Low-quality synthetic images, informally / WED 7-8-26 / Fish, roads or weapons that are long and thin / Prominent features of tarsiers / Weekly reward for a strict dieter, maybe / Mickey with an Oscar nomination for "The Wrestler" / Fitness fad popularized by Billy Blanks

Constructor: Mason Hyunjin Lee

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: This or that — phrases following the pattern "___ OR ___" are clued via a single word where the first letter has been presented as an alternative (two letters on either side of a slash)—use one letter and you get the clue for the first term in the phrase, use the second and you get the clue for the latter:

Theme answers:

• MAKE OR BREAK (17A: [C/P]ause) ("Cause" = "make" / "Pause" = "break")
• TRICK OR TREAT (27A: [L/C]ure) ("Lure" = "trick" / "Cure" = "treat")
• HEADS OR TAILS (46A: [M/H]inds) ("Minds" = "heads" / "Hinds" = "tails")
• LIFE OR DEATH (62A: [Z/R]est) ("Zest" = "life" / "Rest" = "death")

Word of the Day: tarsiers (45A: Prominent features of tarsiers = EYES) —

Tarsiers (/ˈtɑːrsiərz/ TAR-see-ərz) are haplorhine primates of the family Tarsiidae, which is the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was prehistorically more globally widespread, all of the existing species are restricted to Maritime Southeast Asia, predominantly in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. // They are found primarily in forested habitats, especially forests that have liana, since the vine gives tarsiers vertical support when climbing trees. (wikipedia)

• • •

What I like about this theme is its elegant simplicity. The theme answers are all solid and familiar, nothing wobbly or strange or made-up sounding, which is nice, but it's the cluing strategy that's most impressive—one word, first letter bracketed to offer a choice of two letters, with the first first letter making a perfect definition for the first half of the "___ OR ___" phrase, and the second letter making a perfect definition for the second half. No frills, no extra words, no fussiness. Spare. Compact. Almost poetic. At first my EYES rejected the theme cluing ("what is this nonsense?"), but once my EYES adjusted, they were able to see the coherence and precision. The concept here is not mind-blowing, but it's clean and clever. It does what it does perfectly. EASY PEASY. Maybe too easy—I know it's only Wednesday, but there were only a handful of answers that caused me to pause at all, and the only part that really required me to slow down and hack at the crosses was the MEAL part of CHEAT MEAL (34D: Weekly reward for a strict dieter, maybe). I've heard of a "cheat day," but never a CHEAT MEAL (this moralistic language around diet seems really unhealthy, but it's certainly common). CHEAT MEAL makes sense, but it doesn't ring as true in my ears as CHEAT DAY. When I got the "M"  I was like "CHEAT MONTH? seems like a long time. Also, won't fit." CHEAT DAY does Google better than CHEAT MEAL, but not by that much, actually (7.7 v. 6.9 million hits). Anyway, I needed Mia HAMM and one of her GAL pals to get me to MEAL. Speaking of cheating and HAMM, did you know there's a new movie out this week about a woman whose boyfriend cheats on her with his "celebrity sex pass" (you know, the one celebrity you're allowed to sleep with if you have the chance ... which seems like it isn't really "cheating" but whatever ...) and so to make things even she goes on a quest to sleep with her "celebrity sex pass": Jon HAMM. It's called Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. I know nothing else about this movie. I just learned of its existence yesterday because it's coming to Cinemapolis in Ithaca this week and I'm considering seeing it. No spoilers!

The one low point for me today, you won't be surprised to hear, was A.I. SLOP (23A: Low-quality synthetic images, informally). It's a very current phrase, very much in-the-news, very "now," I'm just ... exhausted by A.I. everything. Asking me to get excited about A.I. SLOP is like asking me to get excited about oozing wounds or police brutality or pickup trucks the size of tanks. I know those things exist, but ugh. Extreme ugh. I mean, it's got the word "slop" right in it. "Slop" is never going to improve the look of your puzzle, or anything. If you want to give me a six-letter answer with "A.I." in it, just move "A.I." to the back of the answer and put a four-letter word in front of it. That, I will accept.

I had a few small missteps today. Needed help from crosses to get PIKES (3D: Fish, roads or weapons that are long and thin). Had ONSET before RESET (60A: New beginning). And, best/worst of all, I had Mickey ROONEY as the Mickey with the Oscar nomination instead of Mickey ROURKE (whose name I initially spelled ROARKE) (15A: Mickey with an Oscar nomination for "The Wrestler"). Mickey ROONEY had a long career, but I don't think he ever played a wrestler. He did play a race car driver, though. Drive a Crooked Road (1954) is a really underrated film noir with an exciting heist/chase scene toward the end and a dramatic beach climax surpassed only by the dramatic beach climax of Kiss Me, Deadly (1955) (which involves a beach house exploding in a miniature nuclear holocaust). I sometimes forget that Mickey ROONEY looks over me every day, over every word I type. His screaming face is on the movie poster that hangs directly behind me:

[I went through a Mamie Van Doren phase, what can I say ...]

Anyway, if you've got 90 minutes to spare and want to see Mickey ROONEY do some pretty good, non scenery-chewing acting, I recommend Drive a Crooked Road.

Bullets:

• 11A: Helpful skill for guessers (ESP) — not an actual "skill." Can't be "helpful" if it's not real.
• 21A: What "Eat" stands for in the mnemonic "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" (EAST) — this needed a "mnemonic"???? There's only four in the set, and they're everyday, common things. I understand needing a mnemonic for the colors of the rainbow (really useful, in fact) (ROY G BIV), or the planets (My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos), or the lines on a treble staff (Every Good Boy Does Fine), but the directions??? Why not just NEWS? Is it that you need them to go in order, clockwise? Hmm. Maybe this will help me with my (profound) East / West dyslexia (every time I hear them paired, the sequence is "east/west," but on a map (reading left to right) they're "west/east," and my brain just can't reconcile these things, so I have to think about which is which Literally Every Time I want to give/receive directions ... whereas North and South are never unclear to me (perhaps because they are based on fixed poles ... who knows how brains work!?!?)
• 38A: "Way to go, kid!" ("ATTA BOY!") — sticking with the surprise movie theme of today's write-up, I watched The Bad News Bears yesterday (50th anniversary!) (streaming free on Hoopla), which meant that I weirdly heard this clue in the voice of Walter Matthau. Also, when I got to 55D: Rest like a bat, I was imagining a bat "resting" on the batter's shoulder. Like so:

• 50A: Fitness fad popularized by Billy Blanks (TAE BO) — the fitness fad that will never die, at least not in crosswords. It's not even slowing down. The year is only half over and already we've had more TAE BOs this year (three) than in any year since 2016. The record is four (in 2015), so 2026 could end up being the TAE BO-iest year ever. And it stopped being "popular" ages ago! A real zombie word. We're all on TAE BO Watch now.
• 28D: "Sleep is like a ___: It only comes to you if you ignore it": Gillian Flynn ("CAT") — since when did Gillian Flynn become a source of aphorisms? I guess this line is in one of her novels (?). Not sure about the truth value of this clue. My cats come to me when I shake their food containers. Or if I have string. Well, one cat couldn't care less about string, but the other cannot focus on anything else if there is string in the room. Absolute maniac for string. Such a weird boy.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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