Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert / SAT 4-20-24 / Dips, so to speak / Creatures inspired by George Lucas's dog / Whom King Tut's mummy was made to resemble / Littlest complaint, in an idiom / Old competitor of the Plymouth Barracuda / Chew the doors, e.g. / End of an overplayed pickup line / Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-___ Parks / Box in a cab

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: Medium for the most part, but Challenging in one particular area

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: NAZCA LINES (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert) —

The Nazca lines (/ˈnɑːzkə/, /-kɑː/) are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BC and 500 AD by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and leaving different-colored dirt exposed. There are two major phases of the Nazca lines, Paracas phase, from 400 to 200 BC, and Nazca phase, from 200 BC to 500 AD. In the years leading up to 2020, between 80 and 100 new figures had been found with the use of drones, and archaeologists believe that there are more to be found.

Most lines run straight across the landscape, but there are also figurative designs of animals and plants. The combined length of all the lines is more than 1,300 km (800 mi), and the group covers an area of about 50 km² (19 sq mi). The lines are typically 10 to 15 cm (4–6 in) deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown ferric oxide–coated pebbles to reveal a yellow-grey subsoil. The width of the lines varies considerably, but more than half are slightly more than 33 cm (13 in) wide. In some places they may be only 30 cm (12 in) wide, and in others reach 1.8 m (6 ft) wide. [...] 

The figures vary in complexity. Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs, including a hummingbird, arachnid, fish, condor, heron, monkey, lizard, dog, cat, and a human. Other shapes include trees and flowers. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them. They were designated in 1994 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (wikipedia)

• • •

A properly hard Saturday that would've been reasonably enjoyable were it not for the way it ended. I kept expecting one particular answer to become clear as I got crosses, but that kept not happening. By the end, I had everything filled in except: 

• everything NE of EROSION; 
• the "NA" in NAZCALINES (which I was reading as one word, and which I really tried to make MEZCALINES) (little agave-flavored cookies?) (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert); 
• the first letter in -AILS (31D: Dips, so to speak)

Which is to say that the real culprit was "BOOM! ROASTED!" (31A: Someone better call the fire department, because you just got burned!"). I can (now) imagine someone's saying this, but I had no idea this was something that could be a standalone phrase. The "BOOM!" part feels particularly ... ad-libbed or tacked-on or something. Like, "ROASTED!" would be enough, and you might say any number of things before it, like variants of "oh" or "ooh." In case the context for all this is not at all clear to you, both the clue and the answer are things one might say to someone who just got verbally humiliated by someone else. A third-party comment on a withering insult. My problem was that I was thinking of the clue as a type of thing one might say; that is, I kept treating the clue like it had an "e.g." after it, as if the answer were going to be the category of thing that the quotation belonged to. Or maybe I was looking for a word describing what happens when someone insults you like that. If someone roasts you on Zoom, have you been ZOOMROASTED? Roasted while doomscrolling ... DOOMROASTED?  It was only when I firmly told myself that "the answer is going to be a spoken equivalent of the clue" that I thought of "BOOM! ROASTED!" That would mean that 31D: Dips, so to speak would have to be BAILS. I reasoned that if you were bailing out a boat that was filled with water, you would have to "dip" your pail or bucket repeatedly into water in order to do so. So in went the "B" and "Congratulations!" went my solving software. It was only later, when contemplating how flimsy that BAILS clue seemed, that I realized that "Dips" (like BAILS) is slang for "leaves, departs." 

The modern slang of "Dips" crossing the modern slang of "BOOM! ROASTED!" ... that's a puzzle that's intentionally trying to exclude a whole (older, I guess) demographic. To be extra clear, the primary problem isn't the answers or clues themselves, it's the crossing. Anyway, the puzzle fizzled out for me at the end there as I wrestled with a slang phrase that didn't even end up seeming like a solidly standalone expression (although compared to HAD NO OOMPH, it looks rock solid, YEESH—HAD NO OOMPH has big ATE A SANDWICH energy, although props for the tic-tac-toe win!). It's weird—the answer I didn't know at all (NAZCA LINES) didn't bother me one bit. That is, it didn't make me annoyed or upset or even terribly frustrated. I just figured it out from crosses, as one does sometimes. But "BOOM! ROASTED!" ... I dunno. The fact that I've kinda sorta heard it but that it feels forced and awkward as a standalone answer—plus the fact that it's Trying So Damn Hard to be cool—that, I found off-putting (if I google it and all I get are memes from "The Office," is it really cool, tho?). Thank god for WOOKIEES, or I don't know how I'd've gotten any real traction in the NE (getting absolutely no momentum coming out of the center of the grid)—although I will admit I tried to make George Lucas's dog into some kind of EWOK (EWOK BABY?) before remembering Chewy existed (10D: Creatures inspired by George Lucas's dog).

The rest of the puzzle ... happened. I think it was just a regular proper decent Saturday. Loved the idea of a FRIEND DATE at the LESBIAN BAR. Loved the SPOONERISM clue (52A: Chew the doors, e.g.). Wasn't sure "do the chores" was a particularly good standalone phrase—you do chores, or you tell your kid to "do your chores," but "do the chores" didn't quite hit my ear right. But the more I sit with it, the more I think it's fine; anyway, the cluing concept there is very clever. WARM FUZZIES is a lovely centerpiece, and BELCH under CRISPY BACON—thumbs up. Worst thing in the grid by far was ALIS (!?), which should've been clued via Muhammad and Laila and not as some godawful bit of Latin from a state motto, why, why would you do that? At least translate the Latin for people, come on.

The official English version of the motto is "She flies with her own wings" in keeping with the tradition of considering countries and territories to be feminine. However, because the feminine pronoun in the Latin sentences is often omitted and the verb form is not inflected for gender, the phrase could be translated with equal validity as "[one] flies with [one's] own wings", "[he] flies with [his] own wings", or "[it] flies with [its] own wings". (wikipedia)

Notes:

• 1A: Napoleon had a large one (EGO) — please tell me you (too) tried HAT here (I also, weirdly, tried ERA)
• 20A: Course addendum (SIDE) — "Course" as in "meal"
• 29A: Littlest complaint, in an idiom (BOO) — "didn't say BOO (to anyone)" I guess? Yes. "BOO" in this context can mean really anything, but it refers to complaining, yes. Here's more than you'd ever want to know about the history of the expression, including its origins in the phrase "saying BOO to a goose"(!?).
• 2D: '70s Ford (GERALD) — OK, that's clever. I had the "G" and wanted GTO ... something ... only to have GTO appear way on the other side of the grid (58A: Old competitor of the Plymouth Barracuda)
• 21D: Bank worry (EROSION) — River bank, obviously
• 27D: End of an overplayed pickup line (OFTEN) — as in "Come here OFTEN?" I could only think of four-letter answers to this one, namely SIGN and MINE. Has no one invented an overplayed pickup line since 1975?
• 35D: Box in a cab (CB RADIO) — "Cab" here is not a taxi, or a wine, but the part of the tractor-trailer occupied by the driver. 
• 43D: Get a running mate? (ELOPE) — death, taxes, and punny clues on ARSON and ELOPE. These are life's certainties.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Pancakes sometimes served with caviar / TUE 3-12-24 / Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself / Fictional land ruled by Aslan / Not playing any songs, as a radio station

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Tuesday)

THEME: READ MUSIC (33D: Follow a composer's notation ... or a hint to interpreting four clues in this puzzle) — clues contain musical notation, specifically what appear to be notes (i.e. single letters) followed by ♭or ♯ symbols, that must be read as the [letter + "flat" (or "sharp")] in order to be understood:

Theme answers:

• APARTMENT (17A: A♭) (i.e. a flat)
• LIE DOWN (38A: B♭) (i.e. be flat)
• LOOK ALIVE (63A: B♯) (i.e. be sharp)
• TECH SAVVY (11D: E♯) (i.e. E- (electronic???) sharp)

Word of the Day: AVRIL Lavigne (31A: Rocker Lavigne) —

Avril Ramona Lavigne (/ˈævrɪl ləˈviːn/ AV-ril lə-VEEN, French: [avʁil ʁamɔna laviɲ]; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop-punk music, as she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. Her accolades include eight Grammy Award nominations, among others.

At age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. It yielded the successful singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop-Punk Queen" from music publications. Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.

Lavigne's third studio album, The Best Damn Thing (2007), reached number one in seven countries worldwide and saw the international success of its lead single "Girlfriend", which became her first single to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. Her next two studio albums, Goodbye Lullaby(2011) and Avril Lavigne (2013), saw continued commercial success and were both certified gold in Canada, the United States, and other territories. After releasing her sixth studio album, Head Above Water (2019), she returned to her punk roots with her seventh studio album, Love Sux (2022). (wikipedia)

• • •

I can see why this idea would be tempting, but in practice, the results are rough. Uneven. Which I guess is what "rough" means, now that I think about it. The smallest issue I have is that B♯and E♯ aren't commonly known that way. That is, a B♯ is just a C and an E♯ an F. Yes, yes, it's "more complicated than that," but tonally, they're the same. In isolation like this, they seem strange. If you wanted a specific note, you'd ask someone to play an F, not an E♯. But this isn't a problem with the theme per se, just an odd (and, to my ear, slightly annoying) little feature. The problem is ... well, there are several. First, [A♭] wants me to read the "A" as ... what, an indefinite article? But you never use indefinite articles in crossword clues. [Flat] = APARTMENT all on its own. That "A" is completely redundant. Unless ... we are supposed to (somehow?) understand the "A" as the first letter of the word, and are supposed to interpret the clue as [Word meaning "flat" that starts with "A"], which seems implausible, to say the least. If the other clues had worked that way (not a bad idea, frankly), then OK. But that is not how the other clues work. Having LOOK ALIVE as the answer for [B♯] was odd because the most common phrase anyone can make out of any of those words is LOOK SHARP. I actually wrote in LOOK SHARP, but then remembered that "flat" wasn't in any of the earlier theme answers, so "sharp" probably wasn't in this one. LOOK ALIVE! is a fine phrase, but ["Be sharp!"] doesn't sound right as an equivalent. The worst thing about the theme, though, was [E♯] = TECH SAVVY. I don't get it. That is, I guess if you really lean upon the "?" nature of the clue, you can say "E-" is like the "E-" prefix in "EMAIL" or "EBOOK," that it just refers to All Things Electronic, and so a person might who is TECH SAVVY might be said (by some overambitious quipster) to be E-SHARP. But none of the other clues have that bent quality to them—once you change the musical notation to the word "sharp" or "flat," the other theme clues are quite literal and ordinary. Whereas "E-sharp" is (afaict) a totally made-up thing. As I say, rough.

The fill is less than sterling today as well. Lots of repeaters. AÇAI AGHA ATEAT IWIN  etc., the (very) worst of which is ABRA (49A: Start of a spell), a ... partial incantation (?) that absolutely positively does not want to stand on its own and always give me a nails/chalkboard feeling when I see it (which, thankfully, is rarely) (oof, not rarely enough—56 times in the Shortz Era???). Looks like ABRA is sometimes an ["East of Eden" girl] or a Pokémon. Can't say that helps. Maybe the grid really needed ABRA in order to pull off BANKSY, which is easily the most interesting thing in the grid today (50D: Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself). That whole SE corner is nice actually, from BANKSY into the old-fashioned but somehow endearing "AND HOW!" into the equally exclamatory "OY, VEY!," which slots in alongside the cleverly clued HAIKU (53D: A kind of poem / Found within this crossword clue / Serendipity) (the only problem with this clue is ... that not exactly what "Serendipity" means—there's an element of chance to "Serendipity," whereas this clue is a HAIKU by design). 

Notes:

• 22A: "Hello," in Mandarin (NIHAO) — I was driving past a bubble tea cafe this weekend called NIHAO and actually thought to myself (possibly even said out loud to myself), "it's weird that you don't see NIHAO in the puzzle more often ..." and then Bam, here it is. That's serendipity (I think).

• 51A: Liquid-ate? (MELT) — hmmm. I see what this clue is trying to do (emphasize the "liquid" part by breaking off the "-ate"), but the clue, as written, looks like you want an answer meaning [Ate liquid] ... so, DRANK? Something like that ...
• 28A: Not playing any songs, as a radio station (ALL TALK) – what a dull way to clue this otherwise colorful colloquial phrase. ALL TALK is the counterpart of "no action," if it's anything. [Like someone who brags about what they're gonna do but never does it]. But this clue ... I wanted DEAD AIR.
• 1A: Discontinue (DROP) — welcome to 1-Across, the hardest part of the puzzle for me. Why? Because I went with STOP ... And then crossed it with STAGE (1D: Field of play?). Man, did that feel right on both counts. STOP / STAGE before DROP / DRAMA absolutely gummed up the works (for fifteen seconds or so, probably, but on Tuesday, that's an eternity).

That's it. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Repository of genetic material / MON 1-29-24 / Relating to the bottom layer / Platter used to carry glassware

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: No idea (as a Downs-only solve, brutal for me)

THEME: PALINDROMES (36A: What the answers to the starred clues all are when their first and last letters are removed) — exactly as described:

Theme answers:

• PEPE LE PEW (16A: *Amorous cartoon skunk)
• FAIR TRIAL (29A: *Impartial court proceeding guaranteed by the Constitution)
• "ONE MOMENT" (43A: *"Just a sec!")
• FLASH SALE (60A: *Short-lived store event)
• BAR TRAY (11D: *Platter used to carry glassware)
• DNA BANK (40D: *Repository of genetic material)

Word of the Day: PERSEIDS (10D: Summer meteor shower) —

The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle that are usually visible from mid-July to late-August. The meteors are called the Perseids because they appear from the general direction of the constellation Perseusand in more modern times have a radiant bordering on Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis. [...] The stream of debris is called the Perseid cloud and stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift–Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it travels on its 133-year orbit. Most of the particles have been part of the cloud for around a thousand years. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1865, which can give an early mini-peak the day before the maximum shower. [...] The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity between 9 and 14 August, depending on the particular location of the stream. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. They can be seen all across the sky; however, because of the shower's radiant in the constellation of Perseus, the Perseids are primarily visible in the Northern Hemisphere. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was the hardest Downs-only solve I've had in a long time. And for what? So disappointing to learn (finally!) that the payoff at the end of the struggle was such a contrivance. My main reaction is "Why?" I have "Why?" written in big green letters at the top of my grid. Who cares that answers to this? They aren't proper PALINDROMES if you're arbitrarily removing letters? And (as always) the fact there's More of a DISMAL theme doesn't magically make it unDISMAL. Any time a grid is crammed with theme material, you can kind of smell the flop SWEAT. Like, the theme is weak, but maybe if we throw a lot of it in there, no one will ... notice? I had a bad feeling about the puzzle from the moment I worked out that rape-y cartoon skunk's name ("amorous"? LOL, OK). The whole thing felt like a rejected Thursday concept trying to remake itself as a Monday. Just ... bizarre. I miss last week's simple and elegant BIRDS AND BEES Monday theme. The grid overall seems fine, but the concept here does less than nothing for me. I'm madder than I would've been if I'd solved it like a normal person (i.e. using Downs *and* Acrosses), it's true. I'd just be merely puzzled and disappointed if I'd only spent three minutes on it. But I spent far more than three minutes on it, and so my disappointment grew three sizes. At least.

As for solving Downs-only, there were low-key screw-ups like VANISH for GO POOF (!) (6D: Disappear like magic), and AXE for SAW (61D: Lumberjack's tool). There was the stuff I just didn't know, like LIAR (24D: "A ___ ought to have a good memory": Quintilian), and the stuff I almost knew but couldn't quite remember, like PERSEIDS (I knew it was some kind of -EIDS but NEREIDS kept getting in the way, mentally) (there are no NEREIDS, meteorically speaking, though there are LEONIDS and PEGASIDS). There was the bizarre word I had no hope of getting (OUTLIE) (?) and the word I had mostly right but also plenty wrong (ADD-ON—I had ADDED) (30D: Bonus). There were the two theme answers, the only two Down theme answers, neither of which I could get (couldn't even conceive of the term DNA BANK, and had a TEA TRAY before I eventually got to BAR TRAY). But the wrong answer that was the most LETHAL to me, by far, was YULE, which is what I had instead of NOEL (37D: Christmas). That is because YULE does, in fact, mean Christmas. And it's four letters long. And crosswords have conditioned me to think of NOEL as a Christmas *song*, not Christmas per se ([Christmas carol], 8 times; [Christmas song], 7 times; [Winter air], 8 times, etc.). So I put YULE in there and ... oof. It took a while for me to pull it. Because my wrong answer went to the heart of the revealer ... well, the revealer stayed hidden, and without that revealer, I had little hope of getting DNA BANK and absolutely none of getting BAR TRAY. I finished the puzzle with TEA TRAY in place and everything looked fine except for TERAY at 18A. Nothing could make TERAY seem plausible. Because it wasn't. Finally I noticed that TEA TRAY couldn't be right, because the answer was a themer—so in went BAR TRAY, and that was that. I guess I did feel a sense of accomplishment at fighting my way to a successful solve, but the theme itself still seems pointless to me. There's no cleverness. No lightness. No humor. Nothing but a fairly unremarkable physical feature shared by the answers. Huge shrug. I mean, "ARTRA" and "NABAN" are "Palindromes" and that's supposed to be ... interesting? Exciting? I just don't get it.

[Bing Crosby, "The First NOEL (Attaboy House Party Mix)"]

That's it. See you tomorrow. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Banned book of 1955 / THU 5-25-23 / Jojo Rabbit setting Abbr / Dogs that can run up to 35 miles an hour / Pronoun heard in Hamlet and Richard III appropriately / Exercise that incorporates ballet, yoga and Pilates / Well-manored sort / Green Balch American humanitarian who won 1946 Nobel Peace Prize

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: SPLIT PEAS (35D: Certain soup ingredients ... or a homophonic hint to the answers to the starred clues) — words with double "P"s are "split" across black squares, right between the "P"s:

Theme answers:

• WHIP/PETS (17A: *Dogs that can run up to 35 miles an hour)
• POWER SUP/PLY (28A: *Electrical current converter)
• PHILIP/PINES (45A: *Country composed of over 7,000 islands)
• FLIP/PANT (61A: *Lacking seriousness, as an attitude)
• REAP/PEAR (11D: *Show up again)

Word of the Day: Bracketologist (6D: Bracketologists' picks, often => ONE SEEDS) —

noun

US

1. an expert at making predictions about the participants in and outcomes of the games in a sports tournament, especially the NCAA college basketball tournament. 

   "UCLA didn't even belong in the tournament based on bracketologists' projections"(google.com/Oxford Languages)

• • •

"This better be good" / "Not good enough"—these were the phrases I either uttered or thought to myself just just before, and after, I got the revealer phrase. "All we're doing is splitting words? Why? I need a rationale." Well, I got one, and it was a letdown. I mean, cute pun, I suppose, but I like my Thursdays with a lot more bite than this. I don't think the journey is worth the joke. Not on a Thursday, anyway. If you're someone who routinely hates Thursdays because they get too tricksy, then this one was probably Right up your alley. You do get a gimmick that involves entering the answers in unusual ways, but it's nothing you can't navigate with a little patience. The only answer I can see tripping anyone up is EMILY—Saturday-level clue on that one, for sure (3D: ___ Greene Balch, American humanitarian who won the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize). But otherwise, this was pretty much a cakewalk. I think my issue isn't so much with the puzzle's theme, which does what it says it does, and does it competently enough, as with the puzzle's appearing on Thursday. The gimmick is perhaps *too* tricksy for a Wednesday puzzle, but that's where I might've enjoyed seeing it—on a day when I'm not expecting much and I get a little theme elevation, a little zing. But the final "joke" is just too corny, and the basic gimmick not interesting enough, to occupy the Thursday slot. And they even starred the damn theme clues for you—why? Figuring that kind of stuff out on your own is half the fun on Thursdays. This theme was remedial for a Thursday—which is great for a certain section of the solving population, I'm sure. Just not for me.

It is true that the splits don't just split, they also split into what look like two distinct, stand-alone answers (e.g., POWERS UP on the one hand, PLY on the other). That is a nifty little architectural bit. Doesn't really have anything to do with solving enjoyment, but it's a nice touch. I just don't see it throwing people off the scent much, if at all. I mean, if the first themer you encounter is 17A: *Dogs that can run up to 35 miles an hour and you get WHIP, then, unless you are entirely dog-ignorant, you know that the PETS has gone missing. And even if you're entirely dog-ignorant, you can't possibly think that WHIP is the right answer for that clue, and anyway they've *told* you to look out for trickiness by flagging this clue with an * in the first place, so ... there's no real room to struggle, actually. You're being spoon-fed so much. I finished the NW easily and immediately thought "OK, where's the PETS?" I honestly thought the revealer was going to be NO PETS, and I was like "damn ... and they managed to use an *actual pet* as a themer ... how are they going to keep *that* up? How many pets have PETS in their name!?!?" But the PETS was just on the other side of the black square, ho hum.

Between getting the theme and *getting* the theme (i.e. between WHIP/PETS and SPLIT PEAS), things got ... grim, in a couple of ways. First, I got police brutality with the "bad" COP clue, which maybe I wouldn't have read so brutally if it hadn't crossed COMA. Then I get the grimness of World War II not once but twice—the real grimness there isn't so much the grimness of war as the grimness of repetition. I mean, you clued AT WAR *via* World War II (1D: Like much of Europe beginning in 1939) ... and then put WWII in the grid? (26D: "Jojo Rabbit" setting: Abbr.). So you dupe "war" (it's in AT WAR and it's what the second "W" in WWII stands for), and then you emphasize the duplication by making the clue on AT WAR explicitly about that same war. Editors are supposed to do better. I hesitated to write in WWII, even though I knew it was probably right, because I couldn't believe they would dupe both the word and the war itself. So, grim in subject matter, grim in technical execution. And in case that wasn't grim enough for you, we got ASSAD waiting for you at the bottom of the grid. From war to war to war criminal, great. 

Didn't like the clue on "I INSIST" since ["No, really"] is more the thing you (maybe) say before you say "I INSIST," not a great equivalent *of* "I INSIST." ["No, really!"] looks is more a reaction to someone's disbelief, a rough equivalent of "IT'S TRUE!" or "I SWEAR!" But I'm just quibbling here, and anyway I kinda like an answer that starts with double-"I"s. Unusual. Thought ONE SEEDS (6D: Bracketologists' picks, often) were TOP SEEDS, which is basically the same thing, but the clue was weird to me because "picks" here seems to refer to picking the *outcomes* of the games, whereas I thought "bracketologists" made predictions about the brackets themselves, i.e. predictions about what the brackets will look like, and which teams will *be* ONE SEEDS. The "often" in this clue, though, suggests that the "bracketologists" in this case are, like any other schmo in a NCAA basketball tournament office pool, just picking ONE SEEDS to win the tourney. This is why I made "bracketologist" the Word of the Day. Looks like the word can be taken either way—referring to one who predicts both the "participants in and outcomes of" tournament games. Good to know. That's all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I didn't even mention that this grid has a creepy asymmetry, which I do not care for. "Creepy" because it's not pronounced and purposeful—you can just tell that something is ... off. I first noticed when I saw there was no rotationally symmetrical partner for DISC (38A). The asymmetry here would make sense if it only involved the black square in REAP/PEAR, which (if you include the black square) is symmetrical with SPLITPEAS, but it goes beyond that. Those central black square formations just aren't ... right. DISC is in the center row, but offset, i.e. not dead center. Makes me a little queasy if I look at it too long. Boldly breaking symmetrical for thematic / artistic purposes, I can get behind that. But this slight alteration to symmetry ... it's Uncanny Valley territory for me. Do not like. I'd rather have a symmetrical grid where the split "P"s appeared in asymmetrical places, for sure.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Classic work famously translated by John Dryden / THU 5-21-20 / Lewis Taste of Country Cooking writer / Classic gin grenadine cocktail / Fix for shortsightedness

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: Easy (untimed)

THEME: RED CROSS (37D: Organization with three Nobel Peace Prizes ... or what "corrects" the answer to each of the starred clues) — theme answers appear to contain incorrect colors, but the "correct" color is arrived at by the addition of (the letter string) "RED," which CROSSes each "wrong" color, and thus "corrects" it:

Theme answers:

• 16A: *Sycophant (GREEN-NOSER) (i.e. "brown-noser"— GREEN + "RED" (from PREDATOR) = brown)
• 27A: *Classic gin-and-grenadine cocktail (WHITE LADY) (i.e. "pink lady" — WHITE + "RED" (from FREDDY) = pink)
• 44A: *Military medal (BLUE HEART) (i.e. "Purple Heart" — BLUE + "RED" (from REDEEM) = purple)
• 59A: *Annual Florida football game (YELLOW BOWL) (i.e. "Orange Bowl" — YELLOW + "RED" (from REDO) = orange)

Word of the Day: EDNA Lewis, "The Taste of Country Cooking" writer (48A) —

Edna Lewis (April 13, 1916 – February 13, 2006) was a renowned American chef, teacher, and author who helped refine the American view of Southern cooking. She championed the use of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan, not deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very much liked this theme. I liked this theme while I was solving and I double-liked it when I got to the revealer. "Good revealer," I have written in the margins of this puzzle. It's a revealer I *probably* should've seen coming, but I don't tend to think ahead like that when I'm solving. My thought process was something along the lines of "oh, this first set of circles is RED, 'cause red + green = brown ... oh, they're *all* RED, that makes this a lot easier, but still enjoyable ... ohhhh, RED CROSS, of course. Good one." The theme was easy to pick up and, once picked up, very easy to complete. Knowing the themers would all have colors in them was a huge help, and luckily I was familiar with all the theme answers, even the "pink lady," which is probably (no, certainly) the least commonly known of the bunch (though I don't think of it as obscure). Good idea, good execution, good revealer—as far as the theme goes, this one very much succeeds.


The fill was certainly less enjoyable, and I don't know if this is because the grid was under a good deal of thematic pressure from the "RED" element, or if, you know, it just wasn't as polished as it could be. That ECOLAW IDES EER bit up top is rough—I have three frowny faces in the margins there.. And the THE in THE NBA is pretty horrid, especially coming on the heels of yesterday's THE ARMY—the arbitrary THE-ing of answers feels slightly out of control right now, and I'd like it to stop. THENBA is likely to be one of the more significant time-sucks in this puzzle for solvers, and it's not a great feeling to find out that you've been struggling because the puzzle decided to throw in a random THE for no good reason.


Otherwise, there's not a lot of cringey stuff, but a lot of it is on the overly-common side, for sure. I can't believe we haven't retired EDEL, which is paradigmatic crosswordese. Unless you solve crosswords regularly and/or are really really Really into Henry James (whom EDEL biographized over five frickin' volumes), this is not a name you're gonna know. He died in the late '90s, and was never a household name to begin with. He just has Good Letters (seriously, if you construct, there will come a time when you're like, "Damn, EDEL would work perfectly here ..."). Whenever I see his name now (which is rare these days, thank you, constructors) I think "oh come on." It's a mothball answer for sure. But here, at least, there seems to be a good reason for his appearance, i.e. he's right in the thick of a color crossing; the way the grid is built, it would be very hard to replace EDEL with anything else. So I guess if you're the constructor, you offer up EDEL as a sacrifice to OOXTEPLERNON, the God of Bad Short Fill, and hope that He blesses you with an otherwise successful puzzle. Today, I think the sacrifice was probably worth it. Full disclosure, though: I am likely to be warmly disposed to any puzzle that is willing, with a straight face, to refer to a Dryden translation of Virgil as "famous" (1D: Classic work famously translated by John Dryden). As I wrote in the answer to that clue (AENEID), I looked up from my comfy chair to my own copy of said translation on my bookshelf and was well pleased (didn't see any EDELs there, though, alas ...)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. 42A: Alternative to O is AB, not TYPE AB. Alternative to TYPE O is TYPE AB. Randomly throwing "type" in the answer absolutely destroys clue/answer equivalency. It would be like if you clued THENBA as [NFL alternative]. If one is being posited as an "alternative" to the other, then the phrasing needs to be parallel—no gratuitously added words. Boooooo! That is all. Wait, one more thing: the plural of elk is elk, not ELKS (57D: Cougars' prey). That is all.

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Parthenon dedicatee / TUE 4-21-20 / Big French daily / Ottawa chief who shares his name with automobile / Someone hell-bent on writing

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (4:14, an average-ish *Wednesday* time for me)

THEME: FRUIT TOPPING (26D: Dessert add-on ... or what the answer to each starred clue has) — hidden (sound-wise) at the "top" (i.e. beginning) of each themer (all of them Downs) is a fruit:

Theme answers:

• PEARLY WHITES (3D: *Teeth, slangily)
• FIGHTER JETS (30D: *Air Force aircraft)
• PLUMAGE (7D: *Peacock's pride)
• LE MONDE (46D: *Big French daily)
• QUINCENERA (9D: *Rite of passage celebrating a 15th birthday)

Word of the Day: PONTIAC (40A: Ottawa chief who shares his name with an automobile) —

Pontiac or Obwandiyag (c. 1714/20 – April 20, 1769) was an Odawa war chief known for his role in the war named for him, from 1763 to 1766 leading Native Americans in a struggle against British military occupation of the Great Lakes region. It followed the British victory in the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War. Pontiac's importance in the war that bears his name has been debated. Nineteenth-century accounts portrayed him as the mastermind and leader of the revolt, but some subsequent scholars argued that his role had been exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command.

The war began in May 1763 when Pontiac and 300 followers attempted to take Fort Detroitby surprise. His plan foiled, Pontiac laid siege to the fort, where he was eventually joined by more than 900 warriors from a half-dozen tribes. Meanwhile, messengers spread the word of Pontiac's actions, and the war expanded far beyond Detroit. In July 1763, Pontiac defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Bloody Run, but he was unable to capture the fort. In October, he lifted the siege and withdrew to the Illinois Country. Pontiac's actions contributed to the British Crown's issuance of the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited British settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains to preserve an area for Native Americans. (wikipedia)

• • •

Never ever got a rhythm with this one. Never built of steam. Maybe it's the high-word-count choppiness of the grid (it really is more pockmarked than usual—this has to do with the placement, not with the total number, of black squares). Maybe it was the cluing, which seemed straightforward but also routinely slightly ambiguous. Maybe it's the slightly oversized grid (15x16). And maybe it's because I was trying to solve quickly at 4:45 a.m. Anyway, I "struggled" (I can't bring myself to use that word here without quotation marks, since I was only about 45 seconds off my average, but 45 seconds is a Lot on Tuesday). The upside, though, is that I liked the puzzle. It is good. I wish it had appeared on Wednesday, but you can't have everything you want. I struggled not because the grid was filled with awkward or obscure garbage, or the clues were bad, but because ... well, I just did. So even though I don't particularly enjoy the feeling of struggling (however slightly) on a Tuesday, I was still able to appreciate this puzzle when I was done. And I had no idea what the theme was until I was done. I guess if I were going very slowly and deliberately and really looking at the asterisked clues as I went along, then I might've noticed, but nope, I hit the revealer and then had a pretty genuine aha moment. It was maybe slightly under an aha. But it was at least a curious and pleasantly surprised "oh." The theme is good because it's simple and consistent and yet still inventive-seeming. If any of those fruits had actually sounded like fruits *in their respective answers*, the whole thing would've been a bust. But every one gets the re-pronunciation treatment, hurrah. Specifically, the vowel sound changes each time. Good. And since the themers themselves are interesting answers, you've got about as polished a Tuesday effort as you're gonna get. Better than Monday, shoulda been a Wednesday, but I'll take it on a Tuesday.


So many things I just couldn't get quickly. Like TAPES (1A: Some preserved conversations). Seems straightforward, but in the digital age, this could've been anything. Nothing seemed obvious. Parsing TAPSON took time, as did BESURE (short two-worders can really throw me). HORMONE needed crosses (21D: Subject of interest to an endocrinologist). ALE comes in a bottle but is not itself a "bottle" :( so that clue was weird to me (15D: Bottle that might be labeled "XXX") (and ... really? outside of cartoons you see that "labeling"? and even in cartoons, it's usually moonshine, not ALE) (when I google [xxx on bottle], I get moonshine rum vodka ... spirits) (anyway, moving on). Not at all sure how to spell CURLICUES (thought maybe there was a "Q" in there or that there was some whimsical spelling that put the first part as "CURLY"). I wrote in EBBTIDE before LOWTIDE (those are the same, right?) (36D: Prime time for beachcombing). Could not see SUPPLE easily from its (oddly wordy) clue (49D: Capable of being folded without creasing or breaking). Had COG for CAM (62D: Engine part) and CAN and then JAR for EAR (65D: Makeshift pencil holder). Quotation-holding words are never ever easy for me to get, so ANGER took work (72A: "He that is slow to ___ is better than the mighty": Proverbs). ROTATE would've been easier with a spin-clue, but we get 53D: Take turns. SPOT could've been ESPY (58A: Catch sight of). SYNC and "connect" feel like very different words to me (28D: Connect, as a smartphone to a computer). Needed several crosses to see PONTIAC. I wasn't even sure of the FRUIT part of FRUIT TOPPING for a while (came at it from below). This was more machete-hacking than solving. But I got by.


I know it's too much to expect Ñs to have Ñ crosses, but I really notice the Ñ/N clash every time now. But at least when you leave the tilde off the (second) "N" in QUINCEANERA, you ... well, you aren't faced with an AÑO/ANO situation. That is, omitting the tilde doesn't get you a different Spanish word with a *completely* different meaning.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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British brew since 1777 / THU 2-27-20 / Ivy seen along Schulylkill River / Fearsome part of Jabberwock

Constructor: ANDREW (24A) Kingsley and John Lieb

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (?) (untimed, on paper)

 OR

OR some combination of the two...

THEME: SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT (6D: Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously) — two-square answers contain three-letter words where the middle letter can be the second letter in the first square or the first letter in the second square. Theme is obliquely explained by two theme answers, both of which are split into two crossing answers (one in the NE, the other in the SW): CROSS / THE BORDER (14D: With 16-Across, travel internationally) and "I NEED / SOME SPACE" (42D: With 55-Across, breakup line)

Two-square answers:

• 18A: Mantra chants => OMS (with Downs of WHOM BOOS or WHO BOOMS)
• 39A: Zenight => TOP (with Downs of NEATO DROP or NEAT DROOP)
• 33A: Opposite of masc. => FEM (with Downs of FEAST MAIL or FAST EMAIL)
• 53A: A pair => TWO (with Downs of TWEEN OWS or TEEN WOWS)

Word of the Day: BASS Ale (1A: British brew since 1777) —

The Bass Brewery /ˈbæs/ was founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, once the highest-selling beer in the UK. By 1877, Bass had become the largest brewery in the world, with an annual output of one million barrels. Its pale ale was exported throughout the British Empire, and the company's distinctive red triangle became the UK's first registered trade mark. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is one of those times where I recognize that the puzzle is good even though I didn't particularly enjoy solving it. I kinda slumped and groaned when I got to SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT because it seems a tired kind of thing for the puzzle to be obsessed with. "Schrödinger"-type puzzles are stock form—these are puzzles where one of two letters can occupy a square—maybe it's one letter in the Down and another in the Across, or maybe it's like the CLINTON / BOBDOLE puzzle of election day 1996, where both answers worked. Anyway, it's a thing. So this felt very "aren't we clever?" / wink-y / insidery / meta from (close to) the start, which I just found grating. I'm fine with the two-letter answers; in fact, the whole concept is indeed very clever, and the addition of this whole other level to the theme—sort of punny references to what's going on with the two-square answers (CROSS / THE BORDER and "I NEED / SOME SPACE")—makes the theme incredibly dense. This extra level is structurally / architecturally impressive, but it didn't do much for my solving experience, since I actually was left wondering what those phrases were doing, and wondering if they weren't doing ... more. More than just commenting cleverly on the two-square action. Realizing they were just there as window dressing made them less fun. This is the second day in a row where I kept waiting for the AHA moment to drop, and it just never did. Kinda cute to "end" with the TWO-square answer TWO, though (53A: A pair).


I think I'm also just bored with the idea of more dudes doing more "architecturally impressive" mathy/sciencey tricky Thursday puzzles when the NYTXW's non-male constructor percentage still languishes at an embarrassing 17% YTD. The all-dude culture up in editing continues to ... well, just continues, I guess. But I was sincerely impressed that the grid didn't collapse under the weight of the theme density here (by which I'm surprised the fill doesn't well and truly suck). This is the kind of theme where just getting the grid out clean is a feat. Non-theme fill isn't earth-shattering or fancy, but it doesn't have to be. It just has to hold. And it does.


I didn't have much trouble with this one. The basic theme concept made itself known early. I had WHOM and BOOS alongside each other, and then when I (quickly) got SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT, I went back and looked and noticed that WHOM/BOOS could also be WHO/BOOMS ... and that was that. It was very very easy to identify where this trick was going to happen again because, well, there are only four two-letter answers. The only real trick was figuring out the descriptive themers in the NE and SW, and that wasn't too hard. One real slow down came when trying to get into the center of the grid from the north and not being able to get the BLOOD part of NEW BLOOD (nice answer, btw), I wanted NEW HIRES (20D: Recent recruits, so to speak).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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