Fusion pastry made with glutinous rice flour / FRI 4-3-26 / Brown on the outside / Hit HBO series inspired by a post-apocalyptic video game / Coy response to "Why do you ask?"

Constructor: Carolyn Davies Lynch and Brian Callahan

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: fillip (28A: Writer's fillip = SERIF) —

1

a

: a blow or gesture made by the sudden forcible straightening
of a finger curled up against the thumb

b

: a short sharp blow : buffet

2

: something tending to arouse or excite: such as

a

: stimulus

just the fillip my confidence needed

lent a fillip of danger to the sport

b

: a trivial addition : embellishment

showy fillips of language

c

: a significant and often unexpected development : wrinkle

plot twists and fillips

• • •

Pretty tepid fare, on the whole. There are only a few worthy marquee answers, and the only one I really liked was "OH, NO REASON" (17A: Coy response to "Why do you ask?"). I can see how solvers might like THE LAST OF US (37A: Hit HBO series inspired by a post-apocalyptic video game) and/or MOCHI DONUT (Fusion pastry made with glutinous rice flour), and they deserve points for originality for sure. It's just that neither one did much for me (no interest in watching the former or eating the latter—in fact, I've never even heard of the latter; I've heard of MOCHI, and I've heard of DONUT, but together, shrug, if you say so). So even if you were jazzed by those last two, that's still only three real standouts. There are some others that are solid (GREEN ENERGY, FREE ADVICE, READY SET GO), but nothing I can imagine wanting to build a grid around. TASTETESTER is just a string of 1-pt Scrabble tiles—very blah. And the NE and SW corners aren't doing much of anything. They're not bad, they're just not popping the way a Friday grid should be popping. The relative blahness of the grid may have been exacerbated by the extreme easiness. It was bizarre how little resistance the NW put up—felt like a Monday/Tuesday themeless there for a bit. If I'd been able to remember my crosswordese, i.e. if I'd been able to find the handle on the awful but never-dying ELEA (35D: Zeno of ___, Greek philosopher who rejected the existence of space, time and motion), the center might have been nearly as easy, but between my fumbling ELEA (as ELIA), and my total inability to see PAN SEAR for a long time, as well as my writing in FEAR NOT instead of the strangely quaint FRET NOT (29D: "It'll all be OK!"), things got briefly toughish about midway through the solve. But after that, it was back to extreme easiness. So there's three or four answers here that seem worth their marquee status, and then a lot of placeholders, with most of the grid clued at an early-week difficulty level. Just didn't have that Friday zing.

Oh, as for marquee answers, there's also HEARTBEATS, which is fine, if not thrilling. I enjoy drinking clues but I don't really enjoy drunkenness clues, so while GET SLOSHED probably deserves the same credit for originality that I gave to THE LAST OF US and MOCHI DONUT, above, it left me a little cold. I can see that the puzzle is basically well made, but it just wasn't entertaining to me. I liked PAN SEAR a lot, actually, and would've loved more answers like it—colorful but everyday answers with toughish, ambiguous clues (26D: Brown on the outside) (I figured "Brown" was an adjective). The only truly WTF answer for me today was ALDEN Ehrenreich. I saw Oppenheimer (not as big a fan as most of you) (#TeamBarbie), but I don't know which character this actor played. Hang on ... wow, I have seen so many movies he's been in and cannot remember him in any of them. Cocaine Bear! Weapons! Anyway, he plays a senate aide in Oppenheimer. He's 17th on the cast list on wikipedia. But he starred in Hail, Caesar!, which I saw, so ... why he is leaving zero impression on me, I have no idea. I'm sure it's a me problem. Looks like he was in the puzzle once before, in 2023, but I was either on vacation or sick because I didn't do the write-up that day. ALDEN has been in the puzzle a lot over the years, but almost always as John ALDEN ([Mayflower compact signer]). Anyway, it was like I was seeing ALDEN Ehrenreich's name for the first time today. Which I might have been ... except for, you know, all the times I saw it in the opening and closing credits of all the movies I've seen him in. My god he even did a Criterion closet video! I love those! I thought I'd seen all of them, or at least all the recentish ones. Maybe I saw his and just forgot that too!

Bullets:

• 1A: ___ Hoffman, member of the Chicago Seven (ABBIE) — this was a gimme, except ... I wrote in GABBY (possibly because of Gaby Hoffman, who I loved in last year's The Mastermind and have thought a lot about since). After I realized it wasn't GABBY, I was like, "oh, right ... ABBEY" (["incorrect" game show buzzer sound!])

• 20A: Corn whole? (EAR) — so not just a kernel but the "whole" EAR
• 21A: Hymn's finale? (SILENT "N") — a "letteral" clue, one that acts not as a definition in the traditional sense, but that points to itself, to a specific letter in one of the clue's words: today, the letter "n" at the end ("finale") of "Hymn."
• 28A: Writer's fillip (SERIF) — I got this easily, but only because I already had the "SER-" in place before I saw the clue. This is the 2b definition of "fillip (n.)" (see "Word of the Day," above): "a trivial addition" or "embellishment."
• 22D: What autopay helps avoid (LATE FEE) — read it as "autoplay" so was, naturally, baffled. Really helps to read the clues correctly.
• 37D: International fast-food chain without a location in Mexico, interestingly (TACO BELL) — is it? interesting? It's not surprising. Maybe it's supposed to be ... ironic? Since tacos are "Mexican food"? My reaction to this fact is not "hmmm, interesting," but "duh, why would Mexicans eat that when they have the real deal? Are there Panda Expresses in China?" (looks like one appeared to open in 2020, with the same logo and everything, but it was an unauthorized fraud).
• 51D: Bands together? (AM/FM) — "Together" like ... near each other on the radio itself, on the button? On the dial? OK. I guess that's OK. Not exactly a winner of a clue, but defensible, at least.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Leaf on a sushi tray / MON 1-12-26 / Source of motivation, in modern lingo / Acronym of affection in ASL / Chocolate treat designed to look like a mountaintop / Rhyming advice to a renter of VHS tapes / Rhyming advice to a spitting talker / Rhyming advice to a gym rat

Constructor: Carolyn Davies Lynch and Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "Rhyming advice" — familiar expressions where the first half rhymes with the second half:

Theme answers:

• "SAY IT, DON'T SPRAY IT" (18A: Rhyming advice to a spitting talker)
• "NO PAIN, NO GAIN" (31A: Rhyming advice to a gym rat)
• "BE KIND, REWIND" (47A: Rhyming advice to a renter of VHS tapes)
• "YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE" (64A: Rhyming advice to a procrastinator)

Word of the Day: SHISO (69A: Leaf on a sushi tray) —

Perilla frutescens var. crispa, also known by its Japanese name shiso (紫蘇) from Chinese zisu, is a cultigen of Perilla frutescens, a herb in the mint family Lamiaceae. It is native to the mountainous regions of China and India, but is now found worldwide. The plant occurs in several forms, as defined by the characteristics of their leaves, including red, green, bicolor, and ruffled. Shiso is perennial and may be cultivated as an annual in temperate climates. Different parts of the plant are used in East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine. [...] 

• • •

This is a cute theme idea, but the cluing is all off. None of these expressions really qualify as "advice." SAY IT, DON'T SPRAY IT isn't "advice," it's mockery, used to demean or humiliate someone who is speaking loudly or forcefully enough to project saliva. I guess BE KIND, REWIND is "advice" of a sort, but it's more of a politely worded command from your friendly neighborhood video store (of yore). "NO PAIN, NO GAIN" is just an expression, a (stupid, foolhardy) bit of encouragement, often to oneself, mostly said as a kind of general truism, not as earnest "advice." The least advice-y of all of these is "YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE," which is a straight-up taunt to someone who was too slow to get whatever it is they wanted, usually uttered by the person who did, in fact, get that thing. Say, the last cookie or the front seat. Clearly, I'm imagining a kid saying it. Whatever, it's a taunt not "advice." And "procrastination" is rarely if ever the issue. Being merely too slow on the uptake does not mean that one "procrastinated" (a longer-term proposition). I understand the desire to solidify and tighten the theme with repetitive cluing, but I think the rhyminess of the expressions is self-evidently a unifying principle. No need to awkwardly force the cluing into line. The one bit of "rhyming advice" I can think of that's missing from this list is "USE IT OR LOSE IT"—which is, more than all the others, proper "advice." Still, I had fun figuring out these theme phrases. Sometimes not reading the Across clues helps with overall enjoyment.

Lots of short fill kind of weighs the grid down a little. 3-4-5s abound, and that always makes things a little leaden. But I will say that SCARY GOOD is scary good, a real high point among the non-theme answers. DELI CASES is adequate but not exciting, and nothing else really gets off the ground. The only scary (bad) moment I had while solving came in the SE, where all the Downs looked correct, but I ended up with an unrecognizable "word" in the crosses: SHISO. Took one look at SHISO and thought, "Oh crud, what did I do wrong?" Checked those Downs. Rechecked those Downs. Cannot see an error. Cannot fathom an error. Eventually I just left it in and hoped that it was, I dunno, some kind of pepper (like a shishito, maybe?). And I was close. Ballpark. SHISO is Japanese, and it is culinary, but it's not a pepper. It's a highly serrated green leaf used primarily for (sushi) garnish in east Asian cuisine. As I started to look up SHISO, I had this uneasy feeling that I had done this before (missed SHISO, looked it up). And I was right. SHISO has appeared before. Once. Back in May of last year. Here's what I had to say about it then:

As for SHISO, even looking it up didn't help much. A lot of its use in Japanese cuisine appears to be as a garnish, or a coloring agent. But it is common, so I have no complaints about its crossworthiness. Happy to learn a new culinary term (even if I'm doomed to forget it fairly quickly, probably).

Good to see that I know myself so well. I did indeed forget SHISO fairly quickly. Haven't seen or heard the word since that NYTXW appearance last year. With those (common) letters, you'd expect the term to proliferate. Maybe its appearance here—on a Monday (?)—is evidence that that is in fact what's about to happen. It's easily the least Monday thing in the grid, but maybe next time I won't feel that way. Third time's the charm! (how's that for non-rhyming non-advice?).

Bullets:

• 27A: Acronym of affection in ASL (ILY) — as in "I love you." It's also an "acronym of affection" in texting. ILY will always look (to me) like an adverbial suffix pretending to be something else. This is only the third appearance of ILY all time, all of those appearances coming since 2023. All of them abbrevs. for "I love you." 
• 28A: E.M.T. process often administered to the beat of "Stayin' Alive" (CPR) — I've heard this before, and it's meaningful to me because I was the right age to be engulfed overwhelmed and swallowed alive by the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack. A musical juggernaut if there ever was one. But does the "Stayin' Alive" reference mean anything to younger people? I assume that song has a cultural afterlife, but how big, I don't know. Maybe CPR classes are single-handedly keeping that song alive for future generations.

• 6D: Chocolate treat designed to look like a mountaintop (SNO CAP) — one of the tougher downs, as I never see SNO CAPs anywhere but the candy counter at the movie theater, and I never, ever get them. I think I had them once as a kid and they must've made a bad impression on me because I love chocolate and I love mountaintops, but SNO CAPs, not so much. Not a "treat." Maybe I'll give them another try? I was imagining so many "chocolate treats." Sundaes, s'mores. If you want a candy, say "candy." "Treat" = bah!

• 37D: Where meats and cheeses are often displayed (DELI CASES) — briefly confounding, as nothing about the clue indicates a plural. "Where" tends to suggest a single specific place or a general term for a place, not multiple places. "Meats" and "cheeses" are plural, yes, but those plurals can typically be found in single DELI CASE. It's not like there's a DELI CASE out there that features just one meat and just one cheese. So I tried to think of a synonym for "case" for a little bit, before finally giving in and just attempting the plural. Which was correct.
• 66D: Initialism on a Navy carrier (U.S.S.) — first thought: "H.M.S." Then I remembered "H.M.S." stands for "Her Majesty's Ship" and thus unlikely to appear on an American seacraft. I guess the clue didn't specify American Navy, but I inferred it. So I pivoted to U.S.S. (United States Ship). But then SHISO happened, and I started wondering whether there was some other naval "initialism" I didn't know about. In the end, I stuck with U.S.S. The Correct Move.
• 46D: Source of motivation, in modern lingo (INSPO) — like "Insta," INSPO is with us to stay, apparently. Short for "inspiration," this is INSPO's sixth NYTXW appearance. As with ILY, all those appearances have been in the last three years (since 2023). 
• 55D: "Get outta my hair!," in a text (MYOB) — "mind your own business." Yet another slangy, internet-inspired shortening. This puzzle is rather heavy on shortenings in general. RELO. AMNIO. It can get a little wearing.
• 40A: Garage jobs involving grease guns (LUBES) — saw LUBES in the Acrosses and thought, "Whoa, I wonder if today is the day that LUBES finally gets a sex clue." But no. Not today. Some day (I assume). But not today. We did get [Slippery stuff] back in 2023, but that's not exactly sex-specific. I'm not saying I *want* a sex clue, exactly, I'm just saying ... it's coming. While the "garage" meaning of LUBE(S) is obviously valid, I think the other meaning of LUBE is more top-of-the-brain for most people these days. I went to Merriam-Webster dot com to look at their "Recent Examples on the Web" feature for LUBE, and ... well, there are no garages in sight:

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld  

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It's not observed in Hawaii: Abbr. / FRI 6-27-25 / Scientist whose "number" is a dimensionless ratio / Half of a Jungian syzygy

Constructor: Carolyn Davies Lynch

Relative difficulty: Very, very easy (9:05)

THEME: Themeless

Word of the Day: Automated external defibrillator (EMTS, clued as [Many A.E.D. users]) —

An automated external defibrillator (AED) is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation (VF) and pulseless ventricular tachycardia, and is able to treat them through defibrillation, the application of electricity which stops the arrhythmia, allowing the heart to re-establish an effective rhythm.

• • •

Hi friends! It's Malaika here for an off-schedule Malaika MWednesday. When I construct puzzles (which I do far more often than I solve, nowadays) I typically am making easy themeless puzzles. So I am always interested to see how other constructors approach their easy themeless puzzles.

The first thing I noticed about this puzzle is the shape. A "stagger stack" (aka those three central answers, arranged using stair-step shapes of black squares along the edge) is probably my second favorite layout for a themeless puzzle, and I've used one very similar to this many times before. (Although, not for any of my NYT puzzles, I'm now realizing.)

Jason Derulo has fallen down the stair-step shapes on Carolyn Davies Lynch's crossword puzzle

The second thing I noticed was how incredibly easy this puzzle was. As I said, I enjoy easy puzzles, but this one was too easy for me. I was finished with three-quarters of the puzzle in five minutes. And I would consider myself a proficient, but not speedy solver!! A puzzle outlet called Puzzmo keeps track of the way you solve their puzzles (like, the order in which you filled in the letters) so it can give you stats about your performance. (Side note: Is this a fun cute thing or is this creepily reminiscent of our surveillance state perhaps logging our every keystroke? I think it's the former.) They have one stat that they call "plonks," referring to you correctly filling in every letter of an entry without a single cross. To me, a "plonk" has the feeling of answering a question on Jeopardy.... or even taking a test. You aren't "puzzling" anything out, you're just filling in the trivia. "Plonking" in a long answer when the clue has some esoterica or tough wordplay can feel really satisfying, but doing so with ten answers in a row is a little dull.

I am super duper curious to see how the difficulty played for you guys! Taking a step back, there are definitely wordplay clues in here, like [One making the first move?] for PAWN and [Places to bear witness?] for ZOOS (that one was fantastic) and [Mass reply?] for AMEN, but the question marks made these easy for me. I actually think all three of these could have done without the question mark, and given the puzzle a little more tension.

And, in case it was not clear, I thought the long fill on this was fantastic. A puzzle cannot be easy unless the majority of the entries are recognizable terms, and that can be tough! SO THERE WE WERE might have been the winner for me. Sometimes conversational terms in puzzles can feel a tiny bit off, but this one is a phrase that I use and have heard, word-for-word, all the time. Also going to call out TEAM SPIRIT, SI SE PUEDE, FANTASY NOVELS, MICRO MANAGERS, SUCH IS LIFE, POP UP STORES, SPOON REST, and MONGOOSE as my favorite long fill. Sheesh that is so much!! Actually kind of mindboggling.

The opening scene of Casino Royale features a mongoose fighting a snake and because I watched that movie when I was way too young, that image it will be burned into my brain forever

The short fill sometimes gave me pause (meaning, a couple seconds of slow down) particularly ASUS (I had "Acer" for soooo long... They are also Taiwanese!!!) and the crossing of EMTS / ANIMA. But the rest of it was super smooth.

Bullets:

• [Language mutually intelligible with Hindi] for URDU — I didn't know this! My grandparents speak and understand both Hindi and Punjabi, but I didn't know that Urdu was so similar as well. I wish English had a mutually intelligible language.
• [Rooibos, by another name] for RED TEA — One of my coworkers taught me that what we call "black tea" in English is known as red tea in Chinese. (The leaves are black, but it is reddish when brewed.) But then in English, we separately have a red tea category for rooibos.
• [Feature of many a deluxe Swiss Army knife] for SAW — How big is the deluxe knife that it can fit a whole-ass saw in there????

xoxo Malaika

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