Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Intentionally cause drama / TUES 3-3-26 / Genre for wannabe sleuths / Garam ___ (South Asian spice blend) / "Come to our rescue!" / Leaves shocked

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare here for the first Tuesday of March — surprise! Hope everyone is staying warm and hasn’t been too affected by the crazy winter. DC didn’t get hit too badly in the recent storm, and the snow thankfully melted pretty quickly (so I was able to bike again). Then it got warm enough last Saturday for a picnic — and now it’s supposed to be almost 80 this weekend. Wild. I’ve been missing having the Olympics to watch, but I’ve been rooting on my Liverpool (which is doing a bit better lately), watching the Unrivaled playoffs and cheering on the Penguins (minus Sidney Crosby because of the evil Czech player who hurt him).

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Drew Schmenner

Relative difficulty: On the easy side for a Tuesday

THEME: FIRST THINGS FIRST — In order, things you supposedly do first thing in the morning after waking up

Theme answers:

STIR THE POT (18A: Intentionally cause drama)
GET UP TO SPEED (26A: Learn all the latest info)
STRETCH LIMOS (47A: Promgoers' luxurious rides)
SHOWER GIFT (60A: Present for an expectant mom or bride-to-be)

Word of the Day: SHERA (17A: He-Man's superheroine twin sister) —

Adora, known by her alter ego She-Ra, is a superheroine in the Masters of the Universe franchise. She is introduced as the protagonist of the 1985 Filmation series She-Ra: Princess of Power, which reveals her to be the long lost twin sister of He-Man. She-Ra again appears in the 2018 reboot She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.A series of toys under her name was produced by Mattel in 1984. She has also appeared in a number of Masters of the Universe comic books, most notably in DC Comics' 2012–2018 MOTU comic series, a roughly 1,000 page single story arc, collected in the 2019 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Omnibus hardcover release… She-Ra is known for her incredible feats and charisma. She has been shown multiple times to be able to lift not only full-grown men and robots, but also mountain-like rocks and buildings. She is depicted as being extremely fast and acrobatic. Her speed allows her to easily deflect multiple incoming energy blasts with her sword. (Wiki)

• • •

So, that puzzle is… fine? I’m really tired so I liked that it was a bit easier than Tuesdays often are, but it felt bland to the point that I don’t really know how to describe it. FIRST THINGS FIRST, I didn’t love the theme. The revealer says to look at the starts of the theme answers, so after finishing the puzzle I looked at STIR (18A), then tried to make it mesh with GET (26A). Hmm… STIR and GET, related to FIRST THINGS FIRST? It took me a bit to recognize GET UP as the “start” of the second theme answer. To be fair, the revealer only says it’s hinting to the “starts” of the answers. But to have three of them be one word and the fourth be two feels wrong.

Besides, the actions in the theme answers aren’t what I would guess the average person does once they first wake up (or maybe people are better than me and actually do stretch or do yoga or something like I’ve been saying I’ll try to do for years). I realize that any such list of actions wouldn’t fit everybody, but this list didn’t quite sit right with me. I did, though, like the phrases for the first two answers — STIR THE POT (18A) and GET UP TO SPEED (26A).

Other than that, the puzzle just felt full of short-ish, common words. I thought the most interesting and fun answers were MUTATING (9D: Changing genetically) and CHIRP (11D: Cricket's call) and TWEETS (68A: Sounds from baby robins). HUSHES UP (39D: Keeps from being publicly known) was also decent. LIESL (33D: Eldest von Trapp daughter in "The Sound of Music") is a great and uncommon name for a puzzle. And the clue for LOO (8D: Where to go in the U.K.?) is decently cute. But, EST (35D: Winter setting in D.C.) next to ETS (36D: Sci-fi space travelers)? AIRS (4D: Broadcasts)? RETIE (12D: Knot again)? OREO (58A: Black bits in cookies and cream)? MOW (52D: Cut the grass)? ELECT (50D: Vote into office)? Where were the interesting, long downs? The clever clues even if the answers were routine?

It also felt like the constructor was trying a bit to be ~hip~ and ~with the times~ with words and phrases like SLAPS (31A: Is awesome, in slang), NORMIE (65A: Person with mainstream likes, pejoratively), AMIRITE (23A: "Don't you agree with me?," informally), and SPITS BARS (3D: Raps freestyle, in slang). Those are fine, and I personally like when the puzzle sometimes skews younger. But it mostly feels like this meme to me:

The puzzle may have been on the easy side because there were only around eight proper nouns, which feels like less than normal, and they certainly weren’t hard, with the possible exception of SHE-RA (17A).

And that's about all I can think to say…

Misc.:

The puzzle was clearly wrong about morning routines, because doesn’t everyone wake up to their puppy stealing their pillow at 6 AM, then almost falling off the bed and hitting their head on the bedside table? Or is that just me? But she’s so cute and just wants to cuddle, so I can’t stay mad for long. Until tomorrow, when she maybe successfully shoves me off the bed.
D.C. got a callout in 35D with EST. But I can’t wait until we’re in EDT in just a week! Losing an hour of sleep is so, so worth its being lighter later. That means more time for another picnic this weekend!
You’re really going to clue IAN (22A) McKellen as Magneto and not Gandalf?! That feels sacrilegious. I mean, I enjoyed some of the X-Men movies, but Lord of the Rings is the best of all time.
I remembered the name LIESL (33D) because of the iconic “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” song in “The Sound of Music.” I watched that movie a lot growing up. Just earlier today I was thinking of “snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes” from the song “My Favorite Things,” as the pretty snowflakes were coming down.
This may be a reach, but OGRE (58D: Shrek, e.g.) obviously makes me think of one line from this promo sketch that SNL did for Connor Storrie hosting this past Saturday. Everyone must watch. I’ve been rather obsessed with “Heated Rivalry” (and the stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams) ever since it aired, so I watched SNL all the way through for the first time in many years.
February was another good reading month for me. I’ve moved on a bit from my literary fiction horror phase and have now entered my romance phase. Though I’m currently in the middle of the audiobook for “Carl's Doomsday Scenario,” the second in a series. The narrator is absolutely fantastic and does so many incredible voices. It makes biking in the snow and being cold a little less miserable (yes, I did that today; and, yes, I still feel cold hours later).

And with that, I hope everyone has a great month of March!

Signed, Clare Carroll, last thing last

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: