Network debut of 1981 / FRI 9-11-26 / ___ Ann (classic Lily Tomlin character) / U.S. senators Warnock and Duckworth, for two / Film composer Silvestri / Chip source, informally / Jazz Age Disney princess / Guard at the gates of Mordor / Blue ___ (coral reef swimmers like Pixar's Dory) / Assessment of something enjoyed ironically

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ALAN Silvestri (46D: Film composer Silvestri) —

Alan Anthony Silvestri (born March 26, 1950) is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and music producer of film scores. He has received two Grammy Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for nearly all of his feature films, including the Back to the Future film series (1985–1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992), Forrest Gump (1994), Contact (1997), What Lies Beneath (2000), Cast Away (2000), The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), Flight (2012) and The Walk (2015).

Silvestri also scored many other popular movies, including Predator (1987), The Abyss (1989), Father of the Bride (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), Eraser (1996), The Parent Trap (1998), Practical Magic (1998), Stuart Little (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Van Helsing (2004), the first three Night at the Museum films, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), The A-Team (2010), Ready Player One (2018), and five Marvel Cinematic Universe films: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Avengers: Doomsday (2026). (wikipedia)

• • •

[God-tier candy] 

On most days, after I've fed the cats and gotten some water, I come up here to my office, open the puzzle up, and start stumbling along with my solving without (initially) looking down to see who the constructor is. I don't know how I developed this habit, but I've usually had a stab at the NW corner, at least, before I glance down to see who made the damn puzzle. Sometimes I look down with appreciation, sometimes I look down with anger. Well, disappointment, anyway. So it was very funny (to me) today when I worked my way through the SKA-not-RUM and the "oh that kind of 'anchor'" (DESK) and "omg what was that Lily Tomlin character's name!?!?"-ness of the NW and then hit the first whoosh! (OSCAR PARTY), and then, midway through writing in the second whoosh! ("GENIUS IDEA!") I literally thought "Is this Robyn? This feels like Robyn," looked down, and lol, whaddya know! I love that "GENIUS IDEA!" is the answer that gave it away. Sorry to predictably love another RW joint but she's just on another level and you (I) can feel it. Twelve (12) marquee answers, at least eleven of which are good, and at least half a dozen of which are "hell yeah" good. There's such great voice here. Slanginess, colloquialness, but most of it not at all niche or obscure or strangely worded or otherwise irksome. Just stuff you hear all the time but don't necessarily expect to see in a crossword. "GENIUS IDEA!" "THAT DOES IT!" "PLEASE DON'T GO!" SO BAD IT'S GOOD. Even something as simple as "LET ME KNOW" really sings when it's in a clean grid alongside all these other winners. Someone should solve this in GLITTER PEN, because it deserves it (not sure if that would be legible, but who cares: sparkly pen for a sparkly puzzle!)

Though the puzzle played pretty easy overall (those whooshes really did their job, whooshing me from one section to the next), I did spin my wheels and make a mistake or two, here and there. As I said (above, re: SKA, DESK, EDITH), getting off the ground involved a little effort, and then after a lot of whooshing, on the other side of the grid, after correcting GLITTER GUN to GLITTER PEN (had the GLIT- in place, missed the "prose" part of the clue), I hit 43A: Comforts, and off the "SO-" I wrote in .... SOLACES. Then off that "S" (the second one), I looked at 44D: Lavender or lilac and wrote in SHADE. Wrong-wrong combo! That's never good. I was lucky that my wrong answers absolutely ground me to a halt—wouldn't work with any crosses whatsoever—so I pulled myself out of that mess reasonably quickly, starting with the obvious SEEN (54A: How one might feel at a support group meeting), which changed SHADE to SCENT. The "T" from HASN'T eventually killed SOLACES and got me to SOOTHES, and then I was back on track. 

After fixing SOLACES / SHADE, everything went fine until the very end—the hardest part of the grid, for me—the far north. Three little answers would not allow me to move from the NW into the N. The real killer was PHDS (20A: U.S. senators Warnock and Duckworth, for two). PALS!? No idea. That "H" in PHDS stayed a mystery because ITCHED (5D: Had a hankering?)? No idea! I ITCHED for several days last week but that's because I got triple-stung by a wasp, not because I had a hankering. The fact that the clue on nearby EARS (7D: Sound wave amplifiers) was also inscrutable to me meant that I was essentially in an "Access Denied" situation vis-a-vis the NE, so I ended up having to come at it from the other side, up from below. Luckily, not that hard. Big "D'oh!" when P-DS ended up being PHDS. Tough (for me), but fair. The "U.S." in the clue does fairly signal that the answer will be an abbr. Fridays should involve at least a little struggle. Not enough struggle to make this anything but "Easy," but still, enough crunch to keep the puzzle from being boring-easy.

Bullets:

• 19A: Singer/actress Carrere (TIA) — a name I associate almost exclusively with Wayne's World (1992) but I just looked her up and she has worked constantly in both film and television for the past three decades. Plus she won two Grammys for Best Hawaiian Music Album (!!). TIA is usually clued as Spanish for "aunt," or via the coffee liqueur TIA Maria, but every five years or so, you get Ms. Carrere (her last name has also appeared in the NYTXW, three times, though her full name, never).

• 31A: Drives for money? (TELETHON) — had me wondering if there was such a thing as a GOLF(A)THON.
• 45A: Fairly low-risk investment (AA BOND) — by far my least favorite thing in the grid. Let us not speak of it again.
• 29D: Trial that an attorney may not remember fondly? (LSAT) — don't really get this. I mean, you're an attorney. It's just a reading comprehension and logic test. You must've done OK.  Isn't the bar the really grueling "trial"?
• 31D: Blue ___ (coral reef swimmers like Pixar's Dory) (TANGS) — I never knew "tang" was a fish until I started seeing TANG clued that way in puzzles (which the NYTXW didn't do until 2024!?). 
• 49A: Guard at the gates of Mordor (ORC) — ENTs are good and Mordor is bad so I went with the other three-letter creature from LOTR. A note for those who are occasionally confused: ENDOR is the forest moon where the Ewoks live (Star Wars); MORDOR is the realm of the dark lord Sauron (Lord of the Rings). Hope this helps.

That's all for today. See you next time.

[all proceeds go to WFMU, the best listener-supported radio in the whole dang world]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a little Paul Simon for you today ... just because ❤️

  

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