Citrus drink since 1979 / FRI 3-10-23 / Page or Ameche of football / Jazz trumpeter Jones / Pantsless Disney character / Civil rights pioneer Claudette of Montgomery / Big little role in the Marvel Universe / Kurylenko of Black Widow

Constructor: Claire Rimkus

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Claudette COLVIN (6D: Civil rights pioneer Claudette of Montgomery) —

Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. Her brave stand sparked outrage and garnered national attention, leading to a boycott of Montgomery his boycott that lasted for over a year. Ultimately, the Supreme Court declared segregation on public transportation to be unconstitutional, thanks in part to the lawsuit Browder v. Gayle, which was filed on behalf of Colvin and three other women. (wikipedia)

• • •

[technically his name's GUSTAVO] 

Well, no zoom-zoom whoosh-whoosh today, that's for sure. Conventional blocky grid structure with all long answers in corners (except the middle one) kept me pent up in corners, working section by section, and I never worked up any real flow. Also, those NW / SE sections are very cut off, with only the tiniest passageways in and out, so they function as choke points, and I choked on both (Claudette COLV-no idea (6D: Civil rights pioneer Claudette of Montgomery), NOT A WORD, ugh (37D: "Shut your mouth!" = NOT A PEEP!)). The actual content of the grid was overwhelmingly smooth and occasionally sparkly, but solving this one felt more like slogging through a Saturday than flying through a Friday. PREGNANCY PILLOW is the best thing in the grid, easy, so I'm glad it's sitting dead center—where best things belong. I can't say I found anything else in the grid nearly as thrilling (in the sense of original and fun-to-see), though I have to give some respect to NO RELATION, an answer that is perfect for its clue, but that took me Every Single Cross to get. I was looking for something one-word and adjectival the whole time. NORTH CAROLINIAN? NOMINATED? No idea. NO RELATION is adjectival ("unrelated," basically), but the two-word phrasing absolutely baffled me. Couldn't parse it as two words, no sir, no way. On the other side of the grid, I struggled to get SCANTY from SC-, and struggled to get LORD (seemed ... too basic to be right) and struggled to get BADLIARS (parsing, again), and struggled to get ION (I'm sure it's right, just not a way I think of good old NACL), and yet, but once I finally got into the NE, I brought the whole thing down fast, without ever looking at either long Down clue. How? Why? I have no idea why I didn't look at them earlier. I get so attached to the "work the short stuff first" method sometimes it's like I get locked in and the longer stuff becomes invisible to me. I think it's frustration. I know I *should* be able to get the shorter stuff, so I keep whacking at it, when it might make more sense to walk away and look elsewhere. 

Anyway, there was no part of this grid where I didn't struggle at least a little. NOT A WORD! absolutely killed me for a bit in the south (37D: "Shut your mouth!"(NOT A PEEP)). I used that "W" to make WEAK at 49A: 1 on a scale of 1 to 5, maybe (POOR)). This locked me in good. Extremely plausible answer "confirmed" by somewhat plausible answer. Hate all Risk-related clues because the puzzle has always (for decades) assumed that I played Risk and I have never played Risk and do not plan to play Risk (44D: It's blue on a Risk board = EUROPE). My whole solving life, "Hey, you know in Risk, where..." No, stop, I don't. How 'bout you just refer to a regular map? That's gonna be hard enough for me. [LOL I thought maybe I *had* played Risk at one point because I had a faint memory of game pieces that were vaguely geopolitical and so I just googled [what is board game with spies and bombs] and turns out that was Stratego]. Also no idea about football (as clued) so ALAN was hard (3D: Page or Ameche of football). *Do* know something about Better Call Saul (the best TV show of this century), so GUS helped me out, but unless you know that show *well*, yeesh, that seems hard (47A: "Better Call Saul" character ___ Fring). Some of the slang today I knew (BAKED), some of it I did not (HOSED? ... I guess) (46D: Cheated, in slang). Marvel Cinematic Universe characters ... meh, we're back to Risk again, basically, i.e. not interested (this will make the rest of my solving life difficult, I realize, oh well). I knew enough to know ANT-MAN but not OLGA Kurylenko. Two MCU clues? Feels like shilling. The OLGA clue was an unnecessary plug. Lotsa OLGAs in the world. 

I only just realized that I was reading 1A: Protagonist's pride, often (TRAGIC FLAW) incorrectly. I thought the clue was telling me that the protagonist was proud of his flaw, which made no sense. But it's pride itself that is the flaw. I'd've done better here without the word "Protagonist's" in the clue, oddly. Just couldn't catch this puzzle's wave(length), most of the time. Seems well put together, but just didn't click for me.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Easter starter? / THU 12-29-22 / Hayek who portrayed Frida Kahlo / Draped garment / World Cup datum / Sections of a barn / Cry of accomplishment

Constructor: Rachel Fabi and Claire Rimkus

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: LATE SHIFT — In four rows of the grid, the word LATE "shifts" from one entry to the other

Word of the Day: CLAMATO (42D: Hybrid beverage in a Bloody Caesar cocktail) —

Clamato /kləˈmætoʊ/ is a commercial drink made of reconstituted tomato juice concentrate and sugar, which is flavored with spices, dried clam broth and MSG.^[1] Made by Mott's, the name is a portmanteau of clam and tomato. It is also referred to colloquially as "clamato juice". It is consumed in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, to a lesser extent. It is very often mixed with alcohol to make a drink similar to a Bloody Mary.

• • •

Theme answers:

• (LATE)RALLY / TEMP(LATE)S (17A: Gathering of protesters / 19A: Models used in copying)
• CIRCU(LATE)S / EMUS (24A: Makes the rounds / 26A: Large, flightless birds)
• COLD / CLEAN S(LATE) (51A: Chilly / 54A: Fresh start, metaphorically)
• TRANS(LATE) / VENTI(LATE) (59A: Work as an interpreter / 62A: Size option at Starbucks)
• LATE SHIFT (37A: Overnight work assignment ... or a hint to understanding four rows of answers in this puzzle)

Hi everyone -- it's Rafa back for another puzzle write-up! Hope everyone is having a pleasant and restful holiday period. I'm catsitting so it's a one-human two-cat household around here these days. Sadly they do not get along and have to be kept in different rooms, but I've been enjoying plenty of feline snuggles.

Onto the puzzle! I really enjoyed this, as expected by these two constructors I really admire! LATE SHIFT is the perfect revealer to explain what's going on with the theme answers. And the theme answers (both the "shifted" versions in the grid and the "unshifted" versions that are clued) are super solid in-the-language words and phrases. One downside of this type of theme is that you often end up with single-word answers that are maybe less "exciting" entries -- stuff like LATERALLY and COLLATED and CIRCULATES etc -- but one benefit is you get twice as many theme entries because each one has to work both with and without the LATE!

Big Sur! Mac OS but also very pretty!

The theme was solid, but my absolute favorite part about this puzzle was the fun clue echoes. We had both TEN and CHI clued as [X], consecutive [Chicken king?] for PERDUE and [Chicken ___ king] for ALA, [Camper's protection] for DEET and [Camper's detritus] for ASH -- great stuff! I also loved [Euphemism for a lesbian couple] for GAL PALS, both because it's a fresh angle and because I'm a fan of Gay Things In My Puzzles.

If there's one thing I learned from doing crosswords, it's that the EDSEL was a flop

Not much else to say here! The grid was super clean so there's really nothing to complain about ... maybe IN SO is a weird partial? But that's me looking really hard for something to ding. Just super solid gridwork and a delightful theme.

Bullets:

• TYVM (15D: "I really appreciate it!," in textspeak) — It's rare that a 4-letter entry is my favorite in a puzzle but this might be it for me! I'd never seen this in a puzzle before (turns out it is a NYT debut) but it's something I use all the time!
• BLAISE (49A: Good name for a firefighter?) — This seems like an apt name for a pyromaniac ... or I guess a particularly self-loathing firefighter
• SCYTHE (45D: Cutter with a curve) — This is a fun word
• ELIOT (14A: George who wrote "Romola") — I recommend everyone read "Middlemarch" if you haven't already!

Signed, Rafa

[Follow Rafa on Twitter]

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Chuck alternative / FRI 9-2-22 / Chemist Noddack who co-discovered rhenium / 2003 search and rescue target / Modern day locale of ancient Achaemenid empire / Hilson with 2010 hit Pretty Girl Rock / When said three times expression of mock surprise

Constructor: Claire Rimkus

Relative difficulty: Medium (it's a name minefield, so who knows!?)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Tim REID (60A: Tim of "Sister, Sister") —

 

Timothy Lee Reid (born December 19, 1944) is an American actor, comedian and film director best known for his roles in prime time American television programs, such as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–82), Marcel "Downtown" Brown on Simon & Simon (1983–87), Ray Campbell on Sister, Sister (1994–99) and William Barnett on That '70s Show (2004–06). Reid starred in a CBS series, Frank's Place, as a professor who inherits a Louisiana restaurant. Reid is the founder and president of Legacy Media Institute, a non-profit organization "dedicated to bringing together leading professionals in the film and television industry, outstanding actors, and young men and women who wish to pursue a career in the entertainment media". (wikipedia)

• • •

 Well this one got off to an interesting start:

 

The actual answer there (which I didn't get until near the very end of the solve) was far less interesting than my glorious wrong one, but luckily there were a lot of other longer answers that were sufficiently sparkly and delightful to give me that much-looked--forward-to Friday Feeling. Instead of starting in the NW (typical), I weirdly ended up opening this puzzle up from the middle, with WELL SELF GILL RASH SAUL providing my first real hold, and then LAUGH TRACK built on top of that (7D: Reel with hilarity?). I moved steadily through the puzzle after that, and largely enjoyed myself, but I will say I found the preponderance of names, particularly pop culture names, somewhat alarming. I got a good workout trying to maneuver my way over under and through those names, but at some point there got to be so many that they began to feel like a problem. 

There are, by my count, ten (10!) short names in this grid. And of course, names appear in puzzles, no biggie, but when you rely so heavily on names, the very clue type gets exhausting. Names are tricky. They can be nice when you recognize them, and frustrating when you don't, and all of that is a normal part of solving, but as with most things, moderation is key. Today's names were mostly clued extremely straightforwardly. [Singer so-and-so], [Actor of "This Show"], etc. It added difficulty at times, which is fine, but it also made the cluing feel arid. When you clog the grid with names, you a. run the risk of making the puzzle feel exclusionary, and b. you diminish the prevalence of truly inventive clues. You squeeze out cleverness and trickery, two of solving's primary enjoyments, and replace it with a trivia test. Now the names today are reasonably diverse, in terms of the fields they come from and the eras they're being pulled from, but still, by the 7th one they were beginning to feel like speed bumps, and by the 10th, potholes. I was very grateful that all the names were handled fairly (to my mind) and none of them caused agonizing delays, but ... I'd probably be happier with about half this many. (To be clear, today's names were: EGO AVA KERI ANDY REID SAUL OSSIE DANNY IDA and Van NESS) (NEMO gets a pass, largely because he was afforded a clever clue) (16A: 2003 search-and-rescue target).

[WHEN IN ROME]

Lots of low-key missteps. None of them as good as VASECTOMY at 1-A, but many still worth noting. I imagined that there were people out there who identified as OMNI-sexual (8D: Prefix with sexual). And I think there are, but the prefix they take is actually PAN-. I don't know what AMBIsexual is, or how it differs from (mere?) BIsexual, hang on ... [furious research montage] ... wow, it's a polyvalent word. It can mean bi- or androgynous *or* unisex (like a garment). Cool, though it seems like using it might result in ambi-...-guity. But Maybe That's The Point. OK, what else? Oh, CHAS! That stopped me cold for a bit, mostly because I thought "Chuck" was meat ... or a verb meaning "toss" (54D: Chuck alternative). Definitely never considered "Charles" until I had 3/4 of the crosses. I thought AVA was ARI despite having seen this AVA before, for sure (32A: Pop singer ___ Max). And it took me a bit to see that the clue on FRAMED could be read as past tense (24A: Set up). I kept thinking "Why ... won't FRAME ... fit!?"

[Sturgill Simpson covering WHEN IN ROME]

I'll close by saying how much I loved bounding from the thornier short name-dense patches into the brighter, longer, more exciting stuff like "REAL MATURE!" (11D: Response to a juvenile joke, perhaps) and "NOT BY A MILE!" (28D: "Far from it!") and HOOKED UP (!) (39D: Got together). Enjoyed the riddle-like quality of the clue on CAR TROUBLE (good answer, good clue) (17A: What pings might indicate). I'm weirdly entertained / impressed by the fact that IOTA and ATOM are not only symmetrical but have identical clues (27D: Tiny bit / 36D: Tiny bit). The answer placement is undoubtedly accidental, but  to notice it and highlight it through cluing, that's the kind of attention to detail that I admire in puzzlecraft. Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Filipino national hero ___ Rizal / FRI 3-18-2022 / De segunda ___ (secondhand: Sp) / Island that's part of Maui County

Good morning, and thanks for joining me on the final Malaika MWednesday of the month! Before jumping in to the puzzle, I wanted to call out that the two constructors (+ Rachel Fabi, friend-of-the-blog) have edited a pack of sixteen puzzles that you can enjoy with a donation of $15 that will help people get access to safe and affordable abortion care. After all, abortion is health care! More info is here.

Constructor: Claire Rimkus + Brooke Husic

Relative difficulty: Medium (I hardly got stuck, 15:44)

THEME: None

Word of the Day: JOYCE (___ Bryant, 20th-century singer/civil rights activist) —

Joyce Bryant (born October 14, 1927) is an American singer and actress who achieved fame in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a theater and nightclub performer. With her signature silver hair and tight mermaid dresses, she became an early African-American sex symbol, garnering such nicknames as "The Bronze Blond Bombshell", "the black Marilyn Monroe", "The Belter" and "The Voice You'll Always Remember". (Wikipedia.)

• • •

What a lovely Friday puzzle! I am very partial to themeless puzzles with 72 words and stacked answers, like this had in NE and SW. I think there's something magical about piling those long entries on top of each other, and having the shorter crosses fit into place. 

Three things stood out to me while solving:

First, this was such a conversational, colloquial puzzle. It felt like the grid was trying to chat with me. Truly jam-packed with fun, in-the-language phrases: BEST CHANCE, ONE AT A TIME, ON THE BACK BURNER, POINT TAKEN, SO TO SPEAK, ON TIPPY TOE (this was easily my favorite entry in the grid), NO SLOUCH, I CAN RELATE, and WANNA TRADE ([Exchange words] was such a brilliant clue for that).

Second, there were a few entries that seemed to have the "Will Shortz Voice." I think that [Attractively bold-faced self-assuredness] is a hilariously clunky way to clue SWAG. Similarly, I associate STARTER KITs (great entry!!) with this meme, which was nowhere to be seen in the clue [Basics to build with].

Third, it felt like a lot of language clues. In reality, there were only four: MANO (hand, in Spanish) and HOSE (pants, in German) and SANS (without, in French) and TORO (bull, in Spanish). These stood out to me because two could have been clued as English words. What did y'all think about this cluing decision?

Bullets:

• Did BLTS (Things stuck with toothpicks) need an Abbr. indicator?
• [Like the more interesting twin, some would say] is a delightful clue for EVIL
• Power USER is a term I am very familiar with, but I'm not sure how common it is among other ages. I associate it with Microsoft Excel....
• Ideas on the clue [Cross products] for PENS? I think it refers to the fact that a pen is a product that can be used to make an X, but let me know if that's wrong.
• I have never heard of an "undercard," but Google tells me that it lists matches (that is, BOUTS) at a boxing event. 
• Is the clue for BATS (They may emit as many as 200 beeps per second) referring to echolocation? In my very, very limited reading about echolocation (it's all from Gregor the Overlander lol) I've heard people talk about clicks, not beeps.
• Garfunkel and OATES was new to me, but upon reading the Wiki page, I do actually know Kate Micucci who was a Ukulele Girl back when Ukulele Girls were.... happening. Do y'all know what I'm talking about? That was a thing, right? Sort of in the Zooey Deschanel Era.

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Exercises on an ergometer / TUE 2-15-22 / Ensnare using deceptive strategies / Chips brand whose "Cool Ranch" flavor is called "Cool American" in Europe / Explain things to me Rebecca Solnit essay collection / Catastrophe at a tennis match / Season for pumpkin-spiced everything

Constructor: Claire Rimkus

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (on the slow side for a normal Tuesday, just because of the nature of the theme)

THEME: Places to play ... — ordinary verb phrases are clued as noun phrases related to sports (with each first word reimagined as a different sports event location):

Theme answers:

• COURT DISASTER (20A: Catastrophe at a tennis match?)
• FIELD QUESTIONS (30A: Uncertainties at a football game?)
• RING ALARM BELLS (36A: Security alerts at a boxing match?)
• POOL RESOURCES (51A: Supplies at a swim meet?)

Word of the Day: Prickly PEAR (6D: Prickly ___ (cactus variety)) —

Opuntia, commonly called prickly pear or pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as tuna (fruit), sabra, nopal (paddle, plural nopales) from the Nahuatl word nōpalli for the pads, or nostle, from the Nahuatl word nōchtli for the fruit; or paddle cactus. The genus is named for the Ancient Greek city of Opus, where, according to Theophrastus, an edible plant grew and could be propagated by rooting its leaves. The most common culinary species is the Indian fig opuntia (O. ficus-indica). (wikipedia)

• • •

I liked this. It's got kind of a double theme element to it, in that all the first words are reimagined as sporting event sites *and* reimagined as nouns (not verbs). I realize the second part is necessitated by the first, and yet somehow it was the second part (the nouning of the verbs) that felt like the definitive feature of the puzzle as I was solving. It's certainly the part of the theme that gave me the most trouble, that made every single themer at least a little bit of a thinker. I could get to the different areas of play easily enough from the sports mentioned in the theme clues, but getting to a common verb phrase via a wacky noun phrase, that through some wrenches in the system. "We're asking for a wacky noun phrase related to sports, but *you'll* know the answer better as an ordinary, non-sports-related verb phrase" ... whatever my brain had to do to make those transactions happen, it didn't do it easily. Hence the solve felt slowish. But not baddish. Goodish. The rest of the puzzle was suitably easy and remarkably clean. LINEAL was probably the most outré thing in the grid, and it's not terribly strange, actually. OUTRÉ is probably more outré than LINEAL, frankly. ONADARE always seems sad as a standalone adverbial phrase. It's not EAT A SANDWICH sad, but I don't love it. Nothing else causes much wincing today. Lots of solid stuff. Not a ton of sparkle, but the theme is doing the sparkling today. All the grid has to do is not wipe out, and, well, mission accomplished.

Outside the theme, the parts I struggled most with were fill-in-the-blanks. This is usual for me. I had "IT'S cute!" before "TOO cute!" and then (to add insult to injury) couldn't come up with "IT'S" when I needed it, at the next fill-in-the-blank colloquialism (59A: "Oh, ___ on!"). Actually, there's one more fill-in colloquialism like that (16A: "___ you good?"). Then there's the best colloquialism of the day, "I'M TOAST" (37D: "Things don't look good for me!"). No fill-in-the-blank there, but it keeps up the lively, talky vibe of the puzzle overall.  Getting started in the NW was rough because I screwed up "TOO" and I had ULTRA instead of UNDUE (I blame a recent Wordle) and I couldn't make any sense of the clue for PILOT (4D: Spirit guide?)—I've never flown Spirit in my life, so the fact that it is an airline, wow, really really not on my radar. I mean, once the puzzle was over, and I went back to the clue, and I thought about it, I remembered "oh yeah, that's an airline ... or so I've heard." It's actually a fairly prominent "ULTRA- (!) low-cost carrier." But it has never flown where I needed to go. 

TOMS seems maybe slightly hard, but I own several pairs of TOMS, so not hard for me (33D: Casual shoe brand). The clue on MARK definitely threw me off (48A: Signify). But overall, as I say, the fill didn't pose a problem. The theme was the thing with teeth, though it was only ferocious *for a Tuesday*—still easyish overall.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Vertical dimension of a flag / FRI 12-3-21 / Actress Mara of Pose / Longtime newswoman Ifill / One of nine for a traditional Baha'i temple / Pet that's mostly black with a white chest

Constructor: Claire Rimkus

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Quintana ROO (8D: Quintana ___, Mexican state that's home to Cancún) —

Quintana Roo (/kɪnˌtɑːnə ˈroʊ(oʊ)/ kin-TAH-nə ROH(-oh), Spanish: [kinˈtana ˈro]), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Quintana Roo (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo), is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 11 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal.

Quintana Roo is located on the eastern part of the Yucatán Peninsula and is bordered by the states of Campeche to the west and Yucatán to the northwest, and by the Orange Walk and Corozal districts of Belize, along with an offshore borderline with Belize District to the south. As Mexico's easternmost state, Quintana Roo has a coastline to the east with the Caribbean Sea and to the north with the Gulf of Mexico. The state previously covered 44,705 square kilometers (17,261 sq mi) and shared a small border with Guatemala in the southwest of the state. (wikipedia)

• • •

Had a hard time getting into this one, but once I did, once I fought through a raft of "???" clues and finally got some of the longer stuff to fall, I began to appreciate how smooth and solid the whole thing is. I was not on the same wavelength as the clues much of the time, which was frustrating, but it was hard to stay frustrated when the grid kept coming up roses. There was nothing really eye-popping today, but the long stuff was uniformly winning, and I had hardly any "yecch" moments (when I see Claire's name on the byline, I know I'm in good grid-building hands). HAS NO IDEA was a great answer to find in the NW, which is where I started, and where, for what seemed like a long time, I truly had no idea. And I liked the fact that at the end of the solve, just when it seemed I might end up similarly stuck in the SE corner, a TUXEDO CAT came to my rescue (31D: Pet that's mostly black with a white chest). 

GAY ICONS ushered me into that corner, but then I just sat there, practically alone at the SE corner party; I just stood there looking around for anyone I recognized and just when I was beginning to despair, after consulting all the short answers and coming up blank each time, I bent down to pick up a stray DIXIE cup and when I stood up, tada! A TUXEDO CAT came bounding into the room bringing all the other SE corner party guests with him. In short, I will never forget TUXEDO CAT, the real hero of this puzzle. TUXEDO CAT: he's a good boy.

But back to HAS NO IDEA corner. I had no idea about BOTH or BRAT or OHIO, all of which were kinda important for getting traction. BOTH seems really poorly clued to me, since "this and that" means a random assortment of things, and even if you highly literalize it, if the set is not clearly limited to two, then "this and that" simply doesn't evoke BOTH-ness. If you italicize *and*, maybe. But as is, meh, bah, etc. I also had STAY for 1D: Challenge while sitting (think dogs). Then when I got BRAT I sincerely thought "Are you sitting ... down ... for a BRAT-eating contest?" But it's an annoying child BRAT, not the sausage BRAT. As for the OHIO "joke," oof, no comment. No comment but oof (2D: Answer to the old riddle "What's round on the ends and high in the middle?"). Not sure how I finally hammered my way out of there—I think I had to go down the west coast and work back up. Yes, the record shows that that is what I did. ONE'S and TONES and IRKS READS IFFIER and off we go:

Still had to grind a bit because the main clue leading into the NE absolutely wouldn't budge. I'm talking specifically about 5D: Out-of-office procedure? (OUSTER). It's a fine "?" clue, but brutal, Saturday-esque stuff for me. Luckily the short stuff in the north wasn't too hard so those long answers flew across the grid fast and OUSTER eventually fell, and once I escaped the grip of that damn NW corner, things got considerably easier, though the cluing stayed pretty thorny throughout. I sort of forgot the meaning of "Coruscates" and so faced with -INTS I wrote in PAINTS. To my slight credit, I was kinda in the ballpark, in that the answer *does* have to do with the play of light, which is also a consideration in painting (oil painting, I mean). To my somewhat larger credit, I realized PAINTS was wrong pretty quickly and then got GLINTS on my own without help from the crosses. I wrote in FAIL before FLOP (44D: Completely bomb). I didn't know the "Pose" actress. I forgot LAPIS was a color and I didn't recognize it untethered from the phrase "lapis lazuli" (27D: Shade akin to royal blue). And as I say, the short answers in the SE all came up blank for me at first. But otherwise, I made steady progress and quite enjoyed myself. And again, let's give it up for TUXEDO CAT!

He sat there for ages making this face once he realised I was going to let him have a strawberry.

He didn't even eat it pic.twitter.com/10v54iatl0

— Holly Brockwell (@holly) December 2, 2021

Not much needs explaining today, I don't think. I do have a couple more clue disputes. First of all, STEADY GIG (37A: Nice position to be in?) ... why is there a "?" clue. I don't really see the wordplay, or the joke. Is it the idea that "position" seems metaphorical in the clue but it's literal in the answer? There's just not enough ... misdirection to qualify for the "?", I don't think. Ill-conceived. The answer (a good one) ended up feeling like a let down. "That's it?" Also, if it was "Made last night," how is it DAY OLD? (41D). The "night" part is really throwing me. You make stuff at night to serve in the morning ... that stuff would not be considered DAY OLD. The stuff still hanging around from the day before, *that's* DAY OLD. I mean, a "day" hasn't even elapsed if the stuff (whatever it is) was made "last night." Why not just take the cross-reference cluing opportunity that is staring you right in the face: DAY-OLD / BAGEL? Sigh. I just wish the clues had hit their marks a little more often in this one. But that's my only real complaint. The grid looks good, and in the main, the clues are just fine. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Eyebrow-filling technique / FRI 7-31-20 / Pants slangily / Brand with classic wavy varieties / Gymnastics eponym of a double back somersault with three twists / Country whose name is believed to come from ancient Greek for honey-sweet / Hilton pulitzer-winning critic for New Yorker

Constructor: Claire Rimkus and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (Medium, but I had an eternal-seeming free fall in the SE corner, so that threw my time off badly)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: MICROBLADING (9D: Eyebrow-filling technique) —

Microblading is a tattooing technique in which a small handheld tool made of several tiny needles is used to add semi-permanent pigment to the skin. Microblading differs from standard eyebrow tattooing because each hairstroke is created by hand using a blade which creates fine slices in the skin, whereas eyebrow tattoos are done with a machine and single needle bundle. Microblading is typically used on eyebrows to create, enhance or reshape their appearance in terms of both shape and color. It deposits pigment into the upper region of the dermis, so it fades more rapidly than traditional tattooing techniques, which deposit pigment deeper. Microblading artists are not necessarily tattoo artists, and vice versa, because the techniques require different training. // Microblading is also sometimes called embroidery, feather touch or hair-like strokes. (wikipedia)

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This grid has many strengths, and I enjoyed solving it right up to the very end, when I hit a clue that made no sense to me and got completely stuck. Freefall stuck. Three blank squares left and ... no hope. Or so it seemed. The main problem is a clue that, in retrospect, seems actually very truly bad, on multiple levels. That clue is the clue for STUBS (48D: Movie reviewers often trash them). I worked that answer down to STU-S and ... nothing. No idea. I figured I had an answer wrong, since STUDS couldn't be right, and nothing came to mind that seemed remotely right. And the cross was 57A: Life partner, for which I had -IM-, and for which the only answer that occurred to me was TIME. Isn't TIME/Life a company of some kind? I seem to remember TV ads featuring TIME/Life operators, standing by ... to do ... something. Hang on, let me look that up... oh yeah, man, that company had a real racket going with their eternal series of books for whatever you're in to. Photography. Cooking. This baloney:


Point is, I am old and TIME seemed a very reasonable answer for [Life partner]. Then there was 52D: "___ pass" (IT'LL). I had the IT- ... but never considered IT'LL. Instead, the only thing I could think of was "IT'S A pass" (kinda like "It's a no" ... like, a way to phrase a rejection, as in "no thanks"). That left one answer that could—and eventually did—rescue me: 60A: Brand with "Classic" and Wavy" varieties (LAY'S). Really, really should've gotten this earlier, but I got so distracted by the stuff I couldn't make sense of, I didn't think this one through enough. The "wavy" part, combined with having -AY- in place, eventually got me LAY'S which got me ITLL which got me LIMB which brings me back to ... STUBS. What the hell does that clue think it's doing? Well, no, I know what it *thinks* it's doing. The STUBS are supposed to be *ticket* STUBS (I think), and you throw them away (or "trash them" after seeing a movie? OK, well, uh, two things. First, movie *reviewers* see screenings before the general public, right? I mean, now they probably just watch screeners, but the point is I don't know what the STUBS situation is like for movie "reviewers" because they just don't see the movies with the rest of us schlubs. I assume the tix are comped and STUBS aren't involved. Point is, I would never associate the general-public ticket *stub* with a movie *reviewer*. That's just nonsense. Further nonsense—even I, an old, don't even deal with STUBS any more. The last few movies I've seen in the theater, my ticket was on my phone. The ticket-taker scans it, bada-bing, I'm in. No STUBS to "trash." So this clue is somehow both factually wrong and dated. And that is what I'm left thinking, at the end of an otherwise nice grid. I'm left with that feeling of "why did you write such a bad clue?" (I have no idea who's responsible here; could be constructors, but editor rewrites lots of clues, as a rule). The clue is just a badly misguided attempt at wordplay, and it really detracted from the enjoyment I was having up until that point.

[Cinema ephemera of yore]

Wasn't sure about ELASTIGIRL because I don't remember "The Incredibles" (15A: Superhero in "The Incredibles"). I think I had both ELASTICMAN and ELASTICGAL in there before crosses led me to the right answer. Don't really like the clue on HALF at all (31D: Like 50 U.S. senators). Yes, 50 is HALF of the *number* of U.S. senators, but the clue is phrased like the adjective is going to describe them (like, in a fair and representative world, the answer could be MALE, say). Clue is awkward as is. Deliberately misleading, but not in a clever way. I also found the clue on LUSTS (24D: Groin pulls?) really truly CRINGEWORTHY. I get that it's about the fact that lust involves a "pull" (or attraction) on your "groin" (or genital ... area) but the image it conjures up, and that "pull" conjures up specifically, is that of a dude masturbating and ... yeah, in my crossword? It's a pass!

While I didn't love cringing, I did love CRINGEWORTHY as an answer, just as I loved "AMEN TO THAT!", MICROBLADING, and HIS AND HIS (saw right through that attempt to trip me with heterosexism, though HER did briefly occur to me as a possible last three letters) (31A: Like some monogrammed towels). Lots of women in this grid (DINAH SHORE! Now there's an old-school answer I can get behind) and in general the puzzle felt gender-balanced, not gender-biased the way it often can in the (somehow still) male-dominated world of NYTXW constructors.  So if I just look at the grid, I think this puzzle is really nice. I just found a few of the clues really off, or off-putting, and that kinda soured my experience.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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