Question after "Well, well, well ..." / THU 4-2-26 / "Family Guy" character with a nasal voice / Object in Pixar's logo / Part of a Batman costume / Airer of the game show "Wipeout" / One side in a "Holy War" rivalry in college football / Gas company with a triangular logo / Instrument once known as a "toy trumpet" / Made in a nonmechanized way, as food products

Constructor: Joe Marquez

Relative difficulty: Medium

[9A: Sci-fi warrior (JEDI)]

THEME: LAUGH LINES (60A: Facial wrinkles ... or what's present in 16-, 22-, 36- and 50-Across?) — grid has bold black "lines" where "laughs" (i.e. "HA"s) should be (I've made the lines red, below, to make them more distinct):

Theme answers:

• "W | T | VE WE HERE?" (16A: Question after "Well, well, well ...")
• "T | T SHIP | S SAILED" (22A: "Too late to do anything about it now")
• W | LE S | RKS (36A: Marine creatures that can grow to the size of double-decker buses)
• "T | NKS BUT NO T | NKS" (50A: Sarcastic response to an unwanted offer)

Word of the Day: whale shark (see 36A) —

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. An individual with a length of 18.8 m (61.7 ft) has been considered the largest reliably recorded. The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the most massive living non-cetacean animal. It is the only living species of the genus Rhincodon and the only extant member of the family Rhincodontidae, which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. [...] Whale sharks inhabit the open waters of all tropical oceans. They are rarely found in water below 21 °C (70 °F) The lifespan of a whale shark is estimated to be between 80 and 130 years, based on studies of their vertebral growth bands and the growth rates of free-swimming sharks.

The species was distinguished in April 1828 after the harpooning of a 4.6 m (15 ft) specimen in Table Bay, South Africa. Andrew Smith, a military doctor associated with British troops stationed in Cape Town, described it the following year. The name "whale shark" refers to the animal's appearance and large size; it is a fish, not a mammal, and, like all sharks, is not closely related to whales. (wikipedia)

• • •

After yesterday's lovely (and, in parts of the comments section, unfairly maligned) puzzle, today's was a bit of a letdown. The lines are "HA"s. The end. I think I would've been happier if I'd just jumped to the revealer first, because it took me a longish (and unpleasantish) time to figure out what all the black bars were doing. Then when I realized those "lines" were "HA"s I just ... plugged the "HA"s in wherever relevant and the puzzle got much easier. But besides the revealer, there's nothing clever going on. There is, however, something irritating going on, which is gibberish. The "line" is a really poor substitute for letters from a solving perspective, because it's just not ... visually interesting. At all. And not big enough to "stand in" for anything very well. In fact, it's barely there at all. It's just a normal feature of a crossword grid made slightly more bold. I'll take yesterday's cryptic clues (and cryptic answers) and the relevant letters all nice and circled over whatever this is any day. Basically, it felt fussy to solve and ugly to look at while solving. And the fussiness didn't just involve the fact that I had to mentally supply the "HA"s. No, the fussiness came mainly from the fact that the puzzle seemed to be composed entirely of 3s 4s and 5s. So Much Short Stuff. Everywhere you turn, tired old short stuff. This made for a very choppy, and rather boring experience. I should say that the theme answers themselves are all fantastic standalone answers—all things I'd normally be very happy to see. In fact, despite my non-love for the whole "line" gimmick, I still enjoyed solving those themers more than I enjoyed anything else about the grid. It's not even close. There's just too much filler today, unallayed by anything very interesting. I mean, LEVITATED and ARTISANAL are fine words, but they are no match for the ESTEE ESSO ETON ORC etc. onslaught. Oh, and lastly, the final themer (THANKS BUT NO THANKS) felt like a cheap way to get your two "HA"s—using the same word twice. I do like the phrase, but if your whole deal is "look at all these HAs," then duping one of your HA words seems a weak way to round things out.

Had a weird amount of trouble getting started because of CULTS / COWL (1A: Fanatical groups / 1D: Part of a Batman costume). Just couldn't see either of them. I wanted Batman to be wearing a HOOD (I had the first "O" from OPERA in place (13A: One of 22 works by Mozart, but just one work by Beethoven)), and I couldn't get SECTS out of my head for the [Fanatical groups]. The fact that that same section had two of the dark lines in it made getting started even harder. Maybe not "hard," just slow. I forgot LOIS had a "nasal" voice—I really haven't thought about Family Guy at all since the '90s unless I'm forced to, so that also prevented me from getting out of the blocks too fast. I also wanted that first themer to be something like "WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?" or "LOOK WHAT WE HAVE HERE?" so the "HA" trick was not clear at that point. I picked it up a little later, with the next themer. While the puzzle felt very choppy, it wasn't particularly hard after I pocketed the gimmick. Some of the clues on the short stuff felt maybe a little tougher than usual, but I wouldn't be surprised if this played easier than usual for some people, since the gimmick today isn't particularly complicated, in the end.  

Bullets:

• 6A: Dish often topped with lime and cilantro (PHO) — had the "P," wrote in POI. Total reflex.
• 44A: Gas company with a triangular logo (CITGO) — oh boy, two gas companies today, that's fun. No, not fun ... what's the opposite of "fun"? (27D: The first letter in this gas brand's logo resembles a backward 3 = ESSO)
• 12D: Teed off (IRKED) — had IRATE here at first. Also had CEO instead of COO because why would you clue a perfectly good word like that—with a cruddy business initialism? (20A: Exec who manages a company's day-to-day affairs). Boo. (COO = C.O.O. = Chief Operating Officer)
• 46A: One side in a "Holy War" rivalry in college football (UTES) — lol what? Since when has anyone (outside Utah) cared what Utah did in sports? I know all colleges and universities have rivalries that are meaningful to them, but ... the UTES? I was unaware they had a rivalry at all, let alone one worthy of the name "Holy War"—I hope it's vs. Notre Dame, because otherwise the name seems awfully hyperbolic. Oh, it's BYU. OK, yeah, that's like the Notre Dame of Utah, that'll do. Still, if I had to list all the college sports rivalries I was aware of ... well, clearly I would not have listed this one.

• 63A: School with a larger-than-life bronze statue of Henry VI (ETON) — I'm assuming the statue exists because Henry VI founded the damn place. The timeline feels right, I know the school dates from 14-something ... yep, founded 1440 by Henry VI. Henry (the last monarch of the House of Lancaster) eventually died in the Tower, during the War of the Roses, possibly bludgeoned to death on the orders of Edward IV (House of York).
• 7D: "Let ___ Go" (2012 Passenger hit) ("HER") — Passenger? OK. No idea who that is. Also, no idea what Wipeout is, and couldn't tell you a single show currently airing on TBS (47D: Airer of the game show "Wipeout"). Looks like "Let HER Go" was a massive international hit (No. 5 on the U.S. charts) and then ... no other hits. A few singles, but nothing at all that charted in the U.S. I'm listening to "Let HER Go" right now and it is totally unfamiliar. Also, to my ears ... let's say, not interesting. So forget "Let HER Go," I'm gonna play the Zombies instead.

["Tell HER No"]

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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Doraphobe's fear / THU 3-12-26 / Citrus portmanteau / Celebrity supercouple of the 2000s / Activist/scholar known for her work in the prison abolition movement / Mad scientist in a 1964 Kubrick title / Sticks around for a demo? / Sultanate that once controlled Zanzibar / Lush hair's quality / Some double-headed drums

Constructor: Joe Marquez

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FALLEN ANGEL (26D: Heavenly outcast ... or a hint to something found three times in this puzzle) — the letter string "ANGEL" "falls" in three different Across answers (merging with three different Down answers):

Theme answers:

• BRANGELINA / CHANGE LANES (17A: Celebrity supercouple of the 2000s / 3D: Move to pass, perhaps)
• TANGELO / ANGELA DAVIS (23A: Citrus portmanteau / 24D: Activist/scholar known for her work in the prison abolition movement)
• LOS ANGELES / STRANGELOVE (21A: Second-most-populous city in the U.S. / 9D: Mad scientist in a 1964 Kubrick title)

Word of the Day: ANGELA DAVIS (24D) —

Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author and social theorist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She has been active in movements such as the Occupy movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama; she studied at Brandeis University and the University of Frankfurt. She also studied at the University of California, San Diego, before moving to East Germany, where she completed some studies for a doctorate at the Humboldt-University of Berlin. After returning to the United States, she joined the CPUSA and became involved in the second-wave feminist movement and the campaign against the Vietnam War.

In 1969, she was hired as an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). UCLA's governing Board of Regents soon fired her due to her membership in the CPUSA. After a court ruled the firing illegal, the university fired her for the use of inflammatory language. In 1970, guns belonging to Davis were used in an armed takeover of a courtroom in Marin County, California, in which four people were killed. Prosecuted for three capital felonies—including conspiracy to murder—she was held in jail for more than a year before being acquitted of all charges in 1972. [...] 

In 2020, she was listed as the 1971 "Woman of the Year" in Time magazine's "100 Women of the Year" edition. In 2020, she was included on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. (wikipedia)

• • •

Really thought this was a rebus. All the way to the end, I figured the ANGEL was crammed into one box in those Across answers (BR[ANGEL]INA, T[ANGEL]O, LOS [ANGEL]ES), and that (for whatever reason) the "ANGEL" boxes were just an "A"s in the Downs. "A is for ANGEL? What the hell kind of theme is this?" When I got FALLEN ANGEL I thought "'Fallen' how? Those rebus squares are going Across, not Down." And only then did I see that the "ANGEL"s were not crammed into boxes, but rather merged with the Down answers that they crossed. I should've figured this out earlier, esp. when I tried to rebus "ANGEL" inside DR. STRANGELOVE and it wouldn't work. I even tried spelling it DOCTOR STR[ANGEL]OVE. No dice. At any rate, my not fully comprehending the theme until the end did nothing to slow me down, as this puzzle was extremely easy. The theme was not hard to uncover at all, and the rest of the grid played like a Tuesday. What's more (worse), the rest of the grid is pretty dull. All 3-4-5-6s, with only a couple of dramatic 8s to spice things up (HARDCORE, PURE EVIL). Luckily, the theme material in this one is really quite colorful. Would you believe I was thinking of BR[ANGEL]INA just yesterday!? I was watching this documentary on HBO called The Power of Film (a kind of rudimentary explainer of the basic thematic and structural elements of popular Hollywood movies), and there was a whole segment on Brad Pitt and I thought to myself "What ever happened to BR[ANGEL]INA? Did I dream that? That was real, right?" And so it was slightly eerie to have this be the moment I "got" the theme:

From here on out, the puzzle was a cinch. Loved seeing ANGELA DAVIS and STRANGELOVE, and HARDCORE and PURE EVIL are doing their damndest to spice things up, but the bulk of the puzzle felt a little flat to me. Still, the theme is interesting. Just not particularly tricky. Or, rather, it's tricky, but the trick is pretty transparent.

I booed when I got LOS [ANGEL]ES because that seems like cheating. LOS [ANGEL]ES literally means "the angels." Seems pretty cheap to "hide" your "angel" inside a word meaning "angel," especially after the much more clever angel-burying examples of BR[ANGEL]INA and T[ANGEL]O. I had no other strong negative reactions to this one. The "X" and the "Z" had me thinking "oh, I see we're Scrabble-f***ing today, why?," but those are small corners and the cramming of high-value Scrabble tiles into those sections doesn't really hurt anyone. Those corners remain solid. Doesn't feel like we sacrificed fill quality for the rather thin pleasure of merely having an "X" or a "Z" in the grid. So no harm done. The only part of the grid where I "struggled" was at FUR / RASPS. The clue on FUR is bonkers (26A: Doraphobe’s fear). "Doraphobe?" Do you all know that word? I had no idea what "Dora-" could possibly mean. Also ... people are afraid of FUR? Like, when humans wear it, or are you just afraid of all animals or what? HARDCORE way to come at FUR, that's for sure. And I've never thought of RASPS as [Barely speaks]. You can speak in a rasp just fine. "Rasp" means "utter in a raspy tone," and "raspy" just means "harsh" or "grating"—nothing in there about "barely." I nearly wrote GASPS in here, but I figured there was probably no such thing as a fear of FUG (a great word, but not a likely phobia source)

Bullets:

• 25A: Sticks around for a demo? (TNT) — as in "demolition." Nice clue.
• 38A: Sultanate that once controlled Zanzibar (OMAN) — I had no idea. Also, I have forgotten exactly what "Zanzibar" was. I feel like it was part of North Africa ... hmmm, not quite. It's a Tanzanian archipelago. So ... East Africa, not North.

• 33D: Stanley of "Conclave" (TUCCI) — also [Stanley of "The Devil Wears Prada"], which I watched for the first time earlier this week in anticipation of the sequel, which comes out later this year. The actors (TUCCI! Streep! Hathaway!) are all fantastic—charming, funny—even if the story was ultimately kind of flat and grotesquely glorified workplace abuse. "I endured my boss's bizarre sadism but wow what a great learning experience." Ugh. "Whiplash for girls" was my three-word Letterboxd review. Still, I can't say I didn't enjoy myself, and I'm definitely seeing that sequel.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Beverage that was invented in a Dairy Queen / FRI 9-12-25 / Hem, but not haw? / Intoxicate, quaintly / Idea for a pair of trick-or-treaters / French for "dainty" / Accessory out West

Constructor: Joe Marquez

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ICEE (46D: Beverage that was invented in a Dairy Queen) —

The Icee Company (also known as Western Icee and Icee USA) is an American beverage company located in La Vergne, Tennessee, United States.^[1] Its flagship product is the Icee (stylized as ICEE), which is a frozen carbonated beverage available in fruit and soda flavors. Icee also produces other frozen beverages and Italian ice pops under the Icee and Slush Puppie brands. ICEE Bear, an animated polar bear, is the company's mascot.

The Icee Company was founded by Omar Knedlik, the inventor of the original Icee drink. It became the foundation for the Slurpee and other frozen machine drinks after several machines made by the company were purchased by 7-Eleven in 1965. It has been a division of J & J Snack Foods since 1988 and distributes products in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Australia, the United Kingdom, China, and the Middle East. 

The Icee was invented in 1958 by Omar Knedlik, a Dairy Queen owner in Coffeyville, Kansas. The beverage was the result of faulty equipment in the Dairy Queen owned by Knedlik. His soda machine broke and he began placing bottles of soda in the freezer to keep them cold. Knedlik began selling bottles of the soda which would instantly turn to slush once opened. The frozen soda became popular with the customers of the establishment. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was pretty good. It played slightly harder than most themelesses have played for me of late, but there's no good reason for that. My brain just blanked more often on things it really should've gotten quickly. Like, in the SW, with CULT [blank] and ORAL [blank], I double-blanked. Just couldn't think of the words that were supposed to follow. Nothing for CULT ___, only "presentation" for ORAL ___. And the literary heroine, lol, E--E, that should've been a gimme, esp. for me (a literature professor who has read that novel at least twice), but my brain was like "uh ... EMMA ... doesn't work ... hmm ... ESME? ... from that Salinger short story?" No, dummy. It's Jane EYRE (21A: Literary heroine who described herself as "poor, obscure, plain and little"). Wake up! Also couldn't get the ICEE GEAR pair from just their last letters. I realize now that the late-week puzzles have gotten so easy that when I look at two clues in a row and can't guess either, esp. if the answers are short, the puzzle feels hard all of a sudden. But nothing about this puzzle was actually hard. I'm just a little sluggish this a.m. 

There are hardly any proper nouns in this puzzle, and ... no celebrity names, is that right? Yes, unless you consider SHE-RA a celebrity, that is right. Highly unusual for a modern puzzle. And since names are frequently sources of trouble for solvers, their absence is gonna make this puzzle play easier than usual. The grid has hardly anything in it that isn't widely known, totally familiar. It's the cluing that makes it difficult (in the few places that it's difficult). So it's very inviting, very non-exclusionary. It's also really smooth. The short gunk is minimal (TGI is the absolute worst, bury it in the deepest pit, please ... but nothing else is nearly so awful). Plus, marquee fill is up where it should be, in terms of both amount and quality. Not sure how I feel about ON ESTROGEN (the "ON," specifically), but "ARE YOU GOOD?" (11D: Check-in line?) and SMART MONEY (12D: Bets from the experts) are a hell of a pair, and FOOD DESERT got an actual, audible "nice" out of me. Overall, a nice way to start the weekend.

I had one real mistake today. By "real" I mean "consequential." Sometimes you write in the wrong thing and immediately see your error. Other times, the error sits and starts to rot your solve. One example of the former type of error today, for me, was "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" instead of "ALRIGHT ALREADY!" (39A: "I get it, I get it!"). I figured the speaker's exasperation, like the clue, would take the form of repetition. The fact that the first three letters of the last word are identical to the first three of the first word helped push me into that mistake. But something (maybe CHAD? (35D: Land with two official languages—French and Arabic)) helped eliminate that mistake quickly. But one other mistake was not eliminated so quickly—namely, BASEST for RAWEST (10D: Like one's most natural emotions). "Raw" to me conveys "fresh" and "strong," not "natural." Most emotions are "natural." All emotions, actually, now that I think about it. What the hell is an unnatural emotion? Sigh. Anyway. I figured "natural" had to do with what's fundamental, which is what got me to "base," although now I'm realizing that the "base" in "base emotions" would mean "low," and that I was probably thinking "basic"??? I don't know. I just know BASEST fit and felt right, and nothing about the clue indicated "raw" to me, so BASEST sat there for a bit, messing things up. Well, messing two answers up, but they were two short answers in prime positions (i.e. crossing the fronts of two long answers in the NE). So RASP and WEAR took way longer than they should have, and "ARE YOU GOOD?" and SMART MONEY had to be built from the middle up. When the rest of the puzzle is very easy, one little mistake can have consequences that feel big, even if they ultimately aren't that big, by the timer.


Bullet points:

• 23A: Intoxicate, quaintly (BESOT) — wait, this word is "quaint?" This feels like a regular old word to me. I usually hear / see / use (?) it in the adjectival form, "besotted" (the rough equivalent of "enamored" or "in love"). So OK, as a verb, I guess I'll give you "quaintly." But I got this instantly and I like it, which is not always the case with "quaint" stuff. (Didn't we have SOT just yesterday? Yes, 47-Across here. Big week for SOT)
• 52A: Deep study (OCEANOLOGY) — Had the OCEAN- part, so this answer should've gone in instantly, but all I could think was "... why won't OCEANOGRAPHY fit?" I blame the Village People.

["Where can you learn to fly / Play in sports and skin dive / Study OCEANOGRAPHY...?"]

• 10A: Ailment the morning after a loud concert, maybe (RASP) — the concert was loud, and so ... you had to shout to talk to your companions? ... I can see having a RASP the next day if you sang along, but I don't really see what the loudness of the concert per se has to do with that (except that you probably wouldn't shout-sing at the symphony, I'm guessing)
• 19A: Hem, but not haw? (SEW) — this was a gimme and really helped me get started. Sometimes the tricky little "?" clues are confusing, but this one was transparent. Cute, but transparent.
• 25A: Idea for a pair of trick-or-treaters (COUPLES COSTUME) — first, I've never really heard the term. I can imagine what it means, but it's not familiar to me. Second, "idea?" That's the word that slowed me down here. If a "trick-or-treater" gets "ideas," I assume they are already trick-or-treating, and so ... I was imagining some prank or "trick" that would require two people (?). Anything can be an "idea." The distance from "idea" to "costume" felt ... long.
• 34A: Case load? (BEER) — had to get to -EER before I understood it. Yes, BEER comes in cases. The clue is a very good misdirect because it's so succinct and so in-the-language ... for a completely different (legal) context.
• 45A: French for "dainty" (MIGNON) — another gimme for me, but seems like it could be hard for people who don't speak or never studied French. I think of MIGNON as meaning "cute." Perhaps because it does. (but "delicate" or "dainty" is also valid)

• 55A: They make a high-pitched noise when they're pretty heated (TEA KETTLES) — very easy, but boo to "pretty." I see you're trying to do some kind of misdirect, so that solvers will think of people getting angry, but TEA KETTLES don't make high-pitched noises when they're "pretty heated." They make them when they are maximally heated, i.e. boiling. "Pretty heated" would not get you a whistle. 
• 48D: Accessory out West (BOLO) — the capital "W" in "West" really threw me. Assumed that "West" had to be somebody's name, so tried to think of a Mae West accessory. But the "out" made no sense if West was Mae. I don't think I knew you were supposed to capitalize the direction in "out west" (or, presumably, "back east," "up north," "down south"). 

• 30D: "___ dolce ___" (Italian saying) ("CASA") — so it's just a literal translation of "home sweet home." Nothing very "Italian" about it (except the language, of course). 

I'm going to go enjoy my home sweet home now (coffee, cats, comfy chair, etc.). See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Pidgeon, Hawke or Crowe / THU 1-30-25 / Fictional prison guarded by Dementors / Supermodel Carangi / In-the-works software versions / First U.S. prez to be born outside the original 13 Colonies / Focus of a product development test / Region bordering India and China in Risk / This is "plagiarism or revolution," per Gauguin

Constructor: Joe Marquez

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: UPS AND DOWNS (57A: Uncertainties of life ... or a feature of four answers in this puzzle?) — circled squares contain letters that go UP and DOWN inside four longer Across answers:

Theme answers:

• SOLDIER OF / FORTUNE (18A: Mercenary)
• HEART / TRANSPLANT (23A: Groundbreaking medical procedure first accomplished in 1967)
• USER / RESEARCH (38A: Focus of a product development test)
• CAN'T SE / E STRAIGHT (52A: Has a clouded mind)

Word of the Day: Walter Pidgeon (34D: Pidgeon, Hawke or Crowe = ACTOR) —

Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was a Canadian-American actor. A major leading man during the Golden Age of Hollywood, known for his "portrayals of men who prove both sturdy and wise,"^[2] Pidgeon earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, for his roles in Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Madame Curie (1943).

Pidgeon also starred in many other notable films, such as How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Forbidden Planet (1956), Executive Suite (1954), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), Advise & Consent (1962), Funny Girl (1968), and Harry in Your Pocket (1973).

Aside from his acting career, Pidgeon served as the 10th President of the Screen Actors Guild, between 1952 and 1957. He received the Guild's Life Achievement Award in 1975, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, for his contributions to the motion picture industry. (wikipedia)

• • •

A very easy "trick" puzzle. Kind of a Wednesday Thursday. And the grid as a whole ... it's really remedial. I'd say "smooth," but "bland" gets at it better. Lots of boring short stuff, and longer stuff that doesn't do much to liven up the joint. So once again, *everything* rests on the theme today ... which I think is clever, for sure. I'm very aware now that "finding" these kinds of answers (in this case, ones that have a palindromic set of three-up / three-back letters inside them) is more than likely the work of computers than any human "finding," but the effect on the page is still nice. I like that the three-up / three-back segments all involve every word in the theme answers. No tacked-on extra bits. Parts (or all) of every word get caught up in the up/down swing. I especially like the two answers that get three words involved, where the middle word appears entirely in the up/down. And thankfully, these were the last two themers I got. The first got an "oh, OK, I see what you're doing" from me (HEART TRANSPLANT). The next got an "oof, what a boring answer" from me (USER RESEARCH). But the next two really shined (had to look up "shone" v. "shined" there, and since I'm American ... "shined" it is!). CAN'T SEE STRAIGHT got a genuine "Nice!" out of me (not sure if I literally said it, but I definitely thought it), and then later I went up and got the last themer, the one in the NE corner (SOLDIER OF FORTUNE) and that one also impressed with its three-worder-ness. So the theme (as I solved it) finished strong, at least. So I really enjoyed half the themers. Don't have much more good to say about this one, I'm afraid. But while I was in the theme material, I was more than sufficiently entertained.

[ARETHA! (1D: Singer with the 1972 album "Young, Gifted and Black," informally)]

The fill was on the (very) weak side. But as I said up front, it was mostly just dull. Looking the grid over to try to find a Word of the Day, I was struck by how nothing seemed worthy. Nothing seemed interesting or extraordinary or weird enough to merit such a designation. It's mostly very plain language or very familiar crosswordese. It tries a couple longer proper nouns, but ... honestly, I'd rather it hadn't. Horrible to see HP content (AZKABAN) (26D: Fictional prison  guarded by Dementors) centered in the grid the day after Rowling's anti-trans bigotry finally got its political expression in the form of an Executive Order hunting trans kids and the people who support them. Congrats on that, all you "protect women's spaces" / "save women's sports" people. Nice job. Pat selves on back. ("No one comes here for your political opinions" — cool cool please go enjoy one of those highly entertaining apolitical crossword blogs then, no one's stopping you!). The other attempt at adding some proper-noun color to this grid (TED LASSO) ends up creating a less-than-ideal TV character / TV character crossing (TED LASSO / HOLT). No one's likely to get stuck there (all the crosses on HOLT are easy), but ... that is not how I would've clued HOLT in this specific situation. I mean, it's not how I would've clued HOLT ever, but as editor, in this instance, I probably would've nudged that clue toward HOLT's regular meaning (a wood, grove, or copse; or the lair of an otter!) ... non-proper-noun HOLT is not exactly a common word, but hey, it's Thursday, some part of this puzzle should actually be a little challenging. 

["Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth / Inspired hath in every HOLT and heeth / The tendre croppes..."]

My errors today were, like much of this grid, super-boring. Wanted SKOSH before SPECK (32A: Tiny bit). Wanted -ANE before -ENE (12D: Suffix with methyl). Oof, suffix confusion ... fun! Were those my only missteps? It looks like it. I had trouble with FARCE, but only because it crossed ENE-not-ANE. HOLT is really the only thing I can see holding people up today, and as I said, there's no reason it should hold anyone up for long. 

Notes:

• 1A: First U.S. prez to be born outside the original 13 Colonies (ABE) — I started to actually think about this one, but then some (wise, experienced) part of my brain was like "just write ABE, it's probably ABE." And so it was. 
• 51A: Supermodel Carangi (GIA) — I know one other GIA. Actress GIA Scala. There's apparently some social media "influencer" named GIA, but I don't want to give constructors / editors any ideas. 

• 31D: Division of the Dept. of Labor (OSHA) — Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Do we still have one of these? I can't keep up with the deregulatory news this week.
• 64A: This is "plagiarism or revolution," per Gauguin (ART) — ideally you would not have a standalone answer that essentially dupes one of your up/down three-letter strings (the "ART" in HEART / TRANSPLANT). See also EST (17A: "Sic vita ___" ("Such is life")) / CAN'T SEE STRAIGHT.
• 49D: Possible answer to "Whose?" (THE I.R.S.) — As in, "Whose (money is this)?" It's a question you ask around April.* 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*please, no corrections today, thank you!  

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TV surname at 742 Evergreen Terrace / THU 3-21-24 / Apt key for a musical prodigy? / Radius of a unit circle / Repeated sound that can be "cured" / Opera that premiered in Cairo / Longtime Los Angeles sports venue / Iconic painting housed at Oslo's Nasjonalmuseet

Constructor: Joe Marquez

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ESCAPE ROOM (54A: Puzzling activity, as seen four times in this puzzle?) — a rebus puzzle with "ESC" (from the "escape" key) found inside four different boxes ("rooms") in the grid:

Theme answers:

• MIDDLE SCHOOL (17A: Awkward period, for many) 
• "TRÈS CHIC!" (6D: "Ooh-la-la!")
• CHASE SCENE (28A: Action movie highlight)
• STAPLES CENTER (10D: Longtime Los Angeles sports venue)
• "WE'RE SCREWED!" (38A: "It's so over for us!")
• "THREE'S COMPANY" (25D: 1970s-'80s sitcom about a trio of zany roommates)
• PRESCRIBE (44A: Allow to take, perhaps)
• THE SCREAM (40D: Iconic painting housed at Oslo's Nasjonalmuseet)

Word of the Day: STAPLES CENTER (10D) —

Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Downtown Los Angeles. Opened on October 17, 1999, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street, and has since been considered a part of L.A. Live. Owned and operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), it is currently the home venue of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL)—which are both owned in part by AEG's founder Philip Anschutz, as well as the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

It is the only arena in the NBA shared by two teams, as well as one of only three North American professional sports venues (alongside SoFi Stadium in nearby Inglewood, and New Jersey's MetLife Stadium) to currently host two teams from the same league. The venue is also frequently used for major concerts, and has been the most frequent host of the Grammy Awards ceremony since its opening.

Crypto.com Arena will host the basketball competition during the 2028 Summer Olympics. In 2024, the Clippers are scheduled to leave Crypto.com Arena for their own arena, Intuit Dome. (wikipedia)

• • •

I knew the STAPLES CENTER was called something stupid now, but I had no idea how stupid. Crypto.com Arena!? LOL. Congrats, you win Most Embarrassing Arena or Stadium Rebrand. Yikes. If nothing else, this puzzle made me laugh by teaching me about the existence of Crypto Dot Com Arena. Actually, this puzzle had other pleasures, though in general it was way too straightforward. It's about as basic as rebuses get and the revealer isn't exactly a revelation. I mean, you've got all those ESCs staring at you, so ESCAPE's being in the revealer is kind of a given. And then ROOM ... OK, you wanna call the boxes "rooms," that's fine, that works. But the concept is a bit ho-hum. You've got a four-square rebus, where all rebus squares are the same (and very easy to pick up). The puzzle's not doing anything particularly interesting with the rebus form, but it does what it does in a solid, workmanlike way. "WE'RE SCREWED!" at least gives us some attitude and energy—always nice when, in addition to fulfilling the requirements of the theme, the theme answers have personality. That "WE'RE SCREWED!" / "THREE'S COMPANY" crossing was the thematic highlight, for me. The other "ESC" answers were somewhat more ordinary, but they're solid. Two anomalies in the theme today. First, PRESCRIBE, which is the only answer that fails to break "ESC" across two words, which is the optimal way to "hide" an embedded word (you can tell it's optimal because this puzzle does it with the other 7 answers). That PRESCRIBE rebus square is anomalous in another way as well, which is that it has no symmetrical equivalent. It's just shoehorned in here to give us a fourth (bonus?) rebus. The other "ESC" square all appear in the longest answers, which are symmetrical—well, STAPLES CENTER and "THREE'S COMPANY" are symmetrical, and then MIDDLE SCHOOL is symmetrical with the revealer, ESCAPE ROOM, leaving no room for the fourth "ESC" within the established symmetrical pattern. So it's in a kind of no man's land. I wouldn't mind if the four "ESC" squares were randomly strewn about, but to establish symmetry and then shove another square in just ... because? ... that seems inelegant. [Update: I think this puzzle would've been Next Level if the rebus squares had been ESC in the Acrosses and APE in the Downs]

The fill today is notably bad, especially toward the bottom, so once again I'm asking everyone involved in the making of these puzzles to Try Harder. EENY EIRE GRAN SSN TSKS (plural?) TYR TTOP EWS (plural?) EMMAS (plural?), NEAP ... it's a lot to take. ARTE Johnson! Wow, haven't seen him in a while. No, I take that back. I did see him recently, but not in the puzzle. I've been watching old Love Boat episodes, and he shows up on that show a lot. The segment I saw him in was from Season 1, Episode 12. It was called "The Painters" ("Inept painters (Arte Johnson, Pat Morita) make a shambles of the Captain's cabin"). But back to the puzzle. Crossing AMINO with AMINOR would generally be a no-no. Letter strings that long usually don't repeat *anywhere* in the grid, let alone *cross* one another. I enjoyed the PELICANS and the AIR JORDANs, but the short stuff was way worse than it ought to be in a modern puzzle. 

As for difficulty: bizarrely, HUED was probably the hardest thing in the grid for me to get. Had the "HU-" and still no idea. It fits the clue [Tinged], but only as the back end of a hyphenated term with a color at the front end. "Purple-HUED," say. You'd never just say HUED (unless you were writing bad poetry). Whereas you would just say [Tinged]. Hence my confusion. I also spelled CHE wrong, opting for the more familiar (to me) Spanish spelling, QUE. But obviously we're not dealing with Spanish. The clues says that explicitly. Anyway, it wasn't too hard to fix. I also had NOSE-something before figuring out NOSTRIL (24A: Part of your body that smells the most?). I know TYR from crosswords Of Extreme Yore (and from an embedded-word puzzle I once made using Norse gods—I hid TYR inside BETTYRUBBLE). If you didn't know TYR, don't feel bad. Aesir aficionados and old-timers like me have the advantage there. Maybe you didn't know BOOLE, but you could probably infer BOOLE from "Boolean" (as I did), and anyway his crosses are all fair.

I know there are some people who hate rebuses. I'm not sure why, but they do. As rebuses go, this one should have been pretty easy to pick up and work through, so I hope that even if you'd rather not see this puzzle type, you were at least able to work through it successfully today. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. I'll be reminding you all week that These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 is now available. Here is my description of the details (from this past Sunday's write-up):

These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!

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