Biblical name for Syria / WED 2-18-26 / Offensively odorous / ___ Aran, heroine of Nintendo's Metroid / Demon of Japanese folklore / Reduced to crumbs, say / Leader of the Sharks in "West Side Story" / Like some buns and bedrooms / One of the "six enemies of the mind," in Hinduism / Bluish-purple bloom

Constructor: Victor Schmitt

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: emoji puns — theme clues are emojis; theme answers are familiar expressions that are also figurative ways of describing those emojis:

Theme answers:

• SIGNS OF THE TIMES (21A: 🕰️⏳⏰)
• SYMBOLIC GESTURES (39A: 🤙👏👋)
• FIGURES OF SPEECH (57A: 💬🗣️🗯️) 

Word of the Day: COMMODORES (12D: Best-selling home computers of the 1980s) —

The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling desktop computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595 (equivalent to $1,940 in 2024). Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kibibytes (65,536 bytes) of RAM. [...] The C64 dominated the low-end computer market (except in the UK, France and Japan, lasting only about six months in Japan) for most of the later years of the 1980s.^[8] For a substantial period (1983–1986), the C64 had between 30% and 40% share of the US market and two million units sold per year, outselling IBM PC compatibles, the Apple II, and Atari 8-bit computers. [...] Part of the Commodore 64's success was its sale in regular retail stores instead of only electronics or computer hobbyist specialty stores. Commodore produced many of its parts in-house to control costs, including custom integrated circuit chips from MOS Technology. In the United States, it has been compared to the Ford Model T automobile for its role in bringing a new technology to middle-class households via creative and affordable mass-production. (wikipedia) 

• • •

I was recoiling from this one right from the start. Ugliness in the NW corner is a real tone-setter, and though I'm not sure I'd call that corner "ugly," exactly, it's real wobbly. AMES and RANDB are hoary repeaters, and when I had to change NOPE to (ugh) "NOT I" (3D: Terse denial), I was fairly confident that this puzzle was NOT going to be for I. Moved over one section and was subjected to ALDO ARAM LOCO (and ACUTE, which, as clued, I really only know (from years of French) as AIGU). And then one over again and I've got AAS, plural PASTAS, something called SAMUS (20A: ___ Aran, heroine of Nintendo's Metroid), the gosh dang AGORA (hoariest of repeaters). By the time I got to ESPIAL (lol come on) I was ready to throw in the towel. I got the first themer fairly easy, and I guess the concept is OK (those are all "signs" related to telling "time"), but it didn't strike me as particularly funny. Also, of all the themers, SIGNS OF THE TIMES is the worst in the plural. The others seem very comfortable in the plural, but I'm fairly certain I've mostly only heard "Sign of the Times" in the singular (I may be under the heavy influence of the Prince album Sign O' the Times here, but ... that's OK, I can't think of very many albums I'd rather be under the influence of). The theme was pretty straightforward. Meanwhile, the unpleasant fill just kept coming. In the end, not enough highs in the theme material, and quite a lot of lows in the fill. FICA USDA EHOW ... an ERR and ERE that are actually holding hands and screaming for attention rather than hiding in the corners and trying to stay inconspicuous, as they should (40D: Old-fashioned word that's a homophone of 49-Across). The theme itself is solid enough. Kind of dull, but at least average for the NYTXW. But the fill really weighed it down. NOISOME fill. Not quite the DREGS, but dreggish. 

I know SAMUS was in the puzzle last year some time (Mar. 1, it turns out). I remember not knowing SAMUS. Well, I re-didn't know it today. Also forgot which variety of "O"-ending crosswordese Gucci was. ERNO? ENZO? Had to wait for crosses, one of which was ARAM (??), which ... it's been a while (6A: Biblical name for Syria). The only way I know ARAM is from the William Saroyan novel My Name Is ARAM, and the only reason I know that is that I grew up in Fresno, CA (where Saroyan is from ... there is (or was) a theater named after him and everything). The Biblical ARAM I know only from crosswords, but I clearly don't "know" it since I needed crosses coming up with it today. If it seems unfamiliar to you, here, let me give you a quick visual explanation of why:

[xwordinfo]

This chart shows ARAM appearances over time. The blue is where Shortz took over. Look at that ARAM supply just get (rightly) choked off right around the turn of the century. From eleven appearances a year in the mid-'90s to just once in the last decade in 2026 (before today). This is what I mean about the grid feeling like it's weighed down by olden gunk. It all feels very familiar to me, but that's because I started solving in the '90s, when ARAMs were (sadly) plentiful. There's no cause for ARAM now. There's especially no cause in a little section of a not-terribly-demanding grid. Anyway, after I got out of the ALDO / ARAM / SAMUS triangle, nothing held me up much, except (briefly) those awful four-letter government initialisms (plural!) (USDA, FICA). I really thought things were picking up slightly in the south when I got NOXIOUS (a cool word!) (51A: Offensively odorous) ... only it wasn't NOXIOUS, it was NOISOME (a much less cool word). I think HUMDINGERS is my favorite thing in the grid—ironic, given that it's as olde-timey as a lot of this fill, but at least it has style and personality. I don't know in what world you choose a computer clue for COMMODORES over a musical clue, but I guess it's this world. Unfathomable. I actually didn't mind learning a little bit about the history of the Commodore 64 (see "Word of the Day," above), but if you bring out the COMMODORES for the first time in 42 years, it oughta be Lionel Richie & Co. and they better be playing something (seriously, three COMMODORES clues all time and none of them use the band? Just the name of Vanderbilt athletes and computers? Filing a discrimination suit right now).

[man, early music videos were wild (by which I mean tame, low-budget, adorable)]

Bullets:

• 70A: Reduced to crumbs, say (EATEN) — if you're eating a cookie, I guess, but "say" I'm eating steak? 
• 5D: Leader of the Sharks in "West Side Story" (BERNARDO) — the puzzle continues to overestimate how well I'll remember roles in old movies / musicals. I know Spielberg remade this very recently, but still, no hope for me here without crosses. Those crosses weren't hard to come by, and so eventually I ESPIALed BERNARDO. [Note: this is the 23rd ESPIAL of all time, and the thirteenth time it's been clued [Observation]—interestingly, ESPIAL has not been favored more in one time period than another. No time period seems to want it—it appears more than once in a calendar year just twice (1942, 1969)]
• 29D: Demon of Japanese folklore (ONI) — I don't love ONI as fill, but this Japanese-demon way of cluing ONI is by far the best way I've seen. Before the 2020s, most ONI clues referred to the Office of Naval Intelligence (e.g. [Clandestine maritime org.] or [The Navy's C.I.A.]). Occasionally, you'd get a partial. For a very brief period in 1994, Shortz experimented with cluing "ONI" as if it were "ON-ONE" ([1-___ (way to guard)], [2 ___ (doubled teamed)]. He gave that up pretty quickly, which was probably the right move. Nowadays, since 2020, Japanese demon is the standard reference.

[this ONI is preparing to squeegee your windshield. Terrifying!]

• 42D: ___ Howard, Oscar-nominated actor for 2005's "Hustle & Flow" (TERRENCE) — I knew this, but for some reason TERRENCE + "Oscar-nominated" made me think I was dealing with a different cinematic TERRENCE altogether. Turns out I was thinking of TERENCE (one-"R") Blanchard (Academy Award-nominated composer of the scores for BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods) 

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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