Stringy parts of oranges / FRI 8-1-25 / Insect that can reproduce with or without mating / Who's ahead and who's not in campaign coverage, so to speak

Constructor: Abigail Martin

Relative difficulty: Easy (8:58)

THEME: Themeless

Word of the Day: IFTAR (Evening meal during Ramadan) —

Iftar is the fast-breaking evening meal of Muslims in Ramadan at the time of adhan (call to prayer) of the Maghrib prayer.

Iftar is the second meal of the day; during Ramadan, the daily fast begins immediately after the pre-dawn meal of suhur and continues during the daylight hours, ending at sunset with the evening meal of iftar.

In 2023, UNESCO added iftar to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

• • •

Hello squad, it's Malaika here! Happy Friday to all the readers, but particularly Abigail Martin (if she's reading...) who made her debut with this lovely puzzle! This grid shape is such a treat, fun to fill as a constructor and fun to complete as a solver. You get these gorgeous columns of long entries running up and down the left and right side of the grid, holding everything in place and then eight more long entries sprinkled through out. (I have filled (a variant of) it once for NYT, and twice elsewhere; if you're a new constructor, I highly recommend it.)

In October 2023, the NYT ran these three grids on three Fridays in a row

This puzzle was so easy and so fun. Was it... perhaps..... too easy?? I can't tell if the NYT has been making their Friday puzzles easier, or if I've just gotten better at solving. I recall Fridays being hard and Saturdays being very hard. Now it seems that Fridays are as easy as Wednesdays, they just don't have a theme. Curious to see what y'all's thoughts are! And of course, who am I to talk.... I love making easy puzzles.

Let's go ahead and list out all the great long entries: we have STREET FOOD (with an almost-symmetrically placed CARNE ASADA), then SCAM ARTIST. SEAWEED SALAD, SPIDER SENSE, and PHOTOSHOOT (which has an almost-symmetrically placed CAMERA READY), plus STEEPLE CHASE and NEW RELEASE. Then ROSE PETAL, HOT CEREAL, and HORSE RACE. (ACCESS ROAD and LATE APRIL weren't particularly sparkly to me, but perfectly serviceable especially in the presence of the aforementioned great fill.) This is a bonkers high amount, the grid is truly stuffed!

I've been having a blast watching Known Crossword Lover Natasha Lyonne in the show "Poker Face"; Season 2 had a great episode about scam artists

Recently (quite recently! Like in my last ~six months of constructing), I've been thinking more about the clue/entry dynamic:

1. You can have a fun entry with a pretty standard, definitional clue (like [Finished with hair and makeup, say] for CAMERA READY)
2. You can have a pretty standard entry with a fun wordplay clue (like [Sew what?] for HEM)
3. You can have a fun entry with a fun wordplay clue (like [Phish-monger?] for SCAM ARTIST)
4. You can have a pretty standard entry with a pretty standard clue (like [Wise ones] for SAGES)

All puzzles are heavy on (4) (just by necessity; puzzles have lots of entries), and this puzzle felt very heavy on (1) as well. The grid was fantastic, but I would have loved to see a little more tricksiness from the clues. I wonder if the editors are saving that for Saturdays!

Bullets:

• [Literally, "grilled meat"] for CARNE ASADA — I paused here when I thought this would be "nyama choma," which also means grilled meat (in Swahili), but realized that was wrong from the crossings
• [Intuitive ability in the Marvel Universe] for SPIDER SENSE — I was ready to go on a rant about how this is called SpideY Sense, but I looked it up and it can be called either. In the Tom Holland movies, they call it the "Peter Tingle"
• [Dad, in Korean] for APPA — I know this from the show "Kim's Convenience." I love when TV makes you smarter!!
• [Insect that can reproduce with or without mating] for APHID — I knew this because today I had to write a crossword clue for this same entry and I read a substantial amount of the Wikipedia page, which included this fact, in order to brainstorm
• [One of the three landlocked countries with four-letter names, aside from Chad and Mali] for LAOS — Fun little geography test here! Did any of you get it by visualizing a map of the world? Or did you wait for the crosses like I did?

xoxo Malaika

P.S. Since the notes below call out the upcoming Lollapuzzoola tournament, I should mention that I am writing one of the puzzles for it! I hope to see you there, and if you're there, I hope you enjoy my puzzle!

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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

• Lollapuzzoola 18 (NYC) (Sat., Aug. 9, 2025) 
• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Ferrari's Formula 1 rival / THU 7-31-25 / Main component of steatite / "River Lea" singer, 2015 / Excellent sort of person to be a copy editor / Home of the White Cloud Mountains / Thrifty competitor

Constructor: Alexander Liebeskind

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: TENANTS (39A: Ones paying flat rates ... or, when read as two words, a hint to this puzzle's theme) — a rebus puzzle with ten "ANT" squares:

Theme answers:

• MUTANTS / ANTHOLOGY (1A: The X-Men, e.g. / 4D: Collection of literary works)
• PEDANT / RAN TRACK (15A: Excellent sort of person to be a copy editor / 9D: Did laps, say)
• DECANT / PLANTS (19A: Transfer from one bottle to another / 13D: Some spies)
• AVANT GARDE / ANTLERS (26A: Testing the limits, say / 28D: Some hunting lodge décor)
• LANTERN / REDUNDANT (37A: Bit of Chinese New Year décor / 10D: Not adding any new information)
• "THIS CAN'T BE" / DEFIANT 48A: "There's no way!" / 31D: Untamable)
• ATLANTA / ANTENNA (50A: Award-winning Donald Glover TV series, or where it was filmed / 51D: Part of a bug)
• MEANT A LOT / SHANTIES (56A: Bore importance / 49D: Huts)
• INFANT / MANTRA (61A: Baby / 56D: "Location, location, location," to many real estate agents)
• ERRANT / "DEAR SANTA..." (64A: Out-of-bounds / 43D: Start of a wish-list letter)

Word of the Day: MCLAREN (45D: Ferrari's Formula 1 rival) —

McLaren Racing Limited (/məˈklærən/ mə-KLA-rən) is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known as a Formula One chassis constructor, the second-oldest active team and the second-most successful Formula One team after Ferrari, having won 199 races, 12 Drivers' Championships, and nine Constructors' Championships. McLaren also has a history in American open wheel racing as both an entrant and a chassis constructor, and has won the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) sports car racing championship. McLaren is one of only three constructors, and the only team, to complete the Triple Crown of Motorsport (wins at the Indianapolis 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Monaco Grand Prix). (wikipedia)

• • •

Short write-up today for real because it's currently 3:54am and I have to be Out Of The House at 5am, which means ... [hmmm ... mental calculations ... carry the 1 ...] I have to hurry is what it means. This was the easiest rebus I've ever done, possibly. I've done a lot, so maybe that's a lie, but it doesn't feel like a lie. I've rarely seen a rebus, especially one so dense that did virtually nothing to impeded my forward progress through the puzzle. Right away, at 1-Across, I was like "well the X-Men are MUTANTS ... but that won't fit, so I don't know what this puzzle thinks they are." Then I did a few more answers in that NW corner and once I got MUT-S for 1A: The X-Men, e.g., I thought "alright, it's an ANT rebus then. I wonder if it's just an ANT rebus. Maybe there are other insects hiding in the grid or maybe 'ANT' is the beginning of some message that the rebus squares are going to spell out, or ..." But no. Just ants. Ten of them. TENANTS—that's your clever wordplay for the day. I counted, and there are, in fact, ten, so the puzzle gave you what it promised ... although there is an "ANT" in TENANTS that didn't get counted. Not sure why that wasn't also rebusified. But it wasn't. And that's fine. Pretty dull stuff overall. An extremely one-note theme, and then nothing much in the grid to distinguish it. Only one of the "ANT" answers was kinda sorta hard to get, because the "ANT" broke across two words (RAN TRACK). Otherwise, I didn't have to go looking for the ANTs so much as they just showed up, making themselves obvious, the way they might if they were spoiling a picnic.

I'm not one for Latin plurals but for some reason, maybe because it's such a fancy word, I always think LACUNA should be pluralized LACUNAE (not LACUNAS) (22A: Empty spaces). And I have less than no idea about Formula 1 as a sport. It may be the only major "sport" below golf on my "care about it" rankings, though cricket is probably down there too. But then we simply don't have cricket in the U.S., whereas I'm pretty sure Formula 1 is at least on TV. Anyway, MCLAREN = all crosses. The name rings a bell, but only faintly. Nothing else in the grid gave me a lick of trouble.  Whoops, I forgot "Shred the GNAR!" What an embarrassing phrase. Never heard of that either. Still, not exactly tough to (snow) plow through.

Lots and lots of proper nouns (HANA Mandlikova, Rita ORA, VERA Farmiga—big day for women whose first and last names both end in "a"), but they were all well within my zone of familiarity. I think I had my first in-the-wild Rita ORA encounter this week. I started watching Too Much (Netflix) and the main character (an American living in London played by Megan Stalter) has a new job producing a holiday commercial of some sort that will feature Rita ORA. I laughed out loud when they dropped her name. "There she is!" The show, co-created by Lena Dunham, also features Richard E. Grant, Rita Wilson, Rhea Perlman, and Janicza Bravo, and the episode we watched last night had a featured performance by Naomi "Mulholland Drive" Watts. If you want a rom-comy sit-comy show that is also very sex-forward and, plot-wise, a bit of a runaway train, then you might like it. We're still on the fence about it, but it's got some very funny moments and it's like nothing I've ever seen, really, which (in the age of Algorithmic Mediocrity) is a huge plus.

OK, that's it. See you when I see you...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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

• Lollapuzzoola 18 (NYC) (Sat., Aug. 9, 2025) 
• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Money in Laos / WED 7-30-25 / Extra-thick Nabisco treats, hinted at four times in this puzzle / Land of llamas and Llosa / Famous film pooch / ___ Allen, jazz pianist / Sigma preceder / Bunny with a Brooklyn accent / Monomaniacal sea captain of literature / Schadenfreude source / R-V hookup?

Constructor: Thomas Byrne and Daniel Bodily

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DOUBLE STUF OREOS (35A: Extra-thick Nabisco treats, hinted at four times in this puzzle) — four DOUBLE STUF OREOS are depicted in the grid; that is, four theme answers have "double" letters that are uncrossed, i.e. they have black squares both above and below them; those black squares represent the cookie part of a Double Stuf Oreo, while the double letters represent the creme; the double letters, read in order, spell STUF (or rather SSTTUUFF, i.e. "double STUF")

Theme answers:

• CLASSIC HITS (12A: Popular oldies)
• BOTTLES (27A: Beer hall recyclables)
• VACUUMS (44A: Empty spaces)
• AFTEREFFECT (61A: Consequence)

Word of the Day: Honeydew (60A: Insect that "farms" aphids for their honeydew => ANT) —

Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids, some scale insects, and many other true bugs and some other insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the insects, allowing them to rapidly process the large volume of sap required to extract essential nutrients present at low concentrations. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis. Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. In addition to various sugars, honeydew contains small amounts of amino acids, other organic compounds, and inorganic salts with its precise makeup affected by factors such as insect species, host plant species, and whether a symbiotic organism is present.

Honeydew-producing insects, like cicadas, pierce phloem ducts to access the sugar rich sap; the excess fluid released by cicadas as honeydew is called "cicada rain". The sap continues to bleed after the insects have moved on, leaving a white sugar crust called manna. Ants may collect, or "milk", honeydew directly from aphids and other honeydew producers, which benefit from their presence due to their driving away predators such as lady beetles or parasitic wasps—see Crematogaster peringueyi. Animals and plants in a mutually symbiotic arrangement with ants are called Myrmecophiles.

• • •

This one started rough. Just wasn't buying CLASSIC HITS as a thing (felt redundant—they're just CLASSICS), and TOOK A PIC seemed solidly in EAT-A-SANDWICH territory (i.e. Contrivedville), and on top of that I'm supposed to remember Laotian currency (!?) and then I'm condescended to with a sad letter string that couldn't even be bothered to have an original clue (8D: R-V hookup?)? That "RV" wordplay used to be de rigueur for STU clues in the late '90s / early '00s, but hasn't been seen since 2015, so it'll be new to many of you, I guess. Anyway, I was not feeling the puzzle at all. AMORTIZES? There's a word only a banker's mother could love. CHOCOLATE-COATED & DIRTY LOOK started to liven things up a little (love a CHOCOLATE-COATED DIRTY LOOK), but my feelings about this puzzle never got above neutral until I hit the revealer—that is, *my* revealer: not the literal revealer splashed across the middle of the grid (which I hadn't yet looked at), but the four-letter pre-revealer: MILK (28A: Beverage served alongside the treats in this puzzle). That answer ruined the actual revealer for me, but it tipped me off to the fact that there were "treats" in the puzzle, and as soon as I looked at those double-letters seemingly suspended in midair, I began to understand what was happening, but it still took another second or two to register the full visual effect—the double letters were creme, the adjacent black squares were cookie, and so I had four DOUBLE STUF OREOS diagonally stacked across my grid. What can I say? The visual gimmick works, and MILK really did a nice job of subtly cluing me in (whereas the longer revealer eventually just felt obvious and kind of redundant). So while I don't think the theme answers themselves are any great shakes (AFTEREFFECT? Isn't that just ... an effect?), the concept and the execution are very nice. Those do look like cookies, and making the "creme" spell out STUF, doubly, is a clever way to make up for the fact that those double-letters are technically uncrossed. 

I think I'm supposed to be impressed by CHOCOLATE-COATED running through the whole thing, but I don't think that answer fits well today. It's a very restrictive and completely unnecessary contrivance that likely results in our getting subpar answers like CLASSIC HITS and AFTER EFFECT as themers. Maybe it's just there coincidentally, but that seems unlikely. Feels planned. But I don't get why it would be part of your planning. If I think of the DOUBLE STUF OREOS as CHOCOLATE-COATED, that ruins the entire visual gag. You Cannot See The Creme If Your DOUBLE STUF OREOS are CHOCOLATE-COATED!!! And seeing the creme is 88% of the fun today (the other 12% is the DIRTY LOOK). Do they even make CHOCOLATE-COATED DOUBLE STUF OREOS? I don't see them on offer. Oh wait, here's some. They look creepy and awful, like the Oreos are being tortured. And the color scheme is all wrong. Just let the Oreo be, man.

The puzzle wasn't particularly hard, but it felt like it was at least trying to punch above Monday weight, which is all I ask from a mid-week puzzle, fight-wise. Sadly, some of that difficulty came from, uh, Laotian currency, and having to wait for crosses to see which KABOB spelling I was going to be dealing with, or from awk-seeming phrases like FED IN (63A: Entered, as data). AMORTIZES and OUTGROWTH both took a little doing. I had ASTA before TOTO (54D: Famous film pooch), which made my RHO an ETA (64A: Sigma preceder), which I could sense was wrong even as I wrote it in. The southern part of the grid was kind of hard because I had no idea who GERI Allen was (52D: ___ Allen, jazz pianist). Damn, looks like she's been in the puzzle before, and I just forgot. Let's get reacquainted with GERI Allen right now, shall we?  

Bullets:

• 14A: Sch. whose mascot is Tim the Beaver (MIT) — I had no idea. If I'd ever seen this clue (got it all from crosses), I would definitely have guessed OSU (that's Oregon State University)

[Well I know who I'm taking in this fight]

• 42A: Bunny with a Brooklyn accent (BUGS) — this should've been instant, but I never think about BUGS's accent this way. I never think of him having an "accent" at all. I grew up in California, so I had no idea about regional accents beyond "Southern." BUGS was just BUGS. Sure, he talked funny, but "Brooklyn." That would not have registered. And when it doesn't register in childhood, it's hard to get it to stick in adulthood, however obvious it might seem when pointed out to you.
• 25D: Land of llamas and Llosa (PERU) — my brain tripped all over the pile of crosswordese in this clue. Main problem was reading Llosa as LHASA and thinking "well, llamas are in S. America, but LHASA is in Asia, so ... I'm confused." Llosa is of course Literature Nobelist Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian (whether he owned llamas or not, I do not know).

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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

• Boswords (Boston) (Sun. July 27, 2025)
• Lollapuzzoola 18 (NYC) (Sat., Aug. 9, 2025) 
• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Hamlet's ill-fated love interest / TUES 7-29-25 / What's touch and go? / Setting of Switzerland's Glacier Express / Golden fruit that started the Trojan War, in myth

Hi, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday of the best month of the year (the one I was born in, of course!). Hope everyone is staying cool as the ridiculous heat and humidity get even more ridiculous (at least here in D.C.). My sister, dad, and I went to watch some tennis at the D.C. Open, which drew some pretty big names, and we thought we might melt, as we were sitting out there in the sun for several hours. My puppy, Red, went on her first hike, at Harper’s Ferry — as we all celebrated my dad’s birthday in the best month of the year — and she was a rock star. My Reds, Liverpool, return to action in just two weeks, so we can see if they defend their Premier League title. Life is good. Maybe even great. 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Peter Gorman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME:  BEND OREGON (55A: Western city hinted at seven times in this puzzle's circled letters) — The circled letters each form the word “Oregon,” bent in different ways

Theme answers:

• OREGON (starting with the O in SALON (14A) and ending with the N in SNORT (17A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in AGO (18A) and ending with the N in ION (15A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in PORED (16A) and ending with the N in I’M ON (23A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in DORSALS (46A) and ending with the N in I CAN SO (35A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in RUSHMORE (37A) and ending with the N in PANINI (44A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in BRODY (64A) and ending with the N in AARON (60A)) 
• OREGON (starting with the O in ORE (65A) and ending with the N in NOG (68A))

Word of the Day: AEGIS (34D: Protection)  —

The aegis, as stated in the Iliad, is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. The modern concept of doing something "under someone's aegis" means doing something under the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source. The word aegis is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots in Greek mythology and adopted by the Romans; there are parallels in Norse mythology and in Egyptian mythology as well, where the Greek word aegis is applied by extension. (Wiki)

• • •

That was a fun, clever theme. I got BEND OREGON (55A) easily, and that helped me fill in the rest of the puzzle, so this was a fast Tuesday for me. It’s impressive construction to get seven bent OREGONs in the puzzle formed in all sorts of different ways. The puzzle itself looked a little ugly as I was solving, but I think the payoff was worth having so, so many circles. I had the darnedest time trying to describe the theme answers above, because bits of several different words form each OREGON, so I kind of punted. 

I enjoyed how there were similar words close to one another in the puzzle several times. APPLE (9A: Golden fruit that started the Trojan War, in myth) crossing EDEN (13D: Unspoiled paradise) is brilliant. NORSE GODS (36D: Thor and Odin) ran parallel to EROS (54D: Cupid's Greek counterpart). LOGIC (32D: "___ will get you from A to B. Imagination can take you everywhere" (statement attributed to Einstein)) and IRONY (33D: Humor with a twist) were side-by-side. This is a reach, but DIABLO (6D: El infierno figure) and ELMO (21D: Muppet who's made guest appearances on "Scrubs" and "The West Wing") were also next to each other, and they’re both… red. Not that I like red, or anything. 

The construction smack dab in the center of the puzzle let me down, though. RAS (37D: Dorm aides, for short) crossing PAS (39A: Dads) just looks wrong. The words are almost identical. Then, also in that middle section, there’s GAS as part of INERT GAS (41A: Argon or neon) and PAS again as part of PASSED ON (39D: Forwent). And “forwent” is about as ugly a word as exists. 

I’d also be a happier person if puzzles stopped incorporating phrases such as I CAN SO (35A: Rejoinder to a doubter) or the usual “Are too” or “Am so” or the other seemingly million ways these dumb phrases are clued. 

I didn’t love GO GO (38A: Constantly pushing forward). DORSALS (46A: Some fins), as a plural, also doesn’t work for me. Dorsal fins, sure, but DORSALS on its own? The clue for GLOB (43D: Hunk of melted mozzarella, e.g.) seems randomly specific. Why call out mozzarella instead of referring to cheese in general? The clue for RUSHMORE (37A: Mount with four faces that all face southeast) also randomly specifies that the sculptures all face southeast. Who knew? 

I got slowed down slightly with BAD LEG (47D: Reason to wear a knee brace, perhaps) because I thought it could be “bum leg.” And I tried both “stiff” and “solid” before realizing the answer was RIGID (27D: Inflexible). But I didn’t get tripped up with most proper names in the puzzle: Sophia LOREN (4D), ROGER EBERT (20A), Mary J. BLIGE (19A), AARON Burr (60A), Adrien BRODY (64A), or NEIL Patrick Harris (59D). Your mileage may vary. 

ENORMOUS (8D: Huge) was my favorite down of the puzzle. I also liked the mini mythology theme with NORSE GODS (36D), EROS (54D), AEGIS (34D), and APPLE (9A). And I loved OPHELIA (31A: Hamlet's ill-fated love interest). I’ve had the song "OPHELIA" by The Lumineers stuck in my head for this entire write-up. Luckily, it’s an amazing song.

Misc.:

• If you’re looking for a BOP (48A: Catchy song, in modern lingo), look no further than any of the many songs from the movie “KPop Demon Hunters,” which came out last month. It’s about a K-pop girl group who are demon hunters (shocking, I know!) and have to face off against a boy group made up of, you guessed it, demons. It’s genuinely very good. For BOPs, I recommend starting with either “Your Idol” or “Golden” (which is No. 2 on Billboard right now). 
• I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier that, of course, Leonardo da VINCI (66A) was literally from VINCI. Leonardo of VINCI. Duh! 
• With 57D: Options for martinis, for me, the answer is olives, olives, olive juice, olives, or more olives. I remember the time I had a sip of a martini for the first time. when I was in college. I tried my mom’s and nearly spit it out because it was just straight vodka. GINS is an ugly plural, but at least the answer wasn’t vodkas. 
• The best sandwich I’ve ever had wasn’t grilled like a PANINI (44A: Grilled Italian sandwich) but was on a trip to Florence. It was made on the freshest bread, with pounds of delicious salami and soppressata, and miles of stringy, salty cheese (not GLOBs). Even better, I ate it sitting on the sidewalk with a glass of €2 wine. 
• My sister and I were just singing along to “Hamilton” and specifically AARON Burr’s (60A) parts. We were either annoying or indoctrinating our dad, who just finished a Rick Atkinson book on the Revolutionary War. 
• Maybe I got BEND OREGON (55A) quickly because I’ve actually been there — once for a soccer tournament and another time to watch my sister at a horse show. It’s quite beautiful.

Now I shall sign off because I again have a client interview in Baltimore bright and early tomorrow. (What is it with USCIS scheduling my interviews for Tuesday at 7:30 a.m.?!) 

See you next time (which will actually be in just a week)!

Signed, Clare Carroll, BEND-t out of shape by the USCIS scheduling

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

• Paypal 
• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournament

s ✏️

• Boswords (Boston) (Sun. July 27, 2025)
• Lollapuzzoola 18 (NYC) (Sat., Aug. 9, 2025) 
• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Ceremonial rod / MON 7-28-25 / Cuzco dweller of old / Cousin of a cruller or bear claw / Carbonated beverage as reintroduced in 1985 / Chi preceder / College basketball phenom drafted by the Indiana Fever in 2024 / Concoctions with masa, cheese, lettuce and salsa / Characteristic of a penetrating mind

Constructor: Brian Callahan

Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal for a Monday) (and yet ... I made two errors solving Downs-only! Wheeee!)

THEME: OPEN SEAS (65A: Clear sailing areas ... or, homophonically, a feature of 16-, 23-, 39- and 52-Across (and every clue in this puzzle!) — words in theme answers "open" with "C"s; every clue "opens" with "C":

Theme answers:

• CASH CROP (16A: Corn to a Midwest farmer)
• CARD COUNTING (23A: Casino no-no)
• COCA-COLA CLASSIC (39A: Carbonated beverage as reintroduced in 1985)
• CAITLIN CLARK (52A: College basketball phenom drafted by the Indiana Fever in 2024)

Word of the Day: Cooper Manning (66D: Cooper and Peyton Manning's QB brother) —

Cooper Archibald Manning (born March 6, 1974) is an American entrepreneur and television personality who is the host of the television show The Manning Hour for Fox Sports as well as principal and senior managing director of investor relations for AJ Capital Partners. He is the eldest son of former professional football quarterback Archie Manning, the older brother of former professional football quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, and the father of Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning. (wikipedia)

• • •

["Cabin Fever" director Roth]—how is that not your ELI clue???? Who the hell is "Cooper" Manning!? I mean, I know who he is now, as I looked him up and made him Word of the Day, but he's clearly not famous enough to be a Monday Manning clue, as they had to bring Peyton in to the clue to make it at all legible (Peyton made it a gimme, actually). ELI Roth is in the puzzle all the time, and his most famous movie just happens to start with a "C" and you *don't* use him? Absolutely bonkers decision. Not one that's really gonna affect anyone's solve much, but still ... wow. Cooper Manning, you say? OK. I have to say, the puzzle actually does a pretty good job pulling off the "every clue starts with a 'C'" thing, considering how contrived, how tortured, that sort of gimmick can make clues. It's an especially risky gambit on a Monday, when the clues need to be virtually transparent. It's the easy day, gotta keep it easy. And the puzzle, for the most part, does that admirably. I didn't even notice the "C" clue thing at all until I was beginning to do my write-up and fully read the revealer clue. So the best that I can say about the all-"C" cluing is that it was inconspicuous (ironically, a real achievement).

How are "Open 'C's" a "feature" of the theme answers? I see (C!) very well that the words in all those answers "open" with the letter "C," yes, but you would not say "hey, those answers all feature open 'C's." The phrasing just doesn't work. Of course I get what you're going for (at least I think I do), but the phrasing on the clue/answer is not precise. Not exact. The words in those answers all OPEN with "C"s. I'm trying to make the exact phrasing make sense, and I can't really. So I'm pretty lukewarm on the theme. That said, I thought the overall grid was fine. "EASY, TIGER" and "LET IT REST" are worthy long Downs, and while, yes, there's a playground taunt (kill them!) and an awful ASAMI/ASDOI dilemma (kill both of those answers too!) and an E-I-E-I-O and an impossibly singular SCAD, but otherwise, everything seems pretty solid. 

As for my Downs-only errors ... sigh. I assumed (naively) that "Call us the champs!" (an extreme example of clue contrivance) was a rough equivalent of "WE WON!" "Call us the champs because WE WON!" But no. It's "WE WIN." And my incorrect "O" didn't register as an error, as "I'M ON" is a plausible crossword answer (36 appearances in the Shortz Era, including yesterday (!) and this past Wednesday!), though not the correct answer for the clue, it turns out (22A: "Count me as a yes!"). So I had an answer that looked right in both directions, but ... wasn't. My other error? That came at 50D: Calls that may start "Is your refrigerator running?," e.g. (PRANKS). I know those kind of calls as "crank calls" and so ... I wrote in CRANKS. It felt bad as I was writing it in ("no one calls those calls just ... CRANKS!"), but all the crosses checked out, including the "wrong" "C" (AMC, again, like "I'M ON," is a frequent crossword answer) (though the actual answer today was AMP (49A: Concert equipment)). So where I normally make zero mistakes on my Downs-only Monday solves, today I made two. I'm not mad about it. I'm actually glad that there's a good explanation for why I made those errors (the forced "C"-cluing ... that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!).

Concise observations:

• 1D: Ceremonial rod (MACE) — another one where the clue is made awkward by the cluing conceit. I took one look at this and when SCEPTER wouldn't fit, I was like "... WAND?"

• 15A: Combustible fuel for trucks (DIESEL) — so ... just [Fuel for trucks] then? 
• 63A: Cellphone's weather app, e.g. (WIDGET) — ??? I have a weather app on my cellphone. It is not a WIDGET. It is just an app.
• 20A: Characteristic of a penetrating mind (KEEN) — potentially mild toughie here, as "Characteristic" really looks like it's a noun in this clue.
• 54D: Chief Hindu god (INDRA) — not easy for me. Needed several crosses. You'd think I'd know the chief Hindu god by now, but apparently not :(
• 39A: Carbonated beverage as reintroduced in 1985 (COCA-COLA CLASSIC) — if you were not alive in the '80s I don't know where to begin explaining how weird cola marketing got in the '80s. Like ... clear colas were a thing, for a while. And then Coke was like "New Coke!" and people were like "booooo!" and then Coke was like "OK ... Old Coke Again?" but that sounded too much like defeat so they tried to make it seem retro-chic by calling the return of the old stuff "Coke Classic" even though ... it was only gone for like a hot minute—how is it "classic" all of a sudden? Meanwhile, Pepsi Light was a thing for a while (was that the one with lemon?). I remember in middle school all of a sudden there were caffeine-free colas (Pepsi Free!). But then also there was Jolt! Cola, a precursor of modern "energy" drinks, which was super-caffeinated—just what adolescents need! So if the cluing on this one seemed awkward ("as reintroduced"), that's not a "C" problem, that's just the insanity of mid-'80s cola culture. Remember the NutraSweet v. Saccharin Wars? No? Well, here's something to jog your memory: 

That's all from me today. "C" you next time. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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

• Lollapuzzoola 18 (NYC) (Sat., Aug. 9, 2025) 
• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Desperate pursuit of fame, in modern lingo / SUN 7-27-25 / Real chess playa? / Seasoning for una margarita / Much-maligned 2019 movie about which one review said "It's 'Battlefield Earth' with whiskers" / Noted rapper with an oxymoronic name / Skill taught to Luke Skywalker

Constructor: John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Easy (yet again)

THEME: Arranged Marriages — themers are all two-part, 22-letter answers where the first and last parts are anagrams of one another:

Theme answers:

• EXONERATING GENERATION X (24A: Forgiving middle-aged dads for their dad jokes, say?)
• TECHNOCRATS' TRENCHCOATS (47A: Attire for Larry Page and Sergey Brin when visiting Google incognito?)
• "STREET LEGAL? LET'S GET REAL!" (71A: "You think that hunk of junk'll pass inspection? Please!"?)
• CHECKMATING CHICK MAGNET (99A: Real chess playa?)
• "MARISA TOMEI, IT'S-A ME, MARIO!" (126A: Greeting from a famous Italian character to a famous Italian American actress?)

Word of the Day: SIGIL (132A: Magical symbol) —

1

: seal, signet

2

: a sign, word, or device held to have occult power in astrology or magic (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Some things I exclaimed while solving this puzzle:

• On getting my first themer (TECHNOCRATS' TRENCH COATS): "Oh, it's just anagrams? That's it? Goddammit!" 
• On reading the clue for ALT (15D: ___ right (political category)): "Why would you do that?! F***!"
• On getting CLOUT-CHASING (67D: Desperate pursuit of fame, in modern lingo): "Ooh, nice"
• On realizing the last themer was going to be "MARISA TOMEI, IT'S-A ME, MARIO!": "Noooooo ... that has definitely been used before!" 

That last one really feels like outright theft from where I'm sitting. I mean, maybe not, maybe the constructor never saw the puzzle where that anagram was first used. But still, it's at least mildly galling that the constructor is going to get credit for cleverness here when this (admittedly very clever) anagram is not original to this puzzle; it had already appeared in a much better (and tighter) puzzle seven years ago. That puzzle (a Thursday puzzle) was constructed by Erik Agard, and the theme was "HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE"—the theme answers were all (Hollywood) actors, but the clues didn't seem to make any sense ... until you realized that the clues were actually anagrams of the actor's names (hence the "shuffle"). In Erik's puzzle, MARISA TOMEI was clued (very, very memorably) as ["It's-a me, Mario!"]. 

[Feb. 8, 2018]

As you can see by my parenthetical commentary, I was very impressed by that anagram, as was everybody else at the time. That is not an anagram you forget. I mean [Germany] for MEG RYAN, that's one you might forget. Nice find, but forgettable. You don't have to try so hard to come up with that one. But the Tomei one, that's an all-timer. No one can ever use it again (in a crossword puzzle, anyway). It's retired. Or should be. So ... yeah, huge letdown when I ran into that answer. You can't copyright anagrams, and coincidences happen, I guess, but ... having seen that particular anagram deployed so successfully in the not-too-distant past, it felt gross to see it being used as a kind of showy exclamation point today. This puzzle needs a footnote or a citation or an Acknowledgments page. Pay Erik for that themer, is what I'm saying. It's his. I don't know that he discovered the anagram per se, but he definitely put it to thematic use first. (I'm almost 100% sure Erik won't be bothered at all, but I'm bothered, which is really all that matters) (I get mad about these things so others don't have to!) (If you really loved that anagram and it was new to you today, great, just ... ignore everything I just said, you deserve to be happy)

Now a few positive things. I know, I said (above) that I was like "Anagrams? That's it!" And that's basically how I feel. And yet, some of these anagrams were absolutely bananas, in a good way (the only good wacky answers are truly bananas wacky answers). The trench coat one left me cold (tepid, and I basically don't want to hear about "technocrats," like, ever), but the others were all good to great. CHECKMATING CHICK MAGNET almost got a legitimate chuckle out of me. I kept trying to anagram "CHECKMATING," like "what the hell could this possibly be!?" So that one, when I finally got it, really landed. Genuine "good one" from me. I don't know that the theme answers needed those little dark lines dividing them in half, but I guess they do help visually reinforce the gimmick. The puzzle also has some legit great longer non-theme answers. Love the Downs pair of BIGGIE SMALLS (9D: Noted rapper with an oxymoronic name) and CLOUT-CHASING, and the also-solid if somewhat soberer symmetrical Across pair of INVISIBLE MAN and THOMAS EDISON.

If you were going to wipe out today, where would that take place? The hairiest section for me was the very end, the SW, largely because I don't know the word SIGIL very well, and so really needed every cross to put it together. If any of them had been at all unclear, I might've been in trouble. Things got a little tense when I had AM/FM instead of AM/PM at 113A: Clock toggle (do you really "toggle" AM/PM??), and I was staring down the possibility of FROG Rock (115D: ___ rock (genre for Pink Floyd and Dream Theater, familiarly)), which ... I guess the "G" would've been right after all, but luckily I caught that "F: for "P" flub. And so the only cross that actually made me cross my fingers was SAL (127D: Seasoning for una margarita), which I was actually pretty sure of—salt is SEL in Fr., so SAL in Sp. seemed right). But SAL SIGIL was threatening. Felt ominous. Potentially wrong. SAL SIGIL ... sounds like a bookie or a talent agent. Or a movie producer, though I may be under the influence of The Studio (which features a movie producer character named Sal Saperstein, played by Ike Barinholtz) (they say his name in Episode 8 a lot). Anyway, eventually SAL SIGIL came through—thank you, SAL SIGIL:

["You can't handle the Sap!"]

Further observations:

• 29A: Cross-country conveyances (SKIS) — I was thinking something more like SEMIS (or maybe TRAINS?). Because they literally cross the country. Forgot about cross-country skiing.
• 62A: Much-maligned 2019 movie about which one review said "It's 'Battlefield Earth' with whiskers" (CATS) — speaking of forgetting ... wow did I memory-hole this movie! I mean, I never saw it, but until this puzzle, it was like it never existed. Sincerely, I think COVID did a number on my memory of the years immediately pre-COVID. What was 2019? Did it happen? I think I went to Montreal. Otherwise ... ??? I assume the Battlefield Earth comparison was based on quality (bad) and not plot. I was trying to think of a scifi movie title and was like "... RATS? Was there a RATS movie in 2019? Did they even have movies in 2019?"
• 98A: Basic BASIC statements (IFS) — I took a Computer Science class at (THOMAS) EDISON High School in 1983-84 (we just called it "Edison"). It was the only Computer Science course I ever took. I loved it. Got an "A." I remember nothing. Except that BASIC was the language we learned. Speaking of (THOMAS) EDISON, nice clue on that one today (130A: DC power player in the late 1800s?).
• 1D: One always cooking up new ideas? (CHEF) — are there no chefs out there who are stuck in a rut, just churning out the same thing every day, year after year? As someone who churns out the same thing every day, year after year, I have to wonder. Solidarity, unchanging CHEFs! You stick to your guns! Don't let anyone bully you into "new" things!
• 39A: Knows just when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, maybe (CHEATS) — hey, the gambler knew what people's cards were by the way they held their eyes. Not by cheating! You apologize to Kenny Rogers right this minute!

• 19D: 1980s band among Australia's all-time best-selling groups (INXS) — INXS's music was absolutely the best thing about The Lost Boys (1987), a film whose spectacular badness I am not yet over.

• 93D: Brian who co-founded the Long Now Foundation (ENO) — if you're like me, you're wondering "who the hell is Brian ENO?" ... jk, he's in every crossword, by law. But you are probably wondering "what the hell is the Long Now Foundation?" Well, I'll tell you [consults the Engine of Searching]:

The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking. The Long Now Foundation hopes to "creatively foster responsibility" in the framework of the next 10,000 years. In a manner somewhat similar to the Holocene calendar, the foundation uses 5-digit dates to address the Year 10,000 problem (e.g., by writing the current year "02025" rather than "2025"). The organization's logo is X, a capital X with an overline, a representation of 10,000 in Roman numerals.

Good luck, Year 10,000! I wish you well. That is, I hope you exist. And if you do exist, I hope that you refer to this particularly insane period of human history we're all living in now as "The Short Then."

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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

• Boswords (Boston) (Sun. July 27, 2025) (***TODAY***—good luck, everyone!)
• Lollapuzzoola 18 (NYC) (Sat., Aug. 9, 2025) 
• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...