Everlasting, poetically / WED 2-7-24 / "War and Peace" character who determines through numerology that he is destined to assassinate Napoleon / Prez featured in "Annie" / Some reactions on Slack / Trade mag for marketers / Carter of jazz and Perlman of film / $1 bill in slang / Crop revered by the Abelam people of Papua New Guinea / What makes most moist? / Hindu god embodying virtue

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium to Medium (4:30 for an oversized 16x15 grid)

THEME: stuttered "refrains" — famous "refrains" featuring words with repeated first syllables:

Theme answers:

• "LA LA LA LA LOLA" (18A: Refrain in a 1970 hit by the Kinks)
• "CH- CH- CH- CH- CHANGES" (28A: Refrain in a 1971 hit by David Bowie)
• "MY G- G- G- GENERATION" (47A: Refrain in a 1965 hit by the Who)
• "P- P- P- POKER FACE" (64A: Refrain in a 2008 hit by Lady Gaga)

Word of the Day: RAMA (37A: Hindu god embodying virtue) —

Rama (/ˈrɑːmə/; Sanskrit: राम, IAST: Rāma, Sanskrit: [ˈraːmɐ] ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Being.

Rama was born to Kausalya and Dasharatha in Ayodhya, the capital of the Kingdom of Kosala. His siblings included Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. He married Sita. Though born in a royal family, Rama's life is described in the Hindu texts as one challenged by unexpected changes, such as an exile into impoverished and difficult circumstances, and challenges of ethical questions and moral dilemmas. Of all his travails, the most notable is the kidnapping of Sita by demon-king Ravana, followed by the determined and epic efforts of Rama and Lakshmana to gain her freedom and destroy the evil Ravana against great odds.

The entire life story of Rama, Sita and their companions allegorically discusses duties, rights and social responsibilities of an individual. It illustrates dharma and dharmic living through model characters. (wikipedia)

• • •

This felt very easy, but my time was not low. Weird. Must've got slowed more than I thought by the various names I didn't know (LUCID Air, PIERRE), or by my last-stage brain fritz, where I put in HEMOGLOBIN and then just locked up on all the -OBIN crosses and so tore out the end of HEMOGLOBIN ... only to put it right back in again (29D: Substance that makes blood red). I am very out of practice at full-pace solving. It can make you (me) very prone to errors like clue misreadings (for instance, my brain didn't process the word "singing" in the "IDOL" clue, for instance—kind of an important word, it turns out) (54A: Longtime TV singing series, to fans). There were a few other minor hold-ups. In that same section, the archaic (though still somehow crossword-common) "I SAY" was just not leaping to mind. I was too distracted by the fact that I had already seen "I SAW," which was running interference in my head. I also did not expect to have a non-stuttered word at the beginning of the third song, and so had all "G"s in there at first instead of "MY G- G- etc." (this seems like a design flaw—also, are there always that many "G-"s. Really feels like the number varies (I'll play the song later and see...)). I am on Slack for two different things (movies, music) and I can't remember anyone's ever posting a GIF, so GIFS was hard for me, and since I only wanted GOING SOLO (not FLYING SOLO) (12D: Going it alone), getting into the NE was slightly tricky. Biggest misstep today was probably NO-LOSE (40D: Surefire) to ONTO (53A: Privy to) ... which couldn't be ONTO because the clue had "to" in it, but I couldn't see what else it could be with the first letters ON-. To top it off, I had IN A SEC, not IN A FEW (51D: Shortly). So I had to wait for the Lady Gaga song to help me come at that section from below and clear it up (it's NO-RISK / INON). I guess these little problems added up, but I never felt any real resistance. The songs are all superfamous, and once you know you're dealing with stutters of a sort, you can fill a lot of the themers in easily (if you don't know the songs, well then god help you, I guess).

[yeah, OK, is it LA- LA- LA- LA- or L- L- L- L-  or LO- LO- LO- LO- …? The original Kinks’ version sounds kinda LO-ish. I’ve always heard LA- or a kind of flat LUH. Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it. But I'm fine with the LAs]

It's a cute theme, even if the Who song seems (as I said above) like an outlier in a couple of ways. I don't really get why the grid is 16 wide. Your longest themers are a perfect grid-spanning 15. And it's not like the fill has been visibly improved by this grid accommodation. In fact, it's puzzlingly bad in places. ETERNE!??! (39A: Everlasting, poetically). Why would anyone ever put ETERNE in their grid, especially in an easy-ish midweek grid where it's absolutely unnecessary? Even the tiniest change (ACME to ACTS) improves the grid considerably —yes, I'd much rather see the author of Tristram Shandy (Laurence STERNE) than ETERNE, but like I said, that's the change you can make without even trying. If you tried, surely you could de-ETERNE that middle in even more delightful ways. You could also de-ROOTER that NW corner with very little effort (15A: Enthusiastic fan). Maybe LOOTER was thought too grim, but nothing's as grim as the non-existent fake word ROOTER. And again, EMPIRE / ELLS is the *bare minimum* you could do to change things up there. With a little actual effort, you could certainly do even better. Maybe get rid of HERVÉ or one of the "ON" answers (IN ON, "IT'S ON"). The grid doesn't seem properly polished. The puzzle's getting by on the charm of its theme, and there's definitely charm there, but not quite enough to hide the REEK of ETERNE.

I now remember that I had trouble processing LOW HIT as well (19D: Tackle at the knees). Had the LO- and wanted, I dunno, LOP OFF? I briefly flashed on ABE as the president in "Annie" but then remembered "Annie" was set during the Depression and unless it was the ghost of Lincoln, it was probably a different prez (FDR). I always balk at Hindu god clues, sure that I'm going to put a vowel wrong. I tend to let crosses do the work there (37A: Hindu god embodying virtue). My knowledge of Indian *cuisine* is more on point. ROTI (like ATTA flour) is now a gimme for me (42A: Flatbread that can be served with dal), although without crosses you might think the four-letter flatbread was NAAN, I suppose. During my whole mini-meltdown in the SW, I read 66A: What makes most moist? and when I saw it ended in "I," I assumed I had an error. My brain was like "DEW!" and the other part of my brain was like "Oh, come on. DEW?! DEW makes *most* people moist? Really? What, are we all romping around at dawn now?" Yet another reason I tore out the -OBIN in HEMOGLOBIN (before eventually reinstating it). Anyway, in case it wasn't clear, if you put AN "I" in the word "most," you get "moist." I sometimes refer to these as "letteral" clues—the ones where words refer to themselves, their own letters, rather than some other thing. You take them "literally," they refer to "letters" ... "letteral." [Fresh start?] for EFF, that kind of thing. But I only call them "letteral" clues to myself, because I feel like I've coined enough crossword terms for now. Natick ... kealoa ... One per decade seems like a good pace. So "letteral" is gonna have to wait at least a few years before I try to make it happen. By which time someone else may have come up with something better. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Modern digital asset in brief / THU 12-1-22 / McKenzie of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords / Giant star in Scorpius / Behave like a certain surface-feeding shark / Chinese American fashion designer with a Dolly Girl line / Joe-___ weed / Source of iridescence in many mollusks

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy theme, with somewhat challenging fill at times)

THEME: ANTICI / PATION (1A: First half of this puzzle's theme ... / 65A: ... and the end of the theme (finally!)) — phrases associated with anticipation:

Theme answers:

• "ALMOST THERE ..." (24A: ...)
• "WAIT FOR IT ..." (33A: ...)
• "NOT QUITE YET ..." (51A: ...)

Word of the Day: BASKing shark (63A: Behave like a certain surface-feeding shark) —

The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark, and one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Adults typically reach 7.9 m (26 ft) in length. It is usually greyish-brown, with mottled skin, with the inside of the mouth being white in color. The caudal fin has a strong lateral keel and a crescent shape. Other common names include bone shark, elephant shark, sail-fish, and sun-fish. In Orkney, it is commonly known as hoe-mother (sometimes contracted to homer), meaning "the mother of the pickled dog-fish". (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, ironically ...

The whole premise gets blow apart pretty early if you are able to see what the "first half" of the puzzle's theme is the first half *of*. Turns out not many things begin ANTICI-, so once you've checked all your crosses to make sure that ANTICI- is in fact right ... you're in business. Anyway, all of the anticipatory phrases don't really make sense when the sequential, orderly, top-to-bottom solving that the second revealer clue relies upon does not come to pass. Not only doesn't come to pass, but happens in reverse. The 1-Across "first half" revealer fairly *begs* you to figure out the ending first. Surely someone must have, uh, anticipated this. And yet we PRESS ON with the charade that this is happening in predictable order. I like the creativity here—breaking the revealer is an original idea, and refusing to clue the themers with anything but ellipses adds a nice dimension to the theme. "WAIT FOR IT" is the best of the themers, as it feels the most anticipatory as well as the strongest in its stand-aloneness (the others are fine but might just as easily have been shorter things, i.e. "ALMOST ..." and "NOT YET ..."). "IT'S A NOGO" runs weird interference in this puzzle, appearing to abort whatever process the theme has gotten underway (it seems to be in a theme-like position early on ... and then you get "HOUSTON..." which makes me think "we have a problem" and maybe have to scrub the mission ... But of course I'm just seeing things there. The theme is conceptually very interesting, but it's just not gonna play right for anyone but the most methodical, sequential solver.

All the themers filled themselves in pretty easily via crosses, so despite being essentially unclued (...), they added very little difficulty. Only real difficulty for me came in the SW, where I completely blanked on ANTARES (40D: Giant star in Scorpius), and had no clue initially which NEO- genre they thought Yoko Ono was involved in (39D: One of many genres for Yoko Ono). Seemed like you could throw any number of four-letter words in there and have a shot. Worst of all for me, though, was that I'd somehow never heard of a BASKing shark, and so that BASK clue was bonkers to me (63A: Behave like a certain surface-feeding shark). All the definitions suggest that they "appear to be basking" in the sun / warmer water, but that "appear" is doing a lot of work. The clue says that BASKing is their actual "behavior." I think they're just being sharks, doing normal shark things, and only look like they're BASKing from our perspective. A fine distinction, but, I dunno, respect shark agency, I guess. Not sure why you went to a shark to clue a totally non-shark word—it's a wild stretch. I thought maybe the shark was MASKing at one point. Had to really hack at this whole SW area to get it to fall. Most of the rest of the fill felt normal-to-easy, difficulty-wise.

Bullet points:

• 10A: Sky: Fr. (CIEL) — kind of a deep cut where foreign words are concerned. I can read French, so no problem here, but I don't think I'd cross this one with Yet Another French Word (LES) if there were any other way to do things (13D: Article in Paris Match). And with NOUS at 31A: Toi et moi. Dial it back, peut-être?
• 43D: Chinese American fashion designer with a Dolly Girl line (ANNA SUI) — proud to have (finally!) semi-remembered her. Less proud that I wanted to spell her last name like "feng shui" (i.e. ANA SHUI, [sad trombone sound])
• 48D: Joe-___ weed (PYE) — LOL what? No idea. Less than no idea. Figured it must be JOE-POE since that at least rhymes. 
• 9D: Hit the road with roadies, perhaps (GO ON TOUR) — cool answer if you parse it right. If not, well, you're on the GOON TOUR, and that could get ugly.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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TV 6-year-old who attends Little Dipper School / SUN 5-15-22 / Jazz bassist Carter / Component of a bridge truss / 1990s film with a famous wood chipper scene / Graffitied artistic attraction along 114-Across

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Way Out West" — a puzzle about ROUTE SIXTY-SIX (114A: Theme of this puzzle, which winds its way nearly 2,500 miles through all the shaded [circled] squares herein); the circled squares contain the abbrs. of the states that Route 66 runs through, arranged in a very rough visual approximation of the route's actual path:

Theme answers:

• THE MOTHER ROAD (21A: Nickname for 114-Across coined by John Steinbeck)
• PAINTED DESERT (39A: Colorful natural attraction along 114-Across)
• GATEWAY ARCH (65A: Tall, curved attraction along 114-Across)
• CADILLAC RANCH (92A: Graffitied artistic attraction along 114-Across)
• Grant PARK (34D: Grant ___, northeast terminus of 114-Across)
• Santa Monica PIER (83D: Santa Monica ___, southwest terminus of 114-Across)

Word of the Day: CADILLAC RANCH (92A) —

Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, US. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm.

The installation consists of ten Cadillacs (1949-1963) buried nose-first in the ground. Installed in 1974, the cars were either older running, used or junk cars — together spanning the successive generations of the car line — and the defining evolution of their tailfins. (wikipedia)

• • •

Surprised that a trip across America on ROUTE SIXTY-SIX could be this dull. It's basically a bad map with some arbitrary trivia thrown in. Here's what the actual trajectory of ROUTE SIXTY-SIX:

I was in Flagstaff a few summers ago. Nice place. Route 66 goes right through. It goes right through a lot of places. Thousands of miles of places. Shrug. These four trivia answers don't mean much to me, and seem chosen solely for their ability to fit symmetrically in the grid. I'd never even heard of two of them (THE MOTHER ROAD, CADILLAC RANCH). I figured CADILLAC RANCH was a brothel, actually. Which famous "ranch" am I confusing it with? Ah, Mustang Ranch ("Nevada's first licensed brothel," per wikipedia). That is not really anywhere near Route 66. CADILLAC RANCH turns out to be a bunch of cars nose-deep in dirt. Interesting. Almost certainly more interesting than the puzzle. There's not a lot to say. Bad map. Random trivia. End of story. (note: I see that the puzzle wants me to believe there are six Route 66 trivia answers, but PARK and PIER are disqualified based on length—they're just four-letter words playing thematic dress-up).

The grid does not have a lot of interesting fill, in part because it's really not built for it. Not a lot of room for longer answers. Lots of black squares, lots of choppiness, hence lots of shorter fare. And what longer fare there is tends to get wasted on stuff like SEMITONE and ACETONE and ATONED and probably some other "tone" that I'm missing. I mean, ENDPOST? (11D: Component of a bridge truss). Whose idea of a good time is that? That answer, with its FOLKSY and PAOLO crosses, was one of a few unfortunate sticking points in the grid, though the puzzle was no more difficult than your average Sunday. Because I couldn't work my way up into the NE without ENDPOST, I ended up having to restart cold up there, and that was oddly hard: DOT com before ROM com, LODES before GOALS (12D: Positive results of some strikes), ISM before IST (16D: Natural conclusion?). But it was all workoutable. Also had trouble in and around INTRANET, which is about as lovely as ENDPOST. But INTRANET brought an equally dull date, namely DATATYPE, and when ACETONE and CXL got involved, well, that whole SE area just got ugly. I loved "DON'T DO IT!" Puzzle could've used a lot more of that energy today. 

Notes:

• 5A: Pertaining to any of five Italian popes (SISTINE) — the popes in question were all named Sixtus, for the record
• 20A: Hardly a team player? (SOLOIST) — many soloists play with teams, if the team is an orchestra. I wanted EGOIST here ... EGOOIST, I guess. 
• 24A: Corpse ___ No. 2 (morning-after cocktail) (REVIVER) — love these, though never had one in the morning
• 58A: Peridot, for one (GEM) — can never remember what this is. I want it to be a color, or a wine. Like a periwinkle merlot or something.
• 98A: Jazz bassist Carter, who has appeared on more than 2,200 recordings (RON) — legend who appears on my my favorite album of the '90s (A Tribe Called Quest's "The Low End Theory"), and who just won a Grammy (Best Jazz Instrumental Album) for "Skyline." Here's his very recent Tiny Desk Concert:

• 13D: TV 6-year-old who attend Little Dipper School (ELROY) — This is a "Jetsons" reference, kids
• 37D: $100 bill, slangily (BEN) — the movie (2002) was called "All About the Benjamins," not "All About the BENs"; this "slang," like much purported "slang" in the NYTXW, feels at least mildly off

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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First capital of Alaska /THU 1-21-21 / Classic figure killed off in a 2019 Super Bowl ad campaign / Devices rendered obsolescent by smartphones, in brief / Where to find the Egyptian Temple of Dendur

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: TURN SIGNAL (56A: Automotive safety feature represented (and to be followed) eight times in this puzzle) —

Theme answers:

• MODERATE / BOREDOM (both answers take a "right" turn at the "R")
• "I'M ALIVE" / EVIL ONE (both answers take a "left" turn at the "L")
• CAST LOTS / STOLES (both answers take a "left" turn at the "L")
• DEGRADE / CHARGED (both answers take a "right" turn at the "R")

Word of the Day: BORATE (one of the eight answers in this puzzle that have no clue ... this one looks like it's 5D) —

 : a salt or ester of a boric acid (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Answers that turn at some point ... I have seen that a bunch of times before. Turning on the L or the R? Not sure. Don't know. The TURN SIGNAL angle is interesting, conceptually. But there's something missing here, some element to make it really pop. Two Ls, two Rs ... no real rhyme or reason to the execution. The answers veer left two times, then they veer R two times. The theme basically does what it says it does, but it feels really workmanlike and underwhelming. The thing that really isn't sitting well with me is the unclued stuff—that is, the answers that occur if you just read straight instead of turning. Actually, unclued entries are bound to happen with turning answers, so it's not just the uncluedness of eight answers; it's specifically the *uncrossed*ness of four of the answers. So BORATE isn't clued, but it's got the BOR from BOREDOM (which is clued) and the RATE from MODERATE, so every part of BORATE is clued in some way, even if the word itself isn't clued. But now let's look at MODERNISTS (the apparent 17A). You've got the MODER part, from MODERATE, but the -NISTS ... what is cluing the -NISTS. Nothing, that's what. In crosswords, every square has to be crossed in some way; that is, you have to have two ways (at least) of getting any given square. And with four letter strings in this puzzle (the NISTS in MODERNISTS, the EYE in EVIL EYE, the I in STOLI, and the EES in DEGREES), there simply are no crosses. I guess the idea is that ... whatever letters go there ... have to make ... *some* kind of (unclued) word. This is the deeply unfortunate byproduct of having both your crossing answers turn the same direction. If you get one turning left and the other turning right, then all paths out from the L or R are covered by clues. But when both theme crosses turn the same direction, one of those paths out from the L or R is left totally unaccounted for, cluewise. It makes my eye twitch.

The fill is also unaccountably unappealing in some corners. GAI SITKA ELIA AUS MFR ... all of that in the SE is really unappealing. AUS ... I thought that was the abbr. for Austria? Looks like Austria is AUT? Wow, sucks for Austria. Things aren't much nicer in the NE, with ICEE STENOS ODEDON (I'm a little tired of the puzzle's over-reliance on all things O.D.-related). CDC CDS is a not-great cross (also, terrible music, probably). And yikes, AMOEBOID?! -BOID? Sigh. There's good stuff sprinkled in here (BAD TAKES, COGNAC, PURE CHANCE), but CAN I? AREN'T I? ANTI? STOLI? (more than one stolus) ... too much of this clanks instead of hums. I like that NAS and RAP are symmetrical. That's probably PURE CHANCE, but I like it nonetheless. Missed a couple good chances to cross-reference clues (YES OR NO and ANS., BIPED and AUS ... actually, that last one only occurred to me because "kangaroo" (an AUS. BIPED) is in the clue for BIPED; maybe it's not the most natural cross-referencing opportunity). Overall, interesting twist on a been-done theme, but the execution leaves some parts unacceptably uncrossed. And then the fill is hit/miss. OK, back to basking in this weird feeling of living in a country run by basically good, basically competent people. Ahh. Good day. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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1986 Keith Haring antidrug mural / MON 11-25-19 / Batter's grip-enhancing goo / Distinctively shelled bivalves

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe slightly north of Medium) (3:16)

THEME: ACK ACK — Ack Ack (February 24, 1966 – November 7, 1990) was an American Thoroughbred Hall of Fameracehorse. (wikipedia)

Theme answers:

• SNACK ATTACK (17A: Reason to raid the fridge)
• BACK ON TRACK (29A: No longer astray)
• CRACK IS WACK (45A: 1986 Keith Haring antidrug mural)
• YACKETY YACK (60A: Gab) (is this really how it's spelled? Not "yakkity yak!"? The song spells it "Yakety Yak" ... not sure where this variant comes from) 

Word of the Day: NASHUA (10D: New Hampshire's second-largest city) —

Nashua is a city in southern New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2010 census, Nashua had a population of 86,494, making it the second-largest city in the state and in northern New England after nearby Manchester. As of 2018 the population had risen to an estimated 89,246. Nashua is, along with Manchester, one of two seats of New Hampshire's most populous county, Hillsborough County.

Built around the now-departed textile industry, in recent decades it has been swept up in southern New Hampshire's economic expansion as part of the Boston region. Nashua was twice named "Best Place to Live in America" in annual surveys by Money magazine. It is the only city to get the No. 1 ranking on two occasions—in 1987 and 1998. (wikipedia)

• • •

Would've quit this about 10 seconds in if I weren't faux-contractually obligated to write about it. Whatever you think about the theme (and I'm pretty neutral toward it), the fill in this is atrocious. There is no reason a Monday puzzle that is relatively light on, or at least not jammed with, theme material should have fill this rough and yesteryear. Seriously, ONENO is one of those answers that makes me want to shut the computer and walk away, immediately. It was never good, and it's especially terrible now, when constructing software can help constructors find at least passable fill in these run-of-the-mill corners. There's literally no excuse for ONENO. I guarantee you that if you pull out the NW and W, even leaving DEALMEIN in place, you (yes you, probably) can get rid of ONENO and probably IDINA and INCAN and NOS in the bargain. Why stop there, though? Keep going. Get rid of RIAL and AGRA, the NEATO BIS, DYAN and her ALGAE, the ASIS KOI the hissing SSS MRI, ANI, WINED, all of it. Or most of it. The best thing in the grid was also the hardest thing for me to recall: CRACK IS WACK! You can dump the rest in the KOI pond. (a friend of mine tells me, per the "constructor's notes," that ONENO was put in *during the editing process*, which ... wow. Wow. I mean, if ONENO was edited *in* to this thing, I don't know which is up or down or left or right (and I don't even want to imagine what the grid looked like originally).


I forgot NASHUA existed, wow. I'm trying not to actually look at that corner because again, the fill is So bad (NES ATA!), but yeah, that slowed me down a bit. I know NASHUA exists only because I interviewed for a job w/ a school in NASHUA 20+ years ago. I have literally never been to New Hampshire. Ever. But then I've only been to Vermont once, and then only just a few years ago. And they're only a few hours from me. Weird. Anyway, NASHUA slowed me a tad. So did WINED (ugh) because of course I had WOOED, which is an infinitely better answer (42A: Romanced, in a way). Wrote in SSA instead of SSS (confusing my terrible and my Very terrible SS_ words). How in the world does this grid require cheater squares?!?!?!  (black squares after GASP / before ASIS—they make grid easier to fill but don't add to the word count; such squares are usually only used if filling the grid cleanly is demanding, which ... why today?? Maybe I should be grateful that this thing isn't filled worse, but I'm not feeling that charitable right now, now that I've found out that this puzzle actually *was* edited and we *still* ended up with this swill. I dumbly wrote in SADAT when I had -ADAT at 57A: Tore into (HAD AT), without even looking at the clue. Bad assumption. I have a feeling this will play somewhat on the harder side for people, but not too hard. Gotta run. Cheers.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Apparently "YACKETY YACK" is indeed something—a 1974 Australian film (thanks for the reference, Brian!). Oh, and also this:

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Recurring melodic phrase / THU 1-4-18 / Nickname shared by two Spice Girls / Capital of Osterreich

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Challenging (well, until you *get it*—non-theme stuff is actually pretty easy)

THEME: (4)WARDING ADDRESS (38A: Something to leave at the post office ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme?) — Four different clues are actually answers found elsewhere in the grid. You find them via their "forwarding addresses," which are the apparent answers to the clues (which are not actually answers, but written-out clue numbers). So ...

Theme answers:

• 1A: Ten cents (12 DOWN) (12-Down = TEN CENTS)
• 13D: Macarena (18 ACROSS) (18-Across = MACARENA) 
• 38D: Allowed in (44 ACROSS) (44-Across = ALLOWED IN)
• 70A: Sea cow (48 DOWN) (48-Down = SEA COW) 

In the crosses for the numerals in the various clue answers (e.g. for the "1" and "2" in 12 DOWN), the numerals must be sounded out for the answers to make sense:

The crosses:

• 1SIES (1D: Toddlers' attire)
• 2TORED (2D: Gave private lessons to)
• ACT1 (booooo!) (10A: When a messenger from Godot arrives in "Waiting for Godot")
• CRE8 (16A: Make)
• VIED4 (51D: Tried to win, as a title)
• INM8 (58D: Prisoner)
• 4WARDINGADDRESS
• 4AGE (42A: Gather food)

Word of the Day: CREATINE (11D: Powder supplement for bodybuilders) —

noun

Biochemistry

noun: creatine

1. a compound formed in protein metabolism and present in much living tissue. It is involved in the supply of energy for muscular contraction. (google)

• • •

Well, this puzzle is at least trying, so good for it. This is very inventive, but also pointless, arbitrary, and just plain weird. A clear case of "oooooh I have this idea" and then stopping at nothing to implement it, including the little voice in your head going, "shouldn't there be some rhyme or reason to any of this? Shouldn't there be a modicum of theme coherence? Shouldn't answers maybe tie into ... something or ... something? And should clues really be, just ... literal answers?" Etc. Nope, it's mad scientist time, sound judgment and scruples be damned! So, yeah, it's original, and very hard (getting close to 2x my normal Thursday time), but hard solely because of the theme. Parts of the grid not implicated in the theme were pretty dang easy—it's just that there weren't that many of said places. I got -WARDING ADDRESS before I got any other theme answer, but never considered that the "FOR-" had been transformed into a number. I mostly just bumbled around the grid filling in what I could and leaving assorted spaces blank until I noticed my first [Answer found elsewhere] clue. I could tell 44A was going to be ALLOWED IN, which ... didn't I just see that as a clue? Yes. 38D: Allowed in. What the? But even then, the number thing didn't sink in, mostly because --ACROSS looked like it might be a plausible answer to [Allowed in]. GOT ACROSS? PUT ACROSS? FOR-something ACROSS? It wasn't until NE corner, where --ACROSS clearly was *not* a plausible answer for [Macarena], that I saw what was going on. After that, it was just a matter of going around grid and quickly cleaning up.


So the most irksome part of this puzzle isn't the replication of clues as answers, or the totally arbitrary set of theme answers. It's the fact that all of the "forwarding address" answers appear in the same corner as the addresses themselves *EXCEPT* in the NW, where 12DOWN sits all alone, with the actual 12-Down way on the other side of the grid. This is super inelegant. You have a clear pattern going with the other theme answers, but then just randomly break it? Once? No. Also, because the one corner that doesn't follow the pattern is the NW (i.e. the corner where I, like a lot of people, start), I didn't encounter the giveaway clue-as-answer phenomenon until very late in the solve. This is more irritating than it is "bad." ENTERER, now that's bad. Also, LATENED.

[23A = "Scary and Sporty..."]

I nearly died at VIED4, as I have no idea where Henderson is and I thought NEBraska. And initially, I thought 51D: Tried to win, as a title was BID ON. So ... I had NEB / BID ON. Felt right. And I mean, come on—[Last pope named Pius]?? Go to hell. Bad enough that you RRN* me, but ya wanna gratuitously pope me too? That's hostile. How the hell do I know how many damn Piuseseses there were? Anyway, this puzzle gets a thumbs-up for insane ambition. Despite its many flaws, it's better than most recent NYT fare, and is at least trying to live up to the NYT's own ad slogan, "The Best Puzzle in the World."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*Random Roman Numeral

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Otis's feline pal / WED 9-13-17 / Fizzy citrus beverage / 1787 Mozart composition / Repeated Lyric in La Bamba

Constructor: Daniel Mauer

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: THE LITTLE THINGS (62A: They're what really count, so it's said ... or a hint to the multilingual answers to the starred clues) — three phrases begin with foreign terms for "a/the little"

Theme answers:

• LE PETIT DEJEUNER (17A: *Breakfast, in Burgundy)
• EINE KLEINE / NACHTMUSIK (23A: *With 52-Across, 1787 Mozart composition)
• UNA POCA DE GRACIA (40A: *Repeated lyric in "La Bamba") 

Word of the Day: ORANGINA (41D: Fizzy citrus beverage) —

Orangina (French pronunciation: ​[ɔʁɑ̃ʒina]) is a lightly carbonated beverage made from carbonated water, 12% citrus juice, (10% from concentrated orange, 2% from a combination of concentrated lemon, concentrated mandarin, and concentrated grapefruit juices) as well as 2% orange pulp. Orangina is sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup (glucose-fructose) and natural flavors are added. // Orangina was invented at a trade fair in France, developed by Dr. Augustin Trigo Mirallès from Spain, and first sold in French Algeria by Léon Beton in 1935. Today it is a popular beverage in Europe, Japan, northern Africa, and to a lesser extent in North America. (emph. mine) (wikipedia)

• • •

This one was feeling stuffy from 1A: Hairdressers' challenges (MOPS). Something about that slang feels strangely dated to me—something you'd say about some Dennis the Menace-type's hair in the '50s. You'd probably also call the kid "impish." The kid would play marbles. You get my drift. But that was just a harbinger, an omen, boding ... not evidence of stuffiness. Evidence came later in an onslaught of overfamiliar short gunk (or OMRI, as I'm now calling it, for the second day in a row). This puzzle is seriously awash in it. HOTSY *and* EENIE? And then a dozen other things I've seen scores of times in the 25+ years I've been solving? (OPEL! SRI! Multiple OLES!) Sigh. But the theme? What of the charming theme, you maybe ask. Well it just doesn't work. I don't know why sticking the landing doesn't appear to be important to people. But it's important. It is. And LE PETIT DEJEUNER just doesn't work here, for at least two reasons. First, the other two are "a little" where this one is "the little." Yes, that matters. But what matters more is that the other two translate perfectly as "a little" (A Little Night Music, a little bit of grace), whereas no one but no one would translate LE PETIT DEJEUNER as "the little lunch" (though that is the *literal* meaning of those words). It's just ... breakfast. Also, why are these multilingual? And why doesn't the revealer have any relation to multilinguality? This just isn't tight. It's a slim idea, meekly executed. It does have I AM SO DEAD, which, ironically, is the answer that is in the least amount of trouble with me.


Here's a little more trouble for you, re: 24D: McDonald's founder Ray:

Wikipedia concurs, noting that, "It was founded in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California." And also: "Controversially, Kroc would present himself as the founder of McDonald's during his later life" (emph. mine both times). Can't wait for the correction on that one. Wife just walked in, indignant about HOTSY. "Who says HOTSY-totsy? Have you ever said HOTSY-totsy?" I was like, "No, but I think I know what it means." But then I didn't. Ugh, HOTSY. Anyway, one upside of this puzzle is I solved it fast. EINE KLEINE / NACHTMUSIK was a lot of real estate to just give away, and the grid was chopped up into tiny, easy-to-get answers, so I finished in about the same time I had yesterday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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