Purchased souvenirs, informally / MON 9-29-25 / Military mind game, for short / Makeup set containing shadow and mascara / Headwear usually worn metaphorically / Loss-prevention command / Soldier who can stand at attention indefinitely / Run out of clothes?

Constructor: Brian Keller

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only)

THEME: GREETING CARDS (56A: Hallmark products ... or a hint to what to find in the circled squares) — theme answers have a "greeting" ("HI") and then a (playing) "card" inside them, in circled letters:

Theme answers:

• CHICKEN TENDER (20A: Fast-food alternative to a nugget)
• THINKING CAP (28A: Headwear usually worn metaphorically) ("usually"!?!)
• PHIL JACKSON (49A: Coach of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
• HIGH / FIVE (70A: With 10-Across, alternative to a fist bump)

Word of the Day: FDIC (1D: Bank-backing grp. since 1933) —

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933, enacted during the Great Depression to restore trust in the American banking system. More than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. The insurance limit was initially US$2,500 per ownership category, and this has been increased several times over the years. Since the enactment of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to $250,000 per ownership category. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the government of the United States, and according to the FDIC, "since its start in 1933 no depositor has ever lost a penny of FDIC-insured funds". (wikipedia)

• • •

Seems like a concept that needed more time to develop. It certainly needed a better, cleaner execution. Why are all the "greetings" the same, while the "cards" are different? I can imagine one with "YO" "'SUP" "HEY" as the greetings, or something along those lines. Repeating "HI" seemed kind of weak and sad. The split themer is really the worst of the lot. First, it's awkward and ungainly to start your two-part answer in the SW and then finish it in the NE. Feels totally assbackward, and it's just plain ugly on the page. Moreover, even if that answer had been pleasingly laid out, it would still be the worst of the lot simply because unlike with the other answers, the "card" is not buried or hidden At All. You see how "TEN" is hidden inside "TENDER," "KING" inside "THINKING," "JACK" inside "JACKSON" ... that's how you do it. Having a themer where "FIVE" is just "FIVE" makes this answer even more inelegant than it already was, given its horrid layout. And then there's "FIVE" passing itself off as a "card" at all. I mean, yes, technically "FIVE" is a card, but using a numbered card feels like a copout. Arbitrary. You could've used FOUR? SEVEN? The "card"ness of the numbered cards just doesn't come through as strongly. I think ideally you need just face cards. I can't believe there wasn't an "ACE" answer to be had. For some reason TEN rankles way less than FIVE. "TEN" feels like it's up there with the strong cards, whereas FIVE feels ridiculous. So while the core idea is kind of zany and interesting (literalizing GREETING CARDS like that), the execution is less interesting, and HIGH / FIVE in particular feels like a dealbreaker. Unpleasant in multiple ways. I'm not even sure why you need that themer. You'd've been fine with just the three and then rather than sequester HIGH and FIVE in tiny corners, maybe build a more interesting grid overall, one that isn't so choppy (42 black squares = high) and has room for some longer, more interesting fill instead of all this 3-4-5 junk.

["Hi there!"]

Cluing felt harder than usual, for a Monday. Usually I can get most shorter answers very quickly when solving Downs-only, but today my progress consistently felt patchy and uneven, with very few sections that I could tear right through. The NW was the worst section for me to get through, and ended up being the last I finished. At the very end, I was staring at this ... and wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish:

I just could not get my head around what "Purchased" was doing in this clue (4D: Purchased souvenirs, informally). "'Purchased?' ... well, of course souvenirs are purchased, how the hell else are you supposed to get your souvenirs? Steal them?" The clue looked like a plural, but if I put an "S" at the end, it looked very wrong (---CS). After "S," the only other letter that seemed like it would fit after the "C" that would also make a good first letter for -IC was "T," but ---CT wasn't giving me [Purchased souvenirs] either. At some point I realized "H" could work. I'd wanted the [Makeup set containing shadow and mascara] to be EYE KIT (?!), but for some reason when I put in EYE, I couldn't infer the Acrosses in a way that seemed right, so I hesitated. But once I tried the "H" at the end of 4D: Purchase souvenirs, informally, I tried EYE KIT again and was able to infer MERCH from there. 

Other parts of the puzzle didn't stop me cold like that, but it was often pretty slow going. Cluing seemed off a lot of the time. [Covered in water] is a standalone phrase in a way that AWASH is not. The only time I ever hear AWASH is followed by the preposition "in," because AWASH does not, by itself, imply "water." Which is to say, I mostly encounter the word when it's being used metaphorically. My blogging and word processing software mostly auto-saves everything I type, so I forgot SAVE ALL was actually a thing (45D: Loss-prevention command). I thought "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games" were FANTASY. Since the grown-ass adult reading population consumed those books so voraciously, I forgot they were aimed specifically at "teens." I totally blanked on Djokovic's first name, which felt awful, since I've known it for years. I could only think of "the JOKER," which is his nickname, I think, though maybe that's spelled "DJOKER?" I didn't know G.I. JOEs could stand at all, let alone "at attention indefinitely" (40D: Soldier who can stand at attention indefinitely). My experience with most action figures as a kid was they weren't really made to stand up. Their legs were too ... articulated. That VOL. clue was initially one of the worst for me (12D: Button on a remote: Abbr.); I wanted REW or REC because I wanted the circled squares up there in the NE to spell out "FIRE!" Felt so ... right. So ... thematic. But no.

Bullets:

• 25D: Military mind game, for short (PSY OP) — just one "OP?" Feels odd. Also, feels very odd to have "OP" in the puzzle twice (52A: Photo ___ (media events) (OPS)).
• 20A: Fast-food alternative to a nugget (CHICKEN TENDER) — No, the "alternative to a nugget" is a TENDER. Those are the equivalent terms: "nugget" and "TENDER." It's not that it was hard to guess CHICKEN here (in fact, since it's an Across answer, I never saw the clue), but the clue is poorly written, on a grammatical level. You can't introduce CHICKEN in the answer while leaving out all things chickeny in the clue. The "alternative" to a nugget is a "tender"; the alternative to a chicken nugget is a CHICKEN TENDER. There are other types of nuggets, after all.

• 8D: Run out of clothes? (STREAK) — a very good "?" clue, but pretty tough on a Monday when I'm getting no assistance from crosses. Even when I got STREAK it took me a few seconds to realize it was referring to running naked. I thought maybe the colors had "run" in your laundry, causing them to STREAK.

That's it. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

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

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)