Nonverbal "well done" / THU 1-8-26 / Heineken subsidiary whose name means "small bodies of water" / One of the two Boolean values, in programming / Like the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey / Benefactor with a limited number of grants? / Gimlet base / Snatching sound, in the comics / Mexican street food typically served with cheese, chili and lime / So-called "father of the American cartoon" / Hit TV series set at the fictional William McKinley High School / Tea traders?

Constructor: Mallory Montgomery and Zhou Zhang

Relative difficulty: far too easy

THEME: GRADE INFLATION (39A: College concern seen in 16-, 25-, 49- and 63-Across) — letters of evaluation on a report card ("grades") are raised ("inflated") by one letter in the alphabet, turning the expected answers into different, unclued answers: 

Theme answers:

• HIGH DIVE ("raised" from "HIGH FIVE") (16A: Nonverbal "well done")
• CROP TOPS ("raised" from "DROP TOPS") (25A: Cars with retractable roofs) 
• OVERBOOK ("raised" from "OVERCOOK") (49A: Accidentally burn, perhaps)
• A-LISTERS ("raised" from "BLISTERS") (63A: Results of wearing some uncomfortable shoes)

Word of the Day: 50 CENT (36D: "In da Club" rapper) —

Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, and television producer. Born in Queens, a borough of New York City, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 1996. In 1999–2000, he recorded his debut album, Power of the Dollar, for Columbia Records. During a shooting in May 2000, he was struck by nine bullets, causing its release to be canceled and Jackson to be dropped from the label. His 2002 mixtape Guess Who's Back? was discovered by Detroit rapper Eminem, who signed Jackson to his label Shady Records (an imprint of Interscope Records) that year. // Jackson has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and earned several accolades, including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, 13 Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards, and four BET Awards. He starred in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), which was critically panned. He also appeared in the war film Home of the Brave (2006) and the crime thriller Righteous Kill (2008). Billboard ranked Jackson 17th on its "50 Greatest Rappers" list in 2023, and named him the sixth top artist of the 2000s decade. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin' and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively. (wikipedia)

• • •

***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** : It's early January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 2026 is a big year for me, as Rex Parker Solves the NYT Crossword will celebrate its 20th birthday in September. Two decades. The big 2-0. A score of years. One score and no years ago, I brought forth on this Internet a new blog, conceived in ... I think I'll stop there, but you get the idea. I've been at this a long time, and while it has been my privilege and joy, it has also been (and continues to be) a lot of work. Very early mornings, no days off—well, no days off for the blog. I do have two very able regular subs (Mali and Clare) who write for me once a month, as well as a handful of other folks who stand in for me when I go on vacation. But otherwise, it's just me, every dang day, up by 4am, solving and writing. I've never been this disciplined about anything in my life. Ask anyone. "Is he disciplined about anything else?" "No, he is not. Just this one thing. It's weird." And it's because I have a responsibility to an audience (that's you). Even after nearly 20 years, I'm still genuinely stunned and exceedingly grateful that so many of you have made the blog a part of your daily routine. Ideally, it adds a little value to the solving experience. Teaches you something you didn't know, or helps you look at crosswords in a new way, or makes you laugh (my highest goal, frankly). Or maybe the blog simply offers a feeling of commiseration—a familiar voice confirming that yes, that clue was terrible, or yes, that themer set should have been tighter, or wow, yes, that answer was indeed beautiful. Whether you find it informative or comforting or entertaining or infuriating—or all of the above—if you're reading me on a fairly regular basis, there's something valuable you're getting out of the blog. And I couldn't be happier about that.

["That's upside-down, sweetheart"]

Hopefully by now you can tell that for better or worse, what you get from me is my honest, unvarnished feelings about a puzzle. There's an explanatory element too, sure, but this blog is basically one person's solving diary. Idiosyncratic. Personal. Human. I'm not interested in trying to guess consensus opinion. I'll leave that to A.I. All I can do, all I want to do, is tell you exactly what it was like for me to solve the puzzle—what I thought, what I felt. Because while solving may seem like mere box-filling to outsiders, crossword enthusiasts know that the puzzle actually makes us feel things—joy, anguish, confusion (confusion's a feeling, right?). Our feelings might not always be rational, but dammit, they're ours, and they're worth having. And sharing. I love that crosswords engage the messy, human side of you, as well as the objective, solution-oriented side. If I just wanted to fill in boxes, without any of the messy human stuff, I'd solve sudoku (no shade, sudoku fans, they're just not for me!).

[conferring w/ my editor]

Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. And maybe I'd make more money that way, I don't know, but that sort of thing has never felt right for me. And honestly, does anyone really need yet another subscription to manage? As I've said in years past, I like being out here on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way. How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage, as well as at the bottom of every write-up):

Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker") (be sure to date them with the new year, 2026!):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I know snail mail is a hassle for most people, but I love it. I love seeing your (mostly) gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my (completely) awful handwriting. The human touch—it's nice. In recent years, my daughter has designed my annual postcards, but this year, grad school and NYC theater work are keeping her otherwise occupied, so I had to seek design help elsewhere. Enter Katie Kosma, who is not only a professional illustrator/designer, but (crucially!) a crossword enthusiast. She listened patiently to my long and disorganized list of ideas and in very short order was able to arrive at this year's design, inspired by film noir title cards. 

I'm very happy with how it turned out. The teeny boxes inside the letters, the copyright credit ("Natick Pictures, Inc."), and especially that pencil lamppost—mwah! I know most people solve online now, and many paper solvers prefer pen, but the pencil just feels iconic, and appropriate for the card's throwback vibe. That lamppost was entirely Katie's creation. She was a dream to work with. Can't say enough good things about her.

Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." 

Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle... 

• • •

[THIRDS]

First of all: too easy. Too easy. Today, not only too easy, but undersized, so it hardly felt like solving a crossword at all, let alone a Thursday crossword (it is Thursday, right? my regular job doesn't start again for another week and a half, so I'm still drifting through time with no clear sense of what day it is—[checks calendar] yes, Thursday, cool). The puzzle was too easy, the theme was too simple, and the fill was too often short and uninspired. It all just felt somewhat undercooked. I had another one of those "uh oh" moments when starting the puzzle, because the fill ... was not promising. BEL AMA BAHT EMIR is about as crosswordy a way as you can open your puzzle. That is an answer string that bodes ill. And the way the grid is shaped, there's no room for truly interesting fill to thrive, so what we get is corner after corner, nook after cranny, of dull 3-4-5 stuff. The one wonderful exception is the NE corner, which manages to have a ton of zest for a corner where no answer is longer than five letters. The "Z" "K" and "Y" are well integrated (as opposed to uncomfortably wedged) into the corner, and "BINGO!" "AY PAPI!" and "YOINK!" give the whole area an invigorating exclamatory energy. Plus you get a gimlet, which is nice. Classy. Real service. The rest of the nooks and crannies aren't nearly as much fun.

[Pig furriers? Well now I've seen everything]

So, with the fill so constricted that it can't really shine, it's up to the theme to provide most of the interest today, and ... I don't know. I think I would've been more warmly disposed to this theme if it had appeared on a Wednesday. The concept just seems too simple for a Thursday. As soon as you get GRADE INFLATION (not hard), it's immediately clear what the gimmick is going to be—it's going to involve raising letter grades, maybe creating wackiness, or maybe (as today) changing the apparent answer into a completely different answer. Now, the fact that today's clues got answers that they did not "earn" gives the theme a nice resonance with actual grade inflation. That's kinda cool. But the problem for me was that there's absolutely no humor in the execution. There's nothing particularly entertaining or playful going on. Just a bunch of (apparently) wrong or inapt answers. HIGH DIVE isn't entertaining, it's just ... wrong for the clue. So a promising concept fizzles out in the execution. GRADE INFLATION seems like such an obvious theme concept that I thought "I'm surprised this hasn't been done before ... has it been done before?" So I checked and ... yes—and on a Wednesday! (ha, I knew this was a Wednesday theme). Anna Shechtman did a GRADE INFLATION theme back in 2010, but hers involved only Bs becoming As (by far the most common kind of GRADE INFLATION), and hers involved the one thing this grid is missing: wackiness. That is, her answers were not other, actual answers, but absurd answers, like HONEY COMA ([Result of a sweetener overload?]). I didn't think that puzzle was perfect, but leaning into the wackiness helped it be more enjoyable, more memorable. Gave it more personality, at any rate. Today's theme execution is fine—admirable, even, in that getting the "inflated" phrases to be real phrases seems like a real challenge. But from a solving standpoint, the puzzle just didn't pop.

Also, I kind of want to quibble with the last themer. There's something about changing BLISTERS to A-LISTERS that's disappointing, in that "A" actually has evaluative meaning. That is, it's functioning exactly the way a grade functions. If you're doing a grade-based puzzle, then the "grade" element should be masked. There's nothing "grade"-y about any of the other themers (either the base phrases or the "inflated" phrases). Somehow having a grade-based answer as an answer feels like a cheat. Plus, there are other letter-LISTERS. There are, in fact, B-LISTERS, so the "change" in that case just isn't as, I don't know, "change"-y as it should be. 

As for difficulty, there was none. I'm not kidding. There was the kind of "difficulty" I typically experience on a Tuesday or Wednesday, where, OK, I don't know something at first glance, but then I get some crosses and I do. Basic stuff. Nothing to make you sweat. I did make one huge and (to me) funny mistake, right up front. With LAGU- in place, I looked at 3D: Heineken subsidiary whose name means "small bodies of water" and wrote in ... [drum roll] ... LAGUVULIN! Why Heineken would own a famous brand of Scotch, I don't know, but ... seemed plausible. But first of all, it turns out it's spelled LAGAVULIN (close!), and second of all, it's just wrong. I don't drink beer anymore, but I've had a few LAGUNITAS in my day. So I was able to see my mistake with no real trouble. Yes, makes much more sense that a Heineken subsidiary would be a beer, not a Scotch. Beer-to-beer parallel makes sense. But I was briefly thrilled to see LAGAVULIN, which has never appeared in the NYTXW. Amazing that I had LAGU- in place, was familiar with the beer brand LAGUNITAS, and still managed to botch the answer. Such is the power of whisky. 🥃 

Bullets:

• 19A: One of the two Boolean values, in programming (TRUE) — outside my field of knowledge. Never learned Boolean algebra and know little about "programming." In fact the only time I see "Boolean" is in crossword clues, which led me to believe it involved conjunctions like OR and NOR, am I making this up? Nope, I am not "Boolean algebra uses logical operators such as conjunction (and) denoted as ∧, disjunction (or) denoted as ∨, and negation (not) denoted as ¬. Elementary algebra, on the other hand, uses arithmetic operators such as addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division." (wikipedia).
• 20A: Disney princess whose name is one letter off from a common princess accessory (TIANA) — got this easily, from "Disney princess" alone, but was kind of startled when I eventually read the entire clue for the first time. This is because I didn't read the entire clue. I somehow missed the last word. So I thought it said [Disney princess whose name is one letter off from a common princess], which made me think "well that's a rude way to talk about DIANA."
• 32A: Benefactor with a limited number of grants? (GENIE) — this clue got a legit chuckle out of me. Nice one. Also good: 47A: Tea traders? (YENTAS). "Tea" = gossip.
• 65A: Mexican street food typically served with cheese, chili and lime (ELOTE) — a follow-up to yesterday's foodfest, and a nice complement to yesterday's AREPA—both ELOTE and AREPA are destined for crossword immortality. Neo-crosswordese ... but not as bad as most crosswordese because delicious. Deliciousness goes a long way.
• 36D: "In da Club" rapper (FIFTY CENT) — there's a long tradition of writing numbers out like this (i.e. representing US 1 as USONE), but in the case of 50 Cent it feels very off. It's always "50" as far as I can tell. Feels almost like the puzzle is misnaming him here. Also, I'm suddenly fascinated by conventions of capitalization as they relate to the article "da." Like, yes, it's the equivalent of "the," which you don't capitalize in titles, so the lowercase "da" makes sense here. And yet it looks insane to my eye. That little "da" really wants punching up. It wants to be a big "Da." And in some spellings of "In Da Club," it is big. But not in others. Wikipedia can't make up its mind. It's got lowercase in the title of the "In da Club" page, but it uses "In Da Club" throughout. 50 Cent has been on my mind far more than usual of late because of this bit from comedian Josh Johnson, all about how 50 was one of the producers of the recent (damning) documentary about Diddy (i.e. Sean Combs):

• 49D: Like the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey (OAKEN) — I was like "... HIGH?" Which would've made it a high chair, which, admittedly, would be a weird thing to get coronated in (unless you're a baby). Seriously, though, what's the difference between OAKEN and just ... OAK? Like, you never hear about wooden things being BIRCHEN, or MAPLEN, or YEWEN, but we have this adjective OAKEN. Why? All the other woods double as adjectives, but somehow OAK got a fancy little ending? I feel like poetry is to blame, somehow. I can't prove this, but ... it's gotta be poetry. Some poet was like "hmm, I wanna use 'oak,' but this line doesn't scan ... I need two syllables ... I've got it!"

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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