Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Jasin Cekinmez

Constructor: Jasin Cekinmez

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: TEA BREAK (52A: Worker's timeout in Westminster ... or something tucked between this puzzle's shaded squares?) — shaded squares contain types of tea, and "tucked" into (or "break"ing up) those teas is the letter "T":

Theme answers:

FOOTLONG (17A: Sub category) (tea = OOLONG)
"WHAT'S THE MATTER?" (21A: "Something bothering you?") (tea = MATE)
BOBTAIL (34A: Cat breed with a distinct rear) (tea = BOBA)
THE LAST SAMURAI (44A: 2003 period film starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe) (tea = ASSAM)

Word of the Day: Mate (see 21A) —

Mate (/ˈmɑːteɪ/ MAH-tay; Spanish: mate [ˈmate], Portuguese: [ˈmatʃi]) is a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused herbal drink. It is also known as chimarrão in Portuguese, cimarrón in Spanish, and kaʼay in Guarani. It is made by soaking dried yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) leaves in hot water and is traditionally served with a metal straw (bombilla) in a container typically made from a calabash gourd (also called the mate), from water-resistant hardwoods such as Lapacho or Palo Santo, and also made from a cattle horn (guampa) in some areas. A very similar preparation, known as mate cocido, removes some of the plant material and sometimes comes in tea bags. Today, mate is sold commercially in tea bags and as bottled iced tea.
Mate has been originally consumed by the Guaraní and Tupi peoples native to Paraguay, north-east of Argentina and South of Brazil. After European colonization, it was spread across the Southern Cone countries, namely Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile, but it is also consumed in the South of Brazil and the Bolivian Chaco. Mate is the national beverage of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. In Chile, mate is predominantly consumed in the central and southern regions. Mate is also popular in Lebanon and Syria, where it was brought by immigrants from Argentina. (wikipedia)

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My feelings about this theme keep going up and down. At first, I didn't notice it. Didn't pay any attention to it. Didn't need it. Solved it almost completely as a themeless—that is, I made it all the way to the revealer without ever having noticed what the shaded squares were doing. You can ignore the theme and solve the puzzle completely, no problem, and that's what I did, to about the 2/3 mark. Then I got the revealer and thought "this is the U.S., we have coffee breaks, but OK, fine, I'll play along," and yet still didn't really look at themers beyond kinda noticing that those shaded squares appeared to have teas in them (when I'm mid-solve, I don't stop to look at the scenery if I don't have to). Finished the puzzle without a hitch, then looked and saw that the "tea" names were broken up by a single square and thought "Who Cares?" Non-consecutive shaded (or circled) squares have never been my thing, and merely "breaking" the tea names seemed like pretty weak tea, as themes go. Breaking up four- and five-letter names seemed particularly weak. Lots and lots of potential answers could contain MA [space] TE, for instance. And why these teas and not others (say, SENCHA CHAI BLACK GREEN ICED TEXAS etc.)? The themers set did not seem tight at all. It was only when I thoroughly read the revealer clue ("something tucked between") that I noticed that the teas didn't just break, they broke across the letter "T"—and at that point I thought "oh, thank god." There was a point to the break! A double meaning on "tea break" (you break apart the tea names, and the break itself is a "T")! My respect for the theme shot up. It then slumped back down a bit when I went through the answers, tea by tea, and realized that only two of them are really teas (OOLONG, ASSAM). BOBA is a "tea-based drink" with black, green, or OOLONG as the base, and MATE isn't tea at all (though it's prepared similarly, and marketed using the word "tea" at times). I guess the idea is that all today's shaded-square words can precede "tea" in common parlance. Good enough, I suppose. The "T"-square part of the gimmick really saved the day today. Theme, ultimately, approved.

The fill ... could use some work. It's heavy on names and quaintness and blah. The highlights for me were "DON'T EVEN!" and ANN ARBOR. "DON'T EVEN!" works very well as a standalone phrase, so I found the clue kind of clunky and awkward, though technically accurate (14A: Lead-in to an implied "go there" or "think about it"). Would've liked some terse imagined equivalent as the clue rather than a detailed explanation of the implied phrases that are missing, though now I'm having trouble imagining what that exact equivalent would be. ["Stop talking right now!"]? Nah, there's gotta be something better. Anyway, good answer, overly wordy clue. As for ANN ARBOR, that was my home for eight years in the '90s. I was Not always happy during that time period (understatement), but those were formative years with important people in them, and so, now and forever, despite my general indifference to college sports, caveat caveat, etc. etc. ... Go Blue! (29A: Home of the Wolverines in college sports)

As for the rest of the fill ... I'm less enthusiastic. There's nothing horrible, really, but there are too many repeaters, too much overfamiliar stuff. LOO ENO AVOWS TENETS MANI OMANI ("Mani, o Mani, wherefore art thou Mani?!") EDNA ENG NEATO and on and on. Dullsville, much of the time. I might've liked BADASSES had the clue not been such a miss for me (34D: People you do not want to mess with). The term "badass" has come to mean someone who is very good at what they do. The "mess with" part just didn't resonate for me. Whatever "tough-guy" or "troublemaker" sense the term once had has largely disappeared from the term, at least as I generally hear it. Still, it's a good answer in a sea of mediocrity. I mean, 'TISN'T *and* BESTIR **and** NEATO??? Really tapping into "days of yore"-speak today, I see. And then there's that unfortunate ONBASE / ATBAT cross in the NE, which ended up making that section of the puzzle the hardest one to complete. Why would you call attention to your not-good fill that way—by creating a cross-referenced crossing, where both answers are essentially unclued, and can only be understood in relation to each other?? If those terms had been interesting or original or entertaining in some way, OK, but they are just dull baseball terms—the added annoying difficulty was not worth the payoff. Not even close. The name avalanche was also unlovely, though I knew them all. ENO ROWE HASAN EVA BRET ELWAY EDNA and Lil Uzi VERT (the one name I expect might flummox some solvers, particularly the rap-haters among you). Lil Uzi VERT's birth name is Symere Bysil Woods, which has All Kinds of crossword possibilities. SYMERE! BYSIL! Never seen those! Here's my favorite paragraph of the Lil Uzi VERT wikipedia page—better than the part about the Satanism allegations, even:

In February 2021, Woods revealed that they had a 10-carat pink diamond implanted in their forehead, which they had planned to do since 2017. They acquired the diamond, whose value was reported as $24 million, from jeweler Elliot Eliantte. Woods stated that the decision was influenced by the animated series Steven Universe, of which they are openly a fan and by fellow rapper Lil B, who has used decorative jewels similarly. Woods said that they "could die" if their diamond is not removed "the right way". In June of the same year, they had the diamond removed from their forehead. They had it reimplanted for their performance at Rolling Loud the following month and revealed in September that fans ripped it out while Woods was crowd surfing at that event. They did not suffer serious damage and said that they still have the diamond. They have since replaced it with a barbell piercing.

I've heard of a woman who had diamonds on the soles of her shoes, but ... wow.

Bullets:

3D: Brian who composed four pioneering albums of ambient music (ENO) — four? Four is a very specific number. I had no idea the ambient output stopped at just four, or that just four were considered "pioneering," in which case, what were the others? Derivative? Of himself? Hand on, gotta go investigate this "four' thing ... OK, looks like he had an Ambient tetralogy, and that Music for Airports (a title I knew) was also called Ambient 1 (did not know that). There are also Ambients 2 through 4, so I guess that's the "four" in question: Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, Ambient 3: Day of Radiance, and Ambient 4: On Land.

26A: One translation of "aloha" (PEACE) — I wonder how many of you wrote HELLO in here. I certainly would have, but I had the -CE in place before I saw the clue.
10D: Detector of absurdity, in slang (B.S. METER) — this is a phrase I see way more often in the NYTXW than I ever hear it irl (I never hear it irl). "Absurdity" and "B.S." are not the same thing, but horseshoes/hand grenades, I guess.
39D: Cuts of fish (FILLETS) — you mean McDonald's has been lying to me about the spelling all these years!? What else aren't they telling me? Is Mayor McCheese even a real mayor? My trust in fast-food advertising hath been shook.