City at the center of "Moonraker," informally / WED 8-6-25 / Proterozoic, for one / Original Monopoly token discontinued in 2013

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy (6:12 solving on my phone) (this was a small grid, btw, only 14 rows)

THEME: IT'S NOT THAT DEEP — "You're overthinking this" ... or what might be said about 3-, 9-, 17- and 34-Down?

Theme answers:

• [Item that has to be blown up before being filled with water] for INFLATABLE POOL
• [Minor office injury] for PAPER CUT
• [Quick throw in football] for SCREEN PASS
• [Rejuvenating break] for POWER NAP

Word of the Day: DIP ("When I ___, you ___, we ___" (lyric from a Freak Nasty hit)) —

"Da' Dip" is a song written and recorded by American hip hop artist Freak Nasty. It was released in 1996 as the lead single from his second album, Controversee...That's Life...And That's the Way It Is. To date, "Da' Dip" is Freak Nasty's only top forty hit.

Upon its initial release in mid-1996, "Da' Dip" failed to make an impact on the Billboard charts, charting low on both the R&B and rap charts. The song, however, managed to break through into the mainstream the following year, reaching number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Da' Dip" was then certified gold by the RIAA on April 10, 1997 before reaching platinum certification on June 3 of that year for shipments exceeding one million copies; the single sold one million units in 1997 alone. In 2024, the song gained popularity on TikTok with users recreating the dance from its music video.

• • •

Good morning everyone! (Although it's night when I'm writing this.) Rex is still on vacation, but this is a regularly scheduled Malaika MWednesday. A very delightful puzzle, I thought! 

When I first opened it, the layout threw me off a bit. It has the look of a themeless puzzle, like one of the Kameron Austin Collins grids that takes me over an hour to solve. But the center is chopped up into small words, rather than left wide open. I got thrown off again when I hit 2-Down (which was very early on, I was bopping around rather than going in order). I saw [Six-stringed instrument similar to a cello] and immediately thought "viola!" and when that didn't fit, I prepped myself for a rebus.

This is a VIOL, apparently

But as I made my way through the grid, everything else was fitting nicely, and I soon saw that this was just a standard themed puzzle with a bit of a funky layout and vertical theme answers. My guess is that they are laid out vertically because the word "deep" is associated with up-and-down orientation. I loved the revealer! I use that phrase all the time, it's not just in-the-language, it's in-my-language. And it does perfectly apply to each of the four theme answers. (Actually, I'm not really sure what a SCREEN PASS is so I can't comment there. But I trust it.)

There was some fill that caught me-- I stared at ESAI for a long time, trying to decide if I had an error there. And two-word phrases like DABS AT, OIL UP, and LET DIE can feel a little clunky. (Not LOOK UP though, that sounded very normal to me.) I had never heard of EROICA before (my brain immediately clocked that it's one letter off from "erotica" lol), so that corner was the final one for me to finish.

After looking up ESAI Morales, I realized I know him from a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode that I just watched. (I've been rewatching the show, it's a comedy masterpiece.)

When I'm helping new constructors, I try to steer them away from what we sometimes call List Puzzles, where the theme answers are all just stuff that's in the same category. But List Puzzles work (and, in my opinion, stop being List Puzzles) when the revealer has an element of wordplay to it. This was a perfect example!

Bullets:

• [Bit of gear for an entomologist] for NET — An entomologist studies insects, so I guess the idea is they are capturing specimens using a net
• [Winners of Super Bowl III (and no other Super Bowls since then)] for JETS — This was such a rude clue lmao, love it. Last night I watched the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode about a very depressed Jets fan.
• [Peter Pan transport] for BUS — I had to look this up-- it's the name of a company. I have only ever ridden MegaBus and Greyhound.
• [Animal on a "Hang in there!" inspirational poster] for CAT — This is kind of odd, now that I think about it. You'd think it would be like.... a sloth.

xoxo Malaika

Congrats, you've made it to the end, and now I will talk about Summer Tomatoes!! Please skip this part if you only care about puzzles. I am not growing any tomatoes this year, but I had a good trip to the farmer's market and this is what I made:

I make this savory, jammy, tomato tart probably five times every summer, it is unreal delicious. The crust and the filling are from two different recipe developers, but I combined the recipes and wrote them up here.

A little Snack Plate of peaches and two varieties of tomatoes topped with toasted pine nuts, aged balsamic, basil-infused olive oil, and flaky salt

I made my standard focaccia recipe, but subbed about 20% of the water for tomatoes that I pureed and strained. The color is far pink-er than what you can see in this pic, and while it smelled fabulously tomato-ey as it baked, the flavor didn't come through as much as I had hoped

I served the focaccia with a pretty standard gazpacho that I eyeballed... tomatoes, cucumbers, shallot, garlic, bread, olive oil, vinegar, salt&pep. Apparently garlic is a controversial ingredient(?) but bro it tastes sooo good.

Panzanella with sungolds, peaches, mozzarella, and shallots. I used my focaccia (toasted) for the bread, and I used the basil-infused oil in the vinaigrette :)

xoxo Malaika

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Printer resolution spec / THU 4-3-25 / "First Blood" tough guy / Big attraction at MoMA / Words on a U-Haul storage container / Lead-in to many a side thought / Fifth-century invader of Europe / 1980s arcade game with a cube-jumping character / Soft drink rival of Mug / Hounds with fine, silky hair / Market checkout option, for short / Country ruled by the al-Khalifa royal family since 1783 / Agent Smith's foe in "The Matrix"

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy (might take a little longer to enter all the special squares, but it's still easy to solve)

THEME: STAR-CROSSED (62A: Ill-fated ... or a hint to six squares in this puzzle) — a rebus puzzle where you have to enter a "star" in six squares—the "star" functions as a symbol in the Downs (specifically, an asterisk), and as letters "STAR" in the Acrosses:

Theme answers (ACROSS):

• CO-[STAR] (9A: One sharing the credits?)
• THE [STAR]RY NIGHT (17A: Big attraction at MoMA)
• RE[ST AR]EA (28A: Stop at the side of the road)
• NON-[STAR]TER (36A: Idea that's dead on arrival)
• CU[STAR]D (47A: Egg tart filling)
• LO[ST AR]TS (48A: Using cursive and writing thank you notes, e.g.)

Theme answers (DOWN):

• *NSYNC (11D: Band with the 2000 11x platinum album "No Strings Attached")
• Q*BERT (13D: 1980s arcade game with a cube-jumping character)
• M*A*S*H (25D: Show with the most-watched episode in scripted TV history)
• E*TRADE (40D: Online investment firm founded in 1991)

Word of the Day: DPI (23D: Printer resolution spec) —

Dots per inch (DPI, or dpi) is a measure of spatial printing, video or image scanner dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch (2.54 cm). Similarly, dots per millimetre (d/mm or dpmm) refers to the number of individual dots that can be placed within a line of 1 millimetre (0.039 in). (wikipedia)

• • •

I feel like I just solved a puzzle (in the past week?) where I was supposed to count an asterisk as a "star" ... oh yeah, Sunday, look at that. The * is having a good week, I guess. As for this puzzle, the M*A*S*H bit is kind of spectacular. Like, "oh, do you like theme!? Here ... have some!" It's got the marquee position, too, because it knows it's the best thing about the puzzle—maybe the puzzle's entire reason for being (look, I know what "raison d'être" means, I just can't bring myself to use it). The doubleness of the theme is also provocative, with the puzzle squeezing two different meanings out of one little "*": it's a visual component of the puzzle in the Downs, but a stand-in for letters ("STAR") in the Across. STAR ... CROSSED. Yes, that works. Still, though, the puzzle is pretty one-note, and (once you discover the gimmick) neither particularly challenging nor particularly exciting. And the fill, yeesh. The short fill in particular is a bit musty today. I'd barely started and already had EBT and SRO in place, which definitely set off the "uh oh" alarm, and before I'd even really left the top-left portion of the grid, BAHT, AVI, and two-M UMM and DPI had joined the gunky get-together. DPI was the answer that seemed most grievous. It's a real spec, but while solving, in real time, I could not remember what the letters stood for ... scratch that, I couldn't remember what the first letter stood for, which meant I was not 100% certain I had it right, and since DAZE could easily have been HAZE, given its clue (23A: Foggy state), I had to make a "D" v. "H" call there. Thankfully, "H" seemed extremely wrong, and "D" rang a bell, so I wasn't too too worried, but boo to ugly initialisms, that's for sure. They can get you into trouble. Anyway, EFT PAREN "ADIA" etc., the fill on this one verged on actively bad at points, without much (beyond the themers) to counteract it.

If you went to arcades (or in my case, local pizza parlors, or Chuck E. Cheese, or 7-11, or ...) in the '80s, or you had a home video game system (in our case, Intellivision), then there's a good chance you got the theme concept very early, because Q*BERT was a Thing for a few years there. Not really my thing (my thing being 1. Donkey Kong, 2. Frogger), but you got to know the adjacent games, wherever and whatever you were playing. The thing about Q*BERT is that it has only five letters, but today's answer was six, so .... "they're doing an asterisk bit, probably." In fact. And I've seen THE [STAR]RY NIGHT, just in the past couple of years, I think (maybe during that Van Gogh "Cypresses" exhibit at the Met?), so bam bam, theme sorted. Of course at that point, I didn't know if maybe I'd be dealing with other typographical symbols, but I ran into M*A*S*H real fast, and so knew that it was all stars from there on out.

The one big revelation of the day was that *NSYNC starts with an asterisk! I definitely would've placed that thing between the "N" and the "S"—in fact, I did place that thing between the "N" and the "S," which caused the only real struggle I experienced in the entire puzzle. I was desperately trying to think what [Fifth-century invader of Europe] could end in "-STAR." Never heard of a HASTAR ... are they related to the Visigoths? I wanted HUN, of course, but the "*" was in the way. But once I got the "H" from CHEER ON, I entertained the idea that maybe I had the "*" in the wrong place, wrote in HUN and whoosh, the whole corner fell into place. Smooth sailing the rest of the way. 

[58D: Great ___]

Assorted notes:

• 26A: Lead-in to many a side thought (PAREN) — triply had for me. First, it was in the NE corner, which, as we've established, I was already struggling with because of the erroneous N*SYNC. Second, "Lead-in" made me think it was going to be a spoken phrase, like "by the way" or "fun fact" or something. And third, PAREN? Who says / writes that? It's like a typo for "PARENT" or "KAREN"
• 47A: Egg tart filling (CU[STAR]D) — fun fact: CURD and CU[*]D are both things one might find in a tart, and both are four letters long—sharing three letters! No CURDs in an egg tart, though, so it shouldn't have been as confusing to me as it was—only briefly confusing, though, as E*TRADE came to the rescue very quickly.
• 70A: #23 of 24 (PSI) — the 23rd of 24 letters of the Greek alphabet, the order of which I will someday commit to memory. Someday. Gotta have goals.
• 6D and 49D: Certain "Top Gun" jet(s) (MIGS / TOMCAT) — MIGS was a cinch. I was less sure about TOMCAT (esp. as TOMCruise was the star of that movie, and that just seemed a little too on-the-nose). I saw Top Gun on the first (double) date I ever went on. It's possible she did not consider it a date, but I was sitting next to a girl I liked, so ... date! Anyway, R.I.P. Val Kilmer.

And, since it was filmed at my alma mater, one more:

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Make two dos, say? / TUE 3-4-25 / Green-and-white sidekick of video games / Start of many souvenir slogans / Feature of a cockatoo / Fast-food pork sandwich with its own locator website

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium 

THEME: "I'M SHOOK" (65A: "This news has got me rattled!" ... or a hint to 1-, 20-, 37- and 54-Across) — things you shake:

Theme answers:

• POMPOMS (1A: Cheerleaders' accessories)
• SPRAY PAINT (20A: Graffiti artist's supply)
• POLAROID PICTURE (37A: It develops in front of your eyes)
• TAMBOURINE (54A: Hand-held instrument that jingles)

Word of the Day: GNR (14D: "Welcome to the Jungle" band, in brief) —

Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1985, as the result of a merger between local bands L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. When they signed to Geffen Records in 1986, the band's "classic" line-up consisted of vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Steven Adler. The current line-up consists of Rose, Slash, McKagan, guitarist Richard Fortus, drummer Frank Ferrer, and keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Melissa Reese.

Guns N' Roses heavily toured the West Coast club circuit during their early years. Their debut album Appetite for Destruction (1987), supported by the eponymous tour, failed to gain traction, debuting at number 182 on the Billboard 200, until a year after its release when a grassroots campaign for the "Welcome to the Jungle" music video brought the band mainstream popularity. "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City" both became top 10 singles, with "Sweet Child o' Mine" becoming the band's only single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album has sold approximately 30 million copies worldwide, including 18 million units in the United States, making it the country's best-selling debut album and eleventh-best-selling album. With their stylistic mix of punk rock, blues rock and heavy metal, the band helped move mainstream rock away from the glam metal era of the mid-late 1980s. In addition, they are credited with revitalizing power ballads in rock.

• • •

This one was definitely saved by the revealer. Before that, all I really noticed was distracting little details, like two long "-ING" words on top of each other (I’M COMING, CARESSING) and, more jarringly, two crossing "OH" phrases (literally crossing at the "OH") ("OH, YOU!" / "OH, HI!"). The grid seemed built weird (why the longer answers in the NW?), such that I thought there were just three themers (the paint, the picture, the TAMBOURINE). This is all to say that there was nothing very pleasant going on until I hit the SE corner. The puzzle seemed fine, but definitely BLAH, with some awkwardnesses. But then I got "I'M SHOOK," which managed to be both the freshest answer in the grid and the thing that made all the seemingly unrelated longer answers seem, well, related. The revealer revealed. It did its job. Nicely. And just like that, my feelings went from Neutral-Negative to Neutral-Positive. Where the positive vibes were concerned, the puzzle had an assist in that SE corner from TRANSLATE—well, not from TRANSLATE itself, which is just OK as an answer, but from the clue on TRANSLATE, which was lovely (and which got me ... in the since that I had to think about it for a bit) (60A: Make two dos, say?). I could see it was going to be TRANSLATE but couldn't figure out why. If you make two "dos" then ... you just have one "do" ,.. and then another "do" ... how is that translation!? Imagine a several-second pause at this point where you can hear the hamster wheel in my brain turning and rattling. And then it drops: "two" is English, but if you TRANSLATE "two" to Spanish, it's "dos." So when you "make two dos," you TRANSLATE. Nice. You've also got EGOMANIA PHENOM and UNAGI down in that corner, so like I say, it's not just the revealer that's doing god's work in that corner. Lots of lively fill there. Above average Tuesday!

The grid *is* weirdly built, though. When the theme answers run Across (i.e. most of the time), you don't usually see long Across answers that *aren't* themers. It creates a kind of visual confusion. And here we've got not two but four Across answers  of 8+-letter length (that is, standard themer length) that have nothing to do with the theme—that are, in fact, longer than two of the themers themselves (POMPOMS and the revealer). Usually, with Across-answer themes (i.e. most themes), you get your longer non-theme answers in the Downs. Today, no long Downs at all. Nothing over six letters. All this architectural weirdness must've snowballed from the placement of POMPOMS. If you put it at 1-Across (to match "I'M SHOOK!" at the bottom right), then it has to sit on two answers of at least seven letters in length. For every answer you put on the edge of the grid, there have to be at least two more adjacent answers of equal length moving inward, because any black squares in there would create one- or two-letter answers in the crosses, and those are not allowed. So I’M COMING CARESSING TRANSLATE EGOMANIA end up running with the flow of themers rather than perpendicular to that flow (as would be typical for longer answers in a conventional themed puzzle). If the puzzle seemed a little odd, structurally, well, now you know why (if you didn't already).

Three slightly stumpery parts for me today. One, I already covered (TRANSLATE!). The first such answer was the first Down I looked at: 1D: Draft selections (PICKS). I had the "P" from POMPOMS and could not think of a beer that fit. You see where I went wrong there. "PILS...S"? I now realize I dodged a bullet there, as PINTS would've fit, and then who knows what mess I'd've gotten into. The other answer I struggled with was I HEART (39D: Start of many souvenir slogans). Just a godawful standalone answer. A partial t-shirt phrase? And you're representing a visual (💗) with a word? Even the phrase "souvenir slogans" made no sense to me. That answer was in the thick of the "OH" v. "OH" collision. Needless to say, not my favorite part of the puzzle.

Bullets:

• 31A: Feature of a cockatoo (CREST) — they're notoriously proud of their aristocratic heritage, so they always wear little jackets featuring their family CREST. Weird little birds.
• 50A: Syllables of hesitation (UHS) — who doesn't love a "syllable of hesitation!" [raises hand]. Always an opportunity to make a mistake. Mine, today: UMS.
• 3D: Fast-food pork sandwich with its own locator website (MCRIB) — no one loves a MCRIB more than the crossword. This is its 10th appearance. Though it appears with reasonable frequency now, it actually took 30 years (!) for the MCRIB to find its way into the grid. It debuted in 1981 (!?), but back then, the editor (Maleska) was not (at all) inclined to put brand names in the puzzle. It's not that there were none, probably, but there were few, and probably very few from the fast-food category. But even after Shortz comes to power, it takes the better part of two decades for MCRIB to show up (2011). Once it got into constructors' wordlists, though, it ... I wouldn't say "took off," but persisted, for sure. Bet you didn't expect a MCRIB lesson today, did you? You are welcome.
• 21D: Green-and-white sidekick of video games (YOSHI) —

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Dystopian horror film of 2013, with "The" / WED 10-16-24 / First British P.M. appointed by Queen Elizabeth II / Three tickets / Founder of the Pacific Fur Company, 1810 / Object of finger-pointing on "Fantasy Island" / U.S. immigration policy, familiarly / Onetime Houston athlete whose helmet featured a derrick

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: BEGINNER SPANISH (39A: Introductory foreign language class suggested by this puzzle's theme) — what look like regular two-word clues are really two separate clues; the first word of the clue (i.e. the "BEGINNER") must be answered in SPANISH, the second in English, and together they form an unrelated compound English word:

Theme answers:

• TRESPASSES (17A: Three tickets) (Spanish word meaning "three" (tres) + English word meaning "tickets" (passes))
• CONTENDER (26A: With money) (con + tender)
• MASSACRED (51A: More revered) (mas + sacred)
• LOCOMOTIVE (60A: Crazy reason) (loco + motive)

Word of the Day: DACA (10A: U.S. immigration policy, familiarly) —

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a United States immigration policy. It allows some individuals who, on June 15, 2012, were physically present in the United States with no lawful immigration status after having entered the country as children at least five years earlier, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for an employment authorization document (work permit).

On November 9, 2023, an appeal was brought before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to determine whether a September 2023 federal district court order that would terminate the codified form of DACA, based on its being a violation of federal law, will be upheld and implemented. Oral argument in the case was heard on October 10, 2024. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a great theme. Consistent, tight, clever. I balked, though, at the phrasing on the revealer. My ear / brain / heart wants BEGINNERS or BEGINNER'S or BEGINNERS' ... it wants the "S." It's weird how much the lack of this single letter bugs me ... I'm not mad at the puzzle; I can see that the "S"-less version exists online in many places. But my brain just keeps rejecting it, adding the "S," the way so many books and other resources do. Actually, it's a bit of a free-for-all out there, spellingwise. I can find all four versions (the puzzle's + the 3 "S" versions) without looking very hard at all, but the apostrophe-S or the S-apostrophe appear to be the most common. But then only BEGINNER SPANISH is 15, which is the width of a conventional American crossword puzzle grid, so here we are. I'm seeing some BEGINNING SPANISH out there too. What a world—five different forms of "begin" seem to be at least reasonably acceptable. But only one fit. My main point here is that I would have loved for the revealer to be tighter, indisputable, more on-the-nose. Conceptually, it works fine. It just clanks in my ear hole, despite its apparent validity. 

A heavy dose of pop culture and a few tricky clues put this one in fairly normal Wednesday difficulty territory. You've got the ROSS / JOEY conundrum right out of the gate (1A: Friend on "Friends") (recalling the MONICA / PHOEBE / RACHEL conundrum of a little while back ... which also appeared right out of the gate, in the NW corner, if I remember correctly). You've got the ordinary English word JET clued as a martial arts movie star, just as you've got the ordinary English word PURGE clued as a dystopian horror film of 2013 (15A: Dystopian horror film of 2013, with "The"), and the ordinary word EDEN clued as a bygone prime minister (43A: First British P.M. appointed by Queen Elizabeth II). Namification!—it means gimmes for some and bafflement for others. I know Dolly PARTON, obviously, everyone does, but that album title did nothing for me (18D: Singer with the 2008 album "Backwoods Barbie"), so I needed like half the crosses before I went "d'oh! it's just Dolly." The clue on SHADY was hard because of crisis-level ambiguity (38D: Suspect). Between the verb and the noun and the adjective meaning of "Suspect," that clue could've been annnything. So I got slowed down there. See also the clue on SHOPS, which sounds backwards (53D: Looks to sell). After all, if you "shop," you are (presumably) looking to buy. But here you have to see SHOPS as something an agent does for your book or screenplay or record—shop it around to potentially interested buyers (publishers, producers, record labels). 

I initially misspelled LOCAMOTIVE (thusly) and so had some trouble with DRONE (54D: It might go way over your head). I had -ANE and so wanted the answer to be PLANE. But the PLANE was already going over Tattoo's head on Fantasy Island (67A: Object of finger-pointing on "Fantasy Island"), so I bypassed PLANE and went for CRANE (?) (works for either the bird or the construction equipment!) before finally realizing my spelling error. I had ANYHOW before ANYHOO because the clue didn't seem to contain a clear indication of slanginess (42D: "Alrighty, then. As I was saying..."), but I guess "Alrighty" is the slang, so ... that's fair. So there was some stuckness, some of it caused by the puzzle, some of it self-inflicted, but in the end—a fairly typical Wednesday workout.

[shouldn't the answer really be DE PLANE?]

Notes:

• 41D: "The Office" role (PAM) — another sitcom role? You already got JOEY, maybe move to a different field of interest besides "nostalgic binge-watching" (I say this as someone who has watched every episode of both shows)
• 10A: U.S. immigration policy familiarly (DACA) — I knew about the policy but never thought about what the letters stood for. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. "Daca" in Spanish means "give it here!" or "give it to me!"
• 33A: Onetime Houston athlete whose helmet featured a derrick (OILER) — Look, I'm no fan of the "In my day..." people, but in my day, Houston's team had way better uniforms and helmets. Love that powder blue...

["The NFL in the Year 2000" LOL, nice predictions, 1979!]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Novel parodied by Umberto Eco's "Granita" / THU 4-25-24 / City in the Pacific Northwest with a Russian-sounding name / Spider-Man adversary played by Jamie Foxx / Plant with lance-shaped leaves / Longtime judge on "Britain's Got Talent" and "America's Got Talent"/ Something checkered in New York's past? / Detroit ___, nickname for Malcolm X / Powerful card in the game President

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy (after you get the trick)

THEME: HOLY COW (61A: "Wow!" ... or a phonetic hint to this puzzle's theme) — the letter string "COW" appears three times inside longer answers; each time, the letters in "COW" are separated by circled squares which represent "HOLE"s—those squares are literal holes (i.e. empty space) in the "COW" answers (so that you get a bunch of "hole-y COWs"!), but actual letters ("H,O,L,E") in the Down crosses:

The "hole"-y COWs:

• SC O WL (14A: Dirty look)
• SIMON C O WELL (21A: Longtime judge on "Britain's Got Talent" and "America's Got Talent")
• MOSC O W, IDAHO (46A: City in the Pacific Northwest with a Russian-sounding name)

The "hole"-y crosses (!):

• CHOLER (3D: Ire)
• WHOLE NUMBERS (4D: 1, 2, 3, etc.)
• PEEP HOLES (7D: Low-tech security measures on some doors)
• CORNHOLE (9D: Popular backyard game)
• HOLES OUT (47D: Sinks the putt)
• WHOLESALE (44D: Not retail)

Word of the Day: MOSCOW, IDAHO (46A) —

Moscow (/ˈmɒskoʊ/ MOSS-koh) is a city and the county seat of Latah County, Idaho. Located in the North Central region of the state along the border with Washington, it had a population of 25,435 at the 2020 census. Moscow is the home of the University of Idaho, the state's land-grant institution and primary research university.

It is the principal city in the Moscow, Idaho Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Latah County. The city contains over 60% of the county's population, and while the university is Moscow's dominant employer, the city also serves as an agricultural and commercial hub for the Palouse region.

Along with the rest of the Idaho Panhandle, Moscow is in the Pacific Time Zone. The elevation of its city center is 2,579 feet (786 m) above sea level. Two major highways serve the city, passing through the city center: US-95 (north-south) and ID-8 (east-west). The Pullman–Moscow Regional Airport, four miles (6 km) west, provides limited commercial air service. The local newspaper is the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. (wikipedia)

• • •

Woo hoo! If it makes me happy, it can't be that bad, and this one made me smile like I haven't smiled (at a puzzle) in a while, from the first "aha" ("Those squares are HOLEs! ... OK, why?") through the interesting themers and relatively clean grid to the revealer and the final "aha" ("HOLE"-y COWs!? ... omg, so dumb, I Love It!"). The revealer Really did its thing for me today. It really really paid off not trying to think too hard about the theme as I was solving (beyond the "HOLE"-goes-in-circle part). "All will be revealed," I assumed, and boy was I right. And then, like some kind of bonus blessing from the crossword gods, I followed the revealer with a trio (!?) of "?" clues All Of Which Landed: 

• 42D: Like like like this clue clue clue ... (ECHOEY)
• 37D: Something checkered in New York's past? (TAXI) 
• 44A: Wicked stuff? (WAX) (think candles)

OK that first one doesn't actually have a "?" in it, but you see what I mean—it tries to get cute ... and absolutely pulls it off. It's hard enough for the puzzle to get one of those wacky "?"-type clues to land most days, so three!? Right on the heels of a perfect reveal!? My lucky day. If this isn't one of my April "Puzzles of the Month," well, that means we're going to have some amazing puzzles in the next week, because right now this is my favorite themed puzzle of the month by a pretty decent margin (with Kwong's "A STAR IS 'B' OR 'N'" puzzle from last Thursday a worthy runner-up).

The hardest part was getting started, which, as I've said many times, is typical, especially with a tricky gimmick to SUSS out. 1A: Snap was probably the hardest answer in the whole (!) puzzle for me. I had JIF. Then wanted SEC. Then put Las Vegas on Mountain Time (MST) and tried MIN. Strike three. But I wasn't out! At some point the P from PST (Las Vegas's actual time zone) got me PIC ("gah, a camera snap!"), but the circled squares were still a mystery. From THRONES I was able to get enough of the puzzle to see NUMBERS, which allowed me to infer the "HOLE" (for WHOLE NUMBERS), which (finally) allowed me to see CHOLER! That's some olde-timey ire right there! You rarely see CHOLER outside older literature and vocabulary tests (thanks, Mr. Berglund!). So, a little work to HOE out those "HOLE"s (in "SCOWL"), and then a tentative "HOLE"-ing out of the "HOLE"s in SIMON COWELL, and when those "HOLE"s worked, I knew the remaining circled squares would also be "HOLE"s and the grid opened right up. What had been a medium-tough puzzle all of a sudden became quite easy, and I got some of that Whoosh feeling I usually look forward to on Fridays, sailing through SADDLES and SIMON COWELL, and ELECTRO and LOLITA, to end up in MOSCOW, IDAHO, where I have been before—my mom grew up in St. Maries, ID (also in the Idaho Panhandle) and at least one of her two sisters (my aunts) (obviously) went to college in Moscow (at the U. of Idaho). My aunt Nancy lived for a time in Lewiston, ID, which is only 30 miles or so south of Moscow. This is all to say that seeing MOSCOW, IDAHO in the puzzle made me happy in a way it is unlikely to have made most of you happy. You don't see the Idaho panhandle in puzzles much—Coeur d'ALENE sometimes, maybe—so it was delightful to see it brought into the thematic spotlight here. Despite not having spent a lot of time there, it's a part of the world I feel close to and am very fond of. 

Were there trouble spots? After getting the first HOLEs, not a lot. I hit the laptop brand (28D: Laptop brand) with only the "L" in place and had this flash of "&$^%, how should I know?" but then not more than a second or two later my brain was like "easy, buddy, you know this, it's LENOVO." Me: "Wait, how do I know that? I've never seen a LENOVO laptop in my life." Brain: "Who knows what you know? It's a mess in here, frankly. Just keep going!" I did not know (or forgot) that Malcolm X was ever nicknamed Detroit RED, but the rest of that NE corner was so easy that it hardly mattered (13D: Detroit ___, nickname for Malcolm X). I didn't really know the Spider-Man adversary in question, but I could infer ELECTRO pretty well after the first few letters (I like it—it's got good ... energy) (24D: Spider-Man adversary played by Jamie Foxx). I've got Carmen MCRAE on WAX in my house, so no trouble there (45A: Jazz singer Carmen). Only DETOO and LESSEE made me scowl (!) today. Otherwise, this was close to an ideal Thursday experience. Could've been a little tougher, but it's hard to complain about the difficulty level with a puzzle that sticks the landing like this. I have wondered aloud "Where have the delightful puzzles gone!?" Well—found one. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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1995 Coolio song featured in the film "Dangerous Minds" / THU 7-13-23 / Scarlett's first love in Gone With the Wind / Effecting fundamental changes to perceptions / Group of computers commandeered by a cyberattack / Pataky of the Fast & Furious franchise / Mayberry boy of classic TV

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: PARA- to "Pair of" — words that start with "PARA-" are clued straight but represented in the grid as a visual pun, where the latter part of the word is literally a "pair of" ... something. Each "pair" appears as side-by-side rebus squares:

Theme answers:

• "GANGSTA'S DIE DIE" (i.e. "Gangsta's Paradise") (16A: 1995 Coolio song featured in the film "Dangerous Minds")
• LOGICAL DOC DOC (i.e. "logical paradox") (23A: "This statement is false," for one)
• BULL BULL OF JESUS (i.e. Parables of Jesus) (46A: "The Good Samaritan" and "The Prodigal Son," for example)
• SHIFTING DIME DIME (i.e. "shifting paradigms") (57A: Effecting fundamental changes to perceptions)

Word of the Day: NISEI (5D: American-born Japanese) —

Nisei (二世, "second generation") is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called Issei). The Nisei are considered the second generation, and the grandchildren of the Japanese-born immigrants are called Sansei, or third generation. (Ichi, ni, san are Japanese for "one, two, three"; seeJapanese numerals.) (wikipedia)

• • •

In college, my friend Malcolm and his friend John invented a drinking game called WITNEY. I don't remember how you played, but I remember it as elaborate, and I remember it involved dice. The main way I remember it involved dice was that Malcolm actually had WITNEY merchandise made, specifically, bumper stickers. The bumper stickers read: "WITNEY: When You Say It, Play It" (a play on "When You Play It, Say It" stickers that would appear on promotional copies of music to remind DJs to tell the audience what they were playing). Now, when Malcolm ordered the bumper stickers, he told the printer what it should say, and then said that following the slogan, there should be "two dice"— that is, a picture of a pair of dice. But what came back from the printers didn't have a picture of dice. Instead, the bumper stickers read, "WITNEY: When You Say It, Play It — TWO DICE!" With "TWO DICE!" written out like that. Ridiculous. Nonsensical. Perfect. I had one on my car for 16 years. Anyway, I smiled hard when I got the first themer today, both because I thought the concept was great, and because it reminded me of being young and stupid. 

The first two themers are stronger than the last two. Something about the phrase "Parables of Jesus" feels clunky—the OF JESUS part specifically. I know they're parables, I knew the word would be "parables," but the phrase "[Parables] OF JESUS" ... yes, it's a thing, but it just didn't seem as tight as the first two themers. The "of Jesus" part feels slightly redundant. Also, I went looking for the "parables" at the end of the phrase, since that's where the pairs appeared up top. After getting the [Parables] one, I thought for sure the last themer would have its pair at the beginning of the answer too, to make it all even out. But no. Back to the end of the answer, making the [Parables] answer that much clunkier. I also don't love SHIFTING [Paradigms] because the phrase—the phrase that everyone knows, the phrase that would look great in any grid—is "paradigm shift." That is a thing. "SHIFTING [Paradigms]" feels like a thing that was granted "thing" status only after much special pleading by lawyers. And yet even the drop in themer quality from top to bottom couldn't significantly diminish my enjoyment of this puzzle. The theme is bold and silly and inventive. Tricky, but not overly so. Good clean fun!

I got the concept very early because I knew the Coolio song. Dead to rights, without question. And it wouldn't fit (obviously). And so I started doubting that I knew the Coolio song. "How are they gonna get 'paradise' in there? Is "Eden" involved somehow? What the hell...?" And then the puzzle just handed me the answer by making one of the "DIE" crosses an absolute gimme: I've watched Groundhog Day more times than I can count, so ANDIE MacDowell is a very familiar name (and face) (6D: Actress MacDowell). So she gave me the "DIE"—and revealed the theme concept to me. I thought "they can't keep up this 'paradise' thing for a whole puzzle, can they? Where are they gonna go? DIE DIE LOST? DIE DIE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHTS?" But no, they went on to other pairs, probably for the best. 

Hardest part wasn't really hard, just kind of sloggy, and it had everything to do with that stupid "[Parables] of JESUS" answer (sorry, Jesus). Well, it connected to that, anyway. I had -US at the end of that word and couldn't do anything with it, and I also couldn't bring the cavalry down out of the middle to help out because I was stuck on 36A: Like Canadian provinces vis-à-vis U.S. states. I had the -WER part but ??? ... LOWER (in temperature)? RAWER (... in temperature)? Normally I had musical key clues, and I probably still do, but today EMAJ ended up being the key (...!) to my setting the center straight (37D: Key of Rossini's "William Tell" Overture: Abbr.). Once I got RNA, I knew the key had to be MAJ, which meant that "J" was solid, which meant JESUS came to me (hallelujah). Also, the second letter in -WER had to be "A" or "E" and as soon as I entertained "E," I considered NEWER (???) but finally alit on FEWER. What a bizarre clue for FEWER. Especially bizarre since it gave me way more trouble than the tricky theme element. 

FANFESTS was a bit hard because I just think of nerdy gatherings as just "cons" now (36D: New York Comic Con and Treklanta, for two). FANFESTS is kind of a generic term, but it's a term alright, and I like it ... just couldn't get hold of it for a bit (partly because it runs right through the Canadian province and Jesus trouble spots, see above). IS OFF, the answer that comments on itself! Nice. But yeah, not great. I wanted DESKS before BUSES (41A: School lineup). Didn't know ELSA but did know RAINN so it all balances out somehow. In the end, difficulty level normal, enjoyment level high. Really wish there had been a plausible way to work SAUL SAUL into the grid, but it's pretty good as is. That's all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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