Hip-hop's "Puba" and "Daddy I.U."? / SUN 5-18-25 / Maidenhair and others / Pauperism, so to speak / Hip-hop artist with the 2019 hit "My Type" / Apparel feature that a bandeau lacks / Author of the 2020 memoir "Cubed" / Lumberjacks' competition / Platform for Safari and FaceTime / Pinged online / Dad, in Korean / Queer identity, in brief

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Halving the Last Word" — familiar phrases clued as if the last word were two words:

Theme answers:

• GRAND RAP IDS (23A: Hip-hop's "Puba" and "Daddy I.U."?)
• TAKE OFF ICE (28A: Remove from the champagne bucket?)
• MAKING AN IMP ACT (42A: Casting a total brat in the school play?)
• GROUCHO MARX MUST ACHE (65A: "The co-star of 'Duck Soup' has to be sore after that!"?)
• WHAT'S THE DAM AGE? (87A: "How long have beavers blocked this river?"?)
• LOVE HOT ELS (103A: Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.s?)
• SALES PER SON (111A: Metric in a competitive family business?)

Word of the Day: bandeau (96A: Apparel feature that a bandeau lacks => BRA STRAP) —

 

A bandeau (UK: /ˈbandəʊ/ US: /ˈbændəʊ/; pl. bandeaux; diminutive of the French word bande meaning 'strip') is a garment comprising, in appearance, a strip of cloth. Today, the term frequently refers to a garment that wraps around a woman's breasts. It is usually part of a bikini in sports or swimsuit. It is similar to a tube top, but narrower. It is usually strapless, sleeveless, and off the shoulder. Bandeaux are commonly made from elastic material to stop them from slipping down, or are tied or pinned at the back or front. In the first half of the 20th century, a "bandeau" was a narrow band worn by women to bind the hair, or as part of a headdress. (wikipedia)

• • •

Not feeling this one at all. The concept is so-so and doesn't yield such great results. Sometimes simple ideas really work, but this one, as executed, too often felt forced. This problem started right away with a rap clue that made me laugh out loud (derogatory). I mean ... OK, look, I know most of you have no idea who Grand Puba is. Just admit it. I went through a Grand Puba phase in the early '90s because I had a girlfriend who was really into Brand Nubian (of which Grand Puba was a member), and then I was also really into the Brand New Heavies for a bit, and Grand Puba was featured on their Heavy Rhyme Experience, Volume 1 (was there a Volume 2? is this one of those Hall & Oates' Rock 'N Soul Part 1 situations?). And look, if it sounds like I'm just making up names, of course it does, this is my point. It's not 1993 anymore. I mean, I admire the bone-deep cut that is Grand Puba, but that cut is probably too deep for most solvers to hear, and as for Daddy I.U., LOL, that one lost me entirely. There's a Grand Daddy I.U.? I'm guessing I'm generationally locked out of this one, hang on, gonna look it up. Hoooooooly crap, no. Like Grand Puba, Grand Daddy I.U. is older than I am—or would be (he died in 2022). He was part of the hip-hop collective known as the Juice Crew. And like Grand Puba, he seems to have peaked, fame-wise, some time in the early '90s. Really going down memory lane / learning new things today. Annnnyway, that first theme clue is going to leave people baffled, mostly because they're going to have no idea that "Grand" is actually part of their names. "GRAND" is just going to seem like a word meaning "major" or "important." I kinda love the big swing here, but I guarantee you most solvers will have absolutely no idea what kind of wordplay is going on with this one. To go from this to something as banal as "TAKE OFF ICE" is jarring. 

MAKING AN IMP ACT irked me because it doesn't involve a repronunciation (all the other themers do). I've never heard of a GROUCHO MARX MUSTACHE. Maybe I've heard of a "Groucho mustache." I know he had a trademark mustache, of course, but I had no idea he gave his name to a mustache *type*. My fav of the themers was most definitely "WHAT IS THE DAM AGE?" I don't know, something about the beavers made me smile. The rest of them, whatever. The point is, not much life to this concept, and the quality and familiarity of the themers is highly, exceedingly uneven.

COFFEE O'CLOCK, not a thing. Not really. I am a committed and particular coffee drinker and I would never say and have never said COFFEE O'CLOCK, nor have I heard it said. I can see on the internet that it is said, or at least that kitschy gifts of various kinds say it, but oof, no. BEER O'CLOCK, yes, for sure, definitely a thing. COFFEE O'CLOCK is just ... morning? What are we doing here? HAP is not "chance" unless you add "jocularly" or "fancifully" or "poetically" or "in olden times" or something to indicate that no one says that, ever. SCARUM on its own just looks terrible in the grid. I am too nautically challenged to understand how a SCREW is a [Ship propeller]. If you're like me (in this regard, at least), then here you go, here's a visual aid—this propeller is apparently called a "screw":

Silly me, I'd've called it a "propeller." I never read (or saw) A Wrinkle in Time, so MRS. WHO = Mrs. who? As for SAWEETIE, no, no idea (34A: Hip-hop artist with the 2019 hit "My Type"). I mean, it sounds like a name I've heard, it rings a faint bell, I was able to put it together from crosses, but mostly it missed me. This is definitely a generational thing (unlike Grand Puba and me, SAWEETIE does not qualify for AARP membership yet) (hmmm, I take that back—looks like you can technically become a member of AARP at 18?! Why would you do that!?). Some of this puzzle was OK (SAYS ME), but too much of it was irksome or just off my wavelength. Way too heavy on the pop culture trivia today. I knew most of it, but that's not the issue—just because I can solve something easily doesn't make it good. Being too reliant on proper nouns, esp. from a narrowish segment of culture (today, actors/musicians) is never a good look.

All of my difficulty today came in the SAWEETIE / SCREW / FERNS / COFFEE O'CLOCK / CAPE section (i.e. the NE). The Pilgrims first landed on ... CAPE? Just CAPE? That's it. Look, it's Plymouth Rock or GTFO. CAPE is bizarre. I'm supposed to know the generic land formation? The answer here may as well have been LAND for how specific and helpful it was. I believe the puzzle that "maidenhairs" are FERNS, but I needed every cross (almost) to get that one. One other minor trouble spot came in the SE, where DID UP just did not register (90D: Made nice). "Make nice" is a phrase with a specific colloquial meaning (i.e. "to be deliberately and often insincerely polite or agreeable"), so I had DID and ... two blanks. DID OK was all that came to me, and that was clearly wrong. DID UP can mean "to make something nice." You do ... something ... up. I guess. That answer, crossing a non-French-indicated BEAUCOUP (105A: Much in quantity), really put a snag in the system down there.

Bullet points:

• 71A: Author of the 2020 memoir "Cubed" (RUBIK) — took me an embarrassingly long time (i.e. more than a second or two) to get this. I think I just assumed the inventor of Rubik's Cube was dead, and so I was looking for, like, Ice Cube, or maybe his real name (O'SHEA Jackson, Sr.). 
• 13D: Son of Aphrodite (AENEAS) — irksome. AENEAS is most famous because of VIRGIL's Aeneid (missed crossreference opportunity right there) (57A: Dante's guide in the "Inferno"). VIRGIL was Roman. Wrote in Latin. Therefore, canonically, AENEAS's mom is Venus, not Aphrodite. Please don't "well actually" me with the fact that AENEAS makes sporadic appearances in the Iliad. Irrelevant. Overruled!
• 97D: Lumberjacks' competition (ROLEO) — don't believe these really exist. I feel like this is an elaborate prank perpetrated by some early crossword constructor, who convinced his editor that ROLEOs were real, and then other constructors just followed suit, and no one ever bothered to go see if they existed. For all I know, they only exist today (if they do) because crossword puzzles put the suggestion in someone's head. To be clear, I believe lumberjacks have competitions. I just don't believe they would call those competitions anything as stupid-sounding as ROLEO. "Uh, what if we just, like, changed one letter in RODEO?" "Which one?" "... Does it matter?" "No, I guess not."

• 103A: Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.s? (LOVE HOT ELS) — I thought this was just another term for "whorehouse" but wow was I wrong. They're short-stay hotels, of Japanese origin, designed specifically for sex. Prostitution may be involved, but mainly it's just a discreet place to do it, often in city districts (near train stations, and highways). There are hourly rates and interaction with staff is often kept to a minimum. Discretion! I'm learning way too much about LOVE HOTELS right now: "Rooms are often selected from a panel of buttons, and the bill may be settled by pneumatic tube, vending machine, or paying an unseen staff member behind a pane of frosted glass. Parking lots will often be concealed and windows will be few, so as to maximize privacy." "Although cheaper hotels are often simply furnished, higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms decorated with anime characters, be equipped with rotating beds, ceiling mirrors, karaoke machines, and unusual lighting. They may be styled similarly to dungeons or other fantasy scenes, sometimes including S&M gear." "Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped like castles, boats or UFOs and lit with neon lighting" (wikipedia). Ever dream of having sex by the hour in a UFO with a Naruto dungeon? Have I got the place for you—welcome ... to LOVE HOTELS!

• 119A: Little twerp (SNOT) — I had SNIT. I think I meant SNIP (?). I also think I just hate the word SNOT so much that I won't write it in unless forced to.
• 35D: Hit up on Instagram, informally (DMED) — DMED and IMED (75A: Pinged online) ... and DQED? (78D: Threw out of a contest, informally). This puzzle has ODED on this answer type.
• 56D: Platform for Safari and FaceTime (MACOS) — sounds like Apple's failed cereal campaign. "You've heard of OREO Os..." "No, I haven't. Not outside of crosswords, anyway" "Well ... imagine ... MAC O'S! The cereal shaped like boxy little computers! With marshmallow mice!" "Where's the 'O's?" "Uh ... I dunno, we can throw some O's in there too, doesn't matter, who cares?—point is: MAC O'S! It's a crossover branding coup. Kids will love it. Then IBM will try to imitate it and the kids'll be like "IBM O'S!? Gross!" From there, it's just a few short steps to world domination. Whaddya say!?" I'm just saying that I wish this cereal existed and if I found a 42-year old unopened box of this cereal today I would eat it immediately, enthusiastically, recklessly.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

Read more...

Org. with the sculpture "Kryptos" outside its headquarters / THU 12-05-2024 / Rapper who founded Aftermath Entertainment / Flower that gets its name from the Greek word for "rainbow"

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Medium (13:32) (it was easier than my time shows... I am very tired currently)

THEME: INSIDE OUT (Pixar film whose title suggests how to read five answers in this puzzle) — Theme answers look like normal words, but are clued as though the letters should be read in a different order

Theme answers:

• [Past issues to settle] is the clue for COLD SORES because you are supposed to read the inside first (OLDS) followed by the outside (C and then ORES) giving OLD SCORES
• [Places in the pecking order] for US STATES
• STAT + US + ES = STATUSES
• [Big bash] for DISHING
• SHIN + DI + G = SHINDIG
• [Breaking down grammatically] for SPARING
• PAR + S + ING = PARSING
• Like much movie theater popcorn] for REBUTTED
• BUTTE + RE + D = BUTTERED

Word of the Day: ALAMO (___ Drafthouse (movie theater chain))—

Alamo Drafthouse is famous for enforcing a strict policy on behavior while in the theater. Children under the age of two are not allowed, except for showings on specific days designated "Alamo For All." Unaccompanied minors are not allowed in showings, except for members of the Alamo Drafthouse's Victory Vanguard rewards program, which allows 15–17 year-olds to attend showings unattended after their application to the rewards program has been submitted and reviewed. The application involves demonstrating an understanding of the theater's policies around talking, texting, arriving late, and basic tipping etiquette.

The cinema also prohibits talking and texting during the film. Anyone who violates this policy is subject to warning and potential removal from the premises. Alamo made national headlines in 2011 when the rantings of one angry customer who was ejected for texting were included in its "Don't Talk or Text" PSA shown before films. "When we adopted our strict no-talking policy back in 1997, we knew we were going to alienate some of our patrons," Tim League posted on the cinema's website. "That was the plan. If you can't change your behavior and be quiet (or unilluminated) during a movie, then we don't want you at our venue." [wiki]

• • •

Hey pals! Taking my Malaika MWednesday a day late, because my company had a holiday party last night. I love any reason to wear a sparkly dress. Today I'm listening to a playlist I made that has a bunch of covers of songs that are very stylistically different from the original version. Let me know if any of your favorites are missing!

I like this type of theme-- I think it activates something in my Programmer Brain. It's.... for lack of a better word, nifty! It reminds me of tried-and-true concepts like Kangaroo Words or letterbanks. I think the downside is their isn't any zippy or witty wordplay. I did appreciate the revealer, which was very appropriate and gave a reason to the puzzle. Also, it reminded me of the movie Inside Out, which I really enjoyed. 

Also I might be the only person in the world who thought Inside Out 2 was better than Inside Out

I've posed this as a complaint before, but my Gold Star Perfect Themed Puzzle has theme answers that are interesting and fun and lively-- entries that would be welcome in a themeless puzzle. When themes have really restrictive letter-based rules like this, you end up with some pretty boring words. Two of them even ended with -ING which felt a little repetitive. I feel like the puzzle started off strong with COLD SORES and things dropped off from there.

Luckily, the constructor had some great long entries that were unrelated to the theme. KIDS TABLE, COUNT OLAF, and MICRODOSE were all welcome additions. I wish there had been some more pun clues, though. It felt like this puzzle was missing a bit of pizzazz.

Bullets:

• ["A Series of Unfortunate Events" villain] for COUNT OLAF — I re-read a lot of YA lit that I grew up with and ASoUE holds up really well. The allusions are so fun to "get" now that I'm not, like, six years old, and the themes are really strong. (The Hunger Games also holds up excellently.)
• [Like many romance novels] for ESCAPIST — I love to read contemporary romance! If you're looking for a recommendation, I keep a list here.
• [First (and last) two words of "Green Eggs and Ham"] for I AM — Thought this was a cute way to clue an entry I've seen a zillion times
• Huh, all Book Content in the bullet points today

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

Read more...

Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert / SAT 4-20-24 / Dips, so to speak / Creatures inspired by George Lucas's dog / Whom King Tut's mummy was made to resemble / Littlest complaint, in an idiom / Old competitor of the Plymouth Barracuda / Chew the doors, e.g. / End of an overplayed pickup line / Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-___ Parks / Box in a cab

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: Medium for the most part, but Challenging in one particular area

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: NAZCA LINES (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert) —

The Nazca lines (/ˈnɑːzkə/, /-kɑː/) are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BC and 500 AD by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and leaving different-colored dirt exposed. There are two major phases of the Nazca lines, Paracas phase, from 400 to 200 BC, and Nazca phase, from 200 BC to 500 AD. In the years leading up to 2020, between 80 and 100 new figures had been found with the use of drones, and archaeologists believe that there are more to be found.

Most lines run straight across the landscape, but there are also figurative designs of animals and plants. The combined length of all the lines is more than 1,300 km (800 mi), and the group covers an area of about 50 km² (19 sq mi). The lines are typically 10 to 15 cm (4–6 in) deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown ferric oxide–coated pebbles to reveal a yellow-grey subsoil. The width of the lines varies considerably, but more than half are slightly more than 33 cm (13 in) wide. In some places they may be only 30 cm (12 in) wide, and in others reach 1.8 m (6 ft) wide. [...] 

The figures vary in complexity. Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs, including a hummingbird, arachnid, fish, condor, heron, monkey, lizard, dog, cat, and a human. Other shapes include trees and flowers. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them. They were designated in 1994 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (wikipedia)

• • •

A properly hard Saturday that would've been reasonably enjoyable were it not for the way it ended. I kept expecting one particular answer to become clear as I got crosses, but that kept not happening. By the end, I had everything filled in except: 

• everything NE of EROSION; 
• the "NA" in NAZCALINES (which I was reading as one word, and which I really tried to make MEZCALINES) (little agave-flavored cookies?) (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert); 
• the first letter in -AILS (31D: Dips, so to speak)

Which is to say that the real culprit was "BOOM! ROASTED!" (31A: Someone better call the fire department, because you just got burned!"). I can (now) imagine someone's saying this, but I had no idea this was something that could be a standalone phrase. The "BOOM!" part feels particularly ... ad-libbed or tacked-on or something. Like, "ROASTED!" would be enough, and you might say any number of things before it, like variants of "oh" or "ooh." In case the context for all this is not at all clear to you, both the clue and the answer are things one might say to someone who just got verbally humiliated by someone else. A third-party comment on a withering insult. My problem was that I was thinking of the clue as a type of thing one might say; that is, I kept treating the clue like it had an "e.g." after it, as if the answer were going to be the category of thing that the quotation belonged to. Or maybe I was looking for a word describing what happens when someone insults you like that. If someone roasts you on Zoom, have you been ZOOMROASTED? Roasted while doomscrolling ... DOOMROASTED?  It was only when I firmly told myself that "the answer is going to be a spoken equivalent of the clue" that I thought of "BOOM! ROASTED!" That would mean that 31D: Dips, so to speak would have to be BAILS. I reasoned that if you were bailing out a boat that was filled with water, you would have to "dip" your pail or bucket repeatedly into water in order to do so. So in went the "B" and "Congratulations!" went my solving software. It was only later, when contemplating how flimsy that BAILS clue seemed, that I realized that "Dips" (like BAILS) is slang for "leaves, departs." 

The modern slang of "Dips" crossing the modern slang of "BOOM! ROASTED!" ... that's a puzzle that's intentionally trying to exclude a whole (older, I guess) demographic. To be extra clear, the primary problem isn't the answers or clues themselves, it's the crossing. Anyway, the puzzle fizzled out for me at the end there as I wrestled with a slang phrase that didn't even end up seeming like a solidly standalone expression (although compared to HAD NO OOMPH, it looks rock solid, YEESH—HAD NO OOMPH has big ATE A SANDWICH energy, although props for the tic-tac-toe win!). It's weird—the answer I didn't know at all (NAZCA LINES) didn't bother me one bit. That is, it didn't make me annoyed or upset or even terribly frustrated. I just figured it out from crosses, as one does sometimes. But "BOOM! ROASTED!" ... I dunno. The fact that I've kinda sorta heard it but that it feels forced and awkward as a standalone answer—plus the fact that it's Trying So Damn Hard to be cool—that, I found off-putting (if I google it and all I get are memes from "The Office," is it really cool, tho?). Thank god for WOOKIEES, or I don't know how I'd've gotten any real traction in the NE (getting absolutely no momentum coming out of the center of the grid)—although I will admit I tried to make George Lucas's dog into some kind of EWOK (EWOK BABY?) before remembering Chewy existed (10D: Creatures inspired by George Lucas's dog).

The rest of the puzzle ... happened. I think it was just a regular proper decent Saturday. Loved the idea of a FRIEND DATE at the LESBIAN BAR. Loved the SPOONERISM clue (52A: Chew the doors, e.g.). Wasn't sure "do the chores" was a particularly good standalone phrase—you do chores, or you tell your kid to "do your chores," but "do the chores" didn't quite hit my ear right. But the more I sit with it, the more I think it's fine; anyway, the cluing concept there is very clever. WARM FUZZIES is a lovely centerpiece, and BELCH under CRISPY BACON—thumbs up. Worst thing in the grid by far was ALIS (!?), which should've been clued via Muhammad and Laila and not as some godawful bit of Latin from a state motto, why, why would you do that? At least translate the Latin for people, come on.

The official English version of the motto is "She flies with her own wings" in keeping with the tradition of considering countries and territories to be feminine. However, because the feminine pronoun in the Latin sentences is often omitted and the verb form is not inflected for gender, the phrase could be translated with equal validity as "[one] flies with [one's] own wings", "[he] flies with [his] own wings", or "[it] flies with [its] own wings". (wikipedia)

Notes:

• 1A: Napoleon had a large one (EGO) — please tell me you (too) tried HAT here (I also, weirdly, tried ERA)
• 20A: Course addendum (SIDE) — "Course" as in "meal"
• 29A: Littlest complaint, in an idiom (BOO) — "didn't say BOO (to anyone)" I guess? Yes. "BOO" in this context can mean really anything, but it refers to complaining, yes. Here's more than you'd ever want to know about the history of the expression, including its origins in the phrase "saying BOO to a goose"(!?).
• 2D: '70s Ford (GERALD) — OK, that's clever. I had the "G" and wanted GTO ... something ... only to have GTO appear way on the other side of the grid (58A: Old competitor of the Plymouth Barracuda)
• 21D: Bank worry (EROSION) — River bank, obviously
• 27D: End of an overplayed pickup line (OFTEN) — as in "Come here OFTEN?" I could only think of four-letter answers to this one, namely SIGN and MINE. Has no one invented an overplayed pickup line since 1975?
• 35D: Box in a cab (CB RADIO) — "Cab" here is not a taxi, or a wine, but the part of the tractor-trailer occupied by the driver. 
• 43D: Get a running mate? (ELOPE) — death, taxes, and punny clues on ARSON and ELOPE. These are life's certainties.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Pancakes sometimes served with caviar / TUE 3-12-24 / Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself / Fictional land ruled by Aslan / Not playing any songs, as a radio station

Constructor: Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin

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

THEME: READ MUSIC (33D: Follow a composer's notation ... or a hint to interpreting four clues in this puzzle) — clues contain musical notation, specifically what appear to be notes (i.e. single letters) followed by ♭or ♯ symbols, that must be read as the [letter + "flat" (or "sharp")] in order to be understood:

Theme answers:

• APARTMENT (17A: A♭) (i.e. a flat)
• LIE DOWN (38A: B♭) (i.e. be flat)
• LOOK ALIVE (63A: B♯) (i.e. be sharp)
• TECH SAVVY (11D: E♯) (i.e. E- (electronic???) sharp)

Word of the Day: AVRIL Lavigne (31A: Rocker Lavigne) —

Avril Ramona Lavigne (/ˈævrɪl ləˈviːn/ AV-ril lə-VEEN, French: [avʁil ʁamɔna laviɲ]; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop-punk music, as she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. Her accolades include eight Grammy Award nominations, among others.

At age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. It yielded the successful singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop-Punk Queen" from music publications. Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.

Lavigne's third studio album, The Best Damn Thing (2007), reached number one in seven countries worldwide and saw the international success of its lead single "Girlfriend", which became her first single to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. Her next two studio albums, Goodbye Lullaby(2011) and Avril Lavigne (2013), saw continued commercial success and were both certified gold in Canada, the United States, and other territories. After releasing her sixth studio album, Head Above Water (2019), she returned to her punk roots with her seventh studio album, Love Sux (2022). (wikipedia)

• • •

I can see why this idea would be tempting, but in practice, the results are rough. Uneven. Which I guess is what "rough" means, now that I think about it. The smallest issue I have is that B♯and E♯ aren't commonly known that way. That is, a B♯ is just a C and an E♯ an F. Yes, yes, it's "more complicated than that," but tonally, they're the same. In isolation like this, they seem strange. If you wanted a specific note, you'd ask someone to play an F, not an E♯. But this isn't a problem with the theme per se, just an odd (and, to my ear, slightly annoying) little feature. The problem is ... well, there are several. First, [A♭] wants me to read the "A" as ... what, an indefinite article? But you never use indefinite articles in crossword clues. [Flat] = APARTMENT all on its own. That "A" is completely redundant. Unless ... we are supposed to (somehow?) understand the "A" as the first letter of the word, and are supposed to interpret the clue as [Word meaning "flat" that starts with "A"], which seems implausible, to say the least. If the other clues had worked that way (not a bad idea, frankly), then OK. But that is not how the other clues work. Having LOOK ALIVE as the answer for [B♯] was odd because the most common phrase anyone can make out of any of those words is LOOK SHARP. I actually wrote in LOOK SHARP, but then remembered that "flat" wasn't in any of the earlier theme answers, so "sharp" probably wasn't in this one. LOOK ALIVE! is a fine phrase, but ["Be sharp!"] doesn't sound right as an equivalent. The worst thing about the theme, though, was [E♯] = TECH SAVVY. I don't get it. That is, I guess if you really lean upon the "?" nature of the clue, you can say "E-" is like the "E-" prefix in "EMAIL" or "EBOOK," that it just refers to All Things Electronic, and so a person might who is TECH SAVVY might be said (by some overambitious quipster) to be E-SHARP. But none of the other clues have that bent quality to them—once you change the musical notation to the word "sharp" or "flat," the other theme clues are quite literal and ordinary. Whereas "E-sharp" is (afaict) a totally made-up thing. As I say, rough.

The fill is less than sterling today as well. Lots of repeaters. AÇAI AGHA ATEAT IWIN  etc., the (very) worst of which is ABRA (49A: Start of a spell), a ... partial incantation (?) that absolutely positively does not want to stand on its own and always give me a nails/chalkboard feeling when I see it (which, thankfully, is rarely) (oof, not rarely enough—56 times in the Shortz Era???). Looks like ABRA is sometimes an ["East of Eden" girl] or a Pokémon. Can't say that helps. Maybe the grid really needed ABRA in order to pull off BANKSY, which is easily the most interesting thing in the grid today (50D: Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself). That whole SE corner is nice actually, from BANKSY into the old-fashioned but somehow endearing "AND HOW!" into the equally exclamatory "OY, VEY!," which slots in alongside the cleverly clued HAIKU (53D: A kind of poem / Found within this crossword clue / Serendipity) (the only problem with this clue is ... that not exactly what "Serendipity" means—there's an element of chance to "Serendipity," whereas this clue is a HAIKU by design). 

Notes:

• 22A: "Hello," in Mandarin (NIHAO) — I was driving past a bubble tea cafe this weekend called NIHAO and actually thought to myself (possibly even said out loud to myself), "it's weird that you don't see NIHAO in the puzzle more often ..." and then Bam, here it is. That's serendipity (I think).

• 51A: Liquid-ate? (MELT) — hmmm. I see what this clue is trying to do (emphasize the "liquid" part by breaking off the "-ate"), but the clue, as written, looks like you want an answer meaning [Ate liquid] ... so, DRANK? Something like that ...
• 28A: Not playing any songs, as a radio station (ALL TALK) – what a dull way to clue this otherwise colorful colloquial phrase. ALL TALK is the counterpart of "no action," if it's anything. [Like someone who brags about what they're gonna do but never does it]. But this clue ... I wanted DEAD AIR.
• 1A: Discontinue (DROP) — welcome to 1-Across, the hardest part of the puzzle for me. Why? Because I went with STOP ... And then crossed it with STAGE (1D: Field of play?). Man, did that feel right on both counts. STOP / STAGE before DROP / DRAMA absolutely gummed up the works (for fifteen seconds or so, probably, but on Tuesday, that's an eternity).

That's it. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Repository of genetic material / MON 1-29-24 / Relating to the bottom layer / Platter used to carry glassware

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley

Relative difficulty: No idea (as a Downs-only solve, brutal for me)

THEME: PALINDROMES (36A: What the answers to the starred clues all are when their first and last letters are removed) — exactly as described:

Theme answers:

• PEPE LE PEW (16A: *Amorous cartoon skunk)
• FAIR TRIAL (29A: *Impartial court proceeding guaranteed by the Constitution)
• "ONE MOMENT" (43A: *"Just a sec!")
• FLASH SALE (60A: *Short-lived store event)
• BAR TRAY (11D: *Platter used to carry glassware)
• DNA BANK (40D: *Repository of genetic material)

Word of the Day: PERSEIDS (10D: Summer meteor shower) —

The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle that are usually visible from mid-July to late-August. The meteors are called the Perseids because they appear from the general direction of the constellation Perseusand in more modern times have a radiant bordering on Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis. [...] The stream of debris is called the Perseid cloud and stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift–Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it travels on its 133-year orbit. Most of the particles have been part of the cloud for around a thousand years. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1865, which can give an early mini-peak the day before the maximum shower. [...] The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity between 9 and 14 August, depending on the particular location of the stream. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. They can be seen all across the sky; however, because of the shower's radiant in the constellation of Perseus, the Perseids are primarily visible in the Northern Hemisphere. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was the hardest Downs-only solve I've had in a long time. And for what? So disappointing to learn (finally!) that the payoff at the end of the struggle was such a contrivance. My main reaction is "Why?" I have "Why?" written in big green letters at the top of my grid. Who cares that answers to this? They aren't proper PALINDROMES if you're arbitrarily removing letters? And (as always) the fact there's More of a DISMAL theme doesn't magically make it unDISMAL. Any time a grid is crammed with theme material, you can kind of smell the flop SWEAT. Like, the theme is weak, but maybe if we throw a lot of it in there, no one will ... notice? I had a bad feeling about the puzzle from the moment I worked out that rape-y cartoon skunk's name ("amorous"? LOL, OK). The whole thing felt like a rejected Thursday concept trying to remake itself as a Monday. Just ... bizarre. I miss last week's simple and elegant BIRDS AND BEES Monday theme. The grid overall seems fine, but the concept here does less than nothing for me. I'm madder than I would've been if I'd solved it like a normal person (i.e. using Downs *and* Acrosses), it's true. I'd just be merely puzzled and disappointed if I'd only spent three minutes on it. But I spent far more than three minutes on it, and so my disappointment grew three sizes. At least.

As for solving Downs-only, there were low-key screw-ups like VANISH for GO POOF (!) (6D: Disappear like magic), and AXE for SAW (61D: Lumberjack's tool). There was the stuff I just didn't know, like LIAR (24D: "A ___ ought to have a good memory": Quintilian), and the stuff I almost knew but couldn't quite remember, like PERSEIDS (I knew it was some kind of -EIDS but NEREIDS kept getting in the way, mentally) (there are no NEREIDS, meteorically speaking, though there are LEONIDS and PEGASIDS). There was the bizarre word I had no hope of getting (OUTLIE) (?) and the word I had mostly right but also plenty wrong (ADD-ON—I had ADDED) (30D: Bonus). There were the two theme answers, the only two Down theme answers, neither of which I could get (couldn't even conceive of the term DNA BANK, and had a TEA TRAY before I eventually got to BAR TRAY). But the wrong answer that was the most LETHAL to me, by far, was YULE, which is what I had instead of NOEL (37D: Christmas). That is because YULE does, in fact, mean Christmas. And it's four letters long. And crosswords have conditioned me to think of NOEL as a Christmas *song*, not Christmas per se ([Christmas carol], 8 times; [Christmas song], 7 times; [Winter air], 8 times, etc.). So I put YULE in there and ... oof. It took a while for me to pull it. Because my wrong answer went to the heart of the revealer ... well, the revealer stayed hidden, and without that revealer, I had little hope of getting DNA BANK and absolutely none of getting BAR TRAY. I finished the puzzle with TEA TRAY in place and everything looked fine except for TERAY at 18A. Nothing could make TERAY seem plausible. Because it wasn't. Finally I noticed that TEA TRAY couldn't be right, because the answer was a themer—so in went BAR TRAY, and that was that. I guess I did feel a sense of accomplishment at fighting my way to a successful solve, but the theme itself still seems pointless to me. There's no cleverness. No lightness. No humor. Nothing but a fairly unremarkable physical feature shared by the answers. Huge shrug. I mean, "ARTRA" and "NABAN" are "Palindromes" and that's supposed to be ... interesting? Exciting? I just don't get it.

[Bing Crosby, "The First NOEL (Attaboy House Party Mix)"]

That's it. See you tomorrow. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Courteous behavior, formally / SAT 12-16-23 / Trash hauler / First band to surpass one billion streams on Spotify (2014) / Singer Bobby with a brave-sounding last name / Custom car built with old parts and a shabby aesthetic / Classic video game character portrayed by John Leguizamo (1993) / Follower of one or single in biology / Musical effect that comes from the Italian for "to play on a harp"

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: The 1521 Edict of Worms (39A: One subject to a religious ban from the 1521 Edict of Worms) —

The Edict of Worms was a decree issued on 25 May 1521 by Emperor Charles V. Its contents proscribed Luther's writings, declaring him a heretic and an enemy of the state, even permitting anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. Though it was never enforced, (the movement for reform and protection from Protestant supporters acted in his favour) Roman Catholic rulers sought to suppress Luther and his followers, and Luther's travels were restricted for the rest of his life.

It was the culmination of an ongoing struggle between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church over reform, especially concerning the practice of donations for indulgences. However, there were other deeper issues that revolved around both theological concerns:

• On a theological level, Luther had challenged the absolute authority of the Pope over the Church by maintaining that the doctrine of indulgences, as authorized and taught by the Pope, was wrong.
• Luther maintained that salvation was by faith alone (sola fide) without reference to good works, alms, penance, or the Church's sacraments. Luther maintained that the sacraments were a "means of grace", meaning that while grace was imparted through the sacraments, the credit for the action belonged to God and not to the individual. (wikipedia) 

• • •

***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's currently mid-January, that's you!)*** : Hello from the first properly wintry week of the season in Central New York! It's January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. So ... 17 years ... not bad. At this time last year, I was recovering from COVID and still dealing with the very fresh grief brought on by the untimely death of my cat, Olive. I was very grateful for the blog at that point, since it grounded me in routine and gave me a place where I could lose myself in a pastime I love, and share that love with others. OK, yes, true, I don't always *love* crosswords. Sometimes it's more hate-love or love-hate or "Why are you being like this, you stupid puzzle!?" It ain't all positive vibes, as you know. But I realized last year that part of what makes this blog so fun for me, and what makes it a solace to many readers, is the sense of commiseration it provides. Sometimes the puzzle thrills you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't; and sometimes it infuriates you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't. But either way, the blog is here; it's *always* here. You get to have your feelings validated, or you get to shake your head at my errant judgment and often breathtaking ignorance, but either way, you get to share an experience that's an important part of your daily life, and maybe you learn something new. Above all, I hope you feel that there is a real person with a real life and real emotions and (very) real human flaws who's telling you what it was *really* like for him to solve the puzzle. I never wanted to be an expert, offering some kind of bloodless know-it-all advice and analysis. I wanted blood. Blood on the page. There will be blood! ... But also, music videos. And Words of the Day. And, if you hang around long enough, cat pictures. Like this one:

This is Ida (she put herself in the bin, I swear). Ida is the happy sequel to last year's grief. At the beginning of January, I was mourning. By the end of January, I was still mourning, but now I had a new companion (as did my other cat, Alfie, who *really* needed one). Why am I talking about my cats? Because they are constant, they give shape and rhythm to my day, and I love them even if they sometimes drive me crazy. Just like crossword puzzles! (See that! Segue! This is why you should pay me the big bucks!) 

However much I love writing this blog (and I do, a lot), it is, in fact, a job. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for 17 years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Every day. At very ... let's say, inconvenient hours (my alarm goes off most mornings at 3:45am). Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. But that sort of thing has never felt right for me. I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way. 

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 three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):

Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) 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. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you cards, and once again those cards feature (wait for it) cats! My cats: Alfie & Ida. This year, an elegant set of five!

These really capture the combination of beauty and goofiness that I love in cats (and puzzles, frankly). I'd say "Collect All Five!" but every snail-mail contributor will get just one and (hopefully) like it! 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. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle... 

• • •

I could tell right away from the shape of this one that it was more likely to be a puzzle to endure rather than savor. That thick tube of 8s running through the middle would, at best, hold up OK, but would be unlikely to provide much sizzle, and the highly cut-off corners would play like puzzles unto themselves, with maybe one winner in each corner if I was lucky. And I wasn't wrong, though this one probably did come out on the higher (i.e. cleaner / smoother) end of what I was expecting. It's fine. REAL NEAT, you might say (if you were Theodore Cleaver). Actually, REAL NEAT is pretty effusive, coming from Beaver. My feelings are more tepid, but I will say there was nothing truly off-putting ... except maybe the desperate attempt to be racy, which eventually felt a little juvenile and had me thinking "OH, COME ON!" even before I hit PORNO (17A: Film unlikely to have a costume designer). By that point, I had already endured two side-by-side answers that were trying to evoke the idea of group sex or sex with multiple partners. Now, the first one ended up being a fake-out—nothing to do with group sex, just GROUP DATES, but the clue was clearly like "wink wink, nudge nudge, made you think of orgies, didn't I?" (13D: Situations involving multiple romantic partners). Well, yes, great, thanks. Obviously THRUPLES are just boring things by now, not particularly racy, but something felt slightly Trying Too Hard (TTH) about the sexual suggestiveness here. PORNO just confirmed the tone for me. The icing on the erotic cake. GROUP DATES or THRUPLES, either one on its own, and I don't blink. Side by side, and ... well, now you're doing a bit. Less cute.

My main problem with THRUPLES was the damn spelling. I always want it to be THROUPLE, which fit perfectly. THRUPLE always seems like it should rhyme with ... uh ... Mott the Hoople, I guess (are there really no other "-OOPLE" terms in the world!?). Oh, Quadruple! That's the rhyme I was looking for. It's not "quadrupple," it's "quadroople," and so "thruple" always looks to me like it should be pronounced "throople," so I don't spell it "thruple." Well, I don't spell it at all, or think about it much, if I don't have to. But if I have to, "throuple" is what I want. Plus, today's clue just said "Portmanteau," no indication of singular or plural, so I fell into my own THROUPLE trap (you wouldn't like it there—uncomfortably crowded). So we get plural THRUPLES, one of a barrage of plurals that started to feel a bit conspicuous as I moved through that thick middle. AXONS SURE SIGNS THRUPLES CAR SALES RIPTIDES GROUP DATES FLAT SODAS COPSES NGOS — that's a corner-to-corner run of the plurals (though there are several more S-ending words). Kinda leaning hard on those "S"s there. FLAT SODA is a great answer, but somehow in the plural it loses its fizz ... huh ... I guess that's apt ... nah, still don't like it. 

I liked CRIME RING and (oddly) WEE LASS. I got into that corner pretty easy off the (to me) absolutely transparent 1A: Place with dressing options (SALAD BAR). And so:

You can see that I don't know how to spell SCOW (a "skow" is a thing, isn't it?) (1D: Trash hauler), and I went with LITERATE before LITERARY (3D: Bookish), but otherwise, the Downs off of SALAD BAR gave me more than enough traction to polish off the NW corner without much trouble. Couldn't exit that corner with bumping into the THRUPLES on their GROUP DATES ("We're off to see a PORNO!"), but I misspelled the former (as you know) and I didn't get the latter at first (GROUP SEX wouldn't fit), so I just rebooted with ARI? / IRA? in the NE (9A: Name found forward and backward in "Miranda rights"), confirmed that it was IRA with AXONS (11D: They're impulsive), and from there plowed straight through the middle of the grid in fairly methodical fashion, NE to SW, corner to corner. Surprisingly little real resistance. Only the ugly RATROD (???) gave me any pause (34D: Custom car built with old parts and a shabby aesthetic). 

That just left the SE, where I managed to come up with SCOUT MOTTO off just the SC-, but I wasn't entirely sure of it (43A: "Be prepared"). I think I wanted the apostrophe-S, SCOUT'S MOTTO. But no. It's "SCOUT'S HONOR!," but SCOUT MOTTO. Wanted EAR MUFFS at 46A: Winter accessory but instead got a single EAR WARMER (for both ears? I guess if you've got one of them single-piece headband dealies, and not a unit with distinct ear pieces, it's a singular WARMER, and not WARMERS). And that was that. Finished with MTN. That's either climactic ("I climbed the mountain!") or anticlimactic ("oh boy, a 3-letter abbrev"), depending on how you look at it.

Question mark clues!:

• 28A: Events offering a whole lot to choose from? (CAR SALES) — the "lot" is a car lot
• 36A: Crushes that have lost their sparkle? (FLAT SODAS) — the "Crushes" are sodas, as in the brand—best known for "Orange Crush"

• 5D: Time piece? (DECADE) — oof. So "piece" is just "some random amount of"? Er, OK.

Hey, just noticed that this puzzle is 16 wide. Why? Bizarre. Usually when you break form, there's a clear reason. Apparently "just 'cause" is a reason now. Huh. Wish the results had been more scintillating, but again, they're fine. It's a very acceptable, reasonably smooth Saturday grid. No low notes. Just not enough high notes for my taste.

Speaking of high notes: Your Holiday Pet Pics keep rolling in, and I'm going to do my best to get them all posted by year's end (yes, there are that many). Here we go—six more! Three kitties with their trees!

[Autumn! (thanks, Rob)]

[Brady! (thanks, Kenneth)]

[Dipper! (thanks, Virg & Dave)]

And three wise puppers bearing gifts*! (*the gifts of cuteness)

[Cash! (thanks, Emily)]

[Sam, with his adoring human, Hannah! (thanks, Kit)]

[And finally ... Chloe, who is not a moose, why would you say that!?]
[Thanks, Leroy!]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. clue on DARIN really should've read 35A: Singer Bobby with a brave-soundin' last name, missed opportunity

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...