Shamash holder / THU 6-4-26 / Italian liquor distilled from winemaking leftovers / Freudian censor / Altered excerpts of a film posted to social media, say / Broad-shouldered Titan / Faux flattery / Sons of ___, exemplars of biblical wickedness / Middlemen in illicit transactions / Historic Bulgarian ruler / Beer brand with the slogan "La Playa Awaits" / Site of an 1899-1909 gold rush

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BIG BOX STORE (61A: Large retail establishment ... and a hint to four squares in this puzzle) — big (slightly oversized) "boxes" hold the names of "stores" (I guess all the "stores" are themselves examples of "BIG BOX STOREs," though I've never thought of ALDI that way...) 

Theme answers:

• LOCAL DIVE / VIVALDI (20A: Neighborhood watering hole / 4D: "The Four Seasons" composer)
• SLOWEST / LOW ESTIMATES (11A: Last over the line, say / 12D: Conservative guesses)
• YOGA POSES / MEGAPLEXES (47A: Downward dog and others / 39D: Movie theaters with many screens)
• LIKE A CHARM / STRIKE A POSE (50A: Exactly as desired / 36D: Fashion photographer's direction)

Word of the Day: GRAPPA (45A: Italian liquor distilled from winemaking leftovers) —

Grappa is an Italian alcoholic beverage: a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy that contains 35 to 60 percent alcohol by volume (70 to 120 US proof). Grappa is a protected name in the European Union.

Grappa is made by distilling the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems (i.e., the pomace) left over from winemaking after pressing the grapes. It was originally made to prevent waste by using these leftovers. A similar drink, known as acquavite d'uva, is made by distilling whole must. The original date grappa was created cannot be determined, but was likely first made pre-1300s as distillation arrived in Italy during the Middle Ages.

In Italy, grappa is primarily served as a digestivo or after-dinner drink. Its main purpose is to aid in the digestion of heavy meals. Grappa may also be added to espresso coffee to create a caffè corretto, meaning "corrected" coffee. Another variation of this is the ammazzacaffè: the espresso is drunk first, followed by a few ounces of grappa served in its own glass. In Veneto, there is resentin: after finishing a cup of espresso with sugar, a few drops of grappa are poured into the nearly empty cup, swirled and drunk down in one sip. (wikipedia)

• • •

Very short write-up today, as my router just ... died yesterday. Dead. Done. Kaput. So while I'm waiting for the new one to arrive, I'm using a Personal Hotspot on my phone for connectivity, and while it seems to be working, everything feels insanely unstable and I just want to get something posted quickly before Things Fall Apart again. Can't print the puzzle out because my stupid printers can't seem to "find" the network I'm on. Bah. This is what happens when you set things up in a way you understand, a way that works for you, and then well over a decade goes by and you forget how any of it is held together and one little thing goes wrong and ... chaos. Already dreading the new router set-up. Annnnnyway, puzzle! Quickly! 

Uh ... sure. Those are big boxes, alright. And there are stores inside them. ALDI is just a supermarket to me, so I wouldn’t have put it in the BIG BOX STORE category, but it's a chain, and the stores are ... box-shaped, I guess, so shrug, why not? I think of GAP as more of a mall store than a BIG BOX STORE, but whatever. I can be a little flexible on this matter (as it's something I don't think about or care about at all). Because the rebus boxes are flagged today (by virtue of their bigness), the rebus was especially easy to pick up. There may as well have been arrows and flashing lights pointing at the relevant squares saying "Enter Rebus Here!" The first rebus square would've been a cinch without the big square telling us it's a rebus—I mean, ["The Four Seasons" composer]? Everyone's gonna know that's VIVALDI, see it doesn't fit, and go, "well, rebus square, I guess." But you can't very well have those rebus squares be normal sized, or your whole theme premise disappears. So extreme easiness is the price we pay for this concept. Oh well. It wasn't unfun. I like the rebus answers, for the most part, esp. LOCAL DIVE and YOGA POSES / MEGAPLEXES and LIKE A CHARM / STRIKE A POSE. You've also got some like eight 7+-letter non-theme answers livening up the grid. Pretty remedial rebus with an odd-man-out "box store," but still a pretty good time.

I had exactly one problem area, and it was (briefly) a doozy. I just stared at S-T / -TIMATES and ... nothing. The only -TIMATES I could think of were "guesstimates" and "estimates" and neither of those yielded a box store (and neither worked with the cross). I wanted 11A: Last over the line, say to be LAST and 12D: Conservative guesses to be GUESSTIMATES, but as you can see both "Last" and "Guess" are in their respective clues, *and* they don't work both directions, so ... total failure. Total stoppage. Squinting. Head-tilting. Staring. Resigning myself to failure ... and then I start mulling 12D: Conservative guesses ... "'conservative' ... so, they're probably on the lo-" And that was that. Low. LOWES! SLOWEST / LOW ESTIMATES. The Down was not one word but two! Phew. That was a harrowing few seconds (5? 10? 15 seconds? Felt like forever). The rest of the puzzle basically filled itself in. Don't know what a "Shamash" is but managed to get MENORAH off just the "ME-" anyway (a MENORAH "holds" candles, and "Shamash" sounds Hebrew so ... ta da!) (the "Shamash" is the candle used to light the other eight candles of a MENORAH). Oh, and I needed a few crosses to get FAN EDITS. No good reason I didn't get that right away, I just didn't (5D: Altered excerpts of a film posted to social media, say). 

Bullets:

• 1A: In "The Tempest," when Miranda says "O brave new world, That has such people in't!" (ACT V) — one of the first Shakespeare plays I ever read, along with Richard II (such a weird play for high schoolers to read, but we read whatever was going to be on at the Ashland (OR) Shakespeare Festival that year (we took a week-long trip there in both my junior and senior years), and The Tempest and RII were what was playing in '86 and '87, apparently)). The whole "Brave new world" speech comes late in the play, when Miranda sees actual people (besides her father Prospero and Caliban) for the first time. I don't know I could've told you with certainty it was ACT V, but I know it wasn't ACT I, and no other Acts fit, so ... success!
• 19A: "American ___" (PIE) — the preceding Across clue is 17A: Forbidden idol so my brain was like "American IDOL!? But they just used 'idol' in the cl- ... ah, I see, not IDOL. Doesn't fit."
• 34A: Bob who narrated "How I Met Your Mother" (SAGET) — perennial "what is Bob Sag-t's second vowel" problem.
• 35A: Historic Bulgarian ruler (TSAR) — "Bulgarian"!? What do I know about Bulgaria (almost zero). I guess not using "Russian" was a way to try to slow the solver down. Didn't work.
• 38A: Faux flattery (SMARM) — people say they hate the word "moist" but I think SMARM might beat "moist" on my ickword list. Somehow "smarmy" doesn't rankle, but SMARM, ew, get it off me!
• 41A: Broad-shouldered Titan (ATLAS) — me: "... all of them? Oh, right, it's the 'carries the world on his back' guy. Makes sense."

• 6D: Sons of ___, exemplars of biblical wickedness (ELI) — got this off the "I" but only because ELI is a biblical name I know. Wait, is ARI biblical? Of course it is. Means "lion." So I guessed right on the three-letter "I"-ending biblical man's name. If there's another example of such a name, do not tell me, this part of my brain is full up.

Not as short a write-up as I imagined. I'll try harder (less hard?) tomorrow. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

PS someone in the comments mentioned the POSE dupe (STRIKE A POSE, YOGA POSES) and yes that is pretty bad. Can’t believe I missed it.

PPS to people saying the stores in the boxes aren’t supposed to be BIG BOX STORES, just regular stores inside big (oversized) boxes … ok, but when two of your stores are indisputably BIG BOX STORES (IKEA, Lowe’s), you can see how people might wonder if we’re meant to see the other stores as BIG BOX STORES as well

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Toondom's Olive / TUE 11-18-25 / Dentist, colloquially / Shipped without prepaid postage, for short / Martial art with bamboo swords / Japanese stadium that has hosted M.L.B. and N.F.L. games / Cereal variety from Switzerland / Appear gradually from the black, as a film image / Limerick's locale

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium

THEME: TO-DO LIST (57A: Collection of tasks ... or what 17-, 26-, 35- and 47-Across comprise?) — two-word phrases where the first word starts with "TO-" and the second word starts with "DO-":

Theme answers:

• TONE DOWN (17A: Soften, as a message)
• TOP DOLLAR (26A: A very high price, so to speak)
• TOOTH DOCTOR (35A: Dentist, colloquially)
• TOKYO DOME (47A: Japanese stadium that has hosted M.L.B. and N.F.L. games)

Word of the Day: SENT C.O.D. (40A: Shipped without prepaid postage, for short) —

Cash on delivery (COD), sometimes called payment on delivery, cash on demand, payment on demand or collect on delivery is the sale of goods by mail order where payment is made on delivery rather than in advance. If the goods are not paid for, they are returned to the retailer. Originally, the term applied only to payment by cash but as other forms of payment have become more common, the word "cash" has sometimes been replaced with the word "collect" to include transactions by checks, money orders, credit cards or debit cards. // Advantages of COD for online or mail order retailers:

• The customer does not need to own a credit card to purchase.
• Impulse purchases may increase as payment is not due at the time of ordering.
• The credibility of retailers may be increased because the consumer only has to pay when the item is delivered.

Disadvantages of COD for online or mail order retailers:

• Orders might be returned as buyers are less committed to the purchase than if they had paid in advance (which led to the eventual elimination of C.O.D. with many TV offers in the United States and Canada by the early 1980s).
• Logistics partners charge additional fees for COD orders. (wikipedia)

• • •

First ugh was at LAOTZU, both because he's the crosswordesiest philosopher who ever lived and because it's impossible to know which spelling of his name the puzzle is going to want: I went with LAO-TSE (last two letters, wrong). Wikipedia has it as LAOZI, and you'd think the crossword would've jumped all over that spelling, but ... 

[xwordinfo]

Maybe it hasn't taken because it looks like it's pronounced "lousy." According to wikipedia: "Lǎozǐ is the modern (pinyin) romanization of 老子. In English, a variety of pronunciations and spellings of the Chinese name exist, such as Lao-tse and Lao Tzu. It is not a personal name, but rather an honorific title, meaning 'old' or 'venerable'. Its structure matches that of other ancient Chinese philosophers, such as Kongzi (Confucius), Mengzi, and Zhuangzi." Anyway, as soon as I see that guy's name, or parts of his name, my Bumpy Fill ahead warning system goes off. NEWAT (instead of NEWTO) wasn't great (6D: Just getting started with), and CLIO is a bit niche (25D: Advertising award), but actually, the NW ended up coming out OK. But then I hit the middle of the grid and the dreaded REUNES (!) and that got an audible ugh from me, followed by an even bigger one when I hit ETERNE. Between those two examples of only-in-crosswords ugliness, I also had to endure THE DOT (an awful partial—I almost wish this stood for "THE Department of Transportation), and SENT C.O.D. Aside from being an awkward verb phrase, I have never sent or received anything C.O.D. in my life and haven't even heard the term since T.V. ads of my childhood. I think I had to ask my parents what the hell it meant. Apparently it's still a popular delivery option in India, but not here, that's for sure. NEONATE EDDA EDDY OATY OYL TSAR. They also, collectively, dragged things down, but it's really REUNES and ETERNE that made me wince. ETERNE? Even the old-timiest of dead poets don't use ETERNE that much. Constructors really gotta quit reaching for that one.

As for the theme, it's fine, adequate. In no way exciting, but it does what it does. It's got a bit of wordplay going in the revealer, which is nice. I can't believe TO-DO LIST hasn't been done before. Oh, look, it has. In 2016. Identical theme. This bugs me. It's true, it's been nine years, no one (except the first puzzle's constructors) is going to remember one puzzle from 2016, but the bare minimum you can do as a constructor making a puzzle is search your theme answers in the databases to see if someone's done it before. The audience won't remember, but conscientious constructors (I guarantee you) will be like "come on ... I try and try and try to get a puzzle accepted and this one gets through by just replicating a theme that's already been used?!" This puzzle only has one theme answer in common with the 2016 puzzle, but the revealer's the same, the concept is the same. Same same.

I'm begging constructors to a. clean your wordlists of painfully overused gunk, and b. just do a bare minimum of research before you go forward with a theme (It's really the editor's fault—the duplication of the theme is surely a coincidence, not theft. People conceive of similar themes independently of one another all the time). 

[TOOTH DOCTOR?]

This one was very easy to solve. Didn't even think about the theme and just kind of followed my answers termite-like until very quickly I found that I had traversed the grid—diagonally, from NW to SE. This means I got the revealer before I got 75% of the themers, which made getting those themers extra easy:

I do not believe people say TOOTH DOCTOR, or at least I don't believe it's used "colloquially." "Slangily," maybe, "facetiously," possibly. But that is definitely the weakest themer of the lot. TOP DOLLAR is nice (just like it was in the 2016 version of this puzzle). TOKYO DOME is an inventive answer—probably the high point of the puzzle. There's a smattering of decent fill—KARMIC and TINKERER and IRELAND and even JETSAM, but overall things skew tired and slightly olden, and the theme is really just a shrug (and a not-particularly-original shrug at that).

[please enjoy this amazing last-minute goal that put IRELAND over Hungary in a World Cup qualifier over the weekend]

Bullets:

• 4A: Rebound, as a pool shot (BANK) — a normal word, but of course I wanted CAROM, a crossword word. Stupid fifth letter, not fitting in the spaces allotted ...
• 8A: Requirement for domestic air travel starting in 2025 (REAL ID) — I thought your passport worked as well. Yep. "If you already have a valid passport, you don't need a REAL ID for domestic flights." 
• 1D: Material that's been deliberately thrown overboard (JETSAM) — this distinguishes it from FLOTSAM, which ... is just material that's already floating in the sea? Wreckage? What is FLOTSAM? Wait, FLOTSAM can also be material deliberately thrown overboard? That's confusing. "Flotsam /ˈflɒtsəm/ (also known as "flotsan") refers to goods from a sunken vessel that have floated to the surface of the sea, or any floating cargo that is cast overboard." "Jetsam /ˈdʒɛtsəm/ designates any cargo that is intentionally discarded from a ship or wreckage." (my emph.). Those meanings would appear to overlap. FLOTSAM and JETSAM are also, of course, the EELS (!) from The Little Mermaid.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]

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Something extra, redundantly / SAT 3-8-25 / Company founded as Sleeper, Inc. / Not looking so good / Big blanket makers / Garden party outfits often with floral patterns / Thunderbird, e.g. / Areas with nosebleed seats

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Medium / Hard



THEME: THEME — None

Word of the Day: MSDOS [1980s PC standard] —

MS-DOS (/ˌɛmˌɛsˈdɒs/ em-es-DOSS; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system.^[5]

• • •

Hello! It's Rafa here subbing for Rex. (You're stuck with me tomorrow, too, so strap in!) Themeless puzzles are my favorite to solve and construct and blog about so I was excited to get a chance to talk about this Saturday. Let's get into it.

ASP

This is a quadruple quad stack grid! Going from three to four stacked answers makes it about an order of magnitude harder to fill cleanly. Having to do it four times, and having it all connect in the middle, is quite a feat. The price you pay for a construction like this is usually some loss of "flow," meaning that this puzzle feels more like four separate small puzzles. Some people are deeply bothered by this, but I don't mind it too much. I think it's fun to have a diversity of themeless designs, and sometimes you have to sacrifice interconnectedness to flex some chonky stacks.

NENE

One thing about the separation is that the difficulty can vary between pieces. I found the top-left corner to be quite easy, but the bottom-right took me ages to break into. I desperately wanted HOT AS HELL to work, even though it wasn't the right length. I had never heard the expression HOT AS HADES (is it actually a thing? Do I live under a rock?) so that slowed me down. Thankfully, years of crossword experience made UTNE READER an almost-gimme, which was key to unlocking that corner. I wouldn't say UTNE READER is good fill (I daresay it's, in fact, kinda bad ... is it still a thing? Going on the website the articles on the home page are from 2012...), but there's something satisfying about seeing these common answers in their full glory in a grid. LAKE ERIE! JAI ALAI! BRIAN ENO! Sometimes we have to recognize these entries for all their service over the years.

RAT

Overall, the fill is impressively clean given the constraints. Looking at the grid again, a lot of the iffiness is in the bottom-right (the aforementioned HADES, NOT A, BONS, etc.) so that's maybe why it felt harder to me! The NOT A clue [What's added to one to make zero?] felt like a bit of a lipstick on a pig situation, but I appreciate the effort. I also recently read Jane EYRE because it's such common crossword fill and it still took me forever to get EYRE here so I guess it did not help. Good book, though! I love a Victorian novel.

ORCA

Alright, that's it from me. Fun puzzle! See you all tomorrow. Stay safe out there.

Bullets:

• 40D MATE [This might come after the check] — Very clever chess misdirect! Probably my favorite clue in the puzzle
• 13D INCLINED TO [Thinking that one might] — These quad stacks often mean you get one more neutral / boring answer. This is that answer! These prepositional phrases are additionally unfortunate it that their clues often have to be awkward / tortured.
• 33A COLOR CODES [Visual classification systems] — Probably my favorite entry in the grid!

Signed, Rafa

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Wide-reaching green light / WED 2-19-25 / Dewy-eyed heroine / Synergy-seeking move / Small British hunting dog / End-of-level enemies in video games / Onetime place to shop while high? / Destination of a walk / Something good for an angler, bad for a dog trainer / French pointillism pioneer / Biological bags / Programming conditionals

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: QUILTING BEE (59A: Social sewing event ... and a hint to the starts of 17-, 29-, 34- and 44-Across) — starts of four theme answers all have to do with "quilting" and all start with "B":

Theme answers:

• BLOCKBUSTER (17A: Film megahit)
• BLANKET APPROVAL (29A: Wide-reaching green light)
• BORDER TERRIER (34A: Small British hunting dog)
• BATTING PRACTICE (44A: Slugger's pregame warm-up)

Word of the Day: Robinson CANÓ (25D: Baseballer Robinson ___) —

Robinson José Canó Mercedes (Spanish pronunciation: [ka'no]; born October 22, 1982) is a Dominican-American professional baseball second baseman for the Diablos Rojos del México of the Mexican League; he also captains the Estrellas Orientales of the Dominican Professional Baseball League. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, New York Mets, San Diego Padres, and Atlanta Braves.

A native of San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic, Canó signed with the Yankees organization as an amateur free agent in 2001. He played for the Yankees from 2005 to 2013, also winning the 2009 World Series over the Philadelphia Phillies. In December 2013, Canó signed a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Mariners and he played for them from 2014 to 2018, when he was traded to the Mets. Canó recorded 1,695 hits in the 2010s, the most of any major league player during that decade. He is an eight-time MLB All-Star, a five-time Silver Slugger Award winner, and a two-time Gold Glove Award winner. Canó is also the 2017 All-Star Game MVP and the 2011 Home Run Derby winner.

Canó has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs twice. In 2018, Canó was suspended from MLB for 80 games for violating the league's joint drug agreement by using furosemide. Canó was also suspended for the entire 2021 season after testing positive for stanozolol. (wikipedia)

• • •

[6D: French pointillism pioneer]

The theme is OK, I guess, but solving this was something less than a joy because the fill was wall-to-wall blah—and frequently downright bad. I actually stopped in disbelief at the godawfulness that is TSK-TSKED. I mean, TSKED is bad enough—you see it from time to time in the grid because it's five letters and it's got an odd letter combination—but TSKED is short gunk and you can ignore it pretty easily, especially if the rest of the puzzle is OK. But TSKTSKED?! (5D: Orally admonished). Aside from something that's said by precisely no one, it's a complete waste of a longer answer. It's crosswordese on steroids (speaking of steroids ... see Robinson CANÓ, above!). Here's me catching my breath and bracing for the worst, after starting superfast and reasonably optimistic:

I was half hoping that TSKTSKED was somehow wrong, but that "K" slid in so nicely at the end of "BLOCK" that I knew, sadly, it was right. You then get not one but two biting dog clues—one of which was totally unnecessary. SIC 'EM, ugh, more crosswordese, but what else are you gonna do but clue that with reference to dogs? But BITE ... I get that you're trying to be clever, but leave dogs out of your violent scenarios (18D: Something good for an angler, bad for a dog trainer). No biting dogs if you don't absolutely need biting dogs. And certainly not *two* biting dogs. Doggos are good. Lawful Good. Treat them that way. It's humans who are EVIL (39D: "Most of the ___ in this world is done by people with good intentions": T.S. Eliot) (T.S. Eliot ... not sure I agree with your math, there, T.S. Look around, T.S.).

IVANIV and SEAEEL are a grim pair of 6s to put in one corner, in a grid that needs all the solid and interesting fill it can get. ABA EMO ERN RICA ASONE TIETO ÉTÉ SIA ... this was very easy and very unfun. The theme answers were interesting as standalone answers, but they were the only thing that was interesting. This puzzle really really needed that revealer to land, and ... shrug. I guess those are, in fact, quilting terms. You piece together quilts out of BLOCKs, you use quilts as BLANKETs (this one seems kinda weak), you sew BORDERs onto quilts, and you fill them with BATTING. All quilts, all "B" ("Bee")s. Adequate revealer, reasonable theme, but it can't make up for the truly listless grid today. The solving experience was less than enjoyable, the grid definitely subPAR (so annoying that "subpar" means "below average" but if you shoot below PAR in golf, that's above average—truly one of the stupidest mutations in the English language).

[Kwilt Kitties!]

No real resistance today. This should've been yesterday's puzzle. And I wish it had been more like yesterday, at least in terms of inventiveness and overall personality. I'll take "flashy but with three names I've never heard of" over "zzzzzzzzzzz" any day. Can't believe I didn't like a puzzle with this much baseball content (three answers!) and this much dog content (three answers!). Started quick by getting FIRST easily (the first of the baseball clues) (1A: Destination of a walk), and then all the Downs crossing first, the last of which was ... well, we already covered the TSKTSKED debacle, no need to revisit. After that, the only hesitations I had were, which IVAN is it (II or IV?), and then SPELLING and even KNITTING before QUILTING, strangely ("strangely" because my mother's side of the family were big quilters and there are quilts on her walls, quilts in our bedroom, in our daughter's old bedroom, etc.). SEWING BEE also came to mind, but obviously it didn't fit *and* "sewing" was in the clue, so that was out. Still, it's not like any of this cost me much time, as no other answer in the grid held me up (slight hesitation at BOSSES, maybe, but I've heard the term "boss level" so much that even that one just rolled over) (44D: End-of-level enemies in video games).

[Mom's house]

Bullet points:

• 21A: Dewy-eyed heroine (INGENUE) — I like this term. It's weirdly dated and kinda ... infantilizing? Sexist? But it's a term that reminds me of old Hollywood, which is where I like to spend a lot of my time (calming my brain in order to remain functional in The Real World, whatever that is). 

• 54A: Onetime place to shop while high? (SKYMALL) — huh, SKYMALL is bygone? I missed that. Maybe because I never made an in-air purchase in my life (I don't even buy the food you can eat right then and there unless I'm truly desperate). Anyway, not getting on any plane for another six months, thank god ... although why do I expect the air traffic control situation to be any better by then? MACA! (Make Airplanes Crash Again! It's a more honest slogan)
• 32A: Birchbark, e.g. (CANOE) — last night, I solved a variety puzzle from Joon Pahk's "Outside the Box" puzzles (highly recommended), and it had this exact clue / answer pairing. The puzzle was trickier than a straight crossword, but solving it involved knowing that one thing meant the other thing, so it was deja-vuish to see this clue/answer today. I like the CANÓ / CANOE crossing for ... well, if you were alive in the '80s, maybe you know:

• 4D: Biological bags (SACS) — if ever a clue made me go "ew," this one did
• 45D: World capital said to have been founded by King Midas (ANKARA) — ooh, did not know that. I wanted this to have something to do with Crete ... but that's Minos, not Midas.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Freedom, per Janis Joplin / THU 11-7-24 / Claymation character of old "S.N.L." / Gaming console that preceded the Switch / Place for a Lady chapel / Stylish Miami neighborhood, in brief / Debut character for Zadie Smith / Mario Kart character with a pink outfit and a mushroom cap / Pink-colored Euro banknote

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Off TO the side... — familiar phrases containing "TO" must be written in the grid with "TO" moved (one column or row to the side) in the direction indicated by the word that precedes it in the phrase—up, down, left or right. (Shaded squares indicate the position of the "TO"s):

Theme answers:

• BRINGS [UP TO] SPEED (18A: Fills in with the latest)
• NOTHING [LEFT TO] LOSE (3D: Freedom, per Janis Joplin)
• COME [DOWN TO] THE WIRE (61A: Result in a photo finish)
• GET RIGHT [TO] THE POINT (27D: Not beat around the bush)

Word of the Day: Lady chapel (53A: Place for a Lady chapel => APSE) —

[Wells Cathedral, Somerset, UK] 

A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chapel or a Marian chapel, and they were traditionally the largest side chapel of a cathedral, placed eastward from the high altar and forming a projection from the main building, as in Winchester Cathedral. Most Roman Catholic and many Anglican cathedrals still have such chapels, while mid-sized churches have smaller side-altars dedicated to the Virgin. (wikipedia)

• • •

Got the theme early:

 

And while I thought the concept was clever, I think it's missing something. Like ... a point. Why are you moving "TO"s. If there were some revealer or some spelled-out phrase or something that made the specific practice of moving "TO"s meaningful, if the moved "TO"s were expressing (in some visually punny way) a familiar phrase or something like that, then this theme might be impressive. But as it is, you just move the "TO"s ... just to move them. If there's no real reason, no revealer, why not make the moved words different? Not just "TO," but "FOR" or "IN" or whatever. "I'LL BE [RIGHT WITH] YOU!" Something like that. I guess it's simpler this way. I mean, it definitely is simpler—once you grasp the theme, you can just write "TO" in all those shaded squares, and you know that "TO" is going to be involved in the larger phrase, so the repetitiveness of the theme smooths the road for the solver. I would've appreciated more variety and more challenge (in the theme). And more coherence in the context. There's a good core architectural concept here, but no clear main idea to hang it on. I enjoyed working it all out, but there was something hollow and anticlimactic about it. I kept waiting for the revealer that never arrived.

["The Joy of SECT"]

While the theme seemed promising but underdeveloped, the fill, yeeeeesh. I made a lot of faces today. There's the usual culprits, like short gunk that's maybe a little gunkier than it needs to be today. You know, your ALII WIIU, your ING NNE, stuff like that. In smallish doses, that's harmless, but unfortunately it was gunkily complemented by a bunch of longer answers that clanked and sputtered throughout the grid. SEISMO is perhaps the stupidest thing I've ever seen in the grid (69A: Shaky start?). I exaggerate, but not by much. Certainly the stupidest-looking standalone prefix. SEISMO sounds like the name of the mascot at a seismology convention. Imagine someone running around in a furry cartoonish Richter scale costume, trying to get the seismologists hyped about their jobs—that's SEISMO! "Oh, SEISMO, you lovable scamp! You make my knees shake and my heart tremble!" And what is this ridiculous fully-spelled-out "OKAY" in "NOT OKAY"? NOT OK has made twelve NYTXW appearances because that is how you spell NOT OK when you have to spell NOTOK. "NOT OKAY," on the other hand ... surprise, this is a debut. NOT OKAY ... it's not OK. Unwelcome debuts seem to be happening more and more. Debuts are not good for their own sake! Some answers should never see the light of day! 

[I don't know what this is, but it's SEISMO!]

BAD EYE threw me off with its informality (41D: One might require a higher prescription). It looks weird as a standalone phrase. And again, it's a debut. Overstuffed wordlists are going to be the death of us all, I swear. As for OSBORNE, holy cow that was hard (40A: Given name of baseball's Ozzie Smith). I know very well who Ozzie Smith is, as his career was at its peak during my peak baseball card-collecting years. But I thought maybe he was an OSCAR or an OSWALD or something, I dunno. And speaking of "popular when I was a kid," this puzzle skews verrry old in its pop culture references today. Ozzie Smith and Will GEER and Janice Joplin and MR. BILL and Gloria GAYNOR (19D: "I Will Survive" Grammy winner). Real "half a century ago" vibe to this group. Spelling GAYNOR could cause issues, especially if you aren't sure about AYER, TOADETTE, or OSBORNE. I definitely left that "O" space in GAYNOR blank til the end. GAYNOR crossing TOADETTE and OSBORNE crossing NOT OKAY and BAD EYE ... that felt like a real rough patch. And obviously, the less said about BROSPEAK, the better (43A: Greek language?). (note: frat boys ("Greeks") talk like everyone else in college, honestly ... a techbro angle on this clue might be more appropriate)

[Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee," written by the late great Kris Kristofferson: "Freedom is just another word for NOTHING [LEFT TO] LOSE"]

Notes:

• 4D: Stylish Miami neighborhood, in brief (SOBE) — assuming this stands for "South Beach." SOBE has appeared in the NYTXW 21 times in the Modern Era, but this is its first appearance as a neighborhood. Before that, it was the beverage co. (e.g. [Beverage brand with a lizard logo]), or else a partial (from the phrase "SO BE it").
• 13D: Debut character for Zadie Smith (ZED) — a "letteral" clue, and a British one at that. Zadie Smith is a British writer, and ZED is the British term for the letter "ZEE," so ... there you go.
• 57D: Subject of the obsolete "plum pudding model" (ATOM) — well I'm glad it's "obsolete" because I never heard of it. "The first scientific model of the atom to describe an internal structure." Proposed in 1904 and then rendered obsolete in 1911 by the discovery of the atomic nucleus. A seven-year run? That's it? "Cats" ran for longer.
• 64D: 2020 #1 hit for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion ("WAP") — the "W" stands for "Wet" and the "A" stands for "ASS," and if you're someone who thinks "WET-ASS" is inappropriately vulgar for the crossword, well, I have some bad news for you about what the "P" stands for ...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

***

Important Note:

As of Monday, 11/4/24, the NYT Tech Guild is on strike. 

From The Guardian:

The Guild is asking that readers honor their picket line by boycotting the Times’ selection of games, including Wordle and the daily digital crossword, and to avoid other digital extensions such as the Cooking app.

Annie Shields, a campaign lead for the News Guild of New York, encouraged people to sacrifice their streaks in the wildly popular Wordle and Connections games in order to support the strike.

You can read more about the strike here (nyguild.org).

There were some anti-union talking points being credulously repeated in the comments yesterday, so just to be clear (per Vanity Fair): "The union said Tech Guild workers' main concerns that remain unresolved are: remote/hybrid work protections; “just cause” job protections, which “the newsroom union has had for decades”; limits on subcontracting; and pay equity/fair pay." 

Since the picket line is "digital," it would appear to apply only to Games solved in the NYT digital environment—basically anything you solve on your phone or on the NYT website per se. If you get the puzzle in an actual dead-tree newspaper, or if you solve it outside the NYT's proprietary environment (via a third-party app, as I do), then technically you're not crossing the picket line by solving. You can honor the digital picket line by not using the Games app (or the Cooking app) at all until the strike is resolved. No Spelling Bee, no Connections ... none of it. My morning Wordle ritual is was very important to me, but ... I'll survive, I assume.  

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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