Major product of Milan / SAT 1-31-26 / Variety of dog associated with King Charles / Daughter of King Minos, in myth / Tubers from which a gluten-free type of flour is derived / Tree growth indicative of good air quality / Protection, as from an organization / Foundation of music?

Constructor: Nick Maritz

Relative difficulty: Easy/Medium



THEME: None

Word of the Day: NEANDERTHAL (56A: Old man?) —

Neanderthals (/niˈændərˌtɑːl, neɪ-, -ˌθɑːl/ nee-AN-də(r)-TAHL, nay-, -⁠THAHL;^[8] Homo neanderthalensis or sometimes Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) are an extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle to Late Pleistocene. Neanderthal extinction occurred roughly 40,000 years ago with the immigration of modern humans (Cro-Magnons), but Neanderthals in Gibraltar may have persisted for thousands of years longer.

• • •

Hi again, friends! It's Rafa with another guest blog post. Happy to be back so soon! I hope everyone is having a lovely start to the year. It's a weird time because even though Things In The World seem to be going in quite a scary direction, I've had a really wonderful last few months in my personal life. If that's not the case for you, at least know that we've made it through January! There is sunlight at 5:30pm now! And it's only going to get better!!!

It's quite rare to debut with a Saturday puzzle, so congrats to this constructor on his first NYT crossword! I really really wanted to love this puzzle but to me it was ... just ok. I'm not usually a big fan of this kind of grid shape. It doesn't have that many long entries, so a lot rests on the quality of the top and bottom stacks. The SANTA MONICA PIER / ROLLER COASTER pairing is cute ... but VANILLA ICE CREAM is such an on-the-nose vanilla answer. Just kinda boring. Who is getting excited about VANILLA ICE CREAM in their crossword? Or in real life, for that matter. Don't get me wrong, VANILLA ICE CREAM is delicious, but is it ever the most exciting dessert option?

This is a jaguar (animal)

I've also always been a multi-word answer purist. One-word answers always feel less sparkly to me than multi-word answers, even if the answers are objectively cool and interesting things like PEDIATRICIANS and NEANDERTHAL. Is this something people notice or care about? Let me know! Both those answers did get solid clues -- [Ones who handle minor health problems?] and [Old man?] -- which helped elevate them.

This is a Jaguar (car)

Anyways, I find that for this kind of grid to work, the mid-length answers need to pack a lot of juice. But here stuff like BUILDS UP and ITALIANS and SUPERIOR and MENTORS and CLINICS and REPLIES, etc., while all absolutely solid answers, didn't really do much to zhuzh up the grid, for me. (ZHUZH UP, on the other hand, with its absolutely absurd spelling and scrabbly letters, would certainly have zhuzhed things up.)

This is the Wanamaker Trophy

Having said that, the whole thing was really clean. I'm not sure what ARR means in a sheet music context, and stuff like LAH and PATER feels kinda partial-adjacent, but there is very little to even nitpick in terms of gunky entries. (Some might dislike INCUBI, but I think it's a fun word.) Some solid cluing all around, too. The two aforementioned ones were bangers, plus stuff like [Bolognese, Parmesan, etc.] for ITALIANS and [Part of great deal?] for ACE (the playing card) also made it a fun solve.

That's all from me today. Hope to be back soon!

Bullets:

• 35D: CHIGNON [French bun] — I loved seeing this answer. (This is a hair bun not a food bun, for those unfamiliar.)
• 32D: SUPERIOR [Largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area] — Though I noted this wasn't the most exciting answer, it's nice to get non-ERIE Great Lake representation in crosswords.
• 19A: CEOS [They're at the top of some ladders, informally] — The "informally" in this clue felt really off to me. I don't think "CEOs" is in any way informal. Is anyone saying "chief executive officer"? To me, CEO has reached ATM-level ubiquity, and thus does not require any sort of "informal" tag in the clue.
• 11D: SNELLEN [Herman ___, Dutch ophthalmologist known for his visual acuity testing] — I thought this was the same guy of Snell's Law fame (tbt to high school physics), but, no, Snell is a different Dutch dude.

Signed, Rafa

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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British rowhouses / FRI 1-30-26 / Small branch of Marvel Comics? / Jalapeño topper / Call ahead, in a way / Mylar alternative / Switch to a shorter line, say / Leader of China? / Group of Alpha males? / Piedmont province with a namesake wine / Brand whose logo has an A-shaped caliper / Capture a moment, in fiction / Chaney of classic horror / Elicit the facepalm emoji, say

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MEWS (31D: British rowhouses) —

A mews is a row or courtyard of stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. Mews are usually located in desirable residential areas, having been built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents.

The word mews comes from the Royal Mews in London, England, a set of royal stables built 500 years ago on a former royal hawk mews. The term is now commonly used in English-speaking countries for city housing of a similar design. [...] Mews derives from the French muer, 'to moult', reflecting its original function to confine a hawk to a mews while it moulted. William Shakespeare deploys to mew up to mean confine, coop up, or shut up in The Taming of the Shrew: "What, will you mew her up, Signor Baptista?" and also Richard III: "This day should Clarence closely be mewed up".

The term mews is still used today in falconry circles in English-speaking countries to refer to the housing of the birds of prey used in falconry. (wikipedia)

• • •

There it is. There's the Friday puzzle I've been missing, craving, chasing. The one that explodes in bursts of whooshes and zooms but somehow also manages not to be insultingly easy. Choked with marquee answers—really worthy marquee answers. When I say "worthy," that doesn't mean they are all precisely to my tastes—I'd be happy never seeing another Marvel character in my grid again, so BABY GROOT didn't exactly thrill me (33A: Small branch of Marvel Comics?), but even as I entered it in, I thought "that's a pretty good answer for someone who likes that sort of thing" (I had "BABY" and started scrolling through the Marvel hero roster wondering which one they were babifying now: BABY SPIDER-MAN? BABY BLACK PANTHER? BABY THOR!? Then I remembered Groot—the Marvel equivalent of an ENT, i.e. a tree creature (or in the case of BABY GROOT, a little "branch" creature)—and remembered that I had, in fact, seen a BABY GROOT ... somewhere. Comics? Movies? Don't remember). As for the other long answers: yee haw. T-MINUS ZERO got me started, though clunkily, as that exact phrase somehow isn't a top-of-the-brain, rolls-off-the-tongue countdown phrase for me, but after that? The puzzle burst open: "CHECK PLEASE!" GHOST STORIES! GOES BERSERK! and on and on, spiraling through the (SPIRAL) GALAXY. Fourteen (14!) answers of 8 or more letters in length, all of them solid, many of them great. I particularly love the pairing in the SW corner: it's like the puzzle is speaking directly to me, giving advice on how to survive life in an increasingly fascist country that is dedicated to harming its own people (via secret police or infectious diseases, take your pick): "FACE REALITY!" (tough!). "REMAIN CALM!" (tougher!). Good advice! I'll try!

The difficulty for me today was entirely in the short stuff. Luckily, the short stuff is mostly not ugly stuff, so I didn't mind the fight (I do resent fighting for what is ultimately a cruddy answer). Trouble with the short stuff started early, in NW, with both RADIO (2D: Call ahead, in a way) and EDIT (17A: Switch to a shorter line, say). In neither case was I imagining the correct context. I might "call ahead," but I would never RADIO anyone, as I am not a cop checking in with headquarters (or whoever else "radios" on a regular basis. Cabbies? Military personnel?). And the clue on EDIT had me thinking of checkout lines, obviously. I forgot that [British rowhouses] were called MEWS (at M-WS I actually thought "MOWS?"). A LOT was hardish to get to via 32D: Every day, say. And it went on like this, with the clues to the answers testing me, and then the long answers thrilling me. FRAT came as a total surprise (46D: Group of Alpha males?)—is there a FRAT that's abbreviated "Alpha"? I guess the Greek letter alone was supposed to tip me. I had NOTES before TONES (57A: Steps on a scale), which kept that FRAT corner tough. Without a "?" on [Jalapeño topper], the fact that it was a "letteral" clue (referring specifically to the TILDE on the letter Ñ) never occurred to me. In that same section, I wanted SINO- before INDO- (55A: Leader of China?). As for "DEEP," no way (58A: "Whoa ... that's too much for my brain to handle!"). No hope. I don't think the clue is very good. How do I know something's "DEEP" if it's "too much for my brain to handle"? Makes no sense. If my brain can't handle it, maybe it's just "CONFUSING" or "WRONG." Or maybe it's shallow and I'm just "STUPID." Is the tone of "DEEP" facetious? Mocking? Again, without crucial context, this clue did nothing for me. But it's the only toughish clue that I ended up booing at. The rest all seemed fair and fine.

Bullets:

• 5A: Piedmont province with a namesake wine (ASTI) — "Piedmont" = "wine" = four letters = ASTI. Reflex answer.
• 24A: It's -90º at the South Pole: Abbr. (LAT.) — yes I wrote in LOW and no I will not be taking any questions at this time.
• 36A: Brand whose logo has an A-shaped caliper (ACURA) — I never really thought about that logo as looking like anything in particular, but of course it's a caliper. Maybe if I worked with calipers more often (i.e. at all), that fact would've registered.

• 39A: Mylar alternative (LATEX) — again, need context! Looks like maybe ... balloons? Probably other stuff too, but there are definitely both LATEX and mylar balloons.
• 40A: Capture a moment, in fiction (STOP TIME) — "in fiction?" You "capture a moment" by ... depicting it. That's all fiction is. I don't really know what this clue is referring to, specifically. STOP-TIME is also a term from the jazz world: "a technique or effect in which the rhythm section stops playing for one or more beats each measure, usually for a chorus, while a soloist continues to play" (Collins). It's also the name of this song.

• 6D: Eggshell, for one (SHEEN) — another short one that flummoxed me. I knew it was a COLOR or a HUE, a SHADE of, say, stocking, but SHEEN, you got me there. I guess we're talking about paint.

• 28D: Florida setting for "The Birdcage" (SOUTH BEACH) — me: "ooh, I know this." me also: [writes in SOUTH MIAMI]. 

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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Five train in Brooklyn / THU 1-29-26 / Like a listening device made out of a paper clip, a plastic straw and seven Lego blocks / Busiest French airport not serving Paris / Bum's place in a bar / Michigan's historic 1991 basketball team, familiarly / Texter's declaration of affection / Villain portrayer in "Rocky III" / Clubber ___, "Rocky III" villain

Constructor: Kit Sheffield

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Gently down the stream ..."— answers ending with the letter string "-ROW" are entered in the grid as if "ROW" were a separate word describing how the remaining letters should be written in; that is, all the preceding letters in the answer are arranged in a repeated, grid-spanning ROW:

Theme answers:

• GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (20A: Expand => GROW = "G" ROW (i.e. a row of "G"s))
• SORSORSORSORSOR (37A: Sadness => SORROW = "SOR" ROW (i.e. a row of "SOR"s))
• TOMORTOMORTOMOR (52A: Day after today => TOMORROW = "TOMOR" ROW (i.e. a row of "TOMOR"s)

Word of the Day: MACGYVER[ED] (3D: Like a listening device made out of a paper clip, a plastic straw and seven Lego blocks) —

to make, form, or repair (something) with what is conveniently on hand

Angus MacGyver, as portrayed by actor Richard Dean Anderson in the titular, action-packed television series MacGyver, was many things—including a secret agent, a Swiss Army knife enthusiast, and a convert to vegetarianism—but he was no MacGuffin (a character that keeps the plot in motion despite lacking intrinsic importance). In fact, so memorable was this man, his mullet, and his ability to use whatever was available to him—often simple things, such as a paper clip, chewing gum, or a rubber band—to escape a sticky situation or to make a device to help him complete a mission, that people began associating his name with making quick fixes or finding innovative solutions to immediate problems. Hence the verb MacGyver, a slang term meaning to “make, form, or repair (something) with what is conveniently on hand.” After years of steadily increasing and increasingly varied usage following the show’s run from 1985 to 1992 (tracked in some detail here), MacGyver was added to our online dictionary in 2022. (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Congratulations to frequent comments-section contributor Kit ("kitshef") on this NYTXW debut. Was a little confused when I saw all the "G"s start to line up but decided to keep solving and assume everything would eventually become clear. That moment came (with a genuine, big "aha") when I saw SOR SOR take shape and thought "OK, now I really need to know what's going on with the theme." Looked at the clue (37A: Sadness), thought SORROW, wondered why I was only seeing "SOR"s ... and pow, aha. It's a "SOR" ROW. Very clever. Yes, you get gibberish in the grid, but it's ... meaningful gibberish. It's actually a rather simple, elegant visual expression of ordinary words. There's something strangely poetic about it, almost like the units that make up the "rows" are metrical units, poetic feet making perfectly regular 15-letter lines. It's not exactly iambic pentameter, but SOR SOR SOR SOR SOR does have five units, and TOMOR(row) and TOMOR(row) and TOMOR(row) is straight out of Shakespeare, for god's sake. My one disappointment with the theme came just after I got the "SOR" row. At that point, I didn't know the themers were all going to be rows, so when I looked back at the "GGGG...." answer I had left behind, I thought, "ha, amazing—a G-STRING!" But no, no stripper attire today. Just a "G" row ("GROW!"). If having the "G" string be just another "Row" was kind of a let-down, getting TOMOR TOMOR TOMOR brought my appreciation of the theme back up somewhat. Anytime the puzzle wants to quote Macbeth to me, I'm here for it.

While I enjoyed the theme, this puzzle was not nearly challenging or tricky enough for a Thursday. I suppose it's possible that solvers might've found the theme inscrutable for a good deal of time, but the rest of the grid offered almost nothing in the way of challenge. I didn't even see some of the clues in a few of these corners, so easily did everything fill itself in. ORATE DALES and D-LIST ... I don't think I even looked at any of those clues. The Downs in that SW corner went right in like it was Monday. Possibly (probably) the toughest thing for solvers to tackle today—certainly the toughest for me—was MACGYVERED (as past participle adjective!). Parsing it was ... an adventure. Me: "what adjectives start with 'MACG'? I must have an error.” But LIMO and ADAM were undeniable and NICE (despite being a city and not, in my mind, an "airport") (17A: Busiest French airport not serving Paris) was really the only option there. So ... once again, just plow forward and hope things become clear. A few more letters in and things seemed to be getting less not more clear (a "Y"? a frickin' "V"?) but then I had an "aha" moment as big as, maybe bigger than the SORSORSORSORSOR one—of course: it's MACGYVERED! From the '80s TV show I never watched about the guy who famously invents makeshift devices to ... I dunno, get out of danger? Beat the bad guys? You didn't have to watch the show to know the concept. Iconic. I even remember the actor's name, Richard Dean Anderson—how!? Childhood TV memories are powerful, I guess. Speaking of, this puzzle is awfully, terribly, exceedingly Gen-X-coded. The proper nouns in this one hardly ever escape the '80s/'90s vortex. The Princess Bride (1987). The Simpsons (still on, somehow, but biggest in the '90s), The FAB FIVE (1991-93), MacGyver (1985-92). There's even a weird mini-obsession with Rocky III (1982) (1D: Clubber ___, "Rocky III" villain = LANG) (35A: Villain portrayer in "Rocky III" = MR. T). As a card-carrying member of Gen X who watched "The Simpsons" religiously and who actually attended Michigan during the FAB FIVE years, this puzzle seemed aimed specifically at me, where its pop culture sensibilities are concerned. I'd love to cheer for that, but if I'm being fair, the cultural breadth of focus here seems awfully NARNARNARNARNAR. 

And then there's the fill, which is a little on the weak side. It's not just that the grid is built in such a way that we get a lot of short stuff, it's that the short stuff is too often OOF-y. That "X" may be the most unnecessary and costly "X" I've ever seen in a grid. A partial pharma answer???? (GLAXO-) crossed with a partial French phrase?????! (À DEUX). Yeeesh and yikes. I feel like the (understandable) commitment to MACGYVERED created a kind of tight situation, as did the fact that the grid is built in such a way that the G---O pattern (where GLAXO is now) is immovable. It cements the first and second themer together. You cannot change that "G" or that "O" and so ... options get very, very limited. Thus, you get this very MACGYVERED solution. GLAXO / À DEUX is the equivalent of ... trying to build a listening device out of a paper clip, a plastic straw and seven Lego blocks. Crazy emergency move. Just somehow not as cool as anything MacGyver ever did (probably—again, never seen the show). There had to have been other options (?). Not much else made me wince outright, except "I DIG," which crosswords have falsely caused us to accept as a thing people ever actually said. Also, I've never heard "Capisce" used as anything but a question ("Capisce!?")—as merriam-webster dot com says, it's interrogative ("used to ask if a message, warning, etc., has been understood"). No one would say "Capisce" to mean simply "I DIG" (just as no one but a caricature of a beatnik on TV would say "I DIG" at all). The last real wince was that NETS clue (66A: Five train in Brooklyn). I think it's trying for a subway pun (???). I don't know why that clue doesn't have a "?" on it. The only way I can make sense of the clue is to read it as referring to the Brooklyn NETS, a professional basketball team. Since professional basketball teams have five players on the court at any give time, I think that's where the "five" comes from. Presumably, these five players "train" (in the sense of workout / practice) in Brooklyn. So it's "Five (who) train in Brooklyn" (!?). Tortured syntax on that clue. (If the clue is somehow not basketball-related at all, you'll let me know, thanks)

Bullets:

• 31D: Bum's place in a bar (STOOL) — "Bum" is your ass. Well, someone's ass. Don't mind asses in the puzzle at all, but trying to make us think of "bum" in the pejorative sense of a down-and-out alcoholic, that I could do without.
• 28D: "Toodles!" ("I'M OFF!") — I wrote in "I'M OUT!" at first. "I'M OFF!" is better. Except it's still bad because it means you've got two "I'M"s in the grid (see 46D: "Leave this to me" = "I'M ON IT")
• 33A: Folie ___ (À DEUX) — probably should've defined this phrase earlier, for those not familiar with it. It's a French phrase (literally "madness for/of two") that refers to shared delusion or psychosis—people who do crazy things as a pair that they would (probably) never do on their own.

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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Thick, spiked outer covering? / WED 1-28-26 / Score points in Pac-Man, say / Casting rod? / Number indicating position: Abbr. / Arctic fishing shelter / Article of furniture on which a plate of oats might be set? / Walk from one coop to another? / Commoner, informally / Teenager's response to a dad joke / Dirk Nowitzki's longtime team, to fans

Constructor: Kevin Curry

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Animal "S" shift — familiar compound or two-part terms and phrases involving animals are clued as possessive phrases—that is, you have to mentally take the "S" from the front of the second part of the base answer and affix it (with an apostrophe) to the end of the first part. The wacky possessive phrases are clued wackily ("?"-style):

Theme answers:

• HORSE'S TABLE (17A: Article of furniture on which a plate of oats might be set?) (from "horse stable")
• DRAGON'S LAYER (23A: Thick, spiked outer covering?) (from ... the movie Dragonslayer?)
• PIG'S KIN (37A: Relatives in a sty?) (from "pigskin")
• CAT'S CAN (39A: "Throne" for a lion king?) (from "CAT scan")
• CHICKEN'S TRIP (46A: Walk from one coop to another?) (from "chicken strip")
• TURTLE'S HELL (56A: Being flipped on its back, e.g.?)  (from "turtle shell")

Word of the Day: DRAGONSLAYER (see 23A) —

Dragonslayer is a 1981 American dark fantasy film directed by Matthew Robbins from a screenplay he co-wrote with Hal Barwood. It stars Peter MacNicol in his feature film debut, Ralph Richardson, John Hallam, and Caitlin Clarke. It was a co-production between Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, where Paramount handled North American distribution and Disney handled international distribution through Buena Vista International. The story is set in a fictional medieval kingdom where a young wizard encounters challenges as he hunts a dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative.

It is the second joint production between Paramount and Disney, after Popeye (1980), and is more mature than most contemporary Disney films. Because the audience expected the film to be solely children's entertainment, the violence, adult themes and brief nudity were somewhat controversial, though Disney did not hold the North American distribution rights. The film was rated PG in the U.S. Like The Black Hole (1979), the version of the film broadcast on the Disney Channel was edited to remove two scenes.

The special effects were created at Industrial Light and Magic, the first use of ILM outside of a Lucasfilm production. Phil Tippett had co-developed an animation technique there for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) called go motion, a variation on stop motion. This led to the film's nomination for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, but it lost to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the only other visual effects nominee that year, whose special effects were also provided by ILM. Including the hydraulic 40-foot (12 m) model, the dragon consists of 16 puppets dedicated to flying, crawling, or breathing fire.

The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but it performed poorly at the box office, grossing $14.1 million worldwide against a production budget of $18 million. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, which went to Chariots of Fire. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, again given to Raiders of the Lost Ark. (wikipedia)

• • •

If nothing else, this puzzle has inspired me to watch DRAGONSLAYER (1981). Despite being the target audience for this thing (12-year-olds who were into Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, and video games), I somehow missed it completely. It came out the same year as Raiders, so I was probably too busy seeing that five or six times. Anyway, 45 years later I think I am in exactly the right frame of mind to watch a movie featuring a puppet dragon called Vermithrax Pejorative. That's its surname! Pejorative! Amazing. Sounds bad! Anyway, thanks for the time travel, puzzle. Now I've got a new movie for my already extensive Watchlist. As for the rest of this puzzle, it seemed rudimentary and dull to me, and lacked a clear conceptual cohesiveness. Why animals? Why is one of the animals imaginary? Why is one of the animals (cat) not an animal at all in its base phrase (CAT scan), while all the other animals remain animals on both sides of the "S" switch? I kept waiting for the revealer that never came—give me a reason to be doing any of this. What's the gag? The whole "S"-shift thing feels very very Very old-fashioned. Like, I've seen variations of this specific kind of wackiness a lot before. Feels very '90s-coded, this kind of rudimentary wordplay. The clues are trying valiantly to make it all fun—toilets for lions, pig family reunions—but ultimately the wackiness all seemed pretty tepid. And then the fill was bland, with a tired short stuff—LOS LAS ORD ADE ECO EMO etc. The bottom is particularly grim, with a whole stack of things I'd rather not see (a turtle being tortured on top of AD FEES on top of a DESPOT). I would not say this puzzle is "SO LAME," but then I would never use that phrase since disabled people I knew got me to stop using "lame" as a general pejorative decades ago. Speaking of Pejorative, I gotta wrap this up so I can go watch DRAGONSLAYER! (Actually, I gotta work today, but later, for sure!)

This one was fairly color-by-numbers, right from the jump, with the gimme AÇAI allowing me to toggle to Downs and tick them all off in order. Repeat same thing with MEDUSA. The only resistance today, outside the semi-wacky theme answers, was in the cluing for a handful of the short clues. POWER had a tricky "?" clue (13D: Outlet store?—because an "outlet" is where POWER is "stored"). For some reason CLIPS took me a few crosses to get (46D: Assortment to view on YouTube)—I think of myself as watching videos, not CLIPS (which, to me, are parts of larger filmed things), but ... fair enough. Had SLINK before SKULK (33D: Sneak around)—just glad I didn't write in SNEAK there. Seems like something I'd do, especially if I was going too fast and not really paying attention. Second ORD in the past week, so that's ... bad. Had to wait on the "N" in SNARFS since it could so easily have been SCARFS (44D: Wolfs (down)). But this is all ordinary difficulty—the kind of vagueness and misdirection you might find on any day. Very mild. Mostly this one just seemed boring. Not POOR. Just blah.

Bullets:

• 5A: Monster whose gaze remained lethal after her death (MEDUSA) — I'd forgotten this. That 12yo who played D&D (but failed to see DRAGONSLAYER) probably knew this MEDUSA fact very well. I miss that kid.
• 40A: Arctic fishing shelter (ICE HUT) — that's where I.C.E. should go—to the ICE HUT! And then, you know, stay there. Til summer.
• 2D: Member-owned business (CO-OP) — yeah, I see you trying to make this a non-chicken answer, but this still looks exactly like "COOP," which is in your CHICKEN'S TRIP clue; I'd probably have tried to figure out a way to get rid of it (or, easier, just rewrite that CHICKEN'S TRIP clue (46A: Walk from one coop to another?)—there are way, way funnier ways to go at that one). 
• 30A: Casting rod? (WAND) — I'm telling you, 12yo me would've been really into crosswords if he'd known there were MEDUSAs and DRAGONSLAYERs and wizards with WANDs!). Ooh, and Pac-Man!! (6D: Score points in Pac-Man, say). You could've sold me on your adult pastime pretty easy, I think. 

That's it 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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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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✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Boswords 2026 Winter Wondersolve (online) (Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026)
• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration closed!)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...