Animal whose crabeater variety does not, in fact, eat crabs / WED 6-3--26 / 1990s feminist movement rooted in punk rock / Research institute where radio astronomy began

Constructor: Jiahe Men

Relative difficulty: Easy (8:36)

THEME: TRIPLE THREAT — Many an EGOT contender … or what's spelled out by this puzzle's shaded squares?

Theme answers:

• I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS
• I loved this entry
• RIOT GRRRL
• PAD SEE EW
• BELL LABS
• CHESS SETS
• DEAD TREE EDITION
• The letters that spell out "OR ELSE" (a standard threat) appear in triplicate 

Word of the Day: ANT (Insect that has reportedly passed the "mirror test" of self-recognition) —

The mirror test is a behavioral technique developed in 1970 by American psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. to determine whether an animal possesses the ability of visual self-recognition. An animal is anesthetized and then marked (e.g. paint or sticker) on an area of the body the animal normally cannot see (e.g. forehead). When the animal recovers from the anesthetic, it is given access to a mirror. If it subsequently touches or examines the mark on its own body, this behavior is interpreted as evidence that the animal recognizes its reflection as an image of itself, rather than another animal.

A 2015 study found that individual ants of these three ant species would attempt to clean themselves after being exposed to a mirror and seeing a blue dot on their bodies. [wiki]

• • •

Hey besties, welcome to another Malaika MWednesday! Congrats to Jiahe on his debut puzzle for the New York Times!

I thought this theme was very clever. When I hear a phrase with a hint of wordplay, I immediately jot it down to brainstorm later; I have "triple double" written down, but TRIPLE THREAT has never occurred to me! I am familiar with the term, but I wonder if others are. I probably would have written a more definitional clue, like [Performer skilled in singing, dancing, and acting ... or etc etc] rather than assuming every solver also knows what an EGOT is.

(Although I will admit, that term appears very frequently in crosswords.)

Shoutout to EGOT-er John Legend... although is he a triple threat??

There is a nice added layer here. I could imagine a totally valid puzzle where the letters T, H, R, E, A, and T all appear in triplicate, spelling out the revealer literally. Here, though, we have the jump to figure out that "or else" is a threat. The theme density is impressive! Eight entries are part of the theme, and two of them cross others. That probably explains some of the rough fill: OH HI / OR SO / ALTA to open the puzzle was a tough start for me. EAU, SHAKA, IDYL, ITAL, INOUT, and NYY were also not my faves to see in a grid.

I wondered if this movie would blow up enough to make it into crosswords, but I think it was too indie

I spent what felt like a long time (it was probably sixty seconds) considering a rebus because I wanted "act natural" where we instead of ACT CASUAL. That led me to consider if the two are perfectly interchangeable and I'm going back and forth on the answer. I feel like they're 99% interchangeable but not quite exact synonyms. RARE BIRD didn't fall into place for me either; I've never heard of that before though the clue made it easy enough to get.

I had an insanely good negitoro handroll for lunch over the weekend and now each day that I don't have one for lunch I yearn for it. Do you guys have a favorite handroll spot in NYC? 👀

Bullets:

• [Product of the internet that might be "dank" or "deep-fried"] for MEME — This felt insanely "How do you do, fellow kids" to me. That terminology is like a decade old, no?
• [Cheese in the Czech dish smažený sýr] for EDAM — People like to toss around varying definitions of "crosswordese," I myself no longer have one (though I think I did once). If I did, I would want it to encapsulate this solving phenomenon: When I see the word "cheese" in a clue, it's EDAM. I don't read the rest of the clue, it's EDAM. The clue functionally reads as "blah blah cheese blah blah blah" to me, and, whether the entry is obscure or not, foreign or not, trivia or not, vowel-heavy or not, that feeling while solving is what makes the entry feel like crosswordese to me.
• [Literary character who hopes to get whale soon?] for AHAB and [Pequod, e.g.] for SHIP — Two Moby Dick clues in one puzzle!! I have not read it, but plan to this summer. My friend jocularly refers to getting really into Moby Dick as d*ckmaxxing. Rex, if that joke is a hair too far for your blog I will delete expeditiously!!!!
• [M.L.B. team for "Mr. October" and "Mr. November"] for NYY — The New York Yankees had Reggie Johnson (Mr. October) and Derek Jeter (Mr. November)

xoxo Malaika

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