California city with a humble-sounding name / MON 3-30-26 / Kenya's second-largest city / Endless TikTok scrolling or Tetris playing, e.g. Like the original Broadway cast of "The Wiz" / Longtime record label or Beastie Boy / Major drags on a team's progress, metaphorically / Onetime AT&T competitor / Caustic paint stripper

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: BACKED UP (64A: Went into reverse ... or what the ends of 17-, 20-, 38- and 59-Across might be) — last words of theme answers are things that might be backed up:

Theme answers:

• TIME SINK (17A: Endless TikTok scrolling or Tetris playing, e.g.)
• CIRCULAR FILE (20A: Wastebasket, jokingly)
• DRUG TRAFFIC (38A: Illegal distribution of narcotics)
• BAGGAGE CLAIM (59A: Where to pick up luggage at an airport)

Word of the Day: MOMBASA (42D: Kenya's second-largest city) —

Mombasa (/mɒmˈbæsə/ mom-BASS-ə; also US: /-ˈbɑːsə/ -⁠BAH-sə) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. Buildings in the Central Business District are blue and white, representing the Indian Ocean.^] It is the country's oldest (c. 900 A.D.) and second-largest city after Nairobi, with a population of about 1,208,333 people according to the 2019 census.

• • •

Pretty bland outing today. Nothing particularly wrong with it. Just blah. A bog-standard "last words"-type puzzle. Those last words all can get backed up, it's true. Can't argue with that. There's absolutely no sense of playfulness or cleverness about the revealer—just an ordinary phrase that happens to literally describe the theme. Conceptually, this is the opposite of yesterday's ambitious, inventive, daring puzzle. Now I expect Monday puzzles to be easy, and I expect themes to be relatively simple, but that doesn't mean they can't be executed with some flair or humor or ... something. I can't fault the puzzle for much; it's not doing anything particularly wrong or even unappealing. I don't love how choppy the grid is, how chock full o' 3s the grid seems to be because of the black-square arrangement, and (relatedly) I don't love the imbalance between the relatively wide-open NE and SW corners and the short answer-laden rest of the grid. It's aesthetically wonky, imbalanced, odd. But this is mostly a matter of personal taste; my objections don't have much to do with the theme concept or how the grid was filled. It's just blah to me. The four long Downs are pretty decent, though, especially INSIDE SCOOP and DEAD WEIGHTS. Beyond that, there was nothing I was particularly happy to see. But, again, there was nothing I was particularly sad to see, either. A real ho-hummer, this one. But professionally made. Fine. Reasonable. Forgettable, but acceptable [well, mostly ... see the first bullet point, below]

The Downs-only solve today was also pretty average, very doable, but tricky in precisely the places you'd expect a grid like this to be tricky for the Downs-only solver—namely, the NE and SW corners (the aforementioned "wide-open" corners, with lots of longer Downs running through them. Three parallel longer Downs in each corner. That can make it hard to get traction if you're solving Downs-only, as longer answers are simply harder to come up with if you have no letters in place and no crosses to help out (unless you're able to infer them). I managed to get through the NW pretty easily, largely because I grew up in the Central Valley of California and so know MODESTO well (well, I know the name well—I can't remember ever having gone there). The letters in MODESTO helped make the Acrosses up there easy to infer, which then helped me get INSIDE SCOOP (which I definitely needed a bunch of crosses to see). 

I had much more trouble in the SW, where MODESTO's symmetrical counterpart, MOMBASA, proved far (far) more elusive (42D: Kenya's second-largest city). I know precisely one Kenyan city (also seven letters!), but sadly (for me), that city is the first-largest, not today's second-largest. The only way I ended up getting MOMBASA was through testing letters from the crosses and seeing if they sounded like anything. It also took some doing to get ENCASES, which was not an obvious answer to 43D: Boxes up securely. As my wife said Sunday evening after she'd finished the puzzle: "There's nothing particularly 'secure" about ENCASES." I wanted RETAPES at first (!?). The only way I got to ENCASES was by finally guessing ONE SEED (instead of my previous guess, RYE SEED) as the answer to 48A: Top placement in a bracket, for a March Madness team, and then by guessing ASHAME from --HAME (63A: Regrettably unfortunate). Once I floated ENCASES as a possible answer, MEWLS and MCI went in (the one a near certainty, the other an educated guess), it was only the second-to-last letter of MOMBA-A that remained elusive. The whole time I was building MOMBASA, I honestly felt like I was just making up a name. I considered BETTER / MOMBABA at one point, but then MOMBASA occurred to me, and it just sounded right. Perhaps because it sounded like "Mufasa." Or "Mumbai," I don't know. I just know the puzzle gave me a "Congratulations" message and I was done. 

Bullets:

• 39D: Take advantage of (USE) / 12D: Of no help (USELESS) — You can't do this. You cannot. This is a DQ (that's "disqualification," not Dairy Queen). You can argue up and down that USE is presented as a verb, not a noun, and so USELESS isn't just the same word plus a suffix, but come on, man, even you don't believe the words that are coming out of your mouth. USE is USE is USE. You cannot put a word in your grid and then put the same damn word in your grid again with a suffix attached to it like some kind of fake mustache and pretend it's not a dupe. It's a dupe. Boo! 

• 13D: California city with a humble-sounding name (MODESTO) — this is incorrect. It *looks* humble (because it's got "modest" in there), but it doesn't *sound* humble. It's mo-DEST-o, not MOD-est-o. Maybe "MODESTO" is Spanish for "modest," and so the city really is "humble-sounding" in Spanish, but for the regular-ass American pronunciation, the "sounding" part does not apply. 

[Few small cities get a song this good written about them.]

• 40D: Like the original Broadway cast of "The Wiz" (ALL-BLACK) — interesting answer. Missed opportunity for some good NZ content, but The Wiz is good too, I like The Wiz.

• 48A: Top placement in a bracket, for a March Madness team (ONE SEED) — timely! Looks like UConn beat Duke on a buzzer-beater last night, which kept the Final Four from being 75% ONE SEEDs. But still, two remain: Arizona and Michigan. Those two play each other next week for a place in the Championship (vs. the winner of UConn/Illinois). Needless to say: Go Blue* 

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*This applies to the Michigan women's team too, who are playing ONE SEED Texas today for a spot in the Women's Final Four—pretty good year for Wolverines basketball

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

=============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration closed!)

=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...

Bernard Malamud novel about baseball phenom / MON 3-16-20 / Darth Vader's name as boy / Triple Crown winner of 1977 / Highway nearly 1400 mile route that runs through Whitehorse Yukon Territory

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy (2:37)

THEME: "IT MEANS A LOT TO ME" (39A: "I'm deeply indebted" ... or a hint to the ends of 17-, 25-, 51- and 64-Across) — last words in theme phrases can each mean "a lot":

Theme answers:

• SCRAP HEAP (17A: Junk pile)
• SEATTLE SLEW (25A: Triple Crown winner of 1977)
• BATTERY PACK (51A: Power source for an electric vehicle)
• PAPAL MASS (64A: Easter event in Vatican city)

Word of the Day: MMA (37D: Sport also known as cage fighting, in brief) —

Mixed martial arts (MMA), also known as cage fighting, (my emphasis) is a full-contact combat sport that allows striking and grappling, both standing and on the ground, using techniques from various combat sports and martial arts. The first documented use of the term mixed martial arts was in a review of UFC 1 by television critic Howard Rosenbergin 1993. The term gained popularity when newfullcontact.com, then one of the largest websites covering the sport, hosted and republished the article. The question of who actually coined the term is subject to debate. (wikipedia)(stop lifting your cluing language directly from wikipedia, please, everybody, thank you)

• • •

I solved this so fast that I was only dimly aware of the theme revealer. I got "IT MEANS LOT TO ME" just from the initial part of the clue, not bothering to stop and think about how it related to everything else. Finished in near-record time, and at that point all I could say about the puzzle was that a. it was easy, and b. nothing seemed *particularly* horrible about it. Looking back at the theme, I think it works just fine. I think it's a fairly ordinary but totally acceptable Monday-type theme. Last Words- or First Words-type themes are Monday and Tuesday bread & butter. HEAP, SLEW, PACK, and MASS all do, in fact, mean a lot, so ... good. My only complaint with the theme is that HEAP isn't sufficiently redirected by the theme. That is, PACK means something totally different from "lot" in its answer, and same with MASS, but SCRAP HEAP is a HEAP ... of SCRAP. HEAP doesn't get a new meaning there, not really. Every themer should really incorporate word redirection, or redefinition, or whatever you want to call it. If all the last words share a common meaning, that should *NOT* be the meaning they have in their respective answers, is what I am trying in my own inimitable bumbling fashion to say. I don't know if SEATTLE SLEW follows or doesn't follow redirection protocol, as I don't know what "SLEW" is supposed to mean in the name SEATTLE SLEW. The word doesn't have a clear grammatical function. There are lots of other words that might have been used in this theme (LOAD, PILE, TON, BUNCH, HOST, OCEAN .... etc.?), so maybe it's not the tightest theme ever, but again, themewise, I think it holds up OK and I don't have any serious complaints.


The fill, however, upon reflection, is pretty weak. It's very old-fashioned, very crosswordese-reliant, filled with stuff that constant solvers (esp. folks who have been solving since the last century) will be readily familiar with, but that's really quite stale. There's no reason not to work harder to polish / modernize a small corner with ALCAN (?) crossing TARSI and ANI, no reason an easy puzzle like this should be teeming with low-rent fill like ESSEN YESNO ETAT ECRU ETAL ALA AGITA STENS (!) PIS ERR AHEM ASHE ERIN WAH. No one of these is so so bad, but taken together, they really clog the system. Six (!) longer Downs should add some color, but ... they don't. Not really. I enjoyed seeing "THE NATURAL," but besides the theme answers, it was the only thing I truly enjoyed seeing. So it's a mixed bag today. Workmanlike but passable theme, workmanlike but passable fill. I'm not mad. I'm not happy. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Southeast Asian housemaid / MON 10-14-19 / Root in Polynesian culture / Stackable cookie / Specialized military group

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:21)

THEME: MAKE THE CUT (65A: Survive elimination ... or what one may do to the ends of 17-, 31-, 38- and 50-Across) — the "ends" are all things you can cut :/

Theme answers:

• PERSIAN RUG (17A: Carpet woven in Iran)
• HOT MUSTARD (31A: Tangy condiment)
• VOCAL CORD (38A: One of two in the larynx)
• FLIGHT DECK (50A: Where planes land on an aircraft carrier)

Word of the Day: VESTRY (23D: Clergy's changing room) —

1a: SACRISTY

b: a room used for church meetings and classes

2a: the business meeting of an English parish

b: an elective body in an Episcopal parish composed of the rector and a group of elected parishioners administering the temporal affairs of the parish (merriam-webster)

• • •

I heard that the NYTXW gets something like 500 submissions a month. Impressive. Also, depressing. How bad *are* those submissions, exactly? If you're getting that many submissions, why is the quality of the puzzle so mediocre (relative to indie outlets). It's astonishing. This puzzle is a case in point. It's an oldish style theme that doesn't even work properly. It's fine. Familiar. It's something we're all used to seeing. But it doesn't really work, and it certainly isn't fresh, fun, current, or anything that makes crossword puzzles delightful. MAKE *THE* CUT? Ok, but you cut THE mustard, THE cord, THE deck, but you do not cut THE rug. No, you don't. You cut A rug (assuming this answer is referring to the idiom regarding dancing). You cut THE cheese. You cut THE crap (ideally!). You cut A deal. Sigh. Why isn't this group consistent? Also, all the cuts are idiomatic *except* deck, which is literal. It's just so ... ticky tack and low rent. The fill is also adequate, hyper-familiar, not terribly interesting. The NYT should be much better than this. They NYT should be much better than this. The NYT should be much better than this.


Always, always going to botch SLIER, which looks horrible (5D: More crafty). SLYER should be the proper spelling, it just should (5D: More crafty). I think most of the slowness I encountered on this solve was due to VESTRY, which ... sounds like it means "entryway" or something like that, but apparently means [Clergy's changing room]!? I guess I was thinking of "vestibule"?? Anyway, another word for VESTRY is "sacristy." Sigh. None of this is Monday-level knowledge, but whatever, now you know new things (or I do, at any rate). That is a horrible clue for AIN'T (36A: "You ___ kiddin'!"). Was the "n" -apostrophe supposed to cue the ungrammaticalness? "You ___ seen nothin' yet" wins. "___ Misbehavin'" wins. This clue loses. I somehow thought the FLIGHT DECK was where the pilot and co-pilot sit, like the "cockpit" or something? And I see that I'm correct ("the forward compartment on some airplanes," per Merriam-Webster) but that doesn't matter, because the clue is correct, technically, even if it's not the context in which most people are going to hear that term. Oh well. Not much else to say about this one.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. there's no reason for the oldest of old-skool crosswordese AMAH to appear on a Monday (18D: Southeast Asian housemaid). Maybe if you're desperate in a late-week themeless, or a theme-dense Thursday, you can go back to that answer, but otherwise, ugh. Mothballs.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Massage intensely / MON 5-20-19 / Girl Scout cookie with geographical name / Much visited site in Jerusalem

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "HIT IT!" (39A: "Start the music!" ... or what one could do to the finish of the answer to each starred clue) — last words in themers can complete the phrase "hit the ___"

Theme answers:

• DEBT CEILING (17A: *Government's credit limit)
• HACKY SACK (28A: *Beanbag juggled with the feet)
• CHECK MARK (46A: *Symbol for "O.K.")
• WESTERN WALL (61A: *Much-visited site in Jerusalem)
• CLAM SAUCE (11D: *Seafood topping that may be red or white)
• LOWER DECK (34D: *Part of a ship just above the hold)

Word of the Day: ROLF (32A: Massage intensely) —

verb

1. treat (a person) using Rolfing, a proprietary term for a massage technique aimed at the release and realignment of the body.

   
   

   "I had the negative emotions Rolfed out of me" (LOL) (google)

• • •

Too old-fashioned and too rough, fill-wise, for my tastes. It's a pretty mundane "last words"-type puzzle, with many many many other possible last words that weren't used (I always find it really distracting when very colorful possibilities are left out of a theme like this: ROAD BRICKS HAY LIGHTS BOOKS CLUB DANCEFLOOR GROUND ICE JACKPOT etc. LOWER DECK is also pretty weak, as DECK-ending answers go. UPPER DECK is actually Much Much Better (it has baseball cred). This is one of those themes that confuses being dense with being good. The choice to include so many themers undoubtedly has something to do with the mediocre-to-poor overall quality of the fill. That NENE / INURN (!?!?!) / TRI area down below is quite hard to look at, as is TEC over EEK crossing OGEE, as is the whole western section. OTOE / OTOH looks like the stuff of parody, and ROTC / ROLF isn't helping matters. TAR crossing TARTARE is absurd (I'd've preferred CAR there, and CHEM in the cross,\—one of the few times you're going to find me advocating for the abbr.). I like the image of DEBS smoking E-CIGS, but on their own, as fill, I'm not as big a fan. I tore through this, but it was a largely TEPID and EMPTY experience.

Five things:

• 10D: Motorized two-wheelers (SEGWAYS) — lost time trying to spell this SEGUES (like the actual word). I can't believe self-respecting people actually ... drive? ride? ... these.
• 65A: Bury, as ashes (INURN) — this answer bothers me on so many levels. It's an ugly, rare word, so I just don't like it, but also shouldn't it refer to the act of putting the ashes *in* the urn, and not the act of putting the urn *in* the ground? Bah!
• 20A: Like many infield grounders (ONE-HOP) — "ONE-HOP grounder" is actually not that common a phrase on the internets (~3,000 hits). "ONE-HOP groundball" is even rarer. It's totally intelligible, but you're gonna call that a "one-hopper" most of the time (~17x more often, if my ["one-hopper" baseball] search is at all meaningful). Or you'll say the infielder fielded it *on* ONE HOP. I don't really think ONE HOP stand well on its own, is the upshot of this comment. It's a minor nit, I know, but I'm tired of the puzzle mucking up or otherwise only half-nailing clues and answers from baseball, a game I love.
• 55A: Like a gift from above (GOD-SENT) — another clunker for me. "Heaven-sent" makes sense to me. A "god senD" is certainly something I've heard of. But I've never heard anything described as GOD-SENT. Remember: "Dictionarily defensible" and "good" are not the same thing.
• 18D: Org. concerned with ecosystems (EPA) — can we stop pretending the EPA cares about anything any more besides abetting polluters and destroying as many species as possible?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Noted 1950s-70s DJ dubbed fifth beatle / TUE 4-16-19 / Flower cluster whose name can also be read as challenge / Hope classic soap opera / Cinch commercial trash bag name / Shurb that might cause rash / Some college participants

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (4:00) (for a Tuesday) (entirely because of one answer)

THEME: ¿Qué? — themers all end with "kay" sound

Theme answers:

• COMMUNIQUÉ (18A: Bulletin)
• TOOTH DECAY (24A: Dental problem)
• SOBRIQUET (36A: Nickname)
• MURRAY THE K (52A: Noted 1950s-'70s D.J. dubbed a "fifth Beatle")
• ARE YOU OKAY? (59A: "Is everything all right?")

Word of the Day: MURRAY THE K (52A) —

Murray Kaufman (February 14, 1922 – February 21, 1982), professionally known as Murray the K, was an influential rock and roll impresario and disc jockey of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. During the early days of Beatlemania, he frequently referred to himself [!??!?!] as the fifth Beatle. (wikipedia) (emph !?!?!? mine)

• • •

Late start, not much time today, sorry. Here's the tl;dr version: No. This is barely a theme, first of all. I'm guessing a bunch of you didn't even know there was a theme. I finished and looked for a revealer, thinking maybe it was ARE YOU OK? ... like, do those letters (R, U, O, K?) all appear in the answers? Maybe in order??? Or are an O and a K involved ... somehow? But no. There is no revealer, and theme is just the final sound. On top of that, the grid is stale, with a cultural center of gravity only a boomer could love. (Note: "RYAN'S HOPE" went off the air *thirty year ago*) (55D: "___ Hope" (classic soap opera)). And the crosswordese? Who would've thought to stack abbreviated directions (ENE over SSW)!?!? What bold anti-art! Actually, it's junk, and why you'd want to paint your junk (!) neon by giving both answers matching "Denver"-containing clues, I have no idea. Spreak your junk out (1) and mask it (2). These are the rules of junk. Ugh. DITS, blargh. I had DATS. Are DATS not a Morse Code thing? Is Morse Code still a thing? But the most baffling and absurd part of the puzzle is obviously MURRAY THE K, Whoever That Is. How is this person a theme answer *on a Tuesday*. I've literally never heard of him. Even after looking him up, I feel like you'd have to be a pretty hard-core early Rock & Roll guy (i.e. an older-than-me white dude) to have any hope at this. Proper nouns are always dangerous, and if you don't know how to handle them, or don't calibrate the difficulty right, they ruin puzzling experiences. Spent most of my time in the MURRAY THE K region of the grid, getting that answer cross by awful cross. The worst thing about it, of course, is the "K," both because it's a cheap way to get the "K" sound into your theme, and because of the cross. My god the cross. Grade "F" for that cross alone. This puzzle is a SAK of something, alright. (46D: Cinch ___ (commercial trash bag name))


Slowed down by ELECTORS, whose clue I just did not get until I was done (4D: Some "college" participants). COMMUNIQUÉ is an unusual enough word that I had a little trouble, needing to come at it from crosses in the NW, which were all too long to be gimmes, so that took some time. The TBS / CBS thing was obnoxious (both those stations air March Madness games) (5A). The weirdest struggle I had was with TV STUDIO, even after getting TV. I just couldn't think of the word that followed. STATION was the only thing coming to mind. Or SET. Ugh, that's on me. Just terrible brainwork. Oh, and RACEME, LOL, I kinda sorta know the word, so a few crosses was all I needed, but the latter part of that clue? (16A: Flower cluster whose name can also be read as a challenge). No help at all. I get it now: you can parse it "RACE ME!" But the clue is kind of a confession that the word doesn't belong in a Tuesday puzzle. Maybe you could've given one of those booster clues to MURRAY THE stupid "K"?

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

First victim of sibling rivalry / TUE 1-1-19 / League that used red white blue ball for short / Hammond writer of Wreck of Mary Deare / Famous collie of radio tv film

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium (3:14)

THEME: PASSABLE (61A: Barely adequate ... or what the starts of 17-, 26-, 37- and 50-Across are) — first words of aforementioned themers can all fit into familiar phrases following the pattern "pass the ___":

Theme answers:

• HAT TRICK (17A: Three goals in a single game)
• TORCH SONG (26A: Its lyrics tell of unrequited love)
• TIME SIGNATURE (37A: Music staff notation)
• BUCK TEETH (50A: Reason to get braces)

Word of the Day: Hammond INNES (39D: Hammond ___, writer of "The Wreck of the Mary Deare) —

Ralph Hammond Innes, CBE (15 July 1913 – 10 June 1998) was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books.

Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex, and educated at Cranbrook School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist, initially with the Financial Times (at the time called the Financial News). The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. In WWII he served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During the war, a number of his books were published, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack Alarm (1941), the last of which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain at RAF Kenley. After being demobilized in 1946, he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. His novels are notable for a fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of places, such as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after its closure and RAF Wunstorf during the Berlin Airlift.

Innes went on to produce books in a regular sequence, with six months of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His output decreased in the 1960s, but was still substantial. He became interested in ecological themes. He continued writing until just before his death. His last novel was Delta Connection (1996). (wikipedia)

• • •

OK look there is no reason for BEANER to be here. No one who follows baseball even calls it that, anyway (it's a "bean ball"), and, especially for anyone who grew up on the west coast, BEANER is an out-and-out pejorative (against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans). I get it if you, personally, didn't know that, or don't care, or aren't offended, or whatever, but here's the thing: this is not a tricky corner. BEANER is not *needed* to hold things together. And since you couldn't say it's exactly *good* fill, I don't understand how you don't just fix the corner. You know you're going to offend some people with the fill you've got, the puzzle is not worsened by the fix, ergo, Fix It. It's ... it's very, very simple. Here's the very brief Twitter exchange I *just* had on this issue:

[nice dig at the NYT's stupid two-tiered pay scale, Chris] 

[Also, get it? AMEN? 'Cause if that were 1-Across, we wouldn't be having this conversation?]

Now I'm going to ask you to do something I've never asked you to do (hell, it's something *I* never do unless someone really insists): read another crossword blog. Specifically, xwordinfo. Y'all who think I just don't like WS or have it in for him or whatever other nonsense, you need to see what happens when Jeff Chen, a very friendly, very loyal NYT crossword critic, the writer of a blog that is pretty much a second house blog (along with "Wordplay"), a writer who oh by the way is also a person of color, tries to suggest to the editor that maybe, possibly, he might consider changing 2-Down from BEANER to annnnnything else. Please read Jeff's comments on this puzzle now. In full. I'll wait. . . [wavy lines, time passes] . . . Done? OK. If you're not going to read his comments, here's the most relevant part:

"Will and I had a dialogue over BEANER; an offensive term slung at people from Mexico. I wondered if it might be a West Coast / East Coast thing, so I alerted Will about this. He thought about it but decided that since there is a valid dictionary definition, people would have to just ignore the secondary meaning."

That "since there is a valid dictionary meaning" defense allows him to avoid dealing with so much. Soooo much. I hope you can see how frustrating it is for so many people of good will to try to get the editor to make decent decisions. That is as close as you are ever going to see Jeff Chen come to giving Shortz the middle finger. Over 2/3 of his write-up is dedicated to this asinine and racist editorial decision. Look: there is no excuse for BEANER. It's not even a good baseball term. And AMEN gets you MEANER and NET ... which is objectively better even before considering the racial slur angle. It's so hard to understand the mindset of someone who gets good advice and just shrugs it off, especially when that advice is aimed at avoiding giving offense to people of color. I would love to be using this space to talk about the more puzzley aspects of this puzzle: its workmanlike but totally serviceable "first-words"-type theme, its occasionally interesting but highly uneven fill quality (SAREE? I'm SAREE, no). But here we are with a completely gratuitous BEANER in the 2-D slot, and the only reason it's here is because the editor is (A) negligent, (B) incompetent, (C) deliberately cruel, or (D) so completely egotistical that he doubles down on even his dumbest decisions. My wish for the new year is that solvers start demanding better editing. More thoughtful editing. More inclusive editing. I'm not going to get the regime change I think the NYT Crossword needs and deserves, but if voices besides mine were getting in his and the NYT's ear more, maybe things would be slightly better. Maybe. This BEANER thing ... right in the teeth of good, considered, friendly advice ... I don't know, you guys. It's mind-blowing. Also, exhausting.


Here's hoping 2019 is full of much better puzzles. By all kinds of people. For all kinds of people.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS

PPS

PPPS If you don't think BEANER is a problem, please just google it. Then, you can see for see yourself that currently, today, in what is apparently 2019, BEANER's *primary* definition (not its "secondary" one, as the editor claims) is pejorative. Pointing at a dictionary and shrugging does not exonerate you.

PPPPS I had a great wrong answer: faced with TOR-HS-NG at 26A: Its lyrics tell of unrequited love, my sincere first reaction was TORAH SONG. I really should know my Bible better.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Children's author Asquith / MON 7-30-18 / spilling drink eating all guacamole say / Roulette playing piece / Nonstick cookware brand / Middle-aged women with eyes for younger men

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (2:58)

THEME: CLOSE CALL (63A: Narrow escape ... or what the end of the answer to each starred clue is?) — second word (or word part) in each theme answer is a CALL that an ump might make in baseball. No idea how CLOSE is involved...

Theme answers:

• STATE FAIR (17A: *Annual event displaying agricultural products)
• SPACED OUT (3D: *In a daze)
• PARTY FOUL (25A: *Spilling a drink or eating all the guacamole, say)
• GUMBALL (39A: *Candy from a candy machine)
• AIRSTRIKE (51A: *Attack from the sky)
• HOTEL SAFE (35D: *Vacationer's container for valuables)

Word of the Day: TFAL (68A: Nonstick cookware brand) —

Tefal is a French cookware and small appliance manufacturer owned by Groupe SEB. Its name is a portmanteau of the words TEFlon and ALuminium. The company is known for creating the non-stick cookware category and for frying products such as French fries more healthily with far less fat than is standard.

In some countries like the United States, Tefal is also marketed as T-Fal. (wikipedia) (emph mine)

• • •

Hey everyone. I weirdly missed you, and all [gestures to screen and untidy home office] this! I spent the last week in Sun Valley, Idaho, catching up with my family and biking and eating and reading and what not. My mom grew up in Idaho and my grandma still lives there, so it feels like home even though I've only been there a handful of times. The whole NW feels that way. I got off the plane in freakin' Spokane once, stood on the tarmac, took one deep breath, and thought, "Yep, this is where I belong." And if I felt that about Spokane, I more than felt it about Idaho (despite most of the state, particularly in the south, being unfathomably, near-literally empty). Rivers and mountains and very temperate summers and hiking and biking and all of it. The state is obviously about 20x more conservative than I am, but it's also so beautiful that I'm willing to risk it. We're putting Boise on the short list of Places We Might Live Next Now That Our Daughter Is Going To College (which happens in four weeks ... which is some family drama I'll deal with when it gets here).


I didn't do any NYT puzzles while I was gone. Didn't look at the blog once, or reply to email, or nuthin'. I did do some crosswords—a stack I put on my clipboard a looooong time ago. Which is why clipboards are awesome. Just load 'em up, carry 'em around with you, and eventually, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day, those puzzles get Done. But today's puzzle was the first NYT I'd done, on the clock, in about ten days, and I'm surprised how fast I was. I mean, my time was about normal, but I felt rusty and clumsy and still came in with a respectable time. I'm noticing now that I really need to trim my fingernails. This may have contributed to the clumsiness (I solve on a laptop). I mostly enjoyed this grid but the theme seems inherently flawed. How is CLOSE involved? If CLOSE is in your revealer, then CLOSE should have something to do with the expression of the theme, and while an ump might need to make a call when the correct determination is borderline, most calls are pretty clear. Not close. Ump calls a BALL if it's one inch off the plate or if it beans the mascot. Still a call. Calls are not inherently close. So this theme ... I call foul, or out, or strike, or balk, or some such negative determination. Also, "eating all the guacamole" is just normal behavior. There might not be more guacamole, so you eat what's there, you snooze you lose, everyone knows this, foul shmoul.


Slowish parts:

• 56A: Roulette playing piece (CHIP) — I saw a wheel and a little ball and maybe James Bond and nothing else. "CHIPs are for poker," my brain insisted. Also, "I HOPE" was toughly clued (52D: "If there's any justice!")
• 10D: Add some style to (SPIFF UP) — Parsing turbulence ahead! Fasten seat belts! SPICE UP was on the table. As was, however briefly, SPIFFEN. 
• 29D: Middle-aged women with eyes for younger men (COUGARS) — I dunno, man. Not into this. The whole "cougar" thing is at least semi-derogatory. And there's no equivalent term for men, presumably because *that* desire is unremarkable. Boo. 
• 21A: Children's author ___ Asquith (ROS) — never seen this name outside crosswords. There were perhaps a few too many crosswordesey things like this oh well C'EST la TFAL.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I'm off again tomorrow (it's a regularly scheduled Clare Tuesday!), but then I'm back ... but then next Monday is Annabel Monday, but then I'm back ... and in mid-August there's Lollapuzzoola and then taking my daughter to college ... whatever, I'll mostly be here, with little bursts of not being here. You understand. Forget it, Jake. It's August-town.

P.P.S. Big thanks to Laura Braunstein for filling in all week. And congratulations to her on becoming the newest regular member of the crossword constructor team at American Values Club Crossword!

P.P.P.S. I had someone suggest to me that CLOSE (in the revealer for today's puzzle) refers (possibly) to the fact that the CALLs "CLOSE" out the answer (i.e. are the final word / word parts of the answer). That ... is grammatically awful. But if you wanna hang your hat on that, go right ahead. LAST CALL mighta worked. But CLOSE CALL? Yerp.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Hand tool for boring holes / MON 6-11-18 / Tropical tree with hot pink flowers / Danny DeVito's role in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / Spreadsheet amount shown in parentheses

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (2:56)

THEME: DRINKS ARE ON ME (35A: "I've got this round!" ... or a literal hint to this puzzle's theme) —Drinks (not clued as drinks) sit literally on top of the word "ME" (in circled squares) four times:

Theme answers:

• SIDECAR (17A: Motorcycle attachment)
• MIMOSA (21A: Tropical tree with hot pink flowers)
• GIMLET (53A: Hand tool for boring holes)
• MARTINI (61A: Danny DeVito's role in 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") [why is "1975's" in this clue???]

Word of the Day: GIMLET —

noun

1. 1. 

   a small T-shaped tool with a screw-tip for boring holes. (google)

• • •

The hardest part of this puzzle by far was the themers. Every one of them except SIDECAR is best known as a drink name, so cluing them otherwise was rough. But nothing about this puzzle was rough in the least, so it ended up being snugly in Monday difficulty territory. GAVOTTE is maybe not quite a Monday word, but it's featured in one of the better known songs in pop music history, so I figure people at least know it that way. (I always thought she was saying that he watched his "silk cravat")


Putting short drink names on ME is not technically so difficult, but I like the concept. I think it works. The grid is way too crammed with repeaters (a nicer word for "crosswordese"), largely because it's constructed in a super-choppy way, creating tons of 3- and 4-letter answers. So that part was less than pleasant. But for all that, the grid was pretty smooth, and there are some nice moments (LOOK ALIVE! TIDE OVER), and so, especially in the wake of yesterday's disaster, I will take this.


UPI EMI BMI RPI REI UPS ... only two of these were actually in the puzzle, but a lot of these answers bleed into one another in my head. I got UPI and EMI right, but I feel like it was dumb luck. My fingers just instinctively entered my first guesses and then the crosses confirmed them. Not really much to talk about in this one. ONE YARD is absurd, as it opens the floodgates for [insert number here] YARDS. Well, probably a number 100 or less. Still, ONE YARD, harrumph. Never did get the whole WREAKS / WRECKS (havoc) thing straight. Actually, I know it's WREAK, but I feel like people pronounce it "wreck," which makes me wonder if that's a mistake or if that's its actual pronunciation, spelling be damned. Anyway, it's WREAK, and the past tense is just WREAKED, if you somehow didn't know and find yourself needing this info in the future.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...