Clip-on mic, for short / SAT 2-21-26 / Pink-furred "Garfield" character / Certain slip-on / Overseer of the Erie Canal, in brief / "Star Trek" villain played by Ricardo Montalbán / Film subgenre exemplified by "The Thing" and "The Fly" / European city on the Bay of Angels / The third primary chakra is located just above it

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Heated Rivalry (41A: Rachel ___, author of "Heated Rivalry" = > REID) —

Heated Rivalry is a 2019 gay sports romance novel by Canadian author Rachel Reid. It follows a secret romantic relationship between rival hockey stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. The novel is the second in Reid's Game Changers series of gay-themed ice hockey romance novels. A television series based on the novel was released in November 2025. // Rachel Reid's Game Changer was published by Carina Press, an LGBTQ+ imprint of Harlequin, in 2018. It was followed by Heated Rivalry (2019), Tough Guy (2020), Common Goal (2020), Role Model (2021), The Long Game (2022), and the forthcoming Unrivaled (2026). Reid, a hockey fan, said in 2023, "Game Changer came from a place of me being angry at hockey culture and how clearly homophobic it was and is, and all the other things that made me really ashamed to be a hockey fan. That whole series attacks the NHL and hockey culture quite a bit." Writing the series, Reid questioned what would it mean to be a closeted player in a league with such a homophobic culture. "I thought a lot about what it would feel like to come out. And then I started thinking about the ripple effect—what would happen to the other players?" (wikipedia)

• • •

There's something about a JKQXZ fetish that can start to feel excessive. Like the puzzle is doing a bit, a little show-offy thing, instead of just trying to get the best and most interesting fill into the grid. The puzzle felt at times like it was being driven by unusual letters rather than interesting words and phrases. Despite this semi-annoying tendency, the grid is really very good in places, particularly the NW, which has one of my favorite stacks in a long while—just a strange assortment of strong answers. BLANK STARE and BODY HORROR pair well (1A: Look to give nothing away? / 15A: Film subgenre exemplified by "The Thing" and "The Fly")—you might stare blankly at BODY HORROR, or stare blankly at human beings after experiencing the trauma of BODY HORROR—but then the QUESADILLA drops in as the third member of the trio and makes the whole corner delightfully absurd. Now instead of imagining staring blankly into the void after witnessing horrific gore and bodily mutation, I'm imagining what would happen if Taco Bell did a tie-in with the next Cronenberg movie and offered a BODY HORROR QUESADILLA. What would be in that? Pieces of ARLENE and LOUISA, no doubt. Considering what it might do to your digestive system, perhaps every Taco Bell Quesadilla is already a BODY HORROR QUESADILLA. Anyway, I like the phrase BODY HORROR QUESADILLA, just as I like the opposing energies of ROCK BOTTOM and EXHILARATE down below. MYSTERY BOX, I don't love so well. Where / when would I "purchase" one of these? Sounds made-up. But otherwise, the NW / SE stacks are really strong. The rest of the 8+ answers are holding their own as well. And POP QUIZ manages to make the whole JKQXZ fetish seem almost worth it ... and yet POP QUIZ is also involved in this puzzle's one real crime, which is the absurd doubling up of "POP" (POP QUIZ, POP TAB). You can double little words like UP and ON and IN and NO and the like, but doubling a word like POP feels like a violation. Too conspicuous. Unless it's an article or a preposition, I'm generally against duplications. Feels sloppy / lazy / disrespectful. One of those. But I can't say I didn't enjoy this puzzle, because mostly I did.

Once I got my initial traction in the NW (KHAN to NAVEL to ROLL (OVER) to ERA etc.), the puzzle seemed pretty easy. The one area I struggled with a bit was in the east, where Rachel REID's name was unknown to me (you can't go anywhere without hearing about Heated Rivalry the TV show, esp. with so much (Olympic) hockey in the air right now, but I was unaware of the book series it's based on). I was able to piece her name together from the crosses without too much trouble, but just above that I ran into more serious trouble in the whole PONCHO area. First of all, that clue on PONCHO, yikes (25A: Certain slip-on). You do slip one on but no one in the history of sartorial discourse has ever called a PONCHO a "slip-on." That's obviously a shoe term. So even after getting the "PO-" and the terminal "-O," I was left wondering. "POTATO? Can you slip that on? Maybe you slip on it ... no, that's a banana peel." 

When crosses eventually got me PONCHO, I was left with just one (big) issue: the CAR SHARE / LAV crossing. CAR SHARE had a clue I didn't really understand at first (13D: Many key changes take place in it) (I might've considered CAR STORE at some point...), and LAV ... what the hell is this clip-on microphone business? (31A: Clip-on mic, for short). Not familiar to me. No idea, right now, what LAV is short for, or what it stands for (is it an acronym??). I know about lapel mikes and so definitely considered LAP at one point, but the "OVER" (from ROLL / OVER) was never gonna budge. Not knowing LAV—or, rather, knowing LAV only as a toilet—had me second-guessing CAR SHARE, but once you've plugged in all the other vowels there (CAR SHORE? CAR SHIRE? LOL, "Where do the Hobbits park their cars....?"), it has to be CAR SHARE. So in went the "A" and "Congratulations" went the solving software and [extreme shrug] went me on finding out LAV was the correct answer. Strange ... as soon as I went to search [lav mic] just now, I thought, "I think it's short for 'lavalier,' how do I know that?" And sure enough:

lavalier microphone or lavalier (also known as a lav, lapel mic, clip mic, body mic, collar mic, neck mic or personal mic) is a small microphone used for television, interview and other studio applications to allow hands-free operation. They are most commonly provided with small clips for attaching to collars, ties, or other clothing. The cord may be hidden by clothes and either run to a radio frequency transmitter kept in a pocket or clipped to a belt, or routed directly to the mixer or a recording device. [...] The term lavalier originally referred to jewelry in the form of a pendant worn around the neck. Its use as the name of a type of microphone originates from the 1930s, when various practical solutions to microphone use involved hanging the microphone from the neck.(wikipedia)

I have enjoyed learning about the history of hands-free microphones. I did not enjoy LAV while solving, as I didn't know it and it was impossible to infer. 64 total NYTXW appearances for LAV, but this is the first microphone clue. As I said, every other time: toilet (e.g. [Loo], [W.C.], [Head], [John], [Facilities, informally], etc.).

Bullets:

• 4D: Overseer of the Erie Canal, in brief (NYS) — I live in NYS and still couldn't get this. Wrote in EPA at first, I think.
• 5D: "Star Trek" villain played by Ricardo Montalbán (KHAN) — I still struggle with the KHAN v. KAHN thing. KHAN is a central / south Asian honorific. KAHN ... isn't. It's Madeleine KAHN, Wrath of KHAN.

• 59A: How low can you go? (ROCK BOTTOM) — read this as "How long can you go?" and really wondered what the clue was trying to ask me.
• 13D: Many key changes take place in it (CAR SHARE) — still not sure I get this. Car shares involve multiple drivers, obviously, but are "keys" really "changed?" Do most carshare cars even use keys? Don't you unlock the car with your app or something? I'm out of my depth here, but it seems like the desire for the "key change" pun has led to a certain iffiness in the clue.
• 8D: Pink-furred "Garfield" character (ARLENE) — tertiary "Garfield" characters are really bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. ROCK BOTTOM, you might say. You gotta know ODIE, obviously, and JON, I suppose, and I guess I can give you JON's girlfriend LIZ (how do I know this stuff!?), but once you get down to ARLENE and IRMA and NERMAL, I think you've gone too far (actually, no one has ever attempted NERMAL, but who knows what horrors the future holds...). ARLENE is Garfield's love interest, I'm told. I'm also told that Garfield has a great-grandfather named OSLO Feline. I doubt that will ever be part of an OSLO clue, but if it is, now you're prepared.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Fruits that are the basis of Marillenschnaps / FRI 1-15-21 / Fashion designer's portfolio / Ferrari alternative slangily / Percussion in some folk music that may be improvised / Model Boyd who inspired songs Layla Wonderful Tonight / Topic in property law colloquially / Bottom of an interrobang

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" only because I had some trouble getting those central Acrosses)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: EGO DEATH (48A: Complete loss of self-identity) —

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. In Jungian psychology, the synonymous term psychic death is used, which refers to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey.It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.

In descriptions of psychedelic experiences, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of psychedelics. The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al. to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self occurs. The concept is also used in contemporary spirituality and in the modern understanding of Eastern religions to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" and self-centeredness. This conception is an influential part of Eckhart Tolle's teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering (in the Buddhist meaning). (wikipedia)

• • •

This one got better as I went along, and there were a few genuinely good surprises along the way. It was also mostly easy, with the only thing putting the brakes on my solve being the structure of the grid, i.e. how sequestered the NW corner is. I finished up in the NW fairly quickly, but there's just that little exit at the bottom of that corner, and STO- and ST- were no help to me in getting those first two long Acrosses. Thought STO- was gonna be STOOD ... OUT ... somehow. No idea what ST- could be. First passes at the adjacent short Downs (LAMBO, FERAL) yielded nothing, so I had to jump down to the SW and reboot. Luckily, this wasn't hard. FABLE FORGOT POLO POEMS. Swung around to the middle of the grid and got RIGHTS ... but had no idea what kind of RIGHTS (7D: Topic in property law, colloquially). This was now the second time I was thwarted by the center of the grid. No help, stalled progress. So I took hacks at the shorter Downs in the middle. Got MOSHE and (despite its tricky clue) SHIFTS (27D: Uses a manual, say), and the adjacent "FH" there was on its own enough for me to be able to see MAIDS OF HONOR. Things sped up from there. Once middle came into view, SQUATTERS was easy, and the "Q" made "QUEER EYE" easy (actually, that would've been a gimme without the "Q") (16A: Hit Netflix reboot starring the Fab Five), so the NE didn't put up much of a fight. Finished in the SE, which was the easiest section by far. It's just as sequestered as the NW corner (what w/ grid symmetry and all), but having the first letters on the long Downs *really* helped. Got LOOKBOOK off just the "LO" (34D: Fashion designer's portfolio) and RESORTS off the "R," then all the short Acrosses, one after the other, then JEAN and MCS and done. Finished that corner so FAST I surprised myself. So overall, more easy than hard, but the middle of the grid gave me enough trouble to keep it from being too much of a walk in the park. 

Once again, I tripped right out of the starting gate. Went with UMPIRE / ROOD instead of BATBOY / ONUS. And I thought I was so cute getting ROOD so easily, ugh (5D: Cross to bear). This is the kind of error you make when you teach Old English poetry (see "The Dream of the Rood"). Luckily YEP got me out of that error pretty quickly. Forgot Julie BOWEN's last name, so that was the toughest thing up there by far. In fact, as is fairly typical, it's the proper nouns that provided the most significant barriers along the way. For me, today, BOWEN and LAMBO (30D: Ferrari alternative, slangily) and TYRONE (13D: County in Northern Ireland) were the ones that took a lot of hacking to get at. I forgot that anyone called a Lamborghini ... that. And the only TYRONE I know is Power. But at least it was it was a recognizable (presumably Irish) name. The only answer to make me screw up my face resistantly was SPOONS (31D: Percussion in some folk music that may be improvised). This is one of those clues that takes me farther from the actual answer the more it goes on. Can't any instrument be "improvised"? SPOONS aren't part of any "folk music" I've listened to, but ... yeah they are a percussion instrument. Just couldn't get there from the clue. 

The grid overall is remarkably solid. Really enjoyed seeing THE ROBOT, EGO DEATH, and SQUATTERS' RIGHTS. Nothing particularly tricky in the cluing today. Smiled when I got USED CARS (18A: There's a lot of them for sale). Just a nice-lookin' puzzle, honestly.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

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Eponymous Austrian physicist who studied waves / FRI 9-7-18 / Fictional figure whose name means whole dweller / Brad's gal in Rocky Horror picture show / cheap beer option for short / Part of central american grove / Psychologist who coined word synchronicity / Comfy safari digs / London burial place of John Donne Horatio Nelson

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for me—slowest time in four+ months) (8:15)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: WET CELL (37D: Battery type) —

noun

1. a primary electric cell in which the electrolyte is a liquid. 

1. [electrolyte = 

   noun

   1. a liquid or gel that contains ions and can be decomposed by electrolysis, e.g., that present in a battery.

      • PHYSIOLOGY

        the ionized or ionizable constituents of a living cell, blood, or other organic matter.] (google)

• • •

JANET

Just one of those grids that had nothing to do with me. No pleasure for me anywhere, no cluing that entertained or seemed clever. I think the grid is just fine, but the solving experience just wasn't pleasant. A lot of trivia, and a lot of short stuff, and then longer answers that were solid but just sorta ... sat there. Also the idea that a TOW is a [Fate worse than a ticket] is pretty stupid. I mean, yes, you'd rather get a ticket than have your car be towed, but I think of a TOW as a vital thing, a helpful thing, a thing you *need* when your car breaks down, so the cutesyish clue was just annoying. And nothing clever ever really landed. Even an original answer like GO-ROUND had this fussy clue and was thus really hard to come up with (7D: One of a series of attempts). Also, GO-ROUNDs can be actual events, not just "attempts" at events. M-W has it as "one of a series of recurring actions or events"; what is "attempts" even doing in this clue? Weird. Some kind of TREE ... was a not-fun answer to try to come up with. I don't know. There's nothing special in this grid, nothing snazzy or new or ... it's just blah to me. Again, it's not a weak grid, it's just an old and boring-seeming grid. To me. Again, I'm in super "IMO" mode because I believe decent people can disagree on this one. I mean, if you're the kind of person who knows and enjoys the term TENT BED (???) (35D: Comfry safari digs), maybe you were on cloud nine.


All my trouble came in the highly sequestered NW and SE corners. I have marked my printed puzzle in green ink, and almost all the ink currently resides in those regions. I guessed DISC straight away (1A: LP, e.g.) but couldn't confirm any of the letters. Got RES and ELLE and still had no idea about any of the Downs, and was pretty sure one of the first three answers I got must be wrong. Just couldn't come up with IN A HOLE (had the IN and then, nada). A colon might denote EYES. I mean, yes, but I was never going to get that. A villain could have a SCAR, but so could anyone who had been cut (I had LEER here) (5D: Mark of a villain, maybe). My first known actual right answers were, weirdly, ACETIC / OTT. Tried to back into the long Acrosses, but TREE was zero help, and then -L-CK at the end of 14A: Getting paid, say (ON THE CLOCK) had me thinking about the money, thus ... IN THE BLACK. Now, for the whole stretch of puzzle from NW to SE, the only issues I had were with VOLE (I somehow wrote in MOLE) (18A: Field mouse) and VENT (I understandably wrote in RANT) (49A: Go on a tweetstorm, say). Then came the SE, where I couldn't get HOBBIT (39D: Fictional figure whose name means "hole dweller") because "figure" implies a specific figure, not a type. If the word had been, say, "creature," I think HOBBIT would've come faster. PBR was brutal because how would I know it's "cheap," I've never bought one (also, for those of you who are like 'wtf is that?', it's Pabst Blue Ribbon). What is "broomball"? Unnecessarily hyperspecific clue for something as basic as RINK (45D: Venue for broomball). TENT BED, again, ridiculous. WET CELL, I didn't really know what that was, despite having heard of dry cell / WET CELL re: batteries before. It sounds gross. O'REILLY was never (John) Stewart's "sparring partner" in any regular sense of the word, i.e they didn't share a show; he was a recurring guest, but tons of guests "recurred" over the years. Ugh. Be accurate, puzzle (36D: Stewart's onetime TV sparring partner). Cluing matter, this cluing was (to me) bad. The only reliable day of the week fails to deliver. Sad.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Flower named for Swedish botanist / SUN 2-26-17 / One-named singer once married to Xavier Cugat / French region around Strasbourg / Christian school in Okla / Potent sushi bar cocktail / Rapper with most-viewed YouTube video of all time / Stop insisting Ra doesn't exist

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: "Mixed Feelings" — wacky theme answers created by anagramming (or "mixing") a "feeling" in a familiar phrase:

Theme answers:

• TINY AXE ATTACK (25A: Assault involve a hatchet?)
• STRUT-WORTHY (23A: Fashionable enough for a runway model?)
• CURB YOUR SUN ATHEISM (44A: "Stop insisting Ra doesn't exist!"?)
• TALES OF OWE (64A: Stories from bankruptcy court?)
• HAVE NO FARE (68A: Be too broke to take the bus?)
• MY SIRE LOVES COMPANY (82A: "The king really wants to be around people right now"?)
• UPRISERS' PARTY (109A: Celebration after a coup?)
• DOWNER WOMAN (112A: Negative Nancy?)

Word of the Day: ALEATORY (6D: Dependent on chance) —

adjective

adjective: aleatory; adjective: aleatoric

1. depending on the throw of a dice or on chance; random.

   • relating to or denoting music or other forms of art involving elements of random choice (sometimes using statistical or computer techniques) during their composition, production, or performance. (google)

• • •

As cornball themes go, this is fine. TALES OF OWE is godawful, and HAVEN OF ARE is not much better (please don't correct me and tell me it's HAVE NO FARE ... my brain has tried to parse it that way and just keeps giving up). But then CURB YOUR SUN ATHEISM is so godawful that it's actually kind of impressive. If you're gonna be godawful, be Epically godawful. The rest of the theme answers are good enough, but the clue writing is really tepid. Funny / adventuresome clues are kind of important in wacko themes, and these clues are awfully, painfully literal most of the time. There were some enjoyable non-theme answers today, most notably MOM JEANS, SAKE BOMB, and WAIT FOR IT ... (that last one strikes me as the most inventive ... though you never know about "invention" these days, what with word lists being sold for hundreds of dollars to constructors too lazy to build their own—to be clear, I don't think *today*'s constructor is lazy; he's a competent, reliable regular. But the mediocre constructor buying a word list in hopes of getting "better" is *definitely* a thing).


This played a notch harder than normal, largely because of the nature of the theme (who knows what "feeling" is going to be "mixed," and in what way?), but also (for me) because of clues I just couldn't grasp easily. You fire a MORTAR straight into the air? 90 degrees? Doesn't it ... come back ... to earth ... presumably on top of you? (1D: Weapon usually fired between a 45˚ and 90˚ angle) (As with AIRSOFT yesterday, I don't know from weaponry. My stupidest mistake today was reflexively writing in ASHE at 4D: With 41-Down, first tennis player to win two Olympic singles gold medals. Tennis, starts "A," four letters—good luck stopping my fingers from typing ASHE. Wanted VALE to be DALE (after I wanted it to be GLEN), and didn't know it was particularly "poetic" (18A: Land between hills, poetically). Forgot who Edmund BURKE was (10D: Philosopher who said "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion") and totally forgot what WOOLITE was (24D: Detergent brand with fabric in its name). Not a huge fan of RISES being in same grid as UPRISERS, and even less a fan of SERIF being not only in same grid as, but practically right next to, SHERIF. Blargh. But overall, this was OK. Occasionally, if infrequently, enjoyable.


If you have 38 minutes lying around today, please consider checking out the latest episode of "On the Grid," my crossword podcast (with my friend Lena Webb). Episode 002 deals with SLOE gin fizzes and EELS ... among other things. Get it here (and find it on iTunes).

 [I concur with this analysis]

See you tomorrow,

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Tin Drum boy / SAT 7-9-16 / Jazz great Montgomery / Unconventional and hippielike informally / Hockey sticks in cards

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: The Lost Battalion (38A: Where the Lost Battalion got lost (ARGONNE)) —

The Lost Battalion is the name given to nine companies of the United States 77th Division, roughly 554 men, isolated by German forces during World War I after an American attack in the Argonne Forest in October 1918. Roughly 197 were killed in action and approximately 150 missing or taken prisoner before 194 remaining men were rescued. They were led by Major Charles White Whittlesey. On 2 October, the division quickly advanced into the Argonne, under the belief that French forces were supporting the left flank and two American units including the 92nd Division were supporting the right flank. Unknown to Whittlesey's unit, the French advance had been stalled. Without this knowledge, the Americans had moved beyond the rest of the Allied line and found themselves completely cut off and surrounded by German forces. For the next six days, suffering heavy losses, the men of the division were forced to fight off several attacks by the Germans, who saw the small American units as a threat to their whole line. // The battalion suffered many hardships. Food was short, and water was available only by crawling under fire to a nearby stream. Ammunition ran low. Communications were also a problem, and at times they would be bombarded by shells from their own artillery. As every runner dispatched by Whittlesey either became lost or ran into German patrols, carrier pigeons became the only method of communicating with headquarters. In an infamous incident on 4 October, inaccurate coordinates were delivered by one of the pigeons and the unit was subjected to "friendly fire". The unit was saved by another pigeon, Cher Ami, delivering the following message:

WE ARE ALONG THE ROAD PARALELL 276.4. OUR ARTILLERY IS DROPPING A BARRAGE DIRECTLY ON US. FOR HEAVENS SAKE STOP IT.

Despite this, they held their ground and caused enough of a distraction for other Allied units to break through the German lines, which forced the Germans to retreat.

• • •

This is perfectly acceptable and completely forgettable. Familiar shape, familiar answers, smooth, fine. CHILLAXED is old hat by now, and everything else seems tame. Not bold. Again, it's technically proficient. Just somewhat flavorless. I like more daring from my themelesses. I will admit that my slightly negative feelings are undoubtedly, at least partially, the result of a NYT puzzle website screw-up, which resulted in an ERRONEOUS puzzle download. To wit, I tried to download the puzzle in .puz (AcrossLite) format, as I always do, but even though the file had the correct name, it was actually the Mini puzzle... that's at least two kinds of disappointing right there. So I whined audibly (i.e. on Twitter) for a few minutes, but I don't have all night so I had to go in and solve on-site, and yuck ugh boo I don't like the interface. I have a system and a time frame and when that gets thrown off, blargh. NYT got the file problem fixed pretty quickly, but not quickly enough for me. This is all to say that I wasn't in the Greatest mood when I started in on this puzzle. Still, even now, having taken the time to breathe and look at the puzzle objectively ... it seems a bit tepid.


Issues:

• 14D: Heaps (LOTS) — few things are more annoying, solving-wise, than being confronted with the familiar LOTS v. TONS dilemma. Since neither IDOL (11A: Treasure hunter's loot, maybe) nor SYST (18A: Way: Abbr.) was very clear, that little NE corner took me somewhat longer than it should have. 
• 26D: Sphere of control (FIEF) — I keep looking at this and it keeps looking like not-a-word. Somebody call a dom.
• 27D: Org. in "Patriot Games" (IRA) — never saw it. Thought the International Olympic Committee might be involved. Also, as far as I knew, the Last Battalion were something from the Star Wars universe, so ARGONNE took some doing.
• 52D: Land on the Gulf of Guinea (TOGO) — forgot this place existed. Adjacent clue 53D: Project with a lot of momentum (HURL) also very tough (needed 3/4 before I got it). Since these two answers provided the first two letters in all the long Acrosses in the SE, that section took a little longer than it should have, but, again, I'm gonna blame the dumb / unfamiliar-to-me interface and my mild annoyance. The crossword was, objectively, easy. And solid.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Eponymous bacteriologist Julius / FRI 6-3-16 / 2000s retro Chrysler / Under lilacs writer 1878 / Eastern border of Manhattan's Tompkins Square Park / Nickname for Francisco

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy (Very)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: T-BEAM (14D: Building bar with one flange) —

A T-beam (or tee beam), used in construction, is a load-bearing structure of reinforced concrete, wood or metal, with a t-shaped cross section. The top of the t-shaped cross section serves as a flange or compression member in resisting compressive stresses. The web (vertical section) of the beam below the compression flange serves to resist shear stress and to provide greater separation for the coupled forces of bending. (wikipedia)

• • •

Tall thin puzzle (16x14), which feels like a cheating kind of way to handle 14s, but I guess it's OK. It's certainly quite clean for a fairly low word-count puzzle, but once again, Friday ends up being a ridiculous breeze. I meandered through this, not at all on High Speed setting, and still finished in 4:19. That's a Wednesday time. Fridays should be minimally 50% harder for me. But look at the NW. 1-Across? Gimme (1A: Singer with the 1977 hit "Lido Shuffle"). 13-Across? Gimme (13A: House of Tybalt and Juliet). From there, you're lined up to take down all the Downs up there. I had real, serious trouble with AVENUE B (?) crossing T-BEAM (???). "B" was a total guess, even though I was 99% sure it was right. I mostly had to convince my self that a. a T-BEAM is a thing (never seen it, in crosswords or elsewhere) and b. other T_EAM possibilities were not possible. I also had to crawl out of the nakedly intentional YOLK trap at 22A: The so-called "sunny side" (YANG). If all you've got is the "Y"—and maybe even if you've got nothing—YOLK is clearly the better answer to this clue. YANG shmang.


Had a couple other missteps: COHORT for COEVAL (31D: Agemate) ("ONE LOVE" fixed that—Marley was playing in the cafe where I was working today ... I want to say that helped, but it probably didn't help at all) (39A: 1977 reggae classic). And then LIAR! for LIES! (50A: "I deny all that!"). But that's it. Everything else went in easy. The NE and SW corners were particularly unchallenging. I spent maybe a minute (maybe) on both of them combined. Once you lock in SHERLOCK HOLMES and COLONEL SANDERS, building up (in the NE) and down (in the SW) is a Snap. Good clean fun, for the most part, but Fridays should put up at least a little resistance, and lately, that hasn't been happening.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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Termagant / SAT 3-12-16 / Dummies / Jerk / Fetor / Up

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: None

Word of the Day: BOX SOCIAL (14A: Old-fashioned affair à la "Oklahoma!") —

In the U.S. state of Vermont the tradition is that women decorate a cardboard box and fill it with a lunch or dinner for two. The men bid on the women's boxes anticipating a meal with the woman whose box it is. Generally the boxes are anonymous, so the men don't know which woman belongs to which box, nor what the box contains, the mystery and sometimes humorous results adding to the fun. However, it is not unknown for a young woman to surreptitiously drop hints to a favored man indicating which box is hers, as a way of "rigging" the results (and avoiding potentially less desirable company). The bidding involves teasing, joking, and competition. The event frequently takes place in a town hall, school gymnasium, or church hall. The practice had fallen out of favor with young people in the 1970s–1990s, but has seen some resurgence in recent years. The rules today have become less rigid. Men now provide boxes as well, but the goal remains the same: raising money for a school, church, or civic project.^{[citation needed]} A notable example from pop culture is the second act of Oklahoma!, which is set at a box social. (Wikipedia)

• • •

So I guess Rex was at a high school musical -- we don't know if it's "Oklahoma!" and we may/will definitely never know -- so it's me, Lena, again.

My boyfriend got QUESTLOVE (17A: "Tonight Show" bandleader with a signature 'fro) instantly (question: why do we assume his hairstyle is a "signature" rather than just, say, his hair?), and I followed on his heels with BBQ PIT (1D: Where dogs may be put in the backyard)-- a nice misdirecting clue with no "heads-up" question mark. I love the word ECLAT (6D: Acclaim) and am always happy to see it in puzzles-- which is pretty much the only place I do. BOX SOCIAL though... that was definitely a new old one on me. The concept seems weird-- it's a... meal swap? Secret sandwich? Men can put food in a box now too? Basically it's clear that I need to host one now. I will raise money for gin. For me.

THATS WHATS UP (31A: "Hell, yeah!") is a fun answer with a long stretch of consonants (TSWH) in the middle just to make you sweat your crosses. That stodgy punctuation in the clue though! Just make with the exuberance and throw caution to the comma. We've got that "hell," ASS (4D: Jerk) and SEX SHOP (13D: Once-common Times Square establishment) to make for a wild Saturday. But the [Joint issue] is GOUT (28A) and has nothing to do with a missing roach clip or passing in the incorrect direction. 

I wanted TAIGA for TYROL (34D: Alpine region) because I had NO WAIT instead of NOT YET (37A: "Hang on, hang on"). I liked (10D: Keep lubed, say) for REOIL because it didn't do that annoying thing where you know it's RE- because they've put "again" in the clue. You get it. Overall I enjoyed the cluing in this puzzle-- clever, conversational, spunky. 

But what's up with [Termagant] for SCOLD (56A)? This is some next-level SAT vocab trivia-- and I don't like that the definition refers first and foremost to "an overbearing woman." I hate "shrew" and the concept that it's always women who nag, so why not just clue the word as is-- [Chide] or something. Oh, I'm sorry, am I being a termagant?

Also was not a fan of PENCIL PUSHER (38A: Office drudge). I work in an office; I'm an admin, and I do a LOT more than "push pencils." Office jobs are not inherently boring-- it's a crappy stereotype. I worked in the poxvirus division of the CDC and *that* was certainly one of the most boring jobs I've had.

I had a good time with this puzzle overall and thought it was clean, but maybe a little on the easy side for a Saturday.

Signed, Lena Webb, Court Jester of CrossWorld

[Follow Lena on Twitter]

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1983 Joel Schumacher film / SAT 1-17-15 / Johann opponent of Martin Luther / Gossipy affair / Michaels of rock reality TV / Figure also called crux ansata / Hip-hop's tha Kyd / First one opened in Garden City Mich 1962

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SYD tha Kyd (39A: Hip-hop's ___ tha Kyd) —

Sydney Loren Bennett, known by her stage name as Syd tha Kyd or more recently Syd (born April 23, 1992) is a singer, producer and DJ from Crenshaw, Los Angeles, California. She is one of the main producers in Odd Future and a singer, producer and mixer in the Neo soul group The Internet with Matt Martians. She is the main producer for fellow Odd Future rapper Mike G and the older sister of non-musical Odd Future member Travis "Taco" Bennett. (wikipedia)

• • •

SATURDAY'S PUZZLE: "ODE to JOIN"

Oh, man, sometimes Friday nights / Saturday mornings are The Worst, blog-wise. If I come home wiped out and just want to go to sleep, I can't, or, I can, but then I'm looking at having to blog a *Saturday* puzzle straight of bed in the morning. If there is one kind of puzzle that you shouldn't do with foggy just-out-of-bed brain, it's a Saturday puzzle. This took me probably twice as long as it should have. I honestly have no idea how difficult it was on a normal fully-awake-human scale. Felt hard (for reasons I'll get to). But maybe less hard than I made it on myself. So "Medium-Challenging" is a best guess. First off (or, second off at this point, I guess), let me say the grid looks great. All kinds of fun stuff popping off all over the place. But it was the cluing on this thing that made it really hard to process. Well, that, and my two small but absolutely lethal errors. And the fact KAZAKH never crossed my mind (until the second "K" and "Z" showed up … late).

It's weird: I started and finished in the NW. When I finished, it all went down quite easily. When I started, I got nowhere. I blame this entirely on 6D: It might have decorative feet, and more specifically I blame it on my wrong answer, ODE. I thought there was something tricky going on with "feet" there. Because on Saturday I look for tricky. And I teach poetry. Bad combo (today). ODE made me want 1A: Polishes to end in ON. But then the Fibonacci clue made no sense and neither did anything else and I just sat. Stumbled around til I found BRET Michaels (which, I suspect, is how a lot of people find BRET Michaels), and though I didn't feel good about latching onto him (see previous parenthetical comment), he got me started. NE was my first corner. Then I couldn't do a thing with the middle. Well, I got FORCE MAJEURE (a phrase recently running around my brain because of the very cool-looking Swedish movie of the same name that I am definitely going to see). But otherwise, the middle was shot through with holes. I was able to ride CORIANDER down to the SW and (easily) finish off that quadrant, but then there I sat, with a grid that looked something (i.e. exactly) like this:

[Beethoven's lesser-known "ODE to JOIN"]

Look at cute little ODE up there, ****ing everything up. Adorable. You can see he has been joined in Errorsville by his younger sister, JOIN (34D: Come together). That—that right there, 34D—is a trap By Design. Clue is written to be valid for JELL but also to apply to a different, more common "J" word (JOIN). And, 6 in the morning, I fell in. And right next to invisible KAZAKH. Ugh. Disaster. I should also remark on RICHTER SCALE at this point, which is a great answer, with a Great clue (40A: Provider of shock value?), but even with this much filled in, I couldn't see it to save my life. Things that floated through my brain: RICHARD SCARY (misspelled), RICHELIEU, RICHIE RICH… I mean, JOIN wasn't helping, but still, you'd think I could pull it out of the fire with that much in place. No. I had to diver into the SE with no crosses (dicey) and try to find new footing. Wanted ACE, didn't trust it, then (luckily!) tested NICE and got a NEPAL crossing. New hope! At this point I retried ACE and then KEEPS ON (wrong, but a good start), and then, aha, it's KOJAK, with another good but Brutal clue (52D: Noted Greek officer). I *own* the first season of "KOJAK" and took forever to get this. So then, from KOJAK, I get the SE corner, which means I get KLATCH, which means I get JELL *and* LIONIZE *and* KAZAKH, bang bang bang. Then up to DECAMP ERIE FIGLEAF and we're as good as done. And it's URN. An URN might have decorative feet. Not an ODE, whose feet are without decor, it seems.


Hard clean fun. Well, less than "fun" for me, but that's not on the puzzle. That's on 6am.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Site of 1789 rebellion / SAT 12-6-14 / Bygone Asian dynast / Certain street dancer in slang / Four-time Pro Bowler Michael / Bygone bomber whose name is call in bingo / Director Justin of Fast Furious franchise

Constructor: Josh Knapp

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium to Medium

THEME: awesomeness

Word of the Day: HMS BOUNTY (1A: Site of a 1789 rebellion) —

HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a small merchant vessel purchased by the Royal Navy for a botanical mission. The ship, under the command of William Bligh, was sent to the Pacific Ocean to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to British possessions in the West Indies. That mission was never completed, due to a mutiny led by the acting Master, Fletcher Christian. This was the famous Mutiny on the Bounty. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've gotten into this weird habit of late. I fall asleep early (like 9 or 10pm), then wake up a couple hours later, then solve / blog, then (eventually) sleep some more. It's pretty great. I remember reading some years ago about "second sleep"—that pre-modern sleep patterns were likely to feature a middle-of-the-night waking period. And I remember thinking, "that sounds cool." And it is. I mean, I still have that semi-sh***y "just woke up from a nap" feeling for a while, *right* before I solve the damned puzzle, so it's not all bourbon and chocolate, but I'm pretty in to the overall rhythm of the sleep-solve-write-read-sleep thing. Why am I telling you this? I don't know, but I loved this damned puzzle. I mean, Loved it. Frame it and hang it, because you're just not going to see much better than this. So clean, so current, so smartly clued. Time and again I had that great "Huh? … what the hell? … damn … OH!" feeling when solving a clue. I got through it in reasonable time, but the whole time I had that exhilarating/nauseating feeling I used to get when I'd break through to a new level of Donkey Kong and stuff would just be coming at you so fast and you feel like you're barely holding it together but you're somehow not dying! Yee haw. I don't think there's a bad answer in the grid. Not one. SO-SO POPO! Even the tiny stuff is making me smile.

[22A: Dimwitted title character of a 2001 comedy]

HA ha, I only just now got the clue at 51A: Number one number two (ADAMS). It was bugging me that I couldn't parse the clue correctly. "I know ADAM was the 'number one' man, but how do you get from there to plural ADAMS?" A: You don't. It's John ADAMS, the first ("Number one") vice president ("number two") of the U.S. Oh, HANDM—that is almost an answer I don't like, but only because it's really H&M (the way BTEN is B-10). But I've been kind of nostalgic for ampersandwiches lately. Feels like they don't come around much any more. So here's to you, HANDM. If HANDM is the worst a puzzle HANDs you, you're in good shape. I will say, though, that I'd've changed MENNEN to TENNER (10-pound note), just to get rid of HAND so close to HANDM. Picky, yes, but … well, you read this blog, so you can't be surprised.

I realized mid-solve that the puzzle was something special (which doesn't happen often—usually I'm just on GO!). Threw KIM JONG-IL across, thought "damn, that's good," then allowed myself a moment's reflection on everything I'd solved to that point: all real answers, no crap anywhere, a banks of long Downs (UNFAZED NEOCONS TWO-TONE) that's amazing in its own right, even though it's masquerading as a mere passageway from one section of the grid to another. And somehow the puzzle managed to finish (SE corner) on a high note. Oohed and aaahed (!) at every long Across as it came into view down there. It's very clear that high word--count themelesses that have been polished within an inch of their lives are the puzzles most likely to hit my happy zone. All killer, no filler, I AVER.

[TWO TONE]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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