THEME: "Passing Glances" — an "EYE" rebus where one "EYE" square appears in each themer; every theme clue starts with an ellipsis, and the idea is that each one is supposed to start with the phrase "I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE" (63A: Children's game phrase that should start the italicized clues ... or a hint to eight squares in this puzzle) (so the clue describes the spied thing, and each spied thing contains an "EYE" rebus square, or a LITTLE "EYE"):
Theme answers:
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN (21A: ... something big and rocky with a Space Force base in it)
3D: Showy daisies (OXEYES)
DONKEY EARS (29A: ... something pointy grown by Pinocchio)
13D: Iowan, by another name (HAWKEYE)
ERLENMEYER FLASK (39A: ... something conical in a chemistry lab)
26D: Fast-food chain founded in New Orleans (POPEYE'S)
JAPANESE YEN (46A: ... something round and metallic with kanji written on it)
48D: Hole for a shoelace (EYELET)
SMILEY EMOJI (84A: ... something yellow and happy in a text message)
86D: Shakespearean potion ingredient (EYE OF NEWT)
BREYER'S ICE CREAM (87A: ... something soft and melty in a black tub)
64D: Sleep, informally (SHUTEYE)
HONEYEATER (96A: ... something feathery sipping on nectar)
99D: Scrutinize (EYEBALL)
DOUBLE-YELLOW LINE (111A: ... something long and painted on a highway)
In total, there are 186 species in 55 genera, roughly half of them native to Australia, many of the remainder occupying New Guinea. With their closest relatives, the Maluridae (Australian fairy-wrens), Pardalotidae (pardalotes), and Acanthizidae (thornbills, Australian warblers, scrubwrens, etc.), they comprise the superfamily Meliphagoidea and originated early in the evolutionary history of the oscinepasserine radiation. Although honeyeaters look and behave very much like other nectar-feeding passerines around the world (such as the sunbirds and flowerpeckers), they are unrelated, and the similarities are the consequence of convergent evolution. (wikipedia)
[TUI (3) — not seen in the NYTXW since 2004 😞]
The tūī (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) is a medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze coloured with a distinctive white throat tuft (poi). It is an endemicpasserine bird of New Zealand, and the only species in the genusProsthemadera. It is one of the largest species in the diverse Australasian honeyeater family Meliphagidae, and one of two living species of that family found in New Zealand, the other being the New Zealand bellbird (Anthornis melanura). The tūī has a wide distribution in the archipelago, ranging from the subtropical Kermadec Islands to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, as well as the main islands. (wikipedia) (my emph.)
• • •
I liked the revealer. I liked that everything being "spied" had a "little 'EYE'" inside it, and I liked that the revealer also made sense of the strange ellipsis-starting clues. Once you know that the clues themselves are written in the style of someone actually playing the game "I Spy," they make a lot more sense. So conceptually, yes, sure, hurray, good job. The execution felt kinda wobbly to me, mostly because "EYE" isn't a particular common letter string to find embedded in a word or phrase, and so (unsurprisingly) some of these answers feel odd or forced or strange. CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN? Is that a place? I assume it is because you're telling me it is, but if CHEYENNE isn't followed by WYOMING (or AUTUMN, actually), then I don't know what it's doing. A Space Force base???? Well, points off for reminding me that Space Force actually exists and is not an ill-conceived and ultimately discarded idea from a scifi show that never made it out of its first season.
Are there other YENs besides the JAPANESE YEN? I see that the currency is formally called that, but it still felt redundant. I have never heard of an ERLENMEYER FLASK (I'm just assuming that ERLENMEYER is one name, I don't know), but that's on me, I'm sure. Just ... out of my wheelhouse, completely. SMILEY EMOJI ... do I call it that? Happy face emoji ... smiley face emoji ... smile emoji ... I think these are more likely to come out of my mouth. I can't really dispute its real thingness, but over and over again, the answers were either "???" or just slightly off, to my ear. The one that landed best for me was HONEYEATER, first because, well, yay, birds! And second, the HONEYEATER "EYE" is doing what I wish every EYE did in a puzzle like this, i.e. break across two words (or word parts) with no additional words left hanging. DONKEY EARS and SMILEY EMOJI do this successfully as well. It always makes me a little sad when words like (today) MOUNTAIN, FLASK, ICE CREAM, and LINE are there but uninvolved in the actual wordplay. "EYE" just doesn't touch those words or have anything to do with them. It's the most elegant expression of the theme, to have every element in every theme answer "EYE"-involved. But thumbs-up for the concept, for sure, and for a generally well-filled grid overall.
Sadly, the theme was very (very very) easy to uncover. Here's how long it took me to uncover:
I know my five-letter crossword flowers, I do. See also OXLIPS (where's my LIP rebus!?—PURSED LIPS? Hmm, not sure PURSED conveys shrunkenness well enough. "MY LIPS ARE SEALED" (inside eight tiny boxes in this grid)?? ... I'm gonna have to work on this). [Showy daisies], starts with "O," that's OXEYES ... but it wouldn't fit ... so I made it fit! Then looked at the puzzle title ("Passing Glances") and knew I did the right thing. The hardest parts of this puzzle were the themers I didn't know, namely the MOUNTAIN part of CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN and basically the whole of ERLENMEYER FLASK (which ... it is one name, right? ERLENMEYER. Not ERLEN MEYER, like OSCAR MAYER ... [looking it up] ... yes! Named after EMIL (4) Erlenmeyer). But as for the theme, once you find the first "EYE," it's basically unvaried thereafter. Seven more "EYE"s, and you know they're coming, which gives you a leg up on all subsequent themers. Clues were toughish in places, but overall this was pretty average in terms of difficulty, maybe a bit on the easy side. Jet lag is still playing tricks on my mind and body, though, so I may just be tired.
If you, like me, have never heard of ERLENMEYER FLASK, then I sure hope you understood the clue on ENS (39D: Several characters in nonfiction?). Otherwise, that first "E" in ERLENMEYER might've been a mystery (or you ended up with a mistake). There are "several" ENS (i.e. the letter "n") in the word "nonfiction," which is what that clue for ENS is getting at. "Letteral" clues like that (where the clue is pointing to a letter inside of itself rather than pointing to an answer in conventional fashion) often trip people up, so if that happened to you, you weren't alone, I guarantee it. Also, if you, like me, didn't know MEM (?) (6D: First letter of "menorah," in Hebrew) ... well, I'm less afraid there, as all the crosses seem solid—even if you didn't know MOUNTAIN, I think you can guess from the clue language ("big and rocky") that the answer was probably not gonna be the CHEYENNE FOUNTAIN (I might buy MEF as a Hebrew letter, but CHEYENNE FOUNTAIN—unlikely).
And the rest!:
1A: Helpful site for a D.I.Y.'er (EHOW) — still haven't visited this site, ever. Only ever seen it in xwords. "Getting rid of the human editors who formerly identified and approved content to be produced increased profits for the company by a factor of 20–25 times" (wikipedia). So ... probably not going to be visiting it any time soon, then.
72A: Alfred E. ___, mascot of Mad magazine (NEUMAN) — still misspelling this name, despite knowing the mascot in question since I was like 6. NEWMAN v. NEUMAN ... I had a girlfriend in college with the last name NEUMAN, you'd think I could manage the distinction, but no. I think my brain's logic must be something like, "well, I obviously liked my girlfriend, and I don't really fancy this Alfred E. guy, so his name must be the other spelling." And yet no.
87A: ... something soft and melty in a black tub (BREYER'S ICE CREAM) — forgot to ask: why is the ice cream "soft and melty"??? Is it because we're playing "I Spy" in the back of a hot car after a trip to the supermarket? Because otherwise I don't get it. "Cold and creamy" would make sense. "Soft and melty" is a product failure.
12D: Wedge placed next to a wheel to prevent it from moving (CHOCK) — had no idea this had a name. I wanted SHIM (not long enough).
45D: Newswoman Phillips (KYRA) — no idea, but then I watch TV news exactly zero minutes per year, so ... not surprising.
61D: Smash to smithereens (ATOMIZE) — wanted this (the letters fit) but this word doesn't make me think of smashing. It makes me think of ... misting? Doesn't an ATOMIZEr spray mist? Or perfume or whatever? Yes, it "converts a substance [...] to a fine spray" (wordnik). But I guess if you smash something into tiny particles, that is also a form of atomizing.
76D: Can you believe it? (-ISM) — I cannot. As in, I cannot believe this non-word continues to get foisted on me year after year. Any belief system is, technically, an -ISM. And if you didn't know, well now you know.
90A: Place with moving exhibits (ZOO) — because the animals ... move around? In their cages? Huh. That must be it. Still, weird phrasing.
23A: "So weird..." ("HOW ODD...") — don't love the "HOW" dupe (see 1A: EHOW). Also don't love the "YELLOW" dupe (in the clue for SMILEY EMOJI ("something yellow...") as well as in the answer DOUBLE YELLOW LINE)
86D: Shakespearean potion ingredient (EYE OF NEWT) — best answer in the grid, I think. Best of the "EYE" crosses, for sure.
That's all for me today. Belated thanks to all the writers who filled in for me while I was away in Santa Barbara, which is basically a perfect place. Sunny and 70s every day, extensive running and bicycle lanes along the oceanfront, at least two really fine cocktail bars ... oh &^$%!!!!!! I was supposed to get in touch with one of you (my gentle readers) about getting a cocktail, and I said I would, and then I got swept up in family stuff and didn't. Dammit! I'm sure the person in question would've been lovely, and ... well, a free drink is a free drink. Ugh. OK, off to write an apology email, I guess. Annnnyway, Santa Barbara has it all. Including, sadly, fires, as well as a cost of living that is likely a bit beyond me. But I will be back, for sure. Here are some photos:
[me stalking the elusive Great Blue Heron (note: not actually elusive)]
[snowy egrets, having a heated discussion]
[these cacti were actually at the Huntington Museum, near Pasadena]
[every plant looks like it's out of a scifi movie]
[absorbing the local culture]
[my stepbrother rented a giant van to drive the whole family around in, then invented a fake company and had tshirts, hats, and other merch made, including this magnet to put on the side of the van. 100% commitment to the bit!]
THEME: BLINKERS (60A: Directional signals that flash on and off, as suggested by the circles in this puzzle) — the two circled squares in each theme answer function as car BLINKERS—every answer is double-clued, with the first clue working if your left blinker is on (i.e. there's an "L" in the left circle and nothing in the right), and the second clue working if your right. blinker is on (i.e. there's an "R" in the right circle and nothing in the left) (double-clued crosses work in a similar way, with first clue working if the blinker is on, and second working if the blinker is off):
Theme answers:
LIMBORED (16A: Played a bar game? / [Yawn]) (LIMBOED / "I'M BORED")
The park is located adjacent to the Topanga neighborhood of Los Angeles. Covering 11,000 acres (4,500 ha), with 36 miles (58 km) of trails and unimproved roads, the park's boundaries stretch from Topanga Canyon to Pacific Palisades and Mulholland Drive. There are more than 60 trail entrances. Topanga State Park is not only the largest park in the Santa Monica Mountains, but it is also considered the largest park located in the limits of a city.
• • •
One of the things I love about this puzzle is that it's genuinely an architectural marvel, but it doesn't *feel* like one—which is to say, the fill doesn't feel strained or compromised, and the grid itself doesn't look very flashy at all. In fact, but for the circled squares, it looks completely ordinary. But I promise you that getting this theme to work inside an innocuous-seeming 15x15 grid, with both the themers and the Down crosses yielding perfectly acceptable answers when the blinkers are "on" and when they're "off"—that's really something. It's hard enough to fill a grid cleanly under ordinary circumstances, but when you've got themer running in both directions—twice as many in the Downs as in the showier Acrosses—it's doubly hard, maybe harder. Except for four very short Acrosses in the SE corner, I don't think there's an answer in the entire grid that doesn't cross a theme-affected answer. That means that virtually every non-theme answer in the puzzle had one square in place that was fixed and immovable (because those themers go in first and then they stay put—they're load-bearing). A fixed square in every answer before you've even started filling? Nightmare. Severely limits your leeway as a constructor. And yet all that work is disguised / hidden / invisible, as the puzzle plays so smoothly (once you figure out the gimmick). This puzzle makes it look easy and it is Not. So many times, look-at-me gimmicks yield awful or at least disappointing results for an actual solver actually solving the puzzle. This puzzle, on the other hand, was a blast, and most of the really impressive work (i.e. simply getting a clean grid to work at all) is inconspicuous. From a craftsmanship perspective, I'm really impressed with this one.
There's a little conceptual glitch, I think, in that there's nothing in the Across themers that captures the "blinking" of BLINKERS. In the Downs, the "blinking" works perfectly—blinker on, one answer, blinker off, another answer. But in the four Acrosses, you have to turn either one ("L") or the other ("R") on for answers to work. In real life, BLINKERS don't "blink" from "L" to "R"; either the left one blinks on (and off) or the right one does, and that particular phenomenon (the actuality of how BLINKERS blink) isn't quite adequately represented by the four main themers. So on a (very) technical level, those main themers don't quite work. But the level of intricacy and cleverness is such that I'm willing to say "close enough." Yes, a completely filled grid gets you funny-looking nonsense like LIMBORED and BALD SPORT, but I can tolerate that, given that the "correct" answers are easy to see. I found this very entertaining, and any infelicities in the grid (there aren't many) I can forgive given how hard the task at hand was. A fun, if (once again) overly easy puzzle.
Aside from the pop cultural names (which are always dangerous, depending on your demographic), there are really only two answers in this puzzle I can see giving solvers any grief. The first, and probably toughest (if you're not from CA) is TOPANGA. If people know that word at all, they probably know it as the name of Cory's girlfriend on the long-running '90s sitcom Boy Meets World. Pretty sure she was named after TOPANGA Canyon, which is how I (originally) knew the word TOPANGA (I went to school in S. California). I had no idea there was a TOPANGA State Park. But I knew the Canyon, so I knew it was a place name, so I got there without much trouble. I gotta believe Adam's original clue was a Boy Meets World clue. That would've driven a bunch of solvers crazy, so ... fair change, but still, kind of obscurish (relative to everything else in the grid). The other potential stumper was ESCUDO (46D: Portuguese currency before the euro). It certainly stumped me. Or semi-stumped—the word sort of crawled out of the back of my brain once I had a couple of crosses. So I've seen it before, but it is not one of the go-to bygone crossword currencies, so it took a bit of effort. Nothing much else about this puzzle took anything like effort. The double-cluing on all the themers actually made the puzzle much easier to solve. The gimmick is supposed to be the tricky part, but instead, today, all it did was smooth the path to solving victory.
["Buffalo soldier, dreadlock RASTA"]
Notes:
22A: Swerve, as an airplane (YAW) — not a word I use a lot, one I'm vaguely aware of. Really glad I knew this couldn't be YEW, because I really thought TOPENGA was spelled just like that, with the "E." I always heard that letter like the "E" in PENGUIN.
29A: Comment that might be said with a push ("IN YOU GO!") — my favorite clue / answer of the day. A playful, colloquial three-word phrase. Great mid-range fill. I don't recommend pushing people into the pool this 4th of July weekend, though. Or any weekend. Dangerous, not to mention rude. But still, a fun answer.
34A: Actor Sebastian ___ of Marvel Studios films (STAN) — two ughs here, one for the uninteresting and vague clue ("Marvel Studios films" ???), and another for returning to the pop culture well at all here. You've already got ALI "don't write in ALY, you idiot" WONG and PEDRO Pascal in there. Why not go to tennis (STAN Smith) or just the generic word for "superfan"? Did not need another actor, especially one whose films you can't even be bothered to name.
57A: Losing roll in a casino (CRAP) — also what you might exclaim after said losing roll
66A: Pac-Man ghost with the shortest name (INKY) — one part of my brain: "damn it how am I supposed to know all those stupid ghost names?!" Other part of my brain: "Bro, relax, it's INKY." Seriously, almost simultaneous thoughts. I was more a Donkey Kong person. My sister was the Pac-Man player, though Ms. Pac-Man was more her thing.
17D: Animal whose Greek name is the etymology of the word "arctic" (BEAR) — so ... not DEER, then? OK.
28D: Olympic sprinter ___'Carri Richardson (SHA) — Did not know "SHA" was a separable name part. Glad I knew her name was not SLA'Carri Richardson, because I Swear To God I still don't know how to spell LHASA (keep wanting it to be LLASA, which looks atrocious, why would I want that?) (31A: City where the Dalai Lama [not Llama] was enthroned)
See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook] ============================= ❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
THEME: "Tossing and Turning" — themers have two clues; the first one is literal (enter the answer normally) and the second can only be understood if you read the answer INSIDE OUT AND BACKWARDS (9D: How a shirt might be put on in a rush ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)—that is, backwards, with one of the letters in the word "INSIDE" (found in a circled square in each themer) taken "out" ... the circled squares spell out "INSIDE" if you read top to bottom along the left side of the grid and bottom to top along the right:
Theme answers:
NETI POT (23A: Device used to clear out nasal passages / Final part of a radio countdown (i.e. Top Ten))
DNA BANKS (36A: Genetic repositories / Reel Big Fish or Sublime (i.e. ska band))
DAS BOOT (54A: Hit 1981 German language film / "What a shame!" (i.e. "too bad!"))
DIET TIPS (80A: Offering from Healthline / Roasting on an open fire, maybe (i.e. spitted))
Originally a two-hour program airing weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., it expanded to Sundays in 1987 and Saturdays in 1992. The weekday broadcast expanded to three hours in 2000, and to four hours in 2007 (though over time, the third and fourth hours became distinct entities). Today's dominance was virtually unchallenged by the other networks until the late 1980s, when it was overtaken by ABC's Good Morning America.
Today retook the Nielsen ratings lead the week of December 11, 1995, and held onto that position for 852 consecutive weeks until the week of April 9, 2012, when Good Morning America topped it again. Today maintained its No. 2 status behind GMA from the summer of 2012 until it regained the lead in the aftermath of anchor Matt Lauer's departure in November 2017. (wikipedia)
• • •
Architecturally impressive, but not terribly fun to solve. The secondary clues just made everything too easy. I often didn't even look at the forward-facing clue, finding it weirdly easier to get some crosses and then solve the backward, circle-less version of the clue. As for the gimmick itself, it really didn't take long to pick up at all. I got NETIPOT without really noticing what was going on with the clues. I got the theme with the next themer I encountered, but only because the band name Reel Big Fish really caught my attention. Not exactly a household name, but I'd heard of them. I wanted that answer to end with BANDS, but then, for some reason, I actually looked *back* at the full clue for NETIPOT, noticed that the second clue ([Final part of a radio countdown]) was NETIPOT backwards minus the circled "I"—i.e., TOP TEN—and then applied the same logic to the Reel Big Fish clue; *that's* when I saw that "BAND" was heading backward—DNA BANKS in one direction, SKA BAND in the other. After that, I didn't need the actual revealer. I had the gimmick concept, and all themers were twice as easy to get thereafter as they would've been in a simple single-clue situation.
As for that revealer, it's cute. Take the letters spelled out by the circled letters, i.e. "INSIDE," out of the puzzle, then read the resulting answers backwards, and you get the correct answer to the second half of all the themer clues. I don't really understand why INSIDE is running up the right half of the grid "backwards." That's an extra flourish that doesn't really have anything to do with solving the themers. The "backwards" part obviously applies to how you read each individual theme answer, so the "backwards" INSIDE ... is an add-on. A doubling up of the significance of "backwards" I guess. I also don't fully understand the title, which doesn't really evoke what's going on with the theme at all. The "Turning" I get, but not the "Tossing" so much. Nothing's being scrambled or anagrammed, so I'm not sure what the "Tossing" part is supposed to signify [update: as I was making the coffee just now, I suddenly realized that “Tossing” meant “getting rid of,”which is of course what you have to do to the circled letters to understand the backwards answers—so the title is good, I apologize]. I don't think I've ever put a shirt on INSIDE OUT AND BACKWARDS in my life—doing either one of those things would be highly unusual; doing both, nearly impossible. But sure, it could happen. [Full disclosure: my first stab at the revealer was INSIDE OUT AND OUTSIDE IN (it fit!?)]. I admire the complexity of the theme, but as I say, the whole thing just lacked a certain sense of mystery and fun once I grasped the concept. Too easy too easy too easy. But, admittedly, a genuine marvel, architecturally.
Almost no black ink on my puzzle print-out, which means hardly any trouble spots. I had trouble with HEAVIES because (as you can see) I had ARNOLD before AHNOLD, so didn't have the "H" for HEAVIES. Also, I don't know that meaning of HEAVIES. To me, "HEAVIES" are the villains in a story or movie, whereas "heavy-hitters" are [Big, important people, informally]. Weird. I somehow managed to remember NIECY, which was my big pop culture victory for the day. Definitely learned her from crosswords (11D: Actress Nash of "Never Have I Ever"). Never heard of Viswanathan "Vishy" ANAND (34A: Five-time world chess champion Viswanathan "Vishy" ___)). Again with the chess, ugh. Bah. PAH. Totally overrepresented in the puzzle, relative to general interest. A lot of you complain about "rappers" in the puzzle, but those "rappers" are usually exceedingly famous, whereas even the most famous chess player (besides maybe Bobby Jones [sorry, Fischer], or Magnus Carlsen) is not even NIECY Nash levels of famous. Oh, wait, Kasparov! And Spassky! OK, maybe I know more chess players than I thought. To be very fair to this "Vishy" person, he's clearly a huge deal ... in chess. But ... shrug. To me, that's like being a huge deal in luge. I just have no idea.
Also never heard of BARCADES, which sounds terrible, in that the last thing I want to hear when I'm drinking is the sound of an arcade ... or any sound, frankly, beyond the murmur of background conversations and occasional tinkling of ice in glasses (98A: Portmanteau drinking hangouts). Maybe some jazz, not too loud. Arcade!? Hell no. Not drinking there.
[The perfect bar. Whiskey, cheap sandwiches, and not an arcade in sight]
USECASE is a super boring and ugly answer (16D: Scenario for a software developer). Most of the rest of the grid is pretty clean and well constructed, though. No real highlights for me (except maybe TEA SNOB ... a type of person I've never met) (I know some TEA aficionados, but none of them strike me as "snobs"). If you want very deeply informed, well-written essays on tea, with no snobbery whatsoever, I recommend Max Falkowitz's newsletter, Leafhopper. I subscribe, and I don't even drink that much tea (though I drink more than before I started reading). Coffee is a love affair I can't seem to break off. I've tried. No luck. I'm a more controlled drinker now. No coffee past 9am. I just can't give up the ritual. It's too important to my sense of the day, to my sense of the day's beginning. It's a thing I do, carefully, slowly, deliberately, with my cats. It's honestly the closest I'll ever come to being Philip Marlowe (OK, I'm conflating book-Marlowe and movie-Marlowe here; the former is fastidious about coffee, the latter has a cat ... basically, I'm Every Marlowe (it's all in me)).
How much do I love Marlowe (all the Marlowes)? And cats? I just bought this limited edition print (by Brianna Ashby) which I will have framed and then prominently display in my office, or possibly my kitchen:
["I Got a Cat" (Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973))]]
Bullets:
1A: "Oh, fiddlesticks!" ("AW, DARN!") — not a huge fan of these ambiguous and contrived exclamations: some combo of "oh" or "aw" and then "rats" or "dang" or "darn" (and maybe others I'm forgetting). This is only the second "AW, DARN!" Looks like we've had four "OH, DARN!"s, three "OH, RATS!," five "AW, RATS!," etc. Mix and match
72A: Actress Sink of "Stranger Things" (SADIE) — it's a hard name to forget. Born in 2002, she's been acting since she was ten (lead in Annie) and just this year got a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a play for her lead role in John Proctor Is the Villain.
52A: Thawb-wearing leaders (EMIRS) — got this from "leaders." Never heard of a "thawb," which is the "long-sleeved, ankle-length robe." Perhaps unshockingly, THAWB (5) has never appeared in the NYTXW. But now we all know it, so ... why not? Sure. Go ahead.
100A: Film studio with a tower that beeped out "V for Victory" during W.W. II (RKO) — it's not a big deal, but something about the way this clue dupes the idea of "V"-as-symbol irritated me (see 7A: Peace symbol = V-SIGN)
125A: How the U.S. has existed since its inception (IN DEBT) — a real awkward clue. I guess it's true. I mean, here we are, it's in the puzzle, so I assume it's true. But the phrasing is still unnatural. [What the U.S. has been since its inception] reads more naturally. You are (or you aren't) IN DEBT. You don't "exist in debt."
76A: No man's land? (ISLET) — is the idea that tiny islands are frequently uninhabited? Looks like yes, they most commonly are not big enough or don't have enough vegetation to support human habitation. I wasn't aware that ISLET had a precise definition. I thought it was just vaguely "small." But the World Landforms website (!!) says very clearly: "An islet landform is generally considered to be a rock or small island that has little vegetation and cannot sustain human habitation." So the clue is definitionally accurate. And I learned something, hurray.
The Westwords Crossword Tournament, which debuted to great acclaim last year, is coming up again next week: Sunday, Jun. 22, 2025. Solvers can compete in person or online. Here's the blurb!
Registration is open for the Westwords Crossword Tournament, which will be held on Sunday, June 22. This event will be both In-Person (in Berkeley, CA) and Online. Online solvers can compete individually or in pairs. To register, to see the constructor roster, and for more details, go to www.westwordsbestwords.com.
THEME:Two-word phrases where the second word describes the shape of some highlighted letters in the first word
Theme answers:
17A: MOOD RINGS [Color-changing fad jewelry ... or a description of this answer's shaded letters?]
24A: CHARACTER ARCS [Heroes' journeys, say ... or a description of this answers shaded letters?]
39A: REGRESSION CURVES [Visual aids on scatter plots ... or a description of this answers shaded letters?]
51A: DIVIDING LINES [Some painting in a parking lot ... or a description of this answers shaded letters?]
63A: ALL ELBOWS [Awkwardly lanky ... or a description of this answers shaded letters?]
Word of the Day: 41D: CORN BELT [Midwestern agricultural swath]—
The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States and part of the Southern United States that, since the 1850s, has dominated corn production in the United States. In North America, corn is the common word for maize. More generally, the concept of the Corn Belt connotes the area of the Midwest dominated by farming and agriculture, though it stretches down into the South as well reaching into Kentucky.[1][2]
• • •
Hello, friends! It's Rafa here subbing for Rex. Hope you all have been doing great since I've last been here in spite of *gestures vaguely at the state of the world*! Several exciting things have happened since I last wrote here ... most importantly ... I met Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld, in person (!) at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT) in Stamford, CT. So I can confirm that he is in fact a real person who is lovely and kind, in spite of the occasional curmudgeon accusations. (So is his wife Penelope, though I don't think I've seen any curmudgeon accusations levied against her.)
I'm excited to be blogging this puzzle by fellow Bay Areans (is this a thing? it should be a thing!) and crossword besties Rebecca and Adam. I don't think I've ever blogged a puzzle by a constructor I knew well. I confess I can't really claim impartiality, but luckily this puzzle was very clever and enjoyable so I don't need to do any gymnastics trying to be critical without hurting their feelings. (Phew!)
TIL they originated in Peru, but these are my favorite potatoes ever, from a brunch place in SF called Plow (run, don't walk!)
Let's start with the theme! Every theme entry is a two-word phrase, and the second word describes the shape of some highlighted letters in the first word. So, in MOOD RINGS, the two Os are "rings" and they are in the word "mood" so they are ... mood rings. Notice how the second word is always plural and there are always at least 2 of the relevant letter in the first word, and how each phrase is totally real and in-the-language. Good stuff! My only nit: is an L an "elbow"? I leave that as an exercise to the reader.
The biggest IKEA store in the world is in the Philippines
Onto the fill! Funny how CORN BELT showed up two days in a row. Nothing much to nitpick ... we've got our classic GNU, as well as ARG (the country abbreviations always kinda bother me), but the rest of the short fill is super solid. I've never seen SOMM in a crossword before, and I would have instinctively spelled it "som" ... but the internet says "somm" and I believe the internet. I am only partially convinced that PR GURU and TSA BIN and LIGHT VERSE are Real Expressions™, but there was loads of fun (to me!) stuff like BODICE, AT RISK, AMEN SISTER, X-RAY CAMERA, SUPERNOVAE, CHICANOS. I really struggled to parse PR GURU at first. I muttered "WTF is a PRGU??" but eventually it all fell into place. But that area could be tricky if you are unfamiliar with AREPAS (something I recommend you rectify as soon as possible).
The clues were fun too, as I expect from these constructors. My favorite was 43A: UNHIP [Not hot or cool] ("hot" and "cool" here meaning "popular" and not anything temperature-related). Honorable mention for 1A: SWAB [Do a spit take?] (as in collecting saliva using a cotton swab) and 59D: LSAT [Exam whose score can't be argued, ironically] (though not to be an annoying pedant, it seems like you can request an audit / regrade?)
The iconic meme with corkboard and STRING connecting evidence
Overall, a very solid and classic Wednesday puzzle. A clever theme that is not obvious from the outset, and a some tricky clues sprinkled around.
Bullets:
5A: CRAB [Sea creature whose name doesn't rhyme with a1-Across (SWAB), weirdly] — I got to this clue and thought ... ok, here's a fun animals / rhyme clue
9D: GRR [Sound from an annoyed samoyed]— Oh look ... it's another rhyming animal clue! Or rather, it doesn't rhyme and that's why it's fun.
53D: EEL [Prey for an orprey] — Ok why does this puzzle have so many clues about animals where the animal is spelled the same as another word and sometimes rhymes with it but sometimes does not rhyme with it?? What does it mean???
48D: GNU [Creature that stampeded in "The Lion King"] — Kinda sad they didn't commit to the bit with this other clue for an animal!
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
.png)
