1981 hit Genesis album whose name resembles a rhyme scheme / SUN 4-11-21 / Italian poet Cavalcanti who influenced Dante / Birkin stock / Oscar-winning lyricist Washington / Lower-cost option on a popular rideshare app / Waldorf the so-called Queen B or Gossip Girl / Iraqi city on the Tigris

Constructor: Dick Shlakman and Will Nediger

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "Merger Mania" — familiar phrases are clued as if they were "mergers" between two companies, the first word in the phrase being a thing that one company makes, and the second word being something the other company makes. Wackiness all around:

Theme answers:

• LIFE COACHES (23A: Result of a merger between Quaker Oats and Greyhound?)
• SINGLES BARS (46A: Result of a merger between Kraft and Hershey's?)
• DRIVE NUTS (51A: Result of a merger between Google and Planters?)
• TROUBLESHOOTERS (68A: Result of a merger between Hasbro and Nikon?)
• TIDE POOLS (91A: Result of a merger between Procter & Gamble and Jacuzzi?)
• SPAM FILTERS (94A: Result of a merger between Hormel and Instagram?)
• POLO GROUNDS (120A: Result of a merger between Ralph Lauren and Starbucks?)

Word of the Day: JABOUKIE Young-White (13D: ___ Young-White, comedian/correspondent for "The Daily Show") —

Jaboukie Young-White (born 1994) is an American stand-up comedian and writer. [...] In 2017, he was featured on Rolling Stone's "25 Under 25: Meet the Young Musicians, Actors, Activists Changing the World" list. The following year, he was included in Vulture's "20 Comedians You Should and Will Know" list. In 2020, Young-White was placed on BET's "Future 40" list, which is a list of "40 of the most inspiring and innovative vanguards who are redefining what it means to be unapologetically young, gifted & black". Since 2017, he has performed stand-up twice on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. ^// As of 2018, he writes for the Netflix television shows Big Mouth and American Vandal. In October of that year, he was hired as a correspondent on The Daily Show; he made his first appearance opposite Trevor Noah on October 11, 2018.

• • •

Typical Sunday, i.e. long, full of corny humor, and decidedly not for me. The concept seems decent in theory, maybe, but in practice it's ragged and groan-some. Some of the answer parts are brands (LIFE cereal), some are generic words for a type of product (NUTS), some are features of a product (Instagram FILTERS) ... I mean, what the hell is up with GROUNDS? Starbucks doesn't sell GROUNDS. It sells ground coffee, but that ... that's not GROUNDS. GROUNDS are what are *left over* after you have made the coffee.  SHOOTERS and COACHES aren't even words people really use. It's all so sub-dadjoke. And then the cluing was clearly toughened up above normal, with the huge corners (NE, SW) making the puzzle feel Friday-Saturdayish at times, which, in a big puzzle where the theme is weak, just makes an unpleasant experience longer, ergo worse. Is Jacuzzi known for making POOLS? Whirlpools, yeah, but if they're in the general pool business, that news got by me. This one just clunks and SPUTTERs all over the place. 

The NE section was by far the toughest for me. JABOUKIE is a great name, but not anyone I've ever heard of (I stopped watching "The Daily Show" and *all* late-night comedy after the Last Guy got elected, as none of it was funny any more, and it all just seemed impotent and sad). And if you don't know JABOUKIE, wow is that a tough name to get a handle on. Thank god for CELESTE Ng! Without her, the only thing I'd've had in that entire corner that I was at all certain about was OBI (11D: Kimono accessory). I had UHOH for OHNO (17D: "Oops!"), and TEAM instead of RACE (because I didn't read the RELAY / RACE clue correctly) (30A: With 18-Down, what has four legs and sprints?) (I was counting human legs ... maybe ... and not thinking of "legs" as race segments). Wanted STEM but wasn't sure at 19D: Part of a musical note). Wasn't sure what letters preceded Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan (34A: U.S.S.). Total mess up there. Though it has the same dimensions, the SW ended up being a lot easier. I did not know a PEASANT did the "lord's work" (92D). I had no idea what Birkin was (still don't) (109D: Birkin stock?). Looks like they are a line of tote BAGS by Hermès. Huh. OK. "Stop your foolishness outside!" is one of the most awkward imagined clue phrases I've ever seen (123A: "GET IN HERE"). I can't imagine those words coming out of anyone's mouth in any context. The attempt to get cutesy with identical sequential cluing at 69- and 70-Down (both [A head]) is awful, as the indefinite article ruins the clue when it's applied to LOO. You just never use "A" like that in cluing. Head = LOO. The "A" is superfluous garbage.

I know that some birds are migrating birds, but I didn't know you referred to them as MIGRANTs (!?) (72A: Bird like the Canada goose or arctic tern). Had SAILS before MASTS (72D: Clipper parts). Had MEET and GEO before MESH and ISO (55D: Come together / 66A: Prefix with thermal) (note: MEET and GEO are both obviously better answers). DEM before REP at 49D: A.O.C., e.g. Just slog slog slog. The only real bright spot was IDA B. WELLS (83D: Co-founder of the N.A.A.C.P.) and the aforementioned CELESTE Ng, my personal puzzle savior today. On to the next. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Reposting this for the Sunday crowd!

"These Puzzles Fund Abortion" is a pack of 14 puzzles edited by Rachel Fabi and featuring an all-star list of constructors to benefit the Baltimore Abortion Fund (BAF). BAF provides financial assistance to people who live in or travel to Maryland for abortion care. The puzzles are currently available for preorder through a donation to BAF here. Donors who choose to donate anonymously can forward their receipt to the email address listed on the fundraiser page in order to receive the puzzles (they will not be sent automatically).   

The constructor slate really is top-notch (Erik Agard! Robyn Weintraub!), and having been a test-solver, I can say that the puzzle quality is really quite high—far more polished and entertaining than your average daily crossword. Do yourself and others a favor and go get these puzzles. The fundraising goal for this puzzle collection has gone from $5000 to $10,000 to now $20,000. I expect supporters to crash right through that $20,000 mark by Monday morning. Please help make that happen. And if you could spread the word, that would be great. Thank you. 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Kosygin of Russia / WED 7-2-14 / Honshu honorific / Often kicked comics canine / Lecherous goat-man / Boy of song who hated his name / Singer with 1994 hit bump n grind / pugilistic combo / Mountains tick off toy dogs / south africans are unexcited by swine / pastoral poems incapacitate teen faves

Constructor: Jeff Chen and Dick Shlakman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: blanks blank blanks — verb phrases where some plural does something to some other plural and all three of the words in the phrase rhyme:

• PEAKS PIQUE PEKES (17A: MOUNTAINS TICK OFF TOY DOGS)
• BOARS BORE BOERS (28A: SOUTH AFRICANS ARE UNEXCITED BY SWINE)
• PAIRS PARE PEARS (42A: COUPLES PEEL FRUIT)
• IDYLLS IDLE IDOLS (54A: PASTORAL POEMS INCAPACITATE TEEN FAVES)

Word of the Day: Guinea-BISSAU (28D: Guinea-___ (West African nation)) —

Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ⁱ/ˈɡɪni bɪˈsaʊ/, gi-nee-bi-sow, (Portuguese:República da Guiné-Bissau, pronounced: [ʁeˈpublikɐ dɐ ɡiˈnɛ biˈsaw]), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west. It covers 36,125 km² (nearly 14,000 sq mi) with an estimated population of 1,600,000. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow. Well wide of the mark. This is the hoariest kind of wordplay. Very surprised that a theme this basic and corny passed muster. Felt like something out of … ELD, I guess (48A: Antiquity, in the past). Nonsense phrases that rhyme? Maybe in [insert other puzzle's name here], but it's pretty sub-NYT stuff, or ought to be. The fill doesn't improve things much, either. My greatest delights were R KELLY (if only for the contemporariness and awesome opening letter combination) (43D: Singer with the 1994 hit "Bump n' Grind") and ABANDON SHIP (an answer I got very late because I stupidly had SRI at 20A: Honshu honorific (SAN) for a while and really Really stumbled trying to pick up everything in the REPAYS MANS SMARTY D-DAY DADA section) (3D: Final order from the captain). SETS A RECORD has a terrible ad hoc quality to it (26D: Becomes worthy of the Guinness Book, say), and most of the rest of the fill just sits there. BISSAU is pretty terrible, as it is just a name part, not a real name, and a pretty long (and mildly obscure) name part at that. Also, I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHY THE CLUES ARE SHOUTING AT ME. When the theme clues have you actually missing "?" clues, something is wrong.


Grid shape provides us with scads of 3- and 4-letter words, which rarely leads anywhere good. I don't know, what else? … I dunno … so … Hell of a soccer match, that was. 90+ minutes of boredom/torture, then a last-minute point-blank shot to (miraculously, unjustly) win it that somehow goes high, and then an overtime that was as exciting as any I've seen this World Cup. USA's keeper was outstanding in the face of extreme duress. I look forward to seeing TIM HOWARD in a puzzle soon. Congrats to Belgium.

Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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