Online publication of Vox Media / TUE 8-12-25 / Lorde who wrote "Sister Outsider" / 1990s-'00s sitcom starring Brandy / Tres o cuatro / What the Beyoncé title "6 Inch" refers to / Edible Christmas ornament / People living abroad for tax reasons / Like this: ESMCLDRBA

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: TOUCANS (63A: Birds phonetically suggested by a feature of 17-, 27- and 51-Across) — the letter string "CAN" appears two times in each theme answer ("two 'can's" = TOUCANS)

Theme answers:

• CAN'T HOLD A CANDLE (17A: Pales in comparison)
• CANDY CANE (27A: Edible Christmas ornament)
• MEXICAN-AMERICAN (51A: Chicana, for example)

Word of the Day: THE CUT (18D: Online publication of Vox Media) —

The Cut is an online publication that, as part of New York magazine, covers a wide range of topics, such as work, money, sex and relationships, fashion, mental health, pop culture, politics, and parenting, with a specific lens for women. // In 2015, The Cut published a New York Magazine cover feature by Noreen Malone that included interviews with 35 women who had accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault. The cover image and photo portfolio by Amanda Demme included portraits of all the women seated and an empty chair to symbolize those unable to come forward.

In 2018, The Cut published an essay by Moira Donegan in which she revealed herself as the creator of the "Shitty Media Men" list that contained rumors and allegations of sexual misconduct by men in the magazine world. Later that year, Lindsay Peoples's essay "Everywhere and Nowhere," about the challenges of being a Black voice in the fashion industry, came out, sending a "ripple of waves through the industry."

An excerpt from E. Jean Carroll's book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal ran in 2019 on The Cut and on the cover of New York's print magazine, in which she first shared her story of being sexually assaulted by then-President Donald Trump.

In 2022, The Cut ran a special package that highlighted resources for accessing an abortion nationwide following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The Cut is known for a number of columns, including Madame Clairevoyant's weekly horoscopes; as-told-tos in "Sex Diaries"; and the "How I Get It Done" series, highlighting the routines of influential women. The Cut has published widely read personal essays including Emily Gould on the "Lure of Divorce," Grazie Sophia Christie on "The Case for Marrying an Older Man," and Charlotte Cowles's "The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger".

• • •

This is just a beautifully crafted puzzle. A beautifully crafted easy puzzle. I love it because it shows that easy puzzles don't have to be boring. The theme is simple but cute, and kinda funny. Just three themers! (plus a short revealer). Back in the day, three themers was pretty normal, but some time in this century, a theme-answers arms race seemed to start where the standard went to four and often well north of that. This was enabled by the rise of constructing software, which allowed puzzle makers to more easily fill grids with a dense set of fixed answers (themers are always fixed in place first when you're building a theme puzzle). But more is not necessarily better (as you may be aware), and there's something to be said for a theme that leaves a little air, a little breathing room so that the rest of the grid can shine a bit. And today's grid does just that. First, it's clean as hell. Polished, vibrant, lovely. Plus it opts for mirror symmetry over the more customary rotational symmetry (a feature occasioned by the theme—how else to arrange this set of answers symmetrically?), and this gives us a grid with very deep corners in the SW and SE. Deep pockets! And it's here where the grid really goes to the next level—two banks of 9-letter answers, each of them 3 wide—so (if I may show off my math skills...) that's six 9-letters answers, all of them good to great, giving this puzzle a level of non-thematic pizzazz rarely seen in themed puzzles. Six 9s?! That don't compromise grid quality at all? In addition to a full theme!? Nuts. Bonkers. It won't feel bonkers, because it just plays like an easy early-week puzzle. The craftsmanship on this one isn't showy. But if you make puzzles yourself, you know how impressive the work is here. 

In addition to the six 9s, it's got five 7s (!), and even some of the shorter fill is original and interesting (THE CUT, BLIGHT, MOESHA). I just looked at the grid sitting here on my desk and said "man, this is just a good puzzle." Aspiring constructors should study this puzzle. It's not that there's no overfamiliar short stuff, it's that the repeaters (TSAR, UAE, DES, OLE) are doing work, holding together sections composed of much stronger stuff—they allow the shiny stuff to shine. Another thing that makes this puzzle remarkable is how much it foregrounds Black women. Again, there's nothing particularly showy with how Erik does this, but yeah, four Black women (more if you count the women in the clues —e.g. Beyoncé, Kerry Washington). And precisely no white men (unless maybe you want to count ARES (?) or the TSAR). Historically, the (in)visibility of people of color generally, and Black women specifically, has been an issue that many solvers have called attention to and that (fairly recently) some constructors have tried to address. This puzzle quietly gives Black women the kind of puzzle prominence that is absolutely routine for white people (men in particular). I say "quietly" because it does nothing to the overall solvability of this puzzle. MOESHA is a bit of a throwback (55A: 1990s-'00s sitcom starring Brandy), so if any proper noun gives trouble today (beyond THE CUT), it's probably that one, but the rest are right over the plate. AUDRE Lorde may not be as well known to solvers as ANITA HILL and HARRIET Tubman, but she's in the puzzle a lot (full name earlier this month), so if you don't know her, you should. Weird fact: LORDE first appeared in the NYTXW as the pop star of that name back in 2015. The first person to clue LORDE as the poet Audre LORDE was ... Melinda Gates!? (in a puzzle co-constructed with Joel Fagliano back in 2018). Bizarrely, AUDRE has appeared fewer times (2) than the full AUDRE LORDE (3). Sorry, I'm in the statistical weeds now. My point is, this puzzle centers Black women. That may not matter to you, but it's a deliberate move, and I think it's worth noticing. (11D: Lorde who wrote "Sister Outsider")

The only trouble I had with this one was THE CUT (I know of it, but the name didn't leap to mind) and ... I think that's it. I did write in CAIN before BRAN, which made me laugh (38D: Raisin ___). Nice when a mistake makes you laugh at yourself rather than gnash your teeth or say "d'oh!" or slam your head on the desk or whatever your reaction of choice to self-stupidity is. Again, this puzzle has very few lowlights, and the highlights are everywhere. I smiled at the clue on SCRAMBLED (30D: Like this: ESMCLDRBA), raised my eyebrows at the inventiveness of "ARE WE LIVE?" (31D: "Has our broadcast started?") and nodded appreciatively at the double-X of TAX EXILES (32D: People living abroad for financial reasons)—and that's just in the SW corner! That is one hell of a stack (still not sure what to call a "stack" that involves Downs rather than Acrosses). 


Bullets:

• 19D: Tres o cuatro (NUMERO) — me: "OK, so three and four is ... seven ... but ... that's SIETE! I don't ... wait, what does 'o' mean? ... oh ... right." "O" means "or," not "and," my bad.
• 40D: A dispiritingly large percentage of phone calls (SPAM) — I appreciate the commiserative tone of this clue. It's nice to have some acknowledgment of how badly polluted our lines of communication have become. We finally got rid of our landline because it was 90% garbage calls that we never answered. I don't get many SPAM calls on my cell, but email, texts ... it never ends.
• 50A: University in western Pennsylvania, familiarly (PITT) — in the near future, this answer will be clued as the (soon-to-be) Emmy-award-winning TV show, so keep your eye out for that.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, REX Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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What R-rated photos may do / SAT 7-19-25 / Crispy Crinkles brand / Stygian blue or reddish-green / Barbecued Mongolia dish whose name sounds like a disapproving canine / Large-eyed primate / Trans activist who founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project / Actions that, despite being legal, resulted in hundreds of arrests in 1961 / Vince Carter quote-turned-meme regarding his return for a 22nd N.B.A. season / Canine breed named after an English river valley

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: BOODOG (21D: Barbecued Mongolia dish whose name sounds like a disapproving canine) —

Boodog (Mongolian: боодог; Mongolian pronunciation: [pɔːtɔk]) is a Mongolian cuisine dish of barbecued goat, mutton or Tarbagan marmot cooked with heated stones inserted into the carcass. It is prepared on special occasions. The meat, often accompanied by vegetables, is cooked with heated stones in the de-boned body of the animals, or in the case of khorkhog, a sealed milk can. Marmot hunting usually takes place in the fall when the animals are larger and have been preparing for hibernation.

Boodog is considered a more egalitarian dish, with meat separated from the bones. Prepared in a perishable container, it is socially less prestigious and generally reserved for household members or fellow camp dwellers. // The practice is performed outdoors and requires two or more people. The animal is stunned and then killed by severing the aorta at the neck. Blood is drained into a container, as it must not touch the ground. The skin is kept intact except for a slit at the neck. The bones and viscera are removed through this opening, except for the bones in the feet. Heated stones, along with onion, salt, and some meat, are inserted into the body cavity. The neck is repeatedly squeezed and the body pressed to ensure the contents make contact with the hot stones. The neck is then closed with a wire, and the carcass is singed to remove hair, traditionally over embers, now more commonly with a gas burner.

The meat is cooked entirely through contact with the heated stones. Once done, the body is washed and the skin slit open to access the cooked meat. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this looked a lot more daunting than it was. Erik's puzzles can skew tough (for me) to begin with, and then you've got that 4-stack of gridspanners just staring you down. So much white space. I thought it would be difficult to get, like maybe I'd do OK on the top part and then just stall out trying to access the middle. But then the opposite happened. Well, almost the opposite. I *did* do OK on the top part, and then when it came time to ... descend ... I got one answer in there.And then another. And another and another. Eventually I had the entire right side of the middle completed just from the Down. The lack of resistance was actually a little stunning. Look how much of that center I got before I ever looked at a single long Across clue:

The key to my success here was the absolute gift of ATTA and ORO—two bits of innocuous, easy crosswordese situated in *just* the right position to help me buzzsaw through the middle of this grid. Those two little answers gave me the first letters of six (6!) stack-crossing Downs, and I rattled them off in quick succession, no hesitation. ATLETA was a guess, but an educated one (25D: Sportsperson, in Italian), and then whoosh, right down the line I went, L to R. Not sure why I hadn't written 34D: "___ chic!" in yet; that was easy too. Very accommodating Downs ensured that my experience with those long answers in the middle was nowhere near the nightmare I semi-feared. Three of the four were instantly gettable to me once I got around to reading their clues. I had some trouble on the exact phrasing of the Vince Carter meme-quote, as I've literally (and weirdly) never seen it. But ultimately it wasn't hard to infer. In the end, today's spanner stack is very impressive: smooth and original, with "DON'T GET ANY IDEAS!" batting clean-up for good reason (he's got the most power). 

Over the years, I have come to expect "proper nouns you've never heard of, buddy" from Erik puzzles, and sure enough! Erik's good at being inclusive, indeed, expansive, with his proper noun choices, giving visibility to people he thinks are important and deserve to be widely known, but who might not be true household names (yet). The name that played this way for me today was DEAN SPADE (57A: Trans activist who founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project). There aren't that many activist names that I have stored away for future use. They do important work, but for whatever reason, their names don't tend to stick the way pop culture names do. As for DEAN SPADE: "In 2002, he founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective in New York City that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color." (wikipedia). He seems like a very big deal in law circles, but this is the first I'm hearing his name (that I know of). There was a brief moment right toward the end where I could see the finish line in sight but then pulled up short, to a dead stop, when none of the last three Acrosses were obvious to me. IMPOSSIBLE ... what? DEAN ... who? ST. .... which one? I'm completely unfamiliar with the concept of an IMPOSSIBLE COLOR (53A: Stygian blue or reddish-green). I just wrote in COLOR because the things in the clue were COLORs, so why not? Looks like IMPOSSIBLE COLOR is a specific category of color: 

Impossible colors are colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. Different color theories suggest different hypothetical colors that humans are incapable of perceiving for one reason or another, and fictional colors are routinely created in popular culture. While some such colors have no basis in reality, phenomena such as cone cell fatigue enable colors to be perceived in certain circumstances that would not be otherwise. (wikipedia)

The explanations are all too technical for me to understand. You can read about them here. Luckily, the short Downs in the SE were all easy enough that the back ends of those longer answers down there were easy to pick up. In the end, there were no real tough spots in this whole thing. It took some work, but it had good flow and there were no stumpers. Very doable. 

[R.I.P. Lalo Schifrin (1932-2025)]

I had heard of FREEDOM RIDERS but for some reason not the phrase FREEDOM RIDES (10D: Actions that, despite being legal, resulted in hundreds of arrests in 1961). Or ... I probably had heard the term (what else would the FREEDOM RIDERS be doing?) but it didn't pop to mind the way the phrase FREEDOM RIDERS. Perhaps because "FREEDOM RIDER" is a phrase I've heard many times, if only in the theme song from Maude.

["Lady Godiva was a Freedom Rider / She didn't care if the whole world looked"]

Never heard of BOODOG. Probably won't be alone there. I just got it all from crossees. I didn't need that whole explanation ("sounds like a disapproving canine"), but I admire its cuteness. I'm not sure I fully understand the clue on CORETTA SCOTT. I know that those names precede "King" in her name, but I don't quite know what concept or phrase [Leader before the King?] is supposed to be evoking. Why the "the"? She was a leader, and CORETTA SCOTT does come "before" "King," namewise. Obviously she was married to Martin Luther King, Jr., but ... the clue just feels awkward to me, unless there's some specific reference that I'm missing.  No bid deal. I got her name(s) easily. In general, the puzzle is remarkably clean and remarkably free of genuine obscurities (BOODOG notwithstanding).

More comments and explanations:

• 6D: Large-eyed primate (LORIS) — extreme LOL for all the Wordle players out there. Coulda used this answer in the puzzle *yesterday*! I've only ever seen this creature in the NYTXW and I totally forgot it existed while playing Wordle yesterday. I was not alone. People ended up getting it despite having no idea what it ... was.

• 38A: Case study org.? (TSA) — as in, they might "study" (i.e. inspect) your carry-on "case"; I got a very intimate pat-down last time I went through TSA screening. Screener: "Do you want to go in a private room for this?" Me: "LOL no, whatever you're gonna do you can do right here in front of everyone, thx." Luckily, I got to keep all my clothes on, but he sure did make ... contact ... in places I'm not used to strangers making contact. It was fine. Do what you gotta do, man, just get me through this line.
• 40A: Surname shared by a Hollywood father and daughter (DERN) — first thought: "Hey, why not Hollywood mother and daughter!?" Followed by second thought: "Oh, right, her mother doesn't share her surname"

• 29D: Surname shared by a Hollywood father and son (REINER) — got this one quickly, largely because I just saw This is ... Spinal Tap in the theater a few weeks ago, as part of its 41st anniversary rerelease. Rob REINER directed.

• 32D: Unauthorized cuts of existing movies (FAN EDITS) — I can't imagine being interested in these at all, but I am aware they exist. A good, modern answer.
• 33D: Crispy Crinkles brand (OREIDA) — I assume these are french fries ... yep.

• 48D: Assist, as a lifter? (ABET) — the "lifter" here is "lifting" merchandise from a store without paying for it. You might know such a person better as a "shoplifter."

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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First-rate, in slang / FRI 5-9-25 / Superboy's crush / Roughly 62% of its claimed territory is in Antarctica / Pioneer in computer science who has a college at Yale named after her / What might be caught Red-handed? / Genre heard at many raves, for short / One-named singer in the 2023 hit "Prada"

Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller and Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: GRACE HOPPER (11D: Pioneer in computer science who has a college at Yale named after her) —

Grace Brewster Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and used this theory to develop the FLOW-MATIC programming language and COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer. She is credited with writing the first computer manual, "A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator." [...] Hopper began her computing career in 1944 as a member of the Harvard Mark I team, led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer. At Eckert–Mauchly she managed the development of one of the first COBOL compilers. // She believed that programming should be simplified with an English-based computer programming language. Her compiler converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. [...]  In 1959, she participated in the CODASYL consortium, helping to create a machine-independent programming language called COBOL, which was based on English words. Hopper promoted the use of the language throughout the 60s. [...] During her lifetime, Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities across the world. A college at Yale University was renamed in her honor. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. (wikipedia)

• • •

[23D: Emotionally complex, in a way]

Well, I won the proper noun battle today. It was pretty close to a draw, with some names being gimmes and some drawing blanks, but I managed to push through and finish this one in fairly regular Friday time. If Erik's name is on the byline, I know the grid will be very well polished. I also know there will be names coming that I will not know. Probably. And in fact, today, there were two—that's not so bad. Pretty normal, actually. GRACE HOPPER was the (literally) big mystery to me. Had to infer both parts of her name, though after I got GRACE and the "H," I really did want HOPPER, so I must've heard of her before. I think I saw RAYE sing something the other day while I was scrolling through god-knows-what app—oh yeah, here it is: "RAYE's orchestra reacting to her big finish." I seem to have missed her, and "Prada." I know a singer named RHYE, but not RAYE, so her name, two doors down from GRACE HOPPER, clogged things up slightly for me in the mideast. 

But I knew DRU Hill (I'm the right age) and moreover I knew LUIS Robert, Jr., who I'm guessing was unknown to virtually everyone who isn't a fairly serious baseball fan and/or a Chicagoan. Lots of people win Gold Gloves, every year, and most of those names are not exactly what you'd call "crossworthy." Matt OLSON? Matt CHAPMAN? Nick AHMED? Anyone? Again, active baseball fans yes, regular-ass people, probably not. But LUIS Robert is very large and very good at baseball, and since he's a Chicago White Sock, he's in the same division as my Tigers. So I'm familiar. Speaking of big-time Chicagoans, congrats to the new pope. Look for LEO XIV to be coming to a grid near you very soon (or never ... though I expect he'll at least be a clue for LEO in the near future). One more [LEO + Roman numeral] for the crossword pope pantheon!

Beyond names, though, this one is really tight and clean and entertaining, and actually strays very little from familiar names, terminology, and colloquial expressions. Very talky, this one. There's a mini drama about a driver whose car has broken down and who desperately needs assistance to get to the DRU Hill concert on time. He shouts at the passing cars, "DON'T YOU SEE!? I NEED A RIDE! HAVE A HEART!" In a grim version of this story, it would become a CRIME DRAMA, as the stranded motorist eventually does get picked up (on a foggy SEASIDE), but then is never seen or heard from again. His family fears the worst, but they hire Sam SPADE, who eventually discovers the missing man—he's using a completely different identity, living in CHILE with his dog, PILAF, and working as part of CHILE's Antarctic Oversight Team. But why? Tune in next season.

[52D: ___ flakes (fruity Chinese snack)]

I had AT ALL TIMES before AT ALL HOURS, but when none of the TIMES crosses worked, I made the change to HOURS fairly quickly. I ran into a funny double-mistake in the NE when I thought the RAJA was a RANI and, therefore, thought the CANIS MAJOR was a CANIS MINOR. So much depends on an "N." Anyway, CAKE got me out of it. CAKE is reliable that way. Mmm, CAKE.

Further commentary, in bullet-point form:

• 5A: Impossible to contact by ordinary means (OFF THE GRID) — this reminded me that I once had a crossword podcast with my dear friend Lena, back in 2016-17, called "ON THE GRID." It only lasted four episodes, but they were so fun to make. Every episode had a drinking segment, where we'd literally drink, and discuss, some alcoholic beverage that makes frequent appearances in the grid (MOET, ASTI, etc.). My favorite drinking segment by far was the SLOE Gin Fizz one. It all went so beautifully wrong. Good, silly, pre-pandemic times. Oh, and hey—the first guest we had on the show: today's co-constructor, Erik Agard! I'd forgotten that. Wow, life is ... long.
• 22D: What might be caught Red-handed? (FLY BALL) — because the Cincinnati Reds are a Major League baseball club and one of their players might do the catching of said ball.
• 36A: Fine-textured wood used in musical instruments (PEAR) — did not know PEAR. Did know EYRE. No error on EYRE did I make. No error on PEAR either. Just terror. (exaggerating for the rhyme)
• 10D: Genre heard at many raves, for short (EDM) — Electronic Dance Music. I know the term well, but my brain rendered it as EMD, which is a kind of mash-up of OMD (one musical group) and EMF (another). Whether and how the KLF factor in here, I simply don't have time to explore.

• 33D: This, too, shall pass (PHASE) — simple clue, but somehow hard to solve. Me: "... legislation? ... kidney stone? ..."
• 46D: Superboy's crush (LANA) — it's at least somewhat confusing that the original Superboy was just a teenage Superman, but then later there was another Superboy, separate from Superman, who was in fact a partial (?) clone of Superman. Anyway, I watched Smallville for a bit, back in the day, and LANA was all over that show.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Palestinian activist Tamimi / TUE 2-18-25 / Kennewick ___ (ancient ancestor discovered in 1996) / Black and/or white water bird / New Mexico site of the largest radioactive accident in U.S. history / ___ trail (rhyming path that formerly had tracks) / Currency common to Cyprus and Croatia / 918 or 539, on the Cherokee Nation

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)

THEME: "Seriously?!" — same clue for four answers (the context being an imagined reaction to someone behaving outrageously):

Theme answers:

• "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" (17A: "Seriously?!")
• "WHO DOES THAT?!" (36A: "Seriously?!")
• "THE AUDACITY!" (44A: "Seriously?!")
• "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!" (66A: "Seriously?!")

Word of the Day: HEAD DANCER (3D: Important powwow figure) —

A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Inaugurated in 1923, powwows today are an opportunity for Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or public, indoors or outdoors. Dancing events can be competitive with monetary prizes. Powwows vary in length from single-day to weeklong events. [...] The head dancers consist of the Head Man Dancer and the Head Woman Dancer, and often Head Teen Dancers, Head Little Boy and Girl Dancers, Head Golden Age Dancers, and a Head Gourd Dancer if the pow wow has a Gourd Dance. The head dancers lead the other dancers in the grand entry or parade of dancers that opens a pow-wow. In many cases, the head dancers are also responsible for leading the dancers during songs, and often dancers will not enter the arena unless the head dancers are already out dancing. (wikipedia)

• • •

I liked this theme. I didn't like it at first because the "YOU" part of "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" seemed contrived. Like ... where was the context for "you?” I'd've believed "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" (an ordinary enough phrase), but "YOU?" It's something you might say to someone, sure, but the clue wasn't giving me enough to justify the far less common phrase. But then as I went on, I saw that all the clues were identical and all of them required you to imagine exactly the same context—a reaction to someone behaving ... badly? Inappropriately? Outrageously? One of those. So somehow the cumulative effect of the theme was enough to make that first themer OK. And that last themer was a fun adventure and a nice way to close things out. I started from the back end and as soon as I saw there was more than one "O" before that final W"," I was like "OK, how far is this going to go?" and I just kept assuming "O"s and solving the Down crosses until I got to the very front of the answer, the first letter, where I wrote in ... [drumroll] ... "H." "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!?" Seriously, how is it not "How?" LOL, I was looking at the black and/or white bird with the second letter "H" (56D: Black and/or white water bird), thinking, "What the hell bird is this? What has happened to my four-letter bird knowledge!?" But of course the second letter of the bird wasn't an "H"—it was a "W." Wow. OK, yes, that also makes sense. Puzzle, done.

When I saw Erik's name on the byline,* I thought "OK, so this is going to be good, but there are definitely going to be a handful of terms and names from marginalized cultures of one kind or another that I absolutely will not know and will have to piece together from crosses." And ... bingo. Three answers where I needed all (or almost all) the crosses to make sense of them: HEAD DANCER (3D: Important powwow figure), AHED (29D: Palestinian activist Tamimi), CHURCH ROCK (32D: New Mexico site of the largest radioactive accident in U.S. history). Never heard of any of those. CHURCH ROCK doesn't seem like it has anything to do with any particular culture on its surface, but the "radioactive accident" in question has been the source of much recent Native American activism (trying to get the environmental impact of the 1979 accident studied and, however possible, remedied). CHURCH ROCK is named after a rock formation that is sacred to the Navajo people. Anyway, I think this is a fine thing to do with your puzzle—include names and terms from groups you think are underrepresented. There's a predictable uptick in difficulty for a good chunk of solvers when you do this, but if the crosses are fair and the puzzle is appropriately slotted for its difficulty, that's fine. I thought this played much more like a Wednesday than a Tuesday, but again, that is solely because of the three answers I mentioned. Everything else was Tuesday Easy. 

Notes:

• 14A: 918 or 539, on the Cherokee Nation (AREA CODE) — love this clue. Great way of being inclusive without really adding any difficulty at all.
• 28A: Kennewick ___ (ancient ancestor discovered in 1996) (MAN) — oof, forgot about this one. Never heard of it. And it crossed AHED (another never-heard-of). Luckily, MAN was totally inferrable. This makes at least the fourth Native American-oriented clue in this puzzle:

Kennewick Man or Ancient One was a Native American man who lived during the early Holocene, whose skeletal remains were found washed out on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, 1996. Radiocarbon tests show the man lived about 8,400 to 8,690 years Before Present, making his skeleton one of the most complete ever found this old in the Americas, and thus of high scientific interest for understanding the peopling of the Americas. (wikipedia)

 

• 43A: Currency common to Cyprus and Croatia (EURO) — nice, oblique way of coming at this very common crossword answer.
• 1D: ___ trail (rhyming path that formerly had tracks) (RAIL) — we love ours (well maintained, no cars to worry about). The weird thing was that even though I wanted RAIL right away, I briefly thought it had to be wrong because I'd never really thought about the term as a general term. "How would anyone solving the puzzle know about the RAIL Trail in Vestal behind the HomeGoods store?" But apparently they're everywhere. Which ... makes sense.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*In case you didn't know, Erik is a veteran constructor and former editor of the USA Today crossword, as well as the 2018 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Hue granter? / TUE 11-19-24 / Track-and-field star Richardson / Saga sage since 1980 / First name in civil rights history / Common surname in Pakistan / Quintet found in a supervocalic word / Half of a rhyming synonym of "haphazard" / Sci-fi author Butler / Like content that causes secondhand embarrassment

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)

THEME: TIME BUDGET (62A: What 17- and 38-Across combine to form?) — familiar verb phrases clued as if they were part of a time management plan:

Theme answers:

• SAVE THE DAY (17A: Find a way to avert disaster)
• SPEND THE NIGHT (38A: Have a sleepover)

Word of the Day: SHA'CARRI Richardson (38D: Track-and-field star Richardson) —

Sha'Carri Richardson (/ʃəˈkæriː/ shə-KERREE; born March 25, 2000) is an American track and field sprinter who competes in the 100 metres and 200 metres. Richardson rose to fame in 2019 as a freshman at Louisiana State University, running 10.75 seconds to break the 100 m collegiate record at the NCAA Division I Championships. This winning time made her one of the ten fastest women in history at 19 years old. [...] In July 2023, she became the US national champion in the women's 100 metres at the 2023 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, running 10.82 seconds. // Richardson won gold in the 100 m at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, beating Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in a new championships record time of 10.65 seconds. On the penultimate day of the 2023 World Championships, she also won gold as part of Team USA in the women's 4 × 100m relay final with a championship record of 41.03 seconds.^[11] On June 22, 2024, Richardson defended her title as the US national champion in the 100-metre sprint event by winning the women's 100m final in 10.71 seconds (WL), qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, where she won the silver medal in the 100m and gold in the 4×100 relay.

• • •

My main comment on this puzzle is I've never heard the term "TIME BUDGET," LOL. I've heard of budgeting your time, and I've heard of time management, but while the concept of a TIME BUDGET is perfectly comprehensible to me, the phrase itself ... shrug. Not familiar. So unfamiliar that I had TIME- at the revealer and I looked back at the two theme answers and couldn't conceive of what could follow. Hacked at crosses and got BUDGET. It seems like a very clever idea. A tight, comprehensive, economical theme. Just wish the revealer had resonated with me instead of landing like a thud at my feet. Even after getting the "B" I was like "TIME ... BANDIT?" (that was a fun movie). But no, TIME BUDGET. I'm sure it's a common phrase—just didn't snap or crackle or pop with me. 

This puzzle played hard for me, but not for the reasons you might think, i.e. not because the grid was absolutely swamped with names. I knew all the names, except SHA'CARRI, which I knew—had seen, had heard of, could picture—but couldn't spell. Actually, besides SHA'CARRI, one name did give me trouble, but it's not because I didn't know it. It's because I thought it was a different name entirely. In fact, I was sure it was a different name entirely. I had M- at 22D: First name in civil rights history and without hesitation wrote in MEDGAR (Evers). Bypassing the most famous first name in American Civil Rights history—the most famous M-name for sure—that was probably not the smartest move. But MARTIN never occurred to me because it seemed too obvious. The way the clue is worded, I figured it was something less common. A deeper cut. So in went MEDGAR and screech went my solve, for a bit. Brittney GRINER got me out of the MEDGAR mess, but I still didn't see MARTIN for some time. It just wasn't computing. The Most Obvious Answer was not computing. Me: "MARVIN ... someone?" Oy. But that didn't mess me up nearly as bad as one seemingly insignificant square in the NE. I took one look at 19A: "Who ___?" and, with the "T" in place, wrote in "IS IT." "Who IS IT?" Seemed legit. Very legit. And the crosses check out, except ... why couldn't I make *any* sense out of 12D: "Don't bother with that"??? IGIOREIT!? I tore that "word" apart and tried parsing and reparsing it all kinds of ways: nothing. I could see that it was a phrase that probably ended in IT, but still, IGIO- ... IGIO- ... nothing starts with IGIO-!!! (unless Armani has written a memoir called I, GIORGIO that I'm unaware of). I checked every cross multiple times before finally realizing that it was "Who ISN'T?," not "Who IS IT?" So ... "IGNORE IT!" GAH, for sure. Many GAHs.

The other (lesser) slow spot in the grid for me came (unsurprisingly) in the initially empty BUDGET section of the grid. I did not know that SHAH was anything but a former ruler of Iran (46A: Common surname in Pakistan), and (worse) I thought that the "low tie" at 58A: Low tie score (ONE ALL) was ONE ONE (ONE ONE having been a "low tie" thirty-two times before in NYTXW history). So not only was BUDGET unknown to me, but the surrounding fill locked up on me, so I really did fizzle toward the finish. Not entirely satisfying. But again, as far as the theme goes, I'm willing to admit that the problem is mine, not the puzzle's. I *want* to be the person for whom TIME BUDGET meant something, who wrote in TIME BUDGET and thought "damn, that's good." But I wasn't. 

As for the names, it's almost comical how aggressively namey this puzzle is. I spent all weekend complaining about the puzzle steering so hard into proper noun trivia of late, it was like this puzzle was giving me the middle finger, LOL. The one reason I'm not as mad at this puzzle for its names as I am at some other recent offerings is that the names in this grid feel like they're making a collective statement, a statement about Black representation in the crossword puzzle. That is to say, this is the Blackest puzzle I've ever seen. Especially for a puzzle where Blackness is not part of the theme. Pound for pound, square for square, you'd be hard pressed to find a Blacker puzzle. VIVICA Fox and Brittney GRINER and MARTIN Luther King and SHA'CARRI Richardson and OCTAVIA Butler and SIMONE Biles and STELLA (from How STELLA Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan)? Seven Black names, all in a grid where Blackness isn't the theme!? That is impressive. Also impressive: a puzzle without white people. Not a one. Feels like a point is (low-key) being made—after all, there have been hundreds and hundreds of puzzles without Black people, so ... what if we tried it this way? I have to respect the puzzle's defiant commitment to Black visibility (and shout-out to today's honorary Black people, CARLOS Santana and YODA) (43A: Guitarist Santana + 15A: Saga sage since 1980). 

Bullets:

• 6D: Hue granter? (DYE) — OK so there's one white person in the puzzle ... kinda
• 20A: Like content that causes secondhand embarrassment (CRINGE) — love the modern clue on this one. CRINGE as adjective. Nice.
• 69A: Express contempt (SNEER) — ah, the SNEER/SNORT kealoa*! I wrote in SNEER but all the while thinking "it's gonna be SNORT." But I lucked out.
• 51D: Quintet found in a supervocalic word (AEIOU) — I follow enough word nerds on social media that I know what supervocalics are—words that contain all the (non-Y) vowels. FACETIOUS, for instance, contains them all in order. There's probably a special word for that: Superdupervocalic or some such nonsense.
• 49D: Half of a rhyming synonym of "haphazard" (HELTER) — the other half is SKELTER. Some warped part of my brain is connecting this clue to HOT (23A: Sweltering) via Don McLean

["HELTER skelter in a summer swelter..."]also["... and we sang DIRGES in the dark..."] (28D: Mournful songs)

NOTE: the tenth annual edition of the NYT's Puzzle Mania comes out on December 1. If you're not a dead-tree newspaper subscriber, you can now pre-order a copy of the puzzle extravaganza for yourself (for $7 + shipping). This is the holiday supplement that has tons of different puzzles in it, including (in previous years) a truly giant crossword puzzle, which you have to put on a large table or the floor to solve. Anyway, it's an event. And now you know how to get it if you want it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.  

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