Birkin bag maker / TUE 2-10-26 / John ___, longtime writer for The New Yorker / News website with a Latin name / Catholic university whose mascot is a lion, aptly / Viral dance of the 2010s / 20 ounce Starbucks size / Pool from a volcanic eruption / Program for expedited travel between the U.S. and Canada / Reputation or Lover, to a Swiftie / First Oscar winner to be born in the 21st century (for Best Original Song) / Margaret Mead's subject, informally

Constructor: Sarah Sinclair and Amie Walker

Relative difficulty: Medium, maybe a little tougher than that (***for a Tuesday***)

[43D: Kylo ___, "Star Wars" antagonist]

THEME: "GIVE ME A HAND" (59A: "I could use some help here" ... or a hint to 17-, 25-, 37- and 50-Across) — theme answers are all things you give hands to:

Theme answers:

• POKER PLAYER (17A: Certain casino regular)
• PALM READER (25A: Psychic who examines lifelines and heart lines)
• MRS. POTATO HEAD (37A: "Toy Story 2" character who says "I'm packing you an extra pair of shoes, and your angry eyes, just in case")
• CLAP-O-METER (50A: Device measuring audience approval)

Word of the Day: John MCPHEE (44D: John ___, longtime writer for The New Yorker) —

John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American author. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth occasion in 1999 for Annals of the Former World (a collection of five books, including two of his previous Pulitzer finalists).\ In 2008, he received the George Polk Career Award for his "indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career".^[2] Since 1974, McPhee has been the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. (wikipedia) // Coming into the Country is a 1976 book by John McPhee about Alaska and McPhee's travels through much of the state with bush pilots, prospectors, and settlers, as well as politicians and businesspeople who each interpret the state in different ways. // One of his most widely read books, Coming into the Country is divided into three sections, "At the Northern Tree Line: The Encircled River," "In Urban Alaska: What They Were Hunting For," and "In the Bush: Coming into the Country". // Like all of McPhee's books, Coming into the Country started out as an outline that he proceeded to fill in. It is McPhee's best-selling book. // After the publication of Coming into the Country, The New York Times called McPhee "the most versatile journalist in America". (wikipedia)

• • •

A pockmarked, choppy grid that felt fussy from the outset. Something about that NW (and SE) corner is so overly-carved out and ugly, IMO. Just too many black squares for my eye / sensibility. The weirdly offset longer Downs (GETS IN SHAPE / LADIES NIGHT) create this odd over-black-squared phenomenon, which should be innocuous, but somehow made the start of this solve really unpleasant. Starting with threes—and ambiguous 3s at that (I had ZIP for VIM (1A: Pep in one's step) and later PET for VIP (1D: One who gets special treatment, for short) and then, because of PET, EMOJI (!?) for IMAGE (12A: Picture it!)). The fill was pretty bad at the outset, in part because of this short-word glut (IMO ETAIL (ugh), CFOS, FLAM, NAE NAE), so the puzzle started in a hole with me. Things got better when the longer answers started cooking, but still, throughout, the short fill (esp. the very short fill, the 3s) felt relentless. All those 3s in the NE / SW ... and then EKE ANODE STLEO on one line. It was a lot to take. The puzzle was also replete with proper nouns, which ... you know, live/die by them, I guess. I loved seeing John MCPHEE (someone whose writing for the New Yorker I always admire and someone I keep meaning to read more). But then you've got your DAEs and your RAEs and your NAE NAEs and I'm less excited about those. Seriously, has any puzzle gone to the "AE" well more times than this one? Five times! DAE RAE NAE NAE and AERIE! This puzzle deserves a medal. A medael. I don't know for what, but it's Winter Olympics time, and I'm in the medal-giving spirit. Anyway, if you just see past the bullet-riddled grid and the unfortunate short fill, underneath it all is a pretty basic Monday/Tuesday-type theme. I like that the themers don't just involve hands but actually giving hands. It's as if each theme answer might actually say "GIVE ME A HAND" (to the extent that you can imagine a CLAP-O-METER "saying" anything).

[I have no idea what is happening here (I've never watched an episode of Coronation Street in my life) but someone asks "What's a CLAP-O-METER?" so it seemed appropriate]

[Never heard of CLAP-O-METER before—this is what I thought the device was called]

The fill had a decidedly feminine bias, which I noticed and appreciated. MAKEOVERs and MAMA and DARA Torres (40D: Swimmer Torres with 12 Olympic medals) and Margaret Mead (11D: Margaret Mead's subject, informally) and Taylor Swift (14D: Reputation or Lover, to a Swiftie = ERA) and Billie EILISH (21A: First Oscar winner to be born in the 21st century (for Best Original Song)) and MRS POTATO HEAD—a real LADIES NIGHT here at [checks clock] 5:03am. Does MRS. POTATO HEAD come with a Birkin bag? (48D: Birkin bag maker = HERMÉS). Think about it, Hasbro. You can have that idea for free [HASBRO ... haven't seen that in the puzzle in five years ... saw WHAM-O just last week ... sorry, toy company name digression, back to the puzzle]. Even though I don't love the grid choppiness or much of the short fill, I actually think the overall fill is somewhat more interesting than you typically get on a Tuesday. Longer Downs are plentiful and decent (MAKEOVER, GETS IN SHAPE, LAVA PIT, LADIES NIGHT, ABOVE ALL), and if the puzzle runs a little trivia-heavy, a little proper noun-heavy, it does have a lot of personality. 

Bullets:

• 44A: "Don't Tell ___" ("Cabaret" song) ("MAMA) — one of the answers that made this one tougher (than usual) for me. If you want to hide MAMA from me, put it in a song I've never heard of. You could've told me literally anything went in that four-letter space and I would've believed you. "Don't Tell A LIE," "Don't Tell ME NO," "Don't Tell FRED," sure, those all sound good. 
• 68A: Program for expedited travel between the U.S. and Canada (NEXUS) — glad I never saw this clue because yikes, what? I live not that far from Canada and I've never heard of this. Is this a widely known thing? NEXUS? I can tell you that NEXUS has appeared 49 times in NYTXW history (24 times in the Modern Era, 16 times since I started this blog), and this is the first time it's been clued this way. On a Tuesday? OK, like I said, I never saw the clue, so the "difficulty" was lost on me. Weirdly, I never saw the clue on the first three themers today either. Strange. There was just so much short stuff to work that every time I looked up, another themer was filled in enough for me to guess it.

["Canada, oh Canada"]

• 4D: Song suitable for a slow dance (BALLAD) — I wrote in BALLET. I kinda know why ("dance") but still, really bad reflex there.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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M.L.B. shortstop Miguel / SUN 11-9-25 / Nocturnal primate of the Indian forest / Handcrafted items in a fishing tackle box / "The ___ Smith Show" (Apple TV offering) / What distinguishes "bet" from "vet" in Hebrew / 1990s ABC sitcom about kids growing up without their parents / Athol Fugard novel adapted as an Academy Award-winning film / Like someone who experiences little to no amorous and sexual attraction, for short

Constructor: Amie Walker

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Swing States" — four rebus squares that contain two state codes each—one for the Across answer and another for the Down. All the states belong to the general "western" portion of the United States, so each square is a kind of ... WESTERN UNION (117A: Telegraph pioneer, or a description of four squares in this puzzle)

Theme answers:

• "YOU TALKIN' TO ME?" / FAN VOTE (23A: Iconic line from Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver" / 3D: Chance for supporters to induct athletes into the All-Star Game)
• "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" / "I'M NOT A KID ANYMORE!" (41A: "I've had it!" / 12D: "Treat me like an adult, MOM!")
• MOM-TO-BE / FEW AND FAR BETWEEN (57A: Certain expectant parent / 44D: Scarce)
• "IT'S ON ME" / "NO RETURNS" (91A: "Put your wallet away" / 87D: "All sales final")

Word of the Day: TSOTSI (98D: Athol Fugard novel adapted as an Academy Award-winning film) —

Tsotsi is the only novel written by South African playwright Athol Fugard (1932–2025). It was published in 1980 although written some time earlier, and it was the basis of the 2005 film of the same name. [...] Tsotsi is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel Tsotsi by Athol Fugard, and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, it stars Presley Chweneyagae as David/Tsotsi (meaning "criminal" - see also Tsotsitaal), a young street thug who steals a car only to discover a baby in the back seat. It also features Kenneth Nkosi, Jerry Mofokeng, and Rapulana Seiphemo in supporting roles.

The soundtrack features Kwaito music performed by South African artist Zola and Afro-pop group Mafikizolo, as well as a score by Mark Kilian and Paul Hepker with the voice of South African protest singer and poet Vusi Mahlasela.

The film was praised, particularly for its writing, direction, and performances, especially Chweneyagae's and Pheto's, cinematography and for emotional weight. It went on to win the 2006 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first South African film and first African film not made in French to win the former. (wikipedia)

• • •

Easy and kinda weak. The theme answers are often great answers in their own right, but the theme ... it just doesn't make much sense. I guess the states in the rebus square do "swing" (from one state to the other, depending whether you're considering the Across or the Down), and they are all WESTERN states, and form a kind of UNION inside their little squares, OK. But somehow that doesn't seem like enough. You know what would've gotten this puzzle into decent conceptual shape—if all the WESTERN UNIONs had involved states that actually abutted one another. I really thought we were going to be dealing with a border theme at first, when I got the UT/NV square (early and very easily). And MT/WA, again, so promising—we got something going here [ugh as several of you have noted WA and MT do not share a border—stupid ID panhandle is in the way! My mom grew up in that panhandle, you’d think I’d remember its location. Sorry]. But then HI ... Hawaii abuts nothing. I guess it's often paired with AK as one of two map insets, the two non-contiguous U.S. states, but even if we decided to count that "union," we've still got the NM/OR squares, and those states are nowhere near each other. No, thematically, this one's kind of ungainly. But again, it yields some great longer answers, so it's not a total loss. 

And yet once more the puzzle is far too easy. Not as insultingly easy as yesterday's remedial Saturday, but very, very easy. The only potential trouble spots that I can see involve (shockingly!) proper nouns of dubious fame. I watch Apple TV more than probably any other streaming service (check out Pluribus, which just started last week—it's Vince Gilligan's new show starring Rhea Seehorn of Better Call Saul fame, and it's fantastic). But despite all the time I spend on that service (seriously, I just watched the latest Morning Show episode earlier this (Saturday) evening), I have never ever heard of The KAMAL Smith Show (24D: "The ___ Smith Show" (Apple TV offering)). Never seen a promo or seen it on the menu that I can remember. Where do they hide it? So bizarre. Also bizarre, in the sense of obscure: TSOTSI (!?) crossing ON OUR OWN (!?!) (109A: 1990s ABC sitcom about kids growing up without their parents). Of those two, I'm much more disturbed by not knowing ON OUR OWN; I thought I knew my '90s TV pretty damned well, but apparently not. Oh ... it ran for one (1) season. OK, I feel much (much) less bad now. As for TSOTSI, I thought Fugard only wrote plays ... which is apparently mostly true, as TSOTSI is his only novel. The wikipedia entry for it is sparse, practically a stub, so I have no idea how important a novel it was. The movie won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film, so that's obviously something, but still, how many foreign film winners can you name? I watch a lot of movies and I'd be hard pressed to name a lot of them. Actually, I'm looking at the list now and I can name a lot of them. Most of them. Many are stone-cold classics. But the early '00s, yipes. Those are not familiar to me. No Man's Land (2001)? Nowhere in Africa (2002)? The Barbarian Invasions (2003)? The Sea Inside (2004)? I know older titles (Rashomon, Nights of Cabiria, La Strada, 8 1/2, Black Orpheus) and very recent titles (Roma, Parasite, Drive My Car, The Zone of Interest) much better. TSOTSI just missed me entirely. This is the fourth NYTXW appearance for TSOTSI, but the first in over eight years.

One thing I'm grateful for today is that the puzzle didn't straight-up tell me where the rebus squares were—no circled squares, no indicators at all. I had to find them myself, which is as it should be. Maybe that's why the puzzle played so easy—because the idea is that people will be struggling to find / handle those rebus squares, and so the puzzle should dial down difficulty elsewhere, in the non-theme stuff. Maybe. But somehow this puzzle still ended up solidly in Easy territory. The fact that there was a rebus at all (discovering which is usually the biggest obstacle to solving a rebus puzzle in the first place) did not take long to uncover. Not at all. The Taxi Driver quote is so familiar, so obvious, that you're gonna be left wondering why it won't fit—why you have some correct letters from the crosses, and still it won't fit. So that's one early obvious indicator. Having the FA- in FAN VOTE was another. I knew it was FAN something, but that "N" went where the "U" definitely went in "YOU TALKIN' TO ME," and bam, right there, that's when I knew something was up. Once I figured out that square, I knew to be on the alert for more; and I knew that the rebus squares would contain state codes, which added another level of ease—if an obviously correct theme answer wouldn't fit (say, FEW AND FAR BETWEEN), I just had to scan its letters, find the state code (in this case, "WA") and that was that.

Bullets:

• 31A: What distinguishes "bet" from "vet" in Hebrew (DOT) — I have no idea what this means. I don't see any DOTs. Hang on ... looks like "bet" and "vet" are characters in the Hebrew alphabet, and they look identical except that "bet" has a dot (a diacritical mark called a "dagesh"):

• 97A: Any activities on them need to be wound up (CASSETTE TAPES) — this clue is so awkward it probably should have a "?"; I think it's trying to confuse you by bending the meaning of "wound up," but the wording is so totally inapt for what CASSETTE TAPES actually do and are that I think the "?" is called for. You would never use the words "wound up" in reference to CASSETTE TAPES. Nor would you say they contain "activities." BLECH all around.
• 90D: State that spans two time zones: Abbr. (TEX.) — my wife last night: "you shouldn't have any other states in your grid if state codes are your theme." This didn't really bother me, but from a strict spit-and-polish perspective, I concur—the only state abbrs. this puzzle should have are the ones in those rebus squares.

• 122A: Like someone who experiences little to no amorous and sexual attraction, for short (ARO-ACE)—I've seen both of these three-letter answers clued as sexual orientation/identities before, but I have not seen them paired together in the puzzle (as they sometimes are irl). Inventive answer (and a debut).
• 73D: Bunches and bunches (ATON) — second time this week that we've gotten ATON *and* ALOT in the same (damn) grid. The large size of this grid means that this particular crosswordese doppelgangery is less egregious than Wednesday's, but still, not ideal.
• 63A: Very lite (NO-CAL) — What the hell is NO-CAL besides, say, water? Do we really call things "NO-CAL?" I'm seeing it associated with soda, primarily, so ... I guess someone somewhere's using the term. Did you know that NO-CAL was the name of the first diet soda? 1952! "It was initially marketed to diabetics in a number of flavors, the most popular being black cherry" (wikipedia). I thought NOCAL was also shorthand for "Northern California" (a counterpart to SOCAL), but I'm being told that the shortening in this case is NORCAL, which looks superdumb written out. It looks a little better with camel caps, I guess: "NorCal." Still, it's awkward; NORCAL looks like it should rhyme with Sporcle or, uh, pork'll. "Some pork'll never cook up right / But then again some pork'll..."

The American Values Club Crossword (AVCX), my favorite crossword subscription, is in the middle of its Fall mini subscription drive. If you wanna know what puzzles I enjoy beyond the NYTXW, this one's at the top of the list. They operate independently from any big media outlet and thus rely entirely on subscriptions to fund their enterprise, which is considerable—puzzles released nearly every day (six days a week!) including several crossword puzzles of varying sizes and difficulty levels, a trivia puzzle, and (god bless them!) a regular cryptic crossword. In terms of both quality and value, you cannot beat it. If you're not a subscriber, you should rectify this ASAP. The puzzlemaking staff is absolutely top-tier (you'll recognize a lot of names from NYTXW bylines). There are different subscription tiers, including a very inexpensive "Scholarship" tier intended for students and other lower-income people (this tier is subsidized by higher-tier subscribers). They're even offering a free trial subscription if, even after all my impassioned advocacy, you're somehow not sure. Consider becoming a Sustaining Member today (or a Benefactor or Angel, if it's within your means). You won't regret it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I have been made aware of a new(ish) Wordle-style word game called Phoodle, and I am enjoying it. There's both an iOS and an Android app. You can also play in your web browser (here). According to Phoodle's founder, Julie Loria:

Phoodle is a daily puzzle for food lovers. Inspired by Wordle but with a food-themed twist, it uses culinary terms from ingredients and kitchen tools to recipe language, food news, and lingo.

The extra fun comes after you solve the puzzle. Each puzzle reveals a “Phoodle Fact,” a quirky or educational tidbit on food, often paired with recipes, products, cookbooks, and more.

Launched in May 2022, Phoodle has grown into a global community of players who share a passion for puzzles and food. You can dig in at phoodle.net or on the app for iOS and Android.

Today's puzzle is hard as heck, but I definitely learned something! If you enjoy Wordle, and your interests lean culinary, try this fun little game.

[Reminder: I don't do paid promotions—I just like highlighting puzzle-related stuff I think my readers will enjoy, particularly stuff I enjoy myself] 

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Fictional country in "The Princess Diaries" / TUE 7-23-24 / Pickle, to a Brit / Freshwater fish named for its shoreline habitat / Cipher machine of W.W. II / Ken's Mojo Dojo ___ House (redundantly named dwelling in "Barbie") / Rock climber's notch

Constructor: Sarah Sinclair and Amie Walker

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tues.)

THEME: CHORAL GROUP (62A: What the ends of 17-, 31-, 37- and 48-Across are, collectively) — theme answers end with SOPRANO, ALTO, TENOR, and BASS, respectively:

Theme answers:

• TONY SOPRANO (17A: Role for which James Gandolfini won three Emmys)
• PALO ALTO (31A: Silicon Valley city whose name translates to "tall stick")
• EVEN TENOR (37A: Stable temperament)
• ROCK BASS (48A: Freshwater fish named for its shoreline habitat)

Word of the Day: THE Ohio State University (10A: Article that Ohio State University surprisingly managed to trademark in 2022) —

Ohio State University has received a trademark for one of the most common words in the English language, one that the school’s supporters often forcefully emphasize when uttering its name: “The.”

While athletes from other schools may simply say they went to Michigan or Penn State, a Buckeye rarely cuts corners: “The Ohio State University,” they’ll say, usually adding a dramatic pause after stressing the “the.” The school’s players, alumni and supporters often speak its name in that consistent cadence, as football fans who have watched N.F.L. starting lineups introduce themselves on Sundays or Monday nights have most likely heard

To Ohio State’s supporters, the tradition is cherished and sets the school apart from the rest. (To Ohio State’s rivals, it’s nauseatingly pompous. To each their own.)

The trademark, issued on Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, won’t unleash heavy-handed lawyers in search of anyone using the word “the” — its protections are limited to a narrow set of circumstances that people are unlikely to cross unless they are selling knockoff Ohio State merchandise. But it gives the university some protection against unlicensed sellers, and adds to the school’s efforts to link itself to the very common word. (NYT) (6/23/22)

• • •

Stopped to take a deep breath about five seconds into this one when not one but two of the long answers in the NW were pop culture trivia. And not exactly universally known pop culture trivia, either (in that I didn't know either one off the top of my head). You want to lean into a pop culture thing that you like here, or there, that's fine, that's normal, but two answers, right out of the box, both of them among the longer answers you have in the puzzle ... off-putting. Off-putting to clue MATTHEW that way (via Succession) when you've already got an HBO (now Max?) show as one of your themers—the very themer that is *crossing* MATTHEW. Crossing HBO answers ... feels like shilling. As for GENOVIA, I actually saw (and enjoyed) The Princess Diaries at some point, but shrug, the fake country name was not a bit of info that I retained. Both MATTHEW (1D: Actor Macfadyen of "Succession") and GENOVIA (3D: Fictional country in "The Princess Diaries") are easy enough to suss out from crosses, but cramming the opening section of a puzzle with your pet trivia feels slightly obnoxious. I know many of you are Succession fans, so your experience of the trivia here may be very different. I have never understood why anyone would want to watch a show about billionaires. I can't think of people I'm less interested in. I'm *quite* sure the writing and acting on that show is phenomenal, you don't have to convince me. But the subject matter is a hard pass. But this is beside the point, the point being: spread your pop culture trivia out. Please and thank you (I say this as a huge fan of The Sopranos, always happy to see James Gandolfini's name, go watch Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said (2013), with Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus) (actually, maybe I'll do that today...).  

But what about the meat of the puzzle, the theme? Well, it's OK. The concept is very basic (a straightforward "Last Words"-type puzzle), and the revealer was a bit of a let-down. I could see very quickly, after the second themer, that we were doing the voice type thing with the last words, but instead of getting some funny or punny or wacky or wordplay-based revealer, we just get plain-old CHORAL GROUP. A flat, literal description. Ho hum. It's important, but not hugely remarkable, that all the theme answers feature the voice types in non-voice contexts. I probably should mind that BASS is pronounced differently in its answer (where the other voice types aren't), but I don't. ROCK BASS does bother me for a different reason, though. Well, first, for outlier reasons, i.e. what the hell is a ROCK BASS? Feels like the constructors were desperate for a four-letter word to precede BASS (because the whole answer needed to be 8 letters, for symmetry's sake), and so ROCK BASS won because ROCK BASS ... exist? But I have to believe that (nearly) everyone has heard of the other themers, whereas bunches of us will have no idea what a ROCK BASS is (besides a fish). The clue tried to help me with the "ROCK" part by saying something about the fish's "shoreline habitat," but that did Nothing for me. Needed most of the crosses to get ROCK. And speaking of ROCK, if you're going to have it in your grid, and especially if you're going to have it as your least-likely-to-be-known word in your theme answer set, you probably (almost certainly) shouldn't dupe the word in the clues (10A: Rock-climber's notch => TOEHOLD). Overall, the theme is fine, but it runs a bit to the dull side. 

Outside of the pop culture up front and the ROCK business, the puzzle was pretty easy, pretty straightforward. Pet and Dog and CATSPAs remain way, way (way x infinity) more popular in the crossword grid than they are in real life. Kinda tired of seeing variations on that answer at this point. But these animal SPAs appear so frequently now that it's hard to be too mad about it. Just another thing that xwords over-represent, like the character names on "Game of Thrones" or the enduring popularity of the BAHA Men. Never happy to see WOAH. In retrospect I think GENOVIA is a fun answer—possibly because it's the most original thing in the grid. It also doubles the Julie Andrews content—never a bad thing (Andrews is in The Princess Diaries ... and then we get 25D: Title for Julie Andrews or Maggie Smith). Every puzzle could use more Julie Andrews. Most situations in life could use more Julie Andrews. I know I mention Julia Louis-Dreyfus a lot (esp. for someone who never really cared for Seinfeld), but I highly recommend listening to the recent episode of her podcast "Wiser Than Me" where she interviews Andrews. Actually, the one where she interviews Carol Burnett is great, too. Oh, and the one where she interviews Bonnie Raitt (though she mostly cries through that one because she's so overcome by her fandom ... it's adorable). Anyway, Julie Andrews rules, is my point, today and always.

Bullets:

• 57D: Hillsboro ___, minor-league baseball team with a mascot named Barley (HOPS) — as with ROCK BASS, I had no idea what the answer was *and* the clue designed to help me get there did not help at all. Both "Barley" and HOPS are beer ingredients. OK. But "Barley" is just a grain, used in lots of things. Nothing about the clue screams "beer" to me. I don't even know where Hillsboro is, unless it's North Carolina. That's my guess. Final answer ... Oof, nope. Oregon. Oregon? LOL, that's about as un-North Carolina as a state can get, besides maybe Alaska or Hawaii. I don't mind this clue, but it's a bizarrely obscure piece of trivia for a Tuesday.

• 47D: Length from fingertip to fingertip (ARM SPAN) — I had ARM and then no idea. Just blanked. WINGSPAN is a front-of-the-brain term. ARM SPAN, apparently, not.
• 53D: Tangle (SNARL) — I had SNARE. SNARL is better, but they still seem remarkably, confusingly close in meaning. Kinda like their cousins, EVADE and ELUDE.
• 30D: Pickle, to a Brit (GHERKIN) — huh. I thought GHERKIN was just a type of pickle. "A small prickly fruit used for pickling" (m-w.com). I don't really eat pickles, i.e. the pickled cucumbers that come in jars, except when my local sandwich shop throws one in the bag. GHERKIN gives me old TV ad memories ... I think a pelican was involved ... oh, yeah, Vlasic. Why a pelican? What is the pelican/pickle connection? Oh, wait—it's a stork, not a pelican. A stork! I see, OK, that's ... no, I still don't get it. Although ... this (hilarious/insane) ad really leans into the stork business. Nothing sells pickles like ... an unexpected pregnancy joke!

I guess there is some connection between "pregnant women get weird food cravings" and "pickles," but still, this ad's whole "pregnancy scare" / "babies are pickles now" concept is ... bold. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P. S. So I’m literally watching The Princess Diaries right now, because why not, and … well, I was prepared to see GENOVIA, of course, but TOEHOLDs!? That was a surprise! 

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What gives Scotch an earthy flavor / MON 2-12-24 / Undergarment for a dress / Menial workers, dismissively / Baked things that might get people baked / Long, cylindrical instrument

Constructor: Jess Shulman and Amie Walker

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only, untimed)

THEME: [Get my innuendo?] — this clue is used for four repeated-word phrases that you might use when you want to make sure your meaning is being understood 

Theme answers:

• NUDGE NUDGE
• WINK WINK
• HINT HINT
• COUGH COUGH

Word of the Day: Midori ITO (58A: Midori ___, first woman to land a triple axel in competition) —

 

Midori Ito (伊藤みどり, Itō Midori, born 13 August 1969) is a retired Japanese figure skater. She is the 1989 World champion and the 1992 Olympic silver medalist. She is the first woman to land a triple-triple jump combination and a triple Axel in competition. At the 1988 Calgary Olympics, she became the first woman to land seven triple jumps in an Olympic free skating competition. She is widely recognised as one of the best figure skaters of all time. (wikipedia) 

• • •

An excellent Monday theme, I think. It's a bit weird, and maybe even a little shaggy, in that the first two phrases are usually said rather than done (i.e. if you actually winked twice, people would wonder what you were doing ... awkwardly flirting, maybe?). So they are stated actions ... but then HINT HINT ... is not that. The word "HINT" isn't standing in for "hint," it's literally just saying "HINT." And then COUGH COUGH ... well, that's another category of answer entirely. Unlike NUDGE NUDGE and WINK WINK, COUGH COUGH is a phrase I've never actually heard anyone say. That's an action that's done rather than said. So this group of four really isn't that tight ... except that they are all repeated-word phrases and they all mean or represent basically the same thing. Somehow it works. You understand intuitively what links them all, and they're structurally linked by their double-wordness, so you're only gonna balk at this theme if you think about it too hard, which is pretty much what I do about every theme, but today ... I dunno. The grouping seemed clever. Simple. Imaginative. Good. And the grid didn't give me hives. No great shakes, but POT BROWNIES and BEAT THE HEAT are definitely above-average long Downs, and if the rest of the fill is average, that's fine. Good theme, good long Downs, OK fill ... that's a win.

If the green ink on my printed-out puzzle is any indication, it looks like there were three Downs that gave me trouble today during the Downs-only solve, and one Across that I had significant trouble parsing. As for the Downs, ORDOC was probably the hardest to get on its own terms. That is, I couldn't hope to understand it from the clue alone (46D: Surgeon, for short), so I had to wait on (inferred) crosses, but I couldn't infer any of those with certainty until I had COUGH COUGH in place. That gave me the terminal "C" which finally got me to ORDOC. I had a reasonable amount of trouble coming up with ENSHROUD as well (41D: Cover completely). Even with the -OUD in place, I had to sit and think for a bit. Didn't help that I had SWALE (!?!?!?!) instead of SWATH at 30D: Strip of mowed grass. What the hell is a SWALE? Marshland of some kind? Ah, a "sunken or marshy place," yes. Anyway, grass is involved, so I don't feel *so* bad, but neither do I feel great. Actually, knowing the theme really helped here, as I was able to infer HINT HINT from -IN--IN- (once I finally pulled out SWALE), and that got me the "H" I needed to get PATHS (ambiguous noun-or-verb clue on that one, 26D: Trails), and from there I could get other Acrosses in that area, which finally allowed me to bring down BEAT THE HEAT, the last of the three recalcitrant Downs in today's solve (24D: Keep cool in a pool, perhaps). "SO I HEAR" was the one Across answer that was (slight) murder to parse (55A: "That's what people tell me, anyway") (had the SOI- but at that point had no way to know there was a break between "SO" and "I"). Anyway, all of this amounted to a fairly standard Downs-only struggle. Never was I well and truly stuck.

The only Down I really balked at was the very first one I saw: 1D: Chicken leftover (BONE). I wrote in BONE, but I did so very, very tentatively, as "leftover" is (in one common meaning of the word) something you eat, whereas a BONE is something you deliberately do not eat; it's something you discard. So my brain wanted the edible rather than the inedible kind of "leftover," hence the balking. But there's nothing wrong with the clue. It just threw me a bit. Nearly everything else, and certainly everything else under eight letters (besides ORDOC and (for me) SWATH) was very easy to get. Simple, bouncy, good. A fine Monday.

I'm going out-of-state this week, so my wonderful substitute team will be on duty here until Saturday. Starting tomorrow, you get Clare (T), Mali (W), Eli (Th), Mali (F). And then I'm back. Have a great week. See you when I see you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

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Vitamin that contributes to hair and nail growth / MON 12-25-23 / 1996 Deana Carter hit with the lyric "My first taste of love, oh, bittersweet" / Samwise ___, companion of Frodo Baggins

Constructor: Amie Walker

Relative difficulty: it's a Monday, so ... Monday (solved Downs-only) 

THEME: "THAT'S MY JAM!" (59A: "I love this song!" ... or a doubly apt description of 17-, 28- and 46-Across) — theme answers are songs (jams!) whose titles contain fruits out of which you might make ... jams!:

Theme answers:

• "CHERRY BOMB" (17A: 1976 song by the Runaways with the lyric "Hello world, I'm your wild girl")
• "STRAWBERRY WINE" (28A: 1996 Deana Carter hit with the lyric "My first taste of love, oh, bittersweet")
• "RASPBERRY BERET" (46A: 1985 Prince hit with the lyric "And if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more")

Word of the Day: BIOTIN (47D: Vitamin that contributes to hair and nail growth) —

Biotin (also known as vitamin B₇ or vitamin H) is one of the B vitamins.t is involved in a wide range of metabolic processes, both in humans and in other organisms, primarily related to the utilization of fats, carbohydrates, and amino acids. The name biotin, borrowed from the German Biotin, derives from the Ancient Greek word βίοτος (bíotos; 'life') and the suffix "-in" (a suffix used in chemistry usually to indicate 'forming'). Biotin appears as a white crystalline solid that looks like needles. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello and Merry Christmas. The girl is home for the week and so we're very happy. Also, the ridiculously complicated cookie-baking is well underway:

Why quilt cookies? Who knows how the girl thinks? I just eat. Also, I drink, and tonight (Christmas Eve, the time that it is right now, as I'm writing) we came to the end of the whisky advent calendar that my wife got me for my birthday. Look at the evidence of a month well spent!

Oh, and I watched Rear Window again today, because it's my favorite movie of all time. Thousands and thousands of movies I've seen, and it remains untouchable. Edith Head + Grace Kelly = me fainting, every time:

Thelma Ritter and Jimmy Stewart aren't bad either. So, good times being had by all, for sure. I managed to squeeze this puzzle in, in between drinks and dinner, and I really like the "double" nature of the theme, even though I have never heard of cherry jam and I've never ever heard of this alleged Deana Carter hit. The cherry jam is bothering me slightly more. Do people eat that? Seems like grape would come before cherry on a list of plausible jam types. But then there were probably several strawberry songs to pick from, whereas grape songs, not so much. You've got that one grapevine song, sure, but otherwise, pfft, nothing. So, cherry. OK. I'm sure someone somewhere makes / eats cherry jam. Why not? It's Christmas, so I'm feeling generous. Cherry jam for all!

I am sad to say, however, that I failed at my Downs-only solve today. I was so close, but it was inevitable that eventually my refusal to look at Across answers on Mondays would cost me. Today, it was GAMGEE that did me in (12D: Samwise ___, companion of Frodo Baggins). If I was gonna go down, I guess I don't feel too bad about going down to a name that is bizarre and shared by no one anywhere at all ever in the history of anything. My brain heard / remembered it as GANGEE (probably because of the Ganges River), and that's how it went into the grid, and sadly, my decades of doing crosswords really cost me today, as I took one look at SONE (the cross I got because of GANGEE), and thought "yup, seen it, that is definitely a thing, I learned it from crosswords." It's definitely a crosswordesey thing, but in a grid that already had stuff like SRI and SOU and singular (barf!) ARREAR, SONE seemed like it would be right at home. But no. It was SOME. So that was that. Failure. But a failure I can absolutely live with. 

[from xwordinfo.com]

Forgot who the hell [Physicist Ernst] was (MACH). If the Ernst isn't Max, I ... don't know it. But I was eventually able to infer it from the crosses (which I was inferring from the Downs, as one does when one solves Downs-only). I had SYNC for 6D: Be in harmony (JIBE) at first, and then, when I realized it was JIBE, I spelled it GIBE, which is a spelling mistake I will probably always make. Luckily, GOAN was not a plausible word at 6-Across, whereas JOAN was (6A: Essayist Didion). Had real trouble with 24D: Cloth strips on military uniforms (SASHES), as I imagine SASHES as things worn *over* uniforms (or, if you're in the Miss America pageant, swimsuits). I could not have told you what BIOTIN was before I looked it up just now, but luckily I'd at least heard it before, so could piece it together at 47D: Vitamin that contributes to hair and nail growth. The answer I struggled with most was also the strongest answer in the grid: RISK-AVERSE (30D: Reluctant, as an investor). Really had to work my inference muscles there to make that answer come into view—besides the first "R" and the "A" and the first "E," nothing was in place. It was the last thing I put in the grid. Well, the actual last thing I put in the grid was the "M" in GAMGEE, but that was only after I realized I had (at least) one square wrong. Boo hoo. 

More Holiday Pet Pics now! Who will be the pups and keetens of actual Christmas Day!? Let's find out...

["Barry the Cat by his Christmas flat" (thanks, Rebecca)]

[Athena and Aphrodite mess with mortals from their Olympian tree, as was foretold in books of yore (thanks Kathryn)]

[Mingus, so named for the little black patch on his chin as well as for his being a hep cat (thanks, Amy)]

[Pinot, just looking good, what more do you want? (thanks, Will)]

[Christmas lights meet their one true mortal enemy: Sterling the Whirling Dervish (thanks, Jim)]

[Tamla is not even here, what cat, there's no cat, move along (thanks, Tracey)]

[And finally Otis, seen here on his way to the Dogs In Silly Headwear support group. Hang in there, Otis (thanks, Annette)]

See you ... on Boxing Day, I guess.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Please don't send more holiday pet pics this year. I've got way too many already Will be lucky to get through them all by New Year's Day! Take lots of nice pics tomorrow and Save Them for next December, when I'll do this again!

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