Indigenous Canadians of Labrador / WED 11-5-25 / Placeholders for favorite sites / 1982 film inspired by Pong / Astronaut ___ Lee Fisher, the first mother to fly into space / Purple-colored banknote of Canada / Vehicle built for wheelies, flips and spins / Prop in a comedy club

Constructor: Chad Hazen and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: THE LIKES OF YOU (52A: Someone comparable ... or what 20-, 26- and 43-Across may be, in different senses) — things that "you" (?) "like" (or things that are "like" "you"):

Theme answers:

• DOPPELGANGERS (20A: Dead ringers)
• SECRET CRUSHES (26A: They may be betrayed by stammers and blushes)
• PAGE BOOKMARKS (43A: Placeholders for favorite sites)

Word of the Day: ANNA Lee Fisher (7D: Astronaut ___ Lee Fisher, the first mother to fly into space) —

Anna Lee Fisher (née Tingle; born August 24, 1949) is an American chemist, emergency physician and a former NASA astronaut. Formerly married to fellow astronaut Bill Fisher, and the mother of two children, in 1984, she became the first mother to fly in space. During her career at NASA, she was involved with three major programs: the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and the Orion spacecraft. [...] After a leave of absence to raise her family from 1989 to 1995, Fisher returned to the Astronaut Office, where she worked on procedures and training issues in support of the International Space Station (ISS). She was a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) from January 2011 to August 2013, and the lead CAPCOM for ISS Expedition 33. She was involved in the development of the display for the Orion spacecraft until her retirement from NASA in April 2017. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well I didn't say "I QUIT," but I kinda wanted to at times. This didn't work for me. Where to start? Let's start at the end, with the revealer, THE LIKES OF YOU. The phrase itself is weirdly old-fashioned and I can't recall hearing it recent except maybe in an old western or something ("we ain't seen THE LIKES OF YOU around these parts for a good spell, Tex," or some such). But I can't accept a certain antiquity of phraseology, let's allow that it's a real enough phrase. Still, though—how do you get the "YOU" from the clue. The whole second-personness of the answer seems nowhere indicated in the clue. How does the clue point to THE LIKES OF YOU as opposed to THE LIKES OF HIM/HER/ME/THEM etc.? [Someone comparable]?? That's just "the like." THE LIKES OF YOU seems arbitrary, random, without clear justification. Moreover, for DOPPELGANGERS to work ... how does it work? If you're changing the meaning of "likes" in each case? A "doppelganger" is your (?) likeness, but "likes?" It seems like for the DOPPELGANGERS clue to work, the revealer has to be taken in its normal, non-twisty, straightforwardly idiomatic sense: "THE LIKES OF YOU" = "someone(s) like you." But in the other answers, "likes" has to be taken as a noun: the people you like (SECRET CRUSHES), and the websites you like (PAGE BOOKMARKS). I was expecting "likes" to be repurposed with ever themer, but DOPPELGANGERS doesn't do that—DOPPELGANGERS are, in fact, "someone comparable." Whereas SECRET CRUSHES and PAGE BOOKMARKS aren't. The latter two seem like proper themers. DOPPELGANGERS, just sitting there being all untricky, doesn't. 

And what is up with PAGE BOOKMARKS? The term is just "bookmarks." All I have to do is look up to the menu above the browser that I am currently in to see that the term is "Bookmarks." Chrome File Edit History Bookmarks Profiles Tab Window Help–those are the words in the menu. Yes, the bookmarks mark web "pages," but who cares, that's not the point. What matters is the specific currency of the phrase in question, and the phrase PAGE BOOKMARKS doesn't have it. About as valid as WEBPAGE BOOKMARKS. I've never seen/heard the phrase PAGE BOOKMARKS in my life. Such a weird answer to parse. Also, sidenote, a (web)site and a (web)page are technically different things. "A website typically consists of many web pages linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of paper pages bound together into a book" (wikipedia). So that's another way the clue/answer doesn't quite work together.

The fill ran a little sour today. It had yesterday's ugly short stuff problem. SFO and ATOP and ALOT and ECO and HTTP more or less right off the bat. And then INNU, yikes, I do not remember ever seeing this particular indigenous person before. I think I wrote INUK in there at one point (that's an Alaskan or Greenland native, four appearances in the NYTXW, all since 2023). INNU ... have we seen that before? Yeah, looks like once, on a Friday, four years ago. That just seems like desperation fill—perhaps appropriate for a Friday, when you have to hang a lot of colorful, interesting long answers together; that puts a lot of pressure on the smaller stuff, so it's OK to reach a little, and anyway, people expect more obscurities on a Friday. On a Wednesday, I dunno. Feels like maybe you should've made another pass at filling the grid cleanly. That INNU / ANNA crossing was a half-educated guess, frankly (7D: Astronaut ___ Lee Fisher, the first mother to fly into space). Couldn't believe there was an ATON after I'd already endured an ALOT. What is this, a crosswordese showcase? ARLO AFROS ASEA. The hits just keep coming. And then there was the supremely awkward (and awkwardly clued) NO ONIONS. The only real difficulty I experienced today came in trying to parse that phrase. Calling "NO ONIONS" an "order" is a stretch, and a big one. It's an order specification—a part of an order, but not the order itself. And anyway, do people really avoid onions on "dates"? I never really understood the whole onions/bad breath connection. Bad breath is a very specific thing that has much more to do with mouth hygiene than anything you ate. If you're gonna make out with someone right after dinner, you're gonna have the meal on your breath to some extent. Who cares!? You want the damn onions, eat the damned onions! Life's too short to be gaming the situation much.

Bullets:

• 40A: Purple-colored banknote of Canada (TEN) — I wanted something more ... Canadian-sounding here, like a LOONIE or a TOONIE. But it's just a TEN-dollar note, oh well. Let's see what they look like. Whoa, vertical orientation. I think I like my currency better in landscape than in portrait. The purple is cool, though. U.S. currency is so drab:

• 47A: 1982 film inspired by Pong (TRON) — [2025 sequel that bombed at the box office] = TRON: ARES. "Deadline Hollywood reported a total cost of $347.5 million, including production and advertising and estimated that it ultimately would lose the studio over $132 million with an estimated box office total gross of $160 million" (wikipedia). The only thing tempting me to see this movie was the great Greta Lee, and ultimately even she couldn't get me in the door.

• 49A: Vintage film channel (TCM) — Finally, the real station for movie lovers. None of this TMC baloney. I no longer have cable TV or its streaming analogues, and I'm quite happy, but Turner Classic Movies is the one channel I truly miss. Wish it were offered as a standalone app you could watch without having a TV provider. I'd pay for it. But for now I'll just do without and let Criterion Channel and HBO Max's TCM collection fill the void.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration opens January 8!)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Metaphor for a bad goalie / TUE 11-4-25 / Eponym of a popular puzzle / Fast-food chain with the slogan "The Crave is a powerful thing" / Folk-rock pair featured in the documentary "Wordplay" / 2010 best-selling Emma Donoghue novel / Name seen in cursive on a cap in Berkeley / Empathetic response to an apology / The half with the hit song, typically / City situated between the split halves of Saguaro National Park

Constructor: Patrick Hayden

Relative difficulty: Very Easy

THEME: COLOR TV (39A: 1950S entertainment innovation ... or a hint to the first and second halves of 17-, 24-, 48- and 60-Across) — familiar two-word phrases where the first word is a "COLOR" and the second word is the title of a "TV" show:

Theme answers:

• INDIGO GIRLS (17A: Folk-rock pair featured in the documentary "Wordplay")
• BLACK SUITS (24A: Half of a standard deck of cards)
• GREENHOUSE (48A: Place for plants to flourish)
• WHITE CASTLE (60A: Fast-food chain with the slogan "The Crave is a powerful thing")

Word of the Day: ROOM (46A: 2010 best-selling Emma Donoghue novel) —

Room is a 2010 novel by Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue. The story is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. Donoghue conceived the story after hearing about five-year-old Felix in the Fritzl case.

The novel was longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize and won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize regional prize (Caribbean and Canada). It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2010, and was shortlisted for the 2010 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the 2010 Governor General's Awards.

The film adaptation, also titled Room, was released in October 2015, starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. The film was a critical and commercial success; it received four nominations at the 88th Academy Awards including for Best Picture, and won Best Actress for Larson. (wikipedia)

• • •

Conceptually, this puzzle definitely has something. I didn't notice it until I was finished, but the theme concept is a clever one. Three of the themers work perfectly, seamlessly, and then BLACK SUITS ... well, that at least works, I think, even if that phrase feels a bit more contrived than the others. The colors are all obviously familiar. As for the TV shows, I've watched some of Girls and House. The others are I've never seen, but I have heard of. Wasn't Meghan Markle in Suits? Yes, for seven seasons (she retired from acting when she married Prince Henry). And Castle ... has that guy from Firefly in it? Some kind of crime show? I think. Yes, both those things are true about Castle. That's honestly all I know about Castle, and I barely know that. But it was a popular network show for eight seasons (from 2009 to 2016), so it's valid. Nothing wrong with the theme per se. But the rest of the fill ... that had me wanting to stop solving several times. First because the crud level seemed so high at first. I came out of that NW corner, hit NOTA, and kind of hung my head. IT'S OK? No, it is not OK. SNO, DEET, NOTA ... and I'd only just started (and hadn't even hit ADZ or ADE yet). The short fill did not portend well. 

It wasn't yet intolerable, but sometimes you just get a vibe early on. I do, anyway. If there's a bunch of ugly short stuff you have to hack through right off the bat, that's ... a bad sign. Things then went from bad to worse, but this time not because of the short fill, but because of the longer fill, specifically DEEP STATE. I think I sincerely would've stopped right there if I didn't have this blog to write. Of all the right-wing fucking nonsense to put in my puzzle. Unwelcome. Completely unwelcome. It was completely unwelcome the first (and only) time it appeared, over seven years ago, and it's completely unwelcome today. At least name the people responsible for the "conspiracy." You wanna play with that answer, call it what it is: right-wing. It's a right-wing conspiracy. A fascist conspiracy, perpetrated primarily by one colossal dickhead. The concept of the DEEP STATE apparently originated in Turkey (!), but everyone knows who popularized it here, and when (hint: a Black man was president). I like DEEP STATE in my puzzle about as much as I like NAZI in my puzzle. Gonna have to watch Mamdani's victory speech tonight to get the taste of DEEP STATE out of my mouth. Actually, maybe listening to this will help:

[Yeah, this helps a little]

I hated DEEP STATE answer even more because it looked like a damn themer. I despise when there are long Across answers that aren't themers (unless the actual theme answers are running Down). ABOLISHED and DEEP STATE are aesthetically off-putting because they are just one letter shorter than two nearby themers, and longer than the center revealer, but they just ... aren't themers. Long Downs when the theme runs across, long Acrosses when the theme runs Down—those scenarios are OK. But these phantom themers that run in the same direction as the real themers—not a fan. I got DEEP STATE and then INDIGO GIRLS and assumed that the theme was "blue." Then later discovered that not only was "blue" not the theme, but DEEP STATE wasn't a themer at all. Ugliness all around. And the short fill never really got much better either. So I tip my hat to the theme, which, again, I think is clever, but the rest ... I'd probably tear it down and start over.

As for difficulty, there was none. I hesitated on the SUITS part of BLACK SUITS, but that's it. I enjoyed MODERNIZE and HANG IT UP, so good job with the long Downs. But the rest was somehow both too easy and a CHORE.

["We got to move these / Refrigerators / We got to move these COLOR TVvvvvvvvvs"]

Bullet points:

• 17A: Folk-rock pair featured in the documentary "Wordplay" (INDIGO GIRLS) — never a huge fan of the puzzle getting all winky and self-referential, but I like this duo and I like this documentary so I'll allow it. INDIGO GIRLS are coming here (to the place where I live) to play with the University Symphony Orchestra in 2026, and I might go. I've seen INDIGO GIRLS twice before, once when they opened for 10,000 Maniacs in Edinburgh (1989), and then again when they headlined at the Pantages in L.A. in 1990. The latter time, I was actually dating the sister of one of the INDIGO GIRLS. Sorry, I should've said, "Fun fact!" It's a pretty fun fact. Not that fun, but a little fun. (Apologies if I've shared this fun fact before—I've been writing for so long I can't keep track of the stories I've told or the "fun facts" I've divulged)
• 22A: Spun platters for a party, informally (DJED) — this past tense form always looks terrible written out. I totally misread this clue at first and thought "Spun" was an adjective. Who does that? (A: me).
• 9D: Name seen in cursive on a cap in Berkeley (CAL) — this is the kind of clue an alumnus would write. But it's also just a good clue. Kinda niche but also perfectly apt.

• 10D: Singers Green and Jardine (ALS) — Green is a legend, but who is Jardine? Let's find out. Oh, he was a Beach Boy?? I can't believe I'm learning this only now. You probably all knew that (well, those of you older than I am, anyway).

• 49D: Eponym of a popular puzzle (RUBIK) — had the "R" and thought, "REBUS? Mr. REBUS? Jean-Claude REBUS. Is he someone?" He is not. Erno RUBIK, however, is. Inventor of the RUBIK's Cube.
• 52D: Metaphor for a bad goalie (SIEVE) — smiled at this one. Great, inventive clue.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration opens January 8!)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...