Filtered food for whales / MON 4-20-26 / Move in a hurry, old-style / "I need to use the bathroom" / Sweetie, to Brits / Bathroom, informally / What coins are exchanged for at an arcade / "Sauer" hot dog topping

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Easy (even though I failed my Downs-only solve)

THEME: NATURE CALLS (53A: "I need to use the bathroom" ... or what the shaded squares spell?) — animal calls are "hidden" in shaded squares inside longer answers:

Theme answers:

• TWO OF HEARTS (16A: Low red card in a deck) (dog!)
• CHOO-CHOO TRAINS (21A: Locomotives, to kids) (owl!)
• "THIS SUCKS" (28: "The worst!") (snake!)
• METRO AREA (38A: City and its surroundings) (lion!)
• "NO TROUBLE AT ALL" (43A: "Don't mention it — it was easy") (sheep! wait, goat?)

Word of the Day: KRILL (32D: Filtered food for whales) —

Krill (Euphausiids) (sg.: krill) are small and exclusively marine crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, found in all of the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian word krill, meaning "small fry of fish", which is also often attributed to species of fish.

Krill are considered an important trophic level connection near the bottom of the food chain. They feed on phytoplankton and, to a lesser extent, zooplankton, and are also the main source of food for many larger animals. In the Southern Ocean, one species, the Antarctic krill, makes up an estimated biomass of around 379 million tonnes (418 million tons), making it among the species with the largest total biomass. Over half of this biomass is eaten by whales, seals, penguins, seabirds, squid, and fish each year. Most krill species display large daily vertical migrations, providing food for predators near the surface at night and in deeper waters during the day.

Krill are fished commercially in the Southern Ocean and in the waters around Japan. The total global harvest amounts to 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes (170,000 to 220,000 tons) annually, mostly from the Scotia Sea. Most krill catch is used for aquaculture and aquarium feeds, as bait in sport fishing, or in the pharmaceutical industry. Krill are also used for human consumption in several countries. They are known as okiami (オキアミ) in Japan and as camarones in Spain and the Philippines. In the Philippines, they are also called alamang and are used to make a salty paste called bagoong.

Krill are also the main food for baleen whales, including the blue whale. (wikipedia)

• • •

LOL I think Morse Code heard me when I insulted it last week because today it got its revenge. I have no idea what dots and dashes and dits and dahs are supposed to be because I am not a 19th-century telegraphy expert or whatever kind of nerd and/or military person uses Morse Code, so [...---... in Morse] meant nothing to me. I thought it was a single letter at first and so wrote in ESS. Then, when that wouldn't work (no such thing as PTAE!), I changed the "E" to "S," giving me "SSS." Three dashes, three of the same letter ... made sense to me. (I was reading the "..."s as ellipses!) Why you'd want to hiss like a snake using Morse Code, I don't know, but who knows what kind of role-playing hijinks and shenanigans Morse Coders (?) will get up to? Not me, that's for sure. So, ESS to SSS and that was that. PTAE made me see my first error, but there was no way for me to see my next error, since PROMS looked like (and is) a perfectly good word. So I failed the Downs-only solve, felled by PROMS / SSS. Ah well. It was bound to happen some time. 

As for the theme ... toilet euphemisms are extremely not my thing, so the revealer didn't give me the giggle or chuckle or whatever that it likely gave many of you. I was more "EWW" or "THIS SUCKS" than haha there, that's for sure. And NATURE CALLS crossing LAV? Show that one to your 8yo, they'll probably laugh (once you explain what LAV means). I appreciate that the puzzle at least tried to make the revealer clever. And you do get a lot of theme for your money today. But I've never been that impressed with thematic portion size, as a puzzle value—the theme either pleases me or it doesn't, so More doesn't necessarily mean Better. I like the idea of all the animal sounds, but the execution here was a bit lackluster. The themers themselves are fine, with "NO TROUBLE AT ALL" and "THIS SUCKS!" being particularly vivid. But the rest of the grid is mostly short stuff and grimly dull. And also: style points deductions for not having the "hidden" word touch all the elements in the base phrase (i.e. the "HEARTS" in TWO OF HEARTS and the "NO" and "ALL" in "NO TROUBLE AT ALL" don't touch an animal call at all—I guess this is true of the first CHOO as well, but I'm being generous and counting CHOO-CHOO as one word). The perfect embedded- (or hidden-) word theme is one where the embedded element touches all the words in the base phrase. But sometimes you sacrifice perfection for just Making It Work. I get it.

TORO was on my mind because I had a whole TORO bullet point yesterday. I would've gotten TORO anyway, but the coincidence of having it appear again the day after I discussed it gave me a little jolt of "hey! there it is again!" Yesterday we got the fatty tuna type of TORO. Today, we get a decidedly more Monday TORO. There were no really tough parts of the Downs-only solve for me today (beyond the Morse Code disaster). I did not (at all) like PLAYS as the answer for 12D: What coins are exchanged for at an arcade. Coins buy PLAYS, if that's what you want to call them, but "exchanged?" That's an awkward, unnatural way to put it. I really wanted some equivalent of TOKENS here. I had no idea what the last word of ["Sometimes you just gotta ___"] was gonna be. DANCE? PAUSE? SAY 'F*** IT'? Needed a bunch of crosses to get "LAUGH," but they weren't hard to come by. I also screwed up and wrote in SEGA instead of SONY (33D: PlayStation maker) and KRULL instead of KRILL (32D: Filtered food for whales). Why? I blame being an adolescent boy when this movie came out:

I think that'll do for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Plastic explosive used in many demolitions / THU 10-9-25 / Cutesy name for a certain leviathan / Some ancient Italians / Storage device that has fallen out of fashion / One of 300 at the National Mall / Fictional character who says "I am a brain ... The rest of me is a mere appendix"

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: ALL THUMBS (58A: Klutzy ... and a hint to 17-, 25-, 35- and 49-Across) — clues describe thumb positions and answers indicate what those different positions mean; you basically just have to insert "thumb(s)" after the number in each theme clue:

Theme answers:

• "NO WAY, JOSE" (17A: Two [thumbs] down)
• "I NEED A RIDE" (25A: One [thumb] out)
• NOTHING TO DO (35A: Two [thumbs] moving around each other)
• "WORKS FOR ME" (49A: Two [thumbs] up)

Word of the Day: SEMTEX (13D: Plastic explosive used in many demolitions) —

Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive containing RDX and PETN. It is used in commercial blasting, demolition, and in certain military applications.

Semtex was developed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia, originally under the name B 1 and then under the "Semtex" designation since 1964, labeled as SEMTEX 1A, since 1967 as SEMTEX H, and since 1987 as SEMTEX 10.

Originally developed for Czechoslovak military use and export, Semtex eventually became popular with armed groups and insurgents because, prior to the 2000s, it was extremely difficult to detect, as in the case of Pan Am Flight 103. (wikipedia)

• • •

Took me longer than it should have to figure out how the theme works today, though maybe I'm being too hard on myself. By "longer than it should have," I mean that I got the revealer and didn't understand it right away. At that point, I had only one theme answer in place ("NO WAY, JOSE!"), and I just didn't know what to do with ALL THUMBS. With the "ALL" part in particular. Didn't help that "Two down" looked like it might have some kind of crossword meaning, like maybe 2-Down was involved (?). I think I had to get "WORKS FOR ME" in order to finally see the whole thumbs-up / thumbs-down thing. Even then, I had NOTHING ___ at the center answer and no idea what it could be. Two [thumbs] moving around each other??? I actually tried to do this, physically, at my desk here, just to see if anything would come to me, and I quickly realized I had no idea what "moving around each other" even meant. Moving around each other ... how? I was kind of holding my thumbs toward each other and then cycling them around each other, almost like I was pedaling a bike with my hands. The word you really need here is "twiddling," but maybe [Two twiddling] was thought to be either too much of a giveaway or just too weird-looking. Anyway, "moving around each other" did nothing for me. I think I had "NOTHING TO IT!" there for a bit. Which brings me to the main reason that central answer just doesn't work. All the other answers are clear, standalone, familiar expressions that one might say, and the thumb gestures stand in for those expressions more or less accurately. "NOTHING TO DO" is not a common spoken phrase the way the others are. It's a state of being, as in "I have NOTHING TO DO." I can imagine someone saying "NOTHING TO DO," but that's very different from its being a meaningful expression on its own, the way, say, "NO WAY, JOSE" is. With the others ... I don't think of "NO WAY JOSE" and "two thumbs down" as equivalent, but they're ballpark, both expressing a negative reaction, and the others work at least equally well, so OK. But NOTHING TO DO is an outlier, and an awkward one.

The cluing felt hard today, or hardish, though the only thing in the puzzle that I didn't actually know, in the end, was SEMTEX. Oh, and EFT, which I just keep forgetting, apparently. Electronic funds transfer?? Yes. I am old school, in that I expect my EFTs to be Newt-onian (an EFT is a juvenile newt, as any longtime solver knows). This is only the fourth financial EFT, as against 68 amphibious EFTs in the Shortz Era alone (192 all time). I had to work a little to get LATINS, which is deeply ironic, as I just finished teaching the Aeneid for the umpteenth time, and it's the LATINS, led by King (... wait for it...) Latinus, that Aeneas encounters when he lands in Italy, and the Latin king's daughter, Lavinia, whom he must eventually wed (after a stupid war that goes on for five books just 'cause Juno wants to make it all as painful as possible, even though she can't stop it (because Fate!)). I do not really buy DO HARM as a standalone phrase. DO NO HARM, yes, that is a phrase, a very specific and meaningful phrase where the Hippocratic oath is concerned. DO HARM sounds like the terse direction of a sadistic interplanetary emperor. The rest of the fill seems fine—no strong reactions.

Bullets:

• 32A: One of 300 at the National Mall (ACRE) — at first I was like "... STEP?" Like maybe that's how many steps there were to the top of the Washington Monument, or the Lincoln Memorial (lol that would put Lincoln very, very high up). 
• 39A: Marvel series focused on Thor's brother (LOKI) — so ... just [Thor's brother], then. Not sure why all the other words are necessary if you're just gonna end up at [Thor's brother].
• 55A: "The Burghers of Calais" sculptor (RODIN) — No idea what this is. I know that RODIN is a sculptor, and that's all I had to know. Let's look at some art, shall we?

[oh hey, it's at The Met: "The monument commemorates the heroism of six leading citizens (burghers) of the French city of Calais. In the fourteenth century, at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, they offered their lives to the English king in exchange for the lifting of his siege of the city. By portraying their despair and haunted courage in the face of death, Rodin challenged contemporary heroic ideals and made an event from the past seem immediate and real."]

• 35D: Annual breast cancer awareness observance (NO BRA DAY) — I did not know this was a thing, or still a thing. Seems like an impractical option for many women. According to wikipedia, "The day is controversial as some see it as sexualizing and exploiting women's bodies while at the same time belittling a serious disease." I misread the clue as [Annual breast cancer awareness month] and, having the "NO-," wrote in NOVEMBER (which fits ... it's wrong, but it fits). Breast Cancer Awareness Month is actually right now, October, and NO BRA DAY is next week (October 13)
• 39D: Heroine of Verdi's "Il Trovatore" (LEONORA) — I must've seen LEONORA a bunch over the years, as an answer as well as in clues, because I plunked her down with just a few crosses despite knowing nothing about this opera.

• 48D: Cutesy name for a certain leviathan (NESSIE) — "leviathan" makes me think "whale," and I was like "did Ahab have a 'cutesy name' for Moby-Dick!? WHITIE?" But no, "leviathan" is just a gigantic (watery) creature, so ... the Loch Ness Monster, aka NESSIE.

[I own this cutesy Moby-Dick shirt—design by Kate Beaton]

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Dance with a clickety-clack / MON 9-23-24 / Antidiscrimination inits. in the modern workplace / "___ Not Gonna Take It" (Twisted Sister hit)

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:18)

THEME: Abbreviations? — Theme entries end with three-letter abbreviations. I'm not sure if there's something more here. It doesn't seem like the letters spell anything out, or have any relation to each other. Please let me know if I'm missing a connection in the comments.

Theme answers:

• [How some movies were released, pre-streaming] for DIRECT TO DVD
• [Bruce Springsteen album with a red, white and blue cover] for BORN IN THE USA
• [Question to someone who's on the way] for WHATS YOUR ETA
• [A piece of cake, so to speak] for AS EASY AS ABC

Word of the Day: NTSB (Accident-investigating org.) —

I put OSHA here, and had never heard of this agency, so thought I'd educate us all: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine accidents, pipeline incidents, bridge failures, and railroad accidents. 

• • •

Hey squad, it's Malaika here for an Off Schedule Malaika Monday! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I have been basking in the excitement of some recent late night dinners. From 2021 - 2023 we were losing a lot of late night spots in NYC, but I feel like there's been a little bit of a resurgence lately! Fingers crossed it continues-- sometimes you need an 11pm enchilada or a 3am pizza slice. If you have a fave Late Night NYC Spot, let me know in the comments and I'll check it out!!

I absolutely flew through today's puzzle! I'm trying to identify some of the vocabulary that, while easy for me, may have stumped a brand new solver-- KIR and ANODE stand out, and I wonder if new teenaged solvers are aware of ETTA JAMES and EDITH Piaf. (Fun to see them like this-- I usually see just "Etta" and "Piaf.") Anyway, do yourself a favor and listen to Beyonce's cover of "I'd Rather Go Blind" and Cristin Milioti's cover of "La Vie en Rose." Stunning songs. (Or listen to the originals!!! Also incredible, obviously!)

I wish there had been a little more to the theme here. It's totally serviceable, but this feels like a puzzle many people will solve without even realizing there was a theme at all, and I don't know if the long answers were fun enough to justify that. DIRECT TO DVD, in particular felt dated, rather than nostalgic, although maybe you disagree. I wanted the "ABC" in the last answer to indicate something, but it doesn't seem to be a revealer. 

Which is your fave Direct-to-DVD Disney sequel?

What else? I was surprised they didn't clue LUCKY ONE in reference to the Taylor Swift song given that it's not a particularly in-the-language phrase, and given that the NYT crossword loves a Taylor Swift clue. But I guess the song is called The Lucky One, so they would have had to do a weird fill-in-the-blank. There was also only one question mark clue ([One serving you a whopper?] for LIAR) which felt a tad low to me.

Bullets:

• [Mark Zuckerberg's company] for META — It's hilarious to me how he went through the whole rigamarole of changing the name in order to launch a Metaverse that was enormously panned and mercilessly mocked. Oh well. I guess he's still a billionaire so no huge loss.
• [Lingerie top] for BRA — Something felt off about this phrasing, maybe because I have many bras I would not consider lingerie, and some lingerie tops that I would not consider bras. Could the clue have benefited from a ", perhaps" ?
• [Bling worn on the head] for TIARA — I paused while solving because I thought this phrasing was so awkward. It felt like how an alien observing Earth and studying our language would describe a tiara.

xoxo Malaika

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Noted Spanish muralist / TUE 4-9-24 / Some Art Deco works / First doll to be marketed as an "action figure" / Hey Mr. Gazillionaire from Omaha / Nickname shared by two Spice Girls

Constructor: Caroline Sommers and Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: You Name It! — famous names ending -ET or -ETT are reimagined as "[verb] + IT" phrases directed at the people with those last names:

Theme answers:

• "WARREN, BUFF IT!" (20A: "Hey, Mr. Gazillionaire from Omaha—go shine the car!")
• "LYLE, LOVE IT!" (34A: "Hey, Julia Roberts's ex—you're doing great!")
• "JED, CLAMP IT!" (42A: "Hey, patriarch of '60s television—shut up!") 
• "CATE, BLANCH IT!" (56A: "Hey, acclaimed Australian actress—prepare the broccoli!")

Word of the Day: Jed Clampett (42A) —

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family from Silver Dollar City in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, who move to posh Beverly Hills, California, after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of The Beverly Hillbillies.

The Beverly Hillbillies ranked among the top 20 most-watched programs on television for eight of its nine seasons, ranking as the No.1 series of the year during its first two seasons, with 16 episodes that still remain among the 100 most-watched television episodes in American history. It accumulated seven Emmy nominations during its run. It remains in syndicated reruns, and its ongoing popularity spawned a 1993 film adaptation by 20th Century Fox. [...] 

Good-natured patriarch Jed Clampett (portrayed by Buddy Ebsen) has little formal education and is naive about the world outside the rural area where he lived but has a great deal of wisdom and common sense. His forebears are revealed in series 1, episode 25, to have come to America before the Mayflower arrived. However, he later denies this to avoid offending Mrs. Drysdale. He is the widower of Granny's daughter, Rose Ellen (Buddy Ebsen was only 5 years younger than Irene Ryan). He is the son of Luke Clampett and his wife and has a sister called Myrtle. In episode 13, it is revealed that Jed's grandfather was 98 when he married Jed's grandmother, who was 18. In an early episode, Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. He is usually the straight man to Granny and Jethro's antics. His catchphrase is, "Welllllll, doggies!"

• • •

["ANGELA ... BASS IT!]

Short one today because there's really not a lot to say about this one. You either find the wacky cluing funny today or you don't, and mostly the whole thing felt way too contrived. Those theme clues are trying really hard to be wacky, possibly because they're the puzzle's entire reason for existing. The problem was that after getting one, I didn't really need to read the whole latter part of the remaining theme clues. I knew what the trick was and so "Julia Roberts's ex" was enough, -NCHIT was enough (didn't even have to read the clue there). The problem was also that they weren't that funny. Lots of forced zaniness for a kind of ho-hum payoff. It's not that the theme is bad—seems like a reasonable kind of Tuesday theme, but the humor doesn't land, possibly because once you get your first themer, the rest are kind of like "yeah, you already told that joke, got it." It's like when a kid makes you laugh and then keeps going back to the same well to try to recreate that laugh. You're adorable, kid, but the moment has passed. Also, there's one glaring inconsistency in the theme clues, which is that three of the "[blank] IT!" phrases are commands (imperative mood), but "LOVE IT" is just an "I"-less statement—no command involved. If there'd been more going on with the theme, something more interesting and complex than what we've got here, that "LOVE IT" aberration probably wouldn't even have registered with me. But this one doesn't have a next level, a revealer or other element to make you go "Oh!" It just shows you its trick and then putters along showing and reshowing it to you. Meanwhile, the rest of the grid (almost all 3s 4s and 5s) has very little to show you beyond a few nice longer answers. So this is a sturdy, puzzle-shaped puzzle, familiar in every way—nothing to make you cringe, but no good surprises either. 

It's weird that a grid can have six Downs of 7 letters or more and still feel this bland, but after those six Downs (and the themers, of course), literally every answer in this 76-answer puzzle is a 3, 4, or 5. Sixty-six short answers, am I doing the math right?? That's enough to put you in a crosswordese COMA—though thankfully the puzzle steers clear of most true Crosswordese (the short stuff you see almost exclusively in crosswords). Only EKE and RAHS really fall in that category. Oof, and ERTES, sorry, my brain's really trying to suppress that one (27D: Som Art Deco works). But that's just three oofy bits. Otherwise, the grid is polished well enough, it's just that you can only do so much, sparkle-wise, when your grid's almost all 3-4-5s. And the clues don't seem to be trying that hard to be interesting either. I know I've complained about clues trying too hard lately—hopefully there's a happy medium out there somewhere. 

[Just an incredible "People Also Search For" assortment]

Since I am old and knew the "Patriarch of 60s television" with just JED in place, the theme was easy to pick up and there were almost no speed bumps to be found after that. Just open highway, right to the end, with only a little wobble as I tried to remember which of the seemingly endless spellings of "CATE" Ms. Blanchett was. Actually, I guess there's just KATE and CATE, but it feels like there might be a CAIT or KAYT lurking out there, so I just let the crosses tell me the answer. Oh, one other wobble—I had no idea GOYA did murals (!?!?). [Spanish muralist] to me is SERT, which is a tic only a true crossword-solving veteran is going to have. They used to throw SERT at you every week. Here a SERT, there a SERT. Nowadays you only see him about once a year, but back in the Maleska era, hoo boy. Anyway, GOYA was also (apparently!) a noted muralist, in addition to being a painter and printmaker, wow, OK. Here's some information about that:

The Black Paintings (Spanish: Pinturas negras) is the name given to a group of 14 paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819 and 1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity. In 1819, at the age of 72, Goya moved into a two-story house outside Madrid that was called Quinta del Sordo (Deaf Man's Villa). Although the house had been named after the previous owner, who was deaf, Goya too was nearly deaf at the time as a result of an unknown illness he had suffered when he was 46. The paintings originally were painted as murals on the walls of the house, later being "hacked off" the walls and attached to canvas by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. They are now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

[Witches' Sabbath, 1819-23]

Favorite answer of the day, by a mile, was OVERPACKED (which debuts today) (30D: Brought nine possible outfits for a one-night stay, e.g.). I am not what you'd call an overpacker, and yet I do not think that I have ever felt like I underpacked, which means I'm overpacking all the time. Every time we travel, we reassure ourselves, "they have stores where we're going." You know, in case you end up really needing something you didn't bring. I once bought running shoes on a trip to CO because the weather was so nice I couldn't not run. Got so mad that I left my shoes at home that I just went out and bought a pair. Best pair of running shoes I ever owned. The only kinds I'll wear now. Not telling you which kind until Saucony agrees to an endorsement deal. Dammit, I mean, Asics! Brooks! Keds! Definitely not Saucony.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. one last thing: I don't think "CLAMP IT" is something people say. I googled ["clamp it" shut up] and the first hit was the NYTXW site. "ZIP IT" I'd believe, or "STIFLE IT," if you're patriarch of '70s TV Archie Bunker:

[OK, this clip doesn't have "STIFLE IT" in it but it made me laugh so it's the clip I'm showing]

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Souvenir for a basketball team / TUES 1-30-24 / Turner in a historic rebellion / Shade close to lavender / Galactic time spans

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday in January, which, on the whole, was a miserably cold month in D.C. It snowed a lot, and biking in that weather is not easy. (I have firsthand experience based on a little tumble. Whoops.) The NFL games yesterday went 50 percent my way — the stupid Ravens lost (yay!), but then the Lions just folded to the Niners in the second half. In other sports news, Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool’s incredible, amazing, lovely, wonderful, perfect manager is retiring at the end of the season. Guess that means we’ve got to get the quadruple on his behalf this season. 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: THINK TANKS (63A: Bodies of advisory experts … or, when reinterpreted as an imperative, a hint to 17-, 24-, 38- and 52-Across) — Each theme answer refers to a kind of tank (or tank-ing)

Theme answers:

• HOLDS WATER (17A: Is sound in principle) 
• COMBAT VEHICLE (24A: Weaponry on wheels) 
• DROPS LIKE A STONE (38A: Plummets precipitously) 
• SLEEVELESS TOP (52A: Garment that may have spaghetti straps)

Word of the Day: DINAH Washington (43A: Singer Washington with three recordings in the Grammy Hall of Fame) —

Dinah Washington was an American singer and pianist, one of the most popular black female recording artists of the 1950s. Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues." She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. (Wiki)

• • •

It took me a bit to get the theme, but when I finally did, I found it amusing. That means the theme didn’t help me at all with the solve, and I think the puzzle was slightly harder today than usual, as a result. The theme answers vary in terms of how TANK is used, which didn’t bother me too much, although I slightly question DROPS LIKE A STONE. I think of tanking as something a sports team does to get a better draft pick (i.e. the San Antonio Spurs maybe tanking to get Victor Wembanyama); I don’t really think of a stone dropping rapidly. And if we want to get nitpicky, “tank” there for 38A is being used as a verb while it’s used as a noun for the other clues. 

The rest of the puzzle was fine. I don’t think it was much to write home about, because the fill was quite basic. I usually try to pick out some words I find particularly interesting in the puzzle, but my only options in this puzzle really are T JUNCTION (10D: Three-way road layout) and LONE EAGLE (32D: ​​High-flying metaphor for independence), neither of which inspired me much. (Plus my dad and sister texted me “LONE EAGLE???” so make of that what you will. I maintain it’s a thing, but they disagree.) 

I did like the mini theme of jazz singers in the puzzle with ELLA Fitzgerald (1A), ETTA James (9A), and DINAH Washington (43A). I didn’t know of DINAH Washington before doing the puzzle today, but it seems like she was an incredible woman. OMAHA (20A: Poker variant that, despite its name, did not originate in Nebraska) was a bit funny, even if I only know the Texas Hold ‘Em variety of poker and probably only got the clue right because Peyton Manning used to say OMAHA a lot before he snapped the ball. LILAC (3D: Shade close to lavender) is a lovely color. 

My favorite clue/answer by far was 35A: Sound coming from a bay? as NEIGH. The fact that the answer crossed GNU (36D: Ungulate found backward in "ungulate") and a horse is an ungulate was rather clever. 

I didn’t know MECHA (14A: Manga genre involving giant robots), and there were a few other clues that gave me pause. But for the most part, this was a straightforward puzzle — albeit one that took me longer than a usual Tuesday.

Misc.:

• I distinctly remember watching “My Fair Lady” (46A) in music class in fifth grade. That was where my love of Audrey Hepburn began, and it has grown ever since. (Everyone should watch “Roman Holiday.”)
• One of my biggest pet peeves when watching a show or movie is when someone orders a drink (say, a whiskey) and then doesn’t say whether they want it NEAT (49A: Bourbon order specification) or on the rocks. Even if they do, they just order a generic whiskey, and the server doesn’t follow up to ask what type of whiskey they want. I guess my server brain is still there!
• SHINS (22D: Padded parts in soccer) — Shins really aren’t very padded anymore. This trend started toward my final days playing competitive soccer, and you see it among the most competitive leagues in the world now. Players just wear the teeny tiniest shinguards you could possibly imagine, which really cannot possibly be protecting their shins in any way. Here’s a player for Brighton putting in his shinguard (I kid you not): 
  
• SKY High (34D) — I know this isn’t what the clue was going for, but “Sky High” was an amazing Disney movie, and I will forever be in love with it. 
• I taught my friend who’s getting into crossword puzzles that a question mark means there’s some sort of pun/joke in the answer. I felt like a proud teacher when, while walking back from trivia together tonight, I asked her 13A: Toss-up at a football game? and she immediately said “COIN.” 

And that’s all from me, folks. Hope you all have a great February!

Signed, Clare Carroll, a Klopp fan for life

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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1935 Hitchcock thriller, with "The" / THU 8-31-23 / 2009 fantasy rom-com starring Zac Efron / 2008 rom-com starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden / Popular store chain with a green, red and orange logo / Ewe got this! / Juvenile stage of a newt

Constructor: Freddie Cheng

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "NO. CLUE" (47D: "Haven't the foggiest!" ... or, when the first two letters are put at the end, an essential part of seven answers in this puzzle) — Seven answers can only be made sense of if you add the CLUE NO. to the front of the answers:

Theme answers:

• [17] AGAIN (17A: 2009 fantasy rom-com starring Zac Efron)
• [7]-ELEVEN (7D: Popular store chain with a green, red and orange logo) 
• [8] MILE (8D: 2002 film that earned Eminem two MTV Movie Awards)
• [27] DRESSES (27D: 2008 rom-com starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden)
• "[30] ROCK" (30D: NBC comedy series starring Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin) 
• [39] STEPS (39D: 1935 Hitchcock thriller, with "The") 
• [50] CENT (50D: Rapper Curtis Jackson, more familiarly) 

Word of the Day: [50] CENT (50D) — 

Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, television producer, and businessman. Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 2000, when he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records; however, days before the planned release, he was shot, and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the mixtape Guess Who's Back? he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.

His first major-label album Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003), was a huge commercial success. The album spawned the Billboard Hot 100 number one singles "In da Club" and "21 Questions" (featuring Nate Dogg), and was certified 9× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That same year, he founded G-Unit Records, signing his G-Unit associates Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo; prior to becoming the de facto leader of the East Coast hip hop group G-Unit. 50 Cent had similar commercial and critical success with his second album, The Massacre (2005), which contained the single "Candy Shop" (featuring Olivia). He underwent musical changes by his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), and is currently working on his sixth studio album. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020) and is slated to produce its spin-offs.

50 Cent has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards. As an actor, Jackson appeared in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), the war film Home of the Brave (2006), and the crime thriller film Righteous Kill (2008). Billboard ranked 50 Cent as the 17th best rapper of all time on their '50 Greatest rappers' list (2023); and named him the sixth top artist of the 2000s decade. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin' and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively. (wikipedia)

• • •

Piece of cake, and pretty fun, though the number answers themselves were an odd set, oddly dispersed. Four movies! Out of only seven themers total? Seems like you're *this* close to figuring out how to make this a movie theme as well as a number theme. I actually thought the theme was going to be strictly movie-related early on, right after I got [27] DRESSES ... but then I remembered I'd already gotten [7]-ELEVEN, which is not a movie (yet — if you're a brand, I assume you'll eventually have a movie, those appear to be the rules now. Look for [7]-ELEVEN, starring a middle-aged Zac Efron, in IMAX, summer 2030!) (Hmmm ... there's definitely a script here and if this movie ever gets made remember it's my idea mine pay me). Four movies is a lot of movies for a non-movie theme. The themers were also weirdly placed, by which I mean, obviously the answers had to go where the numbers were, but only one of those answers was Across, whereas six (!) were Down. This isn't a flaw, just a wacky feature. The theme draws heavily (almost exclusively) from pop culture, which may have left some people in the dark at times, as pop culture-heavy themes often do. I was lucky enough to know all these titles, even if I couldn't have told you a thing about [17] AGAIN or [27] DRESSES (really missed that '00s rom-com phenom, I guess) (not "FEE-nom" but "fuh-NOM," it has to rhyme, please play along). In a perfect world, this grid probably wouldn't have actual written-out numbers in it (see TEN-FOUR)—kinda clashes with the "missing number" vibe; but the world is imperfect and I don't think the obtrusive numbers are that obtrusive. There was very little difficulty in this puzzle, and the theme's trickiness was not very tricky, so I was feeling that lack of Thursday thorniness and trickiness. Felt a little flat for what is supposed to be the Trickiest Day of the Week. But conceptually, the gimmick is definitely Thursday-worthy, and I enjoyed the overall solving experience. 

There were a couple of cute clue pairings in this puzzle. Cute because not cross-referenced (i.e. no [See 14-Across] or whatever), but just ... playful. First, there's the obvious one, the JAM / JAR cross in the NE (10A: Preserves, maybe / 10D: Preserves preserver). It's a nice little decoration. Brightens up an otherwise potentially drab corner. Then there's the long-range "O" echo, where the puzzle starts (in the NW) with an "O" clue (1A: Follower of November = OSCAR, the "O" in the NATO phonetic alphabet), and then ends (or nearly ends, in the SE) with another "O", also an Across, also in five letters (68A: The first "O" of O/O = OWNER, as in "owner-operator," an abbr. most closely associated with the trucking industry). Less appealing were things like RANDR (That's "R & R" i.e. "rest and relaxation") (5D: Vacation time, informally). The puzzle has dramatically reduced its reliance on ampersandwiches over the years; feels like it, anyway—you used to see them all the time: RANDB, BANDB, SANDL ... CANDW, even (one appearance, 2007)). I almost like RANDR as a kind of retro-chic answer, but ... no, I think it's still not great. Now it just looks like the name of an app—an app for meeting randos? Why would you want that?

This puzzle made me remember Dennis RODMAN, so that's a demerit, for sure. Also, SAND CAT? (56A: Desert feline). Are you making that up? That was the one answer where I just inferred it and hoped for the best. "Sure, the desert ... has sand ... so why not? SAND CAT." [Peeps] are FAM because all the small marshmallow chicks are part of one big happy FAMily (actually, your "peeps" are your "people," i.e. your FAMily). I'm off to make the coffee. See you tomorrow, FAM. Hmm, no ... "FAM" sounds wrong in my mouth. Not my slang at all. How about, "See you tomorrow, SAND CATs!" Yes, yes, that's better. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld  

P.S. Update: SAND CATs are real and omg so cute. Kitty!!

P.P.S. found another clue pairing that I like. The revealer, NO CLUE, neatly parallels NO HOPE (6D: Zero chance of a good result). Seems like the puzzle is taunting or trash-talking the solver, but I don't mind.

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