"Schitt's Creek" matriarch / SAT 9-12-26 / Rout, in computer game lingo / Country singer Combs / Rowing machines, in gym lingo / Playwright Moss ___ / Personal circumstances, so to speak / Punnily named production company behind TV's "Insecure" and "A Black Lady Sketch Show" / "Surf" food in Japan, or "turf" animal in Spain / Journalist Larson who wrote "The Splendid and the Vile" / What a joke may get eventually / Justice who's the subject of the 2026 biography "Revenge for the Sixties"

Constructor: Adam Wagner and Michael Lieberman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MOTHRA (43D: Godzilla adversary) —

Mothra (Japanese: モスラ, Hepburn: Mosura) is a giant moth-like monster, or kaiju, who first appeared in the 1961 serialized novella The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, written by Takehiko Fukunaga, Shin'ichirō Nakamura and Yoshie Hotta, which later the same year was adapted into the film Mothra, directed by Ishirō Honda and produced and distributed by Toho. Mothra has appeared in several tokusatsu films, often as a recurring monster in the Godzilla franchise. She is typically portrayed as a colossal sentient moth, who hatches from her egg in her larval caterpillar form, before cocooning herself with silk to become a winged adult (imago) form accompanied by two miniature humanoid twin fairies speaking on her behalf. Unlike several other Toho monsters, Mothra is a largely heroic character, having been variously portrayed as a protector of her own island culture, the Earth and Japan. Mothra's design is influenced by silkworms, their imagos, and those of giant silk moths in the family Saturniidae. The character is often depicted hatching offspring (in some cases, twins) when approaching death, a nod to the Saṃsāra doctrine of numerous Indian religions. [...] Though Mothra is generally portrayed as female, male individuals of her species have also been featured in the franchise, including Battra in Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992), the offspring in the Rebirth of Mothra film trilogy, referred to as Mothra Leo by song in the film, and a male Mothra larva who appears alongside his non-identical twin sister in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003). // Mothra is one of Toho's most popular monsters and second only to Godzilla in her total number of film appearances. Polls taken during the early 1990s indicated that Mothra was particularly popular among women who were, at the time, the largest demographic among Japan's movie-going audience, a fact that prompted the filming of 1992's Godzilla vs. Mothra, which was the best-attended Toho film since King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). (wikipedia)

• • •

Really enjoyed this one. Maybe a little on the name-y side with more dullish short answers than might seem ideal, but as with yesterday's puzzle, this one was so packed with solid marquee answers that I didn't notice or care about the dull or tiresome or annoying short stuff as I might have. ASAP over REPO over DEPT. OVAL over REDO over ONEG. AMINO MACRO PITAS. STPAT ERASES ASA NYETS. Taken in isolation, these clumps of answers seem pretty bad, but those clumps are holding in place big beautiful BLOCKs of answers. We get two stacks of 10s and two colonnades of 9s—twelve long answers in those corners and not a one of them is a clanker. Perhaps none of them sparkles as much as the best fill in yesterday's puzzle, but that puzzle never tried to stack more than two long answers at a time, which gives the grid more give and makes it easier to fill in a fun and exciting way. Today's grid shape is much more restrictive, but the puzzle still manages to have an open feel, a zing and nice overall sense of flow, aided by the two grid-spanners that cross at the center of the puzzle. Those answers keep the corners from seeming so isolated, the way Saturday grids can get sometimes (such that they seem like four little puzzles instead of one full one). 

[1A: Light décor]

Getting "THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!" (36A: "Now we're talking!") was a real high point, a bridge from NE to SW that also gave me the first letter in REACTION (I was DELAYED by DELAYED—couldn't figure out what was supposed to follow; LAUGHTER fit, but didn't sound right at all) (8D: What a joke may get eventually). As for the names, I was lucky enough to know most of them. Normally, something like HOORAE would seem like an insane thing to expect solvers to know (56A: Punnily named production company behind TV's "Insecure" and "A Black Lady Sketch Show"), but since ISSA RAE is such a crossword mainstay (in both parts of her name), I think it's fair game, and fun to figure out. I had HOORAY at first (a pun on "Who Rae?"), but that faux meat that "bleeds" was obviously BEETS, not BYETS. I like BYETS as a companion answer for NYETS, but, while BEETS are Russian, they're not that Russian.

No real trouble spots today besides the delayed "reaction" in DELAYED REACTION. The one area that gave me more trouble than anything else in the grid, by far (in that it gave me any trouble at all) was LOW PH / OTT crossing. Had no idea about OTT (55A: N.B.A. coach Jordan ___) and (of course) tried to parse the answer to 47D: Acidic (LOW PH) as one word. OTT seemed like the most namelike thing there, but I dunno ... if you're throwing some N.B.A. coach at me (and not even telling me the team?), I figure maybe you're trying to introduce some new, stranger name into the grid, like ... maybe you've discovered a non-fictional ITT, or an ATT, or even the first ever UTT. But my confusion here simply didn't last. The long Downs in the SW ended up coming quickly—WHITE NOISE off the "-HI-" (58A: Common sleep aid), PROBLEM SET off the "-RO-" (61A: Math class assignment)—so I got my LOW PH "D'oh!" moment and that was that, as far as any real trouble. Started with AMINO / LOOSE in the NW and just burned it down from there. Could've used a little more fight, but I had a good time (again, just like yesterday).

Bullets:

• 11A: Last place? (TOMB) — Morbid. I love it. I laughed.
• 25A: Why wait? (TIP) — NE corner went down so fast that I never saw this clue, which I like, though I think it would work better for TIPS. You would not wait (tables) for a single tip.
• 26A: Personal circumstances, so to speak (SHOES) — very clever. Needed a few crosses and then got a nice "OH, NOW I SEE" moment.

• 34A: First full word sung in "The Alphabet Song" (AND) — another clue I never saw, which is a good thing, because I totally forgot what "The Alphabet Song" was ("A B C D E F G / H I J K LMNOP / Q R S / T U V / W X / Y AND Z...")—or, rather, I confused it with this:

• 41D: Rowing machines, in gym lingo (ERGS) — uh, they just call them "rowing machines," seriously. I think ERG is written on the sides of the one at my gym, but I've never heard anyone call it that. Even though I've seen this answer before, I still wanted some other silly E-word configuration, like EVOS. 
• 6D: Playwright Moss ___ (HART) — I knew this one, but I think it's gonna be among the harder names for people today. He was a big deal playwright and librettist, but his general fame hasn't lasted. He was married to Kitty Carlisle (leading lady in the Marx Bros's A Night at the Opera and regular panelist on To Tell the Truth), who outlived him by almost half a century (Moss died of a heart attack in the early '60s, age 57).
• 11D: "Surf" food in Japan, or "turf" animal in Spain (TORO) — This makes it sound like you eat the bull. I see you switched from "food" to "animal," but you're playing off the phrase "surf & turf," which is a menu phrase, so I have to assume you ate the bull.
• 38D: Journalist Larson who wrote "The Splendid and the Vile" (ERIK) — thought I didn't know this one, but I've at least heard of ERIK Larson. I know him as a writer of (non-fiction) books. Didn't know he was a "journalist."

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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