Delilah player in 1949's Samson and Delilah / FRI 6-18-21 / Johnny with 10 World Series of Poker bracelets / Mother of the four winds in myth / People who built the Qhapaq Ñan or "Royal Road" which stretched roughly 3700 miles / Plaything for a Greek god

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Rebecca LEE Crumpler (52D: Rebecca ___ Crumpler, first African-American female physician) —

Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born Rebecca Davis, (February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895), was an American physician, nurse and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States. Crumpler was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century. In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses. The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infantile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American about medicine. 

Crumpler graduated from medical college at a time when very few African Americans were allowed to attend medical college or publish books. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily serving poor women and children. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing treating women and children was an ideal way to perform missionary work. Crumpler worked for the Freedmen's Bureau to provide medical care for freed slaves. [...] 

She later moved back to Boston to continue to treat women and children. The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, were named after her. Her Joy Street house is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was a solid and enjoyable puzzle overall, which I rarely used to say about a puzzle featuring triple (or quad) stacks. I guess the software / wordlists have gotten a lot more, uh, robust in the past decade, allowing constructors to achieve these constructing feats with a lot less concomitant garbage. Often the crosses on big stacks come out quite poorly—you can definitely see a difference today, in terms of grid taxation, between the upper stack and the lower stack. Things look really good up top, with hardly a thing to make you wince, whereas down below, I'm kind of wincing all the way from WETV through OTOE ORIEL AAS APBS ETS to LES, with even TESSERAE seeming like a bit of a 1-point Scrabble tile cop-out (though I do like the word, weirdly, and mosaics are fun to imagine, so I'll let TESSERAE pass). You can kind of feel that the bottom stack is struggling a little with SLEEVELESS DRESS—soooo many Es and Ls and Ss, just an avalanche of common letters, which generally make grids easier to fill; and yet the short crosses down here are still wobbly. So yeah, in general, things are far nicer up top than down below, which is iffy all the way up to the middle of the grid in the east (EST LSAT BASRA TSAR ETTA AIME). And yet, as I say, it remained pretty enjoyable throughout. SLEEVELESS DRESS has the virtue of being a very real thing, so the E- and S-ridden desperation of it all doesn't come through that strongly. Plus, CARE TO ELABORATE is a 10/10, and ATHLETIC APPAREL at least passes by without incident. Plus, any opportunity I get to remember Hedy LAMARR is always appreciated.

I really liked how this one opened up for me. Blanked on the Bryson book, so started in on the short crosses (which is generally how I attack a long-answer stack). Only took me two crosses to see the Bryson title. There's something slightly exhilarating about not knowing some long answer, getting just a couple of crosses, and then realizing, "ooh, there it is."

This top third of the puzzle then came into view pretty quickly, and I generally liked everything I saw. Dropping "THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E." straight through the heart of the grid gave me the whooosh feeling I really look for on a Friday—all sections of the grid all of a sudden become available. It's like Christmas morning! Well, I guess we didn't often play RUSSIAN ROULETTE on Christmas morning growing up, but you get the idea.

I think I was lukewarm toward the bottom third of this puzzle firstly because the top third was so good, so the bottom just paled by comparison, but secondly because my entree to the bottom third, my in-word, my greeter, if you will, was a completely gratuitous Trump clue: 41D: Trump is named in it (EUCHRE). Don't do that. Don't use that guy in your little cutesy tricksy clues. The clue is clearly worded in such a way as to make me think of the awful man. True, I saw through the awful man to the card game very quickly, but still, a half second thinking about that *&%^ is a half second too long ... the stink lingers. I'M not EASY when it comes to that jackass. And then we get Yet Another Harry Potter Clue just two answers over? (39D: Jason who played Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter films = ISAACS). Yeah, the puzzle lost some goodwill down here for sure. But on the whole, the puzzle holds up. It's 2/3 good, so, majority good, so, good.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Animator Klasky who co-created "Rugrats" / FRI 3-26-21 / Phil Silvers character of 1950s TV / Amazon comedy drama set in a New Jersey country club in the 1980s / Group with a member-centric acronym / River through the Carolinas

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Medium 

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TENUTO (41D: "Hold it," in music) —

: in a manner so as to hold a tone or chord firmly to its full value —used as a direction in music (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

It's not that this is bad. It's that I can't believe that with all the submissions they're allegedly getting, this is the best that's out there. There are a couple wonderful answers, but the rest of it hums along at a "merely OK" level. A Friday puzzle should pop All Over the Place, and maybe it's just my professorial profession, but THESIS STATEMENT does not set off any fireworks—a long, grid-spanning entry that is honestly a little dreary. I did TAKE A DEEP BREATH before writing this, but that somehow hasn't improved my feeling about the overall quality, which, again, is fine, in the sense of adequate, but only just. Things were unpromising enough after the first minute or two that I stopped to take a screenshot so that I could have a record of why the puzzle felt mediocre early on:

I guess SECRET FILES is fine, but then when it's used as a cross-reference for crosswordese surveillance orgs. (CIA, NSA), I start thinking it is less than fine. As you can see in the screenshot, lots is happening, none of it particularly interesting. But the marquee answers were still to come, and I will admit that when I got those two long Acrosses under SECRET FILES (i.e. STAY-AT-HOME DAD and "WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA!?"), I thought "OK, cool, we're back in business!" But then nothing much happened for the entire rest of the solve. Somehow SERGEANT BILKO didn't really excite me. Is the "date" at the DESERT OASIS supposed to be a fruit? (62A: Place for a hot date?). When I solved it, I thought it was a calendar date, like ... the day you happened to be at the oasis (?) ... and the fruit angle is better, but not better enough to improve the puzzle much. This just gave me a case of the blahs, which is the last place I want to be on a Friday (well, maybe not The Last place, but you get the idea). 

There were some real off-putting moments in this one, for me, both of them comic book-related. First of all, the STAN LEE clue made me "ugh" and sigh and roll my eyes and etc. (1D: Provenance of many superheroes). First, the answer promises to be something exciting like SPIDER BITE or COSMIC RADIATION but is instead just the guy who co-created a bunch of superheroes. And second, let's talk about that "co-" in co-created. I hate that the general public persists in forgetting Jack Kirby. Lee was so good at self-promotion that he has come to be seen as the sole creator of all those early Marvel heroes, but he was not the *sole* creator of any of them. There is no Thor or Fantastic Four or X-Men or Iron Man without Jack Kirby, whose dynamic art *defined* the early Marvel era and influenced generations of cartoonists after him, up to the present. He also co-created Captain America (with Joe Simon). Steve Ditko was the co-creator of "Spider-Man." I know Lee has the more favorable crossword name, but stop giving him more credit than he deserves. And speaking of comic-book heroes, what in the world are you doing with that Bat-Man clue on EAR!? (59D: Distinctive part of a Batman costume). Seriously, the one ear? Singular? "Part" = EARS. You would never say or think "Look at the single EAR on that Bat-Man costume, no, don't look at the other EAR!? I said EAR, singular! Why can't you follow instructions!?" Probably.

My arm is Very sore this morning, so I'm going to go take it easy today, and celebrate my vaccine heroism with hot coffee now and a cocktail tonight. It was so delightful to see all the eager 50-somethings at the vaccination site yesterday. Humans of disparate backgrounds can collaborate on worthwhile endeavors if they try. Take care, see you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. ABBA is a "member-centric acronym" because the letters stand for the names of the four members of the group: Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid.

P.P.S. "RED OAKS" is a good show. Worth your time, especially if the only Paul Reiser work you've ever seen is "Mad About You." He's fantastic.

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Beheader of Medusa in Greek myth / FRI 1-22-21 / Murphy's co-star in 1982's 48 Hours / army villainous force in Disney's Mulan

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Medium, I think

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Rabindranath Tagore (41D: Language of the Literature Nobelist Rabindranath Tagore => BENGALI) —

Rabindranath Tagore FRAS (/rəˈbɪndrənɑːt tæˈɡɔːr/ (listen); born Robindronath Thakur, 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941; sobriquet Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi) was a Bengalipoet, writer, composer, philosopher and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European as well as the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal". (wikipedia)

• • •

All the symmetries! 180º rotational, 90º rotational, axial, mirror ... wait, are axial and mirror the same thing? Looks like axial is more for 3D objects. Whatever. The black squares are arranged here to give the grid the made-up term I (now) like to call "hypersymmetry." None of this has anything to do with how good the puzzle is; just something I noticed. The grid is also shaped (in the white squares) a bit like a wandering path, one that you can walk through (clockwise or counter-), solving the entire puzzle, without having to take any detours or double back on yourself or anything. That's not exactly how I solved it (I went west to east and then got mildly hung up and went back to the west and then down and counterclockwise around). The only real downside of this grid shape is that there are no long answers. Literally nothing about seven letters. This kept the grid feeling pretty reserved and conservative. I like splashy long stuff, a grid that has answers that zing and slash and burst open across the grid. This grid, while solid, stays in a very safe lane the whole time. Well, I say safe, but apparently it thinks you should catch a GRENADE, what the hell!? (31A: Dangerous thing to catch). Such a weirdly morbid clue there. But overall, tame. Fine. OK. Nothing splashy. A calming if somewhat eventless stroll.

I think maybe they should retire LOLCATS. It feels like an answer from 2004. Or one that should've been from 2004, but since the NYTXW is routinely on a cultural time lag, it's probably an answer that started showing up much later. Feels very early-internet speak. Cats still definitely rule the internet, but LOLCATS has a whiff of dust on it. Internet dust. It did help me get started early, though. I went CDS to TRULY to LOLCATS. Unfortunately, I then gutted TRULY when I assumed that the answer to 15A: Apple product launched in 2015 was IPADAIR. Ended up having to build most of that NW corner before finally seeing the PRO. My MacBook (this MacBook in front of me) is a PRO. I have never owned an iPad, so I missed that the PRO came out. Or I noticed and promptly forgot. Cannot keep up with the Apple product permutations, which, considering how often they appear in grids, is sometimes a problem. Like today. But I just made the correct answer out of Apple product parts—a little IPAD here, a little PRO there, voilà! Correct answer. After that, not much trouble. Except for the part where I spelled DAYAN correctly but then swapped the "Y" for an "I" when I (very incompletely) read the clue on the cross: 35A: Do or ___ (punny hair salon name). My eyes only went as far as the fill-in-the-blank. The apex hair salon pun name is, of course, "Curl Up and Dye," though "Do" (with its pun on "hairdo") is not bad either. The "or" is off, though, since presumably it is the do that you are dying. But back to the point: I finished with an error because I "fixed" DAYAN. After having it right the first time. The second time I did that today (see TRULY), only this time, it was fatal. I did indeed d(i)e. TRULY.

The one thing that keeps this long answer-free grid from being lifeless is the high number of multi-word phrases in the seven-letter stuff, particularly the weirdly high number of two-letter parts inside those phrases. It can be more fun, but also more difficult, to parse multi-word phrases, especially if they are reasonably short and therefore you are not really expecting them.  And two-letter elements can really make things challenging. Today we get OE in "ALOHA OE" (59A: Elvis Presley sings it in "Blue Hawaii"), OP in PHOTO OP (37D: When a poser might be presented?), OK in "OK, SHOOT" (43D: "Yeah, I'm listening") and E.R. in E.R. NURSE (16A: Vital hosp. worker). That last one wasn't exactly hard, though it did make me think there was a very important guy working in the hospital named ERNESTO. I did not know SLUMDOG was an actual word that had been coined, as I've only heard it followed by "Millionaire." I thought 21A: Attachment to Christ? (MAS) (because Christ + MAS = Christmas) was IAN. I don't think of HAIL as "bad"—weirdly judgey weather clue there (54D: Bad fall?). I enjoyed remembering "Battlestar Galactica" and "48 Hours." All in all, a pleasant enough experience.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Tony who played 15 seasons with Minnesota Twins / MON 9-21-20 / Foamy drink invented in Taiwan / Horse developed in desert / Hawaiian kind of porch

Constructor: Daniel Larsen and The Wave Learning Festival Crossword Class

Relative difficulty: Medium (2:59)

THEME: two-word phrases where both words are "-ITE" rhymes 

Theme answers:

• FIGHT NIGHT (17A: Time to watch boxing on TV)
• WHITE KNIGHT (30A: One rushing in to save the day)
• BRIGHT LIGHT (47A: It makes your pupils constrict)
• QUITE RIGHT (64A: "Precisely!")

Word of the Day: BUBBLE TEA (33D: Foamy drink invented in Taiwan) —

Bubble tea (also known as pearl milk tea, bubble milk tea, or boba) (Chinese: 珍珠奶茶; pinyin: zhēn zhū nǎi chá; 波霸奶茶; bō bà nǎi chá or 泡泡茶; pào pào chá) is a tea-based drink invented in Taiwan in the 1980s that includes chewy tapioca balls ("boba" or "pearls") or a wide range of other toppings.

Ice-blended versions are frozen and put into a blender, resulting in a slushy consistency.^[3]There are many varieties of the drink with a wide range of flavors. The two most popular varieties are black pearl milk tea and green pearl milk tea. (wikipedia)

• • •

Look, I don't know what the backstory is here, but this isn't a NYTXW-worthy theme. It's way, way, way too basic. Maybe, *maybe*, if the theme answers were, on their own, really vibrant phrases, you could get away with this, but as is, this isn't playful or interesting enough for *any* major daily crossword, let alone the "best puzzle in the world" or whatever. And the fill is oddly old and cruddy for a Monday. As I've said before, you can often gauge the overall quality of the puzzle before you're out of the NW corner, and that corner today, yeesh. I love baseball and knew OLIVA (2D: Tony who played for 15 seasons with the Minnesota Twins), but that is dated baseball crosswordese (esp. for a Monday), and LIGER and EVERSO had me worried that the fill was not headed anywhere good. It's certainly not much worse than average, I guess, but I expect much cleaner on a Monday. I mean, every Across from LANAI on down in the SW is just straight out of crossword central casting. The puzzle is also clumsily built, with giant Friday/Saturday-like corners in the NE and SW, as if the puzzle were trying to be a themeless and an easy Monday themed puzzle simultaneously, but succeeding at neither. Actually, the big corners are far better done than the themed portion of the puzzle. No idea how you can have that much wide open space and still end up at the maximum word count (78), but this puzzle did it. It just didn't feel like an experienced or careful hand was at the helm. I don't get it. If somehow a bunch of fourth-graders made this, then sure, I'll feel a little bad. But I never read constructor's notes at the Times' site and I'm not going to start today. This just isn't up to (what should be) NYTXW standards, theme-wise. 

Are we still expected to know things about "Desperate Housewives"? When will that show's "currency" run out? I outlived the "Ally McBeal" era (when you would occasionally be asked to know tertiary characters on that show for some reason), but sadly it seems the "Desperate Housewives" era is still upon us. Anyway, I didn't know BREE (38A: One of the housewives on "Desperate Housewives"). Beyond that, and OLIVA, there's not much here that's going to throw anyone off their game. I weirdly don't like NIGHT and KNIGHT being successive last words in theme phrases. Feels like cheating. They're homophones. After I got them, I was like, "How many other homophones are there??" But then that wasn't the theme after all. I also think that there should be *no* other "-ight"-sounding words in the grid, outside of the themers, for the sake of elegance. So I'm finding EVITE slightly annoying. In short: keep the NE / SW corners, tear out everything else, and make a themeless. Thank you, goodbye. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Typographer's gap / FRI 9-18-20 / Fortification-breaching bomb / Vacation locale for President Gerald Ford / Lucky thing to hit in ping-pong / Member of South Asian diaspora

Constructor: Anne and Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Easy (very, 4:46, first thing in the morning)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: EM SPACE (40D: Typographer's gap) —

An em is a unit in the field of typography, equal to the currently specified point size. For example, one em in a 16-point typeface is 16 points. Therefore, this unit is the same for all typefaces at a given point size.

The em dash (—) and em space ( ) are each one em wide. 

Typographic measurements using this unit are frequently expressed in decimal notation (e.g., 0.7 em) or as fractions of 100 or 1000 (e.g., 70/100 em or 700/1000 em). The name em was originally a reference to the width of the capital M in the typeface and size being used, which was often the same as the point size. (wikipedia) (emph. mine)

• • •

Totally acceptable if not terribly exciting offering today. A few nice, fresh phrases in a sea of tolerable if frequently overfamiliar stuff. There's something about certain phrases like NOT A HOPE and I DARE SAY and YOU BET I CAN that seem stiff and dated, and therefore seem as if they are arising from the graveyard of crosswords past (or a very extensive wordlist, which can amount to the same thing, since those are typically based on what's been in the puzzles before). Even IN A PANIC, which is a solid enough phrase, has an oddly crosswordy vibe to it—it's appeared eight times in the past decade, which doesn't sound like a lot, but for an eight-letter phrase, it's kind of a lot.. The grid shape here isn't helping. There aren't enough free-standing marquee answers; by "free-standing," I mean, "not tethered to another long answer of similar length" (see the pairs of long Downs in the NE and SW, which are noticeably less zingy than the best stuff, which in every case today (imho) is a longer answer that pops against the shorter fill surrounding it: DREAM ACT, BEYOND MEAT, NET NEUTRALITY. There was just something about this grid that felt closed in, like it couldn't quite breathe properly: too segmented, not built for the fill to really sing. But still, as I say, it holds up fine. I winced almost no times. You can send ATTA and ORANG back where they came from, but otherwise the grid is quite clean. And maybe I'm not giving enough credit to CHE GUEVARA / HOME PLANET as a colorful pair of answers, which I like more now than I did mid-solve. Anyway, good work. Just not as fresh and fun as the best Fridays.

TOE CAP ... I can't put my finger on it, or articulate it very well this morning, but this is another answer that feels squirmy to me—one of those "sure, whatever" phrases that I wouldn't use and haven't heard used. RICE BELT is interesting, but if I'd had to pick a belt to describe that area, I'd've gone with BIBLE. Honestly, needed crosses to get RICE. I've heard of em dashes but not EM SPACEs, though that wasn't hard to infer. Not thrilled about the dupe of "ACT" (DREAM ACT, ACTS ON), but at least today those answers are on opposite sides of the grids, i.e. the "ACT"s don't *intersect* the way those "OUT"s did earlier in the week, yeesh. I misread "South Asian" as "South African" so getting DESI was a real "D'oh!" moment (49D: Member of the South Asian diaspora). I had TOWED before TOTED (36A: Hauled), but that was the only mistake of the day, which may explain the sizzling fast time. Oh, no, sorry, one other mistake, of the utterly mundane and predictable variety: SODA before COLA (4D: Fountain option). Honestly, coming out of that NW corner, I was not terribly hopeful about where this puzzle was going, but it definitely wound up more enjoyable than not.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Periodic Atacama occurrence / FRI 5-8-20 / Its exterior is edible mold Penicillium candidum / Actress Gina of Suits / Yves Saint Laurent perfume since 1977 / Space station section / Luke Skywalker sold his in Mos Eisley

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Atacama (19D: Periodic Atacama occurrence = DESERT BLOOM) —

The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,000 km (600 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, as well as the only true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts. According to estimates, the Atacama Desert occupies 105,000 km² (41,000 sq mi), or 128,000 km² (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes (salares), sand, and felsic lava that flows towards the Andes.

The desert owes its extreme aridity to a constant temperature inversion due to the cool north-flowing Humboldt ocean current and to the presence of the strong Pacific anticyclone. The most arid region of the Atacama Desert is situated between two mountain chains (the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range) of sufficient height to prevent moisture advection from either the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean, a two-sided rain shadow. (wikipedia)

• • •

No fun at all for me. Too much stuff I just didn't know or care about. Too many clues that were "clever" in ways I couldn't appreciate. And the sense of "humor" on this one ... I guess I'm thinking specifically of the ATTIRE clue, which ... I just don't get (11D: Difference between a well-dressed bicyclist and a poorly dressed unicyclist, in a joke). I mean, a tire, ATTIRE? Is that it? They sound alike, so it's funny? Yeesh. I truly hated AT CAMP (37D: Where capture the flag is often played). That is just bad — a very random prepositional phrase, like OVERRICE or ONMARS. Boo. But mainly I didn't hate this, it just clearly was not at all for me. Nothing fun, and lots of clues that just meant nothing to me. The whole NE corner was just clue after clue of "?"—COSTAR, TORRES, BRIE, ATTIRE, FAR NORTH. Nothing clicked except CORGI and OWN. Nothing in NW clicked either except maybe REND and ALIAS. Clue on MODULE meant nothing to me. Same with OPIUM. ADIEU could've easily been ADIOS. No idea what "Atacama" is and even if I did know, DESERT BLOOM wouldn't have occurred to me (19D: Periodic Atacama occurrence). BY EAR was only a notch better than AT CAMP, random phrase-wise. I guess the LAND SPEEDER was supposed to be a "fun" entry, but it's a generic enough term that I didn't remember it was a thing, and I saw that movie seven times the summer it came out (14D: Luke Skywalker sold his in Mos Eisley). ONE'S answers are always lamentable (today, DID ONE'S PART). No idea what ANEROID is (2D: Kind of barometer that doesn't use liquid). Mom read MILNE to me all the time when I was a kid, but not, I guess, "Corner-of-the-Street," whatever that is (44A: "Corner-of-the-Street" poet). The grid doesn't seem bad, but it's got very little in it of interest to me, and the cluing just missed me, left and right.


Rolled my eyes at the clue on SUPERHEROES (33A: DC figures). I teach comics that feature SUPERHEROES on a regular basis, but the "DC" thing ... "tricked" me, I guess. Mad at myself for not remembering that little cluing chestnut. Getting fooled by truly clever stuff, fine. Getting fooled by the cheap stuff, yuck. Bad feeling. Jean HARLOW and Manet's CAFEs were about the only things that made me smile today. Oh, the CORGI too. Hard not to like a CORGI. But otherwise, just not enough winners for me. I had too many missteps to count, but notably I had COOING at 7A: Billing partner (CO-STAR). Wasn't sure if it was GCHAT or iCHAT (45D: Bygone messaging service). BOD for ABS (4D: Gymgoer's pride). SHOVEL for TROWEL (42D: Gardening tool), which I think of as more a masonry tool than a gardening tool, but since I don't really engage in either activity, I can't object too strongly.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Successor language to Common Brittonic / FRI 2-14-20 / Automotive sponsor of Wagon Train in 1950s / Rebus symbol for everything / Grammy-winning metal band with tasty-sounding name

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Easy (very) (4:16)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: KORN (33D: Grammy-winning metal band with a tasty-sounding name) —

Korn (stylized as KoЯn) is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The band is notable for pioneering the nu metal genre and bringing it into the mainstream. [...] The band first experienced mainstream success with Follow the Leader (1998) and Issues (1999), both of which debuted at number one on the Billboard200. The band's mainstream success continued with Untouchables (2002), Take a Look in the Mirror (2003) and See You on the Other Side (2005). [...] As of 2012, Korn had sold more than 35 million records worldwide. Twelve of the band's official releases have peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200, eight of which have peaked in the top five. Seven official releases are certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), two are certified double platinum, one is certified triple platinum, one is certified five times platinum and two are certified Gold. [...] Korn has earned two Grammy Awards out of eight nominations and two MTV Video Music Awards out of eleven nominations. (wikipedia)

• • •

Whoa, there's an *OLD* WELSH? I'm a medievalist and I did not know that. Good thing I have the capacity for inference! I liked this puzzle a lot but then again I *destroyed* this puzzle so I'm not sure how much my warm feelings are due to the intrinsic goodness of the puzzle and how much are due to any solver's natural affection for a Friday puzzle they can take out easily. Do I like you 'cause you're good or 'cause you're easy? That is the question. I'm pretty sure the puzzle is just good, though. Lots and lots of varied, interesting longer fill, from science fiction (HOME PLANET over SPACE OPERA! So good...) to physics to math to music. It's the music that is probably going to separate the very fast solves from the merely normal fast solves, and nothing is going to put solvers into different speed camps faster than 1A: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band led by Iggy Pop (THE STOOGES). Pop culture is always a potential divider, and since this one's in such a prime position, getting it right away is particularly valuable. For me, it was a total gimme, and I got six Downs off of it right away (THIS HINT ETTA ORCA EDSEL SEE). Between knowing that and knowing KORN, I feel like I had a distinct pop cultural advantage today. LONI Anderson and "LA BAMBA" and ELENA Ferrante, also in my wheelhouse. This one just sang to me. I even got the Beaufort Scale answer lickety split, and I wasn't even sure DEAD CALM was a real category, but look at that: real (27A: 0 on the Beaufort Scale). I just got lucky today. Everything fell my way.

["There's no escape / Without a scrape ..."]

Here were my struggles and my irks: I really think the phrase trips off the tongue best as THERE'S NO ESCAPE. "THERE IS" feels oddly formal and off. PALSY is pretty olde-timey and probably needs "-WALSY" to be complete and anyway, it looks more like an affliction than a term meaning "Chummy," so that's mildly depressing. I didn't think we could go lower on the ALEC scale than Waugh, but here's Douglas-Home! Actually, I think he outranks Waugh, as he actually did something noteworthy. But I'm always happy to discover new ALECs. Add him to Guinness and Baldwin and the kid from "Black Stallion" (I think .... [looks it up] ... yessssss!!! Man, I haven't seen that clue for ALEC in eons but somehow that little fact still lives in some dark corner of my head; weird). I can't believe I fell for the old "Capital" misdirection gag, but boy did I (28D: Capital of Latvia) (EURO). That's a pretty cheap gag, as Latvia's actual capital is also four letters (RIGA), but I guess you gotta try to throw speed bumps in here where you can. SUMP is a very ugly word and I hope I never see it in my puzzle again (34A: Basement feature). I actually had AUDIO BOOMS in there at first for 32A: Some road trip entertainment (I think I was thinking "equipment" instead of "entertainment," like maybe some TV show goes on the "road" and brings along boom mikes? I dunno. But KORN saved me. Anyway, that's all. Good work, everyone. Wait, nope, one more thing. ONER is was and always will be atrocious (56D: Remarkable person). Retire, ONER! OK, now we're done.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Cornstarch brand since 1892 / SAT 11-16-19 / 2016 election meddlers / International marque whose logo is pair of calipers / Relatives of chalcedonies / Basketball's jab step others / Old RCA product

Constructor: Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Medium (7:34)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: OBELI (51D: Division signs) —

n, pl -li (-ˌlaɪ)

1. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) a mark (— or ÷) used in editions of ancient documentsto indicate spurious words or passages

2. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) another name for dagger²

[C14: via Late Latin from Greek obelos spit] (thefreedictionary)

• • •

Some good stuff here, but some off-brand phrasings and junky fill (BITSY?) made this a mixed bag. Very mixed. Not a HOT MESS. More a SHRUG. Actually probably more high and low than SHRUG suggests, but it all averages out to somewhere around "SHRUG." Definitely not HOORAY. I had two main problems, the first being that there were too many answers that made me go "OK ... I *guess* that's valid, but ..." This started with BREAKS OUT IN SONG, which is definitely valid, but which feels (to me) like second-place to BREAKS INTO SONG. The idiom is "break into song." Of course you can break out in song, but there's just a mild off-ness to me. Had same experience wanting RUSSIAN HACKERS and getting RUSSIAN TROLLS, which, yes, real, but just didn't feel great. Didn't sound great coming off the bat. Like, I hit the baseball and put it in play but I did Not hit it square and Ouch, my hands hurt. This bad feeling repeated itself at TEN-FOURS (we can pluralize this?) and was at its worst with NO BET, which sounds like one of those dumb bridge phrases (NO BID? Is that a thing?). I know precisely what "check" means in poker, but I would not have thought to have expressed that meaning with the iffy phrase NO BET. So on the one hand I just wasn't on this puzzle's wavelength and on the other some of these answers weren't good.


Far and away the roughest part for me was the middle bottom. Couldn't get TROLLS, as I said. Had IRAN as the date exporter instead of OMAN (52A: Its chief agricultural export is dates). Ugh, NO BET is down there too. I think of "LUST for Life" as a title (of a movie! of a song!) and not just a phrase that you can serve up all unquoted and uncapitalized. STAGER, yeesh. Thought [Part of a Cinderella story] was a SHOE. Mostly forgot the word OBELI. So yeah, right across the bottom of the grid was a train wreck. Elsewhere, though, there wasn't much to give me grief. Had -ATH and still no idea what 8D: Jets might be found in this was after (it's BATH, a fine answer). And somehow I couldn't see MAILS either (29A: Puts in a box, say).  And I started with a TOTE bag instead of a SWAG bag (4D: ___ bag). Annnnnd I thought the [Cornstarch brand since 1892] was SAGO—that was a weird one. SAGO is definitely a starch, but it's got nothing to do with corn. I think I was conflating it with CARO ... is that a thing??? Whoops, no, it's KARO, the corn *syrup*, that I was thinking of. Anyway, aren't olde tyme brand names fun. I mean, it's not like there are other, more interesting ways to clue ARGO, are there? ... ... ... nope. Just cornstarch. Cool. SHRUG.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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French protesters beginning in 2018 / FRI 9-13-19 / Teen drama set in SoCal / Artist who created chance collages / Substance whose primary use earned its discoverer 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology but is now banned

Constructor: Anne and Daniel Larsen

Relative difficulty: Medium (6:06) (others seem to be finding it Easy, though, so who knows?)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EREBUS (6D: Darkness personified) —

In Greek mythology, Erebus /ˈɛrɪbəs/, also Erebos (Ancient Greek: Ἔρεβος, Érebos, "deep darkness, shadow" or "covered"), was often conceived as a primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos. (wikipedia)

• • •

I could tell from the shape of this grid that it would be disappointing. It would be very hard, even for seasoned constructors, to do anything very interesting with this grid—those 6x8 corners aren't gonna help you do anything good. The best you're gonna get is passable, and the worst ... well, I don't like to think about that. These corners end up being mostly passable, though BAD ART is dumb and THE POOR is creepy and patronizing—do people still speak that way? AGASP is awful and "THEOC" again?! But again, overall, things come out less bad than they could have. But that's the point. Why give yourself a grid that's pretty much bound to be Just OK at best. Why not give yourself more of an opportunity to unleash fresh, interesting fill. YELLOWVESTS is the only reason for this grid to exist (51A: French protesters beginning in 2018). Its symmetrical pal FRAPPUCCINO isn't bad either (23A: Hybrid Starbucks product). But there's literally nothing else interesting here. I guess you could argue that some of the clues are clever, but that can always be true. The Friday bar is high—you have so much leeway, you should really be able to make something breezy and contemporary and delightful. This was oddly stuck in the past (ON TAPE? GOOOOBERS?? AGASP!?) but mostly just dull.


Also, it just wasn't on my wavelength at all. All the names were clued in ways that were meaningless to me. This includes EREBUS, which ... I mean, I vaguely know, but it's not like he's a top tier figure in mythology. I know EREBUS mainly as a volcano. Now CEREBUS, that dude / those dudes I know. AMANDA, LOL my knowing Spock's mom. EMILIO someone. ANDRE someone. No clue. Is HER HONOR a title. People say "your honor," and judges are referred to as "the honorable so and so." I had no trouble there, but "title" feels odd. I resent the clue on BAY AREA, as I usually do, as the clue implies a specific place, but ... no. REFS is super bad as clued (just go with the football REFS). No one says "Chuckleheads" *or* GOOBERS, so blecch. Not sure what a trolley car has to do with a (single?) POLE (35D: Trolley car feature). Is it that you hold one while you ride? Is there just the one? It's such a weird clue. I think that DOT is the [Equivalent of "x"] in mathematical notation, i.e. both can signify multiplication. But again, yuck to that clue. Soooo many ways to go. Why be tedious and pedantic? I really should've gotten RANDALL much faster. That one stumped me for too long. Wrote in MOM before DAD (5D: #1 ___ (mug inscription)). Is a DAD mug more iconic? Anyway, this one's over. Mediocre Fridays are super depressing to me, because it's my favorite puzzle day of the week. The puzzle has been worse than usual of late. It's distressing. I can't all this bad, but it's really not as entertaining as the alleged best puzzle should be.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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