Top three sights in Fiji? / WED 8-19-26 / Immature high score initials on an arcade game / Old West outlaw who left behind poetic messages after some robberies / Three unnamed things, in shorthand / 2008 film about a solitary trash-compacting robot / The word "salary" derives from the Latin for this / ___ royale (champagne cocktail) / Female friends from Fuenlabrada

Constructor: Kareem Ayas

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BURIES THE LEDE (57A: Hides one's central point, in a way ... with a doubly homophonic hint to 20-, 30, 38- and 48-Across) — the "lead" word in each theme answer is a type of "berry":

Theme answers:

• GOOSE FEATHERS (20A: Natural pillow filling) (gooseberries)
• ELDERCARE (30A: Services for senior citizens) (elderberries)
• STRAW POLL (38A: Unofficial vote) (strawberries)
• BLACK BART (48A: Old West outlaw who left behind poetic messages after some robberies) (blackberries)

Word of the Day: BLACK BART (48A) —

Charles E. Boles (c. 1829 – ? Last seen February 28, 1888), also known as Black Bart, was an English-born American outlaw noted for the poetic messages he left behind after two of his robberies. Often called Charley by his friends, he was also known as Charles (or C. E.) Bolton. Considered a gentleman bandit with a reputation for style and sophistication, he was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to operate in and around Northern California and Southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s. [...] In 1867, Boles went prospecting for gold in Idaho and Montana. In a surviving letter to his wife from August 1871, he told her of an unpleasant encounter with some Wells, Fargo & Company agents and vowed to exact revenge. // Boles adopted the nickname "Black Bart" and proceeded to rob Wells Fargo stagecoaches at least 28 times across northern California between 1875 and 1883, including a number of times along the historic Siskiyou Trail between California and Oregon. Although Boles became widely known for the poetic messages left behind after his robberies, he wrote only two poems–left at the fourth and fifth robbery sites–but this was enough to ensure his fame. Black Bart was quite successful as a highwayman, often taking in thousands of dollars a year. // Boles was afraid of horses and he fled from all of his robberies on foot. He was invariably polite, never using foul language except in his poems. He dressed in a long linen duster coat and a bowler hat, using a flour sack with holes cut for his eyes as a mask. He brandished a shotgun but reportedly never once fired it during his years as an outlaw. All these became his trademarks and he quickly gained notoriety. (wikipedia)

• • •

Weird. I always thought BLACK BART was fictional. I wonder why ...

Gonna have to be short a write-up today (I swear), as today is my first day back at school for the Fall semester, and I ... still have a little work to do. Not a lot. A little. But because it's not done and I have to stand in front of a class in [checks clock] seven hours, it feels like a lot. So I gotta get a move on. The puzzle was funny today because it felt like it was accusing me, personally, of not getting my second syllabus finished in a timely fashion. It's throwing things at me like STUDENT (47D: Lecture attendee) and UNIT (16A: Section in a textbook) and CURRICULUM (10D: Set of courses offered) and ASS (as in, "why aren't you totally prepared, you ASS?") (54A: Immature high score initials on an arcade game). I laughed it off. What else could I do? One thing I couldn't do: understand the the damned theme once I'd finished the puzzle. The puzzle was easy to finish, and the themers all easy to come up with, but I had no idea how BURIES THE LEDE was supposed to be singly homophonic, let alone doubly so. I kept trying to read the clue cryptically, so I was looking for something "buried" in the answer ... maybe a word that meant "lead"? But the middle of each themer (i.e. the letter "buried" at the heart of each themer), taken in order, spells ERWK, so ... no luck there! No matter how hard I looked, there was nothing "buried" in those damned theaters. Finally I had a look at the "lead" words in the theme phrases and noticed that they were all types of "berries" (!!!!!!). Not a pun I was looking for (clearly)! Is LEDE a pun? Since LEDE basically means the introductory (or "lead") portion of a news story, it indicates primary status (i.e. firstness) just as well as "lead" does. Doesn't seem nearly as "punny" as the bury/berry thing. Anyway, first words "berries," very clever, liked it. I do wonder if the Pronunciation Police are going to come out today. "Bury" and "berry" sound the same in my ear, but I have this suspicion that that may not be the same for everyone. Still, it's close, and it's crosswords, and as with horseshoes and hand grenades, close counts.

The fill was wobbly to start. "I'M NOT OK" feels ... unsolid. "I'M OK," all day long, no problem, solid as heck. "THAT'S NOT OK!," same. "I'M NOT OK" gets me some songs (?), and ... I guess it has some currency in mental health contexts. I can imagine someone saying it, but I can imagine someone saying lots of things. Lots of other fill just felt ordinary and tired: ARID SKORT PSATS (plural) UNSEE ERR ERS URSA etc. But the themers were all interesting, and sometimes the short fill picked up (PUFFY next to SNEEZE—successive answers! (Why weren't these tied together the way URSA and ASIA ([___ Minor]), or LOWER and DIP ([Drop]) were? You've got PUFFY tied to allergies—that's a set-up for a SNEEZE tie-in if there ever was one). FAN BASE and LOST CAUSES also liven up the grid. The only real difficulty I had today came with trying to understand the theme. Oh, and remembering which spelling of AVA/EVA to use for AVA Max (39D: ___ Max, singer of the 2018 hit "Sweet but Psycho").

Bullets:

• 10A: Private sleeping accommodations? (COTS) — So ... "Private" in the Army.
• 24A: Three unnamed things, in shorthand (XYZ) — nearly wrote in XXX, but that's a porn movie, or else the letters on a jug of hooch.
• 67A: 2008 film about a solitary trash-compacting robot (WALL-E) — WALL-E stars in commercials for Lavazza. Or his double does. Hulu can't/won't stop showing me ads for this new coffee system they have called TABLI (5!). And if the robot from Short Circuit and WALL-E had a baby ... well ...

[my ads are English, but this'll do]

• 4D: Top three sights in Fiji? (DOTS) — now this is cryptic. The word "Fiji" has three DOTS at the top (the top of the "i" the "j" and the "i")

That's it. Gotta run (to make coffee). See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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

• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago, IL, Sat., Oct. 3, 2026)

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

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)