Teacher's pet, say, in slang / WED 10-21-26 / ___ saltado (Peruvian stir-fry dish) / Tender bend-er / Fabulous, in slang / Bird that gives pebbles as a courtship gesture / Crop whose trade contributed to the Opium Wars / Chemical suffix that indicates a double bond / Actress Dowd of "The Handmaid's Tale"

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: report card — clues are courses and grades; answers are familiar phrases that would seem to describe them:

Theme answers:

• PARKING FINE (17A: Driver's Ed: B)
• MOVING AVERAGE (28A: Gym: B+)
• BUILDING SUPER (42A: Wood shop: A)
• PAST PERFECT (56A: History: A+)

Word of the Day: LOMO saltado (39A: ___ saltado (Peruvian stir-fry dish)) —

Lomo saltado is a traditional Peruvian dish, a stir-fry that typically combines marinated strips of sirloin (or other beef steak) with onions, tomatoes, french fries, and other ingredients, and is typically served with rice. The dish originated as part of the chifa tradition, the Chinese cuisine of Peru, though its popularity has made it part of the mainstream culture. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm stuck on MOVING AVERAGE. Like, really stuck. First off, there's the "moving" part, which took me forever because I was looking for a gym activity, the way PARKING is a driver's ed activity, not an extremely vague general term for what one does in gym class. That was weird. But the real issue for me is the AVERAGE part. When did B+ become AVERAGE. I mean, let's all acknowledge that grade inflation is real, still, I have never seen any association between "B+" and AVERAGE. Even saying "B" is FINE is kinda weird and non-intuitive. But "B+" = average? There's no official or unofficial precedent for that, that I know of, and I've been putting grades on things for thirty years. Is there some kind of math in-joke here about grade inflation, i.e. that the "average" has "moved" over time from "C" (official "average") to B+ ("average" in practice)? I just can't square "B+ and AVERAGE. The latter two themers work much better than the first two. I believe that "A" = SUPER (despite the informality of that term) and "A+" = PERFECT, and BUILDING and PAST seem like very good descriptions of what one does in Wood shop and what one studies in History. But PARKING FINE is strange because PARKING is just one small element of Driver's Ed. The other themers have words that describe the totality of what's done or studied (MOVING, BUILDING, PAST), whereas PARKING is just a fragment. The theme seems half-busted to me today, despite the cleverness of the concept.

The puzzle was also way harder than I expected in parts. The entire NW was a bust for me at first. KISS-UP, yikes. I had -SUP at one point and still no idea. And KAPUT means "dead" to me. [Wrecked] is adjacent, but not really dead on, so those "K" crosses, oof. Killed me. Also, the cutesy injoke clue on IRATE meant nothing to me. Long clue that I didn't really understand (2D: Like a passionate solver discovering a filled-in airline magazine crossword, say). "Passionate" to IRATE, not a distance I was able to travel. IRATE seems insane, not "passionate." People solve the crosswords. That's what they're there fore. Yeesh. I always like finding a solve (or, more typically, partially solved) crossword in an in-flight magazine. You really learn ... a lot. About what people do ... and sometimes shockingly do not ... know. If not for the Münch painting up in that corner, I would've been really stuck. Another brutal clue: 26A: Tender bend-er (BUM KNEE). I am so confused about why there is a hyphen in "bend-er." Also, why there is no "?" on this clue, since it's clearly playing on "fender bender" (see how you don't hyphenate "bender"!!). I would not have minded this clue: [Tender bender?]. Still would've been tough, but at the least the punctuation would've made sense. I thought "Tender" was money, so I was quite lost. It's a cute clue, but confusing. 

Another difficulty: LOMO, which is quickly becoming neo-crosswordese, though since I still can't remember it, ever, it clearly hasn't achieved that status yet (this is its third NYTXW appearance, all since 2023). Stop convincing yourself that a partial Peruvian dish is good fill (LOMO means "spine" (?)—it seems to refer to the cut of beef: loin or tenderloin). Also, UTA, which was already crosswordese (see UTA Hagen), now apparently has a new clue. If only I knew the Mammoth played in UTAh. What an awful way to abbr. that state. More trouble with "WANNA SEE?," which did not clearly match its clue (37D: "Are you ready for this?"). If those colloquial imagined-speech clues don't land perfectly, they get very tough. I had fewer problems with the equally hyper-colloquial "IT'S LEGIT" (12D: "That checks out"). The clue on ACED, also tough in this odd adjectival form (52A: Like a tennis player who didn't even swing). I had ACHY. Made sense at the time. My boat had a SEA DECK before it had a SUN DECK (41D: Open-air part of a cruise ship). Very hard for me to get from [Nutrition sources] to DIETS. It's accurate enough, but again, the phrasing just felt ... odd. 

Bullets:

• 47A: Chemical suffix that indicates a double bond (ENE) — ugh, chemical suffixes. Bottom-rung fill. ENE is never going to be "good," so just make it a direction. Have fun with maps! [Memphis-to-Nashville dir.], something like that. Chemical suffix? Meh.
• 24A: Crop whose trade contributed to the Opium Wars (TEA) — one of those answers that I get in retrospect but that I absolutely did Not get during the solve. "Crop" "uh ... POPPIES? No? I'm out." 
• 61A: Stephen King's telekinetic teen of horror (CARRIE) — easy, but again, I do not understand the clue-writing at all. There's absolutely no need for "of horror" here. It's Stephen King. His name already says "horror." If you know CARRIE at all, you know what genre you're in. [Stephen King's telekinetic teen] is concise and has a beautiful rhythm to it. "Of horror" kills that, and for no good reason. Nobody's in danger of thinking CARRIE is [Stephen King's telekinetic teen of romantic comedy]. Come on. This is a harmless issue, but come on. 

• 6D: Bird that gives pebbles as a courtship gesture (PENGUIN) — I love bird clues but man this could've been anything as far as I was concerned. Luckily, by the time I saw the clue, I had the "-NGU-" in place, so no problem. 
• 9D: Actress Dowd of "The Handmaid's Tale" (ANN) — actress I've never heard of on show I've never seen and have no desire to see (I read the book, I'm good). Crosses were easy, ANN was inferable. no harm no foul.
• 50D: Fellow crew member (MATEY) —a [Fellow crew member] is a MATE. "MATEY" is some pirate-y, Popeye-esque slang, isn't it? I've only heard it in fictional contexts. The dictionary (m-w) has MATEY as an adjective ("companionable, sociable"). Every MATEY clue before this seems to have understood and appreciated and *indicated* the slanginess:

[xwordinfo]

• 38D: Fabulous, in slang (DOPE) — I went blank. With DO- staring at me, my brain completely emptied out. When I eventually got DOPE, I thought "... that's obvious. Why didn't you think of that immediately, you DOPE?" But I was talking to an empty brain, so ... no reply.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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