Napkin, to Brits / SAT 8-8-2026 / Giant bird of Chinese mythology that is transformed from a fish called Kun / Hard French cheese / Instrument measuring liquid density

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: not much harder than yesterday, and too straightforward for a Saturday


Word of the Day: SPANAKOPITA [Greek dish made with an abundance of spinach] —

I finally conquered my fear of making spanakopita, the Greek savory spinach and feta pie, and yes, this means I’m going to tell you all about it. It took me so long because, however pathetically, I find filo/phyllo, the thin dough used to produce the flaky layers in many Middle Eastern and Balkan pastries, stressful: the tissue-like sheets can dry into crumbles in what feels like seconds. Having to brush each layer with butter or oil before using it is challenging in a small kitchen, and a lot of work in any size. Over the years, I’ve auditioned many spanakopitaish pies that allowed me to hedge a bit on the phyllo — triangles (only one sheet at a time made it less scary), spirals (ditto with one sheet; this recipe is in Smitten Kitchen Every Day), galettes (using a pie-like dough), and even “skillets” where I just messily crumbled some phyllo on top. All were good. None were this. This is exact spanakopita I crave, more doable than I thought possible. [smitten kitchen]

• • •

Hey hi howdy hello, Christopher Adams here, filling in for a second time this weekend. I love me some spanakopita, but didn't really enjoy the puzzle anywhere as much; a lot of it felt like Monday clues on a Saturday puzzle. I had some hope from the byline and grid shape that this would be a meatier, crunchier solve than yesterday; it was just as straightforward, but at least some of the entries here were interesting.

In addition to SPANAKOPITA, I really loved SLEEVELESS T, especially since I started filling it in at the end of the entry, and for a hot second thought I'd gone wrong with the -SST ending before I realized how to parse it. WATERSLIDE, with an excellent clue that takes the common phrase [Slippery slope] and interprets it quite literally, was also a standout. ERIC CARLE is nice, if only for reminding me of a lovely book, and TRAGICOMIC / HYDROMETER are (imo) good examples of long, single-word entries. 

the title track from a Porridge Radio album I quite enjoy; the follow-up album to that is also well worth a listen

Unfortunately, that's about as much as I liked; as noted above, a large number of these clues were just too straightforward. Here's my top bottom five list of clues that could, and should, have been toughened up and/or felt insultingly easy:

5) EVITA PERON [Founder of Argentina's first female-led political party, familiarly] — basically "name a famous woman from Argentina", and "familiarly" tells you it's EVITA and not EVA, but at least you could learn something here

4) HOOTS [Nocturnal sounds in the woods] — at least one could think of other animals, though owls are most likely the first nocturnal animal to come to mind

3) MAGI [O. Henry's "The Gift of the ___"] — very well known story, and it's made even easier by including the author

2) BREA [La ___ Tar Pits] — another fill in the blank of a well-known name, but it beats MAGI because the answer is even more obviously restricted from the clue

1) MINARET [Tower with daily calls to prayer] — straightforward definition, no attempt at misdirection, and it points at one specific answer (compare, say, [Map lines: Abbr.]; also straightforward, but could easily also be STS). In short, this is the [Perfect example] of a clue that's too easy for this (and actually, I should probably slot EPITOME in this list somewhere).

Olio:

• ESP [For a medium, it's easy!] — hard no on this clue; it's fakery, not easy.
• LENS CAPS [They're taken off for boudoir photos] — they're also taken off for non-boudoir photos; I appreciate the attempt at misdirection, but it didn't really land for me.
• SWEETY [Term of endearment, in one spelling] and OOLALA ["Fancy!"] — why the "in one spelling" for one entry and not the other? IMO, neither should have that note, and both are the inferior spellings (with SWEETIE and OOHLALA being better).
• STEEVE [Load from the dock] — not an easy word, but not necessarily bad; inferrable if you've heard of stevedores, but if you haven't, good luck with the crosses on SERVIETTES and (especially) SERIES E (pick a random letter to end the entry lol).
• In general I did not like the southwest corner of this grid; PENG was new to me and interesting to learn about, but RDS ESP AAH BREA GABBER weren't great, and I felt IT HELPS and BELLE AMIE were among the lesser of the long entries. EN PASSANT is nice, but the straightforward cluing drags it down a little.

Yours truly, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

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19th-century German novelist Theodor / SAT 5-23-26 / Jazz drummer DeRosa / Eerie substance faked in 19th-century ghost hoaxes / Canal blocker? / Chess puzzle challenge, maybe / Old black-and-white police autos, to Brits / Standard 1L course, informally / Lizard predator of Africa / A boxer's might knock you out / Tourist nickname for a Southern mecca, to the chagrin of many locals / Sales job that Forbes magazine once dubbed "the original side hustle," informally / Magpie lookalike with black-and-white plumage / Title for some fictional lords / Accessory on a pub counter

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

[37D: Title for some fictional lords = DARTH]

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Theodor FONTANE (32D: 19th-century German novelist Theodor) —

Theodor Fontane (German pronunciation: [ˈtʰeːodoɐ̯ fɔnˈtaːnə] ^ⓘ; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he is best known today, only at age 58 after a career as a journalist. Many of his novels delve into topics that were more or less taboo for discussion in the polite society of Fontane's day, including marital infidelity, class differences, urban vs. rural differences, abandonment of children, and suicide. His novels sold well during his lifetime and several have been adapted for film or audio works.

Fontane's novels are known for their complex, often sceptical view of society in the German empire. He shows different social and political parts of society meeting and sometimes clashing, his main characters range from lower-middle class to Prussian nobility. Fontane is known as a writer of realism, not only because he was conscientious about the factual accuracy of details in fictional scenes, but also because he depicted his characters in terms of what they said or did and refrained from overtly imputing motives to them. Other trademarks of Fontane's work are their strongly drawn female characters (such as Effi Briest and Frau Jenny Treibel), tender irony and vivid conversations between characters. (wikipedia)

• • •

Dear NYTXW, thank you for keeping Saturday holy, i.e. genuinely tough. I wasn't feeling that thankful early on today, when I had virtually nothing in the NW corner on first pass (just GREED, I think) (23A: One of the seven depicted in the 1995 thriller "Se7en"), but once I got going, and was reassured that the puzzle was, in fact, doable, I was able to appreciate the challenge. That NW corner, though, yeesh. It's funny, because once I finally got in there, it seemed to fall pretty easily, but I could Not get in there until late in the game, after I'd built the entire middle of the puzzle. I got that slightly panicky claustrophobic feeling I get in cut-off corners once in a blue moon, where I realize I'm stuck and help is not coming, i.e. going away and coming back isn't going to add much in the way of new information. All the middle of the puzzle could get me was a few letters at the tail end of the long Acrosses in the NW ... but thank god one of those answers was DOG BREATH, which absolutely saved my bacon. DOG BREATH to the rescue. The relief I felt when I got DOG BREATH. Hurray for dogs. Nice to be rescued by a great clue / answer too (16A: A boxer's might knock you out). Really ups the elation factor. Anyway, once DOG BREATH went in, everything fell pretty quickly and didn't even seem very threatening in retrospect. The clues were just vague or misleading. Only thing I didn't really know was RIG VEDA (3D: Ancient collection of Hindu hymns), and I could at least infer the VEDA part. So the NW gave me the sweats, but the rest was just standard-grade Saturday stuff. The SE actually fell pretty fast compared to the rest of the puzzle, so I got a nice whoosh toward the end (ECTOPLASM! HOTLANTA!), balancing out that grueling beginning. Never heard of FONTANE and was not at all sure about CON LAW (36D: Standard 1L course, informally), but BANTER swooped in at the end to confirm those answers and seal the deal (41A: Bit of back-and-forth).

["... a chi-HUA-HUA ..."]

Lots and lots of things I just didn't know today. We've covered FONTANE and RIG VEDA and CON (i.e. Contract … nope, I’m being told Constitutional) LAW. There's also PANDA CARS (which I have heard of before, maybe from crosswords (?) ... but I wanted PROWL CARS) (27A: Old black-and-white police autos, to Brits), and MUDLARK  (10D: Magpie lookalike with black-and-white plumage) and SOAP STARS (lol I only *just* got that the clue is talking about stars on TV, not stars in the sky) (24A: Daytime regulars), and SAND SNAKE (it's a snake *and* a lizard?) (24D: Lizard predator of Africa) (oh, the snakes prey on lizards! Got it), MARLSTONE (heard of MARL, which is how I ended up completing the answer, but not MARLSTONE). I think that's it for wtfs. I had real trouble, though, with the LOUD in LOUD SHIRT (really wanted a *kind* of shirt, like a style: Hawaiian, polo, something like that). Had TOUR SHIRT in there for a few seconds. Like ... the kind you buy at a concert with the band's tour dates on it ... and maybe "Look at Me!" was supposed to denote that the band was on tour and you should/could go look ... at them? (Yeah I see it makes no sense now). Never seen a singular HEADPHONE before, so that was weird (17D: Canal blocker?). Really wanted something to do with earwax there. Got very thrown by the twin epithets, since one of them was using the term more neutrally, to mean simply "name" (def. 1a) (40A: Epithet lead-in = AKA) and the other was using it to mean a disparaging word (def. 1b) (37A: Many an epithet)—the DIRTY part of DIRTY NAME definitely took some hacking to get. I *think* that covers all my trouble spots, but ... we'll see in the Bullets below. Maybe there are more. Despite / because of all the trouble I had, I enjoyed this puzzle. I liked that it wasn't just tough, but had some genuinely delightful answers in it. DOG BREATH, ECTOPLASM, and HOTLANTA were my top three (HOTLANTA because of its clue, which made me sincerely laugh out loud) (47A: Tourist nickname for a Southern mecca, to the chagrin of many locals).

Bullets:

• 1A: They might be settled atop stools (BAR BETS) — first answer: BOTTOMS. So that's how things started for me.
• 20A: Old auto company based in Lansing, Mich. (REO) — had the O and though I know REO well from decades of doing crosswords, for some reason the only answer I could think of was GTO (which is not a "company"—it's a model of Pontiac)

• 22A: Jazz drummer DeRosa (CLEM) — yeah here we go, found another one I didn't know at all. Don't see many CLEMs in the wild. Weird that two of them are drummers! (CLEM Burke was the drummer for Blondie):

• 2D: Sales job that Forbes magazine once dubbed "the original side hustle," informally (AVON REP) — Just stared at "sales job" wondering what it could possibly mean. "Informally" is weird. It's clearly signifying the abbreviation (REP), but the only term I ever heard for this "sales job" was AVON LADY. The catchphrase was "Avon calling!" but the salespeople were definitely known as Avon Ladies. 

• 27D: Swedish American model Porizkova (PAULINA) — being an '80s kid really, really helped here. PAULINA Porizkova was a supermodel married to Ric Ocasek, frontman for The Cars. She's featured in the video for "Drive"

• 45D: Little squirt (TOT) — had the "T" and wanted TOT but because I've done so many damn crosswords in my life, I also knew that TAD fit the clue (def. 2), so I had to leave those last two letters blank.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Social media community for avid readers / SAT 3-14-26 / Animal identity in role play / Latvian, old-style / Title role for Paul Newman, 1963 / Behave like an ass / Like Thunderdell, the monster slain by Jack the Giant Killer / Flour used to make paratha / Some deflections for argument's sake / Writer of the 1969 hit "The Boxer"

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Thunderdell (17A: Like Thunderdell, the monster slain by Jack the Giant Killer) —

Thunderdell (Welsh: Taranau), also recorded as Thunderdel, Thunderel, Thundrel, Thunderdale, or Thunderbore, was a two-headed giant of Cornwall slain by Jack the Giant-Killer in the stories of Tabart and others. [...] In Jack the Giant Killer, Thunderdell first appeared where he crashed a banquet that was prepared for Jack. During this time, he chanted "fee fau fum." Jack defeats and beheads the two-headed giant with a trick involving the house's moat and drawbridge. // According to one version of the story from 1800, Thunderdell (here identified as "Thunderful") hails from the North Pole. He attacks Jack's banquet in order to avenge the deaths of two giants he had earlier slain, but is himself defeated and his heads sent to the court of King Arthur.

• • •

[Title role for Paul Newman, 1963]

I thought this was sensational, but I do have a few questions. First of all BLOTTY? BLOTTY? I would definitely accept BLOTCHY, but I believe this is the first I'm ever seeing the word BLOTTY (19A: Mottled). I was so mad when BLOTCHY wouldn't fit, and then I thought "... well, it can't be BLOTTO? Wait, can it? No. No, it really can't." So I went with BLOTTY, but boy was I unhappy with that. It will surprise no one that BLOTTY is making its NYTXW debut (!) today. Actually, no, I take it back—that does surprise me, in that I figured that something as ugly as BLOTTY could only have come from a database gunked up with olden fill. So, there's BLOTTY, however much I really wish there weren't. Moving on to a different, somewhat less irritating "huh?"—BREAST PIN (27A: Jewelry that may double as a fastener). I simply don't know what this is. I know what a LAPEL PIN is. I know what a brooch is (namely, something pinned to your shirt breast). Whoa, I just looked up "brooch" and one of the definitions was BREAST PIN. Well, alright. I guess that settles that. Sort of. BREAST PIN sounds like a piercing. Why not just say "brooch?" After the BLOTTY BREAST PIN, there's the final "B" mystery: BELTLINES (one word? two? huh, Merriam-Webster Dot Com says it can be either!). I know what WAISTLINES are, but BELTLINES ... well, I could infer that they're basically just waistlines (which they are), but since "hips" are not "waists," I'm slightly confused by the clue (33A: Hip places?). Also, BELT LOOPS are a thing, and man that answer felt so right. Those are definitely "places" (for your belt) and if you wear your belt around your hips, then there you go: Hip places! BELT LOOPS! After I got the LIN- part, my brain wanted LINKS (?) before it finally acceded to LINES. So lots of "B" confusion and aversion today. 

But otherwise, The 3 "B"s aside, I was pretty impressed by this puzzle, which managed to be both smooth and sparkly. With the possible exception of two of those aforementioned "B"s (BELTLINES, BREAST PIN), the long answers that converge in the middle of this grid are strong and vibrant. GOD-FEARING and WHATABOUTISM really shine, and the clues on both POLLIWOGS (37A: They croak as soon as they grow up) and SESAME STREET (21D: Noted series with over 200 Emmys ... and an Oscar) are spectacular. In case you're somehow wondering how SESAME STREET ever got an Oscar, here, I'll show you:

Loved seeing the great PAUL SIMON sitting dead center, and though I cannot call MOONRAKER great, I still loved seeing it here today. That's the thing about seeing a movie on the big screen at a repertory theater with a sizable audience—as I did with MOONRAKER a few years ago—even not-that-great movies can be very enjoyable. I also have a very cool paperback edition of MOONRAKER, so ... I am the target audience for this answer, is what I'm saying. Did you know (I'm pretty sure you didn't): MOONRAKER actually debuted in 1944 (!!!), clued as [Sail above the skysail.]??? It then debuted as the Bond film in 1999, and now here it is again, 27 years later. "Mooooonraker / Wiiiiider than a mile ..."

Speaking of movies, as is typical for a KAC puzzle, this one had a bunch of good cinema content (Kameron is a movie critic for Rolling Stone and a member of the New York Film Critics Circle). You've got HUD and HEDY Lamarr and MOONRAKER. And while three answers doesn't seem like a lot, I'd bet dollars to donuts that LOCAL HERO originally had a movie clue. It should have, anyway, as LOCAL HERO is one of the very best movies of the '80s (of all time, frankly). I love the movie so much that I am choosing to read LOCAL HERO as cinema content today, clue be damned.

Bullets:

• 1A: Behave like an ass (BRAY) — hee haw, a gimme, right off the bat! Definitely helped me get started.
• 4D: Vulgarians (YAHOOS) — if BRAY helped me get started, then this one helped me get stopped: I decided to go with YOKELS for a bit.
• 48A: Where travelers might take the plunge on vacation (HOTEL POOL) — something about "take the plunge" had me thinking not of a pool, but of something spa-related. I had the HOT- and figured it was an adjective (not the first three letters in "HOTEL").
• 15D: Latvian, old-style (LETT) — got this easily. Not sure I knew it was "old-style." 
• 33D: Social media community for avid readers (BOOKTOK) — great answer, although as a phenomenon ... I dunno. I mean, I really don't know, as I have no intention of ever using TikTok. I hate the whole Amazon review phenomenon, I think goodreads is wholly unappealing, so yeah, BookTok is several bridges too far for me. Here's a story about some brilliant BookTok influencer who says: "I HATE third person POV books." So that's ... something. I'm not sure it's pro-reading, but it's something.
• 35D: Animal identity in role play (FURSONA) — OK I don't need to know any details about what the "role play" entails, exactly, but I like this portmanteau a lot.

[FURSONA, d. Bergman, 1966]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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German cathedral city, to locals / SAT 1-10-26 / Mars comes third in it / Poles can be found next to them / Gay man, per historical slang inspired by Judy Garland / Loyal to a drastic extent / The kelpie of Celtic mythology / Andrew ___, banking tycoon who served as Treasury secretary from 1921 to 1932 / Kauai keepsake / Art form featuring performers in kishin (demon) and okina (old man) masks / Gemstone with gold-yellow bands

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Ludwig Mies van der ROHE (36D: Architect Ludwig Mies van der ___) —

[Farnsworth House, Plano, IL]

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (/miːs ... roʊ/ MEESS-...-ROH; German: [ˈluːtvɪç ˈmiːs fan deːɐ̯ ˈʁoːə]; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a German and American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of modern architecture.

In the 1930s, Mies was the last director of the Bauhaus, a ground-breaking school of modernist art, design and architecture in Germany. After Nazism's rise to power, due to its strong opposition to modernism, he emigrated to the United States in 1937 or 1938. He accepted the position to head the architecture school at what is today the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

Mies sought to establish his own particular architectural style that could represent modern times. His buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. He is often associated with his fondness for the aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details".

• • •

***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** : It's early January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 2026 is a big year for me, as Rex Parker Solves the NYT Crossword will celebrate its 20th birthday in September. Two decades. The big 2-0. A score of years. One score and no years ago, I brought forth on this Internet a new blog, conceived in ... I think I'll stop there, but you get the idea. I've been at this a long time, and while it has been my privilege and joy, it has also been (and continues to be) a lot of work. Very early mornings, no days off—well, no days off for the blog. I do have two very able regular subs (Mali and Clare) who write for me once a month, as well as a handful of other folks who stand in for me when I go on vacation. But otherwise, it's just me, every dang day, up by 4am, solving and writing. I've never been this disciplined about anything in my life. Ask anyone. "Is he disciplined about anything else?" "No, he is not. Just this one thing. It's weird." And it's because I have a responsibility to an audience (that's you). Even after nearly 20 years, I'm still genuinely stunned and exceedingly grateful that so many of you have made the blog a part of your daily routine. Ideally, it adds a little value to the solving experience. Teaches you something you didn't know, or helps you look at crosswords in a new way, or makes you laugh (my highest goal, frankly). Or maybe the blog simply offers a feeling of commiseration—a familiar voice confirming that yes, that clue was terrible, or yes, that themer set should have been tighter, or wow, yes, that answer was indeed beautiful. Whether you find it informative or comforting or entertaining or infuriating—or all of the above—if you're reading me on a fairly regular basis, there's something valuable you're getting out of the blog. And I couldn't be happier about that.

["That's upside-down, sweetheart"]

Hopefully by now you can tell that for better or worse, what you get from me is my honest, unvarnished feelings about a puzzle. There's an explanatory element too, sure, but this blog is basically one person's solving diary. Idiosyncratic. Personal. Human. I'm not interested in trying to guess consensus opinion. I'll leave that to A.I. All I can do, all I want to do, is tell you exactly what it was like for me to solve the puzzle—what I thought, what I felt. Because while solving may seem like mere box-filling to outsiders, crossword enthusiasts know that the puzzle actually makes us feel things—joy, anguish, confusion (confusion's a feeling, right?). Our feelings might not always be rational, but dammit, they're ours, and they're worth having. And sharing. I love that crosswords engage the messy, human side of you, as well as the objective, solution-oriented side. If I just wanted to fill in boxes, without any of the messy human stuff, I'd solve sudoku (no shade, sudoku fans, they're just not for me!).

[conferring w/ my editor]

Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. And maybe I'd make more money that way, I don't know, but that sort of thing has never felt right for me. And honestly, does anyone really need yet another subscription to manage? As I've said in years past, I like being out here on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way. How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage, as well as at the bottom of every write-up):

Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker") (be sure to date them with the new year, 2026!):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
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The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I know snail mail is a hassle for most people, but I love it. I love seeing your (mostly) gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my (completely) awful handwriting. The human touch—it's nice. In recent years, my daughter has designed my annual postcards, but this year, grad school and NYC theater work are keeping her otherwise occupied, so I had to seek design help elsewhere. Enter Katie Kosma, who is not only a professional illustrator/designer, but (crucially!) a crossword enthusiast. She listened patiently to my long and disorganized list of ideas and in very short order was able to arrive at this year's design, inspired by film noir title cards. 

I'm very happy with how it turned out. The teeny boxes inside the letters, the copyright credit ("Natick Pictures, Inc."), and especially that pencil lamppost—mwah! I know most people solve online now, and many paper solvers prefer pen, but the pencil just feels iconic, and appropriate for the card's throwback vibe. That lamppost was entirely Katie's creation. She was a dream to work with. Can't say enough good things about her.

Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." 

Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle... 

• • •

Very excited to see KAC's name on the byline because I know he can turn the heat up. It's Saturday, I need the heat turned up. As you know, the overall softening of the NYTXW difficulty level, across the board, has been a source of ongoing annoyance to me. Hurray for general accessibility, but in the late-week puzzles can you please tighten the screws a little! Saturdays are for suffering! Anyway, I have some familiarity with Kam's work (both here and at the New Yorker), and I know he can throw hard, so I was excited. And it turns out, my excitement was warranted. The puzzle really wasn't that tough, but it had enough fight to make it interesting, and more than enough ZIP, which is ultimately the point. I've done grueling puzzles that had zero ZIP. None. ZIPless. But this thing ... this thing goes places. All over the map. To the Czech Republic, for instance, for one of the better clues of the day (41D: Poles can be found next to them). And to Japan, for the full NOH THEATER (we usually just see NOH—not as exciting) (55A: Art form featuring performers in kishin (demon) and okina (old man) masks). We go to Germany for that city I know but couldn't confidently spell (KÖLN—we spell it "Cologne"). But the most important trip this puzzle took went straight to Oz. The way my face and heart lit up when I plunked down FRIEND OF DOROTHY! (8D: Gay man, per historical slang inspired by Judy Garland). I believe the words "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!" came out of my mouth as I went to take this screenshot:

[The second "garland" of the puzzle (see also LEI) (4D: Kauai keepsake)]

Increased acceptance of LGBTQ+ people has largely eradicated the need for euphemisms and code words, so I wonder if younger solver will ever have heard this expression, but I was so happy to be reminded of this "historical slang" (and happy to have lived long enough to see the "slang" become "historical"). Not sure where I learned the term FRIEND OF DOROTHY. I want to say Golden Girls, but that's just because Bea Arthur's character was named "Dorothy," I think (Bea Arthur—another gay icon). However I heard it, I heard it, and of all the things one might've called a gay man when I was younger, FRIEND OF DOROTHY (FOD!) was certainly among the nicest and most colorful. And it's a perfect grid-spanning 15 letters; I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been used before. But nope. It's a debut. Not All Debuts Are Good!™—but some sure as hell are. YOU LOOK FAB, FRIEND OF DOROTHY! 

["YOU LOOK FAB!!" + ATTACK MODE = "Fab Attack!"]

The only time this puzzle lost its ZIP was when it occasionally drifted into old-time crosswordese (RHEE, ROHE ... "Rhee-Rohe, Raggy!")

And then there's the "OH" doubling, which did make me say "Oh ... no." OH, CRUD, we've got another "OH" expression. In its defense, "OH, CRUD!" does make a nice yin to "OH, SNAP"s yang. And the two of them together pave the way for the NOH that's to come. OH, OH, NOH. Speaking of saying "OH!" ... ORGASMS! Not just one, a whole bunch. And with a cool literary clue (5D: Phenomena once known as "les petites morts" ("little deaths")). If you read (or teach!) literature, esp. pre-modern literature, then you are apt to run into this concept (the death / orgasm connection can be found all over the place). There is definitely stuff in this puzzle to frustrate or even annoy you, I suppose, but from where I was sitting, there was a lot more to love. I laughed out loud at my entree to the SW corner:

VITAL SIGNS and NOSE HAIR—two things I'm increasingly concerned about as I age (young men, I know you're probably worried about hair loss, but trust me, hair loss is fine: what you should be worried about is hair gain — in all the places you do not need or want it). NOSE HAIR—the battle is real! See also EAR HAIR (which no one talks about, but yikes). 

Bullets:

• 15A: The kelpie of Celtic mythology (WATER HORSE) — I think I'd like KELPIE in the grid a lot more than I like WATER HORSE. Are there other water horses? Is a WATER HORSE a phenomenon? Apparently. I guess the Loch Ness Monster (NESSIE!) is sometimes referred to as a WATER HORSE. I've never heard the term. When I got to TIGER EYE (which I'd also never heard of) (14D: Gemstone with gold-yellow bands), I thought/worried there might be some kind of animal theme going on.

• 18A: Sound made by a toaster? (TING!) — the "toaster" in this case is one making a toast (say, at a wedding). You know, you signal to the room that you're about to make a toast by striking your wine glass with ... silverware, probably. Although it's also possible that your kitchen toaster makes a TING! sound when the toast is done. Doesn't matter how you got to TING, only that you got there.
• 38A: Andrew ___, banking tycoon who served as Treasury secretary from 1921 to 1932 (MELLON) — I would like to take this moment to formally apologize to the MELLON Foundation for squandering my MELLON Dissertation Fellowship. I spent most of that year at the movie theater, or in used bookstores, amassing a rather large collection of vintage paperbacks, rather than in the library or at my desk. I mean, I'm not that sorry, I have an amazing paperback collection that gives me joy, and I saw a lot of cool movies. But I am a little sorry. Hey, I did finish my dissertation. Eventually.
• 46A: Volume units (SONES) — one of the few initial errors I made today. I went with TOMES at first. Then I had "AM TOO" (instead of "IS TOO") for the "playground retort" (still the lowest form of fill), which gave me MONES. I eventually remembered that SONES were a thing, but I know the term solely from crosswords (mostly crosswords of yore).
• 28D: Loyal to a drastic extent (RIDE-OR-DIE) — another wonderful, colorful colloquial entry. 

• 20A: Mars comes third in it (ANNÉE) — "Mars" = "March" in French, just as ANNÉE = "year." I thought I saw through this one when I wrote in ANNUM (Latin for "year"). While Mars is a Roman god, Mensis Martius is (apparently!) the Latin term for the month of March. It means "month of Mars." So I was close. Ish.

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

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. today's constructor, Kameron Austin Collins, was interviewed at length on Daniel Grinberg's crossword construction podcast "Crosstalk" (Episode 4). You can listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.  

P.P.S. because it's my annual fundraising week, mail has begun to come in, and some of the notes are really lovely. You all have been so encouraging and supportive, which has been especially important in these bleak times (esp. during this very bleak week—shout out, Minneapolis). Thank you thank you thank you.

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First name in detective fiction / FRI 8-18-2023 / Your wurst side? / "Enigma Variations" composer

Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins

Relative difficulty: Hard :( Probably 40mins in total?

THEME: none

Word of the Day: ADAMS (Yolanda with four Grammys in gospel) —

Yolanda Yvette Adams (born August 27, 1961) is an American gospel singer, actress, and host of her own nationally syndicated morning gospel show. She is one of the best-selling gospel artists of all time, having sold over 10 million albums worldwide. In addition to achieving multi-platinum status, she has won four Grammy Awards, four Dove Awards, five BET Awards, six NAACP Image Awards, six Soul Train Music Awards, two BMI Awards and sixteen Stellar Awards. She was the first Gospel artist to be awarded an American Music Award.

• • •

Hey besties, I'm here for on unscheduled Malaika MFriday! Today I solved on paper and it was a huge mess. I am not a fast solver to begin with, and Kameron is known for making hard puzzles. I picked this up and put it down several times, and it definitely took over 30 minutes to finish. In order to make progress, I had to look up [Jewell who played Jewel on "Deadwood"] (GERI) and [High-performance Saab model] (AERO). I like this picture of my solve because you can see exactly where I struggled (top-right-- had TMI instead of BYE and PUT ON instead of GRAVE and GAPE instead of GAWP).

With a triple-stack like this, I often see two things happen: 1) Constructors will keep the answers that intersect the middle as short as possible, and 2) The number of long answers in the rest of the grid is limited. So it's worth shouting out that Kam did neither of these things! Four long answers (IN EXTREMIS, SOSO REVIEW, FREE AGENTS, and SAUERKRAUT) wove in and out of the stack, and we also got four long across answers (WINE BARREL, PROXY VOTE, VITAL ROLE, LINED PAPER) to go along with them.

A trade-off is that we ended up with two very closed-off corners. The top-right and bottom-left section are super disconnected from the rest of the puzzle-- which is what allows all those fun Scrabbly letters in JAZZY and QURAN. When I make a puzzle with closed-off corners, I try to make the clues in there a little easier, since you don't have a way to "break in." It seems like Kam&co did the same here, as those two corners were the first sections that I managed to fill in.

jazzy!

Another trade-off is short fill-- there was definitely stuff here I didn't love, like FINI and ELGAR and ERLE but not a ton, and I think it was worth it: the central stack was awesome! All three answers are delightful, and Totally Real Things. (Sometimes, constructors will use phrasing that's slightly off to stretch or shrink an answer to fifteen letters.) LIVING ON THE EDGE is probably my favorite, but it was hard to pick.

Bullets:

• [Opposite of playing it safe] for LIVING ON THE EDGE — I just read a book called Now is not the Time to Panic (which I loved) and (without giving too much away?) it describes a societal panic caused by posters with the phrase "The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives and the law is skinny with hunger for us." This entry reminded me of that book!
• ["Little Birds" eroticist] for NIN — I got this entry because a wine bar that sells erotica just opened in my neighborhood and they're called Anais. The concept was apparently "What if we made a coffee shop / bookstore but for adults only....?"
• [Heavy stock] for LINED PAPER — Can someone explain this to me? I've heard paper referred to as stock like "cardstock" but I don't understand the rest. In my experience, lined paper is very lightweight.
  

xoxo Malaika

P.S. I hope you enjoyed my puzzle from Tuesday! 

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