Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Evian, Perrier or Badoit / TUES 7-28-26 / Letter that can take a cedilla / Primer mes del año / Director Johnson of the "Knives Out" movies

Hi, everyone — it’s Clare for the last Tuesday in July! Hope everyone has been having a lovely summer and not getting too hot or having their lungs filled with smoke or drowning in rain or…! I celebrated my 30th (!) birthday this month and also celebrated my dad’s birthday (he’s asked me not to say the number of years😉), and it’s all been quite lovely. I’m extremely sad the men’s World Cup is over, because I haven’t really known what to do with myself or what to watch. But maybe the U.S. Open will save me, or maybe I’ll get back into the swing of things once the WNBA gets back after the All-Star break. Ooh, and I got to see Noah Kahan in concert, and he was incredible; and I see BTS in Baltimore in just 15 days — not that I’m counting the days and hours and minutes or anything! Otherwise, my pup and I have been hiking and staying cool, and she’s as cute and wonderful as ever.

Anywho, onto the puzzle…

Constructor: Adam Vincent

Relative difficulty: Medium (mostly because of one letter)

THEME: IT’S NOTHING TO SNEEZE AT (17A: With 58-Across, dad-joke response to the answers for each of this puzzle’s starred clues) — Each of the theme answers has the sound “achoo” in it, which… sounds like a sneeze

Theme answers:

PATCHOULI (25A: Essential oil with a musky scent)
MASSACHUSETTS (31A: Home of the lowest town-level ZIP code in the continental U.S. (01001))
CATCH YOU LATER (38A: "Until next time!")
STATUETTE (49A: Academy Award, e.g.)

Word of the Day: SAM (59D: Rock singer ___ Fender) —

Samuel Thomas Fender (born 25 April 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Born and raised in North Shields, Fender released several singles independently beginning in 2017. His sound relies primarily on his traditional American musical upbringing combined with a British rock sensibility. He is known for his high tenor voice and Geordie accent. Recognized for his songwriting style, Fender is the recipient of five Brit Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards and a Mercury Prize, among many others. (Wiki)

• • •

That was a pretty good Tuesday puzzle, mostly in spite of the theme, not because of it. The theme itself just doesn’t feel like a dad joke to me, which I think of more as something related to puns and not just sounds in words? The phrases and words themselves are fine, and it’s impressive that all the achoo sounds are achieved differently, but the theme just didn’t hit me as any sort of dad joke-esque response to each of the theme answers. I didn’t use the theme to help with the solve, as the two parts of the revealer were so split across the puzzle, which might’ve made it slightly more challenging than it otherwise would’ve been for me.

I almost had a DNF in the puzzle because of EXCLAVE (43D: Part of a country located entirely within another country) and OXO (48A: Palindromic kitchen brand). I know the brand OXO, and, logically, I knew that there wouldn’t be another ONO in the puzzle given that it was at 18D: 1969 “bed-in” participant. But I typed in “enclave” without thinking, then was stuck searching for my error in the end. I asked my dad and sister what they thought, and they both got stuck for minutes searching for their typo right at that spot there at the end. I’ve since googled it and distinguished an EXCLAVE from an “enclave” for future reference — “An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity,” such as Vatican City, while “an exclave is a portion of a state or district geographically separated from the main part, by some surrounding alien territory,” such as the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan, which also borders Armenia, Iran, and Turkey (Wiki). I’ll try to remember this for the future so I don’t add almost a minute to my time searching for an error!

I also struggled a bit with O’DELL (5A: Scott ___, author of "Island of the Blue Dolphins"). I belatedly realized that I actually read "Island of the Blue Dolphins" in grade school, but I sadly had no idea who the author was. CHOCO (50A: __ Taco (ice cream treat)) gave me a little pause. I didn’t even look at the clue for NIP (60D: Alcoholic equivalent of a fun-size candy bar), but I don’t think I would’ve gotten that word from that clue. Those of you not into perfume may also have had trouble with PATCHOULI (25A).

I appreciated the lack of a lot of crosswordese in the puzzle. Sure, we had our ELI (7D: Name that's an anagram of an untruth), ALT (37A: Secondary social media account), YET (40D: Up to this point), CPA (23A: Tax pro), ANT (28A: Myrmecology subject), ASK (10D: Query), etc. But for the most part, even those were clued a bit differently — and more interestingly — than usual. I learned what myrmecology is with ANT (28A), and I remembered that a secondary social media account is more than just a “finsta” and could actually be considered an ALT (though maybe I just need to study up on my own millennial/Gen-Z slang).

There were also some great words in the puzzle, such as STYMIE (46D: Hinder), HOOPLA (12D: Muss and fuss), and AUTEUR (33D: Artistic visionary). Those are just so fun to say. We got THAT’LL (22D: "___ be the day!") next to OUTTA (27D: "Straight ___ Compton" (1989 N.W.A album)), a clever pairing of slangy contractions. I really liked the clue for CDC (34D: Org. mentioned in many zombie movies); I’ve watched enough zombie and apocalyptic shows to get the answer to that one right away.

Misc.:

My sister and I hiked the Grand TETONS (20A: Wyoming mountain range) when we were on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2020. They were absolutely gorgeous. We went on a hike there that took us to maybe the bluest waters I’ve ever seen, and I spent my birthday on a pier overlooking the water before going on a horseback ride.
I'm currently trying to soothe an ACHE (10A: Be in need of ibuprofen, say) by targeting a KNOT (19A: Massage gun target) right above my KNEE (14A: Word with cap or socks) after I ran seven miles yesterday, my longest run in quite some time! A friend is trying to get me to run the Richmond Marathon in November, but I’m pretty sure my body might break down before I got to that point.
I was part of the SKI TEAM (1D: Sporting group at a cold-weather school) at a ski academy in Lake Tahoe, and it was most definitely cold weather. One of my strongest memories of that time is being driven to school one morning by my mom, and we for some reason took the shortcut — a road that can be very dangerous. I got to school and had to wade through three-plus feet of snow to get to the entrance. For some reason, I was wearing Uggs that weren’t waterproof. Needless to say, my Uggs were never the same. And my Spanish teacher didn’t even make it for first period anyway.
As soon as I saw SAM (59D), I knew that he was going to be my word of the day. Some people probably don’t know who he is, but I’ve been absolutely in love with him ever since a cousin introduced me to him a few years ago. My cousin even flew to England to see him in concert, and I tried to get tickets when he came to D.C. a year or so ago, but I wasn’t able to. He has a song now with another favorite of mine, Olivia Dean, that is just crushing the charts in the UK called "Rein Me In." Anyway, my favorite of his is Hypersonic Missiles, if anyone is looking for an incredible and poignant song.

I think I’ve already talked about these books, but I’ll mention them again because I’ve been having so much fun listening to them (and I’ve gotten my dad hooked, too): Everyone should listen to (or read, I suppose, though the voices in the audio book are wildly good) the Dungeon Crawler Carl series! I’m on Book 7 of 8 and am so hooked. I’ve been using Audible credits to listen to the books and just caved and bought all eight of the physical books, too. They look great on my bookshelf.