Cliff formed by a fault / THU 5-14-26 / Ruthless Athenian lawgiver / Prolifically posting about one's kids online, in a neologism / Member of a sluglike "Star Wars" species / September to April, in the oyster industry / Penultimate Greek letter / Biblical locale guarded by a flaming sword / Trellis piece / Alternatives to hourly wages / Former small-sized G.M. cars / Heather genus that's also a woman's name / Ancient book of divination

Constructor: Simeon Seigel

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[45D: Member of a sluglike "Star Wars" species]

THEME: WATER (62A: Compound with a caret-shaped molecule, as depicted by this puzzle's circled letters) — "H2O" is represented visually four times in the grid (H-O-H), standing in for the word "water" in two Across answers each time:

Theme answers:

• STANDING [WATER] / [WATER]MARK (19A: Prime breeding environment for mosquitoes / 20A: Impression on some fancy sheets)
• ON THE [WATER] / [WATER] CANNONS (24A: At sea, say / 27A: Powerful fireboat gear)
• RETAINS [WATER] / [WATER] WINGS (43A: Gets bloated, say / 45A: Pair for a pool)
• RAIN[WATER] / [WATER] PITCHERS (48A: What collects in a puddle / 49A: Things often getting free refills)

Word of the Day: KITHARA (42D: Seven-stringed instrument that gave the guitar its name) —

The kithara (Greek: κιθάρα, romanized: kithára), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word kithara has come to mean "guitar"; etymologically, the word guitar derives from kithara. (wikipedia)

• • •

Again with the extremely underwhelming revealers! That's like three days in a row now. This was possibly the underwhelmingest of the lot, as the WATER conceit was clear very early on. How early? This early:

As you can see, in my unthinking haste, I imagined that the "2" in "H2O" applied to the oxygen and not the hydrogen molecules, but that was easily fixed. And there it was H-O-H. I thought "maybe the other molecules will be ... different?" But they weren't. They were all water. And they represented water in eight different answers. Water water everywhere. And then I get to the end for the big reveal and it's ... WATER? It's just WATER? That's all you've got for me. No funny phrase, no wordplay, nothing that evokes the way the H-O-H molecules here actually connect two "WATER" answers each time (WATER BRIDGE? Is that a thing?)? Just ... WATER. WATER. A thing I already knew. A thing that was already obvious. Why even include WATER? It seems like such a sad afterthought here.

I've seen H2O puzzles before. This one is interesting / original because of the way the molecules bridge two different "WATER" answers. Again, I really wish there were some rationale for this bridging that could be expressed in revealer form. It would make the whole theme make much more sense. As is, H-O-H just seems like an architectural flourish. Who cares? Worse, you get a lot of actually fairly dull WATER answers. Like ... that's a lot of WATER, and hardly any of the answers are taking that WATER in an interesting direction. At least WATERMARK gets us out of a liquid form for a little bit. But otherwise, the WATER is just ordinary WATER. All wet. I will say, though, that the fill on this one is more interesting than usual, and lifts the puzzle somewhat out of boring territory. I mean, I don't *love* "R" MONTHS or PER DIEMS (plural), but at least they have a little flash, a little energy, a little sass. See also SHARENTING, a portmanteau that makes me cringe, but at least the puzzle's trying to keep things interesting (11D: Prolifically posting about one's kids online, in a neologism). And then it throws a KITHARA at me at the end, that was unexpected! I had the KI- and absolutely no idea what was happening. "Did ... did the KEYTAR give the guitar its name? I must have that backward." Indeed.

I do not eat oysters and know about the "R"-month thing only from crosswords—not because of the answer "'R' MONTHS" (4D: September to April, in the oyster industry) but because of "'R'-LESS" months! That's right, RLESS is a thing you used to see in crosswords to describe the months that oysters are out of season, when you're not supposed to eat them. Hmm, looks like RLESS is still alive and well and I've just mentally blocked that fact out. Ten appearances since I started blogging, though none for about five years now. I imagined RLESS as a relic of the Maleska days, but in fact RLESS has been used almost exclusively in the Shortz Era. The one pre-Shortz appearance (1989) actually clued RLESS as [Like speech in New England?]. Anyway, if you had no clue about the connection between "R"s and oysters, now you do.

Bullets:

• 25D: Had to have right away (NEEDED ASAP) — NEED ASAP would be a clunky and awkward answer, so NEEDED ASAP ... yeah, that's worse. The one clunker among the longer non-theme answers today. I keep reading it as NEEDED A SAP. [Yearned to con someone]?
• 1A: Cliff formed by a fault (SCARP) — I think I know the term "escarpment." But SCARP definitely gave me trouble today. I'm sure I've seen SCARP in crosswords before ... [checks database] ... yes, I have, a handful of times, but not for about five years. I got the "SCA" easily but the last two letters eluded me for a bit, in part because "ALL ME!" (not a thing people say) kept giving me "RM-" at the beginning of 4D: September to April, in the oyster industry, and that seemed impossible.
• 13A: "My fault entirely" ("ALL ME") — cannot imagine this as a standalone phrase. "That was ALL ME." "It's ALL ME." Maybe. But the standalone phrase is "MY BAD." "ALL ME" sounds more like you're bragging about an accomplishment than taking responsibility for a screw-up.

• 55A: Broadcasting giant with hundreds of stations (I HEART RADIO) — technically the whole thing is one word: "iHeartRadio." "iHeartRadio is owned by iHeartMedia, which was rebranded from Clear Channel in 2014" (wikipedia).
• 10D: A peeling that's appealing? (POTATO SKIN) — I mean ... if you like POTATO SKINs, I guess they're "appealing." Weird clue, though. "Appealing" doesn't really get at ... anything. I'm not sure the pun here is worth it.
• 3D: Palindrome on an Italian restaurant menu (ALLA) — crosswordese, and a gimme. I do not like this answer, but I do like that the puzzle decided to get a little inventive with the clue by linking it to the other culinary crosswordese palindrome in the puzzle, NAAN (39D: Palindrome on an Indian restaurant menu). Nice little echo there. Makes the crosswordese go down a little easier.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Jackal-headed Egyptian deity / WED 5-13-26 / Drink with junmai and nigori variants / Uber alternative / Seville snack / Stark daughter played by Sophie Turner on "Game of Thrones" / Pittsburgh Pirates mascot / Cranberry-tinged cocktail / They're adjusted when truing a bicycle wheel

Constructor: Brian Keller

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[40D: Furry "Star Wars" creature]

THEME: SHIFT KEY (60A: What you'd need to press to make the starred clues and their answers match) — find the answers to the clues on your keyboard and then look above those answers to see what you're supposed to enter in the grid: 

Theme answers:

• PLUS SIGN (17A: *Peers) ("+" = Shift-"=" (i.e. "equals"))
• DOLLAR SYMBOL (24A: *Number of years between summer Olympics) ("$" = Shift-"4")
• OPEN PARENTHESES (37A: *Number of Supreme Court justices) ("(" = Shift-"9")
• QUESTION MARK (47A: *Guns N' Roses guitarist) ("?" = Shift-"/" (i.e. "Slash"))

Word of the Day: The Pirate PARROT (16A: Pittsburgh Pirates mascot) —

The Pirate Parrot is a costumed mascot of the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball. He was introduced in 1979 to boost sagging attendance and was inspired by the success of rival mascot Phillie Phanatic, which the Philadelphia Phillies introduced the year before. // The parrot character was derived from the classic story Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, most notably the one owned by Long John Silver named "Captain Flint".

The Pirates put out a casting call for highly-energetic candidates, hoping to find a comedic talent similar to Robin Williams, and selected Kevin Koch after an extensive audition day due to his disco dance skills. The Parrot debuted on April Fools' Day, 1979 when he "hatched" at Three Rivers Stadium. That year, the "We Are Family" Pirates won the World Series. [...] In 1995, the Parrot was briefly paired with a secondary mascot, the Buccaneer, who was quickly dropped after its actor was arrested for skinny dipping. [...] In May 1986 the Pirate Parrot joined in the Pittsburgh section of Hands Across America. [...] Kevin Koch was the original Pirate Parrot for seven years after its debut in 1979, selected over 97 other applicants for his energetic nature and talented disco performance during his audition [...] In 1985, it was discovered that Koch had used cocaine during several games and introduced players to cocaine by serving as middle man between drug dealers and players. Koch resigned that year and has expressed regret for doing cocaine and sharing it with the players. Despite the scandal, the Pirates kept the Parrot. (wikipedia)

• • •

The "Medium" part of the "Easy-Medium" rating today is due entirely to the NW corner, which is where the first themer sits. I encountered it first *and* it was the most inscrutable of all the theme clues. The others all have definitive answers, so it was easy (very easy), when I saw that the answer to 24A: *Number of years between summer Olympics was gonna be DOLLAR SYMBOL, to figure out the gimmick. I know the answer to the clue is "four," so ... what is the connection between "four" and DOLLAR SYMBOL? That's easy. Transparent. Right in front of my face, in fact. Whereas there was no way in the world I was going to find my way to PLUS SIGN from 17A: *Peers any time soon. I don't mind the trickiness of that first themer—it's pretty innovative—but it's an awful outlier today, where all the other themers have obvious, specific, indisputable answers: 4, 9, Slash. Zero ambiguity. Whereas "Peers," yeesh, that could mean a lot of things, including "looks intently." I want to fault that first themer, but actually I wish the other themers were more like it—it's kinda boring to just answer a remedial trivia question and then look above a keyboard key for the answer. And the revealer was an extreme anti-climax. I had the conceit figured out after DOLLAR SYMBOL, so when I got to SHIFT KEY I was like "yeah, I know." Could've used some clever wordplay ... something that has a payoff. SHIFT KEY is just a flat explanation, and an unnecessary one at that. Maybe some of you were baffled by what was going on until you got to SHIFT KEY. I envy you. For me, this was one very strange but kind of interesting theme answer and then a bunch of ho-hum no-challenge fill-ins. And the fill has almost nothing to offer today, with no answers outside the theme set any longer than six letters (?). Hard to get any kind of sparkle going when you top out at 6 and are mostly dealing with 3-4-5s. Further, it's DOLLAR SIGN. It just is. [I just had to go back and edit this paragraph because I wrote DOLLAR SIGN every dang time, instinctively; that's how much my brain is rejecting DOLLAR SYMBOL]. I see why you went with SYMBOL, since SIGN was already taken, but it's SIGN. I mean, the rapper called himself Ty DOLLA $IGN, not Ty DOLLA $YMBOL. For a reason.

[all the warnings...]

Not much going on in the fill, as I say. TSA BIN gets a little inventive, and I appreciate that. Hard to do unusual or interesting stuff with answers under 7 letters. Nothing else in the grid has much shine, except maybe (fittingly) SATINY (45D: Smooth and glossy). Lots of crosswordese today, as well as neocrosswordese (ABBI, SANSA). Not much in the way of difficulty, though. The hardest part for me was, once again, the very beginning, partially because that first themer was impossible to figure out with no context, but also because I had LYFT instead of TAXI at first for 1A: Uber alternative, and my [Group of reps] was a SEN and at some point my XOUT was an XOFF (3D: Strike from a list). Also, I just forgot SANSA (7D: Stark daughter played by Sophie Turner on "Game of Thrones"). Gregor SAMSA, I know. SANSA is just never gonna stick. Ah well.

Bullets:

• 30A: Heated competition? (MEET) — a swim MEET or a track MEET will feature different "heats" (i.e. preliminary races). 
• 64A: Try a new course, say (VEER) — LOL that's more than "trying." This clue misses the crucial component of VEERing, which is that it's sudden and unexpected. No one's like "hmmm, I think I shall choose to VEER now." If you're simply going to "try a new course," you're much more likely to simply TURN. 
• 12D: Cranberry-tinged cocktail (COSMO) — I used to like these back before I really knew anything about cocktails. Now I can't imagine wasting my one cocktail / day (hard limit) on a COSMO. On anything vodka-based, for that matter. Although I did once listen to a genuinely fascinating Cocktail College episode about the COSMO, including its rise to extreme popularity in the wake of Sex & the City. Almost made me want to try one again. Almost.

• 35D: Personification of victory (NIKE) — before it was an athletic brand, it was a Greek goddess. Thank god for NIKE because I honestly wasn't sure how to spell OPEN PARENTHESIS (kinda wanted the plural spelling ("E") ... like "hello, I am addressing you two PARENTHESES, because you always travel in pairs ... please open!"
• 48D: Forearm-related, in a way (ULNAR) — for a split second there, I considered ULNIC (?!), but then I remembered the ULNAR nerve, which may be the only way I've ever seen ULNAR used in the wild. 
• 5D: Many fast pitches (SPIELS) — so ... sales pitches, not baseball pitches. I had the SP- and was like "SPEED ... balls? SPEEDS? Are they calling them SPEEDS now?" Bah.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Stool pigeons, in police shorthand / TUE 5-12-26 / Some limb-moving muscles / Sandlot QB's order to a receiver / Listing at an ice cream shop in Ipswich / Al Sharpton's title, for short

Constructor: John Ruff

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH(?)" (58A: "Hmm, why use the spellings of 17-, 27- and 46-Across?) — theme answers have British spellings (words spelled with "O-U-R" instead of the American "OR"):

Theme answers:

• FLAVOUR OF THE DAY (17A: Listing at an ice cream shop in Ipswich)
• COLOURING BOOKS (27A: Kids' items at a day care in Derby) 
• NEIGHBOURHOODS (46A: Areas on a map of Manchester)

Word of the Day: CIS (24D: Stool pigeons, in police shorthand) —

[I know]

An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a "snitch", "rat", "canary", "stool pigeon", "stoolie", "tout" or "grass", among other terms) is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information intended to be intimate, concealed, or secret, about a person or organization to an agency, often a government or law enforcement agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informants are officially known as confidential human sources (CHS), or criminal informants (CI). It can also refer pejoratively to someone who supplies information without the consent of the involved parties. The term is commonly used in politics, industry, entertainment, and academia. // In the United States, a confidential informant or "CI" is "any individual who provides useful and credible information to a law enforcement agency regarding felonious criminal activities and from whom the agency expects or intends to obtain additional useful and credible information regarding such activities in the future".(wikipedia)

• • •

Oh, this again? Actually, no, not again. Yesterday's "OH DEAR!" theme worked really well—surprising, playful, funny. Today's puzzle just didn't have enough oomph. The revealer has to be absolutely On The Money in this one because the theme answers are so preposterously dull. A bunch of words spelled Britishly isn't anyone's idea of a good time, I don't imagine. So OK, revealer, whaddya got for me? Oh ... oh, are you kidding? First of all, I see your "O-U-R" pun, and that's cute, but what exactly is this phrase? "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH." Is someone saying that as a statement? Asking it as a question? The clue for it is phrased so badly that I honestly don't know (58A: "Hmm, why use the spellings of 17-, 27- and 46-Across?). Normally, when a clue is a quotation, the answer has to be an equivalent of that quotation, not a response to it, so ... that would mean "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH?" is interrogative ("OH, YOU ARE BRITISH?"). But that makes no sense at all. "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH!" only makes sense as a statement of mild surprise. "OH, I see: YOU ARE BRITISH!" If you know the person is British, then it makes no sense that you are asking why. Also, who would phrase a question that way?? "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH?"??? That sounds like someone whose first language is not English (if this were a question, you would of course phrase it "OH, ARE YOU BRITISH???"). 

But then if we say "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH" is in fact a statement, not a question, then why is it clued as a question? The idea here seems to want to be that these are things (the clue and then the answer) that you might say, sequentially, to yourself, as a solver (?). "Hmmm, why would you do this British spelling thing? ... oh, I see, you are doing it because you are British!" But the clue makes an absolute muddle of the linguistic situation—answer and clue have to have equivalency (such that one can be swapped out for the other), and yet imagining "OH, YOU ARE BRITISH?" as a question, as we've established, is ridiculous. So the mild cutesiness of the "OUR" pun is completely undone by the disastrously muddled phrasing of the revealer clue.

The rest of the puzzle was mostly a heap of dull short stuff, though there are a couple of 7s and a couple of 8s and a couple of 9s crammed in there as well, all of them solid. Still, I felt like I was drowning in 3s and 4s. I think the relative dullness of those theme answers really costs the puzzle today. Usually, the theme is where most of the interest lies, but today, those three themers are just a kind of bland set-up for the Big Reveal (which, as I say, was, for me, a bust). Felt like a lot of URDUs and EYREs and ERSTs and ESAUs and OGLEs and OGEEs and OMANIs and IPOS. The roughest bit for me came right near the center, with CIS / ESTE / OGEE. I know OGEE well, but I couldn't accept it because of ESTE, which I only ever remember encountering as Spanish for "East"—when it comes to indicating "this," I feel like it's always ESTO or ESTA (33A: Spanish for "this"). In fact ... 201 appearances of ESTE in the Shortz Era and this is literally the first time it's been clued as Spanish for "this" (!?). It's always the direction, or else a Renaissance family name, or part of some place name—never Spanish "this." Bizarre. And so I balked at OGEE because it gave me ESTE. As for CIS, I didn't balk at that—I simply had no idea. I read a lot of crime fiction—teach it, even—and I guess I don't read enough contemporary police procedurals because that abbr. meant nothing to me. I could infer its meaning once all the letters were in place, but CIS on its own ... that's the counterpart of TRANS in gender terminology. That's the only way I'm used to CIS being clued. So the fill got ugly and bumpy through there. I also had a weird lot of trouble with JAM IN (32: Pack tightly). No good reason, just couldn't parse it—had to get it to -AMIN before I saw it. 

Bullets:

• 1A: Appropriate answer for 1-Across (START) — since this was the first clue I looked at, I cannot argue with its logic
• 23A: Some limb-moving muscles (ABDUCTORS) — I always thought of these as hip muscles, and thus leg-moving muscles exclusively, but I see now that there are ABDUCTORS all over; they move limbs away from the midline of the body, and are involved in spreading your fingers and toes as well. Nice to get an anatomical clue here instead of a kidnapping clue.
• 5D: Instrument with a Renaissance-era ancestor called a sackbut (TROMBONE) — "76 Sackbuts Led the Big Parade" just doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Or maybe it does and I'm just used to TROMBONE. Trading butt for bone ... seems like a lateral move in terms of mellifluousness. Still, "sackbut" does sound slightly more like a medical condition, so maybe we are better off.

• 42D: Lowe on TV (ROB) — balked at this one too. "TV? When was he on TV?" Mentally, I have him locked in as a big-screen heartthrob of the '80s. This isn't a sex tape clue, is it? Oh, crap, he was on West Wing and Parks and Rec. Of course. Never mind.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Take fowl foully / MON 5-11-26 / Listened, poetically / Cameroon neighbor / Contents of l'océan / Movie production facilities with controlled acoustics / Winning a blue ribbon / Request from someone craving more

Constructor: Joel Woodford

Relative difficulty: Easyish (solved Downs-only)

[54D: Jabba the ___ ("Star Wars" villain)]

THEME: "OH, DEAR!" (45D: "Goodness me!" ... or a phonetic hint to 17-, 31-, 39- and 55-Across) — in four answers, an "O" ("oh!") is followed (many letters later) by a string of letters that spells out a type of deer ("dear!"):

Theme answers:

• BILLBOARD CHARTS (17A: Rankings of song popularity used as the music industry standard)
• HORS D'OEUVRE (31A: Canapé or deviled egg, for example)
• SOUND STAGES (39A: Movie production facilities with controlled acoustics)
• DROP IN THE BUCKET (55A: Insignificant amount)

Word of the Day: GABON (15A: Cameroon neighbor) —

Gabon (/ɡəˈbɒn/ gə-BON; French pronunciation: [ɡabɔ̃] ^ⓘ), officially the Gabonese Republic (French: République gabonaise), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and the Gulf of Guinea to the west. It has an area of 270,000 square kilometres (100,000 sq mi) and a population of 2.3 million people. There are coastal plains, mountains (the Cristal Mountains and the Chaillu Massif in the centre), and a savanna in the east. Libreville is the country's capital and largest city. // Gabon's original inhabitants were the Bambenga. In the 14th century, Bantu migrants also began settling in the area. The Kingdom of Orungu was established around 1700. France colonised the region in the late 19th century. Since its independence from France in 1960, Gabon has had four presidents. In the 1990s, it introduced a multi-party system and a democratic constitution that aimed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed some governmental institutions. Despite this, the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) remained the dominant party until its removal from power during the 2023 Gabonese coup d'état. (wikipedia)

• • •

What, no HIND? With three males to one female, the herd could use a little evening out. But then "hind" is not exactly an everyday word. The only reason I know it is that it appears in the first line of a fairly famous sonnet by Sir Thomas Wyatt called "Whoso List to Hunt..."

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame. (poetryfoundation)

The more you read it, the weirder the deer gets. But back to the puzzle—it was bizarre, so I liked it. It's a nice, light, bright, quirky, easy puzzle. Yes, it involves non-consecutive circled squares, and those things often fail to yield very interesting results, but here, the double pun (on "oh" and "dear") makes the circled squares make perfect sense. And as a Downs-only solver, I was able to actually use the theme to help me get to the finish line, writing in BUCK in those last four circled squares as soon as I got the "B" in there. It's a charming idea for a theme and it was fun to solve (at least it was fun to solve Downs-only). Maybe it doesn't seem spectacular, but I honestly don't have any serious complaints about it. Didn't even find the short stuff that grating, perhaps because it was tempered by some interesting 7s and 8s and a boatload of 6s in the NW and SE corner. And then ACQUITS and UMPTEEN to boot. This one just has a lot more character than most Mondays.

There were precisely four Down answers that gave me trouble today. The first was "I WANT OUT!" (10D: "Don't involve me anymore"). Really wanted that one to start "I'M A..." (the "M" giving me SMEAR at S-EAR, which seemed more than plausible). But then ... stuckness. "I'M ALL OUT"? No, that makes no sense. "I'M A NO, BRO"? Oof, worse. Needed to get most of the crosses before I saw that the "M" was really supposed to be a "W," which made SMEAR into SWEAR (16A: Yell "#$%!"), and finally let me see "I WANT OUT!" The hardest thing for me to see today, though, was FIRST (23D: Winning a blue ribbon). Something about the ambiguity of the clue was throwing me; specifically, I couldn't tell what part of speech the answer wanted. "Winning" ... like, currently winning, in the process of winning? Or ... having won? I wanted AHEAD at first, but that implies the race (or whatever) hasn't been completed yet, and the clue specifically says "Winning." I kinda wanted an -ING word, but at five letters, that seemed unlikely. You wouldn't think a simple word like FIRST could flummox me like this, but ... that's what happened. I think the (apparent) unlikeliness of "F" as the correct start of "-ESS" also made FIRST hard to see. MESS BESS TESS LESS, all of them were in line before FESS. Another longer answer—in fact literally "ANOTHER!"—held me up for a bit down south (40D: Request from someone craving more). And then there was LIDS (52D: Tube tops?). I am a firm believer that tubes have CAPS, not LIDS. Jars have LIDS. Tubes (of toothpaste) have CAPS. So boo to that clue. My lone boo for the day.

[Swayze!]

Bullets:

• 15A: Cameroon neighbor (GABON) — got this from crosses, obviously (since I solved Downs-only), but I'm not sure I would've gotten it easily even if I had read the clue. My knowledge of African (particularly west African) geography remains pretty sketchy. GABON sits right on the equator (see map, above, under "Word of the Day"). Its capital, Libreville is the second-closest world capital to the equator (only crossword favorite QUITO, Ecuador—43 lifetime NYTXW appearances—is closer).
• 30A: Take fowl foully (POACH) — solving Downs-only means sometimes you miss fun clues. This one is funny to me not just because of the silly rhyme, but because when I think of poaching (as in illegal hunting), I think of ... deer! Wrote a whole chapter of my dissertation on the portrayal of poaching (deer) in late medieval England (specifically, in a poem called The Parlement of the Thre Ages). Looks like Parlement, like the aforementioned "Whoso List to Hunt...," also contains a "hynde" ("hind") in addition to a "hert" ("hart"). It's an appropriate poem for May. It opens:

In the monethe of Maye when mirthes bene fele,*    *many
And the sesone of somere when softe bene the wedres,*    *breezes
Als I went to the wodde my werdes to dreghe,*    *to try my luck
Into the schawes* myselfe a schotte me to gete    *thickets
At ane hert or ane hynde, happen as it myghte ... 

    (from The Parlement of the Thre Ages)

• 11D: French for "sea" (MER) — our second three-letter watery French answer. Surprised the clue for EAU wasn't [Contents of 11-Down] instead of [Contents of l'océan].
• 43D: Fashionable (CHIC) — I wonder how long it's going to take now before I look at the word CHIC without thinking of OHIO (see yesterday's puzzle...)
• 44D: Listened, poetically (HARKED) — [Listened, yuletidily]. If Parlement of the Thre Ages was appropriate for May, this song ... isn't. 

• 34D: Rapper ___ Rocky (A$AP) — Always Strive and Prosper. Good to know what the acronym means and get that dollar sign in there. Otherwise it just seems like Rocky is an efficient gofer or personal assistant: As Soon As Possible Rocky!

[starring Winona Ryder] [warning: profanity]

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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