Cunning, like Mr. Tod or Swiper / TUES 1-27-26 / Wrangler on the road / Britishly precious / Trickster figure in Native American folklore

Hi, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday of January. Hope you’re all staying warm and not slipping and sliding in the snow. We got about seven inches of snow here in D.C., though a lot of that was sleet. Some friends and I went on a walk with my pup, and she had a wonderful time; almost no cars were on the road, so we had the streets mostly to ourselves. Then we made lasagna soup while watching football, and one of the two games went my way (boo, Patriots; go, Seahawks!). Otherwise, I’ve been staying busy watching a lot of the Australian Open (go, Coco!), and reading lots — while finding any reason not to step foot outside (other than for my puppy, of course). 

ANYHOO, on to the puzzle…

Constructors: Miranda Kany and Tracy Bennett

Relative difficulty: Easier than a usual Tuesday

THEME: EMPTY NESTER (54A: Metaphor for a parent whose youngest has "launched" ... like the little bird whose progress is suggested by 21-, 33- and 41-Across) — Each of the theme answers describes baby birds in sequential order as they learn to fly and leave the nest

Theme answers:

• IN THE STICKS (21A: Far from any urban center, colloquially) 
• OUT ON A LIMB (33A: Potentially at risk, metaphorically) 
• FLYING HIGH (41A: In a soaring mood, so to speak)

Word of the Day: ERIVO (2D: "Wicked" co-star Cynthia __) —

Cynthia Chinasaokwu Onyedinmanasu Amarachukwu Owezuke Echimino Erivo (born 8 January 1987) is an English actress, singer, and songwriter. Known for her work on both stage and screen, she is the recipient of several accolades and one of a few individuals nominated for an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award (EGOT), winning all but the Oscar… Erivo's work for “The Color Purple” won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, as well as a Daytime Emmy Award. (Wiki)

• • •

That was a nice puzzle with a cute theme. It was so nice and so unobjectionable that I’m struggling to even find much to say about it. I liked the way the theme answers progressed as a little bird does. And each of the phrases, while clued in colloquial terms, describes birds nicely. I did think the clue for the theme answer could have been a little tighter, as the “youngest” isn’t always the last to leave the metaphorical nest in a household. But that’s a nit. 

There seemed to be a lot of duplicate clue/answer combos in the puzzle, which was clever. Like obviously MAMA (10A: Cry from a crib, perhaps) and PAPA (56D: Cry from a crib, perhaps). PETAL (1A: Potpourri piece) sits on top of A / ROSE (14A: Came up) if you look at it that way. ALOHA (7D: Hi in HI) is directly above LEI (34D: Floral ring). OPRY (37A: Nashville has a "grand ole" one) and REO (38A: ___ Speed Wagon (old vehicle)) are tangentially related, as the Grand Ole OPRY is a country music venue, and REO, though clued differently, was an American rock band. Both FOXY (41D: Cunning, like Mr. Tod or Swiper) and COYOTE (24A: Trickster figure in Native American folklore) were in the puzzle. And LOUNGED (42D: Chillaxed, say) and IDLED (52D: Did diddly-squat) are another duplication of sorts. Both IVS (20A: Hosp. hookups) and a DOSE (67A: Medical measure) are given in hospitals. The one place this didn’t work is how both LOTS (18A: Heaps) and LOT (32D: Area to build on) are in the puzzle, which seems like an oversight. Initially, I thought it was clever having LOTS cross SITES (8D: Loci), but not with another LOT in the puzzle. I didn’t like that… a LOT. 

There weren’t many proper nouns or, more specifically, people in the puzzle, which might’ve made it easier for me. The only people are ALEC Guinness (11D), Rita ORA (37D), Issa RAE (62D), and Cynthia ERIVO (2D) — all of whom are either common in crosswords or are well-known. I did puzzle over NOAH (59A: "Captain" on Mount Ararat) for a bit before realizing it meant NOAH of NOAH’s ark. “Captain” seems like an odd way to describe him. 

I loved some of the words and phrases in the puzzle. TOPSY TURVY (3D: Downside-up) is my absolute favorite. It’s just so fun to say and invokes such a fun idea. I also think ROUGH HOUSE (30D: Engage in boisterous activity) is a good expression. URCHIN (51A: Ragamuffin) is a great word, supported by another great word, “ragamuffin,” in its clue. I love a SLUSH fund (47A). (We’ll certainly be getting a lot of SLUSH here in D.C. after the snow eventually starts to melt, if it’s ever no longer 12 degrees every day.) And I love a MOJITO (10D: Cuban rum cocktail), though my go-to cocktail is usually a margarita or possibly now a Cosmopolitan. I also love the word MOOT (55D: Debatable), though my first thought was for the definition of something having no relevance, rather than something debatable. TWEE (57D: Britishly precious) is another fun word. 

Amusingly, the place I got the most stuck was with ANYHOO (45A: "Moving right along ..."). I use that word in every one of my write-ups, and I’ve declared (potentially incorrectly, but oh, well) that I will always spell it “anywho,” so it was hard to wrap my head around a different spelling. It didn’t help that HETHEY (46D: Possible pronoun pairing) originally looked strange to me before I parsed it out as HE / THEY. But knowing that FOXY (41D) had to be the answer helped me figure out it was ANYHOO. And the crosses for HE / THEY (46D) were pretty straightforward. 

I didn’t love NIP AT (17A: Give friendly bites, as a puppy might) or TAG ON (27A: Add as an afterthought) as they’re those types of clues that feel like they could be any number of different, blah answers. I RULE (61A: "Yay me!") feels childish. I don’t think of a DISC (3D: Chip shape) as the shape of a chip. If we’re talking computer chips, those are fabricated on discs, sure, but they’re cut into rectangles before they wind up in your electronics. And it took me longer than it really should have to get OATY (25D: Like some cookies and milk) because I thought that the clue was describing them together, rather than what each one of them could be. 

But overall, this was a cute and quick puzzle to snuggle up with on a cold winter night.

Misc.:

• With FOXY (41D: Cunning, like Mr. Tod or Swiper), all I could think about is Dora the Explorer (and me, when you were supposed to chant along with her) saying “Swiper, no swiping.” What a cunning little fox. 
• I got STAY (66A: Corset component) quite easily thanks to the multitude of historical romances I’ve read! 
• One of the most remarkable performances I’ve seen was from Cynthia ERIVO (2D) at the Tony Awards in 2016, where she sang “I’m Here” from “The Color Purple” and won the award for Best Actress in a Musical. I get chills every single time. She’s the reason the Hamilton cast didn’t sweep the musical acting awards that year, and I’m OK with that. She’s incredible. 
• Here’s a pic of Red enjoying the snow, and here’s a pic of me carrying her when she got cold — 
• 
• 
• I ended my last write-up in 2025 with my list of favorite books, so I thought I’d keep that trend going. My favorite book of 2026 so far is the very first book I read in it — “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman. It had me crying and laughing at the same time, in equal measures. 
• Finally, a PSA: The Olympics start on Feb. 6! By the time I’m back for a write-up, the Olympics will be over. So everyone needs to make sure to watch the Alpine skiing for Mikaela Shiffrin (and all the sports, of course)!

That’s all from me! Stay warm, and I’ll see ya in February.

Signed, Clare Carroll, mother of a soon-to-be SLUSH puppy

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Like a biased presentation / MON 1-26-26 / Music genre influenced by the Smiths and the Cure / Journalist Curry / Kind of port in A/V / Censored, as an audiotape / Takes exception / T.S. Eliot or W.H. Auden

Constructor: Erica Hsiung Wojcik

Relative difficulty: Easy



THEME: THREEPEATS — Each of the three theme answers starts with the last name of a famous PETE -- ROSE, BEST, DAVIDSON.

Word of the Day: MALIBU (12D: Beach city west of Los Angeles) —

Malibu (/ˈmælɪbuː/ ^ⓘ MAL-ih-boo; Chumash: Humaliwo; Spanish: Malibú) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California,^[11] about 30 miles (48 km) west of Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate, its strip of beaches stretching 21 miles (34 km) along the Pacific coast, and for its longtime status as the home of numerous Hollywood celebrities and executives with a high proportion of its residents in the entertainment industry.^[12] The Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1) traverses the city, following along the South Coast of California. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 10,654. The 2025 Palisades Fire devastated Malibu, with almost all of the beachfront homes near its center destroyed.^[13]

• • •

Theme answers:

• ROSE GARDEN (17A: Classic flowering locale adjacent to the White House [baseball star])
• BEST COMEDY ALBUM (29A: Grammy Award that's good for laughs? [1960s rock musician])
• DAVIDSON COLLEGE (46A: North Carolina educational institution [former "S.N.L." cast member])
• THREEPEATS (60A: Athletic trifectas ... or a phonetic hint to the starts of 17-, 29- and 46-Across)

Hello, friends! It's Rafa guest blogging since I do not have to deal with any winter storm disruptions here in the Bay Area. (It was 70 degrees yesterday!) I hope you are all staying warm and safe and cozy. I have never experienced a winter storm so I don't really know what else to wish for you! Is it fun to go outside after and frolic around in the giant piles of snow? If so, I hope you get to do that!

This is Pete Rose

This was an ultra breezy Monday. I got the first 14 across answers immediately without any crosses and I love that feeling of just flying through a Monday and seeing the down answers fall into place without even having to look at their clues. TBH, I didn't even know comedy albums were a thing, so it makes sense that it was that answer that made me pause for the first time.

This is Pete Best

The fill was super smooth, as it should be on a Monday. My litmus test for a good Monday is whether I would feel good about recommending it to a non-solving friend as their first crossword to ever attempt, and I happily would with this one. There's nothing really to nitpick with the fill. Maybe SBARRO's corporate department is in cahoots with the NYT though, since it showed up in the puzzle two days in a row. Sunday also had a different PETE (SEEGER, at 17-Down), maybe as an easter egg.

This is Pete Davidson

Speaking of Petes, that was this puzzle's theme. Three different Petes in the first words of the long across answers. I have to confess that I had only heard of Pete Davidson before solving this puzzle. (I don't baseball, and '60s music is very far from my forte.) Thankfully, that didn't affect the solve at all. I assume these other Petes are famous and widely-known, since they both have very beefy Wikipedia pages (my far-from-reliable metric for notoriety).

That's it from me! Enjoyed this a lot overall. Maybe a pair of longer fun bonus down entries would have elevated the grid even more, but on a Monday I'll always, always, always choose smooth over flashy. Until next time!

P.S.: I just booked my ACPT flights a few days ago. Don't hesitate to say hi if you spot me!

Bullets:

• CARESS (49D: Stroke lovingly) — I am typing this as I CARESS my cat.
• CHERUB (11D: Winged feature in Raphael's "Sistine Madonna") — It it tragic that Raphael misspelled with name with a "ph" instead of using the clearly correct "f" spelling!
• SCREAM (6D: "Aiiiiieeeee!," e.g.) — I tried to figure out what this scream would sound like and failed.
• SNOWSHOE (36D: Oversize article of clothing) — I just learned that "snowshoes" is one word! Also I hope you have them handy if that's what you need to leave your house after the storm.

Signed, Rafa

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Symbol of transformation in "The Silence of the Lambs" / SUN 1-25-26 / Triangular sail / Property of curium, but not cerium / Either side of a cheerleader's "A" / Cable co. that was purchased by AT&T in 1999 / Canning package? / Prosthetic facial feature of Peter Falk / Sneaker brand that popularized cantilever heels / Pete who co-wrote "If I Had A Hammer" / N.H.L. team with the longest Stanley Cup drought, familiarly

Constructor: Mark MacLachlan

Relative difficulty: Medium

[59A: Sci-fi princess]

THEME: "Alert! Alert!" — computer alerts are clued as if they were alerts about ... something else entirely:

Theme answers:

• OUT OF DISK SPACE (23A: "That cabinet with plates looks awfully full")
• RUN-TIME ERROR (43A: "It's saying you completed the marathon in under two hours, which can't be right")
• VIRUS DETECTED (51A: "Is that a cough I hear?")
• WINDOWS UPDATE FAILED (70A: "Sorry, we'll have to put the old panes back in")
• STACK OVERFLOW (91A: "Those pancakes are piled way too high!")
• FILE TOO LARGE (98A: "Your emery board will never fit in this tiny toiletry bag")
• SEVER NOT FOUND (122A: "Your waiter's nowhere to be seen!")

Word of the Day: P.E.I. (75D: Smallest Canadian prov.) —

Prince Edward Island is an island province of Canada. It is the smallest province by both land area and population, and has the highest population density in Canada. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", "Birthplace of Confederation" and "Cradle of Confederation". Its capital and largest city is Charlottetown. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces.

Historically, the island has formed an integral part of the Mi'kmaw homeland, Mi'kma'ki, comprising one part of the district Epekwitk aq Piktuk (also spelled Epegwitg aq Pigtug, lit. 'PEI and Pictou'). Come 1604, Epekwitk would be colonized by the French as part of the colony of Acadia, where it became known as Isle St-Jean (St. John's Island). It was later ceded to the British at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763 and became part of the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1769, St. John's Island became its own British colony and its name was changed to Prince Edward Island (PEI) in 1798. PEI hosted the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 to discuss a union of the Maritime provinces; however, the conference became the first in a series of meetings which led to Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867. Prince Edward Island initially balked at Confederation but, facing bankruptcy from the Land Question and construction of a railroad, joined as Canada's seventh province on July 1, 1873. (wikipedia)

• • •

A wholly unlikeable puzzle. Why would I want to see a bunch of error messages in my puzzle when they're so annoying in real life? I'm just trying to imagine whose idea of a good time this is. And anyway, most of these "alerts" are things that seem made up or extremely situational. The following mean nothing to me: STACK OVERFLOW; RUN-TIME ERROR. As for the others, I understand them, but I don't know that I have ever actually seen them, ever. Maybe if your entire life is working with computers, this all means something to you. To me, it was wall-to-wall off-putting. Nothing clever about it, either. I see all the wacky clues, and god knows I love wackiness, but in the service of these mundane error messages—blah. There was absolutely no pleasure to be had in figuring out what the "wacky" clues were going for. And by "wacky," I'm being very generous. Are you really asking me to imagine that someone would refer to plates as "DISKS?" (23A: "That cabinet with plates looks awfully full")? I understand, yes, plates are technically disks, in that that is their shape, but no one would ever ever ever refer to them that way (the way someone would, say, refer to a waiter as a "SERVER" (see 122A). Also, Isn't a plate a DISC? I would've said DISC. Also, given the context, I might've said DISH. But the DISK = "plate" idea is meh, at best. Add to that a highly choppy grid loaded with crosswordese and you have one heck of a bad time. A Sunday-sized bad time.  

And even in the non-theme fill, the puzzle goes back again and again to boring computer stuff. ACCESS LOG. CARTRIDGE. DATA SETS. Why don't you move your focus around a little, maybe branch out? And OPERANDI? That's a lot of real estate to give over to a Latin partial. Speaking of Latin (almost) ... LATEEN? Just what this puzzle needed—highly technical sailing language! (25A: Triangular sail).  I'm trying really hard to find parts of this puzzle that I genuinely enjoyed, and I'm not finding many. I always like thinking about Peter Falk, but usually I like thinking about what a great actor he was, not about his GLASS EYE (15D: Prosthetic facial feature of Peter Falk). My wife is a Kiwi so KIWIS is always an answer I can get behind. But otherwise we get an Apple TV show that started out OK only to get increasingly cloying and unbearable as the seasons wore on (TED LASSO) (6A: Apple TV comedy that received 20 Emmy nominations for its first season), another Apple TV show that is great, but is somehow not clued as an Apple show (SEVERANCE) (80D: Canning package?), CLUE ME IN instead of the more natural FILL ME IN (21A: "I want to hear about that!") ... bah. Really not for me, this puzzle. Yesterday's puzzle was such a joy. This is a real come-down. 

[Mikey & Nicky (d. Elaine May, 1976)]

There were definitely some moments of difficulty in this puzzle, but most of it was occasioned by the theme answers themselves, many of which weren't terribly familiar to me, so that I had to conjure them out of the letters I got from crosses. Some of the short stuff was a mystery to me as well. TCI???? (6D: Cable co. that was purchased by AT&T in 1999). What in the world is that? I was very much alive in 1999, and I have no memory of a .... cable company? ... called TCI. I know a university called TCU. I remember an MCI, because I was a young person at the height of the "Long Distance Phone Wars"—in which MCI was a major competitor of AT&T—but TCI ... you got me there. Was that regional? Hmm, Tele-Communications, Inc. ... nope, not ringing a bell. Bygone business initialisms—not exactly prime fill. TCI has appeared in the NYTXW eight times over the years. In true NYTXW fashion, only one of those times was from the period during which TCI was actually operative (1997). All others are from the post-1999 period, when it was defunct. A handful of appearances in the early '00s, but since then, pretty rare. This is only the third appearance since 2002, and the first in four years. Desperation fill, for sure. Not knowing TCI contributed to that northern section getting a little sticky for me (I abandoned it early on and then ended up finishing the puzzle there). No one section was particularly tough, but I just remember little things holding me up here and there. Orwell's given name, for instance. Or TICKS as clued (73D: Exam marks). I mark exams on a fairly regular basis, and while I have used checks (i.e. check marks, √√√), TICKS ... no, not really. Also, a weird confession: I've never seen Silence of the Lambs! I feel like I've seen it, since it's so much a part of popular culture, but nope, never seen it. So the clue 107A: Symbol of transformation in "The Silence of the Lambs" meant nothing to me. I eventually got it by remembering the MOTH image on the poster:

I'm generally a big Jodie Foster fan, and (according to my Letterboxd account) I watch hundreds of movies a year, so even I'm surprised I've never seen this movie. I think the reason I didn't see it originally was I was horror movie-averse, or certainly serial killer movie-averse, and then, even after all the Academy Awards and everything, I just ... never got around to it. Maybe this year. Yeah, I think I'll put it on my Watchlist now. Jodie Foster has a new French-language (!) movie coming out soon (I just saw a trailer for it last week). It's called A Private Life. Wikipedia calls it a "French black comedy mystery thriller film." Too many words, wikipedia. Those are words I like, but ... too many. Anyway, I'm gonna see it. 

Also of interest, perhaps, to some of you: Jodie Foster is the most recent person to do a Criterion Closet video:

Bullets:

• 20A: Home of Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas" (PRADO) — I once did a jigsaw puzzle featuring Las Meninas. Fascinating, I know. I had the PRAD- here and without looking at the clue instinctively wrote in "A" for the last letter (as in The Devil Wears ___), but then remembered the museum existed and decided to actually read the clue (good general advice: read the clues).

[1656]

• 47A: Sneaker brand that popularized cantilever heels (AVIA) — I ... did not know these were "popular." Or that they were a thing at all. AVIA is, of course, brand name crosswordese, just like ARIA and AIDA are opera crosswordese, "ADIA" is pop music crosswordese, ODA Mae Brown is Ghost crosswordese, etc. etc. etc. (101D: ___ Mae Brown (Whoopi's role in "Ghost"))
• 127A: Chips may go into it (ONION DIP) — would've loved something a little more ... onion-specific here. Chips might go into literally any kind of DIP.
• 17D: Pete who co-wrote "If I Had A Hammer" (SEEGER) — this one made me laugh because there was so much folk singer drama yesterday, when half the world seemed never to have heard of Phil OCHS. And since the "H" in OCHS was crossed with yet another singer many solvers also didn't know (Charlie PUTH), there were many cries of "Natick!" I did not cry that, but some did. So when SEEGER showed up today I was like "here we go again!" But no Charlie PUTHs today. There is a Bob SAGET though (30A: Bob who hosted "America's Funniest Home Videos"). If you don't know Pete SEEGER or Bob SAGET, lord help you, you are stuck in Natick. By the way, I hope you do not literally get stuck in Natick today—if you live in the eastern 2/3 of the country, you should probably just stay home today; the storm looks like it could be Devastating.

• 29D: Either side of a cheerleader's "A" (ARM) — somehow I can imagine only a "V"—gonna need a visual, hang on ... well, here's GIF but ... that isn't an "A," it's a "V," so I don't know what we're doing here.

• 46D: One of Adolf Anderssen's sacrifices in the "Immortal Game" against Lionel Kieseritzky (QUEEN) — blah blah sacrifice blah blah game ... I got this fairly easily while understanding almost none of it. Luckily the "Q" was already in my head because I was in the process of trying to make an IRAN/IRAQ distinction (45A: Persian Gulf nation).
• 57D: Animal whose name sounds like a pronoun (EWE) — this is rebus puzzle 101 stuff, but that didn't stop my brain from going "EEL!" and then "No, EMU!" EEL kinda sounds like a pronoun. "Where's your brother?" "He went to the store but EEL be back soon." EMU has the "you" part down, but the "me" part is backward. Meanwhile, EWE = "you." Just like EYE = "I."
• 74D: N.H.L. team with the longest Stanley Cup drought, familiarly (LEAFS) — this is an iconic Canadian franchise so I was kind of stunned by this fact. Then again, I don't really follow hockey. I know that Mike Myers is a LEAFS fan because he was wearing a LEAFS jacket when I saw him in Kate Mantilini (a Beverly Hills restaurant) one time in the mid-'90s. Jon Cryer was also there (separately, gently swaying to Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" while he waited for his date to return from the restroom before they left). It was all very surreal. But the LEAFS jacket, I remember.  
• 108D: Property of curium, but not cerium (HARD C) — a "letteral" clue, in that it refers to a letter in the clue. The letter here is the initial "C" in "curium." It's hard ("k"). As opposed to the one in "cerium," which is soft ("s").
• 123D: Illegally interfere with, as an election (RIG) — not now, puzzle! I got enough horrifying political things on my plate at the moment, thanks.

Stay safe out there, fellow storm-sufferers. I'm probably gonna get a substitute for Monday's write-up since there's at least an outside chance that my power and / or internet will be compromised. So I'll see you when I see you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. the Orca Awards (for achievements in crossword puzzle construction) are coming up next month (Feb. 23). More info on that later, but for now I wanted to highlight the fact that there's a charity puzzle pack associated with the awards featuring a whopping 81 (!) puzzles. Here's the info from organizer Rich Proulx:

14th ORCAS Puzzle Pack

 There’s something special about the 14th ORCAS.

Sure, we added five new awards (did someone say cryptics?) Yeah, the ballot contains 15 categories comprised of 124 nominations from 59 different outlets. But, this year, you can solve these spectacular ORCA-nominated puzzles in our first-ever puzzle pack!

All funds raised support The Trevor Project, a suicide hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. Although suicide rates for LGBTQ+ youth are surging (39% seriously considered suicide in 2024), HHS terminated its contract for FY2026.

The puzzle pack includes 76 ORCA-nominated puzzles from 44 outlets plus five original puzzles from the Constructor of the Year nominees. Along with the puzzle pack, donors will receive early access to the ORCAS ballot, which will be posted publicly on February 3.

For information on how to make a donation and receive the puzzle pack, email:  theorcaawards@gmail.com.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Chucked, informally / SAT 1-24-26 / Fan group that often wears black-and-white face paint / Means of closing up a vent / Horn-heavy genre / Penultimate film in a series of 23 / Some joint promotions / Native American people known as the "Nation du Chat" / One breaking a 108-year drought in 2016 / 1960s protest singer Phil / Staple vegetables in Hawaiian cooking

Constructor: Adrian Johnson and Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GENDER EUPHORIA (14A: Feeling that a new haircut or a new set of clothes might bring) —

Gender euphoria (GE) is a term for the satisfaction, enjoyment, or relief felt by people when they feel their gender expression matches their personal gender identity. Psych Central's definition is "deep joy when your internal gender identity matches your gender expression." It is proposed that feelings of gender euphoria require societal acceptance of gender expression. In academics and the medical field, a consensus has not yet been reached on a precise definition of the term, as it has been mainly used within a social context. The first attempt to rigorously define gender euphoria through an online survey took place in 2021, conducted by Will Beischel, Stéphanie Gauvin, and Sari van Anders. Transgender congruence is also used to ascribe transgender individuals feeling genuine, authentic, and comfortable with their gender identity and external appearance.

The term gender euphoria has been used by the transgender community since at least the mid-1970s. Originally, it referred to the feeling of joy arising from fulfilling a mix of gender roles, which was different from the concept of gender dysphoria, which is used to describe individuals who wished to medically transition to a different sex.In the 1980s, the term was published in trans contexts, coming up in interviews with trans people. For example, in a 1988 interview with a trans man, the subject states, "I think that day [Dr. Charles Ilhenfeld] administered my first shot of the 'wonder-drug' must have been one of the 'peak-experiences' of my life -- talk about 'gender euphoria'!" The interview indicates he is referring to testosterone. (wikipedia)

• • •

[15A: Child support?]

Saturday euphoria is a little different from Friday euphoria. On Friday, I like things to be a little difficult, but what I really like is whooshing and zooming around the grid by way of long, original, entertaining answers. The whoosh is the euphoria. On Saturdays, on great Saturdays, the euphoria is slower in coming, since the solve is more of a grind. Frustration, even annoyance, that then releases into "oh ... yeah, that's good, actually"—that's the stuff I'm looking for on Saturday. And I got plenty of it today. This puzzle had the kind of "difficulty" I like—not (that many) obscure answers, but tricky, mischievous, misdirective cluing that has you spinning your wheels ... until you finally get traction and (ideally, maybe grudgingly) find yourself appreciating both the answer and the clue's cleverness. The biggest "screw this!" to "wow, ok, that's good" swing I experienced today came with END RANT (2D: Means of closing up a vent). I had an inkling that "vent" was going to mean something other than the expected "opening that permits the escape of fumes, steam, etc." If you're "closing up" is the phrase you'd use for sealing a physical "vent"— that's what the clue wants you thinking about, so you don't see the other kind of vent, which is the intended one. It's Saturday, so my instinct is to look for the off-/alt-meaning, always. But even so, I couldn't find the handle on the answer today, and ended up writing in ENTENTE (a friendly agreement between countries ... maybe the countries are less hostile now and so they've stopped venting at each other? I dunno, it made some kind of sense when I wrote it in—and so many common letters ... it seemed possible). Then, because END RANT ran right through a three-letter tennis player (ANA) whose name could've been anything—IGA (an actual tennis champion's name), IDA (my cat's name), INA, UNA, ENA—I didn't have the "A." At some point I did get that second "N," but instead of helping me get END RANT, all it did was make me hallucinate an END RING (you know, the thing you pull to close up the vent!) (UGH!). But when, eventually, I got END RANT, after a second of two of "dammit!" resentment, I had to admit that yes that is a current, much-used phrase (mostly in social media posts), and a good one. An original one, at least. That END RANT fight is the kind of fight I wish puzzles gave me more often.

But what makes this puzzle really lovely are the stacks, both of which (up top, down below) are strong and vivid. Or at least two-thirds strong and vivid. Can't say I care too much for SENIOR CENTERS or ONLINE CASINOS, but the rest of those long Acrosses are solid. And I say this as someone who gave up on Marvel movies years ago—still didn't mind seeing AVENGERS: ENDGAME in the grid. And loved HALLOWEEN PARTY (as clued) (48A: Scene for a skeleton crew?), SECURITY BLANKET (as clued) (15A: Child support?) and GENDER EUPHORIA (especially as clued—the clues are the highlights today, as much as the answers themselves) (14A: Feeling that a new haircut or a new set of clothes might bring). Those answers come bursting out of nowhere. The clues get you thinking about one thing, and then hit you with another. Over and over and over. Clever misdirection—that's the key to Saturdays, I think. 

[23A: Horn-heavy genre]

Now, "I SAID 'STOP'" is a bit of a made-up phrase (not as common as, say, "I SAID 'NO'"), but it seems pretty standalone-worthy to me. But there really weren't any answers that made me utter a genuine "UGH!" of disgust. And there was a HOST (31A: Bevy) of answers that made me say "Wow." KISS ARMY! (24D: Fan group that often wears black-and-white face paint) That takes me back.

SHOWBOATS is a great word, as is ESCHEWED (30D: Forwent). GETS WISE, PAPER THIN ... the hits keep coming, and the grid hardly buckles at all. The closest thing to a "buckle" for me was Charlie PUTH, but he's going to be a feature not a bug for some people—he's a very popular contemporary singer-songwriter, and this is his debut NYTXW appearance (27D: Charlie with the 2016 hit "We Don't Talk Anymore"). If you're pop culture-averse, I suppose there are a handful of reasons to dislike this grid, but if you count up the pop culture answers in the grid, there really aren't that many. I actually think there's very nice balance to this puzzle, in terms of the variety of answers. The difficulty mostly involves wordplay. That's something I'd like to encourage. We all have to deal with mystery proper nouns from time to time—as long as we're not inundated, I don't think there's a problem. Charlie PUTH's debut single was "Marvin Gaye." I think I'd rather listen to actual Marvin Gaye. Let's listen to Marvin Gaye.

[33D: Dad-blasted]

I know I said I stopped seeing Marvel movies, and I have—completely. They hold no interest for me at all any more. That said, I might be coaxed back into the theater if Marvel released a movie called AVENGERS: END RANT. And speaking of the Avengers, I wish that clue on AVENGERS: ENDGAME had included the word "ironically" somewhere (42A: Penultimate film in a series of 23). It's the penultimate movie in the series but it's called ENDGAME? Inapt! Also, is the series really over? I feel like "penultimate" implies there is an "ultimate" movie and that that movie is the last one. But I assume they will just make more and more ad infinitum. The Internet is telling me there are 37 MCU movies, so I don't really know what this "23" refers to. Are there really 23 (!!!) Avengers movies??? You know what, I try very hard to know as little as possible about the MCU, so you don't have to answer the question, I'm good. 

Bullets:

• 41A: Approx. 25% of it consists of national forests (ORE.) — this could've been anything. [Place with lots of trees], basically. I got ORE. (i.e. Oregon) entirely from crosses. I literally looked up the location of Corvallis just yesterday! (because a reader told me he was from Corvallis and I had to remind myself where that was). No help with this clue, unfortunately. Did you know Corvallis is the westernmost city in the contiguous 48 states with a population of more than 50,000? Me neither. Until yesterday.
• 50A: Chucked, informally (YEETED) — I love this word. Most new slang (i.e. slang that has come into being since I was young) seems silly and I don't want anything to do with it, but "yeet"—I love it. I love how it sounds. It's like the word for chucking something and the sound that you make when chucking something, simultaneously. It's just fun to say. And it's been in the puzzle before, so you should know it by now. This goes double / triple / quadruple for ELLE Woods and her having taken the LSAT. ELLE and LSAT were gimmes—they helped give me the traction that made this puzzle doable. 
• 3D: Some joint promotions (TIE-INS) — pretty basic stuff, but because it's Saturday, I was rolodexing through every meaning I could think of for "joint." Do they mean knee? Do they mean marijuana cigarette? Prison??? The cruelest thing a Saturday puzzle can do to me is not zag. Just play it straight. I'll never see it coming.
• 10D: Native American people known as the "Nation du Chat" (ERIE) — gonna start calling my house "Nation du Chat" (oh, and I had CREE here at first):

[Wintertime in la Nation du Chat]

• 13D: One breaking a 108-year drought in 2016 (CUB) — the CUBs (in)famously hadn't won the World Series in 108 years when they finally won it in 2016. I knew this. But my brain decided the answer should be "on a scoreboard," so I wrote in CHI. Then CHC. :(
• 28D: God who rides in a chariot pulled by two giant magical goats (THOR) — as divine roads go, this one is hard to beat. I had the "T," so no problem (otherwise, I might've guessed ODIN).
• 49A: Where one might hope to find good deals on the internet? (ONLINE CASINOS) — saw right through this one ("deals" = cards), but still struggled, as the plural was not readily apparent. I guess you could argue that the plural is indicated by "deals," but presumably, if you're playing online poker, you're playing more than one hand, so multiple "deals" did not, in fact, make me think of multiple CASINOS. Oh well, just another way that Saturdays f*** with you—by hiding plurals. It's fine.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Classic toy for budding engineers / FRI 1-23-26 / A little possessive, perhaps? / Commercial preceder of Geo / Micromobility option / How to look at your hot fudge sundae / Text insert for a flash-forward film scene / ___ Mountain (ski area in Killington, Vt.) / Like kyawthuite among gems / It is "Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple," per Charles Mingus

Constructor: Joyce Keller

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Micromobility (35A: Micromobility option => E-SCOOTER) —

The term micromobility refers to a category of small, lightweight vehicles designed for short-distance travel in urban areas and operated by their users. Micromobility encompasses a wide range of transport options, including bicycles, velomobiles, e-bikes, cargo bikes, electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycle fleets, and electric pedal-assisted (pedelec) bicycles. Motorized micromobility vehicles are also known as personal transporters.

Initial definitions set the primary condition for inclusion in the category of micromobility to be a gross vehicle weight of less than 500 kilograms (1,100 lb). However, according to a standard of the SAE International in 2018 the definition has evolved to exclude devices with internal combustion engines and those with top speeds above 45 kilometres per hour (28 mph).

The term micromobility was allegedly coined by Horace Dediu in 2017. However, references to the term on the internet can be found as early as 2010. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one went from high to low real fast. I feel like, if you've been reading me for any length of time, you will know exactly what "high" and even more exactly "low" I'm talking about. I hammered in a few of the short answers in the NW and then looked at the letter combos on the long Acrosses (incl. "LESB-") and knew I had LESBIAN on my hands. "What are they gonna do with the LESBIAN today?" I wondered. What they did was take her to the bar (yay!) by way of a really inventive and clever clue (17A: She's out there!). The "!" tells you that the clue is meant to be taken extremely, even absurdly literally—literally in a way that changes the apparent surface meaning. We often get "!" at the ends of clues containing "it" ([Step on it!] for STAIR, [Beat it!] for DRUM, etc.), but today the mystery word isn't "it" but "there"—is she "out there" because she's wacky, because she's on the loose, because she's literally in your backyard? No. She's "out (as in openly gay) there." She's out where? She's out at the LESBIAN BAR. I like when U.S. crosswords incorporate little cryptic cluing elements like this. I don't think much of "OH, PUH-LEASE" (seen it before, in various spellings, with and without the "OH," kind of a yawner), but LESBIAN BAR was great, both as an answer and as a clue. 

["Enjoy your death trap, ladies!"]

But then ... then ... [sigh] then I saw I was dealing with a Down answer that started "ASAT-." Nothing starts "ASAT-." Nothing good anyway. There was no way that this was going to be anything but an "AS A ___" answer, and "AS A" answers, as a rule, are awful. Contrived. Grimace-causing. AS A RULE may be the only one I can actually tolerate. Everything else just feels like you grabbed a random snatch of conversation out of the ether and threw it down in the grid. AS A TREAT is no exception. And the clue ... 8D: How to look at your hot fudge sundae... ugh. How else are you going to look at it? AS A PUNISHMENT? How to look at my hot fudge sundae? HUNGRILY? LUSTFULLY? I did not know there were prescribed ways to look at a hot fudge sundae. The clue wording is just bizarre. Why not just use a clue like [For fun]? Won't make AS A TREAT any better as an answer, but at least you don't call attention to it with the bizarre premise of someone making googly-eyes at ice cream. I might EAT A SANDWICH AS A TREAT, but I would never put any combination of those words in my grid.

["You're thinking up your white lies / You're putting on your BEDROOM EYES"]

Things got better again, though. Real nice descent on the west side, from "THIS ONE'S ON ME" (5D: "I'll take the blame") to (later in the evening, perhaps) BEDROOM EYES (22D: Longing look). The other marquee answers aren't terribly exciting, but they're solid, and the grid stays mostly clean. *Mostly*—TGI is an abomination on its own and I can't believe it's still allowed in the grid. Just because one restaurant saw fit to turn the "F" in TGIF into a full word and thus separate it from the "TGI" doesn't mean any of us should ever accept "TGI" as a standalone thing. I demand that you delete "TGI" from your wordlists immediately, until such time as it becomes a common texting initialism ("too gross, ick!"? "that's [a] good idea!"?) or a mononymous singer's name ("it's pronounced 'Tiggy!'"). I don't much care for YER, either, but at least that's got kind of a cute clue (9D: A little possessive, perhaps?).

No real difficulty today, though. I don't need Fridays to be grueling, but a little more resistance, esp. if it comes in the form of clever clues, would be nice. The only real trouble spots for me today were BEENE (specifically that second "E," which I always think is going to be an "A") (25A: Designer Geoffrey), the first two letters of STARE (I thought it might be GLARE) (27D: Long look), and PICO Mountain, which I've simply never heard of (16A: ___ Mountain (ski area in Killington, Vt.)).

Bullets:

• 23A: Like kyawthuite among gems (RAREST) — probably should've made "kyawthuite" my Word of the Day today, but since I'm unlikely to see it again for the rest of my life (just as I avoided seeing it for the entirety of my life before today), I decided to go with a more everyday term—or, rather, a term that describes a more everyday phenomenon ("micromobility"). Weird obsession with minerals in today's puzzle—this answer came just a few clues before another comparative mineralogical clue: 28A: Like quartzite vis-à-vis quartz (HARDER).
• 49A: It is "Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple," per Charles Mingus (CREATIVITY) — not normally a fan of these quotation clues, and honestly I didn't even see this clue when I was solving (I could just tell the answer was CREATIVITY and filled it in). But as crossword clue quotes go, I like this one, mainly because it comes from a jazz great and sounds like something a human being would actually say. I like the colloquial addition of "awesomely simple." I can actually hear a voice there.

• 52A: Text insert for a flash-forward film scene (YEARS LATER...) — a nice, specific, vivid way of handling this phrase. I wish I could find a specific instance of this "text insert" actually being used in a film (or a tv show), but I'm having trouble getting the movie 28 Years Later out of my search results.

• 50D: Late actor Kilmer (VAL) — this clue bums me out. Kilmer played so many memorable roles, but all this clue tells you about him is that he's dead. Top Gun! Heat! My favorite VAL Kilmer movie is always going to be Real Genius, both because I watched it over and over as a kid, and because it was filmed almost entirely on the campus of Pomona College, where I ended up going to school (just two years after the movie came out). Real Genius—the first movie to end with the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (Marty Supreme might've done it better, but Real Genius did it first). 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

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