Legacy I.S.P. / MON 4-18-22 / Gel-filled NyQuil offerings / Immunity tokens on Survivor / Big obstacles on a golf course / Wildly absurd colloquially

Constructor: Carl Larson

Relative difficulty: Medium (super easy ... and then the SW corner ... which took us back to normal easy Monday)

THEME: LOOSE ENDS (64A: Unresolved details ... and a hint to this puzzle's circled letters) — circled letters on either "end" of the theme answers spell out a word that can follow "loose" in a familiar phrase:

Theme answers:

• TAKE A WALK (17A: Go strolling)
• BAND SHELL (25A: Outdoor concert stage)
• CHALLENGE (30A: Stiff test)
• TOLLBOOTH (45A: Turnpike feature made obsolescent by electronic passes) 
• LIQUICAPS (51A: Gel-filled NyQuil offerings)

Word of the Day: GIADA De Laurentiis (62A: Chef De Laurentiis of the Food Network) —

Giada Pamela De Laurentiis (Italian: [ˈdʒaːda paˈmɛːla de lauˈrɛnti.is]; born August 22, 1970) is an Italian-American chef, writer, and television personality. She was the host of Food Network's Giada at Home. She also appears regularly as a contributor and guest co-host on NBC's Today. De Laurentiis is the founder of the catering business GDL Foods. She is a winner of the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host and the Gracie Award for Best Television Host. (wikipedia)

• • •

This theme is a little, uh, loose. I think it's fine, conceptually, but why these "loose" answers, why "tooth" and not "cannon" or "leaf" or "morals" or "knit"? I probably wouldn't have thought to ask this question about all the other possible "looses" were it not for the semi-glaring fact that "loose talk" and "loose lips" mean the same thing! Why would you do this? Why would you use a duplicate "loose" meaning when there are other "loose" phrases there for the taking? Bah. The talk / lips thing is bugging me. It's a simple theme, you'd think you could at least avoid a sense duplication like that. Also, I resent LIQUICAPS. No, more specifically, I resent the clue on LIQUICAPS. See, I don't really know the term LIQUICAPS, but I sure as hell know the term LIQUIGELS. Advil makes LIQUIGELS. Other companies probably do too ... so ...  how are LIQUICAPS different from LIQUIGELS, exactly? It's weird to have "Gel-filled" in a clue for a kind of "cap" that is not "gel"—and there's yet another term I know better than LIQUICAP: GELCAP! Maybe my beef is with the stupidity and redundancy and redundant stupidity of branding and product naming, but this is far too many names for "soft pill go in mouth." Don't tell me a "cap" is "gel-filled" and then tell me it's a LIQUI-CAP. It's like you're just deliberately lying. DECEPTICAPS! Sigh. Otherwise, as I said, it's a fine idea for a Monday theme—simple and playfulish. 

The whole "LIQUI-" thing slowed me way, way down. I was going lightning-fast, so the "slowness" here is relative, but still, it's jarring how much more resistance the SW corner puts up compared to the rest of the grid. Couldn't come up with ALL SQUARE easily either, so the "Q" stayed well hidden til almost the end. The other flummoxy thing down here, for me, was GIADA. Not only do I not know the celebrity chef in question, I don't think I've ever known any GIADA, ever. I needed every cross and was genuinely concerned that I had an error, as GIADA just didn't look like a name. Unsurprisingly, this is the first time GIADA has ever appeared in the NYTXW. Looking her up, I recognize her face—maybe I've seen it on cookbooks in the bookstore?—but I clearly never registered that first name before. I am happy to learn the name, but come on: GIADA, but still no Agnès VARDA!? No Yasujiro OZU!? Y'all are killing me with this nonsense. Crossword justice for legendary movie directors! Crossword justice for cinema!

Just a couple more notes. TOLLBOOTHs have not been "made obsolescent" by anything. They still exist, often right alongside EZ-Pass booths (and the like). I guess they are becoming obsolete to the extent that cash is become obsolete, but ... not yet. Also, no one's going to write a legendary children's book called "The Phantom Electronic Pass," so ... no need to shove all non-automated things out of the plane just yet. Yeesh. Also, that's enough Tracee ELLIS Ross for one week (month, year) *unless* you go all in and use TRACEE. She can come back as TRACEE. But as ELLIS, she's gonna have to wait til 2023. Give other ELLISes a chance! (Actually, I don't mind Tracee ELLIS Ross at all, I'm just still mad about the continued VARDA and OZU snubbing). See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Nintendo villain with an upside-down M on his cap / MON 11-8-21 / Acronym for a multiaward accomplishment / Good name for a postseason football game sponsored by General Mills / Justice League member who's super-speedy / Magical power informally

Constructor: Carl Larson

Relative difficulty: Easyish

THEME: "QUEEN" (1A: Honorific given to 17-, 27-, 43- and 58-Across) — theme answers are four singers all of whom have been referred to (with highly varying degrees of iconicness) as "The QUEEN of ___"; the theme clues supply the genre:

Theme answers:

• DONNA SUMMER (17A: "Disco")
• ARETHA FRANKLIN (27A: "Soul")
• ELLA FITZGERALD (43A: "Jazz")
• LORETTA LYNN (58A: "Country")

Word of the Day: Menotti's "AMAHL and the Night Visitors" (15A) —

Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatreon December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast live on television from that venue as the debut production of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. It was the first opera specifically composed for television in the United States. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is disappointing in a handful of ways. I enjoy the music of all these singers, and I'm happy to see them, fine, fine. But the "revealer" placement is weird, and the lack of a symmetrical themer for the revealer is weird, and LORETTA LYNN simply isn't known as "The Queen of Country." Certainly not nearly as well-known by that title as the other QUEENs are by theirs. ARETHA FRANKLIN is obviously the big winner here in terms of aptness. The QUEEN of Soul. Undisputed. Iconic. That's her title. ELLA FITZGERALD has a bunch of monikers, and I don't know that "QUEEN of Jazz" is the best-known one, but it's definitely in there, and DONNA SUMMER is most certainly "QUEEN of Disco" (the phrase is in the title of her NYT obit). But if you google [queen of country], LORETTA LYNN doesn't even register. You'll see DOLLY PARTON there (same number of letters as LORETTA LYNN, btw ... seems like a coincidence that might come in handy for some constructor some day). DOLLY PARTON, however, doesn't like the term, mostly because she claims (and she's not alone) that the real QUEEN of Country is Kitty Wells, though she also mentions "others like Loretta and Tammy (Wynette)." The documentary "Queens of Country" covers no fewer than *six* singers: Dolly, Loretta, and Tammy, along with Patsy Cline, Bobbie Gentry, and Tanya Tucker. No one's disputing that LORETTA LYNN is a legend, but she's one among many. But Loretta is just *a* queen, one of many with a claim to that title. The others in this grid are all undeniably *the* queens of their respective genres. True, the revealer just says "Honorific given," it says nothing about the honorific being singular and undisputed. But still, LORETTA LYNN really clanks as the outlier here. 

The rest of the grid was just a little dull. Lots of repeaters, and then AMAHL which still I have never seen outside of crosswords; definitely crosswordese, but not (usually) Monday crosswordese. I don't know why I have a thing against "AMAHL and the Night Visitors," but I do. It somehow hits me as more crosswordesey than even ICE-T or Enya or Eno because those artists all have long, influential careers that would seem to merit their standing as part of the crossword vocabulary Permanent Collection, whereas AMAHL ... it's just this one TV opera. I dunno. I hear it's good. I'm just mad that there's so much blah in this puzzle and not enough zing. Also, mad that one of the two long Downs, and therefore one of the two more interesting answers in the puzzle, gets ruined by a truly horrible joke clue: CEREAL BOWL (11D: Good name for a postseason football game sponsored by General Mills, question mark). It's long and ungainly and desperately unfunny. Why? This leaves ROPE LADDER as the only non-themer of any interest. I like it. I cling to it. 

["Hey Nineteen, that's 'retha Franklin! / She don't remember the QUEEN of Soul"]

NRA is always garbage but especially when you give it this bullshit press-release clue (42D: Org. supporting the Second Amendment). The phrase "well regulated" appears in the Second Amendment, so yeah, no, that's not what they "support." The idea that it's just a bunch of Amendment enthusiasts over there ... that's rich. They're being sued by the state of NY for fraud and other financial misconduct, much of it comically outlandish. They're the worst and clues should reflect that. Or, better yet, never put NRA in a grid ever again for any reason. It's doable. Why is NRA still in your wordlist? Delete it. Also, why are we still (clearly) aspiring to the pangram as a crossword constructing goal. You can feel the low-key Scrabble f-ing in this one, so I looked and sure enough, clean sweep of the alphabet ... for what? For what? How was enjoyment helped? All I can think about is how it was impeded by the meaningless pangram goal, how the grid might've been much better if the constructor had thought about clean, fresh fill instead of running the alphabet (a "feat" most people aren't even going to notice). Sigh. I made two errors today: IRATE for IRKED (32D: Cheesed off) ("cheesed"?? What year is it, and is "AMAHL and the Night Visitors" debuting in that year?) and ADAPT (!) for ADMIT (29D: "You gotta ___ ..."). Hey, go see "The French Dispatch," it's a treat for the eyes and a really inspiring movie about the importance of writers' and artists' commitments to their own highly distinctive personal visions. OK bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Old-fashioned weapon for hand to hand combat / WED 8-26-20 / Strategic objective soon after D-Day invasion / Dinner preceder on dinner invitation

Constructor: Carl Larson

Relative difficulty: Challenging (just for me, because I misread a clue and then just stared at a single blank square for what felt like eternity; puzzle is actually probably more Medium)

THEME: WORK PORTFOLIO (34A: Collection that demonstrates job skills ... as suggested by 17-, 24-, 48- and 55-Across) — familiar phrases are all clued as if they are "investments" for various occupations... the latter part of each phrase being something one can invest in:

Theme answers:

• COMEDY GOLD (17A: Investment for a humorist?)
• BEEF STOCK (24A: Investment for a butcher?)
• IONIC BOND (48A: Investment for a physicist?)
• MENU OPTION (55A: Investment for a restaurateur?)

Word of the Day: Ken OLIN (16A: "Thirtysomething" actor Ken) —

Kenneth Edward Olin (born July 30, 1954) is an American actor, television director and producer. He is known for his role as Michael Steadman in the ABC drama series Thirtysomething (1987-1991), for which he received Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama nomination in 1990. Olin later began working as television director and producer; his producer credits include Alias (2001-2006), Brothers & Sisters (2006–2011), and This Is Us (2016-present). Olin is married to actress Patricia Wettig. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow ... investments. Portfolios. Were y'all out of golf- and chess-themed puzzles to torment me with? The very topic is so dull, and the execution here is so weird and tenuous—reliant entirely on clue phrasing for the revealer to make any sense, which it barely does. The choice of professions in the theme clues is so weird. A humorist, a butcher, a physicist (?), and a restaurateur (??). Why physicist? Aren't IONIC BONDs from chemistry? Why not a chemist? And stocks and bonds I get, great, that works, but after that, it gets real arbitrary-feeling. OPTION made some sense to me, but GOLD!?! The other three are generic terms, but GOLD is quite specific. I was looking for a type of thing, but what I got was just ... thing. That answer was totally horrible for me, both because it's just bad (inconsistent) theme-wise, and because I misread the AIG clue as [Big inits. in France] (as opp. to [Big inits. in finance]). Maybe I scanned the clue once and didn't reread it, I don't know? But I clearly expected that I'd eventually infer the themer ... but no. I had COMEDY -OLD and zero idea what letter went there. At the very end. Even when I had the theme in place. What investment thingie is -OLD? What common phrase is COMEDY -OLD? I mean, it's my fault for misreading the AIG clue, but a. AIG is bad fill b. GOLD is a horrid outlier among the "investment" words, c. the whole concept of the theme feels wobbly, and most importantly d. I just don't care about this topic at all. At all at all. 

Don't put NRA in your puzzle. At all at all. Because now it's just so obvious that you're trying awkwardly to steer around the white supremacist terrorist organization and so we get really dated weird clues like New Deal alphabet soup orgs. (56D: New Deal program with the slogan "We Do Our Part," in brief). A half-experienced constructor could pull NRA and replace it with something as good or better within minutes. The fill on this one is weak all over. The longer stuff works OK, but things get awfully rough / old-fashioned in the short fill: STLO ANE TELS ATT DIRK RANDR ROO etc. Really hate the [Blowout] clue for ROMP because while accurate, it forces you into that "ugh which one is it?" position when you get the RO- (I guessed ROUT, of course). I still can't really make much sense of the COCKTAILS clue. I love COCKTAILS. I would've thought it impossible to make me dislike a COCKTAILS clue. And yet the clue here ... it's so weird and dated and awkward that it just ruins all the joy of the answer. What even is a "dinner invitation"? What kind of formal dinner is this? ["Dinner" preceder ...] is such convoluted nonsense. Is "Dinner" a quote, is it ironic, is the "preceder" part of a phrase? But, no,  a "COCKTAILS Dinner" is not a thing, so I guess somehow the "invitation" says "COCKTAILS, Dinner" on it? COCKTAILS followed by "Dinner" quote unquote? Truly I am not familiar with whatever genre of thing this invitation is. I don't understand the clue-writing / editing on this thing at all. The clue on SPEND too, what the heck? (4D: Lighten one's wallet, so to speak) Why would you actually introduce a "one's" into your clue when you don't need to. Awkward. No idea what that clue was going for. I wrote in STEAL. Goodbye to you, puzzle.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Old German money / TUE 1-21-20 / Subject of interest to a 23andMe user / Vacuum cleaners featuring cyclone technology

Constructor: Carl Larson

Relative difficulty: High side of Medium for me, though it is v. early in the morning (3:56)

THEME: SIX PACK OF BEER (34A: Party purchase ... or a hint to each circled letter set) — "set of circled setters" is better, but whatever:

Theme answers:

• STELLA 
• AMSTEL
• CORONA
• MILLER

Word of the Day: FOOFARAW (36D: Hullabaloo) —

1: frills and flashy finery

2: a disturbance or to-do over a trifle : FUSS 

(merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Wrote in ISMS at 1A: Ideologies and immediately wanted to quit. 1-Acrosses matter. They set a tone. They can be neutral, fine, or they can be flashy, great, but they cannot be the worst damn thing in your grid. I then proceeded to stumble all over the first set of circled squares, though this is likely due to having just woken up more than anything else. SLATE (?) for STEEL (4D: Shade of blue) and ... well, nothing for MANTLE (3D: Layer below the earth's crust). Just couldn't come up with it. Wanted MAGMA ... well, not "wanted," more "half-heartedly tried to write in." I think "I'M GAME!" (1D: "Sign me up!") expresses more willingness than actual commitment, so getting there from "Sign me up!" was weird. Couldn't see MALLET (23A: Xylophonist's need). I think I was just finding the clump of circled squares visually distracting—like they were a haze blocking me from seeing the grid properly. Things smoothed out from there, but I kept finding the grid fussy, a word I've been using a lot because, I think, that's an editorial style. Short answers clued oddly or weirdly or just-off or oldenly. Answers seemed fine, but clues were missing me somehow. LSD still exists, I think, so the '60s bit in that LSD clue was weird (25A: Hit from the '60s?). Do cellphones have "buttons"? (see clue on ASTERISK (!?!?!) (20A: Cellphone button) (!?!). And forget about FOOFARAW, a "word" whose second half I had to piece together entirely from crosses. Folderol, I know that word. But man ... that "RAW" part was rough. Again, seem like something you might say if you needed BICARB and took LSD with NEAL Cassady and listening to Mama Cass ELLIOT and ELO while spending MARKs and imagining that futuristic phones will still have "buttons."


I don't think themed puzzles are usually very interesting when there aren't really any theme answers. Plays like a weird choppy themeless, except for the revealer, which ... well, the revealer sounds like a robot or space alien is saying it. The perfect revealer would have been SIXPACKS. There are four, after all, and that is what people call them. Sure, you can get sixers of soda and other things, but still, the tighter, nicer, better revealer would simply be SIXPACKS. [What beer comes in ... as represented four times in this grid]. Instead some Martian pretending to be a human being is all "Would you care to try a delicious SIX PACK OF BEER. I enjoy the popular American brand of MILLER, don't you?" Feels wooden / alien. To the puzzle's credit, the fill is not bad, and the long Downs, while not splashy, are solid. Decent. Well, CAPITALA is more Chaotic Neutral, I guess. No real feelings about him. Anyway, this was not *my* cup of tea, though I don't think it's objectively poor. Hope you liked it more than I did.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...