to me instantly, but they didn't, so ... I think it's just taking my brain longer than usual to come back online this morning. There did seem to be an awful lot of "?" and otherwise trick clues today. Ambiguous or deliberately misleading. Some of it worked—the clue on DELETED SCENES is really quite good (33A: Takes in the trash?). But then some of it worked ... less. Or felt more awkward, anyway. The clue on CREASED, for instance, or HATEWATCH. They're clever, in their way, but they are really ... trying. I feel like the clues themselves are going "Get it? get it? See, it's clever because ..." and I'm like "yeah, I see now ... relax." If something's CREASED, it's (arguably? maybe? if you use language in a weird way?) in need of "evening out" (49A: In need of an evening out?). The "an" before "evening" in the clue makes you think "evening" is a noun meaning "night." So I get the "joke." But I also wouldn't say "this crease needs evening out," ever ("ironing out," yes). So ... the "joke" landed oddly for me. 

[Stream with a lot of shade?] is a more elaborate "joke," but somehow more transparent. It does the same "trick" that the other two "?" clues I've mentioned do, i.e. make at least one word look like it's a different part of speech than what it is. "Takes" looks like it's a verb, but it's a noun. "Evening" looks like it's a noun, but it's really verbal. "Stream" looks like it's a noun, but it's a verb, and then "shade" ... well, that stays a noun, but it looks like it means one thing, but then means another ("shade" as slang for "disdain, criticism, hate"). I'm now realizing that every "?" clue today stopped me cold initially. Weirdly, there are also three clues that end in "?" that aren't "?" clues—they're just quotes that are interrogative, so it looks like there are more "?"s than there are. I should be paying attention to great fill, but I'm somehow in the weeds on "?" clues, which is possibly just my still-warming-up brain trying to even itself out, or else it's the puzzle being annoying, I can't tell. Maybe a little of both. The only thing I really hated in this puzzle, though, was INNER GEEK (3D: It might be on display at ComicCon). First, not a real phrase, shhh, no, stop. Second, if it's "on display," guess what, it's not "INNER." This whole "ooh, look at me, I'm a geek!" thing with ComicCon, you're not a "geek"! You're there to see some panel about the latest Marvel movie or whatever. Again, shhh. I have "HATE" written in the margin of my print-out. That was one of the last answers I got. Actually, the last answer I got was SWILL, a fitting cross for INNER GEEK.

The NW and SE were the toughest for me. Most of the ink on my puzzle print-out is concentrated in those areas. I don't buy most of the alleged collective nouns for animals. I see lists from time to time and think "no one calls them that, no one says that, just say 'group.'" This is what I felt about the FERRETS clue (22A: Flock : geese :: business : ___). As with royals, FERRETS are things I think about precisely never (unless forced), so "business"? If you say so. I have "F. off" written in the margin of my print-out next to FERRETS. I had 1A: Hogwash as TRIPE at first. Without the "W" from SWILL, WEASELED was impossible for me to see (2D: Talked one's way (out of)). The SE was slightly easier, but only because I got BANANA PEEL right away, off the "BA-." Otherwise, no apparent tennis context made HELD SERVE very hard, even after I had HELD (32D: Didn't get broken). Needed almost every cross, as I did for SPEED GUN (a term that never crosses my mind). A SPEED TRAP is a "problem" if you're going 90 (in a 55 zone), but the speeder would never think "hope there are no SPEED GUNs up ahead." CREASED is in that same corner, and I've already said how tough that was for me. So that's three longish answers where I needed almost every cross to get them, all in the same corner. Oh, and another "?" clue down there too (44D: The works? = OEUVRE). This might actually have been "Medium-Challenging" for me, at least compared to recent Fridays. Played more like a Saturday. I'll be surprised if tomorrow's puzzle tests me as much. This puzzle is really trying to be colloquial and current and slangy (BROHUG! EGOSURF! DEEP FAKES!), and I appreciate that. I just wasn't on its wavelength much of the time.

Bullets:

• 5D: One receiving monthly payments (LEASER) — I have "OOF" written next to this one. What an awful word. Isn't the term "LESSOR?" (It is). LEASER sounds like someone trying to say "Lisa." One of those awkward ugly legal terms like LIENEE.
• 10D: Enemigo de un ratón (GATO) — I don't speak Spanish, but I knew enough to get this immediately. Weird to say "enemy." Are we talking about a cartoon? My cat is not the "enemy" of birds, or squirrels, or chipmunks, or that weird bug in the corner, or falling leaves. He's just a vigilant hunter of small things that move. Nothing personal.

• 35D: Antibiotic used to treat anthrax (CIPRO) — I had to take CIPRO in the late '90s / early '00s for something or other. That's when I learned the term. Haven't thought of it since. Needed many crosses for it to come back to me. This is only the second NYTXW appearance ever for CIPRO. First was in 2019 (which is probably the last time I thought of CIPRO) (crossing my fingers that I don't get anthrax).
• 59A: Icelandic saga (EDDA) — I swear to you that I had that final "A" in place and wrote in ... SAGA. It was that kind of morning, I'm telling you.
• 47D: Made some Java, say (CODED) — the capital "J" is the giveaway here, obviously. Coffee "java" would've been lowercase (I assume).
• 22D: Repeated word in the Star Wars" prologue (FAR) — just started at the top: "A long time ago, in a galaxy FAR, FAR away..." The very best thing I've read about "Star Wars" of late (possibly ever) is this Isaac Chotiner interview of Cass Sunstein in the New Yorker a couple days ago—an absolute start-to-finish must-read. At first I thought "surely the 'Star Wars' they're talking about is the whole Reagan / SDI thing, not ... the movie franchise." But no. They're talking about the movie franchise. And Henry Kissinger. It's ... amazing. You almost feel bad for Sunstein. Almost. (Why anyone agrees to be interviewed by Isaac Chotiner, I will never understand.)

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire / THU 9-25-25 / Traveler's aid, familiarly / "Pardon me," in Padua / Anaheim ballplayers / The Chicago Bulls had a pair of them in the 1990s / Shipwreck locales often / Replace the sod of / Property owner subject to a legal claim

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SKIM OFF THE TOP (20A: Illegally siphon funds) — you have to "skim" the FIRST TWO LETTERS (52A: What each Down answer needs from its clue in order to make sense) off the "top" (i.e. from the front) of each Down answer. The "skimmed" letters of every Down answer are identical to the first two letters of their respective clues. So, for example, 31D: Determined is ADSET (i.e. (De)ADSET)

Theme answers:

• all the Downs

Word of the Day: (Sh)INOLA (30D: Shoe polish brand) —

Shinola is a defunct American brand of shoe polish. The Shinola Company, founded in Rochester, New York in 1877, as the American Chemical Manufacturing and Mining Company, produced the polish under a sequence of different owners until 1960. "Shinola" was a trade name and trademark for boot polish. The suffix -ola is a popular component of trade names in the United States. It was popular during the first half of the 20th century and entered the American lexicon in the phrase, "You don't know shit from Shinola," meaning to be ignorant. The brand name was acquired by the retail company Shinola in 2011. [...] In 2011, venture capitalist Tom Kartsotis bought the rights to the brand name, and created a new retail company. The company was founded in 2012, and produces watches and leather goods. (wikipedia)

• • •

The SKIM OFF THE TOP bit is kind of cute ("white collar" crime pun!), but otherwise this one was a chore to solve. Not a particularly hard chore, just an unpleasant one. The missing letters aren't doing anything but missing. It was nice to find out (halfway through) that those letters could be found at the beginning of their answer's respective clues, but that just made the rest of the puzzle easier, not more enjoyable. The fill itself is very much on the dull side. LIENEE? (SH)ORTTONS? (RE)TURF?? Almost all the fill is short. None of the Across fill (besides SKIM OFF THE TOP) is interesting, and only a few of the longer Down answers are things I'd enjoy seeing in a regular puzzle (e.g. (ST)RAIGHTEN UP, (ST)EAMER TRUNK, (SH)RUG IT OFF). This was one of those puzzles where I thought, "this is getting tedious, I should just jump to the revealer down at the bottom so I can figure out what's going on," but I resisted and just plowed through until I came to that revealer "naturally" (i.e. without breaking (ST)RIDE, working off crosses the whole way). All I needed was the first few letters and bam ...

From there on out, as I say, the puzzle got a lot easier (because it just handed me the first two letters of every single remaining Down). There are no particularly hard parts in this puzzle, and no answers that really seem worth commenting on. It's a structural stunt with nothing much going for it, entertainment-wise, except SKIM OFF THE TOP; at least that answer involved wordplay. All the other theme business just involved word manipulation. Word chopping. And the revealer couldn't have been less playful if it tried. Literal in the extreme. 

I went through three stages of "understanding" this theme. The first was Wild. I could see that the Down answers wouldn't fit, but I didn't think they were missing—I thought they were contained in rebus squares. I should've known right off the bat that the [Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire] was AGRA (site of the Taj Mahal, as every longtime solver knows), but since I couldn't remember that immediately, I ended up with this insane answer there instead:

Ah yes, who can forget the ancient city of BLAANGSTRSTA! But when [TEM]PEST wouldn't work (because SKIM OFF THE TOP had to be right), I realized I wasn't dealing with three-letter rebus squares, but rather just two missing squares. Could not see how that was interesting, but thought, whatever, and just started solving Downs with the understanding that the first two letters of those answers would be missing. Weirdly, the puzzle was pretty doable despite my not knowing where or what those missing letters were. So first it was a rebus, then it was a "first two letters" missing, then (after the revealer), all was clear—first two letters found, rest of the puzzle easy, and bland. Paint-by-numbers bland.

Anything else?:

• 2D: Anaheim ballplayers ((AN)GELS) — this made me laugh, as many people in the comments section yesterday claimed never to have heard of this team or its abbrev. (LAA). And yet, here they are ... again! (AN)GELS is the "A" in LAA. Side note: LAA has been used as a baseball abbrev. ten times since 2013. In the Shortz Era, it's also been clued two other ways: ["___ note to follow..."] (toughie!), and [When doubled, one of the Teletubbies] 
• 15A: "Pardon me," in Padua ("SCUSI") — I wrote this in as "SCUSE" as you can see in that first partial grid I posted, above. I watch a lot of Italian films, but since the subtitles are obviously English, I don't get a chance to see how any of the Italian is spelled.

• 16A: Home of Minor League Baseball's SeaWolves (more than 350 miles from the ocean!) (ERIE) — this clue is weird. It seems to think it's doing some kind of "gotcha" or pointing out some apparent irony, but ERIE is on a Great Lake (guess which one!), and the Great Lakes have long been called "the inland seas." "Because of their sea-like characteristics, such as rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons, the five Great Lakes have long been called inland seas" (wikipedia). So since ERIE is on one of said "inland seas," the SeaWolves seems like a highly appropriate name, actually. They're not called the damned OceanWolves, after all.
• 26D: Traveler's aid, familiarly ((TR)IPLE A) — absolutely not. It's AAA. You say "(TR)IPLE A," but it's written exclusively as AAA. I will give you (TR)IPLE A as a baseball answer ((TR)IPLE A is the class of baseball just before the majors) (the SeaWolves are DOUBLE-A). Baseball and [Top credit rating], and [Narrow show width] are the only ways (TR)IPLE A has ever been clued ... before today. 
• 40D: The Chicago Bulls had a pair of them in the 1990s ((TH)REEPEATS) — when you win the championship three times in a row (for the Bulls, '91-93 and '96-'98) (Jordan took time off in between to try to play baseball; he made it as far as ... DOUBLE-A)
• 55D: Shipwreck locales often ((SH)OALS) — one of the few Down answers where knowing the first two letters didn't give the whole answer away. Had to wait for crosses here to make sure it wasn't (SH)ORES (which seemed plausible).

That's it. See you next time. Oh, and Happy 19th birthday to ... this blog! Although, technically ... though the Monday, Sep. 25, 2006 puzzle was the first one I ever blogged, I didn't blog it until Wednesday the 27th, LOL. Timely! Literally no one read that post, as no one knew the blog existed (how could they?). Anyway, that first post is an experimental mess written by someone with no expectation of an audience. You can "enjoy" it here—Lynn Lempel! (the comments on that first write-up are particularly hilarious)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Clothing chain that began as a surf shop / WED 9-24-25 / Dance craze named for a Southern city / Taunt that may follow a gullibility test / Future amaryllis, e.g. / Colorful ring-tailed mammals of Asia / Participate in a blindside on "Survivor," say / 2011 Peace Nobelist ___ Johnson Sirleaf

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FINGERS / CROSSED (54A: With 57-Across, gesture depicted by this puzzle's circled letters) — two things that crossed fingers can mean + a visual depiction of crossed fingers (in circled squares, INDEX crossing MIDDLE):

Theme answers:

• "I HOPE SO" (20A: Possible meaning of 54-/57-Across)
• "I'M LYING" (22A: Possible meaning of 54-/57-Across)

Word of the Day: PACSUN (5D: Clothing chain that began as a surf shop) —

Pacific Sunwear of California, LLC, commonly known as PacSun, is an American retail clothing brand. The company sells lifestyle apparel, along with swim, footwear and accessories designed for teens and young adults. As of 2022, the company operated 325 stores in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. PacSun is headquartered in Anaheim, California, and formerly operated a distribution center in Groveport, Ohio. The company's regional directors, district managers and store positions are located throughout the United States. The company went bankrupt in April 2016 and is now owned by Golden Gate Capital. (wikipedia)

• • •

Oof, PACSUN. If you haven't set foot in a mall for a while, or if you never frequented malls in the first place, then that is going to be your proper noun outlier today, for sure. PACSUN feels like a store I made up in my mental construction of a prototypical mall, a store to fill the space between Auntie Anne’s and Hot Topic. But no, I'm fairly sure I bought a pair of Etnies at the local PACSUN some time in the aughts. Black with a green "E" on the side. Those shoes are long gone, but maybe I can find a picture online ... yeah, something like this:

[Mine might've had green laces]

So I have actually been in a PACSUN, have actually purchased at least one item (two, if you count both shoes) from a PACSUN, and *I* needed several crosses to get it. It will shock no one to discover that PACSUN has never been in the NYTXW before today. So it's a safe bet that that answer will prove at least a minor struggle for a number of solvers. But I'm guessing only minor, as this puzzle is otherwise Monday-easy, with only one other proper noun— ELLEN Johnson Sirleaf—that's likely to impede anyone's progress very much (19D: 2011 Peace Nobelist ___ Johnson Sirleaf). I generally do not remember Nobel Peace Prize winners, no matter how worthy of admiration recipients might be. Sirleaf was president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018, the first elected female head of state in Africa. "She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, in recognition of her efforts to bring women into the peacekeeping process" (wikipedia). She was imprisoned in the '80s for criticizing the government. Punished for criticizing the government!? Well, I never! That sounds terrible. So happy I live in a country where this could never ever (ever) happen. (FINGERS CROSSED!)

The one thing I like about this theme is that it's weird. It's got a wonky picture element, which looks far more like the cross Jesus bears than a pair of crossed fingers.

[Botticelli, 1490-91]

It's got hardly any actual theme answers beyond the revealer. In fact, the revealer takes up as much space as all the other non-pictorial theme material combined. There are two long Acrosses that feel like they should be theme answers, but aren't (CHARLESTON, "MADE YA LOOK!"). But it's an original concept, and the execution is charming, in a rough kind of way.

[Ecce Homo, 2012 partial restoration]

Just a few sticking points today. PACSUN, as I said, and then SIRI, which feels like a rookie mistake on my part. SIRI clues are frequently punny or otherwise misdirective, so I'm surprised I didn't see through that one faster (8D: One who's given many instructions nowadays). Did not know ELLEN Sirleaf, as I said, and then I had my ten thousand as TEN K, not TEN G (12D: 100 C-notes). TENK is exclusively a race length answer (sixteen NYTXW appearances all time). All that trouble and pseudo-trouble came in the N and NE. The only other place I sputtered a bit was at INTERNED / NARKED (man that "word" looks bad). Something about the clue on INTERNED made it tough for me to get ahold of (45A: Worked to learn); I thought "Worked" means simply "strove," not "did actual labor." And as for NARKED, I mean, look at it. Come on. It's like you typo'd MARKED. Or NAKED. The word is NARCED. I know English doesn't like a hard "C" preceding an "E," but too bad, you're gonna have to make an exception here, as NARKED just looks too silly. Bizarrely, NARKED has now appeared in the NYTXW two times, and NARCED ... zero. And yet the NARKED clue itself seems to know that it's the variant (47D: Squealed: Var.). I now demand that at least two constructors put NARCED in their upcoming puzzles. To even things out, at least. Also, still looking for OZU. NARCED and OZU, my White Whales.

[23A: Cannonball Adderley's musical instrument, informally]

Bullets:

• 17A: Participate in a blindside on "Survivor," say (VOTE) — how is this show still on the air? It's like a zombie, going on indefinitely. Seriously, I think it's on Season 47 or something like that ... Holy Crap, Survivor 49 (!!!!!!?) premieres literally tonight. Anyway, I watched many seasons of the show back in the aughts and then it got old and tiresome and reality TV in general began to feel like a soul-rotting scourge so I stopped. I do not recall anything called a "blindside."
• 59A: Taunt that may follow a gullibility test ("MADE YA LOOK!") — this is a fun answer, though I've never heard the phrase "gullibility test" before. A more specific context would've made for a more entertaining clue. I like that this answer is parallel with the CHARLESTON (18A: Dance craze named for a Southern city). If someone suddenly broke into the CHARLESTON, they would definitely make me look.
• 32D: Future amaryllis, e.g. (BULB) — brain got confused as to what exactly an "amaryllis" was. Briefly imagined it was a kind of butterfly and kinda wanted PUPA here. 
• 34D: Colorful ring-tailed mammals of Asia (RED PANDA) — adorable. A nice way to end this write-up.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Blue-skinned race in "Avatar" / TUE 9-23-25 / Gymgoer's goal, perhaps / Country that dropped "western" from its name in 1997 / Some Rhode Island Reds / Word before deck or hand / Iliac artery feeder

Constructor: Jacob Stulberg

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: JUG BAND (40A: *Where the starts of the answers to the five starred clues can all be found) — theme answers start with JUG BAND instruments

Theme answers:

• SPOONS OUT (18A: *Serves, as soup or ice cream)
• WASHBOARD ABS (23A: *Gymgoer's goal, perhaps)
• JUG BAND (40A: *Where the starts of the answers to the five starred clues can all be found)
• STOVEPIPE HAT (51A: *Accessory for Abraham Lincoln)
• BONES UP ON (63A: *Refreshes one's knowledge of)

Word of the Day: Bones (see 63A) —

The bones, also known as rhythm bones, are a folk instrument that, in their original form, consists of a pair of animal bones, but may also be played on pieces of wood or similar material. Sections of large rib bones and lower leg bones are the most commonly used bones, although wooden sticks shaped like true bones are now more often used. Metal spoons may be used instead, as is common in the United States, known as "playing the spoons". The technique probably arrived in the U.S. via Irish and other European immigrants, and has a history stretching back to ancient China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. They have contributed to many music genres, including 19th century minstrel shows, traditional Irish and Scottish music, the blues, bluegrass, zydeco, French-Canadian music, and music from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. The clacking of the loose rib bones produces a much sharper sound than the zydeco washboard or frottoir, which mimics rattling a bone up and down a fixed ribcage. (wikipedia)

• • •

I have absolutely no experience of JUG BANDs that are not headed by Emmet Otter, although I now realize that my childhood memories have conflated Emmet Otter's JUG BAND Christmas with the animatronic Country Bear Jamboree feature at Disneyland, which I might be conflating with various animatronic musical acts at Showbiz Pizza (RIP, Showbiz—you were better, and weirder, than Charles Entertainment Cheese Pizza ever was).

If you'd asked me to name the instruments in a JUG BAND before I'd solved this puzzle, I would've been like, "Well, jug, first of all ... washboard (ding!) ... maybe spoons (ding ding!) ... some kind of makeshift string instruments? (bzzt!)." I had to look up "bones" (though I correctly surmised that they were literally bones, at least originally), and I still can't really conceive of how one plays a "stovepipe." Wikipedia doesn't have a separate entry for "Stovepipe (instrument)," but has it filed instead under "Jug (instrument)":

The stovepipe (usually a section of tin pipe, 3" or 4"/75 or 100 mm in diameter) is played in much the same manner, with the open-ended pipe being the resonating chamber. There is some similarity to the didgeridoo, but there is no contact between the stovepipe and the player's lips.

So it's jugesque. My main question today is a cultural one, namely "how does anyone know what a JUG BAND is (anymore)?" How popular are they? Where? With whom? In terms of broader pop culture, where do you even see them? Do younger people know about Emmet Otter? If not, what are their JUG BAND touchstones? Every experience of JUG BANDs that I have involves puppets or animatronic animals, which seems crazy to me. It seems like the kind of musical act that, in live-action fictional representations, might lend itself (strongly) to caricatures. Maybe that's why the JUG BAND scene is dominated by animal puppets. Annnnnyway, today we get JUG BAND instruments. Some of them. And then a very dull Tuesday puzzle on top of that. I can't say I had fun solving it, but I can say I had fun doing 15 minutes' worth of JUG BAND research.

[with Jughead, inaptly, on drums]

I have almost nothing to say about the non-theme material today. Lots of repeaters, no surprises. Haven't thought about THE CW for a while (1D: "Superman & Lois" airer). Is it still a network? ... apparently it is, look at that. I haven't had cable TV for so long, I no longer know which of seemingly hundreds of networks are still viable. But I do remember that Superman & Lois once existed, and that it aired on an off-brand network. It's possible I wrote in THE WB at first. I'm writing at length about this clue because it's possibly the only clue that made me think much of anything. Oh, I had to think about what things are in the gym (there are definitely MATs, but they are not among the first, say, ten things that spring to mind, so that clue was less easy than others) (30D: Gym sight). I wrote in ENOS as the [Son of Adam], but ENOS is not the son of Adam. He's the son of (... wait for it ...) SETH! Who is, in fact, the son of Adam. ENOS is not only the son of SETH, he is also a baseball player in the Hall of FAME (really awkward crossreference there) (58A: Slaughter in the Baseball Hall of 61-Across). Different ENOSes I assume (oof, man, I do not recommend trying to write ENOS in the plural; feels ... bad). That's it for trouble. Nearly nonexistent.

[Just pretend they're saying "ENOS"]

Bullets:

• 4D: Doesn't give proper respect (SLIGHTS) — really (really? really) thought this was spelled SLEIGHTS. Like Janet LEIGH (27A: Hollywood's Janet or Vivien).
• 43A: "On the Road Again," for one (TITLE) — hilariously arbitrary. Stunningly arbitrary. Spectacularly arbitrary. Of all the millions of TITLEs in the history of the word, today's example is ... a Willie Nelson movie title track from 1980?! Do JUG BANDs play this? Well, yes and no (yes they play a song by that title, no it is not the Willie Nelson song):

• 2D: Country that dropped "western" from its name in 1997 (SAMOA) — occupied by various "western" colonial forces (Germany, then NZ after WWI, then the U.N.), SAMOA gained its independence in the 1962 and finally eliminate "Western" from its name in 1997. The country does, in fact, lie just "west" of American SAMOA.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Carefree motto, in modern lingo / MON 9-22-25 / Wine choice in southern France / Like speakeasies and refrigerators, at times / Word before food or mate / Low-scoring deadlock / Synthetic fabric once common on sweaters

Constructor: Dena R. Verkuil and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Challenging (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "D'OH!" (71A: Cry from Homer ... or a phonetic hint to the ends of 18-, 27-, 48- and 62-Across) — names and phrases that end with a "D'OH" sound:

Theme answers:

• RED BORDEAUX (18A: Wine choice in southern France)
• JUSTIN TRUDEAU (27A: Canadian P.M. who is the son of another Canadian P.M.)
• SUPER NINTENDO (48A: Platform for Donkey Kong Country)
• COOKIE DOUGH (62A: Chunks found in Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream)

Word of the Day: MARIO Puzo (67A: "The Godfather" author Puzo) —

Mario Francis Puzo (/ˈpuːzoʊ/; Italian: [ˈmaːrjo ˈputtso, -ddzo]; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author and screenwriter. He wrote crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001. (wikipedia)

• • •

My daughter is GEN Z. Solidly GEN Z. She is twenty-five. In fact, she is exactly twenty-five, as today is her birthday. True story. Anyway, I'm telling you all this so you will understand why that GEN Z clue was a huge wince (1D: Kids these days). Maybe the very youngest members of GEN Z are still, technically, kids (i.e. under 18) but kids these days are definitely, solidly Generation Alpha. That is, *all* members of Generation Alpha are kids, but only a fraction of GEN Z are kids. If you are very old and still think "Millennials" are young people (they're middle-aged), and if you don't really know anyone GEN Z, I'm sure the "Kids these days" clue seemed cute and accurate. And I'll give you cute. But accurate it is not. Really surprised the editors didn't can that one. Also, on an extremely related note, YOLO is not "modern lingo" (36D: Carefree motto, in modern lingo). It is decidedly bygone. Like ... it started dying real soon after it became a thing in the early '10s (after Drake popularized it in the lyrics of "The Motto" (2011) and then The Lonely Island put out a "YOLO" song with Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar (2012)). You can see actual lexicographers here talking about how that term died a hard and fast death. It fared poorly in the 2012 Word of the Year competition. Here's Ben Zimmer talking with Katherine Martin in Vanity Fair in early 2013:

__Zimmer:__I was always a fan of YOLO, even after the backlash hit, because for someone who watches the rise and fall of words, it kind of gave you a whole story of this very rapid development over the course of 2012 and its fall from grace, as well. When I wrote a column on it in August, I found out around that time that Katie Couric was starting her syndicated talk show and that she was going to have this regular feature, “What’s Your YOLO?” And when I heard that, I thought that’d have to be the death knell for YOLO.

__Martin:__We’re not convinced that it will necessarily stay with us in the long term. If you look at a Google Trends for searching, searches for YOLO peaked in April and then they began to plummet again, and they now seem to have evened out at a much lower level. By the time we were talking about the Word of the Year, we felt that YOLO was already passé. It was felt to be past its heyday; there was comment about there already being a backlash against it. Katie Couric was talking about YOLO.

Katie Couric, slang killer! Anyway, GEN Z were kids in 2012. YOLO was "modern slang" in 2012. It is not 2012 anymore. Lord, what I wouldn't give for 2012 right now, but ... nope, time opens all wounds and there is no going back.

Conceptually, I think this is a pretty cute theme. Hate the revealer though. It's flaccid. These revealers with no sass or zazz or pop, no wordplay, they depress me. Just "D'OH"? Not enough juice in that thing. But I like all the different "D'OH"-sounding endings. Very creative. Didn't love RED BORDEAUX as an answer. Felt like the kind of answer you use when you definitely need your theme answer to come out to 11 letters to make symmetry work. From a Downs-only perspective, parsing that one was rough, as was parsing JUSTIN TRUDEAU. If you don't know the theme and can't look at the Across clues, well then JUSTIN is likely to look the way it did to me: like two words. "JUST IN ... what, TIME? CASE?!" And TRUDEAU crosses were hard to come by. Had DAB ON (?) before RUB ON (30D: Apply, as ointment), and no idea about RAIDED or CODDLE or AREA MAP or TOUT at first pass (I had nothing for the first three, and HYPE for that last one). I was all the way down to the bottom of the grid before I got my first themer filled in (COOKIE DOUGH! Love Half Baked!) (the ice cream, not the movie—the movie remains the only movie I've ever walked out of). But COOKIE DOUGH didn't give me the theme. Only after getting SUPER NINTENDO, and then remembering that D'OH was at the bottom of the grid, did I have my own "D'OH!" moment and (finally) come back around to TRUDEAU and BORDEAUX.

The grid is a pangram—contains all the letters of the alphabet at least once. This used to be the kind of thing that constructors occasionally aspired to, but thankfully it fell out of favor as *trying* for the pangram often compromises basic fill quality. Also, no one cares about pangrams and most people don't notice. Still, I notice, and as pangrams go, this one doesn't feel too strained. To be clear, I think it's a non-achievement that no one should ever aspire to (just make the puzzle as good as you can!), but I don't think any real harm was done today. When your themer set already has the "X" "J" and "K" in it, you've only go got the "Z" and "Q" that are likely to give you any trouble, and the "Q" is pretty seamlessly handled today with SHAQ / QUACKED, so ... no foul. 

Bullets:

• 68A: Frequently, to a poet (OFT) — an old poet, or a pretentious poet, yes.
• 18A: Wine choice in southern France (RED BORDEAUX) — pretty sure you can make that "choice" anywhere in the world they serve wine? "Wine from southern France" makes more sense.
• 38A: Where canines sleep (DOG BEDS) — our dogs died in 2019 and 2020, respectively, but we kept their dog beds and one of them is definitely now a cat bed. It takes up way too much space on the floor, and we keep thinking we should do something different with that space, but then I come downstairs and see Alfie lounging in the middle of that giant pillow and I don't have the heart to get rid of it. So this raggedy-ass dog bed is just gonna sit on our living room floor until god knows when, I guess. 

[ignoring cat bed, sleeping on (grimy!!) dog bed]

[in species-appropriate bed, when he was much tinier]

• 55D: Word before food or mate (SOUL) — I am remarkably bad at "word that can follow/precede x or y"-type clues. The RAIDED clue, which I also struggled with, is also in this same family of clue (19D: Like speakeasies and refrigerators, at times)

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)

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✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)
• Finger Lakes Crossword Competition (Ithaca) (Sat., Oct. 18, 2025)

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📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...