Tenth, in Latin / SUN 5-31-26 / Small flycatchers named for their call, not their size / Sacsayhuamán fortress builders / Jasmine's tiger companion in "Aladdin" / Longtime jazz bandleader with an Egyptian-inspired name / "Drat!," in Dortmund / Absolutely whomps, in sports lingo / Negative logic gate in electrical engineering / Where Cary Grant orders a Gibson in a classic scene from "North by Northwest"

Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic and Evan Park

Relative difficulty: as easy as it gets

THEME: "Target Practice" — a WILLIAM TELL-themed puzzle with shaded squares that form a BOW and ARROW and a single "APPLE" square (which the ARROW is aimed at), plus a lot of related trivia and puns:

Theme answers:

• SWITZERLAND (22A: Home of the legendary folk hero at 116-Across)
• MARKSMANSHIP (32A: Expertise demonstrated by 116-Across in a fabled feat of precision)
• ARCHERY (41A: Athletic skill mastered by 116-Across)
• ROSSINI (91A: Composer of an overture dedicated to 116-Across)
• SHOOTING STAR (103A: Streaker in the sky ... or a punny description of 116-Across)
• FRUITFUL (38D: Productive ... or a punny description of the feat performed by 116-Across?)
• TAKE A BOW (56D: What 116-Across did before and after this puzzle's feat?)
• WILLIAM TELL (116A: Legendary figure who's the subject of this puzzle)

BOW and ARROW and APPLE answers:

• 42D: Many a liquor license applicant (CLUB OWNER)
• 66A: Chirruping bird (SPARROW)
• 69A: City sobriquet that might describe the target for 116-Across / 59D: Popular beverage brand (THE BIG APPLE / SNAPPLE)

Word of the Day: PEWEES (54D: Small flycatchers named for their call, not their size) —

The pewees are a genus, Contopus, of small to medium-sized insect-eating birds in the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae.

These birds are known as pewees, from the call of one of the more common members of this vocal group. They are generally charcoal-grey birds with wing bars that live in wooded areas.

• • •

Grim. It's so disappointing to see the Sunday puzzle reduced to this complete non-challenge, this child's placemat of a trivia / pun puzzle. I stopped early to screenshot the moment when I could feel the bottom fall out of this thing:

From the clue on SWITZERLAND, I knew the topic immediately, and I could see that all I was gonna get, or most of what I was gonna get, was just random WILLIAM TELL trivia—assorted related answers arranged symmetrically, none of them particularly interesting or clever. I guess they eventually give you a couple of puns in there, but otherwise it's just a predictable parade of answers, many of whose clues I never even had to look at: MARKSMANSHIP, ROSSINI, WILLIAM TELL—I didn't need the clues for any of these because the rest of the puzzle was so damned easy they basically filled themselves in. The whole concept here was transparent, and even the visual gag (which is probably the best thing about the theme) offered no real surprise or challenge. ARROW / BOW / APPLE / Shrug. The APPLE was probably the "hardest" part, but it wasn't hard. THE BIG ___ made it obvious. But that answer is oddly inapt (what the hell does NYC have to do with any of this? And was the apple in the WILLIAM TELL fable particularly big? I don't remember that). I don't think the puzzle is poorly constructed from a technical standpoint, just remedial and without any real pleasure (unless the punny stuff brings you pleasure, in which case, lucky you). 

The clue editing is also really uneven today. It's a small detail, but the puzzle doesn't seem to know when to use "?"s. If you tell us the answer is punny, then there is no need to put the "?" on the clue, which makes the FRUITFUL clue ... just ... not right (38D: Productive ... or a punny description of the feat performed by 116-Across?). If you don't believe me, just look at the clue for SHOOTING STAR (103A: Streaker in the sky ... or a punny description of 116-Across). See: no "?" Because it's not necessary. Because you've already (painfully, unnecessarily) told us that the answer is a pun. Now look at the clue for TAKE A BOW (56D: What 116-Across did before and after this puzzle's feat?). That clue demonstrates the proper use of a "?" (the "?" indicates the punniness). So the clue writing was sloppy. And not terribly imaginative (the clues use the word "legendary" twice, and there's a similar phrasing to a lot of the clues). And we get BOW twice? (as a visual element, inside of CLUBOWNER, and as a word in TAKE A BOW). Things are just ragged around the edges. I can see how a certain segment of solvers might find this puzzle breezy and delightful, but difficulty-wise and concept-wise, it just didn't feel up to NYTXW Sunday standards (or what I wish those standards were). 

There are no tough parts to this puzzle. I had trouble nowhere. I wrote in CERA for CENA, which I do all the time, despite the fact that Michael CERA and John CENA look nothing alike (19A: Wrestler/actor John). I did have trouble with SNAPPLE ... for a few seconds. Until I checked the cross and realized I was dealing with a rebus square ("APPLE"). That was my favorite moment of the puzzle—and there's a connection between the (slight) difficulty and the pleasure. The appearance of the apple was a genuine (if mild) surprise. Nothing else about the puzzle was surprising. The handling of the ARROW/BOX squares was clever, but you can see that coming a mile away if you know you're dealing with WILLIAM TELL. The rebusing of the APPLE, however, was unexpected. Hurray for the unexpected. I needed a bunch of crosses to get the OVER part of SENT OVER (77D: Forwarded) (SENT ON is the only phrase that made sense to me), but I wouldn't call that answer "hard," exactly. Just awkward. Everything else in this grid, I blew through like it was Monday. The only part I truly enjoyed was that clue on BAR CAR (35D: Where Cary Grant orders a Gibson in a classic scene from "North by Northwest"). Peak Hitchcock, peak Cary Grant (that suit! and sunglasses!), peak train scene, peak hot people meet-cute. Cinematic nirvana. I have an 8x10 of Cary Grant hanging on the wall right behind me (along with similar promotional photos of Janet Leigh, Kirk Douglas, and W.C. Fields—I picked them all up at a second-hand store, preframed, somewhat beat up, but perfect in my eyes). Here's the North by Northwest scene in question. Never gets old.

["Think how lucky I am to have been seated here." "Luck had nothing to do with it."]

Bullets:

• 29A: Hero of Arabian tales (ALI BABA) — I watched Salesman (1969) yesterday for the first time. It's a classic documentary about bible salesmen. It was a hard watch for me—the relentlessness and occasional desperation of the salesmen up against the credulousness and economic desperation of the people they're selling to. Starts feeling like con men trying to rope in the suckers, only it's all done under the auspices of the Church, so ... much of the time the interactions in people's homes are so awkward and strained that I could barely look at the screen. It's hard to believe these guys and their racket ever existed. They are an amazing set of characters, though, and the movie is fascinating as a character study—lots of footage of the salesmen sitting around motel rooms smoking (so much smoking!) going over the successes and failures of the day. Speaking of failures ... the reason I'm telling you all this here is that there's a scene, maybe my favorite scene in the movie, where the main salesman ("The Badger"!) is driving around Opa-Locka, FL, trying to find an address and the street he wants is a plain old numbered street but every street he sees has some name out of Arabian Nights (including ALI BABA). And the city hall is shaped like something out of Arabian Nights. And basically he drives in circles going crazy trying to find his way out of the Opa-Locka Arabian Nightsmare, asking directions and literally getting nowhere. It felt ... like a metaphor. Ooh, looks like Documentary Now! did a parody of Salesman called Globesman, so I'm gonna have to track that down today.

• 74A: Appointments that may lead to better contacts (EYE EXAMS) — having just watched Salesman, I figured the "contacts" were business contacts, like sales leads, but ... no. Contact lenses! Good misdirection, enjoyable clue.
• 84A: $5 bill, slangily (ABE) — this remains a non-thing, despite decades of crossword insistence. No one calls a five this except me, ironically.
• 12D: Absolutely whomps, in sports lingo (CREAMS) — Is the "sports lingo." It feels like playground lingo. I don't think I've heard this particular expression for "soundly defeats" since the '80s. I love "whomps," though. More WHOMPS in the puzzle, please.
• 23D: Jasmine's tiger companion in "Aladdin" (RAJAH) — didn't know this, but it basically filled itself in. Yesterday RANEE, today RAJAH—these words for Indian royals were some of the first "crosswordese" I ever learned. You see them a lot less these days (also, in crosswords, they're somewhat more frequently spelled RANI and RAJA).

• 33D: Longtime jazz bandleader with an Egyptian-inspired name (SUN RA) — have you ever seen Space is the Place (1974). You should see Space is the Place.

• 51D: Tenth, in Latin (DECIMUS) — what are we doing here? Come on. You're debuting this in 2026? smh.
• 97D: Australian city named for a scientist (DARWIN) — that scientist: Pete DARWIN, inventor of the Jell-O mold. Not Jell-O itself. That was Pearle Bixby Wait. What a great name. A great man's name. Not many guys named Pearl(e) any more.* 
• 117D: Bucket list item? (MOP) — I get that MOPs go in buckets, but how exactly does "list" work here? I mean, on a literal level. I know the term "bucket list," but if the clue is going to work in some kind of punny way for MOP, then ... "list" has to be relevant somehow. I don't see it. Is there some imagined list of "Things That Go In Buckets" and MOP is simply on that list? Who keeps this list? What a weird idea for a list. Or is the idea that the MOP "lists" to the side when you try to stand it up in the bucket? I'm sincerely curious about the rationale.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a belated R.I.P. to Manny Nosowsky, one of the all-time great NYTXW constructors, who died earlier this week (obit here). He made 254 puzzles for the Times starting in 1992. I remember his puzzles as being really playful and entertaining. Looking through my write-ups of his puzzles (primarily in the late '00s), I notice I'm using the word "legendary" a lot. He was the real deal, and the puzzlescape is poorer without him.

*of course I was kidding about Pete DARWIN. But not about Pearle Bixby Wait, that dude was real.  

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Mideast yogurt dip eaten with pita / SAT 5-30-26 / Perpetual homebody? / Flying ___ (train between Mumbai and Surat) / Color effect of a lunar eclipse / Gathering with grills and grilles / Music recording space, informally / Mutual aid event that originated in 1920s Harlem / What's represented by a jiggled thumbs-up, in sign language / Part of a cabinet that's made overseas / Movie trailer narrator's first words, often / Rodent that lives in South American marshes

Constructor: Malaika Handa and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: BREAD AND ROSES (32A: Old political slogan of the women's suffrage and labor movements) —

"Bread and Roses" is a political slogan associated with women's suffrage and the labor movement, as well as an associated poem and song. It originated in a speech given by American women's suffrage activist Helen Todd; a line in that speech about "bread for all, and roses too" inspired the title of the poem "Bread and Roses" by James Oppenheim. The poem was first published in The American Magazine in December 1911, with the attribution line "'Bread for all, and Roses, too'—a slogan of the women in the West." The poem has been translated into other languages and has been set to music by at least three composers.

The phrase is commonly associated with the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, between January and March 1912, now often referred to as the "Bread and Roses strike." The slogan pairing bread and roses, appealing for both fair wages and dignified working conditions, found resonance as transcending the "sometimes tedious struggles for marginal economic advances" in the "light of labor struggles as based on striving for dignity and respect", as American sociologist and activist Robert J. S. Ross wrote in 2013. (wikipedia)

• • •

A perfect Friday puzzle. Didn't get here til Saturday, but that's fine. It had enough bite to feel not completely out of place on a Saturday, and it was so entertaining that I didn't care what day of the week it was, frankly. I loved this one despite its being absolutely jam-packed with names, a thing that can be irritating and off-puttingly exclusionary in a puzzle. There are seven (7!) people in this puzzle. That's a lot of people for a puzzle. I don't know what the norm is, but seven seems high. But here's the thing: however you felt about those names, they were all short (5 and under) and they were all crossed very fairly. The only one I out-and-out didn't know was Jessie REYEZ (27D: Singer Jessie with the hit 2020 album "Before Love Came to Kill Us"). I can't believe anyone remembers anything that happened in 2020 (besides ... you know). The others either appear in the puzzle with reasonable frequency (CHU, NAST, ANN) or are famous enough in their fields that I managed to pick up their names (the MYERS-Briggs test is famous, BOWEN Yang has a podcast that Instagram keeps showing me clips of, and LYDIA Ko is a New Zealander, and, as someone who is married to a New Zealander, I tend to notice and think about New Zealand things more than most people Americans, probably—I've long thought that LYDIAKO's full name would look amazing in the grid). So I definitely noticed the names, and the puzzle felt a little like a crowded party, crowded in a way that usually makes me want to head for the door; but today, the longer, marquee stuff shines so bright that I didn't care about all the people. I just wanted to bounce from room to room and bask in its glow.

[17A: Movie trailer narrator's first words, often]

Also, this party had food! Like, a lot of food! Before I'd even circulated very much, I'd had SESAME OIL on NAAN and some LABNEH (which I managed to spell correctly on the first try, [fist pump]!) (20D: Mideast yogurt dip eaten with pita), and then I chased it all down with a couple of PROTEIN SHAKES, which was kind of gross, but, you know, culinarily creative. After that, cleanse the palate with a little BREAD (AND ROSES ... were the roses edible? I hope so. Too late to ask that now), and then a full DINNER (something out of the OVEN BAGS, whatever those are), and then, to round the evening off, you could choose between SCOTCH and PROSECCO. Nice. Oh, and the TINS of popcorn, forgot about them. Thought they were BINS at first, but the puzzle corrected me (53D: Popcorn holders). Overall, an enjoyable eating experience. Probably wouldn't voluntarily drink the PROTEIN SHAKES again, but the rest of it, mwah, delicious. In addition to the people and the food, there were beautiful word installations. Creamy stacks in the NW and SE, crunch colonnades in the NE and SW. I was genuinely sad to hear "PLAYTIME'S OVER!" because I was having such a good time. This grid is polished in ways that so many these days are not. Whatever common / crosswordy stuff you find is small and marginal. Scattered. Inconsequential. This means I can whoosh around the grid without wincing (my preferred way of whooshing: winceless). IN A WORLD overrun by awkward abbreviations and word parts and laugh syllables and archaic phrases no one actually says, this puzzle comes along and it feeds and it entertains, with a great sense of play and humor. I had fun. Turns out this is all I really Really want from a puzzle. SWAMP RAT! Now I remember! That's what was in the OVEN BAGS (it's an acquired taste, I'll admit, but don't knock it etc.).

Puzzle felt easyish from the start despite my muffing not one but two answers in the NW (I had us riding on the Flying RUPEE (2D: Flying ___ (train between Mumbai and Surat) (RANEE)), and I thought the warning sign said DO NOT ENTER (3D: DO NOT ___ (ERASE))). After that, no real missteps, except when I tried to spell the Japanese island HONCHU (60A: Osaka's land) and ended up with someone named AUNT C at 42D: High-ranking women in "The Handmaid's Tale" (AUNTS). I always forget the word DEMUR exists, mainly because I never quite know what it means and (therefore) would never use it myself. It has killed me more than a few times when I'm playing Quordle or Octordle—even when I have most of the letters, I can never make anything out of them until suddenly (if I'm lucky) I remember that the word DEMUR exists (50A: Express misgivings). I think one of the things that confuses me about DEMUR is its near-identical cousin, DEMURE. That's an adjective, and that one, I know. 

Bullets:

• 1A: Man's name that, like Otto, is also an Italian number (TRE) — I guess TRE was at the party too. Left his name off the guest list. Sorry, TRE. This was a great clue. Had me running through my Italian numbers real awkwardly (the only way I can run through Italian numbers, since I don't speak Italian and know the numbers only from crosswords). The coffee place I go to nearly every day, the one where I buy all my beans (because the roaster really knows his craft), is called Otto (the Italian number, not the man's name).
• 29A: "French" or "sliced" haircut (BOB) — got this off the "B"; otherwise, no clue. "French or sliced?" sounds like something someone would ask you at the sandwich counter.
• 57A: Gathering with grills and grilles (TAILGATE) — nice clue. Grills (barbecue) and grilles (front ends of automobiles). 

• 12D: Semi professional? (TEAMSTER) — made me laugh. Professional semi (truck) drivers are TEAMSTERs.
• 28D: Like Cheerios vis-à-vis Lucky Charms, say (OATIER) — this also made me laugh. I'm gonna need to see some data here. What oatiness metric are we using here? Is it just the addition of marshmallows that make Lucky Charms (pound for pound) less oaty? Because the non-marshmallow part of Lucky Charms consists of (I'm told) "shaped pulverized oat" (wikipedia). Lucky Charms is just Doing More. OATIER sounds like something out of Cheerios PR. I can see how they'd prefer that term to BORINGER. 
• 45D: Perpetual homebody? (SNAIL) — just a great clue. Smiled when I figured it out. (the SNAIL of course carries its "home" (shell) around with it at all times)
• 59A: Part of a cabinet that's made overseas (MINISTER) — if you live overseas, this one might've been confusing. The president's "cabinet" in the U.S. is made of "Secretaries" (no MINISTERs) but overseas (UK, India, maybe elsewhere?) you get Cabinet MINISTERs.
• 31A: Music recording space, informally (STU) — again, I laughed. Mainly at how dumb this sounds. I was like "'recording space' ... do they mean like the studio ... oh, noooo is it STU!?!?!" LOL, yes. At least the clue is original. Not just another [Disco ___] or [Poker great ___ Ungar].
• 32D: Color effect of a lunar eclipse (BLOOD MOON) — a great answer—the anchor of a really terrific corner. The PRUDISH PROSECCO BLOOD MOON! ICONIC! Best observed while sipping SCOTCH in HONCHU (helps if you're RICH). Not sure what more you can ask from a Saturday corner. Just lovely.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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"Oscar" of the French film industry / FRI 5-29-26 / Currency in The Legend of Zelda / Road maneuvers featuring lazy braking / "La Tulipe Noire" novelist, 1850 / Someone attracted to intellect over looks, say / Swing dance originating in Harlem / Adhere to the kashrut dietary rules / Smurf who is more than 500 years old / Dream interrupter / Redheaded monster on TV

Constructor: Hemant Mehta

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: LINDY / HOP (20A: With 19-Across, swing dance originating in Harlem) —

The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the African-American communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on jazz, tap, breakaway, and Charleston. It is frequently described as a jazz dance and is a member of the swing dance family.

In its development, the Lindy Hop combined elements of both partnered and solo dancing by using the movements and improvisation of African-American dances along with the formal eight-count structure of European partner dances – most clearly illustrated in the Lindy's defining move, the swingout. In this step's open position, each dancer is generally connected hand-to-hand; in its closed position, leads and follows are connected as though in an embrace on one side and holding hands on the other. [...] 

Lindy Hop is sometimes referred to as a street dance, referring to its improvisational and social nature. In 1932, twelve-year-old Norma Miller did the Lindy Hop outside the Savoy Ballroom with her friends for tips. In 1935, 15,000 people danced on Bradhurst Avenue for the second of a dance series held by the Parks Department. Between 147th and 148th street, Harlem "threw itself into the Lindy Hop with abandon" as Sugar Hill residents watched from the bluffs along Edgecombe Avenue.

• • •

This played somewhat harder than most recent Fridays, which isn't saying too much, but it's saying something. The bulk of it was fairly whooshy, but I got very bogged down in a couple of places: the NE and especially the dead center. Could not get into the center of the puzzle via either HOLY (... MOLEY?) or ZEN (... KOANS? MASTER?). I figured with momentum on my side and two paths in, handling the center would be a breeze, but ... nope. I also didn't recognize the word "kashrut" and so could not parse EAT KOSHER (30D: Adhere to the kashrut dietary rules). So ... I ended up stopped dead right here, around the halfway point:

That's right, I had ZEN STA- and still no idea what the answer was supposed to be. In retrospect, the problem for me was the cluing—ZEN STATES don't "make you" one with everything. If you're in a zen state, then you already are "one with everything." That's the state. The state you are in. Whatever you use to get into that state, that is what "makes you" one with everything. The clue seemed to be confusing cause with effect, at least the way I was reading it. This is why ZEN MASTER or ZEN KOANS were the only things my brain could think up. ZEN MEDITATION, maybe, but that (like the others) just wouldn't fit. As for HOLY MOSES, I should've remembered that, but MOLEY really ran interference, and then COW jumped in there and started mooing and I couldn't think of anything else. I had to start all over in the NE, which was not nearly as welcoming to me as the NW had been. I knew SARA, but RUPEE? (12D: Currency in The Legend of Zelda). No clue. ALARM? (11D: Dream interrupter). I had APNEA!!!! ALUM? Of course, makes sense, but w/o crosses I couldn't see it. I figured the 500yo Smurf had to be PAPA (there is no MAMA, that I recall), but even his "P"s didn't help much. I think I finally plunked down AMASS (13D: Hoard), and that got me the traction I needed. Oh, and SAPIOSEXUAL?! (10D: Someone attracted to intellect over looks, say). Come on, man. No one says that. I guess I've heard it before, but it's such a made-up, created-in-a-lab media-driven non-thing. No one is attracted to one thing alone. The fact that you find smartness hot does not mean you have some niche sexuality that needs a name. You're just straight, or gay, or whatever you are. Boo to this dumb word.

Outside the middle and the NE, though, the puzzle was pretty simple, and largely delightful. Nice start with ALL TOO SOON and "SMALL WORLD!" and then the puzzle rolls right into ROLLING STOPS, which I loved as answer almost as much as I hate them in real life, especially as a pedestrian (5D: Road maneuvers featuring lazy braking). We called them "California stops" when I was growing up, but I grew up in California, so ... maybe every state thinks they invented it. Hmm, looks like only Rhode Island wants a piece of the action (wikipedia is telling me that in addition to "California stop," the rolling stop is also called the "Rhode Island roll"). I think the vast majority of people do ROLLING STOPS at lightly-trafficked stop signs. But I love coming to a complete stop. It feels almost perverse, especially when there's no one around. But I find it satisfying, especially if someone is behind me and seems, let's say, impatient. I don't hang out at the stop sign, but I damn sure come to a full and complete stop. Just for a little treat. And for the children and animals and cyclists and other drivers etc. It's a little reset. A road awareness check-in. Stop. Look. Go. Relax. Have a nice day. 

LINT SCREENS is another good answer, and I love "WHAT'D I MISS?" over TERRY GROSS, as you can imagine a car passenger listening to "Fresh Air," popping out of the car to run a quick errand, then getting back into the car and asking "WHAT'D I MISS!!?" Oh, nothing, just Christian Bale admitting on air that he's doing this interview and all his Batman Begins promotional interviews not in his natural voice, but in a put-on more-or-less inflection-less American accent. Also, he thanked Terry for noticing that his body in Batman looked like it was bulky and muscly from real physical activity, not like it was sculpted at the gym. Hard bod, not gym bod. (Why do I remember the details of this one Terry Gross interview from over two decades ago so clearly??). 

Bullets:

• 23A: Only player to win three Super Bowl M.V.P. awards before turning 30 (MAHOMES) — I stopped paying attention to the NFL a long time ago now, but this guy's name definitely broke through to me at some point. It's pretty crossword-friendly, as seven-letter words go. I saw this clue and my mind went to older players (Brady, Favre, Montana, Bradshaw...), but of those, only MONTANA fit, and crosses made that impossible. Once I had the answer to MAH- ... well, then it was easy. MAHOMES has played in five Super Bowls and won three (all with the Kansas City Chiefs).
• 39A: "La Tulipe Noire" novelist, 1850 (DUMAS) — because ["The Three Musketeers" novelist, 1844] and ["The Count of Monte Cristo" novelist, 1846] would've been too obvious, I guess. I'm rereading the first two books of Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy in anticipation of the third installment (which comes out this summer), and in those books, there's an elite association of Black leaders and businessmen called The DUMAS Club (DUMAS‘s father, Thomas-Alexandre, was born in present-day Haiti, the son of a French nobleman and an enslaved woman).

• 15D: Outstanding, in a way (OWING) — there's nothing remarkable about this answer except that it starts an -ING avalanche: OWING ROLLING RAZING ICING ing ing ing ing. It's like the grid is glitching and I need to smack it in order to get regular reception back.
• 28A: Apt anagram of NOTES (TONES) — me, confidently: "STENO!"

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Blue stop sign? / THU 5-28-26 / Walking-around money for Pavarotti? / Icy passage to Antarctica's McMurdo Station / Guardians of bushido tradition / Whistling stickup man on "The Wire" / McGwire's rival in the 1990s M.L.B. / Dark and sultry, like a femme fatale's gaze

Constructor: John Kugelman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: A major "OR" deal... — "___ OR ___" phrases are clued as if the "OR" were affixed to the end of the first word:

Theme answers:

• TENOR TWENTY (17A: Walking-around money for Pavarotti?)
• PASTOR PRESENT (27A: Preacher's gift?)
• FACTOR FICTION (41A: 5 and 8 go into 42, for example?)
• MAYOR MAY NOT (55A: Local leader is prohibited?)

Word of the Day: Jimmy CARR (43D: Comedian Jimmy) —

James Anthony Patrick Carr (born 15 September 1972) is a British and Irish comedian. He began his stand-up career in 1997. He has regularly appeared on television as the host of Channel 4 panel shows such as The Big Fat Quiz of the Year (2004-present), 8 Out of 10 Cats (2005–2021), and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (2012-present). Carr is known for his rapid-fire deadpan delivery of one-liners and often controversial and edgy dark humour. [...] Carr was the first British comedian to have a Netflix stand-up special with his show Funny Business. [...] In a stand-up comedy performance released as a Christmas 2021 Netflix special titled His Dark Material, Carr joked:

When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.

During the show, Carr said the joke was meant to raise awareness of Romani victims of the Holocaust. The joke later received widespread attention the following February after a clip was posted and shared online. He was condemned by the Auschwitz Memorial, Hope not Hate and The Traveller Movement, who called anti-Romani prejudice the "last acceptable form of racism" in the UK. [...] In 2025, Jimmy Carr performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. The event was criticised by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as an attempt to whitewash human rights abuses committed in Saudi Arabia. Comedians who played at the festival faced backlash from journalists and fellow artists for participating. Carr defended his performance at the festival, stating: "I played it. I loved it. I think we need to give up on the idea that the Middle East becomes Western Europe." (wikipedia)

• • •

Didn't think much of this theme, but appreciated that the puzzle gave me a boatload of interesting non-theme fill, so that at times I could pretend like I was solving a pretty decent mid-week themeless. Those NE and SW corners are hot, and other longer answers like TERTIARY, LOTHARIO, SLOE-EYED, and DOORMATS (as clued!) (4D: People who get walked all over) really keep things lively all over. But yeah, no, the theme ... real mild on the HAR (har). Real "Jeremy's Iron" stuff. And even if you really liked it, I think it's much more of a Wednesday than a Thursday puzzle. There's nothing particularly tricky going on. You just PARSE (!) the phrases differently, and even if it takes you some time to get the first one because you don't know yet where the wackiness is going, after that, every themer is cake. In fact, I was able to no-look that third themer, no problem. I had most of its front end worked out from crosses, and the phrase was simply obvious. I was also able to no-look "OH, NO REASON," TERTIARY, and MENAGERIE—the puzzle was so easy that by the time I would look at a longer answer, it would be sufficiently filled in, such that looking at the clue was unnecessary (I don't recommend solving this way under tournament conditions, or any conditions, really, as it can bite you in the ass, but my pattern recognition was on point today). There was precisely one answer in the clue I didn't know: Jimmy CARR. I was like, "Kimmel? Fallon? .... Choo?" But no, he's just shoes. Anyway, once again, crosses easy, so even CARR didn't do much to slow me down. It is mildly interesting that there are (at least) four different cases where an "OR"-ending word can, if you break the "OR" off, form the front end of a familiar "___ OR ___" phrase. But still, the humor here never got above a single HAR, and mostly didn't even get there. But again, I'm grateful for all the longer answers, which, even if they weren't challenging, at least brightened up the solve a bit.

This thing opened way too easy. GANDHI to GOTO to OMAR to NINA and whoosh it was all over. Well, I did have to move over to the next little section to figure out what the "walking-around money" was going to be. Not sure where or when Pavarotti is "walking around," but TWENTY seems kind of low. If he were your child, then sure, here's a twenty, knock yourself out, kid. But for a grown-up, I dunno. Twenty seemed arbitrary, given the clue. But as I say, not hard. I weirdly enjoyed mentally spelling AARGH correctly on the first try, confirming it with WING (which got a funnyish misdirective clue—8D: Bit of a lark), and then confirming that with OWLS. Double bird surprise! We're working our way through season 2 of Twin Peaks (which is like being stuck in a long dark weird but kinda boring dream), and the OWLS, the OWLS (which, I've been told, are not what they seem) are making their presence felt a little more (due to some vaguely owl-shaped petroglyph, which was found in a cave, which, when manipulated, seemed to set off some kind of earthquake ... I told you it was like a dark weird boring dream!). Anyway, AARGH / WING / OWLS amused me. I think of throwing overhand, not OVERARM. Are they the same. The wikipedia entry is for "overhand throw" exclusively. It looks like they're basically synonymous (one of the cited sources on the page uses "OVERARM" in the title). The only thing besides CARR that gave me any pause was SENSATE, which I think of as merely "having the ability to sense (or perceive)," not as "perceptive" (in the sense of "insightful"). Maybe there's a meaning of "perceptive" that's just "capable of perceiving things." Yes, a neutral meaning. It exists. I never hear "perceptive" used that way (there's always the implication of keen perception), but the neutral "capable of perceiving" definition exists. Awkward. But not so awkward that you're likely to get held up for very long.

Bullets:

• 35A: Icy passage to Antarctica's McMurdo Station (ROSS SEA) — one of your more common seven-letter xword answers, due to all those common letters, including a rarely-seen triple-"S"! I probably should've made McMurdo Station my Word of the Day. "McMurdo Station is an American Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), a branch of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,200 residents, though the population fluctuates seasonally" (wikipedia). 23 NYTXW appearances all-time for ROSSSEA, 16 in the Shortz Era.
• 40A: Billionaire Musk (ELON) — I would be furious if the editors decided to change my non-racist ELON clue into this racist one. Truly one of the most execrable human beings on the planet. Essentially a mass murder. Just disgusting that he's here at all. Pardon my french, but fuck that guy.
• 26D: Guardians of bushido tradition (SENSEIS) — stupid me, I thought "sensei" was just a generic word for "teacher." Wait ... I was right, that is basically what it means. There are definitely SENSEIS in the "bushido tradition," but the narrowness of the clue had me imagining a much narrower, more Bushido-specific answer (Bushido = samurai moral code) (saw a beautiful (and bloody!) samurai movie yesterday called Hitokiri as part of my ongoing birth-year movie challenge (see 56 movies from the year I was born (1969) before I turn 57 (Nov. 26)). Eight down, only 48 to go (roughly 2 / week ... I can do it! I believe in myself! My couch-sitting powers are unrivaled!)

• 11D: Answer to "Why's your report card in the trash?" ("OH, NO REASON") — great answer, but this clue ... I dunno. This kid seems pretty dumb. You (presumably) suck at school and you have absolutely no idea how to hide shit from your parents? What skill set are you bringing to life, exactly, kid. 
• 32D: Blue stop sign? (SAFE WORD) — if the surrounding answers had been harder to come up with, this one might've proved more of a problem. "Blue" here means "sexual" ("profane" "indecent" "risqué"). Some sex activity (esp. BDSM) requires a SAFE WORD, which functions as an unambiguous stand-in for "stop," as the actual word "stop" may be part of the role-playing.
• 39D: Comes on little cat feet (TIPTOES) — I have never heard this expression (apparently from a poem about fog). My cats do not tiptoe. They would be insulted if you said that. Undignified. How dare you. They are naturally ninja-quiet. Stalking skills: unparalleled. No "tiptoeing" required.

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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All-powerful avatar in "Ready Player One" / WED 5-27-26 / Style magnate Gucci / Pitch-altering clamps on guitars / Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards / Low-lying landform / Engineering competition with two "battling" devices / He's always hard to find

Constructor: Dario Salvucci

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: PART OF SPEECH (53A: Noun or verb ... or a description of 20-, 30-, or 46-Across) — fragments ("parts") of famous lines from famous speeches:

Theme answers:

• FOUR SCORE AND ("___ seven years ago...") (ABE) (20A: November 19, 1863)
• ASK NOT WHAT ("___ your country can do for you...") (JFK) (30A: January 20, 1961)
• HAVE A DREAM ("I ___...") (MLK Jr.) (46A: August 28, 1963)

Word of the Day: RONDO (36A: Musical piece with repeated themes) —

[the '70s were full of wonders]

The rondo or rondeau is a musical form that contains a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") which alternates with one or more contrasting themes (generally called "episodes", but also referred to as "digressions" or "couplets"). Some possible patterns include: ABACA, ABACAB, ABACBA, or ABACABA (with the letter 'A' representing the refrain).

The rondo form emerged in the Baroque period and became increasingly popular during the Classical period. The earliest examples of compositions employing rondo form are found within Italian operatic arias and choruses from the first years of the 17th century. These examples use a multi-couplet rondo or "chain rondo" (ABACAD) known as the Italian rondo. Rondo form, also known in English by its French spelling rondeau, should not be confused with the unrelated but similarly-named forme fixe rondeau, a 14th- and 15th-century French poetic and chanson form. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one really lost me in the fill. Right from the beginning, WALDO crossed with ALDO made me wince, and then there was the awful ONLSD right on top of that. A really rough start. Not IDEAL. And then somehow the puzzle closed worse than it opened. ABORC!? You want people to end your puzzle on ABORC!? A discarded Tolkien creature? A clumsily aborted attempt to write ABORT? We haven't seen that clunker in ten years, and for good reason. There's no reason to ABORC your puzzle like this. The theme is not particularly demanding, so the fill should be, at worst, dull. Ordinary. ABORC is somewhere far, far beneath dull and ordinary. And crossing weak stuff like OBI and BON?? How do you not tear this corner out and start again? ABORC is burn-it-down territory. Are you that wed to ROBOT SUMO!?! (whatever that is) (58A: Engineering competition with two "battling" devices). Make better choices. 

In between the awkward beginning and the fiery, disastrous end, there's some good fill, there's some bad fill, and there's a theme. I did not really care for the theme. It's not horrible, it's barely there, and arbitrarily executed. The first two "parts of speech" contain the first three words of the famous phrase and omit what follows, but then the third gives you the second, third, and fourth words of the famous phrase and leaves off just the initial single-letter pronoun ("I"). So PART OF SPEECH isn't a great revealer. You're not dealing with famous "speeches," you're dealing with famous phrases within those speeches. In each case, the phrase itself—the complete phrase—would actually, technically be a PART OF SPEECH. So PART OF SPEECH, aside from being a somewhat dull phrase on its own, also doesn't quite get at what's happening. And then in execution the theme is really just "first three words of famous speech phrases, except the one where I randomly drop the 'I' from the MLK phrase and give you the next three words." Maybe solvers are supposed to feel smart for recognizing the speeches? I don't really see where the pleasure is supposed to be. So while "DARN IT ALL," "GOT A MATCH," and LEADFOOT provide some entertaining moments, on the whole I'd have to say "ABORC ANO TALIA!" (that's crosswordese for "no thanks").

Where was the difficulty today? Nowhere, really. I read Ready Player One once a decade or so ago, I guess. It was fine. Are we supposed to know the lore now? Isn't it enough to ask me to know all the LOTR and GOT characters, now you want me to remember (checks notes) ANORAK? The (checks notes) "all-powerful avatar" from a minor franchise, the second installment of which was widely panned? Extreme eyeroll for that one (28D: All-powerful avatar in "Ready Player One"). ANORAK is a perfectly good word, just clue it as the word. Anyway, I needed all the crosses there. Otherwise, the only dilemma I had was CAREEN vs. CAREER (which also somehow means (essentially) "careen")—it's really very confusing) (25D: Veer this way and that). So I left the last letter blank and TENS took care of it (48A: Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards). Not seeing any other potential trouble spots. I did get slowed down / mystified by 34A: Low-lying landform (GLEN). When I see a four-letter "landform," my Pavlovian response is MESA. When that didn't work, my brain just shut down. Also, without good reason, I don't think of GLENs as "landforms." They're depressions in the earth, so they seem like ... the inverse of "landforms." Just ... empty space between "landforms" (i.e. mountains or hills). This is a personal brain malfunction. The clue is fine as is.

[This song, and this performance in particular, always makes me stop and listen all the way through]

Bullets:

• 1A: He's always hard to find (WALDO) — is he, though? "Always"? Not loving this presumptuous clue.
• 35A: Filming location for the archaeological dig in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (SAHARA) — this is undoubtedly true, but ... SAHARA???? That's ... a pretty big place. 9.2 million sq km, to be semi-precise. May as well say the filming location was AFRICA or EARTH.
• 18A: Red flag for a mortgage applicant (BAD CREDIT) — isn't this a red flag for the potential lender, not the applicant? Like, the lender sees a "red flag" and decides not to lend. I don't really enjoy whatever "for" is doing here. I also just don't like thinking about the very concept of BAD CREDIT or the credit industry in general. Grim. The opposite of fun. ABORC! ABORC!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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