Gemstone with biological roots / WED 7-1-26 / Taiwanese president ___ Ing-wen / Rightmost compartment in a till

Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic

Relative difficulty: Medium (7:49 on a grid that's 16 squares across)

THEME: The Multiverse — Various references to the science fiction concept

Theme answers:

• [Theoretical world coexisting with ours ... as depicted in this puzzle] for PARALLEL UNIVERSE
• [Theoretical timeline where things play out a little differently ... as featured in this puzzle] for ALTERNATE REALITY
• Circled letters across the middle spell out WORMHOLE, and that entry connects two closed-off corners that are mirror images of each other
• E.g., TUBER at 1-Across is mirrored with REBUT at 10-Across
• ENOLA at 15-Across is mirrored with ALONE at 17-Across
• etc.

Word of the Day: EVITA (Hit musical set in Buenos Aires) —

A West End revival based upon the 2019 production at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre began previews at the London Palladium in 2025. Jamie Lloyd directed, with Rachel Zegler, in her West End debut, as Eva.

The production stages the number "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" on the exterior balcony of the Palladium (Argyll Street) and is broadcast to the theatre audience using cameras outside and a large screen inside the theatre; the large crowds on the street watching this balcony scene can be contextualized as part of Eva Peron's "spectacle and political theatre". 

The musical is set to begin performances at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in 2027, with Zegler confirmed to reprise her role of Eva Perón.

• • •

Hello everyone! I am here for a Malaika MWednesday, and I solved this while watching Mexico beat Ecuador. Have you guys been watching the games? Last week I watched the Mexico game at a Mexican bar. Today I watched the France game at a French bar. Tomorrow I will watch the Senegalese game at a Senegalese bar. I love New York City so much and I love the World Cup soooo much.

AND I LOVE MBAPPÉ SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH

I loved this puzzle, too! There was so much going on, yet it felt delightful, balanced, and impressive, rather than overstuffed or tortured. Oftentimes, creative themes like this seem to me like they'd be fit for a Sunday-sized grid, but it worked perfectly fine in this slightly oversized puzzle. 

As I've said in the past, a marker for a good theme is if the theme entries would be sparkly even in a themeless puzzle. Both of the spanners are excellent, as well as being debuts (meaning that no NYT crossword has ever used those entries). I imagine it is easier to debut a sixteen-letter entry, given that ~85% of puzzles can't contain it. I liked how the entries ran "parallel" to each other, and how they served sort of as alternates to each other. I wondered if it would have been fun to give them identical clues, but that would have evoked more of a sense of deja vu. The point of parallel universes and alternate realities (as shown in the corners) is that things are not identical.

The show Community does some fun stuff with the multiverse

Let's talk about the corners: I did not even clock until three-quarters through that the corners are not connected to the rest of the grid! That's a big no-no in puzzles, but (like with all other Puzzle No-Nos) is welcome to be utilized in service of a relevant theme. There is a danger that a solver could get stuck in one of the corners, but the brilliant thing is that you sort of have two sets of clues to help you solve each entry! I paused on how to spell NEIL ("Neal"?) and checked my work not by looking at the down entry but by looking at the mirror entry, LIEN. I am so curious as to how the constructor put together those corners. I am extremely, almost embarrassingly reliant on constructing software while making puzzles and it seems like these would have had to be put together without it. 

I'm curious what you guys thought of this one! While I love when people use the grid in a creative way, I also have a high bar for it, and this puzzle totally cleared it for me.

Bullets:

• [___ Holmes, 2020s role for Millie Bobby Brown] for ENOLA — As a constructor, this Netflix series felt like a gift allowing a modern alternative to the standard [___ Gay]. Of the twenty-two times that this entry has appeared in the NYT since the movies came out, eighteen of them have referenced Sherlock's sister
• [1880s-'90s veep ___ P. Morton] for LEVI — On the heels of that.... we've got a politician from well over a century ago! I was so hesitant to fill this in because I couldn't imagine why they'd pick this dude over Strauss on a Wednesday puzzle.
• [Bed for fish?] for SUSHI RICE — Cute clue, and now I am massively craving a negitoro hand roll
• [Posh clothing material] for SATIN — My fave fashion expert Cora Harrington talks a lot about how satin is not the same as silk. Satin can be made of polyester, in which case it is likely cheap and not particularly posh!

xoxo Malaika

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