Audio genre designed to trigger tingling, for short / MON 7-20-26 / 32-card card game / Car in "Thelma & Louise," informally / Someone who's not thinking may be on this / Important consideration for A.I. programmers / Counterpart of dahs, in Morse code

Constructor: Eric Rolfing

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "I FEEL FOR YOU" (60A: "My sympathies" ... of what could be said of 17-, 27- and 46-Across) — things you might feel for:

Theme answers:

• LIGHT SWITCH (in the dark) (17A: On/off device)
• SCRABBLE TILE (in ... the bag? is it a bag that you draw tiles out of? I do not care for that game) (yes, it's a bag) (27A: One with Q or Z is worth 10 points)
• POCKET CHANGE (in your pockets) (46A: Cause of some rescreenings in an airport)

Word of the Day: SKAT (42D: 32-card card game) —

Skat (German pronunciation: [ˈskaːt]), historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the ace–ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games." The German Skat Association assesses that it is played by around 25 million Germans – more than play football. [...] The pack consists of 32 cards. Many modern packs use the French pack consisting of an ace (Ass), king (König), queen (Dame), jack (Bube), 10, 9, 8 and 7 in all four suits (clubs ♣, spades ♠, hearts ♥ and diamonds ♦). Some players in Eastern and Southern Germany and Austria prefer traditional German packs with suits of acorns , leaves , hearts  and bells , and card values of deuce (Daus), king (König), Ober, Unter, 10, 9, 8, and 7 in all four suits. Until recently in Saxony and Thuringia, for example, German-suited packs were used almost exclusively. By contrast, regions of the former West Germany had adopted a French-suited pack. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hoo boy I just (literally just) finished watching the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, which Spain won 1-0 in extra time, and it was very dull until suddenly it wasn't and so I am very tired and slightly drunk because I had a Fernet & Coke to start the match (an Argentinian favorite) and then our regular cocktail-hour cocktail to end the match (today, a Diamondback), and between the late-game adrenaline and the alcohol I'm surprised I was able to get through this puzzle and only slightly less surprised that I am able to type letters with any kind of proficiency. In fact, I got very stuck in my Downs-only solve (predictably, on the long Downs), but then I took a pausa de hidratración (OK, actually, I took a bathroom break), and when I got back, the long Downs suddenly became very doable and I finished up no problem. The lone goal in the Spain-Argentina match came when Spain's Nico Williams saved a cross with his HEAD, putting it in the perfect position for Ferran Torres to drive the ball into the back of the net (finally!). Of course at that point Argentina was playing a man down because of a red card issued late in regulation time. That match ... boring, and then chaos. Thank god it didn't go to PKs—Spain was much, much the better team and deserved to win, however much I was kinda rooting for some kind of late Argentina miracle (which, frankly, almost happened, a couple of times). Annnnnnnyway ... still high on the game (and somewhat on alcohol). I need to go eat dinner. Then I'll write more.

OK we're back. This theme is pleasingly silly. It's probably more accurate to say you "fumble" for the light switch (in the dark) or change (in your pocket), but then Chaka Khan didn't sing "I FUMBLE FOR YOU," did she?

Speaking of fumbling, I fumbled a bit trying to finish this puzzle Downs-only. I put Thelma & Louise in a CHEVY, for starters (2D: Car in "Thelma & Louise," informally = T-BIRD). I also balked at ATHEISM since the "no more" part didn't really make sense. You might become an atheist after having been some kind of theist, but the rejection of prior faith is not an inherent part of ATHEISM. If you disavow previously avowed principles, technically you're an apostate, although in that case you've often left one religion for another. Anyway, this is all to say that I tried to make APOSTASY work (wouldn't fit). This is the kind of mistake you make when you read Milton every semester.

So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep despare: (Paradise Lost, I.126-27)

You know what clue is hard to understand if you've had even just one drink, and maybe if you've had none? 31D: Someone who's not thinking may be on this (AUTOPILOT). For some reason I could not find the rhythm, could not figure where the stress in my voice was supposed to go. "Someone who's not thinking" is the subject, and "may be" is the verb phrase, I see that now, but I was not expecting a complete sentence (crossword clues are overwhelmingly not complete sentences), so I was looking for someone who was not thinking ... something. So my brain heard the clue like this: [Someone who's not thinking "may be on this"], as if "may be on this" were the thing that "Someone" was not thinking. But that made no sense, so ... I had to say the clue aloud to myself to figure out the rhythm (and meaning). It's a fine clue, it just short-circuited my brain, briefly. The only one of those long Downs I got at first pass (solving Downs-only) was SPACE RACE (32D: U.S./Soviet competition of the 1950s-'60s), which I got off the "S" (though I probably could've gotten it without the "S"). This means that I had actually been able to infer ASMR (from the "-MR"), a huge feat for me since I literally never think about ASMR unless the crossword is making me (31A: Audio genre designed to trigger tingling, for short). I can never remember what the letters even stand for (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). I just know that it has something to do with finding certain noises soothing.

The idea that ETHICS is an important consideration for A.I. programmers made me laugh. Since when? If the clue had said it "should be" an important consideration, sure, OK, but come on, who are you kidding, clue? (47D: Important consideration for A.I. programmers). I had some trouble with another e-clue as well: 11D: What search engine optimization hopes to increase (PAGE VIEWS). I wanted something like WEB TRAFFIC or SITE TRAFFIC and needed many crosses to realize what roughly synonymous phrase they were using today. Totally forgot my Morse code (which I've never actually known) and thought they were not DITS and dahs but DATS and dahs (8D: Counterpart of dahs, in Morse code). Couldn't remember if SKAT was spelled with a "C" or a "K" (yesterday's ELEKTRA problem all over again) (42D: 32-card card game). I spelled Salma HAYEK's name HAYAK. I think the Salma-not-Selma part of her name makes me want to make the "E" in her last name an "A" as well. I need a mnemonic. Salma HAYEK is ... not a yak. That is demonstrable. Maybe that will set me straight.

One last thing—I really thought the phrase was "no fuss no MUSS," not the reverse (58D: "No ___, no fuss!"). If you look it up, it seems dictionaries tend to favor the MUSS-first version, but not all of them. It's fuss/MUSS chaos out there, actually. The fuss/MUSS Wild West, people just ordering them willy-nilly, as the mood strikes them. I should stop writing now, as I'm starting to notice all this puzzle's EKES and DEKEs (and ETAS and LOCs and ASSNs and EEGs etc.) and I want to remember only the groovy weird theme and solid Downs. And Chaka Khan, of course.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Soft, warm, tingly feeling, in brief / MON 6-15-26 / Certain group of hip-hop performers / Cash crop of northern Brazil / Response to a series of complaints / Device that helps you make a point in class? / Revolutionary kitchen gadget? / Toy likely to be found at a pop-up store?

Constructor: Eric Rolfing

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "SOMEBODY'S CRANKY" (59A: Response to a series of complaints ... that also jokingly applies to 17-, 27- and 47-Across) — things that you crank:

Theme answers:

• PENCIL SHARPENER (17A: Device that helps you make a point in class?)
• JACK-IN-THE-BOX (27A: Toy likely to be found at a pop-up store?)
• SALAD SPINNER (47A: Revolutionary kitchen gadget?)

Word of the Day: ASMR (55D: Soft, warm, tingly feeling, in brief) —

 

An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation and pleasant form of paresthesia, that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. ASMR has been compared with synesthesia and may overlap with frisson. ASMR is a subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory and visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control. 

The term can also refer to media (usually audiovisual) meant to evoke this phenomenon, with the sensation itself being informally referred to as "tingles". (wikipedia)

• • •

If you say "SOMEBODY'S CRANKY" to someone, you deserve to get smacked (I'm very anti-violence, so no smacking, but it is what you deserve). You can say it about a fussy baby, maybe, but only if the baby is truly a baby and can't understand you, because otherwise it's a condescending thing to say, even to a child. It's worse because it's something you presumably say to another person, as if the person you're complaining about is not there. Grow up, be direct, tell the person to stop complaining or whatever, but please shove your faux-cutesy passive-aggressive "SOMEBODY'S CRANKY." As for the pun of it all, I guess it's OK. You do "crank" the items in question, although the salad spinner we use (OXO?) works by a button-depression mechanism; you sorta press up and down repeatedly on this large button on top of the spinner and it ... well, spins it. No cranking involved. But I think the "normal" mechanism is a crank, so the answer fits the theme just fine. The theme is trying real hard to be jolly, with wacky "?" clues on every theme answer, despite the fact that the wackiness has absolutely nothing to do with the theme. Usually, when all the themers get "?" clues, there's some cohesive reason. Similar wordplay happening in every case, something like that. Today... the "?" clues seem to have been added because frankly everything else is pretty dull. The fill is pretty musty across the board, from old standards like ABET and ACAI (and ICEE and EON and ADO and OKRA and NYET and EDAM and ALOHA and LAILA and ANA and ELOPE) to a circus troupe's worth of abbrevs. (ASMR ADHD TMI AKA LSAT RTE ASSN). There are five 7+-letter non-theme answers, and they're fine, though MAIN MENUS feels like a waste of space. There just wasn't much spark here. The revealer pun is decent, but the puzzle doesn't have much else to recommend it.

The Downs-only solve was a bear for me today, or a partial bear, I guess, but only because I made stupid mistakes and assumptions. The mistake was LAP CAT for PET CAT (something about the "pet" even now seems oddly redundant, though I recognize that PET CAT is a real phrase) (49D: Companion that might fall asleep on your keyboard). Something about the "keyboard" bit made me think that the cat had been on your lap and then ... crawled up on your computer? I don't know. Maybe I envisioned this because I'm currently sitting at a desk in front of a computer ... though my cats are nowhere to be seen right now (although Ida is wandering around crying for some reason, or no reason). LAP CAT was a horrible mistake to make because both the "A" and the "P" from LAP checked out (giving me ADAM and GAPE, respectively, instead of the ultimately correct EDAM and GATE). Because the "A" and "P" checked out, I didn't doubt the "L" ... and somehow convinced myself that a SALAD SLINGER was a thing. This put a "G" right in the middle of the one Down answer I was really having trouble with: 34D: Navigational aids for website users (MAIN MENUS). I figured out the MENUS bit eventually, but the incorrect "G" had me guessing BLOG MENUS at one point, and then when that didn't work ... I was stuck. Somehow, I don't know how—possibly by just taking the "G" out—I was able to conjure up MAIN. Then realized SLINNER wasn't a word. Then noticed it should be SPINNER. And PET CAT. Sigh. Dug a hole, stayed in it a while, climbed out. I had some trouble earlier with DANCE CREW (3D: Certain group of hip-hop performers), but that just took some persistence with the crosses. Never got well and truly stuck. Oh, I did have some trouble with SPLEEN (5D: White blood cell producer said to be shaped like a coffee bean). Turns out I had no idea what the SPLEEN did! "White blood cell producer," you say? "Shaped like a coffee bean," it's said? News to me, and also news to me.

Bullets:

• 45A: Former boxer Ali who voiced herself in a "Scooby Doo" series (LAILA) — everything after "Ali" in this clue feels unnecessary. Is this how people know LAILA Ali? Is this a definitive accomplishment? Also, how many "Scooby Doo" series are there??? If you aren't willing to be specific, then why are you adding this useless bit of trivia at all?
• 52A: Semihard cheese of North Holland (EDAM) — speaking of Holland, that NED-JAP World Cup match was great. Netherlands tried semihard to win, but Japan scored an amazing equalizer late to tie 'em (I really wanted to say "b-EDAM," but Japan didn't win so I couldn't, alas).

• 10D: False reason given for doing something (PRETEXT) — what's the difference between "pretense" and PRETEXT? It looks like, in this case, they're basically synonyms ("Pretense" def. 2: "A professed but feigned reason or excuse; a pretext.")

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Secondary social media accounts, informally / MON 5-5-25 / Purple "superfood" / ___ de Lempicka, Art Deco painter / Unwelcome sound in a crowded subway car / China's most-grown crop / Furniture item that's usually next to a drill / Sports figure informally called a "ribbie" / Religious pillars / Pre-A.D., in dating / Had but didn't divulge, as information

Constructor: Eric Rolfing

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "WE GO WAY BACK" (59A: "I've known them forever!" ... or what 17-, 28- and 45-Across can collectively claim?) — things that go (way) back:

Theme answers:

• TIME MACHINE (17A: The DeLorean in "Back to the Future," e.g.)
• DENTIST'S CHAIR (28A: Furniture item that's usually next to a drill)
• CREDIT HISTORY (45A: Information for a loan officer)

Word of the Day: TAMARA de Lempicka (49A: ___ de Lempicka, Art Deco painter) —

[Young Lady with Gloves, 1927]

Tamara Łempicka (pronounced [taˈmara wɛmˈpit͡ska] ^ⓘ; 16 June 1894 – 18 March 1980), known outside Poland as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy, and for her highly stylized paintings of nudes.

Born in Warsaw, records have long asserted her birthname was Tamara Rozalia Gurwik-Górska, though documents have uncovered her true name as Tamara Rosa Hurwitz. She briefly moved to Saint Petersburg where she married Tadeusz Łempicki, a prominent Polish lawyer, then travelled to Paris. She studied painting with Maurice Denis and André Lhote. Her style was a blend of late, refined cubism and the neoclassical style, particularly inspired by the work of Jean-Dominique Ingres. She was an active participant in the artistic and social life of Paris between the wars. In 1928, she became the mistress of Baron Raoul Kuffner, a wealthy art collector from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, divorcing Tadeusz Łempicki that same year. After the death of Kuffner's wife in 1933, Łempicka married Kuffner in 1934, and thereafter she became known in the press as "The Baroness with a Brush".

Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she and her husband moved to the United States and she painted celebrity portraits, as well as still lifes and, in the 1960s, some abstract paintings. Her work was out of fashion after World War II, but made a comeback in the late 1960s, with the rediscovery of Art Deco. She moved to Mexico in 1974, where she died in 1980. At her request, her ashes were scattered over the Popocatépetl volcano. (wikipedia)

• • •

Lots of crosswordese in here, but the theme is pretty cute—nice revealer, nice themer set, very Monday-appropriate. I thought ALTS / SLR / LAILA / OLE / OSHA / ORE / OHARE / ACAI and on and on and on was going to ANNOY me more than it actually did. One of the beautiful things about solving Downs-only is that the challenge of the whole enterprise kind of distracts you from the quality of the short fill. Plus, you don't even see half of it (well, half the clues, anyway). So there's quite a lot of short yuck today, but there are also six longer Downs (!) to supplement the theme, which as I said, is pretty good. Clever. So overall, the solving experience was somewhat above average for me. Thinking about how far CREDIT HISTORY "goes back"—actually, thinking about the concept of CREDIT HISTORY at all—is kind of grim (my credit is pretty good, it's just that the whole thing seems like a horrible surveillance scheme). Any kind of "history" goes "way back." That was probably my least favorite of the bunch. But TIME MACHINE and DENTIST'S CHAIR—solid. And radically different from one another (unlike TIME MACHINE and CREDIT HISTORY, which both involve going back in time). Probably best not to think too hard about this one. Three things all go back. The revealer phrase is fresh and colloquial. The grid is ... not great, but fine. Overall, it'll do. Here's a picture of me with the TIME MACHINE DeLorean from Back to the Future, which I weirdly found parked outside a cafe in Bandon, OR one summer during a family vacation, twelve years ago:

[why is my t-shirt so stained?] 

[oh ... maybe this is why my t-shirt is stained]

There is no necessary reason you should feel THIRST while walking in the desert, any more than you might feel thirst walking down a city street (unless you were woefully unprepared for walking in the desert, I guess). And ACS are not "must-haves" during heat waves—they are nice, though. Mostly I hate the feeling of artificially cold air, but there are always a handful of days during the summer months, where sleep is virtually impossible without turning on the window unit in our house. But back to the puzzle. "Ribbie" is a reasonable approximation of how you pronounce it, but since I've only ever heard it spoken, it looks ridiculous written out. "Ribbies" is just the sound of someone treating RBIs like a true acronym (i.e. saying it as if it were a word). When I search "ribbies" I get "Girls Hair Accessories." And I guess a sneeze ("ACHOO!") is an "unwelcome sound" in a crowded subway car, but jeez, people sneeze, relax. Lots of sounds I'd find much more "unwelcome" on the subway than "ACHOO!" I'll just let you imagine what those are. 

Not much trouble today with the Downs-only solve. Blanked for a bit on ALTS (1D: Secondary social media accounts, informally), even though I have one or two of them. Biggest error today was NITWIT for NIMROD (3D: Numbskull). I left the last letter of AORTA- blank because you never know how they're gonna do the plural with that one (today, it was the regular old "S" plural, which, let's be honest, is the only reasonable plural for AORTA). The NE and SW were the toughest sections from a Downs-only perspective, as they contain the long Downs, which often don't fall very readily. I didn't get ABRASION initially, and then, when looking at SAT-N, I knew it couldn't be SATIN (because it would've created a double-"I" situation in the Down), so I went with the next thing that occurred to me: SATAN. This meant that I spelled ABRASIAN thusly, which looked very wrong ... and yet I didn't change it. Later, when I finished the puzzle and didn't get the "Congratulations" message, I went over the grid and saw very quickly what went wrong. Changed ABRASIAN to ABRASION (and SATAN to SAT ON) and that was that. 

Bullets:

• 49A: ___ de Lempicka, Art Deco painter (TAMARA) — even with -MARA all filled in, I couldn't confidently infer TAMARA. Probably the best guess in that situation, but ASMARA is the capital of Eritrea, and I figured there might be other possible -MARAs I wasn't thinking of, so I had to wait for the Downs. As for this painter, I wouldn't have known her name straightaway if I'd been reading the Across clues, but her work is very familiar to me now that I look at it. 
• 7D: Govt. org. known for its constructive criticism? (OSHA) — Because the Occupational Safety and Health Association is a regulatory agency that sets safety standards for "construction" sites (I assume), as well as other workplaces. 
• 9D: Religious pillars (TENETS) — TENETS was the first thing I thought of, but I still hesitated here, thinking there might be some term for literal pillars that I was overlooking.

• 52D: Prison outbreak (RIOT) —  As I've said many times, the longer the answer is, the harder it is to get with no letters in place, on average. When you solve Downs-only, you really rely on the short stuff to come through for you. This is especially true in places like the SW corner of today's puzzle, where there are very few short answers for you to get a toehold with, and where you need every toehold you can get. This is to say I assumed that this answer was going to be a gimme, and that I was going to struggle more with the adjacent long Downs. But I couldn't make sense of this clue at first because I assumed it had to do with breaking out of prison—with escaping. I mean, the term "prison break" exists, so my brain assumed [Prison outbreak] was in that same meaning ballpark. This is how I came to write in BUST here (as in "BUST out of prison" (???)). And so, weirdly, it ended up being the long Downs that helped me figure out the short Down, and not vice versa. World upside-down.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Catholic academy like Gonzaga or Xavier / MON 6-5-23 / Eating utensil with a serrated edge / 13-time N.B.A. All-Star Kevin / What to mind when exiting a train in London / Tap mockumentary rock band / Sizzling Tex-Mex offering / Built-in feature of some camisoles / Prepare for use as a Slip 'N Slide

Constructor: Eric Rolfing

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "KEEP IT BETWEEN US" (56A: "Let this be our little secret" ... or a hint to letter sequences hidden in 16-, 32- and 40-Across) — themers all have "IT" appearing between the letters "U" and "S":

Theme answers:

• GRAPEFRUIT SPOON (16A: Eating utensil with a serrated edge)
• JESUIT SCHOOL (32A: Catholic academy like Gonzaga or Xavier)
• "QUIT STALLING!" (40A: "Stop dragging your feet!")

Word of the Day: Kevin DURANT (30D: 13-time N.B.A. All-Star Kevin) —

Kevin Wayne Durant (/dəˈrænt/ də-RANT; born September 29, 1988), also known by his initials KD, is an American professional basketball player for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season of college basketball for the Texas Longhorns and was selected as the second overall pick by the Seattle SuperSonics in the 2007 NBA draft. He played nine seasons with the franchise, which became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008, before signing with the Golden State Warriors in 2016, winning consecutive NBA championships and NBA Finals MVP Awards in 2017 and 2018. After sustaining an Achilles injury in the 2019 finals, he joined the Brooklyn Nets as a free agent that summer. Following disagreements with the Nets' front office, he requested a trade during the 2022 offseason and was traded to the Suns in 2023. Durant is widely regarded as one of the greatest players and scorers of all time. [...] In 2012, he ventured into acting, appearing in the film Thunderstruck. (wikipedia)

• • •

The revealer was definitely a let-down on this one, but I was having a pretty good time up to that point, doing my usual Downs-only business and being pretty pleased with those long Acrosses as they popped into view. I think GRAPEFRUIT SPOON, JESUIT SCHOOL, and "QUIT STALLING!" are a great set of answers; I just wish there had been something snappier tying them all together at the end. Something about the phrase "KEEP IT BETWEEN US" doesn't quite sound right, especially without "Let's" in front of it. It's usually said as a suggestion, a commiseration, not a command. If you were commanding, you'd say "Don't tell anyone!" Maybe you'd say "Keep it to yourself!" Also, the clue on it is odd. I think it's the opening phrase, "Let this...," that hits wrong. Sounds too formal. Like a wizard is saying it to you in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book or something. "Let this ... serve as a warning" ... "Let this ... be a lesson to you" ... again, the tone doesn't have enough of the conspiratorial about it. More ... parental, actually. There's just a tonal clunk here that's making the theme's final element feel disappointing to me. But as I say, I had fun descending the grid right up until I had to write in "KEEP IT BETWEEN US," so it wasn't a total loss, by any means. Who doesn't like minding THE GAP!? Fun! (31D: What to "mind" when exiting a train in London)

Made an error right out of the gate with TENET at 1D: Religious doctrine (DOGMA). I could feel that it was ... shaky, but I wrote it in anyway, 'cause it was all I had. No idea about UNROLL (Slip 'N Slide, really??? That's your go-to reference for UNROLL?! Not yoga mat? OK). But after that, things got easier, and eventually the GRAPEFRUIT part was easy to see. I thought it was gonna be GRAPEFRUIT JUICE, but again, the Downs were easy and took care of that misconception quickly. Never seen "Love Is Blind," but "I DO" was still kind of a gimme (11D: Declaration delivered (or not) in a "Love Is Blind" finale). One of the cool things about solving Downs-only today was wanting both FAJITA (23D: Sizzling Tex-Mex serving) and AQUA (36D: Blue shade) upon first reading their clues, and then being able to kinda sorta pre-confirm them simply by the fact that the high-value Scrabble letters (the "J" and "Q," respectively) fell into the *first* position in their respective answers (JESUIT SCHOOL & "QUIT STALLING!")—precisely the place you most expect to find such letters. Hard to trust a "J" or "Q" when solving Downs-only unless you are *absolutely* sure about the answer, but when those letters fall into the first position, well, you feel ever-so-slightly more secure about your Down guess. After DOGMA, the only Down to give me any hassle was, weirdly, KAL, and only because the only three-letter airline starting with "K" that's familiar to me is KLM. Brain: "KLM ... that stands for 'Korean ... something,' right? Oh, crap, no, it's Dutch, I think ... wait, is it even KLM? What about KLF? OMG remember The KLF! What is that song even about!? 'The KLF! Uh huh, uh huh!' Man, the '90s were wild. OK, what was the question?" 

I had a little trouble with SLRS too, only because of the "Pro" part of the clue (5D: Pro photography purchases, in brief). I've known lots of non-pros who owned SLRS (single-lens reflex cameras), so I was looking for something way more ... narrowly and specifically part of a "pro"'s set up, like, I dunno, maybe tripods or special lights or something. As far as potential Downs-only disasters, I think the only real trouble spot (for non-sports-followers) might be DURANT. If you don't know it instantly, then you're in trouble. I think you might end up making a lot of names out of -U-A-T (the blanks being squares you can't infer from a Downs-only vantage point even if you've completed the rest of the grid). Yeah, that could be fatal. But as basketball players go, he's stratospherically famous, so I was OK today. Hope you enjoyed your Monday solve, however you solve. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Ice Cream of the Future since 1988 / MON 2-13-23 / Radio button that's handy on a car trip / Nutritionist's recommendation / Orchard beverage / Former late-night host Ferguson / Sales pitch display informally

Constructor: Eric Rolfing

Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Monday)

THEME: WELL-ROUNDED DIET (37A: Nutritionist's recommendation ... or what the answers to the starred clues make up, to an overly literal person?) — round foods:

Theme answers:

• FROOT LOOPS (18A: *Colorful cereal with the mascot Toucan Sam)
• SPAGHETTIOS (24A: *"Uh-oh, ___!" (classic line in commercials))
• CHEESE WHEEL (52A: *Bulk purchase of Gouda, e.g.)
• DIPPIN' DOTS (58A: *"Ice Cream of the Future" since 1988)

Word of the Day: SAVILE Row (46D: ___ Row (London street known for its tailors)) —

Savile Row (pronounced /ˌsævɪl ˈroʊ/) is a street in Mayfair, central London. Known principally for its traditional bespoke tailoring for men, the street has had a varied history that has included accommodating the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society at 1 Savile Row, where significant British explorations to Africa and the South Pole were planned; and more recently, the Apple office of the Beatles at 3 Savile Row, where the band's impromptu final live performance was held on the roof of the building. [...] Tailors started doing business in the area in the late 18th century; first in Cork Street, about 1790, then by 1803 in Savile Row itself. In 1846, Henry Poole, later credited as the creator of the dinner jacket, opened an entrance to Savile Row from his tailoring premises in Old Burlington Street. Founded in 1849 by Henry Huntsman, H. Huntsman & Sons moved to No. 11 Savile Row with the ending of the war in 1919. During the First World War, Huntsman's was a tailor to the military, producing dress uniforms for British officers. In 1969, Nutters of Savile Row modernised the style and approach of traditional Savile Row tailoring; a modernisation that continued in the 1990s with the "New Bespoke Movement", involving the designers Richard James, Ozwald Boateng, and Timothy Everest. The term "bespoke" as applied to fine tailoring is understood to have originated in Savile Row, and came to mean a suit cut and made by hand. (wikipedia)

• • •

As usual, the Downs-only solving adventure was unpredictably rocky, but ultimately doable. Well, maybe it is slightly predictable that the longer Downs are going to be the dicey parts of a Downs-only solve. On Monday, short stuff tends to be Very easy to come up with, but the longer the answer gets, the tougher it gets to pick up, so perhaps it is not surprising that the tricky parts (for me) all ended up involving longer Downs, specifically the long Downs that ran down to the bottom of the grid. On my marked-up print-out of the puzzle, I've got absolutely no ink on the top half of the grid. Managed to get BETRAYAL and REFLECTOR with virtually no assistance, and FROOT LOOPS became obvious quickly, and eventually, so did SPAGHETTIOS. But then I hit the middle of the grid and the wheels ... well, they didn't come off, but ... the road got much rockier, or some other driving metaphor. I had WELL-OUND-D---- and all I could think of was WELL-FOUNDED IDEA (!?). That last "A" even gave me the very plausible-seeming AQUA for 42D: Color akin to turquoise (TEAL). Hard to disabuse yourself of the "F" in WELL-FOUNDED when the Down is a. a long one, and b. a long one that really really looks like it wants to be FRACKING (38D: Major Texas industry => RANCHING). But FRACKING ended up giving me too obvious "No"s in the Acrosses: SCAA at 46A: Radio button that's handy on a car trip (SCAN) that's handy on a road trip, and KOE at 56A: Weeding tool (HOE). But of course I didn't have the option of looking at those Across clues, so I just had to pull FRACKING and wait to see what presented itself. Eventually, I brought things back to basics, telling myself "OK, just name industries associated with Texas ..." and after all the oil stuff was out of the way, there it was: RANCHING. 

As for the DIET part of that central answer, that was tough because one of the Downs there was a cross-reference clue that referred me to ... an Across clue (67A: With 41-Down, Buffalo's body of water) ... which I was not allowed to read. I could see that the answer to that clue was LAKE, though, which made ERIE seem very likely after TEAL had helped me sort out DIET. Other long Downs that were tricky were "HEAVENS, NO" and, weirdly, SAVILE Row. I "knew" SAVILE, but I kept wanting to spell it "SEVILLE," and since that wouldn't fit, I thought my whole way of thinking was wrong. But once I finally parsed DIPPIN' DOTS from D-PP-DOT-, I figured out how I needed to spell SAVILE, and that was that. The theme seems ... fine? Lots of "round" foods out there, so it's not the most stunning or tight theme in the world, but it's a nice little bit of wordplay. It works. I'm more concerned about the fill, which seems particularly thin / weak. EIRE CNBC RIAL ROI SRO THRU OLAF TRI WII REORG TEM POR ANDI INRE ... it just creaked more than a Monday puzzle should. But there's nothing really terrible here, so again, as with the theme, I think it's fine. It does what it does. A very Monday-shaped puzzle, this one. Could've been worse, is my point. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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