Spiky fruits with a noxious odor / WED 7-12-23 / Subject of the 2008 documentary The Black Candle / Scary roller coaster twists / Structure historically found by a river / Deflect as an insult or a sword

Constructor: Brooke Husic and Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: Days of the week — days of the week are represented by their three-letter abbrs., which appear, in order, at the beginning of seven theme answers:

Theme answers:

• SUNNI (1A: About 85%-90% of Muslims, globally [1st of 7])
• MONTALBAN (17A: Hollywood's Ricardo or Paolo [2nd of 7])
• TU ES BELLE (26A: French for "You are beautiful!" [3rd of 7])
• "WE DID IT!" (37A: "Yippee for us!" [4th of 7])
• THUMB WARS (48A: Digital confrontations? [5th of 7])
• FRIAR TUCK (58A: One of Robin Hood's Merry Men [6th of 7])
• SATAN (69A: One with horns [7th of 7])

Word of the Day: Paolo MONTALBAN (17A) —

Paolo Montalban (born May 21, 1973) is a Filipino-American actor and singer best known for his performance in the 1997 Disney television film, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella as Prince Christopher, opposite Brandy as Cinderella. He reprised that role in a stage version of the musical with Deborah Gibson and then Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Cinderella and Eartha Kitt as the Fairy Godmother. [...] Montalban was named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People of 1998. (wikipedia)

• • •

I feel certain I've seen this theme before, or something like it, but the grid is so sparkling and shimmery that I didn't have a chance to care. By the time I realized what the theme answers were doing, the grid had already sold me. I didn't really care what the "7" stuff was supposed to be about because I was just enjoying the ride. Which brings me to what is perhaps a point I should stress more often—the higher the overall quality of the fill, the less the exact nature of the theme even matters. I was like "okay, cool, a really bouncy mid-week themeless, let's go!" But then of course there was a theme, and the theme was a big part of *why* the grid was so good. That is, it's the themers that gave the grid many of its most interesting answers. SUNNI and SATAN are throwaways (though I like that they're both ... religious ... in their ways ... and that SATAN's just chilling at the very bottom, where he's probably most comfortable). But all the midweek stuff really lights up. TU ES BELLE is probably the biggest reach—you don't usually get foreign phrases of that length in a grid, so it seems like it could really trip up non-French speakers—and yet it's also the most inventive themer of the lot. Also, what the hell else are you gonna use for your TUE- answer? The only other things I can think of are also French phrases. "WE DID IT!" is a great, exultant little way to hide "WED.," and it makes a nice grid centerpiece. THUMB WARS made me laugh (haven't thought of those in years), and the clue on that one was especially nice (48A: Digital confrontations?) (your thumb is the "digit" in question, though you probably know that by now). And I learned a new MONTALBAN! Paolo was totally unfamiliar to me. But Ricardo! A mainstay of my childhood, both for his role as Mr. Roarke on "Fantasy Island," and for his earthy, sensual pitches for Chrysler. The phrase "rich Corinthian leather" is iconic. Look at him stroke that passenger seat! Purr about leather to me again, Ricardo! 

But the themers were only part of what gave the puzzle bounce. HANDHELD CASHBOX HELIXES DURIANS DATA DUMP NOURISH KWANZAA ... so many solid 7+-letter answers. Plus an all-star cast. Nicole KIDMAN! NATASHA Bedingfield! RUPAUL! The theme concept really doesn't seem like much, but the solving experience was overwhelmingly positive. Undesirable fill is rare, and spread out. All that in an easy mid-week package. Safe to say I ADMIRED this one.

No real trouble spots today. I can read French and I knew Ricardo MONTALBÁN, so I had a bit of an advantage with the themers, and all the puzzle's proper noun answers were well known to me, including Jacqueline du Pré, whose performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto comes up in a memorable scene in last year's Tár. Strangely, the part of the puzzle that gave me the most trouble was -ING (40A: English suffix equivalent to Spanish's -ando and -iendo). I had the IN- (!?!) and thought "well it's an 'O' or an 'A'"—clearly I was humming long so well that I wasn't thinking clearly. I was also having trouble coming up with the "G" cross (from SAGAS (31D: Major ordeals)—I think of SAGAS as stories, but they're stories full of challenges and troubles, which is how we get to the "ordeals" sense of the word, I guess). The other weird one-letter sticking point came when I had BO- for 27D: Stick for a 15-Across player and I hadn't solved 15-Across yet (CELLO)—I could not get BO- to be a "stick," largely because I assumed the "player" in question would be a sports player of some kind. I wanted BAT and ... well, nothing else. But getting that "W" for BOW didn't take long. This puzzle was closer to "Easy" than "Easy-Medium" for me, but I wanted to allow for the possibility that some of this fill might prove flummoxing to some solvers—the French and the DURIANS and the MONTALBANs, etc. Today I learned that Ricardo MONTALBÁN spells his name with the accent on the final "A," while Paolo ... doesn't. I also just discovered Madeline Montalban, and, well, I'm intrigued:

Madeline Montalban (born Madeline Sylvia Royals; 8 January 1910 – 11 January 1982) was an English astrologer and ceremonial magician. She co-founded the esoteric organisation known as the Order of the Morning Star (OMS), through which she propagated her own form of Luciferianism. (wikipedia)

Before I fall down a mid-century English occultist rabbit hole, I'm going to sign off. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Cold War-era group that included Louis Armstrong / "Creature From the Black Lagoon" co-star / Moniker for a noted Boston skyscraper, with "the" / Kafka's unfinished first novel, published posthumously in 1927 / Mount ___, highest peak in the Philippines

Constructor: Brian Thomas + Brooke Husic

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:30)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BAD ART (The "BA" of the Boston museum MOBA)

The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a privately owned museum whose stated aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum"...Its permanent collection includes over 700 pieces of "art too bad to be ignored", 25 to 35 of which are on public display at any one time.

...Explaining the reasoning behind the museum's establishment, co-founder Jerry Reilly said in 1995: "While every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to the best of art, MOBA is the only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst." To be included in MOBA's collection, works must be original and have serious intent, but they must also have significant flaws without being boring; curators are not interested in displaying deliberate kitsch.

...The museum has been criticized for being anti-art, but the founders deny this, responding that its collection is a tribute to the sincerity of the artists who persevered with their art despite something going horribly wrong in the process. According to co-founder Marie Jackson, "We are here to celebrate an artist's right to fail, gloriously." (Wikipedia)

• • •

It me, occasional indie constructor Christopher Adams, here to kick off ~two weeks of guest blogging while Rex is out on vacation. Lots of fun bloggers (both new and old) to come, and it'll be fun. This puzzle certainly was—my reaction is LOVED IT (3D: "Five stars from me").

I presume JAZZ AMBASSADORS (Cold War-era group that included Louis Armstrong) was the seed, but it was the rest of the puzzle that really made me love it. Don't get me wrong—JAZZ AMBASSADORS is a great entry that I enjoyed and that's very good to know/learn about—but when it comes to puzzles from Brian and/or Brooke (e.g. this recent collab), the cluing is where it's at. And there was a lot to like here, from the intentional vagueness of (Utter) for ABSOLUTE, to the fun, natural language clues for TOP THAT, WHAT A TRIP, AT ANY RATE, and OH NO, to the clues that try to mislead you: (Salon stock) suggesting a plural, for example, and (Window you might want to close quickly) suggesting, uh, something much more risqué than the actual answer. 

There were also a lot of fun facts: some commonly seen in crosswords ("Snow White" having ~250,000 CELS), some not so much (NORWAY having the world's longest road tunnel). And it doesn't hurt that this puzzle has not one but two soccer references in TIM Howard and Megan RAPINOE. Things like that make it much easier to solve the puzzle (at least, in my case) and much easier to love it as well.

I was originally going to say something snarky and sciency about the Coriolis effect, as referenced in the clue for DRAIN, but then realized that probably nobody wanted to read that, so then I was going to link to WRIGGLE and DRAIN from X Japan's album Dahlia, but all the videos were copyright blocked from displaying here, so, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, here's a mashup of Steely Dan and Glenn Danzig.

Another thing that I loved about this puzzle was how well it seemed to flow, and how getting one answer quite often led to another. As per usual, I started with the top row and then quickly switched to downs—having those first letters always helps in getting those downs. Here, DJING gave me GNC, which then yielded AZTEC, and soon enough that whole area was done. Ditto for TIM to MOUSSE to ONO (a gimme with the O) and PRU (which I knew from the clue, but having a letter already there didn't hurt). 

Probably the quickest part of this puzzle was going from POP-UP AD to BAD ART and EARPS to dropping in RAPINOE / PRELIMS / STAYS AT—I didn't even look at the across clues in that corner until writing this up. But I'm glad I did—things like (Word in the name of many candy offshoots) for MINIS are the fun sort of clues (of which there's a few in this puzzle, and which I ought to have listed above) that may not give you the answer right away, but that yield a nice "that makes sense!" moment when you do figure them out.

Olio:

• MOD (Operation that yields the remainder from dividing two numbers, in math lingo) — I guess the "in math lingo" part here is to signify that the answer isn't modulo, but given that nobody actually ever says modulo (outside of defining modulo and then immediately switching to mod), this clue could've done without those words
• ENTRE (13-Across, in French) — This entry is at the bottom middle of the grid. It's referencing an entry in the top left (which is clued without relation to this entry). I'm never a fan of entries that cross-reference all the way across the grid, especially when there's other ways to clue it, and there's no compelling need / really good reason to do so in the first place.
• AMONG (Devil ___ the tailors (pub game)) — pretty sus to not clue this as Among Us, tbh.
• RAPINOE (Sports Illustrated's 2019 Sportsperson of the Year) — per the constructors, the original clue here was ["Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties" speaker], which is the sort of clue that could (and should!) appear way more often in all crosswords.

Yours in puzzling, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Asexual informally / SAT 6-12-21 / Obelix's friend in comics / Orchestra that performs an annual fireworks spectacular / Cause of an uptick in Scottish tourism beginning in 1995 / "Star Trek" catchphrase

Constructor: Brooke Husic and Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: OMAR Benson Miller (44D: Actor ___ Benson Miller) —

Omar Benson Miller (born October 7, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for his work as Walter Simmons on CSI: Miami (2009–2012), as Charles Greane on Ballers (2015–2019), as the voice of Raphael on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and on the CBS comedy series The Unicorn (2019–2021). [...] Miller is almost 6 ft 6 in (1,97 m) tall. (wikipedia)

• • •

I am so happy this puzzle came out today. Well, I'm happy it came out at all, because it's so good (one of my favorite Saturdays of recent memory), but I'm happy it came out today because it does what yesterday's puzzle was Trying to do so much better than yesterday's puzzle actually did it. That is, it is very deliberately inclusive of a younger demographic. It's very inclusive in general. But it's also incredibly well balanced with its pop references, swooping and darting All Over The Cultural Landscape (BOSTON POPS! "BRAVEHEART"!! ASTERIX!!!). It's also just loaded with great fill, and the clues are frequently clever, and these are the most elemental considerations in puzzle-making, after all. I felt like bouncy, delightful, sometimes zany stuff was coming at me around every corner, so solving felt like opening a bunch of presents, as opposed to trekking through mud (bad) or, I don't know, just riding the conveyor belt to the end (boring) (This has been How Not To Metaphor, with your host Rex Parker). Even when I got caught out by a name I absolutely did not know, I felt like the puzzle was rooting for me, recognizing my struggle and trying to make it worthwhile. I am speaking specifically now about Rihanna's real name, my lord! I'm sure this is commonplace knowledge to many, but honestly I still haven't gotten the spelling of RIHANNA down yet (still keep wanting to spell it with the "h" before the "i" like Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"). And it's not like she's just a name to me. I was just thinking yesterday how "ANTI" is one of the greatest albums of the last ten years. Anyway, ROBYN FENTY just about took my head off (28D: First and last name of Rihanna). And yet! As I walked on eggshells (FRAGILE!) through the SE corner, struggling to get every letter of ROBYN FENTY, just waiting for the one bad cross that would do me in, what I found was just ... entertainment. Fun and gettable answer after fun and gettable answer. By the time I had ROBYN FENTY completely filled in, I was AMPED and ready to dive back into the remaining empty space. I liked this one so much I kept stopping and taking screenshots. I'm not sure I ever exclaimed "I'M AMAZED," but that was the overall vibe. The puzzle did IMPRESS ME (much).

Yes, the puzzle opened with some corniness :) ...

But then, very shortly thereafter, the puzzle really put the pedal down. I could feel the roller coaster car start to pick up speed, and then, whooosh, this happened:

And we were off like a shot. I may even have actually said "Oh, here we Go!" That is a statement answer. That is a "buckle up, friends" answer. And the puzzle did not disappoint. The roller coaster analogy is apt because, as you've seen, I experienced stomach-dropping terror in the ROBYN FENTY portion, but before that I think I actually squealed with delight at ASTERIX! 

That is one of the best "X" crossings of all time. The clue on PRESSBOX was so good (53A: It covers the field). And the thing is, the puzzle kept on like this. Relentlessly entertaining, front to back. That clue on ACE! I was just thinking this past week (because of Pride-related stuff) "When's the asexual clue for ACE coming?" and bam, here it is! 

And I finished it all off with SPARKLERs (and another great clue). 

Such a good time. Along the way, I learned a new actor name (OMAR), waved at the now-McDonalds-famous K-Pop group BTS, and smugly wrote in the "correct" spelling of JURY-RIG (I grew up hearing, and thus thinking it was spelled, "jerry-rig," which is actually an accepted variant but which technically (I just read) arises from a conflation of JURY-RIG with "jerry-built"). No significant mistakes. Wrote in EPI-graph before TRI-graph (22A: Prefix with -graph). Wrote in ALY at 29D: ___ Raisman, second-most-decorated Olympic gymnast in U.S. history but in struggling to get POOL (31A: Compile) started to second-guess that "L" ... considered ARY (?) for a bit, but then it was ALY after all. ALMOND flour, MACARONI, PERSIMMON, BASMATI! Now I'm hungry. Good day!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Longtime music collaborator with Royce da 5'9" / SAT 10-10-20 / Angry arenagoer in slang / Fast food order that had all the flavor one less layer / spider named for its presence around train tracks / Enterprise once known as California Perfume Company / Italian soccer club with three Champions League titles / Who just keeps rollin along in a classic show tune / Traveler with turbine / Global news concern of mid-2010s / Lufthansa supplier

Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easyish (6:23)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: INTER MILAN (12D: Italian soccer club with three Champions League titles) —

Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale(pronounced [ˌinternattsjoˈnaːle]) or simply Inter, and known as Inter Milan outside Italy, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is the only Italian club never to have been relegated from the top flight of Italian football.

Founded in 1908 following a schism within the Milan Cricket and Football Club (now A.C. Milan), Inter won its first championship in 1910. Since its formation, the club has won 30 domestic trophies, including 18 league titles, 7 Coppa Italia and 5 Supercoppa Italiana. From 2006 to 2010, the club won five successive league titles, equalling the all-time record at that time. They have won the Champions League three times: two back-to-back in 1964 and 1965 and then another in 2010. Their latest win completed an unprecedented Italian seasonal treble, with Inter winning the Coppa Italia and the Scudetto the same year. The club has also won three UEFA Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and one FIFA Club World Cup. (wikipedia)

• • •

Couple of answers I found too grim for my tastes (EBOLA SCARE, "I'M HIT!"), and there's an obsession with Scrabbliness that I find a little cutesy (especially when it results in not-so-great-results like JESU / MACJR). Not a huge fan of the extra choppy grid. But in the main, the fill is solid, and there are some nice longer answers (FOOD DESERT, HOVERCRAFT, AFROBEAT, BOO BIRDS, I'M SURE OF IT) that make the experience feel worth it. Also helps (my mood) that it's on the easy side. Most of my trouble was in the NE and SW—especially the SW, where I had trouble with OL' MAN RIVER and then wrote in OLD and screwed everything up, however briefly. Also had "NOT on good terms" and COMPELS down there for a bit, and never fully grasped RIM until I was done (even now, it seems pretty tenuous; I guess the "corona" is the RIM of whatever object is doing the eclipsing...). Also thought the [Far-off explorer] was a SPACE CADET. And there was no way I was going to get from "weaponry," CAST IRON being known to me only as a pair words that can precede "skillet." But crosswordese fluency / experience with ambiguous dental clues got me DDS, and OVID was a gimme and EROS wasn't tough, and, I don't know, I guess FATS DOMINO eventually got me out of trouble. In the NE, my problems were fewer, but wow, *INTER* MILAN? Never heard of it. I know of AC MILAN, which seems to be the (much) more successful team. INTER MILAN won three Champions League titles, OK, but two of them were in the '60s. I had to get every bit of INTER from crosses. Otherwise, no real holdups with this one.

I don't want to accept WHAP as a thing (1A: Smack!). My start in the NW was a little sticky because of that, but more because of a very unfortunate mistake one-two. The "one" was RAIL and the "two" was OLIVE. I really thought RAIL spider was a slam dunk, and then when OLIVE worked in the cross, and seemed a defensible answer for 19A: Vodka go-with, I just went with it. But no, it was HOBO TONIC all along. Do you put olives in a vodka martini? I would never drink a vodka martini, so I don't know. The way I fixed that corner was weird: I worked backward from CYAN (23A: Color in a color printer) ... CYAN to RACY to TONIC to HOBO. And then off I went. And now, to bed. See you Sunday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Easternmost point of Silk Road / FRI 9-4-20 / prima painting technique / Brightest star in Lyra / Land east of eastern desert / Expensive beer chaser / Wedding dress that's often red

Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Challenging (slowest Friday in a long time, though ... again, I'm solving at 5am, just out of bed, so that could be it?)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: JEANNETTE RANKIN (34A: Congresswoman who said "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote") —

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate, and the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940.

Each of Rankin's Congressional terms coincided with initiation of U.S. military intervention in the two World Wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A suffragist during the Progressive Era, Rankin organized and lobbied for legislation enfranchising women in several states including Montana, New York, and North Dakota. While in Congress, she introduced legislation that eventually became the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting unrestricted voting rights to women nationwide. She championed a multitude of diverse women's rights and civil rights causes throughout a career that spanned more than six decades. To date, Rankin remains the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana. (wikipedia)

• • •

West half of my grid has hardly any green ink on it at all, whereas the east is predominantly green ink (green ink being what I use to mark up all the problem areas), and the SE alone took me probably half my time, which was very high for me (8-9 min. maybe? I often shut the puzzle without writing it down). So mostly what I remember about the puzzle was struggle. Sadly, didn't have very many moments where I thought "cool!" or "good one!" It seemed solid enough, but a little blah. The center answer is undoubtedly interesting and original, but I didn't have that "aha" joy because I just couldn't retrieve her name, so her last name in particular (which was at one entryway to the SE corner) just blocked me. Same with [Athlete in the N.B.A.'s Southwest Div.] (MAV). I know all the NBA teams, but the idea that I have them sorted in my head by division, ugh, no. I'm I figured MAV but didn't really know. Something team-specific would be nice. Anyway, staying in the SE: 

• didn't know if it was IN A ROUT or IN A ROMP (26D: Going away); 
• no idea, at all, forever, what word followed COOL (8D: Hipsters) (honestly, "cats" is the only really acceptable "COOL" follower); 
• just stared at super-vague 43A: Tears and esp. 45D: Lift (SPREES and STEAL, respectively); 
• needed every cross to get SNOB and still barely understand it (43D: Expensive beer chaser?) (that clue is torturous—I think it wants "chaser" to mean both "follower" (i.e. of the word "beer," in a familiar phrase) and a word for someone who "chases" i.e. "seeks" beer that is expensive??? I get that you think that's clever, but clues don't work that way—it's completely convoluted); 
• who the f*** is DAN + Shay? (47A: ___ + Shay, Grammy-winning country duo); 
• had STOP SHORT and then (much more certainly) STOPS COLD before much later realizing it was STOPS DEAD (a phrase you just wouldn't use unless followed by "in his tracks" or some other phrase, whereas STOPS COLD, mwah, les mots justes!)

The long Acrosses were also hard to see, though I would've seen them sooner without all the trouble around them. Oh, I left out the worst one—a math joke :( question-mark :( :( clue for ON AVERAGE (33D: In a mean way?), which I figured was a prepositional phrase, which I was parsing as ON A ___. And again, that answer ran *right* through allllll the SE mess I just described.

Cluing was too much like a riddle book. [She took a seat to stand]. [It is avoided while playing it]. Sigh. I don't enjoy riddles when I'm doing crosswords. Or ever. ROSA PARKS was easy enough, and I got TAG pretty easily from crosses, but it's the principle of the thing. When a clue's sense of "fun" is way off from mine, it really affects puzzle enjoyment. Is JOE BOXER still a brand? I got that one easily, but as I did, I thought about how I hadn't thought about that brand name in ages. I think it's the name of an '80s band, too ... oh, well, yes, almost:

Didn't really know XIAN (51A: Easternmost point of the Silk Road), so minor struggle there. Stupidly misread the clue on "DUNE" and thought it wanted an *author* name (28A: First winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, 1965)—just stopped reading the clue at "Nebula Award." To me REPOST signifies a single post, which has absolutely no relationship to a meme (which, if it's a meme, then almost by definition you've seen it a lot, and probably in many different forms, in which case REPOST *really* doesn't work). BRIT was hard (10A: Adele or Ed Sheeran); wanted IDOL or STAR, which obviously is intentional on the part of the clue, ugh. Really hard to imagine someone exclaiming "I'VE DONE IT!" unless it's the 19th century. "I did it!" you'd say. Does ANO (year) not have a tilde in Portuguese? I guess that's one way to get around the year/asshole problem in Spanish, but unfortunately all it does is direct my attention directly toward the year/asshole problem in Spanish, so much so that I am writing this sentence. DIET POP sounds absurd (25A: Drink that may contain aspartame). "Pop" is fine and "soda" is fine, but with DIET, my ears only want SODA. And BLART ... sigh, I knew that one, but wow, not even a reference to the movie title in the clue (10D: Movie mall cop). I can't believe that movie (there were probably sequels, weren't there?) is going to leave a crossword legacy. Just didn't find very much to enjoy today. Grid is not terrible, just very much (especially in the cluing) not for me.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. ah yes, it seems many many (many) people were confused by how [Going away] could mean IN A ROMP. In sports, if you win something "going away" you win it easily, i.e. IN A ROMP (or A ROUT, or, weirdly, A WALK). 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Rotund archenemy of Sonic the Hedgehog / SAT 5-30-20 / Asian city on Yamuna River / Tower of classic math puzzle / Autumnal salad ingredients / Notable feature of opening clarinet solo in Rhapsody in Blue / Automotive debut of 1964

Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easy (6:17, first thing in the a.m.)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Tower of HANOI (37A: Tower of ___ (classic math puzzle)) —

The Tower of Hanoi (also called the Tower of Brahma or Lucas' Tower and sometimes pluralized as Towers) is a mathematical game or puzzle. It consists of three rods and a number of disks of different sizes, which can slide onto any rod. The puzzle starts with the disks in a neat stack in ascending order of size on one rod, the smallest at the top, thus making a conical shape.

The objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack to another rod, obeying the following simple rules:

1. Only one disk can be moved at a time.
2. Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the stacks and placing it on top of another stack or on an empty rod.
3. No larger disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.

With 3 disks, the puzzle can be solved in 7 moves. The minimal number of moves required to solve a Tower of Hanoi puzzle is 2ⁿ − 1, where n is the number of disks.

• • •

I enjoyed this one reasonably well, though much of that enjoyment probably came from the merciful ease with which I flew through it. Early-morning Saturday solves can be brutal, and there's a feeling of both relief and exhilaration that comes with knocking them out quickly. That feeling, however, can really color your (my) opinions about a puzzle. That is, as I've said before, people tend to be warmly disposed to puzzles they crush and poorly disposed to those that you don't. I try to correct for this feeling, perhaps not always successfully. Am I pleased with the puzzle, or my own mastery? Does it matter? In my case, it probably matters, since I'm supposed to be talking about these things, at least in part, in terms of their technical specs and craftsmanship. This one seems quite solid, if somewhat workmanlike, somewhat over-conventional (in the short stuff, mostly). There's not a lot of zing, but there are also no glaring weaknesses, and there was no point where I genuinely winced or found anything more than a stray answer or too very unpalatable. It felt like it was catering to an older audience (Sonic the Hedgehog reference aside), but that's not bad. It didn't feel exclusionary. Just very much over-the-plate for X'ers boomers and up. SPRING CHICKEN itself is a phrase that would probably only be used by someone who was No SPRING CHICKEN (I think I am familiar with this phrase exclusively in the negative) (31A: No oldster). CHOO-CHOO-TRAIN is cute (36A: Something a toddler might chug?). Do toddlers still "chug" these though? Does Thomas still exist? Train sets feel very middle of last century. I love this answer, I'm just explaining why the vibe of the puzzle felt (in a nice way) older. Not a lot of slang or fresh fill, but entertaining nonetheless, and well put together.


I don't have much to say about this one, though. It's weird how fast I solved it, considering its frame of reference often isn't mine. All the "game" stuff that (I guess) puzzle solvers are supposed to know / appreciate, I didn't. Tower of HANOI was totally new to me—guessed it off the -OI. I had SPIT as SCAT (or maybe SKAT) at first—that feels like the name of a card game, but I could very easily be wrong there (as I was, literally, wrong, obviously, since the answer is SPIT) (42A: Two-player card game). I can't stand Scrabble so though I know the basic rules and format, I don't think that much about it, and I had THIRTEEN before NINETEEN there (13D: Number that can be spelled with only one-point Scrabble tiles). Can't imagine wanting to clue NINETEEN that way, just as I can't imagine wanting to clue TERMS via algebra. But your cluing brain goes where it goes, I guess.  No one section of this grid gave me any particular trouble. I was fittingly slow getting SLOWS (1D: Prepares to enter a work zone, perhaps), but SEAT HENIE ATRIA got me started up there, and then ON RETAINER blew it open (reading a lot of Perry Mason lately, and a lot of the book I'm currently reading (The Case of the Curious Bride) involves Perry doing a lot of work for a client he hasn't even officially taken on—one who in fact stormed out of his office—because he finds out after that initial meeting that the woman has already put him ON RETAINER by leaving $$$ with Della before the meeting ever started. So he's like "well, she left the money, so ... guess I better work even though she has given me nothing specific to do." Seems like you'd just return the retainer, but Perry's gonna Perry, whaddyagonnado? Anyway, after I got out of the NW, I had only occasional trouble—nothing terribly noteworthy.

[so. excited.]

Minor Trouble:

• 26A: Calm (SEDATE) — I had SERENE. Costly.
• 8D: "Roots" surname (KINTE) — easy, but I misspelled it KENTE.
• 21D: Autumnal salad ingredients (PEPITAS) — hardest answer for me to get, despite the fact that I like to eat them. These are pumpkin seeds.
• 27D: Lancaster and Cornwall, for two (DUCHIES) — I take it back; this was the hardest for me to get. And right alongside PEPITAS, too. Good thing crosses were all so gettable.

• 43D: Stomach soother, for short (PEPTO) — was looking for a generic term, like BROMO (?) here. But it's short for the brand PEPTO-Bismol.
• 44D: Summertime coolers (ICEES) — since I had SCAT for SPIT and I had ECO in place, this answer looked like it started AC ... and I ended up with ACEES thinking "that canNOT be an acceptable spelling of the abbr. for 'air conditioners'!" Thankfully, I was right.
• 36D: Low-cost version, informally (CHEAPIE) — This term feels ... dated? Seems like maybe you'd use it adjectivally, but then ... why not just use 'cheap.' 'Cheapo?' The primary way I know CHEAPIE is as the thing that gangster Mendy Menendez calls Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye: this, and "Tarzan on a big red scooter":

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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French tennis player fashion icon / SAT 8-31-19 / Classic TV character whose name is Spanish for fool / 1980s feminst coinage regarding nuclear proliferation

Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:31, should've been even faster)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Georges PEREC (25A: French author Georges) —

Georges Perec (born George Peretz) (French: [peʁɛk, pɛʁɛk]; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was murdered in the Holocaust, and many of his works deal with absence, loss, and identity, often through word play. (wikipedia)

Oulipo (French pronunciation: ​[ulipo], short for French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature") is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior, Jean Lescure and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.
The group defines the term littérature potentielle as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy".
Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine", which he used in the construction of Life A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new methods, often based on mathematical problems, such as the knight's tour of the chess-board and permutations. (wikipedia) 

• • •

I would not be surprised if many of you set a personal best Saturday time today. I didn't, but I probably should have. Too leisurely out of the gate, and too clumsy on the keyboard. And then, at the very end, I face-planted by totally misreading 53A: Viscous (ROPY) as [Vicious]. Ugh. Anyway, 4:31 is still very fast for a Saturday, for me. Looking back over the puzzle, it's basically a Tuesday with a few marginal proper nouns and dated phrases thrown in to act as very ineffective speed bumps. I knew PEREC, but you are very much forgiven if you didn't. I wouldn't know him if it weren't for crosswords, and I know I'm not alone in that. My proper noun downfall was TANIKA (?) Ray, co-host of "Extra," whatever that is. Is that some kind of entertainment news TV show—a form that it's hard to believe still exists. I'm not even going to check because I don't care. Anyway, all the crosses were favorable, so TANIKA didn't crush me, but she definitely held me up. The other major hold-up came from MISSILE ENVY (29A: 1980s feminst coinage regarding nuclear proliferation), which ... really? Really? Sigh. If you say so. "Feminist coinage?" What's "feminist" about it? Who is the feminist involved here? I get that it's a play on "penis envy," but ... it really doesn't sound like a term that is in common parlance, or ever was. So I needed a Ton of crosses to get it, but again, the crosses were not at all hard, so fine. I'm startled that this was a Saturday and not a Friday. Hard to fathom. It really was very, very easy (by Saturday standards).

["The Windy Apple!"]

A word about TONTO (15A: Classic TV character whose name is Spanish for "fool"). A few words, actually. First, The Lone Ranger was a radio show and a book series before it was a TV show, and TONTO was in the pre-TV stuff, yet the puzzle keeps narrowly cluing him via the TV show. Second, while "tonto" does mean "fool" in Spanish (which meant the name was changed to "Toro" or "Ponto" in Spanish-dubbed versions of the TV show), the creator had reason to believe it meant something else: "Show creator Trendle grew up in Michigan, and knew members of the local Potawatomi tribe, who told him it meant "wild one" in their language" (wikipedia). The clue kind of implies, or softly suggests, that the "fool" meaning was by design. Maybe this clue is the puzzle's way of pointing out that the character of TONTO was very much the product of white ignorance. Native Americans have long criticized the character as a form of racial caricature. Johnny Depp's portrayal of TONTO in the 2013 "Lone Ranger" caused a fairly high-profile backlash, with accusations of appropriation and racial insensitivity being leveled at the movie and its star (ironic, given that the movie was intended to offer a more authentic TONTO, rejecting earlier portrayals of the character as a mere monosyllabic sidekick). This is all to say that the character of TONTO is inextricably linked to a long history of white writers, producers, actors, etc. representing Native Americans in simplistic ways with little or any input from Native Americans themselves. I know some people who don't ever want to see TONTO in the grid again. I'm not sure I agree, but I do understand. If I felt I absolutely had to use TONTO to make a stellar grid come out right, I'd probably stick to very straightforward, factual cluing. Don't get cute.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Eponymous hypnotist / THU 3-7-19 / Cheer at Texas football game / Toy boxer in classic two-player game / Counterfeiter trackers in old lingo / Exclamation usually made in high voice

Constructor: Brian Thomas

Relative difficulty: Easy (untimed on the clipboard, so I'm not sure, but I got the theme early and never struggled)

THEME: STICK 'EM UP (59A: "Hands in the air!" ... or a literal hint to 17-, 23-, 37- and 46-Across) — the "'EM" part of familiar phrases sticks ... up (i.e. the "M" hops above the "E" before the rest of the answer CONTINUES as normal...)

Theme answers:

• HANG 'EM HIGH (17A: 1968 Clint Eastwood western with six nooses on its poster)
• HOOK 'EM HORNS (23A: Cheer at a Texas football game)
• ROCK 'EM SOCK 'EM ROBOT (37A: Toy boxer in a classic two-player game)
• KNOCK 'EM DEAD (46A: "Show the world what you've got!")

Word of the Day: MT. COOK (21A: Highest peak in N.Z.) —

Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height since 2014 is listed as 3,724 metres (12,218 feet), down from 3,764 m (12,349 ft) before December 1991, due to a rockslide and subsequent erosion. It lies in the Southern Alps, the mountain range which runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination,^[3] it is also a favourite challenge for mountain climbers. Aoraki / Mount Cook consists of three summits, from South to North the Low Peak (3,593 m or 11,788 ft), Middle Peak (3,717 m or 12,195 ft) and High Peak. The summits lie slightly south and east of the main divide of the Southern Alps, with the Tasman Glacier to the east and the Hooker Glacier to the southwest.

There was a large rock fall in 1991 that turned the summit into a knife-edge ridge and reduced the height of the mountain by an estimated 10 m or so at that time. Aoraki / Mount Cook was measured in 2013 to be 3724 m, which is 30 m down from its pre-1991 rock-fall measurement. (wikipedia)

• • •

Fell asleep very early and so woke up very early (2:30am!) and so decided I'd just print the puzzle out and solve it on the clipboard with a cup of hot water & lemon. (Actually I solved with a pencil, like a fairly normal person). Anyway, I finished before the kettle boiled. Or ... maybe it finished boiling, it turns itself off automatically, but my point is I finished quickly, without trying to go particularly fast. If there were trouble areas, I don't know where they are. Possibly the NE, where there's a cluster of proper nouns. That's the only place I got slowed down at all, and that was all due to CUTCO, a brand I am not familiar with at all (10D: Kitchen utensil brand). I was also uncertain about MT. COOK, which is slightly odd as I've actually seen it in person (it's mostly called AORAKI there now, which ... you know, put that in your grid and smoke it!). Briefly thought the "only nation named for a woman" was St. KITTS. Even so, that corner wasn't exactly hard, and it was the hardest thing I encountered. As for the theme ... it's an interesting attempt to make something out of that revealer phrase. But when you stick 'EM up, turns out not much happens on the page. The solving experience = "well, it's 'Hang 'Em High,' so is this a rebus? ... nope, the Down is definitely T-MEN, so ... ???" and then a little later you catch sight of the revealer clue and it all becomes clear. Once I knew I was going to be getting all "'EM" phrases, the puzzle got even easier. Having a singular ROCK 'EM SOCK 'EM ROBOT in the grid was really sad. The robots are a pair. They go together. Fixed in an eternal cyberboxing match. There is never a singular robot. They were not sold separately. That answer really really needs to be plural.


The fill was fine, I thought, though I see people grousing online a bit. I could always do without the RRN (random Roman numerals) (see 34A: XCI) and short gunk like DAK and ACH, but nothing grated on me too much today. "WHAT A TOOL!" left me oddly cold. Usually colloquial exclamations are very much my thing, but that one felt harsh and borderline profane and just not ... tight enough to fly. Really wanted "WHAT A JERK!" Still do. I was disappointed in the clue for CHIN MUSIC, since that is a fantastic baseball term (for a high and inside fastball), but I have never heard it used to mean [Chitchat] (though the dictionary says that is indeed its primary meaning). CHIN-WAGGING, I am familiar with. But not CHIN MUSIC. Not in this context.


Three cheers for the non-leering BRA clue (30D: Clothing item with hooks); "HOOK" is actually in  the grid, and you generally avoid using clue words that are also grid words, but today I didn't notice or care, and the "hooks" are so different that I don't mind. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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