Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire / THU 9-25-25 / Traveler's aid, familiarly / "Pardon me," in Padua / Anaheim ballplayers / The Chicago Bulls had a pair of them in the 1990s / Shipwreck locales often / Replace the sod of / Property owner subject to a legal claim

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SKIM OFF THE TOP (20A: Illegally siphon funds) — you have to "skim" the FIRST TWO LETTERS (52A: What each Down answer needs from its clue in order to make sense) off the "top" (i.e. from the front) of each Down answer. The "skimmed" letters of every Down answer are identical to the first two letters of their respective clues. So, for example, 31D: Determined is ADSET (i.e. (De)ADSET)

Theme answers:

• all the Downs

Word of the Day: (Sh)INOLA (30D: Shoe polish brand) —

Shinola is a defunct American brand of shoe polish. The Shinola Company, founded in Rochester, New York in 1877, as the American Chemical Manufacturing and Mining Company, produced the polish under a sequence of different owners until 1960. "Shinola" was a trade name and trademark for boot polish. The suffix -ola is a popular component of trade names in the United States. It was popular during the first half of the 20th century and entered the American lexicon in the phrase, "You don't know shit from Shinola," meaning to be ignorant. The brand name was acquired by the retail company Shinola in 2011. [...] In 2011, venture capitalist Tom Kartsotis bought the rights to the brand name, and created a new retail company. The company was founded in 2012, and produces watches and leather goods. (wikipedia)

• • •

The SKIM OFF THE TOP bit is kind of cute ("white collar" crime pun!), but otherwise this one was a chore to solve. Not a particularly hard chore, just an unpleasant one. The missing letters aren't doing anything but missing. It was nice to find out (halfway through) that those letters could be found at the beginning of their answer's respective clues, but that just made the rest of the puzzle easier, not more enjoyable. The fill itself is very much on the dull side. LIENEE? (SH)ORTTONS? (RE)TURF?? Almost all the fill is short. None of the Across fill (besides SKIM OFF THE TOP) is interesting, and only a few of the longer Down answers are things I'd enjoy seeing in a regular puzzle (e.g. (ST)RAIGHTEN UP, (ST)EAMER TRUNK, (SH)RUG IT OFF). This was one of those puzzles where I thought, "this is getting tedious, I should just jump to the revealer down at the bottom so I can figure out what's going on," but I resisted and just plowed through until I came to that revealer "naturally" (i.e. without breaking (ST)RIDE, working off crosses the whole way). All I needed was the first few letters and bam ...

From there on out, as I say, the puzzle got a lot easier (because it just handed me the first two letters of every single remaining Down). There are no particularly hard parts in this puzzle, and no answers that really seem worth commenting on. It's a structural stunt with nothing much going for it, entertainment-wise, except SKIM OFF THE TOP; at least that answer involved wordplay. All the other theme business just involved word manipulation. Word chopping. And the revealer couldn't have been less playful if it tried. Literal in the extreme. 

I went through three stages of "understanding" this theme. The first was Wild. I could see that the Down answers wouldn't fit, but I didn't think they were missing—I thought they were contained in rebus squares. I should've known right off the bat that the [Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire] was AGRA (site of the Taj Mahal, as every longtime solver knows), but since I couldn't remember that immediately, I ended up with this insane answer there instead:

Ah yes, who can forget the ancient city of BLAANGSTRSTA! But when [TEM]PEST wouldn't work (because SKIM OFF THE TOP had to be right), I realized I wasn't dealing with three-letter rebus squares, but rather just two missing squares. Could not see how that was interesting, but thought, whatever, and just started solving Downs with the understanding that the first two letters of those answers would be missing. Weirdly, the puzzle was pretty doable despite my not knowing where or what those missing letters were. So first it was a rebus, then it was a "first two letters" missing, then (after the revealer), all was clear—first two letters found, rest of the puzzle easy, and bland. Paint-by-numbers bland.

Anything else?:

• 2D: Anaheim ballplayers ((AN)GELS) — this made me laugh, as many people in the comments section yesterday claimed never to have heard of this team or its abbrev. (LAA). And yet, here they are ... again! (AN)GELS is the "A" in LAA. Side note: LAA has been used as a baseball abbrev. ten times since 2013. In the Shortz Era, it's also been clued two other ways: ["___ note to follow..."] (toughie!), and [When doubled, one of the Teletubbies] 
• 15A: "Pardon me," in Padua ("SCUSI") — I wrote this in as "SCUSE" as you can see in that first partial grid I posted, above. I watch a lot of Italian films, but since the subtitles are obviously English, I don't get a chance to see how any of the Italian is spelled.

• 16A: Home of Minor League Baseball's SeaWolves (more than 350 miles from the ocean!) (ERIE) — this clue is weird. It seems to think it's doing some kind of "gotcha" or pointing out some apparent irony, but ERIE is on a Great Lake (guess which one!), and the Great Lakes have long been called "the inland seas." "Because of their sea-like characteristics, such as rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons, the five Great Lakes have long been called inland seas" (wikipedia). So since ERIE is on one of said "inland seas," the SeaWolves seems like a highly appropriate name, actually. They're not called the damned OceanWolves, after all.
• 26D: Traveler's aid, familiarly ((TR)IPLE A) — absolutely not. It's AAA. You say "(TR)IPLE A," but it's written exclusively as AAA. I will give you (TR)IPLE A as a baseball answer ((TR)IPLE A is the class of baseball just before the majors) (the SeaWolves are DOUBLE-A). Baseball and [Top credit rating], and [Narrow show width] are the only ways (TR)IPLE A has ever been clued ... before today. 
• 40D: The Chicago Bulls had a pair of them in the 1990s ((TH)REEPEATS) — when you win the championship three times in a row (for the Bulls, '91-93 and '96-'98) (Jordan took time off in between to try to play baseball; he made it as far as ... DOUBLE-A)
• 55D: Shipwreck locales often ((SH)OALS) — one of the few Down answers where knowing the first two letters didn't give the whole answer away. Had to wait for crosses here to make sure it wasn't (SH)ORES (which seemed plausible).

That's it. See you next time. Oh, and Happy 19th birthday to ... this blog! Although, technically ... though the Monday, Sep. 25, 2006 puzzle was the first one I ever blogged, I didn't blog it until Wednesday the 27th, LOL. Timely! Literally no one read that post, as no one knew the blog existed (how could they?). Anyway, that first post is an experimental mess written by someone with no expectation of an audience. You can "enjoy" it here—Lynn Lempel! (the comments on that first write-up are particularly hilarious)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Title role of 1966 and 2004 / WED 8-28-24 / Units of X-ray exposure / Chicken par_ ____ in fat / Onetime studio with a broadcast tower in its logo / Participants in a 140.6-mile race / Clay figure in Jewish folklore / Bronx politician with a noted 2018 upset, familiarly / Smoothie bar supply

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging 

THEME: answers embedded in clues — theme clues are presented with consecutive letters missing: those letters, in each case, form the *answers* to the clues:

Theme answers:

• THIGH (1A: Chicken par_ ____ in fat) (Chicken part high in fat)
• OTHER (17A: Referring t_ ___ _est) (Referring to the rest)
• ORALS (9A: Hurdles for doct____ _tudents) (Hurdles for doctoral students)
• DEATH (19A: I___ __at terrifies thanatophobes) (Idea that terrifies thanatophobes)
• ATONED (32A: Made amends for wh__ ___ _id) (Made amends for what one did)
• SHOVERS (39A: They pu__ ____ _tuff) (They push over stuff)
• KLINGON (41A: "Star Tre_" ____ _ot heard on the original series) ("Star Trek" lingo not heard on the original series)
• RASCAL (48A: Another word fo_ _ ____awag) (Another word for a scalawag)
• DRAIN (61A: Street feature needed after a har_ ___) (Street feature needed after a hard rain)
• STAKE (69A: It'_ ____n on a vampire hunt) (It's taken on a vampire hunt)
• NINTH (65A: Pitcher's positio_ __ __e lineup, historically) (Pitcher's position in the lineup, historically)
• STORM (71A: Tempe__ __ _onsoon) ("Tempest or monsoon")

Word of the Day: ROENTGENS (10D: Units of X-ray exposure) —

The roentgen or röntgen (/ˈrɛntɡən, -dʒən, ˈrʌnt-/; symbol R) is a legacy unit of measurement for the exposure of X-rays and gamma rays, and is defined as the electric charge freed by such radiation in a specified volume of air divided by the mass of that air (statcoulomb per kilogram). In 1928, it was adopted as the first international measurement quantity for ionizing radiation to be defined for radiation protection, as it was then the most easily replicated method of measuring air ionization by using ion chambers. It is named after the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X-rays and was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery. (wikipedia)

• • •

[ALFIE & Ida]

I have one word written at the top of my puzzle and that word is "painful." The concept here (undoubtedly clever) becomes tedious and contrived when stretched out over so many clues and answers. Further, the theme is entirely in the clues, not the grid, which always feels ... backward to me. You've got a fairly boring grid, and then clues that are made tortured and inscrutable just for the sake of this theme. And five-letter themers? Who wants that, over and over and over, all the small corners choked with *two* of these absurd missing-letter clues. And that's another thing: you've got So Much Theme. Twelve theme answers? Twelve times I have to do this!?!? I would much (much much) prefer a theme concept that's interesting x 4 than a theme concept that's clunky and awkward x 12 (12?!). More is not better. More is slower, though—the themers frequently slowed me down because who would ever speak or write this way? Who would call "Klingon" a "lingo" (It's A Language) and who would call *anything* SHOVERS? SHOVERS? A total non-word—and in the plural?! SMH. So I was noticeably slower today than I would normally be on a Wednesday, if only because the small corners—areas that would normally take the least amount of time to blow through—were thickly laden with theme gunk. Also, I completely forgot the word ROENTGENS. The entire front end, just ... nothing. Had to work every cross. My Father Was A Radiologist. SMH. Unpleasant *and* slow—never a great combo. 

The longer answers have nothing thematic to do, so they just ... hang out there. In a puzzle like this, with almost all the thematic interest in the short(er) stuff, those longer answers have a kind of moral obligation to be dazzling, but (perhaps because there are So Many Themers clogging up the grid), they are just average. Not bad, not great. ROENTGENS may be the most interesting of the lot. On the whole, it's a very plain, average-to-below-average grid. I want to complain about HOR ISON ACER AMNIO and other overfamiliar short stuff, but honestly there's not more of that in this puzzle than there is in your typical NYTXW puzzle. This grid isn't bad, it's blah. Well, it's bad in that it's urine-soaked—it's got both PEE *and* a pee-allusive clue on JOHNS (66A: Going places?) (i.e. places for going, i.e. places for going to the bathroom). The fact that PEE is (cryptically) clued as a letter (44A: Snap back?, i.e. the "back"–or last letter—of the word "snap"), doesn't remove the PEE stain. When you're looking at a grid and see PEE in there, you're not thinking "ooh, the letter 'P'"; you're thinking "great, urine, just what I wanted in the middle of my puzzle." Again, if the JOHNS clue hadn't steered directly into the bathroom, then PEE would've been more innocuous. But the JOHNS clue couldn't lay off the toilet "joke," and so now the two answers seem like a subtheme. A very unfortunate subtheme.

[Glynis JOHNS]

The only real difficulty came from putting the themers together, but as I said, there was so much putting themers together that the whole puzzle became (relatively) slow. This puzzle lost me on the first themer, which came *immediately* at 1-Across. I have never thought of chicken thighs in terms of their fat content. Also, I saw "Chicken par-" and thought for sure that the answer was going to have something to do with "chicken parm." Alas, no. Hardest part of the grid for me to get into was the west, as I couldn't get AT HOME from -ME (35A: Comfortable) and couldn't get SHOVERS at all because there's no such thing as SHOVERS what the hell? Also, "shoving" and "pushing over" are different things, the latter being way more extreme than mere "shoving." My god that answer is bad on every level. Outside the theme, there was just my blanking on the ROEN- part of ROENTGENS and then ... I dunno, STIR? (59D: Energize). That clue was weird. Not sure I know how STIR = "energize." If I STIR ... something, I don't energize it, really. If I STIR someone, I move them, maybe, emotionally, but "energize?" I guess the act of stirring does involve the addition of energy (in some basic sense) to the mix, but that clue was opaque to me. Nothing else terribly tricky going on here today. Getting through that theme is enough of a challenge.

[ALFIE, age 2 mos., 2020]

Notes:

• 15A: Bronx politician with a noted 2018 upset, familiarly (AOC) — she's such an established figure now that I totally forgot that her initial victory was an "upset." 
• 16A: Clay figure in Jewish folklore (GOLEM) — you should watch Alex Edelman's comedy special Just For Us (on Max). It's not about GOLEMs or folklore at all, but it is very much Jewish, and very much hilarious. I watched it yesterday after hearing Edelman on Conan's podcast ("Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend"), and ... well, if I explain it too much, I'll ruin it. Basically ... Jewish guy goes to a white nationalist get-together and lives to do a comedy special about it—that's the premise. I cackled alone on my couch for an hour+. Good stuff.

• 67A: Smoothie bar supply (ICE) — lose the "Smoothie" part. Like, "Smoothies" does not really evoke ICE and you don't even need that word in the clue. It's totally, utterly, completely superfluous. Like a fly in your soup. Look: [Bar supply] = ICE. See how nice that is. So clean, so pleasant, so direct. Tidy. Elegant. I can't believe "smoothie bar" is still a thing. I can barely bring myself to say "smoothie." The only bar I want to have anything to do with serves cocktails, and if I want a thick, sweet drink, I'll order a shake or a malt like a normal person.

Good day! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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One-named entertainer from Spain / SUN 7-31-22 / Killer of the Night King on Game of Thrones / Author journalist Welteroth / Condiment at a pho shop / Flagship vehicle line for Mercedes-Benz / Smallest country in the E.U. by area / Serving with a meze platter / Hand-held device used by Mr. Spock

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Why? Well, Why Not?" — the actual theme is expressed by the answer WISE UP TO (115A: Become aware of ... or a hompohonic description of four letter shifts in this grid). The idea is that "Y"s move "up" "two" rows, four different times. So, an answer that should have a "Y" loses a "Y" because that "Y" (in theory) has jumped up two rows to an answer that *isn't* supposed to have a "Y," but now does. So you get phrases made wacky by either by the addition or subtraction of a "Y," depending:

Theme answers:

• BELLY BOTTOMS (24A: Places where some belts are tightened?)
• COMBAT READ (29A: Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage," e.g.?)
• CAMPY COUNSELOR (51A: Lawyer with absurdly exaggerated humor?)
• SLUMBER PART (58A: Sleep phase?)
• GRIMY REAPER (71A: Harvesting machine that needs cleaning?)
• THREE TIMES A LAD (80A: Doctor's description of the birth of triplet sons?)
• FAIRY FIGHT (96A: Battle between Tinker Bell and Princess Ozma?)
• MADISON COUNT (108A: Census-taking of a Midwest capital?)

Word of the Day: CHARO (74D: One-named entertainer from Spain) —

María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, professionally known by her stage name Charo, is a Spanish-American actress, singer, comedian, and flamenco guitarist.

Charo began playing guitar at the age of nine and trained under the famed Andrés Segovia.^[6][7] In 1966, she married 65-year-old bandleader Xavier Cugat and moved to the United States with him. In the late 1960s and 1970s, she became a ubiquitous presence on American television, frequently appearing as a guest star on series such as Laugh-In, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She is known for her uninhibited and exuberant manner, vague age, heavy Spanish accent and the catchphrase "cuchi-cuchi."

As a musician, Charo has performed and recorded in various styles for five decades. She released a series of disco recordings in the 1970s with Salsoul Records, most notably Dance a Little Bit Closer (1977). In 1995, her flamenco album Guitar Passion(1994) won the Female Pop Album of the Year award at the Billboard International Latin Music Conference and was named best female Latin pop album by Billboard. In an interview, she said, "Around the world I am known as a great musician. But in America I am known as the cuchi-cuchi girl. That’s okay, because cuchi-cuchi has taken me all the way to the bank." (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello. I am on vacation with friends. It is very low-key. Doing virtually nothing for a week. So I have some time to write. Next week, my vacation shifts to Los Angeles, where I will be with my extended family. Then, I will have no time, so you will be visited by many wonderful substitutes. But for now, please enjoy my lakeside write-ups. These will be somewhat shorter than usual, because, well, there's ... a lake ... and my friends ... but I promise they will be no less heartfelt ...

I do not like being away from my normal blogging set-up, which is to say, away from my printer. I like to print the puzzle out when I'm done and write comments on it. It's a pretty important part of the ritual. No printer here at the lake house, so I can't ... really *feel* or *see* the puzzle properly, or that's how it feels anyway. Bah. But the solving experience itself is largely the same, and today ... yeah, largely the same Sunday experience (wading thru wackiness), though of maybe a slightly higher conceptual caliber than usual. I was very weirded out by the revealer—that is, by its very existence, since, as far as I could tell, the title was the revealer. There was a "Why?" (added "Y") and a "Why not?" (subtracted "Y"), in alternating sequence, so ... you know, I had it. I was good. And then the revealer comes along and is like "Here's the punch line! Wait ... did you already tell them the joke?! Damn it, title! We talked about this!" The revealer is more elaborate and precise, changing the "Y" pun (from "why"s to "wise") and then adding the "two" pun. So the themers aren't just alternative between Y and Y-not; rather, the "Y"s are doing this very specific two-line leap "up." Cute. But again, the revealer felt redundant and belated, because of the title's having given everything away already. And the wackiness was your garden-variety add/subtract-a-letter wackiness. So, yeah, a pretty Sunday Sunday.

By far my favorite part of the puzzle was trying to figure out what the hell a THREE TIME(Y) SALAD was. A THREE BEAN SALAD is a very legitimate salad name, and I believe I might have tried to write THREE BEANY SALAD in there, just to make the origin phrase make *any* kind of sense. Never mind that BEANY makes no kind of sense for the actual clue. I was completely flummoxed. It wasn't until I had the whole answer from crosses that my brain finally parsed the base phrase correctly: it's the Commodores song, "Three Times A Lady"!! Never saw the "salad" hidden in there before! Speaking of hidden words, when did this whole "name hidden in this phrase"-type clue become such a big deal? ELI was hidden in a phrase just this week, and now we've got ALEC hiding in "global economy" (31D: Name hidden in "global economy"). I am extremely not a fan of this childish cluing. At least in cryptic crosswords, when they hide words and names like this, they don't just tell you outright that that's what's happening. You have to figure it out. But here, they're just like "Can you find the name in this phrase, Billy? What a good boy! So smart!" Come on. Why not just have the clue read [ALEC, just write in ALEC, it's ALEC]. At least that's not patronizing. Oh and another thing—who/what the hell is this ASTRO of which you speak? I asked everyone in the house just now, "Hey, if I asked you for a [Household robot from Amazon], what would you say?" Everyone: "... ALEXA?" And that was before I told them that yes, it had five letters, and yes, it began with "A." When I told them "no, ASTRO." They, like me, made a "what?" face. And then my friend had to tell ALEXA "shhh, it's OK ALEXA, I wasn't actually talking to you." ASTRO is the dog on "The Jetsons." That is the only non-baseball clue for ASTRO that I recognize. 

Speed round:

• 1D: Proceeded down a lane, maybe (SWAM) — speaking of "speed," I wrote SPED here at first. No idea about any of the long Acrosses in this NW section at first, so I just threw in the first thing I could think of for all the short Downs, and despite a couple mistakes, the gambit paid off
• 41A: Medical gloves and N95 masks, for short (PPE) — never can quite remember this initialism or what it stands for. Personal protection ... equipment? Close. "Protective." I don't love it, not just because it reminds me of COVID. I never heard the term before COVID, and I can't see it remaining in public consciousness after COVID (unless deadly pandemics are just the new normal, which, maybe, but even then we mostly only talk about masks). Anyway, just because an abbr. is new doesn't mean that it's good. (Note: PPE has only appeared twice—both appearances were this month; I fear a PPE onslaught ... I hope not)
• 79A: Mythical weaver (ARACHNE) — ugh, wrote in ARIADNE—same number of letters, same first and last two letters, both of them involved with threads, of a sort (ARIADNE gave Theseus a thread so he could find his way back out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur with a sword, which ARIADNE also provided him. He rewarded her by abandoning her on an island. What a guy.
• 75D: Hand-held device used by Mr. Spock (TRICORDER) — I asked everyone in the house what a TRICORDER was and without hesitation they started shouting "Star Trek" info at me. Who are these people? (Hint: one of them is my wife). I have heard of TRICORDER but couldn't tell you what it does, or what is "TRI-" about it.
• 46D: Dancer Charisse of "Singin' in the Rain" (CYD) — SYD, SID, CID ... I think I tried them all, despite knowing exactly who CYD Charisse is. I forgot she was even in "Singin' in the Rain!"
• 36D: God associated with the moon (APOLLO) — mythologically untrue, but via the space program of that name ... yes, OK.

Note: my friend put on Brian ENO while I was finishing my write-up ... without any crossword intent! He just likes "Music for Airports" (as do I). Anyway, gotta go ENO. Bye bye.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Backbone of Indian classical music / SUN 7-18-21 / Pharmaceutical picker-upper / Family name in Steinbeck's East of Eden / Bayt destination for Muslim pilgrim / Challenger astronaut Judith / Certain music royalties collector for short / Filmmaker with distinctive style / Less than subtle basketball foul / Letters on an F-22 raptor / Big exporter of saffron

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Medium? (guessing jokey quotes isn't the easiest, but on the whole, things seemed normal, difficulty-wise)

THEME: "Dig In" — parts of quotes by JULIA CHILD (119A: Chef quoted in this puzzle's starred clues) ... I guess BON APPETIT is supposed to be part of the theme as well (23A: "Enjoy the food!"):

Theme answers:

• "... ANYTHING IS GOOD" (31A: "With enough butter, ___")
• "... REALLY JUST A MEETING" (38A: "A party without cake is ___")
• "... WHO'S GOING TO KNOW" (65A: "If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. ___?")
• "... EVEN PUT IT IN THE FOOD" (92A: "I enjoy cooking with wine. Sometimes I ___")
• "... THE STEAK TO COOK" (101A: "The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for ___")

Word of the Day: Bayt ALLAH (103D: Bayt___ (destination for a Muslim pilgrim)) —

The Kaaba (Arabic: ٱلْكَعْبَة‎, romanized: al-Kaʿbah, lit. 'The Cube', Arabic pronunciation: [kaʕ.bah]), also spelled Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah (Arabic: ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة‎, romanized: al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah, lit. 'Honored Ka'bah'), is a building at the center of Islam's most important mosque, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered by Muslims to be the Bayt Allah (Arabic: بَيْت ٱللَّٰه‎, lit. 'House of God') and is the qibla (Arabic: قِبْلَة‎, direction of prayer) for Muslims around the world when performing salah. (wikipedia) (my emph.)

• • •

I don't know what to say. This was the least enjoyable Sunday puzzle I've solved in a good long time, and considering I'm not a huge fan of Sundays *generally*, that is really saying something. I just don't get it. It's pointless. What is the point? It's jokes ... sort of? ... about food ... by a famous chef who ... what? Is there an anniversary? What is going on? It's not even full jokes—just parts of punch lines, arranged symmetrically ... why? It's so corny. It's dumb quotes you'd see on gifts at gift stores, things that go on mugs or maybe aprons, I don't know. God bless JULIA CHILD, for sure, but this is not a theme. EVEN PUT IT IN THE FOOD ... is somehow a theme answer that just stands alone in this grid. ANYTHING IS GOOD. I feel like Alan Funt or the crossword equivalent is going to jump out at any moment and say "smile, you're on Candid Crossword!" only ... it still won't be funny because why? THE STEAK TO COOK ... seriously, that phrase is just sitting in this grid like it's somebody. What is even happening? And the fill is very much below average, so there's just nowhere to go for solace today. An ARID wasteland, this one. I'd've quit very early on if I'd been an ordinary non-blogging solver. I'm very close to speechless here.


Sorry, I just don't have anything nice to say about this puzzle. The theme is a giant nothing, and then the fill ... it's poor. The grid is designed so that most of what we get is 3, 4, 5-letter stuff, and it really really wears on you after a while. ECRU ANAT LEPEW HUHS all propped against each other. ADARN and ALOAD and ATPAR and CELLI  and LACTI- (not TO-?). UNHIT FAIRE FTLEE ... OCTAD x/w EATNO. It's so so rough. It would be bearable if the theme were dazzling, maybe. But I think the only time I experienced even a flicker of joy today was when I saw how "ATLANTA" was clued (28A: Emmy-winning FX series created by Donald Glover). I miss that show. It's been three years since Season 2! Apparently Seasons 3 and 4 are both supposed to come out by the end of this year. Something to look forward to. 

Oh, I also liked the clue on ELLIOT (17D: Page who became the first openly trans man to appear on the cover of Time magazine (2021)). His interview with Oprah on her ... whatever her Apple TV show is called (probably "Oprah"?) ... was really moving. Hardest part of the puzzle for me was the OTARU section, because I don't know what that is (even though I'm fairly certain I've been in this exact position before vis-a-vis OTARU). And the adjacent GROUP ... what kind of clue is that? (67D: Any set of elements in a column on the periodic table). Any set of anything is a GROUP!?!? That clue should've just stopped at [Any set], or just [Set]—bizarrely specific for such an overwhelmingly general answer. Head-shaking. Like nearly everything else going on here today. Also, I wanted the "joke" about eating diet food to be about "... waiting for THE STOCK TO COOK." Oof. Sorry not to have more enthusiasm to offer you today. This is a real low point.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Online card game with over 100 million players / WED 6-2-21 / Historic inn commemorated during Pride MONTH as suggested by this puzzle's border answers / 1989 play about Capote

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (more like an Easy Thursday, just because of the theme type)

THEME: STONEWALL (34A: Historic inn commemorated during Pride Month, as suggested by this puzzle's border answers) — all the answers on the edges of the grid (so, forming a kind of WALL around the grid) are types of STONEs (you must mentally supply STONE to make them work):

Theme answers:

• HEAD (1A: *Graveyard sight)
• BIRTH (5A: *Emerald or ruby)
• GEM (10A: *Ring centerpiece)
• CHERRY (16D: *Pit that's spit)
• COBBLE (47D: *Quaint street material)
• LODE (64A: *Magnetite)
• BROWN (63A: *Kind of building seen on "Sesame Street")
• KEY (62A: *Pennsylvania state symbol)
• CORNER (37D: *Vital piece)
• HEARTH (1D: *Online card game with over 100 million players)

Word of the Day: HEARTH(STONE) (1D) —

Hearthstone is a free-to-play online digital collectible card game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Originally subtitled Heroes of Warcraft, Hearthstone builds upon the existing lore of the Warcraft series by using the same elements, characters, and relics. It was first released for Microsoft Windows and macOS in March 2014, with ports for iOSand Android releasing later that year. The game features cross-platform play, allowing players on any supported device to compete with one another, restricted only by geographical region account limits.

The game is a turn-based card game between two opponents, using constructed decks of 30 cards along with a selected hero with a unique power. Players use their limited mana crystals to play abilities or summon minions to attack the opponent, with the goal of destroying the opponent's hero. Winning matches and completing quests earn in-game gold, rewards in the form of new cards, and other in-game prizes. Players can then buy packs of new cards through gold or microtransactions to customize and improve their decks. The game features several modes of play, including casual and ranked matches, drafted arena battles, and single-player adventures. New content for the game involves the addition of new card sets and gameplay, taking the form of either expansion packs or adventures that reward the player with collectible cards upon completion. [...] 

The game has been favorably reviewed by critics and has been a success for Blizzard, earning nearly US$40 million per month as of August 2017. As of November 2018, Blizzard has reported more than 100 million Hearthstone players. The game has become popular as an esport, with cash prize tournaments hosted by Blizzard and other organizers.

• • •

Hello! It's Pride Month and today we get the first of what I hope will be many Pride-related puzzles. The theme worked well for me, as I went from ??? to "oh, there are two STONE answers in the (NW) corner, so ... CORNER + STONE = cornerstone, I get it" to "wait, but BIRTHstone is not in the corner, what is happening?" until I eventually stumbled into the revealer, where all was made clear and the Aha was genuine. The only "stone" I had trouble with was HEARTHSTONE, which I've never heard of and let me tell you, I won't be alone here. I don't love the gaming clue on this answer, and not just because I've never heard of it. If you actually read this blog, you'll know I don't know things practically every day. It is a rare puzzle that is full of only things I know. I am used to encountering things I don't know regularly, and the vast, vast majority of those I just chalk up to normal human ignorance (in this case, mine), and I move along. But *some* answers I don't know irk me either because they seem genuinely obscure or because they are extremely niche, and even then I'm usually only truly irked if the thing I didn't know ends up feeling like a boring thing that's not really worth knowing. How is my life improved by learning about one of seemingly infinite gaming properties? HEARTHSTONE is some combo of niche and I-don't-care forgettable. If a clue has to tell you how popular its answer is ("no, seriously, 100 million people play this thing! The company that makes the game said so!") then that's a tell. The clue knows that a huge chunk of solvers are going to have no idea what it's talking about. And in this case ... what it's talking about is a subset of the Warcraft universe, and not (by a longshot) the most popular subset: that would be World of Warcraft, which is massively popular, and which I've actually seen in puzzles (abbr. WoW). But HEARTHSTONE? I'm going to forget HEARTHSTONE exists as soon as I'm done typing this. I think the clue is an attempt to make the puzzle a little more contemporary, to give it a little more Now energy (the grid is otherwise heavily laden with olden fill). But there's gotta be a better way than this. "Look, fellow youths! Gaming!" This was a sore-thumb / outlier clue, turning an ordinary word into a niche proper noun in what feels like a desperate attempt to include something "youthful." Is this mere opinion on my part? Well, yes. Hi. What did you think was happening here? Anyway: I was able to work around HEARTHSTONE easily enough, so whatever, I guess. If you're going to teach me something new, just make it interesting, I beg of thee. 

The fill was olden, as I say (feels like ages since I've seen ONEL and TRU, which used to roam the grids of the late 20th-century in great numbers), but I can forgive the crusty short stuff today because we are dealing with a highly restrictive theme (all around the edges *and* in the middle with the revealer). The IVIES should've changed their name as soon as they added a fifth U. to their number. By rights, they should now be called the VIIIies (pronounce it how you will!). Not much to highlight or complain about today. The theme is pretty much the thing. I would really love it if I never saw DTS again. This is largely how I feel about the puzzle's whole alcoholic-mocking vocabulary (WINO! SOT! HIC!). DTS (delirium tremens) is the flip side of mockery—but it's still gawker-y, and it's crosswordese to boot, so why not just make it DES Moines and EASE here today and spare us the spectacle of the suffering alcoholic? I don't get it. I also don't get why you'd put RNC in anything, since they're essentially a white supremacist terrorist group now, but there's not as easy a fix there, as that corner was under a lot of theme pressure (CRAT, OAS ... RNC is merely the worst part of a very rough patch there). Let's end with something fun. EROSION! No, wait, that's depressing. The ALAMO!? No, still not fun. Oh, ERIC hiding inside "America," that's kinda cute (15A: Man found in America?). Let's wave at ERIC. Hi ERIC. We see you there. 

The theme was fun! The rest ... was the rest. Not great, but it was easy, so it never genuinely detracted from the theme, which is a winner.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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