California's locale, according to natives lingo / FRI 11-6-26 / Greenish black rock? / Main role in "The Nutcracker" / Service replaced by Teams / Soda once advertised as "Shockingly refreshing" / Video game character with a spiky head / Spalding, 1984 Oscar-winning role for Sally Field / Popular hangout spots of the 1990s / Flatbread that might be served with cuajada / City north of Chandler / Kimono closers

Constructor: Aidan Deshong

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: bimah (28A: Scrolls that may be read from a bimah = TORAHS) —

: a raised platform in a synagogue from which the Torah is read (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

[17A: Soda once advertised as "Shockingly refreshing"]

It's been a long time since I timed my solves. At some point, I just found the clock a distraction and a pressure that I didn't want, so I usually solve now at a casual and untroubled pace. But my solving software is going to get an update soon and one of the new features is a post-solve GIF showing you (in fast motion) exactly the route you took through the puzzle, followed by your solving time. I'd tested the feature a few times on other puzzles, but I thought I'd try it out officially today. So here it is.

I've got it set so that the clock stays hidden while I'm solving, so it's not hovering in my periphery, taunting me. I see it only at the end. When the GIF finished and showed me a time of 4:58, I was ... hmm, what was I? I forget what my average times used to be on Friday. Somewhere in the 6s? I'm pretty sure that breaking 5 always felt like an accomplishment. My speed-solving typing feels much, much worse now. I'm pretty fat-fingered under ordinary typing circumstances, but speed me up and oof, the miscues come hot and heavy.  Anyway, I may keep the post-solve GIF feature turned off much of the time, as I don't really want to get all wrapped up in the clock again, but I do love being able to see exactly what path I took through the grid, errors and all. Very handy when it comes to reconstructing what the hell just happened, esp. if what the hell just happened was all over in under 5. 

[33A: Video game character with a spiky head]

As for the puzzle itself, lots of whoosh and zoom and lots of fresh answers with very little gunk, so I was satisfied. As a native Californian (San Francisco, 1969), the puzzle won me over at BEST COAST (8D: California's locale, according to natives' lingo)—although I will say that I never heard that expression until well after I'd left California for colder climes. This may be because I grew up in Fresno, which is far from any actual "coast." In fact, I think the first time I ever heard the term was when I learned of the band BEST COAST—I bought their album The Only Place back in 2012. It has an adorable California cover:

It's also just a great album. So, big smile there. My joy at BEST COAST was ultimately undone by CLEAN COAL, both because there's no such thing (it's a talking point of the worst climate change deniers in the world), and because the answer really held me up, more than any other answer (30D: Greenish black rock?). Unfortunate coincidence of tricky "?" clue and a crossing error that I made earlier, trying to spell DOGGONE IT (I had written in DOGGONNIT, like one word, which ... is a variant, but only with one "N," I think). That "N"-where-an-"E"-should be really gummed things up, especially because that answer (CLEAN COAL) was the only path through the extremely narrow passage into the SE (one of my least favorite grid features, the one-square-wide passage way—real flow-killer). So—a perfect storm of off-putting answer, tough clue, error, and puzzle architecture made that area By Far the toughest in the grid for me. If you watch the solving GIF, above, you can see that it's the very last part of the grid that I figured out. 

This puzzle has some good pairings, namely "HANG ON A SEC" next to "BE RIGHT BACK" and "DOGGONE IT!" over "OH, DEAR"—with both pairs getting identical clues (["Give me one moment..."] and ["Good grief!"], respectively). I'm normally not a fan of doubling clues —usually one of the answers doesn't quite work for the clue—also, why waste a cluing opportunity? Give me something new! That's how I usually feel. But today, the clues worked fine for all the answers, and the relevant answers were actually adjacent, so the twinning of the clues made sense. Beyond the CLEAN COAL fiasco, my main problem today was the back ends of longer answers. I had EMAIL and wanted SCAMS (10D: Messages sent from @nicrosoft.com addresses, perhaps = EMAIL HOAXES), then later had STARTER and wanted KITS (21D: Some collections of essentials = STARTER PACKS). Fortunately, neither wrong impulse actually fit in the space allotted, so I didn't write either of them in and get bogged down. But I definitely had to hack at crosses to uncover the correct second word in both cases. I also wanted "A BET'S A BET" not "A BET IS A BET," which sounds like a robot trying to be human. The phrase, as said in real time by real people, is "A BET'S A BET." I fixed my "mistake" easily, but didn't like it. But as I say, I otherwise, for the most part, liked this puzzle quite a bit.

Bullets:

• 16A: Stock exchange? (MOOS) — Had the -OS, wrote in "I DOs"—it's a stock exchange, your IDOS. Standard (stock) exchange (of vows). I really liked my answer! I get that cows are (live)stock, but who are the cows talking to that they're "exchanging" MOOS? Each other? Bah. When cows get married, do they exchange "I MOOs"? Also, can we pretend I didn't just say that. I'm too young to be the corny punning old man! (57 later this month ... that's too young, right? Right!?)
• 57A: Service replaced by Teams (SKYPE) — wait, SKYPE doesn't exist anymore? LOL I don't think I ever used it once, but I just assumed it was still around. I wrote in SLACK here before remembering that I actually use SLACK, so it can't have been "replaced."
• 10A: ___ Spalding, 1984 Oscar-winning role for Sally Field (EDNA) — yeesh, yikes, ouch. Who? I mean, I know who Sally Field is, but this character, this role... they don't even tell you the movie. I hate when clues leave this kind of pertinent information out. Not that knowing the title would've helped me remember the character, but still, it would've been nice. Is it Places in the Heart? It is!! Hurray, brain! Never saw it, but I have a pretty good memory for '80s Oscar bait. 

• 45A: Main role in "The Nutcracker" (CLARA) — another no-idea name. It's a ballet. Do people say her name? I don't remember any speaking or singing at all. But then I haven't seen it performed since I was a child.
• 30A: Popular hangout spots of the 1990s (CHAT ROOMS) — we used to be a real country!
• 41A: Item for a desert hike (CANTEEN) — me: "mmmm, dessert hike. Hmm. PIEEEEE?"
• 1A: Dating around? (CIRCA) — cute clue (CIRCA means "around" and is used when "dating" an object or event of an uncertain time). I got the answer quickly—so quickly that I doubted myself. But then I confirmed the "C" with CAST (1D: Something often signed by friends) and I was off.
• 42D: Flatbread that might be served with cuajada (AREPA) — one thing about modern crosswords—you really gotta know your flatbreads. In five letters, it's almost certainly AREPA. As for "cuajada":

Cuajada (milk curd) is a dairy product traditionally made from sheep's milk, but now it is more often made industrially from cow's milk. It is popular in the northern regions of Spain (Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country, Navarre, Aragon, Castile and Leon, and La Rioja). In Latin America it is popular in Colombia, Venezuela, and in the Central American countries of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and in the northern region of Costa Rica.

Raw warmed milk is mixed with rennet or plant extracts and left to curdle. It was traditionally made in a wooden vessel called kaiku and heated with a red-hot poker, giving it a distinct faintly burned taste. Commercial individual servings of cuajada are sold refrigerated in earthenware pots, but modernly plastic containers such as those of yogurt are also sold. Cuajada means "curdled" in Spanish. (wikipedia)

 

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Pioneers, in hip-hop slang / THU 11-5-26 / Nickname of the protagonist in 2024's "Anora" / Sea urchin, on a sushi menu / ___ Batlló, Antoni Gaudí masterpiece whose roof arch mimics a dragon's back / Big Apple menagerie / Refueling spot / Call made with outstretched arms

Constructor: David P. Williams

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

or

THEME: "IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME" (39A: Admission of confusion ... or a hint for interpreting four answers in this puzzle) — circled squares contain Greek letters (spelled out) in the Acrosses and LATIN letters (i.e. regular letters) in the Downs (59A: Like the alphabet of the circled letters in the Down answers, but not in the Across answers):

Theme answers:

• WALKIE-TALKIES / ACHY (17A: Hand-held communication devices / 5D: Feeling tender)
• CLASSIC HITS / BRONX ZOO (26A: Songs played on an oldies station / 11D: Big Apple menagerie)
• POWERHOUSES / PISAN (55A: Juggernauts / 56: Galileo, for one)
• SILENT AUCTION / ITEM (64A: Popular fund-raising event / 61D: Couple)

Word of the Day: CASA Batlló (1A: ___ Batlló, Antoni Gaudí masterpiece whose roof arch mimics a dragon's back) —

Casa Batlló (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈkazə βəˈʎːo]) is a building in the center of Barcelona, Spain. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí, and is considered one of his masterpieces. A remodel of a previously built house, it was redesigned in 1904 by Gaudí (although the actual construction had not begun at this point) and has been refurbished several times since. Gaudí's assistants Domènec Sugrañes i Gras, Josep Canaleta and Joan Rubió also contributed to the renovation project.

Casa Batlló is located on the Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample district and forms part of a row of houses known as the Illa de la Discòrdia (or Mansana de la Discòrdia, the "Block of Discord"), so named because it features four striking, and strikingly different, buildings by noted Modernista architects of Barcelona.

Like everything Gaudí designed, Casa Batlló is only identifiable as Modernisme in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, has unusual tracery, irregular oval windows and sculpted stonework with sinuous, squiggly forms. There are few straight lines, and much of the façade is decorated with a colorful mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles (trencadís).

In 2005, Casa Batlló became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• • •

This theme is missing something. Latin letters one way, Greek the other, fine. The revealer ... well, it happens to be a perfectly grid-spanning 15 letters long, which was probably the discovery that led to the theme. It's semi-apt, in that you might be confused by the theme answers, and "IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME" is an [Admission of confusion], but the "ALL" part seems like an overstatement and anyway, "it" is both Greek and LATIN, so I wouldn't say the revealer exactly sticks the landing, but it's close enough. The main issue for me was an overall feeling of "that's it?" Four letters? And they don't ... do anything? Add up to anything? Spell anything?” There are so few theme elements that it really seemed like those letters should make sense as a group, somehow. But no, the letters are arbitrary. Four Greek letters, for no coherent reason besides the fact that they are Greek. They aren't even particularly ambitious letters—let's see you do OMICRON, you COWARDs! But seriously, in a great puzzle, the puzzle would've found a way to make the set of letters make sense—the series would've built to something. But here, it's just ... four letters. Shrug. The grid is pretty clean, so it wasn't unpleasant to solve, but ultimately it was a little disappointing, thematically.

The Greek/LATIN trick was easy to uncover—I couldn't make heads or tails of anything in the NW, so I trotted over to the N, got started there and then fell down to CLASSI---. I wanted something like CLASSIC ROCK (a somewhat more solid phrase than CLASSIC HITS), but nothing I could think of fit. Then the crosses went in (easily), which left me with CLASSIXTS, and I inferred the LATIN-to-Greek trick pretty quickly. From there, it was back to the first themer, which got me into the NW that I had whiffed on the first time around, and from there, no more real hangups. 

Tough parts: 

• Having no idea about the CASA at 1A (see "Word of the Day") really kneecapped my start. Without the first letters for all the Downs up there, I was hopeless. Struck out. Zero for four.
• I had NIT for IRK (7D: Peeve). Did not comprehend that [Peeve] was a verb. Mostly used to seeing it as a noun (following "pet").
• I know FLO & Eddie, but I totally blanked on FLO. It's been a while. FLO & Eddie were founding members of the Turtles who were not allowed to use the name "Turtles" *or* their own actual names in a musical context, for contractual reasons, so they started as The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie and eventually ... well, FLO just sounds nicer than Phlorescent Leech. Unlike the Turtles ("Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me," "Elenore"), FLO & Eddie didn't really have any CLASSIC HITS. They worked with Zappa, and did a ton of backing vocal work for different artists, but I know only one actual FLO & Eddie song (it's a weird one, and a good one)

Bullets:

• 5A: Cheese that comes from northern Italy and not another continent! (ASIAGO) — first of all, "northern Italy" is not a "continent," so the phrasing here is, let's say, bad. I guess the "joke" of this clue is that the cheese name ASIAGO contains "ASIA" but that's not how you pronounce the name—it's not ASIA-GO, like "I want to GO to ASIA." If you really want a corny name-related joke, you'd be better off with a Shakespeare angle: [... and not how you'd go to an Othello-themed Halloween party!]. Something like that.
• 28D: British bottom (ARSE) — had the "R" and immediately and confidently wrote in PRAT. That's British slang for an incompetent or stupid person, but the word does also mean "buttocks."
• 46A: Political leader? (GEO) — in that GEO- can be a prefix for "Political." Yeah I don't love it either. Nor do I love the clue on ESS (66D: Letter indicating ownership?). I assume this is the possessive apostrophe-"S" that they're referring to (as in the phrase "dealer's choice").
• 10D: Refueling spot (OASIS) — so "refueling" is metaphorical, then? A place of refuge, where you can get water (in the desert), rest for a bit, eat something? 

• 2D: A gamer may use one (AVATAR) — Do you "use" them? Don't you just have them? An AVATAR is an image that represents the player. Not sure why, but "use" feels strange. Don't all players have AVATARs by default?
• 47A: Gray matter? (ODES) — yeesh, deep cut. Thomas Gray (1716-71) was a poet. Some of his poems were ODES. He's most famous for "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
• 8D: Nickname of the protagonist in 2024's "Anora" (ANI) — first thing in the grid for me. Nice late-week way to dodge a Star Wars reference (I've seen enough of young Anakin's nickname)
• 72A: Governor Gavin (NEWSOM) — Ugh. I'm thrilled with Tuesday's election results, obviously, but now that that's over, I gotta watch this blowdried billionaire-loving blowhard run for president for the next two years and I am Not looking forward to it. 

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. credit where credit is due:

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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Luxury brand known for its Rome-inspired designs / WED 11-4-26 / Magazine with "Decor" and "à Table" offshoots / She "dances on the sand" in a 1983 Duran Duran hit / Magical ally in "Argonautica"

Constructor: Peggy Sue Marlin

Relative difficulty: Hard (10:27)

THEME: ITS NOT A GOOD SIGN — "That spells trouble!" Literal signs that describe bad situations

Theme answers:

• SORRY WE'RE CLOSED for [56-Across on a store]
• OUT OF SERVICE for [56-Across on an elevator]
• EXPECT DELAYS for [56-Across on an interstate]
  

Word of the Day: HAIM (Rock band founded by three sisters) —

Sometimes I write a puzzle and complain about an entry like STAHL or ASTA or ESSO and commenters here tell me that I just have to memorize it and move in. Today I am here to tell you that y'all have to memorize HAIM. HAIM is going to appear in puzzles for the next decade, so let's all learn a little bit of info about them and commit them to memory. 

Haim, stylized in all caps as HAIM, is an American rock band, based in Los Angeles, composed of three sisters, Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim. The sisters grew up in a musical family, and began playing instruments from an early age. [wiki]

• • •

Hello, beautiful solvers! I am here for a Malaika MWednesday! Solving music for me was Choosin' Texas. Today's puzzle was a little hard for me, but not because of the theme, which fell into place quite easily. For some reason, I got super stuck in the lower-left. I think it's because the term MAN PURSES is so foreign to me. I vaguely remember the term "murse" being used at some point, but never this terminology and certainly not in the last decade.

I truly thought, until tonight while solving this puzzle, that the second letter in this brand name was a V

I loved the chatty tone of this puzzle! People like to praise themeless puzzles when they have multi-word, conversational entries. I think they are harder to use in themed puzzles, so it is more of a treat to see them here. I really wanted the revealer to be "that's not a good sign," but since the word "that" was used in the clue, I knew that wasn't possible. (I'll have to take your word that the third theme answer is accurate, I haven't driven on an interstate regularly in years.) The entries here are a perfect example of how to utilize a word that has two meanings in the revealer-- "sign" meaning symbolic omen and "sign" meaning a physical display.

The chatty tone continued in some of the clues. I've been writing crossword clues for about seven years now (compared to a lot of people, that's not very long by the way!) and learned that in newspaper puzzles, I should aim for concise, tight phrasing. Clues like [A cyclops has one] or [A secret message might be in this] sound wordy to me. But I also think that as the Crossworld begins to contain more and more digital-only puzzles (where succint-ness matters less), wordier clues are spreading. Do you notice these types of clues, like I do? Or do they sound normal to you?

Bullets:

• [Lines at a supermarket checkout, for short] for UPC — This was new to me! UPC is apparently another name for a bar code, hence "lines"
• [She "dances on the sand" in a 1983 Duran Duran hit] for RIO — The song is about the city, which they personify, but it reminded me of a discussion that I had with a friend about how there are so few traditionally female names that end with an O and so few traditionally male names that end with an A. (We didn't count things like Jonah or Noah.)
• [Sourdough starter?] for ESS — The answer is a spelled out letter S, which "starts" the word "sourdough"
• [Foot joint sprain, familiarly] for TURF TOE — Totally new term for me!

xoxo Malaika

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Oscar's deskmate on "The Office" / TUE 11-3-26 / Marvel actress Vellani / Michael Jordan and Anatole France? / Set up as MacGyver might / Lego brick protrusion

Constructor: Victor Schmitt

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: pairs of people whose last names are similar types of things — familiar phrases are clued as if they described pairs of people with apt names:

Theme answers:

• COUNTRY BOYS (18A: Michael Jordan and Anatole France?) (Jordan and France are both countries)
• LANDLADIES (28A: Faith Hill and Sally Field?) (hill and field are both … land)
• MATERIAL GIRLS (34A: Jenny Slate and Emma Stone?) (slate and stone are both materials)
• WEATHERMEN (41A: John Snow and Robert Frost?) (snow and frost are both weather)
• CAREER WOMEN (53A: Sabrina Carpenter and Anita Baker?) (carpenter and baker are both careers)

Word of the Day: John Snow (see 41A) —

John Snow (15 March 1813 – 16 June 1858) was an English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology and early germ theory, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in London's Soho, which he identified as a particular public water pump. Snow's findings inspired fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities, and a significant improvement in general public health around the world.

• • •

Seemed like more of a Wednesday-type theme—no revealer, mysterious pairs of people followed by "?"... it was thinkier than most Tuesdays typically are. Even after I basically got the theme, I kept forgetting that the people were linked by their last names, not their professions. Like with 41A: John Snow and Robert Frost? I thought "there's a poet named John Snow? That's weird, never heard of him." Yes, that's because (unlike Robert Frost) he is not a poet, but an epidemiologist. So I would probably have slotted this puzzle tomorrow, just because of the mild strangeness of the theme, but the theme itself is sound and (in the end) simple enough. I had no idea what was happening with LANDLADIES, my first themer. "LAND" is a pretty big category, and was not at all an intuitive way to link those last names ("hill," "field"). Plus, at that point, I didn't even know we were supposed to link the last names—those last names aren't so alike that I noticed the connection. All I saw were two entertainers—I think Faith Hill has even acted before, so maybe two actresses?; the last name thing missed me. I got it with Michael Jordan and Anatole France—though again, the answer, COUNTRY BOYS, had to come almost entirely from crosses. Jordan and France both say "country" a lot louder than Hill and Field say "land," plus Michael Jordan and Anatole France are different enough from each other that I didn't try to link them by profession. Jenny Slate and Emma Stone *are* both actresses, so again, the last-name link is not the thing that stands out. I think I also got thrown by the similarity of "Frost" and "Snow," weatherwise. I was thinking "cold," not the broad category of "weather." I got through it all without too much trouble, but it definitely involved more thought than Tuesday puzzles typically do. 

I only know one COUNTRY BOY, and that's John Denver, so the plural there felt odd, but ... wait, nope, I know another COUNTRY BOY; I forgot about Willy McCoy, aka "Slim." You know? Comes from South Alabama? Plays pool? You don't mess around with him? Sure, you know him: 

["Well outta South Alabama come a COUNTRY BOY, / He said 'I'm lookin' for a man named Jim. / I am a pool-shootin' boy, my name is Willy McCoy, but down home they call me Slim...'"]

So that makes two noted COUNTRY BOYS. I feel better now about the plural. As for CAREER WOMAN ... that term feels dated. Like, very dated. Very very. Back from the days when the idea of a woman having a "career" was considered a novelty, like a juggling seal. Do seals juggle or just play horns with their noses? Anyway, there's something very "anxiety about women in the workplace"-coded about the very phrase. I cannot imagine anyone's using this phrase to describe a woman today. I guess it's a step up from "career girl" or "career gal," but still, it has a tone. "Well, look at you, doing man stuff, how adorable!" Or, more likely, "Shouldn't you be at home raising babies?" No. 

["A CAREER WOMAN finds that her selfish pursuit of success is costly." (1951)]

I had trouble with several answers today. I've never once thought of the bump on a Lego brick as a STUD, so that was weird (6D: Lego brick protrusion). The PIÑATAS clue baffled me, since I would never think of PIÑATAS as "wrapping" the candy. They contain it. Fooled me there. Also, I couldn't even make grammatical sense of the MacGyver clue (31D: Set up as MacGyver might). Set up what? Is he setting himself up? I really thought the clue was asking about how MacGyver positions himself somehow, which made JURY-RIG a surprise. "Did he JURY-RIG himself??" Probably, but anyway, mostly he JURY-RIGged various devices, repurposing them for some heretofore unthought-of use. I also got slowed down by IMAGERS, despite being the son of a radiologist. Not a word I heard. "Imaging," "Imaging machines," these are familiar to me. I can see how IMAGERS makes sense. Just now a word that leapt to me. I've used it in my life about as often as I've used ONAGERS. 

[picture taken ay an ONAGER IMAGER]

Bullets:

• 4A: Butter up? (BASTE) — this was a great clue for ARIES (when was that, last week?). This is a far less great clue for BASTE. I guess you add the "up" just to be misdirective, but basting is just literally buttering up the ... let's say, turkey.
• 24A: Le Pew who could rightfully ask "Ain't I a stinker?" (PEPE) — first, Bugs asked that, not PEPE Le Pew. Second, no cutesy clues for rapist skunks. Please send this noted sexual assailant back to cartoon oblivion, thanks v. much.

• 46A: Muscle that's a neighbor of a delt (PEC) — second time in two days that I'm gonna quibble with a PEC clue. Actually, it's not a quibble about meaning, it's a quibble about phrasing. I don't think you need "Muscle that's a" in this clue at all. Why not streamline it. [Neighbor of a delt]. Everyone knows the delt is a muscle (and if they don't, then they probably don't know PEC's a muscle either).  Oh, [Delt neighbor]! Even more concise. If you don't have anything clever to offer, opt for concision.
• 37D: "I'm so frustrated!" ("GAH!') — my most consequential misstep today, but far. I wrote in "GRR," which made TEARY impossible to see, which meant that I didn't get the help from TEARY that I needed in order to get PIÑATAS ... real domino effect caused by "GRR," which really felt right. So both "GRR!" and "GAH!" to that answer, I say.
• 51D: Marvel actress Vellani (IMAN) — is that just a thing you can be now? A "Marvel actress?" I've never heard of this person in my life. Thank god we got her (ultimately inferable) first name and not her last. You could at least do her and us the courtesy of mentioning the role she's known for: Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (a character I'm familiar with, though only from comics—I gave up on Marvel movies entirely the better part of a decade ago—I think Black Panther may be the last one I saw).

Now, please enjoy one of the greatest pop songs of all time. WEATHERMEN are fine, but can they do this?:

["I'm gonna go out / I'm gonna let myself get / Absolutely soakin' wet!"]

That's all for today. See you next time. And if you haven't already: VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE! 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. long discussion of "jury-rigged" v. "jerry-rigged" v. "jerry-built" here at M-W.com

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Puffy, pink protagonist of Nintendo fame / MON 11-2-26 / Upper regions of the sky, poetically / Hexagonal mesh used to fence in poultry / Home installation providing propane to a grill or fireplace / Mountain cryptid whose name inspired a water-bottle brand / "Received and understood," in radio lingo

Constructor: Max Schlenker

Relative difficulty: Challenging (solved Downs-only) 

THEME: "I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT" (60A: "It all makes sense now!" ... or what you may exclaim after combining the ends of 17-, 23-, 36- and 51-Across) — last words of themers combine (?) to make (electric) light:

Theme answers:

• EMOTIONAL OUTLET (17A: Activity that helps one release pent-up feelings)
• CHICKEN WIRE (23A: Hexagonal mesh used to fence in poultry)
• TULIP BULB (36A: Early bloomer?)
• STAY CURRENT (51A: Be up-to-date with the news)

Word of the Day: KIRBY (25D: Puffy, pink protagonist of Nintendo fame) —

Kirby is a media franchise created by Japanese video game designer and director Masahiro Sakurai. The franchise revolves around the titular protagonist and his adventures on the fictional planet Popstar and beyond. The franchise is primarily developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo, with both companies jointly owning the property.

The franchise mainly consists of a video game series, which in turn mainly comprises platformers. The first game in the series, Kirby's Dream Land, was released in 1992. The second, Kirby's Adventure (1993), introduced Kirby's signature ability to copy enemy skills, allowing him to use them to progress through levels, distinguishing the series from other entries in the genre. The series also includes games in the puzzle and racing genres. Sakurai conceived the franchise as a game series for beginners, to which he partially attributes the series' success. Currently, the video game series contains thirty-nine games with over 50 million games sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises.

The franchise also includes an anime television series based on the video games, Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, which aired from 2001 to 2003 and also includes a special; and several manga series. (wikipedia)

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After I "combine" an outlet, wire, bulb and current? Who am I, Edison? I just plug in my lamp, and flip a switch, man. It's just electricity. I guess the "combine" thing is supposed to elevate the puzzle above the rudimentary "last words"-type of puzzle, where all the last words have something in common, but whatever scenario it's imagining where "I" "exclaim" something doesn't really land. Still, the theme answers are strong in their own right, and the grid is somewhat more interesting overall than your typical Monday grid, so the puzzle's got those things going for it. The reason the fill is more interesting than usual is precisely the reason this puzzle was So much harder than usual (from a Downs-only perspective): namely, that there were not 4, not 8, not 12, but 13 (!) 7-letter Downs. Four banks of three, each of which was, to varying degrees, a bear. In general, the longer the answer, the harder it is to get with no crosses (which is what you're doing most of the time when you're solving Downs-only), so a bank of three can be daunting, and four banks of three, yikes—odds are you're gonna get hung up somewhere. For me, it was the NW above all. No way I was getting to THE GOAT with no help from crosses (1D: Highest-caliber athlete, to fans) (THE GOAT is actually the highest-caliber *anything*, to fans, but we'll let that go). "HUMOR ME" = brutal without help from crosses (2D: "Follow my train of thinking, OK?!"). Why is there an exclamation point in that clue?! I managed to get EGO TRIP, eventually, even though I wouldn't characterize an EGO TRIP as an "endeavor" (3D: Self-aggrandizing endeavor). Worst of all, I could not see what the first beginning of EMOTIONAL OUTLET was supposed to be, even after getting it down to ---TIONAL OUTLET! All I could think of was NATIONAL OUTLET. Gah! I also had CLOTH as FIBER for a bit (5D: Cotton or silk), so that didn't help.

Other corners were somewhat easier, though again, the clue phrasing threw me. I would never think of a GAS PIPE as an "installation," though I suppose that is a defensible characterization (39D: Home installation providing propane to a grill or fireplace). The PIPE part was quite a chore for me. The NE was probably the easiest of the corners, with the difficulty of the corners getting increasingly difficult as you move clockwise from there. But the part of the Downs-only experience that really got me was not a corner at all. It was the middle, specifically KIRBY. I thought for sure I was dead there. K---B- and no idea what to do. Even now, having looked up KIRBY for today's "Word of the Day," I just ... don't know. Like, it's a familiar pink blob, but I don't think I've known anyone who played a KIRBY game, or ever discussed KIRBY, or anything. Been around over 30 years and ... honestly, I've got nothing. It has made only the faintest impression in my mind. Looking up the NYTXW history of KIRBY, I now see that I had the *exact* same experience the *last* time I saw Kirby in a puzzle, in June of last year:

As I said, the difficulty shot way up for me once I hit the equator of this puzzle, due almost entirely to not knowing what the **** a KIRBY is (see "Word of the Day," above). Apparently the roster of characters in the Greater Nintendo Universe is inexhaustible and it's my sad fate to continue finding this out, in puzzle after puzzle, ad infinitum, like Sideshow Bob, just stepping on rakes, for the rest of my solving life.

So. Here I am again. Just a man, standing in front of a KIRBY, asking "WTF are you?" Anyway, somehow I managed to look at WA-TS and get beyond WATTS and WANTS to WARTS, and *that* is what finally knocked KIRBY loose from my brain. Ugh. Maybe if there had been more KIRBY ... what, movies? Toys? Something? Then his (his?) name might've stuck. Hopefully it sticks now. I still think the hardest part of the puzzle, from a Downs-only perspective, is the NW, but not knowing KIRBY didn't help! So slow. Over 8 minutes on a Monday!? LOL, that's my usual Saturday time. But when you're dead-stopped, as I was several times today, the clock ... doesn't care. 

Bullets:

• 64A: Muscle used in a dumbbell bench press, informally (PEC) — "dumbbell" is totally unnecessary here. Just say "bench press." Whatever "bench press" you can imagine, it's working your PECs, I promise. 
• 4D: Mountain cryptid whose name inspired a water-bottle brand (YETI) — just because a brand is named after something does not mean that thing "inspired" the brand. It's a water bottle. I don't believe the YETI "inspired" the brand. Someone just thought the name sounded cool. The end. YETI do not drink from water bottles. Even an amateur yetiologist knows this. They drink the blood of KIRBYs. Read a book!
• 46D: Nine-time Grammy winner Frank (SINATRA) — me, at first, sincerely: "Why won't OCEAN fit!?"

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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