Psychotherapy switcheroos / MON 2-23-26 / South American barbecue / Time machine car in "Back to the Future" / Fruit with a "bellybutton" / Rude goodbye to an enemy / Text on a red, white and blue sticker / Root used in making poi / Object hitting people's heads in old cartoons / British singer Rita

Constructor: Hannah Binney

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: ROLE REVERSALS (37A: Psychotherapy switcheroos ... or what are hidden in 17-, 25-, 50- and 59-Across?) — "ROLE" appears backward in four answers:

Theme answers:

• BACHELOR PAD (17A: Home for a single guy)
• THE LORAX (25A: Dr. Seuss book with the quote "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.")
• DELOREAN (50A: Time machine car in "Back to the Future")
• NAVAL ORANGE (59A: Fruit with a "bellybutton")

Word of the Day: ASADO (54D: South American barbecue) —

Asado (Spanish: [aˈsaðo]) is the technique and the social event of having or attending a barbecue in various South American countries: especially Argentina and Uruguay where it is also a traditional event, as well as Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), Chile and Paraguay. An asado usually consists of beef, pork, chicken, chorizo, and morcilla, all of which are cooked using an open fire or a grill, called a parrilla. Usually, red wine and side dishes such as salads accompany the main meats, which are prepared by a designated cook called the asador or parrillero. (wikipedia)

• • •

I don't think I've ever had less to say about a theme. Yes, those are "ROLE"s going backwards inside their answers. ROLE ... REVERSALS. Got it. Very literal. So literal, I can't believe it hasn't been done before. Oh look, it has: April 10, 2012 (NAVEL ORANGE was even one of the themers). Sigh. Look, no one is going to remember. *I* didn't even remember. I just have a sense about these things. But still, I do think the minimum due diligence a constructor should do before making a puzzle for the NYTXW is to run the revealer (and possibly a themer or two) through the NYTXW database to see if it's been done before. If it has, the whole thing should be D.O.A. Unless my idea radically improves on the core concept, I can't see trotting out a theme I know has been done before, even if I know almost no one's going to know. It would just feel bad. But I guess one way around not feeling bad about it is not checking at all. In that case, you might expect the editors to check. Maybe they did and didn't care. Seems possible. On the one hand, who cares, it's been a long time. On the other, there are constructors and aspiring constructors out there trying to get their puzzles published, getting rejection after rejection, and it must be at least slightly demoralizing to see some other constructor succeed with what is essentially a recycled theme. Anyway, the ROLEs, they go backward. Ho + hum. Would've been more impressive if the reversed ROLEs had broken across two words each time (as in THE LORAX or NAVEL ORANGE) instead of just half the time, but if we're not going for originality, we certainly aren't going for elegance. The grid is solid. It's a Monday. Whatever. Moving on.

The one thing that makes this puzzle stand out is "SEE YOU NEVER," a phrase I don't really get. I think I've heard it? Maybe? But it really doesn't sound like something you'd say to an "enemy." Maybe someone you don't care for and don't want to see again, but an "enemy" ... that's someone you're probably going to see again. That's someone you are involved with in some way. I want to like this phrase because of its originality, but I wouldn't use it and don't quite understand who would, so it's a bit of a miss for me. I think I'm just deeply disappointed that the answer wasn't what I really wanted it to be: "SEE YOU IN HELL!" Now that's got some real enemy energy to it.

The other long Down, LOBSTER TRAP, is also a standout (27D: Cage for crustaceans). Like "SEE YOU NEVER," it's an original. If you can't give 'em an original theme, at least give 'em original long Downs. That seems to be the theory today. For a five-themer puzzle, this one has pretty decent fill. Lots of short repeaters, I guess, but I've seen worse.

[41A: Text on a red, white and blue sticker]

The Downs-only experience was pretty much a cinch. There was a brief struggle with getting the phrasing on "SEE YOU NEVER" right, and "BOOYAH!" was not front of my brain either—needed several inferred crosses to pick that one up. Beyond that, though, there were very few problems. I had ASADA before ASADO and would never have discovered that error if PASED had been a thing (69A: Sat for a portrait = POSED). That SE corner also had a cross-referenced clue (63D: 63-Down, in this puzzle) that I thought was going to be thematic. But no, it's just the last Down clue. I never END on the last Down clue, so the presumption that 63-Down is in fact the END seems, well, presumptuous. Errant, in my case. But I figured out what they wanted. In the END. HEAT UP was the only other Down answer that didn't come to me pretty much straight away, but with every other Down in place, the "H" and "E" were clear, and from there, HEAT UP wasn't hard to see. The END.

Bullets:

• 50A: Time machine car in "Back to the Future" (DELOREAN) — I know I posted this yesterday but I'm compelled to repost it today because the core premise of this movie (Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which I saw on Saturday and loved) is that the two main characters build a time machine modeled specifically on the DELOREAN in Back to the Future. There's also a throwaway Teen Wolf reference in the movie, just to intensify the Michael J. Fox content—the movie is intensely committed to its Canadianness, which is perhaps not surprising, since it's Canadian and takes place entirely in Canada (mostly Toronto, though there's some talk of going to Ottawa).

• 54D: South American barbecue (ASADO) — with an "O," it's the name of the barbecue per se; with an "A" (ASADA), it's just an adjective meaning "roasted," usually clued as the second part of the phrase [Carne ___] ("roasted meat"). The "A" version is much more common, but also much more recent (probably owing to the increasing popularity of "Carne ASADA" on Mexican restaurant menus in the U.S. in this century. There have been six (6) ASADO appearances in the NYTXW, stretching all the way back to 1948 (!), whereas there have been thirty-seven (37) ASADA appearances, but the first appearances wasn't until 2009. So ASADA arrived in the NYTXW sixty-one years after ASADO, but then quickly blew past it in terms of total appearances.
• 28A: ___ Today (USA) — OK, it's at least a little bit funny that USA is followed immediately in this puzzle by ... USB (29A: Kind of computer port). You know, there's a USC, a USD, a USE ... Note to constructors: I'm not saying you should build a theme around this concept somehow, but I'm also not saying you shouldn't.

[51D: Object hitting people's heads in old cartoons]

That's all, folks. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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