THEME: if you squint and wish real hard, maybe (but no, not really—just a vaguely "Valentine"ish arrangement of red squares where normally black squares would be)
Word of the Day: CASBAH (47A: North African fortress) —
A kasbah (/ˈkæzbɑː/, alsoUS: /ˈkɑːz-/; Arabic: قصبة, romanized: qaṣaba, lit.'fortress', Arabic pronunciation:[qasˤaba], Maghrebi Arabic:[qasˤba]), also spelled qasbah, qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term alcazaba in Spanish (Spanish:[alkaˈθaβa]), which is derived from the same Arabic word. By extension, the term can also refer to a medina quarter, particularly in Algeria. In various languages, the Arabic word, or local words borrowed from the Arabic word, can also refer to a settlement, a fort, a watchtower, or a blockhouse. (wikipedia) // Algiers is a 1938 American crimedrama film directed by John Cromwell, written by John Howard Lawson and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie and Hedy Lamarr. The plot concerns a French jewel thief hiding in Algiers who meets a beautiful French tourist. The Walter Wanger production (originally distributed by United Artists) was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name. [...] The film was most Americans' introduction to the picturesque alleys andsouksof theCasbah.It was also the inspiration for the 1942 filmCasablanca, written specifically for Hedy Lamarr in the female lead role. WhenMetro-Goldwyn-Mayerrefused to release Lamarr, the role went toIngrid Bergman. // The oft-quoted invitation extended by Charles Boyer to "come with me to the Casbah" does not appear in the film, but still became comedians' standard imitation of Boyer, much like "Play it again, Sam" forHumphrey Bogart, "Judy, Judy, Judy" forCary Grantand "You dirty rat" forJames Cagney, all misquotes. Boyer hated the phrase, believing that it demeaned him as an actor.However, theLooney Tunescartoon characterPepé Le Pew, a spoof of Boyer as Pépé le Moko,did say "Come with me to the Casbah" as a pickup line.
• • •
[ROBBIE (6) / ELORDI (6)]
That's a pretty poor excuse for a 🩷. Looks more like the outline of a dog's face looking straight at you, with its tongue sticking out. Hmm ... I do love dogs, so ... that's the thing, you can see "love" in a lot of these answers if you want to. I mean, LOVE TRIANGLES has "love" built right in (12A: Features of many romantic dramas). And SEX TAPE ... I mean, you don't need "love" for that, but ... people in love might make one of those, I guess (30A: Intimate footage). After that, the "love" content gets a little thin. Yes, I see "COME" over there, and no I'm not counting it. CARE is a kind of "love" (4D: Attention to detail). Charles Boyer is a paragon of romance—he might ask you to come with him to the CASBAH (even though he never actually said the line "come with me to the CASBAH"—see "Word of the Day," above). Oh, and there's that clue on SHAG, which fooled me but good. Wasn't til after I was done with the whole puzzle and was looking it over that I realized, "Oh, they weren't looking for TOOLS after all. 'Screw' and 'nail'—I get it now. Nice one, puzzle." I went to see the new Wuthering Heights movie yesterday, which is artificially pumped full of "love" content (including ridiculously conventional "romance" tropes and tons of sex), so it's not hard to get me to see love and sex and unintentional sexual innuendo in this grid. TOOLS, GET IN ON, LOAD UP, SWIG, SANTA PHOTOS—these are all filthy answers if you want them to be. But mostly what we've got here is a standard Saturday. Actually, difficulty-wise, it's substandard (way too easy). LOVE TRIANGLES had me thinking there was going to be a "love" theme, but then SOMALI PIRATES pretty much took the wind out of those sails (10D: Antagonists in 2013's "Captain Phillips").
When 1-Across is a gimme, the puzzle tends to play easy, and this is especially true if 1-Across is a long answer, like PEACE SIGN (1A: It's made with two fingers ... man, every clue is reading dirty to me now). I threw down PEACE SIGN with 80% certainty and then checked the crosses, and yep, they checked out:
The only thing that gave me trouble up there was SANTA PHOTOS, which feels off. People (children, mostly) might get their photos taken with Santa at the mall, say (what has the demise of mall culture done to the photos-with-Santa industry!?). But I don't think I've heard the phrase SANTA PHOTOS before. It's plausible, it's not wrong, exactly, it just didn't come to mind quickly because it's not a very ... alive phrase. Oh, and do people really text GTG ("gotta go")? You know "bye" has the same number of letters, right? Weird. Hell, "tata" has just four, you could use that if you wanted—if you could spare the time to type the extra letter. Some of that short stuff up top is unpretty (ENE ATT GTG), but I like the stack. The one at the bottom is fine, but less interesting. REMOTE WORKERS is a solid answer but not exactly an exciting one. Love SIMONE BILES but she's in the grid all the time. TAKES A BET, though ... that answer definitely EATS A SANDWICH. Plus, it reminds me of how sports gambling has taken over every aspect of American life now—the Draft Kingsification of sports threatening to seep into everything—everything you do, every political event, everything that happens. Gambling culture corrupts everything. Players manipulate outcomes. Players get threatened by loser gamblers who are mad that the player didn't make a play. Degrading stuff, all around. So yeah, TAKES A BET did less than nothing for me. I really like the heart center, though. If you PARACHUTE IN with a SEX TAPE up your SLEEVE(S), you're sure to be the life of the party. The other fill in there actually holds up pretty well, so bravo to all the atria and ventricles there. Well done.
Bullets:
38A: Like a nepo baby's life, perhaps (CUSH) — well as you know (maybe, if you were here that one time...) I hate the very term "nepo baby." Just the way it looks and sounds. It's idiotic. A blanket term of derision that people apply very indiscriminately. So I guess it's fitting that it should clue the "word" CUSH, a "word" for which I have nothing but derision. The word (no scare quotes) is CUSHY. Maybe if you're texting and really in a hurry ...
53A: One of the "Golden Girls" of the 2024 Summer Olympics (SIMONE BILES) — me after reading the first five words of this clue: "BLANCHE DEVEREAUX! No, too long. ROSE NYLUND! Too short, ugh! DOROTHY ... what was her name? ... DOROTHY ZBORNAK! Still too long. SOPHIA PETRILLO! Dammit!" (OK, so I didn't get all the way to Dorothy and Sophia, whose last names I had to look up, but that first part definitely happened)
12D: Takes badly? (LOOTS) — fun ("fun") to put this right next to the SOMALI PIRATES. This is one of two clues that initially misread quite badly. For some reason I read [Talks badly?] and (off the "L") wrote in LISPS. I also read [Many a private investor?] at 25D: Many a private investigator? (EX-COP). I wanted, I don't know, ANGEL, something like that.
17D: Honorific meaning "elder brother" (AGHA) — I've seen AG(H)A countless times over the years, but I did not know this bit of trivia. Interesting.
["Your name it is known in high places / You know ... the AG(H)A Khan / And he sends you a racehorse for Christmas / And you keep it ... just for fun (for a laugh, ha ha ha)"]
34D: Greenland expanse (ICE SHEET) — yeesh, lotta "ICE" the last two days. Yesterday we had ICE ARENA (?) and THAI ICED TEAS (as well as MINNESOTA NICE), and today, a big (but probably shrinking) ICE SHEET. Oh, and the "Miracle on Ice" (19D: Losing team in the "Miracle on Ice" = U.S.S.R.). Was "ice" always everywhere like this, or am I just more inclined to notice it these days, for reasons?
40D: Nervous laughs (HEHS) — I had HEES, but yeah, HEHS is nervouser. Equally terrible as an answer (all laugh syllables bad, plural laugh syllables worse), but definitely more "nervous."
47D: Beer brand from Trinidad and Tobago (CARIB) — the one answer that totally stumped me today. I could get there pretty easily from the clue (specifically, the beer's place of origin), but still, no, never heard of this beer. Wanna see a picture? OK, here you go.
That's all. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd] ============================= ❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
Word of the Day: POT DE CREME (49A: Custardy French dessert) —
Pot de crème (/ˈpoʊdəˈkrɛm/POH-də-KREM; French:[podəkʁɛm]),[1] plural pots de crème (pronounced the same), is a loose French dessertcustard dating to the 17th century. The name means "pot of custard" or "pot of cream", which also refers to the porcelain cups in which the dessert is served
• • •
Hi everyone, it's Eli filling in at the last minute. Hope your weekend is off to a great start. Today's puzzle is a pretty straightforward themeless offering. I drew a blank starting off in the northwest, got slowed by a few wrong answers in the southeast, and still finished it in under 5 minutes. Obviously your mileage may vary, but that's a pretty easy puzzle in my book. Let's see what we've got.
Like I said, I got nothing off-hand from the first few clues, so I jumped to a different section to get started. I confidently dropped NBA instead of NFL and POT AU CREME instead of POT DE CREME into 45A and 49A, but the fact that I couldn't make any sense out of 47D (LEXI: Golfer Thompson who qualified for the U.S. Women's Open at age 12) got me back on track pretty quickly. The fact that NEMO (45D: Spoiler alert: He's found in Sydney Harbour) was a true gimme that fit either answer didn't help. Once I got that sorted, though, I didn't really slow down until I finished. I hesitated for a second spelling AFICIONADOS, but no real worries there.
I never enjoy being reminded of the existence of AYN Rand or her unreadable books, but following it up with Miles MORALES is a nice palate cleanser. I also liked the trivia in the clue for PERU (32D: Country name that's also the Portuguese word for "turkey"). Learning things is fun!
Some of the longer answers seemed nicely in the language to me. ARE YOU NUTS, I CAN RELATE, and IS THAT A YES all brought a quick smile to my face. So bonus points for those. Getting all three of those phrases to fit without sacrificing the fill too much feels like a nice accomplishment. There's also a shot at skewing the puzzle younger crossing RIDIC (41D: So absurd, in slang) with PEACH EMOJI (54D: Butt text?). Now, I'm just past the generation that flirted using emojis, but I didn't think the peach was exclusively "butt." I thought... well, let's just say a quick Google confirmed my instincts and leave it at that.
Call Me By Your Name? That is one ridic peach. Don't get me started on 18A.
Stray thoughts:
32A: Business with the stock symbol WOOF (PETCO)— Good reminder to pick up dog food tomorrow. Wouldn't want my sweet Maeve to go hungry.
14D: U.S. city with the motto "Where Discoveries are Made" (LOS ALAMOS) — I suppose that's better than "If You Had Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds, You'd Be Home By Now."
26D: Major League Soccer team with pink home jerseys (INTER MIAMI) — Easy to remember when you keep seeing Lionel Messi in his jersey, rubbing it in your face that he's not playing for LAFC.
36D: Box office? (CUBICLE) — I never thought I'd miss a cubicle, but my current job has open, wall-less desks that you have to book every day rather than having an assigned space, so you can't personalize your desk or store anything overnight. If there's a way to dehumanize a work force, a corporation will find it.
35A: A whole bunch of people in a row (MELEE) - "Row" as in "fight." But this word always takes me straight to Monkey Island.
I think that's all I've got for today. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
Wait, did I just see a typo in the clue for 27A? In the app it says "Florida city where the "The Greatest Show on Earth" was once headquartered". That's too much "the," right?
THEME: Double Digits — Theme answers have the names for the fingers -- THUMB, INDEX, MIDDLE, RING, PINKY -- with their letters doubled, as hinted at by FAT FINGER SYNDROME
Theme answers:
EA(T HUMB)LE PIE (22A: Admit one was wrong)
BL(IND EX)PERIMENTS (35A: Research trials using withheld information)
KATE (MIDDLE)TON (48A: Royal whose wedding had a whopping 1,900 guests)
Hello yet again! It's Rafa here to close out the weekend! I'll be gone tomorrow, so if you've been waiting anxiously for me to go away, you are in luck. Again, I hope your last 24 hours were wonderful. I read an article in the New Yorker about glass eel fishing. Always fun to read about eels as a crossword person. Eels are actually really cool! Nobody knows how they reproduce (!) ... they only spawn in the Sargasso Sea ... they are very expensive and there's a whole clandestine eel industry. That article made me feel like EELER / EELED are maybe ok as crossword fill? (Don't cancel me!). Anyways, let's move on to this puzzle.
So, IMO there are a few issues here. Firstly, and most glaringly, FAT FINGER SYNDROME is simply Not A Thing. The puzzle is trying very hard to make it A Thing, but, alas, it is not. Googling "fat finger syndrome" with quotes returns a measly 15,000 results. Take a peep at this incriminating graph below.
Having a revealer that misses the mark is always a real letdown for me because the whole puzzle is one building crescendo getting you ready for the revealer denouement. You worked so, so hard for that revealer! And when you get something that is Not A Thing you are sad!
Secondly, once I figured out the theme (early on), there were no additional aha moments, no side plots to my puzzle's drama, no wine pairings to my puzzle's tasting menu, no deliciously thick layer of cream cheese to my puzzle's toasted sesame bagel. Since there are just five fingers, and they were in order, I could just go through and pretty much immediately fill out the theme answers based on very few (if any) crossings.
Thirdly, the fingers aren't very well hidden in all the entries. We start out strong with THUMB and INDEX across word breaks. Then MIDDLE and RING are just half-heartedly "hiding" at the beginning / end of a word. And then PINKY ... is just there, in plain sight. Its own word. Not trying to hide at all.
Finally, Merriam-Webster lists "pinkie" is the primary spelling for the finger, and PINKY as a variant spelling. This didn't bother me too much (I don't think I have a preference for one vs. the other) but did any of you notice or care? Let me know!
This DJ is probably playing EDM. A better way to clue EDM, I think
And then the fill felt mostly uninspiring to me. There are no non-theme entries with length >7, so there isn't much opportunity to include interesting bonus fill in the puzzle. Sometimes a Sunday theme is just so constrained that there's no way to fit in any other long slots, but this one felt like it could have supported some more zing. ZEPHYR is a fun word ... BELLINI is nice maybe? ... ECHIDNAs are funky creatures, SPARE ME is a good colloquial expression ... but there isn't much else here to remember.
The short stuff was on the gluey side too. LEDA / OBS / MAI (as clued) / OWS / SISI is a pretty rough row. The clue choice for MII [Early 11th-century year] boggles the mind. Funny that they had to clue EDM as Edmonton and not Electronic Dance Music, I assume for fear of the ECHIDNA crossing but then they couldn't clue ALB as another 3-letter Canada abbr. so they went with the religious garment.
This is a MII! A better way to clue MII, I think
Overall, not my favorite Sunday, I'm afraid! It's a pity because the "fat finger" idea is really fun. If the revealer had been just FAT FINGERS, even if not in a symmetrical position with another theme entry, I think this would have been a stronger puzzle.
Bullets:
I SEE [39D: Words from someone who's following you] — Loved this clue!
ASEA [104D: Offshore] — I will be an ASEA hater for the rest of my living days. Abolish ASEA as crossword fill. May ASEA go ASEA and never return a-land
TOASTY [31A: Like a room with a lit fireplace, often] — This, however, is a fantastic word. TOASTY! What a great word. More TOASTY in crosswords, less ASEA
STREAK [85A: Run out of clothes?] — Another cute tricky clue that was easy to see through but still got a chuckle out of me
THEME: "I Do, I Do ... Do!" — familiar phrases with three "I"s have the third "I" removed, creating wacky phrases, all of it tied together by oldies band THIRD EYE BLIND (119A: Band with the 1997 hit "Semi-Charmed Life" ... or a phonetic hint to this puzzles' theme):
Theme answers:
PIERCING SHREK (23A: Preparing to put earrings in an ogre?) ("shriek")
ORIGIN STORES (31A: The Macy's in New York's Herald Square, and others?) (“stories”)
FIVE PILLARS OF SLAM (52A: Pentad for a poetry performance?) ("Islam")
PICKING ONE'S BRAN (68A: Shopping for some cereal?) ("brain")
CERTIFICATE OF CLAM (87A: Prize in a chowder cook-off?) ("claim")
SPITTING MAGE (104A: Old-timey wizard who needs to learn some manners?) ("image")
Word of the Day: C-suite (127A: C-suite members => EXECS) —
I do, I do ... not. Care for this. At all. I was out very early on, based primarily on the fill (IDEO? SITU? GIGIO!?!?!), but also based on the fact that I got the first themer, looked at the title, saw that this was going to be a 3 x "I" thing where the last eye was removed, and ... knew that I didn't have anything to look forward to. At all. Except some wackiness. And the second themer confirmed what I suspected, which is that the concept doesn't contain nearly enough wackiness to make it worth the squeeze. ORIGIN STORES? That is some put-you-to-sleep wackiness. Even the base phrases are kinda boring. I don't think I even know what a "certificate of claim" is. I'm sure it's *fascinating* but, shrug. I guess the whole point of the puzzle is the revealer, but the title already gave the concept away completely, so when I got to the revealer, it felt more redundant than revelatory. Also, really, you're going to build an entire Sunday grid around a one-hit wonder band from more than a quarter-century ago? I can hear the diehards out there going, "'One-hit wonder!?' What about 'Jumper,' man!? Or 'How's It Gonna Be!?' Or a little song called 'Never Let You Go,' ever heard of it?" No, I haven't, but OK OK, let's say, three- or four-hit wonder, with no real hits since 2000; happy? I actually don't want to disparage anyone's music or musical tastes. They just seem like a minor band to build a whole-ass Sunday puzzle around, especially this ... belatedly. So the revealer felt odd, on many levels, and it didn't really reveal anything, since the (very awkward) puzzle title already did that, and the thing that was being revealed wasn't that scintillating to start with. Moreover, the fill just wasn't strong enough to make up for the theme's mediocrity. For longer fill, you've got only a handful of 7- and 8-letter answers, plus a couple of 9s, and only REALITY TV and (maybe) TREKKIE rise even to the level of "interesting." I wish there were more here to get excited about.
HOBBES is a "cartoon character"? (102D: Cartoon character who said "Van Gogh would've sold more than one painting if he'd put tigers in them"). Were there "Calvin & HOBBES" cartoons that I missed? (there were not). HOBBES is a *comics* (or *comic strip*) character. Yes, cartooning is the basic visual language of comic strips, but calling a comic strip character a "cartoon character" feels like misdirection that's bordering on inaccuracy. When you say "cartoon character," you are implying the character appeared in a cartoon, that is, in animated fare of some kind, which HOBBES never did (god bless you, Bill Watterson). The Pink PANTHER? Cartoon character; HOBBES? No. That HOBBES ANIL VESSELS REALITYTV corner was by far the toughest thing for me to put together today, and it wasn't that hard in the end. Slight slow-down around E-GIRL (92A: Gen Zer who might be into faux freckles and anime), since I can never remember what letter is supposed to come before said GIRLs or what it's supposed to stand for (I think it's like EMO? Maybe? Whoops, no, it's "electronic" because it's a phenomenon associated with the ... internet? So ... like every other phenomenon on the planet these days? It's a TikTok thing which is why I know Squat about it. Yet I did know about it ... and yet I forgot about it. Once again, thank god for fair crosses.
Any other mistakes or write-overs? I had PETSPAS before DOGSPAS, hardly interesting (1A: Businesses that might offer "pawdicures"). I wrote in FREDO before FRODO (which is what happens when you don't read the clue) (84A: Literary character described as "a stout little fellow with red cheeks"). No idea what a plangonologist is, but I knew that collecting DELLS was probably not a thing, so ... DOLLS, then (77D: Things a plangonologist collects). Does being a collector really make you an "-ologist?" Seems pretty high-falutin'. But if the doll people insist, then OK. People should be called what they want to be called. I had SEARS before K-MART (69D: Former retail giant), and PEN and INK before APP (17D: What some people use to solve a New York Times crossword). Ugh, the cutesy winky meta clue. Not a fan.
[I sorta like this one. Actually, all these THIRD EYE BLIND songs were pretty huge hits.
The group's fame was just very ... chronologically contained, I guess you could say]
The "do"-to-"do" clue for SCALE was kind of cute (62D: "Do"-to-"do" delivery), though it's slightly amazing that that clue does not have a "?" on it, since a. you would not normally refer to a SCALE as a "delivery," and b. the clue is absolutely punning on a different phrase, i.e."door-to-door." These are basic criteria for a "?" clue and yet ... no. Odd. What else did I like? PAPADAM, those are tasty (72A: Deep-fried appetizer often served with chutney). I'd like to like EARGASM (13A: Feeling of auditory bliss, in a modern coinage), but the coinage isn't that "modern," actually. There's a 1976 album by Johnnie Taylor called "EARGASM," which I know because I own it. Whether you'd call the coinage "modern" or not, it's certainly a standout answer, especially in this grid. I like the EARGASM GROUPIE stack; very suggestive. Not much else here to get your heart rate up, though, I'm afraid. Ah well, as usual, there's always next week. See you when I see you.
Word of the Day: SALLY Ride (27A: Ride in space) —
["Wheel of Fortune, ___ Ride, / Heavy metal suicide!"]
Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronautand physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonautsValentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. She was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32. [...] After completing her training in 1979, she served as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped develop the Space Shuttle's robotic arm. In June 1983, she flew in space on the Space ShuttleChallenger on the STS-7 mission. The mission deployed two communications satellites and the first Shuttle pallet satellite (SPAS-1). Ride operated the robotic arm to deploy and retrieve SPAS-1. Her second space flight was the STS-41-G mission in 1984, also on board Challenger. She spent a total of more than 343 hours in space. She left NASA in 1987. [...] Having been married to astronaut Steven Hawley during her spaceflight years and in a private, long-term relationship with former Women's Tennis Association player Tam O'Shaughnessy, she is the first astronaut known to have been LGBT. She died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012. (wikipedia)
• • •
***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** How is the new year treating you? Well, I hope. Me, uh, not great so far (COVID, you know), but I'm 95% better, and was never terribly sick to begin with, so I have every reason to believe things will turn around for me shortly, thank God (and vaccines). Anyway, it's early 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. I'm not sure what to say about this past year. This will sound weird, or melodramatic—or maybe it won't—but every time I try to write about 2022, all I can think is "well, my cat died." She (Olive) died this past October, very young, of a stupid congenital heart problem that we just couldn't fix (thank you all for your kind words of condolence, by the way). I'm looking at the photo I used for last year's fundraising pitch, and it's a picture of me sitting at my desk (this desk, the one I'm typing at right now, the one I write at every day) with Olive sitting on my shoulder, staring at me, and making me laugh. It's a joyous picture. Here, I'm just gonna post it again:
I love the photo both because you can tell how goofy she is, and how goofy she made me. Her loss hurt for the obvious reasons, but also because she was so much a part of my daily routine, my daily rhythms and rituals. She was everyday. Quotidian. Just ... on me, near me, being a weirdo, especially in the (very) early mornings when I was writing this blog. She took me out of myself. She also made me aware of how much the quotidian matters, how daily rituals break up and organize the day, mark time, ground you. They're easy to trivialize, these rituals, precisely because they *aren't* special. Feed the cats again, make the coffee again, solve the crossword again, etc. But losing Olive made me reevaluate the daily, the quotidian, the apparently trivial. In a fundamental way, those small daily things *are* life. No one day is so important, or so different from the others, but cumulatively, they add up, and through the days upon days you develop a practice—a practice of love, care, and attention given to the things that matter. If you're reading this, then crossword puzzles are undoubtedly an important ritual for you, just as writing about crosswords for you all is an important ritual for me. It gives me so much. I hope that even at my most critical, my genuine love for crosswords—for the way my brain lights up on crosswords—comes through. I also hope that the blog brings you entertainment, insight, laughter ... even (especially) if you disagree with me much (most? all?) of the time.
[man, I really wear the hell out of this red fleece...]
The blog began years ago as an experiment in treating the ephemeral—the here-today, gone-tomorrow—like it really mattered. I wanted to stop and look at this 15x15 (or 21x21 thing) and take it seriously, listen to it, see what it was trying to do, think about what I liked or didn't like about it. In short, I gave the puzzle my time and attention. And I continue to do that, every day (Every! Day!). And it is work. A lot of work. Asking for money once a year (and only once a year) is an acknowledgment of that fact. There is nothing to subscribe to here ... no Substack or Kickstarter or Patreon ... and there are no ads, ever. I prefer to keep financial matters simple and direct. I have no "hustle" in me beyond putting my ass in this chair every morning and writing.
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):
Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):
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 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 designed a cat-related thank-you postcard for 2023, just as she has for the past two years, but this year, there's a bonus. Because this year ... the postcard is also a crossword puzzle! Yes, I made a little 9x9 blog-themed crossword puzzle for you all. It's light and goofy and I hope you enjoy it. It looks like this (clues blurred for your protection):
I had fun making this puzzle (thanks to Rachel Fabi and Neville Fogarty for proofing it for me!). For non-snail-mailers who want to solve the puzzle, don't worry: I'll make the puzzle available for everyone some time next month. 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 and support. Now on to today's puzzle...
• • •
[36D: Internet company whose logo is a cat wearing earphones]
Well, you hate to end on a BLAT (almost like ending on the proverbial [sad trombone] sound, wah-WAH), but that [Unpleasant sound from a tuba] is especially unBEFITting today, as this is the best puzzle I've seen all week. Big Friday Energy. Just whooshing and SKOSHing and SKORTing all over the place. Lots of bells and whistles and WHAPS (whatever those are). Lots of LIFE, is my point. Could've used more fight, more teeth, more HEART, more TIGER (56A: Go-getter) (hey, it's "getter" again, can't seem to shake that "word" this week). But I can't fault the puzzle's relative easiness—I'm just telling myself that this is the Real Friday puzzle that got bumped for that thematic WHATCHMACALLIT we got yesterday. Which reminds me: WHATCHAMACALLIT—spelled perfectly on the first try! Can't figure out the difference between BREACH and BREECH (see yesterday), but can spell enormous made-up near-nonsense words correctly, no sweat. Weird, but true. I really liked the shape of this grid, and the unexpected way it unfolded. It just has so much ... let's call it "flow." It basically has all the symmetries (mirror symmetry along the axes and diagonals, plus rotational symmetry—not just 180-degree, but 90-degree as well). It's essentially a cloverleaf, with four corner loops, so you can go spinning around the black squares in all different directions and then go shooting off down the road, and you never find yourself stuck in some dank corner with no one to come to your rescue. Never any "ugh, I'm stuck, what next," because there's always another way to come at things. I botched 1A: Terms of address right out of the gate. Misread it as a singular and wrote in MADAM, and the "confirmed" MADAM with ALT ... but that error never bogged me down. I just moved over to the adjacent top section and started in with THUDS at 6A: Hit sounds, which was also wrong, but then my beloved PHO came to my rescue, so I tried WHAPS for the [Hit sounds] and zooooom off I went. Pretty soon, the first sparkly long answer went streaking across the grid:
PHO! There for you in sickness, in health, and in grid. Truly a miracle worker. As for HOSTILE TAKEOVER, I mostly get bored by business-y economic-y IPO-type words, but it's hard not to like the '80s-movie energy of HOSTILE TAKEOVER. Why do I associate HOSTILE TAKEOVER with the '80s? Probably because that's when I learned the term, and also all "Wall Street" / "Working Girl"-type movie business shenanigans seem of a piece to me. At any rate, I like HOSTILE TAKEOVER as a crossword answer, a lot. I also liked the way my solve unfolded after that. It was just so ... visually odd. And symmetrical!
Once I drove those long spikes down through the HEART of the grid, I knew the rest of the solve was going to be a cinch. Like driving a stake through the HEART of Dracula, only ... nicer, less violent. From the above position, I got WALKIE-TALKIES and then pulled all the Down crosses through the center line, and thus through the answer that ended up being NO TRESPASSING—that was the one answer that did give me a brief (and welcome) struggle, as I had trouble parsing it (as well as grasping the meaning of its "?" clue). I had PASSI-- on the end and at first wanted something-PASSION (sincerely thought "enforced boundaries" was going to have something to do with bondage). Then got PASSING and figured PASSING was a word unto itself. Then the NOTRE part at the beginning ended up looking like the French word NOTRE as in NOTRE Dame ... until finally NO TRESPASSING sorted itself out. This is my kind of "difficulty"—stumbling through befuddlement to come out with clarity on the other side. Struggle ... then clarity! And "aha" clarity, not "ugh" clarity. Good stuff.
There was, of course, stuff I just didn't know. ROXY, for one (16D: Women's surfwear brand). Actually ... that might be it. Weird. I've had Monday puzzles that threw more unknowns at me. Still, I thought the cluing made things sufficiently thorny—for a Friday, if not really for a Saturday. The SALLY Ride clue was good (if not terribly hard) (27A: Ride in space). I also liked the clue on DRUG (48D: Generic, e.g.). Now that's a proper Saturday clue—a noun posing as an adjective, and just the one word + e.g. Tough. But neighboring Téa LEONI was not tough and neighboring ERE was not tough, and with that much easy stuff lying around, the tough stuff never had a chance to really hold me up (or drag me down). "THE BACHELORETTE" is a scourge, but that is a great clue. This is the magic of crosswords—making me excited to encounter things I have no interest in or actively dislike. HOSTILE TAKEOVER! "THE BACHELORETTE"! Not what I would have called the makings of a Rex-pleasing puzzle, and yet Here We Are. Hope this one gave you a good workout or at least a bracing "good morning" slap in the face. See you tomorrow.
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!")
.png)
