Cornet lookalike / SUN 9-13-26 / Previously-unseen sporting result (term coined in 2014) / Distraction-limiting lifestyle trend / Co-Stooge of Larry / Large insect named from Greek myth / Another name for Vishnu, translating to "the remover" / Source of the word "tuk-tuk" used for a motorized rickshaw / Deandre ___, N.B.A. center who was picked first in the 2018 draft / Mabel Mora's portrayer on "Only Murders in the Building"

Constructor: Henry Lin-David and Frank S. David

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Thinking Inside the Box" — theme answers are actually clues to eight four-letter answers sitting inside a box at the middle of the puzzle, unconnected to the rest of the grid:

Theme answers:

• 24A: Certain group of orchestral winds (FLUTE SECTION) => 66A: [24-Across] (STEM)
• 37A: Mechanic's offering (CAR SERVICE) => 37A: [73-Across] (TAXI)
• 41A: Told as a story (RELATED) => 84A: [41-Across] (AKIN)
• 57A: Group project on a winter's day, perhaps (GIANT SNOWMAN) => 89A: [57-Across] (YETI)
• 109A: Qualm (RESERVATION) => 66D: [109-Across] (STAY) (not quite sure how "reservation" = "stay" ... like, at a hotel??)
• 115A: Suitable (APPROPRIATE) => 67D: [115-Across] (TAKE)
• 127A: "Good job!" ("WAY TO GO!") =>  68A: [127-Across] (EXIT)
• 138A: Descended with rappelling ropes (SCALED DOWN) => 69A: [138-Across] (MINI)

Word of the Day: Isle of EWE (53D: Isle of ___ (Scottish locale whose name sounds like an expression of endearment)) —

The Isle of Ewe (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Iùbh) is a small Scottish island on the west coast of Ross and Cromarty. The island is inhabited by a single extended family, the Grants, who have lived at the current settlement on the leeward NE side of the island since the 19th century.

The island is privately owned by GBB Estates Ltd and Crofted by the Grants. The island previously had more families, but these left during the Second World War, when Loch Ewe was used as an important naval anchorage. The isolated position of the island meant that the children had to endure a round trip each day of about 26 miles (42 kilometres) by boat and bus to attend school.

The island remains off grid for electricity and water with this being generated by renewables and back up generators. There remains a single phone cable to the mainland which services the current households and is the only physical connection to the mainland.

Residents and visitors to the island use the Pier at Aultbea daily to travel back and forth for work and supplies.

• • •

I am ready and willing to upgrade the star rating of this puzzle somewhat if anyone can give me an answer to the question, "Why?" That is, "What is the point? What makes the theme cohere? Why are those words in the center and not, I don't know, literally any other words?" I am baffled. Without any clear rationale to the words in the center box, I am left to wonder: why is this interesting? Why is it interesting to have extremely straightforward clues for theme answers that are themselves clues? Why am I enduring barely-a-thing answers like FLUTE SECTION and GIANT SNOWMAN (?!)? I completely understand how the puzzle works, mechanically, but what the point is, where the interest lies, where the hell all the fun is?—I cannot answer any of these questions. I see that the themers, i.e. the clues to the answers in central box, appear in order (i.e first themer is for first Across in the box, second themer for second Across, etc.), and that the themers change meaning when they become clues—that feels like an added layer of difficulty. Structurally impressive, yes, but in the service of what feels like a whole lot of nothing. The puzzle was very, very easy, so I don't know if it will elicit much in the way of negative reaction, but ... as I say, I'm at a loss. If anyone wanted, they could do another puzzle exactly like this, with different theme answers and a different 4x4 box at the center. Every week. For all the Sundays to come. I mean, it would probably take you some time to make it all work out, structurally, but you could do it. Because this puzzle has no actual theme beyond its structure (that I can see). STEM TAXI AKIN YETI? STAY TAKE EXIT MINI? Help me decipher these mystical runes? What am I missing? STAY and STEM are synonyms (meaning, roughly, "stop" or "staunch"). Is that ... something? If I am, in fact, missing something, I pre-apologize and will update the write-up accordingly. But from where I'm sitting right now, this puzzle looks like it's desperately shouting "NOTICE ME!," but has nothing (besides its unusual structure) to show.

The puzzle does have some interesting symmetry. Something about the black square placement in the puzzle was making me mildly queasy, and I briefly thought it lacked any kind of symmetry, but then I noticed that it actually has mirror symmetry along the SW-to-NE diagonal. Don't see that very often.

MONK MODE? Ugh, what are we doing here? "Lifestyle trend"? I cannot sigh hard enough. The very phrase makes me tired. This is insulting to monks. Is this where you go on some kind of no-media diet or retreat? Can you see me rolling my eyes or hear me booing you. "Monk"? Yeesh, please stop. Also, SCORIGAMI, LOL, what? "Coined in 2014"? Why is that information salient? Why are you making me look this up? If this doesn't involve folding up a scorecard to make a crane, I'm going to be very disappointed ... 

In sports, a scorigami (a portmanteau of score and origami) is a final score that has never happened before in a sport or league's history. The term was coined in a 2014 article by sportswriter Jon Bois for American football scores in the National Football League (NFL), and is primarily used in this context; it has also been applied sparingly across other sports leagues. (wikipedia)

OK, but ... why is the pun on "origami????" Origami ... has happened before. I did not know these "first ever game scores" had a name, and now I wish I still didn't know. I have no idea what an ATLAS MOTH is, either, but at least that sounds real. The only moth species I know is the IO MOTH. I think. I don't spend much time lepidopterizing, I'll confess.

I had trouble almost nowhere. The center was the part that probably took me the longest, and then only because it came last, and I had nothing to build off of. But in the end, TAKE crossing AKIN got me going and the rest was easy. In the main part of the grid, I didn't know MONK MODE or SCORIGAMI, but got them both fairly quickly from crosses. I had STREUDEL instead of STREUSEL for a while (106D: Topping for an apple crisp), which meant I was in the dark for a bit about SCALED DOWN. I think the diciest moment of the solve had to be that AYTON (??) / STOMP cross, especially since STOMP could quite easily be STAMP (141A: Step forcefully). AYTON seemed more ... name-y, I guess, than AYTAN, so that's the vowel I chose (119D: Deandre ___, N.B.A. center who was picked first in the 2018 draft). Has Deandre AYTON done anything noteworthy in the past eight years? Also, why has DEANDRE never been in the grid? That's a name built for crosswords! AYTON seems like a solid pro, but there's nothing on his resumé (besides the first overall pick thing) that makes him particularly gridworthy. No championships, no All-Star appearances. Still, he's 7'1", that's remarkable. So is the fact that from 2022 through 2025 he made over $30 million/year (4 years, $133M). I sorta like his name. Like a beheaded PAYTON or DAYTON.  I don't love the AYTON / STOMP cross, but I do think AYTON should develop a little scoring dance called the AYTON STOMP. Like the Ickey Shuffle, only ... stompier.

[61A: ___ Simmons, founding member of Kiss]

Bullets:

• 53D: Isle of ___ (Scottish locale whose name sounds like an expression of endearment)(EWE) — "Isle of EWE" => "I Love You"

• 86A: Another name for Vishnu, translating to "the remover" (HARI) — it's surprising how easy this puzzle was given that this is, what, the fourth answer, at least, that I've never heard of—one that, like AYTON and SCORIGAMI, I couldn't even begin to infer. The only HARI I know is Mata. (In case you were thinking of the phrase "Hare Krishna," as you can see, the spelling is different) 
• 117A: Source of the word "tuk-tuk" used for a motorized rickshaw (THAI) — wanted URDU here. This was in the AYTON STOMP corner, adding to the difficulty of said corner.
• 134A: Co-Stooge of Larry (MOE) — OK, I like "Co-Stooge," thumbs up for that "word."
• 6D: Scampered away (SKEDADDLED) — easily my favorite answer in the grid. It's got a bounciness that most of the rest of this grid is lacking.
• 3D: Cornet lookalike (FLUGELHORN) — like SKEDADDLED, this one's just fun today. (Because of kerning issues, I keep reading this clue on my puzzle print-out as [Comet lookalike])
• 25D: Mabel Mora's portrayer on "Only Murders in the Building" (SELENA GOMEZ) — SELENA GOMEZ was in a clue for MABEL at the end of last month, and now here we are in a reverse situation. Nice full-name appearance for Ms. Gomez, whose name I misspelled as "GOMES" for some reason, my apologies to her and her cosmetics empire.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. a reminder—on Thursday, September 17, at 7pm in Jersey City, NJ (just across the Hudson from Manhattan), I'm doing a little fundraising event for the world's greatest radio station, WFMU, hosted by DJ (and avid crossword solver) Evan "Funk" Davies. It's the WFMU Crossword Meet-Up! Longtime NYTXW constructor Gary Cee will also be there. We'll be sharing our WFMU-themed crosswords and talking about crosswords and generally just hanging out and having a nerdy good time, so if you're in the New York metropolitan area and have the time and inclination, please come out and say hi. More information here.

  

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Classic Sichuan dish made with bean curd / TUE 12-3-24 / Hammer's home / Chess rating system / Fictional burrito on "Parks and Recreation" that "literally killed a guy last year" / ___ Suárez, former prime minister who lends his name to Spain's largest airport / Amount of time for Kate Hudson to "Lose a Guy," in a 2003 film / Place to store cocktail-making equipment / Venetian magistrate of old

Constructor: Henry Lin-David

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (*for a Tuesday*)

THEME: EMPTY CALORIES (34A: What many junk foods contain ... with a hint to the initials of 17-, 25-, 48- and 56-Across) — two-word foods that have the initials "M.T." (say the initials out loud, they sound like "empty"):

Theme answers:

• MOOSE TRACKS (17A: Vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and fudge)
• MAPO TOFU (25A: Classic Sichuan dish made with bean curd)
• MINI-TWIX (48A: Bite-size Mars candy, familiarly)
• MEAT TORNADO (56A: Fictional burrito on "Parks and Recreation" that "literally killed a guy last year")

Word of the Day: MAPO TOFU (25A) —

Mapo tofu (Chinese: 麻婆豆腐; pinyin: mápó dòufu) is a popular Chinese dish from Sichuan province. It consists of tofu set in a spicy sauce, typically a thin, oily, and bright red suspension, based on douban (fermented broad bean and chili paste), and douchi (fermented black beans), along with minced meat, traditionally beef.^[2] Variations exist with other ingredients such as water chestnuts, onions, other vegetables, or wood ear fungus. One account indicates that the dish existed as early as 1254, in a suburb of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan. Other accounts indicate it originated at a Chengdu restaurant in the 1860s. (wikipedia)

• • •

Quick write-up today, as I have to get ready not only to teach (normal) but to leave town for a few days—going straight from work to the airport. So I gotta double- and triple-check that I've done everything I need to do before I leave. First thing I need to do before I leave: write about this puzzle. So, look, it's weird as hell, and I can't help but have some admiration for a puzzle that just ... gets freaky with it. The concept itself isn't freaky (just turning "empty" into a pun and then coming up with answers to fit the pun), but the execution of that concept, dear lord. I would call only one of those four theme answers "food." True, the puzzle is not claiming the answers are "food," just that they have CALORIES, which I guess is indisputable, but still, all the answers except MAPO TOFU (the best thing in the grid today) feel like a stretch. A ssssttttrrrreeeettttcccchhh. I'm familiar with the ice cream flavor MOOSE TRACKS (why you'd call attention to the resemblance between your product and moose droppings, I never understood). I will take your word for it that there's such a thing as MINI-TWIX (there's probably "mini-" every candy), and MEAT TORNADO ... now this, this is an answer you write down as a joke when you're first conceiving your theme. Possibly while drunk. It makes you and your friends laugh, maybe, but you know it isn't really valid for a mainstream puzzle. I watched this show when it first aired—not sure I made it all the way through, but I got close—and I have no memory of the MEAT TORNADO. 

Now MEAT TORNADO wasn't hard to get (crosses are fair), and it's inherently funny, even if you have never seen Parks & Rec, but the theme feels way over its skis here. Now again, as I say, "over its skis" is at least interesting, and I'll take interesting over boring any day. Certainly this is way more interesting than yesterday's ho-hummer. It's like watching that spectacular ski-jump crash at the beginning of the old Wide World of Sports broadcasts—it hurts to watch, but it's also fascinating in its chaos. Still, only one of the four themers is an actual ordinary food (the tofu), only two are things I even recognize (the tofu, the ice cream), and only two actually feature what you'd call EMPTY CALORIES (the ice cream, the candy), so ... uneven, that's what I'd call this theme. CHOPPY, maybe. Messy. Staring at the finished grid feels like I'm looking at the aftermath of a food fight. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.

Thing don't get less chaotic in the fill, that's for sure. And here, I'm more comfortable saying things don't exactly work. I gave up hope very early on, in the upper middle of the grid, which is the toxic core from which all bad things radiate today. ANONO maybe the worst thing I've ever seen in a grid. Any grid, anywhere. It's ... a partial ... of a thing no one says? Eleven years since it showed up in a grid (third appearance overall in the Shortz/Fagliano era). Every clue for "A NO-NO" begins with that same partial quote ("That's ___"), though the parenthetical that follows is slightly different every time ("'Don't!,'" "'Don't do it!,'" "forbidden," "not allowed"). Back in '04 the parenthetical was "(cautionary Roy Orbison song)," which at least locates the phrase "That's A NO-NO" in ... something. Some actual usage. But man is that rough fill. The kind you would (and should) absolutely tear down your grid in order to avoid. And the surrounding fill doesn't help. It crosses yet another partial (ON A), and then the dubious INK UP, which is OK on its own, I guess, but by the time I got there, there was already an "UP" answer in the grid ... and I hadn't come very far. I just started the puzzle, and already, two "UP"s (SET-UP, INK UP). It's possible this minor doubling would've become a distant memory. But then. Then. Another "UP" (PONY UP). And then, as if to show me that it knew what it was doing and didn't care, the puzzle gave me a fourth (?) "UP" (DIAL-UP). Does seeming self-awareness negate the awfulness of a triple repeat? Not for me, it doesn't. 

TEN DAYS is a ridiculous answer (18D: Amount of time for Kate Hudson to "Lose a Guy," in a 2003 film). An arbitrary amount of time. It's like this puzzle couldn't exist at all without very narrow pop cultural references propping it up. And how big is your house that you have not just a TOOL BOX / KIT / SET but an entire TOOL ROOM (!?) (3D: Hammer's home). Our house didn't come with one of those. I actually tried TOOL BELT there. TOOL SHED is way more recognizable to me as a phrase than TOOL ROOM. Also, no idea who this ADOLFO prime minister / airport guy is (12D: ___ Suárez, former prime minister who lends his name to Spain's largest airport). Doesn't seem like early-week material. I just inferred his name from crosses. So the upper half of this grid was kind of a wreck (not to be confused with WREAK, which I definitely confuse with "wreck" all the time). And yet the grid does have some highlights. MIRAMAX sitting dead center is kind of snazzy (25D: "Pulp Fiction" studio). A BARCART is always welcome in my grid (or home, or general vicinity) (53A: Place to store cocktail-making equipment). I like the phrase PONY UP, and it's hard (for me) not to love an ELEPHANT. So basically it's "fascinating mess" as far as the eye can see today. I ... did not hate it.

Bullets:

• 32D: Actor who plays Lieutenant Sulu in the rebooted "Star Trek" films (JOHN CHO) — the portrayer of Sulu is JOHN CHO; the director of Wicked is Jon Chu. This has been your Pop Culture Name lesson for today. (The director is typically credited JON M CHU, if that helps)
• 26A: What the "Mona Lisa" is painted on (WOOD) — sincerely did not know this. 
• 37D: Animal that is unable to fly with its ears, regrettably (ELEPHANT) — not a fan of this cutesy cluing. I do not regret that elephants can't fly. I think this is probably a net plus. If you've seen Wicked, you know what happens when monkeys develop the ability to fly. And they don't even weigh that much.
• 2D: Chess rating system (ELO) — if I made a puzzle with ELO in it, I would demand that the editors could not change the clue to [Chess rating system]. Why go with an awful, culturally narrow, actively unentertaining option on your ELO clue when you have the entire amazing ELO discography at your service. Imagine going [Chess rating system] when you could be serving solvers "Mr. Blue Sky" or "Xanadu" or "Do Ya" etc. etc. etc. Inconceivable.

["Accroche-toi à ton rêve!"]

A reminder: it's Holiday Season! This means two things for this blog. First, starting this weekend (Sunday, Dec. 8) and for at least one Sunday after that, I'll have a Holiday Gift Guide, featuring crossword and other puzzle-related gifts you can get for the puzzle-lover in your life (or for yourself, why not?). So if you have something puzzle-related to sell, or you have a puzzle-related gift suggestion, please pass that along to me. Second, also starting Sunday, Dec. 8, and then continuing for as long as I've got material, I'll be posting Holiday Pet Pics—send me pictures of your non-human loved ones in festive settings (dressed in a Santa hat, playing with a dreidel chew toy, whatever) (crossword content optional), and I'll post a few at the end of my write-up every day throughout the Holiday Season. For both gift suggestions and Holiday Pet Pics, you can reach me at rexparker at icloud dot com. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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