Fancy one-handed basketball shot / MON 10-6-25 / Cat's little pink paws, cutesily / Skaters who do lifts and twizzles / Ralph who ran for president four times / Whoopi's role in 1985's "The Color Purple" / Sun phenomenon that can cause radio blackouts / Popular brand of hiking sandals

Constructor: Hannah Binney

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: PEOPLE FOOD (59A: What a dog desires from the dinner table ... or a hint to 17-, 25-, 36- and 47-Across) — familiar phrases made out of a body part (i.e. parts of "PEOPLE") and a FOOD:

Theme answers:

• FINGER ROLL (17A: Fancy one-handed basketball shot)
• ARM CANDY (25A: Good-looking companion on the red carpet, say)
• KNUCKLE SANDWICH (36A: Punch in the mouth, slangily)
• TOE BEANS (47A: Cat's little pink paws, cutesily)

Word of the Day: twizzle (28D: Skaters who do lifts and twizzles = ICE DANCERS) —

 

A twizzle is "a multirotational, one-foot turn that moves across the ice" in the sport of figure skating. First performed by David Grant in 1990, the International Skating Union (ISU) defines a twizzle as "a traveling turn on one foot with one or more rotations which is quickly rotated with a continuous (uninterrupted) action". It is most often performed in ice dance, although single skaters and pair skaters also perform the element. Twizzles have been called "the quads of ice dance" because like quadruple jumps in other disciplines, twizzles are risky and technically demanding.

• • •

[George "The Iceman" Gervin]

Ah, I like this one, mainly because it reminds me of my former dogs and current cats. My cats want nothing, or very little, to do with PEOPLE FOOD. Alfie will lick an ice cream bowl, sort of, sometimes, but mostly they just want their cat food. Or their treats, they really live for those Greenies. Every morning, after second breakfast (yes, second breakfast, don't ask), Ida gets up on the counter while I'm making coffee in anticipation of a little game I call "playing treats." "You wanna play Treats?," I ask. She does. So I get out the little plastic carton (we buy them in bulk), and I shake a few into my palm and then I bounce them across the counter and onto the floor and she chases them like they're prey. Alfie needs to have his Treats handed to him daintily. He does not play Treats. Too lazy, or too dignified, not sure which. But Ida goes sliding across the kitchen tiles, or the wooden floors, swatting and batting and devouring every treat I throw for her. But PEOPLE FOOD? ...  I've seen these damned cats turn their nose up at tuna. Honest-to-god tuna, and they're like "meh, where is kibble and/or Treats!?" Weirdos. My dogs, on the other hand, would eat anything. Dog food, PEOPLE FOOD, cat food, dish towels that got soaked in turkey drippings, whatever. But only the cats have TOE BEANS. Alfie has the best TOE BEANS. His paw pads are all dark except one on his forepaw, which is pink, so he has a special weird toe bean. My daughter once had a t-shirt made for me, based on the (now long canceled) TV show Alphas, that said "ALFIES" on it. It mimicked the logo of the show (multiple cat silhouettes instead of multiple human silhouettes) and then had a little cat paw icon with Alfie's signature toe bean anomaly. Here I am wearing the shirt at an Elvis Costello concert a few years back, the only time I've ever been recognized by anyone outside of a crossword tournament (Elaine here was like "I know you" and I'm like "uh ... I don't think so" and she says "Rex Parker?" and I was like "Whoa, yes, OK, hi.")

And here is Proof of Toe Bean:

Today's revealer really did its job. I thought there was some kind of hand theme going on—I had the FINGER and KNUCKLE answers and didn't recognize ARM CANDY was even part of the theme, so when I hit PEOPLE FOOD, the whole concept locked into place. I hadn't even thought about the food angle. When I'm solving Downs-only, I don't tend to think too hard about the (Across) themers unless / until I have to. So the revealer revealed, and all the theme answers are interesting phrases, and the grid is clean, and I didn't get tripped up anywhere, so I'm pretty happy.

[Dutchess and Gabby eying the PEOPLE FOOD]

I had one initial error today. I wrote in "DON'T STAND" (?) instead of "DON'T GET UP" (3D: "Stay seated"). I got out of that one when I ended up with SENE at 23A, which is obviously not a thing. At first I thought maybe EPIC was wrong (24D: "Beowulf" or the "Iliad"), but then I decided STAND was wrong, and GET UP slid right into its place. I didn't make a mistake with WENT, but I balked at it and refused to write it in because the clue seemed off (39D: Left the area). I mean ... [Left] would do just as well. What's this "the area" stuff?? It adds nothing. That's a better clue for, say, WENT AWAY, not just WENT. So as I say, I just left it, and ended up finishing with it, which is why it's highlighted in today's answer grid (above) (the highlighted answer is almost always the very last thing I entered in the grid—I just leave the cursor where it is, take a screenshot, and that's that).

[10D: Music genre for Bob Marley]

Additional notes:

• 31A: Whoopi's role in 1985's "The Color Purple" (CELIE) — this seems hard for a Monday. I never saw it, as it's an Across answer. I think I would've remembered the name, but I'm not sure. It's funny (-ish) that CELIE is the second Whoopi role I can think of that appears from time to time in crosswords. The other is ODA Mae Brown, the character she played in Ghost (for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) (ODA is also old school crosswordese, most often clued as [Harem room] or [Seraglio section]). CELIE has now appeared in the NYTXW 14 times, all of them with a Color Purple-related clue.
• 33D: Secret compartment, informally (HIDEY HOLE) — one of a very nice set of four long Downs today. Here's Chippy, our resident (front porch) chipmunk, in his HIDEY HOLE (of sorts):

• 43A: Popular brand of hiking sandals (TEVA) — the very phrase "hiking sandals" sounds like an oxymoron to me, but as someone who has developed toe (bean) blisters lately due to semi-dramatic increase in walking, I may have to look into some free-toe alternative to normal footwear. Or else just tape my toes. Or get a shoe with a wider toe box. Or just lie around on the couch watching movies and stop walking altogether. Somehow running (which I also do) has never given me blisters, but walking ... bah. I feel betrayed by walking, honestly.

Thanks to Rafa and Eli for filling in for me while I recovered from facial surgery that was way more ... involved (and gruesome) than I thought it would be. Basal cell carcinoma on the nose ... I've had better times at the doctor! Anyway, I get to wear a nose bandage for a couple weeks, so I'm gonna get a fedora and a suit and pretend I'm Jake Gittes from Chinatown. I'm sure that reference will go over Big with my students.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Portree is the capital of this isle / SUN 10-5-25 / Rapper with a feline-sounding name / Ad Council spots, for short / Swiss locale of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum / Proofreader's Mark

Constructor: John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Easy/Medium

THEME: ALL TOO WISE — Common two-word phrases have a Y added to the end of both words to make wacky new phrases.

Word of the Day: STAR APPLE (96A: Purple fruit with a distinctive inner shape) —

(Redirected from Star apple) Chrysophyllum cainito is a tropical tree of the family Sapotaceae. It is native to the Isthmus of Panama, where it was domesticated.^[3] It has spread to the Greater Antilles and the West Indies and is now grown throughout the tropics, including Southeast Asia.^[4] It grows rapidly and reaches 20 meters in height. The fruit is globose and typically measures from 2 to 3 inches in diameter.^[7] When ripe, it usually has purple skin with a faint green area appearing around the calyx. A radiating star pattern is visible in the pulp.

 

• • •

Hello everyone, it's Eli filling in for Rex on this fine Sunday. We're getting actual autumnal temperatures in LA so far, and I've been enjoying Oktoberfest celebrations at my local brewery, so I'm in a fine mood today. Let's jump right in!

Theme answers:

• CLASSY MATEY (22A: Sailor who drinks only the finest grog?)
• GOODY COPY (24A: Knockoff version of a sweet treat?)
• CRANKY CASEY (34D: Actor Affleck when he needs a nap?)
• MOUTHY HARPY (39D: Half-woman, half-bird, all attitude?)
• HANDY BELLY (43A: Convenient spot for a cat nap?)
• FORTY WORTHY (62A: Suitable for the middle-aged?)
• FISHY HOOKY (80A: Suspicious absence from school?)
• COCKY PITY (102A: "How sad. You actually think you can win," e.g.?)
• STEAMY IRONY (104A: A locksmith getting stuck in bedroom handcuffs, say?)

Wow. I don't think I realized how much theme content there was until I had to type it all out. The puzzle is titled "All Too Wise," but all I can think is "Why? WHHHYYYYYY?" Ok, I'm being a bit harsh to try to make a joke. The theme works fine, though some of the answers are notably stronger than the others. I most enjoyed CLASSY MATEY (can't turn down a good grog), MOUTHY HARPY (A+ clue on that one), and FORTY WORTHY (for the pure silliness). I also appreciated that CRANKY CASEY brought attention to Casey Affleck. I feel like Ben is seen far more frequently in puzzles, but Casey is also a pretty prominent actor. The rest of the themers didn't do much for me, though something about the phrase "bedroom handcuffs" in 104A does make me snicker a bit.

41D: Benny Hill theme song

The fill doesn't suffer too badly for all of that theme density. BOWER (53D: Garden shelter) is not a word I really care to remember; for some reason it just bores me. I'm also keeping a close eye on CHINESE TEA (42D: Oolong or lapsang souchong). I mean, yes, it's factual; something about that exact phrasing just seems oddly specific to me. I enjoy drinking tea, and I don't know that I've ever gone to a tea house and asked for "Chinese Tea," specifically. I'm going to allow it, but watch yourself, counselor. I'm also a little confused about IT'S A HIT (59A: Agent's good news). Agent? I work in entertainment, and I can't imagine anyone waiting for their agent to tell them their project is doing well. I like it as a grid entry, but that clue has me scratching my head.

The only two things I have marked with a full frowny face are ICKY POO (81D: Disgusting, in totspeak) and OVERHOT (57A: Scorching). For icky poo, I just don't like cutesy-speak, even when it's designated as for toddlers. I feel like a toddler would say "Icky," and an adult who was trying to hard to meet them at their level would say "Icky poo." I just had a reversion to the phrase when I read it. And overhot (over hot?) just feels like "not a thing." I live in the San Fernando Valley. We spend a good portion of every Summer (and Fall, usually) in triple digits. I've never heard someone refer to it as "over hot" before. Overheat? Sure! Over hot? No.

Those two aside, solid puzzle! It took me a little longer than my average Sunday, but it's possible that's just because I was trying to remember things to blog (also, see above about celebrating Oktoberfest). A perfectly cromulent way to spend a Sunday solving.

Stray Thoughts:

• 43D Actor Bill of "Barry" (HADER)— I loved Barry, but to me, Hader's masterpiece is Mickey on Bob's Burgers.

• 1A: Classic target of a troll (BILLY GOAT)— Really fun clue, but as a Cubs fan, this always makes me think of the Curse of the Billy Goat. I never believed in it, but that didn't stop me from naming the beer I brewed during the 2016 World Series run Goatbuster IPA. 
• 21A: Kindle competitor (NOOK) — Is it, though?
• 84A: Taps on the snoot (BOOPS) - If you need a snoot to boop (for some reason, cutesy talk doesn't bother me with dogs), here's Huckleberry for all your booping needs:

• 35A: Projectionist's item (FILM REEL) - I'm lucky to have a wife who works in film restoration, so in recent weeks I've been able to see screenings of either restorations or film prints of The Sound of Music, Ed Wood, Tron, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Film is awesome. Support it.
• 88A: Stooge who said "Soitenly!" (CURLY) - Speaking of my wife and classic film, in what most people would assume to be a gender role reversal, my wife LOVES the Three Stooges. I've grown to appreciate them (especially Moe, who worked like crazy to keep that act alive and his family employed over the decades), but I've always preferred the Marx Brothers.
• 72D: "___, Silver!" (HIYO) — I'm the very specific kind of nerd who loves singing barbershop music. So, Lone Ranger references always make me think of the Gas House Gang:

Ok, thanks for spending some of your Sunday with me! Rex should be back tomorrow (I think). Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

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Field of unknowns / SAT 10-4-25 / Vulcans, for one / Vittorio who directed "Bicycle Thieves" / Home of Banff National Park / Result of sleeping in , say / ___ Johnson, inventor of the Super Soaker / They may stop the presses

Constructor: Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Easy / Medium



THEME: None

Word of the Day: FARRO (37D: Grain with a nutty flavor) —

Farro (/ˈfæroʊ/ ^ⓘ) is a grain of any of three species of hulled wheat, namely einkorn, emmer, or spelt, sold dried and cooked in water until soft. It is used as a side dish and added to salads, soups and stews.

• • •

Hey friends! It's Rafa here subbing for Rex. I hope you all enjoyed my Friday puzzle yesterday, but today I'm here to talk about the Saturday puzzle!

This kind of wide-open middle is pretty much Ryan McCarty's trademark. I find that these kinds of grid have a very specific solve flow. They always start slow for me. There aren't too many toeholds, particularly in the middle, since there is no short fill with familiar cluing to help anchor the solve. But, eventually, one of the long entries falls into place, then another, and it all comes together *so fast* and it's *so satisfying* ... since the middle is super interconnected, each answer gives lots of new letters in other answers in an insanely gratifying crossword snowball effect.

This is Banff National Park in ALBERTA

The price to pay, however, is that the NW and SE corners are pretty disconnected from the rest of the grid. I guess there's no crossword free lunch. They are meaty enough that they feel like a satisfying puzzle in themselves, but it can be frustrating to feel stuck getting into one of those corners after already having made the initial breakthrough in the center of the grid.

This is PATAGONIA (the place in South America, not the brand)

OK, let's talk about this specific puzzle. I really enjoyed it! Ryan really always brings his absolute A game. Nobody else is making this kind of puzzle like he is. Just look at the 7(!!!!)-stack in the middle: PATAGONIA, ALIEN RACE, GLADSTONE, BABY STEPS, RIDESHARE, GAG ORDERS, FIRST TEST. And all that crossing BIG SCENE, PLAYS DEAD, HE SAID SHE SAID, LATE START, CAR LOANS. It's just amazing. I'll nitpick by saying I'm not really sure if FIRST TEST is really a thing. Sure, those two words can absolutely go together, but it feels a little Green Painty. I'd also never heard of C STORES, but that's probably on me. Is that expression familiar to you? But I really cannot emphasize enough how impressive it is to have all these juicy long answers in the center with no gluey bits of short fill.

This is an ELAND

Maybe another nit is it didn't feel like there were too many satisfying tricky wordplay clues. With a grid like this, though, I tend to find that satisfaction comes more from chipping away at the giant gaping center than from the cluing. And too many oblique wordplay clues can make it too daunting to get any sort of foothold. Anyways .... tradeoffs, as always!

Alright, I hope you all are well! Somehow it's October already. (The older I get the more I find myself saying "wow time goes by so fast now!" and I don't think it's ever going to stop. Oh well!)

Bullets:

• 2D LORELEI [Legendary rock singer?] — I loved this clue, actually! Lorelei is a siren (of the kind that stands of a rock and lures sailors to their death by singing hypnotically)
• 31D RAREBIT ["Welsh" dish with melted cheese] — This was new to me but I looked it up and it looks kind of amazing. Melted cheese? Yeah, sign me up.
• 16A MRS MAISEL ["Marvelous" TV character played by Rachel Brosnahan] — This show has been on my to-watch list for ages! Is it worth getting into now? Is it not cool anymore? Let me know please!
• 12D YREKA [California town thought (incorrectly) to be named from a backward "bakery" sign] — Loved the Northern California representation! (The most accepted origin for the name is from the Shasta language)

Signed, Rafa

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Like Miss Piggy and Captain Kirk, by birth / FRI 10-3-25 / Service to foster parents? / Professional juggling act? / One end of a lap / Something raised during Oktoberfest / Not listen to, as on Spotify / When repeated, a nonverbal "Can you hear me?" / Graduates in green-and-black regalia, in brief

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Rafael Musa

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Taylor Swift new release day! — jk, there's no theme (Life of a Show Girl does come out today, though)

Word of the Day: Alfresco (43A: Alfresco dining spot = TERRACE) —

: taking place or located in the open air : outdoor, outdoors 

In addition to describing a type of dining, alfresco can also describe a kind of painting. The word fresco, which comes from the Italian adjective fresco, meaning "fresh," refers to a method of painting on fresh plaster. Although the "outdoors" sense of alfresco is by far the most common in current use, the term is sometimes used to describe painting done in the fresco manner—that is, on fresh plaster. (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Lord help me, my first answer was IOWAN (16A: Like Miss Piggy and Captain Kirk, by birth). That's one of those bits of trivia that I feel guilty for knowing. I don't even know *how* I know Kirk is IOWAN, but it's not the kind of "knowledge" I'm exactly proud of. Felt a bit like cheating. If it hadn't been my first answer, if I hadn't whiffed on the first few clues I looked at, I wouldn't have found my knowing the answer so (semi-)embarrassing. But because it's the answer that gave me my first push, I felt like I'd accidentally discovered Easy mode, like the puzzle was stooping to my HALFASS level just to give me a chance. But once IOWAN went in, then bam, it's SKIP (and not MUTE) (1D: Not listen to, as on Spotify) and bam, it's SANDS, which is what I wanted initially but couldn't confirm (1A: Smooths out some rough edges), and bam, it's KNEES (cute; 14A: One end of a lap). And I never struggled again. All 'cause I know where some fictional characters were "born." In the olden days, IOWAN would've been clued via M*A*S*H's Radar O'Reilly (born in Ottumwa). . . actually, I'm not seeing him in any of the clues for IOWAN (or IOWA, for that. matter). How strange. He was iconically from Iowa. Wait, was Hawkeye also from Iowa. Because Hawkeyes are Iowans the way Sooners are Oklahomans, so ... was that entire M*A*S*H unit from Iowa!? No, Klinger was from Toledo, for sure. Oh, and it turns out Hawkeye was, bizarrely, from Crabapple Cove, ME. For future reference, the people used in NYTXW clues for IOWAN include Grant Wood, Herbert Hoover, Buffalo Bill, John Wayne, and Johnny Carson, as well as (back in the day) a senator named Hickenlooper and a VP named Wallace (the very first IOWAN clue, 1944)

After Miss Piggy and Captain Kirk came to my rescue, I was fine. Nothing more than minor hiccups the rest of the way, and even an occasional feeling of whoosh-whoosh zoom-zoom. Like here, for instance:

Those three Downs in the NW did not exactly come charging out of the gates, but once they went in, whoosh, there went WORK-LIFE BALANCE, and the whole grid opened up (33A: Professional juggling act?). Overall, the puzzle felt solid and smooth, if not as spicy as I tend to expect from these (accomplished) constructors. "PLEASE BE PATIENT" is a very real phrase, but it reminds me of being on hold, and of computer voices pretending to care about me or my time or my struggle to talk to a human representative, so I don't like it at all. I do, however, like CRYBABIES and "ASK ANYONE!"—that SW corner is nice. The rest of the long answers are OK, but lacking something in the zing department. The one thing that slowed me down at all today was the compound nature of so many of the answers. I'd get one part of an answer, but somehow the next part of the answer wouldn't come. Had ANOTHER and no idea about ONE (2D: "Apparently we weren't done with these"), DEAD and no idea about LINKS (4D: Bad internet connections?) (I was thinking [Bad internet connections?] had to do with DEAD LINES). Then TAX and no idea about LAWYER (32D: One skilled at withholding details), and GET but no idea about ANGRY (23D: Lose it) (this one really should've come to me right away, but somehow GET AGGRO (!?) was running interference). Otherwise, the only things that made me hesitate today in any significant way were the MDS / DOCUSERIES crossing (27A: Graduates in green-and-black regalia, in brief / 28D: Reality shows?) (didn't know about the colors of the former, and the clue on DOCUSERIES was just too vauge for me to get without that initial "D" ... I wanted FOCUS-something-something). Oh, and I wrote in COLT before FOAL (22D: One under a mare's care). Not thrilled about the two "ONE"s in the grid, though one of the ONEs is part of ANYONE, so it probably gets a pass. Also, two ASSes? One American, one British? (HALFASS, ARSE). I can't say I'm mad about that, but I did notice.

Bullets:

• 14A: One end of a lap (KNEES) — the other end is your hips, or the tops of your thighs, to be more specific. This is the "lap" you make when you sit.
• 19A: "Bygones will be bygone, ___ fadin' into gray" (Taylor Swift lyric) ("ERAS") — you don't have to know the lyric, really. If you have been solving puzzles at all for the last couple years, you know Taylor Swift had a huge ERAS Tour. This is the ninth (!) time that ERAS has gotten a Swift-related clue. Today is the release date of Taylor Swift's much-anticipated new album, The Life of a Showgirl. And so ... a new "era" has begun. The reviews seem good. I haven't heard a note. Let's listen.

[this song namechecks the Plaza Athenée in the first line—I spent one night there in 1987; my first night in Paris, and I spent it at the most expensive and beautiful hotel I've ever been in, before or since. You see, my father made a huge mistake with the hotel booking—what he thought was the weekly rate was actually the *nightly* rate. So we were out of there the next day, off to some hotel with Eiffel Towers for key rings, LOL. But that one night has stayed with me. Step out onto the wrought-iron balcony of your room and hello Eiffel Tower. The robes! The wallpaper! The jet lag! What a time!]

• 37A: When repeated, a nonverbal "Can you hear me?" ([TAP]) — without any "mic" context, this was toughish. Also, you usually follow the [TAP] [TAP] with something verbal, don't you? "Testing" or some such? 
• 56A: Something raised during Oktoberfest (BEER TENT) — not a term I know, though one I can certainly visualize. I wanted some kind of STEIN, of course.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. tomorrow is the Midwest Crossword Tournament in Chicago. Registration has closed for both in-person and online solvers, but you can preorder the puzzle packs here. Good luck to everyone participating!

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Cardinal's honorific / THU 10-2-25 / Selfish cry before an evil laugh / Eye, slangily / Half of a noted crime duo / Only video game to sell 300 million copies / Asian city one can view within Instagram? / Literary detective whose final case is in 1975's "Curtain" / One of four awarded to Bill Nye

Constructor: Aidan Deshong

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: MINESWEEPER (62A: Classic computer game whose players avoid hazardous items in a grid ... as suggested by this puzzle?) — a "MINE" rebus where the "MINE"s are indicated the same way that mines are indicated in the game MINESWEEPER—by numbered squares telling you how many mines those squares are adjacent to (i.e. all "1"s are adjacent to one "MINE," and "2"s adjacent to two).

Theme answers:

• PROMINENTLY / HOMINEM (17A: How something distinctive appears / 4D: Ad ___)
• HIS EMINENCE / "MINE, ALL MINE" / NOMINEE (25A: Cardinal's honorific / 26D: Selfish cry before an evil laugh / 44A: Part of a list at an awards show)
• FAMINE / MINECRAFT (22A: Shortage of a sort / 24D: Only video game to sell 300 million copies)
• MINESWEEPER / IMMINENT (62A (see above) / 53D: On the horizon)
• UNDERMINE / DETERMINE (69A: Sabotage / 49D: Figure out)

Word of the Day: MINESWEEPER (62A) —

Minesweeper is a logic puzzle video game genre generally played on personal computers. The game features a grid of clickable tiles, with hidden "mines" (depicted as naval mines in the original game) dispersed throughout the board. The objective is to clear the board without detonating any mines, with help from clues about the number of neighboring mines in each field. [...] Minesweeper is a puzzle video game. In the game, mines (that resemble naval mines in the classic theme) are scattered throughout a board, which is divided into cells. Cells have three states: unopened, opened and flagged. An unopened cell is blank and clickable, while an opened cell is exposed. Flagged cells are those marked by the player to indicate a potential mine location. // A player selects a cell to open it. If a player opens a mined cell, the game ends. Otherwise, the opened cell displays either a number, indicating the number of mines vertically, horizontally or diagonally adjacent to it, or a blank tile (or "0"), and all adjacent non-mined cells will automatically be opened. [...] A game of Minesweeper begins when the player first selects a cell on a board. In some variants the first click is guaranteed to be safe, and some further guarantee that all adjacent cells are safe as well. During the game, the player uses information given from the opened cells to deduce further cells that are safe to open, iteratively gaining more information to solve the board. [...] To win a game of Minesweeper, all non-mine cells must be opened without opening a mine. There is no score, but there is a timer recording the time taken to finish the game. (wikipedia)

• • •

LOL I haven't thought about this game in twenty years. The "1"s and "2"s meant nothing to me at first. I kept trying to make them be part of adjacent answers, thinking maybe those answers featured those numbers, or the letters strings represented by those number (i.e. "ONE," "TWO"). No luck. Because there were numbered squares, I was absolutely not looking for a rebus. I figured the numbers themselves were the gimmick ... and they were. But only part of it. So my solve was patchy and sluggish for a while, but I was still able to make a lot of headway. The east side of the grid seemed easy, so I just followed that side down to the bottom of the grid where, finally, voilà!

[you can see my "OLA!"-for-"'ALO!" mistake there (36D: Spanish phone greeting)

Once I got the theme, then the puzzle got briefly fun, in that I realized I could use the numbers to find all the "MINE"s. That is, I got to actually play MINESWEEPER for a little bit. Again, haven't played it since the very early '00s, probably, so the logic of it all was not fresh in my head, but it came back to me. Unsurprisingly, the puzzle got a lot easier after the revealer. In fact, there's nothing very tough about it at all ... once you get the gimmick. Before that, you're apt to fumble around a bit. In that sense, it's a typical rebus, but in the sense of giving me actual gameplay, it's definitely an elevated rebus. The fill overall is no great shakes, but I still largely enjoyed the solving experience, particularly the back end.

Aside from having the vowels in my [Spanish phone greeting] switched around, I didn't have many more real mistakes. I thought Malbec might be DRY (or even SEC) (65D: Like Malbec wine = RED), and I couldn't figure out exactly what the clue was getting at at 71A: Output of a social media algorithm (FEED) (I was looking for something plural, because of "output"). So that insignificant SE corner weirdly gave me more trouble than anything besides discovering the rebus. There was not a lot of ambiguous or misleading cluing, no tough "?" clues to see through. Wanted MOWED immediately for 20A: Leveled the playing field? and saw right through the AGRA trick (33A: Asian city one can view within Instagram?). I never saw the clue for TEN (55A: Pin number?). That "?" clue seems a little bit harder than the others. There's a TEN pin in bowling. Actually, I now realize that the clue is merely asking for the total number of pins in a bowling frame, not the one pin called the "TEN pin," though I guess the logic works either way. I grew up with SEE'S candy and I do not remember "butterscotch" at all. Just chocolate samplers. Weird. Oh, and I had no idea Bill Nye had patents. Also, not sure why I care, or why you don't tell me what at least one of them is if you're going to bother to mention them, but whatever. Crosses got me to PATENT easily enough. (One of Nye's PATENTs is apparently a ballet slipper!)

Further notes:

• 39A: Writer Zora ___ Hurston (NEALE) — Zora NEALE Hurston's story Spunk has been adapted to the stage and is being performed by Yale Rep starting tomorrow (Oct. 3). I'm going to see it later in the month, along with Les Liaisons Dangereuses (the kid's working on Liaisons).
• 61A: What might prompt someone to close a window (UPDATE) — so, not a glass window. A software window. Very window-heavy puzzle, this one (35D: Features of some windows = TINTS)
• 66A: Eye, slangily (PEEPER) — more 1920s than 2020s slang, but sure

• 7D: Half of a noted crime duo (CLYDE) — The other half being Bonnie, obviously. One of my very favorite movies. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway at peak hotness. Crime was never sexier. Plus Gene Hackman! Gene Wilder! The amazing (Academy Award-winning) Estelle Parsons! I'm due for a rewatch. Think I'll put it on my next Crime Fiction syllabus.

• 28D: Moolah (KALE) — only in crosswords. And again, maybe in the 1920s? (origins: 1902). Speaking of word origins, look for a new Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (12th ed.) out later this year (11/18/25), as well as Stefan Fatsis's new book on lexicography, Unabridged, out later this month (10/14/25)—Fatsis is perhaps best known as the author of Word Freak, all about that game with the TILES (6D: Scrabble rackful)

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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A schooner has at least two of them / WED 10-1-25 / Splinter in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," e.g. / Power to remove a nomination for eviction on "Big Brother”

Constructor: Neville Fogarty

Relative difficulty: Easy (not putting my time bc I solved on paper)

THEME: Country-themed letter banks with cute clues — A letter bank is similar to an anagram, but less constrained, because you can repeat letters. 

Theme answers:

• [Elite soldier from GERMANY] for ARMY RANGER
• While an army ranger is not in fact from Germany, every letter in the answer (A, R, M, Y, N, G, and E) is found in (thus comes "from") the word GERMANY
• [Vessel for cooking rice from NEPAL] for PAELLA PAN
• [Sci-fi attack from SLOVENIA] for ALIEN INVASION
• [Fighting style from OMAN] for MANO A MANO
• [Seasonal precipitation from SURINAME] for SUMMER RAIN

Word of the Day: "Big Brother" (Power to remove a nomination for eviction on "Big Brother" for VETO) —

The show broadly follows the premise of other versions, in which a group of contestants, known as "houseguests", live together in a specially constructed house that is isolated from the outside world and compete for a cash prize of $750,000. The houseguests are continuously monitored during their stay by live television cameras as well as personal audio microphones. Throughout the course of the competition, houseguests are evicted by being voted out of the competition.

• • •

Hi squad, and welcome to a Malaika MWednesday! I found this to be an incredibly classic puzzle-- there's no Gotcha! or zany gimmick, it's just a well-executed take on a known form of wordplay. There have been plenty of letter bank puzzles before (I learned about the concept of a letter bank from crosswords!), and this one adds another layer by using countries specifically. One thing about a letter bank is that the bank (so in this case, GERMANY, NEPAL, etc.) cannot have any repeat letters. Immediately I feel the need to know how many countries have repeat letters (and thus would not have worked for this theme) but I am too tired to figure it out right now.

The clue [Shower affection (on)] made me think of this

Forcing the banks to be countries wasn't just a random constraint. It also means you get a cute double meaning when you read the clues. I think the styling they used gave too much away, but I suppose the bank would have to be capitalized.... I acknowledge that [Elite soldier from Germany] feels wrong. I preferred the clues that were completely factually wrong (like for PAELLA PAN, which is absolutely not from Nepal) because they made you do a little double take. More..... puzzling, if you will.

I like when I know things about the constructor, and then see threads of that in the puzzle. For example, I'm pretty sure Neville is a big Competition Reality TV Guy (Neville, chime in if I'm wrong here), so I guess the reference to "Big Brother" came from there. Of course, it doesn't always work like that! I had a puzzle where many solvers thanked me for a clue that used some particularly girly twenty-something slang and I had to reveal that the editors had contributed that particular clue.

Bullets:

• [Chinese monastery known for its style of kung fu] for SHAOLIN — I did not know this at all, and only know the name "Shaolin Fantastic" from a character on the short-lived but awesome TV show "The Get Down"
  
• [Candy brand with a Big Cup variety] for REESES — I love candy and I love the specific niche candies. Big Cup isn't that niche but it's more niche than a regular Reese's. My favorite weird candy is probably the giant chewy SweeTarts. I also adore Nerds Gummy Clusters which I think have gained a bit of a cult following in recent years.
• [Online subscription service since 2016] for ONLYFANS — lol I cannot believe he got this into an NYT puzzle. And referring to it as an "online subscription service" is simply diabolical. Legend.

xoxo Malaika

[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)

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