Maine city near the mouth of the Kennebec River / WED 9-2-26 / Multiple-choice selection on a midterm, say: Abbr. / Meh … or medium-temp

Constructor: Mac Motz

Relative difficulty: Easy (9:53)

THEME: M AND MS — Each clue starts with an M and has a second M-word in it

Theme answers:

• [Multicolored implements in many art drawers] for BMAGIC MARKERS
• [Marauder's Map encryption phrase in "Harry Potter"] for MISCHIEF MANAGED
• [M.L.B. M.V.P. nicknamed the "Commerce Comet"] for MICKEY MANTLE
• [Maniacs, maybe] for MAD MEN

Word of the Day: EFT (Movement of money digitally from bank to bank, in brief) —

Electronic funds transfer is the transfer of money from one bank account to another, either within a single financial institution or across multiple institutions, via computer-based systems.

• • •

Hi pals! It's Malaika here for a Malaika MWednesday! The weather in NYC has been atrocious today, like being inside of a swamp. Blech. I hope wherever you are reading this from, things are clearer, sunnier, and brighter! 

just swamp things iykyk

Y'all... I opened this puzzle and I sighed. Deeply. I am sure Mac Motz is a lovely person, and I hope he continues to make puzzles, and I get that his name matches this theme. I really get it!! I, in fact, did a similar thing when I first started making puzzles!! Samesies!!!!! This is not a blog post hating on Mac Motz, it is a blog post hating on the NYT editors, because they should have clocked that this is not a theme worthy of being published by an outlet with like a 3% acceptance rate.

First of all, we already did this. Not only have we already done this, but we already did this on a Malaika MWednesday and I already wrote a write-up about how much I hate this type of theme!!!!! Here it is.

I simply do not understand why you would challenge yourself to make the clues less fun, more monotonous (M&M lol), and clunkier. Why?? Why????? I do not want to be stumbling over confusing phrasing, I want to be delighted by wordplay! [Made eyes at in the manner of a satyr] ???????? wtf is this!!!! In a way, the constructor is the one who gets the puzzle... They get to play a game of Scattergories with entries that they themselves picked. We get to glance at the page for one second, say "Oh boy there are a lot of Ms" and then read clues like [Milliners manufacture them]. 

As I said in my previous Deja Vu Malaika MWednesday write-up, the solver is left with a themeless puzzle that has bad clues. And the stats on this one are rough. There are only five entries in the whole grid that are longer than six letters. (Yesterday's puzzle had fourteen, for comparison.) Three are the theme entries and the other two are.... RICOCHET and ILLINOIS. There are also twenty-five three-letter entries, which is pretty frowned upon. (There are only so many three-letter entries in the world, so we see the same ones over and over in puzzles and they can be hard to clue in an interesting way. In a puzzle where the theme is already "tortured clues," a ton of three-letter words is yet another obstacle.)

This is maybe the meanest I've ever been on this blog. I'm sorry :( Mac, I am ready to solve your next puzzle, whenever and wherever it is!!

Bullets:

• [Making out openly or a mobile device, in brief] for PDA — I don't think I've seen the NYT do this before where they literally just give two different definitions for the entry
• [Multiple-choice selection on a midterm, say: Abbr.] for ANS — The puzzle wants you to think that ANS is an agreed upon abbreviation for the term "answer"
• [Mild-mannered characteristic?] for HYPHEN — This was a good clue!
• [Maximum measure of attractiveness, say] for A TEN — Parse this like "she's a ten out of ten"

xoxo Malaika

P.S. I had a little themed puzzle on Puzzmo last week, if you'd like to solve!

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Rolled out unannounced? / TUE 9-1-26 / Noted magnate on the Titanic / Highest-grossing moviei of the 1970s / Indigo dye / Writer ___ Rogers St. Johns / Like un homme with a Napoleon complex / Fidget spinners and Labubu dolls, for two / Andy Taylor's boy on old TV / "Ism" that might result from a schism

Constructor: Paul Hudes and Margot Kohn

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

[5D: Highest-grossing movie of the 1970s]

THEME: on the web... — familiar phrases are clued as if they were websites (the clues are actual URLs)

Theme answers:

• BURIAL SITE (17A: https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil?)
• SAUSAGE LINK (26A: https://www.hot-dog.org?)
• HOME ADDRESS (41A: https://www.zillow.com?)
• SENATE PAGE (54A: https://www.congress.gov?)

Word of the Day: Labubu dolls (36D: Fidget spinners and Labubu dolls, for two) —

Labubu (/lɑːˈbuːbu/ lah-BOO-boo; Chinese: 拉布布; pinyin: Lābùbù) is a line of collectible plush toys created by Hong Kong illustrator Kasing Lung. The series features zoomorphic elves with exaggerated facial expressions, of which the central figure is Labubu, a monster with sharp teeth, large ears and a scruffy appearance.

The toys are produced and sold exclusively by the China-based retailer Pop Mart, which primarily releases Labubu figures in sealed "blind box" packaging that conceals the specific character inside. Over time, the series expanded to include different versions of Labubu and other related figures, often released in limited runs or as part of themed sets.

Labubu toys became especially popular in 2024 across East and Southeast Asia, becoming one of Pop Mart's signature characters and a central figure in the global blind box collecting trend. The character has also inspired collaborations with fashion brands and limited-edition art figures. Academic research has examined consumer behavior surrounding the Labubu series, particularly in relation to scarcity-based marketing strategies. [...] 

In 2025, New York magazine's Liza Corsillo wrote that the "toy's appeal is fueled by a hard-to-explain cuteness—they're kind of ugly, but huggable, with a devilish grin—as well as surprise and scarcity." Corsillo also wrote that, like Jellycat, Labubus blur "the line between toys and fashion". [...] In July 2025, authorities in Iraq's Kurdistan Region announced they had banned the sale of the doll due to claims that they resulted in behavioral problems in children. Authorities also seized at least 4,000 dolls in the Erbil area, following media reports of the dolls also containing 'demonic spirits'. (wikipedia)

• • •

[in case you're wondering what the good folks at hot-dog dot org get up to...]

If nothing else, this puzzle finally made me look up what the hell "labubu" meant. For a while now, it's been one of those words that would fly by me in various pop culture discussions, maybe on podcasts or something, and I'd think "nope, don't want to know." Honestly, it sounded like a euphemism for genitals, something cutesy you'd call your vagina. Probably the "lab-" part. Labubu, labia; vajayjay, vagina. You can see why, with zero context, my brain went there. Or you can't. Whatever, the point is, like most pop culture fads, None of My Business. I did not particularly want to know what a "Labubu doll" (!) might be. But today I had a reason to find out, so ... I did. And honestly the reality is kind of disappointing. They're just ... like Beanie Babies? Again? We're doing this again? OK. Enjoy! Also, you should now definitely look for LABUBU—coming soon to a grid near you. As for the grid that is currently near you (i.e. today's puzzle), it's fine. It does a little pun thing four different ways. Using actual URLs is kinda clever. And I like how the theme clues managed to hit four different internet domain names (mil, org, com, gov). The variety is a small but nice detail. Overall: straightforward, simple, cute.

The fill drifts into some rickety and ye olden territory at times, though. You brought back ANIL and ADELA back from the dead in the same puzzle? (51D: Indigo dye / 61A: Writer ___ Rogers St. Johns). You can see how these once-popular answers ("popular" because constructors did not have software to help make them go away) have faded dramatically in prevalence over time:

Finding both those words in the same SE corner was kind of jarring. Less jarring but still rough were ACTAS and RTS sharing a corner, and OPIE crossing EPEE. Unremarkable stuff, except ... I remarked upon it because of the density. The longer fill is decent, but the shorter fill made me wince a little today. Just felt stale, like not enough care had been taken to polish the grid, to scrub it of abbrs. and dated and/or ugly little stuff. Also, the combo of TPED (a "word" that always looks horrible spelled out) (52D: Rolled out unannounced?) and PANTSED gave the puzzle an unappealingly childish vibe (39D: Pulled down a pair?) (the fact that both clues are cutesy only deepened this vibe). NO SPOILERS lost whatever juice it might've had because we just saw it a few days ago—not the puzzle's fault, but it added to the kind of anemic feel of the fill. But PASADENA and SETH MEYERS are pleasant proper nouns—I really like PASADENA, as a place—and STAR WARS ... well, it's a Star Wars reference, obviously, but at least it goes whole hog. It's the whole damn title, not just some piece of detritus like LEIA, HAN, YODA, REN, etc. Overall, the grid is at least competent, and the theme is nice enough that the puzzle ends up in "thumbs up" territory.

Bullets:

• 29A: Risky bets (FLIERS) — I use this term all the time, but mostly when I decide to try something (often food, or maybe a record) that I've never tried or possibly even heard of before ... which I guess is a form of "risky bet."
• 26D: Amy Poehler's onetime partner on "Weekend Update" (SETH MEYERS) — kind of a throwback clue, considering he's got his own late night show now and has for ... a while (since 2014, wow, longer than I thought).
• 40D: Like un homme with a Napoleon complex (PETIT) — this was weird. I guess you had to go to French because PETIT is a word in English only in legal contexts. PETITE is a word, obviously, but it's got that "E" and applies almost exclusively to girls and women. In French, "PETIT" just means "small" (masc.), so a man can be PETIT there. I am a tall man myself, so whatever complex I have, this ain't it, but I do have to say "Napoleon complex" seems like a "derogatory social stereotype" (wikipedia's words), a way of mocking guys for being short, perhaps for doing the very same (obnoxious) things that taller men do all the time. If you know a number of short guys who are "overly aggressive or domineering," consider how many average-sized and tall guys you know who behave exactly the same way. You can criticize a short man for various shortcomings and leave his shortness out of it (see also fat people / fatness—even more so). 

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Fruit-resembling mollusk / MON 8-31-26 / Ham on an antipasto platter / Umbrella-shaped sea creature / Redding with two posthumous Grammys / Ski in zigzags / Attire for the Sugar Plum Fairy

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "SPREAD THE WORD!" (51A: "Tell everyone!" ... or what to do with the starts of 20-, 31- and 44-Across) — first parts of theme answers are things that you "spread" (on bread)

Theme answers:

• BUTTERFINGERS (20A: One who regularly drops things)
• JELLYFISH (31A: Umbrella-shaped sea creature)
• HONEYMOON (44A: Newlyweds' getaway)

Word of the Day: MARSHA P. Johnson (28D: ___ P. Johnson (gay rights activist)) —

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 3, 1992) was an American LGBTQ activist, sex worker and performer. Sometimes known as the "Saint of Christopher Street", she is considered an important figure in the LGBTQ and transgender rights movements due to her involvement in the Stonewall riots, her work with Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and her advocacy for people with AIDS.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Johnson wore women's clothing for the first time when she was five years old. After graduating from high school, she moved to Manhattan, where she regularly spent time on 42nd Street in Times Square, working at the local Childs Restaurants and supplementing her income through begging and sex work. Often going out in partial drag, she became well known for her vibrant accessories. She participated in the Stonewall riots in 1969, though her exact role is debated, and afterward, she was active in the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) and Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In 1970, she participated in the Weinstein Hall occupation and helped found STAR, which provided food and shelter for transgender youth through STAR House, a four-bedroom rental home in the East Village.

After STAR's dissolution in 1973, Johnson began performing with various theatrical troupes around Manhattan, including the Angels of Light and the Hot Peaches. After the beginning of the AIDS pandemic in New York in 1980, she cared for her friends who were dying of AIDS and engaged in AIDS-related activism. She disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1992, with her body being found floating in the Hudson River on July 6. While police initially ruled her death a suicide, many speculate that she was either murdered, chased into the water, or fell in accidentally. She was 46. (wikipedia)

• • •

Today (Sunday evening, as I'm writing this) is something called "Porchfest" in Binghamton. Musicians of various kinds play from the front porches of people's homes on the West Side, with music starting some time around midday and going until ... well, I can hear a concert going on right now, just over the back from where I live, so ... still going on. It's a fun end-of-summer community event. Not fun for me, exactly, but people seem to like it, and it's very family-friendly, and the weather is nice for walking around and hearing music outside, so ... that's nice. For them. For me, I'm just grateful I am on the far outskirts of it all, so the music has not been very noticeable most of the day and is not likely to keep me up. Right now, however, it's very very audible, and I have a hard time writing in a noisy environment ... or, I have a hard time enjoying writing in a noisy environment. I just endured somebody's idea of "Johnny B. Good," so maybe you sympathize. Maybe not. Anyway, I'm going to keep this relatively short. I really am happy that my community is (largely) happy. Not everything is for me, personally, and That's OK. 

Luckily, this puzzle was for me. "For me" in the sense that I pretty much crushed my Downs-only solve, and also "for me" in the sense that I liked the revealer (once I finished and read the clue for it—before that, I was like "shouldn't it be SPREADS THE WORD? And then you mentally repunctuate it to SPREAD'S THE WORD ... because the word ... at the front of the answer ... is a spread?" But I like the way the revealer clue does it. What you do to those things, those words, is spread them. SPREAD THE WORD! Works fine. The fill today isn't exactly scintillating, but it isn't rotten either. You get a BANANA SLUG (30D: Fruit-resembling mollusk) to go with your JELLYFISH (which is nice if you are into animals named after foods...), and you get PROSCIUTTO to go on your SAMMIE. The boatload of 3-4-5s keep things from getting too interesting, but considering said boatload, it's impressive that the fill isn't drearier. ALIA is the only thing that seemed to fall in the "Regrettable" category. Everything else: solid. Fine.

I had one real sticking point today—a three-letter word that somehow ended up having a lot of deleterious downstream effects. See, if you tell me that a cooking vessel is "Deep-dish," I'm going to assume it's a POT, not a PAN (40D: Deep-dish vessel). A PAN!?!? I use one all the time to sauté vegetables, fry eggs, etc., and it's really quite shallow. I realize PANs can be deep, but if you give me POT and you give me PAN and you ask me which one do I most associate with deepness, it's not really a contest. POT wins. So I wrote in POT. This gave me ROD in the cross, which seemed quite plausible, but that -OOT ending ... that was a problem. I balked at SAMMIE because that gave me a -MOOT ending on that last themer, and I could not think of a plausible phrase ending "MOOT." "POINT MOOT!" I imagined someone saying. Didn't sound right. I then blanked on MARSHA and got a little worried. But I got ALE and TOY easily (38D: Ginger ___ / 39D: Cup-and-ball or yo-yo), and I knew the themers started with foods, so ---EY-OOT suddenly became HONEYMOON. Goodbye POT, hello PAN. Extremely disappointing to find out POT was wrong, since it's so much better and full of inherent deepness than a PAN, but whatever, I got through, then I got MARSHA, and I finished on AVALON, just like King Arthur. [lol I only realized just now, during formatting/editing, that "Deep-dish" was supposed to evoke pizza, not just "vessel" depth ... I guess I could rewrite this paragraph and hide the evidence of my idiocy, but where's the fun in that?]

Bullets:

• 28A: Role for Selena Gomez on "Only Murders in the Building" (MABEL) — MABEL crossing MARSHA would have "Natick" written all over it if that "M" weren't completely inferable. I had heard of MARSHA but forgot, and I probably knew the Selena Gomez character at some point but, again, forgot. Crossing two non-universally-known proper nouns—dicey! But there's no way that square can be anything but an "M," so ... judges say: fair! No Natick!
• 50D: Part of an Instagram post (PHOTO) — I check Instagram nearly every day and so was weirdly baffled that I couldn't immediately come up with an answer here. I think my problem was that every post I see on Insta is a video, not a photo. Well, 95% of them are videos, at any rate. So what should've been obvious ... wasn't. Not immediately, anyway.
• 52D: Skin opening (PORE) — if you wanted this to be FORE, you know, that kinda makes sense. Not a likely way for a FORE- clue to go, but with -ORE firmly in place, I can see how you might be tempted. 
• 37A: Took shots first, then paid for them later (RAN A TAB) — not my favorite answer—big ATE A SANDWICH energy—but I like the clue, and since the answer actually *crosses* a sandwich (or SAMMIE), I'm gonna assume the answer is actually winking at me, which I find endearing. 

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Discount Chinese e-tailer / SUN 8-30-26 / Inuit watercraft / Periods of 730 days / Heat setting, in brief / Chef Hussain of "The Great British Bake Off" fame / Musician/actress Haim / Discontinued Swedish cars / Double-breasted pieces of menswear / Supreme Egyptian god / Bootlegger's concern / Musical comedy that was 1968's highest-grossing film

Constructor: Daniel Grinberg

Relative difficulty: way too easy

THEME: "Written in the Stars" — clues and answers are both "stars" whose names are made up of letters drawn from the same letter bank; because the same letters occur in both names, they might be said to be RECURRING CHARACTERS (69A: Ones making periodic appearances ... or the link between the capitalized clues and their answers):

Theme answers:

• HENRI MATISSE (22A: MARTIN SHEEN) (H, E, N, R, I, M, A, T, S)
• SAL MINEO (24A: LIAM NEESON) (S, A, L, M, I, N, E, O)
• DONNA SUMMER (33A: NORMAN REEDUS) (D, O, N, A, S, U, M, E, R)
• REGINA KING (37A: GREG KINNEAR) (R, E, G, I, N, A, K)
• GEORGE FOREMAN (48A: MORGAN FREEMAN) (G, E, O, R, F, M, A, N)
• ELAINE STRITCH (84A: CHRISTIAN SLATER) (E, L, A, I, N, S, T, R, C, H)
• BRIE LARSON (102A: ISABELLA ROSSELLINI) (B, R, I, E, L, A, S, O, N)
• EVEL KNIEVEL (104A: KEVIN KLINE) (E, V, L, K, N, I)
• BABE RUTH (114A: BEA ARTHUR) (B, A, E, R, U, T, H)
• ORLANDO BLOOM (118A: MARLON BRANDO) (M, A, R, L, O, N, B, D)

Word of the Day: NADIYA Hussain (25A: Chef Hussain of "The Great British Bake Off" fame) —

Nadiya Jamir Hussain (née Begum; born 25 December 1984) is a British television chef, author and television personality. She rose to fame after winning the sixth series of BBC's The Great British Bake Off in 2015. Since winning, she has signed contracts with the BBC to host the documentary The Chronicles of Nadiya and TV cookery series Nadiya's British Food Adventure and Nadiya's Family Favourites; co-presented The Big Family Cooking Showdown; and has become a regular contributor on The One Show.

Hussain is a columnist for The Times Magazine and has signed publishing deals with Penguin Random House, Hodder Children's Books and Harlequin. She has appeared as a guest panellist on ITV's Loose Women. She was invited to bake a cake for the 90th birthday celebrations of Elizabeth II.

In 2017, Hussain was named by Debrett's as one of the 500 most influential people in the UK and was on BBC News' 100 Women list. She was also shortlisted for Children's Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards for Bake Me A Story and was nominated for Breakthrough Star at the Royal Television Society Awards for The Chronicles of Nadiya. (wikipedia)

• • •

[Matisse, Icarus (@MoMA)]

I know it's tiresome when I complain about the puzzle's being too easy but boy oh boy this was a new low. I don't time myself any more but at a leisurely pace, I probably finished thing in under 8 minutes, which would be near an all-time record for me—again, without trying, without racing. NADIYA was the only thing in the whole puzzle that stumped me. All the other names were known to me, and none of the clues seemed to be trying too hard today at all. I guess POLO COATS took a few crosses to get, because ... what are those? (44D: Double-breasted pieces of menswear). But after I got POLO, the COATS part seemed obvious, so ... yeah, the easiest Sunday puzzle I've ever done? Ever? Maybe. Really disappointing. As for the theme, I guess there's probably some bit of code you can write that can tell you which "stars" (from whatever bank of "star" names you have) share the same building-block letters. It's hard to get excited about this particular phenomenon. With the themers, I basically just got a few crosses, looked at the clue, and the answer generally seemed obvious. Sometimes, looking at the clue wasn't even necessary. I had DONNA and the only famous DONNA I could think of (that fit) was SUMMER, so I just wrote her in. There was no resistance, nothing to really wrestle with or get. You just fill in pretty standard crossword answers with pretty straightforward clues and then ... watch names appear? The RECURRING CHARACTERS pun might've resonated a little more if all the "stars" had been actors (actors play "characters," after all). But of the twenty "stars" in play here, you've got five non-actors. And one of those you would never call a "star" (in the sense that all the others are "stars"). Yes, HENRI MATISSE is a "star" (as in "luminary") of the art world, but he's not a "star" in the modern "celebrity" sense, as Every Other One of these "stars" is. Just bizarre, his inclusion here. I don't understand the appeal of this one. I truly hoped you enjoyed it more than I did.

The fill also seemed subpar. Plain, common, somewhat stale: EDY'S IBET AMONRA ESL ELI RECTO ERRED ADES NAS EARP ARIA ENT MOUE SOLI SAABS ESSO EIEIO TSK SKORTS EUIE TMC HES EDIE LIRAS EDIE TBAR SOYA ... and that's just the stuff that stands out. FUNNY GIRL alongside ABRASIVE was probably the highlight of the grid for me (not that FUNNY GIRL is ABRASIVE, I just think that's a nice pair of answers) (3D: Musical comedy that was 1968's highest-grossing film / 4D: Caustic). And I definitely loved seeing ELAINE STRITCH, whom I know best from the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Original Cast Album: Company. Everything about her struggle to sing "The Ladies Who Lunch" (and her back-and-forth with Sondheim) is mesmerizing and inspiring.

Bullets:

• 14A: Heat setting, in brief (NBA) — the Miami Heat are an NBA team
• 26A: Discount Chinese e-tailer (TEMU) — famous for their mascot, the TEMU Emu. (srsly, tho, I somehow remembered TEMU today, so congratulations to my memory because I don't even know how I know TEMU) (this is only its second NYTXW appearance; the first was earlier this year)
• 33A: NORMAN REEDUS ...— it occurs to me that of all the names in the theme answers/clues, his is probably the least well known. I know him from the TV show The Walking Dead.

• 124A: Musician/actress Haim (ALANA) — love her. She and Cooper Hoffman in Licorice Pizza are one of my favorite on-screen couples—problematic, yes, adorable, also yes. I put that movie on when I just want to be happy. She's also great in ... well, everything she's in. One Battle After Another, The Mastermind, whatever. Charming, funny, good. She's also in a band with her sisters. Also good.

• 18D: Inuit watercraft (KAYAKS) — for not the first time, I pulled UMIAKS out of my Bag of Crosswordese, only to find that I was dealing with plain old ordinary KAYAKS. What good is this useless, highly specific Inuit watercraft terminology if I can't use it!!!?
• 71D: Along with "CODA" and "Argo," the only other four-letter Best Picture winner (GIGI) — I like this clue a lot. The movie title itself isn't that exciting, but I had some fun trying to think of candidates. JAWS? Nope. BABE? Nope. COMA? Weird guess, also no.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Neck topper / SAT 8-29-26 / Half-spoken, half-sung passages of an opera / Nonhuman provider of medical advice / Green day star, for short / Skin-care brand known for its pore strips / Main characters for an early reader / Depicting the world bleakly and cynically / Green day star, for short / Humongous, slangily / Inverse of an exponential function

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Kate Chin Park

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ANA Huang (21A: Romance author Huang) —

Ana Huang is a Chinese-American author who primarily writes novels in the romance and new adult fiction genres. She is a #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. [...]  After 2019, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Huang began writing and self-publishing novels, and promoting them on TikTok. Her Twisted series went viral, and was republished by Bloom Books in 2022. [...] In 2023, her novel King of Greed reached #1 on the Paperback Trade Fiction section of The New York Times Best Seller list. King of Sloth was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, and reached #1 on the USA Today Booklist. Twisted Love stayed on the Paperback Trade Fiction section of The New York Times Best Seller list for 61 weeks. // In 2024, Huang, with 1,474,194 print copies sold, is the fourth highest selling BookTok author. (wikipedia)

• • •

Kind of a tough one today, which is to say, just about the right difficulty level for a Saturday. So weird to have Rafa do an emergency fill-in for me yesterday and then open the puzzle and see his name on the byline this morning. While there is much that I loved about this puzzle, most of the good vibes immediately evaporated when I got "A.I. DOCTOR" (1D: Nonhuman provider of medical advice). I realize that my aversion to A.I. creep in the puzzle is largely personal and perhaps idiosyncratic, but I can't help it, I just find the proliferation of everything A.I. completely disheartening. Hate to see the puzzle heedlessly dive into All Things A.I. the way the rest of the world seems to be doing. I know that there are various professional applications for A.I. that are useful and non-dehumanizing, but most of it seems like a way to eliminate jobs, mislead people, and make a few people very rich. Even the idea of calling any A.I. a "doctor" is, or should be, abhorrent. It's not and never can be a "doctor." It's *trained* on work that millions of actual doctors have done, but it is not and cannot be a doctor. Also, various "A.I. DOCTORS" are being offered as substitutes for traditional medical service, in some cases specifically because the user might not have medical insurance, and so ... all this A.I. crap is just papery over structural failures in society. I hate it. Every time we anthropomorphize one of these things by treating it like it's human, giving in a human name (or job title), we're a. pretending it's something it isn't and b. conceding some piece of our humanity to corporate-owned proprietary machinery. This is why "A.I." will give dystopian vibes to me Every Time I see it in a puzzle. I would love if constructors had their own personal "no A.I." policy, but I can see that's not going to happen. I'm not mad (don't say I GOT MAD). Just sad and disappointed. And tired.

I was also a little put off by the name blitz up top (ANA CHENG EWING BAIN BIORE etc.) but the names dissipated in the lower half of the grid, so the overall experience of hacking through said names (the ones I didn't know) wasn't So bad. I knew some of the names (The PITT, August WILSON, Patrick EWING, BAIN Capital (another depresso-answer to go with the A.I. DOCTOR) (27A: ___ Capital, investment firm co-founded by Mitt Romney). But those pore strips, ugh. I had like six different letter combinations before I finally got to BIORE (14A: Skin-care brand known for its pore strips). BIERO? I think that was one of them. No way I am going to know a Chinese character's meaning, so CHENG could've been "any Chinese name." ANA Huang writes about as far away from where I read as possible (see "Word of the Day," above). I've read and enjoyed a romance novel or two in my time, but "New Adult Fiction" and "BookTok" are alien territory to me (perhaps brought down to earth on some kind of ALIEN SHIP, which is also kind of an alien term to me—isn't it just SPACE SHIP?). The fact that they have subdivided younger readers even further in order to create new markets. "New Adult"? "The genre originally faced criticism as a marketing scheme." Yeah, I bet it did. I guess "new adult fiction" is like YA fiction but the protagonist is 18-29?? So it's still written at an 8th-grade reading level but with a grown-up-ish character? Look, as I told my daughter when she was in her "dystopian scifi/fantasy teen trilogy" phase, if you're reading, you're reading, and I'm happy. But ... maybe some day think about leaving the algorithmically-created rut you've been channeled into by your corporate overlords? Some day? Just think about it. Meanwhile, for all I know ANA Huang is a fantastic writer and I'm missing out by being a grumpy old man. Very, very possible.

The marquee stuff was a little on the tepid side today. It's a lovely center stack, but it's not exactly crackling. More just ... pleasant. SOCIAL LADDER, TENNIS LESSON, PATIO HEATERS (whatever those are ...) they're solid, doing their job, but not exactly wowing anyone. Are PATIO HEATERS those things at restaurants that allow you to eat outside even when the weather is a bit crisp? Maybe rich people have them at their "parties" too. I weirdly liked ERSTWHILE more than almost anything in the grid. Its quaintness and oldenness look especially fetching hanging out right next to the much more modern "SO RANDOM" (36D: "Wow ... what are the chances?!"). But I do think that the longest answer in the grid is probably also the best. It's the one thing that feels unimpeachably marquee-worthy. It also gave me a delightful moment of coincidence, where the first thing I wrote in fit ... but was incorrect. I had BULLI and thought "what in the world starts 'BULLI-???" Then after muttering things like "bullying" and "bullion" to myself for a bit, I thought "Oh, BULL IN ... something ... what's that expression? Oh right! BULL IN THE HEATHER!"

This is what happens when you were a Gen X kid who listened to too much '90s alt rock. I mean, BULL IN THE HEATHER slid right in. When it fit (!) I was like "woo hoo! nailed it!" But then a few seconds later, I was like "wait, isn't the expression BULL IN A CHINA SHOP?" And then *that* fit. So I tested a cross and when NOIR worked at 41A: Depicting the world bleakly and cynically, I knew which BULL phrase was the right one. So thanks to Sonic Youth for nearly derailing my solving experience today, it was thrilling.

[15A: Large restaurant vessel shaped like another vessel]

Bullets:

• 1A: Main characters for an early reader (ABCS) — "characters" as in "letters"
• 16A: Conference handout (ID TAG) — no abbr. indicator in the clue made this extra hard for me
• 43A: "Sweet dreams are made of cheese / Who am I to dis a ___?" (parody lyrics) ("BRIE") — so incredibly dumb. I kind of love it.
• 47A: "It is not easy for a ___ to balance himself on a ladder": "Animal Farm" ("PIG") — first of all, true. Second of all, timely—the first American edition of Animal Farm was published 80 years ago this month (it was published a year earlier in England).

• 39D: Half-spoken, half-sung passages of an opera (ARIOSI) — a little old-school crosswordese for you. Vowel city! Terminal "I"! Useful! (though you don't see it around much any more—this is its first appearance in seven years).
• 48A: A word in closing (THUS) — I thought maybe "PLUS ..." Kinda like a "P.S."? Kinda?
• 14D: Humongous, slangily (BIG-ASS) — the NYTXW remains firmly in its ASS era. Expect ASS-suffixing to continue indefinitely. Conditions may worsen. Who knows?
• 2D: Neck topper (BOTTLE CAP) — I stared at this clue wondering what in the world it could mean. On top of a neck is a ... head. "Topper?" I get that bottles have "necks" and that bottle caps are "tops," but I can't quite imagine someone saying "top that neck, will ya?" and then someone else putting a bottle cap back on a bottle. But literally, the clue checks out.
• 13D: Green day star, for short (ST. PAT) — again, I don't think you'd actually call St. Patrick's Day "Green day" but literally, sure, people wear green, whatever. I just hope you didn't think the clue was asking for a member of the band Green Day—the lowercase "d" on "day" should've disabused you of that notion.

• 38D: Publisher of the front-page headline "This sport is stupid anyway" after a U.S. loss at the World Cup, in brief (N.Y. POST) — ... speaking of "American Idiot"—the New York Post! I miss the World Cup. Though I was reminded yesterday (in a New Yorker article about lethal European heatwaves) that Spain won and thought "oh ... right, I guess they did." Somehow the totality of the experience looms larger in my mind than the actual winner of the whole thing. 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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