Like the protagonist at the start of "28 Days Later" / SUN 10-9-22 / One of the two main branches of Buddhism / Celebrity gossip show with an exclamation point in its title / Writer known for his anthropomorphic animal characters / Visual depiction of the apparatus used by the starred professionals / Mario who founded a fashion empire / One with a marsupium affectionately

Constructor: Jessie Trudeau and Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Rise to the Challenge" — every theme answer is a person who (literally) CLIMBS THE LADDER (65A: Advances through corporate ranks ... and what the answer to each starred clue in this puzzle does). The entire middle visually depicts a ladder (all "H"s) (8D: Visual depiction of the apparatus used by the starred professionals). Several themers are split, in two, with the first part coming at the ladder from from the west and then the second part continuing on across the grid from several "rungs" higher up the ladder (as many rungs higher as are indicated at the end of each theme clue) (Note: For all non-theme, "ladder"-intersecting answers, the "H"s in the "ladder" are just "H"s):

Theme answers:

• CHIMNEY / SWEEP (25A: *Worker with a brush [three rungs])
• SUBMARINE / COMMANDER (56A: *Captain with a periscope [four rungs])
• CHERRY / PICKER (90A: *Seasonal orchard worker [eight rungs])
• TELEPHONE / REPAIRMAN (101A: *Worker for AT&T or Verizon [four rungs])
• HOUSE / PAINTER (123A: *One putting a coat on outside [three rungs])

Word of the Day: PAUL VI (82D: Pope of 1963-78) —

Pope Paul VI (Latin: Paulus VI; Italian: Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, Italian: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista enˈriːko anˈtɔːnjo maˈriːa monˈtiːni]; 26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodoxand Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements. [...] His positions on birth control, promulgated famously in the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, were often contested, especially in Western Europe and North America. [...] Pope Francis canonised Paul VI on 14 October 2018. (wikipedia)

• • •

The visual gag here is clever, and the way the theme answers actually, physically "climb" the ladder is pretty nifty as well. That said, this was absurdly easy and all the interesting parts were over very quickly, leaving only the rather dull work of filling in an acceptable but fairly unremarkable Sunday-sized grid. I got the theme very early:

... and then decided to see if I could go through and get all the climbing people quickly, with as little help as possible. This turned out to be pretty doable:

You can see I got distracted and did some extra filling of the grid on the way down, but REPAIRMAN was pretty much the only part of the entire themer set that gave me any trouble. I don't know how you keep a theme like this from unfolding all at once, from giving away the entire game early on. There was some fun involved in seeing just what kind of person would be "climbing the ladder," but those answers themselves were just ... answers. The climbing part was cool, but they themselves were just ordinary, and occasionally a little arbitrary. Why should it be a SUBMARINE COMMANDER as opposed to anyone else on that submarine? And is cherry-picking really a ladder-associated activity. I know that the machine known as a "cherry picker" elevates workers into air ... coincidentally, the people I associate most with cherry pickers are actually TELEPHONE / REPAIRMeN, though any kind of person doing maintenance or construction work might use them. But back to my cherry point: I google image searched "cherry picking" and none of the images featured ladders. Not too laddery, that one. But the others work very well. Roofers and gutter cleaners are the main ladder climbers in my neighborhood, but HOUSE / PAINTER is in that same category. I don't really know what a CHIMNEY / SWEEP does, at a nuts and bolts level, but I assume they have to get on your roof somehow, so ... sure, why not? Anyway, I thought the theme was cute, the overall solving experience just so-so. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing thrilling about it either. All the interest is in the theme, and with a theme this visually elaborate, perhaps that is enough.

From one perspective, 1-Across is just one answer in the puzzle, no better or worse than any other answer. From a more correct perspective, however, 1-Across matters more because it sets a tone—it's the first thing a solver is likely to see, and to try to tackle. So it's nice to open boldly, or at the very least, cleanly. This is all to say that I'm not too big a fan of opening the puzzle IN A COMA (1A: Like the protagonist at the start of "28 Days Later"). Never saw it, but I think it's a vampire movie (???), so I assumed the answer was something like UNDEAD or NOT DEAD or PRE-DEAD or something. IN A COMA, aside from being a prepositional phrase and thus semi-awkward as a standalone answer, is just grim. Sidenote: I watched "Coma" (1978) for the first time last week—also grim, and not just because of the comas, though it's cool to see late-career Richard Widmark, especially since he's still playing creeps (perfectly) well into his later years. Oh hey, double sidenote: there's a great ladder scene in "Coma"—in fact, the ladder in question is depicted on the cover of the home video release of the movie!

The point is, I wouldn't open my puzzle IN A COMA if I could help it. And SOA, as well as ONI next to MDC, weren't doing anyone any favors either. But mostly the constructors do a NICE JOB of filling the grid. Well, random popes are about as welcome as random Roman numerals, but since PAUL VI was actually pope with many solvers' living memory, he's not as random as, say, LEO VIII (whom I just made up ... I'm just assuming there was a LEO VIII ... yup, he was both pope and antipope!!! OK, now I've gone and tricked myself into liking LEO VIII, dammit!). The clue on RON was about the only thing in the grid that gave me any actual trouble (92D: Bacardi, e.g., in México). Beth ORTON > Kyle ORTON. That's about all I have to say about this one. 

Hope you enjoyed this one's ups and downs. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. ENBY = N.B. = non-binary (108D: Genderqueer identity). It's been in the puzzle before and it will be in the puzzle again so if you don't know it, learn it.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Rosebud ravager / SUN 7-24-22 / Downwind locales for ships / English landing spot / First pope to be called the great / NFL star Elliott to fans / Where all the people that come and go stop and say "hello," in a 1967 hit

Constructor: Jessie Trudeau and Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Going Somewhere?" — various famous roads go Down, where they intersect (at the "E") with answers that end in the letter string "ROME"; the revealer is ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME (115A: Aphorism that's visually depicted five times in this grid):

Theme answers:

• MASS PIKE (7D: Easternmost leg of I-90, familiarly) / BICHROME (51A: Two-colored)
• PENNY LANE (24D: Where all the people that come and go stop and say "hello," in a 1967 hit) / AERODROME (68A: English landing spot)
• RODEO DRIVE (37D: Noted shopping mecca) / ETHAN FROME (88A: Edith Wharton's "ruin of a man")
• EVERGREEN TERRACE (13D: Home of the Simpson and Flanders households) / IMPOSTER SYNDROME (98A: Habitual fear of being exposed as a fraud)
• PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE (20D: One side of D.C.'s Federal Triangle) / ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

Word of the Day: Andrea BOCELLI (94D: Of whom Celine Dion said "If God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like ...") —

Andrea Bocelli OMRI OMDSM (Italian: [anˈdreːa boˈtʃɛlli]; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian operatic tenor and multi-instrumentalist. He was born visually impaired, and was born with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting from a football accident. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing "Il mare calmo della sera".

Since 1994, Bocelli has recorded 15 solo studio albums of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 75 million records worldwide.^[4] He has had success as a crossover performer, bringing classical music to the top of international pop charts. His album, Romanza, is one of the best-selling albums of all time, while Sacred Arias is the biggest selling classical album by any solo artist in history. My Christmas was the best-selling holiday album of 2009 and one of the best-selling holiday albums in the United States. The 2019 album Sì debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200, becoming Bocelli's first number-one album in both countries. His song "Con te partirò", included on his second album Bocelli, is one of the best-selling singles of all time. The track was licensed to feature in a series of television commercials for TIM in the late 1990s, which eventually became very popular in Italy. (wikipedia)

• • •

Dang, it even says "CARD" 
right there in the comic! Gah!

The first thing a proofreader or editor ought to have caught is that the "aphorism" in question is not "depicted five times in this grid"; it's depicted once. ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME ... that's the theme. That describes all the themers taken as a group. There are five examples of roads leading to ROME, but ALL ROADS are not depicted "five times," as the clue claims. I don't care that it's a minor point—it's in the most major part of the puzzle, the revealer clue, so the phrasing ought to be Precise. [Aphorism represented visually by five answers in this puzzle], something like that; that would be accurate. The five long Downs together represent the aphorism. Once. Not separately five times. Yes, NERD, I know. Whatever, the phrasing on the revealer clue is nails + chalkboard to me. Aside from that hitch, the theme is interesting. Well, the grid is interesting, for sure—mirror symmetry along the NW to SE axis. The intersecting themers end up forming a kind of nesting arrowhead pattern, with all long answers meeting at their very tips (the "E" in "ROME" in each case). Structurally innovative. I was not a fan of the weird long non-themers just hanging on there non-thematically, but I guess that's the price you pay for this particular architectural gambit. WORSHIPPER with two "P"s is weird to me because I'm not British and the clue is not tagged as British. RORSCHACH CARDS was extremely weird to me because after TESTS and BLOTS I was completely out of ideas. I literally teach a comic with a protagonist named RORSCHACH who literally takes a RORSCHACH Test (in Book VI, administered by Dr. Malcolm Long, whose mind RORSCHACH just wrecks), and yet CARDS was absolutely brutal for me, even with the "C" in place. If it hadn't been for YODELS, I think that CARDS section would've destroyed me. I had TACK for FORK, largely because it's a way better answer for that clue (74A: Stick with it!). Had ORS instead of IFS (are ORS a thing???) (87A: Some coding statements). Just a disaster in there. Anyway, the cards are real things, just ... not the first thing that comes to mind when you see RORSCHACH (as Google here can tell you):

The British call airports "airports," so I had no idea what 68A: English landing spot was going for. I thought ... maybe the English landed ... on Plymouth Rock? I dunno. AERODROME is an odd one, as is BICHROME. Just not words I ever see or use or really ... know. See also LEESHORES (?) (80D: Downwind locales for ships). But as for AERODROME and BICHROME: you do what you gotta do to make your theme work, I guess. Outside the themers, the fill is pretty ordinary. The runaway highlight of the day for me was EVERGREEN TERRACE! That's gonna be a gimme or a lotta work, depending on your level of "Simpsons" fandom (mine: high). I liked that answer, and I thought the revealer itself was cute. 

A few more things:

• 94D: Of whom Celine Dion said "If God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like ..." (BOCELLI) — I knew this pretty quickly but ... could not decide if it was two "C"s one "L" or two "L"s one "C." As for who has the voice of God ... I'm gonna stick with Marianne Faithfull's assessment on this one:


I have to tell you, the voice of God, if you really want to know, is Aretha Franklin.

• 43A: One looking for missing persons (TRACER) — awkward way to clue this, but I guess it allows you to avoid the more probably bullet clue, so OK
• 124A: Apply (to) (REFER) — why doesn't this make sense to me? I'm sure there's an equivalency somewhere in the dictionary, but I can't really make this work in everyday speech.
• 1D: Rosebud ravager (APHID) — soooo hard for me. I was like "uh ... TIME? SNOW? FIRE? I haven't seen the movie in a long time!"

• 98A: Habitual fear of being exposed as a fraud (IMPOSTER SYNDROME)  — still haunted by IMPOSTOR ... which is how the NYTXW told me it was spelled two months ago.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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