Semiaquatic amphibian / THU 9-11-25 / Minuscule, in cutesy lingo / Longtime portrayer of TV's Captain Pierce / "I Am ___," onetime reality TV spinoff / Material with a coarse weave / Nursery rhyme character known as Lille Trille in Denmark / City with a view of Mount Vesuvius / City WNW of Tulsa / Noncombat region, in brief / Archangel in "Paradise Lost"

Constructor: Gia Bosko

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: DOUBLE-HEADERS (36A: Back-to-back sporting events ... with a hint to the answers to the italicized clues) — two-part phrases where the only difference between the two halves is the first letter ("header"); rather than appearing in full, these answers appear at half length, with the first square containing *both* of the first letters of each half (e.g. RAZZLE-DAZZLE appears as [R/D]AZZLE, with the "R" and the "D" in the same square)—to make sense of them, you have to read the answer once with the first first letter in place, and then again with the second first letter in place. The letters in those "double-header" squares function simply as successive letters in the crosses (e.g. the "[R/D]" from [R/D]AZZLE is just "-RD" in BARD):

Theme answers:

• [W/T]ALKIE (15A: Hand-held communication device) 
• NE[WT] (1D: Semiaquatic amphibian)
• [T/W]EENSY (7A: Minuscule, in cutesy lingo) 
• [TW]EED (7D: Material with a coarse weave)
• [H/D]UMPTY (59A: Nursery rhyme character known as Lille Trille in Denmark)
• WAS[H D]AY (46D: Time for a trip to the laundromat)
• [R/D]AZZLE ( 64A: Flashiness)
• BA[RD] (55D: Medieval entertainer)

Word of the Day: "I Am CAIT" (51A: "I Am ___," onetime reality TV spinoff) —

I Am Cait is an American television documentary series which chronicles the life of Caitlyn Jenner after her gender transition. The eight-part one-hour documentary series debuted on July 26, 2015, on the E! network. The series focuses on the "new normal" for Jenner, exploring changes to her relationships with her family and friends. The show additionally explores how Jenner adjusts to what she sees as her job as a role model for the transgender community.

In its first season, critical reception of I Am Cait was generally positive. Critics particularly praised the series' approach to the social issues of the transgender community and its influence on the way Americans see and understand transgender people in general. The show's informative and serious tone was also noted, and how it differed from Keeping Up with the Kardashians, a reality series that Jenner has starred in together with her family. In October, the show was renewed for a second season, which premiered on March 6, 2016.

On August 16, 2016, E! cancelled the series after two seasons, due to low ratings. (wikipedia)

• • •

Me, at some point, solving this puzzle: "What ... is WEN TAPE!?"

It's weird how my brain has no trouble accepting GO APE as a phrase (a phrase I only ever hear or see in crosswords, but a familiar phrase nonetheless), but put in the past tense and my brain rejects it like a foreign body. My brain also wanted to reject NEED A NAP, which has serious EAT A SANDWICH energy, but since I often NEED A NAP after I EAT A SANDWICH (if it's large enough), the answer accidentally amused me, despite being somewhat intolerable, and I'll take amusement in any form I can get it. Weird that all the answers that made me wince and cringe and cock my head were in the NE quadrant. SUM TO, yeesh (23A: Total). Is that the same as "add up to?" Or "come to?" I have never used the word "SUM" as a verb in my life, except the verb phrase "SUM UP," which deals with words, not numbers. And what part of the NASTY HABITS clue suggested "NASTY" (as opposed to merely "bad") (16D: Vices that are best abandoned)!? Aren't all "vices" best abandoned? "Here's a vice you should keep!" is not a phrase that makes much sense. I needed a nastier clue there, since "bad habits" is the (much) more common phrase. Would've helped! Outside that NE quadrant, though, I didn't have any problems with the way this thing was filled or clued. In fact, I didn't encounter any difficulty at all. Had no idea that "I Am CAIT" ever existed (couldn't even remember which Kardashian CAIT was until I looked her up and realized / remembered that she was a Jenner, whom I know better as CAITlyn). But you expect a proper noun problem or two most days, and CAIT's crosses were all fair. 

What about the theme? I probably should've led with that. It's great, but since it caused no trouble at all, and was almost completely transparent from the beginning, it wasn't at the front of my brain when I finished. WEN TAPE was. But I did enjoy the theme—clever, and neatly executed. I especially like the way the rebus squares are handled, with the letters forming the front ends of either half of the themers, while being merely successive letters in the crosses. WALKIE-TALKIE, one way, NEWT the other. And we've got a revealer worthy of the name, a revealer that does its damned job. Remember earlier in the week when the revealer was just ... VOWEL??? That has no juice, no energy, no nothing. But DOUBLE-HEADERS is both a colorful answer in its own right, and, when interpreted a different (non-sports) way, explains precisely what's going on with the theme. Thematically, conceptually, and execution-wise, this puzzle really sticks the landing. 

As I say, the theme was clear almost from the jump. 1D: Semiaquatic amphibian is gonna make most brains go "NEWT! Oh, damn, it doesn't fit." Or maybe, if you have a particularly crossword-scarred brain, you wrote in EFT. I hope not, but if you did, I understand, and sympathize. I was lucky enough to get 1A: City with a view of Mount Vesuvius (NAPLES), but only by completely misremembering where NAPLES is and confusing Vesuvius with ETNA! Double screw-up got me to Exactly The Right Answer! Accidental genius, woo hoo! Anyway, that "N" from NAPLES made me think "oh, it is NEWT and some rebus-y thing is afoot." Bingo. Shortly thereafter: 

From there, it was downhill. Just a matter of finding the rebus squares, which the puzzle made Very Easy by italicizing all the theme clues. A ruthless, old-school Thursday might not have been so kind. Another kindness, of sorts: all the themers are symmetrical. While I like and appreciate symmetry, when it comes to rebus puzzles, I actually kind of prefer scattershot answers. Having everything flagged by italics and in perfect symmetrical order takes some much-needed difficulty out of the solve. Give me more of a challenge! Don't tell me where all the hard parts are. Let me stumble my way to revelation! The one thing the puzzle didn't flag, and that wasn't always obvious, was the theme-affected Down answers (e.g. NEWT). So with NEWT and TWEED I had moments of "huh?" and/or "what?" I need more of these moments on a Thursday! But again, I really think this theme is aces. The puzzle's got the difficulty turned to like "3" and I want it up around "8," but the quality of the theme itself is beyond reproach, imho.

Lightning round:

• 18A: Longtime portrayer of TV's Captain Pierce (ALDA) — from M*A*S*H. I just saw a clip of Bill Hader doing Alan ALDA. Let's see if I can find it... yes, here we go:

• 50A: Video surveillance letters (CCTV) — "CC" = "close-circuit," though I always think it's "close-captioned" ("close-captioning" is a different phenomenon entirely; the "CC" abbr. and the television-relatedness is what confuses me):

• 5D: City WNW of Tulsa (ENID) — The unofficial capital of Crossworld. I really should make a pilgrimage there at some point.
• 9D: H (ETA) — that's what a Greek letter ETA looks like in capital form: "H"

• 57D: Noncombat region, in brief (DMZ) — Demilitarized Zone. I know this term exclusively from the Vietnam War, I think.
• 44D: Ready for an emergency, say (ON CALL) — had some trouble parsing this despite the fact that I had a father (radiologist) who was frequently ON CALL. He had a beeper. Remember beepers. Good times.
• 24D: Archangel in "Paradise Lost" (URIEL) — I teach this poem and still waffle on the damned archangel name, as ARIEL is also an angel in Paradise Lost!!! (just not an ... arch one)

That's it. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Not-so-conservative party? / FRI 8-22-25 / Accessory for overseas travel / Where many gather to form a line? / Camila with the hit 2022 album "Familia" / Disassemble in order to understand / Gorman "The Hill We Climb" poet / Inlay material on some guitars / Baroque stringed instrument / Its national anthem has no words

Constructor: Gia Bosko

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Camila CABELLO (8A: Camila with the hit 2022 album "Familia") —

Karla Camila Cabello Estrabao (/kəˈmiːlə kəˈbeɪoʊ/; Latin American Spanish: [ˈkaɾla kaˈmila kaˈβeʝo esˈtɾaβao]; born March 3, 1997) is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence as a member of the pop girl group Fifth Harmony, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. While in the group, Cabello established herself as a solo artist with collaborative singles "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (with Shawn Mendes) and "Bad Things" (with Machine Gun Kelly), the latter making number four on the US Billboard Hot 100. She left Fifth Harmony in late 2016.

Cabello's debut studio album, Camila (2018), peaked atop the US Billboard 200. Largely influenced by Latin music, its lead single "Havana" (featuring Young Thug) was an international chart-topper. It was the best-selling digital single of 2018, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Its follow-up, "Never Be the Same" reached the top ten in multiple countries. Cabello's second album Romance (2019) peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and spawned a second global chart-topper in "Señorita", a duet with Shawn Mendes. Cabello's third album Familia (2022), made number ten on the Billboard 200 and contained the international hit "Bam Bam" (featuring Ed Sheeran). Cabello's fourth studio album, C,XOXO, was released in 2024.

Cabello's awards include two Latin Grammy Awards, five American Music Awards, and one Billboard Music Award. In 2021, Cabello starred as the title character in the film Cinderella. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hell of a lot of short stuff in this one, which made it very easy to get toeholds all over the place. A preponderance of short stuff can really drag a grid down with dull and overfamiliar answers (for instance: CNET, ARAL, L.A. RAM—really hate a singular L.A. RAM), but today's grid effectively counterbalanced all those 3-4-5s with eleven (11!) solid-to-great marquee answers—8+-letter words that give the grid a lot of life and a nice sense of flow. You can whoosh around this grid quite easily, and it's a lot of fun to do so. Well, *I* had fun, at any rate. The fun started right out of the gate. This one reminded me of the one and only time I rode a roller coaster with a loop. It was some Aerosmith-themed ride at ... I wanna say Disney World? ... yeah, here we go: the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith at Disney's Hollywood Studios within Walt Disney World (you can't ride it any more; it's currently closed so it can be rethemed to the Muppets (scheduled opening: 2026)). Anyway, what I remember is that they shot you into that damn loop immediately (I'm being told it was actually a double-inversion element called a "sea serpent"). Initial acceleration was powerful. Here's the equivalent moment in today's puzzle:

 

Wheeeee!!!! Just three answers in and I get shot out of a cannon, clear across the grid, an explosion set off by just two letters (the -EV- in REVERSE ENGINEER) (15A: Disassemble in order to understand). At that point, I felt very confident about being able to clean up the top half of the puzzle in very short order. The short Downs up there now all had letters in them, so they didn't stand much of a chance. And sure enough, after initially fumbling a few answers up top (MAWS before ARFS (1D: Yaps), IRK before TRY (5D: Cause headaches for)), I didn't make a misstep or even hesitate again until the bottom half of the grid.  It's true, I didn't quite know Camila CABELLO's last name (CABALLO? CARBELO?), but I had a vague idea who she was and the crosses just sort of filled themselves in (8A: Camila with the hit 2022 album "Familia"). The last letter I got up top was the "B" in her name, which immediately rocketed me down through the heart of the puzzle via BINGO PARLOR (10D: Where many gather to form a line?) (nice clue—the "line" is the numbers you're trying to connect on a bingo card). Binghamton, NY (where I live) used to have a baseball team called the Bingos. Also the Bingoes. Not sure if there was a copyright dispute or what. Why you would put that "e" in there, I don't know. It looks awful—like you typo'd "Big toes." At least they had the decency to keep it off their uniforms:

[if these guys are in your parlor ...]

GAPES AT and HAS AT is too much ___ AT for me, and READ TO crossing LOG IN TO at the "TO" was even worse, but those are minor glitches, all things considered. My own glitches all involved proper nouns—from the minor glitch of CABELLO to the somewhat more serious glitch of SAMUEL CHASE. After I pieced SAMUEL CHASE together, I was embarrassed because I thought "wait, didn't I make this guy the Word of the Day just last week??!" But lol no, that was SALMON P. CHASE. This is another CHASE entirely. Too many CHASEs!

Bullets:

• 1A: Accessory for overseas travel (ADAPTOR) — in retrospect, this should've been easy, but I wanted ID ... something ("card"? "holder"?), especially after that "D" went into place.
• 20A: Like challenging kite-flying weather (GUSTY) — had the "Y" and quickly wrote in WINDY, then just as quickly unwrote it. You gotta have wind. Unwindy would be "challenging."
• 21A: Becky on "Full House" and Esther on "Sanford and Son" (AUNTS) — I took one look at "Esther" and thought of Esther ROLLE ... who was in Good Times, not Sanford and Son. Took my brain a few seconds to process the error. These first three bullet points all involve problems in the top half of the grid, which I claimed not to have ... I think they just resolved themselves so quickly that they didn't feel like actual problems.
• 6D: Peacock's display (OSTENTATION) — An OSTENTATION is the name of a group of peacocks. Is it also the name for the spectacular tail feathers??? Merriam-webster dot com has the second meaning of OSTENTATION as "an act of displaying" (archaic), so maybe when the male peacock fans his tail out all fancy-like, that's the OSTENTATION (sorry, just realized that "male peacock" is a redundancy). The word OSTENTATION appears only once in the wikipedia entry for "peafowl," and it's not even used to describe the damned bird, : "Gaius Petronius in his Satyricon also mocked the ostentation and snobbery of eating peafowl and their eggs."

• 14D: Not-so-conservative party? (ORGY) — I would vote for this party. Can't be worse than the current ruling party.
• 57A: Brothers-to-be (PLEDGES) — fraternity brothers
• 16D: Clinton and Bush, for two (ELIS) — speaking of Yale (which the puzzle is apparently required to do at last once a week), my daughter just got back last night from striking the Diane Arbus exhibit at the Armory ("striking" is the theater term for taking down the set and making way for the next production). She heads to Yale next week to start her MFA in Technical Design and Production. 
• 50D: ___ cow (black bovine with a white belt around its middle) (OREO) — yes, yes, more clues like this! I am enjoying this OREO clue arms race we are currently in. I will accept your crosswordese if you give it to me in the form of insane trivia.

[Actual name: Belted Galloway]

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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Lyra's brightest star / TUES 11-28-23 / South American grasslands / What an Uno player has in hand upon crying "Uno!" / Soccer star Hamm

Hello, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday in November. And you know what the end of November means — we can start fully celebrating the full holiday season. I’m breaking out my ornaments and decorating tomorrow. As I’m writing this, I just got back from trivia night, and we won!! The tiebreaker question at the end was, “What was the average price of gas per gallon in 1978?” We got the closest, but could the price really have been only 65-ish cents?! My Steelers made me happy last weekend when, after firing their offensive coordinator, they seemed to realize it’s legal to throw a pass downfield over the middle and generated over 400 yards of offense for the first time in many years. Other than that, I’m busy with work and enjoying the crosswords (and this isn’t a plug but also the NYTimes Connections game). 

ANYHOW on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Gia Bosko

Relative difficulty: Pretty easy

THEME: Rhyming scheme involving colors

Theme answers:

• GRAY DAY (17A: Colorful rhyme for gloomy weather) 
• REDHEAD (18A: Colorful rhyme for a "ginger") 
• GREEN SCREEN (24A: Colorful rhyme for a filming background) 
• MELLOW YELLOW (44A: With 46-Across, colorful rhyme for a 1966 Donovan hit 
• ORANGE DOOR HINGE (58A: Colorful (albeit rare!) rhyme for an item at a hardware store)

Word of the Day: SEPSIS (19A: Harmful reaction to an infection)

Sepsis is a serious condition in which the body responds improperly to an infection. The infection-fighting processes turn on the body, causing the organs to work poorly. Sepsis may progress to septic shock. This is a dramatic drop in blood pressure that can damage the lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs. When the damage is severe, it can lead to death. (Mayo Clinic)

• • •

Well, the theme and the clues gave me the blues. Not entirely, but I couldn’t resist the rhyme, and I do think clues blues is a better rhyme than ORANGE DOOR HINGE (58A). The theme seemed to hinge (if you will) on that clue/answer, and I can sympathize with the constructor wanting an exclamation point there, but the answer just didn’t do it for me. 

I did really like MELLOW YELLOW (44/46A). I distinctly remember my dad often singing the single line, “They call me mellow yellow” – though he pays so little attention to music that he was probably picking up on the soft drink ad, not the song by Donovan. MELLOW YELLOW didn’t quite fit because the other answers all had the color first, but close enough. 

The vertical symmetry in the puzzle grid looked nice, and, while it probably wasn’t intentional, I liked the big sort of T shapes in the middle of the puzzle along with the clue for 41D: Partner of a crossed “t.” 

I didn’t know Benjamin HOFF (65A: Benjamin who wrote "The Tao of Pooh"), so I Googled him and now know that he wrote some popular books and then in 2006 wrote an essay that denounced the publishing industry and announced he was quitting writing books. I also wasn’t familiar with MEMOREX (42D: Big name in cassette tapes, once). I see that some commercials – “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” – were quite famous, but that was well before I was born, and somehow ads for recording tape don’t pop up much these days. I also had a mind-blowing revelation when I learned that LATISH (47D: Not quite on time) is the proper way to write that word and not lateish or late-ish. Whoops. 

The top part of the puzzle got off to a strong start, with GET RICH, TOOK OFF, AIR HOLE, ANDORRA, GRAY DAY, and REDHEAD. Then the puzzle got progressively less interesting to me. I think “Go bananas” should have been FREAK “out” (35A) or something akin to that. I hated TGIF (56D: What you might say as you crack open a beer). Does anyone actually still say that? Do people only crack open beers on Friday? And… NEATO!! My nemesis word is back. In a write-up a couple of months ago I said I never wanted to see that word again, and now it’s back haunting me. Last time, it was clued as “cool beans!” and this time it was “swell.” I personally think it’d be swell if we got rid of this word from our lexicon. Cool beans? Some of the rest of the answers were crosswordese and were just okay; I find the crosswordese excusable if there is an amazing theme, but this wasn’t one, at least for me.

Misc.:

• I’m a REDHEAD (18A), so it feels like this clue was tailor-made for me. (I do dye my hair, so I’m cheating a bit here but, oh, well.) In the realm of RED… my Liverpool Reds have been doing pretty well — we managed a tie against Man City at City’s home stadium when we didn’t look great. We’ll see how the rest of the season shapes up. 
• GEESE (24D: Birds in a gaggle) are awful when they’re on the bike path. They really just stand there on the path and make you barely squeeze past them and then look at you in a very mean way that makes you think they’re about to attack you. 
• Everyone needs to watch “The Americans.” It was a criminally underrated show and is one of my top three favorite shows of all time. I was obsessed with it. All six seasons are perfect. The series finale was the best and most fitting I’ve ever seen (even better than “Breaking Bad,” in my opinion). And Matthew RHYS (4D) and Keri Russell connected while starring in the show and are now partners and have a kid! 
• Another underrated show that was on Netflix was GLOW (33D) about female wrestlers. Side note: I really liked the clue (What fireflies and happy faces do) for that one! 
• It wasn’t quite a GRAY DAY (17A) in DC today, but it was rather cold and getting colder as we head into December… It’s going to make biking rather hard, but I shall try to double up (or triple up) on layers of clothing and see if I can make it work. 

And that’s all I’ve got! Stay warm and enjoy the holidays, and I’ll see you in December.

Signed, Clare Carroll, whose colors are Black and Gold

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Having many syllables / TUE 9-19-23 / Reversible woven fabrics / When said three times classic Benny Goodman tune / South Park kid with a blue-and-yellow beanie /Listen up in Lima / Sir Walter Scott novel set in the middle ages

Constructor: Gia Bosko

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SESQUIPEDALIAN (15A: Having many syllables, like this answer, 18-Across and especially 53-/57-Across) — polysyllabic words (?) the last of which is divided in two:

Theme answers:

• OBSTREPEROUSLY (18A: In a noisy and unruly manner)
• ANTIDISESTABLI/SHMENTARIANISM (53A: Opposition to the removal of ... / 57A: ... state support from the church)

Word of the Day: SESQUIPEDALIAN (15A) —

 

1

: having many syllables : LONG

2

: given to or characterized by the use of long words

Horace, the ancient Roman poet known for his satire, was merely being gently ironic when he cautioned young poets against using sesquipedalia verba—"words a foot and a half long"—in his book Ars poetica, a collection of maxims about writing. But in the 17th century, English literary critics decided the word sesquipedalian could be very useful for lambasting writers using unnecessarily long words. Robert Southey used it to make two jibes at once when he wrote "the verses of [16th-century English poet] Stephen Hawes are as full of barbarous sesquipedalian Latinisms, as the prose of [the 18th-century periodical] the Rambler." The Latin prefix sesqui- is used in modern English to mean "one and a half times," as in sesquicentennial (a 150th anniversary). (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

[The Susquehanna flows through
Owego, NY, which celebrated its
sesquicentennial in 1941]

Well this is different, and different is good. Weird is good. It plays mostly like a very, very easy themeless with one possibly unknown / forgotten / hard-to-spell word strung across the top of it. No, not OBSTREPEROUSLY, that's a basic word (though I managed to misspell it at first go). I mean SESQUIPEDALIAN. I read the clue and thought "oh, this is ... that word ... it's like SUSQUEHANNA ... SESQUICENTENNIAL ... gah what is that word?!" Eventually as I was filling it in from the back end, it came to me, but I realized as I was writing it that I if I'd ever known its definition, I had totally forgotten it. In fact, I'd forgotten entirely what "SESQUI-" meant, even in SESQUICENTENNIAL, which I knew was a -50 number, not a round 100, but I couldn't even remember which one. 150? (yes). 250? (no). So if nothing else I was happy to have relearned a word, and very happy to have read Merriam-Webster's note on the word, which puts it in proper (critically derisive) context. My high school English teacher used to say (as many of yours probably said), "don't use half-dollar words when a nickel word will do." This was when half dollars were in wide circulation. JFK was on them, I think. Anyway, SESQUIPEDALIAN seems like a word that would only ever be used by people who were actually most inclined to break out SESQUIPEDALIAN words. The fact that self-criticism by the pedantic is rare probably accounts for this word going largely unheard. But it's still a good one. The marquee moment here—the one truly inspired thing—is the breaking of ANTIDISESTABLI-/SHMENTARIANISM in half. I know the word well—the locus classicus of long words—but I never thought to inquire into what it means. So there's another thing I learned today. Cool. If the theme is thematically light, who cares? The grid is actually strong all on its own, with longer answers / showier corners than you usually see in a Tuesday. The fill was (almost) all very easy, but it's Tuesday, and the thematic stuff provided sufficient crunch, so the easiness doesn't feel like a problem today.

[Eric Blore, my favorite character actor of the first half of the twentieth century. 

I think about his reading of "Susquehanna" here ... well, a lot]

The one down side of the theme is OBSTREPEROUSLY, which feels very arbitrary, and, at five syllables, doesn't feel very SESQUIPEDALIAN at all. You wouldn't call "vociferously" or "continuously" SESQUIPEDALIAN (would you?), but it has the same number of syllables as OBSTREPEROUSLY. The clue mentions only "many syllables," and "many" is too vague to be useful. But now I'm arguing with the dictionary definition, which is itself vague. My point is OBSTREPEROUSLY, unlike the other two, seems like an everyday word. Well, maybe not every day, but ... an ordinary word. And it has only 5 syllables, compared to the revealer's 6 and the finale's 12 (!). A poet could even get OBSTREPEROUSLY down to 4 if she wanted to. It's a weird placeholder, is all. I spelled it as if it were POROUS, but that's not why I'm mad at it, I swear.

No trouble with any of the rest of the puzzle except when it came time to enter that SW corner from above and I hit 39A: Chopped to bits and just stopped. Couldn't come up with a word. Even after I had it down to -ICED, I needed the cross (a very unTuesdaylike DAMASKS! (39D: Reversible woven fabrics)) to get DICED, which I always confuse with RICED (which also means "chopped to bits"). So just the slightest of speed bumps there, no big deal. The grid quality is really high today. Enjoyed most every second of solving this. "GET THIS!" "I'M ALL SET!" WHISKEY. Lots to like in this uncharacteristically colorful early-week puzzle. Hope you found it similarly charming. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I confess I don't understand the clue on SEE BELOW (2D: Phrase that would be appropriate at the end of 53-Across). Why would it be appropriate? Is the idea that the word is so strange that it would require further explanation? This clue feels like an awkward attempt to shoehorn more thematic material into the grid. [Oh, this is some punny reference to the word ANTIDISESTABLI-/SHMENTARIANISM being broken in half? One half “below” the other? Huh. Ok]

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May that happen in Shakespeare / MON 4-10-23 / Snarled-up mess of debris / Fifth-century leader of the Huns

Constructor: Gia Bosko

Relative difficulty: Easy (the easiest puzzle I've ever done ... which I know I said about last Tuesday's puzzle, but hear me out ...)

THEME: "redundantly" — familiar phrases wherein a thing is equated to itself:

Theme answers:

• "FAIR IS FAIR" (18A: "The rules apply to everyone," redundantly)
• "A DEAL IS A DEAL" (23A: "Stick to the agreement," redundantly)
• "WHAT'S DONE IS DONE" (36A: "There can be no changing things now," redundantly)
• "IT IS WHAT IT IS" (47A: "We'll just have to adapt," redundantly)
• "LOVE IS LOVE" (57A: "We all deserve to have our intimate relationships honored," redundantly)

Word of the Day: SINÉAD O'Connor (43D: O'Connor with the 1990 hit "Nothing Compares 2 U") —

Shuhada' Sadaqat (previously Magda Davitt; born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor on 8 December 1966) is an Irish singer-songwriter. Her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got received glowing reviews upon release and became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U" (written by Prince), was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.

She has released ten studio albums: 1992's Am I Not Your Girl? and 1994's Universal Mother both went gold in the UK, 2000's Faith and Courage received gold status in Australia, and 2005's Throw Down Your Arms went gold in Ireland. Her work also includes songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. Her 2021 memoir Rememberings was a best seller.

Throughout her music career she has been unabashedly honest about her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political views, as well as her trauma and mental health struggles.

In 1999, she was ordained as a priest by the Latin Tridentine Church, a sect that is not recognized by the mainstream Catholic Church. She consistently speaks out on issues related to child abuse, human rights, anti-racism, organised religion, and women's rights. In 2017, O'Connor changed her name to Magda Davitt. After converting to Islam in 2018, she changed it to Shuhada' Sadaqat. However, she continues to record and perform under her birth name. (wikipedia)

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Solved Downs-only, as I always do on Monday. Got the first 24 Downs I looked at. That's 24 answers in a row where I read the clue and wrote in the answer with absolutely no letters in place. Then I hit a Down I didn't know. Then I got the remaining 14 Downs, just like the first 24, all in a row, no stopping, no crosses in place. By that point, the one answer I hadn't gotten filled itself in easily. It seems ... at least plausible ... that I could've broken not just the two-minute but the one-minute mark, if I'd really gone full tilt. You'd think not looking at the Acrosses would *hinder* you—I mean, that's the whole point of solving Downs-only: to throw some difficulty into the mix. But when the puzzle offers absolutely no difficulty whatsoever, you actually save time by not bothering with Acrosses. I am all for easy Mondays, but this was ridiculous. The theme idea seems cute, if ... well, redundant, and a bit boring. Lots of word repetition—I mean, that's kind of the point of the theme, but still, lots of "IS" and then a double helping of "WHAT" as well. Three of the themers are perfect equations, with exactly the same thing on either side of the IS, but then the two "WHAT" answers change all that. Still, there's enough thematic consistency, I think— the "redundantly" clue gimmick pulls it all together nicely. 

But I'm still stuck on how absurdly easy it all was. The Newsday Monday puzzle used to be the paradigm of easiness—it's the first puzzle I ever tried to solve Downs-only. Well, this gave me less trouble than even the most pushovery Newsday puzzle. This pretty much means that there's virtually nothing of interest outside the theme—nothing more than overfamiliar humdrum fill. It's a very bland grid. Unsurprisingly, the most interesting non-theme answer in the whole thing is the one Down I *didn't* get at first glance: 37D: "They just want to see how we'll react" ("IT'S A TEST"). I thought "IT'S A TRAP" then "JOKE" then "IT'S NO BIG" (which is a thing I think we said in the '80s, omitting "Deal"). The point is, I didn't know for sure, so I left it. "IT'S A TEST" is kind of a contrived phrase, but today, that gets it points for originality.

I did have to sorta look at the way the Acrosses were shaping up before I wrote in BLOW at 53D: Erupt. I wanted SPEW. Well, no one ever really *wants* SPEW, but you know what I mean. But I could tell that the themer down there was going to be LOVE IS LOVE, so I mentally slotted the first "L" and got BLOW that way. What else? Not a lot going on. "BE IT SO" and BASS ALE are kinda creaky. I'm looking around the grid for stuff to like, and not seeing a lot. "SPAMALOT" and DRYING UP are a solid pair of long Downs, so that's something. There just doesn't seem to be that much to say about this one. IT IS WHAT IT IS, indeed. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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