An anvil is a metalworkingtool consisting of a large block of metal (usually forged or cast steel), with a flattened top surface, upon which another object is struck (or "worked").
Anvils are as massive because the higher their inertia, the more efficiently they cause the energy of striking tools to be transferred to the work piece. In most cases the anvil is used as a forging tool. Before the advent of modern welding technology, it was the primary tool of metal workers.
The great majority of modern anvils are made of cast steel that has been heat treated by either flame or electric induction. Inexpensive anvils have been made of cast iron and low-quality steel, but are considered unsuitable for serious use, as they deform and lack rebound when struck. [...]
The horn of the anvil is a conical projection used to form various round shapes and is generally unhardened steel or iron. The horn is used mostly in bending operations. It also is used by some smiths as an aid in "drawing down" stock (making it longer and thinner). Some anvils, mainly European, are made with two horns, one square and one round. Also, some anvils are made with side horns or clips for specialized work. (wikipedia)
• • •
Easy, generic Friday. Couple of nice long answers ("THAT TRACKS," "DON'T MIND ME"), and ... the rest. None of it clunks, none of it sings. A pleasant enough way to spend 5-10 minutes. There are a flurry of "?" clues up front (three of the first four long Acrosses!), and they try to add some spice to the solving experience, but the humor in them is listless and they end up being largely transparent. I think I liked the NW corner the best—all three Acrosses are marquee-level answers, and I actually had to work a tiny bit to come up with them because (as is always true when you're just starting a puzzle) I didn't have any crosses to go on. But I ran through TIBET TATS HOLLA AWAIT ELITE TYKE so fast that the only real confusion I had over those Acrosses, after my initial glance at them, came when I was staring down IOW- at the beginning of a long answer and wondering how [Promise of a future return?] could have anything to do with IOWA. Because of the recently concluded NCAA Basketball Tournament, and Caitlin Clark in particular, I've had IOWA (Hawkeyes) on the brain.* But my brain separated the "I" from the "OW-" once TENTS went in (4D: Rentals for some weddings), and I could see "I OWE Y-," and that was that. Swarmed over the puzzle from there, in a roughly clockwise fashion, ending in LARAMIE, where I've never been but would be happy to visit some day (36A: Wyoming city, river or mountain range). What I remember of Wyoming is ... a lot of open space. See also Utah. Montana. The west is a good place to get lost. I grew up in California and have family connections from Oregon to Washington to Idaho to Colorado. I miss it. OK, that's it, I'm going to LARAMIE. Next year in LARAMIE! Oh, did I mention that I'm also going to New Zealand for the next eclipse? My wife's home town (Dunedin) is in the Path of Totality. 2028, baby! This will be the first total solar eclipse ever seen by humans in Dunedin, NZ. The last one was ca. 1100AD, ~200 years before human beings ever arrived. Only the MOA saw that one...
[Gah, this was filmed at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor! I saw Television there with my friend Mike Berk! Sorry, grad school flashback, moving on ...]
Only a few notable hesitations today, and no stumpers at all to speak of. I was blocked from taking a counterclockwise path by the fact that I couldn't (quickly) come up with CAM (25D: Device that converts rotary motion into linear motion). If you want to slow me down, ask me about engine parts, for sure. Or poker. Or golf. Or a lot of things, actually, but especially engine parts. Oh, also, I couldn't get COB because I've never had corn on the COB for Thanksgiving in my life (23A: Bit of detritus from a Thanksgiving meal). I've seen COBs as Thanksgiving decorations, but the only vegetables I'm eating on Thanksgiving are potatoes and green beans. I'm not saying the green beans are traditional. I'm saying that's what we've always eaten and I would spurn your corn as non-canonical. So I headed clockwise and had to deal only with a few problems in that direction, like what vowels go in SEGEL (10D: Jason of TV's "Shrinking") (that's Apple TV; they should specify that, I think—very good show). I also had Chinese takeout on the brain (since that's the only way I eat it around here), and so HOT ___ left me scratching my head, after SAUCE wouldn't fit. Not real familiar with TEXAS TOAST, so had to let crosses guide me there (64A: Buttery side dish that's often grilled). And didn't know ANVILs had horns. Or I did, but only in the vaguest of ways, i.e. I know the rough shape of an ANVIL, but didn't know the pointy bit had a name. The ALFA / FIAT crossing was giving me AUDI / OPEL vibes, but those wouldn't cross properly. If the FIAT clue (40A: European automaker) had contained "Italian" instead of the vague "European," things would've been easier there, but they were easy anyway.
Constructors and editors seem constitutionally unable to lay off the "?" clues when it comes to ARSON (34D: Hot topic in criminology?). After ELOPE, I don't think there's a word out there that inspires more questionmarkery. In the past year, all four appearances of ARSON have featured a "?" clue: [Hot topic in criminology?], [Bad match on tinder?], [Bad lighting?] [Harsh lighting?]. A conflagration of puns. And that's just scratching the surface of ARSON's "?"-clue history. Looking over their cluing histories, ARSON actually appears to be worse than ELOPE, pound for pound, when it comes to attracting "?" clues, though the ELOPE clues tend to be more ... adventurous? [Not get reception?] [Expedite some union business?] [Opt for the window instead of the aisle?]. Damn, that last one is an all-timer. But mostly, as with today's ARSON clue, this "?" whimsy runs a bit stale, and transparent.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*speaking of the NCAA Basketball Championship, congrats to South Carolina and their coach Dawn STALEY, whose name has not yet been in the crossword, though it is more than worthy. The only STALEY ever to appear in a NYTXW was Gerry STALEY, a 4x All-Star pitcher, who appeared once in 1955. No offense to the pitcher, but his stature in his sport is nowhere near Dawn STALEY's in hers.
Word of the Day: Prix de Lausanne (57A: Competitor in the Prix de Lausanne (BALLERINA)) —
The Prix de Lausanne is an international dance competition held annually in Lausanne, Switzerland. The competition is for young dancers seeking to pursue a professional career in classical ballet, and many former prize winners of the competition are now leading stars with major ballet companies around the world. The competition is managed by a non-profit foundation organised by the Fondation en faveur de l'Art chorégraphique and is maintained by various sponsors, patrons and donors. [...] Entry is reserved for young student-dancers, aged 15 through 18, who have not yet been in professional employment and open to candidates of all nationalities. // Currently, participants are required to submit a 15–20 min digital file recording showing them performing a combination ofbarreand centre-work exercises in a studio environment and pay a non-refundable registration fee ofCHF120. Those candidates selected to participate in the competition pay a second fee of CHF 120. // Around 80 candidates from 30 or so countries compete each year, in the hope of being selected for the final, reserved for the best 20 among them. The final of the competition is broadcast live on television. (wikipedia)
• • •
Once again (I think this is a couple weeks in a row now) the Saturday is easier than the Friday for me. I mean, if you're just going to hand me 1-Across, and a long 1-Across at that, then I'll take it, but all those free first letters (for the Downs) are probably going to turn even an otherwise Saturday corner into a Tuesday or Wednesday corner.
Sure enough, following the Munch painting, CHANT EDIT ARE got me moving, and then I could see that 15A: Sugar cubes, e.g. ended in -HEDRA, and NUT and REBUS, and with KANGAROOS off the table (probably intended as a trap answer at 17A: Certain Australian boomers (male) and flyers (female)), WALLABIES made the next most natural guess there, and so before I knew it, whoosh, that corner was done. And at that point I had the front ends of both long exit answers all cued up and reading to rocket into the center of the grid. Sadly, one of those potential rocket answers was GREAT RECESSION, an answer I don't understand wanting to build a puzzle around ever, let alone when the country is on the cusp of ... another GREAT RECESSION. It's not a "bad" answer, per se, but you make choices with your marquee answers, and I do not understand why, tonally, you'd want this one right at the heart of your puzzle. I had GREAT and wanted it to be ... something more specific, actually. More bygone. Instead it feels like when people called WWI the "Great War" or the "War to End All Wars." There's this assumption that that was *it*. That *that* was the "great" one. I feel like any minute now, God or Fate or whatever is gonna be like, "hold my beer." I tend to remember that time as "the subprime mortgage crisis," but I guess the global repercussions ballooned out from there. There's no joy in reflecting on any of this, so why is it one of your handful of marquee answers? Dunno.
I like TRIX RABBIT, but again, as with THE SCREAM, you just hand that one over like it's Monday (29D: Commercial mascot with floppy ears). And then NETFLIX SPECIAL becomes obvious and you're well set up to get into the remaining corners and finish them off. There was a brief period in there where I had SERB and KURD (LOL) before TURK (29A: Bosporus resident), and (thus) couldn't quite get a grip on ALKENE (22D: Certain hydrocarbon), but that was more or a Wednesday struggle than a Saturday struggle. And it was the only struggle this puzzle really offered. I mean, ASTRIDE LACONIC SHEATH, bam bam bam, off their first one or two letters. The SE corner never stood a chance. And if it weren't for the "???" quality of NOSE ART, or my apparent preference for the MANKINI over the TANKINI (12D: Bathing suit portmanteau), the other corners would've been just as easy. As it was, still pretty easy.
As usual, the names were the things I didn't know, but there weren't that many of them. SAL (4D: Comedian Vulcano of "Impractical Jokers") and ALI (11D: Tony-winning actress Stroker) were unknowns, but the crosses were just plowed right through them, so I didn't have to spend any time piecing them together. And I knew Rachel DRATCH (49A: "S.N.L." alum Rachel) and DELLA Reese (49D: "And That Reminds Me" singer Reese), so no trouble there. I saw Rachel DRATCH in the market at Grand Central one time, with a child that I assume was hers. That is my Rachel DRATCH story. Oh, and one of my colleagues was at Dartmouth at the same time as her. I think I got that right. So two Rachel DRATCH stories, neither of which qualifies as a story. This is me at my raconteuriest. I'm here every night.
A few more things:
53A: Taken charge (FEE) — a FEE is a "charge" that is "taken" (from you)
6D: Image problem? (REBUS) — I'm so used to thinking of REBUS in crossword terms (multiple letters, sometimes representing an image, in one square) that this kind of REBUS (the picture puzzle kind) always surprises me. A very "children's placemat" kind of puzzle. Here, see if you can figure out this one:
34D: Tick or tock (SEC) — Hmmm, I guess this is, literally, true. That is what the ticking (or tocking) of the clock represents: the passing of one second. I feel like I was *just* watching a documentary of some kind ... or a video online ... about how "tock" is not actually a different sound from "tick," but we talk about it as if it were ... I can't remember why this fact warranted attention. The end.
The sol replaced the Peruvian inti in 1991 and the name is a return to that of Peru's historic currency, as the previous incarnation of sol was in use from 1863 to 1985. Although sol in this usage is derived from the Latin solidus (English: solid), the word also means "sun" in Spanish. There is thus a continuity with the old Peruvian inti, which was named after Inti, the Sun God of the Incas.
At its introduction in 1991, the currency was officially called nuevo sol ("new sol"), but on November 13, 2015, the Peruvian Congress voted to rename the currency simply sol.(wikipedia)
• • •
SOIL TESTS! LOLOL. Wow, that is a hell of an answer to have come back on you inside of 48 hours. I singled it out as a notable low point in the Wednesday puzzle, but apparently it didn't get the message so it has somehow wandered back on to the set. Somebody take SOIL TESTS home, give him a complimentary "Crosswords!" baseball cap, and tell him don't bother coming back, he's not on the NICE LIST (which ... is not a thing, btw ... Santa is making *a* list and checking it twice ... the naughty and nice kids are both on the same list, there are just different symbols by their names to let Santa know whether to give them crap gifts or not. Logistically, it would make no sense to keep a separate NICE LIST. Your list would be oriented toward ease-of-delivery, batched by house. This is basic logistics.
Couple of nice answers in here. Otherwise, it's just OK. Those highly segmented corners (esp. the NW / SE) really interrupt the flow and create real get-stuck opportunities. I especially had trouble with the SW, where I wasn't entirely sure about the YEAH in "YEAH, ABOUT THAT..." (probably the best answer in the puzzle, in the end), and couldn't get POSSE or HUCKS (?) from their last letters, so that corner was nearly empty, with nothing certain to build off of. Kinda wanted ASK for 34D: "___ away!" but that also didn't feel rock solid. "Fire away!" or "Shoot!" feel more on the nose. So yeah, that corner was rough. Put in LODE instead of SEAM (49D: Underground band), which briefly made things worse (49D: Underground band). Was tempted to write in PAIR at 48A: What Twix bars are sold in (TWOS). Eventually stumbled on a couple of gimmes. Well, IKEA was a gimme (55A: What Shøp on "The Simpsons" is a parody of). SAO was close to a gimme (44A: ___, Miguel Island, largest of the Azores), but some part of me feared it was actually SAN, so I left the last letter blank to start. Downs were clued pretty hard down there, the calculus clue seemed like it might be lots of things. I think I finally unlocked it all by getting TWOS, which gave me the "ST" and "I" in PHSTRIP (36D: Alternative to litmus paper). Then POSSE went down, and I was finally able to swarm the corner with enough letters to bring it to submission. I don't remember much of the rest of the solving experience, but as I say, "YEAH, ABOUT THAT..." was nice.
Speed round:
16A: Golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, for two (AFRIKANERS) — some trouble here with the double-A that never arrived. Language is double-A "Afrikaans," people are single-A Afrikaners. Got it (for now). Also, TWOS is in the grid, so having "two" in the clue here *and* in the clue for E-SCOOTER (33D: Two-wheeler at a charging station) ... those repeats are something you might've cleaned up if you were being extra-attentive.
26A: Recipe direction (BEAT) — had "B," wrote in BAKE. Then, just after I changed it to BEAT, BAKES just jumped right out at me like "Surprise!" (5D: Gets the batter out, say)
23D: Ones making insulting offers (LOWBALLERS) — the -ER is bad and the -S is a cringey cherry on top. I like LOWBALL as an adjective and I like it as a verb, but as an awkwardly -ER'd and pluralized noun, I like it far less.
29D: "Black" follower ("-ISH") — referring specifically to the TV show, "Black-ish." The quotation marks around "Black" are supposed to indicate the title-ness of the context.
38A: Throws, informally (HUCKS) — "chucks" I know. "Chucks" means "throws, informally." HUCKS rings the vaguest of bells, but it feels weirdly archaic, like kids said it, possibly in the '50s and '60s. I have probably heard HUCKS, but not for a long time. Somehow I'm picturing kids throwing rocks at seagulls, which is just cruel, stop it, kids.
28A: The British royal family has one called the Cambridge Lover's Knot (TIARA) — cool, now give all your wealth back to the people and places you extracted it from, you ghoulish relics. Ahem. Annnnyway, I thought this was maybe TOWER? Shrug.
15A: Something that gets passed around a lot (MEME) — got the answer down to M-ME, and then confidently wrote in MIME, since, yeah, I would definitely give a MIME wide berth if I had to pass around him.
Relative difficulty: Easy (unless you've never heard of one or the other of the actresses up top, in which case probably much harder)
THEME: MONKEY [in the] MIDDLE (43A: With the circled letters and 46-Across, playground keep-away game) — circled squares containing "I N T H E" form a lob arc from one side of the grid (MONKEY) to the other (MIDDLE). Those circled squares represent the arc of a ball (presumably) that's being kept away from the titular "monkey in the middle," who is represented by the letters "APE" in DIAPERS (APES can be found in (sorta) the middle of four other themers). APES is also the revealer (65A: Animals found in 16-, 20-, 35-, 51- and 58-Across):
Theme answers:
RHEA PERLMAN (16A: Portrayer of Carla Tortelli on "Cheers")
AMANDA PEET (20A: "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" co-star)
Had to look up the game after I was done because I couldn't remember what it was. Didn't play it as a kid, as I recall, though "keep-away" is familiar enough. MONKEY in the MIDDLE sounds like a more formally organized version of "keep-away" which seems like a more spontaneous (and possibly cruel) "game" where the "monkey" is an unwilling participant. Couldn't figure out why DIAPERS were "in the middle" (is the monkey a baby??) but then saw APE there in the exact MIDDLE. Seeing the APE in DIAPERS (!) was a real aha moment. It was only afterward that I noticed both the APES "hiding" in the theme answers and (well after that) the revealer. Never saw the revealer. The puzzle was so easy, I just filled it in from crosses, not even noticing it. Feels very redundant and anti-climactic. I mean, yes, I did not see the other APES at first, it's true, but I did *find* them when I went looking, and that was at least mildly entertaining. And then the extra APES ... I mean, I get it, you feel like you *should* have more theme material in the puzzle, but none of those APES have a ball going over their heads and, most crucially, none of those APES are actually "in the (exact) middle" of their answers. They're in there, but off to one side or the other. So in order to fulfill some assumed obligation to cram the grid with theme material, we get imperfectly executed theme (no ball overhead, no "middle" placement). The APE in DIAPERS, great. All the rest of it, all the stuff not involving the nice visual gag "in the middle," is excessive window dressing. Too much. Mars the elegance of the concept.
As for difficulty, there wasn't much. RHEA PERLMAN is pretty famous from all those years on "Cheers" (and all those Emmys (4)). AMANDA PEET, while well known, at least to me, is a far less familiar name (or at least I think she will be, to most NYTXW solvers), and so it's possible she caused some difficulty. Unknown proper nouns often do. But no other spot in the grid should've caused much trouble. I had a few minor hesitations, that's all. Not sure what is going on with the clue for AMANDA PEET—I have never heard of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and it's not even mentioned in the first paragraph of her wikipedia bio. For me, her iconic role is as the owner of the minor-league Morristown Frackers in "Brockmire":
Five things:
14A: Greeting in an inbox (E-CARD) — had the "E-" and then ... so many places to go from there. I choice "-VITE" ... [incorrect buzzer!]
43D: Order from Tony Soprano, e.g. (MOB HIT) — kinda tired of the puzzle's obsession with mob violence. ICE as "murder," HITMAN, HITLIST, etc. I get it, it's a significant part of the tv / movie landscape blah blah blah, but I'm finding murder and violence in my grid more and more unpleasant these days. Same way I've lost patience for flippant, wacky clues about alcoholics (another NYTXW obsession). "The Sopranos" is a great show. "The Godfather" is a great movie. It's just that romanticizing the mob (and particularly mob violence) is, in general, one of my less favorite aspects of popular culture.
3D: Had drinks before going out, informally (PRE-GAMED) — I had PREG- and thought, "wow, that is a dark clue for PREGNANT, what the—!?"
45D: Sharp rejection ("NO NO NO!") — Is it "sharp," though? It's repeated, that's for sure. Had the first "No!" and then went looking for a four-letter word like "DEAL" or "DICE" or something. But it's just a bunch of "NO"s.
12D: "Never-ending" offerings at Olive Garden (PASTAS) — pretty sure it's "Never-Ending Pasta Bowls," hang on ... (checking) ... yep. There's even a "Never-Ending Pasta Pass" (for Olive Garden superfans, I guess). But nowhere is there PASTAS with an "S." If you're going to use advertising language, get the wording right.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. did enjoy the BEER clue, gotta say (49D: The missing letters in _UDW_IS__)
P.P.S. so sorry I posted this late (9:40am). I was done at 6am but for some reason walked away from my desk and never came back to hit "Post." This is probably the latest posting date for the blog in ~14 years. My apologies for failing you.
Relative difficulty: Easy except maybe for a few names ...
THEME: none — well, there are a lot of "IT"s, but I presume that's not thematic ...
Word of the Day: Zaha HADID (36A: Award-winning architect Zaha ___) —
DameZaha Mohammad HadidDBERA(Arabic: زها حديد Zahā Ḥadīd; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was a British Iraqi architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building."
Hadid was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She received the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize, in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, she was made a Dame by Elizabeth II for services to architecture, and in February, 2016, the month preceding her death, she became the first woman to be individually awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (Ray Eames and Sheila O'Donnell had previously been awarded it jointly with Charles Eames and John Tuomey respectively). (wikipedia)
• • •
***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS!**. The calendar has turned on another year (thank God), and while that might mean a lot of things to a lot of people, for me it means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. Last year at this time, I wrote about what a melancholy year 2019 was; my oldest dog had died and the world was kind of a wreck. And then 2020 happened, and I learned what a real wreck looks like. In February, my other dog died (R.I.P. Gabby). And then, well, COVID. And let's be honest, even with a new president, 2021 is going to be, uh, challenging as well. But I hope that the regular ritual of solving crosswords brought some solace and stability to your lives this past year, and I hope that my blog added to your enjoyment of the solving experience in some way. This year my blog will celebrate its 15th anniversary! I feel so proud! And old! A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully some insight and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.
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 two 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
And heck, why don't I throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which they did that one time someone contributed that way—but it worked!)
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. And my thank-you postcards this year are really special. They are portraits of my new cat Alfie (a bright spot of 2020), designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. And they look like this:
He's eating kale in that middle one, in case you're wondering. Anyway, these cards are personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share them with the snail-mailers. 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...
* * *
Several names I didn't know here, but the rest of the puzzle was so easy (for me) that I blew right through them. I really should store EDNA Lewis's name away somewhere in my brain, as this is not the first time I've seen it. But I definitely forgot it. When I see "country" and "cooking" and four letters, my brain, from past trauma of multiple solving experiences, automatically jumps to DEEN, ugh. Gotta retrain it. Here's a deal: I'll remember EDNA Lewis (she can be the number 1 EDNA as far as I'm concerned), if the NYTXW never mentions Paula DEEN's name again? Yeah? We good? Good. Who else did I stumble on? Oh, HADID! Now that I see her face, I have definitely heard of her, but her name just hasn't stuck the way other crossword architects have, guys like GEHRY and of course our fearless leader I.M. PEI, R.I.P. Seems like HADID is more than worthy of inclusion, and has a very grid-friendly name, so it would be great to see her more. It would also be great if when we saw her, she had much, much better clues than this one. "Award-winning architect" tells us nothing, not even the "award" that she "won"—hello, she was the first woman to win the bleeping *Pritzker*, which is a known award name. You can say it / include it in your clue. Or you can include some other pertinent fact, like one of the many, many buildings she designed. *Something* that defines her for the solving audience. The work of inclusion involves establishing worthiness and bringing the audience along. Last name on my "huh?" tour is HENRI. Don't feel too bad about that one, as I can only name [... counts on fingers ...] huh, zero, zero milliners. I guess the full name Henri Bendel was an NYC-based accessory store. Not on my radar. But as with EDNA, I got crosses, and as soon as I could make a name out of the letters I had, that was that. With HENRI and EDNA it wasn't hard. HADID took a little more work. But as I say, that's it for difficulty today, for me.
Nicest part of this puzzle actually came before I solved it, at 4:45am, when my phone alarm went off and I reached over, picked it up, and saw the following text from my daughter on the notice screen:
(PR) = personal record
She is right about the age I was when I started doing crosswords religiously—towards the end of college. And with it being winter break at The U (of Minn.), and with all the pandemic-induced staying at home, she's had a lot of time to practice. All I ever wanted was a kid who would commiserate with me about crosswords. [Sniff] I'm so proud. Actually ... I guess I now have to look forward to her eventually a. dunking on me with her faster-than-me times, and then inevitably b. pitying me and helping me out with all the pop culture that means less than nothing to me. Ah well, we're in a father/daughter sweet spot right now, crosswords-wise, and I'm just gonna enjoy it.
"The Mandalorian" is my new "Game of Thrones," in that I would prefer not to. Sometimes the hype of something becomes so unbearable that I just ... refuse. I figure I'll learn everything I need to know (like this YODA clue, 49A: Whom Grogu resembles on "The Mandalorian") from crosswords and from people never shutting up about it. I should probably also store GROGU away for possible future use. I've taken a hard turn away from all forms of Fandom in general, and "Star Wars" fandom can be Particularly unbearable (see also Marvel fandom). There's something about fandom mindset that brings out bad, weird, cultish behaviors in people. Idolatry over enjoyment. Inflexible mind. It reminds me of political fandom, which is ... how we got ... here [vaguely gestures toward the window, in the direction of D.C.]. I'm sure it's good TV, I just have quirky aversions to oppressively popular things, so I'll pass. I'l also pass on E-SCOOTERS (66A: Rechargeable city transport), which sound all cool and green or whatever, until you're a pedestrian just trying to walk around Denver and every stupid yokel and careless kid is riding those damned things every way they're not supposed to. Oof. Just walk, ffs. What else? I like how "THIS GUY GETS IT!" is splattered across the middle of the grid (37A: "See, SOMEONE understands what I'm saying!"), both because it's a snappy (if somewhat bro'y) phrase, and because it really seems like a self-referential moment; that is, this guy seems really into the word "IT." We get it. No, seriously, we get "IT"—three times, including an "IT" that crosses the "IT" in "THIS GUY GETS IT" ("AS I SEE IT"). I'd say COOL ITwith the "IT"s, but at least it's given me something to talk about. Adieu.
THEME: "Wait, What?" — in theme answers, long a sound (as in "wait") is changed to short u sound (as in "what"), with wacky results:
Theme answers:
"YOU GOT THAT STRUT!" (22A: Compliment to a runway model?)
CUSS SENSITIVE (31A: Easily offended by foul language?)
"WHY THE LONG FUSS?" (45A: Question to a tantrum thrower?)
"RUDDERS OF THE LOST ARK" (63A: Relics proving how Noah steered his boat?)
LOADED THE BUSES (83A: Prepared for a field trip?)
MUCK-UP ARTISTS (95A: Masters of slapstick?)
THE NUMB OF THE GUM (109A: Title for an oral surgeon's handbook?)
Word of the Day: KEGELS (67D: Pelvic exercises) —
Kegel exercise, also known as pelvic-floor exercise, involves repeatedly contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor, now sometimes colloquially referred to as the "Kegel muscles". The exercise can be performed multiple times each day, for several minutes at a time, but takes one to three months to begin to have an effect.
Kegel exercises aim to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. These muscles have many functions within the human body. In women, they are responsible for: holding up the bladder, preventing urinary stress incontinence (especially after childbirth), vaginal and uterine prolapse. In men, these muscles are responsible for: urinary continence, fecal continence, and ejaculation. Several tools exist to help with these exercises, although various studies debate the relative effectiveness of different tools versus traditional exercises.
The American gynecologist Arnold Kegel first published a description of such exercises in 1948. (wikipedia)
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I want to apologize to those of you who read me only on Sunday. Well, not apologize ... but I do feel bad, as I realized today that I haven't actually *enjoyed* a Sunday puzzle since something like August. I enjoy puzzles every week. Mondays and Thursdays and especially Fridays and most of the time Saturdays, these are reasonably frequent sources of joy for me. But some people just do the Sunday, the big one, the marquee puzzle ... which also happens to be, without a doubt, the weakest day the puzzle has to offer. This is, of course, totally upside-down, as it's the puzzle with the most hype, the one people have heard of (and erroneously think is the most difficult). But man it's like they can't find anyone to come up with themes of genuine cleverness and wit and interest, that are fun to solve, that aren't in some way tedious. I feel like the puzzle veers wildly between "stunt puzzle / architectural feat that hurts to solve" and "wacky sound-change theme from 1995," more or less. Today, we get the latter. The wacky results are just corny / groany. I guess THE NUMB OF THE GUM, with its double sound change, is supposed to be some great exclamation point on the whole thing, and it's arguably the best of the lot, but the lot ... is not best. Be best! (LOL, how were the last four years real?)
I don't know when I "got" the theme but there was no aha moment, more just a dawning semi-realization. I honestly had no idea At All that YOU GOT THAT STRUT was a sound-change pun, as "you got that straight!" sounds so wrong to me. "You got *that* right!" yes. "Damn straight!" yes. "You got that straight!" ... er ... maybe? Still, the puzzle was basically easy until I got to the SW corner, where MUCK-UP ARTISTS stayed hidden forever. Just couldn't parse it, *and*, for some reason, nearly every cross made me cock my head like "what?" Couldn't come up with KAFKA from that clue (96D: "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" is the last short story he wrote), had ACHES before LUSTS (92D: Yearns (for)), no idea about RECIPE (74D: Instruction for a course?), no idea about IONIC (98D: Kind of chemical bond in salts), had PLUCK instead of SPUNK (99D: Vivacious quality) ... and then I had trouble with ACCEDE (80A: Relent), and LIMA (92A: World capital established in 1535), and HOPE (words inside long quotations—never easy for me) (102A: "To live without ___ is to cease to live": Dostoyevsky). MUCK-UP ARTISTS feels like a pretty bad theme violation, in that you've got an extra short u sound there that *isn't* part of a sound change. Unpretty. Inelegant. Clunky. Gotta stop writing now and get back to watching people celebrate! See you tomorrow!
Relative difficulty: Easy (untimed, but there was almost no resistance)
THEME: DARK ART (68A: Witchcraft ... or what each block of three black squares in this puzzle represents?) — just what it says—you have to imagine that each set of three black squares represents the letters ART in order to make sense of the answers leading to/from those squares:
Theme answers:
ARTICLE I (29A: Part of the Constitution establishing the executive branch)
POISON DART (20A: Cause of death in the Sherlock Holmes novel "The Sign of Four")
ARTHUR DENT (55A: Protagonist in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy")
Word of the Day: MATCHA (33D: Powdered green tea leaves) —
Matcha (抹茶, Japanese: [mat.tɕa], English /ˈmætʃə/ or /ˈmɑːtʃə/[i]) is finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves, traditionally consumed in East Asia. It is special in two aspects of farming and processing: the green tea plants used for matcha are shade-grown for three to four weeks before harvest, and the stems and veins are removed during processing. During shaded growth, the plant Camellia sinensis produces more theanine and caffeine. The powdered form of matcha is consumed differently from tea leaves or tea bags, as it is suspended in a liquid, typically water or milk. (wikipedia)
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People will be warmly disposed toward this puzzle because it is Very Easy, and crushing a Thursday feels good. They will also like it because it's essentially a themeless with ... just some missing pARTs. I figured out ART was missing very early (ARTICLE II) and then just had to look out for missing ARTs and that's ... it. No wacky cluing or forced punniness of any of the junk that you sometimes encounter in themed puzzles. At first, I didn't know why the ARTs weren't there, they just weren't. Then I hit DARK ART, finally, and ... YES, I SEE. Not really an aha or OHO moment. More just ... an explanation. OK, fine. But it's ultimately a one-note "theme" that leaves a bunch of gibberish in the grid. I do now wish that FLOWCH was a word, though. It's vivid and sounds amazing when you say it out loud. Could be a verb or noun, or both, not sure. Anyway, themewise, this is a shrug, but there's some good fill here and there, and it wasn't unpleasant to solve.
It's a very bro-y puzzle right from the jump (1A: Classic MTV show that launched a film franchise = "JACKASS"). There's a very incidental reference to George Eliot (and GARBO!), but otherwise, solidly puzzbro (and slightly juvenile) in its focus. Also, I think the puzzle and I have *very* different notions of what "Classic" means—not a word I'd apply to either "JACKASS" or "BAMBI Meets Godzilla" (22A: "___ Meets Godzilla" (classic film short)). I think you just mean "old." "Classic" comes back again in the GARBO clue, where it's apt, but that's at least three "Classic"s in one puzzle; maybe vary your cluing language a little next time? I love STORY ARC(34A: Narrative through multiple TV episodes) and MATCHA (33D: Powdered green tea leaves), and that SW corner has a pretty nice Across stack. The rest of the fill is mostly common and familiar—nothing ugly, nothing scintillating (to take just one corner: RASTA SNEER INERT etc.). The only part where I struggled was with GROUPON. Is that still a thing? (43D: Company with a great deal of advertising?) The "?" clue did nothing for me—needed GROU- before I saw it. Oh, and POISOND ... that one made me squint a bit because I thought the answer was POISONS, and then thought, "really, they used more than one?!" The "D" was actually my last square, when I remembered "Oh, yeah, right ... there's a theme."
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!")
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