Lightweight fabric for a handkerchief / THU 2-12-26 / Heavy metal band whose name is a big cat in Spanish / 7-Eleven competitor on the East Coast / Michael nominated for Oscars in five decades / Sapa ___ ("The only emperor" in Quechua) / Dennis's sister on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" / Northeastern prep school or its town

Constructor: Kareem Ayas

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (once you get the gimmick, very easy)

THEME: GIVE A HUG / STEAL A KISS (58A: Provide comfort, in a way ... or a hint to the answers to the four starred Across clues / 26D: Quickly smooch ... or a hint to the answers to the four starred Down clues) — you (the solver) have to (mentally) GIVE A HUG (i.e. add an "O") to four Across answers, and STEAL A KISS (i.e. remove on "X") from four Down answers in order to make sense of their clues:

Theme answers:

• D(O) WELL / LATEX (1A: *Succeed (DWELL + "O" = "do well") / 5D: *Behind in payment (LATEX minus "X" = "late") 
• SH(O)UT-OUTS / EXTERNALLY (18A: *Public messages of appreciation (SHUTOUTS + "O" = "shout-outs") / 11D: *Forevermore (EXTERNALLY minus "X" = "eternally")
• CLAM S(O)UP / AXMEN (37A: *New England-style chowder, for one (CLAMS UP + "O" = "clam soup") / 29D: *Word appearing 51 times in the New Testament (AXMEN minus "X" = "Amen")
• FLAMING(O) / MAXIM (54A: *Long-legged wader (FLAMING + "O" = "flamingo") / 52D: *Severely harm (MAXIM minus "X" = "maim")

Word of the Day: BATISTE (47A: Lightweight fabric for a handkerchief) —

[the only BATISTE I know]

A fine cloth made from cotton or linen; cambric. // From French batiste, a form of Baptiste, of disputed origin (“according to Littré and Scheler from the alleged original maker, Baptiste of Cambray; according to others, from its use in wiping the heads of children after baptism” – OED) (Wiktionary via Wordnik)

• • •

My appreciation for this puzzle went up as I started writing the explanation of the theme (above). During the solve, I got the drop-an-"O" / add-an-"X" thing pretty quickly—after that, I had an idea of what to look for, and the only mystery was what the revealer phrase was going to be. When the revealer phrase turned out to be plural—revealer phrases—I was slightly disappointed at first. It makes sense to pair hug and kiss, obviously, and crossing two revealer phrases is pretty impressive, architecturally, but somehow the specific phrases here, GIVE A HUG and STEAL A KISS, belong to such different universes, contextually, that the whole "reveal" moment felt like it clanked. I'm giving comfort ... but then also secretly / furtively / possibly non-consensually kissing someone? The latter has decidedly romantic implications, the former absolutely does not, so the pairing seemed odd. So I closed the puzzle feeling slightly disappointed. But then writing out the theme, and really looking at how it was executed, my appreciation for the craftsmanship involved here began to increase. You're pairing (crossing) X- and O-related answers, you're adding a letter in one direction but taking it away in the other, you end up with perfectly plausible-looking answers in the grid in every case ... that's a lot of balls to keep in the air. Throw in the two revealer phrases and you've got ten (10!) theme answers—do you have any idea how dense that is? How hard it is to fill a grid with this many themers running in both directions? That the grid worked out at all is remarkable. That it came out relatively clean and even vibrant in places (EVEN STEVEN! MOUSETRAPS!) is kind of amazing. I enjoyed discovering the missing "O"s and extra "X"s, and there were very few times along the way where I thought "oof" or "no," so ... yeah, I liked this one, and the more I look at it, the more I like it.

I started out by getting DWELL but not getting DWELL, and then seeing LATE but not understanding why there was an extra square at the end. When EXIT gave me LATEX I thought "OK, we're adding Xs ... what's going on with DWELL?" If you stare at DWELL hard enough, knowing the clue is [*Succeed], DO WELL just pops out. At least it did for me. I feel like my constant diet of cryptic crosswords probably helped, as I'm now very accustomed to mentally cutting up words and rearranging their parts. Lots of training in seeing what's not there and dropping what is. Anyway, the initial struggle to figure out the theme concept was the only real difficulty for me today. That and BATISTE, which ... ?????? My first and only thought there was "the original clue here must have been Jon BATISTE." BATISTE was bandleader and musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for seven years (2015-22 and was a regular on-screen (and conversational) presence. He has won eight Grammys, including Album of the Year for 2021's We Are. This is all to say that he is more than crossworthy and I would've loved to see him as the clue here instead of this fabric I've never heard of (which is somehow the same as cambric but also not (?!) ... I fell down a bit of a BATISTE rabbit hole and it didn't leave me any fabric-smarter).

[BATISTE being Stephen Colbert's bandleader *and* crossing "EVEN STEVEN" ... would've been good, I'm just saying...]

While I liked the puzzle overall, there were some moments that were less than pleasant. LISTEE hurt my ears and made my shoulders tense up (4D: Directory name). A "directory name" is a LISTING. Yes it is. You know it is. I'm sure LISTEE's lawyers have prepared a good case but overruled, contempt of court, this whole courtroom is out of order, case dismissed. Actually, looking over the grid, the only other part that made me holler "no!" (silently, in my head) was GRAS because they decided to go the force-fed geese route instead of the simple (and *timely*) Mardi GRAS route. Always choose the festive parade over the animal torture. I also will always hate TE-HEE, spelled thusly. I just can't accept the "TE"—the two parts rhyme, so the two parts should look the same. It's TEE + HEE. See also TEPEE. But otherwise, nothing UNHOLY about this grid at all. Again, given the theme density, it's remarkably solid.

Bullets:

• 20A: Heavy metal band whose name is a big cat in Spanish (PANTERA) — maybe the thinking behind the BATISTE clue was "well, we've already used one long musical name that's' not exactly universally famous, maybe we shouldn't do it twice." Both PANTERA and BATISTE have multiple Grammy nominations. But BATISTE can (apparently!) be clued in a non-musical way, whereas PANTERA cannot*, so PANTERA stays a musical act and BATISTE gets changed. Boo. Side note: PANTERA would be a great answer for anyone working on some kind of "add-a-T" theme. PANERA + "T" = PANTERA. [*update: there is an automotive PANTERA, it turns out]

• 2D: 7-Eleven competitor on the East Coast (WAWA) — I live in the NE but not on the "East Coast," so there are actually no WAWAs in my vicinity. But I am aware of their existence, and I'm very aware that WAWA was very recently in the puzzle (Jan. 20, 2026), so I dropped WAWA next to DROP no problem.
• 3D: Tree of knowledge locale (EDEN) — I always think of it as the "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil," because that's what it's called, but this is good enough I guess. Sh(o)ut-outs to all the Paradise Lost fans out there.
• 29A: *Word appearing 51 times in the New Testament (AXMEN) — this is my favorite theme answer. Not the base answer ("Amen") but the actual "X"-added answer. I just love the idea of the New Testament being really into guitar players. "And Jesus shreddeth for the masses, and it was good."

[skip to 3:30 if you want to see God's Own Axman at work]

• 33D: Lunch item usually eaten with two hands, in brief (BLT) — [citation needed]
• 41D: Michael nominated for Oscars in five decades (CAINE) — had the "C" and thought "ooh, it's Michael CERA + an 'X' ... somehow. So, what would that make? CERAX? CEXAR? Why can't I make a word? Wait a minute ... Michael CERA hasn't even been alive for five decades, what the hell? Oh, crap, this isn't even a themer. So ... right, Michael CAINE. Yes, that's much better."
• 58D: Unpleasant discovery under a desk (GUM) — first of all, if I left the GUM there for later, then my "discovery" is not "unpleasant" at all, thank you very much. Second, I had G-M here and for a split second definitely thought GAM. "Why would that be unpleasant? Who doesn't like GAMs!?" In my defense, you can definitely find GAMs "under a desk"—you might get hauled into HR for inappropriate workplace behavior if you actively go hunting for them, but trust me, they're there. Sometimes.

[gams, seen here not under a desk]

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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