Female red deer / MON 9-14-26 / Crew building / Informal hoops game / Ancient Celtic priest / All-out boxing match / Dale who sang "Happy Trails" with Roy Rogers / Beatles song with the lyric "She promises the earth to me" / Disney's Ariel and her sisters

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels and Dena R. Verkuil

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: GO BANANAS (61A: Flip out ... or a hint to the beginnings of 17-, 27-, 39- and 51-Across) — first words of theme answers can follow "banana" in a familiar phrase:

Theme answers:

• BOATHOUSE (17A: Crew building)
• BREAD BOX (27A: "Is it bigger than a ___?")
• SPLIT DECISION (39A: Close boxing match outcome)
• SLUGFEST (51A: All-out boxing match)

Word of the Day: "GIRL" (32A: Beatles song with the lyric "She promises the earth to me") —

 

"Girl" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. "Girl" was the last complete song recorded for that album. "Girl" is considered to be one of the most melancholic and complex of the Beatles' love songs. [...] In early 1966, "Girl" was issued as the B-side of "Michelle" in several European countries, reaching number one in Finland. It was also released as the A-side of a single in Italy, backed by "Nowhere Man", which reached number seven on the nation's Musica e Dischi singles chart.

• • •

A very straightforward and old-fashioned theme with a mildly kooky revealer. I liked it fine. It's a little too heavy on the short stuff—so lots of nooks/crannies, lots of 3-4-5s, but there are also a bevy of long Downs to brighten up the grid, so ... things balance out a bit. The long Downs were the most challenging part of the grid, from a Downs-only solving perspective. Actually, a few of them were gimmes (I BEFORE E, MERMAIDS), but STEP COUNTER took me some time because I (stupidly) guessed CAMINO instead of CASINO—I mean, of course it's CASINO, why would it be CAMINO, that's so much less likely!? The toughest of the long Downs to get (with very little help from inferred crosses) was "I'LL START" (41D: "Let me go first!"). As you can see by the cursor placement in the grid printout above, "I'LL START" is the very last thing I got.  The "I" and the "S" and the "A" were the only things I knew for sure, and I kept wanting it to start "I'M" or "IT'S." Finally realized the only thing SHE- was likely to be was SHEL. SHEL helped me see "I'LL" as a possible opening, and from there "I'LL START" seemed obvious. My only other issues were minor. Wrote in ELKS instead of GNUS at first for 6D: African antelopes—again, a truly bad guess. That clue on HIND is a toughie (18D: Female red deer). I know the term from 17c. poetry, but yikes, you'd think on Monday you'd just go with [Rear] or [Posterior] or [___ legs] or something like that. In fact, that's what every constructor has done with HIND since 2005. This is only the third HIND-as-female-deer clue in the entire Shortz Era (and both the others were on Sundays). Bizarre choice. But the puzzle is still Monday-easy overall, so why not go with a deep cut for HIND, I guess.

Speaking of deep cuts ... I know this will come as a surprise to Baby Boomers, but not everybody knows every word to every Beatles song ever (anymore?). I never saw the clue on "GIRL" because I solve Downs-only, but if I had, I'd've been baffled. I know the song, it turns out, from years of classic rock radio-listening as a teenager, but that lyric, yeesh—it does nothing. "GIRL" was not even released as a single in the U.S.—it was the B-side of "Michelle," which I just learned was also not released as a single in the U.S. (!?!?!?!?!?!), which seems impossible, since it's iconic—also, it won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1967. But nope, not a single in the U.S. So "GIRL" was a B-side to a single released only in various European countries (not the UK!?) and New Zealand. If you had to name two dozen Beatles songs, you would not name "GIRL." No, shh, you would not, please stop. As with HIND, the clue on "GIRL" today is baffling. More baffling. But as with HIND, the crosses are all fair, and easy, so ... whatever.

Bullets:

• 47D: To be, in Barcelona (SER) — Spanish words have been a mainstay of U.S. crosswords for a while now, but ... how many is too many? I'm gonna say four (4!) is too many (SER, ISLA, ENERO, SI SI). If I left one out,  that means there are more than four (4!), which would still be too many. More so. 
• 34D: Word hidden, aptly, in "teen's language" (SLANG) — from relatively obscure deer terminology and minor Beatles B-sides to this—child's placemat-level gimmes. Boo. Also, if you really want your puzzle to seem old, make a quaint joke about "teen's language"
• 51D: Animal that sleeps upside down (SLOTH) — wanted KOALA. Actually wanted BAT but as you can see, doesn't fit. Doesn't a SLOTH do everything upside down? "[T]ree sloths spend most of their lives hanging upside down" (wikipedia). Let's  see if this is true ... yep, checks out.

• 51A: All-out boxing match (SLUGFEST) — it's a minor thing, but I think it would've been better to take this clue away from "boxing" specifically, since the preceding themer is already using "boxing match." A high-scoring baseball game is often called a SLUGFEST, you could go that direction.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[all proceeds go to WFMU, the best listener-supported radio in the whole dang world]

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Cornet lookalike / SUN 9-13-26 / Previously-unseen sporting result (term coined in 2014) / Distraction-limiting lifestyle trend / Co-Stooge of Larry / Large insect named from Greek myth / Another name for Vishnu, translating to "the remover" / Source of the word "tuk-tuk" used for a motorized rickshaw / Deandre ___, N.B.A. center who was picked first in the 2018 draft / Mabel Mora's portrayer on "Only Murders in the Building"

Constructor: Henry Lin-David and Frank S. David

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Thinking Inside the Box" — theme answers are actually clues to eight four-letter answers sitting inside a box at the middle of the puzzle, unconnected to the rest of the grid:

Theme answers:

• 24A: Certain group of orchestral winds (FLUTE SECTION) => 66A: [24-Across] (STEM)
• 37A: Mechanic's offering (CAR SERVICE) => 37A: [73-Across] (TAXI)
• 41A: Told as a story (RELATED) => 84A: [41-Across] (AKIN)
• 57A: Group project on a winter's day, perhaps (GIANT SNOWMAN) => 89A: [57-Across] (YETI)
• 109A: Qualm (RESERVATION) => 66D: [109-Across] (STAY) (not quite sure how "reservation" = "stay" ... like, at a hotel??)
• 115A: Suitable (APPROPRIATE) => 67D: [115-Across] (TAKE)
• 127A: "Good job!" ("WAY TO GO!") =>  68A: [127-Across] (EXIT)
• 138A: Descended with rappelling ropes (SCALED DOWN) => 69A: [138-Across] (MINI)

Word of the Day: Isle of EWE (53D: Isle of ___ (Scottish locale whose name sounds like an expression of endearment)) —

The Isle of Ewe (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Iùbh) is a small Scottish island on the west coast of Ross and Cromarty. The island is inhabited by a single extended family, the Grants, who have lived at the current settlement on the leeward NE side of the island since the 19th century.

The island is privately owned by GBB Estates Ltd and Crofted by the Grants. The island previously had more families, but these left during the Second World War, when Loch Ewe was used as an important naval anchorage. The isolated position of the island meant that the children had to endure a round trip each day of about 26 miles (42 kilometres) by boat and bus to attend school.

The island remains off grid for electricity and water with this being generated by renewables and back up generators. There remains a single phone cable to the mainland which services the current households and is the only physical connection to the mainland.

Residents and visitors to the island use the Pier at Aultbea daily to travel back and forth for work and supplies.

• • •

I am ready and willing to upgrade the star rating of this puzzle somewhat if anyone can give me an answer to the question, "Why?" That is, "What is the point? What makes the theme cohere? Why are those words in the center and not, I don't know, literally any other words?" I am baffled. Without any clear rationale to the words in the center box, I am left to wonder: why is this interesting? Why is it interesting to have extremely straightforward clues for theme answers that are themselves clues? Why am I enduring barely-a-thing answers like FLUTE SECTION and GIANT SNOWMAN (?!)? I completely understand how the puzzle works, mechanically, but what the point is, where the interest lies, where the hell all the fun is?—I cannot answer any of these questions. I see that the themers, i.e. the clues to the answers in central box, appear in order (i.e first themer is for first Across in the box, second themer for second Across, etc.), and that the themers change meaning when they become clues—that feels like an added layer of difficulty. Structurally impressive, yes, but in the service of what feels like a whole lot of nothing. The puzzle was very, very easy, so I don't know if it will elicit much in the way of negative reaction, but ... as I say, I'm at a loss. If anyone wanted, they could do another puzzle exactly like this, with different theme answers and a different 4x4 box at the center. Every week. For all the Sundays to come. I mean, it would probably take you some time to make it all work out, structurally, but you could do it. Because this puzzle has no actual theme beyond its structure (that I can see). STEM TAXI AKIN YETI? STAY TAKE EXIT MINI? Help me decipher these mystical runes? What am I missing? STAY and STEM are synonyms (meaning, roughly, "stop" or "staunch"). Is that ... something? If I am, in fact, missing something, I pre-apologize and will update the write-up accordingly. But from where I'm sitting right now, this puzzle looks like it's desperately shouting "NOTICE ME!," but has nothing (besides its unusual structure) to show.

The puzzle does have some interesting symmetry. Something about the black square placement in the puzzle was making me mildly queasy, and I briefly thought it lacked any kind of symmetry, but then I noticed that it actually has mirror symmetry along the SW-to-NE diagonal. Don't see that very often.

MONK MODE? Ugh, what are we doing here? "Lifestyle trend"? I cannot sigh hard enough. The very phrase makes me tired. This is insulting to monks. Is this where you go on some kind of no-media diet or retreat? Can you see me rolling my eyes or hear me booing you. "Monk"? Yeesh, please stop. Also, SCORIGAMI, LOL, what? "Coined in 2014"? Why is that information salient? Why are you making me look this up? If this doesn't involve folding up a scorecard to make a crane, I'm going to be very disappointed ... 

In sports, a scorigami (a portmanteau of score and origami) is a final score that has never happened before in a sport or league's history. The term was coined in a 2014 article by sportswriter Jon Bois for American football scores in the National Football League (NFL), and is primarily used in this context; it has also been applied sparingly across other sports leagues. (wikipedia)

OK, but ... why is the pun on "origami????" Origami ... has happened before. I did not know these "first ever game scores" had a name, and now I wish I still didn't know. I have no idea what an ATLAS MOTH is, either, but at least that sounds real. The only moth species I know is the IO MOTH. I think. I don't spend much time lepidopterizing, I'll confess.

I had trouble almost nowhere. The center was the part that probably took me the longest, and then only because it came last, and I had nothing to build off of. But in the end, TAKE crossing AKIN got me going and the rest was easy. In the main part of the grid, I didn't know MONK MODE or SCORIGAMI, but got them both fairly quickly from crosses. I had STREUDEL instead of STREUSEL for a while (106D: Topping for an apple crisp), which meant I was in the dark for a bit about SCALED DOWN. I think the diciest moment of the solve had to be that AYTON (??) / STOMP cross, especially since STOMP could quite easily be STAMP (141A: Step forcefully). AYTON seemed more ... name-y, I guess, than AYTAN, so that's the vowel I chose (119D: Deandre ___, N.B.A. center who was picked first in the 2018 draft). Has Deandre AYTON done anything noteworthy in the past eight years? Also, why has DEANDRE never been in the grid? That's a name built for crosswords! AYTON seems like a solid pro, but there's nothing on his resumé (besides the first overall pick thing) that makes him particularly gridworthy. No championships, no All-Star appearances. Still, he's 7'1", that's remarkable. So is the fact that from 2022 through 2025 he made over $30 million/year (4 years, $133M). I sorta like his name. Like a beheaded PAYTON or DAYTON.  I don't love the AYTON / STOMP cross, but I do think AYTON should develop a little scoring dance called the AYTON STOMP. Like the Ickey Shuffle, only ... stompier.

[61A: ___ Simmons, founding member of Kiss]

Bullets:

• 53D: Isle of ___ (Scottish locale whose name sounds like an expression of endearment)(EWE) — "Isle of EWE" => "I Love You"

• 86A: Another name for Vishnu, translating to "the remover" (HARI) — it's surprising how easy this puzzle was given that this is, what, the fourth answer, at least, that I've never heard of—one that, like AYTON and SCORIGAMI, I couldn't even begin to infer. The only HARI I know is Mata. (In case you were thinking of the phrase "Hare Krishna," as you can see, the spelling is different) 
• 117A: Source of the word "tuk-tuk" used for a motorized rickshaw (THAI) — wanted URDU here. This was in the AYTON STOMP corner, adding to the difficulty of said corner.
• 134A: Co-Stooge of Larry (MOE) — OK, I like "Co-Stooge," thumbs up for that "word."
• 6D: Scampered away (SKEDADDLED) — easily my favorite answer in the grid. It's got a bounciness that most of the rest of this grid is lacking.
• 3D: Cornet lookalike (FLUGELHORN) — like SKEDADDLED, this one's just fun today. (Because of kerning issues, I keep reading this clue on my puzzle print-out as [Comet lookalike])
• 25D: Mabel Mora's portrayer on "Only Murders in the Building" (SELENA GOMEZ) — SELENA GOMEZ was in a clue for MABEL at the end of last month, and now here we are in a reverse situation. Nice full-name appearance for Ms. Gomez, whose name I misspelled as "GOMES" for some reason, my apologies to her and her cosmetics empire.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a reminder—on Thursday, September 17, at 7pm in Jersey City, NJ (just across the Hudson from Manhattan), I'm doing a little fundraising event for the world's greatest radio station, WFMU, hosted by DJ (and avid crossword solver) Evan "Funk" Davies. It's the WFMU Crossword Meet-Up! Longtime NYTXW constructor Gary Cee will also be there. We'll be sharing our WFMU-themed crosswords and talking about crosswords and generally just hanging out and having a nerdy good time, so if you're in the New York metropolitan area and have the time and inclination, please come out and say hi. More information here.

  

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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"Schitt's Creek" matriarch / SAT 9-12-26 / Rout, in computer game lingo / Country singer Combs / Rowing machines, in gym lingo / Playwright Moss ___ / Personal circumstances, so to speak / Punnily named production company behind TV's "Insecure" and "A Black Lady Sketch Show" / "Surf" food in Japan, or "turf" animal in Spain / Journalist Larson who wrote "The Splendid and the Vile" / What a joke may get eventually / Justice who's the subject of the 2026 biography "Revenge for the Sixties"

Constructor: Adam Wagner and Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MOTHRA (43D: Godzilla adversary) —

Mothra (Japanese: モスラ, Hepburn: Mosura) is a giant moth-like monster, or kaiju, who first appeared in the 1961 serialized novella The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, written by Takehiko Fukunaga, Shin'ichirō Nakamura and Yoshie Hotta, which later the same year was adapted into the film Mothra, directed by Ishirō Honda and produced and distributed by Toho. Mothra has appeared in several tokusatsu films, often as a recurring monster in the Godzilla franchise. She is typically portrayed as a colossal sentient moth, who hatches from her egg in her larval caterpillar form, before cocooning herself with silk to become a winged adult (imago) form accompanied by two miniature humanoid twin fairies speaking on her behalf. Unlike several other Toho monsters, Mothra is a largely heroic character, having been variously portrayed as a protector of her own island culture, the Earth and Japan. Mothra's design is influenced by silkworms, their imagos, and those of giant silk moths in the family Saturniidae. The character is often depicted hatching offspring (in some cases, twins) when approaching death, a nod to the Saṃsāra doctrine of numerous Indian religions. [...] Though Mothra is generally portrayed as female, male individuals of her species have also been featured in the franchise, including Battra in Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992), the offspring in the Rebirth of Mothra film trilogy, referred to as Mothra Leo by song in the film, and a male Mothra larva who appears alongside his non-identical twin sister in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003). // Mothra is one of Toho's most popular monsters and second only to Godzilla in her total number of film appearances. Polls taken during the early 1990s indicated that Mothra was particularly popular among women who were, at the time, the largest demographic among Japan's movie-going audience, a fact that prompted the filming of 1992's Godzilla vs. Mothra, which was the best-attended Toho film since King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). (wikipedia)

• • •

Really enjoyed this one. Maybe a little on the name-y side with more dullish short answers than might seem ideal, but as with yesterday's puzzle, this one was so packed with solid marquee answers that I didn't notice or care about the dull or tiresome or annoying short stuff as I might have. ASAP over REPO over DEPT. OVAL over REDO over ONEG. AMINO MACRO PITAS. STPAT ERASES ASA NYETS. Taken in isolation, these clumps of answers seem pretty bad, but those clumps are holding in place big beautiful BLOCKs of answers. We get two stacks of 10s and two colonnades of 9s—twelve long answers in those corners and not a one of them is a clanker. Perhaps none of them sparkles as much as the best fill in yesterday's puzzle, but that puzzle never tried to stack more than two long answers at a time, which gives the grid more give and makes it easier to fill in a fun and exciting way. Today's grid shape is much more restrictive, but the puzzle still manages to have an open feel, a zing and nice overall sense of flow, aided by the two grid-spanners that cross at the center of the puzzle. Those answers keep the corners from seeming so isolated, the way Saturday grids can get sometimes (such that they seem like four little puzzles instead of one full one). 

[1A: Light décor]

Getting "THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!" (36A: "Now we're talking!") was a real high point, a bridge from NE to SW that also gave me the first letter in REACTION (I was DELAYED by DELAYED—couldn't figure out what was supposed to follow; LAUGHTER fit, but didn't sound right at all) (8D: What a joke may get eventually). As for the names, I was lucky enough to know most of them. Normally, something like HOORAE would seem like an insane thing to expect solvers to know (56A: Punnily named production company behind TV's "Insecure" and "A Black Lady Sketch Show"), but since ISSA RAE is such a crossword mainstay (in both parts of her name), I think it's fair game, and fun to figure out. I had HOORAY at first (a pun on "Who Rae?"), but that faux meat that "bleeds" was obviously BEETS, not BYETS. I like BYETS as a companion answer for NYETS, but, while BEETS are Russian, they're not that Russian.

No real trouble spots today besides the delayed "reaction" in DELAYED REACTION. The one area that gave me more trouble than anything else in the grid, by far (in that it gave me any trouble at all) was LOW PH / OTT crossing. Had no idea about OTT (55A: N.B.A. coach Jordan ___) and (of course) tried to parse the answer to 47D: Acidic (LOW PH) as one word. OTT seemed like the most namelike thing there, but I dunno ... if you're throwing some N.B.A. coach at me (and not even telling me the team?), I figure maybe you're trying to introduce some new, stranger name into the grid, like ... maybe you've discovered a non-fictional ITT, or an ATT, or even the first ever UTT. But my confusion here simply didn't last. The long Downs in the SW ended up coming quickly—WHITE NOISE off the "-HI-" (58A: Common sleep aid), PROBLEM SET off the "-RO-" (61A: Math class assignment)—so I got my LOW PH "D'oh!" moment and that was that, as far as any real trouble. Started with AMINO / LOOSE in the NW and just burned it down from there. Could've used a little more fight, but I had a good time (again, just like yesterday).

Bullets:

• 11A: Last place? (TOMB) — Morbid. I love it. I laughed.
• 25A: Why wait? (TIP) — NE corner went down so fast that I never saw this clue, which I like, though I think it would work better for TIPS. You would not wait (tables) for a single tip.
• 26A: Personal circumstances, so to speak (SHOES) — very clever. Needed a few crosses and then got a nice "OH, NOW I SEE" moment.

• 34A: First full word sung in "The Alphabet Song" (AND) — another clue I never saw, which is a good thing, because I totally forgot what "The Alphabet Song" was ("A B C D E F G / H I J K LMNOP / Q R S / T U V / W X / Y AND Z...")—or, rather, I confused it with this:

• 41D: Rowing machines, in gym lingo (ERGS) — uh, they just call them "rowing machines," seriously. I think ERG is written on the sides of the one at my gym, but I've never heard anyone call it that. Even though I've seen this answer before, I still wanted some other silly E-word configuration, like EVOS. 
• 6D: Playwright Moss ___ (HART) — I knew this one, but I think it's gonna be among the harder names for people today. He was a big deal playwright and librettist, but his general fame hasn't lasted. He was married to Kitty Carlisle (leading lady in the Marx Bros's A Night at the Opera and regular panelist on To Tell the Truth), who outlived him by almost half a century (Moss died of a heart attack in the early '60s, age 57).
• 11D: "Surf" food in Japan, or "turf" animal in Spain (TORO) — This makes it sound like you eat the bull. I see you switched from "food" to "animal," but you're playing off the phrase "surf & turf," which is a menu phrase, so I have to assume you ate the bull.
• 38D: Journalist Larson who wrote "The Splendid and the Vile" (ERIK) — thought I didn't know this one, but I've at least heard of ERIK Larson. I know him as a writer of (non-fiction) books. Didn't know he was a "journalist."

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Network debut of 1981 / FRI 9-11-26 / ___ Ann (classic Lily Tomlin character) / U.S. senators Warnock and Duckworth, for two / Film composer Silvestri / Chip source, informally / Jazz Age Disney princess / Guard at the gates of Mordor / Blue ___ (coral reef swimmers like Pixar's Dory) / Assessment of something enjoyed ironically

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALAN Silvestri (46D: Film composer Silvestri) —

Alan Anthony Silvestri (born March 26, 1950) is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and music producer of film scores. He has received two Grammy Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for nearly all of his feature films, including the Back to the Future film series (1985–1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992), Forrest Gump (1994), Contact (1997), What Lies Beneath (2000), Cast Away (2000), The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), Flight (2012) and The Walk (2015).

Silvestri also scored many other popular movies, including Predator (1987), The Abyss (1989), Father of the Bride (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), Eraser (1996), The Parent Trap (1998), Practical Magic (1998), Stuart Little (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Van Helsing (2004), the first three Night at the Museum films, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), The A-Team (2010), Ready Player One (2018), and five Marvel Cinematic Universe films: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Avengers: Doomsday (2026). (wikipedia)

• • •

[God-tier candy] 

On most days, after I've fed the cats and gotten some water, I come up here to my office, open the puzzle up, and start stumbling along with my solving without (initially) looking down to see who the constructor is. I don't know how I developed this habit, but I've usually had a stab at the NW corner, at least, before I glance down to see who made the damn puzzle. Sometimes I look down with appreciation, sometimes I look down with anger. Well, disappointment, anyway. So it was very funny (to me) today when I worked my way through the SKA-not-RUM and the "oh that kind of 'anchor'" (DESK) and "omg what was that Lily Tomlin character's name!?!?"-ness of the NW and then hit the first whoosh! (OSCAR PARTY), and then, midway through writing in the second whoosh! ("GENIUS IDEA!") I literally thought "Is this Robyn? This feels like Robyn," looked down, and lol, whaddya know! I love that "GENIUS IDEA!" is the answer that gave it away. Sorry to predictably love another RW joint but she's just on another level and you (I) can feel it. Twelve (12) marquee answers, at least eleven of which are good, and at least half a dozen of which are "hell yeah" good. There's such great voice here. Slanginess, colloquialness, but most of it not at all niche or obscure or strangely worded or otherwise irksome. Just stuff you hear all the time but don't necessarily expect to see in a crossword. "GENIUS IDEA!" "THAT DOES IT!" "PLEASE DON'T GO!" SO BAD IT'S GOOD. Even something as simple as "LET ME KNOW" really sings when it's in a clean grid alongside all these other winners. Someone should solve this in GLITTER PEN, because it deserves it (not sure if that would be legible, but who cares: sparkly pen for a sparkly puzzle!)

Though the puzzle played pretty easy overall (those whooshes really did their job, whooshing me from one section to the next), I did spin my wheels and make a mistake or two, here and there. As I said (above, re: SKA, DESK, EDITH), getting off the ground involved a little effort, and then after a lot of whooshing, on the other side of the grid, after correcting GLITTER GUN to GLITTER PEN (had the GLIT- in place, missed the "prose" part of the clue), I hit 43A: Comforts, and off the "SO-" I wrote in .... SOLACES. Then off that "S" (the second one), I looked at 44D: Lavender or lilac and wrote in SHADE. Wrong-wrong combo! That's never good. I was lucky that my wrong answers absolutely ground me to a halt—wouldn't work with any crosses whatsoever—so I pulled myself out of that mess reasonably quickly, starting with the obvious SEEN (54A: How one might feel at a support group meeting), which changed SHADE to SCENT. The "T" from HASN'T eventually killed SOLACES and got me to SOOTHES, and then I was back on track. 

After fixing SOLACES / SHADE, everything went fine until the very end—the hardest part of the grid, for me—the far north. Three little answers would not allow me to move from the NW into the N. The real killer was PHDS (20A: U.S. senators Warnock and Duckworth, for two). PALS!? No idea. That "H" in PHDS stayed a mystery because ITCHED (5D: Had a hankering?)? No idea! I ITCHED for several days last week but that's because I got triple-stung by a wasp, not because I had a hankering. The fact that the clue on nearby EARS (7D: Sound wave amplifiers) was also inscrutable to me meant that I was essentially in an "Access Denied" situation vis-a-vis the NE, so I ended up having to come at it from the other side, up from below. Luckily, not that hard. Big "D'oh!" when P-DS ended up being PHDS. Tough (for me), but fair. The "U.S." in the clue does fairly signal that the answer will be an abbr. Fridays should involve at least a little struggle. Not enough struggle to make this anything but "Easy," but still, enough crunch to keep the puzzle from being boring-easy.

Bullets:

• 19A: Singer/actress Carrere (TIA) — a name I associate almost exclusively with Wayne's World (1992) but I just looked her up and she has worked constantly in both film and television for the past three decades. Plus she won two Grammys for Best Hawaiian Music Album (!!). TIA is usually clued as Spanish for "aunt," or via the coffee liqueur TIA Maria, but every five years or so, you get Ms. Carrere (her last name has also appeared in the NYTXW, three times, though her full name, never).

• 31A: Drives for money? (TELETHON) — had me wondering if there was such a thing as a GOLF(A)THON.
• 45A: Fairly low-risk investment (AA BOND) — by far my least favorite thing in the grid. Let us not speak of it again.
• 29D: Trial that an attorney may not remember fondly? (LSAT) — don't really get this. I mean, you're an attorney. It's just a reading comprehension and logic test. You must've done OK.  Isn't the bar the really grueling "trial"?
• 31D: Blue ___ (coral reef swimmers like Pixar's Dory) (TANGS) — I never knew "tang" was a fish until I started seeing TANG clued that way in puzzles (which the NYTXW didn't do until 2024!?). 
• 49A: Guard at the gates of Mordor (ORC) — ENTs are good and Mordor is bad so I went with the other three-letter creature from LOTR. A note for those who are occasionally confused: ENDOR is the forest moon where the Ewoks live (Star Wars); MORDOR is the realm of the dark lord Sauron (Lord of the Rings). Hope this helps.

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

[all proceeds go to WFMU, the best listener-supported radio in the whole dang world]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a little Paul Simon for you today ... just because ❤️

  

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