Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Caroline Hand

Constructor: Caroline Hand

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: DEBI Mazar (36D: Actress Mazar) —

Debi Mazar Corcos (/ˈmeɪzɑːr/; born August 13, 1964) is an American actress and television personality. She began her career with supporting roles in Goodfellas (1990), Little Man Tate (1991), Singles (1992), and Batman Forever (1995), followed by lead roles on the legal drama series Civil Wars (1991-1993) and L.A. Law (1993-1994). She portrayed press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series Entourage. She starred as Maggie Amato on TV Land's Younger, and alongside her husband Gabriele Corcos in the Cooking Channel series Extra Virgin. [...]

In the early 1980s, Mazar was part of the downtown club scene in New York City, socializing with artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf. // While working at Danceteria, Mazar met Madonna, who hired Mazar to do her makeup for her first music video "Everybody" (1982). She appeared in five of Madonna's music videos: "Papa Don't Preach" (1986), "True Blue" (1986), "Justify My Love" (1990), "Deeper and Deeper" (1992) and "Music" (2000). Mazar originated the hair and makeup for the 1988 play Speed-the-Plow. // As a teenager, Mazar was a b-girl in New York City. Her first television appearance was on the pilot for the hip-hop television dance show Graffiti Rock, in 1984. Her first major role was playing a character on Civil Wars in the early 1990s. When that series was cancelled her character was brought over as a recurring role between the 1993 and 1994 seasons of the TV drama L.A. Law. // Mazar has played a number of minor supporting roles in a variety of films, including Sandy, a friend of Henry Hill's mistress in Goodfellas (1990); The Doors (1991); a small role in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992); Bullets Over Broadway (1994); and as Spice (of Sugar and Spice, with Drew Barrymore as Sugar) in Batman Forever (1995). (wikipedia)

• • •

[Point of illumination?]

Really liked this one. Stacked 15s aren't always my favorite late-week grid feature—at least part of the stack tends to be weak, and the crosses can be rough. But I like every element in both stacks, and as for the crosses ... I dunno. They hold up OK. I think what I liked most about the puzzle was that it put up a real fight at first. That's because I attack stacks by coming at all the crosses first and then seeing what I can make out of the letters that I pick up. Today, when I attacked the crosses, I whiffed a lot. Like ... I went coast to coast with those Downs up top and by the end had only four, and only two I was sure of (LANKA, REMY). So I felt like I was in trouble. I had better luck with some of the short Acrosses just below the stack (URSA, KEY, TIC, SWAN). But it turned out that LANKA and REMY alone were enough for me to get the DENIM part of DISTRESSED DENIM, and from there I was able to build the back ends of the long Acrosses, which allowed me then to whooooosh back across the grid—once you've got DOLLAR, PALE ALE, and DENIM, their front ends aren't that hard to imagine. But some of those crosses were legitimately tough. EN SUITE! (8D: Adjoining, in a way). APERÇU! (9D: Illuminating point). Yipes! Adjoining (!) French answer. Never would've gotten those with considerable help from crosses. And I thought I was so clever when I read 9D: Illuminating point and, off just the "C," wrote in SCONCE! I was so proud of that answer. "Good clue!" I thought. But no. APERÇU. Not as fun, but accurate enough, I suppose (Def. 2: "An immediate impression / Insight"). I also had some trouble spelling SACAGAWEA (really thought that "G" was a "J") (1A: Coinage of the early 2000s?). Once I finally had that top part nailed into place, I felt like I'd worked for it, which felt satisfying. Also, the stack seemed worth the work.

The puzzle was much easier from then on. Swooped down the east coast, got the back ends of all the long Acrosses down below very easily (helped to have heard of DARIUS, 51A: ___ the Great, king of ancient Persia), and from their back ends, those stack answers are all very easy to pick up. Well, two of them were. I could see I was dealing with KANSAS and thought of MANHATTAN before ever looking at the clue, and while I thought that top long answer was going to be some kind of REFERENCE at first, one look at the clue and RUN INTERFERENCE was easy to see (54A: Create a distraction, so to speak). As for ANASTASIA STEELE, lol, no idea (57A: Heroine in the "Fifty Shades of Grey" books). When I say "lol" I mean I literally laughed out loud. That is such a florid name, such a perfect erotic romance novel heroine name. I've never read the books or seen the movies, but I was weirdly just thinking about 50 Shades earlier this week because I watched Mike Nichols's Working Girl (1988) for my Movie Club on Monday. That movie famously features Melanie Griffith in her breakout starring role. Griffith's mother was Tippi Hedren (of Marnie and The Birds fame), and her daughter is Dakota Johnson, of ... 50 Shades fame (of other fames as well, now, but initially, it was 50 Shades). Anyway, I fell down a bit of Melanie Griffith rabbit hole, which means that I was reading about her relatives, which is how I discovered that Dakota Johnson was the star of the 50 Shades movies (not something I knew before this week). Hey, you know who else was in 50 Shades movies (50 Shades: Darker and 50 Shades: Freed)?: Rita ORA! (29A: Rita on "The Masked Singer"). Fun fact! So I laughed at ANASTASIA STEELE 'cause it's kind of a cheesy name and I laughed at the coincidence of having just read about Dakota Johnson and 50 Shades earlier this week. And so a totally unknown-to-me pop culture name, the kind of thing that could've been irksome, didn't bother me at all. Good fortune.

The puzzle runs a little heavy on partials—fill-in-the-blank stuff, stuff that makes no real sense on its own. MAUNA LANKA CARTA! That's a hell of a partial trio. There's also CUL and RUH (not great) and not one but two Chinese menu fragments (PAO, TSO'S). But this uglier shorter stuff largely stays inconspicuous and holds together some good-to-great medium and longer fill. OLD AS DIRT! (wanted OLD AS THE HILLS or—more likely, since it fit in the space allotted—OLD AS TIME) (11D: Antediluvian). DEAR SANTA ... BASSLINES! (32D: Funk music features). Love a puzzle with a good bass line. BRAISES (41A: Prepares, as coq au vin) and KINDEST (35A: "___ regards ..." (letter sign-off)) and ROTUNDA (27A: Pantheon feature), all solid mid-sized answers through the middle. The puzzle is very sturdy. Thumbs up.

[funky BASSLINE(S)]

Bullets:

1D: Travel safety grp. at school (S.A.D.D.) — "Travel safety" absolutely threw me for a loop in the S.A.D.D. clue, even though it shouldn't have (S.A.D.D. stands for "Students Against Drunk Driving," although that second "D" might also stand for "Distracted" these days ... oh, no, now it's "Students Against Destructive Decisions." So it's not even travel-specific any more. Time to change the cluing!). "Travel safety" just sounded like something to do with remaining safe while traveling ... like, on a bus or plane or whatever. The "Drunk Driving" context never entered my head. This clue isn't much different from other S.A.D.D. clues, so I should've seen right through it. Shrug. Sometimes your (my) brain just glitches.
23A: Bird that Zeus disguised himself as in a much-told Greek myth (SWAN) — kind of white-washing the whole gods-raping-mortals context here. So many ways to come at SWAN, not sure this would be my top choice.

31A: Car requirement beginning in 1998 (AIR BAG) — do they not require more than one? Feels weird to say that only a single bag is required.
39D: Neighborhood in New York City where Zohran Mamdani lived before being elected the city's mayor (ASTORIA)—first Mamdani reference (that I can remember) in the NYTXW. Expect many more once post-election puzzles finally make it through the pipeline. Both ZOHRAN and MAMDANI are gonna appear before year's end, for sure. Maybe we'll get the full name. You don't get unimpeachably famous new names every day, and also it's NYC, so Mamdani references in the NYTXW just make sense. This clue is just the beginning.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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