THEME: DOUBLE STUF OREOS (35A: Extra-thick Nabisco treats, hinted at four times in this puzzle) — four DOUBLE STUF OREOS are depicted in the grid; that is, four theme answers have "double" letters that are uncrossed, i.e. they have black squares both above and below them; those black squares represent the cookie part of a Double Stuf Oreo, while the double letters represent the creme; the double letters, read in order, spell STUF (or rather SSTTUUFF, i.e. "double STUF")
Theme answers:
CLASSIC HITS (12A: Popular oldies)
BOTTLES (27A: Beer hall recyclables)
VACUUMS (44A: Empty spaces)
AFTEREFFECT (61A: Consequence)
Word of the Day: Honeydew (60A: Insect that "farms" aphids for their honeydew => ANT) —
Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids, some scale insects, and many other true bugs and some other insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the insects, allowing them to rapidly process the large volume of sap required to extract essential nutrients present at low concentrations. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis. Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. In addition to various sugars, honeydew contains small amounts of amino acids, other organic compounds, and inorganic salts with its precise makeup affected by factors such as insect species, host plant species, and whether a symbiotic organism is present.
Honeydew-producing insects, like cicadas, pierce phloem ducts to access the sugar rich sap; the excess fluid released by cicadas as honeydew is called "cicada rain". The sap continues to bleed after the insects have moved on, leaving a white sugar crust called manna. Ants may collect, or "milk", honeydew directly from aphids and other honeydew producers, which benefit from their presence due to their driving away predators such as lady beetles or parasitic wasps—see Crematogaster peringueyi. Animals and plants in a mutually symbiotic arrangement with ants are called Myrmecophiles.
• • •
This one started rough. Just wasn't buying CLASSIC HITS as a thing (felt redundant—they're just CLASSICS), and TOOK A PIC seemed solidly in EAT-A-SANDWICH territory (i.e. Contrivedville), and on top of that I'm supposed to remember Laotian currency (!?) and then I'm condescended to with a sad letter string that couldn't even be bothered to have an original clue (8D: R-V hookup?)? That "RV" wordplay used to be de rigueur for STU clues in the late '90s / early '00s, but hasn't been seen since 2015, so it'll be new to many of you, I guess. Anyway, I was not feeling the puzzle at all. AMORTIZES? There's a word only a banker's mother could love. CHOCOLATE-COATED & DIRTY LOOK started to liven things up a little (love a CHOCOLATE-COATED DIRTY LOOK), but my feelings about this puzzle never got above neutral until I hit the revealer—that is, *my* revealer: not the literal revealer splashed across the middle of the grid (which I hadn't yet looked at), but the four-letter pre-revealer: MILK (28A: Beverage served alongside the treats in this puzzle). That answer ruined the actual revealer for me, but it tipped me off to the fact that there were "treats" in the puzzle, and as soon as I looked at those double-letters seemingly suspended in midair, I began to understand what was happening, but it still took another second or two to register the full visual effect—the double letters were creme, the adjacent black squares were cookie, and so I had four DOUBLE STUF OREOS diagonally stacked across my grid. What can I say? The visual gimmick works, and MILK really did a nice job of subtly cluing me in (whereas the longer revealer eventually just felt obvious and kind of redundant). So while I don't think the theme answers themselves are any great shakes (AFTEREFFECT? Isn't that just ... an effect?), the concept and the execution are very nice. Those do look like cookies, and making the "creme" spell out STUF, doubly, is a clever way to make up for the fact that those double-letters are technically uncrossed.
I think I'm supposed to be impressed by CHOCOLATE-COATED running through the whole thing, but I don't think that answer fits well today. It's a very restrictive and completely unnecessary contrivance that likely results in our getting subpar answers like CLASSIC HITS and AFTER EFFECT as themers. Maybe it's just there coincidentally, but that seems unlikely. Feels planned. But I don't get why it would be part of your planning. If I think of the DOUBLE STUF OREOS as CHOCOLATE-COATED, that ruins the entire visual gag. You Cannot See The Creme If Your DOUBLE STUF OREOS are CHOCOLATE-COATED!!! And seeing the creme is 88% of the fun today (the other 12% is the DIRTY LOOK). Do they even make CHOCOLATE-COATED DOUBLE STUF OREOS? I don't see them on offer. Oh wait, here's some. They look creepy and awful, like the Oreos are being tortured. And the color scheme is all wrong. Just let the Oreo be, man.
The puzzle wasn't particularly hard, but it felt like it was at least trying to punch above Monday weight, which is all I ask from a mid-week puzzle, fight-wise. Sadly, some of that difficulty came from, uh, Laotian currency, and having to wait for crosses to see which KABOB spelling I was going to be dealing with, or from awk-seeming phrases like FED IN (63A: Entered, as data). AMORTIZES and OUTGROWTH both took a little doing. I had ASTA before TOTO (54D: Famous film pooch), which made my RHO an ETA (64A: Sigma preceder), which I could sense was wrong even as I wrote it in. The southern part of the grid was kind of hard because I had no idea who GERI Allen was (52D: ___ Allen, jazz pianist). Damn, looks like she's been in the puzzle before, and I just forgot. Let's get reacquainted with GERI Allen right now, shall we?
Bullets:
14A: Sch. whose mascot is Tim the Beaver (MIT) — I had no idea. If I'd ever seen this clue (got it all from crosses), I would definitely have guessed OSU (that's Oregon State University)
[Well I know who I'm taking in this fight]
42A: Bunny with a Brooklyn accent (BUGS) — this should've been instant, but I never think about BUGS's accent this way. I never think of him having an "accent" at all. I grew up in California, so I had no idea about regional accents beyond "Southern." BUGS was just BUGS. Sure, he talked funny, but "Brooklyn." That would not have registered. And when it doesn't register in childhood, it's hard to get it to stick in adulthood, however obvious it might seem when pointed out to you.
25D: Land of llamas and Llosa (PERU) — my brain tripped all over the pile of crosswordese in this clue. Main problem was reading Llosa as LHASA and thinking "well, llamas are in S. America, but LHASA is in Asia, so ... I'm confused." Llosa is of course Literature Nobelist Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian (whether he owned llamas or not, I do not know).
That's all. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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THEME: QUADRUPLE DOUBLE (50A: Major basketball feat ... or a feature shared by 3-, 6- and 9-Down) — three theme answers have four double-letters apiece, each of which is squished into its own box:
Theme answers:
AD HO[C C]O[MM]I[TT][EE] (3D: Temporarily established panel)
A[LL]-A[CC]E[SS] PA[SS] (6D: You can go anywhere with one of these)
P[EE]W[EE] F[OO]TBA[LL] (9D: Gridiron game for young tykes)
Word of the Day: OWEN Wister (18A: ___ Wister, the so-called "father of western fiction") —
Again? Didn't we just have a QUADRUPLE DOUBLE theme earlier this year? [... searching my own website ...] Yes. Not earlier this year, but late last year (Oct. 14, 2024) Exactly the same concept. Today's puzzle adds the rebus angle, but otherwise, it's just phrases with four double-letters, with a QUADRUPLE DOUBLE revealer. The earlier puzzle was an easy Monday puzzle, and its themers were ACCESS HOLLYWOOD, MISS MISSISSIPPI, and "WELL, WHOOP-DEE-DOO!" (a themer set that, while not perfect, is somewhat more colorful than today's set, I think). Pretty surprised they accepted puzzles with the same revealer and (nearly) the same concept so close to one another. I think the theme is actually more appropriate for a Monday. I mean, yes, rebuses add "trickiness" to a puzzle and tend to get a puzzle slotted on Thursdays for that reason, but all you've done here is put the double letters in single boxes. As Thursdays go, this was very straightforward. Piece of cake. I got the first themer without trying very hard at all. I mean, what's gonna follow AD HOC ...? I thought maybe PANEL, for a second, but "panel" is in the damn clue. Then I checked a cross and saw OCcam sitting there; or, rather, I saw that he wanted to sit there, but didn't have enough room. Huh, maybe his double-"C" goes in one box. Huh, that would give me AD HOC C... and "committee" also has a bunch of double-letters, let's see what happens." And I typed the whole answer in, rebuses and all, no sweat:
Then I just followed that answer down and started on the bottom of the puzzle. Despite having no idea what was supposed to follow SORT at 36D: Excel function (SORT DATA), I managed to get down into the bottom via the extremely easy, total gimme, bizarrely overclued SPIRO (47D: ___ Agnew, vice president who resigned in 1973). From there, it wasn't too long until ...
The revealer clue, again, very easy. And now, at this point, I knew where the other double-letter answers were located. Before, I felt like I was walking through a minefield, wondering when the double-letter squares were gonna pop up and surprise me, but not anymore. So an easy puzzle got easier. I just circled the grid, saving the hardest-looking section (the north) for last, and sure enough, it was the hardest (lots of white space, and a QUADRUPLE DOUBLE answer I couldn't immediately put together—besides the PASS part). But it wasn't that hard in the end. They just hand you one of the double-letters with the very easy clue on WILLOW (14A: "Weeping" giant). And that's that. So what've we got—a theme that (very) mildly SOUPS UP a theme that's already been done, a theme we just had. The themer answers as standalone phrases aren't that interesting. You're mostly just going on a hunt for double-letters, and the hunt becomes a joke once the revealer tells you exactly where the prey is.
The only struggles today came with compound answers where I had one part and couldn't figure out the other(s) very easily. [SORT ___]; [___ GAUGE]; [___THROWS]. But all of those blanks ended up falling under the pressure of crosses pretty quickly. The most interesting answer in the grid, besides maybe SOUPS UP, is Hakeem OLAJUWON, whose name I confess I could not confidently spell on the first go (never quite sure of the vowels). That answer is also a kind of bonus themer (38D: N.B.A. great Hakeem who is one of only four players ever to achieve a 50-Across (1990)). Too bad the puzzle couldn't find a way to make him symmetrical ... unless SORT DATA has some kind of hidden thematic juice. I guess you have to SORT DATA to figure out which four N.B.A. players had QUADRUPLE DOUBLEs. But you don't have to sort it much. Man, SORT DATA is such a dull answer. Also, I thought the function was just "Sort." When I want to alphabetize or order sets of numbers, I just hit "Sort" ... but then I use "Sheets," not "Excel." Maybe Excel prefers to maintain the formal full name (SORT DATA). Or else SORT DATA is another function entirely and I'm just confused. Not unlikely! (hmm, in Sheets there's actually "Sort Sheet," "Sort Range," "Sort Range A-Z," "Sort Range Z-A" ... All sorts of "sorts").
Assorted other things:
16A: Condition that Simone Biles has described as giving her a "superpower," briefly (ADHD) — second time I've seen ADHD clued via Biles recently. In fact, I learned she had ADHD from that earlier ADHD clue, which I think might also have mentioned Michael Phelps.
41A: "___ are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made" (quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck) ("LAWS") — not a big fan of this "attributed to" stuff. He said it or he didn't. There must be lots of "LAWS" quotations out there that have reliable, documentable sources. I wrote in LIES here at first, which makes little sense, but I had the "L" and just wrote in the first thing that came to mind. I should've seen that I already had LIES in the grid at that point (55D: They may be white or naked).
61A: Article about a photo? (FRAME) — so, "Article" in the sense of "item" or "thing." Tough clue, especially in this puzzle, where most of the clues are relatively straightforward.
65A: Org. that developed the "pumpkin suit" (NASA) — the astronauts look much cooler now
48D: City that's an anagram of SALEM (SELMA) — this is just insulting. And lazy. The puzzle is already very easy. Are you so out of ideas for SELMA that you have to resort to a remedial anagram clue?!
7D: Briefly experienced, with "of" (GOT A TASTE) — Winner of the first annual
'EAT A SANDWICH" Award for "Answer that best embodies the spirit of EAT A SANDWICH."
THEME: FINISH STRONG — [Go out with a bang, or a hint to the theme answers] The final word of each two-word phrase is a synonym for strong
Theme answers:
[Frame, apron, molding, etc.] for WINDOW TRIM
Guys I've been doing a lot of home improvement and I'm not good but I'm slowly learning and I immediately knew "apron" was about windows and I'm really proud of myself 🥺
[Like some photos of yesteryear] for SEPIA TONED
[Collected hot wheels?] for CAR JACKED
[Means of fiscal savings] for BUDGET CUT
[What the glass slipper was on Cinderella's foot] for PERFECT FIT
This clue felt a little wordy and strangely phrased. Maybe it could have been [Desired feature of a wedding dress] ?
[Armchair athlete, e.g.] for SPORTS BUFF
Word of the Day: ICE BEER (Brew that generally has a higher-than-usual alcohol content) —
Ice beer was developed by brewing a strong, dark lager, then freezing the beer and removing some of the ice. This concentrates the aroma and taste of the beer, and also raises the alcoholic strength of the finished beer. This produces a beer with 12 to 15 per cent alcohol. In North America, water would be added to lower the alcohol level. [wiki]
• • •
Hello folks, and welcome to another Malaika MWednesday. I've been listening to Joan Baez all day today, and during this puzzle I was comparing her recording of "House of the Rising Sun" to Monica Barbaro's version from the recent biopic. Both excellent, in my opinion! Before I dive into the puzzle, let me remind all of you that this Friday morning I will be at Crossword Con in midtown Manhattan, and this Friday evening I will be at ACPT in Stamford! If you see me (I am very tall and will be wearing a crossword themed outfit), please say hi :)
This grid was absolutely stuffed to the gills with theme answers-- six plus a revealer intersecting is something I would simply never try. I was a fan of all of them except CAR JACKED which, while technically grammatically correct, still sounded a little odd to me. Would you ever use it with that construction? "He car jacked the car".... Hmm. You would said "I got carjacked" but that doesn't match the clue's tense.
"Jacked" was probably my favorite synonym for "strong," though, and it has that nice Scrabbly J, so I can see why the constructor included it. With synonym themes like this, it can sometimes be hard to find the synonyms, but here there were even some to spare! Ripped or built could have fit in nicely here, and I wonder if the editors considered having this stretch to a Sunday-sized grid.
TRIM, TONED, JACKED, CUT, FIT, BUFF, etc
The result of a packed grid is a pretty heavy amount of non-ideal entries like FIFE, REAIR, RDA, BONN, ENT, SRO, CCC, PAN IN (I hear "pan out," but never its opposite), ACU, and BBS. A couple of these would have been grid-killers for me, if I were making this puzzle. We also get USED POT (no one says this lol, you smoke pot) duping POTS which is the kind of thing NYT (and I!) don't really mind, but some of the commenters will surely shout out, and a plethora of proper nouns. I think I would have removed the "Guardians of the Galaxy" ref on RACCOON to make that center section with CCC / ACU a little easier.
Where this puzzle really stood out, though, was in the cluing. There were so many unique angles and tricky clues that were fun instead of just being hard. I've seen (and gotten!) feedback that reviews often forget to highlight clues in favor of describing the grid, so I'm trying to change that. We saw a couple of clues here that I think would have typically had a question mark, like [Scout camp craft] for CANOE ("craft" referring to "boat" as opposed to arts-and-crafts) or [Pans' partner] for POTS which made me think of the Greek deity. [Grounds keeper?] for BARISTA was fantastic, referring to coffee grounds.
Cheese Island, discussed at length below
Bullets:
[Join up with at church?] for WED — Good clue
[Parmesan shelfmate] for ASIAGO — I don't know why this struck me as such odd phrasing. I think it's because "shelf" made me think of a shelf in a regular grocery store aisle, but parm would be in the refrigerator section? In my grocery store, the cheeses are in like a round sort of island that you can access on all sides. Although I guess that has shelves.... I do think they should have put "Parmiggiano" to hint at this being an Italian cheese. The longer I go on writing this explanation the more insane I sound. Moving on....
[Knighted, one-named rock star] for BONO — My friend recently saw Bono on the street, which led to us discussing whether I would be able to identify Bono if I saw him in the street (I would not)
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (with a smaller grid today—14x15)
THEME: solving by numbers... — familiar phrases have their last words swapped out for the number (of the clue) where that word can be found in the grid. The resulting number-swapped phrases are *also* familiar (though unclued):
Theme answers:
SWEET SIXTEEN (19A: Part of a bat that produces the best contact) (i.e. "sweet SPOT," as SPOT is the answer to 16A: Domino pip, e.g.)
CATCH TWENTY-TWO (36A: Get serious hang time, as a skateboarder) (i.e. "catch AIR," as AIR is the answer to 22A: Express publicly)
AREA FIFTY-ONE (52A: Three-digit numbers in parentheses) (i.e. "area CODES," as CODES is the answer to 51D: Writes in C or R, say)
Word of the Day: IGA Swiatek (32A: ___ Swiatek, four-time French Open winner) —
Iga Natalia Świątek (Polish pronunciation:[ˈiɡanaˈtaljaˈɕfjɔntɛk] [...] born 31 May 2001) is a Polish professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the WTA, having held the position for a total of 125 weeks and placing her 7th on the all-time list for number of weeks spent as No. 1. Świątek has won five major singles titles and is the only player representing Poland to win a major singles title. She has won the French Open four times and the US Open once. Świątek has won 22 singles titles, including the 2023 WTA Finals and ten WTA 1000 titles. In 2024, she became the first Polish tennis player to win an Olympic medal, earning bronze in singles at the Paris Summer Olympics. (wikipedia)
• • •
***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if you're reading this in January, that's you!)*** : It's January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. Writing this blog is a joy, but it is also a job—an everyday, up-by-4am job. My morning schedule is regular as hell. So regular that my cats know my routine and will start walking all over me if I even *stir* after 3am. You ever lie there in the early morning, dying to simply roll over or stretch, but knowing that the second you do, the second you so much as budge, the cats will take it as a signal that you're through with sleep and ready to serve them? So you just lie perfectly still, trying to get every ounce of bedrest you can before the cats ruin it all? That's me, every morning. I guess you could say they "help" get me up on time to write, but come on, I have an alarm for that. The cats are adorable, but frankly they're no help at all. After I feed them, I go upstairs to write, and what do they do? They go straight back to sleep. Here I'll show you. This was two days ago, when I came downstairs after writing:
And this was yesterday, same time:
Those pictures are from two different days, I swear. And I'm guessing when I go downstairs this morning, I'll find much the same thing. They are beautiful creatures, but they cannot solve or type or bring me warm beverages. When it comes to blogging, I'm on my own. And look, I'm not asking for pity. The truth is, I love my life (and my cats), but the truth *also* is that writing this blog involves a lot of work. I get up and I solve and I write, hoping each day to give you all some idea of what that experience was like for me, as well as some insight into the puzzle's finer (or less fine) qualities—the intricacies of its design, the trickiness of its clues, etc. The real value of the blog, though, is that it offers a sort of commiseration. While I like to think my writing is (at its best) entertaining, I know that sometimes all people need is someone who shares their joy or feels their pain. If you hate a clue, or get stuck and struggle, or otherwise want to throw the puzzle across the room, you know I'm here for you, and that even if my experience is not identical to yours, I Understand! I understand that even though "it's just a puzzle," it's also a friend and a constant companion and a ritual and sometimes a Betrayer! I don't give you objective commentary—I give you my sincere (if occasionally hyperbolic) feelings about the puzzle, what it felt like to solve it. I can dress those feelings up in analytical clothes, sure, but still, ultimately, I'm just one human being out here feeling my puzzle feelings. And hopefully that makes you feel something too—ideally, something good, but hey I'm not picky. Whatever keeps you coming back! Hate-readers are readers too!
Whatever kind of reader you are, you're a reader, and I would appreciate your support. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for over eighteen (18!?) years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. And maybe I'd make more money that way, I don't know, but that sort of thing has never felt right for me. And honestly, does anyone really need yet another subscription to manage? As I've said in years past, I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way.
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):
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Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp 54 Matthews St Binghamton, NY 13905
The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you card, and once again the card features (wait for it) cats!
Ida & Alfie, my little yin/yang sleepers! (They're slowly becoming friends, but don't tell them that—it makes them mad and they will deny it). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle...
• • •
Back on track today with a nice (if not terribly tricky) Thursday offering. There's no need to turn the relevant clue numbers gold today. I get that you like to do fancy things with the appearance of the grid whenever you can, but engoldening those numbers made the puzzle feel somewhat more remedial. Like ... let me figure it out! I'd've figured it out! I don't need a glowing neon sign pointing to the numbers in question. Makes it easier, but I don't need it. Make Thursdays Hard Again! Sigh. Whatever, the puzzle is still good. The concept is clever, and the fact that the resulting (unclued) theme answers are solid non-gibberish phrases themselves is pretty impressive. There's something really simple about the concept and execution, but as I have said so many times, simplicity can be very entertaining if executed correctly. I'll take this puzzle over the fussy clunkiness of yesterday's admittedly more thematically elaborate puzzle any day. The puzzle might seem a little light on theme material, but there's another thing I don't really mind. Better to nail three answers then cram in four and potentially subject the grid to too much pressure, the kind that makes the fill buckle and squeal. As it is, three nice answers and a very solid (if slightly undersized) grid, with only one answer doing any real squealing (looking at you, TANEY, whoever you are). Even if you knew his name, you gotta admit it's a real outlier in this grid—a very unnamey grid filled with mostly very familiar words and phrases. TANEY's crossword-friendly name seems to appear about once every two years, so ... see you in 2027, Roger.
I took a very weird path through this grid, falling all the way to the bottom before I ever picked up the theme. And I think the thing that tipped me off to the theme was the (ultimately coincidental) fact that the last themers "missing" (or "replaced," rather) word was CODES. That got me thinking about some kind of "code" happening in the grid. Then I filled in enough of the last themer to see AREA FIFTY-ONE, and I went straight to the answer at "51" (i.e. 51D), and bam, theme solved, code cracked—replace the last words in the themers with their corresponding gold-coin answers (16, 22, 51), and there you have it. Once I got that last themer, I went right back and filled in the two others:
Cracking the code was the only challenge today. Well, that and TANEY. No other points of resistance today. Took some help from crosses for me to remember ETTA Baker's name (most crossword ETTAs are Jameses or, in olden days, Ketts ... which I only realized Just Now is a pun: ETTA Kett ... "etiquette" ... apparently the "ETTA Kett" comic strip "originally offered tips to teenagers on manners, etiquette and the social graces" (wikipedia). And here I had mentally sorted her as a part of the broader "L'il Abner" universe, LOL).
As for IGA Swiatek, you all should know IGA by now, especially as I had this to say about her just two months ago:
Hers is a name worth committing to memory. She has won five Grand Slam singles championships. Arthur ASHE, by comparison, won just three, and he appears in the grid seemingly every other day. (True, his cultural importance transcends tennis, but still, IGA Swiatek is gridworthy and has a right to recurrence, is what I'm saying) [Oct. 15, 2024]
The only thing I really hated about the grid was the clue on NEWT. Not sure why, especially at this particular historical moment, you deliberatelysteer into the work of one of the world's foremost exponents of fascist anti-trans fearmongering. I mean, you didn't clue RON as Weasley, see how easy that was. So NEWT ... I mean, dear lord, I'd almost prefer Gingrich over anything HP-related at this point, but the little amphibian will do just fine, thanks.
I tried SHOWED OFF before SHOWBOATED but it wouldn't quite stretch far enough (SHOWBOATED is a great answer, btw). I think of "ON THAT NOTE" as more a preface to departure or subject change than a "by the way" substitute. "While we're discussing it..." appears to hold you on the current topic, whereas "ON THAT NOTE" is usually used as a springboard to something else. I don't know if I'm expressing myself clearly, but "ON THAT NOTE" does not feel exactly equivalent to "by the way," which is essentially what "While we're discussing it..." means.
Further commentary, in bullet point form:
1A: Strike one! (POSE) — The "!" and lack of quotation marks indicates that the answer is going to be something that you literally strike, not a baseball answer.
27A: Balayage providers (SALONS) — it's something to do with hair, right? I've seen it in crossword clues before, but then I forget what it is. Sounds like a rock-climbing term ... hang on ... here we go! Yes, hair: balayage = "a technique for highlighting hair in which the dye is painted on in such a way as to create a graduated, natural-looking effect." (oxford languages/google)
57A: Low-key place for gnocchi (TRATTORIA) — was going to question the "low-key" part of this ("odd...") but then realized they were going for the rhyme with "gnocchi," so ... still odd, but slightly fun.
8D: Mind repeating that? (MANTRA) — I like the misdirection here fine, but I don't know how "Mind" fits in here (or if it does at all). A MANTRA is something you say Out Loud, not just in your 'mind," but I guess your "mind" does control your lips, so ... OK. (note: I know that the clue is using "mind" in the sense of "do you mind...?" but I figure some kind of wordplay is (maybe) intended)
24D: Plant used in xeriscaping because of its tolerance to drought (AGAVE) — trust me to know what "xeriscaping" is. Please. Every word after "xeriscaping" in this clue is entirely unnecessary. All plants used in xeriscaping have "tolerance to drought." That's the point. No irrigation required.
34D: Extend, as a contract (REUP) — my ears want RENEW here. I think of REUP as more of an intransitive verb.
31D: Word after one fell? (SWOOP) — corny, but it made me smile anyway.
That's all for today's puzzle. Now, once again, it's Holiday Pet Pics time!
Speaking of "Strike a POSE" ... Monty and Augie are working it!
[Thanks, CJ; and RIP, Augie]
I know it looks like Santa has taken Archie and Machi here hostage and is holding them for a large ransom, but I am told they are home and well and safe from the white-gloved menace, phew!
[Thanks, Tom]
These next two belong to different owners from different parts of the country, but they seem like they should be friends. I want them to meet and team up and maybe solve mysteries, such as "where are our treats?" and "why are we not being given treats?" Also, their names are Hazel and Lulu, and if that's not a winning name for a duo, I don't know what it is.
[Thanks Mary & Bonnie, respectively]
Here we've got two more hilarious hiders. The first, Camille, is more of your typical, mischievous, get-up-in-that-tree kind of cat ...
[Thanks, Steven]
... whereas the next one is more … my specific energy at a Christmas party (literally laughed out loud when I saw this in my Inbox—I feel you, Opie!)
[Thanks, Gretchen]
And lastly today we have sweet Samsara. I know she doesn't look terribly festive, but when you're a twelve-year-old cat who has twice survived cancer, I think just showing up and hanging out with the wreath is merriment enough. Merry Christmas, Sammy!
[Thanks, Mac ... I hope she's OK with my calling her "Sammy." If not, apologize for me!]
See you next time.
(And again, I *will* get to all the pet pics eventually, so please be patient, thank you!)
THEME: CONSONANTS (51A: Group whose members are represented completely (with no repeats) in 21-, 26- and 43-Across) — circled squares in those three answers represent a complete set of the CONSONANTS in the English language:
Theme answers:
HEMINGWAYESQUE (21A: Straightforward and unadorned, as literary prose)
EXECUTIVE BOARD (26A: Corporate management group)
JFK PLAZA (43A: Philadelphia landmark named for the 35th president, in brief)
Despite municipal bans and renovations designed to limit the activity, LOVE Park became one of the most famous and recognizable skateboarding spots in the world in the 1990s and 2000s. (wikipedia)
• • •
And sometimes "Y"! No one ever says that about CONSONANTS, I guess because "HMNGWSQXCTVBRDJFKPLZ and sometimes Y" is a less catchy and much less useful slogan. Still, interesting look today for "Y," which I always mentally group with the vowels (a habit reinforced by my daily Wordle habit, where "Y" is often a later-guess "vowel" (after I've eliminated other, more common vowels)). Here's what I'll say about this theme: it makes for some interesting longer answers. I mean, EXECUTIVE BOARD is never gonna be anything but snoresville, but HEMINGWAYESQUE and JFKPLAZA really liven things up. Those have some pop, some juice. I liked HEMINGWAYESQUE because it reminded me of the funny part in Wordplay where Trip Payne has so much trouble coming up with ZOLAESQUE, and when he finally gets it, he shouts out "Oh, Good God!" (politespeak for "are you ****ing kidding me!?"). I generally disdain the "pangram" as a puzzle-constructing feat ("Hey, look at me, I put all the letters in the grid!" "Did that make the grid better?" "No, but ... look at me!"), but if you're gonna do a pangram, this is the (or a) way to do it: with some kind of core rationale. Inside the theme answers, it's each of the CONSONANTS, exactly once. Add vowels as needed ... and all the vowels are, in fact, needed. Cool cool.
But here's another thing that I'll say about this theme: that revealer is about as anticlimactic as they come. Like, "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine" anticlimactic. I was expecting ... I don't know what. Wordplay? Punning? Some clever turn of phrase? But no, it's just the most literal description possible of the letters in the circles. Felt like someone explaining a joke to me. I don't know how else you could "reveal" what's going on in this puzzle, but I have to believe there's a better way. I think the worst part is that the clue just ... explains it. There's nothing to "get." Not so fun to get spoonfed the meaning of the theme, esp. in a puzzle that was basically spoonfeeding you Every non-theme answer in the grid—the difficulty level was sub-beginner throughout. I have two little orange scritches on my print-out, indicating the most minor of hesitations: I had "I'M ON" instead of "I'M UP" (29D: "That's my cue!"). I hesitated at ERI-A, unsure of "C" v. "K" (26D: Novelist Jong); I didn't get ACTUAL instantly off the first "A" (in today's puzzle, that counts as a hold-up); and ditto AXING, which was the last thing I put in. Otherwise, I filled this one fast as I could type, with the themers the only resistance (and not much of it).
A third thing I'll say about this puzzle is that it ended up being way better (way way better) than I thought it was going to be when I started out in the NW, which was a disaster. Well, that may be hyperbolic, but not very. I stopped dead in my tracks after just three entries, thinking "dear lord is it gonna be one of *these* days." The crosswordese comes fast and thick and unallayed:
And I took this screenshot *before* I hit RASTA (the very next answer into the grid). A spate of crosswordese up front is a very bad omen for the overall quality of the fill, so I was very happy to see the puzzle pull out of the nosedive. The short stuff keeps coming at you, but its quality at least gets back to acceptable, inoffensive, average, mediocre (which is about all that 3-4-5s can do, for the most part—not induce groans or eyerolls). I'd never heard that young Einstein failed MATH, so I missed that misconception. I always hesitate when spelling NYUK, because the Stooges say it more than spell it (22D: Three Stooges laugh sound). I'm teaching five Hitchcock films this semester (Rear Window the first week, Vertigo this week ...), so PSYCHO has been much on my mind ... but then it often is—I've probably watched it more than any movie besides Dazed & Confused, which I watched roughly weekly during the years 1994 and 1995 (I watch PSYCHO at least once a year, every Halloween, but it's gonna take a lot of Halloweens to catch Dazed). I like "NOT V" today because it seems like something someone might hastily and mistakenly say in reaction to the claim that all the CONSONANTS are represented in the theme answers today: "All of them!? Ha! NOT V! Oh, wait, there it is, nevermind."
Only one "?" clue today (27D: Basic plot lines? = X AXES). That is ... very low. I don't know what the average is, but one is ... light. I'm not exactly begging for more—when those clues miss, they can be painful—but they would've / might've given this grid some much (much much)-needed bite. Clues didn't really seem to be trying today. Kinda flat, overall. But there's a certain cleverness to the theme, which I liked, and the longer non-theme answers (LAST WISH: STAMPEDE DJ BOOTHS ... what a weird last wish!) are more than ADEQUATE (11D: Good enough).
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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This one started rough. Just wasn't buying CLASSIC HITS as a thing (felt redundant—they're just CLASSICS), and TOOK A PIC seemed solidly in EAT-A-SANDWICH territory (i.e. Contrivedville), and on top of that I'm supposed to remember Laotian currency (!?) and then I'm condescended to with a sad letter string that couldn't even be bothered to have an original clue (8D: R-V hookup?)? That "RV" wordplay used to be de rigueur for STU clues in the late '90s / early '00s, but hasn't been seen since 2015, so it'll be new to many of you, I guess. Anyway, I was not feeling the puzzle at all. AMORTIZES? There's a word only a banker's mother could love. CHOCOLATE-COATED & DIRTY LOOK started to liven things up a little (love a CHOCOLATE-COATED DIRTY LOOK), but my feelings about this puzzle never got above neutral until I hit the revealer—that is, *my* revealer: not the literal revealer splashed across the middle of the grid (which I hadn't yet looked at), but the four-letter pre-revealer: MILK (28A: Beverage served alongside the treats in this puzzle). That answer ruined the actual revealer for me, but it tipped me off to the fact that there were "treats" in the puzzle, and as soon as I looked at those double-letters seemingly suspended in midair, I began to understand what was happening, but it still took another second or two to register the full visual effect—the double letters were creme, the adjacent black squares were cookie, and so I had four DOUBLE STUF OREOS diagonally stacked across my grid. What can I say? The visual gimmick works, and MILK really did a nice job of subtly cluing me in (whereas the longer revealer eventually just felt obvious and kind of redundant). So while I don't think the theme answers themselves are any great shakes (AFTEREFFECT? Isn't that just ... an effect?), the concept and the execution are very nice. Those do look like cookies, and making the "creme" spell out STUF, doubly, is a clever way to make up for the fact that those double-letters are technically uncrossed. 
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