THEME: "Passing Glances" — an "EYE" rebus where one "EYE" square appears in each themer; every theme clue starts with an ellipsis, and the idea is that each one is supposed to start with the phrase "I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE" (63A: Children's game phrase that should start the italicized clues ... or a hint to eight squares in this puzzle) (so the clue describes the spied thing, and each spied thing contains an "EYE" rebus square, or a LITTLE "EYE"):
Theme answers:
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN (21A: ... something big and rocky with a Space Force base in it)
3D: Showy daisies (OXEYES)
DONKEY EARS (29A: ... something pointy grown by Pinocchio)
13D: Iowan, by another name (HAWKEYE)
ERLENMEYER FLASK (39A: ... something conical in a chemistry lab)
26D: Fast-food chain founded in New Orleans (POPEYE'S)
JAPANESE YEN (46A: ... something round and metallic with kanji written on it)
48D: Hole for a shoelace (EYELET)
SMILEY EMOJI (84A: ... something yellow and happy in a text message)
86D: Shakespearean potion ingredient (EYE OF NEWT)
BREYER'S ICE CREAM (87A: ... something soft and melty in a black tub)
64D: Sleep, informally (SHUTEYE)
HONEYEATER (96A: ... something feathery sipping on nectar)
99D: Scrutinize (EYEBALL)
DOUBLE-YELLOW LINE (111A: ... something long and painted on a highway)
In total, there are 186 species in 55 genera, roughly half of them native to Australia, many of the remainder occupying New Guinea. With their closest relatives, the Maluridae (Australian fairy-wrens), Pardalotidae (pardalotes), and Acanthizidae (thornbills, Australian warblers, scrubwrens, etc.), they comprise the superfamily Meliphagoidea and originated early in the evolutionary history of the oscinepasserine radiation. Although honeyeaters look and behave very much like other nectar-feeding passerines around the world (such as the sunbirds and flowerpeckers), they are unrelated, and the similarities are the consequence of convergent evolution. (wikipedia)
[TUI (3) — not seen in the NYTXW since 2004 😞]
The tūī (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) is a medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze coloured with a distinctive white throat tuft (poi). It is an endemicpasserine bird of New Zealand, and the only species in the genusProsthemadera. It is one of the largest species in the diverse Australasian honeyeater family Meliphagidae, and one of two living species of that family found in New Zealand, the other being the New Zealand bellbird (Anthornis melanura). The tūī has a wide distribution in the archipelago, ranging from the subtropical Kermadec Islands to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, as well as the main islands. (wikipedia) (my emph.)
• • •
I liked the revealer. I liked that everything being "spied" had a "little 'EYE'" inside it, and I liked that the revealer also made sense of the strange ellipsis-starting clues. Once you know that the clues themselves are written in the style of someone actually playing the game "I Spy," they make a lot more sense. So conceptually, yes, sure, hurray, good job. The execution felt kinda wobbly to me, mostly because "EYE" isn't a particular common letter string to find embedded in a word or phrase, and so (unsurprisingly) some of these answers feel odd or forced or strange. CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN? Is that a place? I assume it is because you're telling me it is, but if CHEYENNE isn't followed by WYOMING (or AUTUMN, actually), then I don't know what it's doing. A Space Force base???? Well, points off for reminding me that Space Force actually exists and is not an ill-conceived and ultimately discarded idea from a scifi show that never made it out of its first season.
Are there other YENs besides the JAPANESE YEN? I see that the currency is formally called that, but it still felt redundant. I have never heard of an ERLENMEYER FLASK (I'm just assuming that ERLENMEYER is one name, I don't know), but that's on me, I'm sure. Just ... out of my wheelhouse, completely. SMILEY EMOJI ... do I call it that? Happy face emoji ... smiley face emoji ... smile emoji ... I think these are more likely to come out of my mouth. I can't really dispute its real thingness, but over and over again, the answers were either "???" or just slightly off, to my ear. The one that landed best for me was HONEYEATER, first because, well, yay, birds! And second, the HONEYEATER "EYE" is doing what I wish every EYE did in a puzzle like this, i.e. break across two words (or word parts) with no additional words left hanging. DONKEY EARS and SMILEY EMOJI do this successfully as well. It always makes me a little sad when words like (today) MOUNTAIN, FLASK, ICE CREAM, and LINE are there but uninvolved in the actual wordplay. "EYE" just doesn't touch those words or have anything to do with them. It's the most elegant expression of the theme, to have every element in every theme answer "EYE"-involved. But thumbs-up for the concept, for sure, and for a generally well-filled grid overall.
Sadly, the theme was very (very very) easy to uncover. Here's how long it took me to uncover:
I know my five-letter crossword flowers, I do. See also OXLIPS (where's my LIP rebus!?—PURSED LIPS? Hmm, not sure PURSED conveys shrunkenness well enough. "MY LIPS ARE SEALED" (inside eight tiny boxes in this grid)?? ... I'm gonna have to work on this). [Showy daisies], starts with "O," that's OXEYES ... but it wouldn't fit ... so I made it fit! Then looked at the puzzle title ("Passing Glances") and knew I did the right thing. The hardest parts of this puzzle were the themers I didn't know, namely the MOUNTAIN part of CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN and basically the whole of ERLENMEYER FLASK (which ... it is one name, right? ERLENMEYER. Not ERLEN MEYER, like OSCAR MAYER ... [looking it up] ... yes! Named after EMIL (4) Erlenmeyer). But as for the theme, once you find the first "EYE," it's basically unvaried thereafter. Seven more "EYE"s, and you know they're coming, which gives you a leg up on all subsequent themers. Clues were toughish in places, but overall this was pretty average in terms of difficulty, maybe a bit on the easy side. Jet lag is still playing tricks on my mind and body, though, so I may just be tired.
If you, like me, have never heard of ERLENMEYER FLASK, then I sure hope you understood the clue on ENS (39D: Several characters in nonfiction?). Otherwise, that first "E" in ERLENMEYER might've been a mystery (or you ended up with a mistake). There are "several" ENS (i.e. the letter "n") in the word "nonfiction," which is what that clue for ENS is getting at. "Letteral" clues like that (where the clue is pointing to a letter inside of itself rather than pointing to an answer in conventional fashion) often trip people up, so if that happened to you, you weren't alone, I guarantee it. Also, if you, like me, didn't know MEM (?) (6D: First letter of "menorah," in Hebrew) ... well, I'm less afraid there, as all the crosses seem solid—even if you didn't know MOUNTAIN, I think you can guess from the clue language ("big and rocky") that the answer was probably not gonna be the CHEYENNE FOUNTAIN (I might buy MEF as a Hebrew letter, but CHEYENNE FOUNTAIN—unlikely).
And the rest!:
1A: Helpful site for a D.I.Y.'er (EHOW) — still haven't visited this site, ever. Only ever seen it in xwords. "Getting rid of the human editors who formerly identified and approved content to be produced increased profits for the company by a factor of 20–25 times" (wikipedia). So ... probably not going to be visiting it any time soon, then.
72A: Alfred E. ___, mascot of Mad magazine (NEUMAN) — still misspelling this name, despite knowing the mascot in question since I was like 6. NEWMAN v. NEUMAN ... I had a girlfriend in college with the last name NEUMAN, you'd think I could manage the distinction, but no. I think my brain's logic must be something like, "well, I obviously liked my girlfriend, and I don't really fancy this Alfred E. guy, so his name must be the other spelling." And yet no.
87A: ... something soft and melty in a black tub (BREYER'S ICE CREAM) — forgot to ask: why is the ice cream "soft and melty"??? Is it because we're playing "I Spy" in the back of a hot car after a trip to the supermarket? Because otherwise I don't get it. "Cold and creamy" would make sense. "Soft and melty" is a product failure.
12D: Wedge placed next to a wheel to prevent it from moving (CHOCK) — had no idea this had a name. I wanted SHIM (not long enough).
31D: ___ idéal (BEAU) — realizing just now that I know the phrase but not (really) what it means: "A mental conception or image of any object, moral or physical, in its perfect typical form, free from all the deformities, defects, and blemishes accompanying its actual existence; a model of excellence in the mind or fancy; ideal excellence" (wordnik). Just sounds like an "ideal" to me, but OK.
45D: Newswoman Phillips (KYRA) — no idea, but then I watch TV news exactly zero minutes per year, so ... not surprising.
61D: Smash to smithereens (ATOMIZE) — wanted this (the letters fit) but this word doesn't make me think of smashing. It makes me think of ... misting? Doesn't an ATOMIZEr spray mist? Or perfume or whatever? Yes, it "converts a substance [...] to a fine spray" (wordnik). But I guess if you smash something into tiny particles, that is also a form of atomizing.
76D: Can you believe it? (-ISM) — I cannot. As in, I cannot believe this non-word continues to get foisted on me year after year. Any belief system is, technically, an -ISM. And if you didn't know, well now you know.
90A: Place with moving exhibits (ZOO) — because the animals ... move around? In their cages? Huh. That must be it. Still, weird phrasing.
23A: "So weird..." ("HOW ODD...") — don't love the "HOW" dupe (see 1A: EHOW). Also don't love the "YELLOW" dupe (in the clue for SMILEY EMOJI ("something yellow...") as well as in the answer DOUBLE YELLOW LINE)
86D: Shakespearean potion ingredient (EYE OF NEWT) — best answer in the grid, I think. Best of the "EYE" crosses, for sure.
That's all for me today. Belated thanks to all the writers who filled in for me while I was away in Santa Barbara, which is basically a perfect place. Sunny and 70s every day, extensive running and bicycle lanes along the oceanfront, at least two really fine cocktail bars ... oh &^$%!!!!!! I was supposed to get in touch with one of you (my gentle readers) about getting a cocktail, and I said I would, and then I got swept up in family stuff and didn't. Dammit! I'm sure the person in question would've been lovely, and ... well, a free drink is a free drink. Ugh. OK, off to write an apology email, I guess. Annnnyway, Santa Barbara has it all. Including, sadly, fires, as well as a cost of living that is likely a bit beyond me. But I will be back, for sure. Here are some photos:
[me stalking the elusive Great Blue Heron (note: not actually elusive)]
[snowy egrets, having a heated discussion]
[these cacti were actually at the Huntington Museum, near Pasadena]
[every plant looks like it's out of a scifi movie]
[absorbing the local culture]
[my stepbrother rented a giant van to drive the whole family around in, then invented a fake company and had tshirts, hats, and other merch made, including this magnet to put on the side of the van. 100% commitment to the bit!]
THEME: SAW A WOMAN IN HALF (58A: Perform a classic magic trick that's depicted figuratively in this grid?) — shaded squares contain slang names for "woman," divided in half (by a black square)
Theme answers:
ARTEMIS / SUSANNA (17A: Greek goddess whose namesake NASA mission plans to land the first female astronaut on the moon / 18A: Folk song figure who is implored not to cry)
ELPHABA / BEYONCÉ (32A: The Wicked Witch of the West, in "Wicked" / 35A: Grammy's Album of the Year winner for 2024's "Cowboy Carter")
MATILDA / MELANIE (52A: Kid-lit character with telekinetic abilities / 54A: "Brand New Key" singer, 1971)
Word of the Day: MELANIE (54A: "Brand New Key" singer, 1971) —
Melanie Anne Safka Schekeryk (February 3, 1947 – January 23, 2024), professionally known as Melanie or Melanie Safka, was an American singer-songwriter.
I assume this puzzle is supposed to be a nod to Women's History Month (i.e. this month, March). It's full of women, in the grid and in the clues, while being almost totally man-free—though not completely so: Gabriel Garcia Márquez manages to sneak his way in there in the clue for CHOLERA (15A: Gabriel Garcia Márquez's "Love in the Time of ___"). Oh, and I guess the "child" in "Mary and child" is also a dude, technically (8D: Part of the Hagia Sophia with a celebrated mosaic of Mary and child = APSE). And it's NBA JAM, not WNBA JAM—do they have that? they should have that ... looks like there are (or were) plans to add WNBA teams to NBA JAM '25. Not sure if that's still happening (30D: Classic arcade game in which characters can dunk at humanly impossible heights). Anyway, you get the picture: genderwise, today, the balance is decidedly distaff. The puzzle's made by women, it's full of women, cool cool. Conceptually, though, I found the puzzle a little confusing. I mean, at the most basic level, it's simple—those are names for "woman" and they are all, in fact, cut in two (by black squares). But those gray squares containing the names of sawn women are also found inside names of unsawn women. I would normally say that this gives the theme an extra level, an added tightness, but ... are you sawing or are you not sawing. There are two whole-ass women on either side of the saw, is what I'm saying, so the impression is at least as much "two women on either side of the aisle from each other" as it is "woman sawed in half." [update: apparently the trick is done using two whole women and that’s why there are uncut women on either side of the “blade”here—OK!] An other weird wrinkle: all the terms for "woman" in the shaded squares seem like condescending and (depending on context) at least vaguely sexist terms you'd hear from a man. Not SLURS, exactly, but ... yeah, I can definitely hear dudes saying all these things in a diminishing or objectifying way. Maybe the sawing of those terms in half is some kind of symbolic "f you" gesture, I dunno. This puzzle's got ambition and originality, I'm just not entirely sure about the rationale behind the specific execution of the theme. You're sawing general terms for "woman," but you're not sawing specific "women," merely showcasing them ... for some reason? OK. Whatever. I've got "Brand New Key" in my head, so whatever's going on, I'm pretty happy.
At first I thought that the grid wasn't really giving a very good visual of the magic trick in questions, but on closer inspection, I think that vertical line of black squares up top is a pretty good visual representation of that rectangular blade thingie that the magician sometimes drives between the two halves of the woman, either after sawing or in lieu of sawing? (sorry, not up on my magic trick equipment jargon). You don't get an actual toothed saw (how would you even render that in grid form?), but those black squares definitely seem like ... something about to be driven downward through the "women." Something like this Williams Sonoma pastry dough scraper:
Yes, the human pastry dough scraper, that's it. As for the rest of the puzzle, seemed like a mixed bag. Weirdly Italian, which was 2/3 fine (ITALY, SOTTO), and 1/3 "????" That first "A" in SALATA would've been an educated guess had the shaded word "BABE" not been there to make it crystal clear. Yeah, I probably should've remembered ELPHABA's name, but I absolutely did not. I know Wicked only as the movie, which is only "Part 1" and which I saw only once (enjoyable!). So for many her name will be a huge gimme, but not for me. ELPHABA SALATA sounds like a fancy dish though also possibly a scary dish because it maybe contains elephant? Also had trouble in that specific area because the puzzle decided to choose that exact spot to do that "identical clue" gimmick thingie that I hate because one of the two identical clues usually seems forced/off, and while [Uncomplicated] worked well for EASY, it wasn't so clear where CLEAR was concerned. I had CLEAN in there at one point. Throw in the fact that I had no idea what followed NO at 24D: Never ever ever (NO HOW) (NO WAY?), and the fact that I had SNEER before SCOWL (43A: Show visible disdain), and ... yeah, I've just described the entire area of difficulty in this puzzle, for me. All the ink on my print-out runs from from the west to the center, through all the answers mentioned. The rest of the grid was pretty EASY and carefree.
Bullets:
1A: Exclamation before the 10th inning ("IT'S A TIE!") — I've watched a lot of baseball in my time. No one exclaims this.
45A: Crazy, sexy or cool: Abbr. (ADJ.) — I see what you did there:
2D: Kinsey scale rating for someone equally attracted to men and women (THREE) — are younger people (under, uh, 50?) still familiar with the Kinsey scale? 0 for exclusively heterosexual, 6 for exclusively homosexual, and then a sliding scale in between. A Kinsey 3 is the perfect bi. I feel like modern categories of sexuality are a little (lot) less, uh, schematic. Or mathematical or whatever. Anyway, respect to this clue for being completely out of the past and out of left field and original and fun.
5D: Paint sometimes made with egg yolk (TEMPERA) — still have trouble spelling this. Get it confused with TEMPURA, both of which (it seems) are made with egg.
44D: TV series whose name is shown on a vanity license plate in its opening sequence (L.A. LAW) — for a brief period of time in college, this show was appointment television. Then it was The Simpsons and Twin Peaks.
50D: Freebie at most American diners (REFILL) — coffee? soda? what are we talking about here?
37D: Parodia and peyote, for two (CACTI) — "Parodia" is a new one on me. There are scores of species. They are frequently globular, and are native to the eastern slopes of the Andes and assorted other parts of South America:
Two constructor names I have come to look forward to individually ... together on one byline. Nice. This is a very well-made puzzle, which I mostly enjoyed. The parts I didn't enjoy had very little to do with grid or clue quality and everything to do with the fact that I have a deep and admittedly only semi-rational aversion to Millennialspeak. Not to Millennials, per se, whom I tend to think of as ... well, just people. Dividing people by generation doesn't do most of us any good, so I try not to think that way. And yet. Yet. When it comes to certain expressions, slang, etc., there's no question that generational divides exist, and I guarantee you no one my age ever called their kid a THREENAGER (16A: Portmanteau for a moody and strong-willed toddler). What a ridiculous, unnecessary word. You already have "toddler," why did you need this other thing? Are you so portmanteau-deprived? I am admittedly not searching too hard, but the earliest references I see are circa 2016. Help me, OED! (Sorry, OED has only SCREENAGER (which was my first thought, actually) and TWEENAGER (which obviously couldn't be true, given the age restrictions)). The term THREENAGER also seems to be playing on negative stereotypes of actual teenagers, i.e. defiant, strong-willed, etc. so boo to that. The whole thing seems like a marketing gimmick. "We invented a new kind of toddler, buy this thing, take this advice, worry more than you already are!" The kid is three. Soon he'll be four. Come on.
After THREENAGER came STRUGGLE BUS, another term I never heard until I was well into middle age (10D: Something the floundering are said to be on). I never liked it because initially I thought it was playing on the term "short bus," the term for the bus used to transport kids with mental or physical disabilities to school. So STRUGGLE BUS seemed inherently offensive. The term appears to be of uncertain, early 21st-century origin (online OED's got nothing), and I doubt it's actually offensive, but even if I wanted to use it now (and I don't), I just can't. It's ruined for me. And then, after those answers, after THREENAGER, andSTRUGGLE BUS, after I already thought to myself "this is a heavily Millennialspeak puzzle...," came the Millennialspeak term I hate most of all: ADULTING (19A: Making a car payment, dusting the living room, scheduling a doctor's appointment, etc.). There's something so whinily self-infantilizing about it. Nothing makes me want to shout "Grow up!" more than someone talking about ADULTING. It's not cosplay! You get old. Then you die. Childhood is meant to be left behind and fondly remembered. Aging isn't bad—desperately clinging to youth is. Look, I'm just being honest about the gut reactions of the cranky old man who lives inside me. I believe only good and kind and warm things about Millennials as human beings, and I love everything about them, except for their invented vocabulary, which is frequently embarrassing. Avocado toast, however—delicious.
But less about getting off my lawn and more about how generally beautiful this puzzle is. It's full of freshness and surprises, and I suspect that even the slang that made me wince will give others great joy. I CAN TAKE IT! In fact, I'll take any puzzle that puts PANDA CAM alongside ALOO GOBI. Imagine eating delicious Indian food while watching adorable pandas (I am imagining it right now, and it's great). The NE corner is only so-so, but every other corner is bursting with life (or bursting with blood, in the case of the NOSEBLEEDS)). NOSEBLEEDSwould be better at the top of the grid, but I like that CRAWL SPACE is down low where it belongs (I also love the clue: 54A: Very short story?). There's a clunky answer or two, here and there. KNEELAT, for instance, is a bit ungainly, and NOVATE ... well, I don't know what that is, but "legalese" is not exactly rich ground for fun fill (44D: Replace with a new contract in legalese). But this puzzle made me remember ICHIRO (good) and Ed "TOO TALL" Jones (good) and—once again, for the second time this week—Agnès Varda! (18A: Domaine d'Agnès Varda). So glad to see the NYTXW finally coming around on her. It's the Age of Varda! I hope my gushing about her at every opportunity helped you piece together CINÉ (the French word for "cinema") today.
It's note time:
11A: Plant also known as Pisum sativum (PEA) — I want at least one of you to have written in POT ("sativa" is a strain of cannabis).
17A: Actress Shawkat who played Maeby on "Arrested Development" (ALIA) — first thing I wrote in the grid. She's this century's EERO, or ELIA, or ENYA (technically ENYA is this century's ENYA, but you get my point). Straight-up crosswordese. And you no longer have to go to the Latin phrase "inter ALIA" to clue ALIA, hurray. I last saw ALIA Shawkat in Blink Twice (2024), where she plays Jess, a woman whose bright yellow lighter (with her name on it) becomes an important recurring object in the film.
1D: Ride arranged on one's own (KIT CAR) — this is a car you assemble yourself. So "arranged" as in "physically put together," not "ordered (like an Uber)."
47A: Accomplish with precision (DOTOAT) — allow me to parse this for you: it's "DO TO A 'T'." Four words. I know, it's awful, let's not think about it. (Or, you can have fun pronouncing it "doe tote," as I'm doing in my head currently)
34A: Get hot and bothered (SWELTER) — first thought: "STEAM UP." The clue wanted me to think about sex so I thought about sex, what can I say?
48A: Purchase on an island? (GAS) — those little areas where you pump your GAS are sometimes called "islands." Hope you didn't write in LEI here.
53A: Falsify, in a way (COOK) — as in "COOK the books" (i.e. falsify financial records). I had -OOK and wrote in ROOK. So I was in the Fraud ballpark, but just ... off.
2D: Mononymous baseball star who played 28 seasons (ICHIRO) — I don't think of anyone whose last name is well known and frequently used as "mononymous." But yes, he's commonly referred to by ICHIRO ... so I guess it's OK. Is SHOHEI mononymous too now? PELE, now he's mononymous, as I cannot tell you any other part of his name. See also, once again, ENYA. (the "e" key just went out on my wireless keyboard, R.I.P. little keyboard, hello new tech expenditure)
51D: Musical counterpart of pizzicato (ARCO) — ARCO = played with the bow (pizzicato = plucked with the fingers)
41A: Like i, say (NONREAL) — very proud of getting this one fairly quickly, of the -EAL. I know "i" as the square root of "-1"—thus, a NONREAL number. Here's a more technical definition. Mathematicians will no doubt chime in in the comments. They tend to be big chimers when their field is at issue ("As a mathematician, ...”).
56D: Shot one waits to knock back (LOB) — alcoholic misdirection, my favorite kind of misdirection. Obviously the real context is tennis.
Gonna go knock back several shots of coffee now. Not gonna wait. Take care, see you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
***
Important Note:
As of Monday, 11/4/24, the NYT Tech Guild is on strike.
The Guild is asking that readers honor their picket line by boycotting the Times’ selection of games, including Wordle and the daily digital crossword, and to avoid other digital extensions such as the Cooking app.
Annie Shields, a campaign lead for the News Guild of New York, encouraged people to sacrifice their streaks in the wildly popular Wordle and Connections games in order to support the strike.
There were some anti-union talking points being credulously repeated in the comments recently, so just to be clear (per Vanity Fair): "The union said Tech Guild workers' main concerns that remain unresolved are: remote/hybrid work protections; “just cause” job protections, which “the newsroom union has had for decades”; limits on subcontracting; and pay equity/fair pay."
Since the picket line is "digital," it would appear to apply only to Games solved in the NYT digital environment—basically anything you solve on your phone or on the NYT website per se. If you get the puzzle in an actual dead-tree newspaper, or if you solve it outside the NYT's proprietary environment (via a third-party app, as I do), then technically you're not crossing the picket line by solving. You can honor the digital picket line by not using the Games app (or the Cooking app) at all until the strike is resolved. No Spelling Bee, no Connections ... none of it. My morning Wordle ritual is was very important to me, but ... I'll survive, I assume.
THEME: "Product Integration" — shaded squares (three sets of 2x2 squares) contain numbers. Adjacent numbers must be multiplied in order for their answers to make sense. Each set of shaded boxes makes a kind of TIMES (get it!?) SQUARE (131A: Midtown Manhattan hot spot ... or each of this puzzle's three shaded regions):
Theme answers:
PAC 3x4 (i.e. PAC-12) (37A: West Coast N.C.A.A. conference that lost 10 teams in 2024)
HANG 5x2 (i.e. hang 10) (99A: Surfing move with all of one's toes off the board)
FANTASTIC 2x2 (i.e. Fantastic 4) (50D: Squad with the Invisible Woman and the Thing)
4x2-BIT (i.e. 8-bit) (106A: Like old Nintendo consoles)
5x4 PENCE (i.e. 20 pence) (100D: One-fifth of a British pound)
Word of the Day: KVASS (69A: Fermented Russian drink) —
Kvass is a fermented cereal-based low-alcoholic beverage of cloudy appearance and sweet-sour taste.
Kvass originates from northeastern Europe, where grain production was considered insufficient for beer to become a daily drink. The first written mention of kvass is found in Primary Chronicle, describing the celebration of Vladimir the Great's baptism in 988. In the traditional method, kvass is made from a mash obtained from rye bread or rye flour and malt soaked in hot water, fermented for about 12 hours with the help of sugar and bread yeast or baker's yeast at room temperature. In industrial methods, kvass is produced from wort concentrate combined with various grain mixtures. It is a popular drink in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, as well as some parts of Finland, Sweden, and China. (wikipedia)
• • •
This probably seemed like an interesting concept on paper, but in practice, it's over before it begins. It's a one-note theme stretched over a Sunday-sized grid. Once you grasp the theme (not hard), the themers are all instantly gettable. You gotta spend a few seconds figuring out what numbers are going to be used to arrive at the product, but basically you can do all the themers with no help from crosses. I know because that's what I did:
And that's it. Once you know numbers are involved, it's over. Except for the revealer, which is clever, but if I hadn't had to finish this puzzle (because it's my job), I don't think I would have. Once the theme stuff is all done, there's not much left. An ordinary Sunday-sized grid. Ho-hum. If the theme had put up any kind of fight, then I might have noticed the quality and texture and flavor of those theme answers, many of which would've made fine answers in a regular crossword. FRESHMAN FIFTEEN (15!), for instance, would be perfect as a grid-spanning answer in a regular Friday or Saturday puzzle. But today, it was just one of the number answers, interesting only because it's involved in a "TIMES SQUARE." There's no trick, no gimmick, no wordplay. Just children's math. What's more, some of the theme answers seem pretty weak or contrived. 28 DAYS? 20 PENCE!?!?! An arbitrary amount of money? That seems flimsy. I'm sure it was tough getting all these number-containing answers to work out (symmetrically!). The grid is architecturally impressive. Congrats on that. But from a solver standpoint, this felt underwhelming. You don't have to be a solving genius to have this all figured out almost immediately. And then you're just sweeping up—not a lot of fun in that.
What remains, after the theme stuff, is a halfway decent themeless puzzle. In a way, the whole puzzle is themeless, in that there's nothing but the multiplication gimmick giving any unity to the themers. I didn't see much of note in the non-thematic parts of the grid—nothing that seemed particularly original or interesting or challenging or infuriating. I enjoyed seeing MARIE CLAIRE (19A: Magazine with "Maison" and "Enfants" spinoffs) and "IS IT TRUE?" and FAKE NAILS, but then you've got wobbly things like STAR PITCHERS (really wanted to add "-ting" to STAR) (125A: Aces), and boring things like FINANCIAL AID and awkward things like DELEGATEE, plus your usual host of ASDOIs and APSOs and RSSs and UGGs (again!) and SOOTY (again!?) (actually SOOTY > yesterday's SOOTS, for sure). YENNED is kind of awful, since of course you want YEARNED (a word people actually use) there (68D: Longed (for)). But I can't say any other answer in this puzzle made much of an impression, good or bad. I did not know SAMBAR (12A: Lentil-based stew from 42-Down [INDIA]) and am only vaguely familiar with lip STAIN as a beauty product (60A: Long-lasting lip makeup), but that's about it in the "new-to-me" category. Oh, and VIC (5D: Jazz Trombonist Dickenson). I'd never heard of VIC Dickenson, but I'm really glad to make his acquaintance—his music sounds great.
Went to see Blink Twice yesterday (fascinating, funny, and deeply disturbing—the only movie I've ever seen with a trigger warning (re: sexual violence)). Every time I go to the movies, I take a little notebook with me and write down all the basic data: date, showtime, theater, theater no., concessions I ate (usu popcorn/butter/salt and that's it), how many other people are there, what they look like, anything memorable they do/say, and finally, the trailers. What trailers did I see? I'm telling you all this because yesterday I saw a trailer for a new Christmas movie featuring some very beloved actors. The movie is called Red One, and it stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and ubiquitous, Oscar-winning character actor J.K. SIMMONS in the title role: you see, Red One is code name for ... Santa Claus. And he's been kidnapped. By ... well, bad guys, I assume, and his security team (led by Johnson) has to rescue him. It's a tongue-in-cheek action film that has a lot of fancy computer animation and looks expensive as hell [just looked it up, and yep: the budget is a 1/4 billion]. Annnnyway, I solved this puzzle only a few hours after I saw the Red One trailer, so J.K. SIMMONS was fresh on my mind. I always forget the initials of two-initial people (see, notably, N.C. Wyeth), but I had the "JK" before I ever even looked at the clue today. Worried (briefly) that it was gonna be another, much worse "JK," but it wasn't. You wanna see the Red One trailer, don't you? OK, fine.
A few more things:
43A: Newark alternative, in brief (LGA) — LaGuardia Airport, of course. This would've been way more exciting—and tougher, for sure—if the clue had just been [EWR alternative]. Concise. No need for writing out "Newark" and adding "in brief." Airport code for airport code. Let's tighten things up a bit. Come on. My way's more elegant, and solvers can handle it.
93A: Source of a sleep-inducing narcotic in the "Odyssey" (LOTUS TREE) — currently teaching Virgil's Aeneid, so the Odyssey (the most important antecedent and model for Virgil) is fresh on my mind. If you wanna know what I'm teaching next, and I know you do: it's DANTE (56A: Writer whose work is hell to get through?)
18D: Surfer's hand sign (SHAKA) — this puzzle is weirdly into surfing (see also HANG 5x2). I know SHAKA exclusively from crosswords. I'm more of a Chaka guy, myself:
[this needle drop in Blink Twice is, let's say, memorable]
41D: Hilton ___, Pulitzer-winning critic for The New Yorker (ALS) — a great writer who should be the preferred clue for ALS. So much better than [Gore and Pacino, for two] or the like. He wrote a book on Prince! The New Yorker recently did an Archive Issue where it printed exclusively articles and reviews and cartoons from previous years, and there's a 1999 piece in there by ALS about Richard Pryor (and Lily Tomlin) that is mesmerizing. Very much worth your time (as all of his writing is, I assume)
62D: Wake-up times, for short (AMS) — leaving aside that it's not a great plural, one tiny thing. Like, very tiny. Nitpicky, even, but it would've bugged me if this had been my puzzle: I wouldn't put "times" in the clue since it is (crucially) in the grid—not just in the grid, but in the revealer, i.e. the most important part of the grid. I know, I know, no one noticed, no one cared. But when I edited a puzzle recently, a certain test-solver (who is also an accomplished constructor) caught a similar dupe. Her (very nice) note: "truly doesn't bother me at all, especially bc contexts are so different, just noting in case!" But even though she said it didn't bother her, and I kept telling myself it didn't bother me, I definitely got up in the middle of the night one night and fixed it. Once I see the dupe, I can't unsee it, it's gotta go. The point is: test-solvers are vital to the health of puzzles. So thank you to ... whoever that test-solver was (wink!).
92D: Lynne Cheney portrayer in 2018's "Vice" (AMY ADAMS) — I like this energy. Go deep into that filmography! Make me work for these famous people. My reaction to uncovering AMY ADAMS here was "Wow, really?" Almost makes me want to watch a movie about the Cheneys.
109D: Starchy side, familiarly (TOTS) — as in "tater" (small children: not that starchy, it turns out)
127D: Suffix with doomer or consumer (-ISM) — kinda tough. Not sure I've heard "doomerism," though I can guess what it means. I wanted -IST here for a bit (completely unsurprising).
108D: Exclamation after misunderstanding some Gen Z slang, say ("I'M OLD") — first, I think this would be more "Weary admission" than "Exclamation." Second, I really (really) thought that the answer was going to be a reaction to some specific bit of Gen Z slang. That is, I thought I had to figure out what the slang was, and then figure out what you'd exclaim if you misunderstood it. That is, I thought the exclamation was something you made before you realized you'd misunderstood. Like if someone said "no cap!" and you exclaimed "but my head is cold!" Something like that.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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