Battle cry of the U.S. Marine Corps / MON 12-29-25 / 1996 #1 hit for the Spice Girls / Where Shrek lives / Tin Man's need

Constructor: Chase Dittrich

Relative difficulty: Challenging (solving Downs-only—a nearly impossible Downs-only solve for me, because of one "word")

THEME: THE TOTAL PACKAGE (63A: Description for an ideal partner ... or what the ends of 17-, 27-, 39- and 47-Across create? — elements of a package

Theme answers:

• WORKS FOR PEANUTS (17A: Is severely underpaid)
• RECORD LABEL (27A: Motown or RCA)
• JURY BOX (39A: Seating area for 12 peers)
• BOOKS ON TAPE (47A: Works that are heard rather than read)

Word of the Day: OORAH (3D: Battle cry of the U.S. Marine Corps) —

Oorah is a battle cry common in the United States Marine Corps since the mid-20th century.

Several anecdotes attributed the phrase to John R. Massaro's time as a gunnery sergeant in the Reconnaissance Company, 1st Marine Division, in the mid-1950s. Massaro (who later became sergeant major of the Marine Corps) and other Marines who trained aboard the submarine USS Perch, beginning in 1949, used oorah in imitation of the vessel's klaxon horn (which sounded like arrugha). Others have attributed the phrase's popularization to Massaro's subsequent time at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, where use of the word spread.

Massaro has said that he did not originate the word (saying in 2015: "It was a phrase or a term originally coming from boarding a ship") and that the word was already in use in 1949. (wikipedia)

• • •

A very dull theme, but that's not the worst thing happening here. The worst thing is OORAH. I thought I was losing my mind. How is it Monday and yet there's a word I've never seen, or heard of, in the puzzle. I use the word "word" loosely. "OORAH!" has never, not once, not ever, appeared in the NYTXW before. If I had encountered this "word" on a Saturday, I'd've been befuddled, but at least I would've thought "hey, it's Saturday, sometimes they throw new stuff at you on a Saturday." On a Monday, however, that answer just feels perverse. It makes absolutely no sense to opt for "OORAH!" over NORAH or TORAH there. What purpose is being served? Why would you do that? It demonstrates the worst kind of aesthetic judgment. It's show-offy in the dumbest possible way. I've talked about how "Not All Debuts Are Good." Well, "OORAH" is the epitome of that proposition. If its appearance had been born out of desperation—perhaps as a result of a dense theme that forced an inventive answer—I might've understood. If something bright or good or original or colorful were being propped up by "OORAH!," that might've made it somewhat more tolerable. But as is, this is a puzzle with a mediocre theme and fairly meh fill. GAIA CERA ERMA ECRU OER ELS ... it's not like this puzzle is being "inventive" or "creative" anywhere else in the grid. So opting for "OORAH!"—a term that looks like nonsense if you aren't familiar with it—when NORAH is sitting right there? Or the TORAH, for (literally) God's sake!? Pardon my French, but that's stupid. A terrible call. Inexcusable. 

I actually "got" OORAH, but only because I entered those "O"s as a kind of joke—I was guessing, going off of the OORAH's aural similarity to that other military exclamation, "HOO-AH" (or however you say it). Looking it up, it seems HOOAH is Army and OORAH is Marines and HOOYAH is Navy and it's all Greek to me.  (You can read about the distinctions among those terms here.)  Before today, literally none of these expressions had ever appeared in the NYTXW. Again, it is Monday. Just tear that whole corner out and start over. Resorting to OORAH is a massive distraction. I don't really remember anything else about this puzzle. If OORAH isn't a massive outlier today in terms of general solver familiarity, I'll be surprised. Stunned, in fact. You wanna get cute with OORAH, your puzzle's gotta be a hell of a lot better than this.

When I saw PEANUTS at the end of one of the themers, I was kinda hoping there'd be a comic strip theme today, but alas, no. Just ... parts of a package. It's a pretty dull concept, but it might've at least had some seasonal relevance if it had run before 12/25. Running it on the Monday after Christmas... again, inexplicable. OORAH wasn't my only struggle point today, just the most nearly fatal one. You can see from this snapshot of my Downs-only solve (taken mid-solve) that I was having real trouble getting the grid to coalesce:

WAIL instead of BAWL (1D: Cry like a baby). AVID instead of AGOG (6D: Really eager). NYLON instead of RAYON (29D: Synthetic fiber). So weird to get all the way to the revealer at the bottom of the grid before getting even a single themer. You can see how NYLON (wrong) caused me to infer SECOND as the first word of that second themer, which got me even more mired. But after getting the revealer, I methodically worked my way back up the grid, filling in empty patches, fixing errors. Until I ended up here:

And that was it. Done. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do but guess. When I look at how blah the rest of this grid, I just get angrier at OORAH. Why not take that "creative" impulse and put it to use cleaning up the rest of the damned grid!? REA? OH RATS? This is what you're serving up? You haven't earned the right to throw an OORAH at anyone. [OK, I have now watched my wife solve this puzzle Downs-only and whaddyaknow!!? She crashed out in exactly the same place—same two squares; I feel at least mildly vindicated. Her: "They could've just made it NORAH." Me: "I KNOW!"].

[Katabasis!]

Bullets:

• 9A: Where Shrek lives (SWAMP) — if I'd been looking at Across clues, I wouldn't have known what to do with this clue. I think I saw one of the Shrek movies once, whenever it originally came out. If I ever read the William Steig book, I forgot the plot. I would've been looking for a specific place here, like CAIRO or MIAMI or OWEGO (winking at my fellow central New Yorkers here).
• 35A: Stephen of "V for Vendetta" (REA) — crosswords have made this guy more famous than movies ever did. See also singer Chris REA (see video, above). I guess either one is better than [Mens ___], but not by much. Looks like REA also (rarely) gets clued as part of FDR's New Deal Alphabet Soup (in this case, the Rural Electrification Act). When you go back to pre-Shortz puzzles, REA clues descend into chaos. [Penn Station builder]? [John ___ Neill, "Oz" illustrator]!? At one point the most popular REA was [Cartoonist Gardner ___]. Looks like he was an "old New Yorker cartoonist," per the last time he was in the puzzle (1999). Wait, there's also [___ Irvin, who designed the first cover for the New Yorker] (what is with the name REA and cartoonist/illustrators!?!?). Also (once), [Peggy of "The Dukes of Hazzard"] (!??!?!). But mostly, since I've been solving, it's been Stephen ___ and Mens ___.
• 45A: Tin Man's need (OIL) — saw this just now for the first time (since it's an Across clue) and thought, "a HEART!" 

• 10D: 1996 #1 hit for the Spice Girls ("WANNABE") — if OORAH didn't get you, Downs-only solvers, then "WANNABE" might have. I was humming the damn song in my head but couldn't remember the name. "Oh, yeah, it's the tell me what you want, what you really really want song! ... 'TELL ME?'"

Some more 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲 now! Note: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANY MORE PET PICS, I'M ALL FULL UP FOR THIS YEAR, thank you.

Here's Buzz and Kirby, just chilling under the tree. Sorry, you can put your "presents" somewhere else, these seats are taken:

Dogs in reindeer antlers is a surprisingly robust category of Holiday Pet Pictures. Sabrina likes to wear hers low.

[Thanks, Graeme!]

Doc the Jack Russell has moved on to Doggie Heaven. Here now is a live shot of Doggie Heaven. Seems pretty nice. They got martinis and everything. 

[Thanks, Barb & Alan]

Another memorial photo, this one of Perla, who is just as good as any "present," better even. Unwrap Perla next!

[Thanks, Steve!]

Senior cat Georgette is enjoying her second Christmas in her new home. It's tough when your original owner dies, but Georgette seems to have gotten herself into a pretty sweet situation. Loving humans, tuna treats on demand. Could be worse.

[Thanks, John!]

And finally Tostada, I repeat Tostada. Tostada, everybody. It's Tostada. How is this animal real!? A wide-faced puffy ball of sleep. Cuteness personified. Ailurophobe healer. Mythical miniature yeti cat of the central west mountainscape. Voracious hunter, lethal cuddler. Tostada!

[Thanks, Barbara!]

That's it. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld  

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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"Simply sharp" brand / THU 1-4-24 / Tech giant in New Taipei City / Something broken after regulation, say / Longtime watch brand for James Bond / Big name in family singers / Moving target in a heist film / Bird depicted on a rare penny / 36:1, for snake eyes

Constructor: Chase Dittrich and Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: [blank] & ___ — theme clues are phrases with certain letters underlined; the phrase, taken as a whole, is an example of one thing; the underlined bits spell out a word that is an example of a second thing. The first and second things together form the answers, which are always a familiar "___ AND ___" phrase:

Theme answers:

• MOM AND POP (17A: CAROL BRADY) (Carol Brady is a TV "MOM" and cola is a kind of soda "POP")
• RACK AND RUIN (26A: MOOSE ANTLERS) (moose antlers are a "RACK" and to mar something is to "RUIN" it)
• PART AND PARCEL (40A: ACTING ROLE) (an acting role is a "PART" and an acre is a "PARCEL" of land)
• PROS AND CONS (51A: SACRAMENTO KINGS) (the Sacramento Kings are basketball "PROS" and scams are "CONS")
• CUT AND RUN (64A: TOP ROUND STEAK) (top round steak is a "CUT" of meat and trot is a horse gait akin to a (slowish) "RUN" (I think))

Word of the Day: SOBE (15A: Beverage brand with a lizard logo) —

SoBe (stylized as SoBe) is an American brand of teas, fruit-juice blends and enhanced water beverages owned by PepsiCo. The name SoBe is an abbreviation of South Beach, named after the upscale area located in Miami Beach, Florida. In the past, the SoBe name has also been licensed for gum and chocolate products. SoBe switched from glass bottles to plastic bottles for all of its beverages in 2010. // SoBe began as the South Beach Beverage Company, a drink manufacturer based in Norwalk, Connecticut from 1996 to 2001. It was founded by Kevin McGovern, and co-founded by John Belloand Tom Schwalm in 1995. Their first product was SoBe Black Tea 3G which contained ginseng, guarana, and ginkgo. It proved to be popular and led to the introduction of other flavors. The company was bought by PepsiCo in October 2000. (wikipedia)

• • •

Had enough smarts to stop solving when I saw that my software was rendering the theme clues thusly:

I don't like the NYT interface and I don't like that they get my solving data and I generally don't solve on the site because I cannot print out a COMPLETED puzzle, which I need to do for blogging purposes. I can print out a puzzle to solve, but I cannot print out a solved one. Since I print out the finished grid and mark it up by hand before blogging, the printing issue is ... an issue. And that is why I don't solve there normally.*** Anyway, doesn't matter. Today, I just switched over and solved there and the theme clues were laid out properly and the theme was instantly apparent (I had already hacked my way to MOM AND POP, and seeing [CAROL BRADY] laid out correctly made it all make sense). But getting the theme did not make the puzzle easy. Well, the bottom half was easy ... once I finally got there. But up top, yeesh, two big issues ... no, three ... kept me from taking off quickly after I figured out the theme. The first was that clue on SEMIFINAL (3D: Next-to-last). I swear to you that I finished the puzzle and still had no idea how that could be a word. The word is "penultimate." That is what "next-to-last" means. I have "WTF?!" written next to this answer on my grid. And then I realized that it's a sports clue, a tournament clue. And SEMIFINAL is just a round in a tournament—the next-to-last one. Without "tournament" mentioned or suggested, at all, anywhere in the clue, I was lost (obviously). I also had DEA before ATF (24A: Antitrafficking org.) and "OH, IS IT!?" before "OR IS IT?" (29A: "Are you sure about that?"), so the whole length of SEMIFINAL was a bog for me. 

The other two big issues were even bigger issues, in that they crossed each other. I had ROCK AND ROLL for that second themer, before realizing it made no sense for the clue ([MOOSE ANTLERS]). Then I got the RACK part but (again, I swear to you) I had RACK AND ... and no idea where I could go if the next word was not PINION (and it wasn't). RACK AND ... RUIN!? I guess I've heard that phrase. Why do I want the "Rack" in that case to be "Wrack"!?? To make matters worse, I had no idea what the heist film answer was (ARMORED CAR): me, a person who has watched scores of heist films, who (re-)watched one Just Last Night: Drive, starring Ryan Gosling (2011). Well, I'm not sure Drive is a "heist film" per se, since it doesn't focus on the details of the robberies and Ryan Gosling's character does not participate in the jobs except as the driver, but anyway, the point is, heist films are my wheelhouse. I kind of resent the clue here, which is what threw me off (10D: Moving target in a heist film). You see, no one targets a *moving* ARMORED CAR. Yes, the ARMORED CAR *is capable* of movement, but as a "target," it is (almost always) sitting, not moving. You wait for them to open the back, or stop at a diner, or something, and then you jump them (the guards, that is). "Moving target" had me lost. It's a defensible clue, but having -ED CAR and no idea was maddening. Seeing Drive last night probably interfered with my reasoning. I kept thinking BOOSTED CAR? Also, most heist films I know don't target cars, armored or otherwise; they target jewelers or payroll offices or horse tracks. Definitely a case of knowing too much here. Ironically, ruinous.

So the NE corner was almost impossible to get into. Wanted SALT Accords before OSLO Accords (23A: ___ Accords (1993 and 1995 pacts)). I did want PAGES (9A: They're connected to the spine) and GINSU (11D: "Simply sharp" brand), but didn't trust them. Anyway, ERICA Jong to the rescue. Thanks, ERICA (16A: Writer Jong). She was a certainty, and gave me an anchor answer to build on in that corner. I had to hack my way through the middle of the grid (no idea about TEAS (33A: They might be blended), and ADE and SPA had tough clues), but PART AND PARCEL went in pretty easily, and then the rest of the puzzle just blew by. Got both PROS AND CONS and CUT AND RUN without even looking at the clues. Once you know it's "___ & ___," you have a considerable advantage (unless, of course, you can't remember RACK AND RUIN, ugh). 

I liked the theme concept, even if it was a little fussy and a little forced. The fill, I did not like so much. Too much EBOOK ECOLI IBEAM ATTN STAT IMO ACER SOBE SEPTA short stuff. I'm pretty sure a nonzero number of people are going to wipe out on that SOBE / SEPTA cross. SOBE is not exactly universally known, and I think the NYTXW overestimates the extent to which Philly's public transport system is familiar to non-northeasterners (stands for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, in case you're wondering). Not putting some kind of South Asian reference in the clue for ATTA is a bit like not putting in a sports reference for SEMIFINAL, i.e. cruel ("Atta is a type of wheat flour, originated from the Indian subcontinent, used to make local flatbreads") (wikipedia). Either they spiced up the difficulty of the clues today because the themer were (generally) so easy to get, or I just ran into my own personal hells a few times. At any rate, top half hard, bottom half easy, overall medium, have a nice day.

We're coming to the last of the Holiday Pet Pics now ... it's possible I won't get to everyone's so if I don't, please don't take it personally and remember that I'll do it again next year! Or maybe for Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day or the Fourth of July, who knows. 

[Funny how a simple scarf can make a glowering cat, like Jill here, look like a fading movie star (thanks, Louise)]

[Here we have Mr. Darcy, who comes on gruff but turns out to be just right for you (thanks, Richard)]

[It's Sam the Pandemic Rescue Dog (just "Sam" is fine)—his owners say that he's the one who rescued them (thanks, Scott)]

[I can't stop laughing at this ... poor Bailey looks like an animatronic cat that's been turned off ... like "maybe if I just freeze and stare into space they'll go away and I can tear this thing off my head" (thanks, Colleen)]

[Another beautiful baby (Flora) gazing from behind the tree (thanks, Beth)]

[Nancy writes: "This is our cat Kohaku on our granddaughter’s shoulder with sibling dogs Teri and Zach.  Kohaku (16) and Zach (15) both died this year — Teri is still plugging along.  All three pets were buddies" (thanks, Nancy)]

***Please, commenters, stop saying “take a screenshot” as this is useless. I need to see the completed grid AND and all the clues, all laid out on one page. I could take a screenshot, but I would see only some of the clues. (Bizarrely, the website does let you print out a completed grid … but just the grid. No clues.) Anyway, Black Ink software is superior for my specific needs the vast majority of the time. You do you. Thanks.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Baseball's Marsh or Bohm / THU 11-2-23 / Non-Muppet owner of Hooper's Store on "Sesame Street" / Valuable resource for the Human Genome Project / Fruit eaten on the Jewish New Year / Two early Icelandic literary works / Features of many "On my way" texts

Constructor: Chase Dittrich and Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Missing letters — theme answers are familiar phrases that, when parsed differently, explain why there are some letters missing from the clues: 

Theme answers:

• 17A: "Beg your pardo_" (NON-APOLOGY) (i.e. NO-"N" APOLOGY (the apology "Beg your pardon" is missing its "N"))
• 28A: Badly dilapida_ed (NOT TOO SHABBY (i.e. NO-"T" TOO SHABBY (the phrase meaning "too shabby" is missing its "T")
• 38A: _ _ cretary (NOSE JOB) (i.e. NO-"SE" JOB) (the job of "secretary" is missing the letters "S" and "E")
• 46A: Pe _ _ _ phone (NORSE GODDESS) (i.e. NO-"RSE" GODDESS) (the goddess Persephone is missing the letter string "RSE")
• 61A: Championship _ _ _ t (NOBEL PRIZE) (i.e. NO-"BEL" PRIZE) ("Championship belt" is a kind of "prize" and is missing the letter string "BEL") 

Word of the Day: John CENA (11D: John of wrestling fame) —

John Felix Anthony Cena (/ˈsiːnə/ SEE-nə; born April 23, 1977) is an American professional wrestler, actor, and former rapper currently signed to WWE. With the most world championship reigns in WWE history, Cena is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. [...] A joint-record 16-time world champion, Cena is a record 13-time WWE Champion and three-time World Heavyweight Champion. He is also a five-time WWE United States Champion, a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion, a two-time World Tag Team Champion, a two-time Royal Rumble winner, and a one-time Money in the Bank winner. He has also headlined multiple major WWE pay-per-view events, including its flagship event, WrestleMania, five times. His professional wrestling career has been met with mixed critical and audience reception, with praise for his character work and promotional skills, but criticism for his perceived over-representation and on-screen dominance relative to other wrestlers. // Cena first starred in The Marine (2006), and gained praise for his performances in Trainwreck (2015), Ferdinand (2017), Blockers, and Bumblebee (both 2018). He starred in F9 (2021) as Jakob Toretto, reprising his role in Fast X (2023), and portrayed Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad (2021) and the eponymous television series (2022–present). He released a studio album, You Can't See Me, in 2005. Outside his work in entertainment, Cena is known for his involvement in numerous charitable causes, namely with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, where he has granted the most wishes, at over 650. (wikipedia)

• • •

[13A: Non-Muppet owner of Hooper's Store
on "Sesame Street" = ALAN]

Well, this concept was a lot easier to grasp than it was to explain in writing, I'll tell you that. What you've got is essentially a clue/answer reversal sort of deal, where the answer in the grid gives you the clue you need to understand why there are letters missing from your actual clues. Even though the first one of these themers is the least elaborate, it felt the most perfect. I'm sure it had the benefit of being the first themer I got, i.e. the "aha" themer, but there's something simple, neat, and unforced about the no-"N" apology. Among the rest, only NORSE GODDESS felt as elegant. The correspondence between "badly" and "TOO" felt off to me in 28A: Badly dilapida_ed (NO-"T" TOO SHABBY). The other two are fine, but "secretary" is highly arbitrary as an example of JOB, and there was something slightly fiddly about "Championship belt." I mean, I think those last two work just fine, they just didn't land the way NO-"N" APOLOGY and NO-"RSE" GODDESS did. And please, no mail or comments about how actually Persephone is a Greek goddess, not a NORSE GODDESS—we know. In this particular thematic scenario, it's irrelevant.

[Mentally singing "NON-APOLOGY" to the tune of this]

This puzzle played more like a Tuesday than a Thursday for me. The non-thematic elements in particular were surprisingly straightforward, even rudimentary, and the clues didn't seem to be trying very hard to make this a properly thorny Thursday. A lot of the fill was straight out of central casting—i.e. very familiar: NAGANO ARIAL ALOHA AGORA OBOE UTILE NEATO etc. They tried to make ALEC a non-Baldwin (and succeeded!) but an ALEC is an ALEC is an ALEC, and now you know some more ALECs (66A: Baseball's Marsh or Bohm). The clue on PALO is weird, in that ... it's still just a proper noun partial, same as always—still not great fill—but instead of getting the expected clue about the California city (home of Stanford), we get this tree trivia, which makes you (i.e. me) think that the answer is actually not going to be PALO (18D: El ___ Alto, California redwood that's more than 1,000 years old). But then it is PALO. It was all strangely anticlimactic. PHOTOBOMB is easy to like (10D: Ruin a picture of, in a way), but the rest of the fill runs a little to the dull side, for sure.

I imagined there was a DNA BASE out there somewhere (4D: Valuable resource for the Human Genome Project). I think I meant "BANK," but I wrote BASE. So that needed fixing. GAINS was way too vague as [Investment goals] go, so that took some work. Ran into that LOLLS / LAZES kealoa* pretty hard (53D: Kicks back). I wanted DIME (!?) and then TIME (!) before SEMI (64A: Quarter follower). I think that in tournament situations, I'm used to hearing both terms pluralized ("We made it to the SEMIs!" "He got knocked out in the quarters"), so I just didn't make the connection, and instead went flailing wildly into the realms of numismatics and music (though I don't think "quarter time" is an actual thing in music; it just sounds music-y, like, I dunno, "quarter note," I guess). Never intentionally paid attention to pro wrestling, but it seems that I've encountered John CENA enough that he's now a gimme. He occupies the same part of my brain as Michael CERA, which is at least slightly weird, as they look nothing alike. I've known the term EDDA(S) forever (they teach it to you at crossword boot camp), but I had no idea there were just two (!?). They did not teach that to me at medievalist boot camp. Or I was napping. Possible. 

Speaking of EDDAS, I ran into EDDIC yesterday in a fabulous cryptic crossword from 1977. I was doing said cryptic because I had just found out from my friend Matt Gritzmacher that coxrathvon.com exists—a massive archive of cryptic puzzles from the legendary constructing team of Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon that goes back almost a half century! I went back to very early in the archive and man, those '70s puzzles hold up! Their cryptics frequently have some thematic element, some elaborate trick or gimmick that makes them extra-challenging and phenomenally entertaining. And if you go back to the verrrrrry first one in the archive ("Short and Sweet," Sep. 1977!), you'll see the pdf contains not just the puzzle, but a three-page explanation of what cryptic crosswords are and how to solve them. An extremely useful document. Anyway, the Cox/Rathvon website has given me years of clipboard fodder. I'm so grateful. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.  

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Knee stabilizer in brief / WED 2-8-23 / with or without the shaded letter / Brand for which Garfield was once a spokescat / Streaming hiccups / Fruit of the Loom product featuring superhero themes / Grissom longtime CSI character / Ones ranking below cpls

Constructor: Chase Dittrich

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "... with or without the shaded letter" — four answers start with shaded letters (circled letters in the above grid), and the answer fits the clue whether you include that initial letter or not:

Theme answers:

• GOAT MILK (17A: Alternative to 2% ... with or without the shaded letter)
• FACE CARD (31A: It may be half of a blackjack ... with or without the shaded letter)
• EMOTIONS (45A: Things that might be raised in court ... with or without the shaded letter)
• PLAYOFFS (62A: They might eliminate teams ... with or without the shaded letter)

Word of the Day: Bill WALTON (36A: N.B.A. Hall-of-Famer Bill) —

William Theodore Walton III (born November 5, 1952) is an American television sportscaster and former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for coach John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins, winning three consecutive national college player of the year awards (1972–1974), while leading UCLA to NCAA championships in 1972 and 1973 and an 88-game winning streak. After being selected as the first overall pick in the 1974 NBA draft, Walton led the Portland Trail Blazers to an NBA championship in 1977, earning the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award that season. He won another NBA title in 1986 as a member of the Boston Celtics. Walton was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. He was named to the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. [...] After retiring from the NBA, Walton overcame stuttering and embarked on a second career as a sportscaster, working both as a studio analyst and color commentator, mostly for ESPN, with stints for several other networks and teams. He earned an Emmy Award in 1991. Walton is a noted fan of the Grateful Dead, as a self-described "Deadhead", and often mentions them in his broadcasts. He has hosted several podcasts and satellite radio programs featuring the music of the Grateful Dead. (wikipedia)

• • •

Was awakened at 2am by the crying of the cat. A needy, desperate crying that was coming from downstairs, which made me worried that she was sick or hurt. Why wasn't she climbing the stairs and coming into our room to bother us like a normal cat, like her brother typically does around 4am? I got worried and hauled myself out of bed and sleepily tottered down the stairs and found the cat (so white she glows in the dark) just sitting in the middle of the living room. She looked at me and was like, "Oh, cool, let's go get me some food" and trotted off to the kitchen. So it seems I have adopted a terrorist and a con artist. Ah well. Lost a full hour of sleep just lying there trying to go back to sleep (with that feeling where you want to sleep but you can hear and feel Everything, ugh). And then once I finally fell asleep the alarm went off, huzzah! So back downstairs, heat up a mug of water, give each cat a handful of kibble to keep them quiet (they don't get fed til I'm done writing!) and now here I am. Tiredness affects me in weird ways. Like, I can be tearing through the grid (as I did through most of this grid) and then hit a clue like 56A: Chardonnay, for one, and have no idea what it could be. "Starts with 'G' ... nope ... 'GRA- ... nope, better come back to it later ... [comes back to it later] ... GRA*E ... what, GRACE? What does that even m- ... oh ... GRAPE ... yes, they do make wine from GRAPEs, I suppose. Fair." 

Maybe if these "shaded squares" had spelled something, I could've seen the point, but they don't, so I don't. Is "GFEP" something? I pray not. I guess the cluing is kind of inventive at times (with the last two themers, specifically), but the first themer clue involves no effort at all (two kinds of milk, shrug, OK), and I'd say the same about the second themer clue as well ... and throw in the fact that ACE CARD just sounds stupid. Do you really not just call it an "ace"? I thought "lingo" was supposed to abbreviate, clarify, shorten. ACE CARD does none of those things. Of course it's an ACE CARD, we're playing blackjack, what was it going to be, an ACE VASE? An ACE DUNE BUGGY? There's just a so-what quality to the whole theme, and the puzzle seems to know it and is trying real hard to distract you from it with a barrage of long Downs that just scream "look at me! pay no attention to the SO-SO theme!" BUTT DIAL, JAW-DROPPING, "I MEAN COME ON!" and UNDEROOS completely upstage the theme answers as a set. I want them to be the theme. $20 to anyone who can find a theme in BUTT DIAL / JAW-DROPPING / "I MEAN COME ON!" / UNDEROOS, I'm serious.

The lovely set of long Downs were unfortunately offset by a deluge of olden stuff that comes at you right out of the gate. Once again, I stopped and screenshotted the NW corner before I ever left it, so ill-omen-y did it seem. 

ALOE ALOU SET-TO before we've even gotten in the room!? I MEAN COME ON! That's awful. Sorry AWFUL (32D: Not just bad). I mean, SET-TO, LOL, that's a word I wouldn't even know existed if I hadn't solved crosswords in the early '90s. I thought it had gone the way of the ADIT, but here we are, SET-TO-ing in the 2020s, great. REI on top of YSL, ARLO duetting with ENYA, INRE NIA PFCS ESSO ALPO ASIAM (ARE NOT!) ASEA. It's a bit wearying. But as I say, those long Downs do a lot to alleviate the pain, so the overall experience was tolerable enough. I think that's all. Little white paws are trying to scrape their way underneath my office door. Luckily they are wee soft paws and she seems to have tired herself out ... for now. I better go before ... god knows what. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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