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Big name in carving knives / TUE 1-13-26 / Birth name of Marvel Comics Black Panther / Angle symbol, in geometry / Segments of earth's lithosphere
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Constructor: Nate Hall
Relative difficulty: very very easy
Theme answers:
- NEONATAL NURSE (19A: Hospital worker tending to newborns)
- MECHANICAL BULL (31A: Bar attraction with a saddle and horns)
- TECTONIC PLATES (42A: Segments of Earth's lithosphere)
Cutco Corporation, known prior to 2009 as Alcas Corporation, is an American company that sells cutlery, predominantly through multi-level marketing. It is the parent company of CUTCO Cutlery Corp., Vector Marketing, Ka-Bar Knives, and Schilling Forge. The company was founded in 1949 by Alcoa and Case Cutlery (hence "Al-cas") to manufacture stainless steel knives for Alcoa's WearEver Cookware division. Alcoa purchased Case's share in the company in 1972, and Alcas became a separate private company in 1982 after a management buyout. In 1985, the company acquired Vector Marketing Corporation.The company has been the subject of criticism and lawsuits for its business practices, and has been accused of being a multi-level marketing company. The Los Angeles Times claims that Vector meets the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) definition of a multi-level marketing company which is "businesses that involve selling products to family and friends and recruiting other people to do the same" because they sell their product through person-to-person sales. Salespeople are generally young and recruited from high school or college. Students are hired to sell Cutco products (mainly kitchen knives) to customers, starting with their friends and family. Vector's recruitment tactics have been described as deceptive, and they have faced numerous lawsuits over their pay structure and treatment of its salespeople, who are mostly independent contractors instead of employees. Vector claims they are a single-level direct selling marketing company, not a multi-level marketing company or a pyramid scheme as its detractors claim.
• • •
Do these things "rock you?" Well, not me personally, but they rock ... one. I don't think of a NEONATAL NURSE's primary job as being "rocking," but I guess holding the babies and soothing them in some way is probably part of the job, sure. "Rocking," though, seems very specific. Are they rocking the cradles? Do neo-natal wards have rockable cradles? NEW MOTHERS or the equivalent might have made more sense here, but I can't say NEONATALNURSES wasn't an eye-catching answer. I wrote it in thinking "huh, a triple 'N' theme, this should be interesting!" As for the other themers, yes, bulls and earthquakes will indeed cause you to sway, if not fall, if not hurt yourself. Those answers work just fine. And I enjoyed remembering the anthemic Queen song. The rest of the fill was largely filler. TIM WALZ is an interesting full name to squeeze in there, though at the moment all it does is remind me of the Siege of Minneapolis (ongoing). Would be nice if Walz and other elected officials had any kind of answer for the violence being perpetrated by the federal government. Give a bunch of weak, poorly-trained, sadistic CLODS (37A: Buffoons) automatic weapons and body armor, set them loose to terrorize ethnic Somalis and other non-white immigrants (so—virtually any non-white person), and let them know in no uncertain terms that they are above the law ... and presto, you've got yourself your very own Gestapo. That is what ICE is at this point. Bizarre to pretend otherwise. Buncha dudes too incompetent and cowardly for actual war, doing their little war cosplay games in American cities with live ammunition, gleefully, boastfully hurting people. You're either into it or you're not, but ... Gestapo is the correct analogy. As for me: look, I don't even like ICE in my water (12D: Bartender's supply). F*** ICE. Abolish ICE.
On to more pleasant things now.
Bullets:
- 36A: 1985 mystery film with three different endings (CLUE) — this movie is very silly and very enjoyable. I don't think I saw it when it initially came out, but I did watch it just last month as part of my "What Would I Have Seen 40 Years Ago?" movie-watching project. Just to give some structure to my (prodigious) movie-watching habit, I decided that once a week I'd just look at the movie listings for 40 years ago and then watch whatever movie I'd see if those were my options. In the first two weeks of this year, I've watched Ran and Brazil. Which is to say there were some *really* good movies in theaters 40 years ago. As for CLUE, it's no Ran, but it is entertaining. It's got Martin Mull *and* Madeline Kahn (something Ran cannot claim—though why they never remade Ran with Martin Mull and Madeline Kahn, I do not know—I'd've seen that sixteen times)
- 9D: Yogi, once (BEAR CUB) — this is a hilariously tortured example of successive clue rhyming. You've got 8D: Yogi's pose (ASANA) and then ... this clue, immediately after. If you had to write a hundred BEAR CUB clues, you'd never use Yogi. Only the proximity of this yoga clue is going to suggest to you "hey, what if Yogi was ... little? I know we never ever see him as a BEAR CUB, but ... I mean, he must have been one, right? Cartoons don't have actual lives, but ... still ... it's implied. Let's do it!"
- 52D: Many men on dating shows (HUNKS) — is this true? Also, do people still say "HUNKS?' Unironically? I was honestly looking for a more modern word. HIMBOS? HIMBI?
- 44D: Pet sitters? (LAP CATS) — they are pets who sit (on your lap). I think you are the sitter, technically. Cats rarely sit in laps. They lie. Or flop. I had LAP here and had to wait for crosses, as LAP DOGS is not only a possible answer, but probably the more common phrase (LAP DOGS define a certain kind of small dog, different from most other, larger dogs, whereas LAP CATS ... any cat might be a lap cat. Most cats I know have, at some time or other, been LAP CATS. It's almost redundant).
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| [Pet sitters?] |
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29 comments:
Easy, yes. I needed a lucky guess for the TCHALLA/HOLLA cross, otherwise smooth sailing. Didn't use the theme; in fact, I only understood it after the fact.
Agree with Rex, very easy, but fun. The TIMWALZ clue was amazing, under the circumstances!
Very easy. No overwrites, no WOEs. I don't know how I knew T'CHALLA (4D) and CUTCO (33D) but somehow I was able to fill both in with out all the crosses.
Caution: Wet floor, which I was confident of until I saw LAP CArS and realized that SLOfS, LMlO, etc were wrong. But that was the only hesitation--when We Are The Champions didn't fit WE WILL ROCK YOU went right in, and all of a sudden the themers made sense. T'CHALLA was not a problem for me. And neither was CUTCO; my brother's friend sold us a set of knives right when they got out of college, and 30 years later I still have a few of them. Good knives--and as far as I know Benji never had to recruit anyone.
Easy and enjoyable puzzle! One very very silly mistake had Wall instead of Walz except I'd never heard of GenL.
CUTCO, EDGECOM, INTERSLICE, COMPUGLOBALHYPERMEGANET… all extremely valid crossword entries
Very easy with hesitation only on CUTCO (?) and MECHANICAL BULL, because I saw the three Ns in NEONATAL NURSE and was looking for some alliteration involving BRONCO.
CUZCO would be a way more interesting entry than CUTCO, but I'd rather have this grid over ADZ crossing MCAT, ELDEN Ring, and CUZCO.
Has ELDEN ever appeared in a NYT puzzle? It looks like prime material for modern crosswordese. All that comes up on Diary of a Crossword Fiend is one instance of ELDEN and one full ELDEN RING, both from Jonesin' crosswords.
Easy, with one exception, TCHALLA crossing HOLLA. I could guess at the former, but HOLLA annoyed me. Who says that, does anyone? It seems so random and made-up. Hola maybe, or Hello, or even Hiya.
Agreed, very easy, although I consider the cross between TCHALLA (come on) and HOLLA something of a Natick. Luckily, no other letter besides H seems plausible, so yeah, guess I'll go with it and... done.
The cluing for BEAR CUB strikes me as sketchy. So of course there's Yogi BEAR, but that's a cartoon bear, not a real bear, and as far as I know, not once in the series did he appear as a CUB, so the clue is trying to get us to infer that he had to have been a cub once, being a bear, even if only a cartoon bear. Sorry guys, really not buying it. Not until someone can unearth an episode where Yogi appears as a cub. Otherwise, being an imaginary bear, I can imagine any back story for him I dang well please, for example he emerged from his mother's loins fully formed and wearing a tie, or invented by Martians in a lab and sent to Earth, etc., and it's unfalsifiable. (Sure, I'll humor you and go along with your own back story, just to get the puzzle done, but I think the clue has gotten too cute for its own britches.)
I like many of the grid entries, as words and phrases, but some of those clues are moo-cow simple, and could have been better. I'll leave it there for now.
Right? Surely BUCKING BULL somehow?
The video that effectively ended Billy Squier’s career. Such a shame. Great 80’s song.
Basic - early week offering. I thought NEONATAL NURSES was the highlight - don’t quite understand the shade. Oddball grid layout is not appealing - tends to minimize the spanner.
John and Linda live in OMAHA
Liked BEAR CUB, SCONCE and NICHE. WALZ was unfortunate. Overall fill was workmanlike and mostly clean. Quick to finish this one.
Help Save the Youth of America
Pleasant enough Tuesday morning solve.
Waylon
I guess you’re no holla back girl. That’s bananas.
Side note on ASANA. In a recent puzzle, YOGA was clued [Discipline for the flexible]. Well, yes, it is, so it passes as a clue. But it is misleading, as it implies that yoga is only for bendy people. In actuality, it is also for the non-bendy, medium-bendy, and everyone else. It brings benefits to all.
9-D Yogi again?! Repeated? I thought, "Surely this must be a constructor Boo-Boo."
lol
Rex had it super-easy, I thought it was pretty much standard Tuesday fare. CUTCO is almost comical, even better so because I’m guessing the only people who have heard of it are the people hawking their stuff and the people who are annoyed by the people hawking their stuff.
BATIK was also new to me and of course I needed every cross for TCHALLA.
Holla has been part of pop culture for, what, 30 years?
Misread the clue for 4 Down as birth *place* of Black Panther and was proud of myself for knowing Wakanda, which of course didn’t fit. Otherwise, a very zippy morning solve.
Hey All !
Welp, today we get a 14x16 grid. With 40 Blockers. A wonky grid week? We'll see, I guess.
Anything Queen is good. Liked how the Themers WILL ROCK YOU. A gale force wind will do it, too. A curved base chair. A heavy metal band.
Liked puz overall. Easy, fun theme, light -ese/dreck. A double-L fest, with seven of them in the grid. (Again, weird what the ole brain notices.)
Have a great Tuesday!
No F's - OH NO
RooMonster
DarrinV
I have to say that Tuesday puzzles have especially shined recently, with sparkling themes that made me go “Oh!” rather than “Oh.” Like today's.
The best kind of riddles, IMO, are those you struggle mightily to crack, but remain impervious to your efforts. Finally, you cave, then get the answer, and it turns out to be SO OBVIOUS, you wonder how in the world you missed it.
That’s the best way to be gotten. And that’s what I got today after leaving the reveal blank and trying to guess what it was.
Speaking of sparkling, three of those theme answers are NYT debuts, and the fourth (MECHANICAL BULL) is a once-before. Nate also beautified the grid, with NICHE, SCONCE, ADEPT, and BATIK.
SERENDIPITY WATCH. Rare sighting of seven double-L’s, plus, a rare-in-crosswords five-letter palindrome (SOLOS).
Creating this theme out of that iconic rock song title – well, that’s prime constructor mind, Nate. Congratulations on your NYT debut, and thank you for this!
Yes, very very easy but I found it crisp and enjoyable, overall.
Yes, Cutco is everything that Rex says it is, BUT they make darn fine knives! I’ve had mine for 35 years.
I bought a set of knives from my daughter’s high school classmate 30 years ago. Still use them.
Agree, easy. Always enjoy a non-standard grid, whether wider or narrower, like todays 14x15. I especially enjoyed the range of meanings for "ROCK" put in order... from gentle and baby-size, to rough and human size, to catastrophic and global. Awesome contrasts, all one word!! Fun puzzle, great theme, thank you, Nate! : )
My sister-in-law started selling CUTCO knives after college and approached us. I knew our friend Donna had some, so I asked her how she liked them. She said they were great --- that she received them as a wedding gift and they've lasted longer than the marriage. We bought some, still have them, and they are very good.
We still have the set of Cutco knives our friends' son sold us when he was in college 30 years ago. We've even bought a few more. Expensive, but worth it. Cutco's policy is: Dull knives? Send them back and we'll sharpen them. Not able to sharpen? We'll send you a new one. The co is located in Olean NY.
And even better scissors! We have gradually replaced every pair of scissors in our house with Cutco after being forced to watch a high school friend of our kids demonstrate them. Fortunately, you can just buy them directly from the company.
Total Natick for me
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