Ancient Greek region along the Aegean coast / TUE 6-30-26 / Mad Hatter's collection / "Sooooey!" and "Here, piggy, piggy!" / Surprisingly dangerous "river horse" / Landscape photographer Adams

Constructor: JOHN LIBER

Relative difficulty: EASY

26D: Kylo ___, "Star Wars" villain

THEME: EMPTY WORDS — 50A: "Remarks void of meaning ... and a phonetic hint to the answers to the starred clues." Each of the theme answers is a two word phrase with words starting M and T (or "empty").

Word of the Day: HIGGS (17A - Peter ____, physicist with a field and a particle named for him) —

Peter Ware Higgs (29 May 1929 – 8 April 2024) was a British theoretical physicist, professor at the University of Edinburgh,^[7][8] and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the mass of subatomic particles.^[9][10]

In 1964, Higgs was the single author of one of the three milestone papers published in Physical Review Letters (PRL) that proposed that spontaneous symmetry breaking in electroweak theory could explain the origin of mass of elementary particles in general and of the W and Z bosons in particular. This Higgs mechanism predicted the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson, the detection of which became one of the great goals of physics.^[11][12] In 2012, CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider.^[13] The Higgs mechanism is generally accepted as an important ingredient in the Standard Model of particle physics, without which certain particles would have no mass.^[14]

• • •

Theme answers:

• MOVIE THEATER (4D: *Where new features are released?)
• MAGIC TOUCH (19A: *Knack for success)
• MACHINE TOOLS (21D: *Metal lathes and drill presses)
• MISTER TOAD (41A: *Reckless motorist in "The Wind in the Willows")

Hey, everyone, it's an Eli Tuesday! I know, you were expecting Claire. You were looking forward to Claire. I get it. I promise to do my best in substitution. Let's get going.

2D: Showgirl at the Copacabana, in song

It looks like today is a NYT debut for constructor John Liber, so congratulations! It's a clean puzzle, a nice simple theme for a Tuesday. It just wasn't that exciting for me. Two word phrases starting with M and T seems like it could pull some interesting answers, but the only one that stood out to me was MISTER TOAD. Even that would have been better with a reference to his Wild Ride. Where else at Disneyland can you be hit by a train and end your ride in Hell?

Don't get me wrong; I love MOVIE THEATERS and I hope everyone actually goes out to see movies. I'm not sure that clue required a question mark, but I get it. MACHINE TOOLS and MAGIC TOUCH didn't do much for me, especially as clued.

15A: Beatles compilation album with 27 chart-topping hits

The rest of the puzzle unfortunately didn't do much to redeem itself. I grimaced right out of the gate at ALE GLASS (3D: Vessel for a pub pint). I brew beer and I have an extensive collection of beer glasses. I'm not sure I'd call any of them an "ale glass." Can those glasses hold ale? Sure. I also have IPA-specific glasses. I just can't picture what a generic ale glass would be. I also always get bad vibes from MILADY (41D: Chivalrous address to a noblewoman). I feel like there was a specific brand of creepy dude that adopted that phrase and kinda ruined it for me. I also personally wince anytime I see AD IN or AD OUT (38A: Warning before your breaking point?). I know Wimbledon just started, but I admittedly only know these terms from puzzles. At least the clue was clever this time.

Speaking of clever clues, I thought the clue for POWER NAP was cute (35D: Get 40 winks in 20 minutes, say). But everything else felt pretty straightforward. It certainly wasn't a bad puzzle, it just got the job done. Sometimes that's all you can ask on a Tuesday.

49A: Dragon's den

Stray Thoughts:

• 5D: Nintendo Switch predecessor (WIIU) — This always makes me think of an ambulance siren: WiiU, WiiU, WiiU, WiiU.
• 58A: Like some martinis and jokes (DIRTY) — I like both!
• 61A: Workers in a colony (ANTS) — You didn't think you were getting out of an Eli blog without a Simpsons reference, did you?

That's all I've got for now! Enjoy your Tuesday; I'll be back with you later in the week.

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

BTS fandom / MON 6-29-26 / Vishnu avatar / Word after B or D / Big inits. in pickup trucks and vans

Constructor: Ginny Too and Rajeswari Rajamani

Relative difficulty: Easy (7:02 on my phone while waiting for my Popeye's order)

THEME: Repeating letters — Two word phrases where the second word is the same as the final syllable of the first word

Theme answers:

• [Screen addiction, e.g.] for DEVICE VICE
• The final syllable of the first word is "vice" and the second word is the same: "vice"
• [Where boxers trade jabs] for SPARRING RING
• [Clever chap] for INTELLIGENT GENT
• [Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Linus Pauling, Martin Luther King Jr. and so on] for NOBELIST LIST
• ["Meow, meow, meow!," e.g.] for FELINE LINE

Word of the Day: CBGB (N.Y.C. club that hosted Blondie and the Ramones) —

CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal and his ex-wife Karen Kristal at 315 Bowery in the East Village in Manhattan, New York City. The club was previously a biker bar and before that it was a dive bar. The letters CBGB were for Country, Bluegrass, Blues, Kristal's original vision for the club, but CBGB soon emerged as a famed and iconic venue for punk rock and new wave bands [wiki]

• • •

Hi friends!! Malaika here, and I'm happy to be subbing for Rex on a Monday, a day that I almost never cover. When I am focused and solving on a computer, I can solve most Mondays in about four minutes. I think this would have been the same, but I was solving on my phone while perking my head up every time a Popeye's employee made a movement, in case that indicated that my order (spicy chicken sandwich, small fries, not a combo bc I don't want a drink) was ready, so I ended up at seven minutes.

I like a theme that has a revealer. I think it is the raison d'etre for a puzzle; it grounds and centers it. This puzzle didn't have one but I also acknowledge it didn't really need one. The reason for the theme is laid out for solvers and it is basically that... it's a neat pattern! I agree it's neat, by the way! I don't like puzzles where the entries are wacky, and this walked an interesting line where I could almost almost believe that these phrases might actually be used in a conversation. Maybe as a New York Post headline? (SPARRING RING was the weak link to me because I felt the clue was describing jargon and the entry was not the appropriate term (presumably it's just "boxing ring"?) but if someone in the comments knows better than me, please correct me if I'm wrong!)

It's a nice touch that this theme went with spelling and sounds. E.g. "vice" is the same as the last four letters of "device" and it also sounds the same. (Compare to something like "praline line" which has the same letters but different pronunciation, or "minnows nose" that has the same pronunciation but different letters.) The more constraints there are, the harder it is to come up with entries that work-- this was constrained, but at the same time I bet there are other entires not in this puzzle that would work just fine and I bet people in the comments will brainstorm some of them.

I was very briefly confused while solving because I thought JALAPENOS was going to be a theme answers. It's a little unusual to see such a long entry not part of the theme, but it does follow one of the unspoken rules: it (as well as PET PEEVES) is shorter (at nine letters) than all of the other theme entries (ten, twelve, and fifteen letters). Both are great entries, by the way!

Bullets:

• [Long sandwich with cold cuts, maybe] for SUB — One of my favorite questions is: If you had a sandwich named after you, what it would it be? (There's a good Curb Your Enthusiasm episode about this.) Mine would be soppressata, genoa salami, fontina, olive tapenade, and pesto on a hero roll toasted. Then when it comes off the sandwich press, open it up and add some dressed arugula.
• [A quarter or more of one's life, typically] for SLEEP — This stat made me stop in my tracks. I love sleeping but wow, a whole quarter!!!??? Kind of feels like a waste!
• The CBGB / GMC cross was a total guess from me, and so was the IONE / ROUE cross. Really tough for a Monday!
  

xoxo Malaika

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Carpet on the forest floor / SUN 6-28-26 / Intellectual gathering / Architectural feature above a belfry / Little redhead in a long-running Broadway show / Oily fruits / Summary of a contract's details / Souvenir from the seashore / Catchall phrase from Latin

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Easy



THEME: Down in the Valley — Phrases with the word "like" indicating comparison are reinterpreted as if the "like" were a filler word

Word of the Day: QUARK (11D: Hadron component) —

A quark (/ˈkwɔːrk, ˈkwɑːrk/ ^ⓘ) is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei.^[1] All commonly observable matter is composed of up quarks, down quarks, and electrons. Owing to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, which include baryons (such as protons and neutrons) and mesons, or in quark–gluon plasmas.^{[2][3][nb 1]} For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of hadrons.

• • •

Theme answers:

• SOLD LIKE HOT CAKES (23A: Was an employee at IHOP, in Valleyspeak?)
• SHOOK LIKE A LEAF (32A: Fanned some Egyptian royalty, in Valleyspeak?)
• WATCHED LIKE A HAWK (47A: Did some birding, in Valleyspeak?)
• STUCK OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB (70A: Hitchhiked with a hangnail, in Valleyspeak?)
• DROPPED LIKE FLIES (89A: Made some outfielder errors, in Valleyspeak?)
  
• BUILT LIKE A TANK (108A: Prepared for some new pet fish, in Valleyspeak?)
• WORKED LIKE A CHARM (121A: Performed some witchcraft, in Valleyspeak?)

It's Rafa back again for the last installment of Rafa Rexplacement Weekend™-- I hope you've enjoyed my musings over the last few days. The sun is finally out in San Francisco, it's pride weekend, the vibes are immaculate, and we have a crossword to talk about. Let's get into it.

For some reason it took a while for this theme to click for me, but I really appreciated it once it did. There was something very satisfying in imagining all the theme answers said aloud in a Valley accent, and the scenarios in the clues struck the right balance of amusing but not absurdly far-fetched. Picturing someone sticking out a literal sore thumb to hitch a ride made me chuckle. Themes reinterpreting words are very common to come across, but I've never seen anything playing on filler words, so this felt really fresh. I also appreciated how all the phrases were very well-known. SHOOK LIKE A LEAF is the only one that I don't hear all the time, but it still felt familiar enough.

NIGIRI -- yum!

One thing I noted is that some of the entries had words change meaning and others didn't. HOT CAKES has the same meaning in the idiom and the clue, but FLIES means the insects in the idiom, and the baseball term in the clue. Similarly, HAWK (same) and TANK (different -- military vehicle vs. container for fish). Not a bad thing, just something I noticed.

OJS -- yum!

The fill was ultra smooth for a Sunday -- truly world-class work. Not a lot of contrived entries or crosswordese ... just loads of smooth short fill with lots of possible cluing angles. I find that makes it so much easier to stay engaged with the bigger Sunday-size grids when you're not wincing at all the glue that's holding the theme together. We even get loads of lively bonus entries in GOOD LOSER, SOAP STARS, ABOUT TIME, KNEE-DEEP, etc.

KRILL -- yum! (if you're a whale)

The puzzle was on the easier side for a Sunday for me. This whole weekend felt significantly easier than usual. I wonder if other people also had this experience. Or maybe I was locked in because I knew I was blogging these puzzles. I love feeling Smart and Competent, though, so definitely no complaints about it from me!

Thanks for tuning in for three consecutive Rafa blogs. I'm done with my stint, but I hope to be back soon!

Bullets:

• SALADA (22D: Course in a Brazilian meal) — First time I've seen this clued like this (it means salad in Portuguese) instead of a tea brand, and I'm extremely here for it!
• HELIOS (5D: Greek sun god) — I've been playing Hades 2 on Switch on and off for the last year, and it has taught me pretty much everything I know about Greek mythology. Helios isn't in that game, but now I really appreciate seeing stuff like HERA and ARES in crosswords.
• RAJAH (1A: Counterpart of a rani) — Rajah is a title for a king, while rani is a title for a queen.
• MEN (98A: "It's Raining ___" (gay anthem) — Fun pride month tie-in.

Signed, Rafa

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Cock-a-hoop / SAT 6-27-26 / Kitchen project with minimal cleanup / Word repeated in a fit of disbelief / Defense council? / Hit the hay, to a toddler / Walks with a wobble / Multipurpose shortening? / Diamond pattern / Way up a mountain, perhaps

Constructor: Adrian Johnson

Relative difficulty: Very, very easy (except for the bottom stack, for me)



THEME: None

Word of the Day: TOLEDO (10D: City between Madrid and Ciudad Real) —

Toledo (UK: /tɒˈleɪdoʊ/ tol-AY-doh;^[2] Spanish: [toˈleðo] ^ⓘ) is a city and municipality in Spain. It is the capital of the province of Toledo and the de jure seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha.

• • •

Hi again friends! As promised yesterday, this is Rafa back again for some more crossword chitchat. Hope everyone is happy and healthy and able to maintain a comfortable temperature in their homes. Completely unsurprisingly, we have another themeless puzzle today. This one has some chonky quad stacks, so maybe someone heard me mention that yesterday's grid felt like it didn't have a lot of white space chunks.

A volcano SPEWing lava

What stood out most to be in this solve was the discrepancy in difficulty between the stacks. The top stack felt Monday-easy for me. HOW ABOUT NO came to be immediately, then I plonked down WHO'D, HONE, TAPERS, ABORT, RUMI, ETES ... and the rest of the corner fell within seconds. It felt like the fastest I had ever broken into a Saturday puzzle. But then the bottom stack put up a bit more resistance. GO BEDDY BYE was a totally new idiom to me (I don't have kids, and don't really spend much time around kids, so maybe that's why), and the downs in that area had tougher / vaguer clues than the ones up top. [When many rebellions emerge for the first time] was a hard clue for EARLY TEENS, too, so that whole region took some trial and error to conquer.

Feijoada is a Brazilian STEW (I know it's not clued that way but I wanted a picture of food)

The vertical stacks felt like they were somewhere in between, but still on the easy side for me. The clues felt more straightforward than usual for a Saturday, and nothing gave me much pause. That's a testament to the very smooth grid, without much crosswordese. We got a suffix -ITE and prefix AER- (Aer Lingus deserves a break!), and then mostly short fill that you see out in the world.

This is the AGRA Fort

What else? The long entries were are all super solid. I guess I wish maybe one or two had a tad more zing? LEGO BATMAN and HEY, WATCH IT! were my favorites. It's hard to allow for a "seed" entry when you're stacking four answers, though. As I mentioned before, the clues felt a bit too easy overall. Like, [Prom night rental] for TUX? That's a Monday clue. Ditto [Like a fired up sports crowd] for AROAR. I'm seeing straightforward clues everywhere I look.

[Dancer's restraint?] for REIN was clever (Dancer as in Santa's reindeer), but I can't remember other good "aha" moments. A fun solve overall, though!

Bullets:

• ANTS (47A: ___ climbing a tree (Sichuan noodle dish)) — Fun angle for this very common answer
• LYNN (58D: Super Bowl X M.V.P. ___ Swann) — I'm not a sports person so I couldn't tell you who was M.V.P. for Super Bowl LX (60), let alone X (10)!
• THROWBACKS (25D: Homages to a prior era) — Related to my post yesterday, here's another example of a lively one-word answer. 
• RYDER (35A: U-Haul competitor) — Never heard of this company, but its name made it pretty easy to infer.

Signed, Rafa

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Hectic time for JFK / FRI 6-26-26 / Like many films in teaser trailers / Symbol in the Kentucky Derby logo / Current affairs? / Pulitzer-winning poet Aiken / Self-driving car company started by Google

Constructor: Spencer Leach

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: None

Word of the Day: SANSEI (22D: Third-generation Japanese American) —

Sansei (三世, "third generation") is a Japanese and North American English term^[1] used in parts of the world (mainly in South America and North America) to refer to the children of children born to ethnically Japanese emigrants (Issei) in a new country of residence, outside of Japan. The nisei are considered the second generation, while grandchildren of the Japanese-born emigrants are called Sansei. The fourth generation is referred to as yonsei.^[2] The children of at least one nisei parent are called Sansei; they are usually the first generation of whom a high percentage are mixed-race, given that their parents were (usually), themselves, born and raised in America.^[3]

• • •

Hi, friends! It's Rafa here, and I'll be covering for Rex for a few days so strap in for a weekend of crossword commentary and good vibes! The crosswords that I have published in the NYT are almost always challenging late-week puzzles, so it's extra fun to blog those puzzles because I usually have More Things To Say about them. (I continue to try sending early-week puzzles to the editing team, but they are always rejected! But maybe you can can help me manifest for my luck to turn soon.)

WAYMOs are everywhere in San Francisco

Onto this puzzle! Single-word answers are often seen as less desirable in themeless puzzles, as they can be less lively than their multi-word counterparts. It was cool to see this puzzle lean into solid one-word entries like ELECTRODYNAMICS and MIXOLOGIST and ASTRONOMER. In fact, my favorite part of the entire puzzle was the very clever clue echo in [Expert on cosmos?] (think the Cosmopolitan cocktail) and [Expert on the cosmos]. Oh, look, PANOPTICON is a single word, too. I usually see that word used metaphorically and was surprised to not see a cluing angle that reflects that common usage. But I can't really complain ... it's an accurate definitional clue.

Two TRAMs

Outside of the clue echo highlight, the grid felt a bit too ... claustrophobic? ... I'm not sure what word to use to describe it. It's not an inherent issue with a grid, but for a themeless puzzle it's nice when there are at least a few slightly chunkier areas of white space to tackle, and this puzzle didn't really have any of those. Entries like TEETERED and TAILOR TO felt quite bland for a puzzle without wide-open-space constraints. And while I'm in a nitpicky mood ... EXTRA LARGE PIZZA feels like the kind of entry that gets included only because of its high scrabble value. Again, not inherently a bad thing, idk, just a thought. And the [Biggest restaurant size that nevertheless is often topped?] clue felt a bit too tortured to me.

LEGOS in the form of the Sagrada Família. Lego's biggest ever set, and it's coming out later this year!

HOUSE OF PAIN and ROYAL FORK were both new to me, but were pretty inferable and cool to learn about. EDGE CASES and HARD CAP are both things I heard (and said) a lot in my software engineering career, so it was also cool to see those entries. And some lovely clues too. I enjoyed [Bar of note?] for FRET and [Copy cat?] for MEW and [Goals for those in a rush, informally] for FRAT. Though, I thought that could have used a ? as I don't think I'd use rushing a frat as a countable noun as in "a rush" ... but I did not rush any FRATs in college so maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Ok, I think those are my thoughts! Hope everyone is doing great, and I'll be back tomorrow.



Bullets:

• VIET (40D: ___ Nam) — I'd never seen the country's name written out separately, but the official name is "Socialist Republic of Viet Nam."
• SANSEI (22D: Third-generation Japanese American) — This term applies throughout the Americas. I grew up in Brazil, which has the largest Japanese population in the world outside of Japan, so I enjoyed seeing this answer.
• BRAD (11D: Two-pronged fastener) — I have never heard of a BRAD as a fastener. But Google assures me that it is, indeed, a thing. Is this something everyone has heard of except me?
• TRIVIAL (39A: Mickey Mouse) — Again, I have never heard the idiom Mickey Mouse to mean trivial, but I got this answer entirely from crosses so I didn't really notice that during the solve.

Signed, Rafa

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Conventioneer's passport / THU 6-25-26 / Sharansky who wrote the memoir "Fear No Evil" / Country rocker Steve with the album "Exit 0" / Gamer's state of invincibility enabled by a cheat code / 1492 caravel Spanner of 11 time zones / Cantina freebie / The Science Kid, in children's television / Front-line hero during the 2020 pandemic

Constructor: Tarun Krishnamurthy

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: INSIDER / TRADING (63A: With 65-Across, market no-no ... or a hint to entering the answers to the starred clues) — blocks of letters "inside" the theme answers (in shaded squares) "trade" places, creating new (unclued) words and phrases

Theme answers:

• BAD / RAPS => BRA P/ADS (17A: *They may result in people being wrongly sent to jail)
• WEE L/ASS => WEAS/ELS (18A: *Bonny young girl)
• TRAIN/ERS => TER/RAINS (23A: *Exercise experts)
• FEM/INIST => FINE / MIST (35A: *Advocate of women's equality)
• "STEP / ON IT!" => STON/E PIT (43A: *"Let's pick up the pace!"
• WEB/INARS => WIN/E BARS (54A: *Some online courses)

Word of the Day: NATAN Sharansky (36D: Sharansky who wrote the memoir "Fear No Evil") —

Natan Sharansky (Hebrew: נתן שרנסקי; born 20 January 1948) is a Ukrainian-born, Israeli politician, professional chess player and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018, and currently serves as Chairman for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), an American non-partisan organization. A former Soviet dissident, he spent nine years imprisoned as a refusenik during the 1970s and 1980s. [...] Fear No Evil is a book by the Soviet-Israeli activist and politician Natan Sharansky about his struggle to immigrate to Israel from the former Soviet Union (USSR). The book tells the story of the Jewish refuseniks in the USSR in the 1970s, his show trial on charges of espionage, incarceration by the KGB and liberation. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gotta get out of the house very early today, so this'll have to be quick. Quickish. Despite the fact that the theme answers were probably discovered by a computer program, and despite the puzzle's interest in things I'm not personally that interested in (gaming, Marvel movies), and despite the puzzle's being a little on the easy side for my tastes, I really enjoyed this. At first I was like "why do the shaded squares spell out gibberish, I hate gibberish!?" but then I realized that the entire reconfigured answer was a viable (if unclued) answer, and the shaded squares weren't supposed to, and didn't need to, spell anything. The dark bars between the "traded" parts of the answer create a bit of visual confusion (me, rearranging BAD RAPS: "What the hell are BRAP ADS? What's a "brap" and why does it need ads?"), but once you get your bearings, this theme is actually very easy to work through. Six themers and a long revealer, and the fill holds up OK. Yes, I will take this. Again, would've liked more of a challenge, but I say that almost every Thursday (and other days ending in "day") now, so there's no surprise there. If it has to be easier than I'd like, at least the experience of solving it was pleasant.

There's a lot of overcommon fill (ESSO ESA SID NSYNC ATBAT ANODES PTA NEA TSP BAA ORES OREOS NEO NSA), but somehow that never became grating today. Nothing ever made me recoil or cringe or groan or any of the other negative reactions I sometimes have with creakily filled puzzles. Mostly I just liked watching the answers change into other answers, and I was happy that whatever subpar fill there was didn't interfere with that. I didn't get bogged down in the less-than-lovely stuff, and so I was better able to appreciate the theme, and the other nice bits of fill as they came along (like EGO BOOSTS and OVERTHINK and the HOT GLUE BLEEPS, which would be a great band name, though it's actually pretty hard to say without tripping over your tongue. My main negative feeling today was the indignation I felt on behalf of NATAN Last, who really should've been the subject of the NATAN clue. I mean, imagine you work for Will and then write tons of crosswords for the NYTXW (and elsewhere) and then write a whole-ass book about crosswords (a well-received book, I might add—Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle) and then your not-terribly-common / not-shared-with-a-celebrity name shows up in the puzzle and the clue is somehow not about you? What's a guy gotta do to get some grid recognition!? 

This is just the third appearance of NATAN, with the previous two clues going once to this same Sharansky guy we got in today's puzzle (1993) and then once to no one in particular (2018) ([Hebrew name meaning "he has given"]). I guess Saransky remains the more (most?) famous NATAN, but I have no way of measuring NATAN fame, as the only NATAN I know is Last. If his fame outside crosswords seems limited—who cares? We're not outside crosswords. We're inside crosswords. Literally, that is where we are. Anyway, I learned about a new NATAN today. He seems like a crossworthy NATAN. He's just not my NATAN.

Bullets:

• 7A: Gamer's state of invincibility enabled by a cheat code (GOD MODE) — I tried LOOK and PEEK before GAWK (7D: Get an eyeful), so though I was fairly certain I was dealing with a "mode," the GOD part eluded me for a bit. As soon as I got the "G" I was like "d'oh! GOD MODE. Yes, I've at least heard of that" (this is not always the case with video game clues). 
• 56D: Preceding time (RUN-UP) — as five-letter answers go, this one's great. Hard to make me like, or even notice, a short answer like this, but there's something about RUN-UP that's slightly slangy and very bright. Peppy, even. Why AT BAT feels limp but RUN-UP feels snappy, I don't really know. (side note: I had AWAKE before AT BAT (1D: Up)).
• 21D: Falcons' group (USAF) — so not the football Falcons (the ATL Falcons), but the Falcons of the United States Air Force Academy. They're the Falcons, the way Michigan is the Wolverines. I thought maybe there was some famous USAF squadron called the Falcons, but no, just the team name. Here's a new clue for NOVA:

• 58D: 1492 caravel (NINA) — a caravel is a small sailing ship. Even if you didn't know that, 1492 should've kinda given this one away. NINA leads all Columbus's ships in terms of total crossword appearances, though PINTA has shown up an awful lot (122 appearances), and for a ten-letter answer, SANTA MARIA also gets a ton of action (19 appearances, though not seen since 2009).

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...