German word that sounds like a number in English / SUN 8-4-24 / Wonderland bird / Place to get a pricey cab

Constructor: SCOTT HOGAN and KATIE HALE

Relative difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM

                                         

THEME: Weather, Man! — The theme answers are meteorological terms defined using silly phrases and synonyms

Word of the Day: TYSON'S (135A: ___ Corner, suburb of Washington, D.C.) —

Tysons, also known as Tysons Corner,^[5] is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, spanning from the corner of SR 123 (Chain Bridge Road) and SR 7 (Leesburg Pike).^[6] It is part of the Washington metropolitan area and located in Northern Virginia between McLean and Vienna along the I-495.^[7][8]

Tysons is home to two super-regional shopping malls, Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria, and the corporate and administrative headquarters of Alarm.com, Appian, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One, Freddie Mac, Gannett, Hilton Worldwide, ID.me, Intelsat, M.C. Dean, Inc., MicroStrategy, and Tegna Inc.

• • •

Hello, it's Eli again, bringing you your Sunday puzzle fix. Today's theme is what we'll call a "classic" style (which I'm using as a polite way of saying old-fashioned). Nothing wrong with that, but this specific kind of theme has never been my personal cup of tea. Let's mix up a MAI TAI (7A: Tiki bar cocktail) and jump right in. I make a very good mai tai.

Why, yes, that is homemade orgeat. Thank you for noticing. 

Like I said, the "punny definition of a common phrase" theme has never been a favorite of mine. It's fine, I'm just rarely wowed by it. Today was no exception. It wasn't a bad puzzle at all, just not for me. The answers were all legitimate weather forecast phrases (one bumped for me just a bit; see below), the clues were fun (if not really funny), and that's all there is to it. 

Theme answers:

• SHOWERS LIKELY (23A: High chance of parties celebrating a baby's arrival?)
• MOSTLY CLOUDY (42A: Like one's mental state before morning coffee?)
• HEAVY SNOW (52A: Terrible TV reception?)
• ISOLATED SPRINKLES (71A: What you might find on the counter after making ice cream sundaes?)
• WINTRY MIX (94A: Eclectic holiday party playlist?)
• MORNING FROST (103A: "The Road Not Taken" enjoyed over breakfast?)
• DAMAGING WINDS (125A: Smashing clarinets and oboes?)

Wow, that's a lot of theme. Mostly these work fine. I have a minor quibble with Isolated Sprinkles, just in that it feels like the one I haven't heard before. It seems legit, but isolated showers is what I hear more often. I get that you already have Showers Likely, but that's another one that feels more arbitrary. Neither of those really hurts the puzzle, just where my eyebrows raised a bit. I also like Mostly Cloudy, but I think of my pre-coffee mornings as more of a haze or a fog than a cloud. Clouds and coffee only takes my brain one place:

The theme density doesn't leave much room for flash in the fill. Not a lot stood out to me, good or bad. On a personal level, I have a distaste for ODEA (117D: Greek theaters) and it's singular friend "odeon." I was a theater major, I love ancient Greek theater, but for some reason this word just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Conversely, YEET (45D: Forcefully throw, in modern slang) is one of my favorite recent words. It always makes me laugh a bit. I also like that Y-AXES (80D: Lines for which x = 0) looks like "Yaxes," which makes me imagine some unread Dr. Seuss story. And hey, look! It's UDON (122D: Noodle used in shabu-shabu). I had too many crosses by the time I saw this so I wasn't able to confuse it with SOBA. But anyone who read my post yesterday will know it could have been a problem. Maybe I should post the Uma/Oprah video again, introducing Udon to Soba... nah, I'll spare you this time.

Parting thoughts:

• 1D: Sounds from a mat (OMS) — Do people actually use "om" as a mantra, or is it just a stereotype? I meditate daily, though not in a form that requires a mantra. I've just never actually witnessed this.
• 27A: Casino fixture (ATM) — Vegas tip: don't use the ATMs in the casino unless you're ok throwing even more money away on fees. Bring cash with you. I wish someone had told me this before I went to Vegas for the first time.
• 81A: ___ for Sore Eyes (punny name for an ophthalmologist's office) (SITE) — These feels like a business that would open next to Bob's Burgers. No complaints from me; I love that show.

• 5D: Title role for Fran Drescher (THE NANNY)— Something I think about a lot is that I have trouble remembering peoples' names and new information, but for some reason I still know every word to the theme song to The Nanny. Memory can be weird.

Well, now that's back in my brain. Yay. It's been a long day, and I'm not sure I have the energy to think about the puzzle anymore. Hope you all enjoyed it; enjoy your Mali Monday tomorrow!

Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Nincompoop, more vulgarly / SUN 5-19-24 / A "waking dream," per Aristotle/ Giveaways in some common scams of the 2010s / Grunting ox, by another name / 1991 crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening / Drink for which Pliny the Elder recorded a recipe / Video game company that published Frogger / Frosting alternative / Member of an isolated colony, once / Masters of underwater camouflage

Constructor: Christina Iverson and Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Hold Your Doze" — familiar phrases become wacky phrases once they're written out as you might pronounce them if you had a cold, i.e. a stuffy nose ('doze'):

Theme answers:

• "SHOULD THE DEED ARISE ..." (26A: "If that missing house title ever does show up...") ("should the need arise ...")
• WHAT ELSE IS DUE? (43A: Question from someone with a lot of outstanding debt?) ("what else is new?")
• DO AS I SAY DOT AS I DO (57A: Teacher's instruction in a class on pointillism?) ("do as I say, not as I do")
• IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE (80A: Stevedore's complaint?) ("It's a Hard Knock Life" (the song from "Annie"))
• "USE YOUR DOODLE" (92A: "No need to find a professional illustrator!") ("use your noodle")
• "THAT'S A DOUGH BRAIDER" (110A: Tour guide's remark at the challah factory?) ("that's a no-brainer")

Word of the Day: BUGSY (1D: 1991 crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening) —

Bugsy is a 1991 American biographical crime drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by James Toback. The film stars Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Bebe Neuwirth, and Joe Mantegna. It is based on the life of American mobster Bugsy Siegel and his relationship with wife and starlet Virginia Hill.

Bugsy was given a limited release by TriStar Pictures on December 13, 1991, followed by a theatrical wide release on December 20, 1991. It received generally positive reviews from critics. It received ten nominations at the 64th Academy Awards (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and won two: Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. (wikipedia)

• • •

[103A: NASA shorthand for a spacewalk] 

This is a fine theme idea. Pretty sure I've seen some version of it before, but I've been doing puzzles for three+ decades, so that's not Terribly surprising. The title pretty much gives the game away, and I have to say  I wasn't that thrilled by the title. It's not particularly evocative of anything, or even a good, or particularly funny, pun. Plus, the only time you'd speak this way is if you had a cold. Yes, if you hold your nose and talk, this is how you'd sound, but who does that? The stuffy nose / head cold angle is the one you want to go with here, and "Hold Your Doze" doesn't come near it. But this is arguing about the hood ornament on the car. The car itself—just fine. The best thing about the puzzle is how it sticks the landing—that is, how it saves the best, and themeiest, themer for last, hitting us with a double dose of "D" changes in "THAT'S A DOUGH BRAIDER," which is also perfectly clued with that reference to challah (110A: Tour guide's remark at the challah factory?). Another low-key but significant accomplishment of the theme answers is that none of them contain "M"s, which would've demanded a completely different sound change ("M" to "B"), if the theme was to remain consistent with the nose-holding pronunciation. You'd either have to have a bunch of "M"-to-"B" sound changes—make it part of the bit—or (as here) none at all. So the theme isn't all that complex, but there's nice attention to detail in the execution, with the deft avoidance of "M"s and the thoughtful placement of the Doziest (Double-D) answer in the final, exclamation-point position. Nice craftsmanship. The theme answers are varying degrees of funny. The last is the best, I think, but I also thought "DO AS I SAY, DOT AS I DO" was outlandish enough to be worth it, and "IT'S A HARD DOCK LIFE" was right on the money, on a literal level (not even terribly wacky). I also liked remembering "Annie" (or Jay-Z, if that's your primary frame of reference).

The theme is pretty thin, as Sundays go, so there's room for some nice longer fill, and with room to breathe, the grid in general tends to be pretty clean. There's something semi-hilarious about NOT PICTURED (34D: Caption for an absent student, say). Just the idea of people missing their club or team's yearbook photo ... shouldn't make me laugh, but it does. I'd've gone with "club" or "team member" in the clue, since an "absent student" is more of a classroom, less of a yearbook thing, but I guess the clue is technically correct. FONDANT hasn't been seen in the NYTXW since 1983 (!?!?!), which makes no sense at all (89D: Frosting alternative). Welcome back, basic cake decorating feature! Put it on a PEDESTAL! Really love the WHOOP WAZOO corner. Maybe not thrilled about ZOO crossing WAZOO ("WHOSE ZOO?" "WA-ZOO!" "WHOSE ZOO?" "WA-ZOO!" (Cheerleaders and hype men, feel free to borrow that one, especially if you've got a gig at a zoo in Washington)). But it's hard to be mad at WHOOP WAZOO! Let's all get WHOOP WAZOO TATTOOS. It'll be cool. 

What the hell is this IPADS scam? (7D: Giveaways in some common scams of the 2010s). Did they actually give the IPADS away, and if so, how is that a scam? Should "Giveaways" be in quotation marks? I'm not quite old enough to get targeted for these scams yet, but please check in on older people in your life because, speaking from unfortunately personal experience, you would (or might) be stunned at how many of the most nakedly scammy scams actually work, and how easily people you've always known to be reasonable and careful can fall prey to them. Jaw-dropping. Alarming. Special place in hell-type stuff. Besides this alleged IPADS scam, I'd heard of everything else in the grid, I think, including POP OFF, though I'm not sure I could've defined it precisely. Also, pretty sure POP OFF also means "run your mouth without much thought." Looks like Google / Oxford Languages is defining it as "speak spontaneously and at length, typically angrily." But I've heard this newer "Perform very well" meaning too.

Bullets:

• 1A: End of the line? (BAIT) — a toughie, right off the bat. I needed BAI- before I saw it. My wife needed -AIT ("Oh, you knew BUGSY, did you?" Guilty). 
• 36D: Official OKs (SAYSOS) — not a term that wants to be pluralized. At all.
• 65A: How one might punnily define "Saran" or "sari"? ("IT'S A WRAP") — I groaned, but I also don't hate the corniness. You're allowed some corniness. Mix it up! It's Sunday. Show me what you got, clue-wise!
• 101A: What "Eat" stands for in the mnemonic "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" (EAST) — who is it, exactly, that needs a mnemonic for the basic cardinal directions? ROYGBIV, I get. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos, LOL, not gonna remember that one, but I respect it. Every Good Boy Does Fine, sure. But "Never Eat Soggy Waffles?" How hard is it to remember North South EAST and West. And if it is hard, why didn't you just go with NEWS? Is the idea that "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" puts the directions in clockwise order? 54 years old and never heard of anyone needing a mnemonic for the directions. Crazy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Mathematician Noether / SUN 2-25-24 / Ancient Greek area north of Thessaly / Color-blending technique / Slathered in sauce, in restaurant-speak / Knocking onomatopoeia / Natural decorations on some bookshelves / Home of the 123-story Lotte World Tower / Sorry ass?

Constructor: Scott Hogan and Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Very very easy

THEME: "Special Treatment" — familiar phrases imagined as health care puns :(

Theme answers:

• 22A: I visited the cardiologist, who ... DIDN'T MISS A BEAT
• 31A: I visited the dermatologist, who ... MADE A RASH DECISION
• 47A: I visited a dentist and now I ... KNOW THE DRILL
• 69A: I visited the anesthesiologist and now I've ... LOST MY TOUCH
• 89A: I visited a sleep specialist, who ... GAVE ME THE NOD
• 105A: I visited the radiologist, who ... SAW RIGHT THROUGH ME
• 120A: I visited the podiatrist and now I ... STAND CORRECTED

Word of the Day: EMMY Noether (130A: Mathematician Noether) —

Amalie Emmy Noether (US: /ˈnʌtər/, UK: /ˈnɜːtə/; German: [ˈnøːtɐ]; 23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935) was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She proved Noether's first and second theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics. She was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, this is so painfully corny. Why do people keep making these? I guess because Will keeps taking them. I absolutely Do Not Get It. These long pun stories, they're a time-honored tradition, but they seem like the biggest cop-out. Just a huge non-theme. Ordinary phrases linked by only the most preposterous imagined scenarios, which turn the ordinary phrases into puns of some kind. And the puns aren't even groaners. They're either completely weak (i.e. obvious), like DIDN'T MISS A BEAT, or they are borderline inscrutable, like GAVE ME THE NOD (are we calling sleep "THE NOD" now?), or they are completely made up—nobody but nobody ever "visited the anesthesiologist." That is not a doctor that you go to. That is a doctor that attends surgeries. I've only ever seen anesthesiologists at my actual damn procedures. I never "visited the anesthesiologist." And what, just to get some numbing drugs? What the hell? That makes no kind of sense. Plus, the idea that anesthesiologists make you lose "your touch," what? You go under. That is losing a lot more than your "touch." Then there's the fact that the themers change tense, and veer back and forth between the doctor doing things and the patient doing things. It's a mess. An old-fashioned, unambitious, uninspired mess. Completely baffling. 

And there's not nearly enough longer / interesting fill to make up for the cornball theme. In fact, there's hardly any. I'm looking around for literally any answer I was happy to see, and I can't find any. "YOU GAME?" OK, yes, that's pretty good; that, I approve. That's got something. But the rest of it ... it's not bad, but at best it's just ... there. Taking up space. The theme is all there is today, and the theme ... well, if it's your cup of tea, god bless you. I envy you. I was just hurrying through this thing, grateful that it was easy (so I could be done with it quickly). 

I don't know who this JENNA is (30A: Partner of Hoda on "Today") and I had trouble remembering and then spelling Linda COHN (started with COEN) (93D: "SportsCenter" anchor Linda), but other than that the only trouble I had with this puzzle came entirely in and around the worst of the themers: GAVE ME THE NOD (again, ?!?!?!). I'm on various social medias, and I don't really know what ADD is (86D: Button on social media). I "Like" you or I "Follow" you or I "Friend" you, maybe. ADD is ... weak and generic. So it didn't occur to me. The clue on WIENERS is actually really good (66D: Pack of dogs?) (i.e. hot dogs), but it was hard, and crossed the dumb themer I couldn't get, so it made that section harder. I don't know anyone who decorates their shelves with GEODES, so that was nowhere near the front of my mind as an answer for 77A: Natural decorations on some bookshelves. And for some reason [Have over] was a tough clue for HOST (for me). Oh, and the "GAME" part of "YOU GAME?" wasn't readily apparent to me either (59D: "We doin' this?"). So all along the length of GAVE ME THE NOD, I had issues. Elsewhere, zero issues. None. No resistance. Comically easy.

Notes:

• 1A: Favors (ASKS) — "Favors" here is a noun
• 5A: Slathered in sauce, in restaurant-speak (WET) — I feel like this is specifically burrito-speak. Are there other speaks that apply?
• 57A: Sorry ass? (EEYORE) — I kinda like this clue. He is a sorry ass. I don't so much like that "ass" is also a crucial component of another clue in the puzzle (110A: Rude ... or, without its first two letters, rude person (CRASS)). Feels like a dupe, even though "ass" doesn't technically appear a second time.
• 96A: Professional who works a lot (VALET) — so, a car lot.
• 
  37D: Behaved like the lion in Oz (COWERED) — I guess he does that. Some part of me doesn't like this answer because he's the "cowardly" lion, and ... COWERED is a homophone of "coward," which actually fits the lion better ... I dunno. It's legit, but it's rubbing me the wrong way. Like ... wrong "coward," man.
• 67D: Man's name that becomes a distance if you move the first letter to the end (EMIL) — I am usually so bad at these "when you move a letter"-type clues, but damned if I didn't nail this one right out of the box. 
• 95D: Knocking onomatopoeia (RAT-A-TAT) — got this off the "R," which isn't that impressive. I think I would've gotten it even without the "R"—it's the only "knocking onomatopoeia" I can think of.
• 101D: Ancient Greek area north of Thessaly (THRACE) — I am aware of lots of ancient Greek names without being (very) aware of where any of them go on a map. Still, I was happy to piece this one together quickly.
• 103D: Color-blending technique (OMBRÉ) — this is a hair-coloring technique, as I understand it. Where the hair shades from one color into another, often getting lighter toward the tips. I first learned of OMBRE (in crosswords) as an old-timey card game, like Euchre or Whist, whatever those are (I learned them from crosswords too, I think ... or else from the poetry of Alexander Pope, I forget ... yep, sure enough, they play OMBRE in Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"; weird the things you (kinda sorta) remember from sophomore-year British Literature).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Head covering whose name means "curtain" in Arabic / MON 5-29-23 / Quaint cry of surprise / Off in mob-speak / Smoothie chain founded in 1990 / Jerry's cartoon counterpart / Surreptitious gesture with the head

Constructor: Katie Hale and Zachary David Levy

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (for a Monday)

THEME: Rhymes with "puce" — last words in the theme answers all ... rhyme. I think that's it.

Theme answers:

• HYPOTENUSE (16A: Longest side of a right triangle)
• FAST AND LOOSE (23A: Reckless way to play things)
• CHOCOLATE MOUSSE (38A: Dessert made with cocoa and egg whites)
• "WHAT THE DEUCE!?" (47A: Quaint cry of surprise)
• JAMBA JUICE (60A: Smoothie chain founded in 1990)

Word of the Day: "WHAT THE DEUCE!?" (47A) —

An exclamation used to emphasize surprise, shock, or bafflement. ("Deuce" is a minced oath in place of the word "devil.") (idioms.thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Pretty flimsy excuse for a theme. Each answer's rhyming part is spelled slightly differently than the others (-USE, -OOSE, -OUSSE, -EUCE, -UICE), so I guess that's something, but not much. Probably just best to think of this as a Monday themeless. That way, you can appreciate a few of the themers as standalone answers ("WHAT THE DEUCE!?" being the obvious highlight). But then there's not much to appreciate besides the theme answers. LAY TO WASTE is good, STOOD ASIDE is OK, but on the whole the grid is definitely below average, with lots of short fill, much of it overfamiliar and stale. NENE LSAT SIB DEI ... just a BEVY of answers like that. Again, as is true every Monday, solving Downs-only helps. It's harder to be distracted by subpar fill and a weak theme when you are distracted by having to fight your way down the grid, inferring all the Acrosses and hoping to god you don't have one of the Downs wrong. It's always fun trying to piece together longer Acrosses from whatever Downs you are able to drive through them—a great test of your pattern recognition skills. The hardest one to get was probably the first, as I had the HYP- part and could only think of words like "HYPNOTIC" "HYPNOTIZE" etc. Maybe "HYPODERMIC." Didn't see the "O" right away because I couldn't get SPOOFS without some help (3D: Comedic sendups). But after sorting out HYPOTENUSE, none of the other themers presented any trouble. Didn't really notice the theme until I was done or nearly done, and as I've said it hardly matters, because the theme is hardly there. 

Besides SPOOFS, there were only four other Downs that I couldn't get either immediately or very quickly. The first was SLY NOD (21D: Surreptitious gesture with the head). My trouble was due entirely to my misreading "Surreptitious" as "Superstitious." "What the hell kind of superstitious head gestures are there, even!?" I was imagining superstitious people doing all kinds of strange things with their heads, possibly on Friday the 13th or when black cats crossed their paths, but none of the gestures seemed plausible or nameable. I worked the crosses for that answer to the point where it *had* to be SLY NOD before I finally noticed that I'd been misreading the clue the whole time. Fun! Also had trouble with (the grimly clued) WHACK, which I wanted to be WASTE (neglecting the fact that WASTE was already in the puzzle, in LAY TO WASTE). Seemed like there might be a few options for a five-letter head covering with an Arabic name, so I had to wait for inferred crosses to help me with HIJAB (49D: Head covering whose name means "curtain" in Arabic). DEBATE was also weirdly not obvious without some help (45D: Argue back and forth). But that's it for Downs-only trouble. Kind of a throwaway theme. Mondays have been much better than this of late—along with Thursday, the best themed day of the week in recent months. Today was a bit of a letdown. But as I say, I'm never truly bored or dissatisfied when I'm solving a Monday Downs-only. Hope you liked this better than I did. See you ... soon, I hope.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Korean word for cooked rice / SUN 4-23-23 / TikTok persona typified by floppy hair and grunge clothing / W-4 collector for short / Accidental subject of certain snapshots / Portmanteau expressions popularized by Tyra Banks / Industrious animal in a classic fable

Constructor: Katie Hale and Scott Hogan

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Punctuation Matters" — 3rd-person indicative verb phrases are turned into wacky phrases by imagining that the "S" at the end of the first word is actually an "apostrophe S"; so "verb" is reimagined as "noun IS," basically:

Theme answers:

• "PLAY'S A TRICK" (25A: "Oh, now I understand the significance of the troupe's performance in 'Hamlet'!")
• "STAND'S IN THE WAY" (32A: "I can't get past this witness box!")
• "JERK'S AROUND" (41A: "Watch out for that bully!")
• "FALL'S OUT OF FAVOR" (58A: "Everyone dislikes autumn now!")
• "BAT'S FIVE HUNDRED" (76A: "Dracula has lived half a millennium!")
• "BEAR'S IN MIND" (87A: "I'm thinking of a grizzly!")
• "PLANT'S EVIDENCE" (98A: "Careful, the shrub may have fingerprints on it!")
• "PUZZLE'S OVER" (110A: "I finished this crossword!")

Word of the Day: LOCS (97A: Twisted do) —

Dreadlocks, also known as locs or dreads, are rope-like strands of hair formed by matting or braiding hair. (wikipedia)

• • •

Every week I want to come bearing good news about the Sunday puzzle. I really do. I yearn for a Sunday puzzle that even modestly tips the scale in the direction of "Enjoyment." And every week, no dice. I'm like Charlie Brown and the NYTXW editor is Lucy and the puzzle is the damn football. I truly don't understand how a puzzle with a theme this thin, with wordplay this basic and weak, could sustain even a 15x15 puzzle, let alone a 21x21. Sometimes simple gimmicks yield big results; you can get big laughs from little changes. Sometimes. Sometimes. But this just isn't one of those times. Leaving aside the fact that I don't know why these answers are all clued as *spoken* phrases, or why every one of the clues is shouted! ("!") ... there's just not enough juice to squeeze in any of these "jokes." The first time you see the gimmick, you get a little "oh, I see." But unfortunately you then have to "see" that same "joke" seven more times. At best, what you get is "oh yeah, that works." Like, with "FALL'S OUT OF FAVOR"—solid verb phrase to start, and then there's the cute little apostrophic switcheroo, very natural to say, OK. But that is Peak Theme. "BAT'S FIVE HUNDRED" makes no sense. No one just calls him "BAT." Maybe (maybe???) "The Bat," but that's more Batman. I really (really) thought COUNT was going to be in that answer, somehow, but no. And "BEAR'S IN MIND." I mean, in the wackiest scenario, you cannot imagine that as an actual phrase one might say. You'd have to have some specific bear in mind, and even then there'd be a "THE" before the "BEAR" and you'd probably actually say "on my mind" or something ... you'd definitely need the "my." "FALL'S OUT OF FAVOR" is on the money. "BEAR'S IN MIND" is nonsense. "PUZZLE'S OVER" works (and I guess it's supposed to be a kind of self-referential final themer, cute). But "JERK'S AROUND" just doesn't. Which jerk? Who? What? But honestly, none of my quibbles about plausibility or grammar mean that much, because again, this concept is never gonna max out at anything more than a "yeah, I guess that works." That's it. There are other reasons the puzzle was a chore to finish, but the main one is the lifeless theme.

I honestly had *no idea* how "PLAY'S A TRICK" was even supposed to work ... until I realized "omg they're making a very specific reference to a Hamlet plot point ... are people even going to remember or even be familiar with that plot point? So weird ..." So, in case you forgot, or never knew, Hamlet stages a play (called "The Murder of Gonzago") with a plot that parallels the murder of Hamlet's father; he does this so he can watch Claudius's reaction to the play. He's hoping to see evidence of guilt. The line I remember is, "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" (the "king" being, at this point, Claudius, whom Hamlet believes murdered his father). Sooooooooo the play (-within-a-play) is, in fact, A TRICK, of sorts. Deep, deep cut. Respect. Hope that clue didn't lose / confuse too many people (definitely confused me there for a bit). 

The fill is on the miserable side in this one, largely because the grid is super-choppy and mostly choked with 3-4-5-6-letter answers. Just a sea of short stuff. Hard to be interesting with so few longer (non-thematic) answers to work with. I was sour on this one right away, at the OPAHS / HRREP crossing. Hard wince. Brightly colored food fish = OPAH, not OPAHS. And HRREP is an answer only an HRREP could love. Combines the glamor of routine bureaucracy with the beauty of a bunch of letters smashed together. Woof. And while the rest of the grid isn't so terrible, neither is it very interesting, and when it tries to get interesting ... mostly it's just bad fill trying to *pass* as interesting. See AGENTK and EBOY. I kinda sorta remembered the TikTok phenomenon, but I remain never entirely sure about the "E" before BOY and as for the "K" in AGENT K, how in the hell am I supposed to remember that. Absolutely random letter from where I was standing. Thankfully JERK'S was pretty clear, because with both the "E" from E-BOY and the "K" from AGENT K as crosses, JERK'S feels very dicey and potentially disastrous. And then SMIZES is another that seems to be trying to be current (-ish), but in the plural that word somehow seems totally implausible and silly. SMIZE has been in the puzzle before ("smiling with the eyes"), but this is the first time it's appeared in the NYTXW as a plural. For a reason. Because it's bad as a plural. Some terms are bad as plurals, and this is one. The plural that really really got me today is also a debut, but it isn't actually bad. It's definitely a thing. I just couldn't make any sense of it. At all. Probably because I've never seen the term *written*, only spoken, so ... when I got LOCS (eennttiirreellyy from crosses), I assumed I had an error, first because the clue seemed to want a singular, not a plural, and second because that letter combination seemed impossible. LOCS? But I went over all four crosses, over and over, and they were unimpeachable, so I just crossed my fingers. Looked it up after I was done and ... "dreadlocks." That's it. No "K" in the abbr. spelling, it seems. I've heard the abbr. as "dreads," not "locs," but whatever, as you can see from the definition above ("Word of the Day") both "LOCS" and "dreads" are valid. My brain just glitched. Hard.

If Bert LAHR weren't old school crosswordese, I'd be real real upset about the LAHR / DAFOE crossing, because LEHR is definitely a name, as is DEFOE (I still haven't managed to keep the actor and the 18th-century novelist straight when it comes to spelling their names). But even though LAHR is a gimme for me and probably lots of solvers, that cross still doesn't feel ... great. I really like BLIND CURVE, both answer and clue (15D: Something you shouldn't pass on). GO PLACES also has good energy. Like BLIND CURVE, it's zippy, kinetic. AIR GUITAR and DARK HUMOR are also better than solid answers. I just wish there'd been more like them, more fun in the fill to make up for the tepid theme. Sorry to HATE ON yet another Sunday. Again, other days of the week manage to be good much of the time. Monday's puzzle was good. Saturday's was good. Thursday's was at least interesting, and certainly daring. I thought there were problems with the Thursday, but it was Trying. It had a boldness of vision and an ambition that I almost never see in the Sunday any more. I don't get it. The Sunday is supposed to the NYTXW's Big Day. Why does it so often feel phoned in? 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. What is this "classic" HEN fable?? (86A: Industrious animal in a classic fable). I thought the ant was industrious and the grasshopper was lazy. What's the hen doing?? Oh, it's an "American" fable, "The Little Red Hen" ... She makes bread and then invites other animals to eat it with her and when they agree she's like "sorry, suckers, you didn't help, so you can starve, bwahhahahaha." Protestant Work Ethic at its most moralistic. "Politically themed revisions of the story include a conservative version based on a 1976 monologue from Ronald Reagan" (wikipedia). LOL, you don't say! Ugh. I thank my parents for never reading it to me. 

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Baroque painter Guido / SUN 9-18-22 / Tragic showgirl of song / Animal working in the DMV in Zootopia / Word seen at the end of many Jean-Luc Godard movies / Liquor in tiramisu / Painter whose motifs include ants and eggs

Constructor: Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Easy (very very)

THEME: "Because I Said So!" — themers are just things parents say to their kids (mostly disciplinary); these are clued wackily ("?"-style) as various occupations' "go-to parenting phrase"s:

Theme answers:

• "I'LL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!" (22A: Mechanic's go-to parenting phrase?)
• "SIT UP STRAIGHT!" (37A: Personal trainer's go-to parenting phrase?)
• "DON'T USE THAT TONE WITH ME!" (55A: Conductor's go-to parenting phrase?)
• "I TOLD YOU A HUNDRED TIMES!" (79A: Mathematician's go-to parenting phrase?)
• "YOU'RE GROUNDED!" (100A: Air traffic controller's go-to parenting phrase?)
• "LET'S PLAY THE QUIET GAME!" (117A: Librarian's go-to parenting phrase?)

Word of the Day: Jardins d'enfants (60D: Jardins d'enfants, par exemple = ÉCOLES) —

nursery school [noun] a school for very young children. (dictionary.cambridge.com) [so basically it's the Fr. word for "kindergarten"] 

• • •

Wow, really thought "Jardins d'enfants" was gonna be some famous school, but it's just a literal French translation of "kindergarten." Bizarre ... why didn't they do what we did and just steal the German word? Annnnyway, that answer and HUDDIE (what in the actual heck!?) and RENI (same!) were just about the only answers to give me even a moment's trouble in this otherwise absurdly easy Sunday puzzle. I see how the theme clues are trying to turn this puzzle into something more than just "Things Parents Say," but the problem is, once you realize the answers are just gonna be "Things Parents Say," not only do you not need the theme clues, you're almost better off without them. I didn't bother looking at any of them after I got the first couple of theme and answers, and I'm really glad I didn't, because they would've been more distracting than helpful. What the hell does a "mathematician" have to do with "I'VE TOLD YOU A HUNDRED TIMES!"? Like, because there's a number in there, all of a sudden it's part of the math profession now? Like everyday ordinary human beings don't use numbers? Baffling. And "DON'T USE THAT TONE WITH ME!" feels more apt for an art teacher than a conductor. I associate a conductor more with NOTEs than TONEs. Further, I really wanted that phrase to be "DON'T TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME!," which feels much more on the nose (twice as many hits for "DON'T TAKE" vs. "DON'T USE," per google). I sorta liked turning up all these disciplinary clichés, but this felt more like $100,000 Pyramid ("Things Parents Shout At You!") than a crossword puzzle.

PINK PANTHER and (esp.) TWO LEFT FEET really give this grid some oomph, for sure. Other than those answers, though, there's not a heck of a lot to comment on, good or bad. The grid is reasonably smooth, which is always nice. There are bumps here and there, but none that are that jarring. Beside the aforementioned names, which were from outer space as far as I was concerned, the only part that caused me anything close to trouble was the SW, and that was due almost entirely to the fact that I got the "T" in 125A: GPS calculations (ETAS) and wrote in RTES (this despite feeling, correctly, that I had already written ROUTE in the grid (40D: Road trip determination)). Because of that error, I couldn't see TEA (118D: Hot spot in England?) and I couldn't see "TELL ME!" (98D: "Spill it!"). Plus STARRY wouldn't stretch to fill the space at 92D: Like a clear night (STARLIT), and LAPIS is not a word I ever think of as a standalone thing (don't think I've seen it much without LAZULI in TOW). So yeah, there was some sputtering down in that corner, but there were enough easy answers to help me recover without too much effort. I think that's it. Hope you enjoyed the breezy cuteness of the concept, and hope you got more than 8 minutes enjoyment out of your solving experience (I didn't time myself, but I can't imagine I took that much longer than 8; certainly no more than 10).

["Don't you worry 'bout TWO LEFT FEET!"]

It's time once again for the Boswords Fall Themeless League—a ten-week crossword-solving competition / extravaganza. Here's tournament organizer John Lieb to explain:

Registration for the Boswords 2022 Fall Themeless League is now open! This 10-week event starts with a Preseason puzzle on Monday, September 26 and features weekly themeless puzzles -- clued at three levels of difficulty -- from an all-star roster of constructors and are edited by Brad Wilber. To register, to solve a practice puzzle, to view the constructor line-up, and to learn more, go to www.boswords.org. 

I don't compete in these, or I haven't so far, but John always sends me the puzzles once the season is over and they're always highly imaginative and of a very high quality. If you're looking for some reasonably low-key competitive solving experience, all from the comfort of your own home, you should definitely have at it. 

See you tomorrow (or next week for you Sundays-only folk),

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Moody North Yorkshire setting / SUN 6-5-22 / English indie pop singer Parks / 1960s activist Bobby / Gourmet mushroom with poisonous lookalikes / Common spa descriptor / Precursor to a circuit breaker / First in a line of 13 popes / Fashion guru Tim / Cryptids on snowy mountains / Mars bar with shortbread and chocolate / The Muppets villain Richman / Jimmies and corkscrews

Constructor: Christina Iverson and Katie Hale

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (assuming you are familiar with the author names)

THEME: "Let's Get Literature" — familiar phrases that end with a word that then becomes the first part of a famous author's name; answers are all wacky third-person verb phrases:

Theme answers:

• COMES OUT OF ONE'S SHELLEY (23A: Looks up from reading "Frankenstein"?) (Mary Shelley)
• GOES THROUGH HELLER (33A: Reads "Catch-22"," "Closing Time" and Something Happened" -- and doesn't stop there?) (Joseph Heller)
• TAKES A LONG WALKER (55A: Borrows "The Color Purple" from the library instead of "The Flowers"?) (Alice Walker)
• PLAYS THE FIELDING (81A: Listens to "Tom Jones" on audiobook?) (Henry Fielding)
• BREAKS THE LAWRENCE (100A: Reads "Lady Chatterley's Lover" so many times its spine splits?) (D.H. Lawrence)
• GIVES A FAIR SHAKESPEARE (117A: Donates some copies of "King Lear" to the Renaissance Festival?) (Gary Shakespeare)

Word of the Day: ARLO Parks (52A: English indie pop singer Parks) —

Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho (born 9 August 2000), known professionally as Arlo Parks, is a British singer-songwriter and poet. Her debut studio album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, was released in 2021 to critical acclaim and peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart. It earned her nominations for Album of the Year, Best New Artist and Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2021 Brit Awards. It won the 2021 Hyundai Mercury Prize for best album. (wikipedia)

• • •

There's very little about this theme that I didn't like. Confession: I am a literature professor. So there's that. But I genuinely think the theme is clever—simple but smart, with a consistency of phrasing (third-person verb phrases) that I found elegant. Seems like there are a lot of potential themers still out there, each of which has exceedingly wacky cluing potential: DELIVERS THE MAILER, JUMPS FOR JOYCE, GOES BEYOND THE PALEY, just to name a few. I think my favorite imagined answer so far is GETS FED UPDIKE, just for the morbid direction the "?" clue might go in. But the set we have here in this grid is strong in its own right. Straightforward, not exactly laugh-out-loud, but solid. The authors in question are all pretty to very well known, with Henry Fielding seeming (to me) to be probably the most likely to cause tilted heads and quizzical expressions. He's a big deal in the history of the novel, but not as much of a household name as he perhaps used to be, even a half century ago (when "Tom Jones" was a big-deal cinematic sensation). There's a nice breadth to the author selection, spanning four centuries, with Alice Walker being the only author still living. There should be some author here for everyone, unless you don't read, or don't read "literature." My point is, the author set seems adequately broad and non-obscure. The theme doesn't yield as much humor as it might, but it holds up OK, and at least doesn't involve the kind of groany, truly bad-pun answers you sometimes see in Sunday themes. And even if none of the answers are LOL funny, they're all cute enough, and the core idea of the theme just ... works. I think the weakest thing about the theme execution was the clue on TAKES A LONG WALKER? Is "The Color Purple" iconically long? (most recent Penguin edition: 304pp.). Would anyone know how long it is relative to "The Flowers"? I've actually never heard of "The Flowers," so I don't know how long it is. Looks like "The Flowers" is actually a short story, two pages long, so ... "The Color Purple" is a longer Walker, anyway. Anyway—Walker is famous and "The Color Purple" is famous and I like the answer phrase, but the clue is assuming an audience knowledge of relative page length that I doubt is there. Also, I didn't care for the title of this puzzle, with its forced, faux-youthy play on the idea of "getting lit," but the title is the title and has nothing to do with whether the puzzle is actually any good or not. Plus, the title *does* follow the basic rules of the theme, so it's got that going for it. 

I shrugged numerous times at proper nouns I was expected to know. I discovered ARLO Parks some time last year, both because her music is enjoyable and because I saw her name and thought, "Oh ... she's coming ... move over, Mr. Guthrie." And here she is! But ELFUDGE!? Is that one word? or is it pseudo-Spanish, like: El Fudge! Currently in my head it rhymes with "roughage." Anyway, it's not a famous cookie type. I mean, it's no MILANO. Also, who is this SAL person? (54D: Blueberry-picking girl of children's literature). I am aware of ... let's see, I think SAL is a mule in some song ("I got a mule and her name is SAL / Fifteen miles on the Erie (!) Canal..."). And SAL owns a pizza parlor in "Do The Right Thing." That is all of my SAL knowledge. Oh, and the baseball player SAL Bando, I know him. This SAL ... is from "Blueberries for SAL" by Robert McCloskey (1948). It is apparently a very famous picture books. I read a metric ton of midcentury picture books as a child. This one somehow completely got by me. And what is TEX Richman? Or, rather, what "The Muppets" are we talking about. Is this a recent movie incarnation? Looks like the 2011 movie version. Huh. OK. I missed that, and even if I'd seen it, I think I'd probably wonder how culturally iconic this TEX person is. He doesn't seem to be part of the broader Muppet universe (if that's a thing). I watched a lot of "Muppet Show" and various Muppet Movies as a kid, and no TEX. But the crosses were fair. OK.

Notes:

• 1A: Precursor to a circuit breaker (FUSE) — really truly didn't understand what "precursor" meant here. Then again, I know squat-all about electrical systems. We have a circuit box in our basement. Sometimes something, uh, blows, and we have to go down there and flip switches back and forth to reset things. You can see that I am very handy.
• 56D: "Yuck!" ("EWW!") — one of those rare answers that is also my feeling about the answer. I want to blame the double-W spelling, but it might be even eewier in the double-E version (which I have also seen). 
• 71A: "Wow!" ("OOH!") — realized just now that the first thing I wrote in as an answer here (off of the middle "O") was ... "WOW!" Just ... wow.
• 8D: Person in a head set? (CEO) — so the various C-O's are ... a "set" of "head" (or "chief") people? CEO, CFO, CIO ... Is that the "set?" Because if it's not, I don't really know what this clue is doing.
• 69A: Lifewater and Elixir brand (SOBE) — D'oh! I confused the beverage brand and the noodle type (SOBA), which then led me to write in AGE instead of ERA for 70D: Geological span.
• 10A: Pointed remark (BARB) — Just before coming upstairs to solve this puzzle and write ... well, this, these words that I am writing right now ... I watched the final episode of Season 4, Part 1 of "Stranger Things." How is this relevant? Well, if you've watched that show from Episode 1 of Season 1, you might be able to guess. BARB is Back! (well, briefly ... sorta ... you'll see for yourself ... or not). 

I want to plug Peter Gordon's latest puzzle project, "A-to-Z Crosswords 2022," which he calls "Petite Pangram Puzzles"—these are 9x11 Easy to Medium puzzles that contain every letter of the alphabet. My experience is that these are very tasty snacks. More meaty than a mini, but small enough and doable enough to knock off during a spare 5, 10, 15 minutes or so (depending on your skill level). The pangramitude means that the fill gets pretty lively in places, and you also always know, if you're struggling, that until you've ticked off all 26 letters, well, those remaining letters are definitely out there ... somewhere. Knowing you gotta touch all 26 actually helps with the solving at times. These puzzles are unusual and fun and snackable. Worth it, for sure. Go here to get your subscription! (The Kickstarter needs to meet its $$$ goal by tonight at 10pm EDT!)

Now for this week's ... 

Letter to the Editor! 

This week's letter comes from Jerome Walker, and it's a response to one of my bullet-point comments on this past Thursday's puzzle (June 2, 2022). For reference, here is my original comment, in its entirety.

• 15D: "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" actor Robinson (CRAIG) — had no idea here. Is this the Old Spice guy? Hey, wait, this is Darryl from "The Office"! OK (OK), I know exactly who this guy is. He was on that show for the whole damn run, whereas he's only been on 9 episodes of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," what the hell?! What a weird clue. (P.S. the "Old Spice guy" is Terry Crews)

My initial response to the following letter was fairly defensive, but after I sat with it for a while, I felt it offered a valuable perspective. Here it is:

Dear Mr. Parker,

I started doing the NYT crossword in January 2021, and for the last 463 days I have done the crossword and read your blog each day. I like it when you loved a puzzle and I didn’t, and vice versa. Mostly this is a matter of personal preference and awareness, and I think it’s okay for a good puzzle day for one to be a tough puzzle day for another: it’s what makes being part of a puzzle community exciting! And I like that your write-ups so often push the puzzle to make more good puzzle days for more people. As a relatively new solver, I appreciate any time that I can have fun with a puzzle without having to know some esoteric initialism that’s been in the puzzle 42 times since 2002 but seen little elsewhere. And as a young, Black, queer man, I like to see references in the puzzle that feel contemporary to me as well — I love 20th century actresses as much as the next person who could stomach 463 NYT crossword puzzles, but there’s so much opportunity for new fill and new joy in puzzles when we expand what is puzzle-eligible.

And I think you do a great job of pushing this position forward! Even when it means including fill that you’re not already familiar with. Again, I have learned from you that not everyone has to have the same good puzzle days. But on Thursday, June 2, when Craig Robinson was in the grid, while you didn’t disparage his inclusion (rather, his being clued by a few appearances on Brooklyn Nine-Nine), you first asked if he was the Old Spice guy, Isaiah Mustafa, and then misattributed the Old Spice guy as Terry Crews, a third, separate, Black actor. Yes, Terry Crews has appeared in Old Spice commercials, but Isaiah Mustafa is the “Look at your man, now look at me,” quintessential, original Old Spice guy. A Google search for “Old Spice guy” returns Isaiah Mustafa. I know you probably did not mean anything by it, and I wouldn’t say Mustafa is exactly grid-level famous (though how great would it be to find MUSTAFA in the grid!), but my point here is that eliding these three Black actors, at least two of which are certainly grid-level famous and television staples for nearly 20 years now, does feel disrespectful in a way that is unusual for your blog. It is not sin to confuse an actor or two, but to jumble these three up and publish an incorrect attribution does feel reminiscent of the classic racist idea that Black people are hard to distinguish from one another, which I imagine is part of why Black names have historically found their way into the grid so relatively infrequently. I would flag it as something to be aware of: if we really want the crossword to be a space for all people, and why shouldn’t it be, then we should be careful about who and what is distinguishable enough to recognize in the grid.

All best,
Jerome Walker

I could quibble with some of the details here, but I think the gist of the letter remains worthy of consideration. I have a flippancy that I bring to lots of my riffs on pop culture and celebrity names. This letter is a good reminder that flippancy can read differently to different readers, and that perhaps there's some reason to be careful about not seeming to be dismissive or diminishing when discussing Black people, as well as other people from groups that have long been underrepresented in the grid. I'm always going to have a light, goofy, even somewhat irreverent tone to my writing, but I think there's a way to maintain that tone without conveying disrespect. I found Mr. Walker's sincerity and good will disarming. I'll keep his criticism in mind going forward.

If you have any crossword-related thoughts that you'd like to put into letter form, feel free to send it to me at rexparker at icloud dot com, and be sure to label it OK TO PRINT. Thanks, everyone. See you soon.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...