Its famous holes are formed by propionibacteria / SUN 11-1-26 / Repeated words in the chorus of "Sweet Child o' Mine" / Titular fictional heroine from the Alps / Pitch raisers for guitarists / Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. / Beethoven work originally titled "Bonaparte" / Symbol for a stop on a subway map / Roald Dahl title character who subsists on "snozzcumbers," with "the" / Payment inits. found in "debt-free" / Member of the largest contiguous empire in history

Constructor: Kevin Curry and Zhou Zhang

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Be Amazed" — the grid ends up being a visual representation of a LABRAT maze, with "CHEESE" (in a single square) at the end of the maze route. Shaded squares in theme answers form hidden (i.e. unclued) obstacles that the rat has to maneuver around on its way to the cheese. Also on the way to the cheese—circled letters spelling out the title of a "1998 book": WHO MOVED MY [Cheese]?

There are puzzle notes:

Theme answers:

• OBSTACLE COURSE (30A: Appetizers, entree or dessert)
• ROOM DIVIDER (15D: Unit in the game Clue)
• STONEWALL (69A: Slingshot ammo)
• BARRIER REEF (67D: Many a shipwreck site)
• INVISIBLE FENCE (99A: Out of sight)

Word of the Day: Who Moved My Cheese?  —

Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life is a 1998 motivational business fable by Spencer Johnson about change in work and life. The book is written as a parable about two mice and two "Littlepeople" during their hunt for cheese. A New York Times business bestseller upon release, Who Moved My Cheese? remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list. As of 2018, it has sold almost 30 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books. In November 2018, it was followed by a sequel called Out of the Maze. [...] In the corporate environment, management has been known to distribute this book to employees during times of "structural reorganization", or during cost-cutting measures, in an attempt to portray unfavorable or unfair changes in an optimistic or opportunistic way. This has been characterized by Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America as an attempt by organizational management to make employees quickly and unconditionally assimilate management ideals, even if they may prove detrimental to them professionally. Ehrenreich called the book "the classic of downsizing propaganda" and summarizes its message as "the dangerous human tendencies to 'overanalyze' and complain must be overcome for a more rodentlike approach to life. When you lose a job, just shut up and scamper along to the next one."

• • •

Hello from Halloween central—it's currently prime trick-or-treating hours (Saturday night, 10-31-26), and I'm up here trying to get the first part of blogging done so I can then go back downstairs and hand out candy to kiddies and finish watching Psycho (an annual tradition). Speaking of Psycho—I laughed out loud when I hit EROICA (which may be the only time that has ever happened or is ever likely to happen) (113A: Beethoven work originally titled "Bonaparte"), since that is the record that Marion's sister Lila finds on Norman Bates's turntable when she's wandering the Bates mansion looking for evidence of what happened to her sister—before Norman catches on that she's in there, runs up there from the motel, quickly changes into "Mother's" clothes, and then tries to kill Lila in the fruit cellar (I've seen this movie a Lot):

Unlike Psycho, or having your house beset by literally hundreds of trick-or-treaters because it's a beautiful Saturday night and you live in a very walkable and trick-or-treatable neighborhood, this puzzle wasn't very scary. I finished it with almost no trouble, despite the fact that I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be seeing, and I certainly have never read the book Who Moved My Cheese? So disappointed to read the puzzle notes and see that the puzzle was based on a "1998 book," only to have that book be some business book (?). I remember it being Very popular, but it seemed like some kind of businessy self-help something-or-other, so all I really know about it is the title. Really wanted the "1998 book" to be some kind of kid's book or some fantasy novel about a LAB RAT ... but no. Business book. Maybe if I'd read the book, the puzzle would've been more fun to solve. I guess the idea of hunting for cheese in a maze is key to the "ideas" of the book? Shrug. I admire the architecture of this one, and I really like the way the various obstacles were handled—formally unclued, but visually clued just fine, i.e. the clue for OBSTACLE COURSE points only to "COURSE" (30A: Appetizers, entree or dessert), but since you know you're dealing with a lab rat, the idea that those shaded squares represent barriers of some kind makes sense, especially after you piece together the first one or two. The whole maze conceit didn't gel for me visually at all, though, until the app did the work for me at the end, showing me the rat, drawing the rat's course through the grid, etc. So the "Aha" moment felt forced—like, I said "Aha," but only as the result of a post-solve visual representation, not as a result of figuring anything out myself. Disappointing in that regard. Clearly this puzzle literally wasn't for me (as I know nothing about this book), but I could still appreciate what the constructors were trying to do.

The fill must've been fine because I don't recall cringing much. Maybe I was just going too fast to notice. Crossing REHEAR with REDEALT is maybe not the most elegant moment. But aside from a smattering of crosswordese, the fill by and large seems fine. I didn't get hung up anywhere except the Taylor Swift song—I can hear the quoted lyric in my head, with the right cadence and notes and everything, but it's like a snippet that exists out of context (14D: Taylor Swift hit with the lyric" You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye"). I kept trying to follow it to some kind of recognizable chorus, but: no dice. If you'd given me a list of one-word title options, I doubt I could've told you the title was "STYLE." In fact, I know I couldn't have. Maybe if it was a multiple-choice test and the options were A. "Fun" B. "Run" C. "Jump" D. "Style" E. "Power" ... maybe. 


Bullets:

• 12A: Repeated words in the chorus of "Sweet Child o' Mine" (OHS) — one of my favorite moments of the solve, as I kept singing the song to myself, trying to figure out exactly what the "chorus" was, looking for a sequence of "words" that was repeated ... only to discover it's just the one "word," "OH," said over and over again. I think that besides "Sweet child o' mine" and a smattering of "ooh"s and "yeah"s, the "OHS" are the *only* words in the chorus. Let's find out.

• 26A: Roald Dahl title character who subsists on "snozzcumbers," with "the" (BFG) — I never read this, so all I ever remember about the title is that it's three (to me) random letters that are something like "B.F.D." (big f***ing deal). Is the title character a gnome? Does BFG stand for big F***ing Gnome? ... [checks] ... I mean, close: Big Friendly Giant.

• 59A: Payment inits. found in "debt-free" (EBT) — also found in ... "debt." Weird clue. Is the idea that when you use EBT you do not incur debt (because it's a government benefits program)? Still a weird clue.
• 73A: Greek goddess whose chariot is pulled by Firebright and Daybright (EOS) — three letters, ends in "S," Greek goddess—I don't really need to read the rest of the clue, although I am surprised to find that a Greek goddess has horses with names that make them sound like Care Bears or My Little Ponies (the latter is probably more apt).
• 12D: Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. (OCD) — am I supposed to just know what "C.B.T." is? Oh wait, is it Cognitive Behavioral Therapy!? Ha ha, bingo! EBT! CBT! BFG! OCD!

• 18D: Symbol for a stop on a subway map (DOT) — one of the hardest clues for me. "Symbol" had me thinking something much more ... symbolic. But it's just a DOT. Which is, technically, a "symbol," I guess. But it's not like a dog or an owl or a little house or even a star ... something more picturesque, which is what *I* was picturing.
• 31D: "___ your heart!" ("BLESS") — first guess, before I'd properly assessed the length of the answer or anything:

• 93D: ___ Arbor (ANN) — outside of the general NYC area, the crosswordingest cities in the U.S., judging by my correspondence / supporters, are Minneapolis/St. Paul and ANN Arbor. Pound for pound, it might be ANN Arbor. It's possible other cities have a lot of solvers and they're just solving other crosswords. Or people in those cities just don't care for me, who can say?

That's all for today. See you next time. And happy November (the best month)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. the latest episode of "Crosstalk" (a crossword construction podcast hosted by Daniel Grinberg) features a charming and insightful interview with Zhou Zhang (half of today's husband/wife construction team). Highly recommended. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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