Demi with 2017 hit Sorry Not Sorry / TUE 4-6-21 / Specifics in slang / One who takes a bow before success rather than after / Hand grenade in slang / New York theater on the National Register of Historic Places

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ... girl! — exclamations containing "girl"'s names, clued, as if they were being said to a specific girl of that name:

Theme answers:

• "HEAVENS TO BETSY" (16A: "Omigosh, girl!")
• "GEEZ, LOUISE" (23A: "Dang, girl!")
• "GOOD GOLLY, / MISS MOLLY" (35D: With 37-Down, "Wow, girl!")

Word of the Day: Demi LOVATO (14A: Demi with the 2017 hit "Sorry Not Sorry") —

Demetria Devonne Lovato (/ləˈvɑːtoʊ/ lə-VAH-toh; born August 20, 1992) is an American singer and actress. After appearing on the television series Barney & Friends(2002–2004), she rose to prominence for her role as Mitchie Torres in the musical television film Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010); the former film's soundtrack contained "This Is Me", Lovato's debut single and duet with Joe Jonas, which peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. [...] Lovato has sold over 24 million records in the United States, and has also received numerous accolades, including an MTV Video Music Award, 14 Teen Choice Awards, five People's Choice Awards, two Latin American Music Awards, a Guinness World Record, and was included on the Time 100 annual list in 2017. An activist for several social causes, Lovato's personal issues received significant media attention in the 2010s, in response to which she published a book, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year (2013), and released the documentaries Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated (2017) and Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil (2021). [...] A four-part documentary series following Lovato's life premiered on YouTube in March 2021. The series, titled Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, was directed by Michael D. Ratner and showcased her personal and musical journey over the past three years. It was later announced that Lovato's seventh studio album, titled Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over, would be released on April 2, 2021. Lovato defined it [as] "the non-official soundtrack to the documentary". The album features collaborations with Ariana Grande, Noah Cyrus and Saweetie, as well as the previously released "What Other People Say", a collaboration between Lovato and Australian singer-songwriter Sam Fischer, initially released on February 4, 2021. Lovato released the title track "Dancing with the Devil" on March 26, 2021. (wikipedia)

• • •

Omigosh. I really liked this. I thought, "huh, interesting" when I got "HEAVENS TO BETSY!" and then I think I said "o my god" out loud when I got "GEEZ, LOUISE!" I then wondered what the hell other exclamation was out there and let me tell you, "GOOD GOLLY / MISS MOLLY!" really delivered the one-two knockout punch. Such a cute idea for a theme, and such an interesting grid to accommodate it — 14x16, w/ mirror symmetry instead of the much more common rotational symmetry. The lack of rotational symmetry actually briefly threw me off, as I wondered why GOOD GOLLY was symmetrical to ESTATE SALE (it isn't ... it just looked that way at a superficial glance). But back to the theme—it's everything a Tuesday should be and never is, bouncy and sassy and weird and still easy. A whimsical lark with a really clever idea at its core. The theme does have one flaw, imho, which is really really bugging me only because I really really like the core concept so much: the 2nd and 3rd themers are clued as exclamations directed at specific "girls" (Louise and Molly). "GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY" has a comma in it naturally, and you can at least imagine one in "GEEZ, LOUISE" even though the exclamation's not really said that way in real life. But in "HEAVENS TO BETSY!" ... the implied direct address is entirely absent, so the specifically direct-address clue (with the appended "girl!") feels off. If it were "HEAVENS, BETSY!" then boom, perfect. But it isn't, so ... imperfect. The "girl!" conceit really only works 2/3 of the time. But the freshness and inventiveness of the core concept carried me through the puzzle happily. They are all exclamations with women's names in them. That's enough.

I cannot deal with trickiness on Tuesdays, and so alllll of the "difficulty" in this puzzle came from "?" clues or, in the case of BAR CAR, a clue that might as well have been a "?" clue (4A: Place for meals on wheels). Trains! How quaint! I haven't been in a proper BAR CAR in I have no idea how long. I see them all the time in movies, though. But in my puzzle ... I had BAR and still wasn't entirely sure. Bring trains back! If only for the BAR CARs! (I know, trains already exist, but the commuter trains I've been on in the Northeast Corridor don't have BAR CARs that I've seen). Not thrilled with the EROS clue because I don't want my clues to be paragraph length, especially on Tuesday, and especially if they aim to be funny (18D: One who takes a bow before success rather than after?). 2,000 words, all for a "bow" pun? No thanks. Don't really like the ABA clue either (61D: Defense org.?), though I'll give you the TAYLOR Swift one (65A: Swift to soar to the top of the charts?). Only other thing to give me trouble was 17D: Get out the ___ (VOTE). I just stared at it. Then worked around it. It seems so obvious in retrospect, but my brain was like, "uh ... clear out the cobwebs? Kick out the jams? Get out the ... way??" Just blankness. Oh, and I wrote in NARC before NESS (33D: "Untouchable" agent), which gunked things up there in the east for a bit. That's all. Good theme. Fun time. Next!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I imagine most all of a bloodhound's "parts" are "important," to a bloodhound (36A: Important part of a bloodhound) (NOSE). "But what about my eyes!?" "Get sniffin'!" People can be so cruel. Please gaze deeply and appreciatively into a bloodhounds eyes today, won't you? XO

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Classic TV show starring a cowboy puppet / TUE 11-3-20 / Designer dog that crosses a Pomeranian and terrier / Gossipy meddler / Practice of males mating with one female but not vice versa as in bees and ants

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Challenging (high 3s ... it is oversized, but still)

THEME: HANDY-DANDY (64A: *Very convenient ... or, when read in six parts, a hit to the answers to the starred clues) — all themers are two-part answers, where first part starts H, ends Y, and thens second part starts D, ends Y, so ... H *and* Y, D *and* Y ... 

Theme answers:

• HOWDY DOODY (18A: *Classic TV show starring a cowboy puppet)
• HUMPTY DUMPTY (40A: *Nursery rhyme character seen in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass")
• HEAVY DUTY (11D: *Industrial-strength)
• HUNKY DORY (35D: *Peachy-keen)

Word of the Day: PEDWAY (33A: Path between buildings) —

Pedways are elevated or underground walkways, often connecting urban high-rises to each other, other buildings, or the street. They provide quick and comfortable movement from building to building, away from traffic and inclement weather.  Two of the largest networks of underground walkways are located in Canada. RÉSO in Montreal and PATH in Toronto each consist of approximately 30 km of underground walkways in the heart of their respective city centres. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well I guess I should just be happy the puzzle did not try to get cute with some election-themed nonsense. But this felt off to me, in a bunch of ways. First, "read in six parts" ... first, that's a big ask, and second, it doesn't really explain what's happening here. The main problem is that "AND" does not work. AND doesn't tell indicate H (or D) at the *front* and Y at the *back*... it's just AND. The word "hyena" has an H AND a Y, but it wouldn't work as a word in a theme phrase because what is going on (the relationships between the letters) Is Much More Specific Than Mere "And" Indicates. There's also (ironically?) an "and" (or some kind of connecting thought) missing between H AND Y and (!) D AND Y. In short, I can piece it all together, I see what you are trying to do, but that revealer phrase simply fails to express the exact nature of the theme. It's off. It misses. Clank. And a 16-wide clank at that. The other main issue I had was that it didn't feel like a Tuesday, fill-wise, in the sense that it's exceedingly rare that I won't have heard of three (3) answers in a Tuesday puzzle, but PORKIE MONOGYNY and PEDWAY, all new to me. All inferrable, ultimately, but they all slowed me down like crazy. Is PEDWAY a Canadian term? I know skyways (from Minneapolis, and (related) the Replacements song), and I've been in underground pedestrian tunnels in NYC, and I guess those are technically PEDWAYs, but seriously this is not a word I can remember ever seeing or hearing. MONOGYNY seems like a fine word, I just couldn't piece together root words fast enough to get it without crosses. Lastly, "Designer dog" is a grotesque concept. Please never use that phrase again. It's a dog. Also, why name the Pomeranian in the clue but *not* the Yorkie????????? (45A: Designer dog that crosses a Pomeranian and terrier). That clue is just f'd up in too many ways.

Had LOO instead of LAV, which crossed PEDWAY, so that was awful (28D: Washroom, in Worcester). Nothing much else to say, except I've never, literally never, never ever, seen a TEAR in an emoticon (71A: The apostrophe in :'-()  Not once. Not a solitary time. Legit thought it was a nose. Like ... Nose 2, I guess. No idea. Awful clue. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I see we're still doing Morse Code ... DIT ... [deep sigh] ... please stop (65D: E, in Morse code)

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Wisecracking bear of film / WED 7-29-20 / Animal known scientifically as alces alces / Mobile device that debuted in 2016

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Challenging (5 minutes-ish)

THEME: STRONG PASSWORD (49A: It may require letters, a number and a special character—as seen in 20-, 33- and 39-Across) — well, you don't actually "see" the numbers and letters as such, but you do see the words that represent them:

Theme answers:

• TWO PERCENT MILK (2% milk) (20A: Reduced-fat option)
• IPHONE SEVEN PLUS (iPhone 7+) (33A: Mobile device that debuted in 2016)
• ONE MICHELIN STAR (1 Michelin *) (?!) (39A: Highly sought-after restaurant rating)

Word of the Day: "TED" (6A: Wisecracking bear of film) —

Ted is a 2012 American comedy film directed by Seth MacFarlane and written by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild. The film stars Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, with Joel McHale and Giovanni Ribisi in supporting roles, with MacFarlane providing the voice and motion capture of the title character. The film tells the story of John Bennett, a Boston native whose childhood wish brings his teddy bear friend Ted to life. However, in adulthood, Ted prevents John and his love interest Lori Collins from moving on with their lives. // The film is MacFarlane's feature-length directorial debut, produced by Media Rights Capital and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was the 12th highest-grossing film of 2012 and received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. Ted received mixed to positive reviews with critics praising the humor and premise while criticizing the plot and inconsistent script.(wikipedia)

• • •

This had a lot of things working against it. I have to admire the ambition here—it's a weird concept, and it can't have been easy to find themers that worked. I just did not like how it came out. TWO PERCENT MILK is fine, that's very much a thing, but IPHONE SEVEN PLUS is several flavors of yuck. First, like the puzzle doesn't shill Apple products enough—the weirdly specific product name just reeks of niche tech crud. How long ago was the IPHONE SEVEN PLUS anyway? Are we honestly expected to remember the different releases of iPhone and their variants going back ... I mean, this must be at least four generations now. I've had my iPhone 8 for 3 or 4 years now. Anyway, that really killed it for me, and then ONE MICHELIN STAR felt like very contrived phrasing. What's "highly sought-after" is *a* Michelin Star. Since there are ... more stars to be had, it seems so odd to say the "highly sought-after restaurant rating" is ONE as opposed to two or three MICHELIN STARs. Surely those ratings are even more highly sought-after. Something about ONE MICHELIN STAR just doesn't feel right as a stand-alone answer. I think it's that the other two themers, when you write them out the way you would normally, the way they appear in the wild, they actually contain a number and a symbol (see "Theme Answers," above), whereas you would never write out "1 Michelin *." Just bizarre. Also, the revealer, isn't exactly strong. When I am asked to choose passwords nowadays I am given strongness ratings that go well beyond merely "strong." This one just clunked in too many places. Plus there's some regrettable fill (e.g. IBANKER CONG OWOW), *and* the cluing felt harder than normal. Just hard to see the joy here.


I don't think I've had a worse start to a solve ... ever. At least not with a relatively easy puzzle. I had four wrong answers (at various points) *in the NW corner alone*. LEGOS not ATOMS (1A: Small building blocks). SIM not ATM (1D: ___ card). BEEP not TOOT (2D: Friendly honk). OUCH not OWOW (3D: "I'm in pain! I'm in pain!") (!?). No idea about sci. name of MOOSE (17A: Animal known scientifically as Alces alces). Don't think of MISO as a "seasoning" 94D: Traditional Japanese seasoning) That whole corner was just brutal for a Wednesday. And the NE corner wasn't much better. Had both DEALS and SALES before PACTS (which are far less handshake-specific, imho) (9A: Things finished with handshakes). Then had STICK ON before PASTE ON (awk) (9D: Affix with adhesive). Needed many crosses to get stuff like POTPIE (25A: Entree baked in a tin) and MOTELS (46A: Things often found near cloverleafs), which had really vague clues. Never got a rhythm (or, if I got one, it quickly ceased). Bottom half was definitely easier. but the general grind of solving was never alleviated by thematic pleasures or sparkly fill. It just missed me, this puzzle, at every level. I'm surprised, as I usually like work by this pair—as I'm sure I will again.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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When doubled 2010s dance / THU 6-24-20 / Efficiency symbol in physics / Golfer Poulter with three PGA Tour wins / 1950s-60s sitcom nickname / makes the going great old ad slogan

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni 

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (4:58)

THEME: GO OUT ON A LIMB (51A: Act riskily ... or what three answers in this puzzle do) — three answers go out (i.e. off the edge of the grid) on a limb (the part hanging off the edge of the grid is also the name of a limb, such as one might find on a human, or turkey):

Theme answers:

• WORKS LIKE A CH(ARM) (20A: Totally does the trick)
• "(LEG)ALLY BLONDE" (35A: 2001 comedy starring Reese Witherspoon)
• WHISTLE BLO(WING) (42A: Reporting internal wrongdoing)

Word of the Day: PLAYMAT (40D: Crawl space?) —

Noun

1. A mat (flat piece of material) designed for a young child to play upon. (yourdictionary.com, whatever that is)

• • •

I have seen "off the grid"-type themes before, for sure, but this one makes pretty good use of its revealer. A bit weird to have your limbs be arm, leg ... and wing. One of those is not like the others, no matter which animal you take the limbs from. Humans don't have wings. Chickens don't have arms. Maybe it's supposed to be a joke? I dunno. Anyway, might've been cool to do arm twice and leg twice—get all the human limbs *and* stick with one species. Also, might've been much cooler if the letters that appear in the grid were actual words. ALLY BLONDE fits the bill, but ugh WORKS LIKE ACH and WHISTLE BLO are ... rough. I guess both ACH and BLO can stand alone as crossword answers, so maybe you could say they're not total nonsense, but ... I just wince when my grid is full of nonsense. I know I know, you add the limb and poof, no nonsense. But grids should look good as is. The fact of ACH at the end of WORKS LIKE ACH really hurt me, as did the cluing of regular old SETH as some Egyptian god (!?!?!) (12D: Egyptian god of chaos). I had SETT for the god and WORKS LIKE ACT as the answer. I was certain that the theme was somehow going to involve MAGIC ... like ACT was somehow standing in for "MAGIC" (i.e. "works like magic"), since "magic act" ... is a thing. This made total sense to me as I was solving, though *exactly* how I thought this whole "MAGIC" dealie would play out, I don't remember. You know, you're solving, you get a themer, maybe you have only a vague idea of how it works, but you keep plugging and have faith that things will become clear later. Well, I finished the grid and still had SETT up there. So boo. Error. Oh well.


Hardest part for me was the mid-east, largely because I didn't really understand the theme yet (even though I was almost done) so the BLO part wasn't obvious. Also, PANAM slogans are wow, yeah, before my time (40A: "___ makes the going great" (old ad slogan)). And I thought [Dum-dum] (37A) was maybe some kind of drum because I would never spell it without the "b"s on the end (i.e. "dumb-dumb"). A Dum-dum is a (delicious) lollipop. So BOZO, couldn't get. Was proud that I remembered the NAE (NAE), and that Definitely helped me get things sorted in there (50A: When doubled, a 2010s dance). Only other snag was in the west, where I had CLOSE TO before CLOSE BY (14D: Near) and NYSE before NYNY (29D: Big Apple inits.), and both of those errors were running right through the front end of the themer ALLY BLONDE (and again, at that point I still had no idea about all the limb business). Rest of the puzzle played pretty easy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Onetime truth in engineering sloganeer / THU 2-13-20 / Relative of jaguarundi / Reference that arranges words by concept rather than alphabetically / Noted painter of scenes in Napoleonic wars / Super Mario bros character with mushroom head

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:06, very much not trying to speed ... I can't speed-solve before 6am, and it's not even 5)

THEME: ROLL THE DICE (56A: Take a chance ... or a hint to the letters in the circled squares) — letters D, I, C, E appear in the "cube"-shaped circled squares, in a different configuration each time (because the DICE is "rolling") ... each "DICE" configuration is part of a long Across that enters the "cube" at the lower left corner, jumps up to pick up the top two letters, then comes down for the bottom right letter before continuing Across (well, one answer just ends there at the "cube")

Theme answers:

• IN-SERVICE DAYS (17A: Times when teachers go to school but students don't)
• SAUCE DISH (23A: Vessel for dipping at a dinner table)
• REVERSE DICTIONARY (36A: Reference that arranges words by concept rather than alphabetically)
• SHAVED ICE (51A: Cousin of a sno-cone)

Word of the Day: BELAY (31A: "___ that order!" ("Star Trek" command)) —

2. nautical : STOP, CANCEL
belay that last order (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Really wanted to like this one. Have enjoyed work from these constructors before, so was excited to dig into this, but while there is fun to be had along the way today, I found this one clunked as much as it hummed. We can start with the theme itself, which feels like something I've seen before, conceptually, but ... that's not too big a deal, maybe the constructors will make it new and interesting. But just spinning four letters like this, and (I'm pretty sure) even the DICE thing has been done, so as soon as I get that revealer and realize all those square configurations are just gonna be DICE boxes, I'm already a little let down. Actually, I was let down earlier on two fronts. First, SAUCE DISH. That is ... not exactly a sizzling start. I can kind of imagine what one of those is, but it feels like such an odd, generic, non-specific phrase ... one that I basically inferred from SAUC- ... I can't really dispute the thingness of SAUCE DISH, but it was a disappointment. I like for themers to elicit a "ooh, good one!" not just an "uh, sure, OK." Which brings me to the next let-down, which is that I got the theme concept *immediately*. Very easy to figure out what was going on with SAUCE DISH when SAUCI- wasn't going to go anywhere, and those circles are basically screaming "look at us!" I was hoping the remaining circle configurations were going to hold new things, but then I got the revealer and realized it was just gonna be DICE. And they were gonna roll. I feel like there's some kind of REVERSE AHA MOMENT here, where I get the gimmick early, am not terribly intrigued by it, but still have the rest of the damn puzzle in front of me. The one thing I kinda liked about the theme—the fact that the answer went up and over each "DICE"—was the one thing that didn't seem in keeping with the "DICE" theme. The "rolling" happens as the "DICE" rotates one click counterclockwise at each stage as it "rolls" down the grid. NO IDEA how the up-and-over theme answer thing is DICE-y, but I'll take the added theme feature, since it's kind of fun. I also like how the "DICE" letters are always broken across two words in the themer. Nice added touch.


The last truly disappointing thing today was the phrase IN-SERVICE DAYS. I've been married to a NYS high school teacher for the better part of two decades and I have never heard this term. She definitely has "teacher conference days," where students are off but teachers meet for various reasons, and maybe I've heard "service days" (maybe...) but IN-SERVICE DAYS, sigh, no. I'm sure someone somewhere calls them that, or this answer wouldn't be here. But that answer clanked for me worse than SAUCE DISH. That was (consequently) the last and toughest part of the grid for me. Oh, and the grid ... so choppy and fussy. So much short stuff, which meant so much not-great stuff like -EAN and EINK and RGS and AER and on and on. I actually didn't dislike this puzzle as much as this first paragraph would suggest, but the execution was just off on this one, for me.

[PRIMA is HEP]

I have never seen a REVERSE DICTIONARY, and am not sure why you would use one, but I still liked that answer better than any of the others. It's snappy. And original. And I like how, in general, the clues were spiced (i.e. toughened) up in the short fill (probably because an abundance of short fill tends to make puzzles very easy, and the gimmick today isn't terribly hard to uncover, but it's Thursday, which is supposed to be a toughish solving day, so ... spicy! I actually had to think about the clues on little things like RIPE, NINTH, SALTS, HDTV, CENSUS, TED, etc. Really wanted to like SCIFI BOOK, and I see that that is a term people use, but it's SCI FI NOVEL, or should be, esp. where Clarke is concerned, even if he did occasionally publish a collection of short stories (8D: Many an arthur C. Clarke work). The clue says "work," singular, and the name of the "work" is not "book," it's "novel." If you look at his wikipedia page, the "Works" section is broken down into "novels," "short story collections," and "non-fiction," not "books"). Today really was mostly about my being irked that so many things felt off—not horrible, just wide of the mark.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Jokey 1978 Steve Martin song / TUE 4-23-19 / Shrek's wife / Charge for some goods bought out of state / RVer's stopver for short / Futuristic movie of 1982

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (probably more Medium) (3:31)

THEME: "PET SOUNDS" (64A: Beach Boys album with the hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice" ... or things hidden in 17-, 31-, 37- and 49-Across) — MEOW, WOOF, OINK (!), and HISS (!?) can be found embedded in the theme answers:

Theme answers:

• HOMEOWNER (17A: One who may have a mortgage)
• TWO OF A KIND (31A: Twins)
• TATTOO INK (37A: Liquid supply for body art)
• THIS SIDE UP (49A: Message between two arrows on a shipping container)

Word of the Day: MUFTI (22D: Civilian clothes for a soldier) —

noun

1. a Muslim legal expert who is empowered to give rulings on religious matters. (google)

1.  also:

1. : ordinary dress as distinguished from that denoting an occupation or station 

   a priest in muftiespecially : civilian clothes when worn by a person in the armed forces (m-w)

• • •

This was just goofy enough for me to like it. Given the cover of the album in question, I really would've liked to have seen a goat sound somewhere in the puzzle, but I can live with the sound assortment I've been given. This theme was pleasantly light-hearted, and even though the latter two "pets" aren't exactly as common as the first two, I liked that the "pets" got more improbable as you worked down the grid. Guessing that was just coincidence, but whatever. It works. I also liked that the theme actually meant something to me *while I was solving*. I sort of spilled down the grid from the NW to the SE. Hmm, maybe I took a brief trip north to pick up the NE corner, but otherwise, I just fell diagonally down the grid and got "PET SOUNDS" before I really noticed what was going on (at that point, hadn't even noticed the MEOW or the WOOF). So the sounds were on my mind when it came to parsing the second two themers. Always nice when I can enjoy (and use) the theme while solving. With early-week puzzles, that doesn't always happen. I have some issues with some of the fill, but overall, I think this holds up, especially for a Tuesday, which, after Sunday, is the day most likely to bomb.


The most eventful thing to happen during this solve was the horrible decision I made to yank CORONET. I put it in off just the "C," and immediately wrinkled my nose and worried I had the word wrong. "Is it CORNET? CORONET? Which one is the horn and which one the crown?" I went to confirm the answer off the first short cross I could find, and that was 35A: Indian flatbread. Knowing ("knowing") that [Indian flatbread] = NAAN, I pulled CORONET. Ugh. NAAN is leavened, ROTI not (paratha and chapati, also unleavened, in case that ever comes up, which in crosswords, it probably won't). Mistakes are Killing me lately. It's one thing not to know an answer, but it's kinda worse to plunk down a wrong word with confidence. Somehow TRIED TO and HOLDS ON, with their twin two-letter endings, were slightly hard to parse coming at them from the top. SASSINESS felt wrong, in that SASS all on its own seemed like the correct answer for 34D: Cheek. SASSINESS feels different from backtalk. Somehow I relate it more to swagger or style in general. Mainly I think people just say SASS if they mean lip (or cheek) (weird how two different facial parts are slang for sass). So I had SASS and then had no idea where to go. Luckily SW was very easy.


Five things:

• 3D: One with a squeaky wheel? (HAMSTER) — tough clue for a Tuesday. Also, can't decide if it's wonderfully apt or annoyingly superfluous, given that it involves around a pet ... sound.
• 11D: Send beyond the green, say (OVERHIT) — Maybe this is a valid golf term, but I don't like golf and this answer feels like it should be OVERSHOT so I have only side eye for this answer
• 60A: Digitally endorsed (E-SIGNED) — woof. No. Put an "R" or a "D" at the front of that thing or lose its dumb E-ass entirely.
• 43D: Jokey 1978 Steve Martin song ("KING TUT") — sincerely read this as [Jockey in a 1978 Steve Martin song] and thought "yeah that sounds like a thing that might be in those lyrics." I was likely confusing "jockey" with "donkey" and "honky." Luckily for me, [Steve Martin song] alone would've done the trick.
• 63D: Big D.C. lobby (NRA) — because nuns' rights are very important*

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*I figured that today instead of yelling about the NYTXW's continuing to boost white supremacist terrorist organizations, I'd just pretend NRA meant something else

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Japanese lunch box / WED 3-20-19 / 1931 boxing movie for which Wallace Beery won Best Actor Oscar / actress Joan whose last name consists of two different conveyances

Constructor: Erik Agard, Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Medium (4:08)

THEME: DISAPPEARING INK (56A: Liquid evidenced by the answers to this puzzle's starred clues?) — letter string "INK" disappears one letter at a time, with each successive themer:

Theme answers:

• I CAN'T SLEEP A WINK (16A: *Insomniac's complaint)
• KITCHEN SIN (23A: *Leaving dirty dishes on the counter, say)
• HOT P.I. (36A: *Sexy detective)
• MAKES YOUTH (46A: *Works like an anti-aging serum) (from "makes you think...")

Word of the Day: "THE CHAMP" (8D: 1931 boxing movie for which Wallace Beery won a Best Actor Oscar) —

The Champ is a 1931 American pre-Code film starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper and directed by King Vidorfrom a screenplay by Frances Marion, Leonard Praskins and Wanda Tuchock. The picture tells the story of a washed-up alcoholic boxer (Beery) attempting to put his life back together for the sake of his young son (Cooper).

Beery won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance (sharing the prize with Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Frances Marion won the Academy Award for Best Story, and the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director. (wikipedia)

• • •

Unsurprisingly, DISAPPEARING INK has been a theme revealer a whole bunch of times over the years, but it's never been a executed in quite this way, as far as I can tell. There's one where "INK" is missing a bunch of times, and another where the clues actually proceed INK, IN, I, -, but none where the INK fades one letter at a time. Now, I don't really know how DISAPPEARING INK works, and I doubt it fades one letter at a time, but still, I like the idea of its literally disappearing as the themers progress. MAKES YOUTH is kind of rocky: you really have to screw with the base phrase to get a new phrase (dropping the INK and fusing two words together), and also MAKES YOUTH ... just isn't a meaningful phrase. "Here, this ... MAKES YOUTH!" I mean, maybe if you're not a native speaker and you are selling snake oil, this is how you would say it, but the other answers crackle just by breaking off letters, their wackiness simple and punchy. MAKES YOUTH definitely makes you think, but not really in a good way. Still, overall, theme approved.


The grid is very clean, fill-wise, but kind of unpleasant to navigate, since it's riddled with a ridiculous number of black squares (40), making the middle into a swiss cheese. This results in a ton of 3- and 4-letter answers, and a very fussy grid to navigate overall. Kudos to the constructing team for having so much short fill and very little gunk. Looks like they dropped a bunch of Downs through three themers, which really locks you in as a constructor, and the offset* 2nd and 5th themers are also unusual, and probably have something to do with the weirdly pock-marked look of the grid (*I mean "offset" here in the sense of neither centered nor flush right/left). It's structurally bizarre, which is weirdly visually distracting to me, but you do what you gotta do to get a clean grid, I guess. Overall it felt pretty easy, with all the difficulty coming in figuring out the wacky themers. Had SLIP before TRIP at 1A: What you might do if you skip a step, and that was probably the hardes thing in the grid, for me. Oh, that and "OKAY, DEAR," which is truly nonsense. It's YES, DEAR or gtfo.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. the clue on 1D: Group making a reservation? (TRIBE) did not sit right with me. It's true enough, but using forced relocation of Native Americans to achieve your cutesy restaurant wordplay clue felt tone-deaf. I don't feel super-strongly about this. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

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Group organizing Mardi Gras parade / WED 1-23-19 / First pope to be called Great / Trotter's course / Bowl trendy healthful food / Maternity ward worker who counts each day's births / Cable airer of NBA games / Scraped knee in totspeak

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Medium for me (4:15), but Easy for everyone else, apparently

THEME: GENDER NEUTRAL (56A: Like 20-, 28- and 45-Across vis-à-vis the female-sounding phrases they're based on?) — a familiar base phrase has its final "-ESS" removed and then the aural remnants are reimagined and reclued, wackily:

Theme answers:

• DELIVERY ADDER (from "delivery address") (20A: Maternity ward worker who counts each day's births?)
• FLYING BUTTER (from "flying buttress") (28A: Dairy item thrown in a food fight?)
• BLOW-UP MATTER (from "blow-up mattress") (45A: Dynamite?)

Word of the Day: KREWE (27D: Group organizing a Mardi Gras parade) —

noun

1. (in the US) an organization or association that stages a parade or other event for a carnival celebration. Krewes are associated especially with Mardi Gras in New Orleans. (google)

• • •

First off, hurray for half of a woman constructor! It's now 22.5 men and 1.5 women. Parity, here we come! (But seriously, hurray). Big non-hurray for this theme though, which clunks the way only an off-the-mark sound-based theme can clunk. That extra syllable is just a horrible dealbreaker. ADDRESS is two syllables. Removing its "female-sounding" part (!) just leaves ADDR-, which sounds like "uh-DRUH-" The idea that taking away the "-ESS" leaves ADDER is completely preposterous. An "address" is something. An "adder" is something. An "adderess" is ... like, a female snake? I dunno. I just know that all of these themers simply do not work at the level at which humans form sounds with their mouths and larynxes. Matteress? Butteress? How is "delivery address" a "female-sounding phrase." It's barely a phrase at all. Has anyone ever thought, "'mattress' ... that's kind of like feminine 'matter'?" And by "anyone" I mean "anyone who wasn't super high." The great thing about watching instant reaction to the puzzle on Twitter at #NYTXW is that you can see trends. This puzzle was apparently very easy and also, to a good number of people, completely baffling. So many people out there are like, "I set a personal record time for a Wednesday but I do Not understand the theme." I too couldn't understand it for something close to a minute (roughly).


The fill also shouldn't be this blah when the theme isn't taxing the grid that much. The long non-theme answers are fairly dull and the short stuff is overrun with NYSE AONE STLEO ADREP ENS ACAI SSS NNE-level gunk. It's funny that people found this so easy. These imaginary-phrase themes always slow me down. Also, I just didn't see any of the answers clearly. CRAB no CLODS no VOL no ... had NAVE for APSE (not a big churchgoer, or church-understander, apparently), SPRUNG for SPRANG, blanked on KREWE, balked at AMEN and WEST, wasn't entirely sure about MEEMAW, had LET ME instead of LEMME (which ... what the hell is with that corner!? LEMME is so bad and unnecessary; you could do a million other things down there—you could also just change it to DEMME and turn LAV (ugh, again?) into DAD. OK, that's all. I'll leave you with a couple of interesting solver gripes. Good night:

4D: Agnostic's lack => BELIEF

5A: Some lines drawn with protractors => ARCS

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Units of power saved in modern lingo / TUE 12-11-18 / Clooney lawyer often seen in tabloids / Comedian who said in america anyone can become president that's the problem

Constructor: Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (3:45)

THEME: COMPOST BIN (50A: Place for kitchen scraps, such as those starting 16-, 24-, 32- and 44-Across) — pretty self-explanatory

Theme answers:

• SHELL SHOCK (16A: Combat trauma)
• PEEL OUT (24A: Leave quickly, as from a parking spot)
• GROUNDS CREW (32A: Baseball field maintainers)
• PIT BOSS (44A: Casino V.I.P.)

Word of the Day: NEGAWATTS (31D: Units of power saved, in modern lingo) —

Negawatt power is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of electrical power (measured in watts) saved. The energy saved is a direct result of energy conservation or increased energy efficiency. The term was coined by the chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute and environmentalist Amory Lovins in 1985, within the article, "Saving Gigabucks with Negawatts," where he argued that utility customers don’t want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services such as hot showers, cold beer, lit rooms, and spinning shafts, which can come more cheaply if electricity is used more efficiently. Lovins felt an international behavioral change was necessary in order to decrease countries' dependence on excessive amounts of energy. The concept of a negawatt could influence a behavioral change in consumers by encouraging them to think about the energy that they spend. (wikipedia)

• • •

HELLO, SYNDICATION SOLVERS! (i.e. the majority of my readership—those of you who are reading this on Tuesday, January 15). It's early January and that means it's time for my annual pitch for financial contributions to the blog, during which I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. As you know, I write this blog every. Single. Day. OK, two days a month I pay young people to write it, but every other day, all me. OK sometimes I take vacations and generous friends of mine sit in, but otherwise, I'm a non-stop blogging machine. Seriously, it's a lot of work. It's at least as much work as my day job, and unlike my day job, the hours *kinda* suck—I typically solve and write between 10pm and midnight, or in the early hours of the morning, so that the blog can be up and ready for solvers to read with their breakfast or on the train or in a forest or wherever it is you people enjoy the internet. I have no major expenses, just my time. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog in any way beyond simply asking for money once a year. I hate ads in real life, so why would I subject you all to them. I actually considered redesigning the site earlier this year, making it slicker or fancier somehow. I even got the process partly underway, but then when I let slip that I was considering it, feedback was brisk and clear: don't change. Turns out people don't really want whistles and bells. Just the plain, internet-retro style of a blogger blog. So that's what you're getting. No amount of technical tinkering is gonna change the blog, which is essentially just my voice. My ridiculous opinionated voice yelling at you, cheerfully and angrily, about how much I love / hate crosswords. I hope that this site has made you laugh or taught you things or given you a feeling of shared joy, or anger, or failure, or even given you someone to yell at. I'm fine with that. I also hope I've introduced some of you to the Wider World of Crosswords, beyond the NYT. I am passionate about puzzles and I (mostly) adore the people who solve them—so many of my friends, and the thousands of you I've never met. I can't stop, and I won't stop, and I hope you find that effort worth supporting.

Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address:

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions (I. Love. Snail mail!) will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. This year's cards are illustrations from "Alice in Wonderland"—all kinds of illustrations from throughout the book's publication history. Who will get the coveted, crosswordesey "EATME!" card!? Someone, I'm sure. You, I hope. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD.  As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.

Now on to the puzzle!

• • •

What kind of SHELL? Like ... a crab shell? Clam? Taco? I don't put those in the compost. Pits either. I don't know why. I just don't. Coffee grounds, sure. Peel, yeah. I don't know. First-words themes have kind of a high bar because they're so basic, and I don't know if this one cleared said bar. Nothing very bin-y about it. Word play is pretty rudimentary. The grid is also segmented in this really annoying way, where you can't get out of the north except by going waaaaay over to the west. Otherwise, I think the grid is really pretty clean and shiny. I don't know that I think it's a Tuesday grid (felt slightly more Wednesdayish, somehow), but except for a couple of very short answers, nothing was jarringly icky. We need to talk about 31-Down, though, because ... that is some nonsense. It's some nonsense for a number of reasons. First of all, I've never heard of it. Fine, I've never heard of lots of things, but really ... never. And I'm not alone. By a long shot.

[these are just from the first half hour after the puzzle was posted]

So someone—maybe the constructors, maybe an aspirationally hip subeditor—thought they'd get cute with their "original" fill and ... wipeout. New for new's sake is dumb and self-indulgent. It's all made so much worse by the fact that a simple one-letter change turns it into a familiar word.

I was slowed down by FILE CLERK, because having FI- in place I wrote in FIRST-YEAR (4D: Low-level law firm employee). Also really struggled with POP BY, even after I got the -BY. And the -PBY. And the -OPBY. Me: "HOP BY????" (5A: Visit on a whim) Oof. PASS ON, also weirdly hard to parse (5D: Forgo). So, yeah, all the difficulty in this one, besides NEGAWATTS, and AMAL (whose name I just plum forgot) (49A: ___ Clooney, lawyer often seen in tabloids) was in the NW. I wrote in ACRE for AREA (18A: Real estate measurement), and that messed things up for a few seconds in the NE. My favorite moment in this puzzle didn't actually happen to me. It happened to a friend who sent me this screenshot with the subject heading: "Uh oh..."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. who PEELs OUT from a *parking spot*. I'm just imagining the parking lot at Wegmans and thinking ... this is not possible, or at least not advised. Try "intersection" next time.

P.P.S. oh hey watch this, it features my friend David Kwong, talking crosswords and magic and stuff (also, he's on The "Today" Show this morning at 9am EST, doing magic, I assume)


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