Spicy marinade with chili peppers / MON 1-5-26 / "Yikes!," to a Brit / 1976 film with Robert De Niro as an alienated cabbie / Passengers getting an illicit free ride / Fanny ___, central figure in Broadway's "Funny Girl" / Crazy Horse's people / Losing general at Appomattox / Meeting spot for a company's overseers / Bug killer that goes "smack!"

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: TOUCHDOWN  (57A: Gridiron success ... or, when read as two words, the conclusion to the sequence formed by the starts of 16-, 24-, 34- and 48-Across) — first words of four themers describe an airplane trip:

Theme answers:

• BOARDROOM (16A: Meeting spot for a company's overseers)
• TAXI DRIVER (24A: 1976 film with Robert De Niro as an alienated cabbie)
• TAKE OFF FROM WORK (34A: Enjoy a vacation day, say)
• FLY SWATTER (48A: Bug killer that goes "smack!")

Word of the Day: ADOBO (20D: Spicy marinade with chili peppers) —

[Chipotles en adobo]

Adobo or adobar (Spanish: marinade, sauce, or seasoning) is the immersion of food in a stock (or sauce) composed variously of paprika, oregano, salt, garlic, and vinegar to preserve and enhance its flavor. The Portuguese variant is known as carne de vinha d'alhos. The practice, native to Iberia (Spanish and Portuguese cuisine), was widely adopted in Latin America, as well as Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia.

In the Philippines, the name adobo was given by colonial-era Spaniards on the islands to a different indigenous cooking method that also uses vinegar. Although similar, this developed independently of Spanish influence.

• • •

***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... 

• • •

Very easy and a little FLAT (36D: Off-key, in a way). Not off-key FLAT, but old soda pop FLAT. It seems well crafted enough, but there's not enough sparkle, and the theme is actually kind of pedestrian. It's weird that the puzzle has a revealer at all. I guess TOUCHDOWN needed to be a revealer because it didn't follow the pattern of the other themers (which all involved just the first word, not the whole answer). But still ... this is the kind of theme that the NYTXW used to let you figure out yourself. I solved Downs-only (as I always do on a Monday), and I was able to figure out the theme from just looking at the answers. I thought it was a revealer-free puzzle, and was surprised to find that the theme spelled out in the TOUCHDOWN's clue. Unnecessary hand-holding. I think I felt the contrast between the old (semi-sadistic) ways of doing things at the NYTXW and the newer (hand-holding) ways of doing things  more sharply than usual because I had just finished solving a Saturday puzzle from 1986, which I discovered while looking at the movie listings for Jan. 4, 1986 (I'm doing a little "40 years ago" movie-watching project this year). That puzzle ... dear lord. Brutal. 

I "finished" with four wrong squares (see the dark "X" squares, above). Total guesses. There were at least that many other total guesses that turned out to be correct, much to my surprise. AZLE? There's a "city" near Fort Worth called AZLE!?!!? Amazing. I looked it up and it turns out I just happened to stumble upon the only NYTXW puzzle in history to include AZLE. What luck! I always think of Maleska-era puzzles as being far less reliant on proper nouns and pop culture trivia, but this one was loaded. [Rock star John or J.J.] for CALE (I got that one). [TV actor Willie] for AAMES (got that one too—watched a lot of Eight Is Enough as a kid). Anyway, I got Naticked four times in one puzzle. Probably should've been three, maybe even two. But still, yikes. I don't want puzzles to be like that any more, but there's gotta be some happy medium between the often too-easy puzzles of today and the arcane torturefests of yore. I mean, a [Parrot's facial feature] is a CERE!? What am I, a parrotologist? I guessed correctly, but again, I repeat: yikes (or, in the words of today's puzzle, BLIMEY!) (43D: "Yikes!," to a Brit).

["A fleshy or waxlike membrane at the base of the upper beak in certain birds, such as parrots, through which the nostrils open." (American Heritage Dictionary)]
 [CERE has appeared just once in the past 33 years, in 2010, when it was clued [Smear with wax, old-style]. Old-style? What is [Smear with wax, new-style]!?!?! Why were we smearing things with wax in 2010?]

Sorry to talk so much about a 40-year-old puzzle. It was a bad puzzle, but at least it was fascinatingly bad. Today's puzzle just didn't interest me that much. Solid. Workmanlike. A placeholder. No real ugliness. No real difficulty. No real wows. I appreciated STOWAWAYS (28D: Passengers getting an illicit free ride) and PATROLMAN (15D: Police officer who monitors an assigned area)—they gave the grid a little color. And I always like thinking about TAXI DRIVER, one of the greatest movies of all time. But nothing else about this puzzle was very exciting. The feeling I experienced was something closer to ENNUI (13A: Listlessness). 

As I was solving Downs-only, I had to infer the themers, which was a bit of a crapshoot today. That is, my first guess was wrong over and over again. This didn't hold me up too much, but it was a little surprising how many times my first instinct, even with many letters and even entire words in place, was wrong. BOARD GAME before BOARDROOM. TIME OFF FROM WORK before TAKE OFF FROM WORK. And most strangely, TAXI DANCER before TAXI DRIVER. I blame that last one on the fact that "Taxi Dancers" is the theme for my Movie Club this week, and I am currently in the middle of watching the movie we ended up choosing: Deadline at Dawn (1944). Susan Hayward stars as a dancehall girl (i.e. taxi dancer) trying to help a young sailor prove he didn't kill a woman during a drunken blackout. It's a fantastically entertaining if completely preposterous movie. If any other Downs-only solver out there thought of TAXI DANCER before TAXI DRIVER, I'd like to hear about it. I'm pretty sure I'm alone on that one.

Bullets:

• 53A: Fanny ___, central figure in Broadway's "Funny Girl" (BRICE) — solving Downs-only, I was staring at BRIC- here and of course wanted BRICK. Once I got BRICE, I thought, "Oh, right, BRICE Harper" (8x MLB All-Star and 2x NL MVP, currently a member of the Philadelphia Phillies)  But he spells his name BRYCE. I've ... never seen Funny Girl, on Broadway or on film. More of a baseball fan than a Streisand fan (though I realize those are not mutually exclusive). I do kinda like her in What's Up, Doc?, I'll say that.

[and you thought the car chase scene in Bullitt was good...]

• 42D: Overly refined (EFFETE) — I know this is a real word with non-derogatory uses, but it always reads like a (slightly dressed-up) slur to me, suggesting that someone (or something) is not properly masculine. I think the word "effeminate" is running interference in my brain a little here. Anyway, can't imagine ever using this word. But it was easy to get today, as (from a Downs-only perspective), -ILIAL, made FILIAL obvious (teaching about FILIAL piety in the Aeneid every semester didn't hurt me here) (52A: Relating to a son or daughter). And since I had the other "F" from FLY SWATTER, EFFETE went right in ... and closed things out.
• 33D: Actor McGregor with a Golden Globe for "Fargo" (EWAN) — they could have clued him as [McGregor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi] (as they often do, as they did back in June), but then the "Number of Days without a Star Wars Reference" counter would've stayed at its familiar "zero" position. Instead, we take our first step into the unknown, toward a glorious, Star Wars-free future. You might even say that today we have ... a new hope. You might. Please don't. But you might.

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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